This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
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Notes: Hi ya all. Here is the first 12 chapter revised to fit Whateley Canon rules. This has been posted on the main Whateley site. Kristin spent a lot of time formatting it to look pretty. So, you might wanna give it a try there. The main things that changed are as follows: Fixed numerous verb tense and grammar issues. Don't know why I had the non-Whisper POV's as third person, present tense, but it was horrible. Fixed the Font theft issue and fixed the fight scene by removing the health bar game mechanic. Chapters 13-18 will be next and the fixes there are mostly POV and verb tense problems. The remaining chapters will probably be pretty close to the original.
--14-FEB-2007 19:00 –-
“Ouch…”
I’ve spent the last hour working on my Calculus homework and my fingers are starting to cramp. My AP Math teacher can be a real ball buster with the homework, but taking the Advanced Placement class let me qualify for the Electronics class. So, as my dad likes to say, “No pain…no gain.”
Hi, my name is Brian Peters. I’m a geek, a shrimp and a freshman in highschool, so I get picked on by the upperclassmen a lot. I prefer to think of myself as “agile”, but the upper classmen don’t see it that way. Hey, I’m 5’ 5”, and 130lbs soaking wet. My dad is 6’ 1” and my Mom is 5’ 10”, so there is hope that I will grow some. My dad says that he didn’t really start growing until his junior year of High School. Just be patient he says. Yeah, right! It’s not that I can’t be patient. It has more to do with how the upperclassmen like to try and “accidently” knock me into the lockers between classes.
I say, “try”, due to the fact that they very rarely ever succeed. I like to think that I have high “situational awareness” and I think it has almost become a game to some of them. If I was more of an optimist, I would even think that some of them are starting to kind of like me. They sometimes laugh and yell out, “Almost got you that time shrimp!” Maybe I am just reading too much into it.
I might be on the small side, but I’ve been studying Jujitsu for the last year and my core body strength is very good. I’m not ripped or anything, but I’m definitely starting to feel stronger. The Jujitsu training started after the third time I came home from middle school with my clothes torn and bloody. Mom and Dad did some research into the local martial schools and selected Aikido or Jujitsu as a good starting point for me. They ended up selecting Jujitsu after meeting with Sensei Rogers and speaking with him about his program and philosophy. I thought he was a little too strict, but I didn’t have a lot of input into their decision.
What “belt” am I? Sensei doesn’t really have a formal belt color system, but when I went to a martial arts competition couple of months ago, Sensei told me to wear a purple belt. If Sensei Rogers used belt ranks, purple is before brown which is before black. Yeah, I’m getting good, but I am most definitely not the next Jackie Chan!
So, if I am so good at this Jujitsu thing, then why do I still get picked on you might ask? It’s all about my size and the fact that if I did get into a fight, it had better be because fighting was the last resort. I also know that I could really hurt someone. I know this because of what happened about a month before I graduated from the 8th grade.
At the time, I’d only been taking Jujitsu for a month. My nemesis and school bully, Billy Samuals, decided that it had been over two months since he last beat me up. Thus, I needed a refresher beat down. Here’s how it all went down. Billy spotted me entering the bathroom. He and his stooges follow. I read Billy’s intent to perform his trademark “swirly” upon my person. He attempted to grab me and I responded by performing the throw I learned two weeks prior. Billy hit his head on the floor and ended up with a mild concussion. It was self-defense, but thanks to the zero tolerance policy, we were both threatened with expulsion and suspended from school for three days.
My parents have a total “fighting never solved anything” philosophy. As a result, I got grounded for two weeks with no TV, no GEO ( Good and Evil Online ) or going outside to play. Sensei Rogers just asked me to describe the fight and then, he asked how I could have avoided the fight. Finally, he told me that my technique was wrong and that I was lucky that I didn’t break Billy’s neck. He ‘rewarded’ me with remedial training by making me the practice dummy for a week to remind me of the importance of perfect technique. Talk about pain.
In a perfect universe, you would think that the bully would have learned his lesson and left me alone. Unfortunately, in my universe, Billy was on his head and I was out the door so fast that he and his stooges chalked it up to a “lucky slip”. He never got the chance to try something again that year, but I could tell he wanted too.
Okay, done with my homework! Now I just have to read another three pages of Sun Tzu for my Jujitsu homework. High School homework is hard enough, but Sensei Rogers also likes to assign homework. Not just the usual martial arts practice your katas stuff, but reading assignments too. Since Sensei Rogers is ex-military, he assigns reading material that range from the biography of Winston Churchill to the timeless “Art of War” by Sun Tzu. Yeah, Sun Tzu, the old dead guy who suggested that putting your warriors into certain death situations was a good way to motivate them to fight. I’m guessing Sun Tzu never heard of fratricide?
Okay, so compared to English Literature, three pages doesn’t sound like a lot of reading, but not getting the obscure meaning behind the protagonists words in English Lit doesn’t get physically painful. Sensei Rogers expects you to actually understand and think about his reading assignments. Cliff Notes versions need not apply.
He always has some practical lesson in mind and you do not want to be the one to miss the implied lesson. It gets real painful if you fail to catch the deeper meanings behind the assignment. However; I must admit that some of my Sensei’s teaching has helped with my gaming. Quoting snippets of Sun Tzu has done wonders for my character’s role playing points. Okay, so now that I think about it. There was one time last month that I automatically responded to an overwhelming ambush with the Sun Tzu philosophy of “Attack!” and I ended up being the only survivor in my group. So, I guess there is some benefit to Sensei’s idea of homework.
“The homework is done!” I gleefully cackle and then, follow that up with my mock computer voice. “Parental Unit Satisfaction…Complete! Login…Initiated.” Hehe, it was finally time to login to the crack pipe everyone else knows as the computer game called GEO.
The sight of Whisper rotating on the screen wearing her matte black thief’s outfit while gracefully performing random combat moves makes me sigh with regret. I’m in the middle of a tricky, group-only quest, which means I can’t play her without the other people from the group and none of those players will be online tonight.
“Hmmm…can’t play my main. I’ll try my low level Fire mage alt instead.” I grumble a bit as I move my mouse to select my scrawny robe wearing mage character from the character selection screen. Oh well, maybe it would be fun to be able to blow some stuff up instead of being all sneaky.
Yes, Whisper is a female character and yes, I am a guy playing a girl. Do you have that out of your system now? Lots of guys play female characters; it’s not a big deal. I think the female characters look nicer and if I am going to be forced to stare at my character’s butt for hours at a time, I’d much rather stare at a pretty girl’s butt!
I don’t think it makes me a perv or ‘gay’ because I figure that the majority of “female” characters in the game are really just guys anyway. It’s just safer to think that way because it keeps me from feeling attracted to them. I mean, what hormone driven geek guy wouldn’t dream of hanging out with a beautiful, kick-ass girl while they kill monsters together?
I’ve seen new players make passes at female characters. It is just sad to know that I could’ve been that dude. I’ve even had a few make passes at me, but when I tell them, “I’m a guy dude!” That is usually enough to stop that crap right in its tracks. Of course, I’ve heard there are real girls who say that just to stop the pervs.
I’m not sure how effective pulling the “guy” card will be in the future because GEO recently added a new roleplaying feature. Somehow, the wizard programmers for the game added a very good Text to Speech and Character Voice Module. There is some text chatting, but most ‘chat’ is via a microphone and the game changes your voice to match your character’s gender. I speak using my normal geek boy voice into my microphone and out comes Whisper’s sexy female voice for everyone to hear. It’s positively weird and that’s the main reason I prefer to go solo or only join guild run groups because random pickup groups are the worst for creepy guys trying to flirt with me.
Since I play Whisper so much, I always have problems adjusting from a melee combat play style to a magic based, ranged combat style. With Whisper, I have to get right up to my enemy. Preferably, behind them without them seeing me and then, I unleash one, explosive burst of melee attack damage that drops them instantly. If I fail to drop my target within the first few attacks, things can go downhill real fast because a rogue isn’t built to stand toe to toe with the bad guys. She’s more durable than a mage, but if things don’t go right, it can get real exciting.
Now, my mage is the exact opposite. For him, I engage the enemy from max range and blow them to smithereens before they can hit me. First, I hit my carefully selected target with a snare spell to slow them down and then, I blast them before they get close enough to do hit me. It’s almost too easy but, unlike Whisper, my mage can’t take a hit and has fewer hit points. Even the smallest bit of damage will slow down or stop my spell casting, which usually means that I’m dead and making a corpse run back to the battle from the nearest graveyard.
< GEO Core Warning: GEO.Player.Object.Seramis world integrity threat level threshold reached. Reality calculations chaos factor introduced.>
< GEO System recommends deletion of Player.Object.Seramis>
< GEO Resource Matching Process Initiated>
< GEO Resource Match Found>
< GEO.Player.Object.Whisper.Skill: match requirements=90%>
< GEO.Player.Object.Whisper.Note: play style score indicates training in irregular military operations>
< GEO.Player.Object.Whisper primary mission Probability Factor=85% >
< GEO.Player.Object.Whisper secondary mission Probability Factor=95% >
< GEO Program Execute: Player.Object.Whisper.Quest='Seramis'>
< GEO Core Warning: Quest.Seramis Level Override Initiated>
< GEO Program Execute: Player.Object.Whisper.Quest.Level='Relic' >
< GEO Core Warning: Quest.Seramis System Priority Override Initiated>
< GEO Program Execute: Player.Object.Whisper.Quest.Priority='MAX'>
Looking around, I spot a nice, large rat that I need for my rat tails quest. I take the time to make sure I’m at max range and then, I cast my snare spell. It turns toward me and I cast my biggest fire bolt. My biggest fire bolt isn’t that big. It normally causes a little poof of flame and I have to cast it at least once more before the rat dies, but when it hits the rat, the rat explodes and becomes a crispy hole in the ground.
“What the!?!” I totally did not expect that to happen.
I hear someone laughing from behind me. Turning, I spot a very high level wizard standing there and looking very amused.
“Damn it Shockem! I needed that one for my quest!”
“Sorry dude. I couldn’t resist and you shoulda seen your face.” He doesn’t sound very sorry about it.
I find anger melting as I consider his gag. Yeah, I have to admit; it was kinda funny. “What are you doing here? You can’t be bored enough to kill-steal from newbies.”
“The boss needs to see Whisper ASAP.”
“Whisper is quest locked right now, I can’t play her.”
“I know, but Lord Vincint says that a side quest has opened up for the guild that looks custom made for your main’s skills.”
That’s a little unusual, but oh well. “Hmmm, okay. Tell him that I’m on my way.”
He nods once before he disappears into a personal gate portal.
I find a safe spot in town to park my character before returning to the character selection screen. Whisper is patiently waiting for me and whatever this quest is, it must be a pretty high level to get Lord Vincint to send Shockem to find my alt. This is so exciting!
I hit the “Enter World” button and I’m mildly surprised to find myself already inside the guild alliance command center tent. I decide to remain standing unobtrusively in the background as I take in the atmosphere and formulate some go-to-hell escape options. Not that I expect to need a fast way out of here, but I do have a reputation to maintain and it’s kind of a habit since I can’t count on spawning someplace safe when I enter the game.
The guild council of leaders are huddled around a large table with the world map held down with some personal daggers. Leading the bunch is Lord Vincint. He’s the guy wearing the highly polished full plate armor with all the magical special effects glowing on its surface. Can you say, “Here I am! Hit me now!”? I sure can and you wouldn’t catch me wearing something like that in a million years. Lord Vincint is the leader of the largest and most powerful guild on the server, The Order of the Four Winds (OFW). As the leader of OFW, he is expected to head up the Council of Guilds. Sounds like trying to herd cats to to me.
The assorted guild leaders seem to be having an animated discussion about how Seramis, the self-styled Bandit Queen, is making travel and commerce harder for merchants that travel through her territory. The GEO game forums have all been flooded with posts that praise her, condemn her and outright flame her. The forums are a cesspit, but you can sometimes learn some good stuff. The majority of forum trolls seems to be wondering why her “kingdom” is even being allowed by The Game to exist. In a world of Light and Dark forces, a Neutral force seems out of place. Maybe Seramis’ Kingdom is really just an Evil plot in disguise? She certainly isn’t on the Light side’s payroll!
“Lord Vincint, since Lady Whisper hasn’t arrived yet, do you have any theories about what this new GM Quest is all about?” Lord Calrent asks, Guild Leader of the “Fates of Prophecy” guild.
“Fates” is the second most powerful guild on our server. I actually think that guild ranking system is just an e-penis thing, but I’m not high enough on the totem pole to really understand, nor do I want to be. Being a guild officer is just too much like work and I’m playing the game to just have fun.
“No, I do not Lord Calrent, but the GM’s opened the quest to our Alliance. Not just a standard level quest, but one that specifically requested one of my members by name. I do have some concerns regarding why the quest seems keyed to a specific character and why we were tasked to deliver the quest to her.” Lord Vincint says, looking very concerned and leaderly. I think I just made that word up, but I kinda like it.
Wow! I’ve been playing for a little over a year now and this is the first I have ever heard of a guild level quest that requires a specific player.
“Yes, but does it have to be Whisper? After her stunt with the Font, I don’t trust her!” Lord Calrent says, scowling like he just ate a lemon.
Lord Vincint appears to give the grumpy man’s statement some thought. “I am aware of your concerns about her ‘character’, but she really is one of the best, if not the best rogue the forces of Light has.”
“Don’t you mean thief?” Lord Calrent asks, his voice dripping with venom.
Geez, He really holds a grudge, doesn’t he?
Lord Vincint patiently sighs before continuing. “Her ‘profession’ isn’t the issue here and for the record, I trust her completely. It’s this quest scroll that I am most concerned about. It screams of high level GM intervention.”
Okay, if I ever group up with Lord Vincint, I will not ‘accidentally’ let him get hit by a trap. Hey, it happens. Group has a jerk and the nice rogue ‘forgets’ to check for a trap or stop the jerk from killing themselves.
On that note, I decide to make my presence known.
I key up my mic and say, “Lord Vincint, did you need to see me for something?” As I say that with my geeky voice, I hear Whisper politely address the council with a dangerous, feminine sounding purr as she gracefully stalks from out of the shadows and into the light with an impish smile on her face. I take a perverse pride in my craft when I see them all twitch with surprise while the guards scramble to grab their weapons.
Sorry, geek moment here. I still can’t get over the GEO Voice Disguiser. It has got to be FM or F’ing Magic in more technical terms. Computers have a very hard time getting human speech patterns down right. Simple things that we take for granted. Things like inflection and subtle tone differences that can completely change the meaning of a word. How in the heck did GEO know to a) speak with a “polite” tone of voice and b) use a dangerous and feminine and purr!? What the heck? I don’t even know how to speak that way. It just gives me goose bumps hearing my character say that simple phrase and I’m the one who “said” it. This game is just too darn immersive sometimes.
“Ahh, Lady Whisper, I am glad you could make it so soon.” Lord Vincint says with a bemused smirk. He probably knows that I’ve been eavesdropping for a few minutes.
Again, spooky immersion levels here.
“I am not sure how much you have overheard,”
Yep, he knew. Busted.
Lord Vincint reaches for the quest scroll. “But could you take a look at this quest and let us know what you think?”
As soon as Whisper’s hand touches the scroll, it glows and unlocks, allowing me to read it. This mystery just keeps getting weirder by the second. I didn’t expect the quest that was delivered to the Guild Council to only be readable by me. That little fact explains the council’s current mild state of apprehension mixed with excitement.
Greetings Lady Whisper,
The Council of Elders regrets the subterfuge and humbly requests your expertise resolving a threat to The Balance. Thanks to the Alliance of Light, the Forces of Dark have been held in check for many months. However; Evil never rests and a new threat is emerging from the shadows.
Seramis, The Queen of Bandits has successfully secured her territory from both Good and Evil. While admirable, it makes it nearly impossible to keep secret the contents of materials that must pass through her territory. One such shipment is scheduled to move through her territory tomorrow evening. It must not be discovered. The only way to ensure its delivery is to distract Seramis at a critical time.
Secrecy is of the utmost importance and no one must know of your mission. Not even your leaders. If they knew, they would feel honor bound to stop you.
As a Child of Light, if you chose to accept this lonely quest, its dark nature will place a burden upon your very soul. Seramis is an excellent leader and a very dangerous foe. She is very well protected by both physical and magical wards. It will not be an easy task, but the Council of Elders feel that you are the best chance that this world has for success.
Do you wish to Accept this Quest? Yes/No
“Holy shit!” I accidently slip out the s-word, but I am feeling pretty pole axed right now. I couldn’t believe what I just finished reading.
The Game and I do mean “The Game” as a proper noun, has just given me a quest to kill another player’s character. No, I take that back, not just kill, but to assassinate an actual player’s character. Sure, they didn’t say ‘kill’, they said ‘distract’, but how in the heck does a rogue ‘distract’ someone like Seramis?!?!
“Hey, Lady Seramis. Fancy meeting you here at your impregnable fortress. Oh, how did I get here? That’s not important, but now that I have you alone; what do you think of the Yankees chance to win the World Series this year?”
Oh yeah, that would totally distract her and leave me a burning crisp.
GEO is a Player versus Player ( PvP ) game at its core, but the PvP isn’t usually personal. The battles are large scale and during those battles, players are killed and kill other player’s characters. It’s a completely different PvP scenario. You’re in a battle; you kind of know the risk and accept that you might be killed by another player. This quest is basically asking for me to use my thief skills to become a virtual cold blooded murderer, a “Player Killer” or a PKer in gamer terms.
There are very stiff penalties and in game consequences for PKer. They are the most hated and hunted player in the game. Shunned by all, they cannot enter towns without being arrested or attacked by the town’s guard forces and players. Regular guilds won’t let them join and even if they redeem themselves, the PK taint follows them around for the rest of their characters “life”.
“Lady Whisper, is something wrong?” Lord Vincint asks with concern evident in his voice and on his character’s face.
It looks like I am again the victim of the UI. I’m sure my character’s face and body language reflected my shock. How do I salvage this now embarrassing situation?
“Ummm, Sorry Lord Vincint, but…” I start to reply while furiously trying to think of a good excuse for my reaction.
“I was just startled when my cat jumped on my lap and dug in with her claws.” I say as my shock starts to recede. I don’t even have a cat, but it’s all I can think of in such short notice that might explain my character’s reactions. Okay, now what? I got to get out of here fast! I need to think about this and there is no way I can let them know what is really on this quest scroll.
Lord Vincint looks relieved as he chuckles. “Oh yeah, I’ve had that happen to me before too. What does the quest scroll say?”
“Oh, nothing much, just the standard, sneak into someplace you’re not supposed to be and do something you’re not supposed to do. You know, the usual.” I say, striving for the most bored tone of voice that I can manage.
I can tell by his character’s expression that he’s going to ask for more details. A GM quest is kind of a big deal. It’s time to mix things up a bit.
“Oh pooh!” Yes, I just said “pooh”. Really, I’m just trying to stay in character here. It’s called role playing! Honest. “I think I hear my Mom yelling. Gotta go!” I yell as I implement one of my go-tell-hell escape plans and get the heck out of the place.
Once out of the tent, I make a beeline through the camp for the nearby tree line. “Shit. Shit. Shit. That was so stupid of me. I could have handled the situation better. I am so screwed!” I curse myself as Whisper runs out of the alliance camp and disappears into the woods.
“Crap! I wish I was a better liar sometimes!” I mutter, feeling very frustrated with myself. I’ve never have been a good liar. You might think that as a teenager with a younger sister, I would be a pro at it. Well, that is so not the case.
My Mom has some kind of Super Mom Lie Detection power. I don’t know how she does it, but I have never been able to get away with a lie. I’ve learned that it’s just easier and less painful to just tell the truth all the time. Hence, I really suck at lying. I need some time to think. What in the heck am I going to do?
Lord Vincint and the council members glanced at each other with stunned amazement after Lady Whisper made good on her “escape”. Lord Vincint thought he caught a glimpse of her thief’s mask covering her face just before the room’s shadows appeared to stretch and cloak her body. Her form blurred as she moved an uncanny speed that made it hard for the eye to follow and he found it impossible to figure out exactly where she was as his perceptions were misdirected by the shifting shadows. The people in her path felt only the faint breeze that her hurried passage caused as she moved past them to disappear into the night outside the command tent.
“Lord, should we give chase?” The AI controlled Captain of the Guards asked, looking just as confused as the real players.
“That will not be necessary Captain. She isn’t the enemy. At least, I don’t think so.” Lord Vincint said, not feeling confident about his own judgment. As a scout and spy for the Forces of Light, her skills had proven invaluable. It could easily be argued that the Light side would have lost their last battle if not for her, but she shunned attention and refused to let him give her the credit she rightfully deserved. There was no reason for her to flee the tent and her out of character action only confused him more.
“I wasn’t expecting to need to be worrying about anything like this tonight. It sure does make for a lot of stress in something that’s just supposed to be a game.” Lord Vincint or Jim Stiles as he was known in real-life, thought.
Jim’s real-life adventures as the prosecuting attorney for the City of Norfolk, Virginia caused him enough stress as it was. His almost nightly escape into the game world was important to his sanity because dealing with the depressingly gray and sometimes seedy underbelly in the pursuit of justice sometimes left him craving the simplicity of Good versus Evil that the game provided.
Filling the role of guild leader for one of the largest and most powerful guilds on the server did add some stress to his life, but it was still an escape from his real life. His gaming schedule was aided by his wife’s often busy schedule as pediatrician at the Hampton Roads General Hospital. She often worked late shifts and sometimes a weekend when she was on-call. It made their love life feel a little lacking at times, but he loved her with all his heart.
With a sigh, Jim returned his focus back to the virtual world. The guild council members were looking to him for leadership and answers and Lord Vincint had some information to gather and a leadership decisions to make.
“My Lords and Ladies, I apologize for the confusion. It’s probably nothing, but I’ll send her a PM on our guild’s message board to get to the bottom of this.”
Whisper leaned back against the rough bark of the ancient tree and crossed her arms against her chest, her petulant expression hidden under her black thief’s mask. Her right leg supported her weight, while the other foot was bent behind her and pressed against the trunk. If it wasn’t for the fact that there was a thirty foot drop to forest floor below, one might think she was simply standing relaxed against a city street wall. She growled in frustration as Brian leaned back in his computer chair with a sigh.
I’ve read the damn quest text over and over, hoping that it would somehow magically change to something that made sense to me. Why me? Why not some Evil player assassin? I’m a good aligned thief for crying out loud! I find and disarm traps so my teammates can get the good loot. I scout and when I must fight, I fight in direct support of my team to help take down a tough monster faster. I don’t do murder!
Why does Seramis need to die and why is it so important that I be the one to PK Seramis’ character? It looks like a no-win scenario to me; there must be something I’m missing. Surely the game wouldn’t give me an “Evil” quest, would it? Seriously, could you see Marala, that demon chick from the evil side getting a quest to rescue kids from a burning orphanage?
If Lord Vincint really knew what was going on with this quest; he would probably order me to not do the quest or arrest Whisper if I disobeyed his order. That might have made things a bit simpler though. I doubt that I could’ve escaped with all of the players and guards in the camp actively trying to stop me.
The bleeping quest reward had better be damn good!
“Oh well, nothing ventured, nothing gained.” I accepted the quest and additional information appeared on the quest scroll with a gem materializing in mid-air for my character to grab.
Thank you Lady Whisper,
Your Time of Testing is at hand. The path you have chosen of your own free will to accept on behalf of the Forces of Light will be fraught with peril and hardship.
Once you succeed with your mission, you will be awarded 5,000,000 experience points, a server transfer and a new identity. If you die, then you will be doomed to walk the halls of dead heroes forever more.
Use the gem to signal Seramis’ death and be ported to safety.
Timing is critical. You have twenty four hours to complete this quest.
“Whoa!” I freaking cannot believe that! I didn’t think that this quest could get any weirder, but as usual, I was wrong. My heart is pounding and my stomach feels like I am on a roller coaster.
I was right! It is a ‘contract’ to kill Lady Seramis. All the euphemisms were pure BS, but that’s some crazy experience!
I’ve seen quest rewards of hundred thousand experience for a long, epic storyline quest, but no one has ever received five million experience points! The new identity thing is pretty radical too. It would have to let me change everything about Whisper, appearance, gender and hopefully her name.
The gender switch could be nice. I have often wondered how much less of a hassle it would be if I had made Whisper a guy. I’d have to slowly rebuild my identity. It would be pretty suspicious to have a master level thief just suddenly appear when Whisper disappeared. Whisper is a damn good name for a thief though….hmmm. Maybe I could just make a male Whisper? The name isn’t really male or female. Nah, I think that if I am successful with this hit, Whisper’s name is going to be pretty darn noticeable. Sh-shoot.
Oh well.
“Hmmm…I think Seramis’ stronghold is somewhere west of here.” I softly mutter as I open up the in-game map.
Looks like it would be at least two days of hard riding on horseback from here since the quest didn’t port me as part of the deal.
Let’s see here now. I have about an hour before I have to be in bed. I’ve got maybe an hour and half, if I am real lucky and my Mom doesn’t notice me. Even if I could somehow magically get myself there, I would then have to sneak my way through her territory, and then get into her place undetected. Next, I would have to find someplace inside to hide out during the day while I am offline and at school. Finally, I would need to find Seramis, kill her and escape.
“I am sooo screwed!” I squeeze my eyes shut and tug on my hair with frustration. I hate no-win scenarios. It’s time to think outside of the box.
Okay, so to do this in the time limit, I’d have to be able to fly, right?
Whisper can’t fly and I don’t own a flying mount. I am beginning to think that the GM’s want me to fail.
“Wait a second…” I can’t believe I didn’t think of it sooner. This is going to be so much fun!
Whisper’s eyes sparkle as a devilish grin forms on her face.
The AI controlled guard patrolling the stables watched as Lord Vincint entered the stable that contained his flying griffon mount. The guard took note of the fact that Lord Vincint appeared to have entered the stable compound from the direction of the command tent. Finally, five minutes later, the guard turned to watch Lord Vincint fly his griffon east and towards the capital.
While the AI was good and probably more alert than a player controlled guard would have been. It still saw what it expected to see and missed the fact that Lord Vincint was still in the command tent. A bored out of their mind, player controlled guard would probably have been more curious. They would have made it a point to walk over to watch Lord Vincint saddle the rare and expensive griffon. While almost everyone in the game had a horse for travel, a griffon mount was the equivalent of a shiny red Porsche or Ferrari. Griffons were so rare and expensive that one always attracted the attention and admiration of the lower level players.
Once Lord Vincint and his griffon flew out of sight of the camp, his form began to shimmer and fade to reveal Whisper sitting astride the griffon. She directed the griffon to make a wide circle around the camp area before turning west to reach her real destination. She giggled with excitement as Brian let out the breath that he felt like he had been holding for hours.
“Holy shit! I can’t believe that I just pulled that off! Did you freaking see that? I just stole my guild leader’s griffon!” I excitedly pound the arms of my chair. I always wanted to get a flying mount for Whisper, but my meager savings always seemed to be needed for some piece of gear upgrade or thief tool set. The prices people charge for thief’s tools. I think the tool craftsmen are the real thieves!
The major advantage to flying instead of walking or riding is that you can just point the griffon in the direction that you want to go and then, sit back and relax. No worries about getting ambushed by random monsters or evil players. No need to constantly adjust course due to terrain. I think that I will walk downstairs and grab a soda. Oh yeah, and a bathroom break! Whoo Hoo!
Hmmm…maybe I should skip the soda. It’s kind of late and the sound of me opening a soda would probably raise my parent aggro rating. Something I do not need right now. I’ll grab some water instead.
I double check my map and make a slight course correction and then, I sit back and watch Whisper riding the griffon. The view is really very nice from up here. Whisper is silhouetted against the moon and stars. The dark forest and shining rivers far below are a sight to see. Whisper’s raven black hair is blowing in the wind. I really like the hairstyle that I picked for her. I can’t tell you what the style is called, but it’s short in the back with long bangs that frame her face and end in points near her chin. Some of the women that take Sensei Roger’s class get that style so that their hair doesn’t get pulled. Sensei loves to demonstrate just how easy it is for an attacker to use a woman’s long hair against her. Don’t even think about trying to come to class with a ponytail!
I take her mask off and rotate the camera around to look at her face. Her flawless computer generated skin, dark red lips with large almond shaped brilliant green eyes really do look stunning. The wind whips her hair around to expose the evidence of her elven heritage, her ears. They make her look even more exotic.
I’d totally hit on her if she was real! Geez, I am such a loser! Who am I kidding? If she was real and I tried to talk to her, she would just laugh in my face. Oh yeah, then she would probably kick my ass. Hehe
Oh yeah, something to drink. I think “While I’m downstairs I will show my face and suck up to my parents. Maybe that will make them less likely to check on me if they think that I’m not playing the game.”
Okay, the parents are watching their shows and barely even notice me. Oh noes, my parents have been turned into tele-zombies! Arg! Grrr!
Excellent!
I should have an extra half hour to get things set up before I get caught staying up. I gulp down a glass of water and run back to my room.
Oops, looks like Seramis’ territory is coming up fast. I re-equip Whisper’s mask as I look for a spot to land before I am spotted by a lucky patrol or something. I find an opening in the forest and instruct the griffon to land there.
It only took me thirty minutes to cover the distance that it would have taken me two or even three days on horseback. I really need to get me one of these flying mounts. They make getting around so much easier!
I click the mouse to dismount Whisper from the griffon. Then I spin her around to get a look around the small clearing for any sign of trouble.
I don’t spot anything, so I whisper to the griffon, “Now go fly home, please! That’s a good boy or girl. Hehe”
I am relieved when the griffon takes off and appears to leave in a direction that would take it back towards its stable. Maybe I will get lucky and the griffon will fly back to its stable and maybe it will get back without Lord Vincint even noticing that it was missing. Oh, who am I kidding? Murphy’s Law is never going to allow that much good luck to happen for me.
Lord Vincint is going to be so pissed!
Do you want to know what the real sucky part about me stealing his griffon is?
The real sucky part is that I will never be able to tell anyone! I mean, come on! I just stole Lord Vincint’s personal griffon. The supreme leader of the Forces of Light! I stole it right out from the middle of his own fortified camp! By the gods, when that gets out, every thief in the world is going to turn green with envy!
The next part would probably have them pissing in their pants though.
Even with Lady Whisper’s confusing departure, Lord Vincint still had some unfinished business for the assembled guild leaders to discuss. It was boring, administrative crap and he wished that Whisper’s strange quest would’ve been cause to cancel the meeting, but the questions raised by her quest could probably wait until the next day when she logged on.
Two frustrating, yet semi-productive hours later, Lord Vincint warmly bid each member of the council good bye and good night.
“Do you need a port before I call it a night?” Lady Celeste accidently yawned and blushed. “Sorry, it’s been a long night.”
Lord Vincint chuckled. “That’s okay and yes, it has, but I have a griffon to get me back. Thanks for the offer.”
“Oh, that must be really nice! I’ve never flown before, what is it like?” Lady Celeste asked as she started to prepare her teleport spell to take her home for the evening.
“Very fun and worth every gold piece that I spent! I highly recommend that you get yourself one my Lady.” Lord Vincint said with a smile as he walked toward the tent's exit.
Stepping outside of the tent and inhaling a breath of fresh air, Lord Vincint tiredly made his way to the stables so that he could ride his griffon back to his palace in the capital.
He felt mildly amused to see the guard’s eyes grow to the size of saucers at the sight of him walking towards the stables. He was not amused in the slightest when he discovered his griffon missing from its stable.
“Where in the hell did my griffon go?!?!” Lord Vincint growled, his expression fierce with rage and confusion.
“My Lord…please forgive me,” The guard trembled. “I watched you leave upon its back and head towards the capital a mere forty minutes ago.”
Thinking furiously, Lord Vincint reached a troubling conclusion.
“Whisperrrr...” He growled with frustration.
Okay, it’s 9:15 PM and time to get down to business here. The business is sneaking and the sneaking is good!
I crack myself up sometimes.
According to my calculations, I should have at least 45 minutes before my parent’s TV show ends. It’s times like this that I am glad that they don’t use the DVR for their shows. They like to claim that skipping the commercials or recording and watching a show later isn’t as good. I think that it is just because my Mom doesn’t want to figure out the remote and my dad keeps messing up with the commercial skip. The first few weeks that we got the DVR all I heard from my Mom was, “John! You skipped forward too far! Rewind!” or “Hey! I wanted to watch that commercial. Ooohhh, nice sale prices there!”
I just go comfy in my chair before I remember a possibly critical detail. “Blackout conditions activated!”
I shut off the lights in my room and return to my comfy chair. “Okay, lights off, headphones on. Super stealth powers, engage! Whisper, you have the con.” I mock order myself.
“Zzzzzhhhhiiiiippppp!” I say, adding my own cloaking sound effect to help me get in character. I need to be totally in the zone for this next bit, but I feel so alive right now. Despite the troubling quest objectives, the sneaking and getting past impenetrable defenses is what really gets my heart excited.
Okay, I better concentrate now. Whisper is getting close to the border and I really need to pay attention. I put on my headphones and focus on guiding my character through the magical mine field.
Whisper noted the faint glowing red line that represented a basic enemy detection and warning ward located just inside the border of Seremis’s kingdom. She frowned and carefully scanned the area to make sure there wasn’t anyone watching her.
Her thief’s mask was more than just a way to hide the reflection of her face. It closely resembled one of those porcelain play masks that some people liked to hang on their walls for decoration. Unlike those highly decorated and glossy masks, her mask was matte black with amber tinted lenses covering the eyes. The lenses were what really made her mask unique among thieves masks. The lenses not only helped to protect her eyes, but they also gave her a magically enhanced sight. With this sight, she could see perfectly in the dark and most importantly, it enabled her to see magic and spells as lines that looked like ropes or strings depending on how powerful the magic was.
Most magical spells that guarded doors and locks looked more like string or even fishing line. They didn’t have the power that a fireball spell would need. The wards used to guard doors and chests were very low powered, but they often acted as the trigger for the much more powerful spells that mages liked to use to punish anyone foolish enough to try and open the object that they warded.
Just being able to see the magic wasn’t enough of an edge. She also needed a way to manipulate the magical lines. That is where her magical thief’s tools and thief’s gloves came into play. The tools were for the fine traps hidden in locks, while the gloves enabled her to touch and manipulate the larger magical lines used in protection circles and area wards.
Simply stepping over a warding line would alert whoever was watching the ward that someone had just entered the area, how many and from where they had entered. A detachment of soldiers could then be dispatched to the area to apprehend the trespasser.
Whisper couldn’t have that. She quickly double checked the lines that represented the ward to make sure there wasn’t some hidden trap and then, she carefully reached under the ward line and lifted it up a few feet as she fluidly passed under the ward. Carefully, she placed the ward line back on the ground and continued on her way. From start to finish, it took her less than thirty seconds to pass the first obstacle on her way to Seramis’ distant stronghold.
Wrapped in shadows and using the night as her shield, Whisper was effectively invisible as she raced to get closer to the stronghold. Her quick and graceful stride ate up the miles until she spotted a second and more powerful ward at the halfway point fifteen minutes later. The magic of the ward pulsed with an angry purple color. She could only guess what this one would do if someone foolishly tripped over it, but it probably wouldn’t be pleasant.
Again, she carefully double checked the simple looking ward for any hidden tricks before she repeated the process that she had used to bypass the first ward. Unlike the first ward, this one hummed and vibrated with angry potential as she lifted the line to quickly pass under it.
A few minutes later, Whisper found a dark shadow to hide herself while Brian removed his headphones and pushed himself away from his desk.
It’s almost 10pm now. I think that if I brushed my teeth and said goodnight to my Mom and Dad, I might be able to sneak another 20 or 30 minutes of play time tonight. That should allow me to get Whisper to a good hiding spot for tomorrow. It would really suck if I go through all this trouble just to have Whisper get caught due to the dumb AI doing something wrong while I am at school!
After walking his character back to the command tent, Jim activated his world map and stared at it while ideas and connections started to percolate in the back of his mind. The time spent lost in thought allowed him to calm down and almost see the humor in the situation. What Whisper had done took some real skill and daring. He could hardly wait to hear all the lost griffon jokes that were bound to become very popular. Jim idly noted that his wife had come home from work when he heard the garage door open and close.
It must be after midnight. Oh yeah, Julie got the late baby delivery shift today. She has got to be beat.
Returning to the game problem, Jim noted the following facts on a notepad:
Quest specified Whisper.
Whisper is a highly skilled thief and spy.
Whisper indicated that the quest was an infiltration into a secured area.
Whisper claimed to need to exit game.
Approximately ten minutes later, my griffon was stolen.
Thief assumed to be Whisper.
Jim was mulling over those points when Julie entered his office.
“Honey, it’s late. We should go to bed and ummm..sleep.” He heard his wife whisper in his ear as she nibbled on his ear lobe seductively. Breathing in her delicate floral scent, he turned to look at his wife. Jim noted that she was wearing a new Victoria Secret’s outfit. Not much was left to be a secret, but what was a secret, sure was captivating.
“Um, yes Jewels, I do believe you are right. We should ummmm…sleep.” Jim said with a kiss as he quickly disconnected from GEO. His game problem was quickly forgotten as his wife made sure that he found his way to their bedroom.
The AI that controlled Lord Vincint during the players absence from the world, noticed the sound of a griffon’s wings passing from the west and over the command tent on its way to the stables. Lord Vincint rushed to the stables to see if it was his griffon. After verifying that it was his griffon, the AI noticed that the griffon needed to be fed, so it grabbed some rabbits from the stable’s stores. It ended up taking ten rabbits to sate the griffon’s hunger. The AI made a note of the amount taken from the stables stores.
Once the griffon was fed, Lord Vincint double checked the griffon’s flying harness. Finding it sound, he walked his griffon out of the stable, mounted it and directed for it to fly him to his keep near the capital.
Whisper looked up at the shear walls of Seramis’ stronghold. She had managed to dodge two human patrols and spotted the magical energies of a roving magical sentry eye before its operator spotted her. It was essentially a magic floating eyeball that a security mage remotely operated. The eye would’ve spelled the end of the road for most intruders. It was actively invisible and perfectly silent. Whisper wasn’t really able to see the eye, but with her mask, she could see the magical lines and knots that made up the spell the eye represented.
Most sentry eyes could see invisible and had perfect night vision. Some eyes could even see into the infra-red spectrum, but those were pretty rare since the first two vision modes could see most threats. Since Whisper wasn’t really invisible in the traditional sense, she wasn’t worried about the invisibility detection. The perfect night vision was the hardest for Whisper to defeat. Her form of invisibility depended upon the shadows and dark to hide her. Since she spotted the eye before it spotted her, she was able to avoid it by casting a simple illusion spell. Crouching down, her form briefly shimmered as it took on the appearance of a large piece of broken rock that might have been discarded during the stronghold’s construction.
Hardly daring to breath, Whisper waited an extra minute after the eye passed her position and around the next corner before she allowed her minor illusion to fade. Standing up, she quickly approached the portion of the stronghold’s outer wall that had the most shadows. She slipped on her climbing claws over her thief’s gloves and boots before she quickly and silently made her way up the sheer wall by using every tiny crack, mortar seam and surface imperfection that only a master thief could even hope to exploit.
Pausing at the top, she remained hidden in the shadows as she noted the fixed and roving guard positions. After getting the pattern down, she tossed a small pebble behind the nearest fixed guard and used his momentary distraction to smoothly blend into the next shadow behind him. Even though the interior was well lit with torches, it was easier to move from shadow to shadow on the inside of the wall because the torches that were used liberally to light the stronghold’s interior flickered and cast moving shadows all on their own.
The torches also helped to destroy the guard’s night vision. One more “flickering shadow” in the night was easy for a guard to ignore. Suddenly, she heard someone talking nearby as Brian froze in a panic.
“I’ll be to bed in a minute dear.” I hear my Mom say from outside my door.
Oh crap! It’s 10:20PM. I only needed another five or ten minutes to find a good hiding spot for Whisper.
“I’m just going to brush my teeth, then I think that I will tuck in my lovable and sleeping son for old time’s sake.” I hear my Mom mock yell to my dad.
Crap! She knows. I was so close! I wonder how long it will take her to brush her teeth? If she does it the way that she expects my sister and I to brush our teeth, then I might have two minutes.
Crap. Crap. Crap. This sucks! Oh well, if she busts me, then she will certainly take away my GEO privileges for a week or more!
I quickly look around with Whisper and spot a dark stairway that leads deeper into the keep. I point Whisper to that spot and logout from GEO. I can hear my Mom making loud gargling noises from the bathroom just as I am jumping under the covers of my bed.
I’m pretty good at pretending to sleep, but I am still a little surprised when my Mom peeks into my room and whispers, “Night Brian, don’t try that again please.”
Sigh.
“Yes, Mom.” I whisper back then add in some brownie points with a “Thank you and I love you.” thrown in for good measure.
Arrrgg! This is so frustrating. I can’t believe that this is happening to me! It’s going to take me forever to fall asleep tonight.
Jim woke up to the sound of his shrilling electronic alarm clock at 6am. He quickly turned off the alarm so that Julie could sleep some more. Then, he snuggled up to her and simply held her for a few more minutes. Gently, he disengaged himself from her as she mumbled and whined when her sleep was disturbed from having her husband’s warm snuggly body leave her.
Slipping out of the warm bed, he sighed and muttered, “I have got to stop playing that game so much…” as he tiredly yawned on his way to take his morning shower.
The steaming water slowly brought Jim back into the land of the living and as his thoughts began to quicken he started to go back over the events from last night. Sudden fear stabbed into his gut as he remembered exactly what Whisper had said about the quest.
“…sneak into someplace you’re not supposed to be and do something you’re not supposed to do," was what she said the quest was asking for her to do and then, she stole his griffon and flew to the capital.
What if Whisper was going to access the Font of Light again? It sort of fit her description, but what would the Game Masters want her to do with the Font? She had already used it once without permission to enhance herself. He wracked his brain thinking about what else she could do with the Font.
It was possible to use the Font to fuel a world changing spell, but why would the GMs pick Whisper to do something like that? Could she be a double-agent and do something to switch control of the Font to the Evil side?
Jim doubted that she was a double-agent, but if her quest had something to do with the Font, then he had to login and check before it was too late! If she hadn’t reached the it yet, then it was his duty to beef up security and limit the risk where possible.
He quickly toweled himself off, pulled on his boxers and made his way to his office to login to GEO.
Entering the world, Lord Vincint was surprised to find himself back at his modest keep located just south of the Alliance capital. He didn't want to do it, but to keep the Font safe and make things hard on Whisper, he reluctantly entered the guild officer command to remove her from the guild. Best case, they would both share good laugh over his paranoia after he reinstated her into the guild. Worst case, he didn’t even want to think about the trouble she could cause with a GM quest and unrestricted access to the Font.
Sighing, he entered the following guild notification message that every guild member would see when they first logged into their character:
“Troubling circumstances have forced me to temporarily remove Lady Whisper from the guild. A warrant for her arrest has been issued as she is wanted for questioning by the Guild Council. If anyone has information that they feel may help, please contact me or a guild officer immediately.”
Lord Vincint followed that notification up with a “call” to the Colonel in command of the guards for the Font of Light.
“Good Morning Lord Vincint, how may I be of assistance?” The AI controlled Colonel respectfully asked.
“Good Morning Colonel. Is the Font still safe?”
“I have not been alerted otherwise my Lord. Is there something amiss?” The Colonel said with a hint of humor.
“The master thief, Lady Whisper, has gone missing and is also presumed to have gone rogue. Until further notice, I want you to place everyone on high alert and double the guards around the Font.”
“Certainly, My Lord. What should we do if we spot Lady Whisper?” The Colonel asked, concerned.
Lord Vincint felt the weight of command on his shoulders. He had a duty to protect the Alliance from all enemies, even ones that he liked and respected immensely. “If you or your men see her, then she is to be considered an agent of Evil and no effort spared to capture her.”
“Yes My Lord. It shall be as you command.” The Colonel said with parade ground crispness. He paused for a moment in thought. “Should I alert the Constable of Lady Whisper’s wanted status?”
Lord Vincint smiled at the Colonel. “Please do so and thank you for reminding me about that little detail. I’m a little fuzzy here still. I need my coffee to really start thinking in the morning.”
The Colonel smiled with sympathy. “Of course, My Lord. Is there anything else I may do to be of assistance to you this coffee-less morning?”
“I don’t think so, but thanks.” Lord Vincint chuckled at the AI’s little joke before he realized how strange it was for an NPC character to have a sense of humor.
Next, Lord Vincint sent communications to the other leaders of the Guild Council informing them of his fears and actions taken to help protect the Font of Light.
Saddened by the actions he was forced to take, yet relieved to feel somewhat back in control of the situation, Jim shut down his PC and started to get ready for another busy day navigating the clogged legal system. He never thought to check with the camp guards to get their report about his griffon’s return. Nor did he think to ask the stable master about the condition of his griffon after it returned to the camp stables.
If he had, then he might have decided that the Font of Light was the least of his concerns.
--Thursday - 15-Feb-2007 07:00 --
"Brian! It's seven o'clock! Wake up or you will miss the bus for your field trip!" My mom shouts from the kitchen.
I blearily look at my alarm clock and confirm my Mom’s allegations.
The delightful scent of bacon and pancakes cooking downstairs are like an intangible set of my Mom's fingers tugging on my nose and exposed ear to drag me out of bed.
"Uhhhhgggg, brains...need more brains!" I mumble as I stagger around my room looking through the piles of clean, mostly clean, sorta clean and smelly dirty clothes to find a passable ensemble. The expensive brand name clothes are obviously wasted on my keen fashion sense.
"Now, where did I put my clean underwear and socks that Mom washed the other day? Not in this chair...hmmm...not on the dresser...inside the dresser?!?! Who in the heck put them away?"
Am I gross? Not at all! I draw the line on having clean underwear and socks. I mean, what is wrong with wearing the same jeans for a few days or a week? T-Shirts, those can last for two days if you don't really exert yourself too much. I’m a geek, so not exerting myself is not a problem. I think of it as being "environmentally friendly" by helping to reduce the impact that doing laundry has on our fragile ecosystem. I tried that line of reasoning with my Mom once, but she laughed at my face and just said one word. “GEO”
Okay, technically that is not a word, but you get the picture.
I glance at my PC. “Oh crap! Whisper! I wonder if she’s still alive?” If I could only login to GEO for a few minutes!
I am pretty darn proud of my rig. I pieced it together component by component. I’m most proud of the motherboard and CPU though. A broken, high-end PC was donated to the school. The electronics class tried to fix it, but discovered the motherboard had a burned out capacitor and a few of the pins were bent and broken on the CPU. It took me a week of tinkering with it, but I managed to fix it! My teacher couldn’t see how I could have done that without a high end microscopic soldering set, but he gave me an extra credit “A” and let me keep the board. It turned out to be one of those new quad-core CPUs! Score one for the geeks!
Where was I?
Oh yeah, If you can't tell, I am not a morning person, at all. Mom's tricks to subliminally motivate my perpetually empty teenager stomach are just evil. I swear that she has fan that she uses to blow the fresh cooked food smells directly into my room. Maybe she vents the stove directly into the central duct work with a special "Brian's room" bypass system. I don't know, but I would bet on the bones of my many broken alarm clocks that they wished my Mom would just use the already 100% effective working "Brian Wakeup System" instead of buying me more alarm clocks for me to break.
Slipping on my obviously mislabeled tennis shoes, cause, seriously...how many people really use "tennis shoes" to play tennis? Crazy things to think about at 8 AM, but someone has to elevate the general level of consciousness these days, right? I grab my book filled school backpack and stumble down the stairs to eat breakfast.
Yes! I did all that other personal hygiene stuff already. I just didn't think you wanted to be bombarded with my insights on tooth brushing techniques or how many shakes before you are playing with it. I hope not anyway, `cause that is just TMI.
Pssst...twice is the answer.
Did I take a shower? Really?!?! You think that is important to this story? Okay...you asked for it. No, I did not take a shower during that "hygiene" time and do you want to know why? Well I will tell you why.
Lindsay Anne Peters, age 14, that’s why. I really am a "morning" shower person. I love nothing more than a delightful hot shower first thing in the morning to get my day started. That morning routine came to a bitter end the day my loving younger sister turned 12 and started noticing boys. Yeah, she "turned" on me and my parents. "Turned", you know, like the classical D&D clerical spell, "Turn Undead"! She went from being a sweet yet loving brat that you loved to hate and who wouldn't leave you alone. To become a hot water stealing, bathroom hogging, conniving fashion victim who wanted nothing to do with you, ever.
I can't really say that the last part is a bad thing, but I do sometimes miss her devotion to all things "big brother". Nothing I have to say or do is important anymore and to use her words, "You're just a boy, you wouldn't understand" or a simple "You're so dumb!". I once made the mistake of trying to tell her that wearing a short skirt to school as a bad idea, but that just got me an artful roll of the eyes followed by a “whatever”. Hey, she’s my sister and she looked good in it. Pretty even! That thought just grosses me out as soon as it registers on my sleep deprived brain, so I change the gross thought to one of “concern for my sister’s well-being”.
Hey, it looked short to me and Mom thought so too.
“Lindsay Anne Peters! You walk right back up those stairs and change that skirt!” My mom ordered.
“but Moooommm...” Lindsay wailed with a pleading look on the side of her face that Mom could see and a look of hateful scorn on the side I could see. How she managed that I have no idea, but evil sister has mad facial expression skills.
She came downstairs a few minutes later wearing a much longer skirt of the exact same color.
“Much better Lindsay.” My mom said.
“...but it doesn't match my top as well.”
Needless to say, I was shocked to see her wearing the much shorter skirt once we got to school. However; that shock turned to a black eye for me when she ended up running up to me in the school hallway with tears in her eyes because some boy had lifted up her skirt. Yes, I did the big brother thing and had a “talk” with the guy. I am not a complete jerk like my sister likes to think.
That is what led me to gain the full attention of Billy. I knew he was the school bully, but I naively thought that we could work it out like two responsible teenagers. My bad. On the plus side, that beating is what got my Mom and Dad to enroll me my Jujitsu class.
Breakfast was wonderful! Two eggs, sunny side up, thank you. Four strips of thick cut bacon, yes please! Four pancakes with real butter and lots of syrup, heaven! You have got to have the extra syrup for the bacon. Seriously, what planet are you from if you don’t try to get as much syrup as possible on your bacon?!?! All of that artery clogging goodness is then chased by one extra-large class of 2% milk. It’s 2% because whole milk is bad for you and skim milk, well; you might as well just be drinking white colored water! I inhaled my breakfast which is not only efficient from a time management perspective, but the technique has an added bonus of limiting conversation to simple yes and no responses.
“Did you get all your homework done before you played your ‘game’ last night Brian?” My mom asks.
“Mmmmummm!” I eloquently reply as I chew on big fork full of syrupy, buttery, yummy goodness.
“Did you remember to put your permission slip in your backpack?”
“Nuuunnnn?” I try to remember where I had put that permission form. If I can’t find it, then I won’t be able to go to the DARPA science lab with my electronics class.
“I thought so. Here it is Brian. Put it in your backpack now please.”
My Mom is so sneaky!
Shovel, chew, chew, zip, stuff the guilty paper into said backpack of holding, zip!, chew some more then swallow. Do not forget the swallow part or get the order mixed up…bad things happen!
“Was good Mom! Thanks for breakfast!” I follow that up by an artful mumbled rendition of, “Love you!” and finish off with the always popular “Ciao!” or “Chow!” for you regular American English folks. If I am feeling really generous, Mom gets a quick air kiss as I am walking out the door. Lindsay? She gets a gleeful, “Have a good day in Middle School little sis!”
That parting shot is followed by a wonderful, “MOOOMMM!” that gets cut off in mid scream as the door is closing. Oh the joys of tormenting the little brat when I can get away with it.
It didn't take me long to walk to the bus stop. It was only to the end of the block. I'm not “that” lazy. My best friend, John and his girlfriend Lisa are just walking up while holding hands. They make it a point to loudly kiss right in front of me and the entire world.
“Ewww...get a room you two!” I say with mock indignation before I follow up with my simulated robot voice, “This is a PDA Free Zone. Any further transgressions will not be tolerated! Bzzzzt!”
“LOL” John says.
Yes...he really did say “LOL”.
“Brian, you're just jealous because I have a girlfriend!” John hugs Lisa tighter as she giggles.
“John, be nice please.” Lisa comes to my rescue. Then, she turns her patented megawatt smile my way. “Brian, we were just messing with you.”
Wow, just wow. Just the sight of her almost makes me forget what we were currently teasing each other about. Short blond hair, blue eyes, perfect skin, long legs, athletic and very nice ummm...you know. She's so damn nice to everyone and not at all stuck up like most of the pretty girls at school.
You do not want to mess with her though. Her last name is Rogers. Yes, she is the daughter of Sensei Rogers and she has been learning martial arts since she could walk. A few of the bitchier members of the Pretty Girls Club tried to get bossy with her at the start of the school year. She just calmly told them that she didn’t have the time to waste with their drama. The queen bitch of the group tried to slap Lisa. Lisa destroyed her in the blink of an eye. She kicks my butt in Jujitsu class too, but I find it hard to complain. Sigh, if only I wasn’t such a geek.
“I know Lisa. If your loving boyfriend didn't need me to help him pass Mr. Anderson's Science class, I'd probably have to stop being his only friend.” I say while trying to not melt into a puddle of goo under her friendly gaze.
John is the real deal and if he wasn't so modest, I'd probably hate his guts. He has the looks, brains and money. Okay, so he's not as much of a geek as I am when it comes to science and technology, but he is not slow at all. Give him a business or money related question and stand back. Why he's in a public school is beyond me, but his parents have some funny ideas about education.
When I asked him, he said that this is what his Dad said, “We are not wasting money on some fancy private school. Your Mom and I both went to public schools, and look how successful we are!” You know, the old, “When I was your age I had to walk ten miles to school each day and it was uphill, both ways!”
I won’t bore you with the full thirty minute bus ride.
As usual, John and Lisa sit together while I end up jammed into the window by one of those friendly football players. I know he’s friendly because he smiles at me as he mushes me against the window.
“I’m going to get you today, shrimp!”
“Fat chance Tom. You know that my ninja like reflexes will just make you look like the lumbering and slow giant that you are, right?” My false confidence earns me a friendly punch on my shoulder. Well, friendly to him maybe.
“Ha! We’ll see. Today will be the day!” He says just before he ignores me by looking through his football playbook.
I try not to rub my shoulder.
I manage to avoid having to demonstrate my previously mentioned “ninja like” reflexes. Not because the jocks suddenly decide to leave me alone, but because after home room, it was time to report to Mr. Anderson’s class for the field trip.
This trip is going to be so cool!
We are visiting one of the University of New Mexico’s nanotechnology research labs located in nearby Los Alamos. The lab is associated with DARPA’s Los Alamos National Lab and it specializes in the research and manufacture of super tiny robots called nanites. The biggest use that most people see for nanites is in the medical field. The idea there is that a doctor could program a host of these super tiny robots to kill cancer. The doctor then injects a few thousand of these things into the patient with a regular needle. The bots move throughout the patient’s body and zap any cancer cells that they find. They could also be programmed to repair damaged cells. How cool would it be if doctors could program the bots to repair the nerve damage caused by a broken spinal column? Wheelchairs could become a thing of the past!
You could also use these magic nanites to build things too. Give them some CAD/CAM plans and pour them onto a bar of steel. Stand back and presto! You’ve got a nano assembled pistol. Okay, so it currently takes over a thousand dollars to build each nanite and it would take thousands of them all working together to assemble this now multi-million dollar pistol. Hey, one can dream can’t they?
Of course, there are the alarmists out there that worry about an out of control nanite plague of hungry self-replicating eaters of everything. If that were really possible don’t you think that some super-villain would have already done something like that? I mean, think about it for a second. What super-villain worth his salt wouldn’t threaten to unleash their super steel eating nanite plague on some high dollar target like the Golden Gate Bridge? I can see the stereotypical bald headed super villain with cat transmitting his demands to the panicked city leaders.
“Greetings, Leaders of San Francisco! I have deposited steel eating nanites on your famed Golden Gate Bridge. You have two hours to pay me one meellion dollars or my nefarious nanites will turn it into dust! Muh Haha! Muh Haha! Muh Haha!” Maybe Hollywood could make a movie about it?
So, here I am on another school bus. This time I get to sit with John since Lisa isn’t in our class. We end up talking about GEO. Yes, He plays GEO too. Not as much as I do, but I guess that is the price you have to pay when you have a girlfriend.
“Hey, how’s your thief coming? Have you scored any good loot lately?” He asks.
I am so tempted to spill my guts right then and there, but for some reason, I hold back.
“Nope, nothing good lately. I did just get a good quest, but hard to say if it is going to be worth the hassle. How about you? How’s your paladin?” I vaguely reply with a redirect.
Yes. He’s playing a paladin. He’s so goody goody when he plays his pally. It’s almost sickening listening to him talk with all the “thees” and “thous” like he thinks that a pally should talk like.
I am so glad that he’s not on my server. I’d have to switch to the dark side just to get the chance to get rid of him.
I guess it is kind of ironic that he was offered the paladin class while I was only offered thief or mage for my first class. I wonder what GEO’s arch-type matching wizard is really trying to tell me?
So, I get to hear how he led the assault on some Evil stronghold and all the awards his pally received. It is pretty sickening and it kinda makes me a little jealous. So jealous, that I cave under the peer pressure.
“I kind of stole Lord Vincint’s griffon last night.” I say in a low voice while looking around to see if anyone else was listening. You could never be too careful. GEO players are everywhere.
“You what? Who’s Lord Vincint?” John turns his full attention to me.
“I ‘borrowed’ Lord Vincint’s griffon. He’s my guild leader and also the leader of the Alliance of Light on my server.”
“Geez, how do you ‘borrow’ a griffon?” John says as he turns to look out the window when the bus turns into an area enclosed with one of those high security chain link fences.
“Well, it was kinda cool-” I start to explain.
“Hey! I think we’re here dude. Check out that!” John interrupts me and excitedly points to an Army guy manning the guard post. “The guards are packing some serious heat!”
The GEO talk is completely tossed out the bus window, but the Army dudes do look pretty badass and are packing some serious firepower. The guards look like they stepped out of some first person shooter video game box. They are wearing desert camo outfits with some cool looking armor and other tech stuff attached. Their weapons look like M-16’s, but they have those commando stocks and short stubby barrels. This field trip is so cool!
Before they let the school bus through the gates, one of the guards enters the bus and walks down the aisle all the way back to the rear of the bus. He looks so serious. No one on the bus says a single a word. As he turns to head back to the front, some electronic gadget attached to his belt brushes up against my shoulder. He stops for a second or two as he speaks into his throat mic, “Alpha One, Student transport clear. Bravo Ten, Out.”
I feel a little tingle or something in my head. It’s hard to describe really, but I suddenly hear the reply as if I was wearing headphones.
“Roger, Bravo Ten. Assist Bravo Nine with…”
The voice stops as he steps away from me. I shudder and wonder what the heck just happened. Did the acoustics in the bus just go wonky? There is no way that I should have been able to hear the reply. His Communication Network Radio Subsystem (CNRS) system uses a bone conduction headphone system to allow him to hear radio calls without interfering with his regular hearing.
How did I know all that? I don’t know because the closest I have ever come to that kind of gear is playing Ghost Recon on John’s PS3. I hardly think that would suddenly make me an expert on military technology.
“Yo dude, are you okay? You look like you just saw a ghost.” John asks me as I start to recover from the shock.
“Umm, yeah I guess so.” I don’t think that I sound very convincing.
“Was that dude cool or what!? Did you see that wicked looking M16 he was carrying?” John asks me with an excited whisper.
“What?” I start to reply still feeling a little woozy. “That wasn’t a M16, it was a M4A1.”
“Whatever dude, it was still pretty wicked looking.” John says as the bus starts to move again.
Now I’m really starting to scare myself. Did Ghost Recon have one of those weapons? Even if the game had the weapon, how did I know that that it was equipped with a MFL (Multi-Function Laser) that feeds target information back to his Computer Subsystem (CSS)?
The remaining half mile or so to the facility doesn’t take too long. The bus pulls up to the main entrance and Mr. Anderson exits to meet some scientist looking dude standing just outside the door. I can’t hear what they say, but Mr. Anderson seems real happy to see him as they shake hands. They speak for about thirty seconds or so after that and then Mr. Anderson pokes his head back into the bus and yells, “Okay, you all. Dr. Edmundson is a friend of mine from college and he’s the one that was nice enough to get us permission to visit the labs here. As you might have noticed, this place is very secure and the research being conducted here is very bleeding edge. I expect you all to be on your very best behavior and to listen to all instructions you are given.”
We all kind of sorta mumble sounds that might translate as, “Yes” as we stand to exit the bus.
Dr. Edmundson smiles benevolently at us after the last student steps off the bus. “Okay, children...”
Children? Who does this egg head think he is?
“Please follow me inside where we will get you all signed in and issued visitor badges. After that, you will be guided to the auditorium for a short presentation and safety briefing.” Dr. Edmundson says as he motions us all inside and led us to the security desk.
We all have to print and sign our name on some pale green log book. As I sign my name, the security officer hands me a bright red numbered badge with VISITOR plainly visible on its surface. “Visitors must be escorted at all times.”, is also printed on the badge. They seem pretty serious about this security stuff!
After we were all issued badges, Dr. Edmundson escorts us all down a short hallway towards the only open set of doors in the place. All of the doors are protected by a badge reader gadget, even the door labeled “Human Resources”.
“Hi Brenda.” I hear Dr. Edmundson say.
“Oh, Hello Dr. Edmundson. Your presentation is all setup and ready to go.” I hear a cheerful sounding female voice reply.
It’s a little hard to see through all the other kids. So, I’m not really paying too much attention to what is going on up front until John pokes my side.
“Dude! Check out the robo-babe talking to the Doc!” He whispers.
I make the effort to find a clear line of sight and I’m rewarded by the sight of a very beautiful red headed woman wearing a bland gray and conservatively cut dress and blouse. Her long red hair is pulled up off her shoulders with a strategically placed stray strand of hair to the side of her face. I think it’s safe to say that we all hope that this Brenda babe is going to be our tour guide.
“Thank you Brenda.” Dr. Edmundson says. “Miss Koshnick is not only a wizard with PowerPoint, but she is also our Human Resources specialist. So we all like to make sure that she has plenty of chocolate come payday!” He laughs at his joke. Everyone else just humors him with a smile.
She giggles and her smile lights up the area. “Oh, you’re too kind Dr. Edmundson.”
I think I’m in love as the crowd parts to let her past when she heads towards the door that I’m standing next too. Her smile turns mischievous as she turns to look back at Dr. Edmundson. “But, I need to get back to my office to make sure your check will clear the bank this time.”
Since it looks like she is going to want to enter the door and I’m standing next to it, I attempt to open it for her, but fail miserably as I try to twist the locked door handle.
She smiles at me and I almost melt into a pile of goo right there.
“Oh, you’re so sweet. Thanks for the gesture, but I need to swipe my badge to unlock the door first.”
As she approaches the badge reader next to the door, I feel a tingle in my hand just before the door handle clicks and opens under my weight.
She looks with confusion at the door and her badge for a second before she shrugs and moves to pass me to enter her office. She smiles and mouths a silent thanks as she passes. Suddenly, she stops and bends over to peer curiously at my face. With her face inches from mine, a hint of some floral scent hits my nose. “Wow, you have the most beautiful green eyes.”
I’m shocked that she notices my eyes and even more shocked that she would say something to me.
“Oh, sorry, handsome green eyes.” She says with a smile as all the blood in my body attempts to rush to my head in an attempt to make me die from embarrassment. I feel like a deer caught in the headlights of a semi-truck.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to embarrass you in front of all your friends.” She apologizes as she touches my arm. “Well, back to the salt mines for me.” She mutters as she straightens and continues her way into her office.
The door can’t close fast enough for me! Finally, I can breathe again.
“Dude! Score!” John whispers to me.
I’m all smiles as I follow John into the auditorium with weak knees.
Green eyes? My eyes are brown. She must have been messing with me.
I won’t bore you with too much of the presentation. Dr. Edmundson’s presentation was pretty dry, but it did have a few decent videos of “hypothetical” nanite uses. He did bring up the world ending “Grey Goo” fear about out of control and self-replicating nanites. He made a pretty convincing case on why it would be impossible for someone to make happen. First, the person trying to do that would have to be crazy. Secondly, the bots themselves would need access to a lot of very rare earth compounds in order to replicate themselves. You don’t get stuff like palladium, chromium and gold from thin air. Power is also an issue to this crazy scheme. Maybe it could happen someday, but not today is what he told us.
The only thing that I didn’t already know was that the labs we were going to see today are the University’s part of the complex. The “non-secure research” part is what Dr. Edmundson called it.
His team just analyzes some of the projects that come out of the secure parts of the complex and they attempt to identify how things can be improved or why they failed. So, basically we are just going to get to see the rejected, old or broken down stuff. It’s still some pretty cool stuff though.
So, we finished the presentation part of the tour. Next on the list is a look at the lab where they perform the design and 3D modeling of the nanites, then we will do lunch. If we survive the food served by research lab’s cafeteria, we will visit a lab that has some real live nanite samples, than take the bus home.
I must admit, the computer modeling demonstration was pretty cool. Dr. Greenway, a colleague of Dr. Edmundson, showed us how he would create a nanite design. We got to make some suggestions on what it might do and that affected how it looked on the screen. He then printed our design out on a huge printer that made a poster size print out of our nanite. He and Dr. Edmundson signed it, and then asked us all to sign our names to the printout too. Then he said that he was going to get it laminated so we could take it back to school with us. I think that it will look pretty cool on the wall of our classroom.
Lunch is, well, lunch. There are a lot more people there due to the lunchroom serving the entire facility. I see a few folks dressed in the guard uniforms mixed among the scientist types. Sadly, I do not see Ms. Koshnick, but John notices me looking around.
“Dude, looks like your new girlfriend dumped you.”
I feign heartbreak. “Oh well, It wouldn’t have worked out anyway. She was only interested in me for my body.”
I time my comeback perfectly. He is caught drinking his milk and snorts some out his nose as he chokes on it.
“That was sooo not right man!” He says while grabbing for a napkin to wipe his face.
“Yeah, but it was funny, right?”
“Okay, yeah, it was pretty funny. Good one dude. So, why did you steal your guild leader’s griffon?”
Oh crap. I was hoping that he had forgotten about that little detail.
“Well, I more kind of borrowed it without his permission.”
“Umm, you mean you stole it, right?”
“Ummm, I guess so, but I let it fly back to him when I was done. I think.” I’m not feeling too confident that it made it back to him. “So, I guess, technically, I really did borrow it, right?”
“I really don’t think that will help. What is so important that you needed to go outlaw?” He asks with a tone of voice that sounds like he is starting to channel the spirit of his goodie goodie paladin.
“I really can’t say right now. I’m still kind of confused by the whole deal myself.”
“Uhh?”
“Okay, what if you could go back in time and kill Hitler before he started World War two?” I ask him in an attempt to frame my actions in a better light. I mean, who doesn’t think that Hitler was a real evil guy?
“What does that have to do with a video game?”
“Well, I’ve been given a quest by what I think are the GM’s to assassinate another player’s character.” I say, feeling like a huge weight is lifted off my shoulders.
“Whoa! Dude! Are you sure? How could a good player be given an evil quest?”
“That’s what I am worried about!” I shrug my shoulders with defeat.
“Hey, are you two talking about GEO?” A female voice distracts us. We both turn and are shocked to see Ms. Koshnick standing there with a bagged lunch in her hands.
“Umm…yes?” I brilliantly reply.
She smiles and actually looks excited. “Cool! I play too. Mind if I sit with you two?”
I’m beyond flustered, but John is much faster on the uptake then I am. The jerk!
“Sure thing Ms. Koshnick. What class do you play?” John asks.
“Brenda, please call me Brenda. Ms. Koshnick makes me feel so old. I just play a Warrior on the side of Light on the Tertius server.”
I start to panic. She plays on my server and on the side of light. Please, please, please don’t say anything John. I furiously try to develop mental telepathy to get John to change the topic somehow. It doesn’t work.
“Wow, that’s the same server that Brian plays on. Maybe you two know each other?”
“I don’t think so, John.” I stress his name in an attempt to get him to stop. “My Mage is still pretty weak and I don’t know any beautiful female warriors.” I deliberately down play my real archetype in an attempt to clue John into my non-existent telepathic commands. I am beginning to think that he is really out to get me.
“Your low level Mage alt? No, I’m talking about your thief, Whisper.”
It’s “Game Over man! Game Over!” as Brenda’s eyes practically pop out of her head.
“No freaking way! You’re Whisper? Wow, I thought you were really a girl.”
“Can it get any worse?” I mutter as I lay my forehead on the table and pretend to try and knock myself out.
“Oh, I’m sorry Brian. I didn’t mean to embarrass you like that. That was pretty stupid of me to say that.” She apologizes by grabbing my hand. That part short circuits my brain and I forget all about GEO as the sensation of her holding my hand overrides everything else.
She’s so beautiful and even worse, she plays GEO. Just kill me now, please.
“How do you know about Whisper?” I ask, fearing her answer.
“Oh, I play Lady Kalisa.”
Oh crap. I’ve actually grouped with her a few times. Even worse, she’s in my guild.
“Haven’t you checked the forums this morning?” Brenda asks.
“No, I haven’t had the chance. Why?” I’m concerned now. What have I missed? Is my mission blown?
“Oh, my god!” She gasps. “So, you don’t know?”
“Know what?” John and I chorus in stereo as I start to panic.
“Well, for starters, Lord Vincint has removed you from the guild and there is a warrant for your arrest.”
My eyes pop out of my head and John looks at me like my eyes really did pop out their sockets.
Brenda snickers softly. “On top of that, Lord Vincint is just a tad upset that you stole his griffon.”
John pokes my side. “Told you so.”
I ignore him. “Why would he want to have Whisper arrested?”
Brenda looks curiously at me as she takes a healthy looking sandwich out of her bag and starts to unwrap it. “Because everyone thinks you’re trying to use the Font for some big evil spell?”
Now John is starting to look at me like I might be the person who told him that Santa wasn’t real. He knows what I told him on the bus and now he’s probably a little confused.
I try to reassure both of them. “No, no, no, I am not on a quest to use the Font of Light.” I wish that was all the quest was and I find the idea kind of funny.
“Okay dude, what is your quest?” John asks as they both look expectantly at me.
The peer pressure is killing me and John is my best bud. “Umm, promise you won’t tell anyone until tomorrow?” I glance between John and Brenda.
“Of course dude. Hell, I don’t play on your server anyway.” John reassures me.
Brenda doesn’t look as trusting. “Ummm, I don’t know if I can do that. I mean, I have to tell the guild what I know. I have a responsibility to the guild and the forces of Light, just like you do.” She looks and sounds so serious about the game.
I think I have a counter to her point. “Well, if you really get into the role-play. Would your character really know what you know about something that happened off-line?”
That causes her to think for a bit. Maybe I won’t have to tell her. I can keep it a secret and not have to worry about anyone finding out before I get a chance to give it a try tonight.
She crushes that idea. “Okay, I promise to not say a word about it until tomorrow.”
I focus my attention on John. “Jooohn? Promise not to tell anyone about it, not even Lisa.”
“Alright already. Geez. You make it sound like it’s Top Secret or something.” He grumbles.
I look back and forth to both of them. They look like they are being honest with me. “Okay, my quest is to assassinate Lady Seramis.”
Everyone who plays GEO knows who Lady Seramis is and they both gasp as I proceed to tell them everything I know as their faces express more disbelieve with every revelation.
“So, that is why I had to steal Lord Vincint’s griffon last night. It was the only way I could get to Lady Seramis’ territory in the time limit.” I finish.
They’re both incredulous. Brenda’s starts to say something, but remembers that she still has a bite of her sandwich to chew. She quickly finishes her bite. “Okay, so how do you know that killing her won’t help the forces of evil somehow?”
“I don’t, but like I was telling John. What if this is like being given the chance to go back in time and kill Hitler before he starts World War II and kills millions of people?”
She ponders that rationalization. “I see how you’re thinking there, but what if it is more like what caused World War I instead?”
“What?”
“Okay. What if, killing Seramis is what triggers an assault by the forces of Evil and they capture her Font? Then, the forces of Good would have to try and stop them. We would have an all-out war.”
Her doomsday scenario sounds so plausible. “Oh man, I just don’t know. I’m only in High School. Isn’t GEO just a game?”
Brenda looks past us. “Oops, it looks like your tour is about to start again.” She hesitates for a second before pulling out her business card.
She surprises me even more when she writes a phone number on the back of it.
“Here is my cell. Call me if you want to talk about this some more tonight.” She offers me her card.
As I take her card and put it in my wallet, I see that John is smiling at me. How much do you want to bet that he says “Score!” sometime within the next five minutes?
We don’t even make it out of the cafeteria before he slaps me on my back. “Dude! You. Are. The. Man!”
Okay, so he doesn’t actually say, “Score!”, but I still think it counts.
My worries about GEO last only as long as it takes us to reach the second research and development lab.
I’m pretty deep in thought, so I have no idea of how long it takes or even where the lab is. I just walk on auto-pilot and follow everyone else through the halls. Dr. Edmundson is somewhere in front of the herd and I can hear him speaking about something scientific sounding. However; my thoughts are stuck in an infinite loop. Good side is good, killing someone is bad, good side is good, killing someone is bad, Brenda sure is pretty…wait…what if Brenda is right?
Wow, check out that electron microscope! That jars me out of my haze and helps me to start noticing my surroundings again. This lab is cool! The room is totally looking the part of one of those TV show labs. It has beakers, test tubes, Bunsen burners and centrifuges. There are computer workstations scattered around and two small glass enclosed robot waldo devices. There is another glass enclosed room attached to this room. A glass and stainless steel door enters into a room with environmental suits hanging inside of it. That room has a slightly thicker glass and stainless door with an airlock style wheel lock. There are all kinds of nozzles, blowers and vents in the second room. That room has another wheel style locked door that appears to open into a larger lab of some sort.
We appear to be heading that way, so maybe Dr. Edmundson is going to tell us what the area is for. I wonder if we will get to go inside of it.
“Okay, class. Over here we have our ISO Class 1 cleanroom.” He drones on about all the procedures they have to go through to keep the room clean. The idea of wearing a rubber suit all day doesn’t sound fun at all.
“Umm, Dr. Edmundson. What happens if someone really needs to get out because they have to go to the bathroom real bad?” Will Jenkins asks, making everyone snicker.
“Excellent question!” Dr. Edmundson looks around and spots another scientist type person heading our way. “Ah! Dr. Johansson, nice to see you!” He says with a predatory smile. “The students here were wondering about what happens if you have to go to the facilities while inside the clean room.”
As he is asking the other fellow the question, Dr. Johansson appears to get a bit uncomfortable while Dr. Edmundson’s smile gets a bit bigger.
I’m pretty sure I know what happened and judging by the sympathetic smirks everyone else has, I think they know too. Can I say, “Eeewww?”
“Ah, well, that is an interesting question, sir.” He nervously glances back to his boss while keeping an eye on us. “Do you really want me to answer that question, sir?”
“I guess not Dave. Students, let’s just say that you either get real good at planning or cleaning.” He chuckles as we all glance to Dr. Johansson with a new appreciation for how bad it can be to not make it to the bathroom in time.
“Yes, not even that is more important than ensuring that proper decon happens.” Dr. Edmundson sternly lectures.
“So, are there any volunteers to suit up and go through the process?” He asks with a grin.
I’ll be shocked if anyone actually volunteers, but there are some true science geeks in this class so it could happen. Waiting…Waiting…Yep…no one really wants to suit up in one of those poop suits.
“No one?” He asks as he looks around and behind the folks in the front. He spots me, smiles and then jealousy rears its ugly head in the scientist guy. Well, that is what I blame anyway. He had to have seen me talking to Brenda in the cafeteria. He then points to me and says, “How about you back there?”
“Ummm, no thanks?” I try to turn him down, but the rest of the class betrays me.
“Yeah, Brian…do it!”
“It will be cool!”
“Don’t be such a wuss!”
I tell you, high school is not the bonding experience that is described with fond remembrance by people who graduated decades ago. The final nail in my coffin is provided by Mr. Anderson. “Go ahead, Brian. It will be a good learning experience for everyone.”
Gee thanks. Not.
Okay, I have to admit. It is kind of cool. The suit doesn’t smell like poo. It smells like disinfectants. I waddle into the decon room and close the door per Dr. Edmundson’s instructions. A status panel changes from green to red as the decon process starts. It is like taking a shower, but while wearing a rain suit. Then the blowers kick in to dry the suit and when they turn off the panel near the lab door turns green. I could enter the lab area, but I hear Dr. Edmundson speak over the room’s speakers, “That’s good Brian. Just turn around and come on back into the changing room so we can get you out of that thing.”
Dr. Edmundson as he helps me out of the suit. “Thanks for going through that Brian. I think that you will find the next part of the tour pretty interesting.”
Once I am out of the suit, I find myself in the front of the herd instead of safely anonymous in the rear. He leads us to the part of the lab that houses the electron microscope. Sweet!
There is also a large industrial sized stainless steel refrigerator and some computer workstations in that area. Dr. Edmundson reaches into the fridge and pulls out a glass vial topped with a stainless steel cap that appears to be full of a milky colored liquid. He holds it up to the light so that the rest of the class can see it.
“This vial holds over a million nanites. This is our ‘Grey Goo’ sample so we have to keep it safe.” He looks serious about the Grey Goo.
“So, who wants to hold it?” He asks, holding it out for someone to take, causing everyone to take a reflexive step back.
“I’m kidding. This isn’t really ‘Grey Goo’ and the vial is quite safe. The nanites in here are deactivated test bots from the labs here. The nanites in here,” he gives it a shake, “are no more dangerous than the dust in your grandma’s attic.”
Since I’m the closest, he hands me the vial first. I carefully hold it from the cap and look at it for a few seconds. I feel a slight tingle from my fingers just before I hand it off to the next person. Dr. Edmundson then starts to explain how the electron microscope works and to show screenshots of the pictures it has taken of nanites. It is during this lecture that the vial ends up back with me. I again feel a slight tingle as I hold the vial in my hand while waiting for the Doc to finish up so that I can give it back to him. After about ten minutes of me holding the vial, he finally notices that I have it.
“Oh, thanks for hanging on to that Brian. Would you mind just putting it back in the fridge for me?” Dr. Edmundson gestures to the fridge.
“Sure thing sir.” I walk over and put the vial back in the fridge. I was so tempted to be more flippant with my reply and say something like, “No prob Doc!” or “By your command!”, but I chickened out. After handling the vial for so long, my hand is kind of itching a little. I rub my hands together and the itching dies down.
Dr. Edmundson finishes the tour by showing us the robotic waldo devices in the small glass enclosed cases. He explains that they are used to perform smaller experiments that need a clean environment, but without the hassle of the clean room. There is also a giant stainless steel range hood contraption about it and a giant covered red button on a nearby column labeled “Emergency Scram”.
“…and that giant red do-not-touch button is our ‘Go to Heck!’ button. If something starts to go wrong inside the containment area here, then we would push that button, stand back as giant steel doors drop from the ceiling. The area inside is then flooded with halon gas as giant exhaust fans suck all the air out of the room and into electrified air scrubbers before venting to the outside.”
I’m mostly paying attention, but I’m also feeling a little distracted. I am feeling jittery and slightly warm. I wonder if I am getting a cold or if something in the lab’s cafeteria food is disagreeing with my stomach?
Oh well, it’s probably nothing.
Dr. Edundson leads us back to the front where he thanks us for behaving so well. As if we are elementary students or something. Dude, please. Can we have our cookies now? Mr. Anderson then prompts us to thank Dr. Edmundson and shake his hand before we hand in our badges, sign out in the little green guest book and file back into the waiting school bus.
I’m not really feeling up to chatting with John on the ride back, but John just had to pry. “So, are you going to call your new girlfriend?”
“Uggg, first of all, she’s not my girlfriend and second, she’s way too old. She’s got to be at least twenty four or something!” I half-heartedly reply. I’m really starting to feel run down. The tour, plus my late night last night must have taken a lot out of me.
John stops pestering me as I lay my head against the blessedly cool window. I find myself intermittently drifting off and coming back with a start as I hear computer sounding beeps and chirps coming from somewhere. I must be dreaming a bit too because I think that I am seeing lines of code and commands rapidly scrolling up on a giant big screen monitor. It starts to make me feel dizzy so, I ask it to stop and I see “Initiating Hibernate Mode…”.
John shakes me and asks, “Dude, are you okay? You were really out there and then you started talking in your sleep.”
“Really? What did I say?” I ask, rubbing my eyes.
John looks concerned about me. “I’m not sure really. You whispered something like ‘ls minus la’ and ‘vi something’, then I got worried when you said ‘stop’.”
Wow, that’s really weird, but it was probably just a dream.
“Thanks for waking me up,” I straighten myself up and feeling a little better, I turn to John with a smirk, “Are we there yet?”
“No.”
“How about now?” I ask with my best shit eating grin.
He laughs and shakes his fist in mock anger. “Don’t make me pull this bus over!”
The short nap must have done me some good because I’m feeling much better now.
Not a hundred percent, but better then I felt when I got on the bus.
Five minutes later, we pull into the school parking lot just in time for us all to catch our buses home. Nice! Time to get home and log into GEO!
I’m feeling a bit off center when I get home. So, out of habit I power up my PC and check my emails.
Crap! It looks like I won’t be able to login to GEO right away after all. I forgot about my school’s student website. All the classes I missed today have their homework assignments online for me to complete for tomorrow. Grrr. Oh well, I’ll get it done in time for dinner, then play after dinner at my normal time.
My homework goes by a bit faster then I expect. The math seems easier than I first expected and my reading assignment from English is over almost as fast as I can turn the pages.
I’m all finished with my homework and I still have about an hour before dinner starts. I surf over to the guild website, but find out that my access has been revoked. Damn! Lord Vincint must really be pissed at me! I decide to take a peek at the GEO run server specific message forum to see if anyone has mentioned my name. I find a message written by Lord Vincint in the form of a Public Service Announcement.
Notice: Wanted for Questioning by the Alliance of Light
Name: Whisper
Archetype: Master Thief
Crimes: Grand Theft Griffon
I kid you not! Seeing that, I just have to ROFL all over. At least, he called me a “Master Thief”! That has to count for something, right?
Notes: Suspect is to be considered armed and dangerous. Approach with extreme caution.
WTF? Is Lord Vincint a cop in real life or something?
Whisper is also suspected to be under the influence of the side of Dark and may attempt to access the Font of Light. If you have any information about the current whereabouts of Whisper, please notify your guild leadership, the nearest Guard or City Official immediately.
Signed,
Lord Vincint
Supreme Allied Commander
Alliance of Light
Wow, just wow! I can’t believe that this quest is causing so much trouble, but it’s pretty darn exciting and I can’t wait to get logged in now. I notice that there are already over fifty replies to his message. Some of them are pretty funny.
W00t! About time u whiney goodie goodie’s got what is coming 2 u! I can’t wait to p0wn u all! … Does Whisper drop any good loot? … I always knew she was evil and stealing from her parties. You just can’t ever trust a thief, can you? … Lady Whisper is being framed! I know her and she would never do something like this! … U all r luzers!
Errr…what? At least one person is on my side and reading the troll speak gives me a headache.
I hear the garage door open when my Mom comes home, right on time to start dinner. Her normal routine is to check on Lindsay and me before starting dinner. So, I’m ready for her when she pokes her head into my room.
“Hi Mom!” I spin around in my chair and smile.
“Hi Brian. Are you already done with your homework?” She asks, concerned by the lack of open books on my desk.
I gesture to my backpack on the bed. “Yep, I finished it all 21.5 minutes ago. It was kind of easy.” Why did I say 21.5 and how did I know?
“Okaay,” She glances at me funny as she turns to go to Lindsay’s room, “I’m going to start dinner soon.”
I turn back and try reading the thread about me, but it gets dumb, fast. “Gahhh! This thread is so dumb!”
I can’t believe that I am even reading it. I think that I will just go see if my mom needs some help downstairs. Earn myself some brownie points to help her forget last night.
After a quick bathroom stop followed by the required hand washing, I head downstairs. Yes, I really did wash my hands. Not just run some water over them and then dry them. Geez! I sit down at the kitchen bar counter and watch my Mom put away some groceries.
She glances over her shoulder. “Hi Brian, how was the field trip?”.
I shrug my shoulders and play it cool. “It was okay, I guess.”
“Just okay?” She stops and turns to look at me.
“Yeah, okay, it was pretty cool. I got to see some nanites and even wear an environmental clean room suit for a few minutes.” I grudgingly admit. You can just come out and admit to how cool science stuff is, or else your parents will think you’re a nerd or something.
She looks at me with concern as she walks over to feel my forehead. “Are you okay, hon? You look a little flushed. Are you coming down with something?”
“I’m fine Mom, really! I felt a little sick on the bus ride from Los Alamos, but I think I just got a little motion sickness or something.”
“Well, you do feel a little warm. Lemme look at you.” She looks at my face closer. She inhales a surprised breath for some reason. “Brian? What happened to your eyes?”
Why are people so interested in my eyes today? “Huh? Nothing, Mom. Why?”
She turns my head to point my eyes into some light. “Your eyes are a bright green now and I can see some silver in there too.”
Now I get it, John must have called and told her about Brenda. Not sure why he would do that, but it’s the only explanation that makes sense. “What? No way, Mom. Did John call you and tell you to mess with me or something?”
“I’m calling your Dad right now. I’ll ask him to get some pizzas for dinner on the way home. I have some calls to make. Until your Dad gets home, I want you to go up to your room, lie down and don’t do anything to strain yourself! Absolutely no GEO!”
No GEO? What the heck? What else will I do and what about Whisper? “But Moooommm! I’m fine!”
“Don’t ‘but Mom’ me young man! Room. Bed. Now.” She points with a steely gaze.
So much for trying to help Mom in the kitchen! I trudge back up the stairs to my room. I plop down on my bed and stare up at the ceiling in frustration. My eyes! I get back up and go into the bathroom. Turning all the lights on, I look at the mirror.
Crap! My eyes have changed color. They kind of remind me of that green circuit board color, especially with the silvery traces in my whites. Freaky and kind of cool, I think.
Okay, now I’m starting to get a little worried because everyone knows that eye changes usually mean you’re turning into a mutant.
I return to my bedroom and notice Sensei Roger’s book titled “The History of the U.S. Marine Corp” sitting on my bed stand. We are still working on Sun Tzu, but he warned us that this was next on the list. I decide that I could try and read a couple of pages in preparation for the next class.
>Scanning…
Huh?
Three minutes later, I’m done reading the entire one hundred and seventy five page book!
What the heck?!?! This is so cool! I close my eyes and I can recall with perfect clarity each and every page in the book. I just think of a word or phrase and instantly, the page or pages pop into view in my head! Want to know why a Marine is called a “Leatherneck”?
Poof! In my head, the relevant passage pops into view! Highlighted and everything!
Whoa! I’m feeling a little dizzy again. Maybe Mom was right. Maybe I should just take a nap. I decide to lie down and just close my eyes and relax instead.
“Barb? Please call me as soon as you get this message! Something is wrong with Brian and I need your help!” Jennifer Peters pleaded into her cell phone before anxiously hanging up. Breathing deeply to help force herself to calm down and think for a minute, she placed another call using the home phone in case Barb tried calling her back.
“Dave?” She hesitantly asked even though she knew the number she dialed was her husband’s direct line.
“Yes, dear? I’m just getting ready to head home. What’s up?”
Jennifer hesitated for second as she debated over how to break the news to him. “I’m not sure, but I’m worried about Brian.”
“Is everything okay?” Dave sounded concerned.
“I don’t know. I was getting ready to start cooking dinner when Brian came downstairs. He looked like he was running a fever, so I checked and then I noticed that his eyes have changed color.”
“Changed color? Is that bad?” He paused for a bit until the implication hit. “Oh, yeah…”
“Exactly! So I tried to get a hold of Barb, but I just got her voicemail.” Jennifer glanced at her cell phone, willing it to start ringing.
“I’ll run right home now then!”
Jennifer heard the urgency in his voice and while relieved, she didn’t want him to risk his life racing home. “I don’t know if it’s all that bad Honey. I sent Brian up to his room to lie down, but I don’t feel like cooking right now, could you stop and grab a pizza on the way instead?”
“Sure, not a problem. I’ll be home as soon as the pizza is ready, but call me if anything changes!”
Jennifer sighed with relief after she hung up the phone. “Okay, maybe I am just over reacting? Calm down. Think. What did my stepmom do when we thought that I had powers?” She recalled exactly how much her evil stepmom freaked out. On the plus side, the freak out is what helped her Dad find out how deeply his wife hated and feared mutants causing him to file for a divorce from the psycho.
“Okay…maybe not a good example.”
She jumped when her cell phone started to ring. She glanced at the caller ID and almost dropped it in her rush to answer. “Barb! Thank god you called! I need your help!”
“Whoa, Jen, slow down. You’re sounding a little panicked right now.”
“I’m sorry Barb, but I’m just so worried about Brian!”
“What’s wrong with Brian?”
“His eyes changed color. They are now a bright, jade green color and have small silvery traces. He’s also running a slight fever and looks a little tired.”
“Okay…that sounds like he is in the first stage of mutant manifestation. Perfectly normal and nothing to be alarmed about.”
“But what if he burns out or ends up with GSD ( Gross Structural Dystrophy ) or the MCO ( Mutant Commission Office ) comes for him!?” She almost broke down and started crying as she considered all the horrible things that could happen to her son.
“None of that’s going to happen, Jen. First, you need to call your family doctor and get him in as soon as possible. You’ve said that he seems to show a talent for working on computers, maybe he’s a devisor or gadgeteer? You know that nothing really bad ever happens to those types, right?” Barb tried to lighten the mood.
Initially, Jennifer felt relieved, but then her Mom brain kicked in and she remembered reading something that claimed Devisors were more likely to have Diedrick’s Syndrome. “Ummm…I dunno, I’ve heard stories.”
“Look, based on what you’ve told me so far, I’d say it’s probably just a normal mutant manifestation. As long as his fever doesn’t spike above 102 and he doesn’t over use his powers, he should be fine.”
“I hope you’re right.” Jennifer stopped as her friend’s calm advice soaked in, causing her to sigh. “No, that’s silly of me. You’re always right.”
Barb chuckled. “Usually, but if something changes give me a call ASAP and I’ll be down there so fast it will make your head spin!”
“Thanks Barb! That really makes me feel much better. What would I do without you?” Jennifer smiled fondly as she realized how much she missed her friend.
“I dunno, you probably wouldn’t need to keep a good stock of wine in the house for when I come to visit?” Barb finished with a corny evil villain laugh.
Jennifer laughed as her friend’s words help to calm her nervous tension. “Thanks Barb, I’m going to go check on Brian now. I’ll call you if anything changes.”
“No problem girlfriend! Love ya, bye!”
“Barb! You’re impossible!” Jennifer disconnected the call with a smile on her face and the start of an action plan.
She quickly dialed the number for the doctor’s office and managed to get an appointment to see the family doctor for first thing in the morning. With the medical issue taken care of, she felt much calmer and decided to check on her son.
Walking upstairs, she entered Brian’s room and found him sleeping on the top of his covers with all his clothes on and a book about the U.S. Marines lying next to him. Smiling with relief, she sat down next to him and felt his forehead.
“Well, his fever feels like it is actually a little less than before.” She said, quietly to herself.
My bed gently shakes, waking me and I feel my Mom taking my temperature with the back of her hand. “Mom?”
“Yes, Brian?” Her voice has a hint of fond amusement.
“Am I going to be okay?” I’m a little worried now and all the stuff that I can suddenly do is starting to freak me out because I might be a mutant and I’ve heard how scary and dangerous those people can be.
“Of course!” She smiles encouragingly at me. “I just got off the phone with Barb. You remember her, right?”
“Yeah, isn’t she the friend from college that you always complain about beating you in poker and drinking all your wine when she comes to visit?” I grin to let her know that I think her friend Barb is great.
“Yes, that is that one and it is not polite to talk about your elders that way young man!” Smiling, my mom lightly admonishes me with a light pat on my arm.
“But, you’re the one who said it first!” I say, indignantly. Well, she did. The last time Barb visited us, I overheard her thank Barb for leaving so that she would have some wine left and lunch money for the kids.
My mom stands and turns back to face me. “Well, I can see that you’re feeling better! If you’re able to crack jokes, then you’re good enough to come down and keep me company in the living room until your father gets home with the pizzas.”
I feel a little drained as I follow my Mom down the stairs, but at the same time, I’m thinking about how cool it might be to have a superpower. I can recall with perfect detail the Marine book I read before my nap. The part that is kind of freaking me out is how fast and complete the text is popping up in my head. It’s like I have an eBook reader or something.
I can picture my superhero debut now. “Look out evil doers, it’s the mighty Bookworm! You’ll regret not reading the owner’s manual for your escape car! Watch me disable it by pressing a secret sequence with your door lock remote!”
Okay, so that probably won’t happen, but I can dream, right?
When we reach the living room, my Mom asks me to sit on the couch with her. “Brian, do you know why I am so worried about your eye’s changing color?”
While it’s possible for a person’s eyes to naturally change color, they don’t normally change as dramatically as mine did. “Because, I could be a mutant?”
“Yes, Brian.” She says with a touch of sadness in her voice.
“Do you think that I will be able to fly or fight super villains?” I say excitedly as my Mom’s face gets an even more concerned look.
“I hope not!” My mom puts the brakes on my dreams. “Super heroes tend to have a short lifespan. How many retired superheroes have your read about?”
She kind of has a point. “Umm, not many…”
“Exactly! The odds of a hero retiring due to old age is less than 50% and I don’t want to have to worry about you.”
Her information isn’t something I expected her to know, but she is a Mom and Mom’s can know some strange things. “Okaaay, but how do you know that?”
My mom sighs with resignation. “Well, as you probably already know, my friend Barb is a mutant and in a super hero group for one.”
That’s news to me, but not unexpected. Barb is hot for an old-, umm, -er woman. “Yeah…okay.”
Mom glances away, almost like she is ashamed of something. “And, I might be a mutant too.”
“What?!?!” Okay, it’s official, I’m shocked.
“I might have a minor empathic talent.” Mom cringes a little. “I was tested in high school, but they didn’t find anything. So, I’m officially not a mutant, but based on some of the random insights that I sometimes have on how people are feeling, Barb says that I might be an Empath one on the mutant powers scale.”
Ah ha! So that is how she always knows when I am lying to her!
“Does Dad know?”
Mom nodded. “Yes, of course he knows.”
“What about Lindsay?” She better not have found out before I did!
“No, she doesn’t know, but I think that she might be a mutant too.” Mom sighed and glanced away.
“What!?!? Why?” Now I’m totally stunned. Revelations like this only happen in books and movies.
“I can’t tell when she’s lying as easily as I can with you. For you and most everyone else, I just know, but with Lindsay, not so much. I have to use the old fashioned methods to trip her up. That’s how she is able to get away with lying more than you can.”
Ah ha! I wonder if I can figure out a way to block Mom like Lindsay, but who else in our family is a mutant. “Dad’s not a mutant too is he?”
Mom shakes her head and smiles at me. “Nope, your Dad is a very special man, but he’s not a mutant.”
Dad chooses that time to make his grand entrance. He cheerily enters the kitchen carrying two large Papa Henry’s Pizzas. Setting them on the counter he enters the living room to look at my eyes.
“Wow son, I don’t know what to say...” He doesn’t sound too worried as Mom stands nervously by my side.
He surprises me with hug. “I’m worried about you son, but I want you to know that no matter what happens, your Mother and I will always love you.”
Whoa…some heavy emotions there and I can’t remember the last time my dad hugged me.
Embarrassed, I push him away. “Dad! Geez, it’s just my eyes. I’m not like I’m going to grow some horns or something here!”
“Yeah, well, even if you did.”
“Umm, well, is that pizza?” I ask trying to change the conversation flow.
“Hehe, yes. Why don’t you run upstairs and get your sister so we can all eat?” My dad gestures to the kitchen and the waiting pizzas.
“Sure thing!” I run out of the living room and head up the stairs.
“Hey! Lindsay! Dinner! Dad got us some pizzas!” I yell as I open her door.
“Brian! Get out of my room!” She yells from her bed.
I don’t know why she’s so upset. It’s not like she’s naked or anything. Of which, I am glad because seeing my sister would be creepy. “Umm…hello…I’m not in your room. I’m in the doorway telling you to get your butt downstairs so we can all eat.” I snidely respond.
“Fine! I’ll be down in a second.” She huffs.
Time to make her mad for real. “Okay by me squirt. More pizza for me.”
“Stop calling me a squirt you big jerk!” She yells back as I head down the stairs to scarf on some pizza.
Mission accomplished and I’m well into my second slice before Lindsay makes it down the stairs. Mom and Dad are still looking kind of serious and Lindsay isn’t a dummy.
“Umm, Mom…Dad, what’s wrong?” She asks as she sits down at the dinner table.
“It is nothing for you to worry about right now dear. Your Dad and I will tell you about it later.” My Mom says with parental authority.
“Umm, okay.” She says while looking at me while I studiously avoid her gaze by grabbing my third slice of pizza.
The dinner conversation is pretty limited after that. Lindsay definitely knows that something is wrong, but no one will say anything. I finish off a record eight slices of pizza and two large glasses of milk before I feel full. Mom doesn’t look happy, but what can I say? I’m a growing boy.
“Gross, you’re such a pig sometimes...” Lindsay mutters between bites of her second slice.
She’s just jealous, but I don’t want to get into a fight with her now. I need to login into GEO ASAP. I smile and glance at Mom. “May I be excused from the table?”
“Go ahead.” She nods.
Yippie! I race up the stairs, close my door and plop down in my computer chair!
I bring my PC back up from Standby mode and re-check my email before I start GEO. I’m not sure, but my PC seems faster somehow. GEO takes the same amount of time to load, but the PC is just responding faster to my commands. Things open almost before I can click on them. Oh well, I did run a de-frag the other day. Maybe that is all that my PC needed?
Whisper is standing on my character selection page looking alive and well and just a sexy as ever. Her status isn’t dead and even better, her location is indicating that she’s in Seramis’ Stronghold. Worst case, she’s been captured and is sitting in a jail cell. Taking a deep breath, I click Enter World and anxiously watch as Whisper’s current surroundings materialize on my screen.
>VIK Activated! >Sensory Immersion…32%
The extra bit of status text surprises me as it flashes across my screen before disappearing. What in the heck was that? I wait a few extra seconds to see if it will repeat itself. Nothing happens. Oh well, no time to waste. She’s not in a jail cell and it’s time to move.
Whisper spun in a full circle. The room appeared to be a forgotten storeroom, full of dusty, broken and forgotten furniture. It was time to continue her mission. She wasn’t entirely sure how she got into the room, but now that Brian was in full control, she checked the door’s hinges and decided to lubricate them with a small squeeze bottle of oil from her kit. She couldn’t have something as simple as a squeaky door hinge betray her presence.
Cautiously, she placed an ear on the door to verify that the coast is clear before slowly and silently opening the door. The door opened into a dusty, disused and unlit hallway. Brian couldn’t believe his luck. The AI controlling Whisper in his absence exceeded his expectations.
With her thief’s sneaking skills fully engaged, she silently stepped into the hallway. Turning back, she silently closed and locked the door behind her. Judging by the state of the hallway, she probably didn’t need to take the extra step of closing the door and locking it, but it paid to be careful. Attention to detail was important for a thief in the middle of an enemy camp. One chance discovery of something out of place could blow her mission and put the stronghold on high alert.
Unsure of which way to go from here, Whisper glanced up and down the hallway and decided to head in the direction where the most light was coming from. As she moved closer to the light, she heard the faint sounds of an active kitchen. Ah ha! Perfect, she was right where she wanted to be.
Hidden in shadow, she observed the maids, servers and chefs engaged in preparing and delivering the evening’s meal. The sights, sounds and smells of a kitchen if full swing made her smile. So far, even a novice thief would have no trouble sneaking around this place, but the delightful smell of fresh baked bread made her mouth water.
“What? I think I’m stressing out over this mission too much because how can I smell imaginary food in the game?” Shaking his head with confusion, Brian activates Whisper’s in game map to get a better idea of her current location in relation to the rest of the stronghold.
Except for the route to the storage room and the kitchen, the map is blank. However, the map does indicate that there are three above ground levels and at least one below ground level. All details Brian saw during the initial infiltration of the stronghold. He needed to explore the place a little more in order to fill out the rest of her map and find the best place to ambush Lady Seramis.
Attacking her where she least expects it should increase the chances of success. Aiding to that, the sun is setting and the shadows are lengthening in the rooms and hallways. Twilight and dawn, the perfect times for an enemy assault.
“Okay Brian, focus…” Brian sighs, a little ashamed at himself for being so easily distracted.
From her vantage point, Whisper carefully studied the standard maid and server uniforms, while taking careful note of their general appearance and speech patterns. It would be poor craftsmanship to perfectly copy their uniform, but have her disguise ultimately fail due to an out of place hairstyle or accent compared to the rest of the staff. The large variety and number of staff that circulated through the kitchen and the overall size of kitchen itself indicated that Lady Seramis maintained a very large household.
It should be easier to blend in, but she didn’t want to clone an individual maid. Instead, Whisper decided to modify her appearance to match what the rest of Seramis’ PC and NPC staff would expect to see. If challenged, it should be easier to pass herself off as a new maid instead of taking the chance of someone noticing that the person whose appearance she cloned is in two places at once or fails to recognize her own lover in the hallways.
Using her observations, Whisper crafted her illusion spell to transform her clothes and general appearance to that of a maid. Her uniform is clean, but showed signs of wear because a spanking new uniform would draw attention. Her hair morphed into a light brown in color that if it wasn’t braided would come to the middle of her back. The braid was tightly woven, but slightly unraveled as if from a hard day of labor. Her hands and nails were also rougher and slightly stained.
Taking a deep breath, Whisper smoothly integrated herself into the hustle and bustle of the kitchen. She used the path out of the kitchen that the other maids took earlier. She walked with a purpose, appearing to know exactly where she was going, like a maid on a mission.
No alarm was raised and letting out her breath, she made a couple of random turns before spotting a well-used door. “Hmm, that could be useful…”
She confidently pushed open the door and found herself in what appeared to be the stronghold’s main linen closet. Entering the large, room sized closet, Whisper spotted a stern faced older woman dressed in an immaculate and pressed maid’s uniform directing another maid to take a stack of table linens to the main dining hall.
“Yes, Mistress Saville.” The maid replied with a quick curtsey before grabbing the indicated linens and exiting the room with barely a glance to Whisper.
The older woman NPC glared impatiently at Whisper. “You there! Grab some fresh table linens and take them to the main dining hall.”
Copying the previous maid’s curtsey and speech, Whisper grabbed the indicated stack of linens and headed toward the room’s exit and to safety. She mentally cursed herself for not paying closer attention before she brazenly entered the room and she also wasn’t happy with her curtsey, but rogues don’t have a curtsey skill.
“Wait!” Mistress Saville exclaimed.
Wincing with the anticipation of being discovered, Whisper halted and turned to face her first, possible kill of the evening. She noted the retreating footsteps of the previous maid rapidly growing fainter as she walked away from the room. If she has to deal with this NPC, she could hide her under some of the larger blankets in the storeroom. However, doing so would greatly raise the risk of discovery.
“I haven’t seen you here before. What’s your name?” Mistress Saville sounded more curious than alarmed.
Whisper curtseyed again and this time slightly better. “I’m sorry that I failed to introduce myself sooner Mistress Saville, but I’m new here. My name is Br…Brianna.”
“Ahh, Brianna, nice name for a young pretty girl like yourself. It looks like Mistress Crawford has been keeping you busy with cleaning.” Mistress Saville smirked slightly after studying Whisper’s illusionary appearance.
“Yes ma’am. She ordered me to assist you with the preparations this evening so that I might ‘better earn my keep’.” Based on the NPC’s current path of questioning, Whisper took a calculated risk.
Mistress Saville smiled. “That certainly sounds like something the old task master might say! Well, I’ve wasted enough of your time satisfying my curiosity. Off you go!”
“Yes Mistress Saville!” Whisper performed another curtsey and exited the room with small sigh of relief. Now all she had to do was figure out where the main dining hall was located without appearing to be lost in the process.
Fortunately, the sounds of revelry and the smell of fresh cooked food led her to the main dining hall with only one slight pause at an intersection when she needed to figure out which direction to take. She delivered her bundle of linens to a room that is beginning to fill as more richly dressed people enter the hall.
Taking her cues from the other AI controlled maids, Whisper stood in line to wait upon the patrons. She busily filled drink orders and kept water glasses filled with a never empty pewter pitcher as the hall continued to fill.
Her alertness level rose as more player controlled heroes start to make their appearance. No one, AI controlled, nor player controlled spared her a second glance. What Player Character would expect another Player Character to play a lowly maid?
Suddenly, all activity in the hall stopped when the majordomo banged his staff of office on stone floor as trumpets blasted. “Presenting Her Majesty, Bandit Queen of the West, Lady Seramis!”
Lady Seramis swept into the hall accompanied by four mountain sized guards clad in shining plate mail. Her aura screamed “Queen” and everyone, Whisper included, instinctively bowed with respect at her passage.
Whisper barely recovered from her shock of seeing her target in the flesh, when she was directed by the head waiter to refill the glasses at Lady Seramis’ table. Adrenalin rushed through her body as she struggled to get her emotions under control. She managed to appear only slightly nervous instead of ready for a fight as she refilled Lady Seramis’ water glass.
I can’t believe it. What the odds for success would be if I had Whisper attack Lady Seramis right now?
>Analysing Critical Event Factors… >Primary Mission Success...95.7% +/- 3.0% >ROV Capture...89.2 +/- 2.3% >ROV Destruction...73.0% +/- 1.5%
Okay, this is officially getting weird. Where did that analysis come from and what in the hell is going on here? Did GEO activate a new feature just for me? I only thought about the odds. There’s no way GEO’s voice technology could’ve responded to my question.
I hear the laughter from in game. It sounds like I’m really there instead of listening through headphones.
This is really starting to freak me out.
Lady Seramis’ musical laugh filled the hall in response to a fellow player’s joke. The pitcher slipped from Whisper’s suddenly nerveless fingers. Realizing what happened, Whisper watched as the heavy pewter pitcher fell towards the stone floor in slow motion. NPCs don’t drop items and it was impossible for her to catch, but she tried anyway because that was all she needed right now.
The eyes of every Player Character in the room would turn to her, drawn by the sound of a NPC dropping an item and wondering how an AI controlled maid could be so clumsy. Somehow, her fingers wrapped around the cool, metal handle of the pitcher, catching it with a foot to spare. Straightening, she was relieved to note that no one appeared to have noticed her slip up.
That felt weird! I think that I am playing too much. I swear that I could feel the cold metal of the pitcher on my hands. How is this happening?!?!
>Sensory Immersion…55%
There it is again! What does it mean?
Pitcher once again securely in hand and feeling a little shaken by the close call, Whisper exited the hall and returned to the kitchen under the guise of seeking a refill. She thought it was kind of silly to refill a limitless pitcher of water, but the other maids were doing it and now would be the perfect time to take advantage of the distraction caused by the party to find Lady Seramis’ quarters. Spotting a broom and a dust pan in the kitchen, she traded in her water pitcher for the perfect tools of a diligent maid about her duties.
As a cleaning maid, Whisper easily scouted the second floor and as her map started to fill in, she quickly reached the conclusion that the floor was primarily devoted to administrative functions. During the time spent scouting the floor, she only saw one guard and he appeared to be sent to retrieve a ledger book for someone in the main hall. She decided that Lady Seramis’ quarters had to be on the third floor.
Ascending the stairs with the weapons against dust in hand, she spotted two mail clad guards standing sentry before ornate, heavy wooden doors on the right hand side of the hallway. She felt a quick burst of fear at the sight of the guards, but they didn’t instantly aggro on her. As she walked past the pair, she steeled herself for action while repeating to herself “I’m just a NPC maid. I’m just a NPC maid…”
Her mantra seemed to work. The guards didn’t aggro on her. She tried to not be too obvious, but the door’s intricately carved woodland scene drew her eyes. They had to be the entrance to Lady Seramis’ quarters. She debated trusting her disguise and attempting to enter the room, but she felt certain the guards would aggro on her if she tried to push her luck. A less direct entrance to Lady Seramis’ quarters would have to be found.
The hallway continued another twenty five yards further with three evenly spaced plain wooden doors on the left before ending at a T intersection. There were no other doors on the right hand side of the hallway that Lady Seramis’ suite entered into, giving Whisper a sense for the size of Lady Seramis’ quarters. As she worked her way toward the intersection, she stopped briefly in front of each door on the left hand side of the hallway and pretended to sweep up a stray bit of dust. The guard’s attention to her never flickered.
“I’m just a NPC maid going about her duties. Nothing to see here, move along,” she again chanted softly to herself.
The guards didn’t budge from the position or turn their gaze upon her as she attacked the imaginary dust bunnies hiding in the doorframes of each door in the hallway. She used the cleaning distraction to covertly check the locks on the doors. Finding them all locked, she decided to continue with her search. While her thief instincts were telling her to check the rooms for loot, they were unlikely to have anything truly worth stealing and they were certainly not a way into Lady Seramis’ quarters.
Reaching the intersection, Whisper consulted her map before taking a right turn. Once again, there were no doors on the right hand side of the hallway. Lady Seramis’ suite appeared to take up a large portion of the floor plan. There were three more doorways on the left and she continued her fake sweeping while testing each door’s locks. She was mildly surprised to find the final door unlocked. She had planned to pick the lock, but whoever left it unlocked just made her job easier.
The door opened to reveal a cozy, ten by ten foot room containing an empty bed pushed into room’s left corner. Entering the room, she silently closed the door behind her, plunging the room into darkness. She was able to discern the dark outlines of what appeared to be a free standing wardrobe closet in the corner, nearest the door and some sort of large, chest sized object across from the bed.
Even better, she appeared to be alone. Even if she failed to ‘distract’ Lady Seramis, Whisper felt like she had already won because she had made it pretty darn far without attracting the suspicion of anyone in the stronghold. Her only regret at this point was that she wouldn’t be able to brag about it. She let out a small sigh before getting back to the task at hand.
She pressed her ear against the door and despite her excitement; she remained calm and patient as she listened for any activity in the hallway outside her door. It wouldn’t be wise to make it this far only to be surprised by a random patrol. After five minutes and no signs of alarm, she decided to drop her maid illusion.
The darkness in the room vanished, causing her to scramble to turn off the modern light switch she must have accidently touched. It took her a few heartbeats to realize there was no light switch because this was not a modern house and her improved night vision was the result of her illicit visit to the Font of Light.
A nervous giggle escaped her throat before she clamped down on her emotions.
Now that Whisper was in her natural, elvish form, the star and moon light that was coming from the two narrow window slits cut into the walls of this corner room provided plenty of light for her to see by. She didn’t need her mask’s vision enhancements, but decided to equip it anyway for the other bonuses it provided.
Mage sight being the key bonus she heavily relied upon as she used it to scan the room for magical surprises before venturing any further. Nothing glowed, telling her the room was probably safe.
The bed was made and looked like it hadn’t been slept in for a long time, if ever. Adding to her hypothesis, she noticed that the floor and chest were covered in a fine layer of dust. Careful to not disturb the dust, she checked the chest first. It was conveniently unlocked and even better, no trap or magic was detected, but after standing to the side and carefully lifting the lid; it was also proven to be empty.
“Dang, no loot.” Whisper sighed. “Oh well, it probably would’ve been junk anyway. I wonder if there are any goodies in that…”
Whisper turned her attention to the wardrobe. From the outside, it looked very plain and from the inside, it was the same, except for the expertly hidden trap door set into the bottom. “Hmm, I wonder what’s hiding under here?”
After habitually checking for traps, both mechanical and magical, Whisper lifted the trapdoor. It opened to reveal a narrow crawl space and ladder leading down to a small landing on the next floor before continuing further down. “Well, this could be useful…”
Whisper climbed down to the first landing. There was a latch and small peephole in the wall. Looking through the peephole revealed a room full of ledger books and other administrative equipment. “Interesting, but it’s not a backdoor into Lady Seramis’ quarters.”
She glanced down the shaft and debated following it further, but time was running out. She needed to find a way into Lady Seramis’ quarters to ‘distract’ her for the quest. Feeling a little peeved at not being able to explore more, Whisper climbed back up to the room above. Exiting the wardrobe, she reset the trap door and turned her attention to the room’s windows.
The narrow window slits appeared to be normal windows with regular window glass to keep the elements out of the room. There were latches on the windows, allowing them to swing open instead of up like a modern window would. They didn’t appear to be trapped or alarmed, but she didn’t fully trust what her mundane vision could see. Seramis used magic and it would be fairly trivial to add simple alarm wards to the windows.
Activating her mage sight, Whisper spotted a faint glow surrounding the window. It was so faint that she was glad she double checked because her initial magical check of the room failed to spot the ward. On closer inspection, the ward appeared to be exactly what she feared, an alarm, but it was a simple intruder alarm and very easy for her to bypass.
Whisper decided that if this room had a window, than Lady Seramis’ quarters also had to have windows and entering a room from a few stories up was probably a little unexpected. However; judging by the ward on the current window, a window entry was probably not totally unexpected either.
“Hmm, me thinks I need to do some climbing...”
A less experienced thief would’ve been forced to try dispelling the ward. A simple process, but doing so carried the risk of setting off the alarm. Whisper stepped up to the inner ledge and utilizing the same skills she used to bypass the more powerful wards on her way to the stronghold; she pinched the upper left anchor point and pulled it down. With her right hand, she unlatched the window and gently swung it out.
With the window safely opened and still holding down the left anchor point, Whisper pulled the upper right anchor point down and stepped over the ward and onto the outer window ledge. Easily balancing herself on the narrow ledge, she glanced down. It was a long drop down to the hard flagstones below, but not a fall she was concerned about. Her thief skills were more than high enough to render the fall inconsequential, but she still preferred to not take the chance over the attention a person falling from a third story window might attract.
Above her, the roof hung out, casting a shadow on the window, effectively rendering her invisible. To her right were and additional row of windows, probably to Lady Seramis’ quarters. Whisper debated utilizing the edge of the roof to hand walk herself over to the first window, but she preferred to look for a less direct approach first. After all, if a simple guest room had a ward on its window, what might Lady Seramis’ windows have? She didn’t want to deal with magic if she didn’t have to.
Before doing anything further, she closed the window and re-locked it from the outside using one of her expensive thief’s tools. The tool was specially designed to deal with the simple locks found on most windows, but she still didn’t like how much her set dipped into her available funds. With the window closed and locked, she reset the ward.
“Leave no trace behind…” Whisper smirked with satisfaction.
With the bypassed ward back in place, she reached up with her left hand and grabbed a hold of the roof’s edge. The lack of rain gutters made her smile. The standard flimsy tin or copper gutters found in most city buildings were prone to making noise or breaking when you needed them the most. Confident in her abilities, she committed herself by reaching up with her other hand and bracing her feet against the outer wall, straddling the window.
With the grace and power of an Olympic gymnast, she pushed up and off with her feet while pulling herself up and onto the roof with single, fluid motion. Her pulse raced with excitement, but impossible, sneaky missions like this were why she became a thief instead of a boring warrior. Smiling with satisfaction, she silently padded along the edge of the roof until she was directly above the first window that entered into Seramis’ suite.
>Sensory Immersion…78%
These weird “Sensory Immersion” messages are getting out of hand and I should probably stop now, but I’m so close.
“Grrr…” This is a little frustrating.
Well, except for some weird phantom sensations that I may or may not have actually felt, everything about the game seems sharper and is that a bad thing?
I don’t think so, but if things get worse, then I’ll stop, for sure.
From her current position, the roof sloped up at an easy thirty degree angle to its crest. Three small chimneys were evenly spaced along the roof’s crest, with a large chimney set against the southern edge of the roof. Judging by the position of the large chimney, Whisper decided it probably lead to Lady Seramis’ quarters.
The chimney could be an option, but why get all dirty when an easy to open window was available? Lying on her belly, face forward, she inched herself forward and peered over the edge of the roof.
Wow! She was almost blinded by the powerful wards protecting the window.
“Hmmm, this could be a little tricky...” Whisper felt disappointed as she mulled over her options.
Glancing back to the roof and the chimney, Whisper softly chuckled. “Ho ho ho.”
A quick look down the chimney showed her that opening was, with a inch or two to spare, wide enough for her to fit her body into and wasn’t being used. “Hmmm, this could be the way, but…”
Wary of traps, she activated her mask’s mage sight and instead of almost being blinded like she had with the window wards, there was only a faint glow of closer to the bottom. She smirked with satisfaction as she readied her gear for the tight decent. Except for her daggers, she transferred all her external belts and gear into her small bag of holding to give her more clearance inside the chimney and prevent noise.
After securing her shadow silk climbing rope, she entered the chimney head first and like a spider descending from her web, she smoothly lowered herself down. Reaching the faintly glowing ward, she felt pleasantly surprised to discover it wasn’t an alarm ward. Instead, it’s only purpose was to stop cold air from entering into the fireplace from the chimney. Ignoring the ward, Whisper dropped through and peeked into the room.
From her vantage point, there was no movement and the room appeared to be empty of guards. Cautiously lowering herself and sticking her head out of the fireplace to get a better look around the room, she spotted a fair amount of items emanating magical energy scattered about the room, but nothing that resembled a magical guard or alarm system setup inside.
Rotating the rest of her body down and out of the chimney, Whisper crouched motionlessly just outside of the fireplace, ready to spring in any direction, and gave the room a more thorough inspection. No hidden guardians attacked her and there was no noise from outside the room that would indicate she missed an alarm.
Relaxing slightly, Whisper drew her daggers and cautiously stepped further into the room. She reversed her grip, holding with the razor sharp, blackened blades pressed against her forearms. While the odds were low, she didn’t want to risk someone spotting the reflection from the sharpened portion of the blades.
Shrouded in shadow and nearly invisible in the unlit room, she stopped in the center and turned a full circle. Her eyes lit up with pleasure at all the expensive loot Seramis casually displayed in her quarters. She easily spotted a couple of magical jewelry items and was tempted to add them to her collection, but she reminded herself that she wasn’t here for loot.
“Darn, maybe after?” Whisper muttered as she resumed her inspection of the room.
The mantle above the fireplace contained a matching pair of elaborate porcelain vases decorated with a tree pattern done in bas relief using earth tones and above those hung a framed portrait of a redheaded woman wearing queenly attire. The woman resembled Lady Seramis, but looked a little younger. Whisper smirked as she considered how funny it was that vanity paintings could exist in a video game.
Against the eastern wall, a comfortable looking leather couch was placed between two heavily warded windows. A small coffee table was set up in front of the couch. Directly opposite of the fireplace, an open set of French doors led into what looked like a bedroom. To the left of the French doors was a small work desk and chair. Lining the entire western wall of the room was a large, floor to ceiling book shelf full of books. Some of the books gave off a magical residue.
Whisper’s eyes narrowed as she considered how much some of the books might be worth on the open market. Moving past the bookshelf, she reached the heavy, reinforced entrance doors. The doors contained a square, steel bracket on each door. At first, she wasn’t sure what they were for, but a heavy, magically reinforced wooden bar resting against the wall gave away the brackets function.
“I guess that when she wants to be alone, she means it…” Whisper shook her head with disbelief as she considered all the security designed to keep people out of Seramis’s quarters.
Turning her back on the doors, she ghosted through the room and entered the room past the French doors. Inside, she found a large and ornate canopy bed, wooden dresser and full sized mirror with intricate roses carved into its wooden frame. The mirror was also magical, causing Whisper to give it a wide berth.
Opposite of the mirror was a large, walk in closet full of dresses, robes and shoes. Of which, about half of them gave off a magical glow. Whisper groaned with frustration as she held herself back from appropriating all the loot.
“What do we have here?” She softly muttered when she spotted a secret door set into the back of the closet. Based on the map, it looked like the door opened into the hallway, near the open room with the secret passageway. She smiled with satisfaction as she added the secret door to one of her escape plans.
With her inspection complete, Whisper re-entered the main room. It was time to plan for her ambush of Lady Seramis and more importantly, her escape if the magical gem failed.
If she dropped Lady Seramis as quickly as she expected, she might have enough time to bar the doors before the guards had time to respond. With the doors barred and everyone focusing on the doors, she could easily escape via the secret door or by climbing out the window.
Escape planning done, Whisper looked around the room for the best spot to start her ambush from. Hiding behind the couch wasn’t a good option and neither was hiding in Seramis’ bedroom. Since the doors opened inward, she decided hiding beside one of the doors would be the best option since her target would have her back to her. Which door probably didn’t matter since it is a 50/50 chance either way and maybe Lady Seramis liked to make a grand entrance and open both doors.
Since it was magically reinforced, the wooden bar gave Whisper an idea. “Time to hide in plain sight.”
She carefully lifted the bar and after committing its features to memory, she carried it over to the couch and silently slid it underneath, hiding it from view. Two bars would be a little suspicious and might be noticed by Lady Seramis when she closed the doors. Moving next to the door, she stood in the bar’s place and cast her illusion spell. When done, there was only a reinforced wooden bar standing in her place.
With her disguise in place and feeling a little stressed out, Whisper hoped Lady Seramis didn’t habitually bar the door.
“I seriously need a break right now!” I mutter as lean back and take a breather.
Okay, the computer stuff is kind of weird, but at the same time, I’ve never felt more connected to Whisper. It’s almost like I’m really her. Hmmm…I don’t think that I really wanna think about that right now. It’s one thing to play a girl character, but I wouldn’t want to be a girl for real. Not that I think girls are bad, I love girls, but using my sister as my sample, they just have too much drama in their lives. I don’t even want to think about the big, monthly issue girls have.
Crap, I just thought about it. Delete, delete, delete!
Enough of the crazy thinking, time for a bio break and after that, I think I’ll run down stairs and see if I can snag another slice or two of pizza! All that playing made me hungry again.
It takes a few seconds of rummaging in the fridge, but my keen rogue instincts allow me to find the single, remaining slice of pizza. It vanishes into my stomach pretty darn fast and I wash it down with some milk. Yummy!
Appetite sated, I decide to head back to my room. I’m kind of waiting on Seramis now, but I wonder if Brenda is playing right now? There is no way that I’m just going to call her, but I guess I could try texting her. I still can’t believe she gave me her number and that she really wants me to call her.
“Okay, now where did I put my phone and her number?” I struggle for a second before remembering I put everything in my backpack. Hurrying back to my computer with phone and Brenda’s card in hand, I start to punch in her phone number. I manage to get the first two digits entered, when the rest of her number suddenly appears and the phone automatically calls her.
“Wait, no!” I was planning on texting her. Now, she’s just going to laugh at me for being such a dork.
“Brenda speaking!”
I hear her beautiful voice say as I scramble to hold my phone up to my ear. “Umm, hey there Brenda. It’s Whisper, I mean, Brian. How’s it, umm, going?”
I’m so lame.
“Brian!” Brenda excitedly yells, ending with a giggle. “I’m glad you called.”
“What?” I’m officially surprised. Beautiful girls, I mean women aren’t supposed to sound so happy to hear from me. I rack my brain for the proper ‘cool’ response. “Umm, I mean, me too, but I was planning on texting you first. I didn’t want to interrupt you, but for some reason my phone automatically dialed your number.”
“Okaaay,” Brenda doesn’t sound convinced, “but anyway, are you playing right now?”
I’m a little worried about giving anything away. If she’s online, she’s probably sitting with Lord Vincint. “I can neither confirm, nor deny that allegation.”
“OMG! You have got to let me tell the guild what’s really going on!”
There is no way I can let her do that, not right now. “I can’t and you promised me, remember?”
Brenda sighs. “I know, but Lord Vincint is totally spazzing out here. He has the capital locked down and no one is able to get out to go adventuring. All of the leaders are convinced that you plan to use the Font for some big spell, but that’s impossible, right?”
I don’t want to brag, but it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve made an unauthorized visit to the Font. “It’s not _that_ impossible, but it is kinda hard...”
“Huh? Are you trying to tell me that you’ve done it before?”
“Weeell, one time, I did, kinda sorta sneak in and use it without permission.”
“No way, seriously?!?!” Brenda gasps. “You didn’t lie to me about Seramis, did you?”
“No!” I can’t believe she thinks I would lie to her, but then again, maybe she has a point. “The Seramis quest is real and no, I’m nowhere near the Font. So, if you wanna tell his Lordship that much. Go ahead, but don’t expect him to believe you.”
“Hmmm…” Brenda mulls it over.
I’m not sure which way she will go, but I need to do something fast because her spilling the beans right now could give them time to warn Seramis. “Can ya give me another hour or two? I’m close to being done.”
“I dunno…” Brenda sighs with frustration. “Fine, two hours and then, I’m letting him know because being stuck guarding the Font is so booorring.” She almost sounds like she’s whining a little, but she recovers fast. “So, you made it in?”
Phew. I think I dodged that bullet. “Yep! It was pretty intense though.”
Brenda chuckles. “Okay spill it mister! If I’m going to be stuck cooling my heels, I require you to entertain me with your tales of deceit and skullduggery.”
Wow, she’s old. Who uses ‘skullduggery’ these days? “Well, it all started in the guild tent when I got the quest handed to me.”
It takes me about ten minutes to give her the full story and I think she finds my exploits to be rather funny. She especially laughs about how I ‘borrowed’ Lord Vincint’s griffon. “So, what have you told Lord Vincint so far?” I ask.
“Nothing and it’s been so hard. He and Lord Calrent, okay, mostly Lord Calrent has got everyone all worked up about you right now. He’s asked if anyone knows you in RL. He’s even offered a 10,000 Gold reward for anyone who brings you in!”
“No way! 10K gold! And you haven’t told him anything?” I’m shocked that she hasn’t turned me in.
“Hey, where do I work?” Brenda scoffed.
“The labs?”
“Exactly! I know how to keep a secret.”
“Well, thanks,” I’m glad I called her now because I could use someone else’s advice, “but I really don’t know what to think about this quest.”
“How so?”
“Well, on one hand, it’s been pretty darn cool infiltrating Seramis’ stronghold. Weird, but cool.”
“Weird? What do you mean?”
“Well…I think that I am playing Whisper too much, because I swear that when I was running her through the main kitchen in Seramis’ stronghold that I could smell the food that was being cooked in there.”
“No way! That’s impossible. You had to have been imagining it!” Brenda attempts to reassure me.
“That’s not all though. I was refilling Seramis’ water glass when I…”
She interrupts me. “Wait! Did I just hear you say that you refilled her water glass?!?!”
“Well, umm, yes.”
“So, you were standing right next to her and she never noticed?! Wow, that’s just crazy!” She says, sounding impressed.
“That’s not really the crazy part though. So, as I’m, I mean, Whisper was standing beside her, I wondered what would happen if I tried to kill her right there. I got some message on my screen that said something like “Primary Mission Success…90 something percent” and “ROV Capture percent…80 something percent or another. Well, I think so anyway.” I say without much confidence, because now that I look back on it, I’m not really sure.
“Did you download some GEO Add-on or something?” Brenda asks, skeptically.
“Nope! No Add-ons for me and you know that no one has been able to get those kind of cheats to work. GEO is just too good at detecting hacks.”
“Hmmm….okay, then what happened?”
“I was so shocked, that I almost made Whisper drop the water pitcher she was holding.”
“Almost?”
“Yeah..almost. Whisper caught it somehow and the extra weird part is that when she caught it, I could feel the pitcher in my hands for a second or two.”
“Maybe you are playing too much there Brian.”
“Yeah, probably. As soon as this quest is over, I think that I am going to take a long break from GEO. Maybe even retire. The game is just getting too weird for me.”
“Awww…are you sure? I was starting to looking forward to having some baby bottles of milk to give Whisper the next time we grouped up!” She laughs.
“Ha ha ha…not. Are you sure that you’re really thirty something?”
“Eeewww, you really are planning on dying young, aren’t you?”
“Well, you know what the old folks say? Only the good die young!” I sing, hoping to defuse the situation. There is a fine line between stupid and clever.
“Nice try Brian.” Brenda takes a deep breath. “So, are you really going to go through with it?”
“I don’t know.” I sigh heavily as I second guess myself. “It’s just that the more that I think about it, the less sure I feel and I haven’t had much time to think about it either. Assassinating someone isn’t something I feel comfortable doing, but the rewards...”
“Maybe that’s why you haven’t been given a lot of time to complete the mission? I did some thinking about it after you left and something just isn’t right about your quest” She says.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, didn’t the quest say something about this being a ‘test’ for you?”
“Yes, but it also said that Whisper would get five levels and a new identity if I kill Seramis. Are you saying that the reward isn’t real?” I ask with disbelief. I’ve never heard of GEO faking a quest or a reward.
“I dunno…it’s just that something about this has my spidey sense tingling.” Brenda says. “I mean, how do you know that GEO generated the quest and why didn’t GEO just give you the quest directly instead of going through the guild leaders?”
“Well, the quest scrolls look and act like real quest scrolls. I didn’t notice anything weird about that. Well, other than the quest itself!” I say, feeling a little suspicious now myself.
“Okay…so then why involve the guild leaders? No one even had to know that you have a quest. That’s the part that really gets me.”
“Hmmm, I dunno. Maybe GEO knew that I had to steal a griffon and Lord Vincint’s griffon was where it needed to be?”
“If that’s true, then why wasn’t that one of your quest objectives?” She asks.
Brenda has a point and I can’t believe I didn’t think of it. “Oh crap, what if I was supposed to tell the leaders about the quest? Maybe, I am supposed to fail?”
“I wonder…” She begins to say, but then stops herself.
“What?”
“It’s kind of vague and I’m not sure if GEO would do something that indirect.”
“Huh?”
“Okay, here’s my idea. Everyone is wondering why Seramis has been able to stay neutral, right?”
“Yeah…” I’ve kind of wondered about that myself.
“Well, what if we were supposed to warn Lady Seramis about the plot to kill her and in doing so, that would bring her over to our side?”
Brenda has an interesting theory, but based upon what I’ve seen here and the people she has working for her; I can’t see her joining a side anytime soon. “That sounds like pretty twisty and why wouldn’t Seramis just say, ‘thanks for the warning’ and continue about her merry way?”
“What if the evil side got the same quest and our warning could’ve saved her? Maybe that could push her to our side as a result?”
“Well, that’s a bit stronger, but it’s still pretty random. There’s no direct path there. It all depends on how Lady Seramis would react or not react. How could GEO predict something like that?”
Before she can reply, I notice one of the window wards begin to fade away. “What the?!?”
“What?! What’s the matter?” Brenda asks.
I focus my attention on the window. A shadowy shape floats through the now disarmed window. “Shhh…Someone’s breaking in through the window right now.”
I watch the unknown player or monster begin to case the room. The person stops in front of the fire place and I can hear him chuckle while looking up at the painting. “Ahh, Fey, it’s going to be so much fun killing your character. Not as much fun as it would be killing you, but still rewarding. I can’t wait to see your sad little face tomorrow morning in Crystal Hall.”
What in the heck is that about? Does the dude think he knows who the player of Lady Seramis and what is a Crystal Hall? My attention is drawn away from the guy when I hear the guards outside the door clank to attention. The other assassin dude casually turns to face the door which lets me get my first good look at his face.
“Oh shit!” I’m a little shocked.
“What!? What’s happening?” Brenda asks, anxiously.
“It’s Shadow Killer. Except, he spells it all leet with numbers and stuff.” I whisper to Brenda. Dunno why I’m whispering to Brenda. He can’t hear me and I don’t have the game mic turned on. Shadow Killer is a well-known evil player assassin and PK’er. To make matters worse, he’s a red con to me. Meaning, he’s at least five levels higher then Whisper and it would take a miracle of all miracles for me to even slow him down before he killed me. With that troubling thought, he disappears from my screen.
“I gotta go Brenda…” I say, not really paying attention to her as I grab the phone with my left hand so that my right hand can work the mouse. I fumble a bit with closing the phone to hang it up before I absently set it down on my desk.
I start to feel dizzy, but then the feeling disappears as the room that Whisper is hiding in comes to an extra sharp focus.
>Sensory Immersion…100%
Okay, I’m officially freaked out, but at the same time; this is so cool!
… < GEO Core Warning: Player.Object.Whisper:Beta-VR Protocol Enabled! > < GEO Core Warning: Player.Object.Whisper:Beta-Nervous System Link Enabled > < GEO Core Warning: Player.Object.Whisper:Beta-VR Level 5 Initiated > <GEO System Console: Player Entity Safety System Recommends [D]isconnect of GEO.Player.Object.Whisper or [I]gnore?> <GEO System Console: Ignore Confirmed.> <GEO System Console: Continuing World Balance Alteration Scenario> …
I feel a bit confused at first. Okay, I lied! I feel a lot confused. I am leaning up against the wall behind the now opening door of Lady Seramis’ suite. I can feel Whisper’s delightfully soft and slippery shadow silk armor against my skin. Her boots feel like the most comfortable pair of wrestling shoes I’ve ever worn. Unlike those flimsy thin soled shoes, her magical elven crafted leather boots are soft, warm and supportive. My chest feels slightly constricted, but supported. Do I have? Umm…oh crap… la la la la la…moving on.
The magical mithril silver alloy of her thief’s mask feels comfortably cool pressed against my face. The mask surprises me with how easy it is to breath. I never thought about it before, but how does Whisper manage to breathe while wearing the mask? There are no nose or mouth holes to be seen on its matte black surface. Oh well, I can’t really look at the mask now. I guess I will have to explore that question at a later date.
Even though her hair isn’t that much longer than my own, I can feel the extra weight of her longer bangs as they cover my ears and sweep forward around my face. My real ears aren’t pierced, so Whispers earrings feel strange to me. I resist the urge to reach up and feel her ears. I mean my ears. Oh, this is getting so darn confusing now!
I can feel a cool band of metal on my right hand that must be Whisper’s Ring of Regeneration and a smaller ring on my left that has to be my, I mean her Ring of Mind Shielding. I’m not into wearing rings or any jewelry, so every little sensation is new and distracting to me.
My muscles are relaxed, yet I feel ready for action. I’ve never felt this alive before. It’s like every fiber of my being is bristling with energy. Kind of like when John and I watched Bruce Lee’s “Enter the Dragon” movie and afterwards, we both walked around the neighborhood a few times looking for bad guys to fight with our Bruce Lee moves. The scents, sights and feelings assaulting my senses right now are intoxicating.
If only I could feel like this in real life!
>ROV Object Definition File Found. >Begin File Transfer? [Y]/N
Well, the default is Yes and that’s usually the right answer with system prompts, so I guess I should choose it, right?
>Transfer in Progress…1%
Whoa! The words flash for a second in the center of my vision before minimizing down to the lower right corner as the 1% changes to 2% a few seconds later. Based on the lack of speedy progress, the transfer or whatever it is, this could take a while.
Lady Seremis’s musical laugh from outside her doors acts like a glass of cold water thrown over the shower curtain by a mischievous brat of a sister. My new body tenses as everything snaps into a razor sharp focus.
I’m ready for action and can’t stop myself from grinning. “Hehe, I know Kung Fu.”
“Oh, come now Lord Grover. I appreciate the company and the escort, but I’m hardly defenseless here in the heart of my own stronghold. Someone would have to be incredibly stupid to try and attack me here.” I hear her say from outside of her suite.
Oh man, I am so screwed now.
“Yes my Queen, but reports have surfaced that someone has put out a contract for your life.” I hear what I assume is this Lord Grover dude tell Lady Seramis.
Reports my ass!
“Pffftt…this is hardly the first time I’ve heard that particular bit of news in my life.”
She sounds so unconcerned.
“Of course my Queen, but these rumors have also said that the GEO GM’s are the ones who have put out the contract.” Lord Grover says, sounding worried.
“I hardly think that the Game Masters would get involved in the assassination contract of a player character!”
Umm, yeah they would.
“There has been some speculation that our Neutral kingdom has the GM’s perplexed.”
I think it’s safe to say that Mr. Lord Grover dude.
“If the GM’s are involved in some plot against my life, then that will only aid me in my research of this strange world.”
Oh man…If she only knew how much danger that she is really in right now. I’m equal level to her and given the element of surprise, I’m pretty sure that I could take her down pretty fast. I’m not even specialized as an assassin because I’ve focused on the thief skills and have only taken the assassin related skills to help with the dungeon crawls. A specialized assassin like Shad0 K1LL3r should be able to put her down even if he doesn’t completely surprise her.
“Well, good night to you Lord Grover and I thank you for your concern. Your intelligence reports are always worth taking heed. It has been a pleasure listening to your dragon tales and cannot wait to hear what the heroine does next! I might have to plan another party next week just for that reason!” She says with a laugh. “Well, I have to do some reading before I camp-out for the night. Tomorrow is going to be a long day.” She ruefully finishes.
“The pleasure is all mine, my Queen and a pleasant night to you.” He says and due to the sounds of armor rustling, I imagine him bowing to her in some archaic military fashion. It is amazing how good Whisper’s hearing is! I so want him to stay to help Lady Seramis, but I hear his armored footsteps retreating back down the stairs as Lady Seramis fully enters the trap her own suite has become.
>Transfer in Progress…8%
Where in the hell is that other assassin?!
>Tactical Systems Enabled… >Analyzing Sensor Data… >Anomaly Detected… >Augmented Reality System Enabled!
A solid, yellow pair of brackets spring into existence around Lady Seramis with a pinging sound.
>Target One Locked
With another pinging sound, a second pair of brackets quickly follow the first set. Instead of yellow, the second set of brackets are blinking red and appear to be enclosing empty air. Focusing on the empty pair of blinking red brackets, I can make out a very slight ghosting effect caused by a rogue using their hide in shadows ability. If it wasn’t for the brackets, I would have never spotted him. The more I focus on the ghosting effect, the less invisible the enemy assassin looks to me. The blinking brackets then turn solid.
>Target Two Locked
Oh man, this is so cool! I feel like a fighter pilot! If I only had a Sidewinder missile or two right now!
Lady Seramis turns her back to the assassin when she turns to close and lock her doors. She’s standing right next to me; I know I could ‘win’ by plunging my dagger into her neck right now, but I can’t do it anymore. After all the stress involved in getting here, I should feel depressed about that realization.
Instead, it feels like a huge weight has lifted off my shoulders. I’m glad I accidently called Brenda because now I know what I have to do and it’s probably going to suck for Whisper, but I have to try and stop this.
I watch as the assassin moves into the corner opposite of me so that he can maneuver behind her once she turns to step away from the doors. I am guessing that he is letting her lock the doors to gain some time before her guards can get in and interrupt things. Well, the guards were grey to me, so I guess that they would be grey or even white to Shadow Killer.
Sure, the guards would be an easy kill for me and for a high level, specialized assassin like Shadow Killer, the guards would be dead before they even had a chance to jump. However, dealing with the guards first would allow Lady Seramis time to prepare and draw upon her Font’s power. If the assassin allowed that to happen, then the fight would end rather badly for the dude.
>Transfer in Progress…10%
Holy cow! What the heck is in that file? I have a pretty darn fast connection and it shouldn’t take that long to download a game file!
Anyway, I don’t have time to worry about it now. It’s time for me to make my move. I slowly reach down and draw both of my daggers from their boot sheaths. I know, I know, boot sheaths? Real fighters don’t use boot sheaths for their daggers, but I couldn’t resist. Whisper looked so damn hot wearing them that I didn’t care what Sensei Rogers might have thought about the tactical problems those sheaths would cause the wearer. It’s not real. Well, it wasn’t real until just now anyway.
The leather wrapped pommels of Whisper’s matched Adamantine Daggers of Speed feel like they’re a part of me as I move into position behind Shadow Killer. It’s crazy, but I feel like I have used these daggers in countless fights and that relaxes me. Lucky for me, he is focusing on Lady Seramis and not paying attention to anything else. The sight of an unsuspecting victim being followed by an assassin who was in turn being followed by another assassin would be hilarious, if it wasn’t me doing it.
>Transfer in Progress…15%
My plan is to attack him before he executes his attack sequence because I expect his attack to be too fast for me to do anything to stop it. I see his right arm begin to move and have a millisecond to worry before time seems to slow for me. Unlike one of those dreams where I can see something happening in slow motion, but never reach it in time; I’m not slow. Instead, I feel like I have all the time in the world as he starts killing thrust into Lady Seramis’ unprotected back with the short sword in his right hand.
Lightning fast, my right hand dagger sinks into his back --right where a real person’s right kidney would be-- while my left hand dagger moves to a guard position in case he spins toward me from his left. I do better than I expected.
Where I strike, his avatar flashes yellow indicating I did some good damage. I’m sure he’s surprised and maybe a little pissed, but my dagger only sank two to three inches deep versus to the hilt like it would’ve for one of my normal targets. I’m pretty sure that if I had made that strike on Lady Seramis, her body would be hitting the floor right now and the fight would be over.
Yeah, I hurt him, but not enough because he still tries to kill Lady Seramis. My blow ruined his aim and all he manages to do is cause her avatar to flash a light blue color, indicating that he lightly wounded her with his short sword strike. His off-hand dagger strike misses her completely.
Lady Seramis gasps as she falls forward on to the floor and then, rolls to face behind her. Her face is a mixture of pain, surprise and anger. She’s barely hurt and if he turns on me like I expect him to do; I’m not going to be so lucky, but I’m not going to go down without a fight.
I need to stay behind him and get another backstab in. I also need him to do what I expect a right handed player to do and spin his character to the right.
Lucky me, he does what I expect him to do and I manage to maneuver and stay behind him. My plan is to get another backstab and position myself between him and Lady Seramis. It works, but my second backstab only causes his avatar to flash blue where I hit, telling me that my hit was negligible. He spins again to face me and wow, does he look pissed.
“What the fuck!!?!” Brad Kenner, aka Damper, screamed. Everything was going according to plan until someone stabbed him in the back, just as he was about to complete his contract for Lady Seramis. The real kicker in the scenario is that he recognized the lady in the portrait hanging above the room’s fireplace. She looked a lot like Nikki Reilly wearing medieval clothing. Killing Seramis is one thing, but finding out that he might be killing a character belonging to someone from Team Kimba was just icing on the cake.
The damn good side must have sent one of their own to try and stop me. The other rogue is hard to see, but he quickly managed to target him and was relieved to see that all the options on his action wheel were green and that the rogue was only a girl. Her newbie ass was going to be rue the day she fucked with Shadow Killer!
“Are you playing that stupid game again?” His twin brother James asked from his side of the dorm room. “I’m trying to get some sleep here.”
Brad glared at his monitor. “I had the bitch right where I wanted her and some damn newbie rogue bitch tried to stab me in the back! Me, The Shadow Killer! No bitch gets the drop on me!”
“Umm, Bro, it’s just a game. You do know it’s not real and that ‘bitch’ is probably a guy, right?” James asked.
Brad angrily lifted and slammed his mouse down. “I don’t fucking care! I am going to kill her and then, I’m going to kill Fey’s GEO character. That’s fucking real enough for me!”
With his mouse, Brad targeted the area on the rogue’s body he wants to strike as he angrily executed his first attack sequence. “Take that newbie bitch!”
He smiled when he heard a feminine sounding cry of pain as his attacks effortlessly ripped through her puny defenses, causing the paper doll that represented her character’s health to flash yellow where he struck her. The only thing keeping him from fully enjoying his eminent victory was that he couldn’t see the bitch’s face due to the silly thief’s mask she wore. It reminded him of one of those stupid china doll theater masks that he has seen hanging in some of the girl’s dorm rooms.
“You can’t even see her face. What makes you think that she’s Fey?” James asked as he walked over to look at the action over his brother’s shoulder.
“Not her, the bitch behind her,” Concentrating on his target, Brad gestured with his eyes as he executed another attack, “I saw Fey’s picture hanging above the fireplace.”
The stupid girl rogue just got lucky with her first attack, but now she is going to die. He sneered as she tried to attack him his character. Against his higher level character’s defenses, the newbie’s counter-attack only caused minor damage.
“Fireplace? What fireplace?” James asked.
Annoyed by his brother’s questions, Brad impatiently gestured with his left hand toward his computer screen. “The fireplace in this room!”
“Dude, half of the losers in this school have a Fey Pin-Up poster on their walls! Maybe the person who decorated this fake room is just a fan of hers.” James said as his brother continued to play and ignore him.
Brad’s second attack is almost as good as his first. The newbie rogue’s torso was now solid yellow and flashing a sickly green color as his dagger’s deadly poison took effect.
Her avatar should have cried in pain! The sound effects where a standard feature, but why did her avatar stop making sounds? Brad felt disappointed that she wasn’t making any noise during her attacked or when she got hit, while his character continued performing its default attack yells and damage cries. Her silence was starting to get on his nerves. What in the hell is going on here? Oh well, her newb ass is still going to die.
The bitch’s daggers flashed again and she managed to get a couple of lucky hits with her counter attack this time. His character’s paper doll went from yellow to red as an alert popped up to warn him that his health had reached critical levels.
“Damn it! For a greenie, she’s fucking hard to hit!” Brad frowned with concentration as he focused on maximizing his character’s attack sequences. The damn roguette suddenly turned blurry making her shadowy black armor with the stupid black face mask even harder for his eyes to follow.
Brad decided to use a different attack sequence and he felt pleased when his hit caused her center torso to briefly flash red from the force of his blow. Her paper doll was now solid yellow mixed with the poison green, letting him know she was doomed. Unless she somehow cured herself, she was as good as dead already.
“Dude! What in the hell is going on in here? All your damn yelling is keeping everyone awake!” An unknown male voice yelled. Brad figured that voice must belong to one of the losers that lived next door.
“Shut up man, I’m schooling this noobie in GEO! I’ll be done in a minute.” Brad proceeded to ignore the additional company in his room. He smiled with satisfaction when he hit a sequence of keys that caused his character to quickly drink down a health potion. His character’s paper doll went from red to light green. He was still hurt, but now he had plenty in reserve. The bitch was turning out to be tougher than he expected and if she kept him from completing his contract he was going to be pissed.
“Oh yeah! In yer face noob!” He screamed in triumph while his two spectators watched the on-screen action with amusement.
The bitch even had the audacity to taunt him. “What’s the matter little boy, afraid that you might lose to a girrll?” She sounded like one of those stuck up bitches from Dickinson. The ones that always acted like they were too good for him.
“Shut the fuck up you little bitch! I’m so going to enjoy spitting on your corpse when I’m done with you!” Brad shouted into his mic.
“Hey Bro, why did your action wheel thing just turn yellow?” James asked, sounding confused by what he saw on his brother’s screen.
“Whaat in the fuuck!?!? That’s not even possible! That Fey bitch must be helping her somehow!” Brad screamed, his face contorted with rage. The fight started with every option in his action wheel wide open and green. The fight should’ve been trivial for him, but now his action wheel was telling him that the fucking cheating bitch was somehow closer to his level. It was impossible; she had to be hacking the game, but that was also supposed to be impossible.
“Whoa! Dude, check that out! She just cloned herself or something!” Brad heard one if his uninvited guest exclaim with wonder.
Ignoring the idiotic commentary, Brad quickly hit the same button on his keyboard three times as he rapidly targeted each image. Shuriken shot out from his character’s hands, unerringly hitting each clone. Two of the images disappeared, leaving behind the one true image of the black clad mystery rogue as she took minor damage.
Brad briefly held his hand over his mic and turned to his brother. “Hah! Only a noob doesn’t know how to handle some simple mirror images!”
Brad returned his focus to the fight. “I am so going to p0wn your noob ass, bitch!”
She laughed. “In your wet dreams, nerd boy!”
Her mocking, dismissive tone pissed him off. Especially when one of the uninvited asshole spectators add fuel to the fire, “Dude, she’s totally playing you, you know that don’t you?”
He started to feel the pressure. Drawn to the commotion, his audience grown as a couple more dorm-mates walk into his room to see what the excitement is all about. The additional “wows” and “ahhhs” was getting on his nerves. To make matters worse, his available attack options where getting shorter as his action wheel control shifted from yellow to red.
Brad’s last three attacks barely scratched her, while her attacks were mysteriously getting through and doing more and more damage. His paper doll was back to red, just like hers, but it was his poison that was doing the damage to her now. His hit ratio was down to one in ten now, while she never missed. Her attacks managed to find every opening in his defenses.
Her damn mask was getting on his nerves, the solid amber colored eyes, the flat black surface and the dark red painted lips all combined to somehow mock him. The lack of expression made her look like some unrelenting killer robot.
“I’m so going to end this fight now! I’m done playing with you bitch!” Brad snarled as he started his ultimate attack sequence. He felt confident that this would end it. He used every power up and damage bonus at his disposal. He grinned with anticipation when he hit the button on his keyboard to execute his attack, but instead of watching the bitch die like he expected; His screen flashed red as his character fell to the floor as his health dropped to zero.
“Holy shit! Did you see that move she just made?!?” Someone yelled from the audience.
“Yeah! That was fucking unbelievable! I’m buying this game tomorrow!”
“Oh yeah! She just cut your character’s f’ing nuts off Brad! It was like you froze, while she slowed down for a second, then bam! She slid under your legs and cut your legs down there by yer junk!”
Brad was stunned as he numbly watched as the cheating bitch executed a graceful back handspring over his character’s dead body using the points of her daggers instead of her hands. She stuck the landing and crouched down near his head. What she did after that graceful move stunned him even more. He and everyone else in the room watched as she expertly twirled her right hand dagger to reverse the grip. Next, she smoothly thrust her dagger back handed into his character’s throat. Then, she quickly and expertly twirled both daggers to spin his character’s blood off of her dagger’s blades. She finished his humiliation when she sheathed her daggers with a gunslinger flourish in her boots.
“Oh man! Look at that coup de grace move she just did on you too!” James said, completely caught up in the on screen action. He failed to see how purple his brother’s face turned as his rage built up.
“Ahhh, did tha poor liddle boy fall down and get a boo-boo?” The cheating bitch mercilessly taunted him just before his screen turned black.
Brad quickly stood up from his computer and pushed his way through the uninvited crowd to exit his room. “That’s it! I’m going to kill that bitch right now!”
“She can’t fucking do this to me! I’ve spent too damn much time and money making my character just to have him killed by some damn cheating bitches!”
“Brad! Stop bro! It’s not worth it!” James said, pleading with his brother while the rest of the audience looked on with amusement. “It’s just a game and how do you really know that it was Fey and that she was cheating?”
“You all saw what fucking happened! She had to have fucking cheated!” Brad yelled, waving his arms and pointing back at his computer.
“Mr. Kenner! What is the meaning of these death threats upon another student?” Mr. Forrest, the Melville Cottage house parent, yelled with drill sergeant volume and precision.
Their audience took that as their cue to return to their rooms now that the action was over.
James attempted to explain things in a way that might keep his brother out of trouble. “He wasn’t talking about a student Mr. Forrest. He was just talking about a character he was fighting in GEO”.
“I wasn’t asking you James.” Mr. Forrest said, sternly before he turned his attention back to Brad. “Now Brad, explain yourself before I have you hauled off to campus security!”
“It was like James said Mr. Forrest. The rest of the guys saw it. I was just playing GEO and I got a little mad when my character got killed by a cheater.” Brad said as the reality of the situation started to sink in.
Having to explain to his dad why he had been sent to cool his heels in a security cell would not be a good thing. His Dad would be pissed. Not pissed about doing something wrong, but pissed that his son got caught. Things were so much better before he and his brother got unfairly kicked out of the Alphas. If only the Don was still running the Alphas.
Mr. Forest sighed with frustration before slowly shaking his head. “I don’t believe you, but I don’t want to have to mess with the paperwork that having you hauled off by security would cause! So, both of you, lights off and bed now!” He growled.
“Yes, Mr. Forrest” James and Brad chorused together.
I hear Shadow Killer yell, “What the [beep]!”, but I am guessing that since I still have the profanity filters enabled that he probably dropped the f-bomb there. Even though Whisper is about to get pummeled, I’m glad that I was able to get a good hit in on him.
His first attack comes at me faster than I can visually process. His short sword and dagger flash with a complex pattern that slams past my defenses.
“Aaahh!” I felt that and it fricken hurt! Why in the heck did it really hurt me? Oh crap, this is real to me now. Could I really die from this?
My cry just makes the bastard’s avatar smile. If the player is happy, how does the game know what the player is doing? I don’t care. If hurting me makes the jerk happy, then I won’t make another sound, no matter how much it hurts. I refuse to give him the satisfaction!
>Analyzing Enemy Attack Patterns…
I am not going to go down without a fight! I suppress the pain as I move forward with my counter-attack. As a player, I would target my opponent, aiming for a specific section of their body as I activated my action wheel with my attack sequence. Now, I just think it and I feel my muscles effortlessly flow with a complex pattern as my daggers penetrate some of his defenses, but I hardly scratch him.
His character grunts with fake pain as my dagger scores a minor hit on his side. If this keeps up, I’ll be dead long before he will. Oh well, at least he will know that he has been kissed by me. Umm…not that I would really kiss him, because that would be gross.
He laughs again as he launches another attack, but this time I can sort of make out what he’s doing and almost predict where he will strike. Key word here is, almost. I do a better job of dodging or parrying his attacks this time, but it still hurts, a lot. This is too real because I can feel my blood dripping and soaking into my clothes. I’m glad that I am wearing black. I would hate for the bastard to notice that I am really bleeding.
My eyes are starting to tear up from the pain. Worse than the slashes from his blades is the searing pain as the deadly poison he coated his blades with takes effect. I almost lose it. Oh my god! The pain is excruciating as I feel the poison burn from inside me.
Crap, I don’t use poisons and I didn’t think to bring any poison antidotes. Even if I somehow manage to win, I’m still dead if I can’t find a cure. Well, Whisper is going to die, but I hope that I won’t die for real because that would not be good. I’m still in better shape than he is. Maybe, I’ll get lucky here somehow?
I’d like to think that my plan of not crying out while he kills me is helping some. He appears to be getting more and more pissed at me as the fight goes on. Hopefully, his anger will cause him to make a mistake.
I launch my third counter-attack and his defenses are easier to penetrate this time. I manage to make his avatar flash yellow from the hit and cause his overall status to turn red. Maybe there’s some hope for me after all? Oh crap, I’m acting like such a noobie! I forgot to cast my Blur spell to help make me harder to hit. I quickly cast the spell just before he launches a new kind of attack.
Ouch! His attacks were too hard for me to follow again! I don’t know what happened, but I was just starting to get the hang of this when, bam!, he destroys me by knocking me into the low yellow, almost critical red range.
Ouch again, the poison knocks me into the red zone and I didn’t even manage to sneak a blow in edgewise this time. I can feel my tears dripping down my neck as the mask channels them down my face. I know it’s silly, but I really wonder how the mask is staying on my face.
I almost decide to give up when the jerk chugs down a healing potion, causing his avatar to go from red to low green. I had better get this figured out and fast.
>Second Enemy Attack Pattern Analysis Complete.
“Oh yeah! In yer face noob!” He taunts me.
I might be on the ropes, but I can’t let that pass. “What’s the matter little boy? Afraid that you might lose to a girrll?” I casually taunt him. Even I’m surprised by how girlishly teasing I sound, but it seems to have the desired effect on him.
“Shut the [beep] up you little [beep]! I’m so going to enjoy spitting on your corpse when I’m done with you!” He screams at me.
Wow, it sounds like the jerk has totally lost it and satisfied with the results, I can’t help smiling.
I decide to see if I can buy myself a little more time by casting my mirror image spell. I split into three separate illusionary images of myself and move forward to attack him with the hope that he will be confused for a critical second. Sadly, he is not. He expertly whips out three shuriken in rapid fire mode. Each shuriken hits one of my illusionary images and the real me, which causes the images to disappear on me. I take an annoying scratch from the damn shuriken, which would’ve been so bad if the darn poison didn’t hurt so much. Ouch, this is really starting to hurt.
“I’m so going to pwn you noob [beep]!” He smugly gloats.
I really wish this dude would just shut up. He’s really starting to get annoying. “In your wet dreams, nerd boy!” I say, surprising myself with how condescending and teasing I sound. It’s like I’m channeling the spirit of that hot girl who just shot the real me down when I asked her out on a date. Judging by the expression on his character’s face, I think that he’s about to blow a gasket. Awesome!
Hoping to overwhelm me, he launches three attacks in rapid succession. His moves appear slow and basic to me now. I only let one or two of his attacks hit me this time and that is only because letting those obviously weak strikes through my defenses allows me to hit him back hard.
My daggers are ringing and sparks are flying as I casually block some strikes and turn the block into a good solid hit on his open defenses for others. His avatar is now just as critically into the red zone as I feel, but I can’t give him much credit because it will probably be his darn poison that does me in.
“I’m so going to end this [beep] fight now! I’m done playing with you [beep]!” He snarls.
Hehe, I think that I am starting to get to him. Everything stops for me as I see his character activating his power ups using his first attack pattern. He is moving so sloooow to me. I can’t stop myself from smiling when I figure out how I am going to kill him. I know exactly what instant in time and space he will be the most vulnerable to my counter-attack.
I can’t help it, an excited giggle escapes from my throat. This is going to be good!
I feint to his character’s left, followed by a quick direction change as I dive back toward him when his left foot starts to move forward. I time my roll perfectly so that as I pass between his now wide open groin, I am able to slash my daggers across the inner side of both of his legs. If he had been a real person, I am pretty sure that my attack would have severed something important. I sure as hell wouldn’t want to be hit down there like that.
His body flashes red.
Critical Strike! Oh yeah! That’s going to leave a mark!
I continue my tumble forward and away from him to gain some fighting room in case my attack doesn’t kill him. Timing my roll, I spring up and execute a perfect flip with a half twist to land facing back toward him with my daggers in the ready position.
I watch him stagger with a confused look on his face before he falls to the floor as his avatar’s legs give out him. Feeling surprisingly giddy, I use my daggers to perform a cartwheel towards his body. Landing with a few more feet to go, I use my forward momentum to do a flip over him, gracefully managing to land crouched down next to his shoulder; I twirl both daggers to reverse the grips. I follow my showy display with a quick thrust of my right hand dagger into the bastard’s neck. The jerk doesn’t even have the decency to leave any blood on my dagger when I pull it out of his throat. I sniff with disdain as I perform a quick double spin to dislodge the non-existent blood that should be coating my daggers and then I follow that move by sheathing them with a few extra spins to show off.
I’m about to collapse, but I just know that the bastard is still on the other end of his PC. I will not give him the satisfaction of seeing me pass out. I decide to rub some more salt into his wounds.
“Ahhh, did tha poor liddle boy fall down and get a boo-boo?” I coo at him with a glance back over my right shoulder just before the light in his character’s eyes go dim. I hope the bastard blows a gasket or something!
Looking up, I notice that Lady Seramis is standing a few feet away from me with a concerned look on her face. I attempt to stand only to find myself falling to the floor as I am overwhelmed by the pain and blood loss as the poison relentlessly proceeds to kill me.
The stone floor feels so cool and comforting to me. I’m so tired. The pain is just too much for me cover up anymore and I can’t stop myself from crying. Maybe I would feel better if I just closed my eyes and went to sleep. I hear her reach my side and gently roll me over on to my back. I am powerless to stop her as she removes my mask.
Coughing and spitting up some blood I jokingly say to her, “I’m so sorry Lady Seramis. I didn’t know that I would get my blood all over your floor.” My attempt to laugh at the face of death is ruined by the pain evident in my girly sounding voice.
“Hush child. Save your strength.” She says with a look of compassion and understanding in her eyes that goes far beyond what I would expect from a person who must think that this is just a game. Again, how does the game know what facial expressions to use?
“I would like to ask you how is it that you were able to do what you just did against that assassin, but my other half insists on being rude and wants me to ask you why it looks like you are in real pain.” She pauses is if listening to something outside of the game. “yes…and about to really die too?” She says with resignation.
“I don’t know.” I cry out with pain as the poison sends another jolt of pain through my body. “I logged in to play my character and everything turned real.”
“Can’t you just log out?” She asks.
Oh yeah, I should try to do that. Okay…how?
“Logout!” I try visualizing to myself. Nothing happens. Well, nothing good for me anyway.
>Unrecognized Command
“Quit”
>Unrecognized Command
Again, Nada.
“Disconnect”
>Critical System Download in Progress. >Disconnect not allowed.
Oh shit. I completely forgot about that.
“I can’t.” I say as she raises an inquisitive eyebrow at me. “It won’t let me disconnect.”
Her face turns expressionless, so I assume that she is now talking offline with this ‘other half’ that she mentioned. I can’t help but cry out with pain as the poison takes another bite out of my health. I’d like to think that I won’t really die, but this is feeling way too real.
>Transfer in Progress…75%
Crap, I’ll be dead before it’s finished. Oh well, at least it can’t get any worse. I notice that there is some blinking red medical cross icon next to the download status number. I wonder what it means.
>Medical Status Display…Activated >Blood Pressure…Critical >Sympathetic Stimulation Levels…Critical >Neurogenic Shock Detected…Cause Unknown >No Damage Detected to Host >Corrective Treatment…Unknown >Death of Host…Probable
“Shit, I just had to ask.” I mutter to myself as I notice the light in the room beginning to get brighter somehow. I guess I’m really dying. I glance over to Lady Seramis to thank her for staying here with me when I notice where all the light is coming from. It is coming from her. She must be tapping into her Font or something powerful. I wonder if she will be able to heal me?
I try to say something, but a sudden pain wracks my body causing me to cry instead. Oh god, it hurts so bad. My health is in the black now and the critical download thing is only up to 80%. The download seems to be moving faster now. It’s still not fast enough though.
“Be still child. I refuse to let my newest champion die.” She says as the glow surrounding her body increases. A ghostly crown appears on her head while royal looking robes shimmer around her body. Her light is almost blinding me when she touches my forehead and all the lights go out as I feel a sudden rush of power fill me to bursting.
>Download Complete >*** Reboot Required ***
Notes: And...drum-roll please... Chapters 13-19 of the newly revised to fit Whateley Canon rules. This has been posted on the main Whateley site. Kristin spent a lot of time formatting it to look pretty. So, you might wanna give it a try there. Most of the 'fixes' in these chapters were POV and verb tense problems.
Jennifer sat on the couch, snuggled comfortably against her husband’s side. The kids were upstairs, playing in their rooms and they were watching their favorite TV show when a blaringly loud commercial for laundry soap jolted her upright. She sighed with relief when Dave quickly hit the pause button.
“Let’s just let it build a little buffer.” He smiled at her as she glanced back to the frozen image of some woman appearing to enjoy washing laundry.
“Yeah, good idea…” Jennifer anxiously glanced up and back, towards the children’s rooms.
Everything would be perfect if she didn’t feel so worried about Brian. Ever since she noticed his eyes, she felt on edge, like something was wrong, but she didn’t know what and it bugged her because her hunches about how someone was feeling were usually right.
Maybe it was her mothering instinct or the empathetic power she feared she might have had in high school. Thankfully, she failed the tests and had no regret because having super powers only led to pain and trouble. Still, she occasionally worried that her ‘instinct’ was more than it appeared to be. Especially when she knew with absolute certainty when someone was lying to her or when one of her children was hurt.
It was the doubt and uncertainty combined with a mother’s concern for her children that were driving her to distraction. “Dave, I don’t know why, but I’m worried about Brian.”
Dave hugged her tighter to him and affectionately kissed her forehead, “He’s fine. For once the kids aren’t fighting and we have the TV to ourselves. He’s probably sitting in his room playing that game of his. What could happen?” He said with a smirk.
“Jinx!” Jennifer giggled, but her worry lessened. Her husband was probably right and like Barb said, she was probably just over reacting. “I’m sorry. I just feel like something is wrong, but I can’t put my finger on it.”
“You could go check on him.” He pointed to the paused TV.
Jennifer anxiously bit her lip as she glanced back up toward Brian’s room. “Nah, you’re right, I’m just being a helicopter mom.”
Jennifer snuggled into Dave’s side a little more as he gave her a brief, supportive squeeze. The commercial ended and she forgot about her ‘feeling’ when the show’s star made an important discovery. Forty minutes later, the star of the show is just about to make the usual surprising arrest of the bad guy when she felt a stabbing pain.
“Oh my god! Brian!” She screamed, bolting from her husband’s side, frantically running up the stairs and into her son’s room.
Jennifer found her son’s body slumped over his desk and surrounded by a dense fog of some kind. She watched in panic, unsure what to do when the fog started to form tendrils that slowly crept up to enclose Brian’s monitor and PC.
Panting, Dave joined her at her side as the plastic casing of the LCD monitor began to dissolve while the metal of his PC case started to tarnish. Jennifer broke her momentary paralyzation and started to move toward her son, intending to pull him free.
“Stop!” Dave grabbed her shoulder, holding her back as he pointed to his son’s PC.
Jennifer screamed with panic as Brian’s LCD monitor dissolved and the fog took on a dark gray hue. Seconds later, the PC’s outer metal case was completely gone, while the inner workings are covered with and even denser fog-like haze. Tendrils of the murky fog randomly extend a few inches from the main mass surrounding the motherboard, sparks shooting inside before it retreated back into the core.
A larger, more coherent tendril linked Brian’s head to the PC’s remains with sparks dancing rapidly back and forth across that tendril. Jennifer felt her son’s pain. He was dying and she couldn’t let that happen. She pulled free from her husband and raced to her son’s side. Ignoring the sparks, she reached into the fog, intending to grab her son and pull him to safety. Her hand touched his shoulder and she was knocked backwards by a huge jolt of electricity.
“Jen!” Dave rushed to her side and helped her to sit back up.
Jennifer noticed a glow beginning to form inside the now black fog that surrounded Brian’s PC. Desperate to save her son, she tried to get back up to reach his side.
Dave held her back. “Jen! No. Whatever it is, it could kill you both if you try to touch him again.”
Jennifer felt powerless to help her son as the brightness rapidly increased with cracks, hisses and popping sounds as the electricity jumped higher and higher into the air. Dave forced her back another few feet. It was clearly dangerous to be anywhere near her son, but the pain Brian was feeling drove her insane with worry. If it wasn’t for Dave forcible restraining her, she would have tried to reach her son again. Suddenly, a ghostly woman resembling an Elvish Queen from the movies appeared next to him.
“Mom! Dad! What’s happening?!?” Lindsay yelled from the doorway.
“Stay there Lindsay! Don’t come in here!” She yelled back, not taking her eyes away from the sight in front of her.
“Be still child. I refuse to let my newest champion die.” The regal woman’s ghostly voice sounded hollow, like it coming from a great distance. She touched Brian’s head and an intense light flashed inside the room.
Jennifer felt her son’s pain fade and blinking the spots from her eyes, she noticed that the ghostly woman was gone. She spotted Brian laying on the floor, partially obscured inside a thick black cloud where his desk used to be.
Random sparks of electricity arced from within the cloud and into Brian’s body. Once again, she tried to pull away and rush to her son’s side, but Dave held her back. “Wait. Whatever it is, it’s not done.”
As soon as he finished, the cloud collapsed down to completely cover every inch of Brian’s body, including his face, with a flat black coating. Jennifer instantly worried about Brian suffocating. Dave loosened his grasp on her and she pulled away.
She couldn’t see him, but she sensed that Brian was sleeping now and more importantly, he was alive. The feeling she had when she was in high school was back and it was even stronger now. Without looking, she knew that both Dave and Lindsay were deeply worried about Brian. Their emotions were clear when it came to her son. Her husband’s emotions were also deeply protective for the entire family. Without realizing it, he was Jennifer’s pillar of support.
Her hand still tingled from her previous shock and with that in mind, she crawled cautiously to her son’s side. She hesitantly reached out to touch the black substance covering her son’s body. She tentatively tested the surface as if it might be a hot pan on the stove, but was surprised to find that it was slightly cool and soft to her touch. It reminded her of a wet suit.
As she frantically felt for an opening or seam, the coating began to change. It compressed with a soft static, crackling sound. She reflexively pulled away as a fine hexagonal pattern emerged over the entire coating with light grey, futuristic stylized letters appearing across the chest area.
ILWMETSS v0.8
Jennifer pushed against the coating and was surprised to discover the suit was now a hard, inflexible shell. She tried to move Brian, but he was like a statue, his body immobilized.
There was only one place that something like this could’ve come from. She looked over to her husband. “Dave? Hand me the phone. I have a lab to call and people to yell at.”
Sergeant Jim Billings yawned as he sat in the main security room monitoring all of the feeds from the security cameras emplaced in and around the Los Alamos Nanotechnology Research Lab of the University of New Mexico. It was a boring job, but one he took seriously. There were a lot of important, high tech devices and weapons important to the Army being developed at the labs and his fellow, armed soldiers were here to ensure the research remained secure.
Stifling a second yawn, he reached for his coffee mug and was disappointed to discover it was empty. “Oh, this is going to be another one of those long and boring nights.”
Catching a glimpse of movement from one of the cameras, he spotted one of the Privates walking the perimeter outside in the cold New Mexico winter weather and shrugged his shoulders. “Oh well, at least this beats walking around outside or shivering in some cave in Afghanistan.”
While often boring, detached duty at a DARPA facility was a real plus for your military career. Testing all the high-tech gizmos got your name in front of some very high ranking officers and sometimes it wasn’t what you knew, but who you knew when it came to getting a good assignment. The one year tour of duty was considered a “hardship” tour due to the remote location and non-standard job duties, but the troops hardly considered this place a “hardship”. Compared to some middle eastern cesspit, this place was like a vacation and the extra $110 per month of “hazardous duty assignment” pay was icing on the cake.
Just as he was about to get up to refill his coffee, he was startled by the ringing of the outside phone line. Noting that the time was just past 2300 hrs, he briefly wondered if he should have refused to switch with Sergeant Moseley. There were only two reasons someone would be calling at this hour, a wrong number or something bad. He hoped it was a wrong number.
He quickly picked up the phone. “Sergeant Billings. L.A.N.R.L.U.N.M. How may I direct your call sir or ma’am?”
The sound of a distraught and angry mother on the other end of the line answered his question previous question about the wisdom of switching with Sgt. Moseley.
“Yes Ma’am! Your son visited the labs today for a field trip, okay, I will need to check the visitor logs for his name. No Ma’am. Yes Ma’am. Sorry Ma’am. Certainly Ma’am, I need to check with my OIC. Sorry ma’am, Officer In Charge. Yes, ma’am. Please hold while I call him.” A very flustered Sergeant Billings finished as he put the woman on hold and dialed the extension for Lieutenant Lyon. He had a feeling Sergeant Moseley picked a bad night to go out on a date with his girlfriend because his night of romance was probably going to be cut short. Suppressing an ambush by AK-47 toting, 7.62 spraying Afgan mujahideen was nothing compared to facing the fury of a distraught mother. Thankfully, the LT answered the line after just two rings.
“Lieutenant Lyon, L.A.N.R.L.U.N.M. How may I direct your call sir or ma’am?”
“Sir, Sergeant Billings here. I have a very upset woman on line three who is demanding to speak with whoever is in charge here. She claims that her son was injured from something in the labs during that high school field trip that came through here earlier today.”
“Why does the night shift get all the nut jobs?” Lt. Lyons asked.
Sgt Billings smiled as he reached for his empty coffee cup. “I dunno sir, but something tells me that this is going to be a long night. I’ll grab the visitors log and run it over to you.”
“Good idea Sergeant. Lyons out.” Lt. Lyons said before disconnecting and switching over to line three.
Sgt Billings sighed. “So much for an easy night shift.”
Before leaving the room, he grabbed the cordless phone and his empty coffee cup.
The phone vibrated in his hand just after he retrieved the logbook.He paused to answer the phone while trying to not spill his refilled coffee mug. “Sergeant Billings speaking. Yes sir, I have the logbook from this afternoon. Yes sir, I’ll be right there.”
Sighing, he stopped to take a quick drink from his coffee in an effort to try and keep it from spilling. “Ow...Hot, hot, hot!” He muttered before he double timed his way to the Lieutenant’s office
He managed to arrive at the Lieutenant’s office without spilling a drop, but his tongue was feeling a little sensitive. Lieutenant Lyon was still on the phone with the woman and had a notepad full of notes that included two phone numbers labeled home and cell, the names of the family members and their address.
“Sorry about the wait Mrs. Peters. Sergeant Billings just walked into my office. We’ll check the log book to find who signed his class into the complex so that I can start making calls to find your family some help.”
Sgt Billings stepped to the side of Lt Lyon’s desk and opened the book. He searched for the start of today’s entries for the lieutenant. “Sir, here it is, looks like it was Doctor Edmundson.”
“Thank you Sergeant.” Lieutenant Lyons said as he cradled the phone between his neck and shoulder as he typed Doctor Edmundson’s name into his desktop PC’s employee directory.
Dr. Edmundson’s emergency contact information popped up on his monitor. “Ma’am. Sorry, but I need to place you on hold again while I attempt to contact Doctor Edmundson. Yes ma’am. Thank you ma’am. I’ll let you know as soon as I am able to contact him.” He placed the line on hold before pushing the button to open another outside line so that he could place a call to Doctor Edmundson.
Standing attentively at the other end of the desk, Sergeant Billings winced as he stole another life giving sip of liquid caffeine.
“Sir, Lieutenant Mark Lyons, OIC at the labs. Sorry to call you at this late of an hour, but we might have a containment issue. Yes sir, we have a Mrs. Peters on hold here. She called less than five minutes ago regarding her son’s field trip. Yes, sir. The situation that she described to me sounds like it could have been something from here. No sir, it wasn’t her, but she says that her son’s computer and desk were disintegrated by some sort of cloud thing and now he’s covered in black shell thing with the letters “ILWMETSS” visible on his chest. Yes sir, a Brian Peters signed in with that high school field trip that visited the labs earlier today. Yes sir, what should I tell her? Yes sir, I’ll let her know. Thank you sir.” He pressed the button to disconnect the call with Doctor Edmundson.
Pausing for a second to gather his thoughts, he sighed as he pressed the button that would bring Mrs. Peters back on the line. “Sorry for the wait ma’am. I was able to reach Doctor Edmundson. He’s on his way to the labs right now to check on some things. He didn’t say. Either he or I will call you as soon as we have more information. Sorry ma’am. Yes ma’am, he lives nearby. I expect that he will be here soon. Yes ma’am. I’ll let you know. Which number is the best to reach you at? Home? Yes ma’am. I’ll do that ma’am. Thank you ma’am.” Lieutenant Lyons said before he disconnected the call with the distraught woman.
He paused briefly to think. “Sergeant. Instruct the guards to alert me the instant that Doctor Edmundson enters the compound.”
“Yes sir”
“Also, have the Captain's Humvee fueled and readied with the standard decon load. I think that I have a few more folks to wake up now.”
“Yes sir!” Sgt Billings saluted and promised to never again jinx himself by thinking a night of duty was going to be boring.
>Unknown BIOS Detected >Unknown CPU Detected…Analyzing >-Multi-Core Detected >-Simultaneous Multithreading Capable >Performing Memory Test… >Physical Memory Total: 2,684,354,560 kb >Physical Memory Available: 2,040,109,465 kb >New Boot Image Detected >Initializing Boot Image…Do Not Turn Off Computer
Wha? Did I die? If I did, this sure is a weird way to be introduced to heaven.
Why can’t I move? Even worse, why can’t I feel my body? No pain is good, but no nothing is bad. I try to open my eyes, but I can’t seem to find them. I have to be able to see! Something! Anything!
[click]
Whoa! That’s better. I can see now, but I’m not sure what I’m seeing. I’m somehow hovering over what looks like a large operating room. The room is more like a really deep well and I’m at the top looking down from a great height. I can’t seem to look up, but looking straight down, the walls and floor are impossibly white. A bed of some kind is in center of the room and I can see a human body lying on top. I’m too high to make out any details, but as I think that, I start to descend toward the body. As I get closer, I see that the body is a girl with short black hair and she is completely naked!
I’m puzzled why there is a naked girl lying on a hospital bed in my dream. This better not be one of those dreams where I wake up and have to sneak to the bathroom to clean up because having one of those dreams in this kind of room would just be too disturbing.
Her features become more distinct the closer that I get. She’s beautiful, but she reminds me of someone. I know, she looks like a younger version of my GEO character, Whisper. Except, in game, she looked old, like maybe twenty one.
I continue to sink closer to her and yep, she’s definitely Whisper, but what’s she doing in my dream? As I continue to study her from my vantage point, I notice that she’s slightly transparent and there are thousands and thousands of tiny sparks emanating from inside her body.
The sparkles captivate me. I move myself closer to her to try and get a better look. I try not to focus on her breasts, but it’s hard not to look. I’ve never had the opportunity to actually study a girl’s breasts in 3D before. Sure, I’ve seen pictures and I’ve accidentally caught sight of my sister a time or two, but that just isn’t the same. Embarrassed, I force my gaze down from her chest to her trim stomach. Her stomach flares into pleasantly rounded hips that act to draw my eyes to the forbidden zone between her legs. I feel myself blushing, so I try to send apologetic thoughts her way. Her body is so wonderfully fit, feminine and perfect. I also notice that she’s no longer transparent.
Forcing my eyes back to her face, I find myself moving closer still. Her raven black hair and shaped eyebrows accent her flawless white skin. Laying down, her hair is swept back to expose her elvish ears. Her pert nose and very kissable lips are perfectly matched against a heart-shaped face. She looks so real now. Sure, she looked good on my computer screen, but without all the rendering and shading, I think she’s absolutely stunning.
I try to pull back to get a better overall look again, but I can’t seem to find the reverse switch. I focus my attention on her face. Somehow, I find myself even closer to her. I wonder if this is like some fairy tale where the hero kisses the sleeping princess to wake her from a cursed slumber. Her lips sure do look inviting. Do I even have lips to kiss her with?
Oh well.
I close in and try to give her a hesitant kiss on her lips. I am pleased to discover that I do indeed have lips. As my lips brush against hers, I feel a spark arc between us. Her eyes snap open and I gasp with astonishment. Her eyes are so beautiful! I feel like I could fall into them and drown. Now I know why everyone was so freaked out by my new eye color. Her eyes are the exact same jade green color as mine.
Curious to see if she can see me, I stare into her eyes to see if her pupils are focusing on anything. I can see the reflection of my face mirrored in her eyes. Then, I start to see what looks like lightning flashing from inside of her pupils.
Now, that’s weird!
The green and silver of her cornea added to the lightning flashing from inside of her acts to draw me even closer. Helpless to resist their magnetic draw, I feel myself being pulled into their flashing depths.
And..the lights go out again.
Damn it!
Jennifer drank her second cup of coffee while she and Dave stood watch in Brian’s room, anxiously looking for any sign that a parent’s worst nightmare might end. Their child was hurt and they, as parents, were helpless to help him. She had Dave double-checked every phone in the house to make sure the ringers were at full volume.
Except for the time talking to the officer from the labs, she had been burning up the battery in Lindsay’s phone talking to Barb. Thank god for Barb. I don’t know what I would’ve done without her advice.
She had to hang up when Lindsay’s battery started to die. Dave briefly left her side to retrieve Lindsay’s charger. When he returned, he told her that he found Lindsay still awake and crying in her bed. After returning to Brian’s room to plug in the cell phone before it quit, he returned to Lindsay’s room to try and comfort their daughter. It took thirty minutes before he was able to return to her side for the vigil over their son.
“She’s finally asleep, but I don’t think that she will be going to school tomorrow hon.”
Jennifer sighed with resignation as she hugged her husband for comfort. “No, you’re probably right. Even if she did go to school, I doubt that she would get much done. Even though they don’t always get along, they both really do love each other.”
“Any word from the lab yet?” Dave asked, hopefully.
“No, but Barb finally had enough. She and Barry will be here tomorrow afternoon. I think that she did that so she could get some sleep.” Jennifer said with a ghost of a smile on her face. “I think she’s almost as worried about Brian as we are.”
They were both startled when their quiet companionship was interrupted by all of the house phones ringing loud enough to wake the dead. Jennifer grabbed for the cordless phone laying next to her and without even checking the caller ID display, she answered it.
“H..hello?”
“Hi, this is Doctor Edmundson from the Los Alamos...oh nevermind, I don’t think you really care about that silly stuff right now. I am very sorry that it took me so long to call you, but I needed to check a few things here at the labs and organize the team before I called you back. I’m sure that you are worried, no, frantic about your son and I did not want to be unprepared to assist your family.”
Jennifer sobbed with relief. “Oh Doctor, you don’t know how glad I am to hear you say that. Brian’s just laying on the floor covered in some black shell thing and we don’t know what to do.”
“Okay, ma’am...Mrs. Peters, is it okay if i call you Jennifer?” Doctor Edmundson asked with a surprising amount of patience and compassion in his voice.
“Y...yes.”
“Okay Jennifer, now I need you to go over to your son and check a few things for me. You might need to move him a little. Do you think that you can do that?”
“Yes and I have Dave, my husband, here with me just in case.” Jennifer said as she walked over to stand next to her son’s form.
“Excellent, now can you see his chest?”
“Yes”
“Okay, now place your hand on the center of his chest and using your fingertips, see if you can feel a seam in the shape of a small rectangle.”
Using her fingers like the doctor asked, Jennifer started to look for the seam or crack that the doctor described. She was worried that she might be doing something wrong until she felt something different. It was a small seam. “Okay, I found it Doctor Edmundson. Is this the button that will get him out of this thing?”
“No, but it is a start Jennifer. What you have just discovered is the diagnostics port for our Individual Land Warrior Medical Emergency Trauma Survival Suit, but that is a mouthful to say every time so I we just like to call it a METS suit.”
“Okay, and this Individual Land...umm...METS thing is helping Brian?”
“I think so, but we need for you to try and open the port.”
“Okay...what do I need to do?”
“Now, find the top seam. The one that is closest to your son’s chin.”
“Okay..found it.”
“Excellent. Gently and firmly press down.”
Jennifer’s heart raced and a glimmer of hope spring to life when the shell moved to reveal the access port. “It opened and there is a little green light in here!”
“Is there also something that looks like a USB port?”
She spotted something that looked like it could be one of those things that might be on a computer. “Yes, I think so.”
“Great! Now we know what equipment that we need to bring with us. Good job Jennifer!”
“So can we get him out of this now?”
“Sorry Jennifer, not yet. What the green light is telling us is that the suit is active and that your son is in a state of hibernation. All of his bodily functions have been reduced to assist in the survival of a traumatic injury. Some of the special equipment that we will bring will be able to plug into that diagnostic port and give us a better picture of what is happening to your son.”
“How long will it take for you to arrive?”
“We have an advance team lead by Lieutenant Lyon en-route as we speak. They should arrive within twenty minutes. Doctor’s Brentwood and Roskaft will be arriving with them and they will assist in the initial site assessment. Myself and Doctor Johannson will be leaving here via helicopter as soon as I hang up with you and grab a few extra pieces of equipment.”
“Thank you Doctor Edmundson!” Jennifer gasped, relief flooding through her.
“Rest assured Jennifer. We will do everything in my power to help your son.”
The man was over a hundred miles away, but Jennifer somehow felt like she could trust the man. “Thank you, I appreciate that.”
“No problem Jennifer. Well, my ride is here. I need to go.” Doctor Edmundson said just before the line went dead.
Jennifer turned off the phone and turned to her husband to find Lindsay awake and hugging her father. Both of them look at her with hope filled eyes and she can feel the deep love and concern they both have for Brian. It brought tears to her eyes.
It took Jennifer a few seconds to collect her thoughts. “Okay, that was Doctor Edmundson from the labs. He said that Brian is in some kind of Army trauma suit thing and that he’s on his way with some equipment to help Brian. Also, it sounds like we will have some folks from the Army here in twenty minutes or so and worst of all, the house is a mess!”
Brenda knew that something was wrong the second that she caught sight of the main gate because instead of the normal two soldiers on gate duty, there were four soldiers and a Humvee at the gate. The sound of her favorite CD blaring from her car’s speakers suddenly felt like more of a distraction. Frowning, she reached over and turned off her car’s stereo system.
She recognized one of the soldiers because he had helped her move some heavy stuff around in her office and she thought he was kind of cute. She rolled to a stop and smiled at him, expecting him to give her a grin or smile in return, but she got nothing. He was all business this morning.
“Morning ma’am. Identification please” Private Jacobson asked as she dug through her purse for her ID badge.
Handing it to him, her badge received more than the standard cursory glance. Something was definitely happening this morning.
“What’s going on Jacobson?” Brenda asked, concerned that there was some sort of accident or fire at the lab.
“Sorry ma’am, but I can’t really say.” He refused to give her any clues.
Not a “Sorry, Brenda” or even “Sorry, Ms. Koshnick”, but she got a “ma’am” from him. The last time they had spoken, she got him to use her name, but now he was in 100% military mode. The panic started to set in and upset her stomach a little.
“Thank you ma’am. You’re cleared to enter” Private Jacobson returned her ID badge and waved her through.
The mystery became even more alarming when she wasn’t able to get her usual parking spot closer to the front. She was normally one of the first people to arrive, but this morning even Doctor Edmundson’s car was here.
Entering the building, she was met by a battle ready soldier in full combat gear. “Ms. Koshnick?”
“Yes?” Brenda asked, confused and a little intimidated because she had never seen the labs in this high of an alert status. She had been through numerous safety drills and this didn’t feel like a drill.
“Major Thole ordered me to escort you to the C-Wing conference room as soon as you arrived.” The soldier turned to lead her toward the conference room.
“Okay?” Brenda hesitated for a second, causing the young soldier to pause. Why did she need an escort? She knew where the room was located.
“Sorry…” She mumbled as she resumed following the soldier through the halls and to the door of the conference room. Why did they need her, an HR specialist? Nothing made sense.
He opened the door for her and gestured for her to enter. She was surprised to see the room full of research scientists, Major Thole, Captain McKinney, and a very tired and distraught looking civilian woman who looked up at Brenda with desperate hope in her red, tear stained eyes.
“Ah, Brenda!” Doctor Edmundson said, looking slightly more wrinkled than normal. He motioned for her to join him at the head of the room. “Sorry about all the excitement, but we have a bit of a mystery and we are hoping that you might have some additional insights. I believe that you know or have seen most of the people in the room, but allow me to introduce Mrs. Jennifer Peters.”
“Mrs. Peters, this young lady is Brenda Koshnick. She works in our HR department and was the one whom I noticed speaking to your son and his young friend during yesterday’s lunch break.”
Brenda’s heart skipped a beat when she realized who he was talking about. “Brian? Oh my god! Did something happen to him?” She quickly glanced between Dr. Edmundson and Mrs. Peters. Dr. Edmundson looked concerned about something, but it was the desperate and almost pleading expression on Mrs. Peters’ face that caused Brenda’s heart to beat hard.
“We can’t go into the details right now, but I can tell you that he is here and that he is very sick. It could be of great help to everyone if there is anything that he might have said to you or that you might have noticed that could help us figure out what has happened to him.”
“Umm, okay. Well, during lunch I overheard Brian and his friend talking about GEO.” Brenda said.
Dr. Edmundson looked confused. “GEO?”
“Oh sorry, GEO. It stands for Good and Evil Online and it is an online game that I play.”
“Okay, sorry about the interruption Brenda, but I wasn’t sure if everyone else here understood what that term meant.”
Brenda smiled at his obvious dissemination. “So, I heard them talking about GEO and I asked if I could join them for lunch. I was surprised to find out that Brian plays on the same server and even the same guild that I belong to. I was even more surprised to find out that he plays Whisper.”
“Sorry to interrupt you again Brenda. I think we can figure out what this server and guild thing is, but what is a Whisper?”
“Sorry Doctor, Whisper is the character that Brian plays in GEO. She’s a high-level rogue and right now everyone on the Good side is scrambling to find her.”
“She?” Dr. Edmundson glanced over to Brenda for a moment before waving away his question. “Oh...sorry, I guess that it’s a video game thing. A rogue? Is that like a thief or something?”
Brenda noticed the military folks in the room starting to pay closer attention.
“Yes, a rogue is like a thief. They primarily win by being sneaky and Whisper, I mean Brian is one of the best, if not the best on our server.”
Dr. Edmundson slowly nodded. “I see. So, other than being a rogue. Why is everyone trying to find Brian’s character?”
“Well...” Brenda hesitated as she considered how to explain things to her audience because she doubted they would understand. “Whisper received a quest to assassinate another player’s character.” She winced when the military folks jumped with the word ‘assassinate’.
“Are you trying to tell us that this kid is not just a thief, but that he’s also a trained assassin?” Major Thole asked, sounding incredulous.
“Umm, no sir. Not exactly. The character that he plays isn’t really an assassin, but as part of his character’s class, his character does have the skills to be an assassin. Kalisa, the character that I play is a warrior who wears heavy armor and uses a sword in battle. Do I look like I could swing a sword with any degree of skill?” Brenda watched as the room relaxed with a slight chuckle at the thought of her swinging a sword around. A few of the men looked at her with a little more interest now. She could almost see them mentally dressing her up in some skimpy, chain mail bikini popular in fantasy art.
She decided to charge ahead. “Like I was saying though, his character got this quest or mission, but he didn’t tell anyone that he had it. So, when he stole our guild-leader’s griffon after mentioning about having to sneak into someplace, the leaders on the good side went crazy because they thought Whisper, I mean Brian was going to do something with our Font.”
“He told you about this though?” Major Thole asked with disbelief.
“Yes, his friend, umm, John, kind of pressured him into telling me after I told him what Lord Vincint thought he was trying to do.”
“Okay, then what happened?”
Brenda hesitated. “Well, he was looking pretty miserable about the whole thing. So, I gave him my phone number in case he needed to talk to someone about it.”
“Did he call you?” Mrs. Peters asked, looking up at Brenda with renewed hope in her eyes.
Brenda looked directly at her and nodded her head. “Yes, he called me last night while he was waiting in Lady Seramis’ room for her to return from a party that she was hosting at her stronghold.”
“Who is this ‘Lady Seramis’? Was she his target?” Major Thole asked.
“Yes sir, she was his ‘target’.” Brenda struggled to contain her annoyance for the Major. She understood why Major Thole is reacting the way he is, but she still found it a little frustrating. GEO was just a game. Why couldn’t the man understand that?
Major Thole nodded. “Okay, so did he neutralize his target?”
Brenda slowly considered her reply as Mrs. Peters anxiously searched her face. Brenda’s heart thumped in her chest and for a second, she thought she could feel the dread Mrs. Peters was feeling as if she was the mother. How could her son coldly assassinate someone?
“I don’t think so...” Brenda slowly shook her head from side to side as she considered what she knew of Whisper and Brian.
“Why not? It sounds like he was in place and ready to carry out his mission. What could have stopped him?” Major Thole asked, skeptically.
Brenda returned her gaze to the Major and hardened her expression. Why was he being such an ass about it? Couldn’t he see how much pain Mrs. Peters was feeling? “Because, we talked about how this wasn’t the right thing to do, that it might really be a ‘test’ of his character and finally, just before he hung up on me, he said that a high level enemy player assassin had just entered the room.”
Major Thole glanced over to the other men at the table before returning his gaze to her. “So, do you think that he might have decided to stop this other assassin from killing the target?”
Brenda hesitantly shook her head as she considered what she knew about Whisper’s reputation as a character and what Brian said during her short conversation with him. “I don’t know sir. I’m not sure that he could’ve stopped the other assassin. From what I know, I am pretty sure that Whisper was much lower level than the other assassin. Whisper wouldn’t have stood a chance at stopping him.”
“This is all fairly complex for a video game, Ms. Koshnick” Major Thole said while most of the people around the table nodded their heads in agreement.
Doctor Edmundson choose that observation to step in and take charge of the conversation again. “So, now we know what he was doing just before he was...” He stops what he was going to say as he looks at Brenda then to Major Thole. Major Thole nods his head in silent agreement before Doctor Edmundson continues with what he started to say. “...before the METS suit that he somehow carried out of here with him was activated.”
Feeling confused, Brenda looked to Doctor Edmundson for an explanation. “A what?”
“It’s a prototype nano survival suit that was designed to automatically seal around a wounded soldier and stabilize them until medical help can arrive.”
His explanation confused her because Brian never said anything about a suit, but he did mention some strange UI behavior. “Would that have anything to do with Brian saying that he thought that the game was acting weird on him?”
Dr. Edmundson focused his full attention on Brenda. “Weird? How?”
“Well, he told me that it felt like the game was getting too real for him. He thought that he was able to smell the virtual food being cooked and he mentioned something about a ‘Primary Mission Success’ and ‘ROV Capture’ number showing up on his screen when he wondered what his chances of killing Lady Seramis were.” She said, feeling concerned as she watched the faces of Major Thole, Doctor Edmundson and a few of the other people sitting around the table turn a little pale.
Doctor Edmundson cleared his throat. “Umm, Brenda do you think that it would be possible for you to login to this game of yours and find out what happened to, umm, Lady Seramis? Maybe even talk to her?”
“I can try, but I will need my computer and I doubt that anyone will be online at this time of the day. Most of the people on our server are on East Coast time.” Brenda said as her body started to buzz with pride and excitement. Out of all the scientists and soldiers in the room, Brenda, a simple HR clerk, might be able to play a critical role with helping Brian and his family. On the plus side, it’s not every day that your boss asked you to play a video game and still pay you for it.
The glimmer of hope in Mrs. Peters’ eyes brought all of those feelings crashing to a halt. Brenda walked over and gave the distraught woman a hug. “I’ll do everything that I can to help you and Brian.”
“Thank you” Mrs. Peters said as she began to softly cry on the taller woman’s shoulder.
Brenda held the distraught woman, lending her support while Doctor Edmundson stood awkwardly by their side as the rest of the men quietly snuck out of the room.
“Sir, is there someplace that Mrs. Peters can rest? She’s dead on her feet here.” Brenda asked.
Dr. Edmundson nodded and reached down, lightly touching Mrs. Peters on her shoulder to help direct the woman. “Please, come with me Jennifer. Let me help you find someplace that you can rest a little. It will be a few hours before we can learn anything else.”
Brenda struggled to hold back her tears as a clearly distraught Mrs. Peters turned to her with tears in her eyes. “Thank you Doctor Edmundson and Ms. Koshnick. I don’t know what I would do without your help.”
"Please Mrs. Peters, it's Brenda. You can just call me Brenda." She said, following them both out of the room to assist Dr. Edmundson with getting Mrs. Peters settled somewhere.
Brenda looked around the room and took a deep, calming breath. Every director level and above lab employee as well as the lab’s top military leaders were present and all of those folks were waiting for her. Admittedly, the highest ranking military person at the lab was a major, but on the phone was someone from the Department of Defense and the only reason a general officer wasn’t here was because they couldn’t fly out here in time.
If having a high ranking audience wasn’t enough to make her feel nervous, there were also a few video cameras set up to record her playing GEO. She was going to help a kid by playing a video game in front of a live audience. It was crazy, but she couldn’t help feeling a little excited. The day had been a complete whirlwind for her and she couldn’t help grinning as she thought back to what happened after that first surprise meeting.
The ride to her apartment in a Humvee accompanied by armed soldiers was certainly exciting and the soldiers found that her excitement was infectious. Before they returned to the labs, she learned that Bravo Romeo Echo November Delta Alpha was her name using the Army’s phonetic alphabet and best of all, she learned what SNAFU and FUBAR really meant.
After she got back from ‘securing’ her PC from her apartment and getting it setup, Doctor Edmundson took her to see Brian. It was a little scary to see the METS suit surrounding Brian’s body, but according to Doctor Edmundson, the suit was actually helping to keep Brian alive.
Doctor Edmundson officially added her to the team investigating what happened to Brian and as a result, she was allowed to attend all the briefings. The most interesting briefing was Lieutenant Lyons’ afternoon briefing. It was a shame Mrs. Peters, or Jennifer as she asked Brenda to call her, missed the briefing. The poor woman was still sacked out in the room that her son was being kept in. She needed the sleep and it might have been a blessing that she did not learn that the suit had never actually made it past the animal testing phase.
Lieutenant Lyons cleared his throat to get everyone’s attention. “Okay Ladies and Gentlemen, Thank you for attending this briefing. I will use this time to summarize what we know to date regarding the incident with the subject, Brian Peters.”
“Item one. Subject Brian Peters. Male. DOB: 9-JUL-1992 Age 15. High school freshman. Honor-Roll Student. Visited nonsecure research labs as part of High School Field trip supervised by his Science teacher, Mr. Allen Anderson.”
“Item two. Shortly after returning from this facility, subject is reported to have exhibited signs that could indicate first stage mutant manifestation. Further investigation is required.”
“Item three. At the time of METS suit activation, Subject is reported to have been playing the popular video game known as Good and Evil Online or GEO to its players. Further investigation is in progress by Ms. Brenda Koshnick”
“Item four. Nanite container handled by subject was discovered to be empty of all mechanically functional nanites.”
“Item five. Examination of nanite container showed microscopic holes drilled into the container. Current hypothesis is that subject Brian Peters accidentally activated nanites enabling them create passages through the container, thus allowing the nanites to enter subject’s body.”
“Item six, Recorded inventory of nanite container indicates that 70% of nanites were of a low security risk medical nanites. 25% High Security risk <Classified>. Remaining 5% Unknown.”
Major Thole interrupted Lieutenant Lyons. “Excuse me Lieutenant, but we will have the brass here tomorrow and I think that they will have an issue with the ‘Unknown’ quantity. Do we have a good explanation for that?”
“Excuse me Major Thole” Doctor Edmundson said. “I think that we could change the ‘unknown’ to ‘miscellaneous’. That may minimize the impact. However; if the issue is brought up, I will address it by taking full responsibility and explaining to our guests exactly what the container’s purpose was intended to be used for. It was a learning aid to show visitors to the lab what these microscopic nanites that they are paying us so much money to develop really look like. Every nanite in the container was certified as inactive or inoperable. As such, it was never considered that it would ever be anything more than an educational prop item and in an effort to fill the container our research teams would sometimes deposit failed experiment batches. I’ve begun an audit with my team to try and narrow down the ‘miscellaneous’ list and we should have a better handle on that by tomorrow.”
Major Thole nodded his head and smiled with relief. “Ahh, thank you sir. I know how much upper leadership hates to see ‘unknown’, but that sounds like it should help. Lieutenant, I think that we can move on with the rest of the briefing.”
“Thank you sir. Item seven. Current hypothesis is that subject has mutant Esper powers coupled with an electro-kinetic energizer power and possibly a Gadgeteer or Devisor power. Further investigation is required.”
“Item eight. Prototype METS suit successfully activated for subject and monitoring of subject’s vital signs via suit diagnostic port indicates subject is alive. Further briefing data to be provided by Doctor Johannson.”
Doctor Johannson’s presentation went on to explain that due to the high cost of armored exoskeleton suits, the Army was looking for a way to help an injured soldier survive until medical help could arrive. He explained that the concept was dropped due to weight issues since the standard required load that each soldier must carry is already at the limit. He finished his presentation with some good news. His team thinks that due to how the nanites created the suit for Brian, they might be able to use that data to reduce the weight of the suit enough to make it feasible.
Brenda was glad that Jennifer didn’t hear Doctor Johannson’s description of the medical condition that caused the suit to activate. Brenda barely knew Brian and if she had a hard time hearing it, she couldn’t imagine what his mom would think when Doctor Johannson said, “During the course of our investigation, we used the METS standard diagnostic port to request the activation log. We discovered that the subject was diagnosed with a nearly always fatal condition, called ‘Neurogenic Shock’. What that means is that for some reason, his autonomic nervous system stopped communicating with the rest of his body. This is most often caused by the severing of the spinal column. Based upon the observations that Lieutenant Lyons mentioned regarding the subject’s theorized mutant powers, we believe that the subject somehow interfaced directly with the game and became so immersed in the game, that his nervous system started to shut down.”
That concluded the briefing and as she was getting ready to exit the room she overheard Major Thole tell Lieutenant Lyons to convert his part of the briefing into a PowerPoint presentation for tomorrow’s presentation. There were some VIPs that were going to be arriving in the morning and they wanted to make a good impression.
Brenda liked Lieutenant Lyons. He seemed nice and he was handsome in his uniform. Thanks to her job in HR, she also knew that he was only a year older than her and even better, single. He might have a girlfriend, but she decided it was time to make a move to find out.
“Let me know if you want any help with that Mark.” Brenda said as part of her intel gathering process.
“Oh thanks ma’am, but I need to learn this stuff. I’ve heard that you can’t make it past being Major without knowing how to make a Powerpoint presentation.” He said with a wry grin as he nervously ran his hand through his short cropped hair. “Is it okay if I hunt you down if I have any questions?”
“Sure! But, please, just call me Brenda. Ma’am makes me feel old.” Brenda smiled, happy with the outcome of her initial move.
Brenda’s thoughts returned to the present when she spotted Brian’s mom enter the conference room and look around for a place to sit. Brenda jumped up and motioned for Jennifer to sit next to her, giving her an encouraging hug as she did.
“Thank you Brenda” Jennifer said with a brittle smile.
“No problem, Jennifer.” Brenda reassured her as she took her seat and gestured for Jennifer to do the same.
The room seemed to be turning into an adhoc command center. Her computer was up and running with the display linked to the big screen for everyone to watch her play GEO. She smiled a little and wondered what Doctor Edmundson was going to think when he saw her character and the world of GEO on the big screen.
She logged in earlier to test the connection and file a petition with the Council for permission to see Lady Seramis. While Brenda could have taken it upon herself to visit Lady Seramis, she lacked the means to get Kalisa, her character, to Lady Seramis’ stronghold in the time that her boss needed and she doubted Lord Vincint’s griffon was available for the taking. In addition to those reasons, dropping in unannounced on Lady Seramis after she just had an assassin’s visit could prove fatal for Kalisa.
The only way she could pull this off was with the Council’s help. The Council of Light and Lady Seramis had created a magical mirror that allowed them to speak with each other regarding affairs of state. It was basically a video conference device and if the Council allowed her to use it, she could find out everything she needed in just a few minutes.
Brenda reached over to give Jennifer’s hand a reassuring squeeze and received a grateful smile in return. Finally, she adjusted her headset and took a deep, calming breath before she logging into the game as Kalisa.
Brenda’s character, Kalisa, sat on a marble bench just outside the huge oak and steel reinforced double doors that lead into the Council chambers. Two AI controlled guards stand with halberds in the rest position at either side of the doors. The NPC guard’s armor was highly polished, almost a bright and shiney as Lord Vincint’s paladin armor.
Brenda proudly recalled the reaction her character received when she Kalisa first appeared on the character select screen. Her character, sans helmet, appeared larger than life on the big screen.
Unlike most of the other MMORPGs on the market, her armor was 100% protective. None of those eye candy female armor designs in GEO. That didn’t mean her armor had to look ugly because Kalisa’s armor was fitted to match her female form and there was no disguising the hourglass shape of her body. Even from a distance, no one would ever confuse her for a male warrior.
Unlike a paladin or NPC warrior, her plate mail armor was more subdued and looked more like real armor would look; simple and functional. Just to show off, she purposefully waited a minute to let her character run through its preset series of combat moves and the reaction was worth it.
Brenda heard one of the scientists say, “Whoa, Brenda’s character looks tough!” which gave her a small glow of satisfaction. She’d worked hard on her character and felt proud of everything that she has been able to accomplish. Her warrior’s skills were always in high demand by her guild-mates and friends outside of the guild.
It was now 1500 hrs MST, which meant that it was 1800 hrs or 6pm EST and she had been waiting around for almost half an hour, doing nothing. It made her feel a little jumpy because she kind of felt like she was wasting time when she could be out getting experience for her character. She thought about running out and smacking around some NPC monsters just to relieve the boredom and show off her character, but she doubted the people in the room would understand.
She was just about to follow through with her idea when she caught sight of Lord Vincint striding toward the chambers. Brenda nudged her character forward, causing Kalisa to stand as she activated her voice chat and tried to get his attention.
“Lord Vincint,” Lord Vincint adjusted his course to meet her,”please excuse me, but do you know how long it might be before I can speak to the Council?” Brenda asked, her voice subtly changed to make her voice sound more commanding, more like she imagined a real female warrior would sound.
Lord Vincint smiled broadly at her. “Ah, Lady Kalisa. It is always a pleasure to see you and no excuse is needed. As I have just arrived myself, I am not sure what the Council’s status is right now.”
Brenda managed to keep the disappointment from her face. The man just logged in and it was unreasonable for him to know everything.
Lord Vincent canted his head slightly to the side, his curiosity clearly evident. “I believe that you mentioned in your request that you might have some information regarding Whisper?”
Kalisa nodded. “Yes my lord, I have first hand knowledge of Whisper’s quest and it’s only now that I can speak of it. Something bad has happened to Whisper’s player and I desperately need to speak with the Lady Seramis.”
Lord Vincint rubbed his chin as he pondered her revelation. “Hmmm, that is certainly a surprise and I hope she is okay. I find it very interesting that you would have the need to speak with Lady Seramis. I checked the server forum before I logged in today and the rumors over the last few hours have been exceptionally alarming.”
He motioned for her to join him. “And, if I know Whisper,” he smirked, “I’m sure the rumors are vastly understated, but why don’t you accompany me into the Council chambers so that we may get to the bottom of this issue as quickly as possible?”
“Thank you my Lord.” Kalisa replied thankful for his attention, now curious about her guild leader’s remark. Did he know Brian in real life? It didn’t seem likely since Brian never mentioned it during their conversation, but then again, the two of them didn’t exactly have a lot of time to talk.
Brenda was brought out of character and back into reality when she overheard some of the comments from her audience.
“Holy cow! Look at his armor. Can you say Target with a capital ‘T’?”
“This is pretty cool looking; I might have to go buy this game on my way home tonight.”
She fought to contain a smirk at the thought of another soon to be GEO addict while her character entered the room to discover that most of the council members were already seated behind the elevated table located in the back of the room.
Lord Vincint motioned for her to stop at the first row of benches while he continued forward, taking his seat at the center of the table. Kalisa anxiously watched as he spoke with the seated members of the Council. She wasn’t far away, but for some reason she couldn’t hear what was said. The words came out jumbled and inarticulate to her making her wonder if there was some sort of privacy spell surrounding the council. It made sense to her, but it came as a little bit of a surprise since GEO was just a game.
After a quick conference, the eavesdropping screen seemed to disappear when Lord Vincint called for the Council’s herald to announce Kalisa. “The Council of Light requests the presence of The Lady Commander Kalisa of The Order of the Four Winds so that she may deliver news important to the safety and wellbeing of the realm.”
“Ooo, Brenda’s character is a ‘Commander’.”
“Isn’t that an officer’s rank Major Thole?”
“Yes, in the Navy, a Commander would be equal to an Army Lieutenant Colonel.”
“Hey, that means that Brenda outranks you!”
Smiling both in game and out, Brenda directed Kalisa to move forward and stop before the Council’s table.
“Thank you for making the time to see me on such short notice my Lords and Ladies. I have grave news regarding the Lady Whisper’s player and to make a request to be allowed to speak with the Lady Seramis before the evening is over.”
Everyone except for Lord Vincint was shocked by Kalisa’s statement, but it was Lord Calrent who was the first to speak. “What does the Lady Seramis have to do with a wanted criminal like Whisper? Can we add ‘traitor’ to the list of offenses that this thief has now committed?” He sneared, his eyes flashing with anger.
Brenda was shocked by his vehemence towards Whisper. She wondered what Whisper might have done to him to earn such animosity. Reminding herself that Brian was laying in a hospital bed, she hardened her resolve. “Lord Calrent, I do not know what the Lady Whisper might have done to earn such scorn by you. Yes, she is a ‘thief’ and from what I have heard, a damn good one, but I do know that she is not a traitor.”
Lord Calrent airily dismissed her reply. “And, just how do you happen to know more about Whisper than anyone else in this room Lady Kalisa?” His eyes narrowed as he studied her with suspicion.
It took all of Brenda’s self-control to not scream at the jerk. She watched as Kalisa’s posture became rigid and tense, ready for action. “I know Whisper’s player in real-life. He is a 15 year old boy named Brian and right now he is laying in a hospital bed. None of his doctors know what is wrong with him and since he was playing GEO when he collapsed, I’ve been asked by his doctors and his family to find out if there is anything in the game that could have caused his condition.” Seething on the inside, she surprised herself with how calm she ended up sounding.
You could hear a pin drop in the Council chambers as everyone, including Lord Vincint, sat back in their chairs with shock. Even the ass, Lord Calrent, had the decency to look ashamed of himself, but it was Lord Vincint who broke the silence.
“That is indeed grave news Lady Kalisa. I think that I can speak for the entire Council when I express my deepest concern for him and his family. Frankly, I’m at a loss for how we, as players in this game, would be able to help him with a medical condition in real-life. Can you explain to us why you think that we might be able to help him?”
Kalisa smiled with gratitude and her posture relaxed. “Thank you Lord Vincint. As you all may know, two days ago, Whisper received a GM level quest. What you do not know is that her quest was to assassinate the Lady Seramis...” She was interrupted by the shocked exclamations of the Council.
“What?!?”
“Oh my god! That could start a war!”
“What was she thinking?!”
“Lady Seramis’ forces could be attacking us right now!”
Lord Vincint turned to address his fellow council members. “Please, calm yourselves before we jump to conclusions. Afterall, this is just a game and we have the life of someone to worry about right now.” The reminder has the desired effect. “Please, Lady Kalisa, continue.”
Kalisa gratefully nodded. “Okay, so the quest instructions indicated that Whisper had to kill Seramis last night. I believe that is why Whisper ‘borrowed’ your griffon.” She grinned and nodded to Lord Vincint. “I was on the phone with Brian while Whisper was waiting in Lady Seramis’ rooms for her to return from a party she was hosting. Brian hung up on me shortly after mentioning that another character had just entered into her rooms via the window. Brian identified the other character as the evil aligned assassin, Shadow Killer.”
“What? Why would the evil side send an assassin after Lady Seramis?” Lady Necina asked.
Kalisa slowly shook her head as she considered the question. “I don’t know my Lady, but I believe that GEO is trying to force Lady Seramis to pick one side or the other.
“What makes you think that?” Lady Necina continued with her questions as the rest of the Council paid rapt attention.
“Prior to Shadow Killer’s entrance, Brian and I spoke about the quest and what it might mean. The quest text specifically mentioned the word ‘test’. I think that Whisper was supposed to tell us about the plot so that we could warn Seramis. It is my belief that Brian realized that and decided to try and protect Seramis by fighting Shadow Killer, even though he was sure that Whisper would lose.”
“Why would Whisper lose?” Lady Necina asked.
Kalisa shrugged her shoulders. “Well, from everything I have heard, Shadow Killer is a much higher level character than Whisper and a specialized assassin, while Whisper is more thief skill specialized.”
Lord Vincint absently gained the attention of the Council. “Hmmm, Whisper may have had more of an edge in that fight than most here would realize.”
“What makes you think that Lord Vincint?” Lord Calrent asked with a hint of his old suspicion.
Lord Vincint grinned. “Well, in addition to being a damn good thief, Whisper is also an Illusionist.”
Lord Calrent looked shocked by Lord Vincint’s revelation. “You can’t dual class in GEO!” He paused momentarily. “Well, you can, but it’s usually not good since it dilutes your main class.”
Lord Vincint smiled at him. “Usually, yes, but Whisper has one other ‘advantage’ that I know of, she used the Font of Light to Evolve.”
“What!?!” Lord Calrent gasped with shock. “We all know that Whisper snuck into the Font chambers against the Council’s orders. She left her smart-ass little calling card there for us to find, but surely we would’ve noticed the changes in her character.”
Lord Vincint nodded with agreement. “That would be true, if not for the fact that she always disguises herself as a human using her powers of Illusion.”
“What?! If that is true, then what is she?” Lord Calrent asked while Lady Necina leaned back with a pleased, satisfied smile.
“The Lady Whisper used the Font to evolve. She is really an Elf.” Lord Vincint said.
While the Council processed the news, Brenda found her audience’s reaction to the news even more entertaining.
“What’s an Elf?”
“Umm, I think that is like Spock in Star Trek”
“No, Spock is a Vulcan. An Elf is like that Legolas dude from that Lord of the Rings movie!”
“Oh, yeah”
Brenda focused back to the issue at hand when Lord Vincint started to speak.
“The Council will contact Lady Seramis. Lady Necina, would you kindly attempt to open up communications with Lady Seramis?”
Lady Necina nodded. “Certainly Lord Vincint.”
Brenda and her audience watched with fascination when Lady Necina pulled a large, ornate mirror out from her bag. She placed the mirror on the table and spoke a short phrase, activating the mirror and causing it to glow. After about twenty seconds, the glow faded away, revealing Lady Seramis.
Lady Seramis glared imperiously out at her audience. “Ahh, if it isn’t the Council of Light. What a ‘pleasant’ surprise to hear from you all on this day.” She spoke with an obvious sarcasm and disdain.
“Greetings Queen Seramis. As always, it’s a pleasure to speak with you.” Lord Vincint smiled with what appeared to be genuine pleasure. The game of State was on and he appeared to be relishing his role.
“Lord Vincint, you seem surprised to see me and it’s now ‘Queen Seramis’ instead of ‘Lady Seramis’? Did something not work out as you planned?” Lady Seramis smirked.
Grinning, Lord Vincint airly replied. “Lots of things don’t work out how I plan, but do you have a specific plot of mine that you wish to address?”
She narrowed her eyes in annoyance. “You know damn well what I am referring too. If you’re calling to find out what happened to your little elf assassin, you can forget about it!”
“I see…” Lord Vincent pretended to ponder over her revelation. “So, My agent was able to reach and protect you from the evil assassin?”
Lady Seramis’ musical laughter filled the room. “So, that is how you wish to play this game? Yes, she was able to infiltrate my defenses, but I find it incredulous that you would try to imply that ‘you’ sent her to protect ‘me’. I have numerous reports of you ordering your city turned upside down looking for ‘your’ wayward assassin.”
“Merely a diversion so that the forces of Evil wouldn’t know that we were aware of their plan to have you assassinated by Shadow Killer.” Lord Vincint said with a dismissive wave of his hand.
Lady Seramis laughed with genuine pleasure. She looked like she was starting to enjoy the verbal sparring. “You have got to be a lawyer or something similar in real-life Lord Vincint! I find your version of this story absolutely fascinating, but other than to find out if one of the two assassins managed to kill me, I fail to see why you would decide to call me now.”
“While it is true that we don’t see eye to eye on a few critical philosophical details Queen Seramis, I have always respected you and would never stoop to something so evil as assassination to get you out of the way. I am speaking with you today on behalf of Whisper’s parents and doctors.”
Lady Seramis’ eye grew round with surprise before narrowing with fierce determination. “Speak.”
Lord Vincint gestured for Kalisa to approach the table, bringing her into view of the mirror. “I’ll introduce you to the Lady Commander Kalisa so that she may speak on Whisper’s behalf? Lady Kalisa, meet Queen Seramis, the Bandit Queen of the West.”
Kalisa approached the table and gulped, suddenly feeling extremely nervous. “Hello Queen Seramis, I’m sorry about all this, but Whisper’s player collapsed last night and we think that it happened while he was playing GEO. We are hoping that you might be able to provide us with some clues that could help his doctors find out what is wrong with him.”
Queen Seramis’ eyes narrowed with suspicion as her gaze shifted to Lord Vincint. “Him? That is definitely not was I was expecting to learn when you called me Lord Vincint. If this is one of your vaunted tricks, I will be most displeased with you. However; I do guard my own.” Her attention returned to Kalisa, “Lady Kalisa, I will be happy to assist you with the answers you seek, but I am reluctant to speak freely in such a public forum. Will it be possible for your ‘illustrious’ leader to arrange for a portal so that we may speak more privately?”
Kalisa glanced over her shoulder, to Lord Vincint. He nodded his head with approval.
“Yes Queen Seramis, Lord Vincint indicates that the Council is willing provide me with a portal to your location.”
Queen Seramis nodded with approval. “I will open up a hole in my defenses for a single person to pass into my lands. I will signal your Council when all is ready for your arrival.”
“Thank you Queen Seramis.” Kalisa said, her emotions barely in check.
“Yes, thank you Queen Seramis” Lord Vincint added.
Seramis focused her attention back to Lord Vincint, her eyes narrowing with determination. “This better not be a another one of your tricks Lord Vincint!”
After her image faded away, Lord Vincint cleared his throat and walked around to Kalisa’s side of the table. “Well, while she is getting things set up on her end, would you mind if I had a word with you?”
“Certainly my Lord.” Kalisa said, following Lord Vincint out of the Council chambers and into the hallway.
Once clear of the chambers, Lord Vincint turned and faced Lady Kalisa. “I know this is just a game and it can become far too easy for us to forget that there are real people on the other end of our screens, but if there is anything I can do to help, feel free to ask.”
His honest concern threatened to overwhelm Brenda’s emotions. She felt Jennifer’s hand grip her leg in support. That helped her find the strength she needed keep it together and stop herself from crying in front of Lord Vincint. “Thank you Lord Vincint, but why does Lord Calrent seem to dislike Whisper so much?”
“Oh yes, Lord Calrent.” Lord Vincint frowned with disapproval. “I believe that this little item may help to answer that question.” Lord Vincint said as a small card appeared in his hand. Giving it to her, he smiled and encouraged her to read it.
Kalisa read the short, handwritten note inscribed on the card. “Watch the first step, it’s a doozy! Hugs and Kisses, Whisper” There was even a little heart drawn off to the side, but she still didn’t understand why a simple card would piss off Lord Calrent so much.
Lord Vincent noted her confused expression. “The Council received that card a week after we won our Font in the Battle of Lumar Hills. Whisper was one of the first to petition the Council for permission to try and use the Font to evolve her character, but even with my support, her petition was denied. The Council refused to believe a mere thief could have helped the war effort in a significant enough manner to merit such a reward.” He sighed with frustration. “Anyway, a few days later this card was found next to the Font. Somehow, Whisper sneaked her way past countless AI controlled guards and bypassed several very strong wards and then, she used the Font and got out without anyone the wiser. Why she left a card, I don’t know, but I thought it was pretty damn funny. Lord Calrent, he blew a gasket and that’s why he dislikes Whisper so much.” Lord Vincint said with a grin.
Brenda could understand why Lord Calrent hated Whisper. She knew Whisper was a skilled thief player, but what made Brian think his character deserved the Font reward? In Brian’s defense, the Font gave his character a reward. So, maybe his petition had merit. “I guess I can kind of see why he dislikes her, but why did you support her petition? I fought in the battle and no one ever suggested I might deserve such a reward.”
Lord Vincint paused to gather his thoughts. “Hmmm, I see you also view Whisper as ‘just’ a thief and what kind of impact could a thief have in a large battle, right?”
Kalisa hesitantly nodded. “Yeah? I mean, it does seem a little odd to me.”
Lord Vincint chuckled fondly as he sat on the bench and motioned for Kalisa to join him. “While Whisper could be mischievous,” he gestured to the note, “I found her to be an exceptionally clever and loyal creative thinker who was able to work with the minimum of direction to accomplish difficult goals. No job was ever too tough and no mission ever too impossible for Whisper to accomplish. I would even go so far to say that, if it hadn’t been for Whisper, we might not have won the Battle of Lumar Hills.”
His statement surprised her because she couldn’t remember even seeing Whisper during the battle. “How so?”
Lord Vincint tapped his lips as he considered how to best answer her question. “How many enemies did you personally kill during the battle?”
“I’m not sure, why?”
“Was it ten? Maybe twenty?”
“Yes, I think that sounds about right.”
“While Whisper may have only personally accounted for two or three enemies, she indirectly caused the death of three entire enemy battalions and kept at least two more battalions from joining the battle. She intercepted enemy couriers, adjusted the orders and disguised herself as the courier to deliver the altered orders to the unsuspecting enemy commanders. By the time they figured it out and got their troops to the battlefield, they were all tired, worn out, hungry and completely demoralized. She made our fight much easier than it would’ve been otherwise.”
Kalisa gasped with astonishment and felt a new found respect for Whisper. That took guts and brains. “Wow and here I thought it was because our forces were stronger. You know, Good always triumphs over Evil, but how come we were never told what she did? She should’ve received at least an award or two”
Lord Vincint nodded with agreement. “A few reasons. One, Whisper didn’t want the credit. Two, it’s hard to have a secret weapon if everyone knows about it and three, because if the enemy ever found out, they would’ve sent every assassin they have to kill her.”
The AI controlled guard approached the pair and saluted. “Lord Vincint, sorry to interrupt you, but Lady Necina sent me to tell you that the portal is ready for Lady Commander Kalisa”
Lord Vincint returned the guard’s salute. “Thank you sergeant. Lady Kalisa, are you ready?”
Kalisa nodded, eager to meet Queen Seramis and get to the bottom of this mystery. “Yes, and I can’t thank you enough for your assistance and what you just told me.”
“Give him a hug for me.” Jennifer whispered in Brenda’s ear.
Brenda smirked at her request. She couldn’t picture her guild leader as the type who received hugs from guildmates, but just to see what his reaction would be, she entered the hug emote command.
“Brian’s mom insisted I give you a hug for her.” Kalisa said, surprising Lord Vincint as her character gave the man a hug.
Once the hug animation was complete, Lord Vincint looked past Brenda’s character and directly into the audience. “Yes, well, thank you Brian’s mom and I’m confident that based upon what I have glimpsed of your son’s character, he’s a fighter and you can’t count him out. If you think of anything else, please don’t hesitate to contact me using the following number xxx-xxx-xxxx”
Surprised and touched by his gesture, it took all of Brenda’s willpower to not break down in tears. Jennifer made it even more difficult by giving her a hug, but it didn’t stop her from noticing Major Thole copying Lord Vincint’s phone number down.
Lord Vincint spun around and motioned for Lady Kalisa to follow him. He lead her to a heavily guarded chamber containing a shimmering teleportation portal. Lady Necina was present in the chamber and surprisingly, Lord Calrent was also there.
“Good luck Lady Kalisa and I hope you find what you need to help Whisper’s player.” Lord Calrent surprised everyone in the the virtual world as well as in the conference room with his well wishes.
“Thank you Lord Calrent. Your words mean a lot to his mother.” Kalisa saluted Lord Calrent and waved goodbye to Lady Necina and Lord Vincent before stepping into the portal.
Kalisa’s vision filled with blinding light as the portal’s magic transported her to Lady Seramis’ domain. When she was able to see again, she found herself in the middle of a stone circle surrounded by heavily armored warriors with crossbows leveled at her.
A mounted officer wearing blackened plate mail with a red cape drew her attention. “Ahh, Lady Commander Kalisa of the Forces of Light I presume?”
Kalisa acknowledged his question with a nod.
“It’s so nice of you to drop in.” The man grinned unrepentantly, “I must apologize for appears to be a rude welcome, but the wandering monsters in this area can be quite vicious. Allow me to introduce myself; I am Lord General Grover of her Majesty’s Bandit Army. I have taken the liberty of bringing a spare mount for you to ride. If you would be so kind as to join me, my associates and I will be pleased to ensure that you arrive safely to Queen Seramis’ court.”
Brenda worried about her character’s reception. She isn’t sure what to expect from Queen Seramis, but she definitely did not expect to arrive surrounded by a ring of steel and crossbows. Lord General Grover’s conversation during the short ride to the stronghold was polite, but with a tense undertone. She wasn’t sure if General Grover had been fully briefed by his Queen on the purpose of her visit, but she also wasn’t sure if she could tell him.
Lord General Grover broke Kalisa’s troubling line of thought. “I must admit that I am confused by your presence here Lady Commander Kalisa.”
“Oh?” Kalisa asked, raising an inquisitive eyebrow. “What do you find confusing Lord General Grover?”
“Please Lady Commander Kalisa, Lord General Grover is a mouthful to say.” He chuckled. “Just calling me Grover for the duration of this ride will be fine.”
“Sounds good to me, Grover. Kalisa is fine with me too, all the Lady this and Lord that is taxing. What were you saying about being confused?”
With the pleasantries out of the way, Grover looked at Kalisa with a thoughtful expression. “Well, for one thing. I am perplexed as to why the Council would send a representative to speak to Queen Seramis after sending an assassin the night before.”
“Maybe the Council didn’t send an assassin and wanted to help clear up the confusion before things got out of hand?” Kalisa said, deliberately in a relaxed and friendly voice.
“That may be, but I’ve served her Majesty for awhile now and frankly, I am surprised that she’s even giving the Council a chance. Additionally, pardon me for being so blunt, but you hardly seem to be the diplomatic type.”
Kalisa canted her head to the side and smiled mischievously at Grover. “Maybe I am just the sacrificial lamb?”
Grover laughed heartily. “You are hardly a lamb my Lady, but here we are now and sadly, my curiosity must wait”
As they both entered the main courtyard, Brenda took her cue from Grover and dismounted when he dismounted. A pair of stable hands leaded their mounts away and Grover motioned for Kalisa to follow him deeper into the interior of Seramis’ stronghold. The defenses were all manned by alert and well equipped warriors. The horses were all well bred and in good shape. The place looked too organized to fit the stereotypical “bandit” image that she was expecting. Suddenly nervous about what she was getting herself into, Kalisa followed.
A stone staircase led to a set of heavy, steel reinforced oak doors. The staircase was lined with five evenly spaced armored guards on each side. She knew she could take them, but they still looked intimidating to her.
The heavy doors groaned a little as they opened, but the action was smooth. Inside was a large, well lit entryway lined with additional guards. Small vertical slits lined both sides of the entryway with a second row of slits higher up on the walls. Looking up to the ceiling Kalisa noticed heavy duty chandeliers hanging from steel mounting plates next to small, six inch circular openings.
Brenda found Major Thole’s running commentary about the defenses to be both educational and alarming. “Murder holes in the walls for archers to fire through. Looks like the chandeliers could be dropped to impale enemy forces below.”
Kalisa looked up again and paled at the thought of one of those things falling on her. Major Thole’s next bit of information made her feel even more paranoid.
“I am betting the holes in the ceiling could be used to drop boiling water or burning sand onto enemy forces.”
At the end of the heavily protected entryway were two large hallways exiting to the right and the left. Each exit contained a heavy duty steel portcullis, that when lowered, would seriously hamper any assault that attempted to enter deeper into the stronghold. Brenda exhaled with relief when her character finally exited the murderous entryway.
General Grover and Kalisa arrived at smaller set of reinforced oaken doors. She heard an unseen herald announce their names. “Lady Commander Kalisa of the Forces of Light and Lord General Grover, your Majesty!”
The doors slowly opened to reveal Queen Seramis’ throne room.
Queen Seramis’ throne room was a rectangular shaped room with a high, vaulted ceiling containing crystal chandeliers lit by bright balls of magical light. A second story walkway lined the left and right sides of the room, containing more guards armed with crossbows held at the ready.
Queen Seramis sat on a raised dais in a small and comfortable looking chair at the front of the room. Brenda wasn’t sure what to expect from the self styled Bandit Queen appearance wise. Anything from a bejeweled pirate style black leather outfit to a rich fur and velvet robed attire complete with a ruby encrusted gold crown would not have surprised her in the least.
Instead, Seramis’ attire was a more subdued and unpretentious outfit that spoke more about her confidence than all the rich trappings in the world. Just sitting there, she exuded an aura of royalty that only someone born and raised to be a nation’s leader can attain. She knew Queen Seramis was only another player, but Brenda felt more intimidated than she thought she would.
“Thank you General Grover. If you don’t mind, I will need to speak with the Lady Commander Kalisa alone.” Queen Seramis politely commanded.
Kalisa noticed a slight frown dance across his face as General Grover bowed to Queen Seramis, acknowledging her command before he smartly saluted and marched out of the room.
Major Thole softly whistled, clearly impressed. “She certainly knows how to set the tone. You should continue until you are about ten paces from her and curtsy. I’m not sure if that is correct for a woman wearing armor, but it can’t hurt. Address her as ‘Your Majesty’.”
Kalisa waited until after General Grover exited the room and the doors were closed. Following Major Thole’s advice, she curtsied. “Your Majesty, on behalf of Brian’s family and myself, I thank you for granting me this audience on such short notice.”
Queen Seramis tilted her head thoughtfully to the side, an enigmatic smile touched her lips. “This evening looks like it will just be full of surprises Lady Commander Kalisa, it’s rare to find people of this era who know how to present proper court courtesy. Brian? That is the boy who was playing the female assassin known as Whisper?”
Brenda heard Jennifer’s gasp at Seramis’ accusation that Brian would even pretend to be an assassin. She felt her temper slip. “Your Majesty. Yes, Brian plays Whisper and with all due respect, Whisper is not an assassin! She is a thief and a darn good one, both literally and figuratively.”
Brenda felt confused when, instead of getting angry, Seramis’ smiled at her outburst. “I can see that you feel strongly about your friend and I agree with you. I apologize for testing you in this manner, but I had to make sure that this wasn’t just some trick by that crafty Lord Vincint. Whisper’s actions last night showed me that she is not only a skilled and brave person, but that she also possesses a strong and honorable spirit.”
Brenda’s anger deflated with Seramis’ unexpected praise. “Oh?”
Seramis paused to gather her thoughts. “Until last evening, I was not aware that this game could cause physical harm to its player. You mentioned that Brian collapsed. What can you tell me about ‘his’ condition?”
Brenda wasn’t sure why Seramis stressed the word his, but maybe she misheard her. She turned and looked at Jennifer with concern and then, to Doctor Edmundson for approval. “Last night, Brian collapsed from a condition called ummm,” She glanced back to Doctor Edmundson who whispered the term. “Neurogenic Shock.” She repeated.
Queen Seramis’ eyes narrowed. “I am unfamiliar with that term. What does it mean?”
Brenda hesitated. She wasn’t sure how Jennifer would handle the information, but she did have a right to know and one of the doctors may have already explained it to her. “From what I recall the doctor’s saying earlier, it means that his central nervous system was disrupted. The most common cause is a severe brain or spine injury.” She heard Jennifer’s quick intake of breath. Apparently this was news to her and Brenda felt her own emotions getting out of control as she sympathised with her.
Seramis’ mask softened a little as she gently asked. “I take it that Brian’s mother and his doctor is there with you?”
Kalisa nodded. “Yes, and I am sorry that I am such a wreck.”
“No apologies are needed child.” Seramis gently reassured Brenda. “I take it that this condition can be fatal?”
Brenda closed her eyes to try and help block the tears before she whispered. “Yes.”
Queen Seramis thoughtfully drummed her fingers on the arms of her throne. “Yet, nearly 24 hours later, ‘he’ is still unconscious and this worries his doctors?”
“Yes, they do not know why he is...”, Brenda paused a little to glance at Doctor Edmundson who shook his head to say ‘No’, before continuing, “...unconscious.”
Seramis’ eyes narrow with suspicion. “And the doctors haven’t noticed anything unusual about ‘his’ physical condition?”
Again, Seramis stressed his gender. Brenda wasn’t sure what Queen Seramis was trying to say or why Brian’s gender would be important to her. “Other than ‘he’ still being unconscious, no.”
Queen Seramis abruptly stood, her lips pursed as she gestured toward the door with her eyes, clearly letting Brenda know she was done with the interview. “I’m sorry, but I do not think that I can be of any more assistance to you. While it might be alarming to some, HIS physical condition should be readily apparent to anyone, which indicates that you are lying to me about his current condition.”
Brenda looked to Major Thole and Doctor Edmundson with desperation. “Wait, please! Let me ask to see if the doctors will allow me to tell you more about his condition.”
Seramis calmly sat, settling her royal attire. “Very well, I will grant you another minute to allow your associates to reach a decision.”
Brenda anxiously watched as Doctor Edmundson and Major Thole form a quick huddle to debate what more they will allow Brenda to tell Seramis. Reaching an agreement, Doctor Edmundson spoke to Brenda. “Okay Brenda, you can tell her about us suspecting that Brian is a mutant and that while visiting the labs his power activated while handling a sample of medical nanites. Also, you can tell her that we don’t know about his exact physical condition due to the suit, but that any additional information is classified and that we will be grateful for any additional information that she might be able to provide us.” After taking all that in Brenda relayed it to Seramis.
Seramis considered the information for almost a minute before responding. “This suit that is helping Brian sounds military by nature.”
Brenda noticed everyone in the room squirm uncomfortably.
Seramis nodded to herself, almost as if she could see her audience’s reaction. “Your claim that the nanites are only medical are at odds with what I observed last night during my attempt to assist Whisper with her injuries.”
Brenda felt a little nervous about the conclusions that Seramis was making and from the looks of Major Thole and Doctor Edmundson, so are they. “What do you mean?”
“After Whisper defeated the other assassin and collapsed, I attempted to aid her. I was surprised to find that she appeared to be experiencing genuine pain from her injuries and suffering from the effects of the poison that the other assassin used on his blade. I asked her why she did not just log out to avoid the pain and she replied that she could not. ‘It’ would not let her is what she said. At the time, I was unsure what ‘it’ might mean, but based upon what you have just told me and the fact that Whisper was somehow able to defeat what should have been a superior opponent, I believe that something other than medical nanites are involved.”
Brenda noticed Major Thole and Doctor Edumdson looking a little nervous. “This is getting way above my pay grade.” Major Thole muttered.
“Ummm, I’m sorry, but I can’t really comment about that.” Kalisa said, nervous about accidentally spilling top secret information.
Seramis smiled. “That’s okay, I understand how your government works. While the classified nanites may have contributed to Brian’s condition, it sounds like this medical suit is now slowing his recovery.”
“Why do you say that?” Kalisa asked as everyone in the conference room looked confused and a few muttered denials are heard.
“When I examined Whisper, I was surprised to discover that I was able to feel a link between Whisper and her player. Using that link, I cast a healing spell upon Brian.”
Seramis’ uncomfortable insights forgotten, everyone in the room was now focused entirely upon the big screen. “Excuse me, but are you saying that you think that a healing spell that you cast in the game was able to physically affect Brian?”
Queen Seramis shook her head, clearly annoyed at having her story questioned. “I am sorry that my depiction was unclear. I personally cast a healing spell and that healing spell was somehow channeled through the GEO game interface. I must admit that the fact that I was able to cast a spell through the game interface has shocked and alarmed me greatly. There is much about this game that I am finding that concerns me. However; I have since attempted to duplicate that feat, but I have not been successful. I believe my previous success was due to the unique circumstances of Whisper’s physical and spiritual manifestation within the game world.”
“You’re a wizard in real life?” Brenda asked, anticipating the question that was clearly on everyone else’s mind.
“Yes” Seramis said, simply and without further elaboration.
“Brian’s mother did see what she described as a ghostly female shape standing over Brian in his room. It sounds like that manifestation must have somehow been yourself.”
Seramis hesitantly nodded with agreement. “I am unaware if that is true or not, but I believe that your premise is probably correct. However, for Brian, I suggest that the military immediately calls in one of their healing specialized mages or if not immediately available, a mage that has some healing knowledge to examine Brian and if they find what I expect them to find, deactivate the suit.”
“What do you expect them to find?”
“That my spell was successful, but the hibernation that your suit is forcing upon Brian is only slowing the natural healing effects of my spell.”
Brenda, Jennifer and Doctor Edmundson looked to Major Thole as Seramis finished making her recommendation. He sighed heavily. “I don’t really trust all this magic mumbo jumbo nonsense, but I’ll check with Mr. Hoffman to see if he might be able to take a look at Brian. If not, then I’ll have to call General Horner. He and some DARPA honcho are going to be arriving tomorrow at 0800 hrs. Maybe he can bring a healing mage with him.”
Brenda returned her attention to Queen Seramis. “Thank you. They are going to check with our on-site mage to see if he can help. I hate to ask you this, but is there a way that I might contact you in real life if we have any more questions?”
Queen Seramis pondered her question for a moment. “I regret that will not be possible at this point in time. I do not feel comfortable with making myself known to the military at this time.” Brenda became alarmed until Seramis continued. “However, I would not be adverse to providing Lady Commander Kalisa with a room here in my stronghold to enable faster communications when I am available.”
Brenda and everyone else in the room realized that was probably the best that they can hope for right now. “Thank you your Majesty. You offer is kind and on behalf of myself and everyone here, I will be happy to accept it.”
With a smile, Queen Seramis stood, indicating that the audience was over. “You are welcome Lady Commander Kalisa and I hope that I have been of some assistance to Brian’s family and your associates. I will instruct my chamberlain to find you suitable accommodations.”
Dismissed from Queen Seramis’ throne room, Brenda guided Kalisa through the motions of meeting Queen Seramis’ chamberlain while the doctors and military personnel in the conference room erupted into vibrant debates about what Queen Seramis said and didn’t say. Paying scant attention to the debate and exhausted from the mental exertions, she viewed the suite that Kalisa is assigned too and was surprised to find out that her suite was located just down the hall from the Queen’s suite. She settled Kalisa down for the evening and logged out of GEO. Brenda was amazed to discover that it was already after 7pm and since she hadn’t eaten dinner yet, she was starving.
She looked at Jennifer and smiled at her confused expression. The scientists and military folks were talking a mile a minute using terms and acronyms that were highly confusing. “Jennifer?” She asked.
Not responding, Brenda touched her shoulder and repeated. “Jennifer?”
Jennifer jumped slightly with surprise and frowned. “Oh sorry Brenda, I was trying to follow the conversation, but it’s like they’re speaking Greek or something.”
Feeling the same way, Brenda gently laughed. “Oh, I understand that completely! I’m just as lost myself. Anyway, I’m starving and I don’t think that we will learn anything new for at least an hour or two, would you like for me to grab some takeout from my favorite restaurant for you?”
Jennifer smiled with gratitude. “Yes! I am starving and thank you so much for thinking of me!”
“Oh, it’s not a problem!” Brenda grinned as she stood up and stretched after sitting for so long. “Do you want to follow me to my desk so I can show you their takeout menu?”
“Sure…” Jennifer said with obvious hesitation to leave the room with so much discussion about her son taking place.
Brenda sensed her reluctance. “Wait here, I’ll be right back with the menu.”
“Thanks and I’m sorry to be such a bother, but so much is happening and I don’t want to miss anything.” Jennifer desperately replied, her attention split between her and the highly technical discussion.
“No problem Jennifer. I totally understand!” Brenda said with a compassionate smile before she turned to leave.
After Brenda took her order and left, Jennifer watched Doctor Edmundson and his team animatedly discuss everything they have learned from the interview with that Seramis person. She seemed so in command and sure of herself and from what little she could understand from the current conversation, Jennifer felt more hopeful than before the meeting that Brian would be okay.
The arrival of a bedraggled looking man wearing jeans, a tie-dye t-shirt, black and white beaded necklace with some crystal hanging from the end and worn tennis shoes caused her some concern. She didn’t know how the man could make it past security looking like a hippy from the 70’s, but he must be the wizard or security expert.
“Hey Doctor E, what’s up?” The strange man said with a casual wave.
Doctor Edmundson’s smile looked a little forced. “Ahh, Mr. Hoffman. Thanks for coming. We have a magical problem and are hoping that you may be of some assistance.”
“Oh, no problemo Doc. Did you want me to check out that PC over there?” Mr. Hoffman asked as he pointed to Brenda’s PC.
He glanced at the PC with a confused expression on his face. “Ummm, no why?”
“Well, it’s kinda got a faint magical residue on it.” Mr. Hoffman said just before everyone standing or sitting anywhere near the PC took a few steps back to give them some distance from the possible threat.
Major Thole did not look happy to hear that revelation. “Mr. Hoffman, magical security is your responsibility here. Why didn’t your wards detect this security threat?”
“Whoa, relax Major. Lemme check it out first.” Mr. Hoffman said without concern as he walked over to Brenda’s PC and began to look at it more closely. He studied the mouse and keyboard. “Well, the traces that I am seeing are some sort of low powered empathetic scrying spell that are focused on the mouse and keyboard. What was this PC used for?”
“Brenda was using it to play GEO.” Major Thole said with a tight expression.
“Wow, that’s pretty cool. I’ve been hearing some freaky things about that game’s interface. Based on that, I’d have to say that this must be how the game is able to respond so intuitively to its players.”
Major Thole’s patience with Mr. Hoffman’s casual attitude ended. “So, is this a security threat or not Mr. Hoffman?”
“Probably not Major, but if it would make you feel better, you could unplug the internet cable and turn it off. Maybe have Brenda take it home.” He smiled and glanced around the room. “Hey, didn’t I just see her leave?”
Jennifer noticed that Major Thole looked like he was about to blow a gasket when Dr. Edmundson intervened. “Yes, I think that she went to get some food for herself and Mrs. Peters. However, the PC isn’t the reason we asked for your assistance this evening.”
Mr. Hoffman looked confused. “It’s not?”
“No, Mr. Hoffman. What we need to know is if you have any experience with healing spells?”
He grimaced and shook his head. “Not a lot, but I have done some research into them. Never can tell when being able to heal a nasty paper cut could come in handy, why?”
“We would like for you to examine a patient that we have here and tell us if you can detect any healing spells on him.”
Mr. Hoffman grinned and nodded his head with acceptance. “Oh wow, sure. Would be happy too. Where is he?”
Dr. Edmundson stood to exit the room. “Mr. Hoffman, Major Thole, Dr. Johannson and Mrs. Peters let’s proceed to Brian’s room and see if Mr. Hoffman can shed some additional light on this subject, shall we?”
During the short walk, Jennifer listened as Dr. Edmundson gave Mr. Hoffman a brief explanation of what had happened to her son. She noticed that the strange man’s stride became a little less casual and more purposeful the more that he learned. Jennifer’s felt her hope and excitement levels raise the closer that they got to her son’s room.
Entering the room, Mr. Hoffman’s eyes narrowed and then widened with surprise as he viewed Brian’s suit encased form laying on the bed. He rushed forward to first touch the suit and then he held onto the crystal that hung from his necklace as he closed his eyes. His right hand made several random looking passes over the suit before he purposefully moved to touch Brian’s head. He briefly held his hand there before moving to Brian’s chest, followed by his abdomen, and finally down each arm and leg before he stopped.
After what felt like ages to Jennifer, Mr. Hoffman finally opened his eyes again. “Amazing! Simply amazing.”
Dr. Edmundson could not contain his curiosity any longer. “What is amazing Mr. Hoffman?”
“Oh sorry Doc, I’ve just never seen anything so powerful and beautiful before. There is definitely a healing spell at work on her, but the suit is interfering with its work.” Mr. Hoffman said as he continued to look reverently at something that only he could see.
Dr. Edmundson looked confused as Jennifer gripped his arm with panic. “Her? Don’t you mean, him? Mrs. Peters’ son Brian is who is contained in that suit.” Dr. Edmundson asked.
“Sorry Doc, but there is most definitely a girl inside that suit and she would be in much better shape if we could get this suit off of her as soon as possible” Mr. Hoffman said as Dr. Edmundson pursed his lips with disappointment at the back of the oblivious mage. He gently guided Jennifer to a chair so that she could sit as tears begin to leak from her eyes.
Mr. Hoffman finally turned to look at Dr. Edmundson and noticed that Jennifer was sitting on a chair with tears in her eyes. He looked confused at the sight of a woman crying at first, but then the realization hit him that the woman now crying expected her son to be inside the suit. “Oh man, I am such an idiot sometimes. I’m so so so sorry ma’am. I didn’t realize...”
Jennifer interrupted him as she struggled to contain her tears. “But I felt him inside the suit last night. I can still feel him in there! How can you think that Brian is a girl?” She looked to an abashed Mr. Hoffman for answers.
“Ummm, maybe I’m wrong? The energy inside the suit just felt feminine. Is the caster of the healing spell a woman? If so, maybe that is what I felt?” Mr. Hoffman said without any real conviction as he attempted to sooth Jennifer’s feelings.
Dr. Edmundson looked to Dr. Johannson and Major Thole for advice. “Well, what do you two think?”
“Sir, I’m not a doctor. I couldn’t even begin to tell you what might be the right thing to do.” Major Thole said with a look of panic at the thought of being asked to make what could be a life or death medical decision.
Dr. Johannson looked deep in thought for a moment. “Well, based on the monitors, the boy’s vitals are all low, but stable. I don’t see any medical reason why we couldn’t manually deactivate the suit. If his vitals drop after that, we could always reactivate the suit.”
“Jennifer, what do you think?” Dr. Edmundson asked, gently.
“Oh my god Doctor Edmundson! I don’t know what to think right now. That Seramis woman and Mr. Hoffman think that there is a healing spell on Brian, but I don’t understand anything about that. If you all think that it might help if you turn off the suit, then I’m all for that...All I want is for Brian to be okay.” Jennifer said as she struggled to hold back her tears.
Dr. Edmundson thought for a moment before nodding to Dr. Johansson. “Okay, Dave. Would you please deactivate the suit?”
“Yes sir.” Dr. Johannson said as he moved over to the computer console that was plugged into Brian’s suit. He checked the vitals and diagnostics a few more times and then, satisfied by what he saw, typed in a command and after a brief pause to confirm his action, hit the enter key.
The suit beeped once, acknowledging the command and for a long ten seconds afterwards, nothing seemed to happen, but just as everyone in the room started to glance around with concern, the suit separated, revealing a thin glowing seam on both sides of Brian’s body.
“That’s not normal…” Dr. Johansson muttered as he hastily turned back the control console. Before he could do more than glance at the status screen, Brian’s vital signs immediately shot up and then, settled back down to normal as the glow faded.
Mr. Hoffman broke the silence first. “Wow, that was impressive. I totally want to meet the person who cast that spell!” He said, awestricken by what he has just witnessed.
Mr. Hoffman’s words jolted Dr. Edmundson out of his surprised shock. He reached for the part of the suit covering Brian’s face and carefully pulled it up and away as Jennifer fearfully stood watch.
Everyone in the room, except for Mr. Hoffman, was startled by the sight of the unconscious and beautiful girl’s face that the suit’s removal revealed. Dr. Johannson jumped to lend Dr. Edmundson a hand with the removal of the rest of the top half of the suit. The flawless milky white skin of the girl’s naked chest revealed pert breasts on a chest that narrowed at the waist before flaring out at her hips. A quick examination of her groin before the entire top half was removed proved that she was, at least on the surface, a female. However, even Mr. Hoffman could not contain his surprise when Dr. Edmundson returned to her head to begin the removal of the bottom half of the suit from her body. As he carefully lifted her head from the bottom half of the suit, her raven black hair parted to reveal delicate pointed ears. “By the Makers! She’s an elf!”
Dr. Edmundson and Dr. Johansson finished the removal of the suit followed by a more careful physical examination of her body before Dr. Edmundson covered the lower half of her body with a blanket to preserve her modesty. Instead of trusting the automated vital sign machines, Dr. Edmundson first checked the girl’s eyes by carefully opening one eyelid, shining a penlight to check for pupil response, then checking the other eye the same way. “As expected, her pupils are dilated, but they both responded perfectly to the light. That’s a good sign. Her eyes appear to be slightly larger than human norm and her brilliant green and silver iris is stunning, but other than those slight abnormalities, I feel relieved by her response to stimulus.”
He followed his initial examination by manually checking her blood pressure followed by her heart and lungs with a stethoscope. The extra time that it took and the familiar doctor routine helped to calm Jennifer as she held the strange girl’s hand. Even though her son looked different on the outside, she knew that on the inside, he was still in the room with her.
Dr. Edmundson turned to her. “Well, I am at a complete loss to explain how this could have happened, but I am happy to say that ummm, Brian looks and sounds perfectly healthy to me.” He glanced over to Mr. Hoffman. “Mr. Hoffman, do you have any insights that you could offer us? Could the spell have transformed Brian into a girl?”
“I don’t think so sir. The spell was definitely not a transformation spell. It only aided her body with its natural healing.” Mr. Hoffman said as a little bit of authority crept back into his voice as his magical knowledge returned to more familiar grounds.
Brenda chose that moment to walk into the room carrying a bag with Jennifer’s food. She almost dropped the bag in shock. “Oh my god! It’s Whisper!”
Washington D.C. - DARPA HQ - 16-FEB-2007 - 0730hrs
After navigating the Pentagon maze, Deputy Director Nicholas Reilly of DARPA’s Director’s Office (DIRO) sat down at his desk and plugged his laptop into its docking station with a sigh of relief. His office was sparsely decorated. He had only been working out of DARPA HQ for a month now and we wasn’t used to having a regular office. He was more used to working in the field as a troubleshooter for DARPA, but when the Deputy Director position opened up, Director Alberts insisted that Nicholas take the position.
A photo of his son, Troy and his daughter Nichole were the only personal touches on his desk. His “I love me” wall was still in a box laying on the floor. A very small box. It contained a few awards from his time in the military. A few photos and his college diploma. He liked to keep the wall salad to the bare minimum because he didn’t like the distraction caused by large displays of false ego.
Now if Congress would approve the new headquarters building planned for Arlington, VA. The commute would be so much easier. At the current legislative snail’s pace, that might be a few more years though. His secretary brought him a fresh cup of coffee with a smile, “Thanks, Susan and how many times do I have to tell you that I can get my own cup of coffee?”
“I lost count sir, but if you like, I could try and do the math based on how many days you come into the office with a frown on your face”.
“I don’t frown that often, do I?”
“No sir, but this is Friday and for you to frown on a Friday, something must be bad. So, I thought that you might need a cup.”
Nick took a cautious sip of his coffee and smiled. “Yes, you might be right Susan, but don’t let it happen again or I’ll have to give you a paid day off or something!”
“Yes sir!” Susan said with a crisp salute that betrayed her prior service background. “Will there be anything else, sir?”
“No, I think that you have done enough damage to my Friday morning blues. Thank you.”
“No problem sir.” She was about to leave when she stopped. “Oh, Director Alberts stopped by on his way in this morning. He wanted me to ask if you had a chance to read the updated accident report from the lab in Los Alamos”.
Nick paused to take another sip of his coffee. “No, I haven’t, but I will pull it up now, thanks for the warning”.
Susan frowned with concentration. “Oh yeah, He also mentioned something about the video attachment and the picture of the subject that you might find interesting.”
“Okay, that could be bad.” Nick said as he sat back in his chair with a thoughtful expression after he hit the key on his laptop. It looked like the file was pretty big and was going to take a few minutes to download over the network.
“Yes sir, When Director Alberts says something is ‘interesting’, then it’s time to panic. Will there be anything else sir?”
“No, but thanks again for disobeying my no coffee order”
“My pleasure sir. I’m just following the UCMJ ( Uniform Code of Military Justice ) rules regarding illegal orders, sir”
“Interesting interpretation Susan. What are you basing that nebulous legal justification on?” Nick asked, smiling with anticipation before taking another sip of his coffee. This should be good. Even though she didn’t look it, Susan was an ex-marine and one sharp cookie.
“Oh, just the part about denying prisoners food and water.” Susan said with an impish grin as she watched her boss almost choke on his coffee with surprise.
Nick struggled to contain his coughing. “Okay, you got me, Susan. Now shoo so I can finish my POW coffee in peace.”
Susan’s pleased laugh followed her out of his office as she closed his door.
The video was still downloading, but the updated report and picture of the subject named “Brian Peters” was available. Nick read the report and the further he got, the more curious he became. He could understand the complication that the subject being a possible mutant could cause, but he wasn’t sure what a video game might have to do with the problem. The summary just stated that, “GEO player character, Seramis, claimed that she was able to cast a spell on subject Brian Peters via video game interface ( See attached video ).”
Okay, that part was cause for some concern, but any crackpot with a loose grip on reality could make a wild claim like that. The confirmation that a healing class spell was actually found to be active on Brian Peters was definitely an interesting wrinkle. He started to take another sip of his cooling coffee when he clicked on the two attached pictures labeled “Brian_Peters_1” and “Brian_Peters_2”. The first one showed what looked to be recent school photo of the boy, while the second one showed a strikingly attractive teenage girl laying unconscious in a hospital bed. He paused mid sip when he noticed that she appeared to be an elf, like his daughter.
With his curiosity peaked, Nick decided to watch the video. There was something very familiar about this Queen Seramis person. Her speech patterns and body language reminded him of his daughter’s avatar spirit, Aunghadhail. He made it halfway through the video before he absently noticed that his coffee cup was empty. Almost on cue, Susan poked her head into his office and with a smirk asked him if she should bring him a second cup. Without comment, he nodded yes and she promptly returned to refresh his cup from the carafe.
Once the video finished, Nick sat back in his chair and started to put his observations into order. Reaching a conclusion, Nick looked at the time and noting that it was already 0830, he picked up his phone and dialed a number from memory, “Whateley Academy Headmaster Carson’s office. How may I help you?”
“Hello, this is Nicholas Reilly and if Mrs. Carson is available, I would like to speak to her about my daughter, Nichole Reilly, please.”
“Do you mind holding while I check sir?”
“Sure and thanks”
Nick is only on hold for 20 or 30 seconds before he heard, “Mr. Reilly? Mrs. Carson is available. I will transfer you to her office right now.”
“Thank you”
“Mr. Reilly. I understand that some congratulations are in order for your recent promotion. How can I help you today?”
“Thank you Mrs. Carson, I have only been here for a month now and while I have been kept rather busy, I am positive that you are a very busy person yourself. I would like to think that my daughter is a perfect little angel who never gets into any trouble. However, I think that I would only be lying to myself if I really thought that”
“True and except for a minor incident yesterday, I haven’t heard of any recent troubles that your daughter might be accidentally attracting to herself” Mrs. Carson said with a laugh.
“An incident? What kind of incident?”
“It appears that another student was very mad at her and accused her and someone else of cheating at some video game the other day.” Mrs. Carson said, dismissively.
“GEO?”
Mrs. Carson’s tone of voice changed instantly. She sounded very alert. “Yes...how did you know?”
“That is kind of a long story, but I have reason to believe that Nikki somehow managed to cast a healing spell on someone else via the game.”
“That’s impossible!” Mrs. Carson said with disbelief.
Nick chuckled. “I’d like to think that too, but I have the proof of that laying in a hospital bed at a DARPA nanotechnologies research lab in Los Alamos.”
“Why would that person be at a DARPA lab?”
“A local high school boy and possible mutant was on a class field trip at the lab two days ago. During the tour of one of the research labs, he and his classmates handled a sample vial that contained a large quantity of deactivated test nanites. It is theorized that he somehow activated and became infected by those nanites.”
“Didn’t the boy know that he was a mutant?”
“Apparently not, his parents first noticed the first signs of mutant manifestation when he got home that evening.”
“How does the game come into all of this?”
“The boy was playing the game when he collapsed. The investigation team at the lab didn’t think that the game had much of an impact until they sent one of their employees into the game to talk to the person that saw him in-game just before he collapsed for real.”
“I know that Nikki can do some impossible things, but I still don’t see how she might be involved.”
“The boy was playing a female elf assassin who was originally sent to kill a Queen Seramis. I think she might be Nikki’s character. The boy decided not to kill her, and instead, defended Seramis from a second assassin that was there to kill her. During the fight, his character became wounded and was about to die, so Seramis healed him.”
“Okay, she cast a virtual healing spell on a virtual person in the game, so what?”
“Not exactly, and this is where it gets more confusing. This Seramis person was able to tell that the boy was actually in the game and that he was feeling everything that his character was feeling. His real body was actually dying from the virtual wounds and virtual poison he received from the other assassin during the fight.”
“Oh...and Nikki...” Mrs. Carson paused as if mulling over all the impossible ideas in her head.
“Okay, I can see her somehow managing to do that. How can I help?”
“I would like to confirm my suspicions about who was playing this Queen Seramis person. Would it be possible for me to speak with Nikki and ask her a few questions?”
“Certainly, I can have her pulled from class right now if you need.”
“That would be helpful, but I also think that Sir Wallace might be needed in this conversation.” Nick said with an afterthought.
“Hmmm, Not a problem. It could take ten to fifteen minutes. Do you want me to call you back as soon as I can round both of them up?”
“Yes, please. That will work perfectly. I need to give the Director an update. Thanks Mrs. Carson.” Nick said before hanging up his phone. He paused for a minute to gather his thoughts, and then he walked down the hall to knock on his boss's door.
DARPA Director Alberts raised his eyebrow. “I take it that you have reviewed the latest ‘opportunity’?” He asked, using the euphemism for problem.
“Yes, sir and I think that I will need to visit the site myself. I understand that Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO) Director Grier and Col Thompson are already on-site and if this were a normal containment or contamination problem their presence would be more than enough firepower to resolve the problem. Unfortunately, I am worried that there could be some National Security issues with this case that might cause the SecDef and President to end up getting involved.”
Director Alberts sighed and leaned back in his chair to briefly look up at the ceiling in thought. After only a second, he looked back to Nick. “That is what I was afraid you were going to say Nick. I don’t like it, but I have to agree with your assessment. If it wasn’t for my oldest son being a GEO addict and giving me a basic understanding of the game in an attempt to get me to play, I might have missed the potential issues the interview with that Seramis woman raised.”
“Yes sir. The Seramis issue is what I am most concerned about right now. Just the chance that someone could cast a spell on someone else over the internet scares the crap out of me and I’m sure that when the boys upstairs find out about it, they will shit their pants.”
“I think you are right about that. I’ll make a call to Captain Heinricks to ask him to get the jet ready to fly you to Los Alamos. I will also let Director Grier know that you’re on the way.”
“I noticed in the interview with the Seramis woman, that she recommended a mystical healer take a look at the subject.”
“Yes, but an on-site mage was able to do that”
“True, but the subject is still unconscious and that concerns me. I would like to bring a mystical healing consultant with me, just in case the girl who was a boy, hasn’t regained consciousness by the time I am able to get there. There are still a lot of questions regarding his transformation and the magic that may have been involved.”
“True, healers are kind of rare though. Do you happen to know of any that might be available?” Director Alberts asked with a knowing smile.
Nick sighed. “Yes sir, Sir Wallace Westmont and my daughter, Nichole”.
Director Alberts just nodded his approval. “I take it that you reached the same conclusions that I did regarding this Seramis person?”
Nick couldn’t hide his frown. Nikki’s exploits were pretty well known and his boss was very cognizant of the fact that she was Nick’s daughter. “Yes sir and that’s why I want Sir Wallace to be there. His neutral mentor status and proven expertise on magical phenomenon should help to protect my daughter and reduce my conflict of interest in this case. If she really is Seramis.”
“Risky. If she is Seramis; the government is definitely going to want answers, but I can see where you are going with this. Your idea might just stop the witch hunt before it starts once this report reaches the higher ups.”
“Yes sir, that is what I hope for too. Before someone upstairs starts the panic, if I am able to prove that this spell casting thing is just a fluke and that the person responsible is on our side, that should keep my daughter safe. Sir Wallace’s testimony will also help with that.”
“I would not want to be in your shoes right now, Nick. Interesting times, indeed. I’ll seal this report to slow the damage and give you a few extra days to get things under control.”
“Thank you sir. I have a few damage control calls to make myself. I should be ready to head out in thirty minutes, but first, I need to get back to my office. I’m expecting a return call from Whateley that may answer the question regarding my daughter’s involvement in this issue. Who knows, maybe I’ll get lucky and I won’t need to bring her and Sir Wallace.” Nick said without much hope.
“Okay, but just in case, I’ll let Cpt. Heinricks know that you might need to make a stop to pick up your ‘consultants’” Director Alberts said as Nick left his office.
As Nick walked back to his office, he worried over how he was going to keep his daughter safe. Once the report made its way up the chain and more people got wind of it, he was sure that his daughter’s involvement would come out eventually.
While he didn’t see anything in the video that would point to his daughter directly, it wouldn’t take much for an agency like the FBI or NSA to obtain the GEO account records under a National Security Letter. He didn’t even want to think about how much of a stink that the MCO would raise if they ever found out. The ‘Deadly Force Pre-Authorized’ on her MID still pissed him off and he made it a point to keep the MCO out of any DARPA project. Bringing Nikki in on this from the start was a definite risk, but it also stood the best chance of keeping all of the three letter agencies from investigating it in the first place.
He grabbed his emergency travel kit from the file cabinet in his office and reviewed it to make sure that there wasn’t anything missing when he heard Susan's phone begin to ring. “Hi Susan. Is that Mrs. Carson from Whateley?”
Susan looked surprised to see him looking so anxious over a phone call. “Yes sir. Shall I transfer her in?”
“Yes please and block my schedule off for the next few days. I will be heading to New Mexico as soon as I am done with this call.”
“Yes sir. Transferring your call now.” Susan said before the line clicked over to Mrs. Carson.
“Hello Mrs. Carson, thank you. Your timing is perfect. Were you able to find Sir Wallace and Nichole?”
“Of course Mr. Reilly.” Mrs. Carson said with a pleasant chuckle. “They’re both here, should I put you on speaker?”
Nick laughed at the idea that the Headmistress of Whateley would be unable to find a student. “Yes please and thanks again for taking the time out of what I am sure is a busy schedule Mrs. Carson.”
“My pleasure Mr. Reilly and if only all parents were as understanding as you are.” Mrs. Carson said before she switched the phone over to speaker mode with a beep.
“Hi Daddy. Is everything okay with Mom and Troy?” Nikki sounded a little hesitant and worried on the other end of the line.
Nick rushed to reassure her since in retrospect, a parent calling and having their child pulled out of class was usually due to bad news. “Everything is fine with them Nikki, but I do have a question to ask you.”
“Oh, that is a relief! When Mrs. Carson got me and said that you had called I was so worried! What’s the question?”
Nick decided to just come right to the point. “Are you Seramis?”
Nick started to worry when Nikki didn’t immediately deny the allegation. “Ummm, I’m not...” Nikki started to reply causing Nick’s hopes to rise. “but Aunghadhail is. Why and how did you know?”
Nick frowned. It was just as he feared. “This morning, I watched a video with Seramis speaking with the character of one of our personnel at a DARPA Nanotechnologies research lab in Los Alamos.”
“Oh...” Nikki said, trailing off as the implications sank in for her.
“Yes...Oh. Right now, that video and the accompanying report has only reached as far as my desk and Director Alberts’ desk. I fear that holy hell will break loose once it goes higher up the food chain and people start freaking out over the idea that someone could cast a spell through the internet.”
“I...I mean Aung was only able to do that once and we explained that it was only because Whisper was somehow connected to the game!”
“Yes, I saw that and I believe you, but when the report finally reaches the DoD...they are going to s...I mean heads will roll.”
“Did my spell work and is Brian okay?” Nikki asked, sounding more concerned about Brian than the side effects.
Nick sighed. “Yes, your spell worked, but as of this morning Brian is still unconscious and ‘she’ now looks like an Elf.”
“Mr. Reilly. If I may speak.” Nikki asked. Her voice changed to sound like she was an adult instead of his teenage daughter and she wasn’t really asking for permission.
“Of course Aunghadhail...” Nick started to say before she cut him off.
“I find myself concerned on multiple levels. First of all, MCO aside, your government must be made to understand that I am not a threat to itself. Secondly, there are a few aspects of the game that I have found to be of some concern and I believe that your government would be wise to further investigate. Finally, I am deeply concerned with the health of my Subject. She should have awoken immediately or very shortly after my spell completed. Those ‘classified’ nanites of yours must be interfering. What do you intend to do to diagnose and eliminate this threat to her health?”
Nick frowned as he considered her points. “I agree with you on the first two points, but what do you mean by her being your Subject?”
“Simple, she is Sidhe, is she not?”
Nick wasn’t sure if genetic tests had been done yet that could confirm that observation. “She appears to be, yes.”
“No, she is and as such, her well being is one of my responsibilities. I did not risk so much to save her life only to have your government risk her health with its experimental technologies.” Aunghadhail said, full of determination.
Nick started to get worried. His daughter wasn’t listed as a class 7 for nothing. If Aunghadhail got pissed; she could cause a lot of damage and endanger his daughter. “Out of curiosity, just what do you intend to do?”
“Simple. I will open a gateway to her side and render her aid.” Aunghadhail said as if doing such a feat was a minor accomplishment.
“Whoa! Wait a second there Aunghadhail. While I can only guess that you can simply snap your fingers and port to her side, not only would I have a problem with you doing that, but I am sure that the US government would view your unauthorized entry into a secure government facility as a hostile action. Mrs. Carson probably wouldn’t appreciate that either.”
“Hmmm, you raise an interesting point Mr. Reilly. Sir Wallace, Nikki and Mrs. Carson all indicate their agreement on your observations. However, I must go to her aid. What do you recommend to solve this impasse?” Aunghadhail asked, sounding contrite.
“Sir Wallace?” Nick asked.
Sir Wallace sounded a little surprised to be brought into this part of the discussion. “Yes?”
“I have already made arrangements to bring you and Nichole with me, but I didn’t have a chance to ask you if that was okay with you. I am in desperate need of your assistance with this matter. Would it be possible for you to lend me the weight of your expertise for the weekend?”
“In light of the danger to my pupil and the fascinating implications that this problem raises, I don’t see how I cannot offer my assistance to you with this bit of a sticky wicket that young Nichole seems to have found herself on.”
Nick smiled, but what Aunghadhail said next really shocked him. “I apologize for my hasty words Mr. Reilly. It was wrong for me to assume that you might not have a solution already made.”
Mrs. Carson interjected herself. “Mr. Reilly, excuse me for a minute, but is bringing your daughter in like this the best way to protect her?”
Nick sighed and reclined in his chair. “Honestly Mrs. Carson, I don’t know. However, waiting until the DoD panics is definitely not something I want to worry about. I’d much rather stop it before it’s too late. Will it be a problem for Sir Wallace and Nichole to join me?”
“Given the situation, I think that I agree with your assessment and I don’t think that I could say no. What time do you expect to arrive here?”
“I will need to check with the pilot, but I would guess that it will be about a two hour flight from D.C. to the closest airstrip to Whateley. How about I call you as soon as I have an ETA? Additionally, would it be possible for Sir Wallace and Nichole to meet me at the airport?”
“Certainly Mr. Reilly, I will bring the two of them there myself.”
Nick started to feel some hope that he could resolve this issue with a minimum of danger to Nikki. His career might be in danger, but that was secondary. “Thank you Mrs. Carson. Your assistance and understanding is most welcome.”
“Not a problem Mr. Reilly. I am glad that I could be of assistance to you, your family and our government in this situation. I shudder to think what might happen if the government decided that Nikki was a threat.”
“I thank you for your concern for my daughter Mrs. Carson.” Nick said, grateful for Mrs. Carson’s understanding and support.
“Your daughter?” Mrs. Carson said with a laugh. “No, Mr. Reilly. I’d be more worried about the government if I were you.”
--Friday, Feb 16th 2007--
The flight from D.C. to New Hampshire to pick up his daughter was uneventful and it gave Nick more time to consider what else he needed to do to further stack the deck in Nikki’s favor. The thought of making a personal call mixed with business to his friend and now President of the United States gave him an upset stomach, but he was pretty sure that John would be willing to help smooth the way with the DoD. As long as Nick was able to provide enough proof that Nikki wasn’t a threat to National Security. Reaching a decision, Nick dialed the President’s personal number and was surprised when John answered his phone instead of letting it go to his voice mail.
“Hey Nick! Good to hear from you. What’s the newest National Emergency that my advisers haven’t told me about?” The President asked with a laugh.
Nick pretended to be offended. “Sir! I am hurt that you would think that the only time I call you is when there is a National Emergency.”
“Okay, so when was the last time you called and there wasn’t one?” The President asked, sounding dubious.
“Well, I called to wish you a Happy Birthday last November.”
“Umm, yes, but you also mixed in Sam Everheart and that Hive thing during that call too.”
“Okay, then Happy Anniversary?”
“My Anniversary isn’t for another two months. What’s wrong?”
“Sorry John, but Nikki has gotten herself involved in something that could land her in trouble with the DHS and a lot of other National Security agencies.”
The President took a couple of seconds to respond. “Hmmm, you know that I make it a point to read any report that concerns Whateley and especially your daughter.”
Nick started to get worried. He could understand that the President would keep tabs on Whateley, but his daughter too? “Umm, sir…”
The President interrupted him. “Oh, don’t worry too much about that Nick. I only pay attention because she’s your daughter and you’re my friend. Well, and she’s pretty damn powerful. So, why would you think there might be a National Security issue that could cause us both some problems?”
“There is the possibility that she remotely cast a healing spell on someone through the Internet.”
“What? Did I just hear you say what I thought you said?” The President asked, sounding incredulous.
“I wish that I could say otherwise, but yes sir, based upon the evidence, I would have to say it’s highly likely.”
The President didn’t reply for what felt like the longest time. “How?” He asked.
“The short answer is that she was playing the video game called Good and Evil Online when another player became injured. She cast a healing spell from her room in New Hampshire and it hit that person all the way in New Mexico.”
“Hmmm, I can see why you would be worried. Did she have an explanation as to how she did it and can she or anyone else repeat it?”
“Yes, she has an explanation and, while I am not a magical expert, it makes sense and no, she has not been able to repeat it and I do not know if anyone else could repeat it. I am on my way to pick up Nikki along with her mentor and magical expert, Sir Wallace Westmont, before heading to the lab in Los Alamos where the boy she healed is being examined.”
“Sir Wallace? I think I have heard of him. He helped the Queen of England awhile back, right?”
“Yes sir.”
“I assume that there is a report with the raw data regarding this incident somewhere?”
“Yes sir, it is DARPA-20070221X-Z01”
“Okay, I’m going to need to take a look at the report myself, make a few calls, ask a select few of my advisers some questions and see what I can do to help protect Nikki from the fallout. Based on what you have told me so far, I think that we can limit her exposure, but she will probably still need to answer a few very pointed questions before we can safely bury her part in this incident in a black hole somewhere.”
“Yes sir, thank you sir and I will try to make my next call 100% about your Anniversary.”
“Good luck with that Nick.” The President said with a friendly chuckle before he hung up.
Nick leaned back in his chair and let out a large sigh of relief now that call was out of the way. Now all he had to worry about was what Sir Wallace, Nikki, the military, the scientists at the lab and the new girl’s parents would discover after they landed in New Mexico. On the positive side, Nikki’s presence and experience with the gender and elf issue could be helpful.
The sight of Nikki anxiously waiting with Sir Wallace and Mrs. Carson when the cabin door opened took his breath away. He knew his daughter was beautiful, but every time he saw her it still took him by surprise. The hug that she gave him only hardened his resolve to do everything in his power, and then some, to keep her safe.
As he approached the trio, Nick looked at Mrs. Carson and smiled. “Thank you for your assistance Mrs. Carson.”
Mrs. Carson nodded her head and smiled. “Oh, it’s not a problem Mr. Reilly. This sounds like an interesting problem and I hope that you are able to get to the bottom of it.” Her expression turned more serious. “Not only for your daughter’s safety, but also for the safety of the child at the center of this.”
Nick nodded his agreement as he glanced briefly at Nikki before returning his full attention back to Mrs. Carson. “I can’t agree more with you on those points, Mrs. Carson.”
Nick turned back to his daughter and gave her hug. She looked up at him and frowned. “Daddy?”
“Yes, Nikki?”
“Is everything going to be alright?” Nikki’s eyes were filled with concern.
“Shhhh, don’t worry about that right now. We can discuss our plans on the plane.” His heart melted as she smiled at him.
“How long will I be gone? I’m not going to miss any school, am I?” Nikki hesitantly asked.
Nick chuckled at the thought his daughter would be worried about missing school. “No, I hope not and we should be able to have you back by Sunday night.”
“Oh, umm, that could be a problem. I have an important meeting with my training team on Sunday.” Nikki turned to Mrs. Carson. “Would it be possible to port back?”
Mrs. Carson nodded. “Yes, just call me beforehand so I can alert the magic department before they freak out.”
Mr. Reilly sighed with resignation. The idea that his daughter could teleport at will was a little intimidating. Instead of dwelling on it, he turned to Sir Wallace and shook his hand. “Thank you for your willingness to not only mentor my daughter, but to lend your assistance with this problem.”
Sir Wallace tipped his hat and grinned. “Not a problem Mr. Reilly. In all honesty, I couldn’t resist the wondrous opportunity that my pupil has given me.”
Nick chuckled at Sir Wallace’s implication and Nikki’s discomfort. “Regardless, I’m still very grateful for your time, expertise and assistance in this matter. Are you two ready to board?” He asked, looking to Nikki and Sir Wallace.
The time went by pretty fast during the flight from New Hampshire to New Mexico. Nikki filled her father in on all of her many adventures. He initially had to look to Sir Wallace for confirmation of many of the incredible sounding details of Nikki’s stories. Sir Wallace’s simple nod at each point only confirmed to him that his daughter wasn’t just a simple teen magic user, she was a force of nature. He ended up feeling even more worried for her safety, but at the same time, very proud of her many accomplishments.
Shortly after their pilot announced that they would be landing in less than thirty minutes, Nick’s phone rang. He read the caller ID with surprise and when he looked up, he noticed Nikki and Sir Wallace’s curious stares. He mouthed, “The President” as he answered his phone.
“Mr. President, I didn’t expect to hear back from you so soon.”
“I just wanted to let you know that I looked over the report with my Advisor for Magical Affairs and my Adviser for National Security. They are here with me right now and would like to ask Nichole a few questions, if that is okay?”
“Certainly sir. Should I put her on speaker so that Sir Wallace and I can join in the conversation too?”
“Sure, we planned on doing the same here anyway. Don’t worry, this is just an informal gathering right now.”
“Yes sir.” Nick said as he plugged his phone into the cabin’s conference system.
“Hi, Nichole, this is Heather Richards, the President’s magical adviser. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?” She asked with a disarmingly pleasant sounding tone of voice.
“Hi and no ma’am, I don’t mind” Nikki said as she looked at her father nervously.
“We have all read the report and watched the video, but when you mentioned that there are other aspects of the game that alarm you. What did you mean by that?”
“Well, I and others have noticed that the game’s interface seems to almost read the player’s mind. Aunghadhail has also found that the magical formulas and spells in the game are very similar to real magical formulas and spells. It would only take a slight twist or alteration to make a game spell, real.”
“Hmmm.” Ms. Richards paused. “So, you believe that there is some real magic in the game?”
“Oh yes, ma'am. There has to be some real magic in the game. It was released without any beta testing and it hasn’t crashed once. Has there ever been a computer game or program like that?” Nikki asked with a chuckle.
Ms. Richards laughed. “I’m not big on computers, but Bob, the National Security Adviser, thought that was rather interesting.” She became more serious as she got back to the issue at hand. “Based upon your MID, I see that in addition to being a very powerful Wizard, you are also a fairly powerful Empath and that alone could explain how you could have cast the healing spell on Brian. However, If it were that alone; I am sure that this would not be the first case of Internet spell casting we have heard about.”
Nikki nodded her agreement. “No ma’am.”
“Given what you have told us about the game itself, Mr. Hoffman’s examination and discovery of a scrying spell on Ms. Koshnik’s PC and Brian’s unusual connection to the game, it sounds like we have a very unique set of circumstances in this case”
Nikki looked confused. “Mr. Hoffman? Ms. Koshnik?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Mr. Hoffman is the on-site security wizard who noticed that the PC owned by Ms. Koshnik, who you know as ummm, Lady Kalisa, had a faint residue of a scrying spell on her computer’s mouse and keyboard” Heather said.
Nikki looked surprised. “Really? I haven’t noticed that on my laptop, but I haven’t thought to look that closely at it either. That would explain a lot about the game’s UI.” Nikki looked at the bag that contained her laptop with suspicion.
The President returned to the conversation. “Okay, Bob, Heather, do you two have any additional questions to ask Nichole?” He paused for a few seconds before he continued. “No? Okay. I think that we will need to open up an investigation into this game. The simple fact that the game is able to generate a magical effect on a user’s PC is very troubling and I think that it is that, more than your accidental casting of a spell that has my National Security Adviser looking decidedly nervous.”
Nick nodded. “Yes sir, that would certainly put a completely new spin on computer viruses.” He watched as Nikki and Sir Wallace looked at each other with surprise as they considered the implications.
“Exactly!” The President agreed. “I will need to talk it over some more with my advisers, but, Nichole, I would like to thank you for your assistance in this matter. Just the fact that we were able to speak with you so quickly makes all of us here breathe a little easier. There is no telling what might have happened if this report had made its way up the normal channels.”
Nikki sighed with relief. “Thank you Mr. President.”
“Nikki? This is Heather again, before we go, would it be okay if I contacted you if I have any further questions?”
Nikki nodded and smiled. “Certainly ma’am. I’d be happy to help.”
The President returned to the conversation. “Excellent! It looks like we have everything we need for now. Nick, keep me updated with what you find at the lab or if you run into any roadblocks or problems with other agencies trying to stick their noses in. If you can’t reach me, call Bob or Heather. I’ll have them send you their contact information right after this call.”
“Yes sir, thank you sir.” Nick said with relief.
After the call ended, Nick smiled with relief at Sir Wallace and Nikki. “Well, it sounds like they believe you Nikki and their acceptance of that should help keep you out of trouble with the DHS and by default, the damn MCO.” Nick’s tone of voice left no doubt about his thoughts about the MCO. “Now we just need to make it through the weekend without any major surprises and we should be in the clear.” He grinned as he thought about how likely Murphy’s Law was to affect that idea.
A government issue black SUV waited for them when they arrived at the Los Alamos Airport and from there it was a short ten minute ride to the lab. During the drive, Sir Wallace noticed that the young male driver was having problems keeping his eyes off the rear view mirror. He smiled. “Umm Fey?”
“Yes?” Nikki asked looking confused as to why Sir Wallace was now using her code name.
“Our driver appears to be having a spot of a problem with his mirror. Would you mind reducing your glamour a spot? I’d hate for us to get into an accident.” Sir Wallace said with a smile as the driver cringed and Nikki blushed. The rest of the ride to the labs went without any further accidental lane changes.
Nick smiled at his daughter’s reaction when they arrived at the labs. She looked so excited to be entering a secured area with real U.S. Army soldiers on patrol. She shuddered once when they drove past the security checkpoint.
Nick turned to her with concern. “What’s wrong,” He paused for just a fraction of a second. “Fey?”
Nikki acknowledged the use of her code name with a nod. “Oh, sorry. It was nothing. We just entered the magical barrier that helps protect the labs from scrying and other forms of magical divination.”
“Really? I didn’t feel anything.” Nick said with surprise.
Sir Wallace added. “Mr. Reilly. It would be a surprise if you had detected it. You must commend your security wizard on his ward construction. It is very well designed and I can only offer a few suggestions on how he may improve it.”
Once they arrived at the lab, Nick introduced Sir Wallace as a DARPA magical adviser and for Nikki, he simply introduced her as Sir Wallace’s apprentice, Fey. A lot of people gasped with surprise at her introduction. She was apparently more famous than even he realized. While her codename was well known, he hoped that her real name wasn’t. He wasn’t sure if anyone here would know that Fey was his daughter, but he wanted to minimize conflict of interest issues as much as possible.
Nick could feel the tension caused by his arrival ratchet up even further after Fey’s introduction. Everyone seemed to realize that this problem was about to get a lot of attention. He didn’t think that they realized just how much more attention it had already received. If they knew that the President was already involved; he felt sure that they would all be looking a lot more worried.
“Thank you Dr. Edmundson, Major Thole and your excellent staff. My presence here isn’t to bang heads or make anyone feel like they didn’t do their job. On the contrary, Director Alberts and I feel that you all have performed above and beyond the call of duty. Your thorough and unorthodox investigation has answered many questions. Even questions we would have never thought to ask.” He smiled at that thought and noticed everyone in the room relax a little before he continued. “The idea of investigating the problem using a video game is just the type of out-of-box thinking that makes you all such an asset to you country.”
He noticed an attractive redhead sitting in the back of the room blush and smile as Mrs. Peters said something to her. He realized that she must be Ms. Koshnik. The young lady looked startled at the sight of Nikki, but no one else seemed to react as strongly at the sight of Nikki. Based on the thoughtful and confused glances he noticed her trying to sneak, he worried that she recognized her as Seramis.
He shifted his attention to Mrs. Peters. “Mrs. Peters, I want to assure you that every resource that the United States Government can offer to help your son recover will be made available. I can completely understand your pain and confusion caused by your son’s transformation.” Nick said while trying not to look at his daughter.
Mrs. Peters smiled gratefully at Nick. She looked so close to the verge of tears. “Thank you Mr. Reilly.”
Nick glanced to his daughter and noticed her determined expression. He decided that it was probably a good idea to make sure Mrs. Peters new daugher was taken care of after the investigation was complete. Not only because it is the right thing to do, but because if he didn’t, Nikki would never forgive him.
Nick smiled before he continued. “Now, I must warn you all that no good deed goes unpunished.” He watched a few frowns appear with that statement. “By that, I mean that while Sir Wallace, Fey and I were en route, we received a call from the President along with his National Security Adviser and Adviser of Magical Affairs.” Nick watched as he gained everyone’s maximum attention. “They wanted to express their concern regarding the issue with how this Seramis person was able to cast a spell over the Internet.” Nick noticed his daughter fidget in her chair as he mentioned ‘Seramis’.
“In a way, that’s actually good news for us. It means that we can focus our attention on how to best help Brian and learn from this incident while the President and his Advisers investigate the issues raised by GEO. Any additional data we are able to gather while helping Brian will go straight to the President. No pressure there, right?” Nick said with a chuckle as everyone in the room relaxed a little.
Now that Nick had the room’s full attention, he decided that now would be the time to completely introduce Fey. “To that end, I’d like to introduce you all to the person whom you know as Queen Seramis.” It took all of Nick’s self control not to smile as he watched Mr. Hoffman jump at the sudden dropping of Fey’s veil as she allowed Aunghadhail to come to the surface.
“I knew it!” Ms. Koshnik grinned with satisfaction, her eyes glowed with excitement.
“Thank you, Mr. Reilly. I understand that my healing spell did work, but due to the fact that Brian has not yet awakened, I am anxious to learn more about his current condition.” Aunghadhail said with a hint of impatience as she looked to Dr. Edmundson for answers. Nick felt a little sorry for Dr. Edmundson when the Doctor turned to him with confusion. The poor man didn’t see her coming and he was forced to admit that she could be very intimidating when fully engaged.
Nick smiled to try and put Dr. Edmundson at ease. “Go ahead Doctor. She’s really very nice once you get to know her.” He felt her project her annoyance with him, but he knew that she realized that she couldn’t just take control here. No matter how much she wanted too.
Encouraged by Mr. Reilly, Dr. Edmundson recovered his composure and began to answer Aunghadhail’s question. “Yes, well, since we deactivated the METS suit and witnessed your spell complete, we have taken blood samples for DNA testing in an attempt to discover why he was transformed in such a dramatic fashion. We have also continuously monitored Brian’s vitals and brain waves in an attempt to discover why she has not yet regained full consciousness.”
“What has your team discovered?” Aunghadhail asked.
Dr. Edmundson looked a little flustered by Aunghadhail’s undivided attention. “The DNA testing is still in its preliminary stages and it will take a week to get more detailed results.”
She paused as she considered the relevance of the DNA testing. “Okay, and what about the question of Brian’s continuing unconscious state?”
“My team and I agree with Mrs. Peters’ assessment that Brian is awake, but is unable to respond for some reason. We feel that it is the result of the...” Dr. Edmundson paused and looked to Mr. Reilly for assurance.
“Sir, is it okay if we openly discuss the classified systems?”
Nick nodded. “Yes, they have all been cleared and it is information that we all need to know if we are to find a solution to this problem.”
Dr. Edmundson blinked his eyes with surprise. “Yes, where was I? Oh yeah, it is the result of the at least partial operation of the tactical augmented reality system we attempted to develop to aid soldiers make more efficient use of the many types of combat related information that they are increasingly being given. Essentially it was to work like a fighter pilot’s heads up display system by helping the soldier analyze and prioritize critical combat data from multiple sources in the field of battle.”
“It ‘was’ to work?” Aunghadhail asked, skeptically.
“Umm, yes and I don’t mean to alarm Mrs. Peters, but we successfully tested the system with animal trials, but when it came time to move to human trials, the DoD decided that due to the complex nature of the nanites and the projected two million dollars per soldier, it wouldn’t be cost effective for us to try and implement. So, the project was scrapped.”
Aunghadhail looked at Dr. Edmundson with surprise. “Can’t you just turn them off?”
“We have tried, but the system is ignoring all of our commands.” He said, looking embarrassed.
Nick could see that Aunghadhail wanted to examine Brian for herself. “Excuse me, but perhaps it would be helpful if we could allow Fey to examine Brian using her magical abilities? Maybe she will be able to discover something that we have not.”
Dr. Edmundson sighed with relief. “Yes, I think that would be an excellent idea. Thank you Mr. Reilly. Umm, Fey, if you and Sir Wallace would be so kind as to follow me, I will be happy to direct you to Brian’s room.”
“Thank you Dr. Edmundson and Mr. Reilly. I apologize if I have come across too strong. Since the evening that I was able to form a connection and cast a healing spell on Brian, I have become very concerned about her condition.”
Dr. Edmundson relaxed a little with Aunghadhail’s apology. “Think nothing of it. We are all concerned about Brian. Mrs. Peters, would you like to join us?”
Mrs. Peters looked gratefully to Dr. Edmundson. “Yes and thank you Dr. Edmundson.” She turned nervously to Fey. “and thank you for coming, Fey.”
Aunghadhail’s stern outer shell cracked just a little as she smiled at Mrs. Peters.
When they entered Brian’s room, Fey’s first glimpse of Brian caused her to pause at the doorway, “Wow, she really does look like Whisper.” She continued into the room and as she reached the side of Brian’s bed, Fey reached out to touch Brian. As she did so, everyone in the room felt the hairs on the back of their necks stand on end as they felt surrounded by an invisible energy field.
A minute later, the energy in the room calmed and Fey spoke. “She is definitely Sidhe, but not of the royal line. I can sense the machines in her system augmenting her ability to keep her body healthy, but it is the machines in her head that appear to be directly responsible for her current state of consciousness.” Fey then looked to Brian’s anxious mother. “Mrs. Peters, with your permission, I would like to try and look into Brian’s dreams.”
Mrs. Peters looked startled by the question. “Umm, sure?”
Nodding her head, Fey once again turned her inner sight to Brian. She could feel the young girl’s mind, but she was unsure how to safely proceed. Fey reached into her own heart and quickly found the connection to her blood sister Sara. “Sara, I need your help. Can you help me discover what is keeping my newest relative from awakening?”
Fey felt Sara’s love and willingness to help through their bond turn to curiosity as Sara’s presence joined her inside Brian’s mind.
“We have a new relative? Oooh, and it’s a girl!” Sara gushed with excitement.
Something has changed...
I’m awake.
I’m lying on my bed, but that realization makes me doubt my assumption. I’m lying down on what feels like a bed, which means that, by default, it should be my bed. However; something doesn’t feel right.
My eyes are closed, but I can tell that there is light for me to see with again. I’m not sure that I am ready to try opening my eyes yet. I’m feeling comfortable just laying here and realizing that I’m alive. It is the complete absence of noise that slowly gains my attention. I can hear my heartbeat and I find it soothing, but no other sounds. No background noise from the house. No sounds from the street outside my window. No crappy sugar pop girl music blaring from Lindsay’s stereo.
As that realization hits me, I notice that I’m not wearing my favorite Spider-Man pajamas. Actually, I’m not wearing anything, nor do I have any blankets or covers, but I’m completely comfortable. Not too hot, not too cold, just right...as Goldilocks said just before the bears ate her. I smile at the recollection of that memory. Lindsay didn’t like that version very much when I read her that for her bedtime story. Hmmm, neither did Mom and it cost me my cartoon privileges for a week. I decide that maybe I should cautiously open my eyes now.
I move my hands to cover my eyes so that when I open them; I won’t be blinded if the light is too bright. As my arms rise from my side, I feel my chest move in an unsettling manner. It doesn’t hurt, but two distinct weights attached to my chest shift in a way that I have never felt.
“What in the heck is that?” I decide that waiting until my hands can complete their journey to my eyes would be too long of a wait. I open my eyes and bolt upright into a sitting position with my hands resting behind me. The alien weights on my chest move again. As my gaze travels down to see what has been attached to my chest, I first spot what looks like girl feet attached to some nice and smooth girl legs. I forget about the aliens on my chest when I realize that those girl legs are my legs and even more importantly, that my junk is not visible at the junction of those two legs.
“Okay, don’t panic!” He’s probably just resting right now and the light is playing a trick on my eyes. Okay, but that doesn’t explain why my legs look so smooth. I know that I can be a heavy sleeper at times, but there is no way that Lindsay could have pulled off this much of a practical joke on me! Just reach down there with a...oh crap!...feminine hand too?
“Ignore that, not important!”
What is important right now is the state of my junk. Okay, nice and slow. Just reach down there and gently touch the offending empty area and I am sure that my junk will be found. My traitor hand feels what my traitor eyes are reporting. Nothing and something else instead.
“Ahhhhhhh!” I scream in a very girl like voice which makes me scream a second time. I’m sort of stuck in a feedback loop. I hear a girl scream, realize that it is me and that makes me scream some more. I begin to realize that all that screaming is hard on the throat and it’s not really accomplishing anything.
I decide that I should take it one step at a time by taking a fast touch based inventory.
Okay, breasts...check!
Don’t forget those nipple things that I’ve admired on girls for so long. “Yikes!” Damn, “Sorry Mom!”, these things are sensitive.
Baby smooth and soft skin all over...check!
Legs, two each, smooth, shapely and girl-like...check!
Face, smooth but that part isn’t really new. Lips, softer and fuller. The shape feels different too...check!
Ears, two each and pointy...check!
Hair, longer and very black...check!
Hands and Arms, smooth and feminine...check!
I jump down from the bed and the aliens on my chest bounce while the void between my legs feels far too open. I can’t decide which part of my anatomy to cover first. I’ve only ever had one area that needs to be protected.
The motion on my chest causes me to instinctively reach up try to stop the giggles, but when I realize what I’m holding in my hands; I snatch my hands away in an effort to not get slapped by the girl that I am accidentally feeling up. Then, I realize that I need to slap myself and a nervous laugh escapes my mouth.
I compromise by using my arm to cover my chest so I won’t feel like a perv grabbing a girls breasts. I really don’t want to think about the other zone. So, I decide to try and confirm the status of my butt by turning my head and shoulders as much as I can to look at my butt.
Very shapely and attractive, for a girl...check!
Okay...inventory complete.
Analysis, I must be having a very lucid dream about being a teenage Whisper.
I pinch myself, but it doesn’t work. I’m still here and still a girl. I don’t think I can handle being a girl. Just the thought of having to wear girl clothes, play with dolls and enjoy clothes shopping makes me sink to the floor and cry.
Crying, like a girl...check!
“Why is this happening to me?” I say with a whiny crying, but cute sounding girl voice.
Did I really die while playing GEO or am I just dreaming about being Whisper because I play too much GEO? I decide that I should probably stop worrying about being a girl right now and figure out if I am dead or just dreaming. Okay first thing that I need to do is find out where I am. The start of a plan helps to calm me and I manage to stop my post freak out sniffles with a deep breath. The deep breath disturbs the aliens on my chest. That reminds me that I need some more quality freak-out time, but “The Plan” helps override that idea, for now.
I nervously look around, half expecting someone to burst into the room, but glad that no one has. I find that I’m sitting next to the bed that I woke up laying on. The mattress is above my head now, so I decide to stand and take a closer look at it. Standing up takes me a little by surprise. I just seem to flow into a standing position instead of the usual effort that it would take for me to go from sitting on the floor to standing.
The thing that I thought was a bed is more of a pedestal with a soft top than a mattress. This pedestal is in the dead center of the room, but I’m thinking that I shouldn’t use the word ‘dead’, so let’s make the word ‘exact’ instead. The floor is pure white without any stains. The walls are also pure white and as I follow them up, I cannot detect a ceiling. This must be the room that I floated down earlier when I saw Whisper sleeping on the bed.
Turning a full 360, I do not spot any doors, but the feeling of my hair brushing against my chin as I turn my head from side to side is a little distracting. It just feels weird to go from having very short hair to now feeling my hair gently brushing against the sides of my face. I mean Whisper’s face. I don’t think that I will be keeping her face and I certainly hope I don’t keep her body. This lucid dream thing is just too freaky!
I wish I had a mirror so that I could see what I look like.
I catch something out of the corner of my vision. Turning, I spot a nice full length mirror on the wall. I know that it wasn’t there earlier, so what in the hell is going on here? This dream is so weird. I hope that I can remember this when I wake up, but at the same time, I’m not sure that I really want too.
I take a hesitant step forward and instantly regret it. The aliens on my chest move and my hips don’t work right. Before I take another step, I decide to try crossing my arms across my chest to hold down the aliens. I then take another step while looking down to make sure that I’m not going to step on something, but the arms crossed over my chest and the looking down just seems to make my hips work even worse, so I stop.
Looking back up, I can see myself as Whisper in the mirror ten or fifteen feet in front of me. I’m captivated by how I look. I see a very beautiful and lithe teenage girl with slightly large almond shaped green eyes and short raven black hair that perfectly frames her face staring back at me. I decide to uncross my arms and rest them against my sides. I know that I shouldn’t be surprised, but I still am when the girl in the mirror copies my movements and exposes her breasts to me. That part would be so cool, if that girl wasn’t me in the mirror right now.
Still looking at the girl in the mirror, I take another step forward and this time, my hips seem to work better. I guess that if I don’t try so hard and let my body do what it needs to do, then things will go much better. Holding onto that thought, I walk the rest of the way to the mirror and I am rewarded by the sight of the girl’s smooth gait as her hips swing gently from side to side. I try my hardest to ignore the strange sensations that my body is reporting to me. The feelings of the wonderful looking aliens moving on my chest and the empty feeling between my legs are the major issues. I stop about two feet from the mirror.
I look down as I reach with my hands to feel the new girl parts in my groin. The view from my perspective in the mirror certainly looks like what I might have seen in one of those dirty magazines that I, as the mature and respectful boy that I am, would never have illegally purchased or even looked at while at a friend’s house. No sir! Not me!
I feel a very different sensation from down there when my fingers explore a bit too much. I think that I might have accidentally touched one of those sensitive girl parts that I have heard about in sex education classes. Surprised and embarrassed, I quickly remove my hands from down there and cross my arms across my chest again. The feeling of my breasts being hugged against my body remind me of those additional sensitive and embarrassing girl parts, so I quickly uncross my arms and decide to explore my new face a bit more instead.
I lean forward and smile at the girl in the mirror. Perfect white and straight teeth smile back at me. Her eyes are a brilliant green with silver traces. Her eyebrows are shaped perfectly with the bottom of her bangs just touching the top of her eyebrows before dropping to perfect points at the sides that end at her lower jaw line to accent her heart shaped face.
I switch from a smile to an air kiss and I am transfixed as I watch her lips form into the perfect kiss as her cheeks form the cutest dimples I have ever seen. Oh my god! If she wasn’t me, I think that I would be head over heels in love right now. Actually, I think I am in love with her. The sight of one of her delicate elvish ears as I brush her hair back with my hand just seals the deal for me.
I end up spending at least another ten minutes just looking over and touching every inch of her body in the mirror. Sometimes, I even touch it more than twice! Once aroused, my nipples are pleasantly sensitive. I make a mental note to remember that little detail. If I am dead, then I will never get another chance to look at or touch a naked girl ever again. If I’m not dead, then all the exploration can’t hurt my understanding of the fairer sex. It’s a win/win for me either way!
Okay, now I need to get back to work on the whole dead or alive question.
Once again, I try pinching my arm, but this time, a little harder. “Ouch!”
Hmm, I am still here. The pinch results are inconclusive.
So, how do I get out of this room?
The mirror changes into one of those industrial metal building doors complete with lighted exit sign and a push bar.
<file system is in an inconsistent state> <fsck required> <Press any key to Continue>
Hmm, fsck? What is a Linux disk checking command doing here? Did Saint Pete decide to switch from Windows to Linux? Since when did my dreams run on Linux? My PC is a Windows machine, so I have no idea where I could have got this crazy Linux thing from. I don’t see any ‘keys’, but maybe the door’s push bar is a metaphor for something? I push on the bar to open the door. I am pleasantly surprised when it opens for me to reveal...a long dark hallway with a light at the end.
“Oh shit!” I say before I realize that swearing probably isn’t a good idea if this is what I think it is.
Oops, sorry God. It slipped.
I start to cry some more as I step into the hallway. Sights, sounds, smells and sensations begin to flood into me as I feel myself now being pulled deeper into the hallway. I’m looking out of my eyes, Brian’s eyes, as I am being born. I see my Mom and I feel her touch. It feels so good and I feel so happy. I start to cry some more as I begin to realize what is happening. My life is starting to flash before my eyes...literally. It is going a little slower then I was led to believe, but I am being shown my life. This part is a little boring though, but thankfully things start to speed up some.
The first two years seems to only take an hour. Hey! I did a lot of sleeping you know? That’s what good babies like me did back then. I did learn that my Mom really did drop me on my head once too. It’s not just a joke like I thought it was.
The pace starts to slow down as I get older. I guess that I have more stuff to review now. I sure hope that it misses that time I tried flushed my sister’s favorite teddy bear down the toilet when I was four. Nope, it doesn’t miss that part. It also doesn’t miss the part about the toilet over-flowing. Well, maybe that is the worst thing I did? Ummm, nope.
It doesn’t miss the part where when I was six and I broke the VCR by stuffing my peanut butter and jelly sandwich into the tape slot. I also tried to blame my sister for that. My bad.
Thankfully, this life in review also captures my better moments.
Like the time when I was five and comforted Lindsay until she fell back to sleep after she woke up screaming from a nightmare.
When I was seven and played dollhouse with Lindsay, even though I hated it and wanted to play with my trucks instead. I smile as I see Lindsay’s smile.
The review is really starting to slow down now and I can’t seem to stop crying. I hope that by the time I reach the end of this tunnel that I will have managed to get the water works stopped. It’s going to be bad enough that I will have to face my judgment as a female elf, but to do so while sniffling like the girl I appear to be is just wrong on so many levels.
“Hey! Why are you crying?” I am startled as I hear a girl’s voice from in front of me. Looking up, I notice a stunningly beautiful red headed angel standing next to a stunningly beautiful demon girl. I’m pretty sure that she’s a demon due to the blood red hair, red slitted eyes, goth style makeup and the delicate looking claws that she has instead of finger nails. Oh crap!
I sniff and wipe my eyes. “Umm, because I’m dead?” I say, hoping that the angel will help correct that obvious error.
I’m not sure if I should feel reassured or scared when the demon girl smiles at me. “Why would you think that you’re dead?”
I think it’s pretty obvious and since they are here, they should know the answer to that question. Maybe the demon girl is just playing with me? “Well, lemme see. Besides the two of you, I must be dead because I was playing Whisper when I somehow got sucked into the game for real, got into a fight against some asshole assassin and even though I won the fight; I was dying from the jerk’s poison. Then, this really bright light hit me and everything went dark.” I notice the demon girl’s confused expression. “Sorry, Whisper is my GEO character”
The expression on her face turns from confused to shocked. “Holy crap! There really is a Whisper and you’re her?”
“Sara...” The Angel says reprovingly.
“Oh yeah...sorry Nikki. I just didn’t think that she really existed! My spy’s reports were always inconclusive on the issue. If she really does exist, then she has cost me and my allies so much...” Sara, the demon ends with slight note of anger in her voice.
Nikki looks at Sara with a fond smile. “Sara, we are here to try and help her...”
“I know, I know. Sorry.” Sara says with a petulant expression.
“Umm...sorry. I didn’t mean to make you mad, ummm, Sara?” I say with what I hope is a suitably conciliatory expression.
Sara’s face brightens up with smile. “That’s okay, I’m not really mad at you. I play GEO too, but on the evil side.”
Of course she plays on the evil side, she’s a demon. That’s what demons do. I am so screwed right now.
“Umm, Whisper? What’s your name?” I hear Sara ask.
“What?” I ask feeling a little confused. Her question wasn’t what I expected hear. Doesn’t she already know? I kind of forgot where I was there for a moment. Oh yeah...Heaven, Hell, Dead, Tunnel of Light...got it.
“Brian. Why?” I ask. Shouldn’t she know that already?
“We kind of lost you there. So, why again is it that you think you’re dead?” The tricky nice sounding demon named Sara asks me with a smile that jump starts my thought processes again.
“Oh yeah, well, then I woke up in an all white room without any clothes...”
Nikki stops me. “Speaking of that...Why aren’t you wearing any clothes?”
“Umm, because I couldn’t find any to wear?” I say before I remember that I never did try all that hard to find clothes. I hope that she misses that little detail in her angelic evaluation of my life.
She considers my answer for a second or two. “Hmmm, why don’t you try imagining yourself with some clothes on?”
“But...only if you really want to Brian, because I must admit, you are pretty hot” Sara says with an evil smirk.
That remark completely ruins my concentration with the clothes imagination thing. Yep, she’s evil.
“Okay, now I know that I’m really dead. Nikki is the angel and Sara is the devil or demon or whatever they call you guys. That bright light up ahead is heaven and before I can get there, Sara here is going to grab me for that time when I was four and tried to flush my sister’s teddy bear down the toilet!” I say just before I break down in tears.
I flinch a little when I feel both of them wrap their arms around me in a deviled girl sandwich. “I’m sorry. It’s my nature and I just couldn’t resist, but I can tell you that you definitely are not dead.” Sara says softly into my ear.
I try to stop my tears as I look first to Sara, and then to Nikki for confirmation. Nikki nods her head in agreement. “It’s true Brian. You’re not dead. Right now you’re lying in a hospital bed and your Mom is right next to you.”
“I’m not dead?” I say, incredulously with another sniffle as hope begins to fill me.
Nikki smiles at me and it is the most glorious smile I have ever seen. “Nope, but before we continue, could you try that clothes thing again? I know that Sara doesn’t have a problem with it, but I think that we might both do better if you had something on.”
Sara pouts as she leans back and crosses her arms in mock anger. “Oh pooh Nikki, you are no fun sometimes!”
“Are you sure that you’re not really a demon?” I ask her with a laugh that is part laugh and part sniffle.
Sara looks serious once again. “That’s kind of complicated, kiddo.”
I try to ignore her last statement. I get the feeling that if I really knew the answer, that I might freak out and I don’t know if I could handle that right now. I’m a girl, or at least I am in this dream. So, I need girl clothes. Okay, I close my eyes and think girl clothes.
I hear someone whistle. “Nice. I’m surprised that you would pick something like that on your first try.” Sara says.
“What?” I open my eyes and look down at myself to discover that I am wearing the same short skirt, heels and top that my sister wore to school last year that caused me to have my friendly chat with Billy’s fists.
I manage a strangled, “Eeep!” at the unexpected sight of my new cleavage popping out up there before I close my eyes and rethink my outfit to something a bit more comfortable for my fragile male ego.
“Oh pooh. Brian that skirt looked so cute on you” Sara says with disappointment.
This time, I hesitantly open my eyes and look down to find that I am wearing a simple pair of jeans with a girl styled t-shirt and some tennis shoes. Exactly the kind of outfit that Lindsay wears around the house or outside to play. Okay, this I can handle.
“Okay, clothes taken care of” Nikki smiles at me. “Now, where were we on this thinking that you’re dead issue?”
I decide to skip the part about the mirror. I don’t think that is really relevant to the story and well, it’s kind of embarrassing. “Oh yeah, so I decided that I needed to get out of the room and a door appeared. When I tried to open it, I got a message about my file system being in an inconsistent state and that I needed to run ‘fsck’. I wasn’t sure why I would need to do that, but it wouldn’t let me enter the door until I told it to continue. Then this hallway with the light at the end of it appeared and I started to have my life flash before my eyes. Finally, you two showed up to take me to heaven or hell or something. Are you sure that I’m not really dead?”
“No Brian, you’re really not dead.” Nikki says with a warm smile that lights up her face. My heart, or what is left of it skips a beat. I think I’m in love.
Sara giggles. “Careful with that, Nikki, I think the poor girl is starting to crush on you there and I might get jealous.”
That draws my attention back to her. Wow, she’s very beautiful too. I wonder where I might have seen the two of them to have them show up in my dream like this. They seem so real. The Nikki angel girl looks familiar though. I’m positive that I’ve seen her somewhere recently.
“You were saying?” Nikki says, laughing as she notices my star struck look.
Sara grins mischievously at both Nikki and I before getting back on track. “Okay, this is a dream and you have people waiting for you out there, so why don’t you just wake yourself up?”
“I don’t know how and I think that I’m stuck until I get done with this ‘fsck’ thing.” I say with a frustrated sigh.
“When you were dying in Seramis’ room, you said that you couldn’t log out because ‘it’ wouldn’t let you. What did that mean?” Nikki asks.
That question causes me to step back mentally and look at her again. How could she have known that unless she was there? “You’re Seramis, aren’t you?”
Nikki looks a little surprised. “Yes and no, but we can talk about that later. What the doctors and I really want to know is why you couldn’t log off.”
I’m not sure how she can be Seramis, but not be. I decide to let it go for now. “I was somehow downloading Whisper’s file and when I tried to disconnect it said, ‘Critical Operating System Download in Progress. Disconnect not allowed.’”.
“Hmmm...” Nikki says as she briefly ponders something before reaching a decision. “Okay, here’s what has been going on while you’ve been stuck here. One, you are in the labs that you visited the other day with your science class. Two, you somehow managed to activate and get infected with the nanites that were in that sample jar you held.”
Oh crap. Now I remember how funny I felt right after I held that jar. “Is that what is causing all this weird computer in my head stuff?”
Nikki nods her head affirmatively. “Yes, and based on what the scientists have told me, I think that is what has caused your current situation, but there is one more thing that I think you need to know and this is probably going to freak you out some more...” She pauses as she grabs both of my hands and looks me in the eyes.
I can’t help but feel like I could drown in her brilliant purple eyes. She looks so concerned. I’m starting to get a little worried. Whatever this thing that I need to know is, it must be pretty bad. And, here I was just getting over the whole dead thing.
“What?” I ask, afraid to hear her answer.
“Brian, you’re really a girl now.” She says with a gentle tone as she continues to hold my hands and look into my eyes. I start to process what she just told me with one part of my brain while the other part is still amazed at how pretty she is.
“I am?” I cleverly reply while the two conflicted sets of stimulus fight it out cage match style. The girl thing wins.
“I am?!?!” I yell with shock, before I collapse to my knees as the implications begin to sink in and I start to cry again. “Oh no! What am I going to do? What will I tell my parents? Will I still have my parents? How will I go to school? Why am I crying so damn much?”
That last part earns me a chuckle from Sara as they both kneel down and hug me again. A part of my brain decides that if getting hugs by hot girls comes with being a girl, I think that I could get used to this. Maybe, but the demon girl is still a concern to me.
“You’re taking this better than I expected” Nikki says with another one of those smiles that would make my knees weak if I was standing up.
I pause and consider her observation before replying. “Well, I have had what feels like a day or two to kind of get used to being a girl and having you two here to hug me is definitely helping,” I smile at both of them. “But I’m not sure that I am going to be able to handle the sudden change all that well when I get out of here.”
Sara surprises me. “Oh, I don’t know about that, Brian. You have a family that loves you very much and now you have two new friends that you can talk to about how to handle this sudden change in perspective.”
I turn and look at her with a new appreciation. She may look like a demon, but her eyes are full of compassion. “Thanks, but...” I start with a small sniffle. “You were both born girls. I think that I’m going to have a hard time getting used to this.” I say as I point to myself.
Nikki sighs and I turn to look back at her. “Umm, no we weren’t Brian. This time last year I was a boy, just like you. I never wanted to be a girl and it wasn’t until very recently that I have started to get used to the changes myself.”
“What?” I ask as her revelation shocks me to the core. I stifle my sniffles as I look at Nikki and then to Sara for confirmation. She doesn’t look like she finds Nikki’s admission funny. She looks very serious. There is absolutely no way that Nikki could have ever been a boy!
Sara nods at me. “It’s true, Brian. Nikki here was a high school freshman boy and I was a twenty seven year old male author until a year ago.”
I think that my jaw drops to the floor with Sara’s admission. I look at both of them and I just can’t believe that they could have even been guys, but then again, looking at myself, I guess it could be hard to believe that I was ever a guy either. I’m still pretty shocked by all these sudden changes in reality and I’m having a hard time forming words much less coherent thoughts.
Nikki’s expression turns a little sad as it looks like she is remembering something. Her eyes look pained and I wonder what she’s thinking about. “In some ways, I’m a little jealous of you right now, Brian.” She says, softly.
My confusion must be pretty obvious to her. She focuses her attention on me and I think that she looks a little sad. “I didn’t suddenly wake up one day looking like this. My change took almost a year. A year of going to bed and wondering what part of me wouldn’t be there when I woke up the next morning. Always wondering when I would finish changing and wanting it to stop, but worried that it would stop.” I feel the sudden urge to comfort her, but I’m not sure how. I end up touching her hand. “That part was the worst. I never wanted to be a girl, but I was more worried that the changes might stop and I would end up stuck halfway. Never really a boy anymore and never really a girl, more of an it.” She says as tears well up in her eyes.
I forget all about my problems and instinctively hug her and then feel Sara hug us both in her warm embrace. I don’t know how long we all sit there hugging each other, but it certainly feels nice and I’m a little disappointed when Sara coughs and reminds us that we have other issues to still work out.
Nikki smiles appreciatively at me. “I’m sorry Brian; I didn’t mean to unload on you like that.”
“That’s okay. I think we both might have needed it.” I say feeling a little forlorn. That long hug we just ended was really nice.
“Yeah, it was nice to talk to someone and I hope it helps you in some small way.” Nikki says with a hopeful smile.
“Oh, I think just knowing that I’m not alone is going to help, but now I’m getting anxious to finish this ‘fsck’ thing so that I can wake up.”
“Yeah, and I think I need to get out and let everyone know that you’re okay and what is going on in here.” She says as she taps my head with her finger while she looks around the hallway that I’m currently stuck in. “Sara? Thanks for your help Sis. Can I call on you again tomorrow if I need to come back to check on Brian?”
Sara smiles happily at both of us. “Sure thing, Nikki! I like Brian. I think that she’s a keeper. Do you think that I should adopt her into the family?” Sara asks with a grin that suddenly makes me a little nervous.
Nikki pauses for a second. “Ummm, I don’t think that would be a good idea right now Sara. How about we put that idea off for a few months or at least until she gets to Whateley?”
“Party pooper.” Sara says with a playful grin before she gives me a quick hug and a light kiss on my cheek that somehow manages to make the aliens on my chest tingle.
“Sara...you better not have...” Nikki says reprovingly.
“I didn’t. I just gave her a friendly kiss...nothing else...honest!” Sara says with a mischievous smile.
“Okay, let’s get out of here so I can report to the doctors, my dad and her family. Brian, when you do wake up, please don’t mention Sara when they ask you about what happened in here. Okay?” Nikki asks.
“Umm, sure?” I say, feeling confused.
Nikki smiles and suddenly adds. “Oh yeah. My dad is DARPA Deputy Director Nick Reilly. We are trying to keep that sorta secret, so please just call me Fey when you get outta here.”
“Oh. Okay, umm, Fey?” I say as they both smile at me before they fade away, leaving me in this now lonely hallway. Sighing, I take a step forward and the movie of my life starts up again.
I’m moving closer to the end of this memory lane thing. I wish Nikki and Sara would come back. This is kind of lonely and boring. Not that I’m really counting down the time, but just wondering how long it has been since Nikki and Sara left me produces a floating holographic digital clock that tells me that it’s been 1 hour 22 minutes and 39 seconds. I can’t stop myself from sighing with frustration.
Yep, I am definitely bored and I wish this walk down memory lane would end. Now that I know what’s happening, why do I need to physically walk down a boring tunnel? The tunnel is simply a progress bar showing how much more cleanup needs to occur before my brain is fully booted. Well, I hope I manage to reboot because it would stink to be stuck in an endless boot cycle. Okay, bad thought. Think positive thoughts.
Hey, do I really need to monitor the fsck process? Couldn’t I do the same thing from someplace more comfortable and less depressing, like maybe, my living room couch?
The boring tunnel de-rezzes and in its place, my living room, exactly as I remember it, materialize around me. With a sigh of relief, I plop myself down on the comfy couch. I wonder if this is working?
The TV automatically turns on and there, in full color and surround sound, is the story of my life. I guess that answers my question, but since this is my dream, I decide to upgrade the TV to one of those new LCD HDTV things. Instead of the light at the end of the tunnel, I add a simple progress bar with percentage indicator and completion time estimate below the TV. It’s been almost 24 hours since I started this fsck’ing trip and I really want it to be over. My geek humor makes me giggle because only a real linux nerd would...oh nevermind, it’s too hard to explain.
This is going too slow. I need it to go faster. Hmmm, what if I upped the task priority? A process window pops up in front of me showing the status and priority of the fsck task, along with a system task. Only two tasks are running? I thought I was more complicated than that? Maybe I’m the system task? What would happen if I bumped up the fsck task from a “Normal” priority to “Above Normal”?
As soon as I do that, the time to completion drops from 22 hours to 17 hours. That’s a good sign, but now my life review on the TV is running at 2x speed and it’s kind of hard to watch. Oh well, it’s not like I really care. I just want to get out of here. I bump the priority one more notch, to “High”. The life review jumps into silly speed and I feel like I’m moving in molasses, the lag is pretty bad, but the time drops to only 10 hours. I have one more priority setting I can use, but I’m thinking that “Real Time” would be a bad idea. I did that with my PC once and it pretty much locked my PC up until the process finished running. I do not want to have something like that happen to me.
Well, I guess I can live with the lag, but my life is kinda boring to watch, even at 3x speed. I need a book to read and after a second of lag, one of my favorite childhood books appears in my hand.
Sweet!
It’s been a long time since I read this book. I lean back into the couch and start reading. I find that if I sit perfectly still, there is only a touch of lag between page turns. It’s only a fourth grade book, not the most challenging read, but it occupies my time for 30 minutes. I need a harder book, like one of the books I read this year.
>File not found…
Dang it! I guess I can only pull up stuff I’ve read or watched prior to my fsck’ing task. Haha, yeah that joke still makes me laugh.
I did watch Star Wars. I wonder…
A small, Picture in Picture of the first movie starts playing on the TV. Does it need to be on the TV? Why not on a super high tech flat screen TV that I can hold in my lap? It takes a second, but a portable flat screen materializes on my lap and the movie starts playing on it. I lean back, my body noticeably stuttering due to the lag, and let myself enjoy the movie again. I decide to watch all three and as the final credits roll, I look up and notice that my progress bar indicates that I’m 87% complete with an estimated 2 hours 4 minutes and 57 seconds until the fsck’ing process is complete. Okay, maybe I’m enjoying my geek humor too much now. Hehe, nah, it’s still funny.
I just watched three movies, back to back, and I don’t feel the slightest bit tired. That’s kind of a bummer, because if I could take a little nap, maybe the process would run a little faster.
I’m bored again. I tried to stand and walk to the middle of my living room, but the lag is annoying. Instead of wasting time walking to where I want to go, I change my current position in memory and poof, I’m standing in the middle of my living room. I wish I could be like Luke Skywalker and use a light saber like a real Jedi.
I feel my clothes change and a sudden weight around my waist. I look down and notice, well, my boobs, but also, I’m wearing a Luke Skywalker costume, complete with light saber strapped to my extra wide hips.
This won’t work. Luke’s a boy. I try re-writing my image to be Luke. Nothing happens. I try my own, Brian self. Again, nothing. This sucks. Why can’t I be a guy in my own head?
Grrrrr!
I wonder how I look? With the costume, maybe I don’t look as girlish. I pull up a mirror and strike some aggressive poses with the light saber. Nope, the person in the mirror is definitely not a boy and I’m sorry manhood, but I can’t help it. I think the girl in the mirror looks hot and pretty darn dangerous with the glowing light saber.
The gi-like costume seems custom made to fit my, I mean her, curves and the V cut in front with the cross body design seems to accent my, grrr, her breasts. I guess it could be worse. I could be wearing Princess Leia’s slave costume.
The Luke Skywalker costume de-rezzes and in its place, yep, “The” ultimate geek wet dream swimwear costume materializes on my body. I flush a bright pink from my head to my toes. There is no denying what I’m seeing and feeling. No way, no how could a boy ever look so good wearing so little. I quickly concentrate on getting back the Luke costume and let out sigh of relief as I find myself more modestly covered. But still, I have to admit...okay; no I don’t...la la la la la...
To regain my guy geek cred, I start to play around with the light saber and pretend fight with it. I don’t notice any lag and the sound effects with my martial arts moves were pretty cool until I spot the estimated time to completion timer. It’s slowed to a crawl. I guess all my playing around is taking more resources.
Crap.
So, now I am sitting on the couch with my legs folded up beside me. I never could’ve sat like this and felt comfortable as a guy, but I have to admit that it does feel pretty cozy. I can see why Lindsay sits on the couch like this most of the time. I’m re-reading my favorite Wolverine vs. Spider-Man comic book when I hear a chipmunk voice.
“HeyBrianwhatareyoudoing?” The high pitched voice asks me. I look up from my comic and see Nikki and Sara standing in the middle of my virtual living room.
I am a little confused when I hear Nikki speak in super fast chipmunk speak. “Brian?What’swrong?Whyareyoumovingsoslowly?”
I start to reply, but realize that with the fsck in high priority mode, I’m going slower than normal. I start to say, “S o r r y...”, as I drop the priority on fsck to normal, “...I had the ‘fsck’ task on high priority and it was making me laggy.” I watch the time estimate clock slow down. I frown at that, but the slowdown is worth it with the two of them here again.
“What’s the matter, Brian? Why the frown?” Nikki asks.
“Oh, it’s nothing. I just noticed the completion timer slow down to a crawl now that I dropped its priority level.” I point to the timer behind them. They both turn and spot the TV that is still displaying my life in fast forward mode, but at an almost watchable pace now.
Nikki jumps with excitement. “Wow! Only 2 hours left? Dr. Edmundson didn’t think that you would be done for another 10 hours or so.”
“Yeah, well, I have learned a few things since you were last in my head,” I say with a smile. I feel pretty darn satisfied with myself for that.
“I like what you’ve done with the place Brian. Nice costume too.” Sara glances around my VR living room before turning back to me with a mischievous smirk.
I blush when I realize that I still have on Luke’s costume. She somehow deepens her voice, adds a scary reverberation effect and clutches her hand like she’s trying to grab something. “Brian...I am your father...”
I’m sorry, but a giggle escapes me when she does that. If I was still a guy it would officially be called a chuckle, but I’m kinda stuck with chuckles that sound like giggles. We all laugh as Sara walks over and sits beside me on the couch.
Embarrassed by my geekdom, I switch back to the jeans and t-shirt outfit.
Nikki watches and smiles fondly as Sara makes herself comfortable next to me. “I dunno, Brian.” She pauses for a second as if she is thinking seriously about something, but her grin gives her away. “I thought the costume was pretty cute on you. We could all pick a costume and play dress-up while we go over what has happened in the outside world since yesterday evening.”
“Umm, that’s okay.” I say as I look at Sara to see what she might be thinking about that idea. She’s wearing the Princess Leia slave costume. I feel my face flush and I must be blushing a bright shade of red, because Sara laughs and puts her hand on my knee. Even through my jeans, her hand feels very warm.
“What? Don’t you think that I look good in this, Brian?” Sara asks with a mock pout as she stands and poses to display her costume to me better.
I force myself to look away. She’s really hot wearing it and unlike me, she knows how to wear it. Her expression becomes thoughtful as she taps her chin with her finger as she purses her lips. “Hmmm...I think that Brian is more embarrassed than she should be...I wonderrr? Model it for us Brian! Pleeaasse.”
My brain locks up from cuteness overload, the desire to follow her request and the knowledge of how embarrassed I would feel if I did so.
Nikki sighs. “Sara, you’re killing the poor girl.” She turns to me, looking apologetic. “Sorry Brian, she’s my sister and I love her dearly, but she has her own unique brand of shock therapy.”
Sara huffs and I feel her sit back in the couch, “Fine, I’ll just sit here and pout while you two talk. I hope you’re happy Nikki!”
I force myself to not look at Sara because I doubt that I’d be able to maintain a straight face if I saw her now. I suspect that we would all end up dissolving into uncontrollable giggles that would end up with Sara convincing me to model the Princess Leia costume. Not. Going. To. Happen.
Nikki smiles at Sara. “Thanks Sara. I know that you’re only trying to help, but I need to brief Brian on what’s going on so that we can leave and she can finish up with her memory re-org thing.”
Nikki takes a deep breath before she continues. “Okay, here is what we know: Some of the genetic tests have come back and you have definitely changed species, sort of. You’re now an elf like me.” She beams a smile at me. “Sidhe to be more precise.”
I feel a little confused. “Sort of? What does that mean?”
“They found out that your human male Y chromosome has been overwritten by a Sidhe female X chromosome. They are still trying to sequence your new female chromosome, but they think that where the Sidhe DNA matches up to human DNA, the Sidhe DNA is telling the human DNA that their version is corrupted and to use the Sidhe DNA instructions instead.”
“Hmmm…” I’ve had just enough biology classes to understand that XX = girl and XY = boy and with the test showing me now XX, I think it’s safe to say that I’m screwed in the gender department. I decide to focus on the other issue, like my race. “I know what an elf is, but what exactly is a Sidhe?”
Nikki sits up straighter and I think that she looks a little proud. “A Sidhe is a true elf. All that Tolkien and D&D stuff is all fantasy. You are now a member of a very proud, ancient and magical race. As such, you will probably develop some magical powers and you’ll want to find a magical trainer as soon as you can. Otherwise, you could end up causing all kinds of chaos without even knowing it.” She shudders a little, perhaps a memory from her past.
I feel kind of excited about the magic part. It sounds like GEO. “Okay...that sounds kind of cool and all, but why did I change?”
“In addition to the nanites in your head, your body is full of medical nanites. Based on all blood tests they have been running on you, most of the medical nanites in your bloodstream are repair nanites that are helping your body heal. Your body is currently flushing out a large quantity of genetic repair nanites. Dr. Edmundson and his team are trying to analyze those nanites, but are having problems because they are so damaged.”
“Damaged? How?”
“Burnt out. They were all pushed past their breaking point and Dr. Edmundson hasn’t been able to extract any useful data from them that might tell him what they did. In addition to the tech issues, he’s positive that if I hadn’t healed you; you would be dead right now. Alone, the nanites wouldn’t have been able to fix the massive amount of genetic damage that they caused when they started the splicing of the Sidhe DNA with your own.”
“Oh.” That is all I can say to that. Dead. That’s a little scary.
“He also doesn’t think that the Sidhe DNA came from you. He doesn’t know how it could happen, but the download you mentioned has got Dr. Edmundson and his team very curious. They are wondering if you can find that file.” Nikki pauses for a second and then, sighs with resignation. “Okay, if you really think that you need to speak to her.”
I’m not sure if she is talking to me or Sara. I look to Sara and she is looking at Nikki with renewed interest. Nikki begins to speak again, but she sounds older and regal somehow. “Greetings, child. I am Queen Aunghadhail, Daughter of the Burning Oak, and Paramount Queen of the West in the Five-Fold Court and the other half of Nichole.”
Wow, now that’s a name. I’m impressed, but I’m not sure what it all means.
While I’m trying to wrap my head around her name, Nikki/Aunghad-something or another continues. “The Sidhe race is not large in number and I felt it important to introduce myself to you while we have a measure of privacy. First of all, I welcome you, Daughter of the West.” She fondly smiles at me and gives me a hug, but it’s not like a hug from Nikki or Sara. It’s more like a hug from an Aunt or Grandma. It feels more formal.
Daughter?
She lets me go and stands back. “While it is rewarding to see our race grow, I find myself deeply concerned over how GEO was able to pass on the Sidhe genome to you and where it got the genome in the first place. If not for my timely intervention, you would not be among us right now, and for that, I cannot forgive GEO.”
She actually looks pretty pissed about that and now that she mentions it, I’m not too happy with GEO either. Nikki relaxes as Queen Aunghadhail, ummm, too many titles to repeat, seems to fade. She shakes her head. “Wow, Aung is really upset about how close you came to dying.”
I fell more than a little confused. “Umm, Nikki? What or who was that?”
“Oh, sorry. That was my, ummm, it’s kind of complicated. I guess the easiest way to explain it is that she is my avatar spirit, but that’s not really accurate either.” I must look confused because Nikki launches into definition mode. “An avatar spirit is like a powerful soul or ghost of someone or something that joins with a host to sort of live again. They grant their powers to their host.”
I’m still pretty confused about what she is trying to explain to me. She looks to Sara for help.
Sara ponders the problem for a second. “It’s kind of like Obi-Wan and how he died, but was able to help Luke later as a spirit. You will learn much more when you’re able to start working with a magical trainer or search the Internet.”
“Oh, okay. I guess that makes a little more sense now. That’s kind of cool actually. Will I get one of those?”
Nikki shrugs. “Maybe? No one really knows why a spirit joins or doesn’t join with a host.” She pauses and looks back to me. “Where were we? Oh yeah, the GEO file. Do you know if you still have it?”
“Hmm, I dunno. Lemme check” I say as I close my eyes and concentrate on finding a file named “Whisper”. I feel something inside me shift. I’m not sure what, but when I open my eyes I find myself floating above what looks like a stadium sized colored disk filled with blocks of every color imaginable that is rapidly being built from the inside out, block by block as it slowly spins with a clockwise rotation. The blocks are coming from all over the huge disk. Many individual blocks will combine into one block and slot into an open slot in the disk and the blocks that were there before, will move to somewhere else on the disk.
This must be what my fsck rebuild process is really doing.
If this Whisper file is going to be any place, it will probably be near the center. I zoom into the center and as I place my hand on the surface of the disk, my hand sinks into it and a directory listing flashes past my eyes too fast for me to read. I halt the listing and this time I think “find *whisper*”. This time the listing returns:
>-rw------- 1 root root 2621440 2007-02-12 22:14 whisper.obj
Holy cow, the file is 2,621,440 kilobytes! That’s 2.5 gigs! What in the hell is in that thing? I found it, but what the heck can I do with it? I think I can make a copy of it, but how would I give it to Nikki?
I close my eyes and will myself to return to Nikki and Sara. I feel myself shift and I open my eyes to see the two of them looking at me with relief mixed with concern. “What? Is everything okay?” I ask them. Sara is still wearing the Princess Leia costume and I can’t help myself when I admire how good she looks in it as she walks back to sit on the couch again.
“We were starting to get worried there Brian. Your eyes turned silver and you became as still as a statue for five minutes.” Nikki says.
That startles me because I didn’t realize that I stayed there with them. “Oh. Well, I think that I found the file and I think I can make a copy of it, but it’s two and a half gigs and I have no idea how I could give it to you.”
“Hmmm, I’ll let Dr. Edmundson know. Maybe he will have some ideas.” Nikki says.
“Okay.” I’m filled with renewed hope for a cure of my girl status, but I’m guessing my Mom is freaking out. “How’s my family?”
Nikki warmly smiles at me. “Your mom is great. She’s been by your side the whole time. Sorry, I don’t know much about your dad and sister. Do you want me to let your mom know that you asked about them?”
“Yes, Please!” I feel so grateful that Nikki and Sara can visit me here. If they hadn’t come along, I’m sure that I’d be a total wreck by now. I feel my eyes start to tear up as I struggle to hold back my emotions.
“Oh Brian...” Nikki says as she hugs me. “It’s okay. I’m glad that I can be here for you.”
That ends it for me. The waterworks start to flow. I’ve only known Nikki and Sara for maybe an hour, but I feel so close to them. I don’t understand it and I don’t really want to either.
“I’m sorry.” I say while I wipe my tears with my shirt sleeve. “I think that I have cried more in the last day or so than in the previous entire year or two. I’m really beginning to feel like a wuss here.”
I hear Sara’s snort of amusement from her place on the couch while Nikki smiles at me. “Oh Brian, I’m sorry, but I think that you will find that it comes with the package.” She steps back and looks me up and down to indicate my body. “Until you get used to all the hormones zipping around inside of you now, you’ll probably experience some mood swings.”
I don’t find her revelation very comforting. “Damn! The hugs, those I can handle, but I just want the water works problem to go away.”
Sara laughs and glances at me with one of those come hither expressions. “Come over here and snuggle up with me, I think that I know of a fun method to help you get rid of those nasty tears.”
She’s lying on her side, with her head propped up with one arm and the other arm resting on her hip. She arches her eyebrow and smirks as I struggle to take it all in. I feel a warmth form in my belly and my chest feels tight and tingly. My mouth must be hanging open because my tongue feels dry and I can’t stop myself from trying to swallow in an attempt to get the saliva in mouth flowing again.
“Ummm…” I manage to stammer out as I try to re-engage my brain.
Thankfully, Nikki recaptures part of my attention. “Sara! You are impossible sometimes!”
“Oh pooh, I’m just trying to help the poor girl learn to relax.” Sara says with a mischievous pout that does nothing for my current confused feelings.
Nikki touches my shoulder, distracting me from Sara. “I’ll let Dr. Edmundson and your Mom know that you think it will only take another hour before you’re done.”
“Thanks.” I mutter, keeping my eyes turned away from Sara’s devious input.
“Oh yeah, remember, when you see me. Please call me Fey. Only my dad and Sir Wallace know me as Nikki and we are trying to keep me undercover. And remember, Sara wasn’t here either.” Nikki says as she waves her hands like she is casting some fake hypnotic spell.
I manage to stifle my laugh with a smirk instead. “Ookaay, I wish you all could stay, but I know that you have to go.” The thought that they will be leaving me again makes me pout.
Sara giggles. “Don’t worry kiddo. You’ll be outta here in no time. Then all the fun will really start!” She says with a smirk just before Nikki waves good-bye to me as she and Sara fade away.
After they leave, I just stand there for a few minutes before I take a deep breath and realize that I’m missing them already, but with the clock at 1 hour 15 minutes 18 seconds to go; I am anxious to be getting out of this place. Sara did look pretty nice in the Princess Leia costume. Feeling curious, I stand up and as I walk over to the mirror, I switch to the costume. I stop a few feet in front of the mirror and look myself over. I turn a few times and look at myself from different angles. After seeing Sara wear the costume like it was meant to be worn, I can’t find it in myself to feel ashamed by the fact that I like what I see.
“Sara, you’re so evil...” I whisper to the mirror with a tentative smile before I boost up the fsck process priority and walk back to sit on the couch. I switch to some loose fitting sweat pants with a t-shirt as I snuggle back into the couch so I can finish reading a few more comic books while I wait.
Snuggle?
Did I just think that?
Oh crap, I am so screwed!
Notes: Here ya go! Chapters 20-25 of the newly revised to fit Whateley Canon rules. This has been posted on the main Whateley site. Kristin spent a lot of time formatting it to look pretty. So, you might wanna give it a try there. Major change in this section is the move of Whisper's magic test occurring sooner to allow Fey to get back in time for a Team Kimba meeting Sunday AM. There was also a minor tweak to her test that will have a major impact later. Let's just say that KD had a smashing idea. :)
fsck...complete Additional Kernel Modules found...Installing JTRS...loaded WPSRM...loaded IX-LRAS3...loaded IFSFCS...loaded C3...loaded VIK...loaded Compiling Kernel...complete Initializing Kernel...complete Init Run Level 3
And, I enter hyperspace and a tunnel of laser lights twist around me before snapping into place. I wish it was something cool like that, but no, I just open my eyes and see a ceiling and I’m lying in a bed again. That is as far as I get before all hell breaks loose for me as I sit up with a gasp and then, freeze from information overload for exactly 2.443 seconds.
A lot happens during those 2.443 seconds. During that brief time, I am overwhelmed by more inputs than I have ever experienced. I “hear” every electronic gadget in the room screaming at each other. I feel two different Wi-Fi networks trying to get my attention with login and password requests. In addition to that, I feel five different cell phones within 3 meters of my location. Two of those cell phones have active Internet connections; they must be smart-phones of some kind.
At the 0.592 second mark, all of the different radio and sound frequencies bouncing off the walls and objects in the room combine to show me a ghostly 3D map of the room. Wire-frame models show seven people sized objects in the room. Based upon their shape, two of the seven people objects are female. Additionally, there are two chairs, one rolling cart with computer equipment in a room that measures 6.096 meters wide by 7.3152 long with a partially open doorway on the right wall exactly 6.4008 meters from the wall behind me. The wall to my left has a double paned glass window that is exactly 1.2192 meters long by 0.9144 meters tall. Five of the person objects are on the right hand side of the room and two male person objects are on the left side of the room. One of those two is standing next to the cart object 0.532 meters from me at a ten o’clock vector, while the other is standing 1.12 meters from me at an eleven o’clock vector. The female person object located 0.312 meters from me at a three o’clock vector is rapidly moving towards my current location, while the person object at the eleven o’clock vector is also moving towards my current location. That object’s rate of closure is less than the nearer object’s rate of closure.
At the 1.249 second mark, I somehow ‘see’ a camera facing me that is mounted in the upper corner of the wall and ceiling. It is emitting an Infrared signal that I identify as a range finding signal. Above the door and above the window are active motion sensors. I can see the pattern that they are scanning for and note that there is a gap in their coverage area that someone could easily use to avoid the sensors.
At the 1.54 second mark, my vision rapidly cycles through four different modes. Thermographic, Ultraviolet, Low-Light and finally back to normal as I blink my eyes trying to remove the spots caused by the Low-Light mode getting overwhelmed by the lights in the room.
>Flare Compensation Enabled
>Optimum vision system auto-selected
At the 1.809 second mark, my view of the world expands beyond the room to take in the entire lab. I see the locations of an additional 7 cell phones that display as yellow dots in the center of a small semi-transparent yellow circle overlaid on a map of the lab. Parts of the map look very solid and I notice that those parts are the sections that I visited during the field trip. The parts that are less defined and slightly hazy are the parts that I only saw via the faculty map located in the lobby. The additional cells phones are only showing up in the section of the labs that I visited and in the front office. Most of the cell phones are stationary, but a few of them are in motion.
Two blue dots show up in the lobby. I wonder what they are and a text bubble appears next to the each dot. I see the name, rank and health status indicator of two soldiers who are using the Land Warrior System. I note that they are active nodes on a larger network. I wonder what else is on that network. That somehow causes me to automatically query that larger network and more data begins to flood in. The map of the lab turns solid as every room is filled in on my display. I am surprised to see five additional below ground levels display on the map. A very detailed topographic map that covers a thirty kilometer area surrounding the lab springs to life.
At the 2.129 second mark, my world expands outside the lab and to the entire perimeter of the lab. I now see every soldier’s location in relation to my current location. The guard post at the entrance is displayed on my map along with a Humvee that is parked at the guard post. There are two enlisted soldiers and one officer manning that post. There are two four man patrols riding in Humvees in motion around the perimeter of the lab’s grounds.
At the 2.332 second mark, I can make out at least three different radio conversations. One is a pilot asking for clearance to land, the second is a state trooper asking to run a license check and the third is a ham radio operator talking to someone in Germany.
At the 2.392 second mark, my world expands again. I start to see the entire states of New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and Arizona display on my map with Los Alamos represented via a blinking blue dot in the center. Additional symbols and data begin to flow in and I’m really starting to feel the overload. I need to find a way to turn all this stuff off, right now.
At the 2.444 second mark, I find that mental ‘off’ button. The maps, dots and all the other strange symbols minimize to a single icon that looks like a “C” superimposed with a “3”. I sigh with relief and it is then that I notice that the female person object that was initially located at the eight o’clock vector is now hugging me while saying some words to me. I think that they are important so I focus my attention on the words she is saying to me. She smells familiar. She sounds familiar, too.
“Mom?” I ask.
She hugs me tighter and I feel a drop of water hit my shoulder. “Oh Brian! I was so worried about you. How are you feeling honey?”
I feel my eyes fill with tears, but this time I just don’t care as I return her hug. “Mom, I’m not sure yet. Can I get back to you on that?”
She laughs and hugs me tighter. We hug and cry on each other for 1 minute 23.3 seconds before she lets me go. I think that automatic timer thing is going to get annoying.
I look around the room as my mom pulls away. A green bracket forms around her with a name plate floating above her head. “Jennifer Peters” is what it initially tells me, but as I think, “No, that’s my mom”, her name changes to “Mom”. I see a message display in a small box located in the bottom left corner of my vision, kind of tucked away until I need it.
>Friendly Target IFF designator changed
Just behind my mom and on my right, I see Nikki standing there wiping her eyes and with a smile on her face. A green box surrounds her too. I need to remember to call her “Fey” instead of “Nikki”.
>Friendly Target IFF designator changed
And her name plate now reads, “Fey”. Okay, that’s kind of cool. To her left is someone I don’t recognize. He’s wearing a strange British style suit from the 60’s. A red bracket forms around him.
>Unknown Target IFF...Request Identification
I notice that he has a badge on his jacket and another box appears around that. My vision quickly zooms in and scans the badge.
>Friendly Target IFF...designator changed
The red bracket turns yellow and “Sir Wallace Westmont - VISITOR” appears above his head. He must be the Sir Wallace that Fey mentioned. As I think that, his bracket turns green.
Next to him is another man that I don’t recognize, but he’s wearing a modern suit. Unlike Sir Wallace, he has a CAC ID card that contains an embedded RFID chip clipped to his suit and his bracket changes to green as the ID identifies him as:
>DOD/DARPA/DIRO Deputy Director/EX07/Nicholas//Reilly, Sr./xxx-xx-xxxx/B+/FALSE
That’s Nikki’s Dad. As I realize that I can read their IDs via the RFID chip, all of the CAC ID cards return a response to my automatic identification query.
>U.S.Army/RA/Colonel/O-7/Brian/Allen/Thompson/xxx-xx-xxxx/A-/FALSE
>DOD/DARPA/Senior Research Manager/GP12/Allen//Edmundson, MD/xxx-xx-xxxx/O+/FALSE
>DOD/DARPA/Senior Research Associate/GP10/David//Johannson, MD/xxx-xx-xxxx/B-/PENICILLIN
All of their target brackets turn green. I kind of wish that there were also those cool computer beeping and buzzing sounds that you hear on TV when those fake computer systems are scanning targets, but my system just gives me the facts, boring.
My mom holds my hand while Dr. Edmundson speaks to me. “Brian, I’m sorry about all the people in here, but when Fey told us that you thought that you would be finishing up the re-org process right about now; we all wanted to be here.”
I blink my eyes from the vision test thing and tears that I cried. I am not sure, but all of the colors look brighter and more distinct to me. Dr. Edmundson’s red tie looks discolored. I can see spots and stains on it and I can’t believe that he would wear such a dirty tie. His white lab coat has even more stains. His blue eyes look brighter then I remember from the field trip. I turn my head to look at the rest of the people and all of the color variations captivate me. I can’t believe that I never noticed all of the colors before. I am drawn to Colonel Thompson’s uniform. I notice that his dark green uniform pants and jacket don’t match each other like they should. The jacket is a slightly darker green than his pants and I wonder why he would wear such mismatched uniform. Actually, everyone in the room has mismatched and stained clothing, even my mom and I know that she is a demon in the laundry room when it comes to stains. The colors are so much richer and varied then I can ever remember seeing. I wonder why I can now differentiate the colors so well now and if I can turn it off.
>tetrachromatic vision channels disabled
I blink again and now Colonel Thompson’s pants and jacket are the same color. What the? I turn back to Dr. Edmundson and notice that his tie and lab coat is now stain free, while his eyes are just blue. That’s it. Nothing special and now I think that I liked the colors the way they were.
>tetrachromatic vision channels enabled
Pop go the colors again as I smile at him. “Oh, that’s okay, Dr. Edmundson. I understand. I wanted to be here too.” That gets me a giggle out of Fey and a few chuckles from the rest of the folks.
Dr. Edmundson looks a little uncomfortable with my attempt at humor. “Well, I just want to say how sorry I am that this happened to you, but how glad I am that you are now awake and in good spirits. We were and still are, very worried about you.”
I start to tear up again. Damn tears. “Thank you Dr. Edmundson,” I turn to look at Fey. “And thank you Fey. I don’t think I would be handling things nearly as well if you hadn’t been able to visit me inside here.” I say as I point to my head with my other hand.
Fey brightly smiles at me. “No problem Brian.”
With all the different shades of red now visible to me, her hair looks like it’s on fire. This enhanced color vision thing is going to take some getting used to, but it sure is cool.
I hear Dr. Edmundson clear his throat as if to get my attention. I turn back to look at him. “I know that most of the people in here are strangers to you, so allow me to introduce them to you.”
I casually wave him off. “Oh, that’s okay Dr. Edmundson. I already know who they are.”
His eyes widen with surprise and except for my mom and Fey, I see everyone’s posture stiffen as they mirror Dr. Edmundson’s surprise. “You do? How?”
>Warning: Target Voice Stress Level Moderate
Oops, maybe I shouldn’t have admitted that?
Now another semi-transparent window is floating above Dr. Edmundson’s target bracket thing. This window shows me something that looks like a cool graphical equalizer sound display. As Dr. Edmundson speaks, the graphs go up and down. There are three gradient colored areas on the graph. A green zone that merges into a yellow zone that merges into a red zone. Dr. Edmundson’s last words hit into the yellow zone. Hmm, I think I need to downplay my knowledge right now.
“Ummm, I noticed their name badges as I scanned the room?” I didn’t lie to him, but I do feel a twinge of guilt for not telling the complete truth. They all relax when I say that. Me thinks I can tell them about somehow reading the RFID tags in their badges later.
“Oh.” Dr. Edmundson says with one of those ‘light bulb’ expressions a person gets when figuring out the solution to a problem. His voice sound gizmo stays all in the green with that word. One word probably isn’t much to go on, but I will have to pay more attention to that voice stress gauge. It looks like it could come in pretty handy.
His pause gives me a chance to think and notice that I’m feeling more than a little thirsty. I see a blinking Red Cross icon and when I wonder what it is trying to tell me, another window pops up and displays:
>Priority 1 Condition: Dehydration at 5%
>Treatment: Immediate consumption of 1 liter of isotonic fluids followed by an additional 2 liters of fluids over a period to not exceed 3 hours.
Oh, I guess that is why I am thirsty. I decide that now would be a good time for me to ask for some of that isotonic fluid stuff. “Ummm, sorry, but I’m feeling a little thirsty and some medical system thing is telling me that I’m 5% dehydrated and that I need to drink a liter of something called an ‘isotonic fluid’.”
Dr. Edmundson blinks as he takes in that bit of additional news. “I am sorry. In all the excitement, I forgot that we weren’t able to get an IV in you.”
I don’t see how that is a bad thing. IV needles are huge. “Oh, that’s okay. I don’t really like needles anyway.” That earns me a giggle from Fey and a smile from my mom.
Mr. Reilly frowns. “Why couldn’t you get an IV into her?”
“Her body rejected the needle.” Dr. Edmundson says, wincing.
“Rejected?” Mr. Reilly asks, looking confused.
Now I’m curious because I didn’t think needles were something the body could reject.
“Yes. The nanites responded to the IV needle as a foreign invader, ate everything below the epidermis within two minutes and healed the entry wound without a trace. Needless to say, we were all pretty shocked to discover that little trick.”
Mr. Reilly ponders that news for a second. “Hmm, so does she need some water or something then?”
I can tell that this female pronoun thing is going to take some getting used to for me. I’m having trouble identifying myself when they are referring to me as a girl.
“Well, since we couldn’t get an IV in her,” I notice a quick spike in the stress gauge there when he said ‘her’, “an electrolytic sports drink would work best for now. We have a spare case under the front desk. I will call and get someone to run some bottles down.” Dr. Edmundson uses the room’s phone to call the front desk and ask for a few bottles to be brought to my room. After he hangs up the phone, he stops to think for a second. “I would imagine that you might be a little hungry right now too.”
Now that he mentions it, I am pretty darn hungry. “Starving...”
“I’ll get a meal brought over from the cafeteria as soon as you get some fluids into you. I know that it has been a few days since you last ate, but eating while dehydrated wouldn’t be a good thing.”
I smile at him. “Thanks, Dr. Edmundson” Once again, he looks a little uncomfortable and this time it isn’t because of one of my attempts at humor.
“Is something wrong, Dr. Edmundson?” I ask, looking down at myself with confusion. I’ve never had to worry about it before, but maybe I’m flashing him or something. Nope, I am covered up in the front with one of those drafty hospital gown things.
I hear a polite cough of attention before a man begins to speak with a British accent. “Nothing for you to worry about right now lass.”
Lass?
Me and just about everyone else turns to Sir Wallace for further explanation. He politely coughs. “Yes, well you have a bit of glamour effect going on right now that makes you more attractive to people.”
“Umm, what’s a glamour and can I turn it off?” I ask, embarrassed that I am somehow causing that kind of confusion for Dr. Edmundson.
Sir Wallace pauses before he answers my question. “In essence, a ‘glamour’ is a magical spell or effect.”
I gasp with surprise while I look to Dr. Edmundson and back to Sir Wallace. “But, I haven’t cast any spell. I don’t even know how.” I say, almost whining from a combination of desperation and fear. I don’t know any magic and I certainly wouldn’t want to somehow cast some fireball spell and blow everyone up by accident.
“Yes well, in your case, it is an innate ability that comes with being what you are. It causes people to feel more attracted to you and react more positively towards you.”
Oh, that’s a relief. I’m not casting a spell. Wait...Oh crap, I am in so much trouble. “But, I don’t want people to be attracted to me!” I say, desperate to not have that happen to me. I catch the sight of Fey looking sympathetic to my dilemma.
Sir Wallace recaptures my attention. “Yes, well, it could be worse. Unlike Fey, your glamour appears to be more focused. Currently, your glamour seems to only affects someone that you are focusing your attention upon.”
“Currently?” I ask, worried if that means it could get worse.
“You did just wake up. Your glamour could grow more powerful as you regain your strength.” Sir Wallace says, shrugging apologetically.
“Oh,” I say, simply. ‘Oh crap!’ is what I really wanted to say, but I think my mom would yell at me. I feel a little worried about the glamour thing. Compared to being turned into a girl, changing species and having a computer stuffed into my head, I don’t know why that little thing worries me so much.
Sir Wallace looks to Mr. Reilly and then back to Fey. She nods her head, “Fey and I will be here until tomorrow afternoon. We need to get Fey back to school late Sunday morning. I will see what I can do to assist you before we depart.” Sir Wallace says.
We are interrupted by a knock at the door and when Colonel Thompson opens it, Brenda is standing there with four bottles. She smiles her thanks to Colonel Thompson as she looks to Dr. Edmundson. “Sir, I heard you needed this brought down for Brian. Where do you want me to put them?”
>DOD/DARPA/HR Specialist/GS9/Brenda/Ann/Koshnik/xxx-xx-xxxx/B-/FALSE
I glance up and at the sight of Brenda, I suddenly feel very self-conscious. I absently tug on my sheets to make sure that I am fully covered. I know that I’m now a girl, but still find her attractive. Nikki is attractive too. More than attractive, she’s drop dead gorgeous, but I don’t feel attracted to her like I still do with Brenda. I know that she was and is too old for me, but there’s just something about her that gets my motor going. If I was still a guy, I’m sure that my junk would be making a tent right now. Instead, I feel a little tingle like I did with Sara.
Dr. Edmundson gestures to the foot of my bed. “Oh, thanks Miss Koshnik, you can just set them on the end of Brian’s bed.” Once again, his voice stress gauge goes up into the yellow zone with my name.
Brenda smiles at me as she sets them down at the end of my bed. “I wasn’t sure what flavor you wanted, so I just grabbed one of each.”
Her smile confuses the crap out of me. I try to distract myself by looking at the drink bottles instead of her. I see a bright orange colored bottle that looks so much more inviting compared to the pastel yellow, neon green and purplish blue colored bottle.
Brenda looks at me expectantly. “Which flavor do you want, Brian?” With my name, her stress gauge thing goes up a bit there too.
“Umm, can I have the orange one, please?” I ask, looking back up to her by reflex. I shyly smile at her before I remember that I have that glamour thing Sir Wallace mentioned.
Brenda surprises me. She doesn’t just hand me the drink. She smiles at me, reaches over, wraps her arms around me and gives me a quick hug. “Oh my god, Brian. I was so worried about you!”
It really is one of those quick, catch and release girl hug things, but my stress gauge goes way up and I feel very confused. I glance at Fey. She’s not much help. She just has a happy smile on her face. I’m very aware when Brenda’s breasts brush against my aliens. I don’t know why, but I kind of expected Fey to look horrified or weirded out by this, but she’s not. Actually, no one else in the room is acting like Brenda hugging me is wrong or unexpected behavior. Her hair smells so nice.
Still smiling, Brenda releases me, takes a step back and hands me my drink. “Here you go!”
She doesn’t seem at all confused or flustered by the hug. I know that girls hug each other all the time and everyone thinks it’s normal, but guys never hug each other. I mean, if I was still a boy and she just hugged me like this, I’d be in heaven, but I’m a girl now. Why do I feel like I just won the lottery, but at the same time, why do I feel, umm, guilty?
My face feels very red, but I manage to mumble. “Thanks.”
She looks at me with alarm. “Oh! I’m sorry, Brian!” She glances around the room real fast. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you in front of everyone.” She looks very sincere, but I don’t think she realizes that I’m, well, not sure what I’m feeling right now.
Then, she turns to Dr. Edmundson. “Do you need anything else, Dr. Edmundson?”
“I think that we will be fine for now Miss Koshnik. Thank you.” Dr. Edmundson says, smiling at Brenda with gratitude as she turns an exits the room. As she is leaving, she glances back and gives me a friendly smile as she closes the door.
I glance to Fey and my mom once more. Fey smiles at me as if to say, “everything is fine. Nothing to worry about.” I somehow feel reassured and my stress levels drop.
My mouth was dry before Brenda walked into the room, so now it feels like a desert in there. I am so thirsty that find my hands are shaking a little as I twist the top off, but the top comes off easier than I expected. The liquid smells so good, I can’t help myself when I start to chug it down.
Dr. Edmundson stops me. “Whoa! Not so fast Brian. You will vomit if you don’t start out slow. Just take a sip or two to start, and then slowly increase your intake.”
“Thanks, Dr. Edmundson.” I say, embarrassed, but grateful for his intervention. With all the first-aid and desert survival briefings that they give us in school, I should have known that. I so would not want to end up tossing my cookies in front of all these people.
Dr. Edmundson studies me critically for a second. “Okay, I think that we should give you a few hours to re-hydrate and get some food in you before we debrief you.” Following that, he turns to Mr. Reilly. “Would you agree with that Director Reilly?”
Mr. Reilly nods his head in agreement. “Yes, as much as I would like to know everything right now, I think that would be best. Let’s see, it’s 0830 now. How about we schedule a debrief with Brian for 1300 hrs? Depending on how she’s feeling.” Mr. Reilly looks around at the rest of the people in the room. I notice that his voice stress meter spiked when he said “she”, but not enough to trip an alert. No one raises any issues, so he nods and everyone except for Dr. Edmundson, Dr. Johannson and my mom begin to file out of the room.
“Can Fey stay?” I ask, feeling desperate for her to stay for some reason. Mr. Reilly looks to Fey and Dr. Edmundson. They both nod in agreement. I smile with relief.
“Okay, Brian. I would like to check your vitals now that you’re awake. I will also get Annie in here to remove your catheter so that you can move around a bit more.” Dr. Edmundson says.
I’m a little surprised about the catheter. “Catheter?” I never noticed anything down there. Well, now that he mentions it, I do feel a tube or something under my leg. I decide to lift the sheets up and peek down there. Yep, there is a clear plastic tube that passes under my left leg before it disappears off the edge the bed.
Dr. Edmundson checks my heart and lungs. He is about to check my reflexes when a polite knock sounds at the door before it opens. A nurse enters, “Did you need help with something, Dr. Edmundson?”
“Yes, please. I know that you’ve seen Brian before, but now that she is awake I thought that it would be good to introduce you.” Again, his voice trips the stress meter when he says ‘she’, “Brian, this is your nurse, Annie.”
I smile self-consciously and do sort of a half wave at her.
Annie returns my smile. “I’m so glad you’re awake, Brian. We were all very worried about you.” She says, without missing a beat or stumbling over my boy name. She turns to Dr. Edmundson. “Was there something you needed, sir?”
“Yes, thanks, would you be so kind as to remove Brian’s catheter?”
Annie nods her acceptance as she walks over to the left side of my bed. “Certainly, Dr. Edmundson.” She pulls the sheets back and looks at me reassuringly. “Now, you might feel a slight tug here when I remove your catheter.”
I feel myself blush as avert my eyes and focus on my mom. Just thinking about were that catheter thing must be is making me feel a little embarrassed. I wince as I feel a bit more than a ‘tug’ from down there.
Annie recaptures my attention. “Okay and all done!” She says brightly as she unhooks the bag from the side of the bed. “Will there be anything else Dr. Edmundson?”
“Thanks Annie, would you mind stopping by the cafeteria and grabbing a plate of food for Brian?” Dr. Edmundson asks.
“No problem sir.” She pauses for a second. “Umm, anything specific sir?”
Dr. Edmundson looks back to me. “Do you have any allergies?”
I shrug my shoulders and glance to my mom who hesitantly shakes her head ‘no’. “Not that I know of.” I say, turning back to address Dr. Edmundson directly.
Fey speaks up. “Brian might not like meat as much as she used to. Maybe light on the meat and extra veggies and a salad. If that is possible?”
That bit of news surprises me.
Annie looks to Dr. Edmundson and he nods affirmatively to her. “That should be fine.”
Once Annie leaves, I watch Dr. Edmundson test my reflexes with the rubber hammer thing on my knee. Everything works and Dr. Edmundson even remarks that my reflexes look good. Better than good actually. He finishes up by logging into the computer next to my bed. “Okay, just typing some notes into your record.” He turns and smiles at us. “As soon as I am done, I will leave you ladies alone while I go fill out some more paper work and prepare for the one o’clock meeting.”
More voice stress when he says ‘ladies’. Mr. Reilly’s voice indicated a little confusion about my gender, but so far, Dr. Edmundson is the one who is the most stressed. Well, other than myself.
I smile at him, causing him to get a little flustered. Crap, I can tell that this glamour thing is going to be a hassle. With the catheter out, I scoot up on the bed and sit up with my legs crossed under the covers. I find that sitting that way is now way easier and more comfortable than it ever used to be. I do feel a little more umm, drafty between my legs, but I can’t get over how smooth my legs feel when I rub them together.
“Yes, well, feel free to get out of bed and walk around if you feel up to it Brian. Oh, there are some urine sample bottles in the rest room here.” Dr. Edmundson says, pointing to the other door in the room, “If you have to use the restroom, please capture your urine so we can analyze it for nanites.”
I so did not want to think about the bathroom right now. I know that I was butt naked inside my head for a day and I did some virtual exploration. That doesn’t mean that I am looking forward to my first bathroom experience as a girl.
With my first bottle empty, I reach for the purple-blue bottle of the sport drink stuff. I realize then that my entire back side is bare to the world when feel the draft up my back from the hospital gown. Embarrassed, no pun intended, I stop myself and sit back with a sigh. “So, umm, mom. I just realized that this hospital gown is a little lacking. Could you get me that purple-blue bottle of stuff, please?”
Fey and my mom look at me a little funny. “Purple blue? Do you mean the light blue stuff?” My mom asks.
>tetrachromatic vision channels disabled
Oh, it is a light blue color. Hmm, I might need to just use normal vision. My mom hands me the blue stuff with a questioning look.
“I have a weird vision thing.” She begins to look concerned. I hastily try to reassure her. “Okay...not weird, just different. I can see using different modes like, low-light, ultraviolet and thermographic. I can also see extra colors. Not just extra colors, but all of the colors look brighter and more ummm, I dunno. Just more. When I tell the extra colors to go away, something called ‘tetrachromatic vision channels’ turns off.”
My mom still looks concerned, but Annie picks that moment to knock on the door. She enters the room and sets a covered plate of food on a small table that is attached to my bed. It rotates around, giving me a breakfast in bed table. I eagerly lift the cover off the plate and discover that the plate is full of food. There are a few small slices of roast beef with gravy, mashed potatoes with more gravy, a buttered roll, an extra-large serving of steamed broccoli and a small side salad. The plate of food looks okay to me, but the aroma of the sliced beef isn’t as appealing to me as it should be.
“Thanks, Annie!” I say with a smile.
She returns my smile, “No problem Brian. Eat up. Doctor’s orders.” Before she leaves, she says, “Is there anything else you need?”
“Nope, all good here. Thanks!”
After Annie leaves, Fey turns to me. “How does it look?”
I re-activate the tetrachromatic vision thing and the color of the broccoli and the salad shift to a vibrant green color, the mashed potatoes with gravy look kinda meh. The brown gravy has colors that range from light to dark brown with an oily chromatic color mixed into the gravy. That must be the fats. The roast beef doesn’t look bad, but the smell isn’t making my mouth water like it should.
“Well, everything looked normal until I turned back on the vision thing. Now, the salad and the broccoli is a nice healthy green color while the rest of the food just looks kinda, meh.” I say with a sigh. I sure hope that Fey’s idea that I won’t like meat as much isn’t correct, because not liking Philly-steak and cheese sandwiches would suck big time!
I start with the salad and it tastes good even without any dressing. Next, I tentatively try a small bite of the roast beef and after a hopeful first chew, I decide that while it doesn’t taste bad, it doesn’t taste good either. Maybe it’s just a standard over-cooked piece of cafeteria roast beef?
Next, I cautiously bite into one of the visually appealing green vegetables and next thing I know, I have drained the purple-blue drink and all but one pale green broccoli spear is gone. That lone broccoli spear looks a little over-cooked. I try the potatoes and those are good too, but I decide that the gravy is too salty and scrape off as much of it as I can. I can only eat about half of the roast beef before I decide that I have had enough of the meat.
“This sucks.” I say with a sigh as I push the plate away from me. I’m still hungry, but I can’t bring myself to eat any more of what is left on my plate. I almost feel like crying again, but my anger helps hold back my depression.
“Brian!” My mom exclaims.
“I’m sorry Mom. It’s just that everything is different now.” I motion to myself, “I’m a girl. I have some computer thing in my head and robots in my blood. I can’t eat the foods that I love and to top it all off, I have some attraction spell going.” I feel so frustrated and that makes me start to cry. “And now I’m crying, again! I hate this!”
My mom pulls me into a warm hug as I break down and cry on her shoulder while she rubs my back, telling me things are going to be okay. I don’t just cry. I think the technical term would be ‘sob’. I sob, and end up with a nose full of snot for my troubles.
For some reason, having a nose full of snot makes me realize how pathetic I am being. After all, things could be worse. Up until Fey and Sara showed up in my dream re-org thing, I thought I was dead and would never see my family again. That thought makes me give my mom a squeeze that causes her to gasp for air. Surprised, I quickly let her go and sit back concerned that I might have hurt her.
“Sorry Mom, I didn’t mean to squeeze you so hard.” I say while trying to hold back the sniffles.
“I’m okay, but you’re stronger then you look!” She says, reassuring me that she is fine.
Fey hands me some tissues as I stop sobbing and I blow my nose.
Once I am done being gross in front of them. I smile gratefully at her. “Thanks, Fey.”
“Hey. No problem Brian. I know how hard this is on you.”
That reminds me that I’m not alone. I’ve got her and Sara as super-powered friends and my mom is here. How pathetic am I acting here? I might be a girl, but I’m hot and to top it off, I might even have some kick-ass super powers! Just that idea makes me smile at the irony of it all. Here I have been reading comics and wanting to be a super hero my entire life and now that I might have super powers, I’m upset because I can’t finish some over-cooked roast beef?
The open air on my back and butt reminds me that I’m still wearing a flimsy hospital gown and super heroes to be don’t fight crime wearing something that shows the world their naked butt. “Mom?”
“Yes, Brian?” she asks, patiently.
“You didn’t happen to bring me some clothes, did you? This gown has got to go!” I say, half afraid that she didn’t bring me any clothes and half afraid that they will be all pink and girlie if she did bring clothes.
My mom scares me when she hesitates before replying to my question. I’m not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing. “Actually, Barb and Lindsay went shopping for you last night and dropped off your suitcase with some new clothes for you this morning.” She reaches for a small suitcase that is sitting on the floor.
Oh great. I can’t wait to see what my sister decided that I should wear as my first girl outfit. She probably picked out a mini-skirt and pink girl shirt with “Princess” on the front.
My mom smiles reassuringly at me when she notices the panicked expression on my face. “Don’t worry honey. Fey and I had a long talk last night about what you should wear. I spoke to both Barb and Lindsay about what was okay and not okay for them to buy you for your first girl clothes.”
I look to Fey. She nods affirmatively and grins at me. “Don’t worry Brian. I’ve checked them all out and while they are girl clothes, they aren’t girl-girl clothes. If you know what I mean.”
I dubiously nod. “Umm, okay?”
Fey’s expression turns a bit more serious. “As a Sidhe, your clothing options are a bit more limited than you might be used too.”
That doesn’t sound good. “What do you mean?”
“Well, you can’t wear anything that isn’t a natural fabric. No polyester, rayon, nylon, lycra, etc... Just wool, cotton, silk, linen, leather and other natural fabrics.”
“Okay, that sounds easy. All my t-shirts are cotton and so are jeans, right?”
“Yeesss.” She hesitantly says. I think she knows why I asked that question. “So! Here are some clothes for you to start out with.” She says as my mom lifts the suitcase onto the end of the bed and unzips it.
First, my mom pulls out and hands me a pair of jeans and a simple white girl style t-shirt. Things are looking okay so far. The t-shirt is a lot smaller and the fabric is thinner than I am used too, but I don’t see any slogans or plastic gems stuck to it.
Next, she pulls out a pair of plain white leather flat soled girls tennis shoes. They look like they could be pretty comfortable. I’m not crazy about the girl style, but at least they aren’t heels or pink. She matches the shoes to a pair of ankle socks. I like my socks to come up to my calves, but I guess I can wear the girlie ankle sock things for now.
My mom and Fey save the best for last, a pair of plain white panties with a matching bra. I guess they match anyway. They are both white, so that counts, right? I gulp when I see those two items in my mom’s hands. “Umm, I’m not so sure about those...can’t I wear my old underwear and do I really need a bra?”
My mom and Fey both look at each other and smile. I know that smile. It’s a smile that says, “He really doesn’t know what he’s talking about, does he?” Ummm...sorry, she. I decide that I’m not going to win this one and sigh. “Fiiinnne, I can tell that you all are going to gang up on me and yes, I’m a girl. I guess I will just have to suffer for now, but don’t think for a second that I’m going to like it!”
Fey flashes a mega-watt smile at me before she turns to my mom with a knowing grin. “See, I told you that she would understand!”
I groan and stick my tongue out to Fey. “Brat! Can one of you help me get out of this bed? I would hate to jump down on my own and fall flat on my face.”
My mom comes over and holds my arm while I gingerly swing my new legs over the side of the bed and hop down. I feel my chest bounce and my bare ass hanging out of the hospital gown. Maybe one of those bra things would be a good thing to at least try? I’m not sure which sensation to be more embarrassed about, but I am pleasantly surprised to find that my legs easily support me. It feels good to be on my feet again. The floor feels a bit cold on my bare feet though.
My mom reaches over and grabs my new clothes. “Here Brian, let’s go into the bathroom and get you changed. I think you will need some help with the bra.” She says as she helps guide me into the room’s attached bathroom.
I can only smile at her while inside I’m horrified by the thought of wearing a bra. I was just beginning to pay attention to all the stories about how to remove a girl’s bra with one hand and now I am going to be learning how to wear one. Oh, joy.
The bathroom is surprisingly roomy, but I guess it has to be in case someone is in a wheelchair. There is even a shower in there. I’m not sure how I feel about taking my first shower as a girl. According to all of those shower gel and soap commercials on TV, a woman’s shower is like some intimate and semi-erotic fantasy full of soft light, smooth skin and seductively hidden curves, while I guy’s shower is all about getting clean, energized and feeling manly. I’m not sure if I’m ready for the girl shower thing, but I am feeling a bit grubby.
Of course, my mom notices me eyeballing the shower. “Why don’t you go ahead and take a shower Brian? We can talk some more while you’re in there.”
“I dunno mom, are you sure we have time?” I ask, torn by what she will say. I really would like a nice hot shower to make me feel more, umm...human or whatever, but I’m kind of feeling a little self-conscious here.
“Oh yeah, we have time and a shower will make you feel better.” She reassures me.
Grreeaaattt!
I start the water and while I am waiting for it to get hot, my mom steps out and returns with a bar of smelly soap, a fluffy washcloth, and two travel size bottles of some shampoo and conditioner. The brand looks like it is the same stuff that my mom uses and told me to never use because it costs so much. Not that she ever needed to worry about me using anyway. A simple non-smelly shampoo with conditioner is all I have ever needed.
Once I step into the shower, I really like how the warm water feels on my skin. My mom makes sure that I use the washcloth with the smelly soap to ‘exfoliate’ my skin. “Okay Mom, this exfoliate thing I kinda understand, but umm, why the smelly flower soap?”
“It’s not a smelly flower soap, it smells nice and Fey recommended it. She said that it is an all-natural soap that shouldn’t irritate your skin as much as a regular store bought brands.”
“But, it’s going to make me smell like a...” I stop myself before I complete my thought.
“Like a what, dear?” My mom asks, all sweetness and innocence.
I sigh with defeat. “Oh, never mind. I know, I know.”
The soap does smell nice, but I can’t admit that now. I won’t lie, as I am washing, the hot water with the soft soapy washcloth on my skin feels nice. Way nicer than it ever did before. Now I know why girls take so long in the shower.
“So, Mom, ummm, did you have a name picked out for me if I had been born a girl?” I ask, anxiously over the sound of the running water. Just asking that question makes me feel like I am stepping off a cliff.
She doesn’t respond right away. “Yes, and I am surprised that you are asking me so soon, but your father and I had three names picked out. Your sister got our first choice for a girl name, but we also had Elizabeth Olivia and Brianna Nicole on the list. Why, do you think you should pick a girl name already?” She asks, sounding purposely casual, yet supportive at the same time.
“Ummm, I think so. I noticed how most of the people are having a hard time with my name now that I look like this.” I say as I squeeze out some of the shampoo and give it a sniff. It does smell nice, but not something I would have wanted on my hair as a boy and I’m still not sure I want it in my hair now.
My mom pulls out her trump card. “I don’t know if you need to rush out and change your name dear. Your father and I love you no matter what.”
That brings a lump to my throat. “I know and I love you too Mom, but the sooner I get it over with, the sooner I can start to feel normal. It’s hard to feel normal if everyone jumps when they say my name. I mean, do I really look like a Brian to you?” I ask as I close my eyes and start rinsing out the shampoo.
“Well, no...and don’t forget to use the conditioner too.” She says, helpfully.
“How about ‘Brianna Nicole’ then?” I ask as I’m trying to figure out how much of the conditioner stuff I need to use. “I mean, Brianna is pretty close to Brian, so maybe it will be easier for everyone, right?”
“Hmmm, I like it, but before we make it official, how about if we ask your Dad what he thinks?”
“Okay.” I say as I wash the slimy conditioner stuff out of my hair. It seems to take forever, but my hair does feel silkier. I turn the water off and my mom hands me a towel.
“Here, wrap this around yourself while I take care of your hair.”
I hesitate with the wrap for a second. I was just going to wrap it around my waist like I normally would, but I remember about my new, umm, bits and wrap it around my chest instead. That feels weird and the bottom of the towel touching the tippy tops of my thighs feels strange too. I glance down and I am overcome by the sheer girlness of it all.
My mom grabs a second towel. “Okay, turn around and tilt your head back.” She wraps the second towel around my head, turban style. Now I really feel like a girl, but my skin is still mostly wet. What a hassle.
“Ummm, why can’t I just dry myself off like I always do?” I foolishly ask.
“You mean, just rub your hair a few times with your towel and follow that up with the rest of your body and done?” She asks, completely understanding my unsaid question, yet still managing to sound like I am asking for something silly.
“Well, Brianna, if you try to dry your hair with the towel like you used to, then your hair will end up a tangled mess. Additionally, you may find that your skin is now a bit more sensitive and if you dry yourself off like you are used to, you may not like the feeling. You will probably need to be a bit gentler with your skin.”
I notice that she used my unofficial new name. I guess that she likes it too, so that means that Dad approval is just a formality. “Oh, okay.” I say. I can understand the hair part, but skin is skin, right?
She smiles at me. “Okay, all done with your hair for now. Go ahead and dry yourself off.”
I unwrap my towel and start to dry myself like I normally would, but I can feel the difference almost right away. My skin is more sensitive, especially those nipple things. I quickly change to a gentler pat and light rub drying technique. Once dry, I decide that the wet towel on my head is a little annoying.
I start to reach for it and she slaps my hand. “Not yet. Okay, wrap the towel around your chest to cover yourself up and go sit on your bed. I’ll call your dad and we can see what he thinks about your name while we wait for your hair to dry enough so that we can blow dry it.”
The towel may cover my new chest enhancements, but it just barely covers my butt. I’m not so sure that I will be able to jump onto the bed without flashing Fey or losing the towel completely. I look at the bed, then back to my mom. “Umm, can I just sit in the other chair?”
“Yep, just make sure you keep your knees together dear,” My mom says with a smile as she calls my dad.
I’m not sure, but I think that she has been calling me ‘dear’ and ‘honey’ a lot. I jump up a little as my naked butt hits the cold vinyl seat cushion. The cold butt thing plus somehow ‘hearing’ my mom’s cell phone ringing in my head distract me from the next message.
>Medical Alert: Allergic reaction detected!
Another window opens up and flashes a few times with an alert chime that draws my attention to it. I see my mom’s cell phone number displayed on the top.
>Active CDMA Signal from device: Jennifer Peters <555-123-9909> to David Peters <555-123-0763>
A graphical sound display displays my dad’s voice as he answers his phone. “Hello, Dave here.”
I’m absolutely floored by that. I am somehow intercepting my mom’s call. I start to fidget in my seat as I hear my mom with my ears and inside my head. “Hi honey. Sorry I haven’t called you sooner, but it has been a little crazy here since Brian woke up two hours ago.”
“Oh, he’s awake? I mean, she’s awake? How is she?” I hear the confusion in my dad’s voice and see the little voice stress gauge hitting the mid-yellow range.
I miss what my mom says next because my butt and legs start to itch like crazy. I look around to try and figure out what is making me itch.
Fey glances over at me and jumps up from her chair. “Brian! Get up!”
I absently note that I need to tell her about my new name as I jump out of the chair. I twist around and check the back of my itching legs. I see an ugly red rash. Oh man, if that rash stays, it is going to be hard to sit down later.
“Sorry that I didn’t stop you before you sat down, but the chair is made out of vinyl.” Fey says.
I didn’t realize that vinyl was that bad. I’ve sat in tons of vinyl seats in the past.
Fey walks over with a concerned expression on her face. “Here, let me look at it. I might be able to heal you.”
She wants me to show her my naked butt. I blush and turn to let her look at it. If I could have only had a pretty girl want to look at my naked butt a week sooner!
My mom holds her phone off the side as she comes over to look at my butt with Fey. How embarrassing. Hehe.
“Hold on honey.” My mom says. “Brianna just had an allergic reaction to the vinyl chair.”
Fey looks at it for a second or two and the rash starts to feel better.
“Ahh, thanks Fey. What did you do?” I ask.
“Nothing, your rash started to heal on its own.”
Surprised, I turn to look back there as best I can and the redness is already almost completely gone. I look at Fey and she just shrugs her shoulders. “I have some natural regen, but maybe you have a bit more than me or the nanites are healing you?”
“How did you sit down on the chair?” I ask Fey before I realize that, unlike me, she’s wearing clothes. I think she feels my realization when she just smiles at me. “Oh...”
My mom smiles and restarts her conversation with my dad. “Crisis over. It looks like our ‘daughter’ as some self-healing powers.” She fills him in on how the morning went before she gets to the important question. “Brian and I did some talking while she was in the shower and she wants to ask you something.” She holds the phone out for me with an encouraging smile.
What?! No I don’t. I look at my mom with desperation. She was supposed to be the one to ask him, not me. I can see that she is determined that I be the one to ask my dad about my girl name. I decide to see if I can just talk to him using the cell phone thing in my head.
“Umm, Hi Dad.” I say, hesitantly inside my head without actually saying a word. The sound graph thing moves in time with my words, so maybe it’s working.
“Hi, Brian. I am so glad that you are okay! You had us all worried, even your sister.” He says with a chuckle.
Holy cow! It works! How cool is that? Wait a second; did he just say that even Lindsay was worried?
“Brian, I know you might be nervous, but talk to your father.” My mom says while pushing the phone into my hand.
I point to me head and smile. “I am, Mom.”
She looks confused. “What?”
I point back to her phone “Listen.” She puts her phone back up to her ear.
“Back, sorry, I didn’t mean to make you all worry about me.” I tell him with a slight whine in my mental voice. I’d be surprised if he actually thought I tried to turn myself into a girl, but it just seemed like the right thing to say.
I guess that my mom can hear my ‘voice’ on her phone since eyes widen with surprise. “How are you doing that?” She asks.
I shrug and mouth. “I don’t know?”
“Doing what?” My dad asks.
“I’m kind of talking to you by just thinking about talking to you; if that makes sense, while mom is standing a few feet away from me with the phone in her hand.” I say inside my head.
“You’re wwhhaat!?” My dad asks, surprise and concern evident in his voice as the stress meter thing spikes into the red zone.
“I somehow ‘saw’ and ‘heard’ Mom’s cell phone in my head and I am able to ‘talk’ to you using that connection.” I try to explain.
“Ookkaay...that’s kind of scary, but cool, I think.” My dad says, hesitantly.
“Yeah, I know.” I say while I start to worry as I consider the implications. Intercepting cell phone calls is so James Bond.
“So, Brian, what was it that you wanted to ask me?” My dad asks.
“Umm.” I begin to reply, feeling very nervous and then I remember that I’m standing there with a wet towel that barely covers my butt with another wet towel wrapped around my head. That kind of distracts me for another second or two. Thank god the timer thing didn’t tell me exactly how long this time!
“What is it Brian? It’s okay, you can tell me.” My dad says, sounding more concerned now.
“Well, Mom and I were talking and I’ve kind of noticed that everyone is a little, umm, nervous? When they say my name. So, I was wondering if it okay if I just start using one of the girl names you and Mom had picked out for me if I had been born a girl.” I say in a nervous rush to get it over with.
My dad laughs with relief. “Oh, is that all? Of course, Brian. I don’t remember what the names were...”
“Besides Lindsay, we had Elizabeth Olivia and Brianna Nicole picked out,” My mom helpfully adds.
“Oh yeah, I don’t know. I like them both. What are you thinking Brian?” My dad asks, not being helpful in the decision making process.
“Well, I’m leaning toward Brianna Nicole, just because Brianna is closer to my current name and it might be easier for everyone.” I say.
“Okay, if that is what you want and it is okay with your mom, then Brianna Nicole it is!” My dad says, submitting his official approval stamp on the name.
My mom grins at me. “Yep, it is okay with me, Brianna Nicole.”
Fey jumps a little and smiles. “Brianna Nicole, huh?”
I smile and nod affirmatively to her.
“Well, that’s a nice name. Especially the middle one since that’s my name too.”
Oh yeah, her name is Nikki. I guess that Nikki is a nickname for Nicole. With that thought, I smile back at her. “Well, I need to get dressed still, so I think I will see if I can hang up now.” I say via the phone connection thing.
“Okay, Brianna, Love you!” My dad says, warmly. Hearing him say that to me causes my throat to catch a little.
“Love you too Dad, bye.” I reply, softly. I’m feeling a little more choked up then I expected. I think about the conversation going away and the window disappears.
My mom frowns and looks at her phone. “It looks like you hung us both up dear. Oh well, I was just going to say good-bye too.” She shrugs and puts her phone back in her purse.
Once the phone is put away, she snaps her fingers. “We need to get you dressed Brianna! Come. Let’s get you back into the bathroom so we can dry your hair and get some clothes on you.”
I groan. “Oh joy.” I am so not looking forward to this experience.
“Brianna Nicole Peters!” My mom mock yells at me.
I decide that maybe I should have waited on the name idea.
She stops and horrified, I watch as her patented evil Mom smirk shows up on her face. “I can’t wait to get you to a mall so we can get some real mother and daughter shopping done!”
I look at Fey, expecting some sympathy and support, but she just snickers at me.
“Traitor!” I whisper as she responds by sticking her tongue out at me.
<Sat Feb 17 12:55:32 MST 2007>
Well, that is the time that my new internal clock displayed when I thought about what the time was, as my mom, Fey and I walked down the hall to get to the 1 PM meeting. The day is proving to be disturbing on so many levels. Instead of fighting my new gender, I just decided to go with it. Well, that is what I keep trying to tell myself. I will be like the reed that bends in the wind versus the tree that snaps trying to resist. Hmmm, I wonder where I have heard that before.
>Sat Jun 25 20:34:02 MST 2005: "I will bend like a reed in the wind" - Paul Atreides while watching the 1984 movie “Dune” with Dad.
>Tue Oct 17 18:20:34 MST 2006: "The green reed which bends in the wind is stronger than the mighty oak which breaks in a storm." - Confucius via Sensei Rogers
Umm, okay. I guess that helps.
I decided to adopt that mindset about the time my mom and Fey had me try on my third pair of pants and they turned out to be those high water pants that girls like to call “Capri’s”. Why can’t girl clothes work like boy clothes? Clothes are clothes, right? Two arms, two legs, waist, everyone has the same basic parts, right. Why can’t girl clothes just fit?
As a boy, one small t-shirt, random color or slogan, underwear, preferably clean, jeans size 28x30 any brand will work, clean white socks and finish that off with one of my two pairs of tennis shoes depending on my mood. Run a comb through my damp hair, brush my teeth and out the door in 10 minutes or less.
As a girl, the only fast and easy part has been the dreaded girl underwear, aka ‘panties’. Without the convenient layered opening in my boy briefs, it took a second or two to figure out which side was the front, but once I puzzled that out; the panties went on pretty easy. I can’t say that they are supportive like my briefs felt on my junk, but I must admit that they are comfortable. However, I am still a little worried about the panty situation. I saw the look my mom and Fey exchanged when the silk panties in the suitcase were uncovered during the great dress-up Brian, I mean Brianna, adventure.
The bra fitting session caused my biggest mental hiccup. I had to try on three different bras before I found my bra. Not three different size bras, three different styles and brands. My mom even apologized for not having enough for me to try on. I discovered that one size does not fit all, even when the bra in question is labeled as the same size, 33B. How crazy is that? From all the fascinating, umm, fashion-art magazines that I found far too disrespectful of women to really read, I know that the ideal is a ‘C’ or god forbid, a ‘D’, but now that I have a pair of my own; I am damn glad that they aren’t any bigger!
Intellectually and structurally, I know that I need to wear a bra. I have had a virtual day or so to get used to the physical sensation of having boobs, but the sensation is still alien for me. They are there, but the fact that they are there still feels strange. I thought that the lack of my junk would be freaking me out more, but my missing bits are easier to ignore since out of sight is out of mind. Every time I look down, bam! There they are. Every time I move, they move and I feel them. I’m kind of stuck in a feedback loop and it’s annoying, but I have found that the feedback loop is reduced with my bra.
My bra and my panties, my brain skips a beat every time I think about those two basic clothing items as belonging to me. Wind, reed, bend…
The bra fitting took ten minutes and my mom still had to dry my hair. That took another ten minutes of drying while brushing mixed with some hair mousse goop. When she turned me around to face the mirror, the sight of the pretty girl wearing only her bra and panties made me smile, until I remembered that she was me. My mom was behind me and she had a pleased smile on her face. I think that she felt my initial confusion and when Fey appeared at my side I almost started to cry, again.
“Hey, it’s okay, Bree.” Fey said as she grabbed and held my hand while my mom hugged me from behind.
I looked at her and her smile reassured me enough to take a deep breath and face the mirror again. I liked what I saw and my hesitant smile made my mom give me a supportive squeeze before she released me.
Fey gently pulled me out the bathroom with a giggle. “Come on Bree, we need to get you dressed. We can’t have you running around in just your bra and panties!”
The rest of the clothes fitting was a whirlwind of try this and try that. I never had time to really think about all of the different styles and cuts when mixed with all of the different colors and how the different combinations highlighted different parts of my body. Like my collar bone, my boobs, my butt, my stomach, my neck, my ankles or all of the above. I never had to worry about that kind of stuff and I can’t say that I really ever wanted to either. Clothes are just clothes. They are supposed to be for protection from the elements. After forty-five minutes of trying on this top with those pants and that shoe, I had my wind/reed epiphany.
It was the Capri pants that finally broke me. While my mom and Fey gushed over how fresh I looked with them on, all I could think about is how they got ripped off when they bought those pants. Why would someone purposely wear high-water pants? The Capri things and the second pair of jeans fit the best, but I think they both felt how uncomfortable I felt about wearing the Capri’s, so the jeans won out.
They matched the jeans with a green long sleeved v-cut top that Fey claimed matched my eyes and hair perfectly. Why I needed to wear something that matched my eyes and hair escaped me and I’m not too fond of the v-cut top thing either. I don’t care how fashionable it might be; having the top part of my chest exposed with what amounts to an arrow pointing to my boobs is...unsettling.
My boobs…more feedback.
My chest.
Okay, that’s better, but with the v-cut, I have what is effectively an arrow pointing down to to my, umm, you know whats. Okay, that’s getting a little annoying and I need to come up with something better, but I don’t have time for that right now.
I only have one word for my first trip to the bathroom. Awkward and gross. Okay, make that two words. My mom had to hold the urine sample jar for me while I figured out how to let go. That was the awkward part. I’ve done urine samples before and I have to say that it positively sucks to do one with girl plumbing. My mom’s hand got pee on it and the jar was dripping. I’m glad that she was there to deal with that. I probably would’ve just dropped the jar. Then, I was all wet down there and had to wipe. That was the gross part. Well, maybe it wasn’t really gross gross, but it wasn’t right either. I have never gone to the bathroom and felt like I peed on myself as I peed in the toilet.
Wiping and the strange sensations of the toilet paper drying off my girl parts just added to my discomfort. I didn’t even know what part I was touching when I dried myself. I was able to pull up an anatomical diagram from the sex education class I took this year, but the sight of that complex thing just made me not want to know and I blocked it out. I can’t say that the diagram was really all that complex, but compared to what I had before, it was a nightmare. Boy parts are dead simple.
Nuts. Don’t hit.
Penis. Done.
I don’t even know where to start with the girl parts. I know that I am going to need to know this stuff; I can’t avoid it and I’m sure that there are going to be some surprises, but I hope that I can remember this wind and reed thing when those surprises happen.
The first time out of my room was a real eye-opener for me. My mom, Fey and I were walking down the hall when I noticed two soldiers walking towards us. My HUD automatically tagged them as Corporal Gregory and PFC Killian. I was a little distracted by a nifty little display that showed me their equipment and weapon’s status until I noticed them using the same girl hotness assessment pattern on Fey and me as I did to the girls at school. Even though they kept their heads forward and their faces professional, I could see their eyes moving up and down as they approached and passed us. I know that I did that with the hot girls too, but I never got caught doing it, I think.
After the two soldiers passed, I looked at Fey and her smirk made me smile, especially when I heard a thump and Corporal Gregory try to whisper. “Eye’s front Killer, they’re both jailbait!”
“Oh my gawd, Gregory! Why in the hell weren’t there any girls like that when I was in school?!?!” PFC Killian said, incredulously as he tried to keep it down to a whisper.
I glanced over to my mom and she didn’t seem to notice or hear the soldiers, but Fey’s smile told me that she could hear them just fine. Super robo-elf hearing to the rescue!
Gregory chuckled. “There probably were, but you were just too much of a loser to ever score with one.” I heard him whisper back.
I missed PFC Killian’s reply when they turned the corner of the hall. Oh well, it was kind of funny and I know how he feels. It’s just weird being on the other side of the equation. I guess that I am now one of those hot girls that guys like I used to be would ogle. Yeah, ogle. It’s a technical term and being ogled for the first time feels so weird.
Lunch was a bit different. Last time I walked into the cafeteria here, no one even noticed me. This time, not only did almost everyone notice me and Fey, but my HUD went crazy as my system automatically identified all of the people eating lunch. It made me glad that there weren’t any of those cheesy sound effects. I’m sure that the sound effect would’ve been just one big annoying screeching sound. I had to tone down the HUD thing after that to the basic info just so that I could see the people in the room.
As I was doing that, Fey steered me towards the food line. I was a little confused about why she grabbed some napkins, instead of the food tray first, but once I saw her use the napkins to pick up the tray, the reason became apparent to me. I briefly debated just dealing with the pain and letting my healing power fix things for me. Instead, I decided to copy her technique. Fortunately this cafeteria was old school and used metal utensils and real plates instead of plastic for those items.
The mystery meat looked good, but I decided to follow Fey’s lead on the food selection. It was a lot easier to do that than to try and figure things out for myself. I copied her request for extra veggies and an extra salad. She passed on the pies, but I just couldn’t pass up the apple pie and a nice big glass of milk.
Fey waited for my mom and I before she hunted for a table. Mr. Reilly, Sir Wallace and Dr. Edmundson had a table of their own and I hoped that Fey didn’t want to sit with them. It looked like they were talking business of some kind and I didn’t want to interrupt them. Fey glanced back to me and decided to lead us to an empty table near the three of them. I pretended to not notice all the stares that I got as I made my way to our table. I didn’t see anyone drooling or anything crude like that, but I did see a lot of people’s eyes follow us. Not just the guys either.
Food wise, the only surprise I felt was the fact that I enjoyed the salad more than I expected. My mom did get the mystery meat and she reported that it tasted “okay”, so I didn’t feel too bad for passing up on it. I figured that I could explore my new palate a bit more when I finally got home.
Mr. Reilly, Sir Wallace and Dr. Edmundson stopped by our table on their way out. They just stopped to say “hi”, but they didn’t want to interrupt our lunch; so they quickly excused themselves. The rest of lunch was pretty uneventful, but I did catch a few of the guys sneaking looks at me. Well, I think they were anyway, but maybe I was just being paranoid.
**
After lunch, my mom, Fey and I made our way to the meeting room. Entering the room, I see that in addition to Mr. Reilly, Dr. Edmundson and Sir Wallace, Brenda, Dr. Johannson and Colonel Thompson are also here. I’m not sure why Brenda is here, but it is still nice to see her again.
There is a casually dressed man that I don’t recognize who is looking at me with a curious expression. It’s not a leer, but he still makes me feel a little uncomfortable.
>DOD/DARPA/Paranormal Security Analyst/GS14/Daniel/Alexander/Hoffman/xxx-xx-xxxx/A-/FALSE
Paranormal Security. Hmmm, I guess that explains why he’s not wearing a suit or in a uniform and why he’s looking at me. I wonder what he is seeing?
“Oh. My. God!” Brenda says as her friendly smile distracts me from him. Yep, I still think that she’s pretty. She surprises me when she rushes over and gives us both an enthusiastic hug. “Jennifer and Brian. Oh my god! I am so glad that you’re okay. I wanted to ask you how you were doing when I dropped off the drinks in your room, but it just didn’t seem like a good time with all the people there.”
Her hug and exuberance just makes me feel even more confused because I like it and my body reacts, but I don’t really understand what my mind and body is trying to tell me. I think I’m still attracted to her, but without my penis to embarrass me; I’m not one hundred percent sure. My chest feels tingly and my body feels warm. Especially my junk, but the feeling is more diffused and less certain. Embarrassed by my thoughts and unsure what to do, I instinctively cross my arms over my chest and then, immediately uncross my arms when I realize what I’m doing.
Three new men enter the room and I automatically scan their CAC ID badges.
>DOD/DARPA/IPTO Director/EX04/Johnathan/Allen/Grier/xxx-xx-xxxx/O-/FALSE
>U.S.Army/RA/Major/O-4/Jacob//Thole/xxx-xx-xxxx/A+/FALSE
>U.S.Army/RA/1st Sergeant/E-8/James/Edward/Griebler/xxx-xx-xxxx/AB+/FALSE
“Thanks, Brenda.” My mom says as her eyes become a little moist, like she might start crying or something.
I guess that my mom and Brenda spent some time getting to know each other while I was unconscious. I’m still not sure how to handle Brenda hugging me. My mom seems to pick up on my confusion and gives me a quick hug with a reassuring smile. Somehow, that makes me feel a little better.
Brenda gives us both another quick hug before returning to her seat and I carefully inspect my chair before I sit down. I’m not sure what this chair is made out of, but after my previous chair experience, I am not taking any chances. It should help that I am fully clothed this time.
With everyone seated, Mr. Reilly walks up to the front of the table and turns to my mom and I. “Mrs. Peters, I can’t find enough words to express how sorry I am about what you and your family are going through right now.”
My mom squeezes my hand and smiles gratefully at Mr. Reilly. “Thanks Mr. Reilly, but I can’t thank the staff here enough for their support.” She looks around the room at everyone and I can see that she looks like she could cry at any second now. “Because, there is no way that I would’ve been able to handle this without all of you here. I’m sorry-” She stops as her voice gets choked up with emotion. I give her a hug and after a quick glance sideways to Fey for reassurance, I look back at Mr. Reilly.
Mr. Reilly smiles at me after he sneaks a glance at Fey. “Brian, I know that things aren’t exactly normal for you right now, but I will do everything in my power to get you and your family the help you need.”
“Thank you, Mr. Reilly and everyone here. I just feel lucky just to be alive!” I smile gratefully at everyone as I look around the room. I notice a few smiles and nods in return. I decide to go all out and just get the name thing out and in the open. “Umm, I noticed that people were having problems with my name and I was starting to feel a little uncomfortable about that.”
I catch a few people nod unconsciously at my observation. “So, umm, my mom and I talked it over and decided that I should take the name that my parents would’ve named me if I had been born a girl. Umm, If it’s okay with you all, I’d like it if you all just called me Brianna from now on.” I say, as my stomach does flip-flops from how nervous I feel about telling everyone in the room. I feel somewhat reassured when my mom squeezes my hand and proudly smiles at me.
Mr. Reilly smiles at me before he quickly glances at Fey again before returning his gaze to me. “I think that we can manage that, Brianna and I must admit, that I think that is a very nice name for you.”
I’m not sure how to handle that compliment and I’m glad he didn’t say that my name was “pretty”, but I still feel myself blushing as I mumble. “Thanks.”
Mr. Reilly’s expression turns serious again. “The team here has gone above and beyond the call of duty with their handling and investigation of this complex incident. I want to commend everyone here for their role in making the impossible look merely difficult. The results of this investigation are being taken very seriously.” He pauses for a few seconds to gather his thoughts and let that compliment sink in before he points to me with a smile, “Now that we have the star of the show present. I think that it might be beneficial if we have Major Thole give us all quick recap of the investigation’s findings. Brianna, feel free to interrupt when you can fill in any details we may have missed.”
I nod to him while Major Thole gets up from his chair to stand near the head of the table and closest to where the projector starts to display a presentation. He begins the presentation with a simple event timeline that starts from the time I entered the lab during the field trip and ends when I woke up this morning.
Major Thole starts to explain the timeline, but when he gets to “1230hrs - Ms. Koshnik notes eye color…”
Feeling incredibly nervous, I decide to interrupt him. “Sorry to interrupt you sir, but, umm, something happened before Brenda noticed my eyes.”
He pauses and smiles reassuringly at me. “Go ahead. What happened?”
“Well, I first noticed something weird when Bravo Ten inspected the bus.” My new and improved memory allows me to describe everything down to whatever level of detail they want. Dr. Edmundson tests my memory by asking me if I can remember seeing the name tag on the soldier’s uniform when he inspected the bus. I rewind the memory from the bus and pay attention to his uniform as he is walking towards me, “His name tag says ‘KILLIAN’”, I tell them. Wow, that is the same dude who I overheard in the hallway.
While I was talking and Dr. Edmundson asked me his questions, I noticed Dr. Johannson feverishly taking notes.
Major Thole starts back up by jumping forward to my call to Brenda. That causes more questions, so I begin to describe what happened when I started playing GEO that night. Dr. Edmundson and Dr. Johannson are most interested in the ‘system’ messages.
“Excuse me, but could you describe to me how you by-passed the wards in the game?” Sir Wallace asks.
“Umm, well, I just looked at the, umm, magic line and moved it out of my way.” I say as I unconsciously pantomime doing that with my hands.
He looks a little perplexed with my answer.
“Is something wrong, Sir Wallace?” I ask, feeling slightly alarmed by his reaction.
His face relaxes into a patient smile and he glances at Fey before turning back to me. “Oh nothing right now, but I find your descriptions of the wards and how you slipped past them to be simply fascinating. We will have to discuss that during our lesson tomorrow.”
“Good thing that’s only a game…” I hear the paranormal security dude mutter under his breath.
Both Sir Wallace’s and the security dude’s comment concerns me a little, because I think that there might be a lot that Sir Wallace didn’t say with his answer. On the other hand, he did mention the magic lesson. I can’t wait for that, but if doing magic requires that I run around the woods shouting “Magic Missile! Magic Missile!” at people, I think I will skip the learning magic stuff. I saw the videos on the Internet and there is no way that I want to look like that much of a nerd.
I follow that up with an almost blow by blow account of the fight. The military guys look the most interested when I describe the targeting thing. I describe my near-death scene after the fight in Seramis’ room. It hurt and just recalling that memory reminded me just how close I really came to dying for real. My mom lets go of my hand and pulls me into a full hug as I lose my composure from recalling that event.
I hear Mr. Reilly call for a short bathroom break to give everyone a chance to stretch their legs while both Fey and Brenda join my mom comforting me. The sight of their concerned faces almost makes me totally lose it, but I manage to draw on their support and find the strength to not cry. Just a few days ago, I would have given anything to have two hot chicks hugging me, minus my mom, of course. That thought almost makes me laugh.
“What?” Fey asks with a grin.
I think she knows what I was feeling there. “Oh, nothing. I’m just glad that you,” I look at Fey before I turn to an anxious looking Brenda. “And you, are here.” I feel a pinch from my mom. “Oh yeah, and you too Mom. Thanks!” I laugh, but I think that it comes out as one of those giggle things that girls do.
That reminds me about the reason Mr. Reilly gave for giving the meeting a break. I wonder how long we have been in here. I could just look at my own clock, but I find myself reflexively looking at the room’s clock. I am surprised to discover that the meeting has already been going on for a little over an hour.
I perform a bladder diagnostics and I feel relieved, no pun intended that I don’t feel like I have to go to the bathroom right now. The one time just before lunch was enough for me. I am so not looking forward to my second trip to the cold toilet seat room. I do decide to tempt fate and grab a glass of water though. I’m a tad thirsty after all that talking.
Once everyone returns, Major Thole continues with how my family found me inside of something called a METS suit. I get to see the pictures of me inside the suit. Well, of the suit anyway. I can’t really see myself inside the suit, but I have to admit that the suit looks and sounds pretty cool.
I’m not sure when in the timeline it happened, but I interrupt again to describe the part where I saw Whisper on the table. Dr. Edmundson theorizes that memory must have happened sometime after I was enclosed inside the suit, but before Mr. Hoffman checked me for magic before they manually deactivated the suit.
I also learn why Brenda is here when we watch the video that they took when Brenda went online to investigate. The room must be a little dusty or something, because I totally do not start to cry when I watch Lord Vincint talking to Brenda about how awesome I am. I can’t believe that the he said all those nice things about me and he even gave Brenda his phone number in case we had some more questions.
I don’t have anything to add when Brenda talks to Seramis, but even though I know that Nikki is also Aunghadhail; I still find the differences in their personalities surprising to see. I can’t help but wonder how all this is going to play out in game once Brenda and Nikki are able to play again. I don’t ever plan on playing GEO again, but I can’t help myself from wondering what happened to Whisper once Seramis healed me.
That gets us to Mr. Hoffman’s part in the timeline. I’m pretty happy that he was around and able to figure out the magic stuff. I am guessing that the suit deactivation is what “woke” me up inside my head.
I end up telling that part of the story. Of course, I leave out a few of the embarrassing details with the mirror and I leave out meeting Sara too. Since I’m not a good liar, that is a little tricky, but lying by omission isn’t as hard as completely lying. I do blush when I hear a few chuckles when they find out that I thought Fey was an angel there to escort me to heaven. It doesn’t help that even Fey giggles at my admission.
Once again, Dr. Edmundson is amazed by the re-org process and how I was able to speed it up. I get the feeling that he can’t wait to get some time with me as his lab rat. Not that I have anything against helping him out. I’m sure that whatever I can do to help him, will also help me understand all the weird computer stuff inside me.
Mr. Reilly decides that we should take another break and I am happy for that. Well, happy for the break, but not at all happy when my self-diagnostics indicates that I have to go to the bathroom again. I stop Dr. Edmundson on his way out. “Umm, Dr. Edmundson? Do I still need to do more urine samples?” I feel very embarrassed and hoping that he will say no.
“I’m afraid so Brianna. We detected some nanites in your last sample and we need to keep checking to verify that the nanite levels are dropping.” Dr. Edmundson says.
I don’t think he understands how much I dislike the urine sample thing, much less the entire bathroom experience as a girl. I turn to my mom and sigh. “I need to go to the bathroom. Can you help me again?”
“Sure honey. Let’s get to your room and get it over with so we can get back in time for the re-start of the meeting.” My mom says with a reassuring smile.
Honey?
Once again, urine sample as a girl, bad. Sitting down to go pee, grrr. Needing to wipe every time I go to the bathroom, so not happy with that. I just know that my sister is going to give me crap about all the times I yelled at her for taking so long in the bathroom just to go pee. That makes me think about Fey’s answer about it getting worse. I wonder how it could get any worse.
Oh crap!
“Umm, Mom? Am I going to start having a period now too?” I hesitantly ask as I wash my hands. I just know that she is going to tell me yes, but it would be nice to be wrong once and awhile.
“I’m sure you will Brianna, but it’s really not that bad.” She says, predictably.
Has she drunk the kool-aid or something? Not that bad? If it’s not that bad then why are she and Lindsay so crabby and like to pop aspirin during “that time of the month”? That line of thought spawns more thoughts until they all collide and I drop the f-bomb in front of my mom.
“Oh fuck...I can get pregnant!” I say, as the blood drains from my face and my knees buckle. I hold on the sink and barely manage to keep myself from falling to the floor from the shock of what should have been an obvious realization long before now.
>Medical Alert!
>Blood pressure drop detected...
Stop it! The damn Medical thing goes away.
I just want to hide. Maybe if no one could see me everything would go away. I wish that I really was Whisper. If I was, then I could just wrap myself in shadows and disappear. My vision begins to get weird on me again. Maybe it is the blood pressure thing, but I am starting to see glowing black and white lines. How can black glow? I feel like I can just reach for them and if I wrap myself up in them, maybe I could just disappear.
“Brianna Nicole!” I hear my mom yell like she is going to do the full name, you’re in trouble thing, but she stops herself from chewing me out. Instead, she grabs my shoulders, turns me around and wraps me up in a tight hug. Where did all the pretty lines go?
She’s pretty much holding me up as I completely lose it and start crying. Crying isn’t really the right word for the level of water works that I am displaying. Bawling, that is the right word. I just keep whispering over and over, “but I don’t wanna be a girl...” while my mom just holds me, rubs my back and rocks me while saying, “Shhh, it’s going to be okay...I know that it’s hard to understand right now, but it’s going to be okay...”
I don’t know when Nikki got there, but I start to feel a little bit calmer when I feel her join in the hug. I can feel her panting. She must have run the entire way. It takes another minute before I finally get myself under control. I feel like a total wreck and to make matters worse, I start to feel ashamed of myself. I’m sure that I’m holding everyone up with my hysterics.
“Don’t worry about anyone else right now Brianna. Mr. Reilly knows that you’re going through a hard time right now. He will hold the meeting until you’re ready.” Nikki says, as if she can read my mind.
“I’m sorry…” My voice breaks a little. “I need to blow my nose, sorry.” I break the hug and make my way back into the bathroom. When did I leave the bathroom? It is amazing how much better a simple thing like blowing your nose can make a person feel. I wash my hands and splash some cold water on my face to help wipe away the tear tracks. I’m not smiling when I finally exit the bathroom again, but I am feeling a bit more human. Sorry, elvish or sidhe’ish or is it just sidhe? I mean, I wouldn’t say “humanish” would I? Okay, problem solved. I am officially feeling more sidhe. One problem down, 100,000 more to go. Piece of cake!
Somehow, that makes me smile a bit, which causes my mom to give me another hug, which causes me to smile more. It is really an out of control chain reaction that ends with me giggling at the absurdity of it all.
“Feeling a little better now Brianna?” My mom asks, full of concern, while Nikki looks at me with another of those radiant smiles on her face.
These mood swings are killer, but I can’t help myself when I smile back at them both. “Yes. Sorry about that. It all kind of hit me at once.”
“That’s okay honey. I understand, but please don’t use the f-word again or I will have to ground you.” My mom says with a smile that tells me that while she understands why, she still doesn’t like it.
“Sorry, I won’t. I think, but I’m not sure how many more shocks I can handle here. Is it okay if it accidentally sneaks out one more time at a later date?” I ask, feeling a little mischievous, yet still serious because it could happen.
My mom just looks at me skeptically. “Hmmmph, if you’re feeling good enough to try and weasel out of future punishment, then I think you are feeling good enough to head back to the meeting.”
Okay...no free f-bomb passes. Got it. She didn’t say “no” though.
We are only fifteen minutes late and I apologize profusely for the delay. Dr. Edmundson looks concerned when he asks me what was wrong. I just blush and mumble, “Female problems.” I feel a collective “oookkkaaayyy” from the room and everything is forgotten. Hmmm, I might have to remember that one again. It seems to work pretty well.
We start back up with me describing the final boot process as I list all the kernel module things. “...and then, all hell broke loose for exactly 2.43 seconds.” I say as I stop, expecting some questions.
Mr. Reilly looks concerned. “What do you mean?”
My mom tenses and looks nervous. I hesitate before replying. I look to Fey and she nods for me to continue. I feel reassured by her and I get the feeling that I can trust Mr. Reilly. I then proceed to describe exactly what happened. I describe how the room looked, the camera, the motion detectors, the funky vision modes and how the colors look different due to some tetrachromatic vision thing, the cell phones, the soldiers showing up on a map, complete with unit information. Except for Fey, everyone in the room is looking a little stunned by what I am telling them and I am just now getting to the good stuff.
I pause for a second to see if anyone had any questions before I continue with the radio thing, and then with the expansion of that view to the three states bordering New Mexico, all of the weird map symbols and icons, and finally, how all of that minimized down to a single “C3” icon. I’m trying to be as descriptive as can. I also tell them about the targeting brackets around everyone and exactly what my “scan” of their CAC ID badges revealed to me.
“That is what happened in that first 2.43 seconds, until I finally managed to find an ‘off’ button for all that stuff. I’ve found two more things since then though.” I say.
Mr. Reilly, along with the rest of the people in the room, looks a little stunned by my admission. “There’s more?” Mr. Reilly asks.
I exhale a nervous breath. “Yes sir. I discovered that I have a voice stress gauge thing that shows up on my targeting display. I noticed that most people were stressed out by my boy name. That is why I decided to ask my mom about a girl name so soon.”
Dr. Edmundson looks excited by that admission.
“Dr. Edmundson? Do you have any ideas about that feature?” Mr. Reilly asks.
Dr. Edmundson smiles at me before he turns to address Mr. Reilly. “Yes sir, that is part of the C3 system. We thought that it might be useful if a commander could see how stressed his unit commanders sounded while they were giving orders. Maybe it would help them decide priorities, but we weren’t sure if it would work.”
“Well, I guess you can mark that one as working too, Dr. Edmundson.” Mr. Reilly says with a trace of a smile. “What was the second thing?”
I hesitate for a second before I answer. I’m not sure why I feel nervous about admitting this ‘feature’, but here goes nothing. “Well, I accidentally intercepted my mom’s phone call when she called my dad to ask him about my name.” I’m sorta holding my breath, expecting people to freak out, but instead everyone is just looking at me with a calculating look in their eyes.
Mr. Reilly’s eyes narrow as he considers the implications. “What do you mean by ‘intercepted’?”
“Well, when my mom called my dad’s cell phone, I saw a window open up with CDMA connection from my mom’s phone number to my dad’s phone number. I was able to listen to them talk and even reply inside my head while my mom was on the other-side of the room with her phone.” I say.
“Have you been able to intercept any other cell phone since then?” Mr. Reilly asks.
I shake my head back and forth. “No sir. I can see that there are other cell phones in the building, but I haven’t detected any calls.”
“Do you think that you can try intercepting your mom’s cell phone again?” Mr. Reilly asks.
“I don’t know, maybe?” I say.
Mr. Reilly looks around the room. “Hmm, is everyone up for a little experiment right now?”
Everyone looks interested and I hear a few “yes’s” in there. He asks my mom to use the room’s speaker phone to dial her cell phone. I watch her punch in her phone number, and then, exactly 1.21 seconds later, a window opens up with:
>Active CDMA Signal from device: Jennifer Peters <555-123-9909> Incoming call from USADARPA <555-200-0333>
Right after that, her phone begins to ring, but before she can answer it, I answer it for her and inside my head I say, “Hello?”
Everyone looks a little confused when her phone stops ringing, but when they hear me ‘say’ “Hello?” without moving my lips, they all gasp with surprise.
“Can you hear me Brianna?” Dr. Edmundson asks, forgetting that I’m sitting right there in the room with him.
I can’t stop myself from giggling, but I decide to be nice and just look at him. “Yes.” I say, out loud.
He blushes and laughs at himself as he realizes what happened. “Well, that was silly of me. Mrs. Peters, since Brianna hasn’t been able to intercept any other phone calls today, could you try stepping out of the room with your cell phone and walking down the hall. I would like to see if she has a range limit.”
My mom briefly looks at me with concern. “Sure.” She says as she leaves the room. She gets exactly twenty meters down the hall when I get a message that tells me:
>Lost CDMA Signal from device: Jennifer Peters <555-123-9909>
“I lost the signal when she got twenty meters away.” I say.
Dr. Edmundson pokes his head out the door. “Okay, Mrs. Peters, you can come back now.”
As soon as she hits the twenty meter mark the connection is reestablished. “I got it back again.” I say inside my head and hear my voice come over the speaker phone.
I’m about to say something else when another alert pops up with:
>Incoming GSM Signal from device: Nicholas Reilly, Sr. <555-200-0092> from Office of the President <121-000-5555>
Oh crap! I can’t help it, I gasp with surprise. “You should probably get that Mr. Reilly and umm, leave the room?”
He pulls out his vibrating crack-berry and frowns as he looks at the caller ID. “Yes, I think that you are right, Miss Peters.” He stands and heads for the exit. “Nick Reilly.” As he walks out of the room everyone can hear him say, “Yes, Mr. President, we are...”
I don’t even try to listen in on that conversation. The room gets very quiet after Mr. Reilly exits the room.
My mom breaks the silence by turning to me. “You’re not?” She asks, whispering.
I vehemently shake my head “no” to that question.
Everyone in the room kind of has that deer in the headlights look and I know that I do when I look at my mom. “The President!?” I ask with an incredulous whisper.
She just smiles and nods her head like she knew about it. Since she looks so relieved, I wonder why everyone else looks so nervous. Major Thole, 1st Sergeant Griebler, Dr. Edmundson and Dr. Johansson break off to have a whispered conversation amongst themselves, while Colonel Thompson and Mr. Grier do the same.
Fey and Sir Wallace appear relaxed and unconcerned about the situation. I guess that they knew about it too. I turn to Fey. “Do you think that he is talking to the President about me?” I ask with a whisper.
Fey nods her head and smiles. “Probably, and about me too I imagine.” She says with a conspiratorial whisper.
I am a little confused as to why the President would be asking about her too and I guess it shows on my face.
“Remember, I’m Seramis and I healed you through the game?” Fey asks.
Oh yeah. The light bulb finally flickers on inside my head. Holy crap, Mr. Reilly wasn’t kidding when he said, “this investigation is being taken very seriously,” at the start of this meeting. Fortunately for my nerves and probably everyone else’s, Mr. Reilly’s chat with the President doesn’t take very long.
All of the side conversations come to a halt and everyone is very attentive when Mr. Reilly returns to the room and walks back to the front of the room with a thoughtful expression on his face.
“Yes, that was ‘The President’ and yes, he was calling about this investigation.” Mr. Reilly pauses and looks around the room. Everyone looks so serious now. “He and his National Security Advisor have read the reports and once I filled him in on what we just learned from this meeting, he is now very anxious to read the updates. Dr. Edmundson, Major Thole,” he nods to each of them as he singles them out, “the President has congratulated you and your staff here for conducting such a thorough and innovative investigation.” Then, he turns to me. “Brianna, he has also expressed his pleasure in learning that you are in good health and appear to be adapting to your situation. He understands that this wasn’t your fault and he wants to make sure that you and your family is treated ‘right’ as he put it.”
I’m a little shocked by that. I mean, if just a few days ago, someone told me that the President knew my name, I would’ve told them that they, “needed to get off whatever crack pipe they have been smoking.” That thought almost makes me miss what Mr. Reilly says next.
“To that end, the President and his advisors have requested that we get Brianna to the new DOD testing facility at Langley Air Force Base for a more complete medical examination first thing Monday morning.” Mr. Reilly says.
I turn to my mom. “Langley? Where’s that at?” I ask, whispering. She just shrugs her shoulders and looks to Mr. Reilly.
“Sorry, Langley Air Force Base, Virginia.” Mr. Reilly says, catching our confused expressions and my whispered question.
My mom looks concerned at first and then, she sighs with resignation. “Oh, I guess that I can buy some plane tickets tonight, but how can I get Brianna on a flight without an ID for her?”
Mr. Reilly smiles at her. “That’s not going to be a problem Mrs. Peters. You and Brianna will fly on-board a private DARPA jet with me. It sounds like Sir Wallace and Fey has made other arrangements, but I will need to talk with my pilot to figure out an exact departure time.”
My mom seems surprised by the news and almost reluctant to accept the help. “That’s certainly a surprise Mr. Reilly, but are you sure that’s necessary?”
Mr. Reilly nods his head. “Positive. The President and his advisers all agree that in light of our findings and Brianna’s experiences, that it would be best if we got Brianna to a facility that could better test your daughter’s abilities while keeping an eye on her health. We are all concerned how her mutant abilities might interact with the nanites and with her magical Sidhe nature.”
“Oh, I guess that makes sense. It just seems to be so sudden. I was hoping that I could get Brianna home for a few days to allow for things to settle down some.” My mom says, sounding a little disappointed.
Mr. Reilly pauses for a second. “Hmm, I guess I didn’t really consider that, but I don’t think that there is a whole lot more that we can get done today. Does anyone here think that there would be a problem if Brianna spent the evening at home with her family?”
Dr. Edmundson looks at Major Thole, and then back to Mr. Reilly. “No sir. I don’t think that we have any problems with that, but I would like to see about turning off Brianna’s command level access to the Land Warrior systems before she departs the facility.”
Oh man, I was kind of hoping that they would forget about that. I really wanted to play around in there. All that stuff looked so interesting to me.
Mr. Reilly looks at Dr. Edmundson. “I also believe that it would be beneficial if you were able to join us at Langley, Dr. Edmundson.”
Dr. Edmundson smiles with relief. “I was just going to make the suggestion that either Dr. Johansson or myself join you sir.” He turns and smiles at me before turning back to address Mr. Reilly. “Brianna is my patient and I would be loath to entrust her care to anyone else.”
I feel slightly relieved to know that he will be there too.
Sir Wallace is the next one who surprises me. “If it is decided that Brianna can go home for the evening, I would recommend that Fey join her, just in case there is something of a magical nature that needs addressing.” He says with that cool British accent that makes him sound so authoritative.
Mr. Reilly looks to his daughter with concern. “Fey? Is that okay with you?”
“I think that it would be nice to not have to spend the night in a hotel.” Fey says with a pleased smile as she grabs my hand and gives it a squeeze. She looks past me to my mom. “Is that okay with you Mrs. Peters?”
My mom looks at me for a second and I give her my best pleading look before she smiles and nods at Fey before turns back to Mr. Reilly. “That sounds like a good idea Mr. Reilly.”
“Okay then, Brianna. While I work out some details with your mother and Fey, why don’t you check with Dr. Edmundson and Major Thole so they can see about your access levels. Once they give the go-ahead, I don’t see why we can’t get you home to see your family this evening.” Mr. Reilly says with a encouraging smile.
I return his smile as I stand up to join Dr. Edmundson. “Sure Mr. Reilly. That sounds great. I can’t wait to get home!”
I follow Dr. Edmundson and Major Thole down to Major Thole’s office. He has a terminal sitting on his desk. He passes his ID card over a built in reader and that opens up his PC to allow him to enter his login information. Once there, he and Dr. Edmundson look over the system a little. “I’m not sure what ID you are using Brianna. Can you access your C3 system and see if you can find out what your user ID might be?” Dr. Edmundson asks.
“Sure Dr. Edmundson. Hold on a sec while I try.” I say while I mentally open up the C3 thing again. Once again a window opens up with the three states bordering New Mexico. Tons of information starts to flood in again as the map starts to expand to over the entire United States. Okay, this is cool and all, but Dr. Edmundson needs to know what user ID I am using to access the system. Hmm, I think there is a ‘who’ command in Unix. I try that and another window opens up and just starts to scroll by with thousands of users until I stop it. TMI...okay, so, who am i?
>DARPA_TST_USER pts/5 Feb 17 15:25 ( node:whisper.darpa.us.mil )
“I think that I am logged in as ‘DARPA_TST_USER’ and there is something about a node whisper.darpa.us.mil in there too” I tell them.
“Okay, thanks Brianna.” Dr. Edmundson says as Major Thole starts to type that into his console. I glance over and can see the screen. It all looks pretty technical to me. There are a lot of acroynmns and check-boxes for tons of stuff on the screen. “Jake, hold on for a sec before we shut everything off. I want to think about it for a second or two.”
“Sure thing Dr. Edmundson. What are you thinking?” Major Thole asks as he turns around to look back at Dr. Edmundson.
“It is interesting that she is showing up as a node on the system, but as I understand it, her current access gives her full command authority in the system. However; I am thinking that while we need to limit her access, we will still need to be able to have her test things. Can you edit her user ID and give her read-only access to the system?”
“Sure.” Major Thole says as he clicks the mouse a few times to enable and disable a few check boxes on his screen. “Anything else?” He asks, turning to look back at Dr. Edmundson.
Dr. Edmundson ponders his question for a second. “Hmmm, limit the access times to normal business hours too. Say, 0800 through 1700 hrs and force a password reset.”
“Sounds good, okay, done.” Major Thole says after a few more clicks.
Dr. Edmundson turns to me. “Okay Brianna, can you try logging off and then logging back in?”
I nod my head yes as I think to myself to log off. The C3 window closes down and when I think about it starting again, it opens up, but instead of the map, I now have a login window that is showing me the ‘DARPA_TST_USER’ automatically plugged in for my User ID and a bunch of asterisks for the password. I mentally hit enter to log in, I get a message that asks me to change my password.
“It is asking me to change my password now.” I say with a frown. Darn it. I was hoping that their user ID change thing wouldn’t work for me due to some super-mutant computer hacking power, or something.
“Excellent, try changing it to something that would be hard to guess, but easy for you to remember and make sure it has some numbers in there too.” Dr. Edmundson says.
I just try my usual ‘whisper7734!’ and I can’t stop myself from smiling when the map pops back up for me. 7734 is kind of a nerd thing, but I like it and I figure that the special character at the end will help keep people from using the standard dictionary attack approach to cracking a password. Not that I expect anyone to ever want to try and crack my password. I don’t have anything that anyone would ever consider interesting.
“Okay, Dr. Edmundson. It looks like I am back in, but I don’t notice any differences.”
“I think that Jake, I mean Major Thole here is more familiar with how the system should work than I am. Do you have any ideas on how we can test her access now?” Dr. Edmundson asks.
Major Thole nods and turns to look at me. “Try opening up one of the soldiers here and issuing them an order.”
I grin when I spot PFC Killian on my map of the area. “Okay, I’m going to try and tell PFC Killian to go clean the bathrooms, umm, with a toothbrush.”
Major Thole grins at me. “I think you’ve watched too many movies.”
>User not authorized for Command authority. Please contact your system administrator.
I frown at Major Thole before sighing. “Darn. It won’t let me. It’s telling me that I’m not authorized…”
I’m not really that bummed about the security changes since I never knew that I could have done anything before the changes, but it would have been funny to see PFC Killian scrubbing the toilets. Not that I have anything against him either.
“Excellent! We can always re-enable some command authority later down the road if we need to do further testing” Dr. Edmundson says with a smile. “I know, it is kinda cool Brianna, but I think that some folks we be a tad upset if you accidentally started to fire off some missiles. However, on the plus side for you, I think that means that you can now go home for the evening.”
I bounce out of my chair with excitement and I immediately find myself blushing when I feel myself bounce a little more on top than I am used too. “Th-Thanks Dr. Edmundson and Major Thole.” I say, feeling a little self-conscious all of a sudden. “Is there anything else you need from me before I hunt down my mom?”
“Nothing from me.” Major Thole says, smiling happily. “I’m just glad that you’re doing so well.”
I’m a little surprised by his admission. I didn’t expect that from the Army dude.
“Same here, Brianna. Just remember to grab a few urine sample jars before you leave.” Dr. Edmundson says.
Oh joy. I was kind of hoping that everyone would forget about those things.
**
I'm a little surprised to find Sir Wallace and Fey talking amongst themselves outside the office.
"Oh, good. You're done." Sir Wallace turns his full attention to me. "Since Fey and I need to leave first thing in the AM, we would like to take this opportunity to perform a quick magic test. If that is acceptable to you?" He asks, making it sound like I have a choice. I really need to work on getting a British accent. Everything the man says sounds so bloody reasonable and polite. Hehe.
"Umm, sure? Does my mom know?"
"Yes, she has already been informed and should be waiting for you in the lobby when we are finished." Sir Wallace glances at his watch. "Shouldn't take more than thirty minutes."
The session with Sir Wallace and Nikki is very interesting. He complains that we don't really have enough time to more than a basic assessment. I'm not convince that I have magical powers because that would be way cool and I'm not that lucky. None the less --I imagine myself saying that phrase with a British accent--they still think I should be tested and if I do have a magical talent, they will be able to recommend some exercises that will help me learn how to control or prevent an accident. I can support that plan because the last thing I want to do is blow up my house with a fireball spell or something.
Sir Wallace leads me into an empty room and once again, the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. There must be some pretty strong magic or static electricity inside this room. The sensation makes my eyes feel kind of itchy and my vision starts to swim. I blink, trying to find a way to focus and then, Bam! the magic lines that make up the wards in room spring to life and almost blind me.
"Whoa...." I blink and rub my eyes. Holy cow, it's magic! Just like Whisper using her mask, I can see freaking magic! The pattern of the lines reminds me of something. I've seen this pattern before. It was in GEO, but how could the game okay, silly question--have real magic? Using GEO as a guide, I see what appears to be a protection ward and a privacy ward woven around the room. I ask him about the wards and his only response is a raised eyebrow as he explains that the protection ward is there to prevent damage to the room in case I lose control.
I don't think that it's super funny that he's more worried about the room than me, but he does ask me to stand in the middle of some chalk circle he has drawn on the floor in the middle of the room. Sir Wallace explains that once he activates the circle, he can use it to help keep an eye on me and dampen any magic that might harm me if it gets out of control.
Oh. Well, that's better.
Sir Wallace hands me an egg sized, pale green gem of some sort and tells me to just hang on to it. It feels kind of cool in the palm of my hand and doesn't warm up like a rock would. It's not a rock, but maybe big gems are supposed to feel strange. I mean, it's a gem. Maybe it's a magic gem. I want to ask him, but he decides to distract me by explaining that the circle will also keep me inside until he deactivates it and that I should never allow anyone that I don't completely trust to put me inside of a circle.
Okaaay, not better and consider me distracted! I am a little uncomfortable with that idea, but I trust Fey and she seems to trust Sir Wallace. At least, she doesn't scream at me to not go into the magic circle thing.
Once I am in the center of the circle, I anxiously watch as the ward springs to life around me. It is actually very cool to watch, but I am reminded that I need to concentrate on what Sir Wallace is saying. He starts by asking me to try closing my eyes and imagining that instead of a gem, I'm holding an unlit candle in my hand. Breath in and as you breath in, focus your will on gathering energy, but he calls it essence.
My goal is to try and light the imaginary candle in my hand. I don't really get what he's trying to have me do. I mean, it's an imaginary candle for heaven's sake. Why can't I just imagine it already lit? Still, it's magic and cool, so I give it the ol' college try, for Queen and country, hip hip, cheerio and all that drivel. I think I'm getting better at my British accent.
I'm not 100% sure, but I think his mumbo jumbo is doing something because I think my imaginary candle is getting warmer. I open my eyes a peek and notice that the pale green gem is glowing a little. It's almost like my imaginary candle flame. Hmm, maybe there's something to Sir Wallace's teaching methods.
Am I doing that? Am I making the gem thing glow or is it just reacting to being inside the circle? I glance over to Sir Wallace and he appears to be intently studying the gem while Fey looks more excited and hopeful. Well, if it is me, a weak glow is kind of lame. What would happen if I pictured my wimpy imaginary candle as something a little more cool, like a light saber?
I focus on igniting my light saber, but unlike the wimpy candle; this time I feel a strange, tingly warmth from somewhere inside my body. It's kind of like that time I was dared to stick my tongue on a nine volt battery, but the sensation isn't focused on my tongue. Am I touching some sort of magical energy, or essence or am I just imagining things because I want to be able to do something cool?
Sensei Rogers' meditation exercises spring to mind and I force myself to relax and find my center. Now that I'm focusing on a familiar exercise, the tingly feeling inside of me fades and I feel something else instead. I feel a connection to a source of energy and it feels great. I open my eyes and the magic lines that make up the protective circle feel like they are related and almost connected with the energy inside me.
With that realization, my imaginary light saber hums to brilliant life and the gem in my hand follows suit, singing with power as it goes from a barely flickering light to bursting into a magnesium bright flare.
"Ha! The force is strong in her, it is..." I smile at my glowing gem. It's so pretty and I can see the tiny lines of magic flowing into the gem and back out, like a simple electrical circuit.
I am rewarded when I hear Sir Wallace. "Oh, my. I may have to revise my estimate for her Wizard rating already." He says, sounding a little pleased by his observation. "She has accumulated enough Essence on her own to light the Spark in her Well in this short time."
It takes a lot of my concentration to maintain the circuit with the gem, but it feels like it might be like a muscle. The more I practice and exercise, the easier it might get for me to do. Pleased with myself, I turn my eyes to Sir Wallace and Fey. "Am I doing this right?"
Fey glances to Sir Wallace before she looks back to me and nods. "I'd say, yes. You're doing far better than I think Sir Wallace expected. " She smirks with satisfaction.
"Cool!" I think this glowing gem thing means that I can use magic! Color me officially impressed by myself and hopeful for something good as a way to offset being turned into a girl.
I manage to keep the gem glowing for four minutes before I finally lose my concentration and the circuit drops. I might have been able to go for a few more minutes, but I was starting to get bored and making a gem glow isn't exactly the same as doing something cool, like casting a fireball.
It's still cool though, but darn it, now I have another item for the "pro" girlhood column.
Sir Wallace studies me once again. "How did you manage to make the attunement crystal glow so brightly?"
"Well, I started with the candle, but that seemed a little, umm, weak." I grimace apologetically at him. It was his idea to try a candle and I don't want to make him feel bad. "So, I kinda pictured the candle as a light saber instead and well, the magic lines in the ward just seemed to make sense and that helped me realize I had some sort of energy inside me. It was that energy, or I guess essence as you call it, that was making the gem glow. So, I sorta pushed and activated my light saber."
He nods as he considers my statement. "So, you are saying that you have a pool of Essence that you can tap into? You have found what we call a mage's Well. It is the place within yourself where Essence is gathered from the world and where your Spark, the ability that allows you to cast spells is established."
"I guess so?" I say, tentatively since I never considered that "essence" existed outside of GEO.
"It is important that you do not drain your Well dry, such as trying to push for a bright light when any light will serve the test or sustaining your spells longer than necessary. This can extinguish your Spark and it can be very difficult to re-light it." He pauses for a second, mulling over the test. "It is clear that you have a strong potential for magic." He gestures to the now dull gem in my hand. "What you may not know is that magic is partially based upon the intent of the caster. Your 'light saber' intent helped you to focus your Essence into a useful, if simple, structure creating much more light than the spell in the gem is designed to produce with a default flow of Essence. But either spell still needs to be fueled, by Essence. And only the most powerful Wizard ratings can accumulate Essence so quickly as to not be drained by the continuous use of spells."
Intent, huh? What if I tried this intent thing on something else? Making a gem glow is cool, but casting a real spell would be even better, right? I'm protected inside the circle. What could go wrong? Okay, silly question, but still...the ward pattern looks a lot like stuff I've seen in GEO and the unique pattern for Whisper's blur spell icon in GEO seems to be suspiciously similar.
"Umm, Sir Wallace, sir?" I hesitantly ask. I'm pretty sure he will say no to my idea, but maybe he will say yes.
"Yes?" His eyebrow lifts inquisitively.
"I have an idea for a spell." I can see his expression subtly alter into a hint of disbelief mixed with curiosity mixed with wonder. I really need to spend some time in Great Britain because he seems to be able to say so much without saying much at all. Do they teach Brits how to communicate better or something?
"Interesting..." Sir Wallace glances over to Fey, who looks just as cautiously surprised as I'm starting to feel myself. Why did I mention something advanced like casting a spell when I just made a gem glow?
"Umm, well, I want to try something. Is that okay?"
Sir Wallace nods. "I believe so young lady. Just keep this 'something' small. More along the lines of a candle flame and not like your light saber idea. You don't have a great deal of Essence stored in your Well, yet. That will take time and training."
"Well, I was thinking that I might try to cast Whisper's blur spell. It's a low level spell in the game and well..." I trail off when I notice his eyes narrow slightly. He looks a little skeptical to me, but Fey nods her head encouragingly.
"Let her try." Fey touches Sir Wallace's arm. "There might be something to this line of investigation."
He sighs and turns back to me. "Did Whisper have any offensive spells?"
"No sir, she only did illusions and I never got those skills to high enough level to learn the Phantom Killer spell."
"Phantom Killer?" He asks, looking concerned.
"Yes, sir. From what I learned when I looked up the GEO illusionist spells on the Internet, the Phantom Killer spell would create an illusionary creature that would attack the spell's target."
He looks even more concerned now. "Ahh, yes. That would be bad. Did you perchance see the icon for that spell during your research?"
"Yes, but like I said, it was too high level for Whisper to cast."
Sir Wallace bends over and whispers something into Nikki's ear. She looks back at me before turning to him, "I think that it would be best to defer that line of research until we can get her to Whateley where it will be safer for us to experiment." I think that Aunt Aung surfaced there for a second.
He nods his head in agreement as he studies me. "Why don't you try that blur spell you mentioned earlier?"
I'm not sure what it was that he was thinking about, but I guess that it can wait. "Okay, here goes nothing!"
I pull up the GEO pattern for the Blur spell and picture the pattern filling with candle light. The pattern begins to glow, but I feel a draw or a sense of something being pulled through me from somewhere else. Unlike the raw, natural feeling of generating light from my Essence, this has a strangely organized and artificial sense to it. I ignore the sensation and concentrate on filling the pattern with light. Without warning, the pattern flares and I feel a slight pressure settle over my skin.
It doesn't hurt and unsure if it worked, I glance down at myself.
Whoa, I'm blurry!
I look up and both Sir Wallace and Fey appear to be seeing the same thing I'm seeing because they look a little, dare I say, impressed?
After five minutes of me just standing there all blurry, Sir Wallace clears his throat to get my attention. "Very impressive young lass and that spell looks like it could be helpful in combat. The spell seems to be using an efficiently low amount of Essence, but how long do you think that you could keep it up?"
"Umm, I'm not sure." I say, frowning with concentration. A small trickle of energy from my Well seems to keep the pattern lit while the majority of the energy fueling the spell flows in from elsewhere. "It doesn't seem that hard to keep it going. In GEO, the spell duration was an hour, unless I canceled it. "
"Very interesting. That is a very powerful spell despite its level in your game. And being able to maintain it for an hour seems very unlikely for a young mage." Sir Wallace confers with Nikki again. "So, what do you think?" He asks her.
Nikki smiles at me. "I think that Bree here will keep the Magical Studies teachers at Whateley on their toes and I can't wait for her to get there."
He smirks at that idea. "Yes, I do believe you are correct, but I wonder if you would mind much if I offered to mentor her, too?"
Nikki looks back to Sir Wallace with shock. "Really?! You would be willing to take on another student?"
He tips his head to her and smiles. "Why, yes. I agree with your assessment and I too cannot wait for her to join us at Whateley." His expression turns serious. "However, I am curious what you think that her Wizard rating might be."
Nikki looks back to me and it looks like she is weighing things in her head. "Well, I think that it is safe to say that she is at least a three right now, but if she can really keep this sort of spell up for an hour; she would have to be rated quite high. She can't have that much Essence stored up already, so that means she's gathering it this fast to support a spell like this? Maybe even a five?"
He smiles at her with amusement. "Now Nikki, that might be true if she were the one powering this spell. But you've missed something very subtle in being supportive and excited for your new friend. She is showing uncanny control for someone who has never cast a spell before. " He pauses for a second and glances at his watch before turning back to look at me. " And the amount of Essence in her Well has barely changed since she began this test. I think that we should stop now and defer further research until we can test my hypothesis in a safer environment."
Nikki looks back at me again and tilts her head in that way that she does when she's talking with her ancient self. Then her eyes go wide and she looks even closer before looking back at her British mentor. "She isn't powering the spell. It's drawing on some outside supply of Essence? Her actual rating could be much lower?"
I am still inside the protective circle and it sounds like he is going to end the testing. I am very curious about this circle and I want to try something before he cancels it. "Is it safe to touch the magical barrier?"
After nodding solemnly in agreement with Nikki, he blinks with surprise at my request. "Yes, quite safe, lass."
I touch it and it feels like I am touching a cool pane of glass. I try to push against the barrier and I can see magical energy arcing off where my hand is pressing, but it doesn’t move. I reach for my center again and concentrate on pushing against the barrier. Sir Wallace’s eyes grow wide with surprise, but my hand still does not move. However, the magical energy flares considerably where my hand is pressing and I can see the start of a pattern in the energy flares.
I didn’t think that would work, but I want to test my idea. I crouch down and study the lines on the floor that the magical barrier is using to power it. I think that if I can keep my focus, I might be able to lift the ward like Whisper does in GEO. I know that GEO is just a game and this is real, but so far, GEO mechanics has worked.
I decide to cancel the blur spell. I want to have 100% of my concentration available for what I thinking about trying.
Okay, focus..
Inhale, Exhale.
I clear my mind of all distractions and reach for the source of the barrier. My vision changes again. I lose sight of the floor and everything else in the room. I can only see the magic of the circle. It appears like a complex ever shifting pattern that looks like it could be alive as it weaves its way around me. I look up and I can see the pattern forming an elongated sphere above me. Looking down, the pattern extends below me as well. Without the floor, it looks like I am floating in the middle of a magical soap bubble.
I can see a distinct line that runs completely around the equator of the sphere that contains me. I drop to my knees and bring my face closer to the equator as I focus on that line. I can see three distinct threads that are tightly woven together. The tightly woven threads are what are generating the protective pattern of the sphere. I take another deep breath and focus all of my attention on the magical threads. The threads zoom in and I can see how they are wrapped tightly together to form what looks like an unbreakable steel cable around me.
I reach for that cable with my right hand. My fingertips touch the cable and initially, it feels completely smooth to my touch. I slide my hand from left to right and I feel a bump or scratch on the surface. I look to where my fingers are touching and I don’t see anything that could the imperfection that I felt. I move my fingers back and forth over that spot and yes, I can feel it.
There! An imperfection.
I exhale and look for what my fingers are reporting, and I spot it. There is a small twist in the weave. I dig at the twist with my index finger and I feel it slide into a space between the weave. My finger is expanding the imperfection! I reach over with my other hand and push a finger into the gap. Once I feel like my fingertip has a good enough grip, I pull up with that finger while I pull down with the other. The gap is growing and I can see a small opening to the outside forming.
At first, the opening is only the size of a dime, but as I pull harder, the gap slowly grows until it is the size and shape of a football. It is very hard to pull the threads apart. The dime sized hole was pretty easy, but by the time I have the opening to the football size, I am really feeling the strain. The weave is fighting me and it wants to repair itself. I give it one more heave and manage to pull it open to about the size of a basketball before I feel my arms beginning to shake from the strain. I slowly relax my arms and allow the weave to pull itself back together until it is back to a dime sized opening. I withdraw my fingers and the visible break disappears.
I rock backwards before I collapse onto my back. I’m soaked with sweat and I feel like I just finished a match against Sensei Rogers, but I’m also very satisfied with myself. I know that I didn’t defeat the circle this time, but I think that with a little practice, I might be able to. The magic powering the circle winks out as Sir Wallace deactivates his ward. I’m still panting from the exertion, but I can’t contain my smile as I sit up and look at Sir Wallace and Fey.
Both of their faces are difficult to read. I kind of expected them to congratulate me or at least say something like, “Good job!”, but nope. I look back and forth between the two of them with increasing nervousness as they continue to just silently stare at me.
Sir Wallace is the first to break the silence. “Well, that was certainly unexpected. Fey, what does Aunghadhail think about this demonstration?”
“She believes that Brianna should return to Whateley with the two of us.” She says after a moment’s hesitation.
Now, I’m worried. “Umm, did I do something wrong?” I ask, splitting my gaze between Fey and Sir Wallace.
I feel the magic inside the room surge and briefly flare around Fey. Her features remain the same, yet something about her tells me she’s different; older, no, ancient and powerful beyond belief. Did Fey’s avatar spirit just take over?
“No child, but what you just did could cause many practitioners of magic to be very concerned. Some of those might be more than just “concerned” since they rely on the belief that their circles cannot be breached without a great deal of power.” Aunghadhail stops in thought, absently rubbing the knuckle of her index finger on her lips before she continues, “Which begs the question, exactly how did you do what you just showed us?”
“Umm, I’m not sure ma’am?” I search her eyes for some hint of the answer she is looking for.
“Go ahead child, you can tell us. You’re not in trouble.” Aunghadhail says with a patient smile.
I feel relieved as I exhale a lung full of air. “Well, I saw the magic that made the circle and when I touched the lines, I could feel a small bump.” I look back and forth between the two of them as I sit up and wipe the sweat off my forehead with my sleeve. “So, I just expanded the bump with my fingers and that opened up the threads that made up the magic in the lines.”
Sir Wallace frowns, “Hmm, what do you think, Aunghadhail, The Rule of the Essential Flaw?”
She nods at Sir Wallace with agreement before turning back to me. “You have just shown us that it might actually take very little raw power to breach a circle of protection. If I hadn’t been watching, I doubt that I would have even noticed you breaching the circle.”
I am about to say something when she holds up her hand to stop me. “But once again, this talent of yours is something I would caution you about showing to others. It could alarm the people who depend upon wards and circles functioning as they currently expect them too.”
Oh great! In GEO, it was just a way to get past magical wards and be a better theif/spy. Now I find out that an entire industry of magical protection racket folks would be upset with me. “Okay, so I can’t let anyone know about it, right?” I ask, feeling a little bummed.
Sir Wallace turns back to me with a gentle smile. “Well, I do believe that we have accomplished a bit more than we intended. Perhaps it is time for us to return this young lass to her mother?”
Going home would be smashing and I can’t wait, but I can’t resist having some fun with Sir Wallace’s accent. “Yes, I do believe you are correct young Watson.” I say with my best fake British accent and snob expression. Sir Wallace’s surprised look causes both me and Nikki to break out into giggles.
He huffs in what I assume is mock annoyance before patiently dispelling the wards in the room. Well, I hope it’s mock annoyance because he is going to be my teacher and it never pays to get on the bad side of your teachers. Nope, not all.
It doesn’t take me too long to find my mom. Like, maybe half a second when scan for and spot her cell phone in the lobby. Okay, it was really 0.234 seconds. I am pretty darn happy to be getting out of here. I can’t stop myself from smiling, even after I notice people smiling back at me and giving me second and third looks as I walk down the halls of the lab.
As I turn the corner and enter into the lobby, I see my mom chatting with Brenda. Next to my mom is an unknown, large rolling suitcase, while she has both her and I guess my new girl clothes filled suitcase beside her. I wave to her as we approach.
“How did your magic session with Sir Wallace and Fey go Brianna?” My mom asks, causing Brenda to focus her sparkling green eyes on me.
“Oh, it went pretty well. I even managed to cast a spell!” I’m feeling pretty proud of that and I wonder if it would be okay to show off my blur spell. I turn to Sir Wallace and practice my pleading puppy dog eyes that Lindsay tries to use all the time on my parents. “Would it be okay to show my mom my blur spell real fast, pleeaase?”
I don’t think he falls for it or I need to work on the “look” a bit more, because he just glances around the lobby area with an expression that tells me that he thinks that it would be a bad idea outside the safety of a controlled environment.
I take the hint and sigh with defeat. “Fine, you’re right. It can wait.” I turn back to my mom. “Are we ready to head home?”
She looks at me sympathetically. “That’s okay honey. You can tell me about it and maybe you can show me later, if Sir Wallace thinks it’s safe.” She says with a glance to Sir Wallace.
I look back to Sir Wallace and he surprises me with a grin and a tip of his head. “Patience young Grasshopper, when you can take the pebble from my hand, than it will be time.” He says with a horrible oriental accent.
All I can do is stand there looking and feeling confused. “Grasshopper? Pebble?”
I look to my mom for some support, but all she can do is stare at me with bemusement, Even Brenda seems to find it funny for some reason, but I gain some consolation from Fey. She looks just as lost as I do and that only encourages the “responsible” adults to start laughing.
I really don’t understand what is so funny about this “Grasshopper” thing. I cross my arms over my chest, ignore the weird sensation of my arms pressing against my breasts and adopt the most disdainful look I can manage. “Hmmmpphh! Bloody peasants!” I say with a fake British accent as I spin, march over and grab my suitcase. I guess I will just have to look up that grasshopper thing as soon as I can, but I can’t stop myself from smiling at the sound of snickering behind me.
Brenda reaches out and surprises me with a hug. “I’m so glad you’re safe Brianna! Feel free to call me if you need someone to talk to, okay?” She earnestly gazes into my eyes, filling me with confusion. On one hand, I still think she’s beautiful and can’t help feeling a little, no, a lot enamored by her, but on the other hand, I know I’m too young for her and now that I’m a girl, I don’t stand a chance. Thankfully, she probably misses my confusion when she turns back to my mom. “Oh, Jennifer, I wish that I could go with you to Virginia. I just love the ocean and I hear that there are tons of cool museums and stores to shop.” She says with a wistful expression.
“I wish that you could go with us too, Brenda. I’ll have to give you a call when we get back. I am so looking forward to taking my newest daughter shopping and I would love to have you join us!” My mom says, a little too excitedly in my opinion.
It’s official. I’m doomed and Fey’s smirk lets me know that she is finding the current conversation and my reaction to it to be very amusing. I’m not looking forward to when my mom decides that it is time to include me with her and Lindsay’s regular salon make-over trips.
I decide that reminding Mom that we can go home might be a good way to halt the current conversation’s direction. “Hey Mom! I’m all ready to go!”
Surprisingly, my little hint actually ends up working, but I stumble a bit at the sound of my voice at full girl volume. When I am whispering or talking normally, the sound of my voice almost sounds the same as before. I can hear a pitch difference, but it’s not as noticeable. There is absolutely no getting around the fact that I sound like a girl when I yell. That makes me wonder why I sound like a girl when I ‘talk’ in my head too. Like, when I was on the phone with my dad; why didn’t I sound like my old self? Maybe my virtual time as a girl changed my internal voice to match? All these thoughts are just confusing me and aren’t solving anything. Wind, reed, bend, remember?
“Ooops, looks like it is time for us to get a going. I’ll call you as soon as we get back.” My mom says as she and Brenda exchange a quick hug. “Thanks for all of your help and support the last few days Brenda! I couldn’t have done it without you.”
“No problem Jennifer.” Brenda says as she turns to me with what looks like a mischievous grin. “...and I am so looking forward to going shopping with you when you get back from Virigina, Brianna!” I was wrong. It wasn’t just a ‘mischievous’ grin...it was the grin of the devil.
“Oh yeah, I am so looking forward to my first official visit to the testosterone free zone known as Victoria Secrets.” I say with as much false enthusiasm in my voice as I can manage.
That doesn’t work. She ups the ante by faking a bubbly school girl when she excitedly claps her hands and bounces up and down to help punctuate her masterful performance “Oh my gawd Brianna! VS is my fav! I am like, so excited! I didn’t know that you liked that store too! I can’t wait!” She squeals before she, my mom and even Fey burst into laughter as I just stand there with what I am sure is a shocked expression on my face.
“Mooommm!” I say as pathetically as I can manage, hoping to get a little bit of support and sympathy for my lonely male ego. I get none, but at the same time my male ego gets a boost when I start to imagine Brenda in a Victoria Secrets store. My mom breaks that line of thought.
“Hey, you had it coming when you tried to use sarcasm on her.” My mom says without any sympathy what-so-ever.
Darn it. “Hmmpphh.” I say, admitting defeat and hoping that will end the torture.
Brenda isn’t done with me yet though. “Oh don’t worry Brianna.” She says while surprising me with a quick hug. “I was just playing with you. I wouldn’t take you into any shop that you wouldn’t feel comfortable with.”
I feel confused and a little awkward when she releases me. I am so surprised by her spontaneous hug, that I don’t even try to hug her back. “Umm, thanks and sorry. I’m still getting used to this girl stuff.” I say in an embarrassed mumble as I struggle to contain the blush caused by the tingly feeling caused by my boobs being squished against her body. Well, at least it is only a blush instead of a painful tent in my pants. While I wish that the later was the case, right now, the blush is much easier to explain and handle. My boobs, that identification is causing me some stress though. I don’t know why, but they keep surprising me with their presence. Okay, wind, damn it!
Mr. Reilly stops us before we can leave by telling my mom that he will give her a call as soon as he gets the flight plan worked out with the pilot. He looks a little awkward with Fey. I think that he wants to give her a hug before we go, but instead he just says, “Have fun Fey and thanks for doing this for me. I’ll have to make it up to you later.”
She smiles at him, “That’s okay Mr. Reilly. I understand. It is kind of nice being away from school this weekend and I’m just glad that I could help you and Brianna.”
My mom hands me a heavy, dark green wool sweater. “I’m sorry about not having a warmer jacket for you to wear, but we haven’t had a chance to find one made out of natural fibers.” My mom says as I pull the sweater over my head. “I should’ve gone out and got the car started while we were waiting, but it should warm up fast enough once we get going.”
“That’s okay mom. I’m sure that I’ll be fine.” I tell her, feeling a little over protected. It is just a little cold out. I’m not going to freeze to death from the short walk to the car.
I see her strapping my suitcase to hers. “Mom, I can take my own suitcase. I’m not that much of a girl.”
My mom’s eyes narrow a bit. Oops. I think that I just stepped on my own foot there, but my mom just gives me the “we will talk about this later” look as she snaps the last strap into place a little more forcefully then she needed too. “Come on Brianna, let’s get you home before they change their minds.” She turns to Fey with a concerned expression. “Fey, are you going to be okay with the light jacket that you’re wearing?”
Fey smiles at her. “Oh yes Mrs. Peters, I’ll be fine. If I start to get cold, I can just use a touch of magic to warm myself.”
My mom frowns a little at that. I can see that she has defaulted into the standard parent mode and is worried about Fey catching a cold. As we walk outside, I notice that the sun is just beginning to set, so it will probably be dark in another hour. It just feels so good to smell the fresh air, even if it is a little cold. I can’t help myself when I pause for a second to take in a large breath of air before I slowly release it with a smile as I feel the waning sun-light on my face.
As we approach my mom’s car, she pops her trunk and unlocks the doors using her remote. I ‘see’ the frequency and commands in my head. That’s cool. I wonder if I can mimic the commands. “Hey mom, can you lock the doors? I wanna try something.”
She looks at me a little curiously. “Sure?” She says as she pushes the lock button on her remote.
I ‘see’ that command getting transmitted as her doors re-lock. As soon as that happens, I mentally ‘say’ the unlock command using the same frequency that her remote used and I am rewarded by hearing the doors unlock.
Okay, that was kind of cool. Not like having laser eyeballs, but still cool. “Sweet! Now you never have to worry about accidently locking your keys in the car again.”
“Okay, that is kind of neat Brianna, but can you and Fey get into the car while I get the suitcases into the trunk?” My mom asks patiently.
“Sure mom, but lemme help. It’s my job as the...umm.” I start to say before I remember my new gender.
“Well, Fey’s suitcase looks kinda heavy, can I at least try to help you?” I ask. I know that I could’ve lifted her suitcase before my change. It might have been a little hard, but I have no doubts that I could have handled it. My mom looks torn. I think she can feel my confusion and self-doubt.
She ends up smiling at me while Fey looks on with interest. “Sure honey. Why don’t you give it a try and if you need help, I can jump in.”
I reach for Fey’s suitcase and find that I can easily lift it. Maybe even easier then I could have before my change. I gasp with surprise as I jerk Fey’s suitcase off the ground and almost trip as I over-compensate while my mom jumps forward to grab the suitcase in case I drop it. I don’t.
I turn to the two of them and smile. “Well, that was surprising. I expected it to be heavier. It feels like you have stuff in here, but did you really pack any clothes Fey?” I ask as I grab it with both hands and give it a gentle shake. The shake test confirms that her suitcase has stuff in it. I am confused as to why her suitcase is so much lighter than I expected it to be.
“Oh yeah, it’s full. I packed it even more than I would for a regular trip since I knew that I didn’t have to worry about the fifty pound weight limit.” Fey says with a smirk.
I maneuver her suitcase into the trunk. “Well, it doesn’t feel that heavy. It feels like it only weighs around 15 pounds or so.”
Fey just shakes her head and grins. “Oh, it is and I didn’t even lighten it up with a spell like I normally do. I guess that you are just stronger then you think. Girrrl Power!” She shakes her fist in the air as a mock cheer.
I’m not sure how to handle that. On one hand, being stronger then I look is good, but the “Girrrl Power” thing is a little alarming. “Yeah, girrrl power...” I say, without much enthusiasm as I finish loading the suitcases into the trunk. On the plus side, I did get to do my normal guy duty with the heavy lifting. That thought makes me feel a little better about this “girrrl power” thing.
Since Fey is the guest, I let her have the front seat. That proves to be a wise decision since my mom decides to start talking as soon as we get out of the parking lot. She and Fey pretty much carry the entire conversation. I only have to add a few strategic “yes” and “no’s” to maintain my usual role in the conversation. This is good, because I am a bit distracted by my radio super powers.
I detect so many different frequencies, but most of them appear to be scrambled or just plain boring to listen too. I am surprised when I discover that I can listen to my favorite FM radio station and I am even more shocked when I discover that I can even watch the regular broadcast TV stations, all from within the comfort of my own head.
I briefly stop my channel surfing when I see a news flash about some terrorist attempt to hijack or blow up a plane over the Atlantic. The interesting part was how some unknown superhero was able to stop the terrorists and save the day. I expected them to announce who the superhero was, but they just showed the standard shadow person cutout with a big red question mark over them and claimed that no one knew who the hero was. I find that hard to believe since anyone powerful enough to stop a hijacking had to have been a known hero. They just end the story promising more information with their late night news broadcast. Almost a waste of two minutes, but I guess they need to attract viewers to their late night news show somehow.
I’m able to save my mom from getting a ticket when I detect a police band radio broadcasting on the road ahead. She wasn’t really speeding that much, but still, it is kind of cool. I’m a little curious about what I am using for an antenna. It would be pretty freaky if I grew some insect looking antenna out of my forehead, but if I ended up with those anime girl ear antennas, that might not be so bad.
I can see my super hero job interview now. “Hi, I’m Brianna! Super Radio Girrrrl! I can open locked car doors with a single thought and warn speeding motorists of impending tickets! Oh, and do you need help with your luggage?” Oh yeah, I’m super all right.
My mom decides that she has had enough of my usual conversational habits and interrupts the news broadcast. “Brianna? Are you even paying attention to what Fey and I are talking about?”
Ut oh, now there’s a loaded question. I quickly rewind the last few minutes of conversation and play it back to myself in 5 seconds. “Umm, yeah. You were asking Fey what she wanted for dinner and she said that ‘anything’ was good.”
“Whatever you are playing with inside your head young lady, you need to stop right now and pay attention to the conversation. We have a guest in the car and it is not polite to just sit there and ignore everything like you usually do.” My mom says, angrily.
I wonder why she is yelling at me about that. Like she said, I’m just doing what I normally do when we are in the car.
“That’s okay Mrs. Peters and I completely understand.” Fey says trying to defuse the situation.
My mom nods at her, but ignores her at the same time. “Thanks Fey, but I think that Brianna would benefit from participating in this conversion.”
“Mrs. Peters, could you do me a favor, well, two?” Fey asks, surprising my mom by changing the conversation topic.
My mom glances at Fey for second before her eyes return to the road. “Sure, what is it Fey?”
“One, hi, I’m Nikki Reilly. Fey is just my codename and it gets a little tiring hearing it all the time.”
I was wondering when my mom would get to find out.
My mom smiles at Nikki. “Okay, pleased to meet you Nikki. My name is Jennifer and I just have to ask...”
Nikki grins and politely interrupts her. “Yes, he’s my dad, but please don’t let anyone from the labs know that.”
My mom nods her agreement. “Okay, what was your second favor?”
Nikki pauses for a few seconds in thought. “Hmmm, can you pull over just ahead? I want you to try something.”
My mom glances at her dubiously, but she slows down while looking for a place to pull over. “Ookkaay.” She brings the car to a stop, turns on her flashers and looks to Nikki.
“Thanks Mrs. Peters. Can you try closing your eyes and ‘feeling’ me with your senses?”
“Okay, I’ll try.” My mom says without much conviction as she closes her eyes and appears to concentrate. I watch as her look of concentration fades. I’m guessing that she is somehow feeling Nikki with her empathy.
“Good job Mrs. Peters! Now, do I feel like a boy or a girl to you?” Nikki asks.
My mom frowns a little. “Well, it is kind of hard to say. I feel a strong feminine identity in you that is very bright, oh wait, it has faded and I think that you feel like a girl to me, but...no, I’m not sure. I think that you feel more like a girl to me. Why?”
“Okay, now try looking the same way at Brianna.” Nikki says.
My mom turns halfway in her seat and I feel a gentle, but loving presence inside my head. That must be my mom.
“Okay, now, does Brianna feel like a boy or a girl Mrs. Peters?” Nikki asks.
“A boy.” My mom says in a whisper without any hesitation.
“Exactly! Brianna may look and sound like a girl, but inside she is still Brian and still thinks like a boy. Why did Brian change her name?”
It doesn’t take my mom too long to put two and two together. “Because of how other people were reacting to her boy name.” She says.
“Yes, not because ‘she’ thought of ‘herself’ as a girl with a boy’s name. Instead, it was because ‘he’ thought of ‘himself’ as a girl with a boy’s name and he could see that everyone else felt uncomfortable every time they used his name.” Nikki explains.
My mom closes her eyes again and I see a tear start to leak out of the corner of her eye.
That makes me feel bad. I don’t want to be the reason that my mom feels bad. “It’s okay mom. I’ll try harder.” I say as I feel my eyes starting to get a little moist. I guess that was the exact wrong thing to say because she really begins to cry. “Mom....please don’t cry. I’ll pay attention the conversation like you want me too.” That makes things even worse, because she completely breaks down. I reach forward and touch her shoulder. “Mom?”
She turns to me with tears streaming down her face and pulls me into a slightly awkward hug due to front seat and back seat geometry. “Oh Brian, I’m so, so sorry for trying to force you into being a girl. I should have known better.”
Oh great, that makes me start to cry now too. “It’s okay Mom.” I say as I start to feel my nose begin clog up from all the tears again. “It’s not your fault. I’m the one who is a freak for playing a girl in that stupid video game.” That works, sort of.
She releases me and I can feel her looking at my face, but I’m too ashamed of myself to look at her. “Brianna Nicole Peters. Look at me!” Crap. How in the heck can she go from crying to pissed so fast?
I look up at her face and I see determination in her eyes, “You are not a freak for playing a girl and it is not your fault that this happened to you. It’s my fault for not looking at you and seeing who you are. I should’ve understood part of what you are going through the moment that you realized that you might be able to be a Mom someday.”
“But Mom...” I say, trying to interrupt her so I can tell her that I shouldn’t have been such a wuss about it.
“No Brianna. It is my fault. Until Fey, sorry.” She glances to Nikki before returning to me. “Nikki, forced me to really look at how you felt, I had no idea how hard it is for you to be a boy trapped in a girl’s body. The things that I take for granted and didn’t give a second thought about, are very much not normal for you. I promise that from this moment on, I will do my best to not try and force you to be someone that you’re not.” She says as she starts to tear up again.
I can’t help myself. “Oh Mom, I’m sorry. I didn’t...”
That’s as far as I get with that before she crushes me with another hug and cries. “I don’t ever want to have to worry about losing you again! You are Brian James Peters who is now Brainna Nicole Peters and there is nothing in the world that can ever make me stop loving you for who you are. Don’t you ever forget that!” She fiercely whispers in my ear.
“Not even if I never want to go to the salon with you?” I ask, feeling a bit mischievous and hoping that the humor will help break the tension.
My mom groans while I catch Fey grinning. “Oh Brianna, not even that, but I do hope that you will change your mind.” She says with a fleeting smile as she tries to wipe the tears out of her eyes with her hand.
Nikki chooses that moment to hand us both some tissues from her purse. “Well, I don’t know about you two, but I totally need to get some more emergency tissues now.” She mock complains as she blots her eyes to remove her tears. Just that simple gesture causes us all to look at each other and start giggling.
“Oh god, I am such a wreck!” My mom says as she sits back in her seat with her head pushed up against her head rest. She takes a deep breath. “Okay, I feel better. How about you two?”
“Yep!” Nikki says, giving my mom a thumbs up.
“Yepper and I’m starting to get hungry again.” I say with a laugh. I am beginning to wonder where I’m putting all the food that I’m eating.
“Okay then, let’s get this show on the road again. We got miles to drive and dinner to cook!” My mom says as she turns off her flashers and merges back onto the road.
We spend the rest of the drive planning everything from dinner to what we want to do after dinner and how we are going to handle the sleeping arrangements tonight. Fey gets the choice of sleeping on the sleeper sofa or using an air mattress in my room. I am pleasantly surprised when she chooses the latter. I offer to let her have my bed while I use the air mattress, but she will have nothing to do with kicking me out of my own bed.
It’s kind of funny in a way. I always wanted to have a girl sleep in my bed. I just never thought that I would be the girl. Oh yeah, and just to rub salt in the wound, I would also have a hot girl sleeping in my bedroom, but she would be using an air mattress.
The sun has almost completely set when we finally pull into our house’s attached two car garage. I caught the garage door signal, but being able to open and close the garage door with a thought is not exactly something to brag about. Dad’s car is also in the garage, but there is also a strange car in the driveway. I am guessing that it’s Barb and Barry’s rental car.
My mom stops the engine and pushes the button to close the garage door, but before we get out she turns to me. “Well, we’re home. Are you ready?”
“I think so.” I say with a nod, but not feeling at all ready anymore.
She unlocks the doors and as we all start to get out of the car my mom turns to me. “Don’t worry about the suitcases right now. You or your dad can get them later.”
“Okay mom.” I say, glad that she included me, but feeling a little nervous about seeing Dad and Lindsay. I mean, Mom says that they saw me in the hospital bed earlier this morning when they dropped off my clothes, but that’s not the same thing. I know that Barb and Barry will be there too, but for some reason I’m not as worried about them. Maybe it’s because I hardly know them or something?
What if my dad disowns me or my sister calls me a mutant freak? I know, probably not even close to something I need to worry about, but I’m still more nervous than a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. I would ask where I have heard that saying before, but I so don’t care right now.
My mom is just coming around the front of the car when the door from garage to the house opens. I stop in my tracks and nervously watch as my dad appears at the top of the steps that lead down from the house. He turns and looks behind him. “Wait right there Lindsay. You’ll get your chance soon enough. Remember what we talked about?”
I hear my sister’s voice reply. “Yes Dad, I remember.” She sounds so serious instead of her usual bratty self. What did they talk about?
My dad turns back and takes the three of us in with a glance. He looks a little confused at the sight of Nikki, but Nikki helps him out by grabbing my hand pulling me forward until I hesitantly stop just in front of her.
“Hi Dad.” I say, hesitantly. I catch myself biting my lip as he spends a few seconds just looking at me before he breaks into a big smile.
“Oh my god, Brianna. I, I...just don’t know what to say right now, except that I am so glad that you’re home!” He says as he steps forward and lifts me off the floor with a hug.
I can smell his cologne and the familiar scent makes me feel so safe and protected. I’m really home and everything is going to be okay. It takes a little while, but I start to feel a little embarrassed by all the attention in front of Nikki. “Dad, can you set me down now? You’re starting to crush me here.”
“Oh sure thing, sorry about that.” He says with a grin as he sets me down and follows that up by brushing aside my new bangs and giving me a quick kiss on my forehead. I’m not 100% sure that he would have done that if I was still a boy, but it felt good so I decide to let it go.
My dad looks past me and to Nikki. “Why don’t you introduce me to your friend here?”
“Oh, sorry Dad. Dad, this is Nikki. Nikki, this is my dad.” I say while mentally kicking myself for such a lame introduction.
Fortunately, my dad covers for me by shaking her hand. “Hi Nikki, David Peters, thanks for your help and I am glad that you could join us here tonight. I’ve heard a lot of good things about you.” He says as he glances at my mom.
“Thanks Mr. Peters. I’m glad I could help and not have to spend the night in a yucky hotel.” Nikki says with a laugh that seems to brighten the dingy garage with its sound.
I smile as my dad blushes from the combined effects of Nikki’s laugh and his first time being exposed to her glamour.
“Yes, well, we are glad to be of service my lady.” My dad says, stumbling a bit on that last part. “Now where did that come from?” I hear him mumble to himself as Nikki blushes in response. I think that she’s a little embarrassed now too.
He recovers, turns and clears his throat, “Okay, Lindsay you can come in now.”
I have to force myself to not freak out as my targeting system screams at me when my sister rushes into the garage and throws herself at me. She almost knocks me off my feet when she slams into me and wraps me with a hug and starts crying. “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god! I was so worried about you!”
I’m not sure how to respond to this. I never in a million years expected my sister to react like this. I didn’t think that she cared. I get over my surprise and return her hug. “Sorry Lindsay. I didn’t mean to cause this much of a mess.” I say to her with a slight sniffle as she relaxes into just a hug versus the crushing hug she started out with.
She gets her sniffles under control and steps back to really look at me. I am dismayed to discover that my sister is now taller than me. My ever so helpful computer supplies me with the exact measurement of 165.1 cm. Okay, in English?
>5’ 5”
Crap! I was 5’ 5”. How tall am I now?
>162.56 cm
Oh come on! English!
>5’ 4”
Shit, I lost an inch! My little sister is now officially my bigger sister. She doesn’t even seem to register the fact that she is now taller than I am.
Lindsay finally breaks, no shatters my line of thought. “Oh my god Bri-Brianna, You’re so beautiful!” She says, gushing with excitement.
I think that she almost called me Brian there, but it is the last part that really gets my attention. That was so not what I was expecting, but she has just been a bundle of surprises since she burst into the garage. I can feel myself starting to blush when I feel Nikki touch my arm. That helps to draw Lindsay’s attention away from me and as her eyes are drawn to Nikki, I can see her expression change from a “wow” expression to a “deer caught in the headlights” expression.
“Thank you Nikki!” I think to myself with fervent thanks for her raw beauty and glamour.
Lindsay just gapes at Nikki, until Nikki snaps her out her stupor. “Hi. I’m Nikki. You must be Brianna’s sister, Lindsay.” Nikki says with a warm smile that finally breaks the spell.
Lindsay blushes. “Oh, sorry Nikki. I couldn’t help myself. It is nice to finally meet you.” She says before she looks back to me. “and sorry, umm, Brianna. I didn’t mean to embarrass you like that.”
She surprises me with her empathy.
“Well, let’s get inside where it is more comfortable. There are other people in there who want to say hi to you Brianna.” My dad says with a grin.
“Okay, sure. That sounds good to me. I’m hungry!” I say, patting my belly.
“Well, that is one thing that hasn’t changed.” My mom says, smiling fondly at me as everyone laughs.
Dad leads the way, followed by Mom, me, Nikki and Lindsay. "Okay Barb! I think that we are ready to start serving dinner." My dad yells as we walk down the hall and enter the living room.
"Okay, Barry and I will get started on that as soon as we..." I hear Barb start to say from the general direction of the kitchen. That draws my gaze left and toward the kitchen. I am a little confused when my room scanning thing spots an unidentified male and a female shaped object standing to my right and in the living room when Barb and Barry are in the kitchen. I'm not sure what Barb says after that because the male object in the living room sounds like my friend, John.
"Brian?"
My head snaps from left to right and I see John and Lisa standing in the living room. Lisa is nervously holding John’s hand and her face mirrors John’s confusion.
I don’t want my friends to see me like this! They’ll think I’m…well, not good. I have to get away and hide where no one can see me! I freak out and my vision shifts into bizzaro-magic vision mode. Like when Sir Wallace and Fey tested me in the circle, I see what I believe to be magic as glowing floating lines of color and once again, I’m struck by how similar the real magic world is to what I saw in GEO, but I don’t have time to think and sight-see here. I’m desperate to go away and with that thought, the lines begin to form into a familiar looking pattern. I feel a strange resonance begin to build inside me as the shadows in the living room begin to move toward me.
“Brianna!” I hear my mom scream. She sounds so far away, but I know that she is right next to me.
The pattern is beginning to become better defined while the resonance inside me starts to grow stronger. I tap into my memory and find where I have seen a pattern like that before. It is the GEO icon for Whisper’s invisibility spell. I hear my mom scream my name again, she sounds closer now, but her scream isn’t as important to me as finishing the pattern. If I can just finish the pattern, no one will be able to see me and everything will be better. I feel something pushing the lines away and breaking the pattern into smaller pieces.
“Noooo!” I wail as I struggle to keep the lines, but some outside force keeps pushing them away from me. I push myself to grab them, but no matter how hard I try, I just can’t reach them. The room’s shadows snap back to normal as I sag with defeat and feel my knees begin to buckle from exhaustion. Someone grabs me from behind and holds me tight to their body.
“Brianna. Stop. You’re safe here.” Nikki says, gently into my ear.
I am gasping for air as I turn my head to look back at her. “But, I was so close...” I say, whining just a little as I relax into her.
“I know, but now is not the time.” She encouragingly smiles at me. “Your friends are here because they care about you. You can do this. You’re not alone.”
I close my eyes and try to reach my center like Sensei Rogers taught me. I feel myself calm down and my strength return as I concentrate on my inner core and breathing. As Nikki releases me, I open my eyes and look around. Everyone is standing there with concerned expressions on their faces. Nikki holds her hand up signaling everyone to give me some time.
It looks like my mom wants to rush in and grab me, while Lindsay is holding onto my dad with a death grip and looks like she is about to burst into tears. I almost feel sorry for John and Lisa. John’s face is as white as a ghost and Lisa is looking so lost and confused that it is almost comical. With my new ‘radar’ thing, I can see the shapes of Barb and Barry standing in the dining room a meter behind Nikki
“Give her some space right now. She was just a little surprised.” Nikki says, calmly and with a hint of command in her tone.
I slowly exhale and I feel all the fear leave my body. “Sorry about that.” Feeling a little ashamed at myself, I turn my attention to John. He looks so nervous that I can’t stop myself from grinning. “John, I am glad to see you and Lisa, but you scared the crap out of me there dude!”
John smiles and relaxes. “I’m sorry, umm, dude? Lisa...” He glances sideways to Lisa, notices the beginning of a glare and he wisely stops talking.
I’m going to guess that he was going to say that it was her idea. It probably was, but even I would know better than to say something like that with my girlfriend standing right next to me, if I had a girlfriend.
I can’t help but laugh at him for that almost fatal slip. “Dude, Lisa was so ready to kick your butt there.”
Lisa gives me one of her mega-watt smiles before she turns to John and hugs him. “Yeah, but that is why I love him. His butt is so cute and easy to kick!”
Everyone laughs and the tension in the room evaporates.
Lisa walks over to me while dragging John behind her. She lets go of his hand and gives me a hug. “I’m glad you’re safe Brianna, and I love the name!”
I find myself blushing again. “Umm, thanks Lisa. Sorry about my freak-out there. I’m glad you made John come.” I tell her as she studies my new face...
“You are so beautiful, Brianna!” She says, softly with part wonder and part admiration. “I cannot wait until you return to the dojo. I’m so looking forward to seeing what you can do!”
I really don’t know how to handle that, so I default to blushing even more and stammering. “Th-Thanks, I think.”
John is up next as Lisa steps back and gives him the ‘go on, get moving’ look. He looks very nervous all of a sudden. Heck, I’m nervous too. I sure as heck don’t want to hug him, but doing our traditional ‘gimme five and fist to boom’ greeting seems a little out of place now too. Aw, the hell with it. I raise my hand to start the usual high-five and he rushes in and gives me a quick hug instead.
“Welcome back dude, glad you’re okay.” John says as fast as he can. It has got to be the most awkward hug I have ever felt. He’s nervous as all get out and I can’t help it when my entire body tenses up and I gasp with surprise as his arms go around me. I’m guessing that my already large eyes are even larger now.
He lets me go and blushes as he realizes that I was totally not expecting a hug from him. Lisa pulls him back and glares at him. “Way to go! Why did you hug her? Can’t you tell that she’s not ready for a hug from you?” She says with a fierce whisper.
“Sorry, but you hugged her and I didn’t know what else to do!” He whispers back to Lisa before turning back to me. “Sorry Brian, umm, Brianna, I didn’t know what to do.”
I swallow my fear again. “Umm, that’s okay John. I wasn’t sure either, but next time a simple high-five will be fine.” I say, finishing up with a smile that causes him to blush again. Crap, I think my glamour is hitting him now. Talk about confusion.
My mom helps rescue me. “Brianna, why don’t you help Barry get the suitcases out of the car and up to the bedrooms?” She asks. “I need to have a quick chat with everyone before we sit down and eat supper.”
I turn to her and even I can see that she is just trying to get me out of the room so that she can do some explaining without embarrassing me in the process. “Sure mom. I wanted to check out my room anyway.” I say as I head back towards the garage with Barry following me.
I hear the door to the garage close behind us as Barry enters and I decide to show off a little by popping the trunk. “Ta-da! My super power! Pretty awesome, huh?” Okay, I guess I am being a little too sarcastic, but the day has really been an emotional roller-coaster for me. I’m not feeling like myself, literally.
Barry stops and studies me for a second. “You do know that Barb and I help out on a superhero team, right?”
I’m not sure where he’s going with this. “Yeah, I’ve heard that, but isn’t that because you both have really cool super powers?”
Barry shakes his head ‘no’. “Not really. Barb has some good power, but there are tons of people who are stronger than her.”
I don’t know. I’ve seen the occasional video of Barb in action and what I saw looked pretty damn powerful to me. “Yeah, but she can lift a car just by thinking about it! How can that not be cool?”
He frowns a little at me. “Actually, when her power is measured against the other heroes and villains, she is very weak. Most folks with similar powers can literally lift tons more than she can.”
“So? She can still lift a car and that’s a lot!”
“Barely, she struggles to lift even a medium sized car, but that isn’t the point. Her strength isn’t what makes her super.”
I am starting to think that he has a lesson in here for me somewhere. “Okay, then what makes her super?”
“Control and Precision.” He says without further explanations.
“Huh?” I ask, wondering what that means and how it might apply to me.
Now that he has got me thinking, he smiles at me. “She has bested villains who are much stronger than she is, not by over powering them, but by using what she has to maximum effect. The people she beats are used to just bashing their way through anything that gets in their way. They rely on their raw power and never learn how to use what they have.”
“Yeah, but how is being able to copy my mom’s car remote all that great?”
Barry chuckles at me. “It’s not, but that’s only because you’re not using your imagination.”
“What do you mean? It’s just a car door.”
“Yes, yes it is, but what would happen to a high tech armored villain if their fancy armored suit suddenly turned off in the middle of a battle?”
Damn it! He is not helping me feel sorry for myself here. “Oh. Yeah, that would be bad.”
“Yes it would and it would be a very ‘strong’ ability to have, don’t ya think?”
“I guess so.” I say, a little sullenly.
“Plus, based on that little light show you just put on in the living room, I don’t think that you are going to have to worry about being stuck with ‘lame powers’ anytime soon.”
I sigh with frustration. It is so hard to find reasons to be down on myself with all these helpful people around. I feel myself start to smile. I’m sorry, I can’t stop myself. He’s right. I don’t know why I keep forgetting about all the cool stuff I can do now.
“I’m sorry Barry, you’re right. I guess I’d think it was cooler if I didn’t get turned into a girl, but being a girl isn’t the end of the world and I probably shouldn’t view it as such. It’s just, well, not at all what I expected.”
“Hey, don’t be so down on yourself. You’ve only been a super powered person for what? 12 hours now?”
“Umm, 11 hours, 23 minutes and 38 seconds, but who’s counting?” I say with a grin.
He laughs and his eyes sparkle with mischief. “See, there ya go kid. What do you expect from a baby?”
Oh, he is so going to get it, but I can’t help it. It’s funny; I laugh and it feels good. “You are so going to get it when I stop laughing!” I mock threaten him.
“Ha! Now you know the true strength of my super power! I’m not known as Captain Comic for nothing!” Barry says as he strikes an exaggerated heroic pose.
“Fine, you win!” I say while struggling to contain even more laughter before I adopt the angry and defeated villain pose. “Curse you, Captain Comic! You have defeated me this time, but I’ll be back!”
“Hehe, looks like you’re feeling better now. Should we get these suitcases into the house now?”
“Sure, sounds like a plan. Thanks Barry.” I say as I fight off the urge to give him a hug. Ha! I defeated the Huggy Girl Monster once again! I reach into the trunk and hand Barry the two small suitcases, and then, I pull out Nikki’s monster suitcase before he can jump in and be all chivalrous on me.
Once I set Nikki’s suitcase on the floor and slam the trunk closed, Barry grabs Nikki’s suitcase and starts to lift it. He stops after only getting it an inch or two off the floor. “Wow, this is heavier than it looked when you took it out!”
“Here, lemme get that for you, Grandpa Barry. I wouldn’t want Barb to get mad at me if you throw your back out.” I tease him as I easily take the suitcase from his hand.
“Hmmph! You young whipper snappers think you’re so tough! Back in the day when I worked in the train yard, I had to carry 50 gallon barrels of water on my back to fill the steam engines, uphill, both ways! I’ll show you...Ouch, Ouch, my back!” Barry says with mock pain as he lifts the two small suitcases while doing a pretty good grumpy old man impression.
I can’t stop myself from smiling all the way from the garage and upstairs into my room. Nikki’s suitcase isn’t all fun and games to get up the stairs though. It’s not all that heavy for me, but it is still rather bulky. Her suitcase seems like it is almost as big as I am. I could probably fit inside her suitcase pretty easily if I tried.
My bed looks freshly made with new sheets and a down comforter contained inside of a plain white linen cover of some kind. I think it looks like a giant pillow or maybe a soft and fluffy cloud. I plop myself down on it and lay back to rest for a few seconds. Wow, it really is soft and comfy. I sink so deep into it, that if someone tossed another blanket over me, I would probably be hidden pretty well. Okay, I don’t care if it might be a little girlie. I like my cloud and I want to keep it.
I decide to get up before I get too comfortable. I want to inspect the rest of my room. It looks way too clean and organized for my tastes. I discover that the carpet where my computer desk stood is a little ragged. There is a basketball sized hole that goes all the way down to the floor boards. Crap, which reminds me that my killer rig is now just a memory. What in the heck am I going to use to do my homework or play GEO on now? Okay, scratch the GEO thing. I am afraid to even be in the same room with someone playing GEO. Well, I guess I can always use my parent’s PC down in their office to do my homework and if I don’t need a good rig for GEO, then maybe I can save my money and not even build another.
There are a few new throw rugs in the room that look like they might be made from natural fibers of some kind. I never even thought about how I would handle the carpet on bare feet, but I guess that Mom and Dad did. All I have to do is figure out how to best arrange the rugs.
I can’t stop myself from sighing and feeling a little sad when I find out that my closet and dresser drawers are empty of all my old clothes. Well, not all of them. There are a few of my old t-shirts left, but only the 100% cotton ones that I had out-grown last year and forgot to get rid of. I guess they will probably fit me again now. I wonder if my old “I see fragged people…” t-shirt will fit me now. I peel off the heavy duty sweater and then, I pull off v-neck top. It drags across my boobs as I try to lift it over my head.
I think that I am beginning to dislike that term. Boobs. Seeing and talking about a girl’s “boobs” seemed so exciting and naughty before today. Not so much now though. I think that I will use a different term for my breasts. Even that just sounds so wrong to me. Hmm, how about I use the same term that my mom used? Girls. Okay, I think that will work. It’s not as in your face as any of the other words I could use. I mean, someone yelling out, “Nice girls!” just doesn’t seem to carry as much impact as “Nice boobs!” Well, not to me anyway.
That reminds me, this is the first bit of alone time I have had since I woke up this morning. I can’t stop myself from staring at the pretty, no stunning, black haired girl that is standing there wearing nothing but a bra and jeans in my dresser mirror. I know that girls have a different name for black hair. I know blond, then brown and red hair. Do they call brown something else too?
>Searching....
>Redish Brown hair = Auburn
Oookay...What about black Mr. Smarty pants?
>Searching....
>Brown or Black hair = Brunette
Oh. Well, I guess now I know, that I knew. I’m officially a brunette in the world of girl hair color.
I still can’t get over the fact that the hot brunette in the mirror is me. I wouldn’t have even given myself a second look three days ago and I’d have been completely topless, but then again, three days ago I didn’t have all the features that just drew my eyes and screamed “hubba hubba!” Seriously, now I have perfect skin, nice gentle curves, tight tummy, expressive eyes and lips that just beg to be kissed. Everything about my body draws my eyes to my reflection. I touch my naked stomach and I see the girl in the mirror touching her perfect, I mean, I see my hand touching my tummy. I feel my hand slide across my perfectly smooth and soft skin as I trace a line up from my belly button. She looks so, I mean; I look so innocent standing there with a sort of surprised expression on my face. Oh, this is so confusing!
“Brianna! It’s time for dinner!” My mom yells from the bottom of the stairs and interrupts my less than pure thoughts.
Oh crap! I need to put my shirt, um, blouse top thing back on. I can’t walk downstairs wearing just a bra up top, but I don’t want to put that v-cut blouse top thing back on due the cleavage exposure. I poke my head out the door “Coming!” I yell down stairs to my mom before I race back to my closet and grab my old t-shirt and quickly put it on. It’s dark blue and it fits a little snug up top. I can definitely see my girls pushing against the front and that is making the lower half of my shirt hang like a tent on me. It is making me look a little dumpy. Please tell me that I’m not thinking what I think I’m thinking.
Yep, I am. Key-rap!
I do something that I’ve never done before while wearing just a t-shirt and jeans. I unbutton my jeans and tuck my t-shirt in as I head out of my room. I hope this works. Oh, it works alright. Now I have the “I see fragged people…” going right across the girls and acting like a sign that says, “Hey! She’s got words on her boobs and it’s okay to stare because I’m only trying to read her shirt!” I growl with frustration, but I am not, I repeat, I am not going to change my shirt again.
I am almost out my door when I look back and see my new sweater and top laying on the floor. Damn it. Now that my room is clean, I can’t just leave them on the floor. Frustrated, I sigh and yell. “I’ll be right there!”
“Do you need any help?”
“Noooo, I got it!”
“Okay just hurry up. Everyone’s waiting on you!” My mom yells back.
Grrr. I pick up the errant clothing, smooth them out and set them neatly on my cloud so that I can deal with them later. I take a second to straighten the cloud out too. Then, I rush out of my room and by the time I make it down the stairs, I am surprisingly relaxed and even smiling when I enter the dining room. Everyone is already seated, but I am pleased to see that my regular seat is still open. No one says a word about my old boy t-shirt as I sit down.
There is a ton of food on the table, something for everyone. I can’t wait to dig in, but my dad stops me from grabbing a dinner roll with a glance. “Oops, sorry.” I say, embarrassed to be the only one reaching for food.
He smiles fondly at me. “I know that we don’t normally do this, but we felt it might be appropriate considering the circumstances. So, hold hands everyone. I would like to say a quick prayer.” I quickly glance to my left and grab my dad’s hand. Instead of her normal spot across from me, Lindsay is sitting to the right of me to make room at the table for all the extra place settings. I hold her hand as we all bow our heads as my dad begins to speak.
“Heavenly Father, we know that although we may not always understand your plan for us, we are grateful that you have brought us here together this evening. We thank you for the safe return of our child, Brianna. We also cannot find enough words to adequately thank the rest of our family, friends, Nikki and the rest of the people at the lab for all of their support and understanding. Amen.”
“Amen.” I whisper softly as I look up and let go of my dad’s and Lindsay’s hands. Everyone is still a little hesitant to be the first one to start grabbing food. “Thank you everyone, but I’m starving. Can we eat now?” I ask, impatiently.
That pops the cork and causes a few giggles as everyone begins to start serving themselves and passing the dishes around. We have little bit of everything. There is turkey, pork chops, lots of broccoli, mashed potatoes, turkey gravy, dinner rolls, salad and even some orange jello with pineapple inside.
I am a little worried about the meat, but I still pile it on like I normally would. I refuse to give in to this vegetarian thing. The broccoli tastes great, but it looks like the roast beef at the lab wasn’t just over cooked, because while I eat all the turkey and pork on my plate; I really don’t enjoy the taste. The meats aren’t bad, but compared to the veggies, they tasted very blah.
Once I finish my first plate, I feel like I could eat a little bit more. This time, I decide to skip the pork chops entirely and cut back on my second serving of turkey. I also skip the gravy and opt for the cranberry relish instead. That helps make the turkey taste better, but I can’t stop myself from sighing with frustration.
“What’s a matter, Brianna?” My mom asks, looking at me with concern.
“Nikki was right. I really don’t care for the meat.” I say, feeling despondent again.
I close my eyes when I notice that everyone is watching me with a mixture of concern and surprise. I am guessing that Nikki is the only person at the table that might understand my frustration. I never realized just how much enjoyment I got out of eating certain foods. The fond memory of chowing down a juicy hamburger or fat steak, fresh off the backyard grill is just that now, a memory. I am afraid that the next time I try to eat a burger or steak, I will end up hating it or making myself sick trying to force it down. Sharing chili dogs at the ball park with dad, gone. Corn dogs or kabobs at the fair with the family, nyet! Oh look, it’s a veggie burger or it’s a tofu steak on the grill! Hold me back!
Oh great, now I’m going to start crying...again. There is no way that I am going to break down in front of everyone. “Umm, I gotta go to the bathroom.” I say as I push my chair back and race to the bathroom before anyone can see my tears.
I manage to hold it all in, until I reach the small half-bath that is just down the hall from the dining room. I turn on the light, close the door and look at myself in the mirror over the sink. My eyes are red and tears are pouring down my face. I feel so pissed at what I see looking back at me. I see a whiny and sniveling little girl who can’t keep herself together to save her life.
I hear a polite knock at the door.
“Go away…” I plead to whoever it is out there.
“Brianna, it’s me.” Nikki says softly through the door. “Can I come in?”
Oh man, I don’t see how I can say no. “Yeah, hold on.” I say as I grab some tissues and quickly try to clean up some of the damage before I open the door for her. Once the worst is under control, I open the door and Nikki slides herself into the small space with me. She looks so compassionate and understanding.
“Oh Bree.” She says softly with as she opens her arms and I find myself melting into a hug. I am glad that I still have my tissues in hand. I would hate to make a mess of her clothes.
“I know how you feel. I felt the same way and even now, I sometimes find myself watching a juicy steak commercial and feeling bummed out.” Nikki says with a sad smile.
Once she tells me that, I feel my tears dry up in no time. Maybe I’m getting a bit better with the crying stuff now? “Y-You do?” I ask with a slight sniffle.
“Yes. I have some very fond memories of enjoying a backyard barbeque steak with my family, but it’s not all bad. I have noticed that since I stopped eating meat, my body feels healthier and I have more energy to do things than ever before.” Nikki says with an encouraging smile.
I’m not sure if that helps a lot, but just knowing that she still misses meat is a good thing to know. I don’t know if I can believe in the health claims, but maybe it can’t hurt. “Okay, I’m not sold on that idea, but I guess I can give it a try.” I say with the start of a smile. “What’s with this ‘Bree’ thing?”
“Do you like it? It is the nick-name for Brianna.” She says with a slight tilt of her head and an impish smirk.
“Weeelll, I’m not sure. I’m still kind of getting used to ‘Brianna’, but ‘Bree’ is a bit easier to say, so I guess it’s okay.” I say, not sure if I am really sold on the nickname idea or not. Spelling-wise, ‘Brianna’ was still very close to ‘Brian’, but ‘Bree’ just feels so different, so girlie.
She smiles and gives me a giddy little clap. “Great! Now, how about if we splash a bit of cold water on your face to help with the puffy eyes and get you back into the battle?” Nikki asks using a funny mock drill sergeant voice there at the end.
I can’t stop myself from giggling. “Sir, yes sir!” I salute her with my best mock salute.
We both break down into giggles and that causes a few more seconds of delay before we get back to the dining room. I notice the look of gratitude that my mom gives Nikki as we both sit back down at the table to eat. I feel much better and I am so glad that Nikki is here. I am really going to miss her when she goes back to her school tomorrow.
“So, umm, Brianna?” John asks just as I start to work on my veggies.
I pause with my fork of broccoli half-way to my mouth. “Ya?” I ask as I focus my attention on him.
John suddenly looks a little nervous. “What was that thing you did in the living room?” All the other conversation stops.
“Umm, I’m not sure exactly.” I say just before I pop the fork full of broccoli into my mouth and start to chew to give myself time to think of an answer. I have to admit, the broccoli does taste pretty good. It’s not a steak, but it is satisfying, just in a different way.
I think that my glamour is hitting John a little bit because he shyly glances down to his plate for a second. “Well, it almost looked like you were disappearing there for a second. Were you doing something like teleporting? ‘Cause that would be so cool!” John says, looking back at me excitedly.
“I don’t think that I was going to teleport.” I say just before I pop another bite of broccoli into my mouth.
“Well, what was it then?”
I quickly chew and swallow. “Umm, did you all see the shadows?” I ask, glancing around the table. I see a few nods. “Well, I’m not sure, but I think that was Whisper’s, I mean, maybe my Hide in Shadows ability. In the game, when I activated the ability, the graphic effect caused the shadows in a room to get a little bigger or darker and even sometimes shift around so I could hide in them easier.”
“Oh, well that looked pretty cool, but what about the fading thing?”
“Umm, well, I think it might have been an invisibility spell.” I say as I reach for my drink and take a few swigs. Ahhh.
“Really?! Cool!” John’s expression changes from excited to calculating. “Hmmm, that could come in handy the next time we play paintball.”
I can see the gears turning inside his head at the idea and as I think about it, going inviso could make the capture the flag game a bit easier. That makes me a little worried. “Yeah, it might, but I’m not sure if I can use it or even how it works. Plus, wouldn’t that kind of be like cheating?” I ask.
“Hey, you know what they say about l-, umm, just war?” He asks, hastily correcting himself and leaving off love.
“All is fair?” I ask, smiling because I know that he has a different answer and it’s a good thing he excluded love from the quote. Lisa would kill him and she still might since she knows what he was going to say.
John laughs. “No, if you ain’t cheating, then you ain’t trying hard enough!”
“Maybe, but I’ll have to think about it. I don’t think it would be fair unless the other team could do it too. You know, kind of how they made it against the rules for mutants to compete in sports?” I say, reminding him about that little rule. There is nothing like being a wet blanket.
“Hmm, you might be right bro. I didn’t think of it like that.” John says.
I’m a little surprised that he might also view it as ‘cheating’ and that he called me ‘bro’. That little slip makes me smile at him, which makes him blush and Lisa poke him in his ribs possessively. Oh man, this glamour thing is going to get me into so much trouble.
The rest of the dinner conversation is pretty normal and I am a little sad when we run out of the double chocolate fudge cake after I only eat two pieces. I liked chocolate before, but now? It just tastes so damn, I mean, darn good!
After dinner, the adults decide that they need to do the adult thing and talk to each other over some wine. That gives us ‘kids’ the perfect excuse to head to the den to watch TV or play some Xbox. I kind of want to just play some Halo with John, but with Lindsay, Nikki and Lisa there, I don’t want to be that much of a dork.
“Umm, what do you guys wanna do?” I ask fearful of the answer with all the girls there. I’m not so worried about what Nikki might suggest, but just thinking about all the normal “girl” things that Lindsay or Lisa would find fun gives me goose bumps. John is here, so that might prevent them from trying to do a “girls” night thing with me.
“I dunno Brianna. Both John and I brought a movie in case you just wanted to hang out. But, it’s only seven o’clock. We could get a ride to the mall.” Lisa says casually, like she is trying to suggest the mall without really suggesting it.
I notice Lindsay’s eyes light up with that mall idea. John is definitely not looking excited about the idea and Nikki appears kind of neutral to the idea. “I don’t know. Based on my, umm, reaction to seeing you two.” I look at John and Lisa. “I don’t think that I’m ready to go to the mall just yet. I’d kinda like to just stay here with you guys and chill.” They all nod with understanding, even Lindsay, but she still looks a little disappointed. “So, umm, what movies did you bring?” I ask, attempting to get the fun back on track.
Lisa smiles at me. “Well, I brought the ‘Devil Wears Prada’ and John brought ‘Underworld: Evolution’.” She says, stressing her movie choice and using a mono-tone for the cool movie. It’s clear what the girls want to see, but I really want to see Kate Beckinsale kicking some vampire butt. She was awesome in the first movie and just the thought of seeing her in action while wearing that skin tight black leather combat outfit is making me tingle in places that shouldn’t be tingling. I do not want to blush right now. La la la la...fashion, clothes, mean bosses, no guns or explosions. Phew. Tingling stopped. I think I’m safe now.
“How about ‘Devil Wears Prada’?” I ask. John looks a little disappointed in me. I smile apologetically at him. “Sorry dude, but I could tell that the girls wanted to watch ‘Devil’. It is a weekend night. Maybe we will have time to watch ‘Underworld’ after ‘Devil’?”
“Maybe.” John replies somewhat dubiously as Lisa triumphantly hands me her DVD.
I grab the universal remote to turn on the entertainment system and as I do, I feel a slight tingle. Oh, wow. I can ‘feel’ every command and function of the remote. It is a pretty simple chip that controls the thing and it has the standard control codes for over two hundred different devices. The problem with the remote, as I see it, is that it takes six button presses to turn on all the devices needed to watch a DVD using the surround sound system. It’s just too cumbersome and I wish that my dad would get one of those fancy remotes that you can program to do all that with a single button push.
Hmmm, I wonder...
“Bree? Is something wrong?” Nikki asks, concerned.
“No…” I say, distracted by my discovery. “I think that I can reprogram the remote.”
Without really thinking about how many laws I might be breaking, I change how the remote works. I leave the programming alone that tells it to turn on the TV when someone pushes the “TV Power” button, but I change the programming and add a simple script to the device by removing some of the extra codes from memory. Now, what should happen when I push the DVD button is that the TV, stereo and DVD player should all turn on and the stereo switch to ‘Video’ mode and the TV switch to Video In mode. I also script the same type of logical functions for the Stereo button under the assumption that the user just wants to play music.
“Okay, I think that I just made the remote better.” I say after a few seconds. Well, 2.36 seconds to be exact. Everyone is just looking at me with curious expressions.
“Watch this!” I say as I press the DVD button and I am rewarded by watching everything work exactly like I programmed it to work. I can’t stop myself from smiling at my handy-work.
“Umm, okay.” Lindsay says, not looking or sounding very impressed.
“I just programmed the remote to turn everything on with one button instead of six.” I say, defensively as I hand her the remote. “Here, push the Stereo button.”
She dubiously pushes the Stereo button and as I smugly look on, the stereo turns off and the CD player turns on while everything else stays on. Crap. Looks like I need to make it a bit smarter, but everyone is starting to look a little impatient to get the movie started.
“I guess I can fix it later.” I say with a sigh as I walk over and manually turn the stereo back on, followed by loading the DVD and pushing the play button.
Since this movie is a chick-flick, I don’t bother grabbing my preferred center/center spot for the prime surround sound effects. Dad and I once spent an entire Saturday afternoon setting up the surround sound system and tuning it for the room. Much to Mom’s disgust, we just had to watch two big budget explosion movies just to make sure, purely in the name of science.
So, being the polite host, ummm, -ess, I offer Nikki the comfy “sweet spot” seat that has the built in recliner. I sit beside her, but on the next seat cushion to give her plenty of room while Lindsay worms her way in next to me on our L shaped leather sectional. Thank god my parents sprang for the leather, especially now that I have problems with synthetic fibers. Lisa and John claim the corner section so that they can snuggle up together. I am a little surprised that Lindsay wants to sit so close to me. Normally, she sits as far away from me as possible, like I have cooties or something.
As the opening title screens are playing, I glance to Lindsay and catch her staring at me. “What?” I whisper to her.
She shocks the shit out of me, pardon my French. “I’m sorry that I’ve been such a bitch to you the last couple of years.” Lindsay whispers back before she leans over and hugs me. “I missed you so much and I don’t know what I would do if you were really gone.” And then, she starts to gently sob into my t-shirt.
I’m not sure what has happened to my sister. Maybe I’m still me, but she’s the one who switched bodies or something Twilight Zone’ish. “I love you too Liddy.” I whisper as I hug her back. I end up resting my cheek against the top of her head as my eyes start to leak a little too. Damn chick-flicks. The movie hasn’t even started and I’m crying. Maybe I should have gone with Underworld?
I refuse to admit that the movie was good. A chick-flick is against the ‘dude code’ for me to even admit that I may have liked it. However, I can’t help but notice how just a few simple change of clothes and a make-over changed Anne Hathaway’s appearance. I thought she looked pretty in the clothes she wore on her first day, but holy cow! She’s absolutely gorgeous when she starts wearing all the fashionable clothes. I suspect that Lisa is being sneaky with her movie choice.
By the end of the movie, I’m leaning against Nikki while Lindsay is snuggling against me. It kinda reminds me of when we were littler, like maybe seven or eight years old. It feels good. I do cry once near the end, but with my low-light vision, I can see that John’s eyes got a little wet there too. So, I don’t feel too bad.
“Okay, it’s only nine and it’s a Saturday night. What do you guys wanna do now? Do you two have to be home by a certain time?” I ask John and Lisa.
“My dad said I can stay out as late as I needed too, but to call if it was going to be later then eleven.” John says.
“My dad wants me home by 2300 hours.” Lisa says before switching over to her mock stern dad voice. “And not a second later or it’s the Captain’s Mast for you, little lady!”
Everyone laughs at her Dad impression and I check out the Underworld DVD case for the run-time. “Well, the DVD says that it is an hour and forty-five minutes, but I think we could cut five to ten minutes by just skipping the title scenes. If we started it now, we might be done by 2230 hours. Will that give you enough time to get home if we watched that now?” I ask. I’m starting to use military time more and more now. I have to actively think about translating the time from military to civilian.
Lisa looks at me a little funny for a micro second. “Yeah, thirty minutes should be plenty.” She says before turning to John. “You will be able to walk me home, right?”
“Of course my delicate little blossom! I am here but to...ooof!” John says using his paladin voice just before Lisa lightly punches him in his stomach.
“You saw that?! Help! Help! I’m being repressed!” John mock yells with a falsetto British accent.
“Oh, I’ll show you repression! Bloody peasant!” Lisa says as she expertly puts John into an arm lock for a second before she releases him and rewards him with a kiss.
“Oh, gross! Run away, Sir John! Run away!” I say using my fake British accent.
“I think I can face just a little bit of peril!” John says with a muffled British accent as Nikki starts to giggle. That causes Lisa to start giggling, which caused Lindsay to start too. I am so not joining in on the giggle fest!
I decide that I should just get Underworld started. Oh man, does Selene kick some butt! I wish that I could do some of that and look as good as she does while doing it. Umm, rewind...delete, delete, delete. Okay, all better.
With skipping the opening titles and stopping right at the start of the ending credits, we get John and Lisa out the door at 2237 hours. Since Lisa’s house is only a few blocks away, that should be plenty of time for Lisa to get home.
“Nice ‘meeting’ you, Bree and I can’t wait until you get back from Virginia. You and I are going to have some serious fun in the dojo!” Lisa says, bouncing with excitement just before she hugs me good night.
Geez! It would’ve been nice to get all these hugs from her before I turned. Yeah...turned. As in, “turned to the dark side” or maybe even “turn undead” if I’m feeling particularly sour. Well, at least she said “dojo” instead of the “mall”.
Thankfully, John learned his lesson. He gives me our standard high-five and knuckle-boom hand shake and as he turns to join Lisa for her walk home, he casually looks back over his shoulder. “Later, dude. See ya when you get back.”
“Later, bro.” I say with a quick wave just before I shut and lock the door with a smile. I feel pretty good and I even pretend to be a little surprised when I turn and see my mom and dad standing quietly behind in the hallway. They look pretty happy too.
“So, how was your first night home?” My mom asks.
“It was great, Mom! Sorry about freaking out there in the beginning.” I say as I look down to the floor, feeling ashamed of myself.
“No problem, Brianna. Everyone understands what happened and why.” My mom says.
“What did you end up saying to everyone while I was, umm, helping Barry with the luggage?” I ask.
My mom glances at my dad for a second before looking back to me. “Oh, I just explained to them how inside you’re still Brian and that they should try to treat you the same. Also, for them not to try and push you into the girl stuff, but instead just let you be who you are and to be gentle with you if you ever do express an interest in learning more about girl stuff.”
“Oh.” I say.
“Yes, they know that it isn’t easy for you and that it won’t be easy for them either, but they are willing to try and that is all we can ask, isn’t it?” My mom asks with a gentle smile.
“Yeah, thanks Mom and Dad.” I say as I give them both a hug and they hug me. We just stand there in the hallway and enjoy each other’s presence for what feels like an eternity, but it was really just 56 seconds.
“Well, I guess I should get upstairs and help out with Nikki’s bed.” I say as I disentangle myself from the hug.
“Barry has it setup already and I believe that Nikki is up there talking with Lindsay in her room. Why don’t you go up and check on them?” My mom asks.
I’m not sure how I feel about invading Lindsay’s room. It’s normally an out-of-bounds zone. “Umm, sure.” I say as I head for the stairs. I so want to try going all Selene and seeing if I can just jump up the stairs, but I don’t want to make an idiot of myself. I do skip the first three steps. I know, that’s nothing to write home about, but it was pretty easy. Maybe there’s hope for me yet?
I knock on Lindsay’s door. “Is it okay if I come in?” I ask, hesitantly
“Come on in sis! It’s just Nikki and me doing some girl talk.” Lindsay says through the door. Sis huh? I hesitate for a second before I decide to push open her door.
I spot Nikki sitting next to Lindsay on her bed. “Umm, hey. I was just thinking about heading to bed.” I say, feeling nervous for some reason.
“Oh, good. Lindsay and I were just finishing up.” Nikki says as she stands.
I’m not really ready for Nikki to come into my room. “No rush, it can wait. I need to find something to wear to bed and get changed. You two keep talking.” I say in a rush to get it all out. I feel a bit embarrassed. I never thought about how I would change my clothes with Nikki in my room. I guess I could use the bathroom to change.
“Oh no, that’s fine. I’ll lend you hand. Night, Lindsay.” Nikki says as she makes her way past me and enters my room.
“Night, Nikki! See you in the morning and I hope that Bree doesn’t still snore.” Lindsay says with a laugh as she walks over to me standing transfixed in her doorway.
I don’t know what to do. Do I follow Nikki into my room now? What if she is already changing her clothes?
While I’m stuck in a loop, Lindsay gives me hug. “Night little big sister!” she says with a grin.
Crap! She did notice that she’s taller than me now. “Umm, night Lindsay and don’t think that just because you might be a little taller than me now that I will go soft on ya!”
She just giggles at me as she closes her door.
I don’t think that my warning has quite the effect I was looking for.
I decide to follow Nikki into my room and close my door. I spot a set of white silk pajama pants with a button-up top lying on my bed. There is even a pair of white bath slippers sitting on the throw rug next to my bed. I guess that my mom has already been in here and taken care of everything for me.
Nikki is rooting through her suitcase. I can’t stop myself from gasping with surprise when she pulls out a delicate looking light purple silk night gown.
“Umm, I’ll just grab my PJs and change in the bathroom so you can get ready in here.” I say, blushing with embarrassment from catching her with what looks like sexy lingerie to me.
Nikki pauses in thought for a second. “How about if I trade with you? I need to wash off my makeup.”
“Okay...” I timidly agree, but I can’t see any makeup on her face. Does she even need it?
“Great!” Nikki smiles at me as she digs out a small bag of toiletries to take with her to the bathroom. I gently close my door once she’s safely out of my room and lean up against it with a sigh of relief. I’m so glad that she didn’t say. “Oh, it’s okay. We’re both girls.”
While I stand on one of the strategically placed throw rugs, I quickly strip down to my bra and panties and slip into my new pajamas. I have never worn silk pajamas before. Never worn silk anything, but I must admit that the it does feel so nice against my skin. I decide to just sit on my bed and veg while I wait for Nikki to get done in the bathroom. I still need to brush my teeth and collect another urine sample. I’m starting to get good at it now though. The last time I had to go was during ‘Devil’. I managed to do it all by myself and not make a mess all over my hand. After this one, I will be all out of sample jars, so I hope that Dr. E will decide that he has enough of my pee on hand to test when we return to the lab tomorrow morning. Pee on hand...oh I kill myself sometimes.
I feel pretty relaxed until Nikki casually walks back into my room wearing her night gown and carrying her clothes. I gulp when I realize that her gown is held on the top with what look like strings, and it only comes down to mid-thigh. The only part that is not see-through is the top part that covers her boobs, sorry, her girls. Everything else is semi-transparent and I can see her panties underneath.
“Umm, Umm...” Is all that I can get out of my mouth right now.
Nikki just smiles at me like nothing is out of the ordinary for her. “All done, Bree! The bathroom is all yours.”
“...okay, thanks.” I quickly jump out of bed and forgetting to put on my slippers in my rush to avoid thinking about her. I quickly brush my teeth and when my hair gets in the way, I am forced to drink from a cup to rinse instead of leaning over and drinking directly from the faucet like I normally do. I quickly forget that little hair problem when I start to try and wash my face. Damn hair! What in the heck does Lindsay or my mom do? Oh yeah, they tie their hair back into a pony tail or use a hair clip to keep it up. Hmmm, I spot a hair clip, but it takes me two frustrating minutes just to get my hair to stay up. My hair is not that long. How do they make it look so easy?
The urine sample is positively easy in comparison.
I lightly tap on my own door a few seconds before I slowly open it a crack. Just in cast Nikki isn’t decent or something. I hope that she’s already under her covers. I knew it couldn’t be that easy. She is just casually sitting on the end of my bed and reading through one of my comic books. The sight of a scantily clad babe casually reading a comic book while sitting on my bed proves to me that life isn’t fair. I’d have given anything to witness the same thing last week, but now, I have no clue what to do.
Nikki looks up from her reading and smiles at the sight of me standing like a poleaxed idiot next to my door. “Bree, what are you so nervous about?” She asks, like she doesn’t know.
I nervously laugh. “Oh nothing, I guess. I’m just not used to having a girl in my room. Especially one as pretty as you and well, I’m...” I say before I just run out of steam. What more can I say?
Her smile lights up the room and instead of turning my legs to jelly, somehow puts me at ease. She sets the comic aside and pats the top of the bed next to her. “Come here and sit while I get a brush. Your hair is all tangled and if you go to bed with it looking like that, you will never get the tangles out.”
If having a girl like Nikki brush my hair is one of the benefits, no wait, can’t think like that. Must remain anti-girl. Must fight, but can’t help it. I feel myself start to relax in less than a minute as she brushes my hair while engaging me in casual conversation. It feels nice and if I was a cat, I’d be purring up a storm right now.
After a few minutes she stops and has me face her. “Are you still wearing your bra?”
“Umm, yeah. Why?” I ask feeling worried all of a sudden.
“You need to take it off when you sleep. Trust me, you do not want to accidentally fall asleep with it on or you will be hating life by the morning.” She explains with a grin.
“O-Okay,” I say as I try and figure out how I’m going to go about taking my bra off without flashing her in the process. I try to play it cool and just act casual about it as I stand and unbutton my top while turning away from her. I end up ruining that image by fumbling with the bra when I try to remove the thing. I swear, the hooks in the back are impossible to reach! This is just wrong on so many levels. I am not the one who is supposed to be struggling to remove my own bra. I am supposed to be struggling to remove someone else’s bra.
Nikki ends up giggling at me. “You’ll get the hang of it eventually, but for now, just slip your shoulders out of the straps, and then, spin the back to the front to unhook it. You can do the same to put it on.”
Doh! Why didn’t I think of that? It’s so simple. “Thanks.” I say as I use her instructions to finally remove the device from my chest. It feels good when the girls pop free of their restraints. The only downside is that my nipples decide to spring to attention when the colder room air hits them. Thank god Nikki can’t see them! I quickly put my pajama shirt back on and button it up before I turn back to face her. The silk rubbing against my firm and sensitive nipples are not helping. I use every relaxation technique I can think of to help me pretend that nothing is wrong. I’m sure that Nikki has had the same problem, right?
“Better?” Nikki asks.
“Oh yeah. I guess I just got used to it, but now I feel much better, sort of.” I say. I can’t stop myself from blushing and feeling the need to hide my chest by crossing my arms. I feel like I’m trying to hide a tent in my pants, but now it’s on my chest where everyone can see.
Nikki giggles at me, but instead of making me feel worse, her giggle somehow becomes infectious and I find myself giggling at the absurdity of the situation. I plop myself down on my bed and fall back into my cloud. “What am I going to do?” I ask with a sigh.
She falls back into my cloud and turns her head to look at me. “Whatever feels right for you. You can try to fight it, but if you just try to do what feels right for you without worrying about what other people think, then it will all end up working out.”
“How did you get to be so wise, Nikki-wan?” I say with a smirk as I turn my head to look at her. Even without any makeup, she is just so damn beautiful laying there with her gorgeous red hair in semi-disarray around her face.
“Nikki-wan?!?! Why you!” She squeals as she grabs my pillow and hits me with it. That breaks me out of my un-pure thoughts.
“Hey! No fair! I’m unarmed!” I whine to her as I roll off the bed to avoid another blow. I spot her bed and quickly grab her pillow to use against her. “Ha! Your normal pillow is no match for my plus three Pillow of Jedi Slaying!” I say with a laugh as I move to engage her in battle. After a few minutes of vicious attack and counter attack, we both stop in mid-swing when someone knocks on my door.
“Girls, it’s time for bed. No more horsing around in there.” My mom says through the door with a bemused note in her voice.
We both collapse onto my bed with a fit of the giggles. Oh, that felt so good and wonders of all wonders; I don’t even notice her revealing sleep wear any more.
“Thanks, that felt good. Are all pillow fights that therapeutic?” I ask with a smile.
Nikki giggles. “Yep, pretty much, but some of my girlfriends can wield a mean pillow. We better get to bed. Tomorrow is going to be a long day.”
“Yeah, not sure if I am really looking forward to it now, but oh well. The sooner I get it done, the sooner I can get back to normal.” I say, frowning at the thought of all the unknowns I will have to face.
Nikki rolls out of my bed and looks at me with a grin. “Night, little cuz.”
I’m shocked when she calls me that. I’m not ‘that’ little damn it. Wait, what is that ‘cuz’ thing?
“Cousin?” I ask.
She just points to her ears. “Well, we are kind of related now. Ya know?”
“Oh, yeah, but I’m not ‘that’ little!” I say with a pout.
“No, but you are still younger than me. So, nanny nanny boo boo!” She says, sticking her tongue out at me.
“Why you ‘bigger’ brat! Don’t make me hit you with your pillow again!” I mock threaten her before I ruin my fierce expression with another fit of giggles. And here I thought that Sara was the evil one.
Nikki retreats to her bed. At least, that is how I decide to interpret her walking over to her bed. I manage to get the last pillow attack when I throw her pillow at her instead of being nice and walking it over to her.
“Hey! No fair!” She fiercely whispers at me before we both break down into another fit of the giggles. My mom chooses that moment to enter my room with a stern glare.
“Okay girls, it’s time to turn off the lights and get to sleep now.” She says as she walks over to the side of my bed followed by my dad. I quickly get under the covers. The silk pajamas feel a little weird at first, but they are so soft and silky feeling that I just decide to enjoy the feeling.
It has been awhile since my dad has joined my mom in the good night ritual. Well, not long long, but he usually only pokes his head in the door and says, “Night sport!” before he heads off to bed while mom does the hugging and tucking in work.
As my dad watches, mom tucks me in and then leans over and gives me a kiss good night. “Night, Brianna. Try and get to sleep now. We have a long day tomorrow. Mr. Reilly called. We need to be at the labs by nine am and the flight leaves at one pm. So we will be very busy first thing in the morning with packing.”
That sounds like a busy day and I don’t think that I am looking forward to it. “Yes Mom.” I say with a resigned tone of voice.
Her eyes tear up just a little as I tell her that. She gently brushes aside my bangs and gives me another kiss. “Well, night sweetie. Love you.”
“I love you too Mom.” I say as my dad bends over and gives me kiss on my forehead.
“Night sport and I know that I don’t say it enough, but I love ya too.” He says with a fond expression.
Damn leaking eye syndrome! I can’t help it. “Thanks, I love you too Dad.” I say as I bring my sheet up to dab away the very small amount of tears that are trying to build up.
My mom then walks over to Nikki and looks at her fondly. She pauses for a second before she bends down and tucks Nikki into bed too. Then, she gives her a kiss on her forehead too. “Thanks Nikki. I’m glad that you came and are Brianna’s friend. She needs all the friends she can get right now.” She says, softly.
My dad looks over to Nikki. “Yes, thanks Nikki.”
“No problem Mr. and Mrs. Peters. I’m glad I could help and like I just told Bree, I mean Brianna; she’s kind of my cousin now.” Nikki says with a smile.
My mom looks back at me and smiles before looking back to Nikki, “Yes, I can kind of see that now. Thanks.” My mom says as she stands, and giving the room one final look as she appears to ignore the ‘Bree’ thing. My dad and her join hands as they walk out of the room and turn off the lights before the door softly closes.
My low-light vision automatically kicks in and I can see Nikki’s eyes softly glowing on the other side of my room. “Do you have low-light vision too?” I whisper.
“Yeah, it can make getting to sleep a pain sometimes, but it sort of goes away a few seconds after I close my eyes.” Nikki says.
I lean back and close my eyes. “Oh, okay. Thanks.”
I wake up exactly one hour, fifty-six minutes and twenty-three seconds later.
Crap!
It’s only 0107 hours and I’m feeling all bright eyed and bushy tailed, which kind of makes me glad that I don’t really have a tail. I don’t understand why, but I feel like I just got a perfect eight hours of sleep. I try to go back to sleep. I really do. I should need more sleep, damn it, but I just can’t get back to sleep. I wonder if that brain stuff has reduced my need for sleep. That would suck, because without needing to sleep for eight or more hours per day, I will get bored and my mom might expect me to do more chores around the house or something. Now what am I going to do until everyone else wakes up?
I look over and just watch Nikki for a few minutes as she peacefully sleeps. Even with my colorless low-light vision, she looks beautiful. I feel something tugging at my heart and I can’t stop myself from smiling. It really does feel like we are related. Technically, I guess she can’t be my “cousin”, but if that is what she wants to call me, than who am I to complain?
I slide out of bed and slip into my new slippers before I sneak out of my room and down the stairs. I’m not used to wearing slippers, but my vision, coupled with my improved hearing and new body makes sneaking easy. Normally, my mom’s bionic hearing would catch me trying to sneak down the stairs. Not tonight though. It’s almost like I really am Whisper.
I am a little hungry, so I open the fridge and try to find something to eat. I see a plastic baggy full of left-over turkey. Intellectually, I know that the turkey would make a perfect sandwich, but I just can’t dredge up the energy to fight the feeling of general disinterest. I sigh when the left-over salad grabs my attention. That, plus some dinner rolls with butter to munch on with a tall glass of milk. Ahh, milk, it does the body good!
Okay, it’s not morning yet. Now what? I sneak into the den and grab the remote. I doubt that I would’ve had time to fix it before I left in the morning, but now, I have nothing but time to make it right before everyone else wakes up.
I add some smarts to the remote’s programming this time. I have it set a flag so it will remember what function the user last selected. That way, when they want to switch from watching a DVD to just listening to the Stereo, the remote will know that it has to turn off the DVD player and TV, but leave the Stereo on and change it to CD. I do the same kind of programming for the Cable/DVR button and when I test it out with every combination I can think of and it works.
I can’t help feeling good about that so I grab the DVR remote next. As I hold the remote in my hand, I just somehow know exactly how it works and how to make it do more than it should. I find all the secret control codes and remap the crappy thirty second skip button to use the undocumented “Commercial Skip” code. There is even a comment in the code that makes it sound like the programmer was pissed about having to cut that feature out of the product. I think about just reprogramming the DVR remote to work like the Universal remote. That would cut down the number of remotes needed just to watch TV, but I’m pretty sure that if I did that, only I would be able to figure out how to use the thing.
Oh, what the heck. I copy over all the programming, but tuck it behind a function layer so that if I enter 666 on the number pad, it will activate the universal remote functions and remap the buttons to work like that remote. I use 777 to turn it back. Maybe I will let my dad know about that little feature when I get back.
Well, that only took twenty minutes. Now what? I decide to check my email and get caught up with my favorite websites on my parent’s PC. I can easily waste an hour or more just surfing the web.
I sit down in front of the PC and the monitor snaps to life as soon as I move the mouse. It is asking me for the screen saver password, but it has been ages since I last needed to use this PC for anything. I try typing in the old password, but that doesn’t work. What am I going to do now? I could try rebooting it. Maybe it will bypass the screen saver password that way. I reach over to hit the power button and as soon as my hand touches the case, I feel that tingle again and the PC just opens itself to me. Not physically, but somehow, I just know how it works from the BIOS, to the drivers and including the operating system.
It feels amazing and I feel so energized! I can somehow ‘see’ everything like I am in some kind of virtual reality game. It kind of makes me feel like I am in the movie “TRON”, but the programs don’t look like people at all and there are no evil tanks running around zapping innocent programs. I tell the program controlling the screen-saver password that the correct password has been entered. I can’t help feel a little surprised when it works.
Wow! This is cool. I’m just zipping along and playing with all of the programs until I notice that some of the programs aren’t working like they should. They appear to be running other programs, bad programs. I think that they are viruses. Once I know what to look for, I spot a ton of virus infected programs clogging up the system and making it slow. Why in the heck hasn’t the anti-virus program seen these?
Hmmm. Okay, since my parent’s anti-virus program sucks so bad, I need to fix these infected programs. I lose track of time as I hunt down every last virus, trojan and malware app trying to hide on my parent’s PC. Once I am done with that, I decide to look at the anti-virus program and I find out why the anti-virus program sucks so badly. It has been infected and changed to ignore a specific named virus. Whoever did this is one sneaky bastard. I fix the anti-virus program too.
Once the cleanup is all done, I sit back to admire my handy-work. That is when I notice that I am not alone in the office! I panic and spin around in the chair. Oh, it’s Nikki. My breathing calms down, but she just stands there quietly. I kind of notice that she is only wearing her flimsy nightie, but her worried expression is making that observation less important to me.
That starts to make me worried. “Umm, Nikki? Is something wrong?”
“Maybe. What were you doing?” She asks, softly.
“Oh, I was just fixing my parent’s computer. It had a few viruses that were slowing it down.” I say, smiling with satisfaction.
Nikki frowns. “I didn’t see you using the keyboard and the screen looking like it was going crazy there. Exactly how were you fixing it?”
In addition to feeling worried that maybe I was doing something wrong, now I am starting to feel a little confused. “Ummm, I’m not sure. I needed to get past the screen saver password, so just touched the computer and I could somehow see inside of it. I just knew how it worked and how it should work, so I made it work how it is supposed to work. Kind of like the remote control earlier. Oh yeah, I fixed that now too…” I say, trying to explain it to her. I’m kind of rambling right now, so I’m not really sure myself.
Nikki holds up her hand to stop me. “Okay Brianna. Turn it off please. We need to talk.” She says in a serious tone.
Uh oh, she is using my full first name again instead of the ‘Bree’ nickname. I think that I’m in trouble. I spin back around and hit the Windows-L key combo to lock it. I feel the hairs on the back of my neck start to tingle and when I spin back around, I see Nikki doing something that feels like magic to me. I wonder what she is doing and my vision changes to reveal a tightly woven magical barrier springing to life around us.
It pulses with green and white strands that are woven together in a familiar looking geometric pattern. I suddenly realize that I have seen something like this before. It was in GEO and it was a privacy ward that I, I mean, Whisper needed to sneak through to spy on one of the evil commanders during the big battle last year. It was a real P.I.T.A. to get through that ward undetected.
Nikki nervously bites her lip as she looks at me. She looks so worried and serious. My observation of her ward doesn’t seem to go undetected.
“What? Is something wrong Nikki? Did I do something bad?” I ask. I am starting to feel like I should be feeling guilty about something.
Nikki sighs. “No, you didn’t do anything ‘bad’, but there are people out there who won’t like what you can do. Very. Bad. People.”
“What? All I did was sorta hack my parent’s computer and as crappy as the security on it was, anyone could have done that! Well, almost...” I say.
Nikki glares at me before softening her expression. “No Brianna, not anyone can do that. I’m worried that you might be able to completely own a computer and bypass all the security in the process.”
I watch with concern as she goes silent and taps her lip in thought. I don’t understand what she is so worried about. Anyone could do the same to a PC just by sticking a bootable CD in the drive and rebooting the computer. I start to try and explain that to her.
Nikki holds up her hand. “Hold on.” She says as she begins to cast another spell.
I try to see what she is doing with my magic vision again, but it doesn’t want to just instantly turn on. I’m still trying when I feel a sudden pressure just before the magic feeling fades. I give up completely when Nikki points to the desk behind me. Sitting on the desk is a laptop. She reaches over, opens it up and hits the power button.
“Now, that is a neat trick. Is that your laptop?” I ask.
“Yep, I didn’t feel like walking back upstairs. I want to test something. Can you make it go?” She asks.
“Are you sure?” I ask, hesitantly. Didn’t she just get done telling me that this is a bad thing?
Nikki nods and smiles at me. “I’m sure, go ahead.”
“Oookay.” I say as I touch her laptop’s keyboard. The feel the tingle again and I somehow just know stuff about her laptop. For a laptop, it is pretty darn powerful. It has a very fast quad core CPU, tons of RAM, a huge hard drive and a very good 3D gaming quality video card. I think that her laptop is actually faster than my prized gaming rig was.
As soon as the BIOS testing is complete, her laptop stops booting at a password screen. I’ve never seen this kind of password screen. This one is not only asking for a password, but it is also asking that something called a ‘Passkey Lock Device’ be inserted. Wow, her laptop looks like it has some pretty good security on it. I look back at her to ask her if it is really okay and she just nods her head yes.
I see how this ‘lock device’ thing is supposed to pass a key of some sort. The key will complete another bigger key inside the program that is running on the hard drive’s controller board. Oh, she has one of those hardware encrypted hard-drives. I’ve read about those. They do all the encryption and decryption at the hardware level instead of the operating system level to allow the data to be read almost as fast as if it wasn’t encrypted at all. I can’t just tell the hard drive that it has the key because the data itself needs the key to be unencrypted.
Hmmm, I look at the hard-drive’s controller program and find the sub-routine that generates and decodes the encryption key. The equation is pretty complicated, but as I think about it, everything seems to slow down as the math starts to unravel and make sense. I understand how the equation works when it decodes and generates the keys needed for the data encryption. I plug the key stored on the hard drive into the formula and after 0.249 seconds, a long string of characters and numbers show up. I plug that string into the part that needs the ‘lock device’ and I am rewarded a few seconds later when I hear the speakers sing the opening song as the operating system finishes the boot process.
I can’t help it; I smile with satisfaction as I look back at Nikki. “Okay, that was a little tricky, but now what?”
Seriously, this isn’t that hard. If I can do it, anyone should. Okay, maybe they would have some problems with that encrypted hard-drive thing, but I’m sure that there are programs on the web that will tell someone how to bypass that thing.
Nikki looks surprised. “You do realize that hard drive was encrypted with a 256-bit key, right?”
I shrug my shoulders like it wasn’t a big deal. “Yeah, but I just found the equation that created the key and figured it out, why?”
“Okay, I think that is enough. Can you shut it down for me again?” She asks.
I tell her laptop to shut down and as I turn back to face her again, I hear the good-bye song as her laptop turns itself off.
Nikki grabs my hands, pulls me up from the chair and looks me in the eyes. She looks so serious. “Okay, Brianna. I want you to promise me that you will never ever show or tell anyone what you just did with my laptop.”
I finally discovered that I have a cool super power and now I’m being told that I can use it? “But, it’s just a computer...” I say before she cuts me off with a glare.
“You can’t let anyone know what you can do with a computer! It’s important. If they knew what you could do, your life and your family could be in danger!” Nikki looks and sounds so serious.
For the first time, I start to get really scared. How could I put my family in danger? “I don’t understand...” I tell her with an almost whiny voice. It is right on the edge of whine and not whine.
She sighs and softens her expression as she lets go of my hands to gently push be back down into the chair. “Is what you just did to ‘help’ me get into my laptop a good or bad thing?”
“Well, good. I think. You didn’t really need my help, but why?” I ask, confused by where she is going with this.
“What if that wasn’t my laptop?”
“I’m not sure? Maybe bad, but why wouldn’t that be your laptop?”
“Okay. You’re in school and one of your friends brings you his laptop and tells you that he forgot his password, but he is desperate because he really needs you to break into it so he can get his homework. What do you do?”
“Well, it sounds like he needs my help, so I help him.”
“Okay, good. You break into it and he’s able to get back into his laptop. Two days later, everyone in the AP Physics class gets a perfect score on their midterm exam. They must have cheated, but no one can figure out how because the answers were only on the teacher’s password protected laptop, and there is only one person in the school who could’ve hacked into a teacher’s laptop.”
“Oh, but he said it was his laptop. How was I supposed to know?”
“You can’t, and that is just one example of the most basic and effective hacking techniques. It’s called ‘Social Engineering’”.
I’ve heard of that, but never really paid too much attention to what it really was. Nikki sounds like she knows a lot about computers and hacking. “How did you learn about all this hacking stuff?”
“Two ways. First, Whateley has a class on computer security. Secondly, and this is the main reason that I am so worried about you now. A few months ago, Sara was brought in by ARC to help a patient.” She says before I interrupt her.
“ARC?” I ask.
“Arkham Research Consortium. Anyway, Sara knows the story better than I do and I would call her, but it’s kinda late right now. Anyway, this person, this girl was being kept isolated in a secure vault a mile underground. She tried to escape and almost did a couple of times. She was really good with computers, like you might be. Until Sara was called in, everyone there thought she was nuttier than a fruitcake and I guess in a technical sense, she was crazy. She only had four different personalities and one of those was an AI.”
“An AI?” I ask. Wow, that sounds pretty bad. No wonder why this ARC place had her locked up.
“Yep. Needless to say, some people, namely the government and the CIA were freaked out by her. She could blow through any security system and read any file on any computer system that she wanted too. Anytime and anywhere. If the computer was hooked up to a network and accessible, then she could get to it.”
That sounds pretty darn cool to me. “Umm, but why would the CIA be freaked out. I would think that they would love to have someone like that working for them?”
Nikki nods her head and smiles. “Oh, yeah. They would, but only if that person couldn’t also find their secrets.”
The 50,000 watt halogen light bulb finally turns on inside my head. All the spy movies and how important secrets are in those movies race through my head. I’m glad I’m sitting down, ‘cause if not, I might have fallen on my ass. Suddenly, this cool power doesn’t seem so cool anymore. It’s actually kind of scary and that makes me start to wonder what else I could do with it. ATM’s are computers. Video game machines at the mall. Almost everything has a computer in it these days, even the TV remote.
Now, I’m really starting to get scared. “What do I do?” I ask. I’d like to say my tone of voice is calm and reasonable, but it is really more of a panicked whine. I think that it is a good thing that Nikki put up that privacy ward.
“The government is going to want you to get tested, but if they ask you to test your powers with a computer, pretend that you can’t do anything with it. Play dumb and whatever you do, do not mess with any computer device when you’re in Langley. Even if they tell you that it is some kind of emergency. That girl I was telling you about was at a CIA testing facility when she got in trouble. I know that you’re not going to the same place, but I’m still worried about you.” Nikki says. She actually looks a little pissed off there at the end, like she is remembering something about this hacker girl that makes her upset.
“What happened to her?” I ask with a whisper as I stare at the floor.
“The child that they feared and tortured for so long, is no more, my daughter.” Nikki says as her voice changes.
She sounds so different, ancient, deeply sad, and commanding. I feel a pressure of some kind. It feels magical and powerful. My eyes snap up to her face as I feel myself unconsciously sitting up straighter instead of slouching in the chair. I want to address her, but I don’t know what to say. Do I say “Her Majesty” or “Queen Aunghadhail” or what? I settle for honesty.
“I’m sorry, but how should I, umm, properly address you?” I ask, feeling like I am two inches tall for not knowing.
She surprises me by grabbing my hand and pulling me up from the chair with a gentle laugh. “Oh you are a treasure, Brianna. It has been so many years since I have witnessed the birth of a new daughter.”
“But...” I say, before she stops me with a glance. I was about to say that I wasn’t really a girl.
“Hush child, I know and I understand, but that does not make you any less in our eyes. We have high hopes for you and we will be most displeased if your potential is put into peril by the greed and fear of man.”
I start to feel a little more relaxed in her presence. Wait a minute! Now I’m confused again. “Daughter? I am supposed to call you ‘Mom’ or something?”
Her laughter fills the space with sound. I start to feel very embarrassed about the situation. “Oh child, I’m sorry. I am not laughing at you.” She says as she looks at me with an earnest expression. “I just can’t help but feel protective towards you and what you might represent for our race.”
“Umm, okay?” I say, but I still don’t know how to address her.
“I’d like it if you considered me to be more like an ‘aunt’.” She says.
“So, I should call you Aunt Aunghadhail?”
She nods her acceptance. “If you wish, yes, but only when we are in private or informal settings.”
I can’t stop a slight grin from showing up. “How about Auntie Aung?” I ask.
“Don’t make me spank you.” She says with a gentle smile.
She is smiling so maybe I will be able to get away with it once and awhile.
Aunt Aunghadhail continues. “But, back to your original protocol inquiry. In formal situations, ‘your Majesty’ would be correct. Our people have been stagnant for far too long and I can foresee a time where your ‘birth’ might help to shake up some things with our more hide-bound people. That is why we are so concerned about your potential power over these modern devices.”
“Okay Aunt Aunghadhail, I will do everything I can to not let anyone know about it.” I say. It still feels weird calling her that, but I guess it is better than feeling weirder for not knowing how to address her.
Aunt Aunghadhail smiles at me with genuine warmth. “Thank you, child, that is all that we can ask and we are certain that now that you are aware of the danger, you will be more likely to make the appropriate decisions when action is required.”
Oh yeah, her name is a real mouthful. Maybe I should work on her about using a shorter version? Aunt Aung? I wonder if she would go for that and what is it with the “we” stuff? Is she talking about her and Nikki? That must be it.
Aunt Aung seems to fade as the power that I felt is drawn inside of Nikki’s body. Her face relaxes into the Nikki that I know.
“Phew, she really likes ya Bree.” Nikki says as she stifles a yawn. “But I’m still tired. We should both go back to bed and get some sleep.”
“Umm, I would, but I’m not tired. At all.” I say.
“Really?” She asks, inquisitively tilting her head to the side.
“Yeah. I woke up after only 2 hours and I felt like I had a full night’s sleep. I’m wide awake.” I shrug trying to explain while feeling just as mystified as she looks.
“Oh, well.” Nikki says as she fights back a second yawn. “I’m going to go back to bed. You be good now.” She finishes by doing something that causes the ward to fade away and disappear.
It is only 0200 hours now...okay, 2am. Geez. It will be at least three hours before anyone starts to wake up. I could take a shower before everyone else, but I don’t want to wake my parents with the shower sounds.
“Umm, Nikki?” I ask.
“Yeah?” She asks sleepily as she turns back around at the doorway.
Due to the light coming in from the doorway, I notice her skimpy nightie thing as it reveals her body underneath. “Ummm, do you think that you could cast that privacy thing you did down here and put it in the bathroom? I wanna take a shower before the big rush, but don’t want to wake up my mom and dad with the noise.” I say.
“Oh, that’s a good idea. I kinda forgot about how fast the hot water goes away in a house. I’m used to the dorm’s unlimited supply.” Nikki says with a thoughtful expression. “How did you know that I cast a privacy ward?”
“Oh, well. I’m not sure, exactly, but I felt something and I could see the magic that surrounded the office. I wasn’t sure what it was until I recognized the pattern from a similar looking ward that I had to sneak past in GEO.” I say.
“Oh, now that is somehow disturbing, but not something I wanna think about right now.” She says with a frown before smiling at me. “No problem with the ward. I’ll cast it as soon as I get back upstairs.”
“Thanks!” I say, smiling back at her as I force myself to ignore her body by reminding myself that she is my cousin. Umm, that sort of works. Maybe I should take a cold shower, but how would that work for me now? Do girls work the same way? I never really had to take a cold shower as a guy either, so maybe that saying is just a myth. Hmmm, in that case, it might be nice to have a good and long hot shower without worrying about anyone else needing the hot water or waiting on me. Based on my sister, I’m sure that it will take me ten times longer just to wash up now.
I wait until Nikki is completely up the stairs before I decide to sneak back into my room. While I start rooting through my drawers for some clean panties, err, I mean underwear, Nikki walks out of the bathroom and back into my room.
“Done.” She whispers as she lies back down on her air mattress.
I look over to her and whisper. “Thanks.” As I turn back to rooting through my drawers for clothes, I feel her casting something again. I look back and see that she has made a small privacy bubble around herself. She smiles at me as she snuggles back under her covers and closes her eyes.
Even though I can only see colors grey-scale when I use my low-light vision, it is really helping with the stealth stuff. The noise from creaking floors is one thing, but not needing to turn the lights on to see stuff is the cat’s meow. I can probably just light a candle in the bathroom when I take my shower. That, plus the privacy ward should make it easier to not accidentally wake everyone up.
I end up finding my underwear right where I should have, except it is neatly folded up and put away in my old underwear drawer. How weird is that? The silk panties are in there too. I can’t resist. I have to look and I’m not being a perv if they are mine, right? Oh, they are soft and, umm, silky. OMG, they are so tiny. They have maybe half of the fabric of my cotton underwear. I wonder what they would feel like if I wore them? With that thought, I drop them back in the drawer like they are on fire.
There are a couple more bras in there, too. I wonder where my mom put my socks now. I used to have them in the same drawer as my underwear. I open up the next drawer down and find four times more socks than I ever had. Instead of just a dozen white tube socks, there are a large assortment of different color and types of socks. There are those ankle socks and some regular looking socks, but even those socks look somehow girlie. I don’t think that they are pink, but they just look more delicate and shorter than my old boy socks. There is also a pair of funny looking sweat pants and leggings of some kind neatly folded next to my jeans. I check the last dresser drawer and find it empty now. My old t-shirts were in here before dinner. Where did they go? Could they be in the closet? Why would you need to hang up t-shirts?
Sure enough, I check my closet and find a couple of my older and smaller t-shirts, plus the new girl shirts are hanging up all neatly in my closet now. There are also a couple of dresses hanging up. Those will be in there for a long time. I hope they kept the receipts. I also find five pairs of shoes in there too. I see one dark-colored and one light-colored pair of tennis shoes, a pair of dark colored boots with a small heel, a pair of sandals and a pair of dark colored pointy toe shoes with a small heel. What in the heck am I going to do with so many shoes? The tennis shoes I wore today should last me a year before I maybe grow out of them or wear them out. I can see why a spare pair of those would be good to have, but why do I need all the other shoes when tennis shoes go with everything that I would wear?
Something else hanging in the closet catches my eye. It’s a small dark-colored leather purse. I’m afraid to even touch it, but I am betting that I will need to use it tomorrow. The pockets in my jeans are pretty much just there for decoration. Stupid girl clothes designers!
I tip-toe back to my dresser and grab a clean pair of underwear. Yeah, I know that they are panties, but if I don’t call them that, I can ignore that fact. Besides, I wore briefs as a boy and never called them by that term. I called them underwear, so it’s not like I’m doing anything different now.
It’s now 0220 or 2:20 AM in normal people time. It will be at least another two and a half hours before anyone else starts to get up. I can take a nice and long hot shower without worrying about taking all the hot water. After that, I guess I can try reading all the books in my library that I haven’t had a chance to read yet. If that isn’t enough, I can try the books in my parent’s office too. Most of them are pretty dull, but who knows, maybe I’ll learn something new.
I tip-toe into the bathroom and gently close the door. The night light in there is providing more than enough light for me to see by, so I decide to not even bother with the candle. I take off my pajamas and underwear. Then, I stand back a little so that I can see more of myself in the mirror. The cold air hitting my nipples surprises and distracts me. I’m not used to having such a strong reaction from those parts of my anatomy. My, umm, old nipples reacted to the cold, but the sensation was completely different and barely even noticeable. Heck, just thinking of my male nipples as nipples seems wrong somehow.
With the low-light vision only showing me black and white, I find the sight of my naked-self extremely alluring. Judging my appearance, I decide that I’m not as curvy as Nikki. Instead, I think that I have more of a gymnast's body. I can’t help it, I just find myself so damn hot. I wonder if that makes me stuck up or if it is just normal for someone who just woke up in the body of a hot girl? I am guessing that isn’t a question that very many psychologists ever have to think about answering, but whatever it is, I hope this fascination wears off fast.
As I admire the girl, I mean myself, in the mirror, I feel my, ummm, girl parts start to feel a little warm down there and I feel an overall sense of warmth. Is that what girl arousal feels like? As a guy, I knew without a shadow of a doubt when I was aroused. There was no hiding the fact that my penis was at attention.
I reach up and absently touch my breast, not really expecting anything, but I’ve heard stories about how girls are more sensitive up there. I never had the chance to feel a girl’s breast before. I almost got to that stage with Mary Anderson in the seventh grade, but she decided I was too much of a dork and went out with Joe Miller.
The thought of touching my own breasts is confusing to say the least. On one hand, hehe, they look so perfect and desirable, everything I ever wanted to touch and feel on a girl. On the other hand, they are mine and not some tantalizing object of desire. Well, I still think they are desirable, but, geez, I’m so confused. I don’t know what to think. I involuntarily jump a little as I feel my fingers touching my breast. It feels so soft and different. I feel a tingle as my hand brushes against my erect nipple. Curious, I decide to try squeezing it.
Yikes!
I don’t know how else to describe it, but a warm, almost electric, surge tingles through my entire body. It felt good and it reminds me that the girl in the mirror is really me. She’s not just some wet-dream fantasy of mine. I better get in the shower before I embarrass myself and really need to try out that cold shower thing. Flush with confusion and embarrassment, I grab a fresh towel out of the bathroom closet; I spot my special soap and shampoo in there too. My mom was such a busy beaver tonight. I wonder why she un-packed all my stuff. We are just going to have to repack it in the morning.
I start the water and get it up to temp. As I reach to turn the shower on, I remember that I need a wash cloth now too. Grrrr. I’m really missing the simple boy life. Girl clothes are complicated. Girl movies are complicated and now even something as simple as a shower is complicated too. If someone tells me that I need to shave my legs and armpits now too, I think I’ll scream. That makes me check my armpits and I am pleased to discover that I only have some very fine and practically microscopic hairs there. Same deal for my legs. Maybe I won’t have to worry about that female ritual?
Oh my, the hot spray on my skin feels so good and relaxing. The hot water causes my nipples to relax, which is kind of a relief. If cold air makes my nipples sensitive, then a cold shower probably wouldn’t help if I needed to calm down. That means that girls should have a hot shower, which almost sounds like a positive in the girl column. Without my mom standing in the bathroom and talking to me, I waste five minutes just standing under the water as it massages my back, neck and shoulders.
I start to feel guilty about wasting the hot water, so I decide that I should start washing myself. I begin with the easy stuff, my arms and that goes pretty fast, but the sight of my breasts and the sensation of the washcloth against my nipples start to get me tingling again.
Focus Bree, Focus!
I force my hands further south and the sight of my narrow waist added to my new rounded hips covered with soap bubbles cause me even more confusion. I feel so smooth and I unconsciously slow down as I wash my legs. The open sensation between my legs added to the visual stimulation caused by my wonderfully smooth and definitely all girl legs makes my insides start to feel warm and tingle, a lot. Is this what female arousal feels like? Because, if this is what it is going to feel like every time I take a shower, our hot water bill is going to go way up.
I save my va, umm, va-girl parts for last. I’m not sure how to tackle that mystery part. Okay, it’s not a total mystery. I did take sex education in school, so I know the parts. I just never really paid too much attention and they never covered hygiene with the boys there. It was much more clinical and well, embarrassing. All the guys who claimed to be experts just said, “It’s like this for you virgin wimps. Clit. That’s it. Find a girl’s clit and you can make any girl happy!” The so-called-experts said with smug authority.
Needless to say, I am pretty hesitant to touch myself down there, especially now that it’s feeling all warm and tingly. It didn’t feel that way when I took my first shower, but then again, my mom was sitting right there with me and I didn’t really have the time to think about those things.
Okay. Enough with being such a wimp, I have to wash, ummm, it. I get my wash cloth freshly soaped up and hesitantly begin to wash myself. Okay, without my boy parts, I look so different and alien down there. I’m so smooth and streamlined, but I’m also nervous that I’m going to do something wrong. I catch myself biting my lip as I gingerly clean around and just inside of my new opening. My hand enclosed wash cloth dips just inside.
“Ah!” I involuntarily inhale with surprise. That felt, umm, disturbingly good. I must have brushed up against something in there. Maybe it is that clit thing the guys told me about? That thought makes me freeze with panic and I force myself to stop before I do something wrong. I really need to talk to my mom about this the first chance I get. I have the feeling that is going to be one super embarrassing conversation.
Still, I am kind of curious. What would it feel like? I think that I still have a few, umm, masturbation sessions left on the “more than ninety-nine and it will fall off” counter. Oh crap! Maybe that is why I turned into a girl? How many times did I masturbate?
>Searching...
>47
That many? I didn’t think that I was that bad, but I think that I can consider that counter as reset now that I’m a girl. It’s not like that old wife’s tale is true anyway. I never did grow hair on my palms like they said I would, so why would that ninety-nine times punishment be true either? I wonder what horrible afflictions the old-wives have about girls? Blindness? Oh, I guess “hair on your chest” instead of your palms could be a bad one to fear as a girl.
I want to explore myself, but I force myself to quickly rinse the soap off instead. I direct some water down there with my hand before I start my new beauty routine by scrubbing my face raw. Oh sorry, I guess the correct term is exfoliating. I can no longer just wash myself with a simple bar of soap. Instead, I must exfoliate. Additionally, I can no longer just wash my hair with whatever shampoo happens to be the least smelly. I must now use some all natural herbal flower smelly stuff followed by a generous application of some matching all natural herbal flower smelly conditioner goop.
Once that is done, I nudge the water temp up a bit and just stand under the water with my eyes closed and relax. After another five minutes, the water begins to cool down, so I decide that I should get out. Wow, I just took a thirty minute shower. Okay, thirty-one minutes and twenty-five point five six seconds, but does that extra minute and twenty five seconds really matter?
I gently pat my skin dry and follow that by patting my hair with my towel to get the worst of the moisture out of my hair. I should just get my hair cut back into a boy style. All this patting and squeegeeing and brushing and blow drying and hair goop is a royal P.I.T.A! Yeah, that is a lot of “ands”, but it is a lot of stuff just for some hair.
This is so damn frustrating! “Ahhhhh!” I softly scream at my new reflection in the mirror. I’m glad the privacy ward is up. I wasn’t that loud, but I’m sure that even my soft scream or more of a loud exclamation would have for sure awakened my mom. On the plus-side, now that I got that out, I do feel a little better now.
I take a deep breath and tentatively run my fingers through my hair to brush it back from my face. I know my hair is still mostly wet, but it feels so soft and silky. I play back my mom’s hair drying and styling instructions from yesterday while I pull out Lindsay’s hair dryer and get to work on trying to duplicate the feat. I am concentrating so hard on styling my hair that I completely lose sight of the fact that I forgot to put on my underwear when Lindsay sleepily walks into the bathroom a minute later. It’s only 0313 in the morning, what is she even doing up?
Lindsay’s eyes snap open with surprise as she steps through the privacy ward and the sound of the hairdryer hits her. “Eeek!” She jumps back with shock and reflexively hits the light switch.
That causes my vision to instantly switch back to normal. With the low-light vision, I kind of expected to be blinded, but I guess that flare compensation thing is working. “Lindsay! Close the door!” I hiss at her after turning off the dryer. I probably should be worried about the fact that she’s in there while I am still naked, but right now, I’m more worried about the light waking up Mom and Dad.
Startled, Lindsay responds to my command and closes the door without slamming it. It looks like Nikki’s privacy ward extends just a little bit outside the door, so maybe it will keep the sound of the door closing from escaping too.
She leans against the door and looks at me with wonder until I get her attention. “Hello?! You can stop staring at me now.” I snap at her with a fierce whisper. I’m not sure why I am whispering at all. If the sound of the hairdryer can’t escape, than my voice shouldn’t either, but I’m trying to be sneaky and you just don’t talk with a normal tone of voice when you are sneaking. It’s against the rules.
Lindsay surprises me by actually looking contrite. “I’m sorry Bree. I woke up and had to go to the bathroom. I didn’t see you and the sound of the dryer scared me.”
That takes the wind out of my sails. It’s hard to be mad at someone when they are being so reasonable. “I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have snapped at you.” I say with an apologetic smile. “Umm, this is so weird.”
Lindsay nods in agreement and grins at me. “Yeah it is. I can’t believe that we both just apologized to each other and that you are standing there completely naked and you’re not having a cow about it.”
Oh yeah, I’m naked. That realization causes me to blush from head to toe while Lindsay giggles at me. I sniff with mild annoyance, I decide to grab my underwear and put them on. This is only the second time in my entire life that I have put on my pa-, umm, underwear. Even though I am under surveillance by my sister, I can’t help but notice how different it feels to have my underwear just slide up my smooth legs and hug my new curves.
“Well, you are doing a good job with your hair.” Lindsay says with a gentle smile after she controls her giggles from watching me scramble to put on my underwear.
“Umm, thanks?” I say, feeling confused by her compliment.
“But, I really need to go pee right now. Do you mind if I go while you finish drying your hair?” Lindsay asks with a grimace as she performs the pee-pee dance.
“Oh, sure? I guess I don’t mind if you don’t mind, but it’s still weird somehow.” I say while I struggle to not giggle at the absurdity of the situation as she races past me and sits herself on the toilet.
“Yeah, I know. Isn’t it?” Lindsay asks, bemused as she looks at me still standing there looking confused.
I’m not sure what to do now that she’s distracting me with her presence. This new dynamic is confusing me. My sister is not supposed to go to the bathroom with me in the room with her and she is treating it like it is no big deal, when just a few days ago, it would’ve been the start of World War Three if I had dared to walk into the bathroom while she was using it.
Lindsay snaps me out of my confusion. “Umm, Bree? Why didn’t I hear the hair dryer until I walked into the bathroom?”
“Oh, I got Nikki to cast a privacy ward around the bathroom so that I could take a shower without waking everyone up.” I say, trying to explain, but I can see that she doesn’t understand something.
“Ummm, what is a privacy ward and why did you need to take a shower so early for?” Lindsay asks as she finishes up, flushes the toilet and motions for me to move so that she can reach the sink.
“Well, a privacy ward is how wizards keep people from hearing their secret meetings. I woke up at one AM and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I decided that I should take a shower before the morning rush.” I say while she washes her hands.
Once she is done, Lindsay decides to make herself comfortable in the bathroom by sitting on the closed toilet lid. “Oh, so no one can hear us outside of the bathroom right now?”
“Yep.” I say.
“Cool! How long does it last?” She asks, visibly excited.
“I’m not sure, but I kind of need to finish my hair before it completely dries, I think.” I say in an attempt to remind her that she’s in the bathroom with me.
“Okay.” Lindsay says, simply and without making any sign that she’s going to leave.
“Aren’t you going to go back to bed?” I ask feeling confused as to why it looks like she’s here to stay and wondering if I should put my pajamas on now too. I’m not sure if it matters anymore though.
“No. I think that I will just watch you and see if you need any help.” Lindsay says with a smile.
“Okay. Who are you and what have you done with my sister?” I ask with a serious expression. Really, Lindsay would have never done this before I accidentally turned myself into a girl.
I turn the dryer back on and as I glance back to Lindsay, I am a little shocked when I see her eyes well up with tears as she pulls her knees up and hugs them to her chest. I quickly turn the dryer off and wonder what I should do. Did my joke hurt her feelings somehow?
Lindsay’s eyes begin to well up with emotion. “Oh, Brian...The night that you were in that suit thing. I sat in your room with Mom and Dad, and all I could think about was what I would do without you. I remembered how I got you beat up when I wore that short skirt to school last year and how much I hated you for ratting me out to Mom.” She begins to rock slowly back and forth as she cries into her arms.
I want to go over and hug her and tell her that it’s okay, but I realize that my boobs, I mean, my girls are exposed and girls aren’t supposed to do that. At the same time, I kind of have an excuse so I’m not sure what to do. I decide to quickly toss on my pajama top, but don’t bother buttoning it and wrap her up in my arms. “I’m sorry that I scared you, but I’m sure that we will be both back to normal and hating each other in a week or two.”
“No we won’t.” Lindsay says with conviction as she tries to stifle her sniffles as she keeps her head down and talks into her arms.
“Oh yeah we will. Just think, I can wear your clothes now.” I say with a grin that gets her to look up at me. That causes her to break into a weak smile. I peel off some toilet paper for her eyes and hand it to her.
“Well then, I will just have to make sure all my clothes are spandex and lycra!” Lindsay says with the start of her normal mischievous grin as she dabs the tears from her eyes.
“See? Back to normal already!” I say with mock authority. I begin to feel a bit apprehensive her face takes on “the look” that precedes any truly evil plan of hers.
“Oh yeah, and don’t even think about stealing my boyfriends you green-eyed hussy!” Lindsay says with a finger wag and stern expression.
I think that my shocked and panicked expression snaps her completely out of her funk. I am speechless at the idea and now I know that she’s just as evil as Nikki and Sara. I am in so much trouble. Wait a minute. Where did she learn to use the word “hussy”?
Lindsay just giggles and gives me a quick hug. “You should get back to work on your hair, sis.”
“Yeah, sure…” I say in a daze before walk back over to the sink and get back to work on my hair with the dryer.
It only takes another 15 seconds before she gets up and stops me. “Here, you’re doing pretty well, but lemme help you. I can show you some more tricks.” She holds out her hands expectantly.
I’m still off balance from her boyfriend joke. It was a joke, right? I don’t know what to do, so I decide that it might be easier to just go with the flow as I hand her the hair weapons.
Lindsay happily smiles at me as she gets to work. She stops after a minute, grabs some hair gunk and begins to expertly apply it to my hair as she shapes and molds my hair with the dryer. After just another minute, she turns off the dryer and runs her fingers through my hair to make some final adjustments. “Wow, your hair is so soft and silky! I wish I had hair like yours.” She says, sounding a little jealous.
“Umm, thanks. Are we done now?” I ask.
Lindsay gives me a quick nod and a happy grin. “Yep! All done and you’re looking awesome if I do say so myself.”
“Oh great, because I’m starting to feel weird about you catching me naked.” I say as a nervous giggle escapes me.
“Oh. Just now? I kind of expected you to scream at me and scramble to put on all of your clothes as soon as I walked in on you. I know I would’ve.” Lindsay says with confused expression on her face. “So, why do you seem so comfortable in the nude?”
“I don’t know if I’m comfortable. I think it is more that when I see myself, it takes me a few seconds to remember that the girl I see is me. I mean, I feel like I’m just wearing a really good Halloween costume.” I say.
Lindsay takes a second to digest my answer. “Hmmm, I guess that kind of makes sense, but I’m actually a little jealous of you sis.”
“Jealous!? Why would you be jealous of me? You’re beautiful.” I say, shocked that she could be jealous of me. I really do think she is pretty and judging by the number of questions about her that I got last year when we were still in the same school, so do a lot of other boys.
“Are you sure no one can hear us in here?” Lindsay asks.
Uh oh, this is beginning to sound like it could turn into a serious conversation. I decide that now might be a good time to put on my pajama bottoms. “Well, did you hear the dryer before you walked in here and is Mom still asleep?” I ask as I quickly step into my pajama bottoms.
“Good point. Okay, well, for starters, you have some cool super powers.” She begins by counting points off using her fingers while I finish dressing by buttoning up my pajama top. “Two, you’re friends with someone cool like Nikki. Three, your eyes and hair are absolutely gorgeous and four, you’re just so pretty. I’d kill to have a figure like yours!”
That last point kind of makes me nervous. I can’t believe that Lindsay thinks that I have a better body than she does. Actually, I just find the idea that she would compare her body to mine a little unsettling. “Umm, I really don’t know what to think. I’m a little new to this girl stuff and I don’t know how to handle a compliment like that from anyone, let alone another girl, especially, when that girl is my sister.” I say as I feel myself starting to blush.
Lindsay giggles at me. “Oh, that’s easy. You just say thanks, deny it and tell me that you think I’m way better looking than you are.”
“Oh. Well, thanks, not true, you’re so much better looking than I am and that’s so not what I, ever in a million years, would have ever expected to tell anyone.” I say, finishing with a nervous laugh.
“Why?” Lindsay asks, tilting her head to the side, confused.
I don’t understand why she would be surprised or confused about that. “Well, because if I had ever said something like that to another guy; they would’ve thought that I was gay and kicked my ass.”
“What?!? No way. That’s crazy. You mean guys never compliment their friends on how they look?” Lindsay asks, incredulously.
“Ummm, not really, no. We, I mean, they...” I find myself blushing at the mix-up. “…might sometimes say that they like their cool t-shirt, or that they are ‘looking good’ just before a hot date, but another guy would never say that their friend’s eyes or any other part of their body are ‘gorgeous’ or ‘pretty’. It’s just not done!”
Lindsay shakes her head slow back forth looking both confused and amazed at the same time. “Well, that’s just weeiiaard.” Lindsay says while attempting to stop a yawn.
“Lindsay, It’s 3:30 in the morning.” I say, automatically translating the time for her. “You should get back to bed.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right.” Lindsay pauses as another yawn escapes. “I am still pretty tired, but I’m glad that I had to go to the bathroom. It was nice to have some time to just chat with you and help you with your hair.” She smiles at me fondly and touches my hair.
I reach over and turn off the light before I open the door. My low-light vision snaps on and I look back and spot Lindsay trying to find her way without bumping into anything. I reach for her hand. “Lemme help you.” I say.
“You can see in the dark?” Lindsay whispers.
“Yep. It’s all black and white, but I can see everything perfectly.” I whisper even though we are still inside the privacy ward, but I guess it is a natural reaction when someone else is whispering.
“Oh cool. One more reason to be jealous of my older little sister.” She whispers with a smirk.
“Hey, watch it there. I might accidentally lead you off the end of the stairs.” I whisper as I start to guide her out of the bathroom. Lindsay just puts her other hand over her mouth to keep herself from laughing at me. I get her safely into her room and even tuck her back into her bed.
As I finish getting her tucked in, Lindsay looks up at me. “Bree?” She softly asks.
“Yeah?” I ask.
“Can you stay with me until I fall back asleep?” Lindsay asks with another yawn.
“Umm, sure.” I say, hesitantly. This clingy side of my sister is a little hard to get used to, but I guess I scared her a little. I must admit that it makes me feel good to have my pain in the butt sister back instead of the bratty know-it-all that she had turned into at the start of the 7th grade.
Lindsay smiles as she closes her eyes. “Thanks sis. Love ya.” She says through another yawn.
“I love ya too, Liddy.” I say as I am overcome by the moment. I brush her hair off her face, lean over and give her impulsive kiss on her forehead. Her contented smile slowly fades as she begins to fall back asleep. Three minutes and some change later, her breathing evens out and she begins to gently snore. Well, not really snore, but I will tell her that she snores later. That should be good for a laugh or two.
I give her covers one last tuck before I sneak out of her room and back into my room. Nikki is still asleep so I carefully tip-toe over to my book shelf before I remember that she put a privacy ward around herself. I guess that I don’t need to worry about accidentally waking her up. Unfortunately, I’ve already read almost all of the books here. I grab the few that I haven’t read, walk back and sit down on my bed. 10 minutes and 37 seconds later, I’ve read all three of the books. I would’ve read them faster, but I had to turn the pages. I sigh. Somehow, this new reading power just isn’t as enjoyable. It’s just data. The plot and characters are just there and don’t really mean anything to me.
Hmmm, I wonder?
I re-read some books while I was doing that fsck thing. That seemed to take the same amount of time to read a book as before and it felt relaxing. With that thought, I sit on my bed, lean my back against the headboard and pull my cloud up to cover my legs. After I finish making myself comfortable, I concentrate on finding my virtual living room again and my real bed and room fades to black. As soon as that happens, a room begins to materialize around me and once again, I find myself standing in the middle of my virtual living room.
Okay, but how will I know what is going on outside my virtual room and in the real world? I would hate to be stuck in here again. I imagine the TV displaying the outside world and a 3D picture of what my real eyes are viewing shows up on the screen. Well, since I don’t need those blue and red glasses, it’s really more like looking out of a window. Now, that is pretty cool, but how do I know that it’s really my real room that I am seeing?
I need to be able to look around or change my viewpoint to look at the door so I can see when my mom comes in to wake Nikki and me up in the morning. I walk over to the TV and concentrate on changing my view. Maybe I can move my head and look at something else from inside here. Kind of like a TV camera.
It works! I watch as my field of vision slowly changes as my real head looks around my real bed room from inside my virtual living room. That’s actually a little disturbing when I think about it. I see Nikki and I once again find myself sighing with contentment as I watch her sleeping.
“Sweet dreams cuz,” I whisper before I turn my real head a bit more until I can see both Nikki and the door to my room. Satisfied with my adjustments, I sit down on the couch and get myself comfortable as I open one of the new books and begin reading it.
I stop after a minute. Something is missing. Ah, yes. I need my new cloud blanket to snuggle under while I read my book. I summon my blanket and open my book again; I barely even register the fact that I felt the need to “snuggle”.
Should I be worried?
1.5 hours, one 357 page novel later and two more books to go, I almost feel like my old self. I’m sitting on the couch and reading a book. That part is very normal and comforting.
Initially, it was my hair that worked as a constant reminder of my not so normal life. My long bangs kept falling forward every time I tilted my head down to read. After about the tenth time that happened, I got tired of trying to keep my hair tucked back behind my pointy ears. So, I just summoned one of my old baseball caps to wear backward with my hair tucked into it.
No sissy hair band for me! I’m gangsta!
Oh wait, I would have to have my hat off to the side for that. Not happening. Anyway, now that my hair isn’t constantly playing havoc with my reading; it is all of the other odd sensations my alien body is reporting to me that is weirding me out.
Simple things like the sound of my own voice or the sensation of my skin smoothly sliding against any fabric still trip my weird meter. I’m not even going to start with the more obvious boy/girl differences, because the sensations coming from my chest and crotch are more than just “odd”. I think my shower helped and I will grant that I’m starting to get used my new voice, but I’m not there yet. However, I am a little curious as to why I cannot turn myself into well, myself, inside my virtual space. I can do anything else that I’ve tried to imagine, but why can’t I be a boy?
Oh well, I’m not going to solve that riddle right now and maybe this virtual me thing will help me get used to my new body. In here, I can probably dance, run, jump, and practice my katas or any number of simulations that might help me to become more comfortable in my new body. I can’t decide on what to do now. It’s oh-five hundred and my mom will probably be up any minute now. So, I don’t really want to get started on another book right now.
Hmmm, what I would look like in Selene’s vampire hunter outfit?
With that thought, I stand and walk over to the mirror. As I walk over, my outfit changes into a black leather, skin-tight outfit complete with a corset that looks exactly like Selene’s. I even have a pair of guns sticking out of low slung hip holsters. I can’t believe that I look so smoking hot. On top of that, I can’t believe that I just thought of myself as being “smoking hot”. I perform a few different poses and check myself out from the side and the back. My god, the combination of the corset with the skin tight black leather pants!
Wowser! Eat your heart out Selene!
If I decide to become a super hero, this is the outfit that I’m going to wear. I could probably get a distraction bonus if I’m fighting a dude and a jealousy/rage bonus if it’s another chick. Rut Roh! I better watch that. I might be starting to think of myself as a girl.
With that dose of reality, I get back into character by hissing at the mirror like a vampire as I adopt a gunfighter stance using my fingers as a fake gun. “Oh yeah, watch out evil vampires. I’m coming for you with my deadly finger gun!”
I laugh at myself. Finger gun? Why am I using my fingers when I have two guns in my hip holsters? I reach down, and like a bad ass cowboy, draw my irons them out like I’m in a quick-draw contest. I would try spinning them, but they feel real and I’d hate to drop one and look like a green horn, hehe.
>Weapons Detected...
>IFSFCS Activated
Whoa there partna, what the heck?!?!
>Searching IFSFCS Weapons DB for match...
>Match found.
>
>Manufacturer: Beretta
>Model: 92FS
>Caliber: 9x19mm
>Capacity: 15
>Fire Modes: Semiautomatic, Full-Auto
>Modifications: Full-Auto Fire Mode, Compensator Fitted
>Maximum Effective Range: 50 m
>
>Weapon 1 Searching for IFSFCS Smart Link...
>Weapon 1 IFSFCS Smart Link Not Found
>Weapon 1 Creating Simulated IFSFCS Smart Link
>Weapon 1 IFSFCS Smart Link: Enabled
>Weapon 1 Ammunition Status: 15 Rounds
>Weapon 2 Searching for IFSFCS Smart Link...
>Weapon 2 IFSFCS Smart Link Not Found
>Weapon 2 Creating Simulated IFSFCS Smart Link
>Weapon 2 IFSFCS Smart Link: Enabled
>Weapon 2 Ammunition Status: 15 Rounds
>
>Engage Tactical Firearms Simulation? Y/n
Hey, this is kind of cool, but it’s obvious to me that the military loves its acronyms and what in the heck does that IFSFCS thing stand for?
>Individual Future Soldier Fire-Control System
Fire Control?
I get no further cryptic definitions to help me figure it out, but I assume that it means something with guns and not Smokey the Bear putting out forest fires. I decide to try “Yes” for the simulation question and as soon as I do that, a new list of options display.
>Select Scenario
>1) Target Practice
>2) Hostage Rescue
>3) Custom
Okay, should I keep it simple or go all out with the “Custom” option? How about if I go middle of the road with the Hostage Rescue? Decisions, Decision, Decisions...
I think that I’ll use the K.I.S.S. principle for now. So, I select option number one.
My virtual living room dissolves and I find myself in a shooting range. I think it’s one anyway. I’ve never actually been in a shooting range, but I’ve seen plenty on TV and I did stay at a secret government lab last night. As I look around, this range looks a little different though. Instead of a single row of firing stations all facing in one direction, I’m in the middle of a room with only one firing station and no other doors or windows.
I decide that I probably need to be able to see into my real room in case my mom tries to wake me up. I look around and wonder where I should put the TV to monitor my real room. Hmmm, maybe if I put it on the wall of the firing station so that I can see it using my peripheral vision. A small LCD TV appears on the wall right where I imagined it and I can see the door of my room displayed on it. Sweet!
I walk into the yellow painted hazard area that contains a small table that I assume is for setting guns and spare bullets on. A large dark area for the range lights up and I see a black and white paper human silhouette target hanging 25 meters down the range. I glance to the TV and I am relieved to note that there is still no sign of my mom. That means that I can play.
I know that in the movies, dual guns are mostly or even completely fake. There is no way that someone can really shoot two guns at the same time with any degree of accuracy, but this isn’t real, so I might as well have some fun with it.
I bring up my right-hand gun and I see a small red dot appear on the target. “What the!?” Where did the laser dot come from? There isn’t a laser scope on this gun. Oh well, if it’s stupid but it works, than it isn’t stupid. I put the dot in the middle of the silhouette's head and pull the trigger.
Nothing. The trigger is stuck. Why won’t it fire?
>Weapon 1 fire mode: Safe
Ah crap. I forgot to take the gun off of ‘safe’. There is a small button on the hand grip and a lever on top. I wonder which one is the safety? I decide to set my left hand gun down on the table so that I can use my other hand to figure this thing out first.
>Weapon 2 IFSFCS Smart Link: Disabled
I push the button on the hand-grip first and the magazine falls out. I catch it before it hits the floor. Okay, that was the wrong button. I slide the magazine back into the gun with a click. Next, I slide the little lever on the top and I hear and feel it click once.
>Weapon 1 fire mode: Semi-Automatic
I notice that the lever might have more room to travel, so I push on it. Once again, I hear and feel it click.
>Weapon 1 fire mode: Automatic
I decide to put it back to Semi-Automatic. Maybe I can play with the Automatic in a little bit.
>Weapon 1 fire mode: Semi-Automatic
With my right hand holding the gun and my left hand helping to support it like I’ve seen on TV, I point my gun at the target and carefully center the red dot on the target’s face. I feel a little nervous. I have no idea what is going to happen when I pull the trigger. My arms are rock steady, so that is a relief. “No guts, no glory” they say. I pull the trigger.
CRACK!
The gun kicks in my hand, but I manage to hold it steady as an empty bullet thing is ejected out of the side of my gun with a small puff of smoke. Empty bullet thing? What in the heck do they call that?
>Spent Cartridge
>Brass
>Spent Case
Oh, thanks.
>Weapon 1 Ammunition Status: 14 Rounds
Oh, that was loud and not at all what I expected it to sound like. I expected it to be more of a “bang” sound instead of a crisp “crack” sound. Maybe real bullets sound different than the blanks they shoot on TV? I can even smell the burnt gun powder. This is a pretty damn realistic simulation. I look at my target and there is now a hole exactly where the red dot was at.
I know that it is childish, but I put the next red dot to where an eye might be.
CRACK!
>Weapon 1 Ammunition Status: 13 Rounds
Once again, there is now a hole exactly where I put the red dot.
CRACK!
>Weapon 1 Ammunition Status: 12 Rounds
Another hole. Now I have two eyes and a nose on my target. This is more than just fun, this is kick ass fun! I need to give my target a smiley face. As I make that decision, a series of six black X’s appear on the target to form a mouth. Oh, neat. Now I have a series of aiming points for my smiley face.
I take deep breath to center myself. I slowly exhale and I feel tension that I didn’t even know I had leave my body with my breath. Nothing else exists for me except for those six X’s on the target.
CRA-A-A-A-CK!
>Weapon 1 Ammunition Status: 11 Rounds
The first shot surprises me. Not just the fact that I shot, but also the sound of the gun firing. Unlike the previous shots, this time the sound of the gun firing is long and drawn out. The first X disappears as a hole appears on the target in its place. I finally figure out why the sound is so different. I have somehow entered into a super-slow motion mode. The first shell casing appears to be floating lazily in mid-air as it’s ejected from the side of my gun. I watch the solid red dot jerk up and slightly to the left an inch before I calmly drop it back down to center it on the second X. It’s like I have all the time in the world.
CRA-A-A-A-CK!
>Weapon 1 Ammunition Status: 10 Rounds
Another hole appears on the target as a second cartridge is ejected out of the firing chamber with a puff of smoke. Just like the first cartridge, the second follows the same slow motion arcing path on its journey to the floor.
I finish the remaining four shots and as the final shot echoes and fades, the slow-motion effect ends for me as I hear the first cartridge hitting the floor with a “tiiiing” sound. After that, the remaining cartridges rapidly fall to the floor with a metallic ting-ting-ting sound that echoes in the room as they bounce off the concrete floor and each other.
I can’t help feeling immensely satisfied when I see the perfect happy face that I shot into my target. “Holy crap! This is so cool! It’s like I am Neo in the Matrix!” I sound like a giddy school girl, but I’m so jazzed that I don’t care. Yeah, I know that it’s cheesy to shoot a happy face, but it was fun and this is only a simulation so who cares? As I bask in the afterglow of the best gun sim that I’ve ever played, I notice movement on the TV. It’s my Mom.
“Brianna?”
My internal clock tells me that it’s 0532. That is a bit of a surprise. I shift myself back into the real world and blink my eyes a few times. “Yeah Mom?”
She looks at me with concern mixed in with a little confusion. “Are you okay? You looked like a statue just sitting there on your bed like that.”
I smile at her. “Oh, sorry. I was, umm, reading a book and playing a video game while I waited for everyone to get up.”
She looks even more confused now. “A book? A game? Where?”
“I’m sorry. I was inside my virtual room.” I can see that my explanation isn’t really helping. “You know, like where I was while that re-org of my brain was going on the other day?”
Her confusion clears up and she even smiles a bit. “Oh yeah. I forgot about that. How long have you been up?”
“Oh, since one am.”
Her eyes widen with concern and surprise. “Why have you been up for so long and why didn’t you just go back to sleep?”
“I dunno.” I say, shrugging my shoulders. “I woke up after only two hours and I felt like I had just slept for a full eight hours. I tried, but I couldn’t get back to sleep.” I can’t tell if my mom’s reassured by my explanation or not.
“Do you want to take a shower now while I go and get breakfast started?” She asks.
“I already took one. Do you want some help?” I’m starting to feel a little bad for my mom. I’m not normally this ahead of schedule at this un-godly hour in the morning.
Her expression drops back to confused, “What? You already took one? I never heard you.”
I smile at her. She just can’t get a break with all the surprises this morning. I try to go for a no-big-deal tone of voice. “Yeah. Nikki cast a privacy ward in the bathroom so I could take a shower and dry my hair without waking everyone up.”
“Ookaay.” She says, casting a glance toward Nikki. “But, I am surprised that we haven’t woke her up with all our talking or does she have one of those ward things around her too?”
I nod affirmatively and smile fondly at the peacefully sleeping Nikki. “Oh yeah, she did one around herself so I wouldn’t accidentally wake her up again.”
I think my “nothing to see here” tone of voice is helping her. She sighs. “Do you want to wake her up? See if she wants to take a shower.”
“Sure! She’ll probably like that.” I say, grinning. “Well, the shower part.”
She casts another quick glance toward Nikki. “Okay. I guess I could use some help getting things ready in the kitchen. Why don’t you put on some clothes and come on down when you’re ready?”
That reminds me about the clothes issue. I am a little worried about what to wear, but I force myself to smile and be happy for my mom anyway. On the other-hand, I am glad that I can do something to help and it will be much easier on my sanity if I’m not in the room while Nikki is getting ready. “Sure thing!” I say, enthusiastically.
My mom just shakes her head with bemusement and smiles at me as she closes my door.
I head over to wake up Nikki, but stop before I reach her. I wonder if I can see her ward. I will my magical vision to activate again. Unlike my other vision modes, this one doesn’t have the nifty status notification, but I am still delighted when her privacy ward springs to life around her.
As I study Nikki’s ward, it goes from a solid glowing orb and becomes something that looks like a large and complex net woven around her. I see line of magic that drops down from the top of the orb and connects to Nikki’s head. Based on that, I guess is that if I cross into the ward, she will be alerted. I wonder what would happen if I tried to sneak through it like Whisper?
I reach for one of the lines that make up the net like pattern and I can feel a slight tingle of magical energy. I press against that line with my hand, willing it to move like I would’ve done in order to get past a GEO ward as Whisper.
It moves!
Oh crap. In my excitement, I lose my concentration, which causes my hand to pass through the line. Even messing up is pretty cool. I watch a pulse of magic shoot from where my hand passed through her ward. Almost too fast to follow, the pulse traces its way through the weave of her ward and shoots down the strand that is attached to her head.
Her eyes slowly open and she smiles at me. Her ward flickers and disappears. “Is it time to get up?”
My heart flutters at the sight of her snuggled under the covers. She looks so huggable, but I resist the hug urge and smile at her instead. “Morning, Nikki. My mom just headed downstairs to get some breakfast started. Do you wanna take a shower now?”
Nikki stretches and yawns before she absently props herself up and slides out from under the covers. “Oh, yeah. Thanks Bree, that would be great!”
Her glamour must be hitting me, because I can’t stop myself from blushing when I notice that her flimsy gown has ridden up on her hips and I can see almost every inch of her body. She’s so damn beautiful. Maybe it’s not her glamour. I’m pretty sure that I would’ve felt the exact same thing just a few days ago. Actually, I would have been completely tongue tied and tripping over myself like an idiot. My girl bits begin to tingle; I force myself to turn away before I further embarrass myself. “There are towels in the bathroom. I’ll get ready while you’re in the bathroom. Meet you downstairs?”
I hear Nikki as she slides out of her bed. “Sure! Sounds great. Just lemme grab some clothes.”
I can’t help myself. I turn around and struggle not to stare at her as she carefully looks through her suitcase for some fresh clothes. She is just so relaxed with herself. Her casual and relaxed attitude helps to calm the funny sensations inside of me and gives me hope that someday, I too will be that comfortable in my own body. Thankfully, it only takes her a few seconds of looking before she grabs a few things and heads out of my room with a cheerful smile.
After she leaves, I let out a huge breath of air. I didn’t even realize that I was holding in that much air, but with her gone, I feel myself relax. I double-check my door to make sure that it is closed and turn on the lights before I strip out of my pajamas. It’s still mostly dark outside and I want to be able to see in color when I put my clothes on. It would be embarrassing to walk downstairs wearing mismatched socks, shoes or even worse, a lightish red t-shirt because I thought it was some other color.
I open my underwear door to get a fresh bra and the brilliant colors of the silk panties draw my eyes. Okay, there is a downside to color vision. “Grrr!” I grab the first bra that I can find. With my hands full of bra, not that a bra should be that hard to hold, but I am kind of new at this, I decide to bump my drawer shut with my hips. Instead of a gentle bump, I end up slamming the drawer shut and rocking my dresser a bit. I didn’t expect to put that much English into the bump, but I guess that comes with having bigger hips now. For my troubles, I end up with a black bra, but it doesn’t really matter. I’ll be wearing a shirt over it.
Wonder of all wonders, I manage to put the bra on without too much trouble. I just do the clasp it in the front, spin and slip my arms through the straps. It pinches me a little bit until I adjust my girls with my hands. That feels...weird. This is easy, but there has got to be a better way to put on a bra.
I follow that up by slipping on a pair of jeans and a pair of the flimsy girl socks. I don’t like that the socks only come up to mid-calf, but I guess I will just have to suffer until I can get to a store.
I open my closet and grab a plain, ¾ long sleeved white shirt. I pull it on over my head and check myself out in the mirror. The neck drops a lot more then my boy t-shirts. I can see the delicate shape of my collar bones. I am ashamed to admit it, but except for the neckline, the shirt does fit me better than the old boy t-shirt I wore last night.
Unfortunately, I can see the black bra through the thin fabric. Damn it. Why does the shirt fabric have to be so thin? Isn’t this a long sleeve shirt? Aren’t long sleeve shirts supposed to be warm and thus made out of thicker fabric? The fabric on this thing is thinner than my regular short sleeved t-shirts.
From my ogling days, I know that my girls aren’t “that” big. Maybe I can try going without a bra? That idea is shot down as soon as I remember the sight of Amanda Fredricks when she tried to go bra-less last year. I think that her, umm boobs were the same size as mine are now. I can call her boobs, boobs, because they aren’t my boobs. I mean “my girls”. Oh man, I think my head is going to explode over this boob issue. Back to the bra-less idea, Amanda’s accidental show-and-tell reminds me of the many secret glances and debates in the boy’s locker room that the sight of her “headlights” spawned every time the A/C kicked on. She seemed pretty embarrassed by all the extra attention that day too.
“Okay, I’ll change my bra...” I say, defeated by the girl clothes.
I really am starting to hate opening my underwear drawer. The bright colors of damn silk panties keep grabbing my attention, but I push that traitorous thought aside and swap my black bra for the white one. Once again, I pinch my girls when I put the bra on and once again, I feel like a perv as I adjust them with my fingers. They just feel so soft and well, nice.
Okay, I put my shirt on...again and check myself out in the mirror to make sure I’m not committing some huge fashion faux pas. Son of a... Now I can see the white one contrasting against my skin and the fabric. What in the hell is up with that? White and White, they match, right? Well, it’s not as bad as the black bra, but it is still visible. There is one more bra in the drawer. It’s a light brown colored one. Maybe it’s “tan” or “flesh tone”? I don’t know, but I am sure that women have some special name for this exact shade of brown. I wonder if that color will work better?
Once again, silk panties, pretty colors, “stay on target,” ignore, remove the white bra, put on the light brown bra and finally, pull my shirt back on for the third time now. I check the mirror and wonder of all wonders! We have a match.
I think that I won this round of dressing the girl, but I still feel more than a little frustrated by the experience, “Finally! It ONLY took 16 minutes!” I say, grumbling under my breath.
Thankfully, I can’t think of anything else that I need to do with my clothes. I exit my room and zip down the stairs. I can smell the coffee brewing as soon as I reach the bottom of the stairs. As I enter the kitchen, I spot my mom standing in front of the stove. “Hey Mom, whatcha cooking?”
She looks over her shoulder and smiles at me. “Oh, hi Brianna. I’m just starting to cook the bacon.”
“Oh, okay. Sounds good to me. What else are we having?”
She turns back to the frying pan in front of her as I hear the bacon start to sizzle. “Scrambled eggs, toast and pancakes.”
I can’t help myself. I smile at the thought of all that good standard home-cooked breakfast, until the smell of the cooking bacon hits my nose. It isn’t the yummy good “it’s bacon!” smell that I recall from just a few days ago. I feel the smile disappear from my face as my mom turns back around.
“Is something wrong, Brianna?”
I sigh and struggle to contain my disappointment. “No. It’s not important. I just don’t think that I’ll have any bacon this morning.”
My mom looks at me with sympathy as she walks over and gives me a hug. “I’m sorry honey. I know that it’s not easy for you, but things will get easier. Just gotta give it a little time.”
“Thanks Mom. I know, but it still su...stinks.”
She kisses my forehead. “None of that,now.” She says as she takes a step back and looks at me affectionately. “Nice top Brianna. Did you pick that out yourself or did Nikki help you?”
I am surprised at the sudden conversation shift. “I picked it out, but the bra gave me fits by showing through until I tried the light brown one.”
She gently corrects me. “Beige.”
Oh, so that’s the official girl color for this light brown and sorta tan color. I file that color name away for future use. “Is there anything that I can help you with?”
She studies me for another second before she turns back to her cooking. “Sure. Could you set the table?”
I know that she is probably wondering why I am so eager to help her. Usually, I’d still be dead to the world right now and the thought of helping my mom in the kitchen would be the last thing on my mind, but I find that the sight of my mom cooking in the kitchen feels so normal and comforting to me. I just want to spend as much time as possible doing normal things and feeling normal when so much of my life isn’t normal.
I’m able to ignore the bacon smell, but it does seem to act as a summoning agent for Barry and Barb. The two of them arrive at the kitchen just as I am putting the final couple of juice glasses on the table. I can’t stop myself from giggling as the two of them pretend to be zombies and moan, “coffeeeee!” as they grab some mugs and start pouring the life giving elixir into their mugs.
I watch and struggle to contain my amusement as they chat with my mom. She is a little disappointed to learn that the two of them will be flying back home this afternoon. “Thank you so much for coming Barb, and you too Barry. I know that we didn’t get to spend a lot of time together, but just knowing that you two were here made me feel so much better.”
Barb looks at my mom and smiles. “No problem Jen. It was nice to get out of the big city and take a break. Plus, Barry needed to get out of his nerd cave anyway!”
Barry tries to look hurt. “Hey! It’s not ‘The Nerd Cave’! It’s The Man Cave! Get it right!”
My mom and Barb look at each other and smile while I find myself struggling to not giggle. My mom turns to me with a grin still on her face. “Well, breakfast is almost ready. Why don’t you all sit at the table and I will bring out the food? Brianna? Can you take the pitcher of OJ out of the fridge and put it on the table, please?”
I turn around to grab the pitcher from the fridge. “Sure thing Mom.”
My mom is just bringing out some of the serving bowls and plates when Nikki joins us at the table. I don’t know how she does it, but she looks like she’s ready to do a fashion shoot and for some mysterious reason, think I feel jealous. It’s only a flash or twinge of jealousy, but I still felt it. Why? I’ve never ever in my entire life felt jealous of how a girl dressed or look. Lustful yes, jealous, no. Oh well, one more item to add to the con column on my girlhood chart. A minor victory for the boy’s team!
Nikki smiles at the sight of the plate of pancakes. “Morning, Mrs. Peters, Barb and Barry. The pancakes look and smell dee-lish!”
I take that as my cue for what to start with. I ignore the bacon, but I do add some of the scrambled eggs to my plate. They need some ketchup to give them that little something, but they are edible. The pancakes with some butter and maple syrup, those I love and I can almost forgive the bacon for turning traitor on me. I think that I should just ask Nikki what foods she loves, what foods she hates and start from there.
Breakfast goes pretty fast. My dad and a very sleepy Lindsay join us about half-way through. She manages to mumble, “Good morning…” to everyone and give me a shy smile as she sits down to eat. Lindsay is normally a little more chipper in the morning, but I guess that our early morning hair styling session in the bathroom interrupted her sleep.
I’m finishing up my second plate of pancakes when the doorbell rings. It’s only 0700. Who in the heck could it be?
As my dad answers the door, Nikki hastily chews a bite and washes it down with milk. “Oops, that’s probably my ride!”
I kind of forgot she had the leave early and that she won’t be hanging out with us longer. I wanted to spend more time with her. I drop my fork and follow behind her as she races up the stairs. I almost run into my dad when he takes a step back to allow Sir Wallace through the front door.
“I’ll be right back Sir Wallace. Just need to grab my suitcase!” Nikki yells from the top of the staircase.
“Right.” Sir Wallace checks his watch. “We have a few extra minutes in the schedule.”
I meet Nikki at the door to my room. She’s manhandling her suitcase, making me wonder how she managed to pack it so quickly. Then again, she didn’t actually unpack it. So, it probably wasn’t a big deal, but I’m still amazed at the size of the thing. Why did she pack so much for just a few days? I step forward and grab the handle from her. “Here, lemme get that for you and I hope this isn’t a sign of what I should expect in my future travels!”
I giggle as she gratefully lets me take her suitcase with a sigh of exasperation. “Hey! Couldn’t help it. Never know what can happen on a trip outside of Whateley, but thanks!”
Totting her monster suitcase, I make it down the stairs without breaking my neck and I even manage to make it look easy. I wave off Sir Wallace’s attempt to be chivalrous. “It’s heavier than it looks. I’ll take it to your car.”
He looks a tad disappointed, but shrugs it off quickly and holds the door open for me. “Okaay, right this way lass.”
Their ride is a black SUV with a driver. He jumps forward and takes the suitcase from me and just for giggles, I let him. I do take some pity on him and catch it before it hits the ground with a thud. “Sorry, it’s a little heavier than it looks.” I smirk and assist him loading it into the back of the SUV.
“Yeah, I guess.” He grins, looking a little confused by what he just saw with his eyes and felt with his wimpy, manly muscles.
I know, I know, I shouldn’t think like that. “Sorry, it’s heavy and I’m a bit stronger than I look.”
Nikki gives me a hug before she enters the SUV. “I’m going to miss you, but you’ll be at Whateley in no time and I’m looking forward to finding out how your testing went.”
“Yeah, me too…” I’m not excited about either option. Going to a private boarding school, thousands of miles from home and enduring more medical testing doesn’t sound like fun. Oh yeah, and as a girl. I bet her school makes girls wear those ridiculous skirts you see school girls wear in anime cartoons.
“Hey, it’s going to be fine, you’ll see!” Nikki smiles and somehow fills me with optimism.
“I guess, but umm, how are you getting back?”
Nikki glances over to Sir Wallace. “Yes, how are we getting back?”
“We’re catching a V-22 ‘training flight’ back to the labs, then using their facilities to port to the Utah Salt Flats where the automotive department has a test track with a semi-permanent portal back to Whateley.”
“Oh, I thought I was going to just port us directly to Whateley?” Nikki looks a little disappointed.
“Yes, well, Mrs. Carson decided and I agree with her, that wasting essence and porting directly thru the school’s wards would call attention to our little jaunt. Especially since everyone thinks you’re still at school.” He nods at her.
Nikki blinks, then nods. “Good point, but we could use the courier teleport pad outside the wards.”
“Yes, but then, the front gate Security would have to officially log your arrival and again, draw attention to the fact that you weren’t in school.”
“Oh, that makes sense.” Nikki sighs with mock disappointment. “I guess I’ll just have to suffer with a ride in an Osprey.” Her giggle at the end kind of gives her true feelings away and makes me feel a little jealous. Those new tilt-rotor planes are so cool.
She gives me a wave as her SUV pulls away and I trudge back into the house, feeling a little sad. Now, I kinda wish I was going with her. I’m so messed up.
Returning to my room, I found my mom working on my suitcase. I help her pack it by not helping and since I have so few clothes, my suitcase doesn’t take that long. Compared to Nikki’s monster, my suitcase is downright tiny, just the way I like it.
We are all packed and ready to walk out the door fifteen minutes early. I’m ready to walk out when my mom does the mock throat clear thing. “Uh, hmm, forgetting something?”
I glance around. I’m dressed. I have my shoes on. My suitcase is in hand. “Umm, no?”
“Purse?” Mom points with her eyes to the offending item.
I sullenly grab it. I guess I was trying to forget it. I don’t even know what’s inside it. Maybe my wallet, but why would I need a purse for something so easy to put in a back pocket? Oh yeah, girls don’t have real pockets. Grrr, I hope there’s more inside than just a simple wallet that would’ve easily fit in my back pocket. Dare I open Pandora’s box and find out what the big deal is? Umm, nope. It’s much too perilous and I might find a feminine hygiene product in there.
The good-byes are a little harder than I expected. My dad gives me a hug and a kiss on my forehead. “You be good, Sport, and listen to your mom.” He says, affection causing his voice to choke up a little at the end.
That causes my eyes to get a little moist, but I manage to control the tears this time. “I will, Dad.” I say, giving him a hug that causes him to fight for breath.
“Whoa, careful there slugger!” My dad smiles down at me as I hastily let him go.
Lindsay surprises me by rushing in and giving me a hug. “You better not get into any more trouble, Sis!” She says into my ear before she leans back with a mischievous grin. “I expect you back here in a few days so that we can go shopping!”
I find that idea a little scary. “Umm, so if I get into trouble, I won’t have to go shopping?” I ask, tilting my head to the side while pretending to be confused by the idea.
Lindsay just laughs and gives me another hug. “Love ya Bree! You be safe now! Don’t make me come after you!”
“Love you too Liddy. I’ll try…” I say, returning her hug.
“There is no try, only do.” Lindsay says, completely out of character.
I never expected her to say something corny like that to me. “Hey! That’s my line!”
We both end up laughing as we break apart. My spirits are pretty high as we get into the car for the long ride back to the labs. Thinking about the long drive back, makes me wonder why we couldn’t have hitched a ride with Nikki on the Osprey. That would’ve been so much more fun!
I can’t stop myself from feeling a little sad as I look back and wave goodbye to Lindsay and my dad standing in the driveway. My mom just looks back and smiles fondly at me before returning her eyes to the road as we pull out of our neighborhood for what feels like the last time for me.
After we arrive, I gladly hand Dr. Edmundson the plastic bag with my yucky urine samples. I sure hope that he doesn’t find anything in them. Going to the bathroom is bad enough as it is without having to pee into a cup every time too. Yeah, sitting down to pee and urine samples add two more in the “con” column. I would add the period thing to the chart, but I think that I will save that in case I need a tie breaker on the chart. I also think that the period thing should count as more than one “con”, but I will work that out when I get there.
Dr. Edmundson performs another quick physical examination and pronounces me perfectly healthy. My medical system agrees with his assessment. I get bored during all the examinations and ask it for a report. The report lists almost every organ in my body with a green lettered status of “OK”. I think that I could just touch a printer and print it off for Dr. Edmundson, but with Nikki’s warning about the computer stuff, I decide that showing off could cause me even more trouble.
In spite of all the other issues I have to deal with right now, I am glad that both Dr. Edmundson and my snazzy new on-board medical system agree that I am healthy. Damn it! Another girlhood pro item. Oh well, the con column is still pretty long. No danger of me liking this girl stuff anytime soon.
~o~O~o~
Insert standard disclaimer here: The one that reminds everyone that this is a work of fiction. No one is real and any resemblance to someone who is real is just the reader's imagination. This is also a Fan Fiction set in the Whateley Story Universe. No Canon characters were permanently harmed in the making of this story. I hope. :)
Note: This chapter needed fewer revisions and I was feeling nice due to all the comments that previous chapter received. So, thanks for the comments. They really do help and occasionally help germinate a story idea. Additionally, the next chapter is mostly ready, but once ch 27 is posted, things might slow down a bit since I will once again be in development mode. Thanks again to djkauf for fixing my many mistakes!
Sunday, 18-Feb-2007 1920 hrs
I must admit, the flight in DARPA’s private jet was pretty damn cool. It was still a long flight, but it was way more comfortable than flying commercial. Follow that up by having the freaking President of the United States of America call and I challenge anyone to not feel a bit stressed. Even more crazy was his advisor’s idea that I should be able to qualify for a JROTC scholarship to pay for me to go to Whateley and even College if I wanted to. I just want the crazy days to end so that I can relax. I am so not looking forward to all the tests that they want to run on me over the next few days, but I guess that the sooner I get them over with, the sooner I can go home.
I am surprised by how normal and hotel-ie ( if that is even a real word) that the Air Force’s Temporary Bachelor Officer Quarters look like. Just like a normal hotel, there is a front desk with a small lobby area complete with a big TV showing the news. I catch the tail end of the story they are calling “Terror in the Skies!” and briefly wonder what that is all about. Fortunately, I spot a few leftover newspapers stacked on the front desk with a picture of a Virgin Atlantic plane on the front page. I decide to grab one to read in the room; If I get the chance. I briefly consider scanning it while waiting to be checked in, but that process goes much faster than I expect. I guess that having Mr. Reilly and Langley’s commanding General make your room arrangements can make things go smoother than normal.
“Finally!” I say as my mom and I enter a normal looking hotel styled room. Based on the movies, I expected to see a highly polished floor, footlockers and industrial gray metal beds. Instead, the room looks exactly like a regular hotel room complete with carpet, two queen sized beds, mini-fridge, microwave and 27 inch TV. I detect an open wi-fi access point, but with Nikki’s warning, I’m not even going to look at it. If it weren’t for the uniformed and very polite Air Force Staff Sergeant who is assisting us with our room, I would think we were in a regular hotel.
“Is there anything else that I can help you with, ma’am?” Sergeant Rawlings asks my mom after he insists on helping my mom with her monster suitcase. He tries to help me, but I just smile at him as I easily put my smaller suitcase on the suitcase stand.
My suitcase is super light and it’s not because of my newfound strength. It’s only half-full, or empty, depending on how I think about it and that makes me a little concerned that my mom has plans to fill it before we leave. I’m not going to worry about that right now because it’s Sunday, it’s late and I’m starving, again. So, unless the good Sergeant can cook or drive us to a restaurant; I doubt that he can really help us. I look at my mom with my best “I’m starving” expression.
My mom turns to Sergeant Rawlings. “Yes, thanks for your help, but do you know where we might be able to find a decent restaurant that might be within walking distance?”
I think that I’m getting better at my non-verbal communication skills. Maybe I should try working on my increase-my-allowance expression next.
Sergeant Rawlings shakes his head ‘no’ and I start to get worried. “I’m sorry ma’am. There are none that are really within walking distance, but the General did leave a driver and a vehicle for you to use while you and your daughter are staying with us.”
Like, OMG! I could kiss the dude, but not, because that would be yuck and I’m still not used to be referred to as a “daughter”. That noun is unsettling.
My mom smiles at the Sergeant. “I didn’t realize that he was going to leave a car for us.” She pauses for a second and looks at me with a thoughtful expression. “It is a shame that it is Sunday and that it is so late. I would love to be able to take you to a mall for some shopping.”
Yep, I was right. She does have plans to fill my suitcase with more girl clothes. “Yeah mom, what a shame.” I say with maximum false enthusiasm. “But, on the plus side, I am sure there are some restaurants that are open.” I helpfully offer as a food friendly alternative. My mom laughs at my not so subtle attempt to get her mind away from the shopping trip. I am positive that I am going to hate my first mall shopping death-march experience. Going from store to store and trying on thousands of outfits while only buying one or two items is not my idea of a constructive use of free time. I don’t even want to think about the inevitable first salon trip that I am sure my mom and sister are already planning for me.
Sergeant Rawlings chooses that moment to make a strategic withdrawal from our room. “Ma’am, if you don’t need anything else, I will go let your driver know that you will be heading down soon so that you all can get some chow. I mean food.”
“Oh thanks, umm, Sergeant Rawlings. It will probably take us a few minutes to get ready.”
As soon as the door closes on his retreat, I turn to my mom. “A few minutes?” I ask, concerned that my mom has plans that will delay our eating plans. I can’t think of any reason why we can’t leave right now.
“Yes dear. I need to freshen up my makeup and change out of my travel wrinkled clothes. It wouldn’t kill you to put on a fresh top, too.”
I don’t see what is wrong with our clothes. They aren’t ‘that’ wrinkled. We flew on a private jet. It’s not like we flew commercial and had to sit all jammed together and stuff. Plus, my mom’s face looks perfect to me. “Ummm, okay. I don’t really have that many other clothes to wear. Wouldn’t it be better if I just went with what I have on already?”
“No, Bree. Your jeans are fine, but that top is out. Just grab a fresh top from your suitcase while I freshen up in the bathroom.” My mom extracts her full size makeup kit from her suit case and some fresh clothes before she walks into the bathroom.
Ten minutes later, I have three different tops spread out on the bed and I am feeling thoroughly confused when my mom walks out of the bathroom ready to go. There are only six different tops or shirts or whatever girls call them in my suitcase. Of the three tops that survived the cut, two of them are short-sleeve and one of them is actually a tank top. I know that we are in Virginia and it is warmer here than it is at home, but it is still winter here so I don’t understand why I don’t have any more long sleeve shirts. Do girls just expect to be cold all the time? Maybe a shopping trip isn’t such a bad idea.
The one tank top is in the running only because it is black. The other two tops have a v-neck and I am not too sure I want to expose that much of my chest. Aaaah! This modesty crap is getting on my nerves. I never worried about this kind of crap when I was a boy. Seriously, as a guy, I could walk around with no shirt on at all and not have a care in the world. Well, except for sunburn. Why in the hell should it matter if I’m wearing a shirt, but showing a little bit of the very top of my chest? Millions of girls across the world wear this kind of clothing every day and they look hot. Maybe that is the problem. I don’t want to look hot and grab the attention of every guy, but I also don’t want to stick out. If I want to fit in and not be noticed, I need to wear what everyone expects girls to wear. Maybe I will feel better about it if I think of the clothes as girl camouflage.
Okay. Camouflage. Black tank top with black bra and I saw a spiffy looking black zip up sweatshirt in my suitcase. I pull out the sweatshirt and place it next to the tank top.
My mom chooses that moment to weigh in on the issue. “That is a good idea Bree, but you should wear the navy cami with that sweatshirt instead of the tank top. Black is good, but there is such a thing as too much black.”
“Cami? Navy? Why would I want to wear some navy clothes on an Air Force Base?”
The look on my mom’s face would be extremely funny if she wasn’t trying to not laugh at me. “Oh Bree, I’m sorry.” She gives me an affectionate hug. “I just forgot how much you don’t know about women’s clothing.” She reaches into my suitcase and pulls out a dark blue silk thing with strings for shoulders. “Okay, this is called a ‘camisole’ and the color is ‘navy blue’. You don’t need to wear a bra with this because there is a built in bra, plus, you will be wearing your sweatshirt over it.”
Ooohh, no bra! That sounds like a win to me. My chest could use the break, but why would I even need to wear the camisole thing when the sweatshirt thing will just cover it up? I shrug and re-remind myself. Camouflage.
The cami thing feels nice against my skin and my breasts, umm, girls, umm, never mind, I like the less restrictive feeling up there. The cami thing hugs my stomach and falls to about mid-hip on me. I do like what I see in the mirror and I can’t stop the self-satisfied smile that sneaks out of me.
My mom sneaks in another hug and hands me the black sweatshirt to wear over the cami. The sleeves only come to just above my elbow and the waist stops at my belly button, but at least it zips all the way up to my neck. My mom steps in and adjusts the zipper down until it is in the middle of my chest so that the top of my cami shows. She runs a brush through my hair a few times and gives me a critical once over. Satisfied with the results, she gives quick kiss on the forehead. “Almost perfect. All you need now is a little lip gloss.” She hands me a tube of some lip balm stuff. “Here, put this on.”
“Camouflage.” I mutter to myself as my new mantra for girl clothing acceptance.
“What was that Bree?”
“Oh, nothing. Just reminding myself not to worry about how I look.”
“Oh, that’s good, because you look lovely. I’m feeling kind of hungry now too. So, let’s get out of here and find our ‘driver’.”
As we enter the lobby, a cute woman with short brown, I mean brunette hair and sparkling hazel eyes wearing a completely unflattering camouflage uniform perks up and walks towards us with a friendly smile. I feel surprised when what I just thought about her uniform registers with my conscious mind. As she approaches, my ever helpful HUD identifies her as:
U.S.A.F./RA/Airman First Class/E-3/Jessica/Ann/Reynolds/xxx-xx-xxxx/A-/FALSE
“Hi! I’m Airman First Class Jessica Reynolds. You must be Mrs. Peters.” she says she shakes my mom’s hand before she turns to me. “And you must be Miss Peters.”
“Umm, Brianna or Bree. You can just call me that.”
“Okay ma’am, oops. Sorry, habit. Bree it is then.” She smiles at me. “I’ve been tasked to be your driver this evening. You can just call me Airman Reynolds,” she looks around and changes her voice to a whisper, “or if we aren’t on base and surrounded by other military people, ‘Jessica’ will be good too.” She returns to her normal voice, “So. Where do you two wanna go?”
I beat my mom to the punch. “Food! I’m starving!”
Airman Reynolds giggles before she looks to my mom for confirmation. “Ma’am?”
“Oh, yes. The nearest good restaurant would be nice.”
“Okay. There are few just outside the gates. What are you two hungry for? There is a good Thai place nearby and the usual large chain restaurants. Oh yeah, and a good sushi place if you’re into that too.”
“Bree? What do you think?”
With that question, I am reminded of my new taste in foods. I would’ve loved to try that sushi stuff that John and Lisa seem to gush about every now and then. “I dunno mom. As much as I hate to admit it, it needs to have a good vegetarian menu.”
“Hmmm, did you say that the Thai place was good?”
“Yes ma’am and friends who know what real Thai food is supposed to taste like say that it is good, too.”
“Okay, why don’t we try the Thai place then? Thai food is mostly veggies and it has been awhile since I’ve had some good Thai food.” My mom turns to look at me. “What do you think, Bree?”
I’m so hungry now that I would be willing to try choking down a burger. “Umm, okay?”
As I step outside, the cold air hits my mostly open and thus non-functional sweatshirt. Thankfully, the nondescript government car is already warmed up. That makes the short ten-minute ride to the restaurant much more bearable. I really wish I were wearing Jessica’s warm looking uniform right about now. She drops us off right at the door so that she can park the car. I get out of the car first while my mom turns back toward the car. “Are you going to be joining us, Jessica?”
“Thanks Mrs. Peters, but I already ate and I wouldn’t want to intrude. I will just wait with the car so that you two can eat in peace.”
As we enter the restaurant, the complex spicy scents of Thai food hits my nose. I smell curry, coconut and other yummy food scents. My mouth starts to water and my stomach growls at me. I look around and there are only a few tables that are full. The electronics are pretty minimal too. I only “see” a couple of cell phones and no wi-fi. An empty restaurant is normally a bad sign, but it is kind of late to be eating dinner, so the lack of customers is probably normal for this hour.
I notice the hostess’ eyes widen with surprise when she spots me. I wonder if she heard my stomach growl or if she spotted my ears as the wind from the door blew my hair around. She doesn’t say anything about it and sets us promptly at a semi-secluded table. While I like the fact that we have some privacy and from my seat, I like the fact that I can see the front door. I can’t help but wonder if she seated us here due to my appearance. It would really suck if the staff here hated mutants.
I look at my mom and I am about to ask her what she thinks about it when she stops me with a gesture. “No, Bree. The hostess doesn’t dislike you. She was just surprised by your appearance.”
Geez. She’s positively spooky now with her Jedi mind tricks. I start to look over the menu when an older oriental woman approaches our table and gives us a slight bow.
“Greetings, honored guests. I am Mali Tojirakarn. My husband and I own this establishment. How may we be of service to you this evening?”
The owner is waiting on us? Does this place treat all their guests like this? Maybe that is why Jessica said the place is so good? My voice stress gauge isn’t helping. The woman’s voice was in the green zone except for a slight spike when she said ‘honored’.
My mom looks a little confused by the treatment too. “Um, yes? Can I have an iced tea?”
“Certainly ma’am.” Mrs. Tojirakarn says with nod of her head before she turns to me with a smile. “May I also ask what the young lady would desire to drink?”
I am beginning to think that we are getting special treatment for some reason. “Can I have some ice tea too?” I ask with a great deal of hesitation in my voice. I swear that I must sound like I am ten years old or something.
“Most certainly. I will have it brought out. Is there anything else that I can get you right now? An appetizer maybe?”
My mom glances at the appetizer section of the menu for a second. “Oh! Spring Rolls. Can we get an order of Spring Rolls please?”
Mrs. Tojirakarn smiles at my mom. “Yes. I will get that right out for you.”
“Thanks.” My mom says, returning Mrs. Tojirakarn’s smile.
Mrs. Tojirakarn leaves us and disappears into the kitchen where I hear some yelling in what I assume is Thai. Hopefully she is just calling out our order and not angry at the chef back there. I wouldn’t want the chef mad while he is cooking our food.
My mom distracts me from my thoughts. “So, Brianna? What do you think about starting at this Whateley Academy in a few weeks?”
I shrug my shoulders. “I dunno, mom. It seems kinda sudden, but it also sounds like my magic could be kinda dangerous if I’m not trained.” With that thought, I am reminded by what the President and everyone else said on the plane. I sigh with exasperation. “Heck, everyone else seems to think that I should already be at this Whately school.”
My mom tilts her head slightly to the side with a curious expression. “But?”
“Well, everything has been happening so fast and I’m scared. I wouldn’t really know anyone except for Nikki and Sara and I would be away from home and I’d be doing this JROTC army stuff.”
My mom looks confused. “Sara? Who’s she?”
Oops. I am about to reply when a different waitress sets our drinks down along with the Spring Rolls. She shyly smiles. “Sorry to interrupt, but are you ready to order now?”
Perfect timing! I smile at the sight of some food to eat. It’s just an appetizer, but finally, food! I’ve never had a spring roll before, but if my mom likes them, then maybe I will too. I hear my mom say “I think that I will try the Shrimp Pad Thai, please.” to the waitress as I reach for one of the spring roll things. There is some sort of brown colored dipping sauce that I decide to try with my first bite.
I’m just about to take my first bite when I hear, “and for you ma’am?” It takes me a second to realize that it is me that she is referring too.
Crap, I didn’t even look at the menu and I have zero idea what to get. “Umm, Pad Thai, but without the shrimp?” I have no idea if I will like or not like the shrimp, but why take chances? Maybe my mom will let me try a bite of hers.
“Sure. Anything else?”
“No, thanks.”
The waitress returns to the kitchen. Finally! I can take a bite of the spring roll thing.
OMG...so good! I scarf down the spring roll while my mom works on hers at a more civilized pace. Hopefully, she will forget about my little Sara slip-up before she finishes. I suck down some of my iced tea as my stomach grumbles some more. The spring roll only seems to have teased my appetite.
My mom pauses before she takes another bite. “Sara?”
Crap! She didn’t forget and I am sure that she knows that I am hiding something. Oh well. I might as well get it over with. “Sara is sorta Nikki’s sister and she’s a demon or something, but I think that she’s a nice demon.” I lamely finish. I probably gave her too much information with that admission.
My mom’s expression is somewhat hard to read. She has stopped chewing and is just looking at me. I’m going to go with “shock” as her expression. She swallows her bite without completely chewing it and sputters a bit. Yepper. She is definitely a little shocked by my revelation. She takes a sip of her iced tea as she holds up her hand for me to wait.
“Umm, Okay. And how do you know this Sara, person?”
“Well, she sorta helped Nikki visit me when I was doing that re-org thing up here.” I say, pointing to my head.
“And?”
“But Nikki didn’t think that it would be good if everyone knew that Sara was involved...and she was super nice and helped me a lot and well, Nikki trusts her...”
“A demon?”
“Welllll...maybe? I dunno. She just looked kinda like a demon when I first saw her with Nikki. I mean, I thought that I was dead and that Nikki was an angel, Sara was a demon and that they had come to take me to heaven or hell.”
“Hmm, okay. I am a little concerned, but I guess it’s not that important right now and as a plus, you would know two people at Whateley, so that’s good. Right?”
“Yepper!” I am so glad that the Sara issue seems to be over. My mom finishes her spring roll just before our meals are delivered to our table. Oh man. It smells so good. I take a tentative bite and my taste buds decide that this Pad Thai is the best thing since sliced bread. I wonder what was better than sliced bread before sliced bread was invented. Oh well, I dig in as my mom eats a bit slower.
I’m half done with my meal when I remember to ask about trying her shrimp. She gives me one and it tastes pretty good to me. Awesome! Now I can almost be an omnivore again!
My mom pauses before she continues with her meal. “So, what did you think about the idea of a JROTC scholarship at Whateley and his asking you to help investigate GEO? I noticed that you looked excited about the JROTC idea, but you were very nervous about the GEO investigation thing.”
She resumes eating while I gather my thoughts. “Well...It sounds like Whateley is expensive and I don’t think that you and dad can afford to send me there, so the JROTC scholarship would be perfect for that. I’m glad that Nikki was there to help negotiate that extra uniform allowance due to my clothing allergies.”
My mom looks concerned with my reminder. “Yeah, I was a little shocked by how eager and willing his staff was to get us to accept the idea. It almost sounds too good to be true.” She trails off with that though before she snaps back. “Okay, so you like the JROTC idea even though you would have to serve in the military afterwards?”
“I think so, yeah. I mean it’s not that big of a deal. I’m a girl now, so it’s not like they would send me to Afghanistan or something where I could be shot at, right?”
“Hmmm, hard to say. You are a mutant now too though and there are different rules, but I’m not as worried about that. Actually, being in the Army would probably be safer than being a superhero.” She finishes with a small laugh that makes me smile at the irony of the idea.
We both eat more of our meals to help us gather our thoughts. I finish my food while she is only halfway through. I’m still hungry, but decide that it might help if I let my meal settle before I ask if I can have seconds.
My mom breaks the silence first. “And GEO?”
I take a deep breath and sit back in my chair as I look up to the ceiling for inspiration for a second. “I dunno, Mom. That game scares the ummm, poop outta me now, but if I can help the President figure out what kind of danger GEO might be to our country...I kinda have to help. Don’t I?”
“I don’t know hon, maybe? But not if it is going to be a danger for you though.”
Before I can think of a good reply to that, I notice a smiling Mrs. Tojirakarn heading toward our table. My mom follows my gaze and hurriedly swallows her bite just as Mrs. Tojirakarn arrives at our table.
“Pardon the interruption, but I just wanted to make sure that you two are enjoying your meals.”
My mom smiles at her. “Oh yes. This is the best Shrimp Pad Thai that I’ve had in a long time.”
“Excellent!” Mrs. Tojirakarn smile grows even more pleased when she takes in my empty plate. “And you, honored lady?”
I’m not sure why she called me an “honored lady”, but maybe it is a cultural thing? “I’ve never had Pad Thai before, but it was awesome.”
“Good. I am glad to hear that we could provide satisfying nourishment this evening. Is there anything else that I can get for you?”
I could use another serving. I give my mom a pleading look. “Can I have some more, Mom? Maybe with some shrimp this time?” Mrs. Tojirakarn looks a little surprised.
My mom just sighs with resignation. “Sure. I guess if you can’t eat it all, we can bring the leftovers back and store them in the fridge.”
After Mrs. Tojirakarn leaves, my mom looks at me and laughs. “You know? I was really hoping that one benefit of you being a girl would be a lower food bill, but you eat more now than you ever did!”
I find myself giggling with her, but I’m still glad that I have more food coming. She takes another bite of her Pad Thai and stops as if struck by a good idea before can take another bite. “You know...one more benefit of you going to this Whateley place is that they would have to feed you.”
“Mom!” We both break down and giggle over her joke. A plate of Shrimp Pad Thai with what looks like twice the serving size arrives and helps to break up our laughter. I manage to eat just over half of it before I start to feel full. I’m pretty sure that I could finish it, but I decide to save the rest for breakfast in the morning.
It is pretty dark outside of the restaurant, but with my new vision tricks; I spot the car with Jessica just as she looks up from something and notices us exiting the restaurant. It feels even colder outside now.
She pulls the car up and I am so relieved to jump into a nice warm car. As I jump in, I notice some sort of book or manual lying half open on the front seat.
“What were ya reading, Jessica?”
“Oh, I was studying for my promotion exam next week. If I do well enough on it, I should make E-4 in a month or two.”
“E-4?”
“Oops, sorry. See my rank here?” Without taking her eyes off the road, she points to the funny looking patch that has two stripes with a star in the middle sewn onto her uniform’s sleeve. “I’m currently an E-3 or Airman First Class, but if I make E-4, than I will be a Senior Airman and have more responsibility. On the plus side, I will make a little bit more money too.”
“Ahh.” I look to my mom. She seems pretty interested in what Jessica is telling us. “Umm, Jessica?” I ask, hesitantly.
“Ya?”
“As a girl, what do you think about being in the military?”
“Hmmm, It can be kinda tough having to do what people tell you all the time and deal with the horn...” she stops herself with a blush and I see her look back at my mom via the mirror. “Umm, guys sometimes, but at the same time, it’s better than working at some fast food joint flipping burgers or waiting tables.”
“Why?”
“Well, I like my job and feel like what I’m doing is actually important. I’m making a difference and as a bonus, if I decide not to be a lifer, my current job pays pretty well in the civilian world, too!” She laughs for second. “Oh. My. Gawd. Don’t I just sound like a Recruiter now? Why are you wanting to know?”
“Well, I was offered a JROTC scholarship at an expensive school and I’m just not sure if I’d make a good military person.”
“Well, Bree. You sound like you have a good head on your shoulders. You just gotta play it smart and learn to not take things personally. Most of what looks like Military BS has a good reason behind it. Accept that fact and it’s a piece of cake.”
“Oh.”
“Plus, I think that if you join up from a JROTC program, you get to enter as an E-4. I certainly wish that I would’ve done that now! If you go to college, you come in as an officer. Then, you don’t have to put up with nearly as much BS.”
“Hmmm, thanks Jessica. That’s good to know.”
“Hey, no problem.” She smiles and gives me a quick glance while navigating onto the base. “Besides, we girls got to stick together. Ya know?”
Well, I don’t really know, but I guess that I should agree with her on that. I return her smile. “Umm, yeah.” I look over at my mom and she’s not helping any. She’s just has an amused little smile on her face. We arrive back at our building a minute later and after saying our goodbyes to Jessica, we head back to our room for the night.
We find a note that Mr. Reilly slipped under our door. It lists the plan for the next day and I am surprised to see that it starts nice and early at 0700hrs and it doesn’t end until 1800hrs. He even suggested that I wear athletic wear due to some of the physical tests. It sounds like it is going to be a long day for us tomorrow.
It is only 2100hrs and I’m not a bit tired yet. My mom claims first dibs on the bathroom so that she can get ready for bed. I am not sure how long she will take, so I decide to scan the newspaper while I wait for my turn. That way, I can read it later and find out what has been going on in the world. Since there was something mentioned about a mutant, I am especially curious about that plane thing.
I finish the scan and decide to turn on the TV. Maybe I can find some cartoons to watch while I wait. Unfortunately, I manage to find the cartoon channel just as my mom exits the bathroom. I sigh with frustration as I flip it back to the channel guide channel for my mom to pick something to watch.
Getting ready for bed is pretty easy, but once again, it is my hair that gets in the way of drinking directly from the faucet like I normally would. I debate putting my hair up with a clip thing, but decide that using a drinking glass will be easier. I’m just glad that they have real glasses in the room instead of the normal plastic ones. Other than the hair, my body, sitting down to go to the bathroom, my pa-underwear and the silk pajamas, getting ready for bed is completely mundane. I mean, I still brush my teeth with a toothbrush, so everything is normal, right?
I rejoin my mom to see that she has the “Princess Bride” playing and I can’t stop myself from laughing with her as we enjoy the movie together. It’s older than I am, but it’s still pretty darn funny. During a commercial break, she sets the alarm for 5am. I almost ask her why we need to get up so early, but just thinking about my new morning routine stops that thought in its tracks.
I look over at her during the next commercial break and she has already fallen asleep. I decide to turn the TV off and play the parent by tucking her in. She sleepily mutters her thanks, turns over and promptly falls back asleep.
I’m not really feeling tired, but I decide to at least lie down and give it a try. It still feels a little weird to be wearing silk pajamas to bed. I guess I could try wearing just my underwear to bed, but since I’m in kind of a strange place, I don’t feel comfortable dressing down that much. Before I can banish the thought, I wonder about the nightie that Nikki wore and what I would look like if I wore something like it. Oh yeah, I’d look hot and I’d feel embarrassed as hell about that fact. Plus, there is no way that I can justify wearing something like that as “camouflage”.
I sigh with frustration as I lay my head on the pillow to try and make myself fall asleep. I eventually manage to clear my head enough to relax and fall asleep.
I wake up feeling completely rested and ready to go 1.5 hours later at 2334 hrs. Crap! And, I have to pee too. For the record, cold toilet seats suck. Grrr.
Now that I am definitely wide-awake from the cold toilet seat, I decide to read the newspaper and maybe other book. After that and if I have enough time, maybe I will play around in the VR range.
I prop myself up against my bed’s headboard with some pillows and get comfy as I enter my VR living room. After setting up the room monitor in case my mom wakes up, I sit on the couch and open up today’s newspaper. I skip the article I want to read so that I can read the comic section first. I could use a good laugh and Dilbert delivers as usual. I don’t even have a job, but I still think that the strip about non-essential workers being allowed to leave work early so that the boss can figure out who to lay-off was hilarious. This one was about performance reviews and I didn’t understand it completely, but I still thought it was funny. I skip over the Sports section, meh, and read the Entertainment section. Mostly for the car and tech article, because I really don’t care about what some blond bimbo does in some fake real life show. The Business section has something about Goodkind Industries posting above expected earnings due to some new military contract they won. I only notice that article because Goodkind is rumored to be anti-mutant and that is now kind of important to me for some reason.
The article that grabbed my attention in the first place is kind of a let-down. I thought that an article about the attempted hijacking of a plane that had a mutant successfully stopping the hijackers would be full of juicy details and blow-by-blow accounts of heroic action, but no, the article was low on details and full of fluff. They talked more about the Air Marshals and the hijackers than the super-hero that helped the Air Marshals stop the hijackers. The only thing that they let slip about the super-hero was that he was in critical condition at some undisclosed location and under the protection of the U.S. Marshal Service. I hope that he will be okay.
After that, I make it 30 pages into the book when I just can’t read anymore. The story about the hijacking makes me too keyed up to concentrate on the book. I feel the need, the need to blow stuff up!
I switch back to my Selene kick-ass, take names vampire outfit, and enter the range again. I start with one gun until I get bored and decide to play around with a two-gun style. I’m surprised to discover that with the fire control thing-a-ma-jig, the two guns actually work pretty well. Until it is time to reload anyway. It proves to be much easier to reload and maintain a steady rate of fire with just one gun, but two guns are hard to beat when I need to put down some serious firepower. Plus, it just looks cool. I could just carry two extra guns if the reloading thing became a problem. It’s hard to believe that I could shoot thirty bullets or rounds as my system calls them, and still need to fire more, but oh well. There is no such thing as too much firepower, is there?
After forty-five minutes of playing around and firing off over five-hundred rounds in the plain target range, I decide to try that “Hostage Rescue” scenario. I hope that maybe it will have some plane-hijacking scenario that I can play with, but instead, it is just a normal pop-up thing. It is still fun though.
Targets pop up with bad guys, good guys and bad guys holding good guys. The goal is to not shoot the good guys and that proves to be a little tricky until I learn to look for the bad guys by how threatening they look or when there is a hostage, who is holding the gun. I started the scenario all conservative by using just one gun, but that got boring so I added the second gun and set it for two-player mode. After an hour of that, I had the difficulty level set so high that if I wasn’t careful, I would run out of bullets in both my two main guns, but also the two extra guns I added for backup.
I’m really into it and having a blast when I hear someone clapping at the end of a 100% successful mission. “That was awesome, Bree!”
Ambush alarms start to sound and threat screens start to flash in my HUD. I spot a human shaped target as I desperately spin around. In just 0.0103 seconds, my system automatically cycles through all of the hostage target parameters.
>Target: Single
>Sex: Female
>Armed: False
>Target Designation: Hostage
The hostage jumps back and raises her hands. I am confused. How did a target get behind me, how did it know my name and why is it moving? The target is wearing a cute little school girl uniform and none of the other hostages in the sim have looked like her. What is going on?
Somehow, the hostage speaks. “Bree?”
I blink my eyes and realize just who I am pointing a pair of loaded guns at.
“Sara?”
“Whoa. Bree.” Sara smiles, drops her hands and steps forward. “Ya scared me there for a second. I almost thought that you were going to shoot me.”
I suddenly realize that I’m still pointing my guns at Sara. I feel myself blush with embarrassment as I quickly lower and holster them both. I could’ve shot her. I almost knock her down when I rush forward and wrap my arms around her. “Sara! What are you doing here!?”
“Whoa kiddo! Not so rough.” She laughs and I feel her kiss the side of my head before her voice slips into an octave that makes my body tingle. “Yer looking good enough to eat in that outfit...oops. Sorry.”
Confused by both what my body is feeling and her apology, I pull my head back and look into her face. I am surprised to find that I am an inch or two taller than her. My breath catches in my throat. She’s so beautiful and her lips look so kissable. I move to kiss her, but she gently pushes me away. I don’t understand why she is pushing me away until I suddenly realize that I wanted to kiss her and not a just a friendly little kiss either.
I feel so many shades of embarrassment flash across my face. “Oh-my-god Sara. I am so embarrassed. I dunno what came over me.”
“Don’t worry. It’s not you. It’s part of my nature.”
My insides are still tingling a little bit. That reminds me about my dinner conversation with my mom. I want to ask her what she is, but I don’t want to sound like I don’t trust her. She’s Nikki’s sister or something. Except for some minor differences like the fangs and Goth makeup, she looks a lot like Nikki. “Umm, I’m sorry Sara, but I don’t know how to ask this without sounding rude.” I watch as her eyebrow arches inquisitively as a playful little smile forms on her perfect lips. I’m starting to feel distracted by her again. Oh, crap. I just need to say it. “What are you and why am I having such a hard time here?”
She giggles at me and even that sounds seductive to me, but at I’m glad because it doesn’t look like she’s mad at me for asking the question. “Well...I suppose that since, according to Nikki, we are now cousins and all that, you are entitled to know. It’s a little complicated, but the simple answer is that I am a demon of sorts.” She looks at me and studies my reaction. For some reason, I know that I should be screaming in panic right now. I’ve seen plenty of horror movies. Demons are bad. Nothing good can come from associating with a demon, but I just don’t feel that way about her. She nods and continues. “As to why you are feeling so attracted to me, one of my demonic powers is lust. That is what has been affecting you. I’m sorry, but I can’t turn it off completely. However, now that you know, you will probably have an easier time resisting it.”
Well, that sort of explains a lot. “Ummm, okay...”
Sara tilts her head to the side. She looks a little surprised by my calm acceptance. “That’s it? Okay? You do know that demons are evil, right?”
“I know that Nikki trusts you.” She snorts at that one, but she doesn’t deny it. “Maybe ignorance is bliss?” I hopefully finish with a shrug of my shoulders.
She frowns at me as she places her finger to her lips as she thinks something over. “Hmmm...maybe there is something to that, but are you strong enough?”
“Strong enough for what?”
My question galvanizes her thoughts. “We will have to find the answer to that question some other time.” She saunters past me and gives my virtual range a quick visual inspection.
“I like what you have done to the place. Having a simulator like this could come in handy for you.”
The abrupt change in topics confuses me at first. What question? She’s hiding something from me. I want to ask her what I might not be strong enough to handle. I’m sure that if I can handle being turned into a girl and having my life turned upside down, then I can handle anything else. Wait a second. What did she just say? “Huh?”
She giggles at me. “I said that this sim you have could be handy for training.”
“Oh, yeah. It is kinda fun.”
“Well, I’ve seen a few sims and yours looks pretty good. Basic, but still good. Can you do anything else with it?”
“There is a custom option that I haven’t tried yet.”
Sara bounces with excitement. “Oooh...try that!”
“Ookaay...” I switch it over to the custom setting and everything in the room disappears. We are in a flat and featureless space that seems to be endless. “Ummm...this seems a little too basic?”
“Do ya have any additional options to pick from now?”
“I dunno. Lemme check.” I think ‘options’ and a window opens up with a few additional menu choices. There are things like ‘Weather’, ‘Terrain’, ‘Enemy’ and ‘AI Level’. I start to relay the choices to Sara, but decide that it might be better if I can just show her what I see.
A holographic display appears beside me and mirrors everything I can see for the options. Sara looks at it hesitantly touches the ‘Terrain’ option. Addition choices open up in a sub-menu. She picks ‘Urban’ and another sub-menu opens. She picks ‘Inner-City/Slum’ and the next thing I know we are both standing in the middle of a street. We are surrounded by run-down buildings on both sides with a few broken down cars sitting on blocks.
We both spin around and examine our surroundings a little closer. Everything looks very real, but at the same time I can tell that it isn’t real due to how clean the street looks, how perfect the buildings look and how eerily silent it is. I walk over to one of the cars and touch it. I’m not sure what I expected. Maybe that my hand would pass through it or if it is solid, that it wouldn’t feel real, but the car feels very real to my touch. I tap on the hood and it sounds like I am tapping on a metal car hood. “Wow...this is so cool.”
I turn back to Sara and I see her selecting more options using the floating display. I hear her muttering to herself, “Nope”, “Yep”, “Not that”, as she selects different items on the menu. She stops selecting items. “Okay...that looks good.” She turns and looks at me. “Are ya ready?”
I’m a little surprised. “Ummm, sure?”
Sara pushes one final option and the street comes alive with sounds, people and cars. I think that she is a little surprised too. Her eyes widen as she turns and smiles at me with pleasure. She’s still standing in the middle of the street as a low-rider custom car cruises past her and the driver honks his horn at her.
“Yo, chica! Outta the street! I don’ wanna ruin my paint if I hit ya!”
She flips him off and casually joins me at the side of the car I was testing. Her eyes are shining with excitement and I can see her fangs showing. “Wow, Bree. This is pretty damn cool! Once you know what you can do and we have more time to play around with it, I think that you will be able to use this for some good training without having to worry about using the Whateley Simulators.”
I can only nod in agreement. “This is cool, but I still haven’t decided if I am going to go to Whateley.”
Sara looks at me with surprise. “What do ya mean?”
I’m about to reply when I am rudely interrupted when I hear a wolf whistle from behind me. “Nice ass, chica!”
Startled, I turn to face the source and I feel myself blush from embarrassment as I realize that it is just a random NPC. I turn back to find Sara not even trying to swallow her shit eating grin. “Sara! It’s not funny!”
That just causes her to laugh out loud at my reaction.
“Yo, chica! How about you and me,” I turn back to see the NPC approaching me as he pantomimes something with his hands that I can only assume is rude. “Ya know?”
Oh. Two can play at this game! I whip out my Berretta and aim it at his face. “How about no?”
The NPC’s eyes widen with shock as he raises his hands and backs away. “De nada, chica. Ya don’t have to be so violent about it!”
As I re-holster my gun, I can hear Sara laughing at me. I spin back to yell at her too. That emotion dies as soon as I see how down-right cute she looks as she laughs at me. It is just so not fair. I can’t help myself. I feel my cheeks stretching into an involuntary smile.
She brings her laughter under control, but still manages a giggle or two. “Oh my god! You shoulda seen your face!”
More NPC’s and traffic are passing by our place on the sidewalk. It’s a little distracting. I think “pause” and everything except for Sara and I freeze in place. “Sara! That was soooo not funny!”
That stops her giggles for a second as she pretends to give it serious thought. “Oh yeah it was. Plus, ya gotta admit. With that outfit on, you do have a nice ass.”
I can only gasp with surprise. That causes her to laugh at me even more. “Sara! You. Are. So. Evil. Evil with a capital ‘E’. Evil.”
That starts her laughing again and it takes her a little while to get her laughter under control while all I can do is stand there with my arms crossed, trying and failing to achieve a murderous glare at her. I finally give in and twist around to take a quick peek behind myself. “Okay. Yeah. I do have a nice, umm, ass. Thank you very much for pointing that out.” I hope that the sarcasm levels in my voice are high enough.
Sara simply smiles at me as she saunters past me while I turn my head to keep my eye on her. She uses that opportunity to sneak a playful slap on my ass. “Psshhta! Ouchie...so hot!”
She barely touches my leather-clad butt and my momentary shock dissolves into helpless laughter as she pretends to be hurt by sucking on her finger. She even does that seductively. “You’re impossible, but I don’t think you came all this way to just tease me.”
She smiles demurely at me. “Did I?”
“Sara!” I will the sim to go away and replace it with my virtual living room. My outfit morphs into a comfy pair of sweat pants with a matching and loose fitting sweat shirt. No more shows for Sara.
“Party-pooper!” She pouts.
I ignore her obviously fake pout and cross my arms while I tap my foot. “Well?”
She is such a drama queen. She switches to mock fear. “Okay, Okay! I’ll talk! Please don’t spank me!” She stops for second and I just know that she is going to say something “evil”. I can see it written all over her face just before she looks down at the floor with a shy and innocent schoolgirl expression. “Well, if you put back on your vampire outfit, maybe you can spank me just a little?” She says as she looks up expectantly at me.
It isn’t easy, but I manage to maintain my tough girl facade. “Sara...”
She sighs with defeat and plops herself down on the couch. “Okay. I just wanted to see how you were doing and what you thought about coming to Whateley.”
I didn’t think that she would give up that easily. I walk over and sit down next to her. I give her a hug and ignore all the tingly feelings that touching her is causing me. “Oh, Sara. In spite of your teasing and maybe even because of it, I am glad that you’re here.”
I feel her squeeze me in return and it feels like she has more than two arms for a second, but when I pull back and look, she is just sitting there trying to look innocent and failing miserably. I just shake my head. “I think that I want to go to Whateley, but it would be a big change for me.”
She just smiles and points at me with her eyes. “Even bigger than what you’ve already had?”
“Okay, but I’d be away from home and it is a JROTC scholarship so I would have to do Army stuff.”
“I can’t really relate on the ‘away from home’ thing, but I can understand how that could be hard on a person. The Army thing...I’ve worked with some of the folks on that team. They are pretty good kids.” She pauses for a second in thought. “Just don’t let ‘em know that you’re friends with me.”
“What? Why not?”
“Well, some of them are still a bit upset with me for beating them in a battle sim run.”
“Oh.”
“As a matter of fact, you should probably pretend to not know me at all when you get to Whateley.”
I get the feeling that she is pushing me away. Like maybe she doesn’t like me. “Huh? Why would I need to do that?”
She just looks at me with a sad expression and sighs. “Because of what I am. There are a lot of folks who would try to hurt you just to get back at me. They would consider you “tainted” if they knew that we were friends.”
I notice that she called me her ‘friend’ there. That makes me feel better. “What about Nikki?”
“Oh, you can be friends with her, but my advice would be to take it slow at first. In public, I’d pretend like you don’t really know her either. She’s very popular at school and getting too close to her right off the bat could cause you some troubles too. Team Kimba seems to be a lightning rod for trouble too, so until you’ve had a chance to learn the terrain, the more distance you can keep between them and you, the better.”
“Team Kimba?”
“Yeah, that’s the umm, training team that Fey belongs to and I’ve had a relationship with.” She stops and studies me for a second.
I look down and stare at the couch to help remove the distraction that she can cause. I think that she can tell that I’m feeling a little lost. I thought that going to Whateley would be easier because I already had two friends there, but now it sounds like that might actually make things harder for me.
Sara reaches out and grabs my hands. “Look, Bree.” I initially try to keep looking down to help maintain my distance so I won’t start crying. She reaches over with her hand and gently lifts my chin up. “Based on what Nikki has told me, I firmly believe that you should be at Whateley right now.”
I can see the concern on her face and that causes me to feel a lump starting to form in my throat. I am so close to crying now it isn’t funny.
“I don’t even want you to go through powers testing down there, but...” She pauses as a pained expression crosses her face. “...but I think that things will be okay since you’re going to be there under completely different circumstances. Plus, you have Mr. Reilly and the President behind you.”
I can feel the fierce concern in her voice and body language. “You’re still worried though. What happened?”
She sighs and shakes her head. “It’s a dark story and I don’t think that now would be a good time to go into it. It’s done and over. Time to move on instead of reopening old wounds,” Her body begins to change as her mood darkens. An inky black miasma pools around her and forms tentacles. Her eyes become bottomless pools of an inky black color that tug on my soul while her voice takes on a hollow timbre that causes every hair on my body to stand on end. “...but if I ever find the scum who caused the pain that my friend suffered; I will happily drag him to hell and torture him myself!”
I find myself rooted in place. Conflicted over what I am seeing and feeling. My monkey brain is telling me that I need to run as far away from this demon creature thing as I can possibly get, but the part of me that knows that it is Sara just wants to give her a hug.
This whole hug instinct is so out of control. I swear that I have hugged and been hugged more in the last two days than in my entire life. A hug just always seems to make things better somehow. I don’t understand why I didn’t know this fact sooner. I beat down the fear and before I can think about if I’m doing something stupid, I close my eyes and throw myself at Sara, wrapping my arms around her body.
Initially, she feels all wrong. My skin crawls from the contact with her body. It feels like I am hugging worms, maggots and all sorts of creepy crawly things. Horrible nightmare things that should never see the light of day, but I tell myself that I’m hugging Sara. I hug her tighter and the wrongness fades. See? A hug does make things better.
I feel Sara return my hug and am surprised when I feel her shudder. I tilt my head back to look up at her face and I am relieved to see that her eyes have returned to their normal blood red color. I am further surprised to find that I think that blood red for an eye color is normal and reassuring.
She smiles and gently kisses my forehead. “You’re one tough cookie. Methinks that anyone who tries to mess with you will be in for an unpleasant surprise or two.”
I can’t stop a nervous laugh from bubbling up from my throat. “Oh? If that’s true, then why does the idea of my mom taking me shopping at the mall scare me so much?”
~o~O~o~
Insert standard disclaimer here: The one that reminds everyone that this is a work of fiction. No one is real and any resemblance to someone who is real is just the reader's imagination. This is also a Fan Fiction set in the Whateley Story Universe. No Canon characters were permanently harmed in the making of this story. I hope. :)
Note: I got this done, edited and started working on ch 28. Then, I realized I needed to make some changes based on ch 28. Then, I decided that this chapter was too short, so I added part of ch 28 to the end. That added about 2k more words. Enjoy! :) Thanks again djkauf for your double duty on this one.
** Chapter 27 **
Monday, 19-Feb-2007 0322 hrs
I cringe as Sara squeals with girlish excitement as she bounces up and down on the couch. “Ooohh, shopping! I can’t wait to see you in a little black dress with some three or four inch heels. Hubba hubba!”
My head is spinning now. Where in the heck did that come from? It’s like the Exorcist. Sara went from full on spooky, to serious and mature, to giggly school girl in less time than I care to measure right now. I fully expect her head to start spinning around any second, but as a demon, maybe that would be normal for her? That mental image makes me laugh.
Sara tilts her head to the side and looks a little unsure about my reaction. I think that she expected me to resist a little more. “Okay, girlfriend, what’s so funny?”
There she goes again. She really missed her calling. She should’ve been a shock jock DJ. “Say huh?! Girlfriend?”
Sara smiles again now that she is back in control. Oh, she is most definitely evil, but I am not going to let her get away with it. I affix my best stern glare and point my finger at her. “I’m on to you!”
She looks back at me with a shocked and obviously fake innocent expression. “Who, moi?”
“Oh, don’t play the sweet and innocent girl with me. I know better and I know what you’re really trying to do.”
She leans back with a very cute smirk on her face. “You do?”
I stand and turn my back to her to keep from losing it. Against her mad skills, it’s really hard to maintain my mock anger. I’m pretty sure that she’s trying to help me and I am grateful for it. I’ve really only known her for a total of 47 minutes, but I feel so close to her. I decide to attack. I spin in place and level my best accusing look at her. “Of course! You’re here to turn me to the girl-side and that’s so not going to happen! Not on my watch!”
Sara’s eyes widen with surprise. She pouts at me as she stands and walks toward the center of the room. “Oh shucks. Defeated by a newbie.” She spins back to face me. “Or, am I?”
I watch as she begins to grow taller and her clothes morph into a witch’s costume, complete with pointy hat. She points her finger at me and cackles. “So, you think that you have defeated me? I’ll show you. I’ll get you my pretty...muh ha ha ha ha!”
Oh, so now Sara is the Wicked Witch of the West. Well, two can play at that game. I switch over to Dorothy’s blue checkerboard dress with poofy sleeves, white socks, ruby red slippers, pigtails tied with blue bows and a wicker basket holding a stuffed dog.
Sara, I mean the Wicked Witch, just smiles at me. “That’s a very yummy look for you my pretty, but nothing can save you and your mangy dog now! Muh ha ha ha ha!”
Okay, it takes everything I have not to burst out laughing. Sara is so over the top, but I think that I have something for her. I summon a nice, tall glass of water to me and give her a pleased smile.
Sara licks her lips and looks a little nervous.
“Poor poor Wicked Witch. You look a little thirsty. How about a little water?” I say just before I splash it on her.
“You cursed brat! Look what you've done! I'm melting! Melting! Oh, what a world! What a world! Who would have thought a good little girl like you could destroy my beautiful wickedness? Oooooh, look out! I'm going! Oooooh! Ooooooh!” says Sara as she melts into a puddle on the floor just like in the movie. Impressive. She even managed to quote the Wicked Witch’s line exactly.
I walk over to the Sara puddle. “Sara?” I’m starting to get a little worried when I feel her sneak attack hug me from behind.
“That was pretty good, Bree, and you look absolutely to die for in that little dress, but I think you would look better if you shortened the skirt, a lot. Added some knee high socks and dropped the neckline, a lot.” Sara whispers in my ear.
I can’t help it. I find myself imagining what I would look like as she suggests it to me.
She chuckles softly and steps back. “Oh, yeah. Now that is the right look. If Dorothy had worn that in the movie, the Wicked Witch wouldn’t have stood a chance!”
I look down and realize that I’m now wearing a naughty version of the Dorothy costume. Just above the knee white socks with little blue bows on the top. The skirt part is now a very short mini-skirt and I can now see right down to my cleavage. I feel myself start to blush.
“Oh, don’t feel like that! Just look at yourself in the mirror! You’re beautiful!”
I turn and face the mirror. I do look pretty hot and for some strange reason, that makes me start to smile. I can see Sara’s pleased grin behind me. I spin around. “You sneaky little devil, you, you...”
She stops me with a pleased laugh. “Just admit it, Bree. You’re a girl, you’re beautiful and you like how that makes you feel.”
Damn it. She’s right. “Well...maybe a little.”
Sara gives me another hug, stands on her tiptoes for a second and gives me a quick kiss on my forehead. “See, that wasn’t so hard, now was it?”
I try to resist. I really do, but it sneaks out. I start crying. I can’t help it, but it feels like every dream I had as a guy has been crushed. I can no longer dream about being the star quarter back on the football team, the dashing fighter pilot or the super suave spy who gets the girl in the movies. Now, I can only be the bouncing cheerleader who cheers on the football team, the clingy girlfriend of the dashing pilot or the helpless girl that the suave spy rescues. It’s just not fair!
Sara just holds me as I cry my eyes out on her shoulder. “It’s okay, Bree. I know what you’re feeling. But, you can still be the person that you wanted to be. You just have to take a different path.”
I lean away from her so that I can see her face and try to slow down the wet works. “Huh?”
“Just because you’re a girl now, it doesn’t mean that you can’t be what you wanted to be when you grew up. There are women astronauts and CEO’s ya know?”
Damn it. She’s right. She’s making it harder to feel sorry for myself. “Well...”
“And...did you ever think that you could do half of the wicked cool things that you can do now?”
She is right about that. I fantasized about being able to shoot guns and cast spells at bad guys, but I never actually thought that I would ever be able to really do it. “Nooo....”
Sara smiles at me. Even with her fangs showing and her scary Goth demon girl look, I just feel like she cares for and maybe even loves me. She feels like a sister to me. A very sexy and attractive sister who I will have to constantly remind myself that she is a “sister” to keep from thinking dirty thoughts, but that’s okay. I’m glad that she’s in my life. “Thanks, Sara.” I say in a low tone of voice.
Sara pulls me forward into another hug. “See? Now that wasn’t so hard was it?”
Dang it, she’s right. “Nooo” I reply with just a hint of hesitation. I can’t let her think that I am completely defeated.
“Okay then. I need to be going. I’m not sure if I will be able to visit you again before you get to Whateley, so how about a little hug and a kiss for me before I go?”
I start to tear up again as I give her big hug. I move to give her an affectionate kiss on her cheek when she turns her face at the last second. I end up kissing her on the lips instead. Her lips feel good to kiss. Real good. I feel my body responding.
I jump back. “Sara! You’re evil!”
She just smirks at me. “I know, but ya love me anyway. Right?”
I can’t help it. She’s just so darn pretty and cute and evil and nice all rolled up into a confusing ball of friendship. “Yeah, but don’t think that I’m going to be going all soft on ya now! Remember, I’m on to you!”
“Oh, I hope so, girlfriend. I. so. hope. so!”
What did she mean by that? Now I’m confused again. “What?”
She fades away with a wave and a smile. I hear, “Ciao!” just before she disappears from view.
It takes me a few minutes of just standing there trying to figure out how I am feeling before it really sinks in that she has left. That makes me start to feel a little lonely. So, I decide to switch back into some comfy sweats and distract myself by finishing the book that I tried to start earlier.
After I finish the book, I have just over half an hour before the alarm clock wakes my mom up. As uncomfortable as Sara’s teasing makes me, I can’t stop myself from feeling grateful for her help. I also miss her and find myself looking forward to her next surprise visit. I wonder if there is something I can wear that might surprise even her? I cycle through a large variety of movie costumes that might do the trick, from Trinity all the way to Cat Woman. I even try out the ‘5th Element’ cloth band outfit that Milla wore.
I am in the middle of testing out a very revealing little black dress with some three-inch heels when the alarm clock wakes my mom. I sigh with regret. Not only does the alarm clock surprise me, but my feelings about my dress-up session being cut short surprises me even more. I’m about to exit when she hits the snooze button. Awesome!
Besides the kick-ass Selene vampire cat suit, this is the first outfit I have tried that somehow ‘speaks’ to me. Once I saw myself in the dress, I just had to add the heels and some jewelry. With the heels on, I feel like I am standing on my tippy-toes, but I guess that my reflexes are pretty good because the first few steps that I try, I feel surprisingly balanced. I end up feeling more than a little embarrassed when I fall on my butt after I catch a glimpse of how sexy I look as I strut my stuff. Once I get my feet back under me, I check myself out in the mirror and wonder how I would look with just a touch of makeup. Maybe I can use my illusion magic too for that in the real world?
What a minute! What in the hell am I thinking?!
I am spared further girl angst by the sound of the snooze alarm blaring. My mom’s sleepy voice calls to me. “Bree? It’s time to get up, dear.”
I feel pretty good when I sit up and smile at my mom. “Morning, Mom!”
She just looks at me like I’ve grown two heads. “Okay. Who are you and what have you done with my daughter?”
I hold back a giggle as I pretend to be exasperated. “Mooomm. I’ve only been waiting for you to wake up for the last 5.3 hours! About time you woke up, sleepyhead!”
That causes her to sit up with alarm. “What? You couldn’t sleep again?”
“Well, I slept, but I only needed one and a half hours. I’m wide awake and don’t feel a bit tired.”
She turns on the lights and as my vision settles, she scoots over, tests my temperature, and looks at my eyes to see if I am sick. “Well, you don’t feel like you’re running a temp and you look healthy to me. Maybe one of the doctors will have an idea?”
“I dunno, mom. I feel fine and if this is now normal for me, think of all the extra study time I will have for school.”
She laughs. “Nice try, Bree, but I know that having extra study time is not something you would look forward too.” She stands and points to the bathroom. “Now, hop in the shower. Don’t get your hair wet and I’ll pull out something for you to wear today.”
My mom pops in to use the bathroom right after I get the water started. “Make sure you brush your hair and your teeth when you are done in there, hon.”
I wonder what she is going to pick for me to wear today. “Okay, mom...”
The shower goes pretty fast without having to go through the complex wash and condition process. I’m not used to not getting my hair wet. As a guy, I always washed my hair. I step out of the shower and I am surprised to see a pair of the silk panties sitting on the counter. They taunt me with their blatant femininity, but I... Oh well. Camouflage. I slip them on and I have to admit, the silk feels nice against my skin. I quickly brush my teeth and trying to emulate Nikki, I calmly exit the bathroom wearing nothing but the dreaded silk panties and a smile. Camouflage...be the girl...na na na na.
My mom tosses me an athletic looking bra thing. I’m guessing that it is one of those ‘sports bra’ things. She helps me put it on and I think that it is more like a tight t-shirt than a bra. I am pleasantly surprised by how comfortable it feels on my shoulders and around my chest, but it does squish my boobs a bit more. Rut Roh. Why did I just call them that?
My mom distracts me from that question. “I set the rest of your clothes out on your bed. Go ahead and get dressed while I take a quick shower.”
I find a set of black sweat pants matched with the black sweatshirt I wore last night laying on my bed. The sweats pants are not the loose fitting pants I expected them to be. Instead, they are a curve hugging stretchy piece of clothing that do nothing to hide my figure and if it wasn’t for the silk panties, I’m sure that people would be able to see the lines of my panties too.
Oh, isn’t that just awesome! Now, I’m glad to be wearing the silk panties due to a concern about VPL’s. I wonder if I am starting to take this camouflage idea too close to heart and if trying out all those costumes for Sara was such a good idea. My male psyche seems to be suffering a serious smack down here.
That question is answered when I put on the sweatshirt and realize that it is too short. It wasn’t an issue when I wore it last night due the cami, but now I have an inch gap between the top of my sweat pants and the bottom of the sweatshirt. I’m showing off my belly button. The hell with camouflage! I storm into the bathroom. “Mooommm! What is up with this?”
She pokes her head out of the shower. “What?”
I point to the obvious deficiency in my skin coverage. “This! What is wrong with girl clothing?”
She just smiles. “Oh Bree, that is just how it fits. It looks nice on you. Go put your shoes and socks on and I will be out in a few minutes.”
“Grrrr” I am more than a little frustrated after I put on my new girl tennis shoes. The damn mirror isn’t lying to me. I do look pretty damn cute and Sara is right. I do have a nice butt. I debate trying to find some cartoons on the TV, but the risk of being exposed to one of those feminine hygiene product commercials is just too much for me to bear. I decide to sit on my bed and meditate until my Mom is done getting ready in the bathroom.
I find my center pretty fast this time. I think the exercises with Sir Wallace helped. It is like flipping a switch. Suddenly, I can see the magic in the air. The room isn’t full of it, but there are small traces of it just randomly floating around. Due to the ward thing, I didn’t get a chance to experiment with it yesterday, but I want to see if I can use the ‘free’ magic instead of the pool inside of me.
I begin by pulling up the blur spell icon again and will the magic to activate the icon. It proves to be harder to use the free magic than I expected. When I had to use my own magic it just popped out, but the free magic is resisting me. Maybe it is harder because the magic is more dispersed and in raw form? I dunno, but I guess it doesn’t matter because the initial resistance just disappears as the magic fills in the icon and my blur spell activates.
I walk back over to the mirror and try to look at myself. It’s not easy. I’m all blurry. What a pleasant surprise. I’m not sure how well this effect will work in real life. If someone is going to shoot me, they would still just aim for the center of the blurry girl target instead of the not blurry girl target. Maybe it would help more with hand-to-hand combat? I cancel the spell and that reminds me of my magic makeup idea.
I pull up the alter-self spell icon and concentrate on what I want to look like. Once again, I will the magic in the room to fill it. This one is a bit harder and I gasp from the effort when the spell activates. I don’t know why I’m so surprised by what I now see in the mirror. I’m starting to get used to seeing a pretty elf girl in the mirror now. What I am not used to seeing is a pretty human girl wearing light makeup and small diamond stud earrings in her normal human ears staring back at me.
I’m still me. Well, the new girl me, but I look human now. Actually, I look like Whisper used to look like before she was changed by the Font. That makes me really worry about why my first thought wasn’t to try and look like my boy self. It makes me start to cry, but I manage to stop it before I go full on water works.
My mom exits the bathroom with a concerned look on her face. “What’s wrong...” She falters as I look at her. “Bree?” She looks a little confused. “How? Why do you look like that now?”
“Umm, well, I was just trying to see if I could do some make-up tricks with my magic and this is how it turned out.”
She looks worried now. “You didn’t actually change yourself did you?”
A slightly hysterical laugh escapes me. “Oh, no. This is just an illusion.” I cancel the spell and I feel the magic fade away as my mom’s eyes widen with surprise. “See?”
“That is pretty neat, but why are you so upset, honey?”
“Why did I imagine myself as a girl, when I could’ve made myself look like a boy?”
“Would that have worked?”
“I think soooo.”
“Oh, but it wouldn’t have been real, right?”
“Noooo.”
“So, not that I want you to try right now, but if you made yourself look like a boy, underneath, you would still be who you are, right?”
“Well, yeah, but...” Oh, I see where she is going with this. My mom smiles and gives me a hug.
She hugs me for a few seconds before she steps back with a stern look on her face. “Okay. Well, I’m glad that you’re okay, but please don’t try that again until it is safer for you.”
I feel a little disappointed, but she’s right. “Okay, Mom.”
“Oh, I know honey. It’s cool, but I just want you to be safe.” She gives me an encouraging smile.
“I know.” I really do, but I still can’t help feeling a little dejected.
“Okay then. I just need to put on my clothes and we can head down to meet Mr. Reilly in the Lobby.”
I am a bit surprised when my mom puts on workout clothes too. “Umm, Mom? Why are you wearing workout clothes too?”
“Oh, they want me to test, too, and I agree that it would be a good idea now that my power seems to be a bit stronger since your transformation.” She shudders. “And I wouldn’t want the MCO coming after me for being an unregistered mutant.”
“Oh.” I never really thought about the MCO. My social studies teacher spent a week going over mutant history. I never expected any of those lessons to apply to me. I learned that except for first emergent exemptions, being caught as an unregistered mutant is a minimum five-year federal prison sentence.
**
The ride over is nothing to write home about and I am a little disappointed that we didn’t get Jessica as our driver. I am a bit surprised when we pull into the base hospital’s parking lot. I look over at Mr. Reilly and Dr. Edmundson for confirmation that we are in the right place. I expected something a little cooler and secret looking. You know, like some cool underground bunker thing complete with a big vault door and lots of armed guards standing by.
Mr. Reilly just smiles at me.
Okay, I guess that I will just play along then. As we enter the hospital, my system automatically alerts me to the hospital’s Wi-Fi system and I am surprised to discover that there is a node to the C3 thing. I quickly try to login and I feel relieved when I am successful. I am just about to explore what is on the local node here at Langley when we are greeted by an attractive woman with short brown hair wearing some colorful hospital scrubs. Hmmm, I decide that I probably should not play around with that right now. I minimize the C3 thing so that I can pay more attention to the lady that is attempting to greet us.
Her brown eyes smile at the sight of us. She walks over to our group and looks at Mr. Reilly. “Hi, I’m Barbara Townsend. You’re Deputy Director Nicholas Reilly and Dr. Edmundson, right?” She asks as she shakes their hands and receives confirmation.
>DOD/R&D/Research Analyst/GS10/Barbara/Lynn/Townsend/xxx-xx-xxxx/B+/FALSE
She turns her attention to my mom and I. “And you must be Jennifer Peters.” She shakes my mom’s hand before turning to me. I watch as her eyes widen with surprise as she focuses her attention on me. “And, oh my, the General never told me that you would be so pretty. You must be Brianna?” She smiles at me with genuine warmth as she holds out her hand for me.
I tentatively shake her hand and smile. “Umm, yes ma’am. I’m Brianna or Bree if you like.”
She looks surprised and turns to my mom. “Oh, you have such a lovely young daughter, Mrs. Peters and she is so polite, too!” I start to feel a little embarrassed when she continues. “Well, I certainly look forward to spending more time with you two, but I need to get you all to the testing facility so that we can get started. Please follow me.” She turns and heads for the elevators.
The hospital is kind of big, but it doesn’t seem big enough to have some super cool mutant testing facility in it. As we enter the elevator, I wonder which floor we will be going up to. The elevator’s control beeps as Barbara waves her name badge over a proximity sensor embedded in the elevator’s control panel. After that, she pushes and holds the basement L2 button until it dings.
As we descend, I lean up against the side of the elevator and I can sense the electronics for the control panel. In addition to the obvious video camera in the corner, I also feel some audio and video feeds hidden in the walls. I just start to get a feel for the special security circuitry for the badge reader when I am interrupted by Mrs. Townsend. Oh well, it is probably a good idea to not mess with that stuff in here.
“So, Bree. Is this your first powers testing?”
“Umm, yes ma’am.” We have definitely gone past the 2nd basement floor. “Umm, how far down is this place?”
She smiles at me and holds her finger over her lips. “Shhh, that’s a secret. Not allowed to tell.”
“Oh, okay.”
“Almost there...I think you will like this place. It’s all new and way better then the last testing facility that I worked at.” A barely detectable grimace flashes across her face as my voice stress gauge spikes there at the end of her statement. I am about to ask her where she worked before when the elevator stops and the doors open with a ding.
“Okay, follow me. I’ll get you two started on the dreaded paper work,” She nods toward my mom and I, “while I take Mr. Reilly and Dr. Edmundson to meet General Adams.”
We pass a small guard station where we are required to sign in before we are allowed to continue down the hallway. At the end of the hallway, we enter a small lobby area with a woman dressed in hospital scrubs sits behind a short receptionist’s station. She glances up and smiles at us as we enter the room.
“Hey, Barb! Are these two ladies the ones that are going to be tested today?”
“Hey Jane, Yepper. Can you get them started on the paper work while I run Mr. Reilly and Dr. Edmundson to the General’s office?”
“Sure! I have everything ready right here.” She reaches down and pulls out two clipboards with some forms and a pen on them. She hands my mom and me a clipboard.
Mrs. Townsend calls over her shoulder as she leads Mr. Reilly and Dr. Edmundson away.
“Thanks Jane. I’ll be back in 10 to 15 minutes to help get Mrs. Peters and Bree started with their tests.”
Jane smiles at Mrs. Townsend as she leaves before she turns back to my mom and I. “Let me know if you have any questions or need any help filling those forms out.”
The medical forms seem pretty normal to me. I stumble over the race and ethnic group section. Sidhe/Caucasian? Is that a valid option? Height? 5’ 4”, damnit. Weight, 110, crap. Now I have to worry about strong winds. For Sex, I briefly toy with the idea of putting “Occasionally”, but I know that my mom wouldn’t find that remotely funny. Sex, Sigh, Female, Check. Allergies? Umm, man-made synthetic fibers and cold iron? How weird is that? I haven’t personally tested the iron thing, but I will take Nikki’s word for it since she was right about the clothing thing.
Mrs. Townsend returns just as I finish with my forms. My mom finished a few minutes before I did. I guess she just knows herself better than I do. She outlines all of the tests planned for today and then she explains that the final test of the day is the big one.
“Since this facility is so new and we wanted to come up with a faster, minimally invasive and more accurate way to measure powers.” She looks at each of us with an excited gleam in her eyes. “We have a new powers testing module that the DOD has in the final acceptance testing phase.”
I nervously glance at my mom as she glances at me.
“Is the machine dangerous?” My mom asks.
Mrs. Townsend laughs and places her hand on my mom’s shoulder to reassure her. “Oh, no. It’s perfectly safe. We have run tons of volunteers through it already. All it does is scan you. No poking, prodding or anything dangerous.”
“Why do we need to do the old tests?” My mom asks. I nod my head in agreement. I would much rather not have to go through a bunch of tests if a single test would work.
“Well, since it is still officially in testing, we need to perform the standard tests as a control result to compare against what the test module reports.”
“Oh, okay. I guess that makes sense.” My mom says with a smile.
With that issue resolved, Mrs. Townsend leads us to a lab station where a nurse takes a few blood samples. It takes me twice as long due to the nurse needing to use a new main needle thing after what is left of the needle falls out halfway through the second sample. She is a little perturbed at that, but I guess my nanites like the taste of stainless steel. On the plus side, I heal up faster than she can grab a new needle to stick into me. That irritates the nurse more. She has to re-find my vein each time.
The urine sample, everything comes out just fine there. I have that test down cold. It’s still a yucky and messy pain in the rear though. Can I say again how much I hate having to sit down to pee and wipe? It’s just so damn inconvenient. I do like my silk panties though. They are so damn comfortable. Wait a minute, what did I just call them and what did I say how they felt?
Crap, I’m doomed.
The first real examination is the full body MRI. I’ve seen MRI machines on TV and they look cool. The images that they can get of the inside of the human body are pretty darn incredible. I was looking forward to it, until they tell me to strip down to my underwear and put on one of those flimsy hospital gowns that are open at the back. I am really starting to dislike hospital gowns. Follow that up with the uncomfortable sliding bed thing that they use to feed me into the MRI, and I decide that getting an MRI sucks. To top it off, due to the magnetic fields and the nanites, Dr. Edmundson isn’t sure if it is a good idea for me to be scanned at all. Eventually, he decides they can try if I start out feet first with the operator holding his hand over the emergency stop button in case something goes wrong.
“Just let us know if anything, umm, weird starts to happen, Bree.” Doctor Edmundson says, looking a little worried.
As the machine starts, I can feel my legs and feet start to tingle.
>Communication Channel Error!
>Communication Channel Error!
The error messages kind of worry me, but I don’t feel any pain so I decide to just let it go, for now. Besides, the MRI machine itself is distracting me. It is so cool! I can see inside the machine and watch it as it scans me. The electronics and programming is so complex, yet simple at the same time. I sort of get lost just watching all of the commands that the main control system is issuing to the scanner part and the information that the scanner is passing back to the control system. That reminds me of Nikki’s warning, so I back out the MRI machine and starting paying more attention to my own, umm, systems.
>Communication Channel Error!
>Communication Channel Error!
“Umm, my legs are feeling weird and I’m getting some error messages.”
The bed thing stops moving me closer to the scanner, but it doesn’t shut down.
“What kind of error messages and are you in any pain?” I hear Dr. Edmundson over the intercom speaker.
“Something about a ‘Communication Channel Error’ and no, it just feels funny.”
“Can you wiggle your toes?”
I try that and they do wiggle, but they feel a little disconnected somehow. It’s weird. I guess that they see my toes wiggle in the control booth.
“Okay, we are going to start it back up. If you feel any pain, let us know immediately.”
“Okay...” I say as the bed starts to move again. I’m not sure if this is really a good idea. As more of my body begins to pass through the scanner, the Communication Channel errors overwhelm my little status display window. The tingling sensations also increase, but it still doesn’t hurt so I don’t say anything. As the scanner get closer to my head, that is when I really start to feel funny and not funny-ha-ha.
>Memory Parity Error!
That message doesn’t sound good and now my HUD is acting all crazy. It is like a bad TV picture as it distorts, scrolls and loops back around. That makes me start to feel dizzy. I do not like this ride anymore.
“Looking good Bree. Almost done.” I hear Dr. Edmundson say from the control room. He sounds so far away and distorted.
I barely understand him and I try to say something, but I am having trouble getting the words out. Any word really. I try to say “Help” or “Stop”, but nothing even remotely intelligible comes out of my mouth. I don’t even know if my mouth moves. This is totally not good! Nothing comes out of my mouth. I don’t even know if my mouth moves. This is totally not good!
Umm, MRI Machine. STOP!
Red emergency lights start flashing as the MRI Machine shuts itself down. My HUD snaps into focus, completely empty, except for a single window open, displaying the following message:
>Communication Channels and System Memory Parity Errors exceeded threshold...Automatic Reboot in >10
>9
>8
>7
>6
>5
>4
>3
I can only lie there as the system counts down to reboot. I have no idea what that is going to do, but I am not looking forward to it.
Stop!
I breathe a sigh of relief when the countdown stops, but my body doesn’t seem to want to obey my commands. I try to wiggle my toes again, but instead of my toes wiggling, I feel my arm try to move. I also get blasted with error messages again.
>Communication Channel Error!
>Communication Channel Error!
>Communication Channel Error!
Lots of them.
I can hear people saying stuff and I can see movement, but nothing is making sense. Okay, okay, I get it. I need to let my system reboot.
Continue.
>3
>2
>1
>Reboot Starting...
>Please do not remove power during reboot process or core file damage may occur...
Well, isn’t that just peachy? Everything stops and I can hear, see and move again, but all my senses feel muted.
“Is she going to be okay?” I hear my mom ask from somewhere nearby.
I turn my head and I see Dr. Edmundson at my side. He is helping the other people lift me out of the MRI machine and onto a rolling bed of some kind.
“Wha...What happened?” I ask, feeling woozy and strangely detached from my body. There is no way that I am going to admit that I shut the MRI machine down. I hear that those things are expensive and I do not want to be stuck with the repair bill if I broke it.
“We’re not sure, but the scanner shut down just as I was getting ready to hit the emergency stop button. Are you okay?” Dr. Edmundson asks as he peers into my eyes with concern.
“Not really. I feel, umm, muted and I think that I am rebooting right now or something.”
Dr. Edmundson’s eyes widen with surprise before he looks around to see how much attention the other medical folks are paying to me right now. “Hmmm, That’s interesting Bree. Let’s go over that when we get you to a more secure location.”
In other words, I think that he is saying, “Ix-nay on the top secret-nay” but I know that he wouldn’t actually say it that way. I just think it’s funnier and a giggle escapes from me before I can stop it.
Dr. Edmundson expression turns more serious. “We are taking you to a room right now. I want to go over your observations and monitor your condition as soon as results are available a little bit later.”
I think he looks a little worried about me. Aw shucks, I didn’t know that he cared. That makes me giggle again. “Ya know Doc; you should take a vacation or something. You’re looking pretty stressed out right now.”
There is a wheel on the bed that is squeaking. That is so annoying. Hey! Why are the lights in the hallway blinking? Is this magic carpet thing speeding up and why does a magic carpet have wheels.
“Whoa, Nelly. Can someone please stop this hearse, I mean horse?” Oh man, that’s funny. I wonder if they noticed the play on words there? I laugh at my joke, but everyone else just gets more serious.
>System Start Sequence Initiated...
Say what? Where did that come from? Oh yeah, that thing in my head. That’s so cool. Does it do that all the time?
>Performing Memory Test…
>Physical Memory Total: 2,684,354,560 kb
>Physical Memory Available: 2,040,059,229 kb
Wow! That’s a lot of memory. “Hey, Doc? Did you know that I have Physical Memory?”
He doesn’t look amused, but think it’s hilarious and I giggle some more.
>Initializing Boot Image…Do Not Turn Off Computer
Oh, that’s not funny. Why did I think that having Physical Memory was funny? Oh god. Hearse? That is so lame. What in the hell was I thinking?
>Initializing Kernel...complete
>Init Run Level 3
>Applying User Settings from /etc/config.ini
“Umm, Dr. Edmundson?”
He leans over my bed and begins to check my vital signs. “Yes, Bree?” He says with a guarded, yet patient tone of voice.
I think that he is expecting me to say something dumb again. “Sorry. I don’t know what came over me back there.”
He looks relieved as he smiles at me. “That’s okay, Bree. I wish that I could hook you up to a computer so that I could run a diagnostic on you, but I guess that will have to wait until we figure out a way to do that and we get back to the labs where I have the computers to run a diagnostic. How are you feeling?”
I am not going to mention that I can probably just give him what he needs by touching his laptop, but maybe I can offer something else instead. “Umm, I’m feeling much better now.” I say, still feeling a bit embarrassed about my walk on the silly side. I perform a quick check on the C3 thing and discover that it is active. “Ummm, Dr. Edmundson?”
Dr. Edmundson looks expectantly at me. “Yes?”
“I can connect to the C3 thing. Maybe I can use that to download some diagnostics for you. Would that help?”
“Hmmm, you know, that might just work.” As he thinks it over, he begins to look excited. “Actually, you were showing up as a node back at the labs. Stay online. I will be right back. I need to call Major Thole and Dr. Johannson.” He quickly leaves the room with a spring in his step.
Mystified, I glance over to my mom and all she can do is smile and shrug. She walks over and holds my hand. “You had me worried there. How are you feeling?”
“Okay now Mom, but that was a bit scary. I guess that I should have complained a little more about the funny feelings.”
“Yes, you should have, young lady! You need to notify people as soon as anything out of the ordinary happens.”
“Yeah, but what is ordinary now?”
My mom smiles affectionately at me. “Anything that seems strange or not right, no matter how small, you need to tell someone. Okay?”
“Yes, Mom.”
Dr. Edmundson chooses that moment to rush back into the room. He’s carrying his laptop and he looks pleased about something. He sets it on a table and makes a call using the room’s regular old-fashioned hard-line phone.
“Okay, Dr. Johannson. I’m here and my laptop is booting. See if you can ping her.”
That makes me sit up and pay attention. Dr. Edmundson looks over at me expectantly. I wonder if he is expecting a light bulb or something to light up on me.
>Ping request from user DJOH003X node larl.darpa.us.mil
>[A]ccept, [R]eject, [I]gnore?
I quickly accept it on the assumption that it is Dr. Johannson doing that ping thing on me. “I think Dr. Johannson just, umm, pinged me.”
Dr. Edmundson smiles with satisfaction. “Did it work? It did? Good. Let me get connected here, then I want you to try running the standard health diagnostics package on, umm, Whisper.”
Oh, so he’s going to try running something on me. “Whisper?” I ask, both pleased and alarmed at the same time. It’s one thing to play Whisper and now look like Whisper and have some of Whisper’s powers, but now I am being called Whisper too?
“I’m sorry, Bree, we just assumed that you were going to use Whisper as your alias for your MMID.”
“Oh.” I never really thought of that, but I guess it makes sense. I will need to have an alias for my MMID card. “Is Whisper available? I’ve heard that it can be hard to get names due to other heroes using them already.”
“Mr. Reilly and I checked the database this morning and reserved Whisper for your MMID. Is that okay?”
I feel conflicted about that decision. “Can I change it if I decide that I don’t like it?”
“Of course, but you will need to make that decision before we leave today. All of your test results are currently being entered in using the Whisper alias, but I think you can change it later too. It is just harder and takes a lot more paperwork.”
“Oh...okay. I will think about it and let you know before we are done today then.”
His laptop beeps and I watch as he logs into it. I really want to know what he is doing, but his screen is kind of hard to see from where I am sitting. With that thought, something inside of me just clicks and I can somehow see the inside of his laptop. Almost like I was able to do with my parent’s PC, but not as immersive, it feels more passive and view only. I am able to easily catch his login ID and password as he types them using his keyboard. I kind of recall hearing about the Russians capturing keystrokes at an Embassy by listening to the electronic signals of the keys being pressed. I can feel and see everything that he is doing on his laptop and what his laptop is doing internally, but I can’t change anything. I guess I have a range and I have to touch the computer to really do anything with it. Hmmm, that could come in handy, but, per Nikki, one more discovery to keep to myself.
He connects to a shared screen that must be Dr. Johannson’s computer back in New Mexico. I watch as Dr. Johannson clicks on an icon that looks like my health system icon.
>Health Systems monitor request from user DJOH003X node larl.darpa.us.mil
>[A]ccept, [R]eject, [I]gnore?
Umm, Accept?
It’s real weird watching what Dr. Edmundson is viewing remotely on Dr. Johannson’s computer while I monitor what information that Dr. Johannson is pulling down from me.
After five point two minutes, I start to get a little bored watching Dr. Edmundson and Dr. Johannson watch me. I decide to take a look at the C3 thing again. I wonder if there are any games that I can play?
>Searching....
>Active Blue on Red Force Game in Progress
>Join [Y]/N?
Umm...sure, I mean Yes.
A window opens up in the middle of my vision that displays a huge map with divided mostly in half by a jagged line. One side is red, while the other side of the map is blue. The blue side has a few spots where the red is deep inside its territory. Who is playing who?
A small window overlays the map that displays:
>Server 1
>Red Op-Force
>National Chinese Peoples Defense Force
>Commander: Colonel John Adams
>
>Server 2
>Blue Op-Force
>U.S. Army
>Commander: Colonel Roger Ashton
>
>Please Pick a Server to Join:
>
Ummm, I guess I can see what the good guys are up too? I pick Server 2 and watch as the red side disappears while the blue side of the map zooms-in. I see lots of symbols that represent all of the different units available to the blue force commander. I ‘touch’ each of the funny symbols to find out what they are and as I do that, information floods in telling me what they represent. He’s got artillery; air support via A-10 Warthogs and Cobra gunships, armor units with M1-A2’s supported by mounted infantry in Stryker vehicles and supply units.
It’s all pretty cool, and I’m no Patton, but it looks like Colonel Ashton is getting his butt kicked. His units are reacting too slowly to his commands. I can see him issue a command, but it is taking the system between 1000ms and 3000ms to parse a simple command before it initiates the command. Additionally, his recon units are calling in movement reports, but by the time, they are parsed by the system, the enemy has already moved out of the area. I check my latency and discover that I am sitting at 147ms. Not too bad. It looks like I have a pretty good connection to the server. Hmmm, it is just a game. I wonder what would happen if I tried to help him out...
~o~O~o~
Insert standard disclaimer here: The one that reminds everyone that this is a work of fiction. No one is real and any resemblance to someone who is real is just the reader's imagination. This is also a Fan Fiction set in the Whateley Story Universe. No Canon characters were permanently harmed in the making of this story. I hope. :)
Note: This chapter took some time. Sorry. I was up to 14k words, when I realized I still had another 4-6k to go, easy. So, I decided to break the chapter. On the plus side, I have chapter 29 ~70% done already. Thanks again djkauf for correcting my many mistakes.
** Chapter 28 **
>Monday, 19-Feb-2007 1008 hrs
>U.S. Army Command and General Staff School, Fort Leavenworth, KS.
Major Tom Hanson sat on his chair while his team monitored the servers. The school was running another battle sim and it was his responsibility to make sure the servers ran at peak performance. The officers using the servers to hone their command skills were going to be Generals some day and Major Hanson wanted to make Lt. Colonel. A server crashing in the middle of a sim would not look good on his performance review.
That is why he jumped when Sgt. Anders knocked on his door and reported, “Sir, we might have a problem with Server 2.”
Major Hanson looked out of his office window and down to the server floor. He spotted Server 2 with its blue card on top that denoted its force status. “Great, Server 2 is running the Blue force.” In this scenario, the blue force was supposed to lose to the red force. It was how badly the blue force commander lost that would be graded. If the blue force commander lost even worse due to a server glitch, there would be hell to pay.
“What is the problem, Sgt. Anders?” Major Hanson asked, fearing the response.
“It’s kinda hard to say sir. I just noticed that Server 2’s CPU utilization is down to 63% while Server 1 is still pegged at 100%.” Sgt. Anders said with a puzzled expression.
“Crap! Sounds like it’s crashing to me, what’s Server 2’s latency up to?” Major Hanson asked, expecting to hear that it was up from the normal 2,000-3,000 ms range and into or beyond the 7,000ms range.
“Umm, that’s the weird part sir,” said Sgt Anders, frowning with confusion, “Server 2’s latency has actually dropped. It’s now averaging 800ms, sir.”
Major Hanson had a hard time believing that. He typed a few commands into his terminal. “And no one has called down here to scream yet?” He asked with disbelief after viewing the server performance monitor. If he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, he wouldn’t believe that the server could be so close to crashing without anyone from upstairs calling to yell at him.
“No sir.” Sgt Anders said, looking equally puzzled.
“Hmmm, I guess I will call upstairs and face the music.” Major Hanson said with resignation.
“Yes sir, lemme know if you need a fire extinguisher to help put out the flames.” Sgt Anders said with a grin as Major Hanson shooed him out of his office.
Major Hanson sighed as he picked up the phone and hit the speed dial for the War-game Controller’s Office. “WCO, Lieutenant Harper. How may I direct your call, sir or ma’am?”
“Lieutenant, Major Hanson from the server room. We might have a problem with the Blue force server. Is the General available?”
“Yes sir. He is currently hovering over Colonel Ashton’s shoulder and watching his sim. I will go let him know you are on the line.” Lieutenant Harper said before he set the phone down on a hard surface.
Major Hanson feared the worst. If the General was “hovering” over someone, then it probably wasn’t a good sign. His thoughts of doom were interrupted when he heard General Roskaft pick up the phone 20 seconds later.
“What did you do to the Blue server Major Hanson?” General Roskaft asked, without a trace of the expected anger in his voice. “Colonel Ashton’s sim has been running better than ever for the past ten or fifteen minutes. It’s almost spooky how well the system is running for him.”
“How so, sir?” Major Hanson asked, confused as to why the General wasn’t chewing his ass out.
“It looks like that new Speech Recognition module you were talking about last week is working like a charm. It is instantly recognizing every command that Colonel Ashton is saying and Colonel Ashton has a pretty good southern accent.”
“We never got a chance to install that module sir.” Major Hanson said.
“Then what is making the system run so well?”
“I don’t know sir. I called you because I thought the server had crashed.”
“Oh, hell no! Like I said, the server is responding almost instantly to Colonel Ashton’s commands and is even starting to anticipate his commands as the battle progresses.”
“It is?” Major Hanson asked, mystified by what was happening.
“Yes, Major Hanson. Hell, if this keeps up we might have the makings for a first ever Blue Force victory.”
“We will?” Major Hanson asked, concerned. The Blue Force wasn’t supposed to win, ever. In his mind, that would be worse than the server crashing. There would be week’s worth of paper work to fill out and Power Points to create.
“I want you to find out why and make it like this all the time.”
Major Hanson watched as the server monitor showed the CPU spike back up to 100% and the latency go back into the 3,000ms range again. “Oh crap!” He said as he felt his face drain of all color.
“What was that Major?”
“Sorry sir. The server just returned to normal operation.” Major Hanson said, hearing the sound of swearing in the background.
“Major, find out why. I expect an answer by 1300hrs today. Call me ASAP if you find out something sooner!”
“Yes sir!” Major Hanson said as he braced to attention before the line went dead.
“Sergeant! Better bring me that fire extinguisher! Start pulling the server logs for Server 2. I wanna know everything that’s happened over the last hour.”
**
>Monday, 19-Feb-2007 1028 hrs
>Langley AFB, VA
“Brianna! Honey, are you okay?”
I hear my mom ask me with a chipmunk voice. Oh no! I was paying too much attention to the game. I quickly disconnect and pay more attention to what my mom is saying.
“Sorry Mom, I was kind of zoning there. What did you say?” I ask, turning my head to look at her.
“Dr. Edmundson was starting to get worried about you.” She looks over to Dr. Edmundson standing on the other side of my bed.
He’s staring at his laptop with concern evident on his face. “Bree, what were you doing?”
Oh crap. I think I might be in trouble now. I probably shouldn’t have been playing with the system like that. “Ummm, I was just playing a game that I found online.” I hesitantly say.
“What kind of game?”
“Well, I found something called a ‘Red on Blue Force’ game and it looked pretty interesting, so I joined the Blue Force.”
I am interrupted when Mr. Reilly and some Air Force officer with two stars on his shoulders enter the room.
>U.S.AirForce/RA/MajorGeneral/O-8/Harold/Anthony/Evans/xxx-xx-xxxx/O+/FALSE
Oh crap! I don’t think that they are in here to just say “hi”. I’m in so much trouble. Mr. Reilly looks at me with what I interpret to be a stern expression. The General is harder to read. He just looks ready for whatever happens.
“So, Brianna, you caused Dr. Edmundson and everyone a scare there when you failed to respond. What happened?” Mr. Reilly asks.
“Umm, well, the MRI machine kinda messed me up?”
Mr. Reilly just looks at me expectantly. “We know about that. What happened just now?”
Oh yes. I am in trouble. “I got kinda bored while Dr. Edmundson was running the diagnostics thing, so I found a game and sorta started playing it?” I sort of ask and say in an attempt to make it sound like it wasn’t really a big deal.
Mr. Reilly looks from me to Dr. Edmundson. I glance over and Dr. Edmundson shrugs his shoulders. “I’m not sure sir. I am glad that Bree had the idea about using the Land Warrior System to run health diagnostics on her and that it worked.” He looks at me and smiles encouragingly before he frowns. “However, If Bree was a computer; I would say that she was at 90% CPU utilization and close to crashing.”
Oh, that sounds bad.
Mr. Reilly looks worried now. “From sorta playing a game, Brianna? When was the last time you just sorta played a game?” He looks expectantly at me.
Oh yeah, he’s a little upset with me. I don’t even need the voice stress monitor to tell me that. I feel like I am ten inches tall now. I want to pull the covers over my head and hide. I am so close to crying and I hate that.
Mr. Reilly sighs with frustration. “Please say that it wasn’t called ‘Global Thermo-Nuclear War’.”
I instantly get the reference and I panic a little. What if I was playing a real war? Real people could be dead right now and I could be responsible. I don’t think that we are fighting the Chinese, so maybe it really was just a game, but I that worry pushes me over the crying edge.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Reilly, I didn’t mean to. I thought it was just a game and I was only trying to help.” I say as tears stream down my face and my nose starts to run. Geez, how pathetic and wussy can I get here?
I am a little surprised when Mr. Reilly walks over to my side and hands me a tissue. “Shh, it’s okay Bree. The President hasn’t called me yet, so I’m sure that it was just a game.” He says with a hint of a smile. “Tell us what happened.”
I dab my eyes with the tissue. Hmmm, maybe there is some advantage to this crying problem I seem to have. “Well, I found this game called ‘Red on Blue Force’ and it had one guy playing the Chinese army, umm, Colonel Adams and Lt. Colonel Ashton was playing the U.S. Army as the Blue Force.”
“Okay, and?” Mr. Reilly asks as he glances back to General Evans.
“Well, I noticed that Colonel Ashton was getting his butt, I mean, he was going to lose, but mostly because his computer controlled commanders were taking too long to understand and respond his orders. He was also missing some reports from his scouts. So, I, umm, sorta helped the computer with his commands.”
“Helped?” Mr. Reilly asks.
“Umm, yeah. It was taking the computer a super long time to understand even the simplest command from Colonel Ashton; he has a pretty bad accent, so I just told the computer was he was saying.”
Once again, Mr. Reilly looks back at General Evans. “Sir?”
He frowns in thought as he rubs his chin. “Hmmm, it could be the war game training sim that the Command and General Staff School runs. It has been a long time since I attended that school, but that was one of the games we ran.”
“Isn’t that in Virginia somewhere?” Mr. Reilly asks.
“There are some satellite schools in the state, but the main school is in Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas.” General Evans says.
Mr. Reilly turns back to me and sighs with frustration. “Okay, it sounds like you probably didn’t start a war, but it also looks like I have a few calls to make.” His voice thing is in the green, so I guess that he’s not mad at me anymore. He looks down a little and directly into my eyes. “And you, until we get your access levels ironed out, again, you need to not play with anything else in that system, okay?”
“Yes sir.” I say, glancing up to meet his gaze and still feeling miserable about what I did.
Mr. Reilly turns to General Evans. “Sir? I’m going to need access to a secure phone.”
“Of course, sir. You can use the one in my office.” General Evans says as he and Mr. Reilly exit the room. Mr. Reilly gives me one last sort of stern gaze before he leaves.
**
It takes a few seconds before Dr. Edmundson or my mom decide to say anything. I think that they are both still processing how much trouble I might be in and what to do next. My mom looks expectantly to Dr. Edmundson.
He clears his throat. “Yes, well, umm, where were we? Oh yes, your monitor. Well, until you zoned out on us, everything was responding normally and everything looks good now too.”
“Okay...” I say, weakly nodding my head.
“So, I’d like to monitor you for another twenty or thirty minutes, check out a few things. I think that having this monitor will help with your testing.” Dr. Edmundson says, sounding a little excited about that last thing. “Well, I think that I will let the test administrators know that you’re okay. Do you feel up to continuing with the testing in, say, thirty minutes?”
“Umm, sure?” I say, confused about why he would be asking me, but grateful at the same time.
“Great!” Dr. Edmundson smiles affectionately at me. “Plus, that will give Mr. Reilly a chance to make his calls. I am going to recommend that we just do a CAT scan on you next and I want to see if the MRI got anything before it shut down. I will be right back.” He says as he affectionately pats my leg once before he turns and exits the room.
My mom replaces Dr. Edmundson’s place at my side. She gives me a hug instead of an exam though.
She releases me. “I was a little worried there, honey. Okay, more than a little worried. You’re not going to play around with any more games, right?”
“I’m totally sure, Mom!” I glance down at my hospital attire. “Ummm, would it be possible to get my clothes back now?”
My mom laughs. “Sure. I will run down the hall and get them for you.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
I never felt so glad to get out of that darn gown and put on my umm, underwear and regular clothes. I know, I know. They are called panties, but I’m having trouble with that word.
One of the staff doctors stops in after only ten minutes to do a check-up. I guess that is just so that the facility can CYA. Mr. Reilly doesn’t return or call during my thirty minute downtime, so Dr. Edmundson lets the facility know that I am ready for more testing and after a quick jaunt down the hall, I get to strip down and wear a gown again for the CAT scanner.
Sigh.
The CAT scanner is boring, but I’ll take boring to the crazy MRI scanner any day.
After the CAT scan, they make me keep the gown on for my very first pelvic exam. Well, I get to watch my mom get examined first. Since we both need exams for our records, Dr. Howards, our gynecologist, asks who wants to go first. My mom volunteers to go first. I think she does it so that I won’t have an excuse to be a wuss about it. On the plus side, there aren’t any needles involved. On the negative side, there is this big clamp thing that I am not looking forward too. Maybe my nanites will eat it.
Dr. Howards does seem to be a nice guy though. He is very professional and gentle with my mom. He makes sure that she knows exactly what he is going to do, when he is going to touch her and where. That is a little reassuring for me.
My turn at the table proves to be, umm, not fun. Dr. Howards uses some of the CAT scan imagery to try and reassure me that my hip structure looks perfectly healthy for a girl my age. Based on that, I don’t think that he knows about my medical history. I take a peek at his terminal and spot that my sex is listed as ‘female’, so I guess that he really doesn’t know. I just smile and thank him for his observation. My mom elects to remain silent, but I think she knew I wasn’t really thrilled with that bit of knowledge.
He also decides that during his exam and while my feet are strapped to his torture table stirrup things that it would be a good time to educate me on my new plumbing.
“So, Brianna, have you had any abnormal flows during the past six months?” Dr. Howards asks as sets a new, plastic wrapped speculum on his instrument tray. That’s the clamp or spreader thing that I hope my nanites eat.
“Umm, no sir. I did not.” While I try not to laugh at my own joke, my mom frowns at me, but sort of smiles at the same time.
I am also able to honestly answer “No” to his question about me being sexually active or using contraceptive medication. He elects to helpfully remind me that if I do decide to take birth control pills, that I should still insist that my partner wears a condom due to the risk of sexually transmitted diseases. TMI! Nothing like a captive audience, I guess. I just wish we could skip right to the new powers testing module thing and avoid this pelvic exam entirely.
Other than the impromptu sex-ed class, I learn that “Everything is normal.” I really don’t like that speculum thing, but when my nanites detect and helpfully ask if I want the foreign metallic object eaten; I reluctantly tell them to stand-down. I’m not sure why they asked about that and not the needles. Maybe it is because the needles actually cause a wound and the nanites are programmed to respond more aggressively in that situation.
Oh yeah, and once again, I really don’t like being a girl. Why can’t the girl exam be like the boy exam? You know, just turn your head and cough? Girl plumbing is way too complicated. It is a miracle that the human race has survived for as long as it has and if girl parts are so complicated and need regular invasive checkups; why do women live longer than men?
In the end, I still feel pretty damn violated. On the plus side, Dr. Howards informs me that I shouldn’t need another pelvic exam until I turn twenty-one. Now that would be one hell of a way to celebrate my twenty-first birthday, not. I am very glad that my mom was there with me. All of the strange sensations were incredibly overwhelming to me. Her calm, reassuring, everything is normal smile is the only reason that I didn’t cry. Well, that and the fact that she went before me and there is no way that I am going to make a big deal of something if my mom doesn’t.
I do wish that I could take a shower to clean the slimy feeling that the lubricant caused down there. My mom gives me a few of her wet wipe things that she always carries in her purse. I never understood why she needed those things, but the last few days are helping. I almost feel normal after a few wipes. Well, I feel a lot less yucky, but I still feel a little out of sorts down there. On the plus side, I am able to ditch the gown.
The allergy tests go pretty well. Surprise, surprise, I’m allergic to iron and man-made, artificial fibers. I don’t understand why I’m not allergic to steel, since steel is really iron, but I guess that steel is just more refined and that removes the allergic bits.
My mom gets called away during the allergy test to start her testing. That causes me a little concern, but Dr. Edmundson stays, so I guess I still have someone I can trust.
The vision test is a bit of a challenge for the testers. The standard eye charts can only measure to 20/5 vision and that is where they are stuck until they have the bright idea to move the chart into the hallway so they can get me 40 feet away. 40/5 is easy, so they ask me to just keep walking backwards until I can’t read the bottom line any more. 200/5 is where I end up and that is only because we run out of hallway.
Using his laptop, Dr. Edmundson is able to see what I see and hear what I hear. I can see how this system would be nice on the battle field. It would be like that Aliens movie, but better since the images aren’t all grainy and there aren’t any aliens trying to eat me.
My hearing ends up testing out mostly normal human baseline. Mostly. I test out at 20 Hz to 40,000Hz. Baseline is 20 Hz to 20,000Hz. A dog can go up to 60,000 Hz. So, I have above normal hearing, but not freakishly above normal. That’s cool. Maybe when I get a new cell phone I can put in that mosquito ring tone and jack it up to 30,000Hz so no one else can hear it.
Dr. Edmundson also uses his laptop to monitor me during the physical tests. The first physical test is the strength and endurance test. The strength one is some electronically controlled weights, while the endurance part is some super sized tread mill thing. For the strength test, I manage to bench press 400 lbs pretty smoothly, but my max press ends at 500 lbs. As expected, my max press wipes me out, but less than twenty seconds later; I am able to do it again. Followed by another twenty second rest and again. I feel like I could keep doing this max press thing over and over again all day, but Dr. Edmundson stops me.
I’m amazed and even Dr. Edmundson is impressed. “Based upon your results and the monitor here.” He points to his laptop. “It appears that the medical nanites, in concert with your natural regen, are allowing your muscles to metabolize their energy supplies much faster than I would expect.”
“Oh, that’s cool.” I say, but I remember doing my max press in gym class and feeling spaghetti armed for at least five minutes and not being able to do hardly any lifting for almost thirty minutes. On top of that, as a guy, I was only able to max press 150 lbs and that was on a good day. I’m pretty damn strong for a little girl!
The treadmill is just boring. After fifteen minutes of running at a normal pace, it seems like I can just go all day. I try a sprint, expecting to feel the burn and stop after only a minute, at best, but instead, I feel perfectly fine after ten minutes of flat out running. I do end up sweating. I’m not sure if it is proper, but I decide to take off my sweat shirt, because I don’t really need to sweat more and I’ve seen plenty of women wearing only a sports bra in the gym. Oh wait, I mean I, umm, glow, because girls don’t sweat, they glow. Yeah, right. I am dripping wet, but feeling perfectly good to go when Dr. Edmundson signals me to stop after thirty minutes of full speed running. He hands me a sports drink and a towel. I smile at him and he quickly looks back down to his laptop display.
“Thanks Dr. Edmundson, how did I do?” I ask as I slow to a walk to help slow my breathing and cool down gently while I take a few sips from the sports drink. I know better to just stop and sit down after running. I am glad that he gave me a towel. I can’t believe how much I am sweating and how much that I want to rip off my sports bra right now.
Dr. Edmundson looks back up. “Excellent! I don’t know what to credit more for your performance. The nanites helped by boosting the oxygen supply to your muscles and improving your lung efficiency, while I think that your natural regen helped remove the fatigue toxins in your muscles. I stopped you because you were beginning to get dehydrated. So, that is something you will need to pay attention to during extended exercise.”
“Oh, that’s good to know, but I felt fine.” I smile at him as stop walking and step off the treadmill while I wipe the sweat out of my eyes with the towel. I think that my glamour is working on him again, because, once again, he quickly returns to looking at his screen. My current state of undress probably isn’t helping him any. I feel so embarrassed. I pat my neck and upper body down with the towel and throw my sweatshirt back on in an effort to help poor Dr. Edmundson.
“Yes, I know, but I thought that it would be safer to stop you before you hurt yourself and I’m sure that you will want to, umm, freshen up a little before we head for lunch.”
Crap! I forgot to bring my purse. I bet that my mom stuck a comb or something in there for me. Oh well, what I really need is a set of spare clothes and I am sure that my mom couldn’t fit those in my purse. I guess that I could splash some water on my face and fix my hair a little before we leave for lunch. “Hmmm, I think you’re right. I’ll head to the bathroom.”
**
>Monday, 19-Feb-2007 1145 hrs
>U.S. Army Command and General Staff School, Fort Leavenworth, KS.
Major Tom Hanson was a happy man. It took Sgt. Anders and himself less than thirty minutes to trace the log files and find out what happened with Server 2. As a bonus, they were able to do that without needing to shut the server down. Thus, he was ahead of schedule with the General’s Power Point After Action Review (AAR) briefing.
He was amazed by what they had discovered. He knew that the server’s OS was a multi-processor system designed to hyper-thread and parallel process within itself. But, what he didn’t know, until he cracked open the manuals, is that there also was code and procedures built-in that would allow the server to off-load processing to external systems, but those “grid-computing” procedures and code had never been utilized since it was envisioned to only be used with a hardwired connected system.
Following the log trail, at 1003 hours, a super-computer called “Whisper” connected from the DARPA network connected via mil.net. Then, five minutes later at 1008 hours, Whisper, as a trusted peer, engaged the server’s grid-computing procedures and assisted it with processing the natural language commands given by Lt. Col Ashton. Even with the network latency, the Whisper super-computer was able to process and return the commands insanely fast. Finally, at 1028 hours, Whisper disconnected without warning.
Based upon its node designation and raw speed, he could only assume that it was a super-computer. After all, what else could it be? DARPA was well known for experimenting with cutting edge stuff.
The idea actually made him a little excited. While in college, he had read about some research into human speech recognition and he knew it wasn’t easy. Human speech is capable of so many different tones and meanings that it was almost impossible for a computer to one hundred percent recognize and interpret human speech. Word Error Rate (WER) is generally higher when speed is a requirement. Take the phrase “Get out of here!”. Is that a simple command to leave or is the speaker expressing surprise? It all depends on the speaker’s tone of voice and inflection.
Granted, it was only a short period of time, but Whisper managed to make those distinctions with one hundred percent accuracy. She knew when to ask for clarification when Lt. Col Ashton used too many acronyms and she even started to predict future requests based on past requests. She was almost human, except not even a human would’ve been able to talk directly to the server and respond as fast as Whisper did. She had to be some sort of AI, but not a full AI since those were banned. Her voice sounded a little young to be used as a computer voice, but she sounded friendly and was easy to understand. An important consideration in a high-stress situation. Yes, just like ships and cars, all computers are female. Hal 9000 ruined that area for male dominance.
One of his recommendations was to see if the Army could purchase or share time on the Whisper computer when it is completed. Near real-time human speech recognition could lead to the sci-fi Universal Translator that could save soldiers lives in foreign theaters of battle.
Major Hanson was deep in thought imagining some cool phone or PDA app when he heard one of the Specialists from outside his office yell, “Attention!” He looked up as he automatically rose from his chair and spotted General Roskaft entering the data center.
Crap! I’m not done yet, but it’s not 1300 hours yet. He must be really anxious to find out what happened.
“As you were, as you were.” General Roskaft said, waving his hands dismissively as he stalked towards Major Hanson’s office.
The General didn’t look pissed or impatient as he approached Hanson’s office. He actually looked more perplexed than anything else.
“Sir? I am just finishing up my Power Point now. Would you like to see it?”
General Roskaft shook his head ‘no’. “That won’t be necessary Tom. Who else worked with you or knows about this, umm, intrusion?”
Major Hanson struggled to control his confusion and fear. He wasn’t sure about what was going on. Considering the subject, the fact that General Roskaft used his first name only confused him even more. If he was in trouble, General Roskaft would be addressing him by his rank and last name only. “Sgt Anders is the only other personnel who was involved or has any detailed knowledge of the incident. He helped me pull and analyze the log files.”
“Okay. I need you to call him in here then. What I have to say will apply to both of you.”
“Yes sir!” Major Hanson said as he opened his door, stepped out and motioned for Sgt Anders to come over. Sgt Anders looked a little anxious about it too. Major Hanson could only shake his head to Sgt Anders inquisitive expression as he cautiously approached and entered his office. Major Hanson followed behind and softly closed his door as he looked to General Roskaft for clues to how he should proceed.
As his door closed, General Roskaft gave them both a quick smile to help reduce their fears. “You two can relax. I’m not here to bust your balls for not having the report done. I just got off the phone with the SecDef.” He paused as the importance of that statement sunk in for his audience. “Yes, he called me after he got a call from his boss. Need I say more about how high up the flag pole this thing goes?”
Major Hanson and Sgt Anders both looked at each other with shocked expressions before returning their gaze to General Roskaft.
“Apparently, this intrusion was an accident and a pretty damn highly classified accident at that. Well above my pay-grade. None of what happened today is to be ever mentioned to anyone outside of this room. Full need-to-know and national security are in effect. Got it?”
“Yes sir!” Major Hanson and Sgt. Anders chorused.
“Additionally, I need you to extract the relevant portion of the log file and send it, along with your report using the following instructions. Don’t lose it and shred it when you’re done. I have already securely deleted this from my inbox.” General Roskaft said as he handed Major Hanson a print out.
Major Hanson quickly glanced at it and recognized that it was a printed email and that the sender address belonged to the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Not from the man himself, but definitely from someone in his office. Probably an IT guy.
“Once that is done, you need to delete and umm, over-write the log and report to ensure that it cannot be recovered from your systems. I’m assuming that you will know how to do that?”
“Yes sir.”
“Good, and if you have the report on any removable media, that needs to be destroyed as well.”
“Yes sir. I don’t have it on anything other than my workstation here.”
“Excellent! Email me when you are done.”
“Yes sir!” Major Hanson said while cringing a little at the thought of emailing something that was supposed to be so top secret.
“Other than that, excellent work, you two, and sorry Tom, I was looking forward to that report, but now, no matter how curious I might be about it, I don’t want to know.” General Roskaft relaxed and smiled that the two of them. “But, if DARPA has another test accident, I don’t think that I will complain.”
**
>Monday, 19-Feb-2007 1204 hrs
>Langley AFB, VA
The test facility doesn’t have its own cafeteria so we have to ride the elevator back to the surface world to use the hospital’s cafeteria. Surprisingly, that cafeteria has some pretty good food. The burgers and pizza look so yummy, but the smell of cooked grease makes my stomach turn. I sigh as I load up my tray from the salad bar.
Apparently, all the weight lifting and running not only dehydrates me, but it also makes me hungry since I demolish my salad. I am about to get up to get a second salad when my HUD alerts me to the arrival of Mr. Reilly and my mom. I wave to catch their attention and I get a little worried about how serious Mr. Reilly looks as he scans the room and spots us. He nods at me as he points to my mom.
They both walk over to our table and join us with my mom sitting beside me and Mr. Reilly sitting next to Dr. Edmundson.
My mom looks at me with a critical eye. “Why do you look so bedraggled?”
I don’t think that I look that bad. I know that I didn’t have a brush to make my hair look perfect, but I thought I did an okay job. “I had a bit of a workout on the treadmill.”
“Hmmpphh, I put a small brush and some extra scrunchies in your purse. Did you forget to bring it with you?” My mom asks, while knowing the answer already.
“Ummm, sorry. I forgot.” I really did forget, but I’m surprised that she forgot to remind me about it before we left the room this morning.
My mom digs into her purse and pulls out her brush. “Here, why don’t you go fix your hair?”
I run to the bathroom and out of habit, I almost enter the wrong door before I make a rapid course correction. I quickly glance around, but it looks like no one noticed my almost goof. My first venture into a women’s public restroom is anti-climatic and I am surprised by how much nicer it smells compared to the men’s room. It’s not that it’s cleaner, but the lack of urinals might have something to do with it. It is the lingering smell of perfume in the air. Just enough to drown out the normal bathroom smells.
I notice that one of the stalls is occupied, so I have that to worry about. Well, I guess not worry. I am a girl, but I still feel like an intruder. I smirk at the idea of whoever is in the stall coming out and yelling at me for being in the wrong bathroom. I wish.
My hair isn’t that messed up, but it does look a little worse for wear. A few swipes with the brush, a little water to help tame the worst and my hair is back to looking almost pristine. I am glad that Whisper had such an easy to manage hairstyle. I am just finishing up when the toilet flushes and a woman exits her stall. She smiles at me as she steps up to the sink to wash her hands.
I relax a little. It looks like I won’t be getting my wish. I return to the table and give my mom her brush back.
“Much better.” My mom smiles at me appreciatively.
“Thanks. Sorry that I forgot my, umm, purse. I’m just not used to having one.” I blush from a mixture of shame and more shame. Shame for forgetting it and shame for having one.
My mom smiles at me. “It’s okay dear. Just be more careful in the future.”
“Yes, Mooomm.” I smile at her as brightly as I can manage while inside I cringe a little at myself because I sounded just like Lindsay there. “Ummm, can I go get some more food now? I’m staarrvving!”
She just laughs and waves me away from the table.
Once again, I load up my plate with rabbit food, but this time I receive a few strange looks from the people running the kitchen. I don’t think that they are used to seeing people load up on the salad bar more than once. I just smile at them and they glance away, embarrassed at having been caught by me. I think.
I guess that they had good reason though, because even my mom raises an eyebrow at the size of my second salad when I return to the table. I just smile, shrug my shoulders and dig in.
“So, umm, Mr. Reilly?” I ask after I near the end of my plate and slow down enough to speak as I chase a slippery cherry tomato with my fork.
“Yes?”
“Umm, am I in trouble with that ‘game’ thing?” I ask, trying not to sound too pathetic and girlie, but it’s a little hard to not cringe at the sound of my voice. By girlie, I mean, “In need of protection” even though I know that I would’ve asked the same exact question if I was a guy, but I don’t think I would’ve sounded so “dependent”.
Mr. Reilly surprises me with a smile. “Actually, I was very worried. I started at the top with you know who. Then, I spoke with the SecDef, who then spoke with the school’s commanding general. Then, the SecDef called me back a few minutes later laughing about the whole thing.”
“What?!? But...I...” I say, stuttering with confusion. I fully expected Mr. Reilly to say that I was going to end up in a jail somewhere. Is this girlie thing really that effective? I know that Lindsay could sometimes get away with murder just by sounding so pathetic, but really?
“I was able to read through the school’s report on the incident and the General in charge of the school and his IT staff were very impressed with our little experiment. The Major who wrote the report suggested that the school and the DOD buy DARPA’s new Whisper super-computer when we are done testing it.” Mr. Reilly says with a grin.
“Really!?” I ask, stunned that I’m not in trouble and by the fact that my alias is probably going to end up matching my GEO character name. I am spared further top secret embarrassment by the arrival of Mrs. Townsend.
“Do you all mind if I join you?” Mrs. Townsend asks.
My mom looks up and smiles warmly at her. “Not all, here, let me move my tray and make some room for you.”
“Thanks.” Mrs. Townsend says as she settles into the open spot. She turns to me and smiles warmly. “So, Bree. You are such a pretty and polite young lady. I’m sure that you have all the boys in your school acting crazy.”
I almost choke on the cherry tomato that I just popped into my mouth when she says that. I glance at my mom and she’s not helping. She just has a mischievous little smile on her face. Almost like she is passively confirming Mrs. Townsend statement.
“Oh dear, are you okay? Did something go down the wrong pipe?”
I cough a few times just to help buy me some more time to reply. A little help here, mom! “Umm, yeah. Sorry about that. I’m just not used to thinking of myself as pretty. I’m kinda new to all the attention.”
Mrs. Townsend has a knowing smile. “Ah, so you were kind of a late bloomer then? I know how that is. My daughter was the same way. One day she was little Miss Plain Jane that no one paid any attention to and the next day, none of the boys would leave her alone.”
“Umm, yeah. That’s kinda how it is.” If she only knew.
“So, What do you think of our little facility here? It’s all new!” Mrs. Townsend says with conspiratorial whisper.
Does that have something to do with what Nikki and Sara warned me about? “New? Why is it all new?”
“Um, well, the DoD wanted a different test site so they decided to build it here.”
Mrs. Townsend’s voice stress meter is in the upper yellows, edging into the red zone there. I wonder if I should keep pushing. I am kind of curious. “Why did they want a different test site? Where was the old one?”
Her eyes look haunted and I feel my mom’s fingers dig into my leg as a warning. “The old site just wasn’t in the right place. I can’t really say more than that.” Everything she just said was in the red, but she tried to shrug it off with a smile.
Time to change the subject. She looks pretty tan for it being the middle of winter. “Did you recently have a vacation?”
My mom’s fingers relax as Mrs. Townsend’s happy smile returns. “Oh! Yeah. I somehow won a trip to Disney World for my family. We just got back from spending a wonderful week down there. Have you ever been to Disney World?”
I find myself returning her smile at the memory of the family trip that we took to Disney three years ago. “Yeah, it was fun. I was a little disappointed with the roller coasters though.”
“What? Why?”
“Well, I kind of expected them to be bigger or something. More scary.”
“My daughter and I thought that they were more than scary, but my husband and my son kind of said the same thing. Oh well, I guess you must have a little bit of a tomboy hidden inside of you.”
It takes all of my limited self control to not laugh. “Yeah, maybe.”
I think that I was too subtle there, because she looks concerned. “Not that I don’t think that a girl like you can’t have a little tomboy inside them. I hope that I didn’t upset you there.”
“Oh no, it’s okay,Mrs. Townsend. I’m just feeling a little overwhelmed by all the attention, that’s all.”
“Oh. I am sorry to hear that dear.” She then turns back to my mom and engages her in small talk. They talk about things like gardening, fashion and even the weather. I tune it all out as I work on my salad.
Dr. Edmundson excuses himself and heads out. He wants to see if the techs were able to recover any imagery from the MRI before it shut down.
Lucky guy. I wish that I had a good excuse to leave the table. Mrs. Townsend keeps trying to pull me into their conversation about clothes and fashion. She also mentions that her daughter likes this and her son likes that more than once. I hope that doesn’t mean that she is thinking about trying to set me up with her son or something. My mom smiles patiently at me when I respond with simple “yes”, “no” and “I don’t know” answers. Well, more “I don’t know”, because, honestly, I don’t. Fortunately, that doesn’t seem to faze Mrs. Townsend. She’s a one woman conversation machine. So chipper and up-beat that it’s almost criminal.
I feel relieved when Mrs. Townsend glances at her watch. “Oops, it looks like it is time to get you to your next test there, young lady.”
“Which one is it?”
She frowns for a second. “It’s not really one of my favorites, but we rebuilt it from the old facility here. It’s the reflex test, but once that one is done, than you will just have a magic powers test and finally, the new super machine test, machine thing. After that, you are done for the day. I think that they want your Mom to at least get a CAT scan done and maybe an MRI while you are doing your magic test.” She turns to my mom. “Is that okay?”
My mom gently laughs. “Sure. I completed my empathy testing while Bree was lifting weights and I was wondering when they would want me to try the machine that Bree broke.”
Mrs. Townsend laughs at my mom’s joke, but I can’t help feeling a bit nervous about that. What if they figure out that I did it?
“Oh good. Okay, are you both ready to head back into the dungeon?” Mrs. Townsend asks.
We both laugh and nod affirmatively to her. Once we descend back into the hidden facility, she leads us into a control room where a guy dressed in a lab coat sits facing a giant console of some kind.
Mrs. Townsend introduces him as, “Joe the Great Ball Cannon Dude”. The room over-looks another room that is about the same size and shape as a racquetball court. Except this racquetball court has a big red circle in the middle of it and the walls and ceiling have what look like baseball pitching cannons sticking out all over. The circle looks like it is about 10 feet in diameter. I wonder what it is for. The floor looks like it is slightly angled and there is a trough at the end. That must be to help collect the balls that the machines fire?
Joe notices my curiosity. “Okay, this isn’t as bad as it looks. Trust me; the new one is way better than the old one. This one only shoots tennis balls at people, not medicine balls and bowling balls like the old one did.”
Bowling balls!?!? Why am I not reassured by that statement?
“The object of this test is to stay in the red circle and not get hit by a ball for as long as you can go.”
“How long do most people make it?” I ask him.
Joe smiles nervously. “Well, we haven’t actually had a chance to test anyone like you in this one yet. It’s all pretty new, but we had a pilot volunteer to test it for us and his best time was 21 seconds. His results matched up pretty well to what we expected from a baseline human subject.”
21 seconds? That doesn’t sound very long. “Oh. Okay. So, if I last more than 21 seconds, can I have a ride in a F-16?”
He laughs. “I’m not sure that we can authorize something like that, but if you last more than 10 seconds on your first try, I’ll buy you an ice cream.”
“Hmmm, that’s not as good as an F-16 ride, but I guess I could accept an ice cream until the authorizations on the F-16 comes through.” I laugh and I am relieved when everyone laughs with me. I still would rather have an F-16 ride though.
Mrs. Townsend shows my mom and I out of the room, down a flight of stairs and into a small locker room area. Well, more of a changing room really. There are bins holding a few different sizes of padded head protection. It looks like the head gear that we have at Jujitsu. There are also a few brand new plastic safety glasses sitting there. That’s not a good sign. Not good because they think I will need it and not good because I bet I can’t wear it.
I inspect the head gear and as I expect, it is a padded foam covered with red plastic. I can’t wear that. Ditto for the plastic safety glasses. “Umm, Mom. Mrs. Townsend, I can’t wear this stuff. I’m allergic to the materials.”
Mrs. Townsend looks worried. “Oh dear, I’m not sure if we can let you do the test without it, but it is just tennis balls. Would you be willing to give the machine a try without?”
“I’m game. Mom?”
“Are you sure?” She asks as Mrs. Townsend looks at us expectantly.
“Sure, not a problem. I’ve played baseball with less and those balls hurt.”
“Okay hon, but I want them to stop the test if they start hurting her, Barb.”
Mrs. Townsend nods her head. “Of course, Jennifer. You and I can sit up there and watch. At the first sign of trouble, I’ll hit the emergency stop button myself. If you don’t beat me to it!” She finishes with a laugh.
My mom looks back at me. “Okay, Bree. You be careful in there. Don’t be afraid to yell out if things start hurting.”
I’m not sure exactly why she is telling me that. I will have zero problems with telling them to stop if it starts hurting me, plus I am betting that she will be able to tell them that it’s hurting me long before I could yell for help.
Mrs. Townsend points to a door conveniently labeled, “Test Area - Do Not Enter without Authorization”. I turn the handle, open the door and enter the room. It seems so much larger from down here. The cannons are very intimidating.
“Just stand in the middle of the red circle Bree and don’t leave it. If you exit the circle, then the test will stop and that will be counted as a loss.” Mrs. Townsend says.
“Okay.” I say over my shoulder as I enter the circle. I turn back to see the door close and hear the door’s lock click into place.
Rut Roh! This is it...
A few seconds later Joe’s voice comes over a PA system. “Okay. Test run one. Starting in T-minus 10,9,8,...”
I start looking around. I wonder which cannon the first ball will be fired from. Those cannons really look intimidating. I really hope that tennis balls are all that they can fire.
“...7,6,5,...”
I activate my targeting systems and maybe a few more things that I don’t really need, but there is no such thing as overkill in this kind of situation.
“...4,3,2,1 and go!” Joe says, finishing the countdown.
~o~O~o~
Insert standard disclaimer here: The one that reminds everyone that this is a work of fiction. No one is real and any resemblance to someone who is real is just the reader's imagination. This is also a Fan Fiction set in the Whateley Story Universe. No Canon characters were permanently harmed in the making of this story. I hope. :)
Note: Special thanks to my beta-readers for helping to reign in my enthusiasm for jumping the shark. I hope that I have dodged that bullet effectively with this chapter. If I have not, it is not their fault. Thanks again djkauf for correcting my many mistakes.
** Chapter 29 **
<Buzzzzzz!>
An alarm klaxon sounds.
<Whump!>
I am surprised when the first cannon fires a ball from the control room wall behind me. I was expecting the first few to come from the front wall. I manage to dodge it, but it was close. The second ball comes at me from the front wall, but this time I’m watching my tracking system a bit better and I easily dodge it. The third ball is fired exactly at the three second mark, but the fourth ball comes only half a second later. Then, the fifth ball comes at me half a second after that. The next five balls follow that pattern, until the ten second mark.
At the ten second mark, two balls are shot at me from two different spots in the room. Whoa! That’s a surprise. Half a second later, two more. At the fifteen second mark, three balls are fired at me from three different spots in the room. This is starting to get a little tricky, but at least I have an ice cream coming to me now.
At the twenty second mark, time seems to slow down a little bit for me when my targeting system detects four balls coming at me from four different directions. That slow down effect makes the four even easier to dodge than the three ball test sequence.
At the twenty five second mark, it jumps to five balls and those also prove easy to dodge.
By the forty five second mark, I can’t just dodge the balls. I have to start deflecting some of them with my hands and feet. I am glad that my hitting the balls on purpose doesn’t count against me. Especially when I start using one ball to knock another ball off trajectory.
By the time the sixty second mark comes along, I’m starting to get a little frazzled. I am jumping, ducking, twisting and deflecting my little heart out, but the circle is just too small. I am tracking the trajectories of twenty different balls and I can predict their paths perfectly, but there are just too many balls to dodge and stay in the circle. I finally get hit in the back by a ball at sixty two point thirty four seconds.
The test stops with a loud horn sounding. I spend a few seconds gasping for air as I watch the tennis balls continue to bounce around the room as they slowly dribble to a halt and roll down the floor to the collection trough.
I hear the excited voice of Joe, the dude who owes me an ice cream, over the speakers. “Excellent job, Whisper! That was amazing!”
I turn and look up to the control room with a smile. “I’ll take an extra-large banana split, with an F-16 ride on top please!”
I hear everyone in the control room laugh in the background as Joe replies. “Umm, I’ll look into the F-16, but I think that bananas are all I can afford right now.”
I glance up and pretend to give it serious thought. “Hmmm, it is a shame that I forgot my purse. I think I have at least five dollars in there. Do you think that would help with the F-16?”
Joe laughs. “Okay, I am opening the door for you.”
I am guessing that a five isn’t enough for an F-16 ride. I hear the door click and I see it open a crack. I give my audience a wave and exit the room. My mom and Mrs. Townsend greet me a few seconds later.
“That was amazing Bree!” Mrs. Townsend says, excitedly. “I watched the pilot they tested and you were like watching the Matrix or something with how you moved!”
“Oh, thanks. It was actually kind of fun too.” I say as my mom sneaks in a quick hug on me.
Mrs. Townsend grins at me. “We can go back to the control room and watch the replay while Joe analyzes the data if you want.”
As we enter the control room, Joe starts the replay in super slow motion on the big high definition monitor. I am amazed when he spins a knob and the view rotates around me to capture the action from every angle.
“Wow! How did you do that?” I blurt out as I walk over and look over his shoulder.
Joe pauses the replay and turns to me with a shy smile. “How I did that is nothing compared to what you just did in there. You were absolutely incredible!”
I can’t help it, I blush. “Umm, thanks? But, really. How are you doing that with the replay?”
“You’re probably going to think I’m a geek or something, but...” He stutters to a stop and looks embarrassed about something.
I glance over and realize that I have my hand on his shoulder and my face is just inches from his face. I can’t believe that I just got all touchy-feelie there. I bet that my glamour is hitting him full force and I must stink from my latest workout. I jerk my hand back and blush. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to...” I can’t believe that I just worried about how I smell to a guy.
He glances back up at me with a puzzled expression and smiles. “What? Oh, that’s okay. I’m just not used to other people being, umm, techie enough to even pretend to understand half of what I am saying.”
I think that he was going to say “nerdy” or maybe “geeky” there. “Well, umm, I think it’s awesome! It really looks like that ‘bullet-time’ camera system they used in The Matrix.” Oh gawd. Now I’m being all geeky on him.
His jaw drops. Well, it doesn’t actually drop, but he sure looks surprised by what I just said. “Exactly! I know I shouldn’t be, but I am surprised that you would know about that! I actually umm, borrowed, the idea from that movie.” He explains the entire system to us and while I find it very interesting, Mrs. Townsend interrupts him just as he starts to get into how the digital processing system builds the interactive video that he has paused on his screen.
He blushes again when he realizes what he was doing. “Sorry about that.” He spins back around in his chair and restarts the playback. “So. Your performance was great, but it looks like we caught you by surprise with the first ball. Based on that, I think that we can eliminate ‘pre-cog’ from your abilities, but your recovery and reaction speed was nothing short of amazing.”
He restarts the playback and everyone in the room “ohhhs” and “ahhhs” over it. Even I am amazed by it and I was there. He pauses it once again at the thirty second mark and hits another button on his console. The video is overlapped with a computer diagram of all of the ball’s trajectories. He then advances the video frame by frame, watching the trajectories and my reactions to the objects that I shouldn’t have been able to see.
“Actually, I think that your reflexes are almost as good as having a ‘pre-cog’ ability. How were you able to spot all the balls without seeing them with your eyes?”
I glance to my mom. Without Dr. Edmundson or Mr. Reilly here, I’m not sure how much I can admit too. “Ummm, I think that it’s classified?” I say, hesitantly as Joe and Mrs. Townsend look at me like they are expecting more of an answer. “I guess that I could kinda sorta see the balls all around me without, umm, looking?” It doesn’t look like they are buying my story. “Maybe Dr. Edmundson or Mr. Reilly would have a better idea?” I practically squeak out at the end.
I don’t know why I am so paranoid about the top secret stuff. I think that everyone in here is cleared, but without Dr. Edmundson or Mr. Reilly, I’m just not sure. Maybe I have seen too many spy movies or something, but I just don’t know if everyone here has that ‘need to know’ thing that they mention all the time about Top Secret stuff. I do know that I suck at lying still.
Joe looks at me dubiously. “Hmmm, maybe we could see if Dr. Edmundson or Mr. Reilly is available?” He looks at Mrs. Townsend. “Barb?”
Mrs. Townsend briefly frowns at me and I try to look elsewhere. She grabs the phone and makes a few calls before she is able to track down Dr. Edmundson. From the side of the conversation I can hear, it sounds like he is initially confused about the question regarding my ability. After Mrs. Townsend explains the test and the results, she smiles and sets the receiver down.
She turns and looks at me. “Dr. Edmundson is on his way. He was looking over your MRI results and sounded very excited about something. He said he will find Mr. Reilly and bring him along.”
We watch my video a few more times from different angles until Mr. Reilly and Dr. Edmundson arrive. Dr. Edmundson has his laptop and a folder with a bunch of printed images sticking out of it. I guess that they are my MRI pictures.
Mr. Reilly looks more amused than worried. Based on the excited expression on Dr. Edmundson’s face, I guess that he might have had to listen to Dr. Edmundson rave about whatever it is on my MRI pictures. “So, what is the issue?” Mr. Reilly asks.
Joe looks a little nervous now that Mr. Reilly is here. “Umm...Director Reilly, sir. We completed Whisper’s reflexes testing and while I was trying to figure out how to best classify her power level, I needed to know how she was able to see the balls without looking at them.”
Mr. Reilly glances to the monitor with the paused test replay. “Can you show us the test from start to finish?”
“Umm, yes sir.” Joe says as he turns back to his control board. “First, if it is okay with you, I will show it in normal speed.”
“Sounds good.” Mr. Reilly says with a nod of his head.
“Okay, here it goes.”
My test starts over from the beginning and the minute goes by way faster than it felt to me. I’m almost a blur during the last half of the video. Even I am amazed by what I can do.
Dr. Edmundson’s looks pretty impressed. He pulls out one of the MRI pictures and studies it for a second before looking back at his closed laptop. He briefly frowns. “Based on what the MRI captured before the emergency stop, I can see what is boosting your physical abilities.”
Dr. Edmundson glances around the room. “Is it okay to go over it here, sir?”
“Yes, if will help to further our understanding of Whisper’s results here.”
I glance over to my Mom. “Whisper?” I ask, silently.
She just shrugs her shoulders.
I decide to raise my hand. “Umm, sorry, but Mr. Reilly?”
“Yes?”
“Umm, why is everyone starting to call me Whisper now instead of using my real name?” I ask.
Mr. Reilly grimaces for a nano-second. “It’s more for your safety. Now that we are getting into the more sensitive portions of your powers, I think it would be wise if we followed the standard protocol and only addressed you by your code-name. We probably should have been following that protocol since we arrived. Sorry.”
“Oh.” I say, feeling a little unsure of myself.
Mr. Reilly smiles reassuringly at me. “It’s only while we are testing. None of the personnel who view your test file has your real name. It only displays your code-name, so using your real name is probably just confusing them anyway.”
I feel a bit embarrassed for not figuring that out myself. “Oh, okay. Sorry.”
Mr. Reilly smiles at me. “Not your fault Whisper, like I said, we should have started it from the beginning. Is Whisper okay? It was the first name I thought of when they asked for a code-name for you.”
I really don’t know what to think about the name. Obviously, I like the name, since I picked it for my character, but I just don’t know now. “Umm, yes sir. I think.”
“Well, if you want something different, let me know before end of day, tomorrow, so we can get it changed in the system before it is committed.”
I nod. “Yes sir.”
“Okay, so, Dr. Edmundson. Do you believe that the MRI images will assist us with this assessment?” Mr. Reilly asks, returning back to the original subject.
Dr. Edmundson nods. “Yes, sir. I believe it will help.”
“Okay, then, go ahead.” Mr. Reilly says.
“Okay, umm, Joe. Can you access Br...umm, I mean Whisper’s MRI images from here?”
Joe nods his head yes as he spins around and accesses his computer again. “Which image do you want me to start with sir?”
Dr. Edmundson looks at the printed image in his hand. “How about image 0012a?”
That image displays on the big screen monitor and it doesn’t make much sense to me. I think it is one of my leg muscles, but I’m not sure because it looks like I have geometric patterns inside of me and I don’t remember ever seeing that in biology class.
Dr. Edmundson walks over to the display and points to the patterns. “This is Whisper’s muscle tissue and that pattern is not normal. Her muscles, supporting tissues and skeletal structure have been reinforced by the nanites. That is why she is displaying such excellent physical abilities. Add that to her sensor package and that explains how she was able to provide us all with such a stunning performance down there.” He says with a quick glance to the ball pit area.
I can’t help it; I think that is cool. A little scary, but cool because I only look like a weak girl while I am really more like my hero, Spiderman. Now, if I could only stick to walls and shoot webs from my hands.
“Thank you.” Mr. Reilly says with a smile. “Now, is there anything else, Dr. Edmundson?”
“Well, I do wish that I had been here and running the monitor on Whisper when she did the test. I bet we would have got some good data. Can we run the test again?” Dr. Edmundson asks, hopefully while glancing between Joe and myself.
The test was kind of fun. A lot less stressful than the weight test, but I am not looking forward to doing it again. “Umm, I was running stuff. Maybe the monitor captured what I did and saved it somewhere?” I ask, while I start to quickly search through my head to see if I can find or build something real fast.
Dr. Edmundson looks surprised while Joe and Mrs. Townsend just look at me like I’m speaking a foreign language. “Oh! Excellent idea, Whisper. I’ll login and check.” Dr. Edmundson says as he opens his laptop and powers it up.
Everyone else just kind of waits for his laptop to boot and I used that time to build a log using the replay of my sensors. As I monitor myself, I also watch Dr. Edmundson’s laptop and shadow along behind him to see where he would expect a log or something to exist. His slow click navigation through the system allows me to keep ahead of him and as he moves to click on a “logs” sub-folder, I move my file into that folder for him to find.
“Ahh! Here it is. We got lucky. It looks like your system did create a log of your test.” Dr. Edmundson says, happily as he clicks on it to open the file. When he does that, his laptop opens the file and feeds it to some replay utility that builds him a video replay of what my sensors captured.
I feign surprise at him finding the file, and I think that I am even able to fool my mom because I really am surprised. Surprised that what I did, worked.
Joe glances over at Dr. Edmundson’s laptop and then he gets that geek expression that tells me he might have a cool idea on how to use the data. “Umm, Dr. Edmundson?” Joe asks.
Dr. Edmundson looks over at Joe. “Yes?”
“I think that, if you can give me a copy of that file, I might be able to merge it with the video and give you all a wicked cool replay. I mean, a very informative system analysis.” Joe says with a hint of embarrassment as he catches himself there going overboard on the geek factor.
Dr. Edmundson glances to Mr. Reilly, who just nods his head yes and smiles. “Umm, Joe? Do you happen to have one of those USB memory card things?” Dr. Edmundson asks.
“Oh, yeah! I mean, yes sir. Lemme get one for you.” Joe says as he turns and digs through a drawer. He quickly finds one and gives it to Dr. Edmundson. A few clicks and seconds later, Dr. Edmundson hands the USB stick back to Joe. Joe quickly slots it into a port on his system and goes to work without a word. It’s like everyone else in the room ceases to exist for him.
Yep, he’s a true geek and I can’t help myself. I find myself hovering over him again. He is so into what he’s doing that he doesn’t even register my presence. To avoid leaning on his shoulder, I casually rest my hand on the console. That contact opens up his system to me and I can see what he is trying to do. Unfortunately, matching the timestamp and sensor data from my system to the video doesn’t look simple, for him. He has some video syncing programs that he is trying to use and I can see that they are close to working, but the format those programs are expecting, doesn’t match my log file data. It will take a lot of manual labor and time for him to convert the data.
I decide to help things along by giving his program a tweak. I anxiously watch as Joe selects a filter option on his conversion program that based on my interpretation, sounds like it would do what he wants it to do. It wouldn’t have worked, but my tweak makes it work. I just hope that he doesn’t notice my tweak to his code.
“Ah ha! I knew that I could get it to work!” Joe says as he points to his monitor as it builds the video with the sensor overlay.
I laugh with amazement myself as I step back to view it on the big screen. “Wow! That’s awesome Joe!”
We all watch the replay once again and I have to admit, it is pretty darn cool to see the video with my sensor overlay showing trajectories and analyzing evasive pattern options. Mr. Reilly stares at the finished replay for a few seconds as the rest of us wait for him to reach whatever internal decision he needs to make. “That was very interesting, but what is your assessment for Whisper’s rating?”
I decide to use the current distraction to rest against the console again and now that the conversion is done, I remove my tweak from Joe’s program. I’m not sure what he will think if he tries to run the conversion again, but at least now, there won’t be evidence for him to find.
“Based on these results, I would put her at a solid Physical Exemplar 4 rating, Sir.” Joe says.
“Okay, Thanks Mr. Engstrom.” Mr. Reilly says as he glances at his watch and frowns.
Wow, I never knew that Joe’s last name was Engstrom.
“I think Whisper is running a little late for the magical testing station, right?” Mr. Reilly asks, looking at Mrs. Townsend.
She nods her head at Mr. Reilly before she glances at me. “Shall we get you over to Dr. Remus for magical testing, Whisper?”
“Sure?” I ask since I’m not really the one in charge here.
Mrs. Townsend nods her head and smiles. “Great. I will run you down to his office.” She looks at Mr. Reilly and Dr. Edmundson. “And, I will check on his schedule for tomorrow for you.” She turns and motions for my mom to follow her with me. “I can show you the way to your test station after we drop Whisper off.”
We follow her out of the control room and I hesitantly glance back to Mr. Reilly. I feel somewhat reassured when he smiles at me.
Mrs. Townsend silently leads us down the halls until we arrive at a nondescript door. She knocks and I hear a booming voice call out. “Come in!”
She opens the door and motions for me to enter ahead of her while silently asking my mom to stay out of sight. Sitting behind a large and expensive looking wooden desk, I spot a man who looks to be in his forties. He is wearing an expensive looking suit and I can’t help but think that he looks a little snobby.
He sniffs and gives me a look that tells me he is not happy about me being late. “Well, I can see that you ran a little over on your last test, but I am not about to let that make me late for my tee time with the General.”
He pauses for a second and looks to Mrs. Townsend as if he is surprised that she hasn’t already left. “Thank you for bringing her, Barbara. I can take it from here.” He says, dismissively.
She looks startled by his rudeness and glances to me for a second. I smile at her and reassured, she looks back to the jerk. “Yes, Dr. Remus just let me know when you’re done with Whisper and I will come fetch her.”
“Just return in...” He glances at his expensive looking watch. “Say, thirty minutes. I will be done with her by then, if not sooner.”
“Yes, Dr. Remus.” Mrs. Townsend says just before she softly closes the door behind her as she leaves.
Her voice stress hit the upper yellows there. I decide that I don’t like this jerk. Why couldn’t we have just used Sir Wallace’s assessment? I turn away from the door and look back to Dr. Remus. He intensely stares at me for a minute. His stare is starting to creep me out. I nervously fidget a little before I start to feel a little pissed off. Just who in the hell does this jerk think he is? I switch over to my magical sight and I can see that he has a few items on him and in the room that radiate a little bit of magical energy. I spot a heavy looking wooden door off to the right of his desk that is glowing with a magical protection ward. The ward looks sloppy and I think that I could easily disarm it if I wanted too. Sir Wallace’s quickie ward at the lab looked stronger and better designed than what this clown has on that door.
“Hmmphh.” He finally breaks his stare. “My Inner Sight shows me that you have some weak magical potential. Probably more of a result of your Sidhe nature than anything else.”
Yes, he said Inner Sight as if it was some important magical ability that only he can have. At least, that is how I’m interpreting it.
Reaching a decision, he rolls his executive leather chair back, stands up and heads toward to the door with the sloppy ward on it. “Let’s get this test over with, shall we? I have a testing area setup inside the next room here.”
He looks a little out of shape to me, but I guess that round is a shape too. He looks back to me. He looks a little surprised that I’m not following him. “Nothing to fear girl, the area is perfectly safe. I’ve built the strongest protections into this area.”
I just nod at him and let him lead me into the other room. I don’t trust myself to not say something that would really piss him off. If I was surprised to be called Whisper, being called ‘girl’ is even more surprising and irritating. Once we pass through the door, I am caught off guard by how large the testing area really is. It looks like a firing range to me and maybe it was originally designed to be one. He has some dummies set up against the far wall and a large pyramid structure made out of chrome tubes with some sort of crystal on top of it. The crystal has some weak magical residue inside of it. There is also circle of some kind scribed into the floor off to the side.
He points to the pyramid thing. “Stand in the center of the Pyramid of Ra so I can take a magical energy reading of you.”
“Okaay.” I say. I feel a little dubious about this so called Pyramid of Ra thing. It looks so cheap and phony. Where did the DOD get this guy from? I just decide that it will be easier if I just do what he asks. No matter how dumb it makes him look. He probably can’t tell anyway.
He takes out some wand thing with a crystal that looks the same color as the one above me. He mutters some words that sound like Latin as he waves his wand around in tiny circles.
I expected him to say something like “Abbra Ca-dabra” and have some plastic flowers shoot out of his wand, but there must be some magic involved in this farce because the crystal in the pyramid begins to flicker and glow.
He makes a big production out of it by screwing up his face like it’s costing him a lot of effort to maintain his magical investigation of me. After thirty seconds, he exhales a mighty breath and drops his wand to his side as the glow in the crystal above me fades.
“Okay girl, you can come out now. It is just as I thought. You have some magical energy, but nothing dangerous.”
I am really starting to dislike this ‘girl’ crap of his. I expect him to want me to stand in the circle next so he can fake another test for me, but when I start to head for it, he stops me and points to the center of the room. “Stand here, while I enter my Circle of Magical Protection. I don’t expect any danger from your attempts at using magical energy, but better safe than sorry.”
The jerk. I watch as he enters his circle and makes complex hand gestures while saying something that once again, sounds a little like Latin to me. I am completely surprised when a magical barrier springs to life around him. It only takes me a second of looking at it to realize that it sucks. It has more holes in it than a slice of Swiss cheese.
He looks at me with a satisfied smile. “Okay, girl. It is quite safe for you to show me what magical energies you think you can harness.”
I feel half tempted to try that high level Phantasmal Killer spell on him, but decide that wouldn’t be too smart. No matter how deserving he might be.
He takes my hesitation for fear or lack of ability. “It’s okay girl. Just give whatever you can do a try. You may aim it at one of those dummies against the wall there.”
“Umm, Dr. Remus, sir?” I ask, adding extra hesitation and uncertainty into my voice. I pull up the icon for my fire mage’s fireball spell and consider trying to cast it, but I don’t want to try that in this place. As weak as the protections in this room appear to be, if it worked, I might accidentally blow something up.
“Yes, girl?” He asks, impatiently.
“Well, I don’t really have any spells or anything that I can cast at a target. I have some illusion spells that I can cast on myself though.”
“Fine, then. Cast them and show me your parlor tricks.” He gestures with his hand impatiently.
I really don’t like this guy, but I do what he asks. I start with my Blur spell and after thirty seconds, I drop it when I notice him looking impatient again.
“Is that all you can do?”
“Umm, no. I can cast an illusion that will make it look like I have makeup on.”
“Bah!” He dismisses his flimsy protection ward and steps out of the circle. “I think that we are done here girl. Let’s step back into my office so I can fill out my assessment before I am late for my tee time.”
I can’t say that I’m not happy to be done with this test. Dr. Remus is an idiot and the sooner I can be out of his hair, the better. I drop my magical sight when we walk back into his office. He returns to his overstuffed chair while motioning me to sit in one of the cheap plastic things he allows visitors to use in his august presence. I’m very careful as I sit so that I don’t accidentally touch any skin to the chair.
He pulls out a form of some kind and begins to write on it with an expensive looking silver pen. It takes me a little effort to read his writing upside down, but he checks the box for “Wizard Rating” and writes a one in the open box next to it. I’m actually a little shocked that he would rate me so low. Especially after Sir Wallace and Fey’s assessment yesterday. That just reinforces my low opinion of this charlatan.
Dr. Remus writes in the comments section, “Examination indicates that subject contains some inherent magical energy, but that reading was at best, low. Subject might achieve a level two rating after years of training and dedication.” He looks at it for a few seconds before he signs the form with great flourish and hands it to me. “Take this with you and give it to Barbara. Don’t lose it. I will be most displeased if I am forced to fill out another one for you.”
I stand and take the offered form from his hands. “Umm, thanks?” I say, not really feeling it, but saying it only out of habit.
“Fine. Now go, girl. Find Mrs. Townsend.” He says as he rummages through his desk without even looking at me. “Now, where did I put my golf shoes?” I hear him mutter as I leave his office.
I lean against his door and sigh with relief after I close it behind me. After a few seconds, I pull up my internal mini-map and head towards the administrative section to find Mrs. Townsend. I find her just as she exits an office a few meters ahead of me. Her back is to me.
“Mrs. Townsend?” I say, lifting my voice to carry down the hall.
She stops and turns around with a confused look on her face until she spots me walking towards her. “Oh! Br...Whisper! I didn’t expect to see you so soon. Did Dr. Remus finish already?”
“Ummm, yeah. He gave me this to give to you.” I say, handing her the paper form.
She glances at it curiously for a second. “Okaay. I guess I will add this to your file. Do you want to follow me or wait here in my office?”
I look at her helplessly and shrug my shoulders. “I dunno?”
She smiles. “Follow me then. After I put this in your file, we can hunt down your mom before we venture into the new test machine area.”
She leads me down the hall and into a large records room. A woman sits behind a desk there with a brand new looking computer with dual screen LCD monitors. I itch to touch it and take a closer look at it, but Mrs. Townsend just hands her my test sheet.
“Mary? Would you mind scanning this into Whisper’s file please?”
This Mary woman smiles as she takes the sheet. “Sure Barb. Not a problem.” She turns to me and whispers conspiratorially. “Was the noble Dr. Remus being his normal difficult self?”
I’m a little shocked that I’m not the only one here to thinks he’s, ummm, not nice. I just nod my head affirmatively and return her smile, glad that I am not alone in my assessment.
“Well, don’t let him bother you. You won’t have to see him again.” Mary says with a smile.
That makes me feel happy and I return her smile. “Thanks, ma’am!”
Mary surprises me by getting up and giving me a quick hug. “Oh, you are just so precious! Do you have a boyfriend?”
Mrs. Townsend gasps. “Mary!”
I don’t know what to think. My mind goes blank from the shock of the idea that I would (a) have a boyfriend and (b) want to have a boyfriend if I didn’t have a boyfriend. I guess that I shouldn’t be surprised that other people would wonder about my single status. I know that if I had seen a girl who looked like I do now, I would be wondering if she was single too. Does John count? He is a boy and he is my friend, but I’m pretty sure that Lisa would kick my ass if I tried to claim him as such.
“Ummm...” I about all I am able to get out as I search for some way to answer her question. I can feel my face burning up from the embarrassment too. That only makes me feel even more confused and awkward.
“Oh! I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me. I was just thinking that my son would probably like you.” Mary says as an apology.
Crap. My glamour must have hit her. I really need to figure out how to shut that thing down. I feel a little better and that makes me laugh. “Oh, that’s okay, umm, Mary. It’s my fault.”
Mary blushes and nervously laughs, trying to wave off my objections. “It’s totally my fault! I shouldn’t have put you on the spot like that.”
“No, really. It’s my fault. I have something called a ‘glamour’ that somehow makes people like me more and I think that it might have hit you.”
Mary waves my explanation off, like it doesn’t matter. “Oh no dear, totally my fault.” She turns to a smiling Mrs. Townsend. “Barb, don’t think that I don’t know that you’re already scheming for a way to introduce her to your son!”
Mrs. Townsend smiles at Mary with a satisfied smirk. “Maybe. I might have to bring him along to help carry stuff when we go to the mall tonight with Amanda.”
Now they are both ignoring me, which is good because I’m entering panic mode. The mall!? Who’s Amanda? Does Mom know about this? She has to know about this. I rewind the lunch conversation that I mostly ignored and search for keywords like ‘shopping’ and ‘Amanda’.
>3 matches found
>12:32:02 - shopping
>12:32:33 - Amanda
>12:33:45 - shopping
I play back the first and discover that my mom agreed to go to a shopping mall with Mrs. Townsend and her daughter, Amanda, tonight. I even answered ‘uh huh’ to the idea. Shows how much I was paying attention. That rewind causes me to I miss the rest of Mary’s and Mrs. Townsend’s conversation. I guess that they resolve their fight over me amicably since their laughter causes me to focus on the real-world again.
Mrs. Townsend checks her watch. “Well, I think it’s time to get you down to Aladdin’s Lab.” Mrs. Townsend smiles as she uses air quotes around Aladdin and Lab.
I barely even notice her attempt at humor. I really really hope that her son doesn’t go. I was only tricked into helping my mom and Lindsay shopping once. I hope her son is smarter than I was and says “no!” to the entire idea. I mean, it would be like some blind date thing, but not a date, because I am not a date for some dude! That would be gross.
I end up obsessing about that all the way down to entrance to the test area. I’m startled out of my thoughts of doom and gloom by the arrival of my mom.
“Bree? What’s wrong honey?” My mom asks, looking concerned.
“Oh, umm, nothing. Just worried about going to the mall tonight.” I say, trying to shrug it off with a smile.
“Why would you be worried about that? We need to get you some more clothes and since we don’t really have a car, Barb has graciously offered to show us around.”
“Oh, no reason, I guess it’s okay.”
Mrs. Townsend briefly frowns at me before her expression changes to alarm. “Oh, no dear, I didn’t mean to intrude. If you’re worried about having Amanda and me, we could skip. I just mentioned the idea to your mom and I thought it might be helpful for you since she mentioned that none of your old clothes fit you.” Mrs. Townsend says, trying to make me feel better.
That just makes me feel worse. Like I am now being the difficult one. “Oh, no, that’s okay. I was just surprised and I’m not sure how everyone will react to me at someplace like a mall.”
“Oh dear, you’ll be just fine. You’re beautiful.” Mrs. Townsend says.
My mom grabs my hand and gives me a quick squeeze. That keeps me from really panicking over the idea of being seen in ‘the wild’ by hordes of other teenage girls and, shudder, boys.
Mrs. Townsend uses my lack of further protests as an excuse to wave her card over the door access pad. It beeps, turns green and the door unlocks as Mrs. Townsend turns the metal handle. We enter another high-tech control room that overlooks a giant human sized egg shaped device attached to the floor with masses of wires and conduits leading into it. The ‘egg’ is hinged on the left side and open, displaying a padded bed that is canted at a forty-five degree angle.
I am guessing that I will have to lie down inside that egg thing and probably be sealed into it. That does not make me feel too excited, but this is the last test of the day and once it is done, we can go shopping. I wonder if I can ask them to put in some overtime and run more tests. Maybe even redo my magic test since the dude was such an idiot.
“Whisper, this is Aladdin. He designed the tester.” Mrs. Townsend says, bringing my observations to a halt.
I look to the casually dressed man standing next to some LCD screen. He smiles at me. “Hi. Pleased to meet you. Don’t let that thing down there scare you. It’s perfectly safe. No intense magnetic fields to worry about like the MRI.”
“Oh, thanks.” I say. Darn. I was kind of hoping it had magnets in it. Maybe it would knock me out so I don’t have to go shopping.
“But...”
I knew there was going to be one of those.
“I do have a special suit that you will need to change into so that the sensors can monitor you while you’re in the nest.”
Oh, that’s good news. I bet that I can’t wear that due to the man-made fibers, but if that is the case, then I won’t have any way out of going shopping tonight.
“Oh yeah, I saw the note in your file about your allergies, so I modified the suit to be made out of silk instead of Lycra for you.”
Crap. This Aladdin dude, if that is really his name, is way too helpful.
“Oh, thanks.” I say, smiling at him politely. “What about my mom? She needs to be tested too.” I’m hoping that he won’t have one that she can wear now and we will have to stay late so he can make something for her.
“No problems, she can wear the original suit.”
Darn it! This guy is good. “You just made a new suit out of silk? Just like that?” I ask, incredulously.
“Oh yeah, I was able to use your measurements, so it wasn’t that hard for my rapid proto-type system to put it together for you. You’re lucky; it just got done five minutes ago. Sorry, it took a few hours.” Aladdin says, smiling apologetically as he begins to hand me a plastic wrapped item.
Yes, he really is too helpful, but I think he forgot about the plastic wrap. I bet that I can delay things by a few minutes with an allergic reaction to that.
“Oh, wait. Sorry, almost forgot.” He laughs as he rips the plastic off and gently hands me the folded silky suit thing.
I instantly feel the sensors and circuits woven into the fabric. There are millions of tiny sensors embedded in the suit. Realizing that I could spend minutes studying the suit’s electronics and that people might get worried if I just blanked out on them, I force myself to not look at them right now. “Oh, thanks.” I say after what I hope was an unnoticeable delay.
“Do you wanna go first, or shall we have Psyche go first instead?”
I jump at that question. “Psyche?” I ask, looking back at my mom with confusion.
>Searching....
>2 results found
>7th grade mythology class
>Greek Goddess of the Soul, married Cupid
>More?
Ah, no. That’s okay. Thanks.
She grins shyly at me. “Well, I needed a name for my MID, that one was available and I didn’t know what else to pick.”
“Oh, well, it’s kinda cool. Is Dad Cupid?” I ask, smiling mischievously.
She just laughs. “To me, he is.”
I look back to Aladdin and he’s just standing there looking a little confused. I guess he didn’t know that we were related. Maybe he still doesn’t. “Umm, I can go first. Since I have my suit already.” I say, regaining his attention. I really hope that this suit thing doesn’t fit.
“Oh, good!” He points the door behind me. “That leads to the changing room and to the, umm, Nest. If you don’t mind, we can get this started.”
“Okay!” I say with a smile as I clutch the suit against me to keep it from slipping out of my hands. Maybe, if I hold it too tight, something will break.
Mrs. Townsend helps me find the changing room. “Umm, Mrs. Townsend, do I need to strip completely down for this suit?”
She nods her head yes and smiles reassuringly at me. . “I’m afraid so dear. Here, lemme close the door for you and give you some privacy.”
It takes me a few seconds of just standing there before I get the courage to get this over with. I nervously take a quick glance around the room to make sure there are no hidden cameras and finding none, I quickly strip out of my clothes. As I slip my legs into the suit, I feel the embedded circuits of the suit. There are tons of nano-scale sensors built into the suit and I analyze them as I slowly pull the suit up. They appear to be passive and need some external power supply to get them to work. Maybe the egg generates a field that interacts with the suit’s sensors and creates some sort of super-duper powers map thing-a-ma-jig. Or, maybe this Aladdin dude just makes stuff up after hacking into the manual test files.
Once it has reached my neck, I zip it up via the helpful plastic zipper. Hah! I knew that Aladdin wouldn’t be able to make it completely allergen free. I feel a slight tingle in my finger, but it quickly fades. I guess he knew about it because there is a silk layer under the zipper that keeps it from making contact with my bare skin.
Darn it. This guy is good.
To make matters even worse, the suit fits like a glove and leaves nothing to the imagination. I guess that it is really like wearing my skin-tight workout clothes, but I just feel more exposed since I don’t have my underwear on. Realizing that I am just being silly, I force myself to open the door.
Mrs. Townsend smiles at me. “Ah, there you are. I was just getting ready to knock on the door to see if you were having any problems.”
“Nope. All good.”
“Great, let’s get you into Aladdin’s machine and get this test done with. I can’t wait to go shopping tonight! It’s been so long since I’ve had a chance to just go and have fun at the mall.”
“Oh, okay. Are you sure that this thing is safe? I mean, I wouldn’t want to get sick and not be able to go to the mall tonight!” I say with maximum false enthusiasm levels. I’m not sure what I am more afraid of right now. The machine or the mall. Pretty silly, huh?
“Perfectly safe. Nothing to be afraid of. Aladdin knows what he’s doing.” Mrs. Townsend says as she leads me to the egg and motions for me to step into it.
I gingerly step in and carefully lie down on the foam padding. It’s a good thing I have this silk suit on.
“Don’t forget to pull your hood on dear.” Mrs. Townsend says.
Oh, yeah. There is a hood built into this suit. That might help with the padded head rest. I pull it over my head and tuck my hair in. The hood is pretty tight and it also has all those sensor things built into it.
“Don’t worry; it will all be over with before you know it.” Aladdin says with a chuckle. “Okay, closing the hatch. Please keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle until this ride has come to a complete stop.”
That makes me laugh as the egg vibrates a little and I hear the door begin to swing shut. My visual world turns completely black as the lid softly closes and locks with a click, but my new found computer world is getting rather busy.
“Test sequence Alpha beginning in five, four, three, two, one, and blast off!” Aladdin says.
I feel the egg power up and the sensors in my suit spring to life. They aren’t capturing anything yet, but the egg is still going through its power-up phase. I can see all of the diagnostic self-checks it is running on itself in preparation for the main test sequence.
>Main lamp fire sequence...begin
I flinch as the world turns white as I am bathed in light. My flare compensation kicks in, but it doesn’t seem to really help since the light is so over-powering. That distracts me and I lose .5 seconds of my own analysis of what the sensors and the egg are capturing from me.
This machine is bleeping amazing. Somehow, the light waves and their reflections from the cells in my body are being detected by all of the nano sensors in the suit and the sensors in the egg itself. The light signatures of my cells are apparently unique enough to somehow give the machine a read on what my powers might be. Well, that or like I thought earlier, Aladdin is just doing a lot of smoke and mirrors while hacking my test files.
Regardless, it is still generating a massive amount of data for someone or something to read and figure out. I follow the data trail back to a high powered super-computer. I watch the processing for a few seconds before I realize that it’s going to take it a few hours for it to finish all its calculations and there is no way that I can or should try to help it along. It is going slow because it is referencing each data point with some huge genetic database that is located on a different network. All I have is the IP address and a quick who is only makes me more worried. The database server IP address looks like it is coming from the NSA.
I want to take a closer look at the database, but the data suddenly stops coming into the system. I back out and open my eyes. The light has stopped and Aladdin’s egg is done with its scan of me. I’m a little surprised. It only took thirty seconds and now that I took a peek at the database, I am a little worried about what it might find about my powers. What if it discovers my computer powers? Will Nikki’s and Sara’s fears become real? Will the government try to kill me?
My fears are brought to an end when I hear the egg’s door click and a motor start to raise the door. The light from the room streaming in makes me blink my eyes and that surprises me since I just had thirty seconds of super-bright light rain down on me from every angle.
“That was great Whisper! We will have you out of there in a jiffy.” Aladdin says over the egg’s intercom.
“Umm, okay. Thanks.” I say.
Mrs. Townsend helps me back into the changing room and I have never felt so glad to see my sports bra and panties. I mean underwear. My mom trades places with me and I walk back upstairs to the control room to watch her enter the egg. Dr. Edmundson is there, but he doesn’t look happy.
“What’s wrong Dr. Edmundson?” I ask.
“It’s nothing. I was hoping to monitor you during the test, but we lost connection with your system when the egg closed.”
“Oh, okay. I don’t think there was much for it to report anyway. All it did was shine a real bright light at me. It didn’t hurt, but it was pretty boring.” I say, trying to sound bored about it while at the same time, I am now worried about my mom and what this thing will find out about her. What if she has some super dangerous power that the government doesn’t like?
I wanted to play with Aladdin’s system like I did with Joe’s, but I have a feeling that he might notice, especially since there isn’t a cool video monitor to distract everyone. He’s also paying very close attention to every gauge and status display, so any blip that I might cause would be instantly noticed.
My mom’s test only takes thirty seconds, too. I breathe a sigh of relief at the sight of her blinking her eyes as she exits the egg. Since it looked like the computer would take a few hours with my data, maybe it will also take a few hours with my mom’s. That would give us four to six hours to plan our escape. Where would we go? Maybe we could hide in Canada? How would we get there with all the helicopters and dogs that would be hunting us down? Is that the real reason that Mrs. Townsend offered to go to the mall with us tonight? Is she really a super-secret assassin with orders to kill us if we try to run?
I’m really starting to panic and feel super paranoid about everything when my mom, still in her suit, barges into the room and hugs me. “What’s wrong, Bree?”
I can’t really tell her, not here anyway. “I was so worried about you!”
“Bree?” My mom asks, standing back so that she can look directly into my eyes. She’s not buying my explanation.
I purposely move my eyes to indicate the other people in the room. “Really. When the egg closed on you, I just got so worried for some reason.”
She seems to get it. “I love you too hon. We can talk about it later, okay?”
“Okay, Mom.” I say, somewhat sullenly for the audience.
“Well, now that I know you’re okay, lemme go get out of this cat suit so we can get outta here and go shopping!” My mom says with an excited grin as she looks over my shoulder at Mrs. Townsend before turning to Aladdin. “Do we need to stay for anything?”
He smiles and points to the cabinet full of blinking lights that is the server doing all the work. “Oh no, it will take more than a few hours to analyze all the data, so I won’t have anything until the morning.”
“Oh, okay. Well, then, I will go get changed so we can get out of here.” My mom looks back to Mrs. Townsend. “Umm, Barb, was there anything else we needed to do today?”
Mrs. Townsend warmly smiles at my mom. “Nope...just the most important thing, shopping!”
Maybe she isn’t really a super-secret assassin, but now, I am kind of hoping she is so that I will have a reason to ditch the shopping. My mom laughs as she heads back down to change into her real clothes.
Once we get back to the room, I notice that the beds are made and even though I know that they are supposed to be, my paranoia level raises back up to the max setting. I scan the room and I am only slightly relieved when I don’t find any electronic things that I didn’t know about.
“Bree? What’s wrong? You’ve been acting jumpy ever since the test.”
I debate telling my mom, but I don’t think that she will understand. “I’m just worried about the tests and what happens after that.”
“Why would you be worried about that?”
“Well, I’m going to be leaving home and I’m just not sure if I am ready for that.”
My mom hugs me. “Bree, I know that it won’t be easy for you. It won’t be easy for your Dad and me either, even Lindsay, but I firmly believe that going to this school will be the best for you.”
“Yes Mom, you’re probably right, but I’m still worried.” I reluctantly agree with her and even though it wasn’t really what I was worried about, I was worried about the school thing. So, I hope that I fooled her lie detector power.
She smiles. “Well, Barb will be here in less than forty five minutes and we both need to get ready. Hop in the shower and let’s get ready, okay?”
I give her a quick hug before I run into the bathroom. “Thanks, Mom!”
She smiles at me, but still looks a little concerned.
The hot water feels great! I try to, umm, multi-task, but that just makes me need to wash my legs, twice. That is one more item for the girl con column. Since I was a little active today, I decide to risk it and wash my hair. I am ashamed to admit that I like the way the smelly shampoo makes my hair smell and feel. As soon as I am done, my mom hops into the shower. It feels a little weird to be sharing a bathroom with my mom.
This time, even though I forgot to bring in my clean underwear, I do remember to wrap my towel around my chest, girl-style. I am rather proud of myself when I manage to dry and style my hair without any assistance. My mom even compliments me on it when she gets done with her shower. Once again, I am glad that Whisper had such an easy to manage hairstyle.
“Okay, go get dressed while I dry my hair.” My mom says as she wraps her towel around herself.
“Yes, Mom.” I say as I try to ignore the fact that I just saw my mom naked and she didn’t react at all like she would have if I was still a boy.
I rummage through my suitcase and pick the blue silk underwear things because I think that they will match my blue jeans better. Yes, I know, I know, but it’s bad enough that I picked them and used that matching thing as an excuse. I still refuse to call them panties.
I struggle with getting my new jeans on. Well, not struggle, but I do have to give them an extra tug to get them past my butt so that I can snap them shut. Thank god for the silk panties, umm, crap.
Anyway, I grab my dark green sweater shirt top thing and the white bra. I’m not sure if the white bra is the correct color, but I am pretty sure that the black one is not and my beige one is dirty. I decide to try on the girlie black flat shoe things and inspect myself in the mirror. I kind of like how the tapered jeans with the open on the top shoe shows off my ankles and make my feet look so, umm, sleek. I mean, I know that I thought girls wearing jeans with these kind of flat things looked hot, but I have to admit, I like how they look on me too. I know that they are not the best choice for winter and walking through a mall so I sit down to exchange them for my sneakers. My mom chooses that moment to step out of the bathroom.
“Oh, that looks nice Bree. Good selection with the shoes too.” She says with a pleased smile.
Crap. “Oh, thanks, but I was just going to put my sneakers on.”
“Oh no. Keep those. Your sneakers wouldn’t look as nice.”
“Okay.” I say while cursing myself for being so foolish. It’s winter and these shoes have zero support. I’m sure that my feet will be both frozen and then, killing me at the mall.
My mom doesn’t say anything about the white bra, so I guess I did okay and it only takes her a few minutes to get dressed. Unlike me, she actually has some warm looking clothes to wear. Maybe going shopping isn’t such a bad idea. My mom hands me my purse. Crap, I keep forgetting the darn thing and she keeps remembering it.
We only have to wait in the lobby for three minutes and twenty-three seconds before Mrs. Townsend pulls up. I sigh with relief that it is only her and a teenage girl sitting in the back seat, and not her son. I bet that the girl is her daughter, Amanda. As we walk up to the car, I study Amanda as she studies me. I’m a little nervous about this. My mom grabs my hand and gives it a reassuring squeeze just before she slides into the front passenger seat, while I jump into the back seat with Amanda.
“Amanda, this is Brianna or Bree. Bree, Amanda.” Mrs. Townsend says as she spins around to look at both of us.
“Umm, hi?” I say with a small wave. I feel so out of my depth.
Amanda flashes me a smile. “Oh my god! You’re so beautiful! I’m so glad that you could come! I’ve been dying to go to the mall, but my parents...”
“Amandaaa.” Mrs. Townsend says, warning her daughter to change the subject. Satisfied, she spins back and looks at my mom. “Amanda, this is Bree’s mother, Mrs. Peters.”
My mom laughs. “Oh please, it is nice to meet you Amanda. Please, just call me Jennifer. Mrs. Peters makes me feel so old.”
“Hi.” Amanda smiles and waves one of those cute girl style waves.
Introductions complete, Mrs. Townsend puts the car in gear. “Girls, seatbelts.” She says.
Amanda and I buckle in and as soon as hers snaps, she spins to face me. “So, Bree, what is your favorite store?”
I was kind of hoping that the seat-belts would force us to sit facing forward and keep conversation to a minimum. I have no idea what to talk about or even what she expects me to say. I’m pretty sure that if I said Gamestop or Barnes and Noble, that she wouldn’t know what to think. “Umm, I’m not sure? What does the mall have?” It does not escape my notice that my mom and Mrs. Townsend are silent and pretending to not be paying any attention to the back seat conversation.
“Oh, well, there is a Macy’s. A bit pricey, but they have the best shoes! And then, there is Dillard’s and J.C. Penny and there are few other really nice stores there too. I can’t wait! How about you?” Amanda says as she looks at me expectantly.
I have been through a Macy’s, on my way to the game store. I kind of remember that it had a lot of expensive looking stuff. I would replay my memories, but that would take too long. “Umm, Macy’s is nice.” I say with a hesitant smile.
Amanda takes that as my secret handshake for the girl club and breaks into explaining all of her favorite sections of Macy’s. I notice my mom and Mrs. Townsend grin at each other and begin their own discussion. Amanda continues to extol the virtues of Macy’s before she branches out to include all of the stores at the mall, while all can I do is smile and say, “oh yeah, I like that too.” or “really? I didn’t know that.” I really have no idea what to think. A part of me can’t help but be impressed by her. She really knows her shopping-fu and I find myself starting to get excited about this shopping trip.
“It’s a shame that we have to eat dinner still and that the mall closes at nine. That will only give us, maybe three hours to find the perfect outfits for you!” Amanda says with what looks like genuine sadness to me.
I can’t believe that she thinks that three hours isn’t enough time. I mean, how long can it take to buy a few clothes?
We decide to eat first and I am glad, because I am hungry for some real food. Well, something other than salad anyway. I order a salmon fillet with extra steamed broccoli, while Amanda orders a salad. It is nice to not be the only rabbit food eater. My mom orders some crab legs after raving about how hard it is to find fresh sea-food in New Mexico and Mrs. Townsend, or Barb as she wants me to now call her, orders a small steak. It looks so yummy, but the smell of cooked meat just turns me off. My salmon is the bomb though.
After I finish my dinner, I realize that I have to go to the bathroom. “I gotta go. I’ll be right back.” I say to my mom as I move to get up.
“Oh! Me too!” Amanda says as she slides out of the booth after me.
“Bree, don’t forget your purse.” My mom says before I can escape.
Oh man. Why can’t girls just use wallets and what is it about girls having to go to the bathroom together? “Okay? Let’s go.” I say, smiling back at Amanda.
She is kind of hard to not like. She’s older than me by one year and she’s very pretty. I think so anyways. Most of all, she’s just so darn friendly. I don’t get it. Why couldn’t I have met her before I got turned into a girl?
I still find it weird to not see any urinals in the bathroom. Just a couple extra stalls where the urinals should be. I inspect the seat and quickly wipe it down out of habit since men’s seats can be extra nasty from guys thinking they have good aim. I start to do the pee-pee dance due to all the extra steps and time it takes to pull my pants and underwear completely down almost makes me have an accident. I really miss just being able to unzip and go. The toilet paper here is a bit cheap too.
“Umm, Bree?” Amanda asks from the other stall as I finish up and open the door to my stall.
“Yeah?” I say, pausing so I can hear her over the sound of my toilet flushing.
“I’m sorry, but I’m a bit early. Do you have a spare pad that I can borrow?” Amanda asks, sounding mortified.
Heck, I’m mortified too. I did not need to be reminded about that little problem. I don’t even know if I have one of those tam...tamp...umm, things, but I bet that since my mom packed my purse; I probably do. “Umm, I think so. Lemme check.” I say as I zip open my purse and spot both a pad thing and a tampon thing.
“Yeah, I have a pad and a tampon. Which one do you need?” I ask, trying to sound casual about it while on the inside I am hoping that she will say that it is a false alarm so that I won’t have to touch the things in my purse.
“I have just a little spotting, so I think that just a pad will be enough for now.” She says, casually, like bleeding while going pee is normal.
Crap, I will have to touch it. I grab it and she opens the door so that I can hand it to her easier. I was wondering how I was going to get it to her. “Thanks! You’re a lifesaver!” Amanda says as she takes it from my nerveless fingers. “Oh! We even use the same brand! Awesome!”
She even leaves the stall door open as she finishes up. “Umm, I’ll just go wash my hands.” I say to her.
“Okay! I’ll be right out!” Amanda sings as I sneak away.
I am just finishing up my hands when Amanda joins me at the sinks. She gives me a quick hug. I guess she’s thanking me again for my mom making sure that my purse was stocked.
“You are so beautiful! I’m jealous and you don’t even have any makeup on!” Amanda says as she looks at herself in the mirror and begins to dig through her purse for something.
“Umm, you’re very pretty yourself.” I say with complete honesty as she starts to touch up her eye shadow.
“No way! My nose is too big and my boobs are too small, while you, you’re perfect. Even your hair is perfect. I wish that you went to school here. That way, we could be friends, but you would probably never hang out with me.”
Now I’m really confused. Didn’t I just tell her that she’s pretty? She is. I don’t understand why she would think that she’s not and that I wouldn’t like her if I went to her school. “Umm, no. Your nose is not too big and your boobs are not too small. You’re beautiful. I don’t understand how you could think otherwise.”
She turns to look at me and I almost think that she expects me to kick her or something. “You really think so?”
“Of course. Why would I lie to you?” I ask, cocking my head to the side with confusion.
She smiles the biggest and happiest smile I have seen on a girl in a long time as she returns to touching up her eye shadow. “You know, if you had just a little color around your eyes, they would be deadly gorgeous. That green is so stunning. I wish that I had eyes like yours.”
“Umm, I didn’t really have time to mess with that before we left the hotel.” I say while praying to god that a) I don’t have some makeup hidden in my purse and b) if not, that she doesn’t offer me hers. I get brave and take a peek inside my purse. Whew! No makeup. I guess finding all natural stuff is hard, even for my mom.
She notices my failure to find any makeup in purse. “I would offer you mine, but you’re not really supposed to share eye makeup. Infections.”
“Oh that’s okay. I don’t really need it and if I had to, I could probably magic something up.” I say feeling momentarily relieved about the infections excuse.
“Magic? You can do magic too?” Amanda asks, sounding very interested and excited.
Oh crap. I probably shouldn't have mentioned that. “Yeah. Some.”
“Show me! Pleeaasse!” Amanda begs me.
I never could turn down a pretty girl. I’m so weak. “Umm, okay. I guess that it can’t hurt.” I say while inside I am praying that someone will walk in and interrupt us so that I won’t have to do anything. No one does. Sigh.
I concentrate on a simple eye shadow with a hint of lipstick illusion as I call up the icon for Whisper’s self-illusion spell. I am pleasantly surprised by how easy it is for me to draw upon the magic and make it happen.
Amanda is more than just surprised. “Oh. My. God! Bree! That is soooo cool!”
I take a look at myself in the mirror and I have to admit that the little bit of smoky eye shadow illusion with the light hint of lipstick really does make my eyes stand out. “Umm, yeah. It is kind of handy.”
“Can you do that for me, too?” Amanda says while looking at me with a hope in her eyes.
Damn it. Now that I’m a girl, aren’t I supposed to be immune to her powers of persuasion? “I think so?” I say without any confidence what-so-ever in the hope that she will change her mind.
“Okay! Can you make my eyes blue and my hair short like yours, except blond instead of this yucky brown?” She asks as she drags her fingers through her hair with frustration.
Please, can someone please walk into the bathroom right now? “I can try.” I say. Why can’t I just say no? I imagine her with bright blue eyes and shiny blond hair in my style as I bring up Whisper’s higher level ‘seeming’ spell. I never actually got Whisper high enough to cast this spell, so I am a little worried, but it is only an illusion; so it shouldn’t do anything bad. The magic is a little hard to reach for this one, but not so hard that I wuss out. I hear Amanda squeal with delight as my spell finishes. I hope it is delight anyway. I look at her studying her new look in the mirror.
Amanda seems a little confused by her hair. “This is so cool! I can still feel my hair, but when I look at myself, I can’t see it!”
An older woman decides to enter the bathroom. Thank god! She frowns at the two of us for what reason I don’t know. Probably because we are hogging the mirror and making noise. Well, Amanda is making noise anyway. Amanda pretends to get all serious until the woman enters a stall. Then, Amanda breaks down and giggles into my shoulder in an attempt to not be heard by the lady.
“Umm, we should get back to the table and I should cancel these things.” I say with a whisper.
“Do you have to? I want to see if my mom recognizes me.” Amanda pouts.
It’s not going to work on me this time. “I’m not supposed to be doing this. If my mom found out, I would be in big trouble.” I say with a whisper just before I cancel both the eye shadow illusion on me and the bigger one on Amanda.
“Ahh. I’m sorry, but that was so cool!” Amanda says as she gives me an excited hug.
Both of our parents look a little bemused as we walk back to the table, best of buds, I mean girlfriends after our joint trip to the bathroom. I can’t help noticing the looks that I get from the guys and other girls as we walk past some tables with people closer to our age. The guys, those looks I can totally understand. I’m not comfortable, but they think I’m hot. The girls, I don’t understand. Some of them look a little angry to me. Why? Amanda seems oblivious to all of the attention, even though she was getting a share of the looks.
“Now that you two are done in there, are you ready to go shopping?” My mom asks with a smile.
“Umm, sure?” I say, noncommittally.
“Oh yeah! Let’s go!” Amanda says, practically dragging me out of the restaurant.
Now, I’ve been in malls before, so I am not a stranger in a strange land, but the mall is a very different place when your target destination isn’t the game store. The only thing that keeps me from running away is the fact that I am being dragged by a pretty girl, my mom is trailing behind to make sure I don’t desert and the realization that I kind of do need more clothes.
I try to look at the mall map to see where all the gaming and electronics stores are and if they have a book store, but Amanda pulls me right past it before I get the chance to study it.
“Come on! No need for that silly, I know where everything is at!” Amanda says with a laugh.
Fortunately, a glance is all I need to view the map and cross reference it with the store list below it. Crap, no book store, but there is a Game Stop and Radio Shack. I think the plan is to go to Macy’s first and Game Stop is even on the way. Yeah!
As we near the game store, I veer in the store’s direction so that I can go in and browse for a few minutes.
“Hey! Where are you going, Bree? Don’t you see Aerie’s over there? They have some of the cutest bras!” Amanda says as she tugs on my hand, easily pulling me away from gaming nirvana.
With my super-strength, I guess I could just drag her into the game store, but my mind short-circuits when she says the “B” word in the same sentence with “cutest”. Also, why would we stop there? I thought we were going to Macy’s. If we stop at every little store on the way, we might never get to Macy’s. Girls just don’t know how to shop.
I guess it could be worse; it could be a Victoria’s Secret store.
~o~O~o~
Insert standard disclaimer here: The one that reminds everyone that this is a work of fiction. No one is real and any resemblance to someone who is real is just the reader's imagination. This is also a Fan Fiction set in the Whateley Story Universe. No Canon characters were permanently harmed in the making of this story. I hope. :)
Note: Thanks again djkauf for correcting my many mistakes.
** Chapter 30 **
“Bree, Amanda, wait!” My mom yells over the busy sounds of the mall and people shopping.
Her voice snaps me out of my feedback loop and I stop moving towards the girl store.
Amanda stops and looks curiously back at me. “What’s the matter?” She asks.
“My mom just yelled for us.” I say, looking back at my mom and Barb as they approach us. I hope that she is going to stop us from going into Amanda’s store. I know that we are heading to Macy’s, but I kind of want to see the new games and any extra girl store will just make us take longer. It’s only going to take me five to ten minutes, tops, to look at the new stuff, but I just know that if we go into Amanda’s store, we will be there for more than thirty minutes, easy. That’s just how girls shop. It’s crazy.
“Hey, Amanda. Sorry. I see that you have Aerie picked out, but I kind of need to talk to you and your Mom about a few things before we go in there.” My mom says.
Crap, it sounds like we are still going in there, but now it’s going to take even longer and I will never get to check out the games.
“Oh, okay? What’s wrong, umm, Jennifer?” Amanda asks as Barb looks at my mom with some concern.
My mom laughs. “Oh, nothing super critical, but I just needed to talk to you about Bree’s allergies so that we will know what kind of clothes to avoid. I meant to do that during dinner, but we kind of got side-tracked. Sorry.”
Amanda gives me a sympathetic look before turning back to my mom. “Oh, no! I didn’t know that Bree was allergic to stuff.”
“It will probably take a few minutes.” My mom smiles at Amanda before turning to me. “Bree? I noticed that you wanted to check out Game Stop, why don’t you head in there while I go over your allergies with Barb and Amanda?”
And angels sing. “Really?!? Thanks Mom! It won’t take me long. Just yell when you’re ready.” I say, grinning from ear to ear. I ignore Amanda’s slightly concerned expression as she takes a quick peek inside Game Stop.
Smiling while entering geek heaven is probably a mistake. There is one other girl in the store, but she is following a guy and looking bored. I guess that he is her boyfriend and not his sister because I know Lindsay would never have followed me around this place. The two sales dudes instantly lock on to me and their obvious interest kicks in my targeting and tracking system. Lacking the military ID cards, I am able to track and identify them by their cell phones. Well, their phone numbers anyway.
I should be scared, but when my system tags the two sales dudes as “Enemy Target 1” and “Enemy Target 2” while tagging the boyfriend and girlfriend as “Enemy Non-Combatants”; I can’t help myself, I laugh. Does the Army really view everyone else as “enemies”?
“Umm, is there something that I can help you find, ma’am?” Enemy Target 2 asks, sounding confused by my behavior.
Still smiling at the thought that game store dudes can be enemies, I turn and face the guy. I am surprised by how tall he is compared to me. I know that I only shrunk an inch, but facing him, I feel smaller than that. How tall is the guy?
>180cm
Okay...in English?
>5’ 11”
He has dark hair. I’m not sure what color exactly, but it’s not black and it’s not brown. His eyes are hazel. Yes, I know that brown and green equals hazel. I’m not that bad with girl colors. His skin is a little pale, but that’s normal for a gamer. His teeth are straight. He must have had braces or something. Oh gawd, now I sound like I am sizing him up or something.
“Oh, hi, umm, Gary?” I say while making a show of reading his name tag.
“I’m sorry, I’m just browsing.” I say as I look past him and at the Xbox game wall. That always gets the sales dude people off my back. That is gamer code for, “Dude, I don’t have any money” and I do not want his help.
“Oh? Are you looking for anything in particular for your boyfriend?” Gary asks, still smiling at me.
What the hell? Boyfriend? Can’t girls like video games too? Luzer! I debate correcting him, but I doubt that it would help. I also debate playing the ditzy girl and waste his time asking him all the dumb questions I can think of, but I only have a few minutes and that would waste more of my time than his. He’s getting paid by the hour here.
“Grrrrr! Don’t make me frag you.” I say as I make it a point to ignore him and walk past him to view the Xbox display. The girl hanging out with her boyfriend gives me a sympathetic smile while Gary remains rooted in place. Shocked, I’m sure.
As I walk across the store, I notice Enemy Target 1 behind the counter struggling to contain his laughter from watching his wing-man get shot down so spectacularly. I look back to my mom, Barb and Amanda chatting outside the store. Amanda smiles and gives me a cheery little wave.
For some reason, that makes me feel better. I could get used to that. It’s always nice when a pretty girl smiles at you, but it does make me wonder exactly what my mom is telling them. Is she telling them that I was a boy? That would suck, I think. I don’t know. Would Amanda think I’m a freak? Heck, I’m surprised that she hasn’t mentioned my elf ears.
I give Amanda a quick smile and wave in return before I study the game selection. Now that my rig is toast, I have zero desire to rebuild it just so that I can play GEO; I think it is time to play something safer, like Halo 3. I know that it has been out for months now, but my GEO, umm, habit kind of made me not worry about buying it.
I note that Enemy Target 2 is on the move again. He is on an intercept course with me. I decide to ignore his approach and pull down the box for Halo 3 so I can read the back. The plastic makes my fingers tingle a little bit, but it doesn’t burn me like the vinyl chair did. I wonder why. I know that I am allergic to the plastic, but it doesn’t seem to be bothering me as much. Am I building up some immunity? That would be nice, because it would really suck not being able to hold the controller and play the game. Those thoughts are interrupted by Enemy Target 2. I refuse to think of him by his name.
“Umm, hey, look, I’m really sorry about what I said back there. I can’t believe I was such an idiot.” Enemy Target 2 says.
Ah man, now what do I do? I can’t just ignore him. He really does sound sorry and his voice stress gauge even matches up with that. Well, he is stressed anyway, but then again, so am I. He’s only saying that he’s sorry because I’m a girl, but at the same time, that is also the only reason that he has to because he would have never said what he said if I was still a boy.
Just go away dude. I don’t have any money and I don’t plan to buy anything.
That is what I want to say, but instead, I laugh a little due to all the conflicting thoughts racing through my head. “Oh, that’s okay dude. I’m used to it.” I say as I continue to pretend to read the back of the box. What the hell? I am definitely not used to it, but it seemed like the right thing to say.
“Maybe you are, but it still wasn’t right for me assume that just because you’re a pretty girl, that you aren’t a gamer.”
I can’t help it, I flinch when he calls me a pretty girl. Crap, he’s attracted to me. I’m practically every geek’s fantasy girlfriend now. I’m a girl who enjoys playing video games. Hell, when I was a boy, the girl didn’t even have to be pretty. Just the fact that she liked video games was enough to make her cool and attractive. I reflexively look for my mom and I see that she is not only watching me, but she is moving to get up from the bench she and Barb are sitting on to come to my rescue. She has that Mom on a mission expression.
Having my mom come rescue me from some dude would be even more embarrassing. I quickly put the game back on the shelf and turn to face him. “Umm, that’s okay. Really. I was just looking. My Xbox is back home in New Mexico right now, so I can’t really buy the game right now anyway.”
My mom slows her advance as Barb and Amanda now turn to try and find what interrupted my mom. They both look a little confused. Based on my mom’s initial reaction, I think that they were expecting to see me being assaulted or something.
“Oh. Hey, like, if you want, I can load that one,” Gary says, pointing to the Halo 3 box. “, up on our store demo system for you to try. I mean, I’m not really supposed to do that, because we are trying to promo the new Ghost Recon AW2 game, but since I was such a jerk and all that...”
He really is trying to help and now I’m starting to feel a little sorry for him. Not only that, but Gary’s mentioning of the new Ghost Recon game has got me curious. It’s not due out for another couple of weeks, but I’ve heard good things about it. I take another quick glance at my mom and she is starting to relax, a little. She turns back to Barb and Amanda with a smile and says something.
“Umm, I’m not sure if I have enough time for that. My mom and a friend are staying, umm, safely outside the store waiting for me so that we can do some clothes shopping.” I laugh a little at my joke and he laughs with me. The tension I felt melts away and I see my mom return to the bench. Amanda gives me a quick smile before she returns to paying attention to whatever it is that my mom is saying. Now I’m really starting to feel curious about what she is telling them.
“I think that I’d like to see Ghost Recon, but first I need to check with my mom. Do ya mind?” I ask, slightly distracted by my curiosity over what my mom is telling them.
Gary laughs. “Oh no, not at all. I’ll go guard the system for you, just in case! It’s wicked cool.”
“Thanks.” I say, actually meaning it. Now that I have sort of established my, umm, gamer cred, he’s not that bad of a dude.
As I approach my mom, she perks up. “Hey! How did it go? I noticed you talking to that guy and get a little upset.”
Amanda peers behind me and into the store with a look of speculation for a second before returning to study my face.
“Oh, it was nothing. He just sorta thought that I was in there trying to find a game for someone else.” I say with a laugh because now that I think about it, it is kind of funny. I mean, really? Me, have a boyfriend?
“So, umm, I was wondering. Can I check out the demo for a new game real fast before we go to, umm, that store?” I ask, pointing with my eyes to the Aerie store across the way.
My mom laughs and glances at Barb and Amanda for a second. “See? I told you. A total tomboy!”
I start to blush as I wonder how much of a “tomboy” she said I was. It doesn’t sound like she told them I was really a boy, boy. Amanda isn’t looking at me like I’m some sort of freak or anything. If anything, I think that she actually looks a little excited. Oh gawd, I hope that she doesn’t think that I need to go uber-girlie to compensate now. Now I know that my mom is going to tell me no about trying the demo.
“Sure! I think that we can spare another five or so minutes, right?” My mom asks Barb and Amanda.
Barb smiles as she nods her head, while Amanda answers by grabbing my hand and pulling me back into Game Stop. “He’s a senior at my school! He’s cute. What do you think about him?” She whispers with a giggle as she sneaks a glance at Gary.
Yes, what do I think about him? Well, he’s not a complete jerk like I thought he was. He is kind of tall and I did notice his eyes and teeth for some strange reason. That realization shocks me into a completely different line of thought. What if I like guys now? Does that make me gay? How can I be gay if I still think Amanda is attractive? She has such pretty and expressive eyes. She smells nice too. Well, I am a girl now, so I guess that technically, if I think that Amanda is attractive, then I must be lesbian.
“Earth to Bree, Earth to Bree. Hello.” Amanda says snapping her fingers in front of my face to get my attention.
I didn’t realize that I had stopped walking. “Umm, what was your question?” I ask.
“Nevermind! I can see that you have the hots for him too.” Amanda says with a giggle.
“Huh?” I ask, with a quick glance into the store.
Gary is guarding the system and he looks a little nervous at the sight of both of us standing outside the store, giggling and sneaking glances at him. Well, Amanda is anyway.
“Amanda!” I say with exasperation as I shake off my confusion and enter the store with Amanda still finding my predicament funny as she follows me into the store.
Gary is watching us with a stunned expression as we enter the store. I think that he’s a) surprised that I came back and b) surprised that Amanda came with me. “Oh! Hey, umm, I got it all ready for you.” He says with a blush before he quickly recovers his poise and hands me the controller. Is noticing that he blushed a bad sign?
As soon as the controller hits my hands, all thoughts of boys and girls, birds and the bees are forgotten. My system alerts me to let me know that I am allergic to the plastic, but just a little.
>Allergen detected...
>Reaction: Mild
>Prolonged exposure not recommended.
Okay, how long is prolonged?
>Analyzing...
>Not to exceed one hour.
Oh, that’s good, sort of. I know that when I play; I can play for hours at a time, but maybe a break every forty-five to sixty minutes would be a good thing.
There is one additional thing that I notice while holding the controller. Just like when I almost died playing GEO, I am totally connected to the game, but now that I am aware of that connection; the connection feels safer to me. I feel more in control.
Gary takes my inadvertent pause as a sign that I need some help navigating the menu to start the game. “You just select....” He says, trying to help me before trailing off as he notices me rapid fire selecting from the menu items.
I barely pay attention to him as the Xbox opens up for me. I notice that the game disk is almost full, which seems strange for a demo. Why would they waste so much data for just a small playable demo of the game? I back up in the menu and I notice the game program check the system time and return a false value.
Hmmm, I wonder...
I tell it to return a true value and the “Play Demo” menu option changes to read, “Play Game”. I quickly select that.
“What tha?” I hear Gary say from behind me.
Oops. I just hacked the game to play the real version. I back up and pretend to hit some complex sequence of buttons on the controller while I set it back to false. The menu changes back to “Play Demo”. “Umm, I heard somewhere that the demo game is really the real game, but they disabled it until the release date. There’s a cheat code you can enter to enable it though, so I just tried that and it worked.” I say, looking back at what are now two incredulous “Enemy Targets”. Even Amanda looks a little impressed.
I can’t rewrite the game disc, but I can change what is in memory. I modify it to accept my made up cheat code so that Gary can play with it. Well, until they shut the Xbox down, but by then, I will be long gone. I show them my made up cheat code and the menu changes back to “Play Game”.
I really like this game. It’s so realistic and I’m totally owning it. Being hardwired to the controller almost feels like cheating. I just think and it happens. Plus, my own HUD is helping too, but I am not cheating. I am not altering or reading the game data before it displays on the screen. My mom’s arrival in the store tells me that it is time to go. I hand the controller back to Gary.
“Thanks! That was awesome!” I say as I quickly wipe my hands on my jeans. Even though it was only ten minutes, they were starting to itch. I guess the one hour estimate is just until my skin starts to burn or something.
Amanda even pouts a little. “Ahh, Bree was awesome! Can she play just a little bit longer?” She asks as I look at my mom with my best hopeful expression.
My mom and Barb exchange smiles. “I’m sorry girls, but we need to get some clothes for Bree, remember?” Barb says.
Amanda quickly regains her enthusiasm for shopping. “Oh yeah! Come on Bree! We need to find you some clothes!” She says, motioning for me to follow her out of the store.
I shrug and look back to the still stunned guys. “Sorry, I’d love to stay, but I gotta go.” I say, turning to follow Amanda out of the store.
“Wait!” Gary says, I look back and he is digging out his wallet.
Oh crap. He is going to try and give me his number or something. “Oh no, that’s okay. I don’t need your number.”
“What?” He asks, looking genuinely confused for a second before it dawns on him what I must be thinking. “Oh! No! Not that, I just wanted to give you an employee’s friends and family discount card.”
Now it’s my turn to feel really embarrassed. “Oh, Thanks.” I manage to squeak out as I take his discount card. I’ve never been given one of these before and I’ve spent a lot of time inside the Game Stop back home. Don’t tell me that I might have something to add to the pro girl column.
“Hey, no problem. See ya at school tomorrow, Amanda.” Gary says with a mischievous smile as he turns to look at her.
Damn, he knows her. I turn back to Amanda and she looks like a deer caught in the headlights. Now it is my turn to smile. “Oooo, Gary and Amanda sitting in a tree...” I mock sing to her in a whisper as I walk past her, tucking the card into my purse.
“Hey!” Amanda says as she takes a couple quick steps to catch up with me. “Umm, do you think that he likes me?” She asks, suddenly looking vulnerable.
I turn my head to look at her. “Well, you knew he went to your school, but did you know his name?” I ask.
Amanda looks slightly ashamed and even a little depressed as she considers my question. “Well, no.” She says.
“But, he knew your name, right?” I ask, even though I already know the answer.
“Yes...” She says.
“Well, then he likes you and probably has for awhile now.” I say, matter-of-factually.
Amanda looks stunned. “What?!?! How can you think that?” She asks.
“Look, it’s easy. He’s a guy and he knows your name. Guys don’t take the trouble to find out and remember a girl’s name unless they like her.”
“Really? I guess that kind of makes sense, but how do you know that?” Amanda asks.
Now I know for sure that my mom didn’t spill the beans. “Oh, I dunno, but it’s true, right?” I ask.
“Maybe?” Amanda sounds a little dubious now.
“Oh, it is. Trust me.” I say. All this sort-of girl talk totally distracts me and I don’t even realize that we have entered the girl store until I hear some woman’s voice. “Welcome to Aerie, I’m Cindy, can I help you ladies find anything?”
Amanda grabs my arm in a sort of friendly hug thing, but I think that she really does it to keep me from running. “Bree here, recently, umm, grew and none of her old clothes fit her anymore, plus she is allergic to some stuff, so we need to get her some new clothes.”
I glance back to my mom for help and she just smiles at me. Giving me that, everything will be okay look.
The sales lady blinks with surprise as she takes in my appearance. I’m half expecting her to give me the sign of the cross to banish me like I was a vampire, but instead she smiles at me. “Oh, you’re an elf. That’s cool. What are you allergic too?”
“Umm, synthetic fibers.”
“Hmm, how about the natural man-made fibers like Modal?”
“I dunno?” I say with a shrug as I consider the natural and man-made conflict.
“Well, let me show you our thermal crew line over here.” She says, leading Amanda and me to a rack of warm looking long sleeve shirts near the front of the store. “They are cotton and modal blend that should be okay for you, but if not, we have some 100% cotton tops and sweaters too.”
It feels really really weird walking into a girl’s clothing store as a customer because I remember the last time I was dragged into a girl store, as a boy. Like all the other girl stores and even girl areas of less specialized stores, this store has a mannequin setup to display a matching bra and pantie set. I know that I shouldn’t even think twice about it, but I clearly remember thinking, “Wow! That would look so hot on a girl!” Now, it is me that I think it would look hot on and that is confusing, to say the least.
I also never really noticed just how many different colors and styles there are for girls to choose from. I feel overwhelmed by all of the variety.
“What size are you?” Cindy asks.
“Umm, I dunno. Sorry.” I say, feeling super embarrassed and out of element here.
“Hmm, well, I think that you look like a small or extra-small.” Cindy says as she looks me up and down with a measuring expression before she touches a red shirt before ultimately selecting a blue with white snowflakes shirt from the small section of the rack and hands it to me. “Here you go. I think the navy is more your color. Red is definitely not you.”
I am surprised by her assessment of my color preferences. How did she know? The fabric does feel nice and best of all, no reaction detected.
Cindy also grabs an extra-small and hands it to me. “Do you like?” She asks.
I nod. “Yes, and I don’t think I’m allergic to this.”
“Excellent! Why don’t you go try them on and see which size fits you the best. Then, we can go from there?” Cindy asks, pointing me to the changing rooms located in the back of the store.
Amanda follows me and as we pass the underwear section, she points to a bra that matches the shirt I am going to try on. “Oh, that looks cute and hey, there are even some matching panties! What do you think?”
“Umm.” I say while struggling to come up with an answer. There is no way that I am going to try on a bra in a store. Talk about embarrassing.
“Oh, all of our bras have a least a little spandex in them. She might not be able to wear them.” Cindy says, coming to my rescue. “I hate to say it, but you might have to hit Macy’s or even Victoria’s down the way.” She vaguely points down the hall and deeper into the mall.
“Macy’s!” I say, desperate to avoid the mecca of all things girl. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if they didn’t have all those awesome angel commercials on TV. Wow, talk about a good reason for the pause and rewind button on the remote. Just walking past the store is enough to get a guy excited. As soon as a guy knows that you’ve been to Victoria’s, they are mentally undressing you in their head and wondering what you’re wearing. Not that I ever did that or anything. No way, not me.
“Yeah, you’re probably right. Last time I thought to look, their bras were made out of the same stuff as ours. Macy’s might actually be better for you.” Cindy says as I sing her praises in my head. Best sales lady evah!
While Cindy saves me, I notice some underwear that looks a lot like my old boy briefs, but definitely all girl and cute with bows on the front. Some even have lace trim, talk about crazy. Unfortunately, I stare at them a little too long.
Amanda follows my gaze. “Aren’t those just the cutest? Hey! We should see if you are allergic to those.” Amanda says.
“Those are our new line of boy brief panties. They are mostly cotton, but they do contain some spandex.” Cindy says, trying to save me again.
Yep, spandex, can’t wear those! Can sales people get tips?
I half expect Amanda to follow me into the changing room and she does not disappoint me. What is it with girls? Do they have no privacy expectations amongst themselves? Guys do not “help” each other out when they are trying on clothes.
“Here, lemme hold these for you while you take your top off.” Amanda says, gesturing at the two shirts in my arms.
I hand them too her. “Okay. Umm, thanks.” I say, trying to sound casual about her being in here with me as I am undressing. I am wearing a bra, so I guess I’m not really getting naked in front of her. It still seems wrong for some reason. I mean, there are hooks to hang stuff off of in here. She doesn’t really have to hold them for me.
She pulls the extra-small off the hanger for me and hands it to me with the front facing out so that all I have to do is slide it over my head. It’s still a little strange, but having her in here with me could be kind of handy.
The extra-small is definitely too tight across my chest. It bunches up at my boobs and before I can force it past, Amanda stops me. “Nope, too small. Let’s try the other one.” She says as she helps me get the extra-small off before handing me the small.
The small shirt also is tight across my chest, but not restrictive. I don’t like how it shows off my boobs and hugs my tummy though. Why does everything have to show off my body so much?
“Umm, I think this one is too tight too.” I say, pointing to my obvious display of hidden cleavage and stomach.
Amanda examines me. “Nope! It’s perfect. You would be swimming in a medium.”
“Is it supposed to be this tight?” I ask while tugging on it to try pulling it off my skin in the hope that it is just bunched up in back or something.
“Boy, your mom was right, you really were a tomboy.” Amanda says smiling at me encouragingly before she turns an opens the door a crack. “Umm, Cindy? It looks like she is a small. What else do you have in that size that she might not be allergic to?”
We end up spending 45 minutes in that store. I looked at and tried so many different outfits. They had some cute, umm, I mean cool looking cotton t-shirts, but they were also made with 40% polyester. My medical system listed my allergic response as “moderate”, but I started to itch almost as soon as I touched it. That was kind of a bummer because I liked some of the less girlie shirt designs. We did learn a lot about what I can and cannot wear.
We discover that clothes that contain 10% or less fully synthetic fibers, like spandex, do not trigger an allergic response, but anything more than that, does. That discovery proves to be a double edged sword because we, meaning Amanda, also discover that the boy briefs only have 7% spandex in them, so Amanda insists that I buy some. I try to refuse, but I think she can tell that I kind of like them. By the time the dust settles, I have half a dozen new pairs of boy brief underwear of various colors. No reds or girlie lace trimmed ones though. Happy dance.
Out of the dozen different colors and patterns for these things, they only have one pair that is just white. Amanda only “let” me get two pairs of the plain white boy briefs. She claimed that I couldn’t just get white because I needed some to match other outfits. My mom wasn’t much help there either. She just shrugged her shoulders and said, “Amanda is right dear.” I decided to not ask why matching your underwear is important. All of my old underwear were white, well, mostly white, and no one ever said anything about those needing to match anything, ever. Plus, except for me and maybe my mom, who is going to be seeing my underwear? I’m just glad that health department regulations prevented me from having to try on and model the underwear like I had to for all the other clothes. Even if there weren’t regulations about trying on underwear, who would want to? Gross.
I feel relieved, but at the same time, a little sad when I walk out of the store holding a giant paper bag full of new clothes. It was kind of fun trying on all of the different outfits and my mom seemed to enjoy it too. There were a few times that she got that fond and “I’m about to cry” look in her eyes.
The total damage ends being three of the thermal crew shirts, one sweater and two more cami tops. I also got a super comfy loose pair of grey cotton PJ bottoms with a matching PJ top and rounding all that out were the boy brief underwear.
Cindy was also very nice to us. She gave me a whopping 20% discount using some bogus “Recently Emerged” discount program and even said that she was sorry that they didn’t have more natural fabrics for me.
Macy’s proves to be a bust in the bra’s selection. No pun intended. All of their stuff is nylon and spandex blends.
Amanda finds me an awesome pair of black leather, ankle high boots with a sturdy two and a half inch wedge heel in Macy’s. Awesome is how Amanda referred to them. Me, I just think they look warm and the wedge heel might not suck as much as my first pair of ankle breaking shoes.
I really like how they make me look and Amanda thought that they match my jeans and top perfectly. They also make me look and feel taller again. My legs look so long and I like that. It is amazing what the right pair of shoes can do for a girl. Maybe I will need more than two pairs of shoes. That thought shocks me a little, but I really can’t help it. I really like these boots and how tall they make me look and feel.
I use the, “my feet are cold” excuse so that I can wear them out of the store. As I walk, I can’t help but notice how they have changed my gait. They are making me walk just a smidgen more smoothly and that surprises me because I didn’t expect them to be so easy to walk in. I sort of expected to wobble, a lot, but I guess my super reflexes and the VR time helped.
My mom looks at her watch as we leave Macy’s with another bag. “Well, I almost hate to say this Bree, but I think that we will have to go to Victoria’s to see if they have any bras for you.”
Amanda struggles to contain her enthusiasm while I struggle to not panic. Me, walking into the Victoria’s Secret store and looked at as a customer instead of a perv? Oh, wait a minute. This shopping spree is costing my parents a ton of money. How can my parents expect me to learn how to be responsible with my money if they spend tons on me for clothes?
“Umm, Mom?” I ask, trying to buy me more time to think of a good and responsible sounding excuse as to why we shouldn’t go to ‘that’ store.
“Yes, Bree?” She glances at me with a slightly amused expression.
Ut oh, that doesn’t bode well. “Isn’t, umm, Victoria’s kind of expensive?” I ask.
“Yes, yes it is, but where do you think that the bra and panties that you’re wearing came from?” She asks with a smirk.
I’m wearing a Victoria’s Secret bra and panties, and I have more in my suitcase? I kind of forgot about my underwear, but now, I am suddenly very aware of the fact that I am wearing a bra and silk panties, umm, underwear. I recall how pretty, no, sexy I looked with just those two items of clothing on and that Amanda saw me wearing them while trying on various outfits. Holy crap, I’m wearing the same kind of underwear that the VS angels wear while prancing around on TV with fake wings. Thinking about that is kind of making me start to feel like I did before my shower last night.
“I am so jealous! Mom, can I get a bra from Victoria’s too?” I hear Amanda ask Barb while all those thoughts crash through my head.
My mom grabs my hand. “Bree?” She asks, sounding concerned.
That snaps me out of my thoughts. “Umm, what?” I ask.
My mom studies my face for a second. “Are you okay?” She asks as Amanda and Barb look at me with concern.
I smile and nod my head. “Yeah. I’ll be fine. I was just worrying about tomorrow’s tests.” I say. I know my mom doesn’t believe me.
“Okay then, let’s go. A few more bras would be good for you to have.” My mom says, smiling back at me as she ignores my lie.
Amanda does an excited little clap, gives me a quick hug and grabs my hand, dragging me ahead of our parents and towards my doom. “Come on, slow poke!” She says with an infectious smile.
Helpless to resist, I look back at my mom and wanly smile. She just smiles and mouths, “It will be fine.”
I sure hope so.
We both attract more than our fair share of second and third glances by the guys. Not just the guys our age either. Older guys too, real old, like maybe thirty or so. I blame Amanda for being so outgoing and bubbly. Her “Ooos” and “Aaahs” over random items in the store windows as we pass just attracts attention. She comments about how that top would go my jeans or with some skirt along with that necklace and those earrings. She even instructs me on makeup tips by pointing out all the other women, what they are wearing and how their makeup works or doesn’t work to enhance their look. I don’t know if it was her intent or not, but I do learn a lot.
Just before we enter “The Store”, I point out a girl wearing a light green eye shadow that really makes her eyes look clownish.
“OMG! You’re right. How can she not know?” Amanda says, out of the side of her mouth so that it looks like we aren’t looking at or talking about the other girl.
“Beats me.” I say.
Amanda giggles. “It’s a good thing that you can do that thing, ya know?” She says, hinting at, but not really saying that I can cast illusionary makeup on myself.
“Yeah. I will have to practice with that a bit more.” I say with a whisper to prevent my mom from overhearing me as we cross the threshold of all things sexy and 100% girl.
If I thought Aerie’s displays were sexy, Victoria’s totally takes the win. I am still a little apprehensive about going inside the store, but Amanda’s excitement is a little infectious and I am having a hard time coming up with reasons to not go inside. This time, I spot the sales person before she surprises me. She looks exactly like I expected a Victoria’s sales person to look like. Model tall, pretty and professionally dressed, but with a hint of sexy. “Hi, Welcome to Victoria’s. I’m Amy. How can I help you ladies this evening?” She asks, stumbling a little there at the end as her eyes grow large with surprise.
I hold back when I notice that her voice stress meter is in the red. Especially there at the end, after I turned to face her.
Amanda doesn’t seem notice Amy’s hesitation. “Oh, hi. My friend,” She gives me a quick hug as she calls me her friend. “, needs some new bras. Do you have any made from natural fibers, like cotton?” Amanda asks, smiling happily at Amy as Amy’s gaze seems locked to my face.
Amy looks extremely uncomfortable to me and my mom confirms my assessment when she places her hands on my shoulders from behind and pulls me closer to her body. “Is there something wrong?” She asks.
Amy jumps from my mom’s question and looks nervously around the store. She spots another sales person and heads toward her. “I’m sorry, but I just remembered that my manager needed me to unpack some new items. I’ll get someone else to assist you.” Amy says as she hurries away.
Her voice stress meter is all in the red. What is her problem? She is walking a little stiffly. Does she have to go to the bathroom real bad or something?
She briefly speaks to the other sales person while glancing back to me a few times. The other sales person laughs and heads toward us with a smile on her face as Amy hurries out of sight towards the back of the store.
My mom’s grip on my shoulders relaxes as the other woman approaches us. She has long straight blond hair that extends just past her shoulders. She’s not as model tall as Amy, but she is still taller than me. I think that she is prettier than Amy due to her natural and friendly looking smile. Like Amy, she is also wearing professional clothing and it somehow looks sexy on her. I am not sure how that is possible.
“Hi, I’m Katrina. Sorry about Amy, but she, umm, had some stuff to do. How can I assist you today?” Katrina asks with an embarrassed smile.
Oh, wait. I can see a hint of her bra from underneath her button down shirt. Is she wearing Victoria’s Secret underwear? Is that her secret? Maybe she’s wearing one of those thong things I’ve heard about, but never actually seen. Well, not in person anyway. Those are definitely sexy, but I can’t see how having a string up my crack could be comfortable or make me feel sexy. Not that I would want to feel sexy or anything.
Katrina, that’s a nice name. Very exotic sounding. I start to imagine her as Nikita, the sexy female assassin from that TV show.
“Bree? Bree? Hello, are you there?” Amanda asks.
Oh my god. Busted. I can feel myself turning beet red. I was doing exactly what I was worried that I would do. “I’m sorry. This is my first time in here and I’m so embarrassed.” I say while wanting to just crawl in a hole and die.
Nikita, I mean Katrina laughs. “I totally understand! My first time here I was petrified and you should have seen me on my first day working here!”
She has such a nice laugh.
“So, I take it that this is your mom?” Katrina asks, looking back to my mom.
I nod.
“And this lovely lady is your BFF?” Katrina ask while looking at Amanda.
Amanda laughs and hugs me. “She is now!”
“So, what are you looking for?” Katrina asks.
“Umm, I’m looking for some bras.” I say, trying hard to not mumble and look her in the eyes.
“Oh great! I think I can help. Since this is your first time, we should start by getting you fitted.” Katrina says as she turns to Amanda. “Should we get you fitted too?”
Amanda looks at Barb with the best puppy dog expression that I have ever seen. Lindsay has nothing on Amanda. “Fine, we can get you one bra too, but don’t tell your dad.” Barb says.
Amanda gives Barb a quick hug before turning to me with a giggle. “This is going to be so much fun!”
“No, it’s not. We can’t do that. I might see your boobs!” Well, that’s what I want to say.
“Yeah.” Is what I really say as Amanda gleefully pulls me along as she follows Katrina to the dreaded fitting rooms..
I am surprised, pleasantly, when Katrina motions for Amanda and me to enter our own fitting booths. “Okay, who is first?” Katrina asks as she takes a tailor’s tape of her pocket.
Amanda looks at me as I look at her. She looks nervous and that makes me feel better. I thought that she would be a pro at this and think nothing of it, but if she’s actually nervous, then I’m not alone. She giggles as we both look at each other and hope the other volunteers to go first.
“I can.” I say, surprising myself as I raise my hand.
“Great! Go on in and let’s get you measured.” Katrina says with a smile.
Katrina follows me into the fitting room and closes the door. I feel a little self conscious as I take off my top.
“Oh, you’re wearing one of our new cotton bras. How does it feel?” Katrina asks.
“Umm, okay, I think.” I say.
“Does it bind or pinch anywhere?” Katrina asks.
“No, not that I have noticed.” I say.
“Hmm, it looks a little tight on your shoulders. Turn around. I will try adjusting it a bit.” Katrina says.
I turn around and watch her in the mirror as she makes some minor adjustments to the shoulder straps. The pressure on my shoulder blades ease and I feel pain that I didn’t even know I was feeling, fade away.
“Oh, wow. Thanks, that feels much better.” I say, smiling into the mirror.
“No problem. I think this one fits you pretty much perfectly. I think that we can skip the fitting. Unless you want to make sure?” Katrina asks, looking concerned.
I laugh, feeling relieved. “Oh no, that’s okay. I’m sure Amanda is sweating bullets over there.” I say as I tap on our shared wall.
“Hey! I am not!” Amanda says before breaking down and giggling. “Well, okay, maybe a little.”
My mom and I hunt down the cotton bra rack while Katrina fits Amanda. So many colors and patterns. I discover that my “beige” bra’s official color is called “nude”. How can “nude” be a color? The cheetah and leopard print just confuse me. What can you match them with? The two shades of pink is just bleh. I end up grabbing another nude, hehe, and white bra. I get a little risqué by picking a black with kind of cool white dot flower pattern for my final pick. I think that six bras should be enough. I wonder if I can wear them two or three days in a row like my jeans.
“Oh my god, Bree! You have just got to get this white with roses one!” Amanda says as she sneaks in and pulls the offending bra off the rack.
“Umm, why don’t you get it?” I ask.
“Silly, I can’t.” Amanda says with a pout.
“Okay, why?” I ask, tentatively because I know that she’s faking it.
Amanda grabs the pink leopard print bra. “Because I’m totally getting this one! What do you think?” She asks as she holds it up over her chest and strikes a pose.
“Amanda Lynn Townsend! You are not getting that bra.” Barb says, using the full name parental authority mode.
“But, Mooom, I liiiike it.” Amanda says with a foot stamp and a pout as she struggles to not laugh.
Yes, she is totally faking it.
“Amanda...” Barb says with exasperation.
“Okaaay, How about this one?” Amanda asks after grabbing the solid dark pink colored bra.
I’m sure that there is a special name for that specific shade of pink, but to me, it’s pink. Maybe dark pink, but it is still pink. I accidentally catch the name of the color from the bin label. Pink soda, really?
“We also have these in demi, push-up and unlined full coverage. Would you like to try any of those styles?” Katrina asks.
Oh crap. What the heck is a demi bra and do I really want to know? Is that named after Demi Moore or something? Push-up? Heck no! These things are pushed up enough, thank you very much.
“Oh! I wanna try the demi bra.” Amanda says, quickly putting the pink soda colored bra back.
I catch a glimpse of Amy, the grumpy sales lady, glancing at me a few times as she assists another customer. “Umm, Katrina?”
“Yes?” Katrina asks.
“Why did, umm, Amy not want to help us?” I ask.
Katrina glances over to Amy before looking back at me. “Honestly, I don’t know for sure. I’ve only worked here for a month now and I’ve only worked with her once before, but I have heard that her brother was accidentally killed when some super hero group was called in to defeat a super villain that was robbing a bank.”
“Oh, that’s bad.” I say, feeling sorry for Amy. I can see how that could make you not like supers, but she doesn’t even know me. How can she not like me?
I catch up with Amanda just as she finds one of those demi bras in her size and in that pink soda color. She holds it up for her mom to inspect. Barb just nods her head yes to approve it. Maybe a demi bra isn’t that bad. I debate caving under peer pressure and trying one myself, but I’m pretty happy, relatively speaking, with my current full coverage bra style. Need to keep these aliens fully covered, yes sirree!
Amanda grins with delight and bra in hand; she heads back to the fitting rooms. I’m a little surprised, but I don’t know why, when Amanda stops after a few meters and looks back at me. “Bree? Come on. I need you to tell me how it looks!” She says, waving me over.
Of course, she wants my opinion. How could I have not anticipated that? Why can’t she want her mom’s opinion instead? I know that is who I would ask about bras and once again, why does how it looks matter when no one is supposed to be able to see them? Isn’t it supposed to be about how comfortable it is?
Barb follows us, while my mom stays behind for some reason. Amanda enters a changing room and I stand guard outside her door. There is no way that I am going to follow her inside and thankfully, she doesn’t appear to want me to.
“Oh my gawd! This bra is sooo cute! Ooohh, and comfy too.” Amanda says from the other side of the door.
I hear the door unlock and Amanda steps out wearing only the bra up top. “Well? What do you think?” She asks.
It definitely exposes more of her boobs and they look a little bigger than mine. I’m not jealous am I? Nope, not at all. I like my boobs just the way they are. OMG, this is taking the camouflage idea a bit too far now. I can’t believe that I just thought that. Why can’t I still be a boy? I should feel like I have died and gone to heaven, but it’s more like hell because I know that she is only showing me because she thinks I am a girl, just like her.
“Oh, it’s, umm, cute, but it shows more, umm, side boob. Is that the right way to say that?” I ask, feeling embarrassed again because it really does look nice on her. Very sexy even and I’m not supposed to think that about her.
Amanda giggles. “Of course, that is what it is supposed to do. This bra is for when I am wearing something low cut and I don’t want my bra to show.” She says.
“Okaay, but...” I say, but decide to stop myself before I really make myself sound like a prude.
Amanda doesn’t buy it. She puts her top back on, but pulls it down in the front to show how the bra is hidden and her boobs are tantalizingly on display without really being exposed. “See?” She asks.
“Oh yeah, that looks very nice.” I say, trying not to blush or stare.
Amanda turns to her mom. “So, Mom, can I get this one?” She asks.
“Well, if that is the one that you really like. I guess so.” Barb pauses as she looks at Amanda critically. “And, it does look like it will go with some of your other outfits.”
Amanda is pretty darn happy and I can’t help myself. I laugh from the pleasure of seeing her look so happy and proud of her new bra.
As we exit the fitting rooms, I see my mom waiting for us at the cash register, bag in hand. As Barb steps up the register, Katrina hands her a bag for Amanda’s old bra.
“Thank you for shopping with us tonight.” Katrina says with a smile for Barb and my mom before she turns to Amanda and me. “I hope that you two were able to find everything you wanted.”
I manage to smile while Amanda can barely contain her enthusiasm over her new bra and the subtle sculptured increase under her shirt. Barb tries to hand Katrina her credit card, but Katrina holds up her hand and refuses to take it. Barb turns to my mom with shock. “You didn’t have to pay for Amanda’s bra too!”
“Oh yes, I did. With all the help Amanda was with Bree, she earned it!” My mom says.
I can see that this is going to take a minute or two as they debate each other, but in the end, I know that my mom is going to win. This time, it is me who grabs Amanda’s arm and pulls her out of the store as the two adults continue to mock argue with each other over the bill.
It only takes 25.6 seconds before Barb finally gives in and joins us outside the store.
“Seriously Jen, you didn’t have to do that.” Barb says, giving it a last ditch effort to change my mom’s mind.
My mom laughs. “Nope, all done. Too late! Okay then, how about if we head back to the car so that we can all get our beauty rest?”
I feel pretty happy as we walk back through the mall. Now that the shopping is done, I can kind of just relax. Plus, I have Amanda by my side keeping me company and I find her presence comforting for some reason. She chats about a million things. Like my new clothes and how nice they will look with this or that item and accessory. I’m not really sure about accessorizing yet. I don’t even have my ears pierced, but I only know that is not normal because of Amanda.
“Oh my gawd! Bree, Mom, Mrs. Peters.” Amanda says, full of excitement as we near a jewelry store.
That’s not good. She is using my mom’s proper name. I wonder what Amanda is so excited about.
“Can we stop and get Bree’s ears pierced? It will only take a few minutes and the store is right there!” Amanda asks.
“Amanda, I’m not sure if Bree and her Mom planned on getting that done today.” Barb says.
I notice that she didn’t say no. She’s leaving that up to my mom and I.
My mom looks at me. “Bree? What do you think?” She asks.
Amanda can’t contain her excitement. “Oh please, please, please? I have the perfect pair of studs to go with that green outfit of yours and I wanna give them to you tomorrow or before you leave.” Amanda says, practically begging me.
I’m not that keen on getting both of my ears pierced, but I’m not opposed to it and Amanda looks so excited about the idea. “Umm, I guess so. Will it hurt?” I ask, instantly regretting it.
What a dumb question. Of course, it will hurt. They only stick a big needle through your ear. I wonder what my regen will do. I seem to heal pretty fast. Will they even be able to get the studs into my ears before I heal? What about after? Will my nanites eat the studs and heal me anyway.
“Silly! It only hurts for a second!” Amanda giggles as she drags me into the store.
My mom has to sign the consent form and just before the lady with the piercing gun punches holes in my ears. Getting the studs isn’t cheap and I don’t want my mom to waste her money. So, I notify my ears to not eat the studs. I think. Five minutes later, we walk out of the store and I have a small pair of silver studs in my ears. I guess that my nanites listened to me. The lady instructed me on proper care and cleaning of my new wounds, but I’m not sure that I am going to need to worry about it. My medical system reports that my ears are 100% healed before we leave the store and an experimental tug on my stud confirms that with zero pain or discomfort.
“I think that my ears are healed already.” I say to my mom with a whisper.
“I’ll have to take a look at them once we get back to our room.” My mom says as she drops back to allow Amanda to resume her position at my side.
“Oh wow Bree! Those look so cute on you! I can’t wait to give you my set. I hope that you will like them.” Amanda says, sounding a little worried that I might not like her set.
“Oh, I’m sure that I will like them.” I say, but I really don’t know if I will or not. I absently tug on my ear from the unaccustomed feeling of having something in my ear.
Amanda bats my hand away. “Don’t touch them! You don’t want to get them infected.” She says with a concerned tone. “It took my ears almost a month before they really healed up.”
I don’t have the heart to tell her that my ears are already healed. “Oh, yeah, that would be bad.” I say.
Amanda smiles at me before she restarts the conversation from where she left off from before she spotted the piercing store. She’s pretty amazing. I am surprised when she tells me about her school and how much she wishes that I could go to her school too. I am surprised by her sentiment because I think it could be fun too. I really like her, but not in a boy likes a girl way. She just makes me feel welcome and that makes me feel warm inside. Is this what it feels like to have a girlfriend who isn’t really a girlfriend, but is really a friend who is a girl? I know that I never felt like this with John. Sure, we are buds and all that. We would both probably be willing to help the other hide a body for each other, but we never had this kind of relationship.
“Hello! Earth to Bree!” Amanda says, impatiently to regain my attention. “Have you heard a word I’ve said?”
“Umm, sorry. I was just thinking about how nice it is to have you as my friend.” I say with total and complete conviction.
Her eyes get a little moist as she smiles warmly at me. “Oh, Bree.” She says before she turns back to yell at her mom. “Hey Mom, can we trade Bree for Jason?”
Her mom and my mom are keeping pace with us, but about three meters, I mean ten feet or so, behind us. I guess they are giving us some space or something. They both laugh at her question. “I don’t think so Amanda. I doubt that your brother would be willing to move to New Mexico, plus you would miss him.” Barb says.
“Totally no!” Amanda says with a giggle as she turns back and gives me a quick hug as we continue walking.
The parking lot is pretty dark and empty when we leave the mall. Well, not dark for me, but I’m sure that it is dark for everyone else. Our car is almost three hundred meters from the doors and there are only a few cars still parked near it. I notice a late model Cadillac Escalade parked and idling a few rows over, but closer to the entrance. The windows are tinted in the back, but out of curiosity, I decide to play with my thermographic vision mode. That allows me to easily see that there are two dudes up front and three in the back seat. The bass is cranked up so high that the entire car is vibrating. I’m surprised that the wheels and doors haven’t fallen off. To make matters worse, the song sucks.
Something about them worries me. Why are they just sitting in their car? Are waiting for someone to get done shopping so that they can give them a ride home? That’s got to be it, but where would another passenger sit? I must be paranoid. I start to ignore them, but I notice my mom tense up as we walk past their car.
“Just keep walking. Get your keys out, Barb.” My mom says with a tense whisper as she grabs my hand.
Now my targeting system kicks in and I realize that except for the other car, we are the only people in the parking lot right now. The Escalade’s sound system turns off as its lights snap on. It slowly begins to move forward.
Amanda isn’t sure what is going on, but she looks pretty nervous by both our mom’s tense and protective behavior. “Amanda, come on. Let’s get to the car.” Barb says to her suddenly nervous daughter.
“Mom? What’s wrong? You can’t think...” Amanda asks as she looks behind us and notices the Escalade creeping up behind us.
Amanda’s nervous glance behind us must be their cue.
“Hey! Ladies! Were you going? Maybe we can like, give you a ride!” The eighteen’ish year old boy driving the car yells from twenty meters behind us while leaning out of his window.
I hear the rest of his friends laughing pretty hard.
“Oh yeah! I know how to give them ladies a ride they will never forget!” I hear a muffled voice say from inside the car.
“Keep walking, don’t look at them. It will only encourage them.” My mom orders under her breath.
We make it another twenty meters closer to our car and safety, but we still have one hundred meters to go and the big SUV is now only ten meters behind us. “Yo! Bitches! Didn’t you hear my boy axe you a question!?” The front passenger yells from half in and half out of the passenger side door. All of the boys in the car think that is the most hilarious thing they have ever heard as they all break out into laughter.
“Oh fuck yeah! Them are some fine looking MILFs! Just look at their hottie daughters!” The driver yells back to his buds in the back seat, not caring if we overhear him or not.
“Barb, Amanda, Bree. Run to the car, lock the doors and call the police!” My mom says as she stops walking just as the Escalade’s tires squeal under acceleration.
Barb pulls Amanda into a run, while I hesitate. “Mom?”
“Bree! Come on!” Amanda yells at me.
“Just go! Bree! Now!” My mom yells as the Escalade skids to a stop beside her and the doors start to swing open.
Sorry for the delay and thanks for all the previous chapter's comment/feedback. It really helped me further define Whisper's "voice". Also, due to the "snappy ending", I wanted to further develop the next chapter. Merry x-mas and Happy Holidays!
~o~O~o~
Insert standard disclaimer here: The one that reminds everyone that this is a work of fiction. No one is real and any resemblance to someone who is real is just the reader's imagination. This is also a Fan Fiction set in the Whateley Story Universe. No Canon characters were permanently harmed in the making of this story. I hope. :)
Note: Thanks again djkauf for correcting my many mistakes.
** Chapter 31 **
<Mon Feb 19 20:52:23 EST 2007>
I start to follow Barb and Amanda, but I can’t leave my mom. I only get 20 meters before I stop and look back. My mom looks very brave and the dudes getting out of the Escalade look a little tougher than I expected. They are all sporting military style haircuts and are wearing bulky jackets that look like they have armor in them. Kind of like motorcycle jackets, which seems strange since they aren’t riding motorcycles. What I should I do?
>Evasion Recommended.
>Mission Success Factor=95%
No! I can’t leave my mom. I have to help her! Even though my dad never sat me down and told me that it’s my duty to protect my mom, that duty is just something that has always been understood. When Dad isn’t available, it is my job to protect my family. A new window pops up in my HUD.
>New mission parameters accepted...
>Assessing Enemy Target threat ratings...
>Assigning enemy target priority...
“I’ll get the little mutie bitch while you all deal with the breeder!” Target_4 yells, exiting the front passenger door. His face is twisted with rage and hatred. I’ve never seen that in anyone before and it is more than a little intimidating. Plus, he has a nasty looking knife in his right hand.
The knife in his hand actually helps me focus. The knife, I can handle. I have performed tons of simulated self-defense drills with knife wielding opponents, but the prospect of actually doing that for real has me feeling a little frightened. Okay, more than just a little, a lot.
>Target_4 Weapon Identified!
>USMC OKC-3S Bayonet
Oh, that’s helpful to know, not. My vision switches to something that is a combination of low-light with thermographic. The thermographic part shows me that he is definitely wearing some kind of armored jacket because I can see large cool spots that cover all the more vulnerable parts of his upper torso. These bastards aren’t here by random chance. This is an ambush and that tells me what I have to do. I have to fight these assholes and that really pisses me off. Why couldn’t they have just left us alone?
>Administering Combat Stims
The fear and uncertainty fade, leaving me with only one thing; a calm fury. I have never felt this pissed, yet clear headed and rational at the same time. The only thing that matters to me is stopping all these assholes from hurting my mom.
They aren’t people. They are targets. The enemy target on an intercept course with me is just something that needs to be eliminated before I can proceed with the primary mission of protecting my mom.
Target_4 closes to within 10 meters of my current location before I respond to the threat. It looks like he and everything around me is moving in slow motion. I can’t help myself, I smile. I just feel so good and everything else seems so trivial. It’s like I’m playing Ghost Warrior at the store again.
I almost laugh when a look of confusion briefly flashes across the face of Target_4. He is running at me with his stupid knife out-stretched, like he expects me to run in panic at the sight of it or stand there and let him stab me with it.
Unlike my last combat mission, as I spring forward to engage the enemy, I remember to cast my Blur spell to help confuse him. The spell seems to help. He pauses for a nano-second as he tries to make sense of what he is seeing.
“What tha?” Target_4 asks as his knife hand moves forward in an unguided and desperate effort to stab me. I grab his wrist with my left hand to control his knife. It’s like, “dude, you’re moving so slow.” Then, I rotate my body counter-clockwise into him as I grab him just above his right elbow with my right hand and bend slightly at the hip to help kick him up and over me. He sails over me and I add to his momentum by using his arm to swing him like he is a baseball bat. His body slams into the parking lot. Unlike in class, I don’t try to go easy on him and pull my throw, but at the same time, I don’t use all my strength on him either. Not because I don’t want to, but because it would waste energy and slow me down by putting my body off balance for a few critical nanoseconds.
Again, it is The Mission that is important. Not my personal feelings or anger. Getting to my mom and protecting her is the only thing that matters. Anything that stops or slows me down will affect The Mission.
>Target_4 eliminated...
>Mission Success Factor=72%
>Agent Survival Factor=61%
Target_2 is watching me from between the driver’s side door and the Escalade while Target_1 has a hold on my mom’s left arm.
Target_2 looks surprised. “Holy shit! John!” He yells.
I guess that Target_4’s name is John. Not important, I am 20 meters away when I begin my run to intercept Target_1.
>Enemy Firearm detected.
>Enemy Target_2 priority rating altered.
>Mission Success Factor=63%
>Agent Survival Factor=52%
At 10 meters, Target_2 rushes to aim a gun at me through the open window of the driver’s side door.
>Target_2 Weapon Identified!
>Colt M1911A1 Caliber .45
He doesn’t have the weapon aimed anywhere near me when I duck under the window frame and punch into the open door with my shoulder. The impact of my body plus the extra full strength push of my shoulder catches Target_2 by surprise as the door he is hiding behind slams into him and knocks him into the Escalade’s door jamb. I hear his legs make a crunching sound as they are caught between the door and the running boards. The impact also knocks his weapon from his hand as he starts to crumple to the ground.
>Target_2 disabled...
>Mission Success Factor=81%
>Agent Survival Factor=73%
With the driver’s door now mostly closed, I can see Target_3, the middle rear passenger starting to move out from behind the driver’s side rear passenger door while my system tracks Target_5, the passenger side rear enemy running around the back of the Escalade.
>Enemy Firearm detected.
>Enemy Target_3 priority rating altered
>Mission Success Factor=76%
>Agent Survival Factor=67%
Armor jackets and serious firepower, what is up with these guys?
>Target_3 Weapon Identified!
>Benelli M4 Entry Shotgun
>Recalculating Mission Success Factors...
>Mission Success Factor=64%
>Agent Survival Factor=53%
That doesn’t sound good. Target_3 has his shotgun pointing down and into the ground. He looks startled by my arrival too. “Son of a bitch! She’s so fucking hard to see!” He yells as he starts to bring his shotgun up to fire it at me.
I should be peeing my pants right now. Whatever that “Combat Stim” thing is, it must be helping me somehow because this totally feels like a video game to me. All I need is my own gun to make it 100% like a video game. With my own gun, I could just snap a few shots at each target and save my mom. Just like in the sims, easy peazy.
I guess that I will just have to do this the hard way. It is a shame that I don’t have the time to grab the gun that Target_2 dropped, but fortunately for me, Target_3 is right handed and the rear passenger door is partially blocking his aim. He can’t just snap it straight up and fire it at me. He has to take a step to his left to clear the door before he can bring it fully to bear on me.
I use that extra fraction of a second to jump up and towards him, hands in the guard position; I tuck my legs up and into my chest to keep them from getting hit by the shotgun.
<Boom!>
Target_3 fires the shotgun as I sail above the spot where he was pointing the thing when he reflexively pulls the trigger.
From the edge of my vision, I notice as Target_1 pushes my mom away from him and he reaches for something inside his jacket. I want to take advantage of the fact that he let go of my mom and eliminate him, but Target_3 has priority. As my jump takes me over Target_3’s still rising shotgun barrel, I lash out with a front snap kick to his face, hitting him square in his nose with the ball of my right foot. His head snaps back from the impact as blood flies from out of his very broken nose.
<Boom!>
The shotgun fires one more time. I hear the sound of the shotgun pellets hitting the Escalade and based on the weapon’s firing arc, Target_2 may have been hit by friendly fire. I don’t have time to verify that condition because Target_5 has rounded the back of the Escalade and he is in a firing stance with his weapon mostly aimed at me. The only thing that was stopping him from firing at me sooner was the fact that Target_3 was between me and him and now that Target_3 is falling toward the ground while I am still up in the air, he has a pretty good shot at me.
>Enemy Firearm detected.
>Target_5 Weapon Identified!
>Colt M1911A1 Caliber .45
No shit, but the fact that I am about to be shot doesn’t bother me in the slightest.
“Brianna!” My mom screams in panic.
>Enemy Target_5 priority rating altered.
>Mission Success Factor=43%
>Agent Survival Factor=22%
That little bit of data is what bothers me. There isn’t a lot that I can do about getting shot, but I might be able to lessen the damage and retain some mission capability. Maybe even enough to still succeed with my primary mission. Based on the angle of his weapon, if he pulls the trigger right this nanosecond, he will hit me in my stomach, dead center. As I fall back to the ground, his aiming point rises to more critical portions of my upper torso. I twist and rotate my upper body to the left to try and reduce his odds of hitting a critical system. My feet hit the ground, straddling the fallen Target_3.
<Crack!>
>Enemy hit detected!
>Right shoulder destroyed.
>Combat effectiveness reduced to 62%.
>Mission Success Factor=36%
>Agent Survival Factor=18%
The force of the impact spins me around, clockwise, but I don’t feel a thing. Destroyed? That sounds bad. How come that doesn’t happen in the movies? Shouldn’t I just have a little hole in my shoulder and only need to say “ouch” or something more R rated? Why is my shoulder “destroyed”?
>Damage consistent with Hollow-Point Ammunition
>Repairs initiated.
I can’t let him shoot me a second time. My right arm doesn’t want to respond to my commands, but I am still able to move the rest of my body. As Target_5 takes another half-step towards me, I continue the clockwise rotation that the hit to my shoulder started. Spinning on my left foot, I rotate my body out of his direct line of fire while performing a roundhouse kick with my right leg. I hit the side of his left knee with my right foot and as his knee starts to collapse, I transfer my weight into his knee, pushing my foot down and his knee into the pavement.
<Crack!>
His weapon fires again, but this time the round flies harmlessly past me and ricochets off the pavement next to the Escalade. He starts to look up at me as I continue my clock-wise spin and I hit him in the side of his face with my left elbow. A few of his teeth and some blood spray out of his mouth as he begins to crumple to the ground, unconscious.
>Target_5 eliminated...
>Mission Success Factor=82%
>Agent Survival Factor=41%
Oh, that’s good. At least my success and survival chances have gone up now. Target_5 is no longer important to me as I scan for Target_1.
>Enemy Firearm detected.
>Target_1 Weapon Identified!
>Colt M1911A1 Caliber .45
Come on, assholes! What in the hell?
>Combat readiness increased to 63%.
>Mission Success Factor=72%
>Agent Survival Factor=15%
Nice, an entire 1% combat effectiveness increase there. Go-go Gadget nanites! The survival percentage has me a little worried, but now I am pretty sure that I can kick his ass even if he shoots me. It doesn’t matter if I die. As long as my mom is safe.
Target_1 has his weapon aimed right at me, but he is hesitating.
I’m not. With my left hand, I reach down and pick Target_5 up by the back of his handy armored jacket. Using his body as a shield, I throw the unconscious Target_5 into Target_1 as I rush forward.
>Mission Success Factor=92%
>Agent Survival Factor=55%
Wow, now that is a good increase! Target_1 is knocked back by the impact of his buddy and as he hits the ground, his weapon is knocked out of his hand. He’s sprawled on his back and in that position, he’s going to be a little harder to grapple with now that my shoulder is worthless, but I think that I can still eliminate him pretty fast.
Target_1 confuses me. He is crying like a little baby. “I’m so so sorry! I didn’t mean to try and hurt you.” He says while looking up at me with something that looks suspiciously like love to me.
That doesn’t matter. He’s a threat. I need to eliminate the threat to have a 100% mission success factor. I jump on him with my left knee in his chest, stunning him the impact knocks the air out of him. My right foot to holds down his left arm. A knife hand strike to his throat should take care of him.
“Brianna! Stop!” My mom yells.
>Combat readiness increased to 64%.
>Mission Success Factor=87%
>Agent Survival Factor=95%
Now I am really confused. Why would my mom order me to stop? If I don’t eliminate Target_1, how can I have a successful mission? I look up to my mom. Her nose is bleeding. Did Target_1 hit her? Is that affecting her tactical assessment?
“I know that relationships caused by stressful situations never work out, but will you marry me?” Target_1 asks as he gasps for air as his eyes begin to tear up.
I look back down to Target_1. Something isn’t right. Why would he try to kill me, and then ask me to marry him? He isn’t making any hostile moves. I can still eliminate him.
“I’m sorry! Please forgive me my love.” Target_1 says.
Now I know that something isn’t right with him. He is clearly delusional. Maybe the stress of combat broke him or something. Whatever it is, it has eliminated him as a threat.
>Target_1 Subdued...
>Combat readiness increased to 65%.
>Mission Successful!
>Total Mission Time: 15.02 seconds
>Critical Repairs in progress...
>Agent Survival Factor=100%
>Estimated Time to 100% combat readiness: 9.29 minutes
I stand and scan the area for additional threats. None of the other Targets are operational and it looks like Target_2 was hit by the shotgun. He has a huge hole in the side of his jacket and his body is already cooling. I still don’t feel anything. I think that I should be grossed out by the sight of the dead dude, but I’m not. He doesn’t seem real. None of this seems real to me. The only thing that is real to me is The Mission and my mom.
I drop my Blur spell. There is no reason to maintain it anymore. It seemed to provide some benefit, but I still got shot. Perhaps next time I should try further counter-measures. Now what do I do?
>Gather enemy intelligence
“Bree? What’s wrong with you?” My mom asks, sounding worried.
I look over to her. “I sustained damage to my right shoulder that initially reduced my combat readiness to 62%. Repairs are currently in progress. 100% combat readiness in 9.03 minutes.”
I turn back to Target_1. Thankfully, he has stopped crying. “Who are you and why did you attack us?” I ask him.
“I’m so so sorry! I didn’t know who you were! Please, forgive me my love!” He says, not really answering my question.
Has he been conditioned to resist direct questioning techniques? “Who are you and why did you attack us? I ask him again.
Now he starts to cry again. “I know that you don’t know me, my love, but I’m David Gillespie. I don’t know why now, but I hated all muties for how they are planning on enslaving all of humanity. I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to call you a mutie. You’re name is Brianna, right?” He asks, sounding contrite.
I didn’t know that getting a prisoner to talk could be so easy. “Yes, my name is Brianna. Why did you attack us?”
“Brianna! What is wrong with you? Why can’t I feel you?” My mom asks as I feel my body move. I look over and see that she has grabbed my right arm in an attempt to interrupt my interrogation of the prisoner. I look down at my hand. It is covered with blood, my blood. I still don’t feel any pain.
She lets go of my arm and recoils. “Oh my god, Brianna! I’m so sorry.”
How much blood did I lose?
>0.78 pints
Am I still bleeding?
>Negative. Surface layer external tissue damage repaired.
Oh, that’s good. I bet that my clothes are ruined, but I need to continue with the interrogation of the prisoner. I turn back to look at him. “Continue, please.”
“Oh, well, umm, my friends and I attacked you because we are in Humanity First. One of our sympathizers called our hotline and reported your position. I can’t believe that I considered them my friends after what they tried to make me do to you!” David says as he starts to cry again.
My mom interrupts his debriefing. “Brianna Nicole! Stop this instant! What is wrong with you?”
I look back to her. “I told you. I sustained damage to my right shoulder that initially reduced my combat readiness to 62%...”
“Brianna! Stop it!” My mom orders.
She reaches for my left arm and studies my face for a second. “What is wrong with you? Why can’t I feel you?”
Feel me? I’m right here. I don’t understand. Her nose looks like it has stopped bleeding. Did she take damage elsewhere? Where are the police?
>Local Law Enforcement radio transmissions detected.
>Two vehicle based radio transmitters detected ~0.5 miles away.
>ETA 33.2 seconds.
“The police will be here in 33 seconds.” I say to her. Maybe they can help her.
Okay, intelligence gathered, now what?
>Report to command
Oh yeah. I should contact Mr. Reilly now.
>Attempting to connect....
>Login Failure
>Not Authorized
“Mom, we need to notify command of our situation.” I say.
My question seems to help her focus, she stops crying. “Command? Who is that?” She asks.
“Deputy Director Nicholas Reilly and President of United States are current recognized command authority figures.” I say.
My mom digs into her purse for her cell phone. “I can’t call the President and I don’t know Mr. Reilly’s number.”
I decide that it will probably be faster if I dial his number for her. I reach for her cell phone, but as my hand touches it; her cell phone opens up to me. I tell her cell phone to dial Mr. Reilly’s number. “Your phone is now dialing Mr. Reilly’s number.” I say, as I let go of her cell phone.
Mr. Reilly answers his phone in only two rings. “Nicholas Reilly speaking.” He says.
“Hello? Mr. Reilly? It’s Jennifer. We went to the Patrick Henry Mall with Barb and Amanda and someone from Humanity First attacked us on our way out. Brianna is acting weird, I don’t know what to do and Brianna says that the police will be here in 30 seconds!” My mom says, hysterically into her phone.
I check on the status of the police cars.
>Two vehicle based radio transmitters detected ~0.25 miles away.
>ETA Unknown. Position Stationary.
“The two police vehicles have stopped at approximately .25 miles away from our current position.” I say using my mom’s phone to provide Mr. Reilly with a current update.
“Whisper, what happened?” Mr. Reilly asks, using my codename.
“Sir, Five enemies in an Escalade SUV attacked us as we exited the mall. Current position is southwest parking lot. GPS location 37.110824, -76.496714. One enemy KIA via friendly fire, three disabled, status unconscious, one enemy detained for questioning. Humanity First affiliation confirmed by enemy combatant.” I say.
“Okay, Whisper. I need you to stand-down. Do not resist. The police are probably waiting for backup. They are probably going to be confused and nervous. Do you understand?” Mr. Reilly asks.
“Yes sir. Umm, standing down.” I say.
>Suspending Combat Stim production...
“Oh my gawd! Bree!” Amanda says as she rushes in to give me a hug.
“Amanda! Stop!” Barb yells with has her cell phone up to her ear. She must be on the phone with the police still.
My legs suddenly feel like pudding as what just happened hits me full force. Amanda slows my descent as my legs collapse from under me. I end up sitting on my knees and butt. The only reason don’t fall completely over is due to Amanda’s hold on my left arm. She sinks to her knees beside me and pulls me close to keep me from falling over. My head is resting on her shoulder and I feel so tired.
“Oh no! Bree! You’re bleeding!” Amanda says as she rapidly removes her hand from my right shoulder.
For the first time since I was shot, I feel something from my shoulder. Pain, and pain is good. It means that I am still alive and the pain actually helps revive me, a little. I pull away from her and I am able to sit up under my own power, but I don’t think I am ready to try standing again.
Barb starts to speak again. “Yes ma’am. It looks like the five attackers are down. Umm, Bree beat them up. Umm, I don’t think that I can say. Yes ma’am, sorry. Oh, my daughter just ran to Bree. It looks like she has been shot. Please, can you send someone to help now?”
Amanda looks concerned. “Bree? Are you okay? Why aren’t you saying anything?” She asks.
I look at her and point to my head while silently saying “On the phone.” Amanda looks a little confused by that.
>Two vehicle based radio transmitters detected ~0.23 miles away.
>ETA 20 seconds...
“Sir, the two police vehicles are moving again. ETA 20 seconds.” I say as I start to feel a little pain from my shoulder.
“Okay. I have some calls to make. Just do what they tell you, but do not let them take you away.” Mr. Reilly says with a sigh.
“Yes sir, sorry sir. I didn’t mean to.” I say with a slight whine in my mental voice. My shoulder is really starting to hurt now and I’m starting to worry about what I just did.
“I know. That’s what Nikki says to me all the time too.” Mr. Reilly says with a soft sigh before he hangs up his phone.
The two police cars finally arrive. The officers look a little nervous as they exit their vehicles and draw their weapons. The drawn weapons cause my targeting system to lock on to them and identify them as Enemy Targets seven through ten.
“Yes, they are here now, thanks! Okay.” Barb says into her cell phone.
>Combat readiness increased to 68%.
>Estimated Time to 100% combat readiness: 8.57 minutes
>Resume Combat Stim production? [Y]/n
Umm, no thanks. The police are not enemies. I debate listening in on Barb’s conversion with the police, but she hangs it up after that. One of the officers from the second car has his shotgun out and is standing watch while his partner works with one of the officers from the first car to check on the fallen H1 dudes. The fourth officer is heading over to our location. He looks very concerned and hyper alert as he divides his attention between his fellow officers, the H1 dudes on the ground and the four of us.
“Are you ladies okay?” He asks while he looks a little closer at me.
Barb, Amanda and my mom all nod their heads as I divide my attention between him and the other two officers as they begin their inspection of the Escalade and the H1 dudes on the ground.
“Ma’am, have you been injured?” The officer asks, his eyes widen with surprise as I look up to him.
I glance down at my shoulder before looking back up to him. “Umm, yes. I was shot in my shoulder.” I say as calmly as I can. My shoulder is throbbing with pain, but it is also slowly starting to feel better. Like maybe, I went from a 10 to a 9.5 on the pain scale. I can’t believe that I didn’t feel it sooner. I look over at my mom and she is looking a little relieved by something.
“Mom, what’s wrong?” I ask, trying to ignore the nervous looking police officers. One of them has his gun out and that is setting off all kinds of alarms for me.
“I can feel you again.” She says with a slight smile.
“Oh, I guess it was the fight...” I say.
“Ma’am?” The police officer asks me again as he holsters his gun, takes out his flashlight and steps closer to me.
“Umm, sorry sir. I’m feeling a little bit of pain right now.” I say, understating how I am feeling by just a tad. The blood dripping down my arm and soaking my top is a little distracting, but I am glad that the bleeding has stopped.
>Local Law Enforcement radio transmissions detected.
>Three vehicle based radio transmitters incoming.
>ETA 37.6 seconds.
The radios attached to the officer’s vests update the officers here with the inbound help arriving and they visibly relax. I guess that the sight of one dead dude, plus three unconscious dudes and copious amounts of firepower lying around kind of spooks them a little.
“Holy shit!” One of the officers inspecting the Escalade says as he checks the back of the SUV.
“What is it, Banks?” The officer with the shot gun asks nervously.
“The back of this thing is fucking loaded with weapons, body armor and ammo!” He says, incredulously.
The officer’s eyes widen with surprise as shines his light on my shoulder. “Ma’am, you should be lying down. I can’t believe that you aren’t showing more signs of being in shock right now.” He says, incredulously.
Even with the police here, I don’t want to stay sitting on the ground. What if one of the H1 dudes wakes up and tries to attack me again? “Umm, except for the pain, I feel mostly okay.” I say as I try to sit up a little straighter in preparation for standing back up.
I look back over at Amanda. She looks extremely worried about me. “Umm, Bree?” She asks.
“Umm, can you help me a little?” I ask, looking to Amanda.
“Ma’am, you really shouldn’t try to stand right now.” The police officer says, frowning with concern.
“I’m okay...” I say as I cradle my right arm to keep it from moving and somehow find the strength to push myself up with my legs. Amanda decides to help me for the last bit and I find myself leaning a little against her after I am on my feet again.
The police officer frowns. “I hate to ask this, but I’m going to need to report the fact that an apparent mutant was involved here. Do you have your MID card?”
I glance to my mom. She doesn’t look happy. “I’m sorry sir, but I just manifested this weekend and I just started my Powers Testing today.” I say, feeling guilty and worried about not having my card yet. I’ve heard that mutants can get into a lot of trouble if they don’t have their card, but I’ve also heard that there is a small grace period for recently emerged mutants.
He smiles at me. “Oh, okay. If that is the case, I’m sure there won’t be a problem. Sorry, but I had to ask.” He says as he glances over to a shivering Amanda before looking over to my mom and Barb.
He turns to my mom and Barb. “Ma’am, it’s freezing out here. Do you all have any jackets?”.
It’s freezing?
>External temperature 38 degrees Fahrenheit
Okay, not freezing, but close. I don’t feel that cold, but I look over and I see that Amanda is starting to shiver. Using my left arm, I hug Amanda to me to help share some warmth. She stares at her blood soaked hand before turning back to me with tears in her eyes.
“Umm, back in the car.” My mom says.
“My new clothes and a sweater are lying back there.” I say with a glance to where I dropped my bags. I don’t even remember dropping them before I began my attack run.
Amanda isn’t sure what to about my blood on her hand. It doesn’t look like she got any of it on her clothes. I gently grab her hand and wipe it against my shirt. It’s ruined anyway. What’s a little more blood on it going to do? The pain has dropped some more and the estimated time to 100% combat readiness is now down to 8.3 minutes. I still can’t feel or move my right arm though.
“I’ll go get our jackets from the car.” Barb says as she turns to head back to her car.
Officer Heinricks, according to his uniform’s name tag, looks back to me. “So, umm, ma’am. It looks like you got tagged pretty good there and I am surprised that you even managed to stand. Do you have some kind of regen power or something?” He asks.
“I think so sir.” I say.
He nods his head. “Lucky. Okay, then well, the EMTs will be here in a minute or two. I will let them know to check on you. If you start to feel any worse, please let one of us know.”
“Yes sir.” I say.
Officer Heinricks turns to David, the H1 dude, with a stern expression. “You. Are you injured?” He asks without much sympathy.
“Umm, no sir and I’m really sorry.” David says, sounding very sincere.
An addition three police cars arrive with lights and sirens blazing. An ambulance is trailing behind them.
Officer Heinricks looks surprised by David’s response. “Okay, stand up, slowly and let’s get you into my cruiser.” He says as he watches David cautiously.
David stands and automatically raises his arms.
“Okay, turn.” Officer Heinricks says as he carefully frisks David for weapons. He finds a knife, some ammo, a cell phone and David’s wallet. After that, he places David in handcuffs and locks him in the back of his squad car. He speaks with some of the new officers and I see him pointing in my direction a few times. The first EMT’s start working on the more seriously wounded H1 dudes.
>Active CDMA Signal from device: Jennifer Peters <555-123-9909> Incoming call from Nicholas Reilly <555-333-0333>
I answer her phone before it rings.
“Whisper here.” I say.
“Whisper? Where is your mom?” Mr. Reilly asks.
“Oh, she’s here, but I answered it before it started ringing. I wasn’t sure if you wanted the police to know that we are talking.” I say.
“Oh, good call. What is the current status?”
“Well, three additional police cars have just arrived and one ambulance. Six additional officers are now here.” I glance over at the Humanity First enemies. Yep, the driver is definitely dead. “One of the enemy is dead, one is regaining consciousness, two are still out and until Officer Heinricks put him in the back of his car, the other one wouldn’t stop telling me how sorry he is for attacking me. I have no idea what his malfunction is. Maybe my mom did something to him?” I say.
Mr. Reilly groans. “Great, that’s all we need right now. Please tell me that the MCO haven’t arrived.”
“Umm, no sir. I have not detected any additional, umm, enemy forces, but Officer Heinricks did ask me about my MID card.” I say, counting the MCO as an enemy. Not sure if they are or not, but Mr. Reilly’s tone of voice and stress gauge seems to indicate that he doesn’t like them.
Mr. Reilly sighs into his phone over my last bit of data.
>Emergency Vehicle radio transmissions detected.
>Three vehicle based radio transmitters incoming.
>ETA 27.8 seconds.
“Correction. Three more ambulances are incoming. ETA 27 seconds.” I say.
“Okay. The Air Force is scrambling a copter for me and I managed to convince the President’s Chief of Staff that this is a problem and a Federal issue due to the Humanity First involvement. Hate crime and terroristic threats and all that, so the FBI are en route to take over.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Reilly.” I say with a slight quiver in my voice. I sure have caused a lot of trouble and all I did was go shopping at the mall. It is now official. I hate malls.
Mr. Reilly sighs. “It’s not your fault.” He says with a gentle tone. “If the MCO get there before the FBI or I do, do not let them trick the local police into taking you into custody.”
“Yes sir.”
“Okay, my ride is here. Hang in there. I’ll let be there as soon as I can. Reilly out.” Mr. Reilly says just before he hangs up his phone.
I turn to my mom. “Mom, Mr. Reilly is on his way.” I say in a low tone to keep the police from knowing. Not sure why I think that I need to keep that a secret, but her face relaxes just a little as she nods her head.
Barb returns with my mom’s, Amanda’s and her jacket. I didn’t have one, but she has the bag with my new clothes in her hand. The police have the entire area cordoned off and each of the H1 dudes has an EMT and a police officer working on them. The shotgun dude is moaning in pain and complaining about his nose, but the others are still out. The EMTs from the fourth ambulance are directed by Officer Heinricks to finally check on me. He follows the EMT dude.
The EMT’s eyes widen with shock at the sight of my blood soaked shoulder and limp arm. “Ma’am? Are you hurt?” He asks.
I glance down to my shoulder. “Umm, yeah. That dude over there,” I say, pointing with my eyes to the guy currently being loaded onto a stretcher. “,shot me with a hollow-point .45 caliber at one meter. Hurts like crazy right now.”
Officer Heinricks jumps a little at that, shakes his head and mutters with disbelief.
“Let’s get you over to the rig so I can check you out.” He says before he turns back to look at the female EMT standing near their ambulance. “Jess! Can you bring me the stretcher? We have a possible gunshot wound here.”
“Umm, I think I can walk over there.” I say.
“That’s okay ma’am. I’m surprised that you’re even standing right now. I don’t want to take any chances. You must have gotten lucky and just been grazed by the bullet.” The EMT says.
I know that I wasn’t just grazed. What was hit in there?
>Damage Report:
>Scapula and Glenohumeral Joint damaged - Repairs Underway
>Additional Soft tissue damage - Repairs Underway
>Internal bleeding - Contained
>Estimated Time to 100% combat readiness: 6.03 minutes
“Oh no sir. My scapula and my glenohumeral something were damaged along with some other stuff.” I say as the EMT’s eyes grow even larger.
Oops, maybe I shouldn’t have said that. He looks skeptical as the rolling stretcher thing arrives. I cradle my right arm and wince a little as the two EMTs help me lay down on the bed. My fingers twitch a little and I can feel part of my hand now. My mom follows as they push me to the ambulance. I glance back to Amanda and Barb has her daughter wrapped in her arms as Amanda sobs. I smile at Amanda to try and show her that I’m fine, but I’m not sure if she gets the message because she tries to break her mom’s hug and follow me. I can’t believe that she is so worried about me. Really, we just met. Her concern for me starts to make me feel like crying.
My mom glances back at Amanda before looking back down at me as she walks beside the stretcher. She smiles. “I’m really glad that you’re back, Bree. I was really worried about you.”
I don’t get a chance to reply. I’m pushed into the back of the Ambulance and the two EMT’s immediately begin to cut away my blood soaked shirt. I’m not sure how I feel about that. It is ruined and it was actually one of my favorites. My bra strap is cut next.
Crap, not my bra too! Crap! I can’t believe that I just thought that!
With my bra strap out of the way, the female EMT squirts some sterile saline water onto my shoulder to wash the blood away. “I thought you said that you were shot?” The male EMT asks, confused.
I look down and except for a red mark; my skin is completely smooth where the bullet hit me. “Umm, I was.” I say, just a little confused myself. I know that I can regenerate and my nanites have even been kind enough to provide me with repair times, but it is different when I can actually see myself heal.
“Are you a regenerator?” Jess, the female EMT, asks.
“I guess so? I’m not sure. Today was my first day of testing.” I say.
Jess looks up to her partner. “Well, Dan, I guess that explains that.” She says before turning back to me. “You’re lucky, but unfortunately, you will probably need to see a doctor at some point to get the bullet removed.”
I just nod my head in agreement. I don’t think that I should tell her that my nanites have already eaten the bullet.
Jess sighs. “Well, your top and bra are destroyed. Do you have anything else to wear?”
I look over to my mom, who is hovering anxiously by the back door. She holds the Aerie bag up. “Yes, we have some tops in here for her.” She says.
Where is the Victoria’s bag is with my new bras? My mom opens the bag and the pink Victoria’s bag is stuffed inside. Awesome.
“Okay, Dan. Why don’t you go check on the H1’s while I get her cleaned up so that she can get some fresh clothes on?” Jess says.
Dan nods as he steps down and bag in hand, my mom steps up and into the back of the ambulance with the two of us. Dan closes the doors behind him. Jess peels off the rest of my top by just cutting it the rest of the way down the right side and removes my bra. Placing both into a clear plastic bag with bio hazard symbols on them.
My nipples pop out and embarrassed, I cover myself with my left hand and arm. These things are so much more noticeable and sensitive than they were before my change. Thankfully, Jess doesn’t even react to my display as she quickly and efficiently cleans all the blood off my skin. I guess that she has had a lot of experience with that. I am able to make a fist and even move my arm a little by the time she is done.
My mom digs out one of my new bras and I wince a little as Jess carefully helps with my bra. My shoulder is still rather tender, but the pain is now down to a five. Even with the pain, I have never felt so relieved to be wearing a bra. My new thermal top thing is way nicer than my old top. If I get blood on this and ruin it, I will be pissed.
I still have some blood on my jeans, but it’s dried and I don’t wanna mess with them now. For some reason, what really upsets me are my new boots. They have a few scuff marks on them. My mom helps me climb down from the back of the ambulance and as I do, I see two black SUVs rapidly threading their way to us right now. They must be the FBI. I hope they are, anyway.
I spot Barb and Amanda both speaking to a police officer. He has a notepad out and he is writing stuff down. I guess that they are giving him their statements. The two SUVs roll to a stop 100 meters away. Seven men and one woman wearing blue jackets with big yellow FBI letters emblazoned on them exit the vehicles. One of the police officers points toward my ambulance after briefly using his radio.
Three of the FBI agents detach from their group and head towards me, while the rest work their way towards the Escalade.
>FBI/GS/SpecialAgent/GM-14/Johnathon/Russell/Gilbert/xxx-xx-xxxx/A+/FALSE
>FBI/GS/Agent/GS-12/Michelle/Anne/Cheney/xxx-xx-xxxx/B-/PEANUTS
>FBI/GS/Agent/GS-10/James/Micheal/Crawford/xxx-xx-xxxx/O+/FALSE
Their CAC IDs give them away. I think that the government needs to do something about those RFID cards, but it is kind of handy for me.
Special Agent Gilbert steps forward with a frown as the other two agents fall back a few steps. “Hi, I am Special Agent Gilbert, Counter Terrorism Unit, FBI.” He quickly glances back to his two partners before returning his attention to me. “And behind me are Agents Cheney and Crawford. You must be The One that I know so little about, but I am supposed to take care of.” He says as he looks me up and down, as if judging how much of a threat I might make.
My mom’s hand tightens protectively on my left shoulder as I feel myself blushing from embarrassment. “Umm, sorry?” I say, looking up to him with my best pathetic girl expression, but I’m not sure how good I am at that expression. I am kinda new to this.
It must work. He shifts a little uncomfortably. “Yes, well, the update from the local PD indicated that you had been injured.” He glances from me and up to Jess, who is standing anxiously inside her rig. “How is she?” He asks Jess.
“Well, based on her clothing, she lost a fair amount of blood, but she appears to have some good regen, so I really can’t say.” Jess says, shrugging her shoulders.
Special Agent Gilbert looks back to me. “Do you feel up to walking back to my vehicle so we can get started on your statement?” He asks as the sound of helicopters entering the area become hard to ignore.
He pauses and follows my gauze as I spot two Black Hawk helicopters fly in and rapidly enter a hover on either side of the parking lot. The first one is 150 meters east and near to the FBI vehicles while the second is 200 meters west of my location. Ropes are hanging down and soldiers dressed in full combat gear rappel down. I think that it’s pretty damn cool to watch and I hope that I will get a chance to try that some day. As soon as all the men from the second helicopter are down, the copter peels rapidly away. The first helicopter flies slowly towards a large open spot in the parking lot and begins to descend with one of the soldiers using a flashlight to help direct the copter into a safe landing.
“Well, it looks like my team isn’t the only people who got some love tonight.” Special Agent Gilbert says with amusement as he watches the first copter’s blades begin to slow.
I zoom in and watch as Mr. Reilly, Dr. Edmundson and some guys partially dressed in hazmat suits exit the helicopter. He turns back to me with a calculating expression. “You wouldn’t happen to know why two of the Air Force’s Combat Search and Rescue teams would be here and who those people are would you?”
I have a few ideas, but I’m pretty sure that most of them are classified. “Umm, well, the guy in the suit, carrying the briefcase and looking a little upset with me is DARPA Deputy Director Reilly and the man behind him is Dr. Edmundson from the, umm, I’m not sure if I can say, sir.”
Agent Cheney gasps with surprise as she tries to make out all the details I just mentioned. “How can you see all that?”
“Umm, that’s probably classified?” I say, hesitantly, wincing a little as I accidentally try to shrug both of my shoulders. It doesn’t hurt as much as I expected.
Special Agent Gilbert snorts with disbelief. “Well, I have no idea who you know, but I do know that whoever it is, they have a shit load of pull! I’ve never seen this kind of response before.”
“Umm, well, that would be Mr. Reilly sir.” I say as we all start to walk back towards their vehicle. Special Agent Gilbert walks with me and my mom while the other two trail slightly behind.
“Okay, so, how would the Deputy Director of DARPA have so much pull?” Special Agent Gilbert asks rhetorically.
“Well, I’m pretty sure that he had to call the President or something right after I called to tell him about being attacked by the H1 dudes.” I say.
Special Agent Gilbert misses a step as he looks over to me with surprise. I look up to him and out of the side of my eye, I catch Agent Cheney and Agent Crawford exchange a nervous glance with each other. “Really?” Special Agent Gilbert asks, speculatively.
I nervously nod. Should I have told him that? We get 40 meters from the FBI’s vehicle when Mr. Reilly and Dr. Edmundson spot us and alter their course to meet us.
I can’t read Mr. Reilly’s expression as he approaches us. He must be pretty pissed at me though. I take a half-step back and get closer to my mom. Mr. Reilly briefly frowns at me before returning his focus on Special Agent Gilbert and his team. Crap, he is pissed at me.
Mr. Reilly extends his hand to Gilbert. “Hi, DARPA Deputy Director Nicholas Reilly. Are you Special Agent Gilbert?” He asks as he shakes hands with Gilbert.
“Yes, sir. Pleased to meet you, but I am a little surprised about all of this.” Gilbert says, glancing around as the hazmat team approaches us.
“Yes and so am I.” Mr. Reilly says before he turns to me with a parental stern expression.
“I’m sorry Mr. Reilly; I didn’t plan on this happening.” I say, looking around to take in all the activity. The realization of all the trouble I have caused makes me cringe a little. The scope of our little trip to the mall has really increased, a lot.
Mr. Reilly surprises me by smiling at me. “Oh, I know. Nikki tells me the same thing, but it doesn’t help. I think that you are going to be just like her, a trouble magnet.”
Dr. Edmundson joins Mr. Reilly. “Sir, we need to get started on the de-con.” He says, looking around at all the police officers and EMTs with concern.
De-con? What do they need to decontaminate? Dr. Edmundson looks at me. I am still cradling my shoulder. “Umm, Bree, I understand that you were shot. Where did you get shot at and did you get your blood on anything?” He asks.
Oh, crap. “Umm, I was shot over there.” I say, pointing with my left arm toward the Escalade before turn to look back to the ambulance. “But, Jess cleaned me off in there and she bagged my top.”
Dr. Edmundson looks behind him and at the team of folks wearing hazmat suits. “Okay, guys, start with the ambulance, then over there. Make sure you get all the blood up.”
He leaves with the team and another black SUV pulls into the parking lot. This one has the logo for the Department of Paranormal Affairs (DPA) emblazoned on the doors.
Mr. Reilly and the FBI folks watch as two guys wearing suits get out of the SUV and look around. Mr. Reilly sighs. “Well, I guess that we should get this over with. Bree, Special Agent Gilbert here and the DPA will probably want to take both you and your mom’s statements, but I want to make sure that we leave out any of the more classified aspects of this incident.”
“Umm, yes sir.” I say, nodding my head as I look around at the FBI agents to see how they are taking the news. They don’t look as surprised as I expect them to look.
The DPA agents meet us at the rear of the FBI’s SUV where my mom and I give them our official statements regarding what happened. The DPA guy frowns a little about the fact that I don’t have an MID or MMID yet, but Mr. Reilly explains to him that I am still being tested by the Department of Defense and that I am also in the process of having my application to that Whateley place fast-tracked by the Department of Defense. I notice that he doesn’t mention the President, at all.
We are just finishing up when my attention is drawn to a white police style sedan that just rolled through the police cordon. This one has the MCO’s official seal on the doors, but what drew my attention to it was the fact that I detected some encrypted radio communications between it and some additional vehicles. Also, based on their replies, those vehicles appear to be stationary and located half a mile away. I point out the vehicle and mention to Mr. Reilly the additional signals I detected.
He purses his lips and does not look happy as he follows the progress of the MCO vehicle as it makes a beeline for us.
Two men get out of the car and casually stroll over to us, looking friendly with smiles plastered on their faces. When they are 20 meters away, I detect their cell phones and I notice that they have active blue tooth connections open with multiple devices. That’s not normal. A blue tooth headset is one thing, but neither of them is wearing a headset. I focus my attention closer and I notice that they each have a pen in their front breast pockets that is transmitting audio data via blue-tooth and their glasses are emitting the same bandwidth of infra-red that video cameras use for their auto-focusing lenses.
“Umm, sir.” I pull on Mr. Reilly’s sleeve to get him to lean down so I can whisper in his ear. He bends down as he cautiously keeps his eyes on the MCO agents. “They have glasses with video and the pens in the pockets are bugs that are talking to their cell phones via blue-tooth.” I say, whispering in his ear as I keep my eyes on them.
Mr. Reilly straightens back up. “Hmmm, can you jam the video?” Mr. Reilly asks after a second of thought.
I shake my head no. I might be able to do something with the pens by jamming their blue-tooth signal, but I don’t detect a signal coming from their glasses.
“Okay. Why don’t you stay out of sight as much as possible? Maybe try to stay behind me.” Mr. Reilly says.
“Hey, Agent Finlayson! What’s the DPA and the FBI doing here?” The leading MCO agent asks with a smile as he looks at the lead DPA agent.
Agent Finlayson gives Mr. Reilly a quick glance. “Oh, nothing much. Just following standard procedures for dealing with a possible hate crime or terrorist group attack on or involving a mutant. What brings you here Agent Lainer?”
Agent Finlayson’s glance at Mr. Reilly draws the MCO dude’s attention to Mr. Reilly for a brief second. “Oh, you know, the same. I heard about the attack and the fact that the mutant in question might not have an MID, so I thought I’d swing by and lend a hand.” Agent Lainer says with a fake smile as his voice stress meter hits the low yellow range.
“Oh, that’s a shame because we are just wrapping things up here. Sorry that you wasted the trip.” Agent Finlayson says without any sincerity in his voice. The MCO and DPA guys must not like each other very much.
The MCO dude ignores the fake sincerity and pretends that it was sincere. “Oh, that’s okay. That just makes my job easier. Where is the suspected mutant so that I can either verify her MID or take her into protective custody for you all?” Agent Lainer asks, still smiling as his stress meter hits the upper yellows.
Crap. Now, I’m not feeling good at all. He can probably see me behind Mr. Reilly. He has got to know that I am here, but this polite game of his is so annoying. I look over to my mom and she doesn’t look very happy right now either. I debate trying to use an illusion to change my appearance, but the police have probably already mentioned what I look like. So, doing that would just give my illusion power away to the enemy and my mom wouldn’t be happy with me either.
My mom shakes her head no. Can she read minds now too? How did she know what I was thinking? “I know.” I silently mouth back to her.
Mr. Reilly chooses that moment to break into the conversation. “Agent Lainer?” He asks as he steps forward to shake hands with Agent Lainer. Agent Lainer automatically responds by returning the gesture. “Hi, I’m Nicholas Reilly with the Department of Defense. I believe that I can help answer the missing MID problem.”
Agent Lainer appears a little surprised by Mr. Reilly and I notice that Mr. Reilly didn’t really identify himself. “Oh, you can? That would be helpful. I never like having to take a mutant into protective custody.” His stress meter hits the red there. I think that he’s lying. Agent Lainer and his partner are both trying to sneak glances my way, but I manage to keep other people in front of me or closer to them to prevent their glasses’ auto-focus emitter beam from getting a direct line of sight picture of me.
Mr. Reilly smiles at his assertion as he opens his briefcase and digs out a manilla envelope with “TOP SECRET” stamped in red on the front and back of it. The MCO guys forget about trying to get a good shot of me as they focus all of their attention on that envelope.
“Now, understand that I’m only showing you this to help you perform your duties. If any word of the contents of this envelope get out, you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent under United State’s espionage laws.” Mr. Reilly says.
Now, I really want to know what is in that envelope myself.
He pulls out a small plastic smartcard with an orange border. I can see that the card has my picture with my code-name on the front with some barcode and official looking hologram. Mr. Reilly hands the MCO agent my card and the agent studies the front of it.
“It was issued today?” He asks, skeptically.
Mr. Reilly nods and smiles at his reaction.
“An MMID?” Agent Lainer asks as he turns the card over to look at the back of it. He scowls with anger as he reads the back of the card.
What is he seeing that is making him so mad?
“Classified? How in the hell can everything be fucking classified?!” He asks, not even bothering to try and disguise his anger.
“It’s an MMID Agent Lainer. If you wish, you are welcome to use your scanner to verify its authenticity.” Mr. Reilly says.
Agent Lainer hands Mr. Reilly back the card. “Here! Take this obvious bit of forgery back. It doesn’t matter anyway. It is still my duty to take her into protective custody in a case that involves the death of a innocent civilian.”
Special Agent Gilbert chooses that moment to make himself known. “I’m sorry Agent Lainer. Special Agent Gilbert, Counter Terrorism Unit, FBI, but the FBI and the United States Government views that so called civilian as a possible terrorist, as such, his death and the circumstances of his death are under my jurisdiction. I cannot allow you to take my witness into MCO custody at this time.”
Agent Lainer’s face flashes with confusion first, then naked anger before resuming his mask of politeness; “I’m sorry. I guess that I have what I need here. Sorry to delay your investigation Special Agent Gilbert.” He says as he turns to walk back to his car. Before he leaves, he makes one more attempt to get a good look at me. The glare he sends my way does not make me feel warm and fuzzy about the MCO.
It isn’t until he and his partner drive away that everyone starts to relax.
Mr. Reilly turns to Agent Gilbert and Agent Finlayson and shakes each of their hands. “Thanks. I’ll make sure to thank your bosses and express my appreciation.”
“Not a problem, sir. I dislike the MCO and don’t trust them one bit. Anything I can do to make their lives miserable is a good thing for me.” Special Agent Gilbert says with a pleased smile.
Mr. Reilly then turns and gives my mom and me the bad news.
“Okay, now we need to get you back to the facility for more tests. I’m afraid that it’s going to be an all-nighter tonight.”
My mom is looking a little tired and I’m feeling a little mentally exhausted myself. I was really looking forward to just getting back to our room and taking a shower. “I’m sorry sir.” I say as I start to follow Barb and Amanda back to their car.
“Bree? Where are you going?” Mr. Reilly asks.
I turn back, feeling confused. “Umm, with Barb?”
“Oh no. I’m not letting you out of my sight. You and your mom are riding with me in the Black Hawk.” Mr. Reilly says.
I can’t believe that I’m going to get to ride in a helicopter! “Really?” I ask, trying not to smile.
A smile escapes from Mr. Reilly. “Yes, really.”
Sa-weet! John is going to be so freaking jealous when he finds out. A freaking Black Hawk!
I glance over to Barb and Amanda. Amanda looks a little anxious. “Can Amanda come with us?” I ask.
Barb answers for Mr. Reilly. “I’m sorry Bree, she can’t. It’s a school night, it’s very late and she still has homework to do.”
Amanda does not look happy. “Moomm! Like I’m going to be able to go to school tomorrow anyway. I can’t do my homework now and even if I could, there is like no way that I’m going to be able to concentrate without worrying about Bree all day.”
“I’m sorry, but there is only going to be room for Mrs. Peters and Bree.” Mr. Reilly says, not sounding that sorry.
“Oh, that’s okay. How about if I ride with Barb instead? Barb needs to come in too, right?” My mom asks, shocking the crap out of me.
Amanda starts to jump up and down and excitedly clap. Barb looks a little surprised. Me, I’m very surprised. Why would she want to give up on a chance to ride in a helicopter? And, not just any helicopter either. A freaking Black Hawk! Mr. Reilly looks torn.
“Plus, that way, Barb can stop back at her house and grab Amanda’s school work so that she can work on it while waiting for Bree to finish her tests.” My mom says.
Mr. Reilly nods reluctantly while Amanda is not happy with the homework idea, but my mom seems real anxious to find reasons for her not to ride in the helicopter and now that I am thinking about it, her voice stress meter has been in the low yellow range ever since the helicopter was brought up. “Mom, are you afraid of helicopters?” I ask.
She nods her head yes, looking guilty as she gives Mr. Reilly a pleading look. Mr. Reilly sighs. “Okay. I don’t know how I am going to explain this. Come on before I change my mind.”
Amanda claps and gives me a hug, and then she jumps back with alarm as she remembers my injured shoulder. “Sorry! Oh my gawd Bree! I’m so sorry!” Amanda says.
“It’s okay. I’m totally repaired and back up to 100% Combat Efficiency.”
Amanda looks at me and giggles. “Bree, you do and say the strangest things sometimes. If I didn’t know better, I would swear that you are really a boy.”
~o~O~o~
Insert standard disclaimer here: The one that reminds everyone that this is a work of fiction. No one is real and any resemblance to someone who is real is just the reader's imagination. This is also a Fan Fiction set in the Whateley Story Universe. No Canon characters were permanently harmed in the making of this story. I hope. :)
Note: Thanks again djkauf for correcting my many mistakes.
I almost flip out when Amanda says that she thought that I could be a boy. Instead of giving it away by flipping out, I laugh at her joke. “Amanda, Oh gawd. That’s funny!” I say while working real hard to find something funny about it.
Amanda giggles as gestures to my body. “I know! I mean just look at you, but the way you kicked those guy’s asses and how you reacted afterwards. Can you teach me how to fight?” She asks with a hopeful expression.
I’m not sure when I would have the time to do that, but it’s kind of hard to say no to her. “Umm, sure? But, maybe you could find a jujitsu dojo somewhere near your house?” I ask.
“Oh yeah, hadn’t thought about that. You’re probably going to be heading back to New Mexico soon.” Amanda says, looking a little sad.
I look over at Mr. Reilly, but he’s not really paying attention to us. I follow his gaze and I see three different TV News vans setting up their broadcast antennas. I flip over to their frequencies and I am a little shocked by the excited chatter between their reporters and the producers back at the station. They seem to be very excited by the military helicopters and the reports of H1 attacking some mutant who cleaned their clocks. The producers are all very adamant about getting good footage of the mystery mutant.
“Oh, crap!” I say, before I can censor myself. I glance over at my mom and she doesn’t look very happy about my outburst. “The TV cameras. They want to get my picture.”
Mr. Reilly looks over at me and sighs. “Yes, and if Mrs. Townsend doesn’t mind, I think that having Amanda ride with Whisper may actually help confuse them some.”
Barb looks a little concerned about that idea while Amanda just looks even more excited, if that is even possible. “I dunno, are you okay with that, Amanda?” Barb asks.
“H...Heck yes!” Amanda says excitedly.
Mr. Reilly looks over to the FBI agents with a thoughtful expression. “Hmm, we will need something to hide the girls’ faces.”
Special Agent Gilbert smiles. “They could borrow a couple of our jackets to hide themselves with.” He says.
I pull on Mr. Reilly’s sleeve, motioning him to lean over. “Umm, I could try my magic to disguise us.” I say, whispering into his ear.
“Tempting, Whisper.” Mr. Reilly says, straightening back up. “But, I think a more mundane approach might be safer.”
I can’t help feel a little disappointed with Mr. Reilly’s adult responsibility. I wanted to show off, just a little. Special Agent Gilbert brings over two FBI jackets and has Amanda and me cover our heads to help block the cameras. As my mom and Barb head for Barb’s car, Mr. Reilly leads me and Amanda to the helicopter. We are flanked by the two FBI agents who were “volunteered” to lend us their jackets and two of the Air Force Combat Rescue guys.
“Oh. My. Gawd! Br..Whisper! This is so cool! It’s just like the movies!” Amanda says with an excited whisper as she corrects herself into using my code name.
I am pretty darn excited myself. “Yeah, it is!” I say, sounding almost as school girl giddy as Amanda. Now that the life and death part is over, the idea of getting to ride in a freaking Black Hawk is almost overwhelming.
I have a small window displaying what the TV crews are broadcasting and so far, not a one has been able get a shot of our faces, but it’s not for lack of trying. The camera crews have us zoomed in hoping for a glimpse of us. I debate trying to jam their transmission, but I doubt that it would do anything since they are just recording the video.
As soon as we are in the copter and out of sight from the cameras, I hand my FBI jacket back to one of the FBI dudes. I wouldn’t want them to get cold.
Amanda follows my lead. “Thanks!” She yells.
The FBI guys leave and after closing the side doors, one of the Air Force guys helps buckle me and Amanda into our seats. Amanda can’t stop looking around and giggling about every little thing.
“Oh my gawd, this is so exciting!” Amanda squeals into my ear as she grabs my arm..
When the Black Hawk starts to take off, she screams and latches onto my arm in a death grip. So, of course, I have to play all calm and cool instead of laughing like a crazy guy, umm, girl from the adrenalin rush. Did I mention that I am flying in a freaking Black Hawk?
Amanda doesn’t let go of her death-grip on my arm until we level off. Once that happens, neither one of us can get enough of straining our seat belts to look out the windows. I discover that I can listen in on the pilot’s chatter and even view their flight systems. Initially, I monitor everything, but it is just too much information. I decide to just let it pour in while I pick and choose what to look at right now. Things that I find kind of important are engine status and the flight radar because losing an engine when you have the aerodynamics of a bumble-bee is bad and radar because it is just cool to watch. Maybe I can create a simulator inside my head and learn how to fly a helicopter. Now, that would be cool. I am very careful to only look at the data because messing with things and making the helicopter crash would be bad. Especially with me in it.
We land on the helipad on top of the hospital and as soon as the doors open, Mr. Reilly hustles me and Amanda down to the test facility. One of the staff doctors and a nurse meets us in the test facility area and leads me and Dr. Edmundson to the X-ray room. Amanda is allowed to come with me, but for obvious reasons, she has to wait outside the radiation room.
After the X-ray, Dr. Edmundson puts me in an exam room and surprisingly, he lets Amanda stay to keep me company, or something. I’m not really sure why he lets her stay with all the secret stuff, especially when he opens up his laptop and tries to pull up my diagnostic data. “Hmm, I wonder why I can’t see your data?” He mutters, mostly to himself as he looks at his laptop screen with frustration.
“Umm, maybe because my access is turned off right now?” I ask trying to be helpful.
Dr. Edmundson blinks at me with surprise. “Uggh, I think that I need some coffee because I can’t believe that I didn’t consider that, thanks.” He says, then turns back and enters the administrative screens. I watch as he pulls up my account and removes the time restrictions.
>System Diagnostic Access Request from 192.123.10.9:2030
>Allow? Y/n
Umm, yes, please.
Dr. Edmundson’s screen fills with my current information. Heart-rate, blood pressure, pulse rate, EKG graph, blood oxygen levels, everything except for my bladder which is bad because I kind of need to go right now and I’m bleeping starving too. There isn’t really a status indicator for my hunger levels, but a do spot a blood glucose monitor.
“Umm, Doctor Edmundson?” I ask.
Dr. Edmundson is a little distracted by all the stuff on my monitor. “Yes, Bree?”
“I’m feeling kinda hungry right now, is a blood glucose of 68 mg/dL good or bad?” I ask
Amanda decides to look over at the screen too. Her eyes practically pop out of her head as she sees all the data on the screen. “Is that really your stuff?” She asks.
“Yep, and in real time. Pretty cool, huh?” I ask, feeling a little proud of my coolness.
“Yeah, but kinda spooky too.” Amanda says as she studies it for a few more seconds before sitting back down to look the old girlie magazine she found somewhere.
Dr. Edmundson looks over at Amanda. “Young lady?” He asks.
“It’s Amanda, umm, sir.” She says looking up from her magazine.
“Sorry, Amanda. Would you mind running up front and seeing if you can find Bree a Vegetarian meal of some kind, maybe an MRE?” Dr. Edmundson asks.
Amanda smiles at him. “Sure!” She says as she stands up to leave. “Are you going to be okay, Bree?”
I give her the thumbs up. “Not as much fun as the ride here, but I’ll be fine.” I say with a grin.
“Oh, Amanda, could you also see if you can find a sports drink or two also?” Dr. Edmundson asks.
Amanda gives Dr. Edmundson one of her winning smiles. “Sure thing, Doc. Do you need anything?” She asks.
He looks surprised that she would be so thoughtful. “Actually, I could use a cup of coffee. If you don’t mind?” Dr. Edmundson asks with a pleased smile.
“Sure! That will probably be easier to find than food. I’ll grab that for you first!” Amanda says as she bounces out of the room and in search of coffee.
As soon as she is out of the room, Dr. Edmundson looks back to his laptop. “Okay, let’s rewind the monitor to around the time of your fight. See what we can see, hmm?” He says, mostly to himself as he starts typing on his keyboard.
“Actually, do you mind if I run to the bathroom?” I ask as I start to fidget in my seat.
“Oh, no. Go right ahead.” Dr. Edmundson says without even looking up from his laptop.
I don’t need to be told twice. As he starts pulling down information from me, I jump up and race for the nearest restroom. This is the worst that I have had to go since my change and it shows how desperate I am when I run into the men’s room without thinking. Hey, it was the closest. I stop for a second at the sight of the urinals mocking me with their ease of use before I just shrug my shoulders and run into the stall. I make it in time and wow, what a relief! I can’t believe that I held it for so long or how fast it hit me that I had to go.
I am just finishing up when I hear the door open and someone walk in. My sensors identify him as Mr. Reilly.
Oh crap.
I decide that hiding in the stall until he leaves would just be silly, so I step out and try to be casual about my mistake as I head for the sinks to wash my hands.
Mr. Reilly stops on his way to a urinal with a confused expression. “Bree? What are you doing in here?”
I stop and I feel myself blushing. “Oh, umm, I had to go real bad and didn’t realize that I was in the men’s room until after I saw the urinals and, well...” I say, helplessly trailing off with a shrug.
“Oh, well. Okay. Hurry up and wash your hands then, please.” Mr. Reilly says as if a girl in the men’s room is a common occurrence.
“Okay, sorry sir.” I say as I wash my hands as fast as possible.
“Oh, hey, what room is Dr. Edmundson in?” Mr. Reilly asks.
“We are in room 128.” I say as I quickly pull up my map to help figure out what room I was in. I notice that the woman’s restroom is on the other-side of room 128. If I had just taken a left instead of a right, I wouldn’t have run into the men’s room. It was closer too.
“Thanks.” Mr. Reilly says as I quickly dry my hands and toss the paper towel in the trash on my way out.
“Phew” I say under my breath as I walk back to the room.
Dr. Edmundson has a fresh cup of coffee in his hand. I don’t know how I missed seeing Amanda in the halls, but I guess she zigged when I zagged. I pull up the map again and find that there is a break room just around the corner from here, so I guess that explains it.
“I was just going over your whipsers for the fight and I have to say that I am amazed!” Dr. Edmundson says.
“My what?” I ask wondering what my ‘whipsers’ thing is and if Dr. Edmundson is just confusing my code-name with something else. He must be more tired than he looks.
“Oh, sorry, WIPSRS or Warfighter Individual Physiological Status and Repair System.”
“Oh, okay.” I say while pondering the extreme acronym addiction that the military seems to have. Why didn’t they just call it something simple, like, Health Monitor or Emergency Medical System?
Mr. Reilly chooses that moment to enter the room. “What have you discovered, Dr. Edmundson?” He asks.
“Well, Bree’s, umm, medical system responded perfectly and if we couldn’t review the medical monitor, we would never know that she got shot. Her X-ray was perfect. Not a trace of a gunshot wound to be found.”
“Oh, good.” Mr. Reilly sounds relieved as he turns to me. “When I heard that you had been shot, I got more than a little concerned.”
I feel touched that he was worried about me. His reminder causes me to flash review that part of the fight. “Umm, thank you sir, but I didn’t really feel it.” I say with a slight stammer as my emotions catch up to the fact that someone shot me, with a big ass gun and with ammo designed to kill.
Mr. Reilly notices my reaction. He touches my shoulder, the one I wasn’t shot in. “Are you okay?” He softly asks studying my face with concern.
I hesitantly nod as my reply since I don’t really trust myself to speak right now.
“Well, she is suffering from low blood sugar, but she just needs to eat.” Dr. Edmundson says.
Mr. Reilly gently squeezes my shoulder before letting go and turning to face Dr. Edmundson. “Should I make a few calls, see if someone can round her up some food?”
Amanda picks that moment to walk back into the room with two plastic bags and three bottles of a lime green sport drink. “Oh, hey. I found some Veggie MRE things. The guy who had them seemed real happy to get rid of them too.” Amanda says, looking slightly perplexed.
I look at one of the packets as she hands it to me. They have “Vegetarian” in big letters on the outside with Menu No. 13 Cheese Tortellini. That doesn’t sound too bad to me. I rip open the bag and find more bags. The plastic kind of itches, so I try not to hold the bags for too long.
Oh, cool, these are the kind that heat the food up by just adding some water to a special bag. The heater bag makes me smile. The instructions are pretty simple and there is even a picture. It says to lean your heating meal against a rock or something. It actually has “rock or something” printed inside of the rock picture. What could “something” be? I bet I could make a game out of finding things to substitute for “something”.
I dig into the carrot pound cake first. It doesn’t taste that bad and I am so hungry that it is gone before I realize it. I decide to heat up the tortellini by using the side of the examining room’s sink as “something”. While it is warming up my food, I chow down the candy. Well, most of it. I share some with Amanda. I’m not that hungry and she did fetch the food for me. Next, I gobble down the peanut butter and crackers, but the dehydrated spiced apples taste pretty bad so I toss them after eating less than half. However, I am pleased to say that the tortellini tastes pretty good. I think that I could get used to eating these MRE things.
Hey, it even came with some toilet paper, matches, gum and a moist towelette. That stuff could come in handy. That thought makes me realize that I forgot my purse. I hope that my mom noticed it.
Oh crap!
I did not just think that it would be a good thing to save the toilet paper and I did not just regret forgetting my purse, did I?
Thankfully, my mom, my purse and Barb show up just as I finish up the first MRE.
“Oh, hi Mom, how was...?” I say, trailing off as I notice her expression.
She hands me my purse without a word. She looks upset. Barb motions for Amanda to join her and Amanda seems to sense the storm in the air. She quickly joins her mom after smiling and waving apologetically at me. Amanda softly closes the door behind her and as soon as it closes my mom opens up.
“Okay, Mr. Reilly, I want to know just what in the hell is in my daughter! The secret crap is over. I was willing to let it go due to all the national security this and national security that, but whatever it was that made my daughter fight and act like some kind of Terminator thing has got to go! I demand that you tell me just what in the hell is going on!” My mom says with a growling tone in her voice that would make a momma grizzly bear proud.
“Mom, I’m...” I say before she turns her glare on me.
“Brianna Nichole. No, you are not okay. You were an emotionless, killing machine and I demand to know why!” She says as turns back to glare at Mr. Reilly and Dr. Edmundson.
Dr. Edmundson looks up to my mom with surprise. “Emotionless? Jennifer, can you describe what you witnessed?”
My mom’s jaw clenches with frustration. She wants answers and she wants them now, but after a few seconds she sighs. “Are you telling me that you don’t know?”
Dr. Edmundson glances to Mr. Reilly before looking back at my mom. “I have some hypotheses, but I lack enough information right now to make more than a guess. What did you witness?”
“After the fight, I noticed that Bree felt completely emotionless to me. It was like she was a zombie or something. It wasn’t until Bree spoke to Mr. Reilly that her feelings came back and then, she sort of crashed.” My mom says, trembling with emotion as she holds back her tears.
That reminds me about that “Combat Stim” message I received just before I started fighting and then afterwards. “Umm, I saw something about a ‘Combat Stim’, does that help?” I ask.
Everyone turns and looks at me. Dr. Edmundson’s eyes briefly widen with surprise as he makes some connections. “I think that Bree may have the STIM system inside of her.” He says as he looks back at his laptop and begins to type on his keyboard.
Mr. Reilly studies my mom in silence for a few seconds before he nods his head. “Dr. Edmundson, would you please explain the STIM system to us?” He says without taking his eyes off my mom’s face.
“Yes sir. Ahh, here it is. The STIM System, or Soldier Tactical Internal Medical System, as it was originally planned, was intended to provide a boost to soldiers in high stress combat situations.” Dr. Edmundson says starting out in a lecture tone.
My mom decides to interrupt him. “A boost?!?! You call that, that emotionless thing, a boost!?” She says incredulously as she angrily crosses her arms over her chest. I guess that she does that to keep herself from strangling him. She’s madder, no, more pissed than I have ever seen her.
“Sorry, not a ‘boost’ in the traditional sense. In addition to the combat event, our soldiers face the threat of PTSD caused by the emotional trauma of simply surviving a high intensity combat situation. They can face years of therapy and have difficulty fitting back into society when the traumatic event or series of events are long over. Sometimes suffering from crippling flashbacks years or even decades later.”
My mom’s posture changes from super pissed to patiently pissed. “Okay, and...?” She asks.
Given the green light, Dr. Edmundson launches into full lecture mode and he goes over how bad PTSD, or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, is for our soldiers in combat and after combat. He then covers how the body’s own systems can help to fight PTSD and save a soldier’s life during combat, but that the effects of the body’s own fight or flight reactions can sometimes actually make things worse when the body pumps out tons of adrenaline and cortisol. The STIMS thing was originally developed around the model of a simple surgically implanted insulin pump that would be loaded with a special synthetic drug cocktail that could be triggered by the soldier during combat and easily refilled by a qualified medical technician.
That idea was too costly to implement on a large scale, had too many negative side effects and was too prone to abuse, so it was scraped. However; DARPA came up with the idea of using the body’s own systems to produce the same result with less risk to the soldier. The scientists working on the project came up with a way for nanites to assemble a small storage device that would sit next to the adrenal glands and store the hormone cocktail that the doctors identified as the best option to achieve the results they were aiming for.
When he is finally done, my mom isn’t as pissed, but I can tell she is still upset. “Okay, so why didn’t you know that she had this thing inside of her?”
Dr. Edmundson looks slightly ashamed. “Well, like I mentioned during our initial investigation shortly after Bree came to us, we have not been able to get Bree’s nanites to report or even respond to our commands. So, we have not been able to conduct an accurate inventory of what she has inside of her until she has a symptom that we can use to identify something.”
They all look at me again. I wish I knew what all was inside of me too.
Okay, me, what is inside of me?
>Active Systems Inventory:
>METS - Medical Emergency Trauma Suit
>JTRS - Joint Tactical Radio System
>WIPSRS - Warfighter Individual Physiological Status and Repair System
>IX-LRAS3 - Individual eXperimental - Long Range Advanced Scout Surveillance System
>C4ISR - Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, & Reconnaissance
>IFSFCS - Individual Future Soldier Fire-Control System
>VIK - Vehicle Integration Kit
>STIMS - Soldier Tactical Internal Stimulant System
>ISMRES - Individual Soldier Muscle Reflex Enhancement System
Holy shit!
Sorry. I didn’t expect that to actually work and even more surprising is that the item descriptions even displayed. Although, I have to admit that even the descriptions don’t really help all that much. “Umm, I just asked, umm, myself that question and I got a listing. Would that help you all?” I ask.
Now everyone is looking at me again. Dr. Edmundson is the first to break the uncomfortable silence. “Yes, yes that would. Can you tell me what you have?” He asks.
“It’s got a lot of acronyms. I could just make it into a text file and put it in the same folder that I put the video of my tennis ball test. Would that work?” I ask as I place the output in that folder.
“Ahh, yes, that would be good.” Dr. Edmundson says with a grin.
Dr. Edmundson pulls the file up and displays it to everyone. My mom still does not look happy, but she’s not in full-out momma bear mode either. “Okay, based on what you all have told me and what we have seen, I can kind of guess at what some of this stuff does, but what are the WIPSRS and ISMRES things?” She asks.
Dr. Edmundson glances from his screen and back to my mom’s face. “Well, WIPSRS is what I am using here to monitor Bree’s health and it is also responsible for the rapid healing we observed with Bree today. Without it, she may have died and if not, she would most certainly be in critical condition on an operating table right now.”
My mom gasps and Dr. Edmundson pauses his explanation. My mom sits down in the open chair next to me, grabs my hand and hugs me close to her body.
Dr. Edmundson’s expression softens with concern as he continues. “And, the ISMRES is the system responsible for Bree’s enhanced strength and increased reflex response rate. Which is also what helps to explain her scores in the physical tests yesterday as well as...” He trails off before he reminds us all why we are here right now instead of snuggled up, I mean sleeping, in our beds.
Mr. Reilly clears his throat to gain our attention. “This is very helpful data, but we have a spook being flown in to perform an AAR with Whisper and it appears that we have a few more tests to perform for both Whisper and Psyche.”
My mom’s eyes snap up to Mr. Reilly. “AAR?” She asks.
“Sorry, After Action Review. We just need a combat expert to review and analyze her fight for us.” Mr. Reilly pauses before my mom can ask her next question. “And...the additional tests we need to perform on both of you are regarding an anomalous reading we received for Whisper’s Empathy test and your apparent ability to project your empathic powers.” He says as he studies my mom for her reaction.
Me, I’m starting to panic. What does he mean by an anomalous reading with my empathy test? Do they know that I can talk to computers? Nikki and Sara both warned me about letting them know about that power. Crap! What do I do? That STIMS thing would be real nice right about now.
>Initiating Combat Stimulant...
Ahhh, all the panic and fear disappears.
“Bree! What’s wrong?” My mom says as she shakes my body.
Why is my mom shaking me? Oh yeah, she’s worried about me. Maybe I should have told the STIMS thing to not do that, but if I had, I’d be real worried right about now. “Oh, nothing, Mom. Why?” I ask.
“Her STIM system activated for some reason.” Dr. Edmundson says after a quick glance at his laptop.
Oh, that’s a security risk.
Disable feed.
His screen turns blank as all my data disappears. Okay, now what do I do? My mom seems to be getting more agitated, but I don’t understand why. Maybe I should smile and reassure her to help calm her down.
“Mom, I’m fine.” I say as I smile at her reassuringly.
“Bree! Stop it!” My mom screams and holds me tight to prevent me from escaping.
“Whisper?” Mr. Reilly asks.
I gently push my mom’s arms apart and stand to face Mr. Reilly. “Yes sir?” I ask.
“What is wrong?”
“Nothing, sir.”
“Then, why have you activated your STIMS and disabled the monitor?” Mr. Reilly asks.
“The monitor was a security risk.” I say as I conveniently ignore his first question. I should be worried right now, but I’m not and that is great.
“And the STIMS?”
“I, I need it.” I say with a little hesitation. I probably don’t need it, but it sure is nice.
“Why did you need it?”
“Because, I’m not safe.” I say.
“You’re safe here. The fight is over.” Mr. Reilly says.
“I’m not safe. I need to leave.” I say.
“No!” My mom grabs my arm forcing me to look at her. “It’s the tests. Is that what you’re worried about?” My mom asks.
She is on to me. “I need to leave.” I say as I walk towards the door, dragging my mom behind me.
“Bree, you need to shut down the STIMS. It could kill you if you leave it running for too long.” Dr. Edmundson says.
I hesitate for a second. If true, then I should shut it down, else death = bad.
“Bree, you’re safe here. I promise. Whatever it is that you’re worried about, doesn’t leave this room.” Mr. Reilly says.
I know that I can trust Mr. Reilly. He is Nikki’s Dad. I can definitely trust my mom and I think that I can trust Dr. Edmundson. The odds of him being an enemy agent must be pretty low.
>4,000,203,1:1
Cancel STIMS
>Shutdown Combat Stimulant...
Whoa! My knees feel a little wobbly for a second, but my mom doesn’t allow me a chance to fall. She practically tackles me.
“Bree! What ever possessed you to do that?” My mom asks with tears in her eyes as she studies my face.
“Umm, well...” I say.
“What?” My mom asks.
Ashamed, I look away. “I can kinda sorta tell computers what to do and both Nikki and Sara warned me not to let anyone know until I could get to Whateley where I will be safe.” I say.
Mr. Reilly doesn’t say anything for the longest time. Well, actually only 15.232 seconds, but it seems longer. “Nikki and Sara, huh?” He asks.
“Yes sir, Nikki said that something really really bad happened to a friend of theirs and it had something to with ARC and the CIA. I tried to ask Sara about it, but she went all demon on me just thinking about it.” I say.
“Okay, I think that it is time for me and my daughter to have a little chat.” Mr. Reilly says as he reaches for his cell phone.
Not once did he ask me about Sara. Is that good or bad?
**
Nikki sat in front of her laptop and stared sightlessly at her screen as Aunghadhail played GEO. Aunghadhail was bound and determined to get to the root of Bree’s transformation into a Sidhe Elf. The genetic pattern for Bree had somehow come from GEO and Aung was pissed. Aunghadhail had even taken the unusual step of forging a truce with Lord Vincint just so that she could speak more openly with him regarding Bree’s character.
Nikki’s cell phone began to buzz on her desk. Who would be trying to call me at this late an hour on finals week?
She picked up her phone with the intent to ignore the call, until she noticed who it was from. “Daddy? Is something wrong? Is Bree okay?” Nikki asked, alarmed because for him to call it had to be something bad and Bree was the only person with her Dad that could be in trouble.
“Oh, Whisper is okay right now, but she did just get done defending her mom against five H1! attackers and getting shot.” Her dad said with a casual air that did nothing to dispel her concern.
“What!?!?” Nikki yelled into her phone, waking her roommate in the process.
Toni sprang out of her bed and landed in a fighting stance, ready for action. “What is it?! Are we being attacked again?” She asked looking back and forth between the window and the door as if expecting either of them to burst open under the assault of ninjas, zombies or worse.
“Sorry, Toni. My dad.” She whispered as she pointed to her phone. “I’ll cast a privacy ward.”
Toni grumbled a bit as she returned to her bed and Nikki cast her ward.
“Sorry Dad, I woke Toni up and she was ready for battle. Tell me Bree is okay! Oh man, I knew we should’ve made her come to Whateley and get tested here!” Nikki said without pause as Aung’s level of concern also increased.
“Nikki, it’s not...” Her dad said trying to calm her down.
“I’m coming! I’ll be right there!” Nikki said as she raced over to her closet to find some clothes to wear.
“Nikki!”
“What? Daddy, I’m trying to get dressed.” Nikki said impatiently.
“That’s not what I wanted to ask you about.” Her dad said.
“Oh, what is it then? If it can wait, I can be there in just a few minutes.” Nikki said as she sat on her bed and struggled to pull on her jeans while craning her neck to talk on the phone with her dad.
“Nikki! I do not want you to come here. I want to know why you advised Whisper to not reveal her cyberpathic powers.” Her dad said, dropping the bombshell.
Nikki stopped trying to button up her jeans. “What?” She asked in an attempt to buy her some more time to think. If her dad knew about Bree’s cyberpathic powers, then that meant that the testers also knew and why was her dad calling Bree, Whisper instead of using her name?
“You heard me, and apparently Sara is involved in this little cover up and I want to know why.” Her dad said with a note of command in his voice.
Nikki anxiously bit her lip as she considered what to tell him. Sara was the one who had the most information, but Nikki still knew enough of the details to not feel the need to call on her blood sister this moment.
<We probably need to tell him everything. Since he is calling us directly and at this late of the hour, her secret may not be known. He may be able to intercede on her behalf.> Aunghadhail advised.
“You’re probably right.” Nikki muttered.
“What was that?” Her dad asked.
“Sorry Dad. Aung just had some advice for me.” Nikki said distractedly as she reviewed what she knew of Paige’s history. “Okay, here is what I know and why Sara, Aung and I are very concerned about keeping Bree’s computer powers a secret for as long as possible.”
**
I debate listening in on Mr. Reilly’s conversation with Nikki, but hearing his side and watching his expression shift is enough for me to know that he is taking her story very seriously.
“She hacked your laptop in how many seconds?” Mr. Reilly asks as he looks at me with shock. “Okay, so this example that you have.” He is mostly silent, but he occasionally nods and says “uh huh” a few times during the next five minutes as he listens to Nikki’s story.
“Okay, so lemme get this straight. She helped the CIA capture a Palm AI? Then she was attacked in the CIA’s testing facility and the CIA had a...” Mr. Reilly stops and glances at my mom and me before he finished that sentence. “Any proof? Of course, so Nimbus inserted an operative into the ARC’s Black Section and that is why you had to fight Maelstrom?”
He rubs his temples with concern and frustration. “Why didn’t you tell me this before? Okay. Yes, I can see how that would upset you. No, I’m sorry, you’re right. While I don’t think that Whisper is in as much danger, I believe that your advice was correct, but I wish that you would have told me. I’ll see what I can do to limit the testing here and yes, I will be speaking with Mrs. Carson first thing in the morning. Whisper will be flying with me to Whateley tomorrow evening. I love you too Nikki. Get some sleep, it’s finals week up there, right? Yes, I know. Sure, I will.” He says as he hangs up his phone and thoughtfully studies it for a few seconds.
During the entire conversation, my mom hugged me tighter and tighter with each passing minute. Even Dr. Edmundson looked concerned as he patiently sat through the one sided conversation.
Mr. Reilly finally broke the tension with a sigh. “Okay Bree, Nikki wanted me to do this.” He says as he gives me a quick hug before stepping back. “Now, Whisper, tell me what you can do and if there are any other secrets that we should know about?”
He is back to using my code name for official stuff. I nervously glance at my mom. She nods her head and gives me an encouraging smile. I guess that she’s not mad at me now. I feel a little ashamed for panicking and trying to use the STIMS thing. If I had just kept my cool, I might have been able to make it through whatever tests they have planned for me without anyone even noticing a thing. I crack and tell him both of the ‘big’ secrets.
I tell him about how touching a computer lets me take it over. I tell him about how I reprogrammed the TV remote, fixed my parent’s PC and hacked into Nikki’s super encrypted laptop. I also tell him about my new discoveries with being able to ‘see’ everything inside of a computer from about five meters away.
I also tell him about the magic stuff with spells, how I might be able to hack wards and what Sir Wallace and Auntie Aung said about that little revelation.
When I am finally done confessing all my sins, and it feels good to get them off my chest, Dr. Edmundson is the first one to break the silence. “Hmmm, so, you can sense the inner workings of my laptop from over there?” He asks.
I nod my head. “Yes, I can see what is on your screen and follow what you are doing, but I can’t make it do anything unless I touch it.”
“Interesting, very interesting. I think that may explain why you are able to control the nanites as well as you do and why you became infected with them in the first place.” Dr. Edmundson says with a gleam in his eyes. He looks pretty excited. “This is amazing, truly amazing!”
Mr. Reilly steps in. “Yes, Doctor Edmundson, it is, but from what Nikki told me, we need to keep her full capabilities under wraps, agree?” He asks.
Dr. Edmundson’s excitement fades a little as the reality sets in. He sighs. “Yes, Director Reilly, I believe that you are correct.” He looks at me. “As exciting as it is for me, you have had too much happen to you in such a short time for me to even consider taking the chance that your power will be exposed and handled the wrong way by short-sighted bureaucrats.”
Mr. Reilly nods his head with agreement. “Exactly, based on the test results and incident report from the lab, we knew that you had to have some sort of affinity for computers, but not the extent. Hell, I’m tempted to try and figure out a way to take advantage of your powers myself. So, I know that if the powers that be found out, they wouldn’t want to let you out of their sight.”
My mom looks very concerned and anxious. “What can we do, Mr. Reilly?” She asks.
Mr. Reilly runs his hand through his hair as he considers her question. “Honestly? I’m not sure. I don’t know what tests they might try subjecting her to, but I will do some research.” He turns to me. “What was going to be your plan if we tested you?”
“Umm, I was just going to pretend that I couldn’t do anything with more than a simple calculator or remote control.” I say with a hesitant tone of voice because I didn’t really have a specific plan either. “But I was worried that if my mom was there, she would know that I wasn’t really trying.”
My mom gives my hand an extra squeeze. “Oh honey, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize, but now that I do; there is no way that they are going to get their hands on my baby.” She says in full momma bear mode again.
Someone knocks politely on the door. Mr. Reilly looks up as we all become tense. “Come in.” Mr. Reilly says.
Barb pokes her head in the room. “Sorry to interrupt, but a Mr. Smith is in Conference room 103 with General Evans.” She quickly flashes a smile at my mom and me before looking back to Mr. Reilly expectantly.
“Okay, we were just finishing up here. Let them know that we are on our way, please.” Mr. Reilly says.
Barb smiles and nods her head. “Yes, Mr. Reilly.” She says as she backs out and closes the door.
“Okay, the AAR shouldn’t have any surprises. Just answer this, Mr. Smith’s questions regarding the fight and we should be good.” Mr. Reilly says giving the Mr. Smith the same emphasis that Barb did to indicate that wasn’t his real name, but we were all supposed to play along.
I spot Amanda slaving away on her homework when we pass through the lobby area. She looks a little tired now that she is working on the boring stuff. I smile and wave at her. “Wish I could help you.” I mouth while making faces behind Mr. Reilly’s back to show her how much I am looking forward to what I had to do.
Amanda starts to giggle at my predicament before she slaps her hand over her mouth to stifle herself. I wave at her one last time before we leave the lobby area.
As soon as we enter the conference room, my automatic CAC-ID card scan shows me who is in the room.
>U.S.AirForce/RA/MajorGeneral/O-8/Harold/Anthony/Evans/xxx-xx-xxxx/O+/FALSE
>U.S.Navy/RN/Captain/O-6/Kurtis/Bruce/Howards/xxx-xx-xxxx/B-/FALSE
>DOD/R&D/Research Analyst/GS10/Barbara/Lynn/Townsend/xxx-xx-xxxx/B+/FALSE
General Evans and Captain Howards stand up to greet us, while Barb remains seated as she opens a notepad and readies her pen. I guess that she is here to take notes. I am surprised to see that General Evans is wearing a camouflage uniform instead of his dressy blue uniform. I guess that at 2300 hours, his formal uniform is a bit more work. Captain Howards is also wearing a set of cami’s, but his are styled a bit differently with diagonal front pockets and no rank, service or name patch anywhere on his uniform. His uniform definitely looks more used and combat ready than General Evans’ pristine uniform.
“Director Reilly, Doctor Edmundson, this is Mr. Smith.” General Evans says with a gesture to Captain Howards. He even manages to say his alias without making it sound like an alias.
Mr. Reilly and Dr. Edmundson shake Cpt. Howards’, I mean, Mr. Smith’s hand. Mr. Smith is paying more attention to my mom and I though. He looks alert, yet relaxed at the same time. I realize that he is actually standing in a modified ready stance and I feel myself adopting a similar stance without even thinking about it.
Mr. Reilly turns to introduce my mom and me. “And, Mr. Smith, this is....”
Mr. Smith looks right at me, grins and nods his head in cool acknowledgement. I think that he noticed my response. “Whisper.” He then turns to my mom while keeping me in his field of vision like I am a threat or something. “Psyche. Pleased to meet you both.” He says with a slight southern accent as he first shakes my mom’s hand, followed by my hand.
His hands feel rough and calloused compared to mine, but he doesn’t try to play a power game by squeezing as hard as he can. Gentle, yet firm. The only other thing that I am able to glean off him is that he has a cell phone on him, but it is powered down instead of just on standby mode, so I cannot read it.
I debate letting Mr. Reilly know who Mr. Smith really is by sending him a text using my mom’s phone, but decide that it can wait until later. It’s probably not really that important anyway. Plus, with the introductions complete, my mom and I are motioned to sit opposite of Mr. Smith. I guess that makes sense. That way, we can see each other better.
General Evans takes a deliberate sip of his coffee as the room comes to order. “Okay, I know that it’s pretty damn late, but since we had a rather public incident, the SecDef wanted an After Action Review done immediately. Mr. Smith is here to help us with that. Any questions?” He asks without really expecting any.
After very brief pause, General Evans reaches over to a remote that is sitting on the table and pushes the play button. “Here is what the public knows about the event.” He says.
We watch a five minute recording from this evening’s news. The coverage is mostly positive and paints me as a young girl attacked by heavily armed bad guys who may or may not be members of Humanity First. They don’t really have much, but about half way through the broadcast the news anchors provide an update that gives out my code-name and the fact that I have an MMID.
“Damn MCO!” Mr. Reilly says with a frustrated whisper. He looks more than just pissed, he looks furious and I can’t say that I am all that pleased with it either.
That ends the on-site reporters broadcast and the studio anchors begin to speculate about the reasons why a FBI Counter Terrorism Team, the military and a hazmat team were seen on the site. They call on a couple of ‘experts’ to bounce their ideas off of.
One of the ‘experts’ offered his opinion as why the FBI was there. “John, it’s simple really. The U.S. Government has come under intense scrutiny over the past six months over the tactics that H1! are known to employ against mutants. I dare say that the U.S. Government might be taking the first steps towards declaring H1! as a terrorist group so that the Justice Department can bring down the full force of law against them.”
That causes an argument by the second ‘expert’ on the show. “Dan, with all due respect,” As soon as I hear that, I know that what he has to say will be anything but respectful. I can’t help but smile. “Humanity First! is not a terrorist group and never has been. They are merely dedicated to ensuring the safety of Humanity with these dangerous mutants that are living among us.”
That almost starts a fight between the two ‘experts’, but they end up getting cut off due to ‘technical difficulties’. The broadcast ends by reporting that neither local law enforcement, the FBI, nor the military were willing to comment due to an ‘ongoing investigation’.
General Evans turns off the TV. “Well, the good news is that the coverage was surprisingly sympathetic towards Whisper and her mom, the bad news is that the press know her code-name and the fact that she has an Military Mutant ID versus the standard Mutant ID. That is going to raise some questions. Any ideas?” He asks.
Mr. Reilly is the first to speak. “That’s the easiest one. She’s a minor and the dependent child of an active duty military member. As such, she is entitled to an MMID.”
“Except she’s not really a military dependent.” General Evans says.
“No, but it will serve as a reasonable cover story for now. Worst case, we draft Psyche into the Inactive Reserve as...” Mr. Reilly turns to my mom. “You have a college degree, right?” He asks.
My mom slowly nods her head, surprised by the direction that Mr. Reilly is taking this.
General Evans nods his head. “Hmm, okay, that could work. The hazmat team?”
I am surprised that my mom isn’t stopping this entire conversation over the idea that she could be drafted into the Army or the Air Force or something.
“They were called in because someone thought that they saw a canister with a hazmat symbol in the attacker’s SUV and the Air Force just happened to have a team doing a training exercise that could respond. It turned out to be a false alarm and everything else is classified or part of the on-going criminal investigation.” Mr. Reilly said with a smile.
“That will probably hold for now. I will let my people know how to respond if they are asked.” General Evans glances over to Mr. Smith. “Now, what we need to understand is exactly what happened during the incident.”
With that, Mr. Smith takes over and the grilling begins. He’s as bad as Sensei Rogers was after my little run in with Billy in the 8th grade. The first time I tell him about the fight isn’t so bad, but by the third time, I am feeling a bit frustrated by his repeated questions. It is like he thinks I can’t remember exactly what happened. Heck, I can do more than just remember, I can rewind, replay, slow motion, fast forward and zoom in for every time stamped millisecond of the fight, in 3D even.
Mr. Smith treats my mom a bit better. Her descriptions are fuzzy and more emotional than mine. She’s not sure on some things and only remembers a detail when something triggers the memory. Even then, the detail is not always the same. That seems to give him what he expects because my precise descriptions of every part of the fight seem to frustrate Mr. Smith a bit. “How is it that you have managed to tell me the exact same thing the last three times? I am having trouble believing you because people forget things.”
That kind of pisses me off. “Look, Captain, I have it all recorded...” I say, trailing off at the end from two realizations. One, I just used his secret rank and two, that I do have the entire fight recorded. I could just show him.
“What did you just call me?” Mr. Smith asks, looking alarmed.
Mr. Reilly chuckles. “Tell me, Mr. Smith, do you by chance, happen to have your CAC-ID card in your possession?”
Mr. Smith glances from me to Mr. Reilly with confusion. “Of course, why?”
“Whisper?” Mr. Reilly asks, glancing at me with a go-ahead expression.
“Mr. Smith, Captain, O-6, U.S. Navy, Kurtis Howards, B Negative, no allergies.” I say while skipping his SSN because I don’t think anyone needs to know that. Since Dr. Edmundson re-opened my access, I then decide to check the Land Warrior network for him. His 201 file has a lot of stuff for him, but most of it has been blacked out with a big red “CLASSIFIED”. Even his awards section has “CLASSIFIED” stamped all over it. He is a Navy SEAL though and attached to something called a CVN-69.
“Do you need to know more?” I ask as politely as possible and I even manage to not laugh at Mr. Smith’s expression.
“How?” Mr. Smith asks glancing between me and Mr. Reilly. General Evans looks a little uncomfortable while Barb’s eyes betray her amusement.
“Your CAC-ID contains an RFID chip. Whisper is able to read that chip.” Mr. Reilly says with a stern expression directed towards me before he turns back to Mr. Smith. “However; the other point that I believe our young lady was trying to make before her temper got the better of her, is that she also has the ability to replay the fight from her perspective. Which just goes to show that we are a little tired, because I can’t believe that we didn’t think of it sooner.”
Mr. Reilly looks back at me. “Whisper, if you will?” He asks.
Feeling slightly chastised, I make a video copy of the fight that starts from the time we exited the mall and ends when I shut down my STIMS thing. It takes about 30 seconds to transfer the video file over the network. I know that I could have just touched Dr. Edmundson’s laptop and transferred it almost instantly, but I am not that tired and 30 seconds isn’t that long of a wait. “Okay Doctor Edmundson, I put the video in the normal spot.” I say when it is finally done transferring.
Dr. Edmundson pulls up the video on his laptop and after confirming that it will play, he plugs his laptop into the room’s projector. Mr. Smith and General Evans both still look a little surprised by what is going on, but they both remain patiently silent until the replay starts.
After 15.24 seconds, Mr. Smith glances over at me before looking at Dr. Edmundson. “How you managed to capture such a high quality video of this is the first question that I have, but where is the tactical overlay and all that other stuff coming from?”
Dr. Edmundson pauses the video before he turns to look at Mr. Reilly. “Sir?”
Mr. Reilly considers Mr. Smith’s question for a few seconds. “I could just say that it’s all classified, but I don’t think that will help us and I’m sure that you are aware of just how high up the totem pole this goes, right?”
Mr. Smith nods his head in agreement. “Seeing how I was yanked off the Ike in the middle of the Atlantic and flown here in the back seat of a Rhino at Mach 1, I can see that someone upstairs is a little anxious.”
Ike? Rhino? Instead of just asking, I use my link to pull up that CVN-69 thing he has in his 201 File.
>CVN-69:
>USS Dwight D. Eisenhower "Ike"
>Nimitz Class
>Rhino:
>McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II ( Retired )
>Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet
Holy crap! I am amazed by Mr. Smith’s nonchalance over his ride here. He said it like getting a ride in an F/A-18F wasn’t anything special. I know that I wanted a F-16 ride, but a F/A-18 wouldn’t be bad either.
“I’m sure that you have read both Whisper and Psyche’s test file.” Mr. Reilly gestures to the file folder in front of Mr. Smith.
Mr. Smith nods his head.
I know, I know. That’s not his name, but even though we all know his real name now, I still think of him as ‘Mr. Smith’. I think that it’s kind of super-spy cool. “Hello Agent S. Are you ready for your super top secret license to kill mission briefing?”
Mr. Reilly snaps me out of my daydream when he starts with the summarized version of what happened to me. Thankfully, he leaves out the embarrassing sex change bit, but includes everything else.
Mr. Smith opens his folder and right on top, I can see a printout from the super scanner thing. It lists me and my mom’s scores.
Whisper:
ESP: *???EMP 3???*
GAD:2
PK:1G
EX Phy:4
WIZ:4
RGN:2
Psyche:
ESP: EMP 3
EX Phy: 1
Unlike my mom’s scores, I notice all the question marks next to my ESP rating, and since Dr. Remus gave me a big fat one, I notice the four next to my Wizard rating. The GAD and PK thing confuses me. I’m not sure what those mean. I guess that RGN means Regeneration, but a two seems low since I healed from the gun shot so quickly.
Mr. Reilly points to the printout. “It appears that the machine isn’t sure what or even if Whisper has an ESP rating, but based on previous observations, I think we know that she has something. Her Gadgeteer rating may have something to do with that though. Additionally, her Wizard rating is a four, yet the manual test performed by Doctor Remus only indicated that she is a one, at best. So, I am not sure how reliable the rest of the scores are from the new system. We know that her regen is higher than a two, but that can be explained by the nanites.”
It takes a lot of self-control to not smile as Mr. Reilly disassembles the test machine’s scores. The more unreliable he can make the machine sound, the better for me.
General Evans frowns at Mr. Reilly’s observations. “It appears that we will need to perform some additional manual tests tomorrow.” He says.
Mr. Reilly has to be an excellent poker player. “Yes, that would be prudent, but I would like for us to wrap them up a quickly as possible tomorrow. Based on the attack on Whisper, plus the additional PR, I feel that it would be wise to get her to Whateley Academy where we can work with their staff to conduct any additional tests.”
“What are you saying, Mr. Reilly?” General Evans asks with a touch of hostility.
“Nothing against your facility or staff here, General, but for her safety, I would like to have her placed under the protection and relative seclusion of Whateley. That way, the MCO and the press will not have any chance to access her.”
“Whateley will share their test results with us?” General Evans asks with some disbelief.
Mr. Reilly smiles. “I will make that point part of the negotiations for the additional funding that DARPA will be providing as part of her tuition package.”
General Evans’ expression turns more speculative before he grins. “That could be useful for our test facility.”
Ha! Sold! Damn, I mean, darn, Mr. Reilly is good.
That gets us back to the video.
Mr. Smith clears his throat. “Thank you for the additional insight into Whisper’s powers. It will help. Shall we continue?” He asks.
The first time we watch the fight, my mom jumps with every hit and we have to take a short break at the end to help her stop crying.
“Oh my god, Bree. That was horrible. Those poor guys.” She says.
I am a bit surprised that she would say that. Those ‘poor’ dudes tried to kill us, but at the same time; I can kind of see her point. How many movies do you watch the good guy kick the bad guy’s ass from the good guy’s own eyes? Were you can see and hear every sickening crunch and impact. A real fight, not one choreographed where no one really hits each other.
I glance around the room and the only person who doesn’t look a little sick by what they just watched is Mr. Smith. “Can you replay that again, please?” He asks.
We watch the video again. “Okay, rewind to where she gets shot.” He watches the part where I stepped on the dude’s leg and followed that up with an elbow in his face.
I must admit that the blood and teeth flying out of his mouth along with the crack of his jaw breaking is a little upsetting and even I cringe a little.
“Again, but can you slow it down?” Mr. Smith asks.
Dr. Edmundson rewinds it again and starts that part over in slow motion. It’s pretty darn cool to see, but at the same time the camera angle isn’t what I would want to see in a movie.
“Where did you learn that move from?” Mr. Smith asks, surprising me with his question.
At least now he’s not asking for me to repeat stuff over and over again. “Umm, Sensei Rogers, my Jujitsu teacher back home.” I say.
“Rogers? Jason?” Mr. Smith asks.
I nod my head, surprised that he could guess his first name.
“He’s about six foot, light brown hair, blue eyes and a small circular scar over his left eye?” He asks.
“Yes, how?” I ask, surprised that he would know that. Sensei Rogers was in the Navy, but the Navy is kind of large. How could Mr. Smith know him so well?
“Well, that explains that.” Mr. Smith says.
Both Mr. Reilly and General Evans look to him for elaboration.
“That move was also taught to me by her Sensei. I didn’t understand how a 15 year old girl could know how to fight like she fought until I saw the video. Her Sensei was also on one of my teams and he was a close combat instructor until he retired two years ago. I knew that he wanted to retire some place that didn’t have any salt water beaches, but I never figured he would retire in New Mexico.” Mr. Smith says with a grin.
“You mean to tell me that this young girl is a trained killer and no one knew that?” General Evans asks with some alarm.
I am little startled by that. What is it with military types? First, I was a ‘trained assassin’ because I played a thief in GEO and now I am a ‘trained killer’ because I am studying jujitsu? Maybe it makes a difference when your jujitsu instructor just happens to be an ex-military commando or something? That is almost funny, but the part that really makes me feel weird, even though it shouldn’t, is when I am referred to as a ‘young girl’.
Yo, I am 15. Seriously, General Dude, I am not that young!
~o~O~o~
Insert standard disclaimer here: The one that reminds everyone that this is a work of fiction. No one is real and any resemblance to someone who is real is purely coincidence, honest. This is also a Fan Fiction set in the Whateley Story Universe. No Canon characters were permanently harmed in the making of this story. I hope. :)
Note: Sorry for the extreme delay in this chapter. Work/Life balance is making it hard to string the hours together for the "writing zone". Thanks for my beta readers for their feedback and patience. And last but not least, djkauf for correcting my many mistakes.
Mr. Smith chuckles. “Hardly, sir. Almost all of the martial arts disciplines teach killing blows or strikes that could kill, but that is not the same as training someone to be a killer, and I am positive that Rogers would never teach kids to be killers.”
General Evans looks at Mr. Smith with a touch of disbelief, but he doesn’t press the issue. “Is there anything else that we should go over regarding Whisper’s performance?” He asks.
Mr. Smith pauses for a second as he mulls over the question. “I think that I have everything I need to submit a report, but I can tell you that the summary will be that Whisper performed well considering her age and the circumstances. She didn’t really have many choices. True, she could have evaded, but considering the weaponry of her assailants, I can’t agree that that would have been the best course of action. However; Whisper had the opportunity to arm herself with a knife when she disabled her first target. She could have thrown the knife to distract or injure Target_5 prior to engaging him. Without her unique advantages, she would have become a fatality and failed her mission.”
I was feeling pretty happy with myself until he got to the last part. While I don’t know how to throw a knife like an action star, I can easily imagine that having a sharp pointy object flying at a person would tend to throw off their aim just a bit. The Mortal Combat ‘fatality!’ part wasn’t a concern for me at the time, but now, I can see that I got very lucky.
“Excellent, Mr. Smith. Thank you for your input on this issue.” General Evans says with a smile before he turns to my mom and I. “I think we are done with the two of you for now.” He glances to Mr. Reilly and Mr. Smith. “Do you two have anything else for either Whisper or Psyche?”
They both shake their heads no.
I stand and as I head towards the door, I notice that only my mom and I are leaving. Mr. Reilly smiles at me when I glance back. “We just have a few things to go over for tomorrow’s plan. Would you two mind waiting in the lobby for a few minutes?”
My mom looks over at Barb before turning back to Mr. Reilly with a smile. “Sure, Mr. Reilly. We can keep Amanda company while we wait for our ride.”
With that, I leave the room, but I decide that I should hit the restroom to freshen up a bit before I see Amanda. My mom joins me, which is a little unsettling at first. I mean, I’m just not used to sharing the bathroom with my mom. My dad, yes, but not my mom.
“Still feeling a little weird about this?” My mom asks as we enter the women’s restroom.
I know that I shouldn’t be surprised that she would pick up on that, but I still am. “Yeah, a little. Just when I think I am getting used to being a girl, something as simple as using the bathroom reminds me just how different things are now.” I accidentally giggle as I think about my previous bathroom adventure. “I mean, just a couple of hours ago, I ended up going into the men’s room by mistake, and then Mr. Reilly walked in and caught me. Talk about feeling awkward!” I say.
“Oh my god, you didn’t?” My mom asks, gasping with surprise.
“Well, yeah. Mom, I had to go, but it is all of these little things that are sort of freaking me out. I mean, I never really gave it much thought, but something basic like girls have to pee sitting down, boys don’t. That was just how things were. Now? Everything I do feels so normal, but at the same time so wrong. Everyone treats me differently, just because I’m a girl. I feel like I am an alien who is visiting Earth. I know the language and I look like an Earthling, but nothing that the real Earthlings do make sense to me. Does that make any, umm, sense?” I ask as I feel my eyes start to tear up, again.
My mom hugs me. “Oh Brianna, I am so sorry. Yes, yes it does make sense to me and just in case I haven’t mentioned it, I am very proud of you and your dad and I love you very much. If you need something to help anchor you, that is something that hasn’t changed and never will.” My mom says as she squeezes me even harder and gives me a tender kiss on my forehead.
I sniffle a little as I wipe the excess moisture from my eyes. “Thanks, Mom. That helps.” I say with a tentative smile. I give her a quick hug in return and then I steal the premium handicapped stall before she knows what happens.
“You stinker!” My mom says with a laugh as she enters the smaller normal sized stall next to mine. She surprises me when she proceeds to talk about the AAR while we both, umm, you know.
That’s one more thing that isn’t normal about being a girl. Guys do not, under any circumstances, talk to each other while actively going to the bathroom. She stops after a moment. “I’m freaking you out again, aren’t I?” She asks.
I’m not really freaking out. I’m just noticing the differences, again. The hyper-awareness is actually starting to get annoying. I nervously giggle. “Yeah, a little, but go ahead. It’s not that big of a deal and I need to get used to it anyway. I never really understood that unwritten guy rule anyway. It’s kind of like how no one talks on elevators.” I say as I finish with my business. That thought makes me laugh about it.
We both chat more and I feel myself starting to relax again. Going to the bathroom should not be this dramatic. I’m practically skipping down the hallway on the way to the lobby. I can’t wait to see how Amanda is doing with her homework.
Instead of catching her busy with homework, I find her curled up in her chair, sleeping with her history text book in her lap. I quietly walk over and sit down next to her. I don’t know how she can sleep like that, but she looks so darn pretty. I can’t help it, I find myself fondly smiling at her. If I was still a boy, I know that I’d be totally gaga over her. Instead of that, I feel a warmth that seems centered in my heart. I just want to give her a big hug. Is that the girl version of ‘going gaga’? Does this feeling mean that I like her as a friend or something more? I don’t know because I’ve never felt like this before. John is my best bud, but I never felt this way about him. At least, not that I’ve noticed. The closest that I can relate this feeling to is when I had a crush on Michelle Collins in the 6th grade, but I’m not sure. I feel my mom’s hand gently squeeze my shoulder.
Amanda wakes, looks up and smiles sleepily at me. “Hey, how did it go?” She asks, softly.
Her question distracts me from what I was thinking and my mom removes her hand after I quickly glance back at her. She looks concerned for me. Instead of worrying about it, I turn back and face Amanda. “Oh, it went okay. The expert said I did an okay job, but I should have taken the first guy’s knife.” I say matching her soft tone of voice for some reason. It’s like I’m trying not to wake her up more than I already have. It doesn’t really help.
Amanda sits up with alarm, causing her text book to slide off her lap. I catch it and hand it back to her. “Thanks.” She smiles appreciatively at me before turning to glare down the hallway. “Now, I can’t believe that jerk would say something like that to you because, girlfriend, you kicked ass!” She says with a fierce expression as she crosses her arms angrily.
I think that if Mr. Smith walked around the corner right now, Amanda would chew him out for being a meanie or something. Well, that is what I imagine her saying anyway. I can’t help it; the thought of it makes me giggle.
Amanda turns back to me with a puzzled expression. “What?” She asks.
“Oh, you should’ve seen your face! I swear, if Mr. Smith walked in here I could totally see you attacking him!” I say, barely managing to hold back my laughter at her confused expression.
That causes her to start giggling and before I know it, we are both laughing at and with each other. Still, the feeling I had nags me. I sneak a glance back at my mom.
“Later.” She mouths silently to me with a patient smile.
I acknowledge her with my eyes and turn back to Amanda. “So, how much of your homework did you manage to finish?” I ask.
Amanda sighs and pouts a little. “Well, I got my Math and English done, but, umm, History, not so good. I have 20 reading questions to answer for this chapter and I only managed to get five done.”
“Oh? I’m okay with History. What are the questions?” I ask.
Amanda opens her book to the page that has a folded piece of paper in it and she hands me the paper. I quickly scan the questions. It is U.S. History and on the Civil War. “Can I see your book?” I ask.
Mystified, Amanda hands her book to me and I rapidly page through the chapter that covers the U.S. Civil War. After 20 seconds, I hand her back her book and start matching the questions with the book’s material. “Okay, I have the answers. How do you wanna do this? I can just tell you the pages to look at for each question or repeat to you the relevant text so you can write down your answer.” I say.
“Bree?” My mom asks with that tone of voice that tells me she is about to warn me that I’m helping Amanda cheat or something.
“Yes, Mom?” I ask trying to sound innocent.
She laughs at my obvious attempt. “You know.” My mom says.
“Pleassssee, Mrs. Peters, can’t she help me? Just this one time. I promise that I will read the chapter tomorrow.” Amanda says directly to my mom while I also turn and give my mom my best pleading expression.
My mom crumbles under the combined onslaught. “Okay, but make sure that you do read it.” She says sternly.
Amanda’s eyes light up. “Yeah! Thanks Mrs. Peters!” She says with an excited little clap as she grins triumphantly at me.
Given the green light, for each question, I repeat the question, followed by the relevant passage from her text book. Where possible, I also add in some related trivia from all of the Civil War history related TV shows that I’ve watched, plus all the extra military history homework that Sensei Rogers liked to assign.
Sometimes, Amanda is so engrossed with what I tell her, that she has to have me repeat the original question again. Then, after she thinks about it for a few seconds, she writes down her answer using her own words. We are halfway through the second to last question when Mr. Smith ghosts silently into the lobby. I pause, causing Amanda and my mom to turn and follow my gaze. Mr. Smith mouths “Sorry.” and motions for me to continue. I return to the question while keeping an awareness of where Mr. Smith is in the room. Five minutes later, we are all done and Mr. Smith never moved a muscle as he patiently watched and waited for me to finish. Neither my mom nor Amanda appear to notice it when he silently takes a seat across from us. His body language is completely relaxed and casual, but his eyes never stop scanning the room.
Amanda happily stuffs her History book and her note book into her back pack. “Wow, you know what?” She asks as she sits back up and looks at my mom and me. “That was so cool and I think that it might actually be better than reading it. It was so much more interesting to hear Bree tell me about what happened than it was to read it.”
I glance back at my mom and she looks a little skeptical, but she doesn’t have that ‘I know that your fibbing’ expression. Maybe Amanda really means what she is saying.
My mom ends up smiling at Amanda. “You know what? I think that you’re right. It actually was pretty interesting. I never knew that Bree knew so much about the Civil War.” She says while looking at me with a measured expression.
“Well, I do watch a lot of the History Channel and well, you know...” I say while pointing to my head.
Mr. Smith looks like he wants to say something, but he stops himself when I glance up to pay attention to him. Instead, he smiles and shakes his head giving me the impression that he might tell me some other time. Now, I am really curious about what he wanted to say. I have no idea how that will ever happen, but stranger things have happened and are happening to me. He gives me what looks suspiciously like a respectful nod before he exits the room.
I watch him casually stroll down the hall and enter the elevator. The doors begin to slide shut and he surprises me by giving me a sort of salute sort of wave good-bye. At least, that is how I interpret his gesture.
“What was that about?” My mom asks.
I turn back to her. “I don’t know. I thought that he didn’t really like me all that much.”
My mom shakes her head. “No, he didn’t at first, but you really impressed him and I don’t think that he is the type who is easily impressed.”
Amanda yawns while looking back and forth between us with a curious expression. “What? Did I just miss something?”
I can’t help it, I giggle at her. “Nothing, I was just wondering about Mr. Smith, the top secret spook dude that just left.”
“Oh, okaayy...” Amanda says dubiously.
Mrs. Townsend, Mr. Reilly and General Evans choose that moment to enter the room. Mrs. Townsend and Mr. Reilly walk over to us, while General Evans heads down the other hall. I guess that he is heading to his office or something.
I feel a little nervous about what Mr. Reilly is going to say. He must notice my expression because he smiles at me. “Okay, we are done for the night and here is the plan for tomorrow. The good news is that you can sleep in.”
Amanda gets excited about that. “Not you Amanda, you have school tomorrow, remember?” Mrs. Townsend says, deflating Amanda’s excitement.
“But, Mooomm....” Amanda says.
Mrs. Townsend does not look at all sympathetic. “No buts young lady, you knew what you were getting into when you agreed to come here instead of going home.”
Amanda pouts a little, but the effect is ruined when she glances at me with a not so sneaky grin. Mrs. Townsend smiles at her daughter’s attempt.
“Now, as I was saying, Bree and Jennifer, you two can sleep in. We won’t have anything for you all to do until oh-ten hundred hours, I mean 10 AM. We will run some additional tests, do some paperwork and then,pending Mrs. Carson’s approval and your family’s approval,” Mr. Reilly tilts his head in acknowledgement to my mom. “ we will fly Bree to Whateley Academy before we continue on to New Mexico to drop off Jennifer and Dr. Edmundson. Any questions?” Mr. Reilly asks.
“Mrs. Carson?” I ask.
“Sorry, she is the Headmistress of Whateley Academy.” Mr. Reilly says.
My mom clutches me to her protectively. “It all seems so sudden.” She says.
Mr. Reilly acknowledges my mom with a grimace. “Yes, I had hoped that we wouldn’t need to move so fast, but this evening’s events have proved otherwise. I am very concerned for Bree’s safety and I feel that Whateley would be the best place for her right now.” His eyes flash with repressed anger. “Based on the stunt the MCO pulled by leaking your name to the press and the fact that I have had to deal with them before, I just don’t trust them and their methods for dealing with mutants that they deem ‘valuable’.”
Mr. Reilly surprises me with his hatred for the MCO. I don’t even need my voice stress gauge to tell me that he does not like them, at all. He reassuringly smiles at us. “Sorry. Well, why don’t you all head home? I need to make a few more calls and I will meet you two,” He looks at my mom and me. “, here tomorrow morning at 10. Okay?”
My mom stifles a yawn and that makes me yawn. “Sounds good to me, Mr. Reilly. Barb? Can we get a ride to our hotel?” My mom asks.
Mrs. Townsend smiles. “Of course! Come along you all. Let’s get out of here before they change their minds!” She says, pretending that Mr. Reilly might do that.
Amanda and I get the back seat again and she surprises me by reaching into her book bag, taking out a piece of paper and a Seventeen magazine. With the car moving, she carefully writes down her phone number and email address, then she tucks it into the magazine and hands them both to me. “Here, since you’re going to be flying tomorrow, you might need something to read and that’s my number and stuff.” She says, looking a little sad.
“Oh, thanks.” I say, hesitantly because I’m not really sure what to think. I pull the sheet of paper with her info and try to hand her back the magazine. I’m not really interested in reading about hair and makeup tips or anything girlie, but I can’t really tell her that. “I can’t take your magazine; it looks like you haven’t had a chance to read it yet.” I say, lying like a cheap rug.
Amanda giggles at me. “Oh! No, I’ve read that one a few times already. This month, there’s a really good article on makeup that you might like and another one about how to pick the right bikini for your body.” She suddenly gasps at what I am sure is my shocked expression and grabs my arm apologetically. “Not that I think you would have trouble with any bikini! You’re so pretty that I’m sure you could make even a rag bikini look awesome.”
Her apology doesn’t really help, but she is just so darn friendly and I know that she is just trying to help. Any other girl would probably be delighted to be given this magazine, but I just don’t see why girls like reading these things. Of course, I can’t tell her that without making her feel bad or telling her my secret.
“Oh, are you sure?” I ask while I really hope that she will change her mind.
She doesn’t. “Oh, I’m sure! You’ll love it! I mean, you haven’t read it already, have you?” She asks, suddenly looking slightly nervous.
Awesome! I have a way out now. “Umm, no. Thanks.” I say, chickening out. It just wouldn’t be right to lie to her, plus I catch my mom’s smile of approval for how I handled this latest emergency. So sad.
Both Amanda and Mrs. Townsend get out of the car when we pull up to our hotel. My mom and I get a hug from Mrs. Townsend. Amanda surprises me with a hug and she looks a little sad when we break apart. “Oh, I wish that you weren’t leaving tomorrow and that you were staying all week. I would have loved to have you over for my slumber party this weekend.” She says.
Honestly, I have no idea what to think about that idea. Me, at a girl’s slumber party surrounded by giggling girls wearing skimpy pajamas, doing makeovers, having pillow fights and watching chick flicks all night? I feel confusingly excited, scared and sad that I won’t be able to go. “Oh, thanks. I wish that I could stay too.” I say.
My mixture of emotions must be exactly right, because Amanda buys my story. “Hey! You better call me as soon as you get to that school. I wanna hear all about it!” Amanda says as she gives me another quick hug.
My mom holds me close as Mrs. Townsend and Amanda wave to us as they drive off. We wave back and I can’t help it, my eyes start to get a little damp as I watch their car disappear around a corner. My first girl friend or BFF as they say and maybe Amanda means more to me than that. I just don’t know.
My mom tugs on my arm. “Come on Bree. Let’s get inside. We could both use a shower and we can use that time to talk a bit before we go to bed, okay?” My mom says with a smile as I look up at her while clutching Amanda’s magazine possessively in my hand.
It feels good to get out of my dirty clothes and take a hot shower. My mom decides to use that captive time to talk to me about my feelings for Amanda.
“Mom! I’m trying to take a shower and thinking about Amanda while I am naked isn’t helping.” I say feeling very embarrassed when I realize that I do feel attracted to Amanda when I catch myself imaging how she would look naked. In that respect, nothing has changed. I’m still a boy, who can get a woody just thinking about a naked girl, but I’m not and I can’t. I just don’t have the right equipment anymore. I do feel something though. My nipples pop out and my insides feel warm. Now, I really feel embarrassed because there is nothing worse than getting caught by your mom. I try to wrap my arms around my chest to cover up my breasts, but that ends up causing me to gasp with surprise from how sensitive those things are when my arm brushes against them.
“I’m sorry Bree. I didn’t mean to, I’ll just go and watch some TV while I wait for you to get done. We can talk about it later.” My mom says.
I shudder with both relief and confusion as she leaves the bathroom, closing the door behind her to give me some privacy. I just don’t know what my body is trying to tell me. It feels so sensitive right now and every touch is almost a new sensation. It is so different that it makes me wonder what it would feel like to, you know.
Nope! No can do. Not with my mom in the other room and able to feel what I’m feeling. It takes me a few minutes of just standing under the hot water and practicing my meditation thing before I can continue washing my body.
I feel much more relaxed when I finally finish with my shower. Maybe meditating once a day would be a good thing. My mom apologizes to me as we trade spots in the bathroom. I shrug it off as no big deal and dig out my pajamas. I snuggle under the covers, prop myself up against the pillows and watch some TV while my mom takes her shower. Surprisingly, it only takes her ten minutes before she is done, dressed and in her bed.
“So, can we talk about it now?” My mom quietly asks.
I just knew she couldn’t wait. “Umm, I guess so?” I say.
“Amanda?”
“I just don’t know. I like her a lot, and that scares me because I’ve never felt this way about a girl before.”
“Okay, and?”
“I’m not a boy anymore and I don’t think that Amanda is a lesbian, so I don’t really know what to think. I mean, a week ago, me liking a girl would be normal and expected, but now?” I ask.
I don’t know how she does it, but without me realizing that she moved, she is somehow sitting next to me and hugging me tightly as I begin to cry from the sheer frustration of it all. “Shhh, it’s okay baby.” She says as she starts to rock slightly back and forth in an effort to calm me.
It works, mostly. “What if she finds out and hates me?” I ask.
“Amanda is a good person. She might not feel the same way about you, but I doubt that she would hate you. She considers you her friend and she really does like you. Just not in the way that you like her.”
“Okay, what if she finds out that I was a boy?” I ask.
My mom thinks about it for a few seconds. “Hmm, I don’t know, but from what I’ve seen, I think she would probably not be the least bit fazed and based on the magazine she gave you, she might even take it as a challenge to get you even more girl trained.” She says with mischievous grin.
“Moomm!” I say with alarm as I imagine what would really happen at Amanda’s slumber party if she knew about me. It would be a fate worse than death. She would have me surrounded and outnumbered by her friends as they pored through all the girl magazines to find new ways to style my hair or cover my face with makeup in an effort to make me look even more pretty. Then, there is the nail paint, fashion tips and cute boy talk. H1, kill me now, please.
My mom just laughs at my reaction. “I’ll talk to Barb tomorrow, sound her out about Amanda and you.”
“Don’t tell her about me, please!” I say.
My mom looks at me with a serious expression. “Hmmm, I’m not planning on it, but depending on what she says, it might need to be mentioned to her so that she can prepare Amanda. I mean, if you and Amanda continue to stay friends, it’s going to come out eventually, right?” She asks.
Defeated by her logic, I sigh with defeat. “You’re right. It probably will and I guess it might be better if it wasn’t a total surprise to her. I’m just worried that she will end up hating me and I would feel bad because I really had fun being with her.”
My mom shrugs her shoulders. “Well, if that’s the case, then I guess that she just isn’t as good of a person as I think she is, but I don’t think that you need to worry about it.” My mom says as she gives me another hug.
I return her embrace and in the comfort of her arms, I feel myself relax and suddenly feel very sleepy. I yawn and she lets me go with an affectionate kiss on my check as she tucks me into my bed. She turns off the light and I watch her stumble a bit in the suddenly dark room as she makes her way back to her bed.
I guess that I am pretty tired, because I am out before I even realize it. Sadly, 1.5 hours later, I wake up and feel completely refreshed, awake and ready to go. Crap! It’s only 0300 hours. Now what do I do for six hours or seven hours?
I look around the room and spot the Seventeen magazine sitting innocently on top of my suitcase. No way. I am not that desperate, but I could just scan it, couldn’t I? That’s not really reading it, is it? I silently pad over, grab the magazine, take it into the bathroom for the light and rapidly scan the pages while I try to ignore the magazine’s content. Well, I try, but do still notice the many colorful pictures of girls wearing many different outfits and styles.
Done, I set the offending magazine down, silently return to my bed, prop myself up with my pillows and enter my VR world. Feeling the need to blow off some steam, I suit up in my Selene ass kicking outfit, complete with my weapons and hit the firing range. This time, I change up my sensible footwear by changing my boots into some sexy four inch stiletto heels. That proves to be a little too extreme, so I drop them down to match my real boots with a simple two inch heel. I can’t help admire myself in the mirror for a few minutes. The skin tight black leather plus the heels really make my legs and ass look hot.
I can’t believe that I just thought that, but at the same time, I can’t help feel a little proud.
That’s enough!
I call up the range and start blasting things to help take my mind off of all my confusing boy/girl thoughts. It takes over 30 rounds of hot-lead-blowing-crap-up therapy before I really forget about all my issues and enjoy myself. 30 rounds later and I decide to pull up my real-life simulator mode and re-create the mall parking lot. I want to try Mr. Smith’s suggestion and see if it helps.
Once I get everything setup, I feel pretty proud by how real everything looks, but it is also kind of spooky. I start the simulation and discover that taking the knife does help improve my score, but after five tries, I still manage to get shot twice. I decide that I need to learn how to throw a knife.
30 minutes later and 217 throws at various targets and ranges, I think I might have the hang of it. If the target is less than 10 meters away, I can be fairly sure of hitting them with the pointy side 92.7% of the time. More than 10 meters and that rate rapidly plummets to zero percent until the target is 30 meters. Five meters is 98.8%.
My next five runs through the sim result in me winning with a perfect score. The dude who likes to shoot me doesn’t do so well with his buddy’s knife sticking out of his shoulder.
For my forth run, I decide to try taking the first dude’s .45 instead of his knife. That approach helps a lot, but their body armor ends up giving them the edge. Out of seven runs, I manage to win six of them. I sort of messed up on my first run, but their body armor and the dude who shoots me most of the time really make this game hard.
Okay, no more miss nice girl! Or something...
It’s really simple. Body armor just means I have to aim for their heads. The enemy dudes are also following the same script, so it’s actually getting a little boring. I tell the sim to give them a bit more intelligence.
With that in mind, I start another sim run. Time slows and once again, I take the first dude’s .45 and instead of aiming center mass for the other targets, I go for head shots to take them out as fast as possible.
[CRAACK!]
The second dude sprays blood and brains all over the car. I quickly stalk forward while trying to maintain a steady firing stance.
[CRAACK!]
The third dude, the guy with the shot gun; his head snaps back as a small hole appears right between his eyes. I watch in slow motion as his brains, skull and bits of hair mixed together blast out of the back of his head. Small hole right between his eyes, big pink mess out of the back.
[CRAACK!]
Where did the third shot come from? The dude who normally shoots me is just coming out from behind the SUV. I didn’t get hit. So who shot who? That question makes me think for a nano second and that pause causes me to notice a few things.
1) I’m not using that STIM thing.
2) Watching someone’s brains get blown out of the back of their heads is really gross and not at all like on TV.
3) I know it is just a simulation, but I just killed two people. I didn’t just knock them down and maybe hurt them real bad. I just blew their brains out.
Stop!
Everything freezes and that makes it worse because the dude I just killed is lying face down with a big pink mass mixed with bits of bone and hair where the back of his head used to be. I can’t help it; I look over at the first dude I shot. It’s just as bad. I look over at my simulated Mom and discover that she is frozen in mid-fall and she is missing the side of her head. There are even bits and pieces frozen in mid-air with her. The guy who was holding her decided to shoot her this time. I gave them too much intelligence.
I don’t feel so good. I snap out of my VR world and run into the bathroom, tears streaming down my face as I hold my hand over my mouth in an attempt to not toss my cookies all over the floor. I make it to the toilet, mostly. I make a huge mess as I spray puke into the toilet.
“Bree!” My mom yells from the other room. She makes it into the bathroom in record time and is able to witness me void the contents of my stomach for a second time as the vivid image of my mom frozen in time runs through my head. I’m sobbing and puking at the same time.
“Bree! What’s wrong?” My mom asks as she automatically grabs a towel to help with the over-spray.
“I, I shot them and then, they...BAAARFFF! *cough* *cough* *cry*”
“What? You shot them? Oh honey, did you just have a nightmare?” My mom asks as I start to get things under control.
“No, I...” I say as I look up at her concerned and loving face. That reminds me of what I saw happen to my mom and once again, I have to turn my head as I mostly dry heave into the toilet with lovely strings of drool streaming from my mouth.
When I lift my head for the third time, my mom uses a wet wash cloth to wipe my face for me.
“Bree, it was just a nightmare. Whatever it was, it wasn’t real.” My mom says, trying to console me.
“No, it wasn’t a nightmare.” I whisper as the bile taste in my mouth makes me feel like barfing again. Just in case, I turn back to the toilet, but I manage to keep from barfing again.
My mom sits on the edge of the tub and puts her hand on my shoulder to try and reassure me. “What?” She asks.
With tears pouring out of my eyes, I turn to her. “It wasn’t a nightmare. I woke up after an hour and a half and then, I decided to play around in my VR thing.” I say with an ashamed whisper.
“Okay...” My mom says while giving me a look that tells me to continue.
“Well, then I decided to try and re-create the fight to see if I could do a better job.” I say as I stop and turn away, afraid to continue. I start to cry again.
“Bree, what happened?” My mom gently asks, placing both of her hands on my shoulders
I turn back. “I took the gun from the first guy, and then I killed the next two. Since they had armor jackets, I aimed for their heads. It was so easy and I didn’t miss. I blew their brains out and because I did that, the guy who was holding you...” I say before I turn back and violently dry heave into the toilet again.
“Oh, Bree.” My mom says as she wraps me up in a hug. “It wasn’t...”
I stop her. “Yes, I know, but it was. I saw in slow motion the small hole the bullet made, followed by their brains mixed with bits of bone and hair as that mess sprayed out of the back of their heads. I saw you falling to the ground with the side of your...” I say just before I have to stop and dry heave again. This time some bits come up and I have no idea where it came from because I can’t remember the last time I ate carrots.
“Bree?” My mom gently asks. “Why don’t you hop in the shower while I clean up in here? The hot water will help you feel better.”
I look down and realize that I’ve also made a slight mess on my silk pajamas. “Oh, no! Mom, I ruined them!” I say as I break down and cry some more.
“No you didn’t. They will be fine. Here, take them off and I will soak them while you get the shower started.” She says gently, her voice soft and calming as she gives me direction and something else to think about.
The heat from the hot, steamy water sinks into my muscles as it beats down on my back. As the water cascades down my body, I feel the tension drain away with the water. I simply stand under the water and enjoy the feeling while my mom fills the sink with water for my PJ top. She mostly talks to herself while at the same time, providing me with assurances that my top is fine. Meaningless chatter that has a calming effect on me because it’s not about the bad stuff. That small reminder causes me to shiver for a second. I decide to distract myself with the starting to feel normal sensation of washing my new body. I am not really that dirty, but the feeling of the soapy washcloth against my skin is calming.
“There! All done. Now, it just needs to dry.” My mom says as she sits on the toilet seat cover. “So, honey, have you given any more thought about Whateley and what it might be like to leave home?”
“Umm, no, not really. I have just been too busy, but I am a little nervous. I was hoping to be able to spend some time at home before I went, but I guess that it might be better if I went to a school where people like me are considered normal.” I say while smiling at the irony of the situation. I have to go to a school for the abnormal to feel normal.
“Well, if you didn’t already know, I’m freaking out over the idea. Your dad and I almost lost you and now you’re going to be leaving us and going to an out of state school.” My mom says with her voice on the edge of breaking down there near the end.
I poke my head out of the curtain. “Mom, it’s only going to be for a few months, right? I’ll be home for summer vacation.” I say, trying to reassure her.
She gratefully smiles at me as she dabs her eyes with a tissue. “I know, but, well, you know...”
I know exactly what she was looking forward to. “Yep, sorry Mom, but I guess that you and Lindsay’s plot to drag me into some beauty salon will just have to wait.” I say with a smirk.
She gasps with mock surprise. “Why you little stinker!” She says before laughing.
I drop back under the water and rinse a final time before regretfully shutting off the water. As I pull the curtain back, my mom hands me a towel, open and already in position to wrap around my chest, girl style. Since I got my hair wet, she pulls me over to the mirror and works on drying my hair for me. My mom yawns a couple of times before my hair is done.
“Mom, thanks, but you should get back to bed.” I say as she looks at me skeptically. “I’m fine now, really.”
“Well, let’s get you into your spare PJ’s and we can talk about it.” My mom says as she leads me out of the bathroom and rummages through my suitcase for me. She hands me a fresh pair of panties and as soon as I have those in place, my PJ bottoms and top.
I am so glad she got me a spare set of normal PJ’s instead of one of those sheer and sexy nightgown things like Nikki had. I could never wear something so, umm, sexy. What if someone saw me?
My mom tucks me into my bed and makes me promise to not run another sim thing tonight, or morning. I guess that 4 AM is technically the morning, even though it is still dark out. With the intention of just taking a minute, she lies down on top of the bed and next to me, hugs me close and quickly falls asleep. It feels nice to have my mom hugging me, but I don’t think she intended to fall asleep while doing so. I gingerly extract myself from her, grab the blanket from her bed and tuck her into my bed before I rejoin her. I decide to sit up against the headboard and keep an eye on my mom while I enter my VR living room to read a book or two. Maybe I will watch some TV. Cartoons should be on in a few hours and I kind of want to see the morning news.
I finish reading my book and it is 6am so I activate my internal TV and find the local news station. They have a piece about my adventure, but nothing new since it is early and everyone who might have something to say is still asleep. Bored with that, I find some cartoons to watch and veg. I use Amanda’s girl magazine to rest my feet on the coffee table. There is no way that I am going to read it, but at least it is good for something.
0830 hours, the cartoons are over, my mom is still peacefully asleep and I’m bored. However; I am not bored enough to try my sim again. I stare off in space for another five long minutes before I finally give in to Amanda’s magazine. It is taunting me with its bright and cheerful cover, but I find the article titles designed to interest girls to buying and reading the magazine more amusing than interesting. Unfortunately, that amusement draws me in, so maybe the editors are smarter than I give them credit because I am just dying to learn what jeans would work best for my body.
I am just getting into, I mean laughing about an article about why boys like the smoky eye effect and how to properly duplicate it when my mom rescues me by stretching and waking up with a fond smile as she spots me. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to fall asleep on your bed.” She says.
“It’s okay, Mom, you were tired.” I grin at her. “Plus, you snored, so I couldn’t sleep anyway.” I say.
My mom laughs. “I did not! So mean, ya stinker. What time is it?” She asks as she hops out of my bed.
“Umm, 9:04 AM.” I say, translating my military time into civilian time for her.
“Okay, well, let’s get ready. I guess we can just wear some casual clothes and maybe bring our sweats, just in case. I kind of doubt that they will have us lifting weights or running on the treadmill again today.” My mom says.
I am pleased when we find Air Man, err, Air Woman Jessica is waiting for us in the lobby. She quickly straightens up and smiles at us as we approach. “Hey, Mrs. Peters and Bree. Good to see you two again. I was a little surprised when my chief had me come over to pick you two up so late.” She says.
My mom laughs. “Yeah, we had a bit of an adventure at the mall last night, so we got to sleep in.”
Jessica’s face clouds with alarm. “Oh, are you two okay? I heard that there was some sort of attack at the PHM. What happened? Did anyone get hurt?” She asks with a quick glance of concern for me before her eyes return to my mom’s face.
My mom looks like she is about to answer, but stops herself. “How about if we talk about it in the car?” She asks.
“Oh, sure. You all aren’t due until ten hundred hours. Did you want to stop someplace for a quick breakfast?” Jessica asks as she leads us out to the government issued non-descript sedan..
My mom fills her in on most of what happened, but she leaves out me getting shot and the top secret after action thing with Mr. Smith. Jessica is floored by what she is told. She just can’t believe that someone would want to attack either of us. To make things easier, we decide to just grab some food from the hospital’s cafeteria. That doesn’t give us time to answer all of Jessica’s questions, so she gives my mom her phone number and makes her promise to call her when everything is settled down. Jessica surprises me with a quick hug under the guise of helping me out of the back seat when she drops us off in front of the base’s hospital. No one saw her do it, but she still looks around guiltily as she reflexively straightens her uniform.
We all wave good-bye to each other as she slowly drives away. After a quick bite, we make it back to the entry area just in time to catch Mrs. Townsend entering the building. That delays us an extra minute because she insists on greeting us both with hugs, asking us how we slept and informing me that, while dog tired, Amanda can’t wait until I can come visit her again. I get an extra hug for Amanda too.
They split us up again for the extra tests. They test my mom for projecting empathetic powers while they test me for cyber powers. The testers get pretty excited when I mess with and take over a simple calculator, but grow a little disappointed when I pretend to fail with an old laptop. I am glad that Mr. Reilly is there with me because he doesn’t say a word or even give any indication to the test givers that I might be sandbagging when they make a note in my file.
“Minor cyberpathic abilities that may allow subject to control or influence the operation of simple electronic devices.”
I’m pretty happy with that result and Mr. Reilly quietly tells me that I did a good job as we walk down the hall on our way to the administrative section. They have my mom for 30 more minutes and I end up wasting my time by reading an old Car & Driver magazine that they have in the lobby. When she finally arrives, my mom looks a little exhausted. I guess that they tested her a little harder than they tested me, but projecting empaths are a little more rare and powerful than just a receiving empath.
**
<1012 Hours, CIA Headquarters, McLean, VA>
CIA, Special Projects Director Falks was analyzing the latest intel from his field agents when he heard a knock on his office door. Angered by the interruption that broke his train of thought regarding the report of the MCO’s secret mutant detention facility in the Nevada desert; he looked up from his report and glared at the door. “Enter! Damnit.” He said.
His deputy director poked his head into the door as it opened. “Sir? Sorry to interrupt you, but the tap we have on the DOD’s new test system at Langley Air Base just reported an anomalous reading that could be a possible cyber-pathic power set.”
His anger over the interruption instantly forgotten. “Who is the subject?” He asked, impatiently.
“Not sure sir, DARPA found her and is sponsoring her testing. The codename on the file is ‘Whisper’. Female. Age 15. Sidhe.”
“How old is this data?”
“The test report is dated from yesterday at 1700 hours, sir.”
“Okay, so the subject is probably still in the testing lab area. Notify Dr. Z that we have a possible ‘Circuit Breaker’ subject for him to examine. I want you to put together an extraction team for this ‘Whisper’ test subject. I want her on the good doctor’s exam table before the day is over.”
“Are you sure that is advisable sir? We are talking about taking a target from DARPA and the DOD.”
“DARPA, I’m not worried about. That bunch of egg heads wouldn’t know the first thing about National Security and how dangerous their little toy might be. The DOD should know better and I’m sure that if the worst happens, they will play ball. Just make sure that our extraction team knows that there can be no casualties with this extraction. They can abort if they deem it necessary.”
“Can’t we just do it officially then?”
“Summers, I know that I pay you to play the devil’s advocate for me, but in this case, trust me. I know what needs to be done.”
“If you’re sure, sir.”
“I am abso-pos-o-lutely sure. Just thinking about another ‘Circuit Breaker’ on the loose gives me shivers. Hell, we probably won’t find anything and in that case, this Whisper girl will wake up on a park bench with nothing but a dream or two. If we do find something, well, then we will just have to cross that bridge if we get to it.”
“Yes, sir. I will get Mirage’s team on it.”
“Good. Mirage has her shit together and her team knows what they are doing.”
“Yes, sir. Since the target is in a DOD Facility, other departments in the CIA will probably end up involved in the initial investigation, should we set up a patsy?”
“Hmmm, good idea. How about we submit a report saying that an MCO van was spotted in the area about the time the extraction occurs?”
“The MCO?”
“Yeah, the bastards have been a royal pain in the ass the last few years and they could use a little sunshine shone into their organization.”
“Yes sir. I will get the ball rolling.” Summers said as he quickly left his boss’ office and closed the door behind him.
Director Falks tried to use his security clearance to access the DOD’s network and pull up anything on this Whisper girl, but it was like she didn’t exist and that wasn’t normal for the DOD.
Suddenly nervous about his orders, Director Falks leaned back in his chair and momentarily stared at the ceiling as he gathered his thoughts. Reaching a decision, he quickly leaned forward, looked up a number from his old fashioned rolodex and dialed a number. His phone’s security circuits kicked in and a green light telling him that he had a secure, scrambled and un-tapped connection turned on as the other party located at the NSA’s Fort Meade headquarters’ building answered their phone.
“Hello? Analyst Miller, how may I help you?” The man on the other end of the line asked.
“One Night in Bangkok” Director Falk said. Director Falk couldn’t suppress a pleased grin when he heard Miller gulp with fear and surprise at his uttering of the code phrase. He felt exceptionally grateful with his luck at finding Analyst Miller and discovering his weakness for young women, women who were really men, while conducting routine surveillance of their own hotel rooms while on a intel mission in Thailand a few years ago. Miller had been on loan from the NSA to help the CIA with the signal interception of a known terrorist leader that was hiding out in that country.
Now, Miller was in the perfect position to help him root out some intel on this Whisper girl. He felt sure that the NSA would be able to access any data that existed, no matter how secret or hard to find it might be.
“How can I help you, sir?” Miller asked after Director Falk purposely let the silence drag on to force Miller into a weaker position.
Director Falk grinned with self-satisfied victory. “I need you to find out anything you can on a DOD mutant. Code name is Whisper. I will call you back in thirty.” He said before he hung up without waiting for a reply.
Director Falk looked at his watch and just to make Miller sweat, he decided to call the freak back in 45 minutes or maybe even an hour.
**
James Miller glared at his phone’s receiver. Fucking Falk and his blackmail pissed him off, but there was nothing that he could do about it. If the agency found out about his tastes in bed, no matter how private they should be, he would be politely
asked to seek employment elsewhere. The truly sucky part is that the NSA would be perfectly justified in doing so since it is risky to have agents working for you who can be blackmailed to provide counterintelligence to an enemy agent. Miller was almost able to absolve his guilt by rationalizing the fact that Falk was technically on the same team, just not in the NSA.
He was really just doing a favor for a colleague at another friendly agency. With that in mind, he logged into his work station, but paused before he started his hunt for this “Whisper” target. If Director Falk was calling him to dig up data, then that meant it was out of his reach and that meant it was very classified. Maybe even dangerously classified and accessing it might get him in trouble. If he was caught looking at it. Not that that would happen. Especially with the search coming from within the NSA and impossible to trace, but just in case, he bounced his search request through a few overseas offices and satellites just to make a trace harder.
His initial searches came up empty and we was about to give up, until his search matched a news report from Newport News, VA that mentioned the target. He quickly scanned through the report and the mention of the FBI and Air Force helicopters on the scene raised his internal alarms. Especially since none of this data was found on either the FBI’s or DOD’s networks. Someone had this buried very deeply down the rabbit hole. Now that he was on the hunt and he smelled a drop of blood, his professional pride almost forced him to find out why this Whisper girl was so secret.
It took him another 20 minutes of digging to find it. He had to bypass a shit load of security that he shouldn’t have been able to bypass, but his hacking tool chest was the best. The presidential security seal almost made him stop, but he knew that Falk was going to be calling him in less than five minutes and he wanted to have something to give him. Maybe he would stop bugging him if he got him the data. Fuck, for presidential secure data, the asshole better delete the video and shred his contact info.
With that in mind, he activated his best password cracking tool and felt confident that he would get past the security. He only had to type in a password once. Any password would do. It didn’t have to be the correct password. The NSA’s tool would use that to sneak into the system, analyze the system’s single bad password response and use that to return the correct password. He wasn’t sure how the program did its magic, but it had never let him down before.
Once he hit the enter key for the password, his program attacked the other system’s defenses. Normally, it took a few seconds and then, the correct password would show up on his screen for him to enter. This time, his system just sat there. First for 5 seconds, then 10 seconds and then, he started to wonder what was wrong. He tabbed out to his main desktop and was shocked to discover that his route was being traced by the other system. He was even more shocked by the fact that his system never even alerted him about the trace.
“Holy fuck...” Miller whispered as he watched with amazement while his trail was rapidly traced back to him.
“Shit!” He said as he came to his senses and scrambled to unplug his network cable to cut the connection before it could trace all the back to him. For good measure, he turned off his workstation’s power supply before he sank back into his chair with relief.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck...” Miller chanted to himself in an effort to gather his senses. The mantra seemed to help as he calmly stood up under the guise of stretching his legs to see if there was anyone on his floor looking for him. For once, he was glad that his cube neighbor had his headphones on with the volume loud enough for Miller to hear the tinny music from their speakers. The dude’s hearing had to be really bad for him to need his music to be that loud, but it also meant that he didn’t hear any of his swearing just now.
Miller sat back down and decided to restart his workstation. He left the cable unplugged, but set it back in place to make it look like it somehow worked its way loose. Then, he called the tech support line to complain about his workstation not being able to connect to the network. That should help cover his tracks some. After all, how could it have been him when his network was down?
That fucker Falk should have called him back 10 minutes ago and that pissed him off, but at the same time, he was glad because it gave him more time to take care of his own ass. Actually, he couldn’t wait for that bastard to call him back now. He would tell him that he couldn’t find anything, except for the public news broadcast. Whoever this Whisper girl was, she was one hot potato. Nuclear hot and anyone who touched her would be playing with fire. Let the fucker step on his own dick and maybe his little blackmail problem will go away on its own.
**
Lunch was good. Mr. Reilly took my mom, Dr. Edmundson and me to a really good seafood restaurant. I was never a fan of seafood and growing up in New Mexico probably didn’t help with that opinion since fresh, seafood, New Mexico and desert don’t go together.
We took a long lunch and didn’t get back to the test facility until well after 1300 hours. I guess that Mr. Reilly did that on purpose, just to keep them from doing any more tests on me. Now, Mom and Mr. Reilly are talking about Whateley, JROTC scholarship and the military service commitment part. Apparently, normal JROTC students don’t have a service commitment, but normal JROTC students don’t attend private schools either. I don’t see a problem with the commitment clause. Besides, it only kicks in if I decide to not go to college.
I take a bathroom break and instead of returning to Mr. Reilly’s temporary office, I decide to hang out in the lobby area. That way, I can talk to Mrs. Townsend when she is not busy or read some more of the magazines out there. I would do the VR thing, but I don’t really feel that bored, just yet.
The nice thing about this secret facility is that there isn’t a lot of traffic and the magazines aren’t all torn apart. Due to the low traffic part, I notice it when a woman that I have not seen before enters the lobby from the direction of the medical wing. She is wearing a lab coat, carrying a clipboard, and looking for someone. I lower my magazine when she changes course and heads towards me.
“Hello? Are you Whisper?” She asks.
I am a little surprised to see that her voice stress reading is in the yellow. I guess that she is a little nervous that I might not be Whisper or something.
>DoD/R&D/Research Analyst/GS11/Josie/Ann/Bayer/xxx-xx-xxxx/O-/FALSE
“Yes, that’s me. What’s up?” I ask as I close my magazine to be polite to her. She has short brown hair, brown eyes, an attractive face and what looks like a nice body underneath her frumpy lab coat.
“Hi, I’m Josie. They sent to grab you for one quick little test.” She says with a smile. Her stress gauge is still in the yellow, but it has dropped a little.
“Oh, I didn’t know that I needed some more tests and I’m kind of waiting on my mom right now.” I say. I feel a little nervous about this. It sounds like she is expecting me to just go with her without my mom.
“Oh, I’m sorry. They never mentioned that to me, but the test should only take a few minutes. Why don’t you follow me and we can get it over with?” She asks, her stress gauge still in the yellow. She looks pretty calm otherwise, so I don’t know why she’s sounding so stressed.
“Okay, but I really need to wait for my mom. I’m not allowed to go anywhere without her.” I say, expecting that to stop her.
“That’s okay. As soon as I drop you off, I can run back and get your mom. Heck, by the time I grabbed her, you would probably even be done.” Josie says, trying to sound helpful as her stress gauge hits the upper yellow range. She must have a mean boss or something to be so worried about me going with her right now. I guess it will be okay. I don’t know how much longer my mom will be in there, but they should be able to let her know where I am at before too long.
I smile at her as I put the magazine down and stand up. “Okay, that sounds like a good idea. I’m sorry, but what was your name again?” I ask. I know what it is, but something just doesn’t feel right.
“Oh, sorry.” She nervously laughs. “Josie, Josie Bayer.” Her name hits the red zone. What in the heck is her problem?
I follow her lead as she turns around and walks back from the direction that she came. I’m a little curious as to why she is so nervous. “So, umm, Josie. What tests do I need to do now?” I ask.
“Oh, nothing much. I think that they might just want to do some additional blood work.” She replies as she looks back to answer my question. Her stress gauge hits the low red zone this time.
It looks like we are heading back to the lab wing, but my mini-map says we are almost at where the elevators should be. I don’t see any elevators. I just see the hallway for the medical wing and the associated exam rooms as we walk past them.
What in the heck is going on here? Is my map broken?
I decide to turn off the HUD filters for her. That way, I can see everything that my targeting system has found on her body. They are pretty tough about the ‘no cell phone’ rules here, so I am not surprised when I don’t see one on her body somewhere, but she does have a small electronic wrist watch on her left wrist. Something pings my sensors as I detect a rapid burst radio transmission from her. My targeting system highlights a device behind her right ear, but I can’t see anything. What is going on here?
While I am viewing the detailed scan results for her and pondering my mini-map malfunction, I have been lagging behind her. She politely stops until I catch up with her.
“Sorry, I think that my map is messing up, or something.” I say as I receive confirmation of that when my mini-map shows us right at the elevator doors.
Now Josie looks confused. “Your what?” She asks.
That causes me to stop. Something is definitely not right and I am puzzled by her ear radio thing that I can’t see. She walks forward again, but stops a few feet and motions for me to follow. Confused, I automatically follow her and stop when I realize that I can sense the elevator’s control panel, but I’m standing in the middle of a hallway. How can that be?
I start to turn around to ask Josie a question when I feel a sharp pain in my left arm. I look down and Josie has what looks like a ball point pen held against my arm.
>Medical Alert!
>Anesthetic agent detected!
>Unknown molecular compound detected!
>Neutralizing compounds...
That is all I see before everything fades to black.
~o~O~o~
Insert standard disclaimer here: The one that reminds everyone that this is a work of fiction. No one is real and any resemblance to someone who is real is purely coincidence, honest. This is also a Fan Fiction set in the Whateley Story Universe. No Canon characters were permanently harmed in the making of this story. I hope. :)
Note: Again, sorry for the extreme delay in this chapter. Work/Life balance is making it hard to string the hours together for the "writing zone". Thanks for my beta readers for their feedback and patience. And last but not least, djkauf for correcting my many mistakes.
>Anesthetic agent...neutralized.
>Unknown molecular compound...neutralized.
That notification is the first thing that I notice as my awareness returns. Of course, I keep my eyes closed. I am not that stupid. I’ve seen plenty of spy movies where the spy pretends to be unconscious and the bad guy monologues all his evil plans. I decide to ignore the fact that most of the time, the bad guy knows that they are awake.
I begin to catalogue everything that I can with my eyes closed. I am in a moving vehicle of some kind and I can feel the seat belt locked over my lap and right shoulder. Safety first. How thoughtful.
Okay, how long was I out for?
>34 seconds.
Oh, well, that’s not as long as I was expecting. I thought for sure that I was a goner there. So far, no one has realized that I am really awake and I am betting that they are expecting me to be out for longer than 30 seconds. Hopefully, that means that they won’t look too closely at me for at least another few minutes.
I decide to drop into my VR living room, but I switch it out for a command center with multiple big displays against the wall and a cool captain’s chair with buttons in the arm rest. Okay, so maybe it is more of a star ship’s bridge than a command center, but I didn’t want to be that geeky.
Instead of a uniform, I opt for my Selene kick-ass outfit complete with my weapons. I feel a brief flash of revulsion for them when I recall my “fun” VR simulation from last night. I don’t really want to think about those things, but I feel reassured by their virtual presence. The weapons with my costume also help put me in the proper frame of mind. I’m a pirate starship captain. Arrr Matey!
I sit down on my command chair and push a button in the arm rest. It does not matter which button I push, but I just like pushing the button. That activates my radar map thing. I nifty holographic display of my current surroundings rapidly coalesces in the middle of the bridge. It slowly rotates around and I find that I can manipulate it just by thinking about what I want it to do.
That is just so cool! How am I doing that? With that thought, I ‘see’ the many different radio frequencies that are present in the modern world and I ‘see’ the sound waves as they combine, rebound and deflect off of everyone and everything in the van. That effect lasts for just a fraction of a second before my super vision returns to normal and I stop seeing the ‘cause’ of the effect.
I discover that there are four people in the van with me. A male driver and a female passenger are in the front seats while two additional male shaped objects are in the backseat with my body. They have me propped up between them. Josie, the female passenger is still wearing her badge, but I am pretty sure that it is fake.
>CIA///GS9/Philip/Arnold/Hoffman/xxx-xx-xxxx/AB+/FALSE
>CIA///GS10/Jonathan/Peter/Whyte/xxx-xx-xxxx/B-/FALSE
>CIA///GS11/Douglas/Paul/Laskow/xxx-xx-xxxx/A+/TRUE:CODEINE
Hmmm, those ID’s might not be fake. CIA? Holy shit! It’s weird that they don’t have their jobs listed, but maybe the CIA is a bit more secretive than DARPA or the DOD?
Philip is the driver, while John and Doug are the two in the back with me. Oh, Doug is allergic to codeine? I wish I had a few of those to pop down his throat right now. Philip has a cell phone in his pants pocket and all of them have the same radio that I spotted on Josie. Using my passive sensors, I continue to gather and refine the data. The holographic display becomes more and more detailed and I am not happy when I discover that John and Doug have shoulder holsters containing a pistol of some kind. Doug has an additional hold-out weapon strapped to his ankle.
Doug’s ghostly head turns towards Josie. “Hey Michelle, I’m a little nervous about making a snatch from the Air Force. Aren’t we all working on the same team?”
Michelle? I thought that her name was Josie. Oh yeah, fake ID. I focus my attention on her, but I don’t see any additional identification on her. There is a small purse on the floor in front of her. I focus my attention on her purse and discover that she has both a MMID and a CAC-ID card in there. She also has a cell phone, but it is turned off. Damn it.
>CIA///GS13/Michelle/Marie/Parks/xxx-xx-xxxx/B-/False
For some reason, I am unable to read her MMID card. Maybe my standard government ID package didn’t include those. It sure would be nice to know what her powers are, but based on what I saw or thought I saw before she knocked me out; I am going to guess that she can make people see things.
“Don’t over analyze things Laskow. It’s not our job to think and thinking too much can get you shit canned, or worse.” Michelle says. She just used Doug’s last name to reply to his question. More evidence that their CIA IDs are real and Josie’s DOD ID is fake.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, you’re probably right. How long is the brat supposed to be out for anyway?” Doug asks as he turns his head to look at me.
“The doc said the dose was good for at least six hours for a normal human, but since she has some low level regen power, he mixed in something called MCES-45 to suppress her powers. He expects her to be out for at least four hours.” Michelle says.
“Oh, that’s good. There is nothing worse than trying to deal with a hysterical teenage girl and it is even worse when they have super powers!” Doug says with relief.
“If you’re so worried about an unconscious teenage girl, maybe you should get off your ass and put the cuffs on her?” Michelle says snidely, challenging Doug’s ability to handle me.
Doug laughs. “Ha, ha, very funny. Not! I think that John and I can handle her and if not, then you can just make it look like we are doctors trying to help her, or something.”
Great, they expect me to be out for four hours and more evidence that she can somehow make people see things. I don’t think that her powers are magic based. I am not sure, but I kind of expect that if she was magical, I would have noticed that. She wasn’t able to override my map, so maybe she can only affect the standard senses. Sight for sure and probably hearing. Now that I think about it, touch too, because I never felt the difference when she lured me into the elevator. What about smell? Hard to say. I don’t know if my sense of smell is that keen.
How long has it been since I was knocked out?
>02:48 minutes.
Okay, so not that much time. I can’t be that far away from the research lab. I wish that I could see where I was on a map. I activate my C3 thing.
>Connection failed...
>No Networks in Range
Crap!
However; I am able to get my current GPS location, speed and direction. Well, at least, I can lay down a breadcrumb trail. That way, I can find my way back if I have too. Now would be the best time to escape, but I don’t see how I can over-power the two dudes back here and get out of a van traveling at 65 MPH. The van begins to slow down. If they stop, maybe I will have a chance to escape.
I wonder if I can use the driver’s own cell phone to call for help. I can read all the numbers and text messages he has sent and received, but I cannot tell it to dial a number. Hmmm, I could really use a cell phone right about now.
Nicholas Reilly felt that the day had been fairly mentally exhausting and the previous day’s adventures were not helping. After a few conference calls with the Secretary of Defense, the President’s National Security Advisor and Mrs. Carson at Whateley, they had Brianna confirmed for a full JROTC scholarship with her classes starting on March 5th. Brianna had a full ride including a special uniform allowance and stipend to help with other school related expenses. He and Jennifer Peters were just finishing up with her daughter’s new identification paperwork.
“Bree! Oh my god!” Jennifer said with alarm as she jumped to her feet and started for the door.
“What happened?” Nicholas asked as he stood, ready for action.
“I don’t know!” Jennifer screamed as she struggled to open the door in her panic stricken state. The door opened and she stepped into the hallway, looking frantically back and forth of any sign of her daughter.
Nicholas followed Jennifer into the hallway. “Which way should we start?”
“I’m not sure...” Jennifer said as she closed her eyes and concentrated. “Umm, maybe back towards the lobby area?”
“Okay, let’s go.” Nicholas took the lead and strode alertly down the short hall that led to the lobby. “What did you feel?” He asked.
“I just felt like she was overcome with intense fear for a second. Not, I saw a spider fear, but more like the fear of a stranger.” Jennifer said as she walked anxiously behind Nicholas.
Nicholas stormed into the lobby area and quickly scanned it, hoping that it was just a false alarm, but feeling deep down that it was worse. Pursing his lips in frustration, he turned to the nervous looking receptionist. “Did you see where Whisper went?”
The receptionist looked over to an empty chair and she appeared startled to not see Whisper sitting there. Nicholas followed her gaze and noticed a magazine lying face down on the chair, as if to save the page. “She was just there, reading that magazine. I never noticed her leaving. Maybe she is in the bathroom?”
“Mrs. Peters, can you check the bathroom? Ma’am, can you call General Evans? If Whisper isn’t in there, we might have a problem.”
The alarm went out and everyone began searching the facility for Whisper. The alert level climbed to emergency levels when they discovered the guards manning the video security system unconscious, the security cameras turned off and the day’s data missing.
With that bit of data, the stress levels rose considerably. Nicholas forced himself to remain calm for Mrs. Peters. She was already worried and pacing nervously back and forth near the chair that her daughter was last spotted sitting in.
With that thought, he decided that he needed to give the President another call. He was really burning up a lot of favors with him, but this situation called for a very high level of involvement. With the proper sized lever, he hoped that they could resolve the latest Whisper emergency without making too much of a mess out of things. With a sigh, he pulled out his phone and entered the President’s personal number.
It rang two times before The President answered it. “Nick, please tell me that the MCO or H1! aren’t attacking Langley.” He said with a note of amusement mixed with serious concern in his voice.
“Sorry, Mr. President, sir. I wish it was that easy.” Nicholas said as a brief smile flashed across his face as he decided how to handle the situation. The President was a very busy man and Nick felt nothing but gratitude that he wasn’t screening his calls now. Everyone in the lobby area suddenly stopped what they were doing and Nick decided that the conference room might be the best place to assemble the troops.
“It appears that someone just ‘borrowed’ Whisper from us.” Nick said, trying to be diplomatic as he walked into the conference room with General Evans and Mrs. Peters close behind.
“Go on, what happened?” The President asked.
Nick looked over at General Evans in case he had any corrections or updates to provide during his briefing. “Sir, at approximately 1523 hours, Mrs. Peters detected via her empathetic powers that her daughter was in distress. A thorough search of the facility failed to turn up Whisper and no one saw her leave. We did discover that the team monitoring the security cameras had been rendered unconscious and all of the day’s security camera footage destroyed. We are attempting to recover the footage, but we are not optimistic about that. The destruction was limited, but it also was very thorough. Whoever did it, knew exactly what they were doing.”
The President sighed. “Nick, you certainly have your hands full there and by the way, your handling of last night’s incident was excellent. Unfortunately, I am currently meeting with the Director of Homeland Security, the Director of the CIA, the Director of the FBI along with the Secretary of Defense, but I think that I can temporarily excuse the VP and the Director of the FBI from that meeting to work with you.”
“Thanks sir, that would be great and sorry.” Nicholas sighed heavily. “I guess that I should have listened to my daughter and taken Whisper directly to Whateley.”
The President chuckled. “Don’t worry Nick. I will make sure that the VP and Fred knows just how serious this is to me.”
After the President hung up his phone, General Evans nodded to Nick and immediately ordered an Air Force Combat Search and Rescue team to stand ready for operations. The team could be in the air and on its way to any location within a 200 mile radius of the base in less than two minutes.
Mrs. Peters looked absolutely distraught as Mrs. Townsend comforted her, but she put on a brave smile for Nick. The fact that so many people were hunting for her daughter had to help. They all anxiously waited for the Vice President’s call. It took him only four minutes to call the main line in the conference room. The tension in the room rose dramatically at the sound of the Vice President’s voice.
<15:43 CIA Headquarters >
Director Falk leaned back in his chair with a satisfied smile on his face. Everything was going according to plan. The extraction team had called in with the mission successful codeword and they were en route to their rendezvous point. He checked his watch. The team should be arriving there any minute now, but it would probably take Dr. Zappata, or Frank as he preferred to be called, an hour or two to get the subject tested and to be sure of the results. He almost hoped that Frank wouldn’t find any cyberpathic powers on the target, but if he didn’t, then this was a lot of risk for nothing. In spite of his bluster, he did feel a small twinge of worry for authorizing a covert operation on a CONUS Military Installation.
But, the country absolutely, positively could not afford to have another Circuit Breaker on the loose. That mutant’s powers had just been too dangerous and no one else seemed to understand the danger like he did. He felt nothing but relief when he heard that the dangerous freak had been killed. The short time that he had to work with her on the Palm AI case had hit every danger button he had. He just knew that she was more dangerous to the country than that Palm AI and was very glad that he had authorized the suicide bomb implantation before she had been taken into custody by ARC.
He was surprised when his lieutenant, Summers, burst into his office, completely unannounced. “Boss, something is going down. The Director just called from the White House and he is asking about our target, by her codename.”
“Hmmm. Maybe DARPA does know how dangerous their little toy can be.” Director Falk leaned back in his chair and steepled his hands as he considered the news. He already knew what to do with the news, but he waited until Summers began to look nervous before he snapped back upright.
“As it stands right now, no one in the Agency can tie our operation back to us, right?” Falk asked.
“Yes sir.”
“So, we could just drop the target, call in an anonymous tip with her location and we would be in the clear?”
“Probably?” Summers asked a bit hesitantly, unsure of where his boss was going with this line of questioning.
“That’s an appealing option, but we still need to know if the target is a danger to National Security. Okay, continue with the operation as planned, but notify me if something changes. I will keep my eyes and ears open too; maybe make a few inquiries.”
“Yes sir.”
<15:51 Somewhere in Norfolk, VA >
We got off the stop-and-go highway 13 minutes ago and have been traveling down side streets. We have been traveling pretty much straight south the entire time and we haven’t made very many turns. We have had a ton of stoplights and stop signs though. As kidnappers go, these guys have not been very talkative and while I know I shouldn’t be, but I am actually starting to feel a little bored.
“Is this it?” Philip asks as the van slows to 15 miles per hour.
“Yep, turn right here.” Michelle says.
We make a slow turn and come to a stop. Philip rolls down his window and nods to someone outside of the van before the van begins to slowly roll forward again. It sounds like we just entered a gravel parking lot. We must be at our destination and this is my chance to escape.
>Initiating Combat Stimulant...
NO! Cancel!
>Combat Stimulant Production Canceled...
I do not want that. Not after what happened last time and the way I freaked out my mom while using that stuff. I will just have to do this on my own and without any medically induced no-fear serum thing. I can do this. I think.
Doug is on my left, against the window, while John is on my right, blocking my access to the side sliding door. The world goes into full color mode as I open my eyes. Since I am only switching from passive to an active mode, I know exactly where to target my first strike. I catch Doug completely by surprise as my left elbow slams into the side of his head.
I don’t use all my strength. I don’t want to kill the dude, just slow him down for the few seconds I will need to make it out the side door. John begins to reflexively react to my motion by trying to grab me. I don’t give him time to try and block me as I reverse direction by rolling back to the right and slam my right elbow into the side of John’s head. My plan is to use my momentum to rotate around him and open the door while they are both a little stunned from my shock and awe campaign, but I forget one tiny little detail.
I forget to unbuckle my seat beat. I am jerked to a halt and that forces me to scramble to release myself. Doug and John are troopers. Gotta hand it to them because they still try to grab me even while they struggle to regain their senses. I did rattle their cages pretty good.
I get the belt unbuckled just in time for Philip to try and help his buddies by slamming on the brakes. That tosses me forward and into the center console, between the two front seats. Fortunately, we were only going 10 to 15 miles per hour, so I didn’t get thrown into the front windshield.
Philip has his pistol out now and he tries to bring it to bear on me. He is right handed and I am on his right, so he is operating under a bit of a handicap. Also, I am not sure what he plans on doing with it inside the van, but he does try. Instead of letting him try to foolishly get a shot off, I grab his hand and twist. I hear and feel his wrist crack as I lean toward him and take his weapon as it falls from his broken hand.
>IFSFCS Activated
>Searching IFSFCS Weapons DB for match...
>Match found.
>
>Manufacturer: Glock
>Model: 22
>Caliber: .40 S&W
>Capacity: Unknown
>Fire Modes: Semi-automatic
>Modifications: Unknown
>Maximum Effective Range: 50m
>
>Weapon 1 Searching for IFSFCS Smart Link...
>Weapon 1 IFSFCS Smart Link Not Found
>Weapon 1 Warning...Weapon 1 not zeroed.
Beyond a startled gasp, Michelle has yet to react, but Doug and John manage to bump into each other as they both try to reach forward to restrain me. I abandon my open-the-side-door plan and follow the path of least resistance with a forward dive past Philip and out the driver’s side window.
I seem to have all the time in the world to try and figure out how I am going to land this dive of mine. My system even helps by plotting me a cool trajectory overlay that shows me exactly where, unless I do something about it, I am going to land face first in the dirt. My right hand is holding Philip’s pistol, so I decide to try a gymnastics inspired tuck and roll by using my left hand to sort of guide my fall as I tuck my right shoulder.
It works, but only because of my speeded up reactions and extra strength. I am pretty sure that I would have broken my wrist if I had tried this little stunt prior to my change. I barely slow down as I smoothly roll onto my feet and discover that I am heading right for a cliff.
Whoa Nelly!
I hit the brakes and windmill my arms to try and keep myself from falling. I teeter over the edge for a second before I recover and take a step back. I have a pretty good look of the rocky surf 100 plus feet below me. Why in the heck were they driving so close to the edge of a cliff and when did we go up high enough to find a cliff? I turn around and Philip is cradling his hand as he steps out of the Van, while John and Doug are scrambling out of the opposite side door. I don’t see Michelle anywhere.
Crap!
I need to move. I am not sure which way to go, but I guess that I should run out the gate that we just rolled through. I look to my right and all I see is a long dirt road that leads to nowhere. I look to my left and in the van’s direction of travel and all I see is a small guard rail that might stop a car from rolling off the cliff.
Where in the heck did the gate go?
I guess that I will just have to take out Philip and go from there, but when I look back to Philip; he’s not there anymore and there is only the van standing there. I don’t have anyone to aim my gun at and I only raise it halfway into a firing position before I stop.
Shit! It’s Michelle. I should have know, she is making me see things again.
I switch back to my passive sensors and pay attention to what my HUD is telling me. There he is! His cell phone and the radio in his ear give him away. I can’t see him with my eyes, but the combination of the ghostly passive vision plus my HUD gives me an almost as good as seeing it version of what is really happening.
Philip is two meters away from me and slightly off to my left side. He is watching where I currently have his old gun pointing and trying to stay out of its line of fire. Doug is calmly walking around the front of the van while John is coming around the back of the van to cut me off. Michelle is still sitting in the front passenger seat and concentrating her attention on me. I can see their mouths moving and sound waves coming out, but I can’t hear them.
She must be doing something to change how my conscious mind is interpreting my five senses, but my systems bypass that and read the data on their own. I can’t waste my time trying to bypass the sound thing to hear what they are saying. It probably wouldn’t matter.
Philip takes a step closer to me. I don’t want to kill him, but I do need to change his mind. Unlike my simulation, I can’t tell exactly where my gun aimed at. Instead of a precise targeting point, I have a targeting circle that is about six inches in diameter. I quickly line up the circle the center of his upper thigh and squeeze the trigger.
[CRAACK!]
I hit his thigh, far to the outside and mostly just a nick, but it is enough to cause him to stumble. On the plus side, my targeting circle is cut in half and it appears that my aim is getting better. He lurches forward to try and grab me. I side-step away from his awkward grab and push him off to the left. John jumps backwards to gain some cover behind the rear of the van while Doug ducks down in front of the van.
Based on their reactions, I think that they now know that I am able to see them. Well, either that or they just react to the shot being fired by me. Unlike the H1! dudes, these guys probably know what they are doing and unless I do something, they will work together to take me down pretty fast.
I decide that two can play at the illusion game. I cast my mirror image spell and I split myself into three separate images giving them four of me to shoot. I need to kill Michelle, but these are supposed to be the good guys. Maybe if I fire a shot in her direction, not to hit or kill her, but to hopefully distract her. Philip helpfully left the driver’s side door open and that gives me a direct line on Michelle. I place my targeting circle a few inches to the side of her head. I want to hit the window instead of her because I do not want to blow anyone's brains out ever again. The passenger side window shatters from the impact of my bullet and the targeting circle becomes a targeting point.
>Weapon 1 zeroed!
My mirror images duplicate my shot, but they each do it slightly differently. Mirror Image One jumps backwards and fires. Mirror Image Two jumps forward and fires. Mirror Image Three jumps to the left and fires. Sadly, that puts Mirror Image Three directly in the line of fire for Doug and he shoots it, causing it to fade away. On the plus side, reality snaps back into existence as Michelle screams and jumps out of her door.
Time to run!
With reality restored, I easily spot the gate to my right, north of my current location. I turn and run for the open gate. Mirror Image Two duplicates my action, but since Image Two was closer to the van, it hugs the side of the van. Image One somehow decides to run the opposite direction and completely away from the van. That exposes Image One to both Doug and John’s line of fire, but John is a bit distracted by me and Image Two running toward him with our guns aimed right at him. He has his gun raised to fire, but he can’t tell which one to fire at. Me or Image Two and that hesitation gives me the time I need to fire at him. I pray that the ‘Weapon 1 zeroed’ notification, plus the fact that my targeting circle is now a pin point will allow me to hit exactly what I am aiming at.
[CRAACK!]
Boo Ra! I hit John’s shoulder, exactly where I was aiming and that causes him to drop his gun, clutch his shoulder and fall backwards. He also yells a few bad words, but I won’t repeat them.
[CRAACK!]
I hear Doug’s gun fire, but I don’t have the time to see what he might be aiming at. He doesn’t hit me and that is what is important. Me and Image Two run as fast as possible in the direction of the open gate. There is a uniformed security guard crouched down next to a small shack with his gun drawn and pointed safely into the air. He does not look happy and the sight of me and my image running in his direction makes him less happy.
He aims his weapon at me and I direct Image Two to cross my path. We run into each other, merge and I change my direction of travel slightly away from unhappy security guard while my image runs directly at the unhappy security guard. That makes him even less happy.
“Halt or I’ll shoot!” He screams, aiming his gun at Image Two.
While I keep running, Image Two skids to a halt and throws its hands up in surrender.
Good job Image Two!
The security guards gaze flickers in my direction, but he stays on Image Two. I guess that he is happy that he stopped one of my twin Images and doesn’t want to risk it. The old, “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush” thing.
“Drop it!” The security guard yells.
[CRACK!] [CRACK!]
Image Two fades away as Doug shoots at it and Security Guard dude crumples to the ground as one of Doug’s shots hits him dead in the chest.
[CRACK!]
I feel something punch me in my back followed by a burning, cramping sensation in my side.
>Enemy hit detected!
>Right Latissimus dorsi 7% damaged...
>Right Kidney 70% damaged...
>Small Intestine 15% damaged...
>Combat effectiveness reduced to 91%.
>Repairs initiated!
>Estimated time to full combat effectiveness: 4.31 minutes
Getting shot doesn’t hurt as much as I expect it to hurt. I didn’t feel a thing the last time I got shot, but I was also using the Combat Stims.
I look back and see Michelle with a gun in her hand, crouched down and in a shooting stance. Crap, I forgot about her and I think that I should have activated my blur spell too. I could shoot back at her, but I do not want to get into a shootout with these guys. I need to get away from them. I cast another Mirror Image spell and wish that it was night outside so that I could try hiding in shadows or something.
[CRACK!]
Doug fires at one of my mirror images, but misses it. There is a single story white building across the street that if I could reach it, I could use it to block their line of sight on me. I decide to run northeast and to the far right corner of the building, while my other three images split up and head in completely different directions. Image One runs due north, towards the left side of the building. Image Two follows the street and runs west, while Image Three does the opposite and runs east on the street.
I make it to the corner of the building without getting shot again and now I discover another problem. People and lots of them are exiting the building and heading for their cars. I am surprised that they all look so casual. Didn’t they hear the gunfire from across the street? A few of the guys look at me curiously, but without alarm. I risk a glance behind me and I see Doug running back to the van screaming something. I can’t make it out what he is yelling, but he looks pissed.
With all these people here, I decide that now is a good time to try and go invisible. It’s only 1603 hours and while the sun is starting to go down, it is still very bright outside. Much too bright for sneaking and all it would take is for the CIA dudes to flash a badge and ask one of these folks which I went and they would be right after me. I am a little concerned though. I have never cast that spell before and it is a few levels above Whisper’s level, I mean my level, but I need it now. I concentrate on the invisible spell’s icon and the pattern it makes. I feel the magic inside of me and in the air around me as I reach for the magic and try to pull it in. The spell takes a lot more power than I expect.
“Hey, young lady. Are you okay?” A concerned looking older woman asks as she diverts her path to head in my direction.
I almost lose control, but I manage to pull it off. Well, I think I do because I feel the magic activate and the woman stops with a confused expression as she looks around like she lost something. Yeah, me. She lost me.
“Hey, John, did you see a girl over there?” She yells to a man not far from her.
“I dunno Mary. I thought I heard some shooting, but hard to tell from inside.” He says with a quick glance in my direction.
He’s looking right through me. Sweet! This invisibility spell rocks! I quickly walk my way through the small parking lot and hit the street that runs mostly north towards a bigger street.
I see the van turn onto the same street and slowly make its way past me. Doug is at the wheel with Michelle once again in the passenger seat. They are both looking every which way in an effort to spot me, but Michelle has Phil’s phone and is talking into it.
“Yes, Control. We are in pursuit now.”
“Terminate target.”
Michelle pauses for a second and I wonder if the van will roll out of my range before I hear her reply.
“Yes sir.”
That is totally not what I want to hear right now. “Abort mission”, “Return to base” or something else would be real nice right about now because then I could just run back and ask the nice lady for some help.
I don’t see John, but I do detect his CAC ID card. I guess that he is in the back seat. His shoulder has got to be killing him. I know that they are trying to kill me now, but I hope they take him to a hospital soon. Phil is also in there, but all I see is the back of his head. He is looking out the opposite side window for me.
Have I mentioned how cool this invisibility spell is?
Director Falk felt happy, mostly. As he expected, the Director’s inquiries within the Agency about Whisper were returning zero results. His department’s internal security procedures were rock solid. Sometimes the paranoia and compartmentalization culture of the CIA worked in your favor. He felt a minor bit of guilt for deceiving his boss, but better safe than sorry. National Security and the safety of his agents were more important than one young teenage girl.
“Sir, we have a problem.” Summers said as he once again, barged into his office unannounced. He had his hands free headset on his head and he looked a bit stressed.
“What?” Director Falk calmly said.
“The target escaped. Plus, we have two wounded. Whyte and Hoffman. Whyte took a round in his shoulder while Hoffman has a broken wrist and a minor leg wound. We also have some collateral damage with a private security guard taking a hit. Looks critical, but Michelle thinks she got a solid hit on the target just before they lost sight of her.” Summers said.
“Hmmm, can they pursue?” Director Falk asked after a moment of deliberation. He wanted to swear, but losing his cool in front of Summers would not be setting the right example.
“They might be able to, but Whyte definitely needs some medical attention. Should we scrub the op?” Summers asked.
Director Falk’s eyes narrowed with irritation.
“I mean, The Director is sniffing around. We could walk away from this and no one would know.” Summers hastily explained.
“No. Tell them to find her and terminate her. My sources tell me that the President is involved in this and we can’t risk the exposure. Both of our careers would be dead, maybe literally, if this op gets traced back to us.” Director Falk said.
I watch as the Doug makes a left turn onto Brambleton Ave. That tells me that I need to go in the opposite direction and head east; right over a short bridge. I guess that the bridge is why Doug turned left instead of right. If I wasn’t invisible, I would have been super easy to spot. I just begin to cross the bridge when I feel the spell beginning to fray. If this was GEO, my spell icon would be blinking red right now.
Oh crap! That is all I need. I’ve only had the spell running for 4 minutes. It should last longer. I risk a glance behind me and the van is still in range of me. They are driving very slowly as they try to spot me in the small park on the north side of the road. If my spell fades right now I will be totally exposed.
I still have Philip’s weapon in my hand and I am pretty sure that since I lack a place to hide it on me; I will stick out like a sore thumb. Nothing like seeing someone with a bloody shirt running around with a gun in their hand to draw attention to yourself and there is no way that am willing to even try sticking it down my pants like the idiots on TV do. I’m not an expert or anything, but there is nothing dumber than trying to look all gangster with a loaded gun stuck in your pants. Fortunately, there is a handy bit of water right below me. I lean over the side and casually drop the gun into the water below. I hear a nice little splash when it hits the water and sinks out of view. The water looks pretty deep here, so I doubt anyone will find it soon.
I look around to see if anyone noticed the gun appearing from nowhere and landing in the water. It doesn’t appear like anyone noticed, but I do spot a guy out for a jog and that gives me an idea for a disguise. As my invisibility spell begins to totally unravel, I try to call up my self illusion spell icon but that makes me lose control of the invisibility spell even faster. The spell drops and now I am totally exposed. My side still hurts from the wound and my shirt feels sticky, but I ignore the pain. It should be healed by now. What is my status?
~o~O~o~
Insert standard disclaimer here: The one that reminds everyone that this is a work of fiction. No one is real and any resemblance to someone who is real is purely coincidence, honest. This is also a Fan Fiction set in the Whateley Story Universe. No Canon characters were permanently harmed in the making of this story. I hope. :)
Note: Again, sorry for the extreme delay in this chapter. Nothing new to report here, just the summer + work + life is still making it hard to string the hours together for the "writing zone". Thanks for my beta readers for their feedback and patience. Thanks to my readers for their patience too! And last, but not least, djkauf for his magical editing.
Director Falk’s good mood was long gone and all he wanted to do right now was to pull out the bottle of scotch hidden in his desk drawer. The bottle was there for celebrations, but now he wanted it more for its “medicinal” purpose. He wasn’t sure if the scotch would be enough and he briefly considered pulling out his service revolver from its drawer. The CIA’s Internal Affairs was on the hunt, his own grapevine told him that the President was pissed, the FBI was on the case and even more alarming; his “contact” with the NSA was not answering his phone. Whatever she really was, this Whisper girl was looking like she could be his own career ending Waterloo.
The third call from the team that notified him that the target had escaped and that the team was now dealing with the local law enforcement put the cherry on top of his shit storm sundae. The only bright spot in the entire mess was the fact that Mirage was uninjured and able to keep the LEO’s from asking too many questions.
With all of the shit now flowing downhill, Mirage was his umbrella and the only person who might keep all of their careers intact. She knew enough to keep the team’s identities from getting out. The only special instruction he had to give was to instruct her to make it look like the escaped target was more violent and physically dangerous than she really was. Hell, she did shoot and injure two of his men. Maybe the target really was a psycho like that Circuit Breaker freak and she just had bad aim.
It worked. The now panic stricken local law enforcement had a started a massive manhunt for Whisper, but the city lacked a SWAT team that could handle a mutant rampage. He fully expected the FBI and the MCO to sweep in any minute now and take over for the overwhelmed police department. The target’s location was unknown, but a quick look at the map told him all he needed to know. She was a teenage girl and there was a large shopping mall less than a mile from where she escaped.
The girl was a loose end that might be able to identify his agents and that would lead Internal Affairs straight to his office. He toyed with the idea of calling the MCO, but they would be like a bull in the china shop and even more unpredictable. The MCO was probably already involved in the manhunt and calling his contact within the MCO would only increase his risk of detection. One, Internal Affairs would be all over the outgoing and incoming calls log; two, a call to the MCO right now would stand out like a sore thumb and three, there was no way he would even consider using his personal cell phone. No, he needed to have Whisper just disappear or even better, be killed while ‘resisting arrest’, but the only assets he had on hand that stood any chance causing that outcome were Mirage and Laskow.
**
Deputy Director Reilly and everyone else in the conference room could not believe what they were hearing. The good news was that Whisper had escaped from her kidnappers. The bad news was that she was also being accused of murdering two unidentified federal agents and an off-duty police officer during her escape. The FBI agents that arrived at the site of a crashed van found the van abandoned with the police officers on the scene reporting that they had just missed the Department of Paranormal Affairs (DPA) officers. Apparently, another team of agents had already arrived and departed with the “victims” of the “horrible mutant attack”.
That was how the local police officers had framed it and that is now how the local news stations were starting to report the event. Of course, the DPA knew nothing about it and had no agents missing or even in the same city. The fact that the so called DPA agents were still unidentified and unaccounted for confused and pissed him off to no end. Especially when the local police chief accepted an offer for assistance from the MCO even though he knew that the FBI was on the case. That bit of news got the President out of his meeting and he was not happy about that. He wanted the balls of whoever authorized this operation on the DOD and Whisper.
Nick felt fairly confident that it was either the CIA or the NSA who had “borrowed” Whisper, but so far the Directors of both of those agencies had failed to turn up any leads. The only consolation that Mr. Reilly felt right now was that he wasn’t the Director of the NSA. The White House’s security team reported an attempted breach of Whisper’s secured files and that breach was traced back to somewhere within the NSA.
He was very worried about Whisper, but there wasn’t anything that he could do until she took the risk and contacted him. They knew where she was last spotted and where she had escaped from. A FBI team already had the escape site completely englobed with agents. The off-duty police officer who was employed as the site’s security guard was in critical condition and in the process of being loaded onto a helicopter to be taken to the nearest trauma center. That accounted for the “murdered” police officer.
The discovery of an abandoned field surgical suite at the site sent chills down his spine. Someone had planned on performing medical examinations and possibly experiments on Whisper.
The map of the area showed that there were some good places for Whisper to hide in or be hidden in. There was a hospital and a few medical facilities within close proximity. There were also lots of coffee shops, restaurants, shops and other public places that she could hide out in. Both he and Mrs. Peters felt certain that the MacArthur Mall was the leading candidate and a couple of teams of FBI agents had already been dispatched to that location to try and find her.
It appeared that the MCO also agreed with that assessment since they had two drop ships loaded with their top of the line elite Mutant Assault Armor Troopers currently en-route for the same place. The MCO claimed that they weren’t going to deploy them unless the situation deemed the use of force to protect innocent civilians from a mutant rampage if necessary. The ships would just loiter in the area, just in case. Additionally, the MCO officer in charge claimed that they were just acting on behalf of the local authorities and as such, their assistance legally fell under their charter as framed by the treaty governing their existence.
Nick’s phone sat on the table, plugged into his charger and ready in case Whisper tried to call him. Mrs. Peter’s phone sat right next to his phone. Additionally, Dr. Edmundson made sure that Whisper’s mil-net access was wide open in case she somehow found a mil-net access point and tried to contact them that way.
Nick’s fury increased even more as they watched the two MCO drop ships take up station above the area at 60,000 feet to appease the commercial traffic controllers and the U.S. military. While he knew that it would cause both a political and physical disaster, he considered asking the President if they could order the Air Force to down the MCO drop ships.
If only Whisper would call.
**
I am scanning the emergency bands and the police are now officially freaking out. Apparently, Michelle was able to convince the cops that I am a violent and dangerous mutant. Oh yeah, and that she is with the DPA and not the CIA. I am beginning to regret my decision not to shoot her.
As soon as I enter the mall, I feel a sense of safety wash over me. I am no longer out in the open and on the street where anyone could just grab me. Also, there are lots of nooks and crannies in here that I can hide in until the troops can arrive. Well, if I can find a phone and get a hold of Mr. Reilly.
The part of the mall that I entered is pretty empty. I guess that I either got lucky and picked the less used entrance, or the mall isn’t that popular and my idea of blending into the crowds isn’t going to work.
Oh crap! Where are the cameras? Did they spot me entering the mall?
>Scanning IR Frequencies for Enemy Surveillance devices...
>Surveillance devices detected.
>Mapping evasion patterns....
As I continue down the hallway and toward the main thoroughfare, my HUD is overlaid with the camera positions with their current possible viewing arc highlighted in red. Yep, the camera at the entrance caught me entering the mall, but now that I know where they are and how to avoid them; I can plot a course to stay out of sight.
I pass a colorful children’s toy store and as I approach a set of escalators that go up, I run into a lot more people. That’s a relief. There is no way that the CIA people can get me out of this place without causing a scene. The majority of the shoppers here are professionally dressed women and teen girls around my age with a smattering of professionally dressed men and grubby boys. I can’t believe that I used to dress like that; grungy jeans and a simple t-shirt.
Wait a cotton picking minute!
What in the heck am I thinking? I really miss being able to dress all grubby and not have anyone say anything about it. And, why do I suddenly think that is “grubby”? That’s not grubby; that’s easy and comfortable. I think it is time to purge Amanda’s magazine from my memory. It must have started subliminally reprogramming my keen denim and t-shirt fashion sense, but maybe later; I don’t want to accidentally delete something important and there was that one article that I didn’t get to finish.
The one thing that they all have in common though, is the quality of their clothing. Even the cool grungy boys are wearing name brand expensive stuff. I guess this mall attracts the high income crowd. I feel a little under-dressed right now, but no one seems to be looking at me like I’m out of place. Maybe this mall has people in exercise clothes walking around it all the time like they do in the mall back home?
I spot a fresh faced security guard with a radio clipped to his shirt checking me out. Well, not me, but the tall blond runner babe in skin tight clothing. He looks appreciative and that tells me that I really need to change my disguise, fast.
I divert course toward the guard while avoiding a camera sweep. “Umm, sorry sir, but is there a restroom nearby?” I ask with a tentative smile to help distract him even more. It works. I easily pick out his radio’s frequency and I am delighted to discover that it is not encrypted. I figure that if the police or the CIA storm the place, the security guards will among the first to know. Of course, the CIA probably wouldn’t storm the place. They would just sneak a bunch of assassins and snipers in to shoot me. Regardless, I decide to add their frequency to my already very noisy police monitor.
He blushes and stammers. “Y-yes ma’am. Just down that way.” He regains his composure as he points down the main thoroughfare with all the shops on either side and above. “And the first left.”
“Thanks!” I say with a genuinely grateful smile as I turn to follow his directions. I am going to guess that he’s not a CIA assassin. I don’t look behind me, but until I lose myself in the crowd; I can feel his eyes on my illusionary spandex clad butt. My illusion is holding up very nicely and unlike my invisibility spell, I am not having any problems holding onto it. I think I could easily keep this going for an hour or more, but I also think that the blond runner babe will draw just a bit more attention than I need right now.
I catch myself looking up and into the rafters above me. I don’t spot any black clad snipers hiding out up there, but I guess they would be pretty bad assassins if I did. I am probably worrying about nothing. I find it a little hard to believe that they would have known that I would escape and that I would come to this mall, but they did manage to sneak into a top secret uber secure military base and get me out without anyone knowing.
I pass a cash machine on the way to the women’s restroom. No, I don’t accidentally go into the men’s this time, but I do debate trying my power against the cash machine. Having some cash might come in handy, but I don’t want to steal it. That is all I need right now; busted for robbing a cash machine in the mall.
As I enter my first public girl’s restroom, I spot a few other girls chatting away at the mirror and a couple of the stalls are open. I kind of expect the girls to scream and yell that I don’t belong here, but they don’t. They don’t even give me a second look. I find an empty stall and lock the door behind me. The restroom makes me a little nervous. If they come for me in here, then I will be trapped. Geez, I am really getting paranoid here.
I decide to use this opportunity to actually use the stall for its intended purpose while I consider my next move. The person in the stall next to me finishes up and I hear the girls leaving the restroom. No one currently in the restroom knows what I look like. I drop my illusion and check myself out. I mean, I check my wounds out, not, you know.
My wound is completely gone. Nothing there but smooth skin and flakes of dried blood. The blood on my shirt and jeans will definitely stand out here. Dr. Edmundson was pretty cautious about my blood. I need a way to clean myself up and remove or destroy all the blood on my clothing. Maybe my nanites can do something about that?
I focus my attention inward and concentrate on what I need to happen. Okay nanites, clean up the blood stuck to my skin and clothes, please?
>Affirmative.
I try to spot the nanites, but I can’t see them at all. However, I do feel a slight tingling sensation as they ooze out of my skin. They start working on the blood in my shirt and I notice the fabric getting more than just clean. The fabric is starting to fall apart where there is blood on it.
Wait! Stop! Don’t eat the fabric, umm, please.
>Affirmative.
The nanites alter their action and my shirt doesn’t disintegrate any further, but it is definitely trashed where the blood was staining it. My jeans fare a little better. They end up clean and just a little frayed where the nanites did too good a job cleaning. My panties are completely ruined though.
Crap.
There is no way that I can wear half eaten panties. Not that there was a lot of fabric to begin with, but now there isn’t even enough fabric left on the waistband to hold them on. I can’t just throw them in the trash or down the toilet. I guess it is time to go commando. It is going to sound weird to ask this, but...
Destroy my panties please?
>Affirmative.
I watch in amazement as my panties turn to dust and disappear right before my eyes. Now, I might need to hit up that cash machine so that I can buy another pair of underwear. I did pass a Victoria store on the way to the restroom. What am I thinking? What happened to me the last time I went into one of those stores? Hmm, maybe I should have asked the nanites to fix my panties instead?
>Alert: <Unidentified> encrypted military frequency traffic detected!
Unidentified? Who is it? Wait, that’s kind of dumb to ask, right?
I don’t receive a reply to that question and that relieves and concerns me at the same time. Okay, what are the police and mall folks saying? I pay attention to their traffic and decide that it is now time to get really worried. They are talking about the two MCO drop ships that hovering over the city. The police sound pretty excited about it, but they do grumble a little about how the MCO is invading their turf.
The police also mention the FBI and how they are investigating the shooting of the security guard who just happens to be an off duty police officer. Nothing like an “officer down” radio call to get the other police officers feeling testy and they do sound a little mad about that one. I didn’t shoot the dude, it was Doug, but due to the ‘testimony’ of the so-called DPA agents, they all think that I did it. That has to be Michelle’s fault. I really think that I should have shot her, just a little.
Crap! I need to call Mr. Reilly before it is too late. I stand up, flush the toilet and pull up my jeans. Ouch, without my panties, the jeans feel a little rough against my skin. I really should have tried asking the nanites to fix my panties. Going commando is not good, but at least I don’t need to worry about the dreaded VPLs now. Okay, that does it! First chance I get, I am deleting Amanda’s magazine from my memory.
Instead of worrying about that, I concentrate on a new disguise. I need to look like one of the regular shoppers here, rich and maybe even slightly spoiled. I immediately think of Chloe Angstrom. She is a senior and the most popular girl in my school. Her dad is loaded and she always has to have the latest fashions. She is nice though, not stuck up or clueless like that girl in the movie.
I concentrate on what she looked like the last time I saw her and pour my magic into the spell’s pattern. I feel the magic ripple over my body then settle down to nothing. I look down at myself and see that I now look exactly like her. I am wearing a dark blue silk-like top with a ¾ sleeve black bolo jacket that doesn’t really hide anything or provide warmth. I also appear to be wearing a pretty, I mean sparkly, diamond chain around my neck that plunges down to draw attention to my, I mean, her nicely sized boobs. I refuse to think of them as my boobs because well...I don’t know. It’s just not right, but I must admit that they do look rather nice. Much fuller and bigger than mine. Oh man, what am I thinking?
My skin is now perfectly tanned and I am wearing a tight black skirt that ends just above my knees. The skirt also has a six inch slit down the left side that exposes just enough thigh to concern me. The dress is further complemented with some opaque white nylons and three inch expensive looking black heels. No idea what brand they are, but they just look expensive to me. Oh yeah, and a nifty matching diamond ankle bracelet. I kind of forgot that she was wearing that until I looked down at my feet.
Confident that my illusion looks passably good, I step out of my stall and walk over to the mirror. Her, I mean, my hair appears to be medium length straight blonde with darker blonde streaks running through it or is it the other way around? Is my hair dark blonde with light blonde highlights? I don’t know, but it does look nice. I even got her makeup down and her blue eyes just “pop”. Well, they do look rather stunning to me. I think the blue top helps bring out my eye color more, or something. Or maybe it is the diamond earrings combined with her subtly dark smoky eye shadow?
As I reach down to wash my hands, I notice the dark red nail polish, silver pinky ring with a matching diamond tennis bracelet. Wow, she really goes all out. I can’t believe that I never really noticed that until now. I mean, I kind of admired her and every guy wanted to date her, but until now, I never noticed all the details that she used to make herself look so hot. I am almost tempted to pull my skirt down, or up to see what kind of panties she is wearing. If my imagination is working the same way it was last week, I bet I am now wearing a thong or something similar. I am not sure if this is such a good idea for a disguise. I am sure to attract a lot of attention.
The door opens and a pair of girls walks in. They are dressed pretty nice, but I am definitely outdoing them. They look a little upset with me as they walk past me, but then I hear them giggle at each other as they enter their stalls.
“She looks like a total bitch!” One of the girls whispers, thinking that I can’t hear her.
“I know, but did you see those Jimmy Choo’s she has on? So jealous!”
I can’t help smiling as I walk out of the restroom, but then, I notice that my heels aren’t making any noise and I don’t have a purse. Crap. That’s not going to work. I pause at the door and concentrate on altering my disguise. The magic takes a bit more effort this time, but I only altered things a little bit, so if anyone is watching; I doubt that they will notice.
I take a step out and my heels make a solid tapping sound on the floor. I don’t know much about women’s shoes, but I do know that cheap shoes make more noise and the sound is exactly how I remember Chloe’s real shoes making as she sauntered past me in the hallway at school. Also, I am now holding a small black fabric purse in my right hand. I think they call them clutch purses or something. Again, no idea of the brand, but it looks like Chloe’s purse.
I briefly glance at the cash machine again, but I decide against trying anything. They have cameras on them and the CIA has probably hacked into them like they do all the time on TV shows and movies. I would look mighty suspicious hiding my face from the camera while using the cash machine. Not that they would recognize me now, but what if they had some super secret face scanning thing that could detect my illusion? Okay, now I am definitely getting a touch too paranoid.
Kind of like commercials on TV, I have only been halfway paying attention to what the police are saying on their frequencies, but the gist of it is that there are MCO agents and Feds crawling over every nook and cranny within a five mile radius of my escape site. I really need to find a phone and call Mr. Reilly.
I know that pay phones are usually near the restrooms, but when I look around the restroom area, I don’t spot any. I don’t have money to use one, but I figure I can hack one of those pretty easy without attracting attention. Okay, cell phone store, where is one? I spot a map up ahead and begin to walk towards it.
Since I am really wearing tennis shoes, I quickly realize that my gait is a little off for someone who is supposed to be wearing heels. As I walk past the store windows, I glance at my reflection and I use that to work on my gait. I find that if I walk on my toes, my gait quickly appears more normal and it looks like I really am wearing heels.
According to the map, this mall has a store for each of the major carriers and they are all right next to each other. That would be nice, if they weren’t back where I entered the mall. I start walking that way. My illusionary heels make satisfying clicking sounds on the floor and I can’t help it; I keep stealing glances at myself in the shop windows and that makes me smile. Especially, when I catch a dude get hit by his girlfriend for looking at me. That provides a spring to my step and helps me get even more into character.
Yes, I am Chloe Angstrom. My dad, or daddy, as she would say, is the richest man in Santa Fe. My mommy was once the first runner up in the Miss New Mexico pageant and I am going to go to Princeton when I graduate from high school; thank you very much.
I enter the T-Mobile store just as a horde of mall security guys race past me. I wanted to go to the Verizon store, but T-Mobile was closer. I am immediately pounced on by one of the sales dudes.
“Hi, I’m Brandon. How may I help you today?” The smiling sales dude asks as he beats out his buddy to reach me first.
I glance around and spot a black and pink phone. Sadly, Brandon catches my gaze.
“Oh, that is the Sidekick 3 limited edition Diane von Furstenberg edition, just in case you’re interested.”
Inside, I am barfing, but I remember seeing Chloe’s phone. It was pink and bedazzled, very girlie. I am betting that she would like the Sidekick and even know who the phone is named after. “Oh. My. God! The Furstenberg edition! That’s so cool. I love her stuff.” I say, but I have no idea who she is.
>Searching...
>Diane von Furstenberg, formerly Diane, Princess of Fá¼rstenberg
>DOB: December 31, 1946.
>Bio: A Belgian-American fashion designer best known for her iconic wrap dress.
That’s kind of helpful, I guess. I don’t even want to know why I had that bit of data stuck inside my head. “Can I hold it?” I ask him, gushing over the phone.
He smiles at me with the patented “sucker” smile. “Sure, umm, Miss?” He asks, fishing for my name.
“Oh, sorry, Chloe” I say as I pick up the phone. It is tethered to the display with a retractable steel cable, but as soon as I touch it, the phone opens itself up for me and I know everything about it. From its 3G network protocol to its unique IMEI number and access code for the cell network. I think that I can clone it to make a call without actually having the phone. I debate pouring on more girl flirt charm, but I don’t want to sound like an airhead. I know that the real Chloe isn’t one, so I see no reason why I should act like one either. I just need to act a little more girlie than I normally would, somehow.
“Umm, this is nice, but it might be too big for my purse. Do you have anything smaller?” I ask while gesturing towards my little clutch purse.
Brandon smiles at me. “Yes, Chloe. We carry a very wide selection of phones here. I am positive that we can find one that you will like!” He reaches past me and lightly brushes up against me under the pretense of ‘pointing out’ a smaller flip phone that has a reddish purple color case and thus, girlie.
“Oh, sorry. I didn't mean to bump into you like that.” Brandon says apologetically.
I don’t believe him for a second, but I pretend to be flustered and let him get away with it while I wish that my heels were real so that I could grind them into his foot.
“Oh, that’s nice and it looks like it might be small enough. Can I hold it?” I ask as I turn towards the phone and give myself some extra breathing room at the same time. If Brandon gets any closer, I’m going to need to ‘accidentally’ knee him in the nuts.
He seems to get the hint as he steps back to give me more space.
“I like it.” I say as I copy its info. I really hope that my cloning idea will work.
I hold and clone a few more phones under the pretense of honestly appraising my interest in buying one. I even compliment one of them for having a slide out keyboard like the Sidekick while not being as bulky as the Sidekick. After I put the last phone down, I stop, cross my arms and adopt a thoughtful pose, as if to consider my options, but what I really do is try the last phone’s cloned information to see if I can make a call.
>Opening CMDA connection using IMIE 9283019238674...
>Connection Authorized...
>Enter Number:
Yes, Success!
I accidently smile, but at least I don’t jump up and down with excitement like I want too.
“So, did you like one better than another?” Brandon asks, hopeful that my smile means that I want to buy one of the phones he showed me.
I turn to face him and I adopt a slight pout. Nothing too over the top, but just enough to look and sound truly apologetic. “I’m sorry Brandon. I really liked that Sidekick, but it was just too big and I liked this one.” I say, pointing to the one I just tested my cloning theory with. “But, my contract isn’t due for a few more months and I just can’t handle the fees. Well, I mean, I can, but my Daddy would kill me if I got a new phone before then.”
Now, if I was still a guy, I am sure that if Brandon had even bothered to ‘help’ me, he would be a little pissed and try to push me into making a purchase. Also, blaming ‘Daddy’ for my lack of purchasing power would warrant me a cold shoulder and a ‘Dude, you are such a wuss!’ mental telepathy expression. So, I am a little nervous that he is going to make a big deal out of it. Here it comes.
Brandon smiles at me. “Oh, I’m sorry, Chloe, but waiting is probably better anyway. We have a few phones coming out that I am sure you will love even more.”
“Really? You’re not mad at me?” I ask, totally surprised by how effective my accidental feminine wiles are working right now. Maybe it is my glamour too?
He laughs. “Oh, no. Not at all Chloe! I’m just happy that I was able to help and maybe you will be back later to buy one, hopefully from me.” He says.
“Oh, yeah. That would be nice.” I accidently giggle, then blush from embarrassment at having giggled.
Brandon pats his pockets for something and I wonder what he is looking for. He stops and surprises me by blushing a little when he notices me watching him with confused expression. He recovers his composure and smiles at me. He has a nice smile.
“Sorry, I thought I had some cards on me. Lemme get a new one from the counter. I’ll be right back.” He says apologetically and heads for the sales counter.
Wait! Hold the phone! What did I just think?
Did I just think that he had a nice smile? What is up with that? I have the police, MCO, CIA, FBI and probably a few other three letter agencies trying to kill me right now. Not only do I not want to think about it, but I don’t have time for this kind of confusion right now! Brandon distracts me from my thoughts by handing me his card. I glance at it and notice that he scribbled in his personal number.
“If you have any more questions about our phones, feel free to call me, anytime.” He says smiling at me and loud enough for his manager to hear him not trying to pick me up.
I can’t help it. Even after I just berate myself for thinking about what I think that I thought about him, I find myself returning his smile. His line was so smooth. “Umm, thanks Brandon. You have been so nice to me.” I say as I hold his card in my hand. I know that I should put it in my purse, but I am pretty sure that my illusionary purse wouldn’t really hold the card and someone might notice it falling out of or through it.
I wave at him and once again, I catch myself giving him a little smile and I pay even more attention to my walk as I exit the store. What is wrong with me? I need to get out of here and call Mr. Reilly!
What if his phone is bugged? The CIA will be able to trace me and then all the cops, MCO, FBI and who know who else will be able to shoot me. I really don’t want to get shot again. It friggen hurts! I need to talk to someone whose phone isn’t bugged. My mom’s phone is out for the same reason as Mr. Reilly and anyone else in the test facility. Mrs. Townsend and Amanda are out too. Crap! Do I know anyone else in the area?
>Searching...
>Lord Vincint 804-999-1111 matches’ local area code and prefix.
>Searching Caller ID network database...
>Match found for customer James Stiles
Oh, wow. I didn’t know that he lived here and I also didn’t realize that I could use the cell network that way to find his real name. I quickly make the decision to call Lord Vincint instead of Mr. Reilly. I need to find someplace that I can sit down to make a call and rest my feet at the same time. All this fake high heel walking is killing my feet.
I spot a bench nearby and make a beeline for it. I can’t remember my feet ever feeling so happy for me to sit down. I catch myself rubbing my calf muscle like I have seen girls do sometimes and now I totally understand why.
I need to call Lord Vincint, but I am pretty sure that a girl sitting on a bench and appearing to be doing nothing would look a little strange. I need something to make it look like I am busy doing something. I need a prop. I know that Chloe carries her cell phone in her purse, but I don’t know if I have an illusionary phone in my purse or not. I take a quick peek inside my purse and wonder of all wonders, there is an illusionary copy of Chloe’s pink, gem encrusted cell phone in my purse.
Okay, next order of business. Can I take it out of the purse and hold it to make it look like I am using a real phone? I need it to look like I am texting someone, not talking, because I don’t want anyone to overhear what I will have to say to convince Lord Vincint to help me, if he even can. I reach into my purse and somehow extract the illusion of a phone from the illusion of a purse. I feel pretty happy about that, but I manage keep myself from shouting out with joy as I flip open the fake phone and pretend to text while I dial Lord Vincint’s phone number in my head.
I feel extra nervous about cold calling him like this. What if he doesn’t want to help me? What if he can’t help me? What if he’s not anywhere close to the mall and I get captured before he can get here? What if he just pretends that he will help, but calls the police on me instead? Crap, why didn’t I think about that before I dialed his number?
“Hello?” A man’s voice asks.
“Hi, I’m really really sorry to bug you, but is this Lord Vincint?” I ask inside my head so that no one can hear me address my uncle as ‘Lord Vincint’, because that would be real weird.
The line stays silent for a second and I start to worry. “Who is this?” He asks.
“Umm, I know it sounds super paranoid and everything, but I can’t tell you and when you figure it out, please don’t say it, okay?” I ask, feeling and sounding a little more desperate than I intended, but I am operating under the assumption that the CIA is using that mythical Echelon system to scan everyone’s phone calls and find me using my name.
“This had better not be a prank and why shouldn’t I just hang up?” He asks.
“It’s not a prank! You have to believe me, but last week, you told Brenda, I mean Kalisa, to call you if we needed more help with my, umm, GEO problem.” I finish with a rush to get it out before he hangs up on me. Now I hope that ‘GEO’ isn’t on their key word list.
“Okay...but if you are who I think that you might be claiming to be, why do you sound like a girl?” He asks.
He sounds a bit less testy and maybe even slightly friendly, but why did he have to bring that little detail up? I mean, I know that he knew that I was really a guy who was playing a female character, but he never treated me any different in GEO for doing that. There are lots of guys who do that in other games, but now that I think about it; I don’t think that there are as many in GEO. Hmmm, I wonder why.
I sigh.“I was, but that’s kind of a long story. Right now, I kinda need your help, but I’m not sure if you can or even if you will.”
“Okay, go on.” He says.
“Umm, I kind of got kidnapped by that three letter agency that starts with the letter ‘C’. Well, I think that is who they were, but because of that, I don’t think that I can call the people that could help me right now. I’m not sure if I can trust them to not be bugged or something.”
He doesn’t hang up, but he doesn’t say anything either.
“So, umm, you wouldn’t happen to be anywhere near the MacArthur Mall right now, would you?” I ask.
“Yyesss? I am just down the street at the city courthouse and the trial I was working on just got postponed. I heard that they are looking for, umm, someone with your name, but I didn’t think anything of it. I doubt that I could just drive up and pick you up without someone noticing. There are a LOT of officers out there looking for you right now.” He says.
It sounds like he’s going to say no, but it doesn’t sound like he is going to tell the police where I am at. At least, not this second.
>Alert!
>Enemy radio signatures detected!
>Signatures match CIA agents Michelle Parks and Douglas Laskow.
Crap! I make a show of rubbing my left calf as I slowly glance around to try and spot them without making it look like I am looking for them. I don’t see them, but as I turn my head, my HUD displays red target brackets around a harmless looking middle aged man and middle aged woman walking together. The woman appears a little tired and distracted while the man looks very alert as he guides her around by holding her hand like a real couple would. There can only be one reason for them to be here. They have got to be here to kill me.
“Hello? Are you there?” Lord Vincint asks.
I watch as Doug’s gaze passes right over me, but he doesn’t appear to recognize me at all and with Michelle’s fixed stare, she isn’t even trying to find me. It appears that my disguise has fooled them just like everyone else, but if they are here, then I don’t have much time. I need to get out of here.
“Please! Can you please help me? I could try walking, but they would be looking for that, I think. I didn’t really do the things they are saying that I did. They shot the cop when they shot me! Honest!” I say, practically begging him with my voice as I furiously pretend to text away on my fake phone to cover for the expression that I am sure is on my face.
“You’ve been shot?” He asks with what sounds like real concern to me.
“Yes, but I seem to be a quick healer.” I say.
“Okay, I can there in a few minutes.” He says after a few seconds of silence.
I sigh with relief. “Really?” I ask trying to not get my hopes too high.
“Yes. Where will you be waiting?” He asks.
“Umm, I dunno? Where is a good place to wait for you?”
“Hmm, how about the first floor in the parking ramp, near the doors? There are some benches and people sometimes sit there while they wait for rides.” He says.
I pull up the mall map and plot my course. I am pretty close to the parking garage, so it shouldn’t be a problem. “Okay, that looks good.” I pause and feel a little embarrassed by the need to ask him. “Umm, what is your real name?”
He laughs. “Jim, Jim Stiles.”
“Ahh, okay, umm, Uncle Jim. I’m Chloe, umm, Chloe Stiles, your niece for this quest.”
He laughs at my GEO’ism.
“Sure, Chloe. I will be there in about five to ten minutes, depending on traffic.” He says as I hear the chiming of keys being inserted into a car’s ignition.
“Yes!” I accidentally say out loud as I jump up and laugh with relief, then as I notice a few people smiling at me, I blush and sit back down, abashed at being noticed. I make a show of closing up my fake phone and putting it back in my purse. “Great! Thanks umm, Uncle Jim! See you when you get here!” I say, then, I hang up the phone.
As I stand back up and turn to my right to head towards the parking garage, my HUD flashes an alert as it puts some red target brackets around two men wearing black suits that are walking alertly right down the middle of the hall. They have those little radios in their ears and they are encrypted too, but their frequencies don’t match the CIA’s or the FBI’s. They match that unidentified frequency I spotted early, which means that they are most likely from the MCO. They are visually scanning everyone in the crowd and my pause attracts their attention. They divert course for me.
Crap, crap, crap!
“Excuse us miss?” MCO dude one politely asks.
“Umm, yes?” I ask, looking at both of them nervously as one of the dudes reach into his suit coat for something. I hope it’s not a gun or some stun ray thing. That thought, plus their size, black suits and close proximity scares the hell out of me, but it also helps me at the same time. They inadvertently help me when I am able to listen in on their radios.
[Be advised, the Feds are in the area and making a nuisance of themselves. The U.S. Government is already attempting to cover this up so don’t be surprised if they try to hassle you. Just remind them of the MCO’s charter.]
They both pause for that announcement, and then smile at me in an attempt to put me at ease. It fails. “Sorry miss.” MCO dude two says without really sounding sorry at all. “But, there is a dangerous mutant on the loose in this area and your cooperation would be appreciated.”
MCO dude one pulls a picture of me out of his jacket pocket and shows it to me. “Have you seen this person?”
I breathe a sigh of relief. Phew! I thought for sure that they were going to pull out a gun or something. Okay, what would the real Chloe say? I don’t think that she would be an airhead about it. She would probably be a little pissed at them for scaring her like that and with that in mind. Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!
“Thanks a lot.” I say sarcastically. “You just scared me with that Men in Black act. Who are you?” I cross my arms and do my best to glare impatiently at them for interrupting my valuable shopping time.
They briefly glance at each other with that ‘look’. I’m not sure if it is the look that says “She knows something.” or if it is the look that says, “We are the MCO, why isn’t she afraid of us?” I use that time to study my picture while I pretend to not even notice it. They really didn’t get a good picture of me, but I can’t blame them. I was actively working against them last night. Hehe.
“Sorry miss. I am Agent Martinez and this is Agent Dohls, we are from the MCO.” He doesn’t really sound that sorry. “We just need to ask you a few questions, okay?” He asks without really asking. It is more like an order and that irritates me even more.
I have never had to deal with the MCO before, but I hate bullies and these two are pushing all my buttons. I roll my eyes at them like Lindsay did to me, far too many times. I think I do a pretty good job too. “Why don’t you go ask someone else?” I ask impatiently.
That makes him a little mad at me. “Look young lady, this mutant is a suspect in the shooting death of a police officer and two DPA agents. She is to be considered armed and extremely dangerous. Have you seen her or not? That’s all we need to know.”
I put on my best ‘oh well, whatever’ face and give my picture a quick glance. “Don’t you have a better picture of her?” I ask just to be mean.
“Sorry miss; this is the best that we have.” Agent Martinez shrugs his shoulders. “She is extremely dangerous.” He says
I can’t believe it. I am ‘extremely dangerous’? Really?
“Nope. Haven’t seen her.” I say dismissively as I open my purse and pretend to try to pull out my cell phone so that I can check the time. I answered their question. They are done with me now, right?
“Miss!” Agent Dohls barks at me with frustration.
I do a little happy dance inside my head while on the outside I move half of a step back with shock that he would address the Chloe Angstrom in such a rude manner. “What?” I ask with a touch of impatience.
“Are you sure that you haven’t seen her? It’s very important that we find her before she kills more innocent people.” Agent Dohls says, laying it on thick there.
“I already said, no. Can I go now? My Uncle, he’s a lawyer by the way, is coming to give me a ride and I really don’t want to keep him waiting.” I say as I tap my foot impatiently and glance down at my cell phone.
Agent Dohls looks like he wants to hit me or something. Did I push him too far? Agent Martinez notices his partners impending blow up and decides hold his hand against his ear to make it look like he’s listening in on his radio. “Wait.” He nods his head like he just heard something. “Dohls, sounds like the mall security is reporting a possible match in the food court.”
Agent Dohls looks back at me with an expression that is not at all professional. “Thanks for your help miss. Have a nice day.” He says, with thinly disguised contempt for my Chloe’ness as Agent Martinez slides my picture back into his jacket. They both rush past me, eager to escape from Chloe’s wrath.
“God damn f’ing spoiled rich bitch. I f’ing hate coming to this mall!” I hear Agent Dohls mutter to Agent Martinez.
Phew! I definitely pushed my luck there. I probably shouldn’t have goaded them so much, but they pissed me off. My moment of triumph is suppressed by the alert looking pair of M-16 toting police officers with a huge German Shepherd K-9 dog 20 meters ahead of me and in the direction that I need to go to get to the parking garage to meet Lord Vincint. I mean, Uncle Jim.
Unfortunately for me, it looks like they noticed me speaking with the MCO MIBs, because they just smile at me as we stroll approach each other. I decide to not pull a Chloe and draw more attention to myself by gushing over the dog, even though it is absolutely gorgeous and I really want to pet it. I can’t believe that I just thought that. I think that my method acting is going just a little too well right now.
Oh crap! I took care of the blood, but what if that dog is a bomb sniffing dog. I did fire a gun. Will he be able to smell the gunpowder on my hands? I washed my hands, but do I have any gunpowder on my hands or where I got shot?
>Analyzing chemical content...
>Powder residue detected on right hand.
>Amount approximately 11.23 parts per million.
Is that enough for the dog to smell it?
>Unknown.
Can my nanites clean the gunpowder like they did for my blood?
>Affirmative.
Okay, do that, please, and don’t destroy anything else!
>Affirmative.
>In progress...
The dog perks up as I get closer, but I feel a slight tickling sensation on my hand, then after less than a second, it goes away.
>Complete.
The officers notice the dog’s reaction, but then the dog loses interest in me and looks away. That initial reaction is enough to get me a second look by the police officers.
“Excuse me, Ma’am?” The officer holding the dog’s leash asks.
Crap.
I stop, turn back around and even though my nanites cleaned the gunpowder residue off my hands; I am still a little worried that their dog will be able to smell something funny. With that in mind, I place both of my hands behind my back and smile at them. “Yes?” I ask as innocently as possible as I glance down toward the dog.
I didn’t realize it until I looked down, but having my hands behind my back pushes my shoulders out a bit more and exposes more of my, I mean of Chloe’s cleavage. How embarrassing. He did address me as a “Ma’am”. That is still a little weird to hear, but it is better than “Miss”, more respectful sounding.
“Sorry to bother you ma’am, but I’m Officer Feit from the Norfolk PD and this is my partner, Officer Morken. Do you mind if we ask you what those MCO agents asked you about?” Officer Feit asks as they both approach me and his dog gives me a few sniffs. Officer Feit is dividing his attention between me and to what his dog is doing. Crap. His dog is probably going to smell something on me that will give me away.
I can’t worry about that right now though. I just need to continue bluffing my way out of this mall. What is it about malls and me now? I never had a problem with malls. Instead of freaking out like I want to, I giggle and shyly look back toward the direction the MCO jerks walked away before I turn back to answer Officer Feit. “Oh, they just had some picture of that mutant girl that you all are hunting for that they wanted me to look at. I thought she was pretty, but she really needed to do something about her hairstyle. It was very out of date.”
They both look at each other with a calculating and irritated expression. “A picture huh? Can you describe what she looked like?”
Hmm, it looks like the MCO isn’t sharing with the local police. Shame on them!
“Huh? Oh! Sure, sorry. Don’t you all have pictures of her too?” I ask with the sole purpose of twisting the dagger a little deeper.
The dog stops sniffing me and happily sits down right in front of me. He just looks up at me with a doggy smile and wags his tail a little as I describe myself to them. It feels so weird to be ratting myself out like that.
“That’s strange...” Officer Feit says as he looks down at his dog.
Oh crap! The dog has ratted, ummm, doggied me out. “What?” I ask trying not to freak out.
“Ringo. He’s normally not so friendly with strangers. I guess he just likes you.” Officer Feit says with a bemused grin.
I don’t have to fake a thing with how relieved I am. “Oh my god! You scared me there. I thought you were going to say that the dangerous mutant; what is her name anyway? Was right behind me or something!”
They both chuckle at my expense and air headedness. “Whisper. The suspect’s name is Whisper.” Officer Feit says.
“Whisper? Really? Hmm, that’s a strange name. I wonder what it means? Is she just really quiet or can she not talk? Oh, do you think that Ringo will let me pet him?” I say while cringing a little inside. I think that I just sounded a little bit like an airhead right then and that is not what I want to sound like right now. I am Chloe Angstrom and she is not an airhead. Geez, being Chloe is really hard work.
They don’t bother answering my Whisper questions, but they do laugh at me. “Oh, sure. I think Ringo would like that. Won’t ya boy?” Officer Feit says to both me and then Ringo.
Ringo looks up at his master and thumps his tail on the floor a little harder. I take that as the signal that it is okay for me to pet him. Ringo surprises me and Officer Feit by rolling over so that I can scratch his belly. I think that I am officially attracting too much attention now.
My cloned phone begins to ring inside my head. It’s Lord Vincint, I mean Uncle Jim. Hmm, I stop petting Ringo and look at my illusionary purse. I need to answer the phone and that would give me the perfect excuse to stop petting Ringo and leave.
“Sorry Ringo, I gotta go. My Uncle Jim is calling. I think he’s waiting for me.” I say as I stand up, reach into the purse, pull out the phone and pretend to answer it.
“Hello, Uncle Jim?”
“Hey, umm, Chloe. I’m just pulling into the lot now. Where are you?” Lord Vincint asks.
“Oh! Already? I’m sorry Uncle Jim. I was on my way, but I ended up talking to some nice policemen and petting Ringo.” I say, giving Officer Feit and Officer Morken an apologetic smile.
“Wait? Did you just say, ‘Ringo’? The K-9 dog?” Lord Vincint asks with disbelief.
I curiously glance down at the sad looking Ringo. “Umm, yes?”
“And Officer Feit?”
“Yes, why?” I ask feeling a little bit of worry starting to creep in. Why does he know Officer Feit and Ringo? Officer Feit and Officer Morken are now looking at me with renewed interest.
“I just had them both in court for a drug bust. I was the prosecuting lawyer for the city on that case.” Lord Vincint says.
This just got a lot more complicated. “Uncle Jim! I didn’t know that you knew Officer Feit and Ringo! That is so cool!” I say feeling amazed at how small the world really is and how easily all my plans can come crashing down right now.
Officer Morken and Feit both look at each other and mouth, “Uncle Jim?” before they have a light bulb moment. “Stiles? You’re Jim Stiles’ niece?” Officer Morken asks, incredulously.
Who knew?
I hold up my hands and giggle. “Guilty as charged. Sorry, I didn’t know that you all knew each other.” I say.
“Here, we will escort you. We wouldn’t want that Whisper suspect to hurt the niece of Mr. Stiles.” Officer Morken says.
‘Uncle Jim’ starts laughing inside my head. “It really is you...I still can’t believe it.”
“No, really, you don’t two don’t have to. The parking lot is just a little bit that way. I’m sure that I will be fine.” I say in an attempt to convince them to not escort me because that is all I need right now.
I fail. They attach themselves to my side and guide me towards the parking ramp with Ringo happily leading the way.
“Okay Uncle Jim, be right there!” I say as I fake hanging up my illusionary cell phone and put it back into my illusionary purse. I resist the urge to start singing, “is this a real life...”
They escort me all the way and boy do I attract a lot of attention. Subtle about my exit, I am not, but no one bothers me and even better, no CIA snipers try to kill me either. I get an extra bonus from the escort when Officer Feit points out ‘Uncle Jim’ for me, which is good because I had no idea what kind of car he drove or even what he looked like.
Oh wow. ‘Uncle Jim’ is driving a nice light blue BMW 550i with what looks like a leather interior. Sweet! I wonder if I can talk him into letting me drive it? Okay, probably not going to happen. I don’t even have my license or my permit. I was going to get my permit next week, but I guess that's not going to happen now.
‘Uncle Jim’ surprises me when he gets out of his car, walks around and gallantly opens the passenger side door for me. I take that as my cue to I rush over to him, give him a hug and be Chloe a little bit more.
“Uncle Jim! I am so so so glad that you could come pick me! It was horrible in there! I couldn’t find anything to buy and then, my daddy couldn’t come get me because he had just got back to his office when I tried to call him.”
If I was really a girl, I’d rate Uncle Jim as handsome. I mean, I really am a girl, but well, oh, I give up. He has a full head of dark hair with some touches of grey mixed in there. Just enough to make him look distinguished, but not enough to make him look old. He looks like he is in his mid-thirties and he keeps himself in shape. He looks exactly like I expected him to look like. He looks like his GEO character and he looks pretty good in his suit. Yes, I said it. CIA sniper, kill me now please.
“Oh, it’s okay dear. I’m just glad I could lend my favorite niece a hand and I am glad that Office Feit and Officer Morken were able to help you get out of there safely.” Uncle Jim says with a grateful smile for the two officers.
“Oh, it’s okay sir. I kind of doubt that the suspect is in there anyway, but we gotta check it out, just in case.” Officer Feit says with a grin.
“Well, thanks, but we need to get moving if we are going to get home anytime soon with all the traffic.” Uncle Jim says as he motions for me to get into the front seat.
Happy to finally be leaving, I smile and wave at the Officers. “Bye Ringo! Bye Officer Feit and Officer Morken! Thanks for everything!” I say as I slide myself into the seat, butt first, and then turn to get both my legs in. Just like I would if I was really wearing a dress. Well, I think that is how it works. I’ve never had to do that, but I’ve seen Mom and Lindsay do that move often enough. I just never really paid that much attention to it, but now I kind of need to for my disguise.
Uncle Jim closes the door and I strap myself in as he says a quick goodbye to the two officers before he joins me in the car. He sighs as he buckles himself in.
Ut oh, that was one of those, “Frustrated and I don’t know what I am going to do with you.” sighs or now that I know he’s a lawyer, it could be one of those, “I could get into so much trouble for this.” sighs. Maybe it’s both.
I know that it’s probably the wrong time to think this, but the car is really nice inside. I’ve never been inside of a BMW and this one has all the bells and whistles. It even has butt warmers. I hit the button to turn my seat on and before we even get out of the parking garage my butt is feeling nice and toasty. I could really get used to a car like this and I feel myself start to relax for the first time since this crazy adventure began.
Uncle Jim doesn’t say a thing until we make it to the highway. “So, Chloe? That’s not your real name, is it?”
“No, it’s Brianna or Brianna Nichole Peters to be more exact.” I softly say. I’m not sure what I am feeling right now. It’s complicated. I’m relaxed and I feel safe, but at the same time, I’m worried about everything. I’m worried about ‘Uncle Jim’ for rescuing me. I’m worried about my mom and what she must be thinking right now. I’m worried about the security guard that Doug shot. I hope that he’s okay. I’m worried that the MCO or the CIA will somehow find me.
“Okaayy, but I thought you were really a boy and you don’t look anything like I expected you to look like.” Uncle Jim says with a quick sideways glance in my direction before he returns his eyes to the road.
I can’t help it, I giggle at that. “I’m not exactly what I look like right now either and I was a boy until the accident, but you look exactly like I expected you to look like.” I say, feeling a little frustrated.
“Okay, so what happened?” He asks with a raised eyebrow.
“It’s kind of a long story and I’m not sure if it is a good idea to get you more involved. It’s kind of Top Secret stuff. It’s kind of one of those, I could tell ya, but then I’d have to kill you type things.” I say.
“Well, we have the time.” He points to the bumper to bumper traffic. “And, I’m already pretty deeply involved. I could get into a lot of trouble and maybe even end up in jail for helping you.”
I look at him and try to figure out what I should tell him.
“And, I have put a lot of criminals in jail. I really wouldn’t wanna go there as a ‘guest’.” He says with a grin.
“You could just turn me in.” I say quietly.
He pretends to give that idea some thought. “Yes, yes I could, but then, I wouldn’t find out what really happened.”
I have to laugh at that. “Fine, I’ll tell you, but don’t say that I didn’t warn you.”
He nods his acceptance as I settle into the warm and comfy leather seat. “Well, it all started with a field trip to one of DARPA’s Nanotech research labs in Los Alamos...”
I manage to tell the entire story in slightly more than 30 minutes and I manage to only cry once during the whole story. Okay, it was 31.83 minutes. Happy? I blame the crying bit for the delay and I didn’t really cry. It was more like a sniffle or two.
We still are in traffic, but it looks like things are starting to open up. “Are we there yet?” I ask with my Chloe impression, but I guess it could be my impression too because I really am wondering if we are ‘there’ yet.
“Almost.” He says with a smirk.
“Umm, I probably should have asked this sooner, but where are we going?” I ask.
“To my house. Speaking of that, I should probably call my wife and let her know that we will have a guest tonight. You are staying the night, right?” He asks.
“Umm, I hadn’t really made any plans. I was just looking to get away from the mall and I wish I could call Mr. Reilly, but with the CIA and everything; his phone is probably tapped.” I say.
“Well, you still can. His phone might not be tapped and even if it is, how are they going to trace you anyway? From what you just told me, it sounds like your phone isn’t really a phone and it would be pretty hard to track. Unlike the drug dealers we get the cell companies to help us trace all the time via their active cell phones. You would think that they would know to turn them off from time to time.” He says with a chuckle.
“Oh.” That’s all I can say, because when I stop to think about it, how can they? My ‘phone’ is not even registered to me and I’m in a moving car and at the most, all they will get is a blip of my current location. I just need to make the call short, and then delete that number from my system. With that thought, I dial his number and activate Uncle Jim’s Bluetooth so that he can listen in on the call too. He’s a bit surprised with he hears the phone ring over his car’s system without him doing anything.
Mr. Reilly’s phone rings only once before he answers it. “Deputy Director Nicholas Reilly speaking.”
“Hi Mr. Reilly, it’s me. I don’t have a lot of time, but I am safe.”
“Oh my god! Is she okay?!” I hear my mom yell over the phone.
“Go ahead.” Mr. Reilly says.
“It was the CIA, I think. Their CAC ID cards are as follows:” I recite all the information from Michelle’s, Doug’s, Philip’s and John’s card. “Would their pictures help? I can text them to you.”
“Yes, that would be good.” Mr. Reilly says.
“If you can find a secure phone, I am going to Uncle Vincint’s house for dinner tonight.” I say just before I hang up. Next, I find a good picture of each of them and send them to Mr. Reilly’s number. As soon as I receive confirmation that they were all received, I delete the cloned Sidekick’s information from my mind. That leaves me with three more cloned phones from the store that I can try, if I need to.
I look over at Uncle Jim. “Am I being too paranoid?”
“I know that you told me, but I just watched you effortlessly hack my car’s Bluetooth. I’m not sure if you are not being paranoid enough.” He says with a nervous laugh.
“Ya know, that’s not very reassuring. You’re supposed to be that crazy Uncle who knows everything kind of Uncle.” I say.
He copies my tone. “Ya know, I’m not really your Uncle.”
That statement of fact really brings home the fact that I am not home and he’s not really my Uncle. I start to feel the darn tears well up in my eyes and out they come, again. Darn it! Why does being a girl make it so bloody easy to start crying?
“Oh, hey. Bree, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make cry. I don’t mind pretending to be your Uncle.” Jim says.
That makes me cry a little harder, if that is even possible. Not only that, but my lack of emotional control makes me start to lose control over my illusionary disguise. I don’t notice it until my purse disappears, followed by my tennis shoes appearing on my feet.
Crap!
That’s all I need right now. With my luck, I will lose control just as some cop or nosy driver passes us.
“I’m losing control of my illusion and I need to recast it before someone sees me!” I say looking around to see if anyone else on the road has noticed me.
“Umm, Bree. It’s dark out. I don’t think that you need to worry about it.” He says, pointing out the obvious.
Well, obvious to him. It still looks almost like daylight to me. I blink my eyes as I shift my vision into normal human range and boy what a difference that makes. It really is dark outside. “Oh, okay. I guess that I can just maintain my hair and no one will notice.” I say as I regain total control by letting everything except for Chloe’s blond hair fade away.
“What happened to your shirt?” Uncle Jim asks.
Yes, I decide to just keep thinking of him as my uncle. It’s just easier that way. “Umm, I told you. I got shot and then my nanites ate the parts that had blood on it.”
“Oh yeah, just didn’t really seem real until I saw it. Oh crap!” He says.
I look around trying to spot the cop or MCO car that must be trying to pull us over. I don’t see anything, but it is dark outside. I switch back to my normal elf vision and I still don’t spot anything. “What?” I ask.
“I forgot to call Julie and we are almost home now.” He says as he starts digging for his phone.
“Car, Call Julie.” I say while using his Bluetooth connection to dial the person listed as ‘Julie Stiles’ on his phone’s contacts list.
He just sighs and shakes his head. The phone stops ringing and a woman’s voice comes over his car’s speakers. “Hi, Honey. Are you almost home?” She asks.
“Umm.” He says with a quick glance at me.
“Is something wrong? Are you running late?” She asks.
“No, not exactly. I’m almost home and I meant to call you sooner, but we will be having a guest tonight for dinner and maybe to spend the night.” Uncle Jim says apologetically.
His mention of dinner reminds me that I haven’t eaten since lunch and I have burned a ton of energy. I am officially very hungry and my stomach growls, very audibly, much to my embarrassment.
“Oh, that’s okay. Who is he?” Julie asks.
“She, it’s kind of a long story and she is in the car with me.” He says in an effort to stay out of trouble.
“She is?” Julie says, her voice meter in the solid yellows.
I look over at Uncle Jim and try to give him a warning. “Yes, she’s a vegetarian though; will that cause a problem with dinner?” Uncle Jim asks, seemingly oblivious to his impending doom.
“No, not at all dear.” She says, her voice all bright and sunny, but the meter is in the red zone now. “I can’t wait to hear this story...”
Uncle Jim sighs. “I know, Julie, and I’m sorry to spring this on you like this, but it isn’t what you might think.”
She doesn’t say anything for what seems like five minutes, but it’s really just 3.492 seconds. “Okay, just get home and be safe, will ya?” Julie says. Her voice meter is back in the upper green to lower yellow zone now.
Phew! Crisis averted. I think.
“I will, thanks and I’m just turning onto Lexington, so, we are about 10 minutes away.”
“Okay, love ya.” Julie says.
“Love you too dear, see ya soon.” Uncle Jim says. Julie, umm, Aunt Julie hangs up the phone on her end and the line goes dead. I don’t have to do anything as his car’s system automatically hangs up his phone for him.
“That was close. Good job with the aggro control there.” I say.
He laughs. “Yeah, maybe I should have let you sneak in and soften her up a bit before I launched my attack?”
I can’t help it. I start giggling.
He sneaks a few glances over at me as I bring my laughter under control. “You know what?”
“No, what?” I ask, feeling self-conscious over what looks suspiciously like an affectionate expression on his face.
“It’s nice to see you laugh like that and you know that your ‘Aunt Julie’ is a pediatrician, right?” He asks with a mischievous looking grin.
“Umm, not until just now, why?” I ask while wondering where he is going with this line of questioning.
“Well, I know that she was a little upset there on the phone, but I predict that she is going to take one look at you and totally fall in love with her new ‘niece’. Maybe even try to talk you into going with her to the mall to find some replacement clothes for you tonight after dinner.” He says as his previously mischievous grin turns into something more ominous.
That wipes the happy smile off my face. “What?”
~o~O~o~
Insert standard disclaimer here: The one that reminds everyone that this is a work of fiction. No one is real and any resemblance to someone who is real is purely coincidence, honest. This is also a Fan Fiction set in the Whateley Story Universe. No Canon characters were permanently harmed in the making of this story. I hope. :)
Note: Thanks for my beta readers for their feedback and patience. Thanks to my readers for their patience too! And last, but not least, djkauf for his magical editing.
We turn onto the long driveway of a really nice house. It’s not a mansion or anything, but it looks expensive to me. Now, my parents aren’t poor, but our house is very normal looking compared to Uncle Jim’s house. His house looks very new and it has a three car garage. From the outside, his house looks very open, modern and custom. Not at all cookie-cutter like the houses in my neighborhood. I also notice that his lawn looks perfect and that makes me extra glad that I live in New Mexico because I would hate to have to mow their yard. It is friggen huge and I hope they have a riding lawnmower or can pay someone to cut it for them in the summer.
As we pull into the garage, I notice a very new Mercedes GL450. So new that it still has the temporary tags on it. Wow. I really hope that Uncle Jim can adopt me for a few days. I also notice a weird looking green mower that has levers on each side instead of a steering wheel. Hmm, that could be kind of fun, too bad it’s not summer. Maybe I could have earned some extra money by offering to cut their yard.
“Okay Bree, I mean Chloe, can you reactivate your Chloe disguise? I think it might make our story more credible if she is able to see you change with her own eyes.” Uncle Jim asks as he turns off his car.
“Oh, sure.” I say as I concentrate on being 100% Chloe again.
“Plus, there is still that big manhunt that is going on for you right now. While I am pretty sure that we don’t have any additional company, I wouldn’t want to take the chance.”
I cast the spell and once again, I feel the magic settle over my body. This time I did not forget the purse or the sound effects for my shoes.
“Wow. Seeing magic in GEO when you know it isn’t real is kind of cool, but seeing it done for real is just incredible.” Uncle Jim says.
I can’t help it, I feel myself blush from his praise and I have to admit that it is pretty cool, but once again, I wish that I didn’t have to get turned into a girl to have cool magical powers.
While I am opening my door, Uncle Jim surprises me again by racing over to the passenger side and helping me out of the car. That causes me to blush some more. “Thanks, but you didn’t really have to do that for me.” I say.
“I know.” He says with a smirk.
I struggle to come up with more reasons why he didn’t need to help me, while at the same time, I find that for some reason, I kind of like it. It actually helps me find my inner ‘Chloe’ and get back into character. I am not looking forward to facing his wife and the more armor I can wrap myself in, the better.
Uncle Jim leads me into the house by opening the door and holding it open for me. “Here we go.”
My high heel sound effects made some noise on the concrete floor of the garage, but they make a very definite clicking sound on the tiled entry way. I cringe at how loud they sound to my ears. His home smells clean, new and yummy. I mean, the smell of fresh cooked food coming from somewhere in the house smells yummy to my nose and that makes my stomach growl once more.
Uncle Jim removes his shoes at the door. “Honey! I’m home!” He yells.
Crap, now I am going to need to tweak the illusion to remove my shoes.
He notices my concerned expression as I look down from his feet to my feet. “You can just leave them on for now.” He says.
>Alert!
>Unidentified enemy female target detected!
My targeting system paints a pair of red brackets around a tall blond haired woman as she turns the corner. Well, taller than me. My system helpfully supplies me with all of her stats and measurements, but I don’t really need to know that she is exactly 3.89 inches taller than me to feel a little vulnerable. It did identify her as an ‘enemy’, I just entered her den with her husband and based on the phone conversation, I expect her to maul me at any second. She doesn’t look ‘that’ tough. I think that I can take her.
That’s what I try to tell myself, but I am frozen into inaction. I don’t know how to handle this kind of situation. This is just not a scenario that has ever crossed my mind as a possibility. Jealous boyfriend mad at me for looking at or stealing his girlfriend, yes, but jealous wife mad at me for looking at or stealing her husband, heck no!
“Julie, I am sorry that I didn’t call you sooner, but this is our ‘niece’, Chloe.” Uncle Jim reaches over and gently pulls me forward by steering me by my shoulders. “Chloe, this is my wife, Julie.” He says.
It does not escape my notice that he calls me by my newest alias and now I am kind of wishing I had came up with a better name. I just don’t feel like a ‘Chloe’, although, I don’t really feel like a Brianna either so I guess one more new name is not much of a difference. “Hi!” I manage to squeak out as my brilliant reply.
I find Julie’s, umm Mrs. Stiles’ expression hard to read as she studies me for a second before she glances back up and past me to her husband’s face. I can’t tell if she is pissed or not. Her expression shifts to concern as she rushes forward.
Now I am really stuck and I don’t know how to respond. It doesn’t look like she is trying to attack me, but it also doesn’t look like she is trying to give her husband a hug. I am kind of in the way for the hug her husband scenario.
>Option A: Attack
>Option B: Retreat
>Option C: Panic
>Option D: Other
I can’t decide. I am pretty sure that A is bad, while B is not an option either. I think that I am already doing option C, which confuses me about option D. What is “Other”? It shouldn’t surprise me, but it does, when she grabs my hands.
“Oh, you poor dear! You look positively terrified.” She quickly steals a glance back at Uncle Jim before turning back to look at me. “Did you run into that Whisper person that they are talking about in the news? Is that why Jim brought you home? Are you a witness? Is that why Jim called you our ‘niece’?” Mrs. Stiles asks, while she gently, but firmly pulls me down the short hall, away from the relative safety of Uncle Jim and into a large open space that appears to be the living room.
She directs me to sit beside her a comfy looking tan suede fabric couch, I turn to look back at Uncle Jim and he just gives me the look that says, “Go with it, for now.” I glance back at Mrs. Stiles and my attention is diverted by the live news report that is playing on a large LCD or Plasma TV mounted above a gas fireplace. The TV is muted, but it looks like they are talking about me.
Mrs. Stiles notices my gauze. “Oh, here. Let me turn that thing off. It is probably pretty alarming for you anyway.” She says as she reaches for the remote that is sitting on a side table next to us.
“No!” I accidentally yell, then blush from the shame and lower my voice. “Umm, sorry, but can you turn it up instead? I kind of want to know what they are saying about this, umm, Whisper person.”
Mrs. Stiles glances back to Uncle Jim, which is starting to confuse me a bit because I am thinking of Mr. Stiles as Uncle Jim, but her as Mrs. Stiles. I just don’t feel comfortable calling her by her first name. She is an adult, but I also don’t feel comfortable thinking of her as Aunt Julie either. Uncle Jim looks interested in finding out what they are saying about me too. He nods his head yes.
The sound on the TV comes to life with voice of a stereotypical square jawed and ruggedly handsome anchorman who is paired with a petite and pretty blond anchorwoman. “...FBI officials are reporting that the suspect in the deadly shooting rampage that was reported to have left one off-duty police officer and two DPA agents dead might not be who they are looking for.”
“The suspect known only as ‘Whisper’, seen here in this photo helpfully supplied by the MCO, made the news last night during a seemingly random attack by the mutant hate group known as Humanity First. This station is still trying to uncover the details surrounding that attack, but so far the FBI has been unwilling to release any information due to it being a ‘pending investigation.’” The male anchorman says with some skepticism, with the ‘pending investigation’ part of the story.
All the ‘suspect’ and ‘reported’ connotations are starting to annoy me. He is talking like he doesn’t really believe the words. I imagine that he is really thinking ‘guilty as sin mutant criminal’ when he uses the word ‘suspect’.
The blond anchorwoman takes over the story. “However; The FBI has issued an update regarding the newest incident that may or may not involve this unknown mutant known only as ‘Whisper’ by stating that the off-duty police officer initially reported as dead, is actually alive. However; he is currently listed in critical, but stable condition at Norfolk General Hospital. Additionally, the head of the DPA has issued a statement indicating that after a careful audit of all of their agents, they have no DPA agents in the area. The DPA appears to be as mystified as the FBI and the local police as to who the rumored DPA agents are that initially reported the attack and who the DPA agents that we reported killed by this Whisper suspect could be. More on this breaking story during our ten o’clock news hour.”
“Next up, is your trash being illegally dumped in the ocean?”
Mrs. Stiles catches our mutual glances. “Jim, what’s going on?” She asks.
>Incoming GSM Signal for device: James Stiles <804-999-1111> from Unknown <Unknown>
His phone begins to softly vibrate, but it looks like he is going to ignore it to respond to his wife. “Umm, Uncle Jim?” I say, cringing a little at myself for using that name while I notice Mrs. Stiles’ shocked expression. “You probably should answer that one.”
He turns back to look at me with a surprised expression. “I don’t know, but it is probably Mr. Reilly using a secure phone or something.” I whisper as he pulls out his phone and fumbles it a little in his haste to answer it before it stops ringing.
Mrs. Stiles looks back and forth between the two of us with even more alarm. “Jim?”
“Hello?” Uncle Jim cautiously says with a apologetic glance at his wife before he turns to look at me.
Of course, I listen in on the call.
“Is this James Stiles?” I hear Mr. Reilly’s voice ask.
Is that really Mr. Reilly?
>Analyzing Voice...
>Voice Match for Nicholas Reilly = 93.322%
Okay, so it sounds like him and it most likely is him, but it could be the CIA pretending to be him. “Mr. Reilly, 93.3 percent match.” I whisper and shrug my shoulders.
Uncle Jim gives me a slight nod. “Yes, why? Who is this?” He asks, sounding a little cautious.
“Sorry, DARPA Deputy Director Nicholas Reilly speaking, but before we get into the introductions, I would like to personally thank you for assisting us with both Whisper’s medical investigation and now, her latest, umm, adventure.”
>Voice Match for Nicholas Reilly = 99.783%
I tense up with excitement and smile. “Yep! Mr. Reilly, 99.8 percent match.” I whisper, automatically rounding up to the nearest 10th. My math teacher would be so proud.
“Well, I am glad that I could help, sir.” Uncle Jim says.
“You didn’t have to, but we are all very glad that you did.” Mr. Reilly says.
Mrs. Stiles looks startled at Uncle Jim referring to someone as ‘sir’. “Jim! What is going on?” She asks with an increased level of urgency as she looks back and forth between the two of us with confusion.
Mrs. Stiles is totally out of the loop and based on her expression, she doesn’t appear to be too happy about that. I look over at the TV. I think that I could connect to the TV’s speakers and route the audio to that so Mrs. Stiles can listen in, but that might end up being too loud. I spot an expensive looking cordless phone on a nearby end-table. I hold up my hand to signal Mrs. Stiles to wait a second as I walk over to their home phone. As soon as I touch the phone, I match frequencies and remove it from its cradle. Then, I tell it to receive the active call and I rebroadcast the current call to it. Satisfied with my results, I race back over and hand her the phone.
“...and with me, I have General Evans, Admiral Jensen, Captain Howards, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Townsend.”
I am a little startled that Mr. Reilly has an Admiral there and that he names Captain Howards instead of calling him Mr. Smith, but I guess there is no reason for the secrecy with him now and “Mr. Smith” as a name sounds so fake anyway. I know that Captain Howards is a Navy SEAL, but what is an Admiral doing there? Is that Captain Howards’ boss?
Mrs. Stiles looks more confused than angry and upset now. “What is going on?” She asks with her hand over her phone’s microphone.
“Umm, it’s Mr. Reilly, my Mom and, umm, some other people.” I softly whisper to her, but I don’t think that my explanation helps her.
Mr. Reilly starts off by getting directly to business by outlining the problems that my kidnapping has caused and that someone in the CIA has made worse. Well, I think he mostly blames the CIA and not me, but I still feel somewhat guilty about it. I shouldn’t have let Michelle lead me out of the lobby. There were so many red flags that I ignored until it was too late.
He also hints at, but does not let slip the fact that the freaking President of the United States of America is involved in this too. He just says, “Some people in Washington”, but Uncle Jim already heard the story from me, so he gets the reference.
“Okay sir. What can we do to help?” Uncle Jim says after a slight pause while he studies his anxious looking wife.
“Actually, you already are helping. However; I need to ask another favor of you.” Mr. Reilly says.
“Okay. If we can...” Uncle Jim says conditionally and that starts to make me worry.
“I won’t sugar coat the situation. It could be risky to you and your wife, but the folks in DC need a few days to clean house here and after discussing it, we feel that Whisper would be safer with you than anyone else right now. You are 100% under the radar and completely unknown to anyone outside of this room, but would you be willing to host Whisper until Friday evening or Saturday morning?”
Uncle Jim looks over at his wife. She glances over at me and reads my desperate expression. I would love nothing better than to be with my mom and Mr. Reilly right now, but if they all feel that I would be safer here with Uncle Jim, then I want to stay here. She thinks about it for a brief second before she nods her acceptance before looking back at Uncle Jim. “Yes.” She says, simply.
“Yes sir, that would be fine with my wife and me. Is there anything else that I can do?” Uncle Jim asks.
“No more than you already are, Mr. Stiles, and I think that just about covers everything. Does anyone else have any additional agenda items that we should discuss? General Evans? Admiral Jensen? No? Okay, Mrs. Peters, as a parent of a ‘gifted’ daughter myself, I know that this is difficult for you, but is there anything that you would like to say to her before we end this call?” Mr. Reilly asks.
“Umm, yes. I love you sweetie and I am glad that you are safe!” My mom yells over the speakerphone.
“I love you too, Mom.” I say as my voice breaks from the tears that start to well up in my eyes.
“Now, I expect you to be on your best behavior and listen to Mr. and Mrs. Stiles. Oh yeah, and stay out of trouble, no malls! Please?” My mom says with a note of humor in her last instruction.
“Yes, Mom. I will. I love you.” I say with a laugh and a sniffle. I can count on my mom to both comfort and order me around in a predictable parental fashion. Mrs. Stiles gives my shoulders another squeeze.
“Love you, see you soon.” My mom says in a rush just before the line goes silent and we are disconnected.
“Well, that is certainly not what I expected when Jim said that he was bringing a female guest to our house tonight.” Mrs. Stiles says with a mischievous quirk of her lips.
“Umm, sorry, Mrs. Stiles.” I say.
She pats my hand reassuringly before she stands up, walks over to her husband and gives him a hug and a kiss. “Now, dinner is ready. Let’s eat. I think that we can break the ‘no business’ rule during dinner this one time and discuss all this...” She waves her hands around with a gesture that indicates everything. “...while we eat. Right, Uncle Jim, dear?” She asks, looking at Uncle Jim with a smug expression.
“Of course, Jewels.” He says with a nervous glance at me.
**
The Whisper operation was supposed to be a relatively simple snatch and grab, tag and release operation. Yes, it was technically illegal for the CIA to perform an active operation on CONUS soil and even more so, against a DOD facility, but the CIA was used to bending the rules when needed. His team had performed many successful operations against far harder targets in the past. Plus, all those terrorists in Gitmo and valuable intelligence leads didn’t happen by following the law. The law was meant to help the innocent, not the guilty.
The only part that went according to plan was the first part. The target should not have been able shake off the sedative effects so quickly. Their ‘borrowed’ test data indicated that the sedative should have been more than adequate to keep the target safely unconscious for at least six hours. Even with that SNAFU, his operatives were highly skilled and very competent. Yes, the target had some enhanced physical abilities, but she should not have been able to escape and evade his operatives so easily.
Based on Mirage’s reports, it had to have been magic that she used to escape, but she had only tested out as a one with her wizard rating. She was untrained and with that rating, the target should be barely able to light a candle without a match. How had she been able to confuse and misdirect his agents so easily?
Director Falk surprised himself by not feeling surprised when two Internal Affairs agents opened the door and entered his office unannounced. He spotted at least four more agents standing outside his door handling the rest of his staff. “Director Falk. Your presence is requested in Deputy Director Adamson’s office immediately.”
He wondered how his operation had been compromised. Did his Deputy turn him into IA? As he was escorted out of his office, he spotted his deputy being questioned by IA and he did not look happy about it. So, it probably wasn’t him. Did his operatives turn themselves in and finger him? He also doubted that because they were still in the field and not in contact with anyone. Did his NSA contact get caught and raise suspicions by pointing to him or did the target somehow hack into the CIA?
He mulled over the scenarios as he was escorted through the halls and rode up the elevator to the ‘executive’ floor. If the target had hacked into the CIA and exposed him, then that would actually be the best for his case against her. If his NSA contact had fingered him, then he could simply explain it away by saying that he saw her on the news and was curious. Just performing his due diligence in the interest of National Security.
Well, except that IA was questioning his deputy and it was highly unlikely that his deputy wouldn’t tell them everything that he knew.
Crap. I guess I will just have to offer the CIA my resignation and retire a few years early. Joannie will probably like that anyway. I do owe her a few vacations, real vacations, not working vacations.
CIA Deputy Director Adamson’s expression was set in stone as Falk entered his office. Adamson nodded and with that cue, the two IA Agents escorting him silently turned, exited the office and silently closed the door behind themselves.
Adamson sighed, leaned back in his chair and directed Falk to one of the chairs setup in front of his desk. “This probably isn’t going to take that long, but go ahead and sit, please.”
As ordered, Falk walked over and sat down. He noticed that there was a single sheet of paper lying directly in front of Adamson and that was the only bit of stationary on his desk. It looked like a standard resignation form.
Adamson leaned forward in his chair and rested his elbows on his desk. “Brian, I don’t think that I need to tell you that you royally stepped on your dick by authorizing this op, do I?” Adamson said getting right to the point.
“No sir.”
“Your record is excellent. You were a good field agent and a great Operations Director, but I am afraid that I am going to have to request your resignation.”
“Yes sir, I understand and I just want to go on record and state that my Deputy advised me against this operation, but I overruled him.”
“That is admirable and I will make a note of it, but why did you go ahead and do it?”
“Based on the data and my past experiences with the PALM AI task force and a similar individual, it was and still is my opinion that this Whisper girl could be a grave risk to our nation’s National Security. She needs to be evaluated by a trusted third party. Someone who knows what to look for and is not corruptible or easily influenced into hiding or covering up the results.”
“I see. I will make a note of that and pass it on to the Director. Well, here is your letter.” Adamson said as he slid the letter forward for Falk to sign.
Falk quickly read it and it appeared to be the standard letter. No hidden or tricky legalize ticked away between other sentences. He signed it using Adamson’s own fancy gold pen that had been conveniently placed on his side of the desk, just for that purpose.
“Thank you, Brian, for reacting so professionally about this.” Adamson said with a relieved smile.
“No problem sir, I’ve been around long enough. I know how it works.” Falk said. He knew that The President only had another year and a half in office and that with his record he could always work as a consultant until the CIA could quietly reinstate him after the political situation changed.
“Your personal items will be boxed and delivered to your home as soon as our investigation is complete. I will take your badge now and provide you with an escort to your vehicle. Also, please consider this your official notice to not try to leave the country or we will have to have you detained and I think we both know what that means, right?”
“Yes, sir.” Former Operations Director Falk said as the blood drained from his face when the hidden implications sank in. He had just been given his burn notice. There would be no consulting options available to him. No one would want to touch him. The only way he could get rid of a burn notice was to figure out some way of redeeming himself. He knew that Whisper was a danger, but now it looked like it was up to him to find a way to prove it.
**
Dinner with the Stiles proves to be somewhat of a relief for me. Not only is the food good, but Mrs. Stiles, I mean, Aunt Julie, as she insists that I call her since that is my ‘cover’ to use secret agent terms, cooked a salmon filet just for me so that I wouldn’t feel left out while they ate what looked like some delicious stuffed pork chops. The salmon was delish, but I really miss my old taste buds.
It takes a bit longer than 30 minutes for me to repeat my story and bring Aunt Julie up to date. It takes longer this time because I am eating, but also because when I tell her that I got shot in the back only two hours ago, she insists on giving me an examination. She raises a skeptical eyebrow when I try to tell her that my latissimus dorsi thing, as well as my kidney and small intestine are 100% healed, but the doctor in her will not accept that as an answer.
That adds even more time to my story since I have to drop my Chloe illusion in order for her to even see where I was shot at. Uncle Jim is only a little surprised to see me 100% in the flesh, but Aunt Julie is positively stunned. I don’t think that she really believed me when I said that I can do magic on myself and maybe other people.
However, Aunt Julie quickly recovers, grabs a small medical bag, complete with a cold stethoscope, and marches me into the bathroom so that she can examine me in private. She gasps at the sight of the huge hole that my nanites ate when they tried to clean my clothes. Even though there isn’t much left of my top in the back, she still makes me remove it so that she can examine my back. Of course, she doesn’t find anything wrong with me. She does find a reason to listen to my heart and lungs with the freezing cold stethoscope. I know that she pulled her bag out of a closet and not the freezer, but I think Uncle Jim needs to check that closet’s ventilation or something.
Reluctantly, she concludes that I am healthy, but she insists that I wait in the bathroom while she retrieves me a spare top from her closet. She returns with an iridescent dark green silk spaghetti strap camisole that I think is kind of a pretty color. It should go well with my eyes and complexion.
Pretty? Eyes and complexion match? Did I really just think that? That’s it! I am deleting Amanda’s wicked, evil magazine the first chance I get tonight!
“Sorry, but this is the only thing that I have that might not be too big for you and made of silk. It was one of my favorite tops when I was in high school and it was what I wore on my first date with Jim, but I guess it shrunk, or something.” Aunt Julie says with a wry grin.
Her explanation startles me and distracts me from my evil girlish fashion thoughts. Her top is old, like over 10 years, but it still looks new. She must really like this top. “Oh, no! Aunt Julie, I can’t wear that. I am not doing that well with my clothes lately. What happens if I wreck it?” I ask.
She laughs. “Oh, don’t worry about that Chloe. I can’t wear it and I have other things to remember him with now. It’s just a top.”
Reluctantly, I try it on and it is still a size too large for me, but with the straps adjusted and the bottom tucked into my jeans, it is hard to tell. I do notice that my bra straps are showing and I also recall how much I noticed it when any part of a girl’s bra showed. For me and all the guys, it was like seeing a glimpse of the forbidden fruit, melons to be exact, and we loved to try to guess the color and style of her panties based on her bra color.
However; I am pretty sure that we would never have guessed that a girl might not be wearing any panties. Wow! That would have really blown our minds and added an entirely new dimension to our little guessing game. I look down at my bra and I can’t help it, I grin and even worse, I think that from now on, when I see another girl wearing a black bra; I am going to accidentally wonder if she is wearing panties or not.
“Yes, my old top looks pretty nice on you, but why aren’t you wearing any underwear?” Aunt Julie asks, misinterpreting my grin and distracting me from my bra concerns.
I feel myself blushing pretty hard due to my previous thoughts and I am glad that she’s not my mom. That would have been totally embarrassing. “Umm, I haven’t made it to that part of the story yet and is it okay that my bra straps are showing?” I ask deflecting her from my missing panties problem.
Aunt Julie sees right through my redirection and shows that with a slight pause. “It’s fine dear, but normally you would want to wear a strapless bra for support or a light sweater to cover the straps when you wear that kind of top.”
“Oh, okay.” I say, feeling a little bewildered by all the rules for girl clothes. Why do boobs have to cause so much trouble?
Uncle Jim doesn’t say a word about my lack of a disguise or the fact that I am wearing Aunt Julie’s favorite old top from their first date when we finally rejoin him at the table. He doesn’t even seem to notice the fact that my bra straps are showing. Maybe old guys don’t notice those things like I did when I was younger. Umm, you know, like last week. Not that Uncle Jim is really ‘that’ old, but he is at least 34 and that is kind of old.
I am able to finish my story and two more servings of Aunt Julie’s excellent salad with feta cheese, but by the time we finish dinner it is 1930 hrs, umm, 7:30pm and Uncle Jim is starting to look a little bored. Which seems strange to me because my day has been anything but boring for me. However, he keeps glancing at the clock. Aunt Julie doesn’t seem to notice his nervous behavior, but then it hits me. Tuesday night is raid night and the raid was due to have started 30 minutes ago. He is late and he is the guild leader.
“Umm, Aunt Julie?” I ask.
“Yes, Chloe?” She asks.
My cover name is very strange to hear and respond too, but it is starting to get easier since both Uncle Jim and Aunt Julie have been using that name almost exclusively for me. It is like my story about Whisper, Brian and Brianna is Chloe’s story and not my own, very strange. “What time do the stores close?” I ask while knowing the answer already. 2100 hrs is pretty standard, but Virginia might have stores that close at 2000 hrs.
“Oh! I need to get you some essentials! Thanks for the reminder!” She says as she jumps up, grabs her purse and a notepad. “I wish you could join me, but for now, what are your sizes?”
She quickly writes them down as I recite them for her. Then, in a rush, she grabs her purse, gives me a quick hug and after giving Uncle Jim a slightly longer quick hug and a borderline mushy kiss, she runs out of the door. As soon we hear the garage door close, Uncle Jim and I look at each other with that “What now?” expression.
“Raid?” I ask.
Uncle Jim’s eyes light up as he smiles at me. “Thanks, you don’t mind do you?”
“Nope.” I say, shaking my head slowly back and forth a few times.
“Well, I expect your ‘Aunt’ to not be back until well after 9 and loaded down with bags of clothes for you.” He grins at me as my expression falters with his ‘bags of clothes’ assessment. “Hmmm, you know? I did load GEO on her laptop in an effort to get her to try the game. You could play. Maybe just to see if your character is still alive.”
I hesitate at his offer. I am very curious to see if Whisper is still alive, but on the other hand, I am also very afraid to even touch a computer that is running or has run GEO. “Umm, no thanks. Can I watch you instead? Maybe from across the room or something?”
**
Julie Stiles felt pretty pleased with herself. Her emergency shopping trip for Chloe was a success and she could not wait to get back home. Since she knew that Jim would not be able to take tomorrow off, or probably any time at all this week, she had already called her hospital’s patient scheduling service and had them cancel her appointments for the rest of this week. Unfortunately, she still had to go in tomorrow afternoon for a quick visit to some of her more critically ill patients and it would mean more work next week to catch up her schedule with the canceled appointments from this week, but she felt that Chloe was worth it. The poor girl has had such a rough last few days.
Medically, she wasn’t sure if she could believe some of Chloe’s claims regarding her gender, race and the nanites, but she also didn’t really believe in magic until she saw her remove her illusionary disguise. She had seen magical super-heroes in the movies and even in the news, so she knew that magic existed, but she had never actually seen magic happen right in front of her eyes. Chloe’s little demonstration was a shocking and amazing at the same time.
The nano-technology was another thing that she had trouble believing, but the idea of what they could accomplish did excite and fascinate her though. The research into using nano scale particles in medicine was just starting to heat up and nano scale medicines showed a lot of potential, but the scale and sophistication of the nanites in Chloe’s system just seemed a bit too hard to believe. While what Chloe described sounded possible, in the future; today, it sounded too much like science fiction to her.
Chloe did seem a little more self conscious about her body than most girls her age. In the four years that she has been a licensed pediatrician, Julie has examined hundreds of pre and post pubescent girls Chloe’s age and none of them acted as self-conscious and shy about their body as Chloe did. Nor did girls her age need to ask if it was okay if their bra strap showed or not. Most girls her age would be proud to have a body and pair of breasts like Chloe, but Chloe just acted embarrassed and uncomfortable about herself the entire time that she examined her.
Julie made a mental note to herself to speak with some of her colleagues at the hospital to learn more about mutants, a BIT and if it was even possible to change genders as completely and as rapidly as Chloe claimed. She knew that it was possible, due to hormonal imbalances, for boys to develop secondary female sexually characteristics, but she had never heard of primary sexual characteristic development post gestation.
During a brief lull in her shopping, Julie decided to call her sister-in-law, Karen. She knew that, as smart an attorney as Jim was, it was a raid night in his game and his brain turned to mush on those nights. So, she took it upon herself to call Karen and get her in on her ‘daughter’ Chloe’s cover. That way, if someone tried calling to ask how John and Karen’s daughter Chloe was doing; they would know how to respond. Karen sounded excited to be helping out and assured her that she would talk to her husband, John, about Chloe. Karen did ask what her ‘daughter’s’ middle name was and Julie wasn’t able to tell her. So, between the two of them they decided that Chloe Jessica Stiles would be her name after rejecting ‘Amber’, ‘Lisa’ and ‘Ann’ in favor of being named after Karen’s mother. Not once did she even mention to Karen that Chloe wasn’t Brianna’s real name. One, that was information that Karen didn’t really need to know and two, Julie was so used to thinking of Brianna as Chloe, that Chloe just felt like it was the poor girl’s real name.
With that bit of skullduggery out of the way, Julie was able to dive into shopping for Chloe, but she had so much fun talking to her sister-in-law about girl names. It almost felt like she was picking out a name for a baby. She frowned a little at that thought. It is not that she and Jim didn’t want to have a child of their own; they were both just too busy to raise a child. Between finishing med school for her and law school for Jim, then building their careers and their home; they just decided that they didn’t have the time. Sure, they talked about it every year or two, but always decided to put it off for another year. Maybe she would have to bring the subject up and push Jim a little harder this year. Neither one of them were getting any younger.
Shopping for complete sets of clothes for a girl had been a lot of fun and that experience just reinforced her decision to talk to Jim. It kind of felt like she was shopping for her own daughter instead of a guest. It had been a little harder than she expected to find clothing made from natural fibers in Chloe’s size, but she had done it and it had only set her back a little over $800. Fortunately, her normal stores were all high-end enough to carry the more ‘environmentally friendly’ brands. Sadly, those brands were not cheaper, but Chloe didn’t really need a full closet. She was only going to stay for a few days.
With that in mind, Julie found Chloe a pair of ankle boots with a two inch heel and that was only because she had mentioned how much she liked them in her story. She also bought her one pair of all purpose black pumps with a simple and sturdy two inch heel, a set of simple two piece cotton pajamas, slippers for walking around the house in, a half-dozen silk panties, none of them pink or overly frilly, two new bras plus one demi-bra, a few tops, two pairs of jeans, a medium length skirt, just in case, and two pairs of black leggings to go with the skirt. The leggings were 94% cotton, 6% spandex, so she hoped that they wouldn’t trigger an allergic reaction for her. Tights would have been better with the skirt, but finding natural fiber tights proved to be too difficult within the time constraints. Plus, with Chloe’s history, the skirt concerned her, but it was too good a deal to pass up and she thought that it would look very cute on her.
She wanted to get her a modest one piece swim suit, but once again, natural fibers were hard to find in swimwear. However, she did find Chloe a cute Tahiti green two piece 100% cotton bikini, just in case she wanted to use the Jacuzzi. With all the power shopping she just did, she hoped that Chloe would want to join her for a relaxing dip when she got home. Jim probably jumped into his office to play the game before she even made it out of the driveway and he probably didn’t even show Chloe around the house like a good host should.
As she walked to her car, multiple high-end store logo bags in hand, she sighed with frustration.
Men!
As she got close enough to her car for her remote to unlock the doors, she noticed that there was an older teenager, maybe young 20 year old man in sort of scruffy clothes angling toward her with an intense look in his eyes. He kind of scared her. So, she picked up her pace and rushed the remaining 20 or so feet to reach the safety of her car.
[HONK!]
“Ahh!” She screamed just as she reached for her door handle. She was so focused on opening it, jumping in and locking it behind her that she never noticed the new black mustang with a Department of Defense sticker on the windshield that stopped behind her car.
“Sorry ma’am!” The male driver yelled out his rapidly opening window. “I didn’t mean to scare you, but do you mind if I grab your spot when you pull out?”
Julie found herself giggle with relief. She glanced over at the man who was following her to find that he had turned around and was heading away as rapidly as possible without making it look too obvious.
Phew, that was close!
She turned back to the gentleman in the mustang. “Sure, sorry. Lemme just put my bags in and I will pull right out for you!”
“Thanks ma’am! Oh, wait! I think I see an open spot over there!” He said before he lightly gunned his car’s motor and jetted over to an open space that was even closer to the mall entrance.
As she drove past them, Julie couldn’t help smiling at and waving to the two men who were obviously in the military as they exited their car and walked toward the mall’s entrance.
**
MCO Special Lainer was not happy. This was the second time that the DoD’s pet mutant slipped away from him, but this time; he didn’t even have a photo or reliable eyewitness account to prove that she was even in the same time zone. For that matter, according to the U.S. Government, Whisper didn’t even exist and he might have started to believe that himself, if that prick, DARPA Deputy Director Nicholas Reilly hadn’t stopped him taking her into ‘protective custody’ by producing a MMID card for the girl.
He had to admit though, as soon as he reported the H1! incident to his superiors and mentioned the fact that Nicholas Reilly was involved, shit started happening. So, he figured that this Mr. Reilly guy must have pissed off someone pretty high up in the MCO chain of command once or twice before. He had the full weight and support of the MCO behind his investigation of this Whisper mutant.
Unfortunately, even with that support, all he had now were the statements given to the police by two DPA agents who might not even be DPA agents. No one knew one way or the other and the DPA steadfastly denied even having any agents in the area. He smelled a rat though. Something happened in Norfolk tonight. If it was nothing, then why were the FBI, CIA, DPA, DHS and the DOD, just to name a few, all in a tizzy? Why did the FBI pay so much attention to the MCO’s search and investigation of the mall?
The mall had security cameras! That was it! He made a few calls and discovered that even though the Feds had already carted off the day’s feed, the mall security office had backups available and even better; their head of security was rightfully worried about the mutant threat and he was more than willing to let his agents make an unofficial copy of them.
Now, all he had to do was wait for the copies to arrive at his office, then spend the hours poring over the footage in the hopes that something would jump out at him that would give him a lead. He didn’t care how long it took. He was positive that he would find something on the footage that would lead him to Whisper.
**
I sit off to the side and watch with a surprising amount of envy as Uncle Jim starts up GEO and logs into his account. When he gets to the character selection screen, I am also surprised to discover that he has a low level cleric alt with a female name, but he clicks right into Lord Vincint without ever selecting her. So, I don’t know what she looks like, but now I am curious.
“You made a cleric alt and it let you?” I ask, bypassing the gender question to get to the heart of the matter. GEO is really good about limiting your options to professions that match your personality and Uncle Jim’s paladin character, Lord Vincint, seems to match Uncle Jim perfectly. So how was he able to make a cleric? Clerics heal and while Lord Vincint is a paladin and can do some healing, Paladins are more warrior based and seem to fit his personality better.
While Lord Vincint loads, Uncle Jim turns his head to face me. “That was Julie’s character, from when I tried to get her to play.” He says.
“Oh.” I say because there isn’t much else I can think to say as a reply. I think that it is kind of cool that Aunt Julie even tried to play GEO. My parents and Lindsay never even bothered trying to like the game.
I shift to my magical sight to distract me from my envy and I watch as the game somehow creates a tiny magical link to Uncle Jim via his mouse. It is barely even noticeable and I probably wouldn’t have even spotted it if I didn’t know to look for it. As I lean in to examine his mouse a little closer, a tiny tendril of magical energy that is barely the size of a hair separates from his mouse and starts to move in my direction.
“Holy shit!” I say with a gasp as I jump back a few feet.
“What? What is it?” Uncle Jim asks as he pushes his chair back, stands up and looks around trying to spot what spooked me.
I point down to his desk. “Your mouse, when you logged into GEO, your mouse started to, umm, glow a little from some sort of magic.”
“Huh?” Uncle Jim asks as he looks down at his innocent looking mouse with concern and confusion.
“Umm, yeah, when they investigated my problem back at the lab, they noticed that Brenda’s computer had some magical residue on it. They think that GEO somehow uses magic to create a link between the game and the player. That is why the game seems to understand and adapt to the player more than you would expect and that could be part of the reason why I got changed.”
Uncle Jim takes another step back while looking at his mouse like it turned into a snake. “Is it safe?”
“Umm, I think so?” I hesitantly say, as I shrug my shoulders.
Uncle Jim looks back to his mouse and now his character is waiting patiently for him on the screen. He carefully reaches down and touches his mouse again, almost like he is expecting it to shock him or something now. I watch as the magic reconnects with him and when he doesn’t get shocked, he glances back at me. “Is it doing anything now?”
“Umm, yes.” I say as he quickly snatches his hand back from his mouse. “But, it only seems to be forming a very weak connection. It is probably safe. I mean, I’m really the only person out of hundreds of thousands of people who has had a problem with it, right?”
Uncle Jim gingerly reaches forward again and this time he doesn’t snatch his hand away. He moves his mouse a few times and looking reassured, he slowly eases himself back into his chair and rolls it forward to play the game. After a few minutes of controlling his character and not getting zapped by anything, he relaxes and seems to forget about it while he enjoys the game.
I continue to watch and listen to him play, but I retreat to the middle of the room where I feel safe from GEO’s magic.
Lord Vincint apologizes to the guild for being late, but he is quickly forgiven when the evil Dark forces attempt to mount an attack on the Light forces position. It is a close battle, but Lord Vincint’s active participation seems to make all the difference as the evil player character Marala’s forces are defeated and forced to retreat back to their stronghold.
“You should...” I start to tell him that he should counterattack them now, while they are disorganized, but he beats me to it by jumping onto his waiting warhorse and leading an attack to accomplish that idea. I guess that he doesn’t really need my help with advice from the back seat. That really makes me wish I was playing, because as Whisper, I could have scouted the enemy’s stronghold and told Lord Vincint where the weakest points were.
The charge led by Lord Vincint smashes into the retreating rear of the enemy, taking them completely by surprise. It also takes the folks manning the gates of their stronghold by surprise since Lord Vincint’s mounted forces are able to enter Marala’s stronghold via the open gate while they belatedly try to close it. Lord Vincint slaughters the Dark force’s NPCs manning the gate controls and that allows the rest of our forces to quickly gain control of the stronghold’s outer defenses.
It’s pretty much over for the evil Marala at that point, but she still manages to surprise our forces and inflict more than a few casualties before Lord Vincint finally manages to break through and seize control of her stronghold’s central command center slash throne room.
Protected by a small force of warriors wearing gleaming black plate mail, a very pretty and slightly demonic looking woman dressed mostly in black is standing on a raised dais in front of a glowing escape portal. I can’t help it as I find myself drawn a few feet closer to the screen so that I can study her face.
Whoever is playing her, Marala’s face reminds me a little of Sara, but she can’t be Sara, because Sara isn’t ‘that’ evil. Well, Sara did say that she plays and that she is on the evil side, but I still find it hard to believe that Sara could be Marala. I know that GEO is just a game and also more than just a game, but I’ve heard some pretty nasty stories about Marala.
It looks like she has claws or talons for finger nails because her hands are covered in fresh blood. I guess that she took an active role in taking out a few of our teams as they broke through Marala’s defenses. I watch as she casually licks some of the blood off her fingers and smiles, displaying her fangs while she waits to see if her remaining defenders will be able to stop Lord Vincint’s forces.
She totally reminds me of Sara with that sort of lazy and sensual smirking smile.
“Holy crap! I think that Marala is Sara!” I blurt out before I can stop myself.
Uncle Jim looks back at me with surprise. “What? Are you sure?”
Ashamed by my outburst and by the fact that if she is Sara, I just ratted her out to Lord Vincint, I blush. “Umm, not sure, no, but she does kind of sort of remind me of her.”
Uncle Jim turns back to his screen and appears to study her a bit closer, but before he can do anything about, Marala gestures toward her guards and takes a step backwards and towards the portal. Just one more step and she will enter the portal and escape.
“Damn you, Lord Vincint and your so called forces of ‘Light’!” Marala yells with a sneer that seems to tell me that she doesn’t really think we are the good guys here.
“You haven’t seen the last of me!” Marala snarls as she steps into the portal, followed by her honor guard.
I almost expected her to say, “I’ll get you, my pretty!”, but she doesn’t and now I am not really interested in watching Uncle Jim play GEO. I am feeling a little upset and confused and I don’t feel comfortable being in the same room with someone playing GEO.
“Umm, I’m going to get some water. Do you want anything?” I ask.
“I’m good. Thanks.” Uncle Jim says without taking his eyes off his screen. He looks pretty busy managing the cleanup and ownership transfer of the stronghold into Light control.
So, I slip out of the room, grab a glass of water from the kitchen, take a few sips and plop myself down on the couch in the living room with a huge sigh. Well, huge for me, but my ever vigilant girl behavior audit alerts me to the fact that I sounded like Lindsay when she’s depressed about something. Okay, so maybe my girl behavior alert system isn’t all that reliable, but the last few days have been a little difficult for me. I really wish that I could talk to Sara or Nikki right now, but that is probably not possible. I just saw Sara, well, pretty sure I saw her, playing GEO. So, there is no way that she could jump into my head right now. Besides, I’m not even in my head for her jump into; if that makes any sense.
I check my internal clock and it is only 2030 hours. Aunt Julie left at 1936 hours and Uncle Jim logged into GEO at 1940 hours. I watched Uncle Jim play for almost an hour? I find that hard to believe. It didn’t seem like it was that long.
They have a very large and realistic looking gas fireplace built into the wall and I find myself staring at it, lost in thought as the flames dance around. After a few minutes of zoning out, I decide that I would probably be more comfortable if sit back and snuggle myself into the couch.
>Medical Alert: Allergic reaction detected!
Crap!
I sit up and I feel the exposed skin on my back and shoulders tingling a little. Their couch looks like suede, but I guess that it isn’t real suede. I don’t know why I didn’t think to check it first. This is so frustrating! I walk over and sit down on the stone mantle in front of the fire place.
Ahhh, nice and warm.
But, after five minutes of vegging out in front of the fireplace, my butt decides that the hard stone surface isn’t all the comfortable even if my butt is a little more padded now. With that, I decide to just get up and explore the house some. It is pretty big and it should take me more than a few minutes to see what I can find.
There is an upstairs level, which I assume has the bedrooms, but I also spot some stairs leading down. So, I softly pad down the stairs and I find myself in a large open area that has a nice bar off to the side and a wicked and by wicked, I mean, totally awesome home theater setup. There is a huge 55” inch High Def TV on the far wall and expensive looking black stereo components on an expensive looking brushed aluminum and glass stand. Even better, it looks like the couches and chairs are made of leather and designed specifically for watching movies. The speakers are bit harder to spot. They are all built into the walls and ceiling with color matching mesh grills. Watching a movie with this setup must totally rock!
As I walk around the room and drool over everything, I notice something that smells suspiciously like a large open body of water. Kind of like there is a pool, but I don’t know where they could be hiding it. The house is big, but isn’t that big. Following my nose, I enter into a large and very well insulated spa room, complete with a large built in Jacuzzi tub, shower and a small room of some kind. I peek into the small window set in the door and it looks like it is one of those steam room things that old fat mafia guys from the movies like to sit naked in while they plot their next crime.
With that bit of mental imagery disturbing my mind, I turn back around and spot a clock on the wall and I notice that it is almost 9pm now, so I decide to head back up stairs. Aunt Julie should be getting home any time now, I think. As I sneak back up to the main floor, I hear a phone softly ringing from the kitchen. I head into the kitchen thinking that Uncle Jim left his phone in there and maybe I could take it to him so that he could call back who ever is trying to get a hold of him. It is not Uncle Jim’s cell phone that is ringing. It is the house phone, but before I can figure out if I should answer it or not, their answering machine picks up and I hear Aunt Julie’s voice.
“Hi, I just wanted to let you know that I am on my way home. I had a bit of a scare, but I’m done now. I can’t wait to show Chloe what I got and I should be home shortly. Love ya, bye!”
I thought about picking it up as soon as I heard her voice, but it’s not my house; I’m not sure I should. I decide to just go and give Uncle Jim the message. He is in the middle of some sort of boring council meeting when I walk back into his office and tap him on his shoulder to get his attention.
“Umm, sorry, but, Aunt Julie called and left a message. She is on her way home.” I whisper in his ear.
Somewhat distractedly, Uncle Jim turns and mouths. “Oh, thanks.”
“Need anything?” I softly ask.
Uncle Jim gratefully smiles at me. “Sure. Water?”
I nod and quietly tiptoe out of the room to retrieve him a glass of water.
>Alert: Encrypted military grade radio transmissions detected!
>Searching...
While my system is doing its searching thing, I hear a burst of static from what I assume is another transmission. I decide that Uncle Jim’s water isn’t important anymore.
>Template match found!
>Implementing Template...
{“Delta four, in position. Target zone is quiet. No sign of Principal.”}
{“Roger Delta four. Golf two reports Secondary is inbound. Echo tango alpha in ten mike.”}
{“Roger Echo One”}
I just want to scream. I am so freaking mad.
God damnit!
Oops, sorry. Didn’t mean it, but where in the hell, pardon my language, are these assholes and what in the hell are they doing here? How did they find me so fast?
With that thought, a small window pops up on my HUD with an overhead view of the house.
>Triangulating positions based upon previous transmissions...
It’s not a great view. Since I have not even thought to look out the window and into the back yard, that part of the map is black, but the front yard is pretty good since I saw that when we drove into the driveway.
After a second or two, a small glowing dot appears in the front, near a large clump of bushes and a second glowing dot, labeled “Delta 4” appears in the back, but due to the state of my map, I cannot tell exactly where in the back yard the second dot is located.
A third dot appears on my map, but it is even further into the blackness. That might be that “Echo One” person and as I think that, a label saying just that appears next to it.
Okay, so who is the dot in the front?
>Insufficient data...
Damn it!
Sorry. Are they with Delta four and Echo One?
>Transmission template matches targets identified as Delta 4 and Echo One.
Okay, so they probably are together and the Echo One dude said that “the Secondary was inbound and echo tango alpha 10 mike.” Secondary must be Aunt Julie and her ETA is in 10 minutes. I can’t let them hurt Uncle Jim and Aunt Julie! I look around the kitchen and spot a really sharp looking 10 inch chef’s knife with a black wooden handle.
I am not sure if I can actually use a knife on another person, but lacking a gun, it will have to do. There is no way that I am going to try fighting them without a weapon of some sort. Well, other than my keen wits, but I am not feeling all that keen right now. Whoever is in the front, they need to not be a threat to Aunt Julie and it sounds like I have less than 10 minutes to make sure that they are not a threat. Then, I will need to umm, neutralize, the target in the back yard and finally, I will have to run away so that Uncle Jim and Aunt Julie won’t get hurt.
I feel my eyes start to sting as the tears well up and begin to drip down my face. I hate to do it and sorry, Mom, but I think that I need the STIMS for this.
>Administering Combat Stims...
My tears stop falling almost instantly.
~o~O~o~
Insert standard disclaimer here: The one that reminds everyone that this is a work of fiction. No one is real and any resemblance to someone who is real is purely coincidence, honest. This is also a Fan Fiction set in the Whateley Story Universe. No Canon characters were permanently harmed in the making of this story. I hope. :)
Note: As I warned you all, this one came a bit faster. Thanks for my beta readers and resident SEAL expert for their feedback and patience. And last, but not least, djkauf for his magical editing.
I should use this stuff more often and now that those pesky emotions are done. It is mission time and following the KISS principle, my mission is to:
a) Eliminate enemy targets.
b) Evade detection and escape to Whateley Academy.
>Mission parameters accepted...
>Assessing Enemy Target threat ratings...
>Not enough data...
>
>Termination of Unknown Targets Authorized.
>Assigning enemy target priority...
The label for the target in the front yard changes to ‘Alpha’, while the label for ‘Delta 4’ changes to ‘Beta’ and ‘Echo One’ changes to ‘Charlie’.
>Primary Mission Success Factor=57.4%
>Agent Survival Factor=22.5%
>Secondary Mission Success Factor=88.2%...Pending Primary Mission Completion.
The odds for my primary mission aren’t all that great, but at least, the secondary odds are better. Well, if I can survive the primary mission.
Well, I do know one thing. I need something to wear that is a bit stealthier than a green silk camisole top thing, but I don’t really have anything like my VR Selena vampire butt-kicking outfit or Whisper’s GEO outfit either. The knife is a bit too shiny too. My Selena outfit would be good, but I need something to camouflage my face, too. Okay, I need my GEO Whisper outfit and with that in mind, I concentrate and cast my self-illusion spell. I feel the magic ripple across my skin, almost like a caress. It feels good and it did not seem all that hard to cast this time. Maybe all the forced practice I did this evening helped?
I don’t feel any different, but when I look down at myself I am dressed in Whisper’s black silk rogue ninja style outfit. I catch my reflection in the glass door of the microwave and my face is concealed by Whisper’s rogue mask. That should help me blend into the night a little easier and the blade of the chef knife is now flat black too.
I don’t have a sheath to hold the knife, so I just switch it to my off hand and reverse the grip on it so that the back of the blade rests against my forearm, nice and snug. I don’t want to have an accident with the sharp knife.
>Updating Mission Factors...
>Primary Mission Success Factor=69.8%
>Agent Survival Factor=31.9%
That update makes me smile a little as I slink through the hall and pass Mr. Stile’s office door. He is still stuck in the council meeting. I hope that he doesn’t notice that I didn’t bring him his glass of water for a long time. I would not want him to come looking for me, check outside and accidentally walk right into the line of fire. There is no telling what these bozos would do to Mr. Stiles.
My egress point is from a window on the side of the house. As I touch the window, I detect the circuit of an active alarm system. I tell it to ignore this window’s sensor for an hour. That should give me plenty of time to get my primary mission done and reach a safe distance from the house before the house alarms start going off. With the knife, I carefully and slowly cut the bottom part of the screen window. I don’t want to make any noise that might alert Mr. Stiles or the targets outside.
They probably have night vision goggles and maybe even thermographic scopes. I am not sure, but I think that invisibility covers thermographic too. So, with that in mind, I cast my invisibility spell before I exit the window. Based on my last attempt to use invisibility, I don’t expect it to last very long, but it should last long enough for me to sneak up on the first target.
I am going to need every trick in the book and watching Uncle Jim play GEO reminded me that Whisper was a rogue before she learned some Illusionist tricks. With that in mind, I briefly debate trying to activate or use Whisper’s rogue powers to hide in the shadows and move undetected through shadows. I am able to visualize the icon for those abilities and the icons are similar to my illusionist spell icons, but not, they feel, if that is the right way to think of them, dark. Not evil dark, but light versus dark, which kind of makes sense, since hiding in shadows is the absence of light.
Hmmm, were Whisper’s high level rogue abilities really magical darkness spells? I am going to need to spend some time researching that little, umm, ‘feature’, but not tonight. I know that invisibility works, mostly. Additionally, I have not thought to try the rogue stuff yet and I don’t know how those spells would work against people with night vision and IR/Thermographic vision.
Careful to not make any noise, I slide out of the window and drop down to lie on my belly facing the front of the house. It is only 41 degrees Fahrenheit out here, but I don’t notice the cold as I lie on top of the mulch that covers the ground between a gap in the low bushes and the side of the house. Except for a hazy and ghostly outline of myself, I can see right through me. I hope that no one else can see that outline.
I add the thermographic spectrum to my vision and notice that the ground beneath me is starting to change color. If they are using thermographic scopes, I need to keep moving or they will spot me by my body heat soaking into the ground. A small part of me marvels at how my thermographic view of the world reminds me of the movie, Predator. Except, I don’t have the triangle targeting bracket or dreadlocks, but other than that, it doesn’t matter who these jerks are; I am the Predator this time and they aren’t Arnie.
I suppress that tiny bit of emotion as I low-crawl over to the front corner of the house and look for my target. Emotions like that will only get in the way and slow me down. With that reminder, I quickly spot my first target 94 meters away, hiding in the shrubs near the road and next to the start of the driveway. Mr. and Mrs. Stiles have a really big yard.
My target is lying on his belly, facing towards me and it is his face that makes him super easy to spot. With thermographic, his face is glowing like a light bulb. If it was not for that, he would have been pretty hard to spot because his body is not so easy. His clothing is somehow breaking up his heat signature very well.
“What is that other lump next to him?”
Oops! Correction, there are two targets and even with the thermographic, it is harder to spot the second target than I expected. Briefly, I filter out the thermographic and with just low-light and normal vision; even though I know where to look, they are both practically invisible to me. They are camouflaged very well. They must be wearing those ghillie suit outfits that I have seen on TV.
Both of the targets are lying on their bellies and have what appear to some sort of rifle at the ready. One of the targets is facing toward me and the house, while the other target is facing away. I guess that they are watching each other’s back. I am no expert, but that seems very smart of them. Much smarter than I would give the MCO or the H1 credit for. Could they be one of those CIA black-ops assassin teams like they show in the movies?
Maybe I watch too much TV?
My invisibility seems to be working, because during the entire 10.347 seconds that it takes me to do all this thinking and with my head partially exposed, the target facing the house does not appear to spot me. He also doesn’t appear to be actively using night vision or thermographic. Just his eyes, but he does have a large electronic scope of some sort mounted on his rifle.
Time to move and really test my invisibility spell on these guys. I step out and casually stroll across the lawn. I am right out in the wide open. No cover and no concealment what so ever, but Target One just doesn’t even twitch in my direction. I am totally relying on Murphy Law’s of Combat #5, “If it's stupid but it works, it isn't stupid.”, but I also aware of #12, “If your attack is going really well, it's an ambush.” I hope that Target One isn’t just pretending to not see me.
Needless to say, I am feeling pretty cocky when I close the distance to 20 meters, but I decide that I should probably alter my stride so that my feet don’t make noise on the grass. Well, less noise anyway. Oh, what about Whisper’s ‘Move Silently’ ability? Nope, not a spell. That icon is just an icon with a picture of some bare feet on it versus a spell pattern.
Crap!
Oh, wait. I remember watching some hunting show about how to walk silently while hunting deer. No time like the present and having your life on the line to learn a new skill! No pressure there, at all! I mean, all it would take is for the guy to shoot me, is to spin 45 degrees to his left and start firing. With that firmly in my mind, I pay very close attention not only to him, but also his weapon and where it is pointed. It’s not an M4A1 like the Army dudes had back in New Mexico. What is it?
>Searching...Match Found.
>Mk 12 Mod 1 SPR
>Modifications: Nightforce 2.5-10x24 NXS scope
>Effective Range: 550 Meters
Oh, that’s good to know. I guess. His eyes pass over me and I freeze, but he doesn’t appear to see me. I am so glad that I am using the STIMS right now because I am pretty sure that I would be totally flipping out right now if it weren’t for that stuff. I very slowly creep to within 5 meters of him and still no reaction from him or his buddy lying next to him. My knife is ready and I am pretty sure that I will be able to surprise the first target, but my second target; not so much. Who uses that kind of wicked looking weapon?
>United States Naval Special Warfare Command
>U.S. Army 75th Ranger Regiment
That bit of data causes me to freeze again.
>Updating Mission Factors...
>Primary Mission Success Factor=36.5%
>Agent Survival Factor=12.6%
Oh, that is not good. Now what in the hell do I do?
{“Delta One, this is Eagle Two. IR shows an open window on east side lower level. Do you detect any hostiles?”}
>Alert! Additional Enemies detected!
Really!? Like, Duh!
A little red dot lights up on my map 400 meters away and 10 meters above ground level, but I can’t tell exactly where because that part of my map is all black; just like the back yard. Eagle Two must be a sniper team.
>Updating Mission Factors...
>Primary Mission Success Factor=24.2%
>Agent Survival Factor=6.8%
{“Negative Eagle Two. Delta One, Over.”}
{“Delta six, Delta seven. Check east side of residence.”}
{“Delta Six, this is Echo One. Be advised. Secondary ETA in fife mike. Please confirm area is secure ASAP.”}
{“Roger Echo One, Delta Six, Over.”}
Another team? Frack!
>Updating Mission Factors...
>Primary Mission Success Factor=14.1%
>Agent Survival Factor=3.8%
Who in the hell are they? I can’t detect any CAC ID cards on these guys or anything else, other than their equipment that I could use to identify them.
{“Echo One, this is Delta Seven. Window is open six inches. Screen has been cut. Possible forced entry.”}
{“Shit! All teams, this is Alpha One. Force entry. Weapons hot. Deadly force authorized. Secure Principal.”}
Before I know what is happening, the two guys that I just snuck so close to, jump up and run toward the house. Their weapons are constantly at the ready as they search for targets. They make it 50 meters across the lawn before it hits me. Alpha One sounds like Mr. Smith, I mean Captain Howards.
>Analyzing Voice...
>Voice Match for Captain Kurtis B. Howards = 98.762%
What is he doing here and what is a “Principal”? If Mrs. Stiles is a “Secondary”, does “Principal” mean me, or Mr. Stiles? Damn it! I should have tried to, umm, neutralize, the two dudes that were lying down next to me when I had the chance. I can’t let them kill Mr. and Mrs. Stiles. Maybe if I just told them I was outside, they would change their minds about killing them and just be happy with killing me instead?
{“I’m not in there, Captain Howards. Please don’t hurt Mr. and Mrs. Stiles.”}
{“Whisper? What are you doing on this net? How did you...never mind. Where are you?”} Captain Howards asks.
{“I’m not going to make it that easy on you all to kill me.”} I say as I grip my knife tighter. Delta One and his partner skid to a stop, drop to a knee and face away from each other so that they can scan more ground in their attempt to find me. I grin at their confusion and lack of success. Time to pull a Han Solo and ignore the odds my little C3PO is giving me.
{“Whisper, what are you talking about?”} Captain Howards asks, sounding confused for some reason. His voice stress gauge is creeping into the upper yellows now. Good.
{“Aren’t you all here to, umm, how would you say it? Umm, neutralize me?”} I ask somewhat snidely as I stalk toward the two SEALs that have spread out a few meters from each other as they attempt to find me. Good. I can take out one, and then use his body to help block the aim of the other while I ‘appropriate’ the first guy’s weapon.
>Updating Mission Factors...
>Primary Mission Success Factor=26.1%
>Agent Survival Factor=3.8%
I told you to not tell me the odds! Oh, hey, at least my system thinks that I am now more likely to take out these two guys here.
{“What?!? Fuck no...”} Captain Howards sounds very confused now and his gauge bounces into the red. {“All units, stand down! Report!”}
The two guys that I am sneaking up on quickly drop a knee, glance back at each other and after a slight hesitation, I watch as they set their weapons on safe.
{“Delta One, Standing down.”} Starts it with Delta Eight finishing the reports.
{“Eagle One and Eagle Two, Standing Down.”}
I pause in my advance on the guy that I now know to be “Delta One” based on his call sign. I guess I can pause for a few seconds. {“Whisper, Standing down...for now.”}
{“Look, Whisper. I am sorry that I didn’t think to knock on the door and introduce ourselves sooner, but we needed to secure the area first. I was planning on formally introducing ourselves in the AM.”}
Now it is my turn to feel confused. {“Explain.”} I say as a little bit of hope sneaks past the STIMS.
{“Look, my SEAL team is here to watch over not only you, but also Mr. and Mrs. Stiles. We are here to keep you all safe until that damn CIA team is found.”}
Now, I am not sure what to believe. I want to trust him and since he was with Mr. Reilly and my mom, am pretty sure that I can trust him. My mom would have known or felt something if Captain Howards was planning on killing me, right?
{“Can you provide verification via Mr. Reilly or my mother?”} I ask.
{“Sure, but it might take a few.”}
I try not to play elevator music in my head, but some sneaks in before I can stop it.
{“Bree? Captain Howards says that you wanted to talk to me. Is something wrong?”} My mom anxiously asks exactly 12.37 seconds later. She sounds like she is on her cell phone instead of in the room or wherever Captain Howards is located.
{“Mom?”}
>Analyzing Voice...
>Voice Match for Jennifer Peters = 99.671%
I know that!
Sorry, umm, me. I just didn’t expect it and my invisibility spell decides that I have been ignoring it long enough. It drops, leaving me out in the open and totally exposed.
“Holy shit!” Delta Two yells as he jumps back half a meter while he simultaneously brings the barrel of his weapon up to aim it at me.
{“Yes?”} My mom asks.
Instead of replying to my mom’s question, I react to Delta Two. Time seems to slow to a crawl for me as I spring forward to close the gap between us. If I can get inside his firing zone, I can take him down before he can shoot me. I slam a block against the barrel with my right forearm.
[CLACK!]
The sound of my arm hitting the hand guard that that partially covers the barrel is really loud to me, but the force of my block knocks his rifle partially out of his hands. More importantly, it knocks his rifle away from me as I step inside his guard and onto his leading foot to try and keep him from taking a step backwards.
I slam my left elbow into his ribcage, but the force of my blow is blunted by his body armor. Since I am holding the knife against my left forearm, my elbow strike also manages to leave a deep gash in his armor, exposing a metal plate. I manage to hit him hard enough to make him grunt and even with my massive 120 lbs holding his foot down, he still manages to take a step back.
He surprises me by just letting go of his rifle and bringing his right elbow around to try and hit me in the side of my head. I dodge his elbow by continuing my forward motion and slamming my right elbow into the center of his chest. Once again, his body armor blunts the force of my blow, but I still manage to knock him onto his butt.
“Yamete!”
I am so conditioned to reacting to Sensei Rogers yelling that Japanese word to stop our sparring matches, that I pause, take a step back and drop into a guard stance.
“God damnit, Spencer! Wolfman told ya to stand down!” Delta One says with a disgusted growl.
I look up and see Delta One standing four meters away with his rifle sort of pointed in my general direction; like he is ready to use it if I do something dumb. Spencer, or Delta Two, is looking both slightly ashamed and surprised by his current situation.
“Sorry, ma’am.” He says as he cautiously gets back on his feet, retrieves his rifle and settles his gear back into place. “Fuck me...” He mutters under his breath when he notices the gash across the left side of his armor..
{“Bree! What’s wrong? What’s happening?”} My mom says, anxiously over the radio.
I calmly acknowledge Delta One by nodding my head and taking another step back.
>Alert!
My mini-map shows two flashing red dots from off to my right and slightly behind me. I look over my shoulder and spot the team that was sent to check out the window that like a noob, I foolishly left open.
{“Sorry Alpha One, Delta Two just had a bit of a lesson here.”} Delta One says.
{“Sorry Mom. My invisibility dropped at the wrong time and I inadvertently surprised Delta Two. I was forced to engage him to prevent harm to myself.”} I say.
{“Inadvertently? Bree, are you using that STIMS stuff again?”} My mom asks.
{“Affirmative.”} I say.
{“Brianna Nicole Peters! Off! Right now young lady, do you understand me?”}
{“Yes Mom, but I am unable to comply with your order at the moment.”}
{“What?!? I thought I told you to not use that stuff? Now, turn it off right this instant!”}
{“Sorry Mom, but the current engagement has not been resolved and the tactical risk assessment is too high due to the momentary weakness caused during system purging.”}
{“Bree, please. They really are there to help you. The boss of the CIA agents has been taken care of, but they are still looking for the agents that took you. We all agreed that, umm, covertly placing a SEAL team there to watch over you and the Stiles to keep you safe would be the best course of action.”}
I want to believe my mom. It doesn’t sound like she is being fed anything and that she believes in what she is saying. Besides, what could it hurt? My odds were never that great to begin with. {“Okay.”}
>Suspending Combat Stim Production...
My knees buckle and I lose control of my Whisper illusion as I drop to the ground. The knife slips from my fingers and drops into the grass. I feel so weak and drained. “Oh god, that stuff sucks...” I say, softly to myself, but Delta One and Delta Two are close enough to overhear me. Delta Two takes a cautious step forward before he recalls his lesson and halts with a nervous glance back to Delta One.
“Ma’am, do you need any help?” Delta Two softly asks.
Now that I am not all drugged up and ignoring everything, I reflexively hug myself and start to violently shiver from the cold. I look up to Delta Two, with the intention of telling him that I am fine, but the barely above freezing, 41 degrees Fahrenheit, hits me hard and my teeth begin to chatter uncontrollably. Delta Two overcomes his caution, steps forward, pulls me to my feet and in one smooth motion puts me over his shoulders and into a fireman’s carry.
“H-h-h-ey!” I stammer out as I am ungraciously carried by Delta Two.
{“Alpha One, this is Delta One. We need to get the Principal back inside the residence ASAP.”}
{“Roger Delta One. Return Principal to residence, then resume mission as planned.”}
Delta Two heads toward the front door.
{“Umm, Delta Two?”} I ask using the radio. As violently as my teeth are chattering, I doubt that I can actually speak that clearly. {“Maybe I should go back in via the window? I am not sure how Uncle Jim would react to all, umm, this.”}
{“Delta One, be advised. ETA of Secondary is now two minutes. Alpha One, Over.”}
Delta Two responds by running around to the side of the house, like my weight means nothing to him. We are flanked by Delta One and the other two SEAL dudes. Reaching the still open window, Delta Two gently lowers me back to my feet while Delta One pulls the cut screen aside. I reach up and grab hold of the window sill, but I am shivering so much that it is a struggle to pull myself up and back into the warm house.
Delta Two surprises me by wrapping his left arm around my upper thighs and smoothly lifting me up. That proves to be all I need to get my upper body into the house and shimmy the rest of me through the window. I drop to the floor with a thump that is muffled by the carpet and I just lay on my back for a few seconds as the blessed warmth hits me. The window slides down as someone lowers it from the outside.
{“Alpha One, Principal is secure. Resuming operation. Delta One, Over.”}
Still shivering, I roll over, carefully stand back up and look out the window. I catch a glimpse of movement, but nothing else. I snug the window down, lock it and tell the alarm system to pay attention to this window again. Satisfied that everything is working, I start to turn back to return to the kitchen for Uncle Jim’s glass of water when I hear a single light tap on the window. I look back out and my, I mean, Uncle Jim’s chef knife is lying on the window sill.
Crap! I forgot all about that.
I quickly disarm the alarm and retrieve the knife. “Thanks.” I whisper out the window as I softly reclose it, and then re-arm the alarm, again. Still shivering, I wrap my arms across my chest, careful to not stab myself with the knife’s exposed blade and sneak past Uncle Jim’s office and into the kitchen. He is still playing and it looks like he isn’t even aware that I haven’t returned with his glass of water yet. Well, it has only been five minutes since I went all Whisper and tried to get myself killed, but I guess Uncle Jim might still be thirsty.
I slip the knife back into the knife block where I found it. Then, I grab a fresh glass for Uncle Jim, add some ice...
Brrrr...
...Fill his glass and enter his office. “Here ya go Uncle Jim. Sorry it took so long. I, umm, got distracted by the size of your house.” I say as I hand him his glass.
With a very brief glance away from the action on his screen, Uncle Jim takes the offered glass from my hand. “Thanks, Chloe.” He says as he takes a quick sip before he sets it down and returns to playing, totally ignoring me.
I don’t feel at all offended by Uncle Jim basically ignoring me. I am actually lucky that he is playing, because if not, he might have noticed my own little adventure. Besides, I recognize the dungeon that he is currently in and it is not an easy one. Additionally, he is filling the main tank role, so he is a bit busy. One bad pull and he could wipe the entire group.
Now that my hands are free, once again, I wrap my arms around my chest in an attempt to warm myself back up. It doesn’t work, so I sneak out of his office and rush over to sit back in front of the fireplace.
“Ahhhh...” I say as the fire’s warmth starts to soak into my back. I shiver once more before regaining control. Then, I turn to face the fire and warm my hands. My fingers are freezing and the warmth feels heavenly. I don’t want to ever move. Maybe I can sleep in front of the fireplace tonight.
{“Alpha One, this is Delta One. Secondary’s vehicle spotted.”}
That announcement jolts me to my feet. I am not sure what I should do. What would Aunt Julie expect me to be doing right now? Watching TV? Probably, but I can’t really sit on the couch due to the fabric.
Grrrr.
I intercept the garage door signal and I assume that Aunt Julie is now in the drive, about to pull into the garage. Maybe she will need help carrying stuff? Reluctantly, I step away from the warmth of the fireplace, rush to the door that leads to the garage and open it just as she begins to pull her SUV into the garage. The cold air rushing into the house from the open garage door hits me like a hammer and I instantly start to shiver again.
I can’t help myself from smiling when Aunt Julie spots me and happily returns my smile. She also gives me a quick wave as she cautiously inches her SUV forward and into the garage. Satisfied that she has her SUV properly parked, she turns off the motor and pushes a button her visor. That sends out the garage door signal again and I find myself anxiously watching as the door slowly closes behind her SUV. I almost expect one of the SEAL teams to try and sneak in while the door is closing, but no one does. I wouldn’t blame them if they did though. It is cold outside!
Aunt Julie exits her SUV, opens the door to the back seat and that is when I spot a lot of expensive looking name-brand bags. “Umm, Aunt Julie, do you need any help carrying those into the house?” I ask.
Aunt Julie looks up and frowns at me. “Chloe! You’re shaking like a leaf! Get back inside where it is warm. I can get these.”
“I-i-it’s o-kay. I want to help.” I say as my teeth begin to chatter again. I don’t think that I am doing such a good job with the cold. I would like to think that it is only because I am a girl, but I don’t think that I would be doing any better if I was still a boy. Then again, if that were the case, I wouldn’t be here and I would for sure be wearing something warmer than a flimsy silk top that exposes my upper torso, shoulders and arms to the cold.
You know, something practical, like a long sleeved t-shirt with kick ass picture of Wolverine or Spiderman on it. Oh heck, who am I trying to kid here? I would be wearing my geek-tastic D&D t-shirt with the picture of some half-dressed warrior chick attacking a dragon or my GEO Rogue t-shirt with the picture of the bad ass looking rogue dude on it.
Aunt Julie shakes her head as she grapples with all the bags. “No, no, no! Get inside before you catch a cold! I’ve got them!”
I don’t need to be told twice, well, okay I do, but Aunt Julie still needs someone to hold the door for her and that was my job. Unfortunately, I fail at containing my shivers as she rushes through the door with her hands full of bags.
“Thanks!” Aunt Julie peeks around from the bags that are partially blocking her vision. “Chloe! You’re shaking to death! What did I tell you? Get in the living room and sit down in front of the fire while I dig out the new sweater that I found for you.”
“Y-y-yes, ma’am.” I manage to say just before I scramble ahead of her and race to my now preferred spot directly in front of the fireplace.
“Jim! I’m home!” Aunt Julie yells towards Uncle Jim’s office.
“Okaay!” Uncle Jim yells back. He sounds somewhat distracted.
Aunt Julie just looks at me with a pleased smile. “Well, from the sound of his acknowledgement, I’d say we have at least another hour before he is done in there. Plenty of time for me to show you around the house and have you try on these clothes, but first, something warm for you. You are still shivering like crazy there!”
The fire does feel rather good. “I am doing much better now, but I am only staying for a few days. You didn’t need to get all that.” I say as I gesture towards all the bags.
“Nonsense. I didn’t get that much and it was actually kind of fun shopping for you.” Aunt Julie says as she roots through a large bag, pulls out a dark purple sweater. “Here, try this eggplant sweater on. It is made of cashmere, but it was on sale and I couldn’t pass it up.”
Eggplant? I thought that was a vegetable. Weird name for a color aside, it is soft and even better, it has a zipper in the front that allows me to zip it all the way up. While I am getting my shivering under control in front of the cozy fireplace, Aunt Julie pulls out more clothes than I expected. I thought she just said ‘essentials’? I can understand why she got me half dozen new panties, but why did she have to buy me more two more pairs of jeans, six tops, three bras, one of them one of those demi things she mentioned earlier and a new pair of boots? Oh yeah, and a pair of some black shoes that she calls ‘pumps’.
Oh crap!
I try not to scream when Aunt Julie pulls a dress out of one of the bags. “Now, I got you this cute little skirt, but you don’t have to wear it; if you don’t want to.” Aunt Julie says as she holds it up for me to briefly inspect before she puts it back in the bag.
I know that my mom got me one, but when your mom buys you something it does not carry the same expectations as when a friend or someone whose house you are staying at to hide from the MCO and the CIA buys you something. When she showed it to me, I could see from the look in her eyes that she will be very disappointed if I don’t at least try it on.
“Okay, let me show you your room and we can put these away. I am going to guess that your Uncle didn’t show you the house before he started playing ‘that’ game, right?” Aunt Julie asks as she stands and grabs a few of the bags.
I nod my head to her question as I grab the rest of the bags and follow her up the stairs. She leads me into a very large room with a queen size bed. The room has large windows that look out over the front yard and a vaulted ceiling. It looks bigger than my parents’ room and it has its own bathroom. “Umm, isn’t this your room?” I ask.
Aunt Julie laughs and looks back at me as she closes the window shades. “Oh no, our room is down the hall. This is just our guest bedroom. We have one more if you don’t like this one.”
{“Alpha One, Secondary just closed the shades to the second story guest room.”}
{“Umm, yes Alpha One, that’s my room.”}
“Oh no! This one is way nice. It’s just so big. I thought, well...” I say, blushing from embarrassment.
“That’s okay, Chloe. I know that it is a little large, but when your Uncle Jim and I had this house built for us, we made sure that it was big enough for a family.”
“A family? Did your kids already move out?” I ask because if I had a room like this, I would never want to leave home.
Aunt Julie giggles at me as she begins unpacking and organizing all the clothes on the top of the bed. “Oh, no, Chloe. We haven’t had any children, yet. We have both just been too busy, but I am thinking that we might need to change that situation soon. We aren’t getting any younger.”
Now, I am really embarrassed. “Oh.” I say as I realize that I sort of just called Aunt Julie old.
“Here! Try this skirt on for me, please?” Aunt Julie asks as she digs out the small black dress thing as retribution for me accidentally calling her old.
Now that I am better prepared for the shock, I notice that it has small purple flowers scattered all over it. She also pulls out some black leggings out of the same bag. Then, after a second of deliberation, she chooses a black camisole and a matching pair of black panties.
“Try it with these. You can change in the bathroom.” Aunt Julie says with a glance toward the cavernous looking bathroom.
Why do the panties need to match everything? Who is going to see them when they are buried under two to three layers of fabric? Why do I even care when there are now much bigger fish to fry? Because, how can I say no to the dress, I mean skirt, without sounding like a complete and ungrateful b, i, t, c, h? Anyway, what is the difference between a dress and a skirt?
>Searching....
>No definitions found...
What? How could I not know or have heard what the difference between a dress and a skirt is at some point in my life? I mean, I know that I never needed to know, but I am sure my mom, sister or some random TV show would have said that a dress is “this”, while a skirt is “that”. Maybe that is just one of those things that real girls are just born knowing the answer to? Is there a difference? Am I freaking out over this a little too much?
“Ummm...Okkay.” I say as I take the offered items and walk into the bathroom. I know that I have worn more girlie stuff in my VR dressing room, but that was just me. It wasn’t real and my Chloe illusion totally doesn’t count either. This is for real.
The bathroom momentarily distracts me from my mini freak out. It is huge! It has a separate bathtub and shower area and the bathtub is one of those giant spa tub things with jets and everything. The only downside is that it is made of plastic, but I am not a huge bath fan anyway. I prefer showers and the shower is a wonder. It not only has jets on the top, but also on the side too! Yes, there is a toilet and a sink in there too. The toilet, well, it is a toilet, but the sink is nice. It is one of those standing bowl things that make it look like someone stuck a big mixing bowl on top of a counter, then a faucet leading into it and called it a sink.
I sigh and wistfully look at the pure girl clothes in my arms. I am still not sure what the correct technical term is, but Aunt Julie called it a skirt, so skirt it is. The skirt thing is black with a tiny purple flower pattern and flowers on clothes are a 100% pure all girl thing. No guy would ever knowingly wear an article of clothing with a flower on it. Unless, said flower was kicking some other flower’s butt.
*sigh*
I guess I should just get it over with. I strip down to just my bra, then slide the new panties on, followed by the leggings. They feel weird because I am not used to having pants that hug my legs so tightly. Well, except for my Selene outfit, but that is leather and not real.
“Do you need any help in there Chloe?” Aunt Julie asks through the door.
“Nope, I’m almost done.” I say as I quickly step into and slide the skirt up. I am glad that there is a label in the back, because without a zipper, I would have no clue which side was which. I look at myself in the mirror and I can’t help it. I look good, but I think that I need to put the cami on too. I realize that the cami has a built in bra when I try to put it on. So, I quickly remove my bra, then slide the cami on and tuck it under the skirt.
My god, I am doomed. I can’t stop myself. I smile when I look at my reflection in the mirror. I just look so damn pretty and that alien thought is, unsettling. I cautiously open the door, poke my head out, then with Aunt Julie’s encouragement; I step out from behind the door.
Aunt Julie’s smile is all I need to see to know how utterly and completely doomed that I am now because I feel pleased that she likes how I look in it. “Oh my. It looks even better than I expected on you. Here, try it with the boots.” She says as she steps over to the closet, pulls out the new pair of boots and hands them too me.
She already has everything put away and hung my new clothes up. Did she talk to my mom or something? Is putting clothes away and hanging things up in the closet a girl thing? I try the boots on and Aunt Julie has me walk around the room a bit. I can’t help myself; I pretend to model the outfit for her and strike some poses.
“Wow, Chloe. Just wow. That skirt just looks so cute on you.”
Okay, so this is definitely a skirt. “Umm, thanks. I do kinda like it.” I say as I look down at myself. I suddenly realize that I might sound ungrateful to her. “I mean, I do like it. Way more than I thought I would.”
I look up at Aunt Julie and she has that look in her eyes. The look that tells me that she is very happy and trying not to cry.
My eyes suddenly tear up and I start to cry.
Damn it! Don’t tell me that I need to use the STIMS when trying on clothes.
Aunt Julie stands and pulls me into a hug. “Shhh, it’s okay. I was so worried that you wouldn’t like it, but when I saw you wearing it and even happy, I just couldn’t help it.” She says with a slight sniffle.
“I’m sorry. I’ve just never worn a dress, umm, skirt, before. Well, not for real anyway, I didn’t expect to like it and umm, that kind of freaks me out a little.”
Aunt Julie steps back a little and studies my face with a concerned expression. “I would say that I understand, but medically speaking, I still find it hard to believe that you were ever a boy. You just don’t look like you were ever a boy...”
I don’t know how to handle her assessment and I guess that I pout a little too.
A wry smile lights her face. “...but you do act and speak like a boy at times. Well, more than can be explained by you just being a tomboy. I have never treated a girl your age who was so self-conscious, unfamiliar and unsure about her own body.”
“Oh.” I say realizing that my fear of losing my male mojo is making me stand out more.
“So, I have cleared as much of my schedule as I could for the next few days in order to spend more time with you. I can’t just leave you home alone all day for the week, can I?” Aunt Julie asks rhetorically.
I am not really alone. There is an entire team of SEALS camped out on her lawn. “Umm, well...” I say as I hesitate over whether or not I should let her know.
Aunt Julie shakes her head no thinking that I am going to ask her to let me stay home alone. “Nope, I feel guilty enough about having to go for a couple of hours tomorrow and leave you here, but I will do what I can to help you adapt and I promise to try and be too pushy either.”
“Umm, okay Aunt Julie, but you really don’t need to worry about leaving me here alone. I am sure that I will be safe here.” I say.
Aunt Julie laughs at me. “Oh, Chloe! If even half of what you told me is true, I am not sure if it will be possible for the rest of this week to go off without something going wrong. I mean, I think your luck...” She says by adding air quotes as she says ‘luck’. “...has rubbed off on me already.”
Now I am worried. “What?” I ask as I take a step back and look around for hidden enemies.
She smirks at my response. “I might have had someone try to mug me as I was leaving the mall tonight, but two military guys scared him off instead. So, I am not really sure, but it was a tiny adventure for me.”
“You did!? Oh my god. I am so sorry, Aunt Julie. I didn’t mean for you be in danger too!”
{“Alpha One, did you know that, umm, Mrs. Stiles was almost mugged at the mall tonight?”}
{“Yes Whisper, I do and the would be mugger is being spoken to about the error of his ways even as we speak.”}
{“Oh, umm, so it was ‘just’ a mugger and not...umm, you know?”} I ask.
{“Yes, it was ‘just’ a mugger as you say it.”} Captain Howards says with amusement in his voice.
{“Oh, okay. Umm, should I tell Mrs. Stiles or wait until tomorrow for you to tell her about the extra security?”}
{“Unless fit hits the shan tonight, how about you let me explain it to them in the AM?”}
{“Oh, okay. Sorry, umm, sir. I didn’t mean to cause you all so much trouble. Is Delta Two okay?”}
I start to worry when he doesn’t reply right away.
{“Umm, sorry Whisper.”} Captain Howards says with a note of amusement in his voice. {“Yes, he is okay, but I am sure that he is not going to be happy with his remedial training exercises tomorrow.”}
Aunt Julie is shaking me trying to get my attention. “Chloe! It’s okay. I’m fine. You don’t need to worry about me.”
{“Oops, sorry. Gotta go! Umm, Whisper, Over.”}
“Sorry Aunt Julie, I was just, umm, thinking.” I say.
“Well, you scared me there with that spaced out expression. You looked like you were a million miles away. Anyway, I am going to go relax in the Jacuzzi for a bit. Do you want to join me?” She asks with a grin that seems to hint at something.
No, not really. There is no way that I want to be seen parading around in my underwear or even worse, nothing. “Umm, I would, but I don’t have a suit.” I say instead.
Aunt Julie’s grin turns into a pleased smile for some reason. “Well then young lady, you are just in luck then!” She says as the butterflies in my stomach start flapping like crazy. She reaches into the one bag that is left on the bed and pulls out a tiny, to me, dark green two piece bikini that looks suspiciously like it will fit me.
“Ta da! I found this Tahiti green two piece and I just had to get it for you.” Aunt Julie says as she wiggles its hanger back and forth triumphantly.
Eggplant and now Tahiti green? What is it with women and colors? I would have just called it dark green and been done with it. Who comes up with these names?
I think that Aunt Julie sees the horror in my eyes as I frantically try to come up with another reason. “It’s 100% cotton too. I tried to find a one piece for you, but it’s not really the season for swimwear and this is all they had in a fabric that would work for you.” Aunt Julie says.
Dang it. Aunt Julie is worse than my mom and I am trapped now. “Umm, okay, thanks?” I say hesitantly as I gingerly accept the flimsy bits of fabric.
Aunt Julie’s eyes are sparkling with mischief as she smiles at me with victory. “Great! Now, go get changed while I hop into my suit. Then, I will come and fetch ya before we head down stairs, okay?”
“Umm, okay.” I say, feeling defeated and out maneuvered as I examine the suit with confusion as she leaves my room.
There are no bands or straps to be adjusted; Just strings that need to be tied. Now what do I do?
**
“Fuck me to tears!” Ken Fovel muttered under his breath as he rapidly walked away from the mall. He only had a ten spot to his name and that rich bitch looked like she would have been worth at least $100 bucks and probably more. Bitches like her could be carrying as much as $500 in cash, plus the good platinum and sometimes, the titanium cards. His fence would give him $50 easy for one of those cards.
If only those two jarheads hadn’t interrupted him. He briefly considered pulling his piece on them to scare them away, but they didn’t look easily frightened and he didn’t want to take the chance that he would have to off them. Getting nicked for robbery was nothing compared to murder.
“Hey buddy, ya got a light?” He heard a man ask from his right.
As he turned to tell the asshole to fuck off, he sensed a presence behind him, but before he could even react; the lights went out.
He came too when he felt himself being lowered onto the ground. His head hurt like a son of a bitch. He felt right away that his hands and feet were bound. That really scared the crap out of him. Whoever clocked him, they knew what they were doing. He heard the sound of surf nearby and smelled the fresh salt water in the air, but he kept his eyes closed and pretended to still be unconscious. Not that keeping his eyes closed really mattered right now. He felt a blindfold wrapped over his eyes.
“What do you think we should do with him now?”
“I dunno. His ID checked out, he’s just a petty crook with no convictions, but he probably saw us so we should weigh him down and just dump his body in the ocean.”
“Well, he did graduate from high school and he had a 3.4 GPA, so he’s not a complete waste...”
“Hmmm, I dunno. I still think it would be easier if we just dumped him. Much cleaner that way.”
“Shhh, he’s coming around...”
Ken groaned a little to help sell his waking up a little better. “Whoa, where am I? What happened?”
“Crap, he’s awake.”
“Who are you? What do you want? I have a ten! You can have it! I didn’t see nuthing! Honest!”
“We know that. Now shut up while we figure out what to do with your body.”
“Well, we could just let him go...”
Ken felt the cold barrel of a gun touch the back of his head and he felt a little bit of pee leak out before he regained control of himself. “Please! Dear god! I didn’t see anything and I won’t tell!”
“I dunno...”
“Well, remember how many hours it took you to clean your weapon the last time you used that monster suppressor?”
“Hmm, yeah, that did suck and that asshole took three shots, but I guess I didn’t really need to blow his knees out first.”
“Nope, but your weapon was still a mess to clean and I had to listen to you complain about it for days afterwards.”
“You might be right, but this punk did have a weapon on him. He might do something stupid later, then how would I feel knowing that I could have stopped him now?”
“True...”
“I never used it! Honest! I’ve never shot anyone and I promise that if you let me go, I will throw the damn thing away!”
One of the men chuckled. “Don’t worry punk. I already did that for you and I probably saved your life. That thing was trash and it might have even blown up in your hand if you had tried to fire it.”
“I swear! I’ll turn myself in or something! Just let me live!”
“Hmmm, what do you think, Coop?”
“Okay punk. Here’s the deal. There is a military recruitment center five miles down the road from here. Show up there first thing in the morning, pass the tests and maybe I will forget about you.”
“Oh my god! I’ll do it! I promise! Thank you! Oh my god!”
“Don’t forget. We know who you are and we will find you.”
“Oh fuck! Oh my god! Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
“We are leaving now, but don’t try to slip your bonds or take off the blindfold until you can’t hear our car. I’ll be watching you with some high powers and if start trying to escape before I can’t see you, we will turn around and finish the job. Understand?”
Ken felt a little more pee run down his leg, but he didn’t care. He had a chance and fuck if he was going to mess this up. He had messed up a lot of things in his short life, but this was one thing that he wouldn’t fuck up. “Yes! Oh my god! Thank you!” He yelled with relief as he heard the sound of a v8 engine rumble to life and accelerate rapidly away, spraying some gravel and sand on him in the process, but he didn’t care. He was still alive and damned if he was going to fuck up a second chance. He waited a full five minutes before he started to even try removing the blindfold, followed by the duct tape that held his feet and wrists together. It took about 15 minutes to get the sticky duct tape off; he was wrapped up pretty good, but he got it done. He found his wallet, still with the ten inside of it, lying on the ground next to him. Amazed that they didn’t take his wallet, he pocketed it and quickly began walking in the indicated direction.
**
MCO Special Agent Lainer set his fourth cup of coffee down before he yawned and tiredly rubbed his eyes in frustration. It was 2 AM and his team of four agents had just wasted the last three hours watching and rewatching every single individual camera feed to no avail. The damn mutie wasn’t in any of them and he was so sure that she was.
Why else would the FBI have taken the tapes in the first place?
“Fuck! The damn bitch has got to be in here! Why can’t we spot her? She couldn’t have dodged every fucking camera.” Agent Lainer said.
“Sorry boss, but she’s just not here. Maybe we missed a tape?” Agent Harris asked.
Agent Lainer sighed and leaned back in his chair. “No, we didn’t miss a tape. The mall’s security chief assured me that we have everything the feds have and with as much footage as we do have, I am inclined to believe him.”
“What now then?” Agent Harris said with a yawn.
“Let’s pack it up and get some sleep. Maybe something will jump out at us tomorrow morning.” Agent Lainer said as he held back a yawn of his own. He watched, lost in thought as his team shut down their workstations and left the MCO Field Office.
After fifteen minutes of struggling to keep his eyes open, Special Agent Lainer slammed his fist down on his desk with frustration and stood up to leave. “Fuck, oh well. Maybe tomorrow...” He said.
For some reason, “...she’s just not here...” kept running through his sleep deprived mind during his 15 minute commute to his apartment. He didn’t think much of it as he stumbled into his room and fell asleep on the top of his bed still in his clothes.
**
Woo Hoo! I manage to sleep for a massive two hours tonight! It is only 0130 hours and I am going to guess that I have at least four hours before anyone else is up. Aunt Julie said that Uncle Jim normally leaves the house at 7 AM, but since she didn’t need to go into work this morning; she was looking forward to sleeping in until at least 8 AM.
The bed is awesome, my new cotton flannel PJ’s are cozy and I can only dream of being able to sleep in until 8 AM now. 8AM used to be early for me when it wasn’t a school night. I want to sleep some more, but I can’t. I am wide awake. So, I give up after tossing and turning for five minutes, sit up and push together the pillows to lean against while I do what I always do now.
I enter my VR living room and after a moment of thought, I decide that I need more rooms in my VR house. In addition to the shooting range, I also need a Jacuzzi and pool room. Once I got over the fear of being seen in a tiny bikini, the Jacuzzi with Aunt Julie was actually very relaxing and even fun.
I did learn one thing that gives me some hope for my shattered male mojo. For being old, Aunt Julie is still pretty hot. I am pretty sure that if John and I had seen her in at the pool, we would have been totally checking her out. I think that was part of my initial reluctance to join her in the Jacuzzi.
Uncle Jim joined us after 15 minutes and I felt so relaxed and safe that I never even considered jumping out. Heck, I even allowed myself to be seen out of the water as I sat on the edge to cool off.
With Uncle Jim there, Aunt Julie informed us that she had called her sister, Karen, and got her on board with my Chloe identity. Uncle Jim was surprised that she would feel the need to take that step, but after Aunt Julie chided him on his lack of witness protection skills, he grudgingly admitted that he should have thought of that too. Especially, after I told him about the MCO dudes and how I was also pretending to be his niece with both the MCO and his police buddies.
He was a little worried about the fact that my identity could be blown out of the water if anyone actually performed even a simple records search on his ‘niece’, but he didn’t think that the risk of that was very large. I was only going to be with them for a day or two and that probably wasn’t long enough for anyone to even suspect that I wasn’t who I claimed to be.
For my Jacuzzi room, I decide to make it an outdoor Jacuzzi that is attached to a massive swimming pool that has a water slide. Also, since I don’t need to worry about chlorine or even salt water, I add a coral reef with some clown fish just to keep it entertaining.
As I switch my clothes over to my new bikini, I decide that it will be nighttime, a full moon and a pleasant 70 degrees Fahrenheit. Shivering slightly from the cool night air, I slip into my new Jacuzzi, activate the jets, close my eyes and relax. The warm water and powerful gets against my back and legs feels so heavenly. It almost feels like someone is giving me a massage.
“Ahhh, that feels so so good.” I say with a contented sigh.
“Oh good. Do I get a turn now?” A sexy female voice breathes into my ear.
“Ahhh!” I jump at least 10 feet straight up before I land with a splash back in the Jacuzzi. As I surface and hastily try to clear the water from my face, I hear an evil giggle that can only be one person. “Sara! That wasn’t funny!” I yell as I turn to face the sound of her evil giggles.
“Oh, yeah it was and I really must say, that suit looks hot on you! Ta-zow!” Sara says, not sounding a bit sorry for scaring the crap out of me. She is trying to look all sweet and innocent, but failing miserably with the cute little devil horns and string bikini that isn’t hiding a thing on her body.
“What!? You scare the crap out of me and that’s what you have to tell me?” I ask feeling a little upset with her still, but she does look pretty hot. Wait a minute! She is not going to distract me so easily! I cross my arms over my chest and give her my best, “I’m mad at you expression.”
“What? I thought you knew I was here when I was giving you a massage and I must say cousin, you have really nice legs!” Sara says not at all sounding sorry.
Wait, what did she just call me? “Umm, what?”
“I said, you. have. really. nice. legs.” Sara says with a smirk.
Now, I know for sure that she is messing with me. “No, not that. Cousin?” I ask as her statement causes me to self-consciously check my own legs out. Hmm, they are kind of nice.
“Well, of course! Nikki is my sister and since her Queen-ness adopted you and Nikki made you her cousin, that makes you my cousin too.” Sara says, then she giggles and bounces up and down like an excited little school girl.
Umm, that distracts me, a little.
“I can’t wait until your new Unkie Gothmog hears about this. He is going to be so excited to meet you!” Sara gushes.
“My what?” I ask. She is really confusing me now. Does she have ADHD or something?
“Your Unkie, Gothmog, my dad. Hello, is my suit distracting you that much?” Sara asks as she puts her hands on her hips in mock indignation which forces her breasts to strain against the flimsy fabric of her non-bikini.
I can’t help it. I start laughing. “Sara! You’re impossible!” I say as I pull her toward me and give her a hug while steadfastly ignoring the feeling of her lithe body against mine. I mean, she is my cousin now and that would just be weird, right?
Sara returns my hug and gives me a quick kiss on the cheek before she steps back and sinks under the bubbling water. “So, I understand that you’ve been a busy little beaver with the H1 and now the MCO?” She says, a little uncertain about the MCO.
“Well, yeah, there was the H1, but it wasn’t the MCO, well, not at first. It was the CIA. Someone sent a team to kidnap me and maybe have me checked out by some mad scientist or something.” I say as Sara’s eyes widen with shock before they settle down into something that kind of scares me.
“Can you give me a description of these CIA agents?” Sara asks with all traces of ADHD gone.
“Well, yes, and I have their CAC ID card info too, why?” I ask, suddenly feeling a little nervous to be standing so close to Sara.
Little black shadowy tentacles are starting to swirl around her body. “Give me their info, please.”
I tell her the names of all four of the agents. “Oh yeah, and Captain Howards let it slip that the CIA dude that started all this was being ‘taken care of’, but they are still looking for the agents. That is why I am hiding out at Uncle Jim and Aunt Julie’s house right now.”
“Uncle Jim?” Sara asks as the shadowy things start to recede.
“Oh yeah, he’s Lord Vincint. I watched him play for a little bit tonight. Are you Marala?” I ask. Now I feel like I have ADHD. I kinda miss the fun, sexy and mess-with-me Sara.
“Lord Vincint, huh? Yes, I play Marala.” Sara smiles apologetically at me. “Sorry, I’ll be right back. I need to talk to a, umm, friend.” Sara says just before she fades out, leaving me feeling cold in spite of the fact that I am standing hip deep in a bubbling hot Jacuzzi.
Sara’s abrupt departure leaves me with mixed feelings. In the span of two minutes, she has made me almost poop my pants, umm, bikini, laugh, love her and finally fear her. Why did she want to know their info? I know that Sara is a demon or something, but what can she find out about them that Mr. Reilly can’t?
~o~O~o~
Insert standard disclaimer here: The one that reminds everyone that this is a work of fiction. No one is real and any resemblance to someone who is real is purely coincidence, honest. This is also a Fan Fiction set in the Whateley Story Universe. No Canon characters were permanently harmed in the making of this story. I hope. :)
Note: I got distracted by my Mystique story, then I got another story idea and I sorta blocked on the last bit in this chapter. Sorry for the delay. Thanks for my beta readers and resident SEAL expert for their feedback and patience. And last, but not least, djkauf for his magical editing.
<Wed Feb 21th, 2007>
With Sara’s departure, I look around my Jacuzzi and pool area and decide that I just don’t feel like hanging out here anymore. I will myself back to my living room and into my new pajamas. That is one nice thing about VR, it’s not real, so I don’t need to waste time drying off.
With a sigh, I plop myself down on the couch and look around for something to do. I know that I promised myself that I would delete Amanda’s girl mag as soon as I could, and I could do that right now, but now I am bored. Plus, after my new clothes, first dress, I mean, skirt, first bikini and Jacuzzi time with Aunt Julie, I’m actually interested in reading a few more of the articles.
Shudder...
I sigh with defeat, open up the magazine and start reading. I hope that Sara won’t be gone for too long. I make it through the advice column about why a boy is sending the girl text messages and what that means. The girl asking for advice is so clueless that I want to scream. Plus, she gets an answer that isn’t at all helpful and is totally not what boys think. I could have answered the girl’s question with just three simple words. “He likes you, duh!” Okay, four words.
After reading that, I feel like throwing the magazine in my mental shred machine, but I accidently turn the page and find an article about nail colors and proper nail care. I make it halfway through that article when I hear Sara cough to get my attention. Well, it’s an improvement over her last method.
I look up and she is not alone. That reminds me. I need to ask her how she is able to get into my head because standing next to Sara is another girl. She is beautiful and looks to be about my age, but she also looks older somehow. I don’t know how to explain it, but I get the feeling that she had been through a lot. While she looks around my VR living room with undisguised curiosity, I notice that her black hair has some vivid blue streaks running through it. I think it looks kind of cool, but her most striking feature is her eyes. They are a brilliant electric blue. Not just her cornea, but her entire eye is blue, like Paul Atreides from Dune.
“Okay, Bree, this is Paige. Paige, this is Bree, my new cousin on Nikki’s side.” Sara says as she looks back and forth between us.
I stand up, nervously smile and cautiously offer my hand to her. I am not used to having visitors, well, except for Sara, in my VR world. She shakes my hand, but surprises me with a quick hug and a friendly smile.
“Nice to meet you, Bree, and I can’t wait to find out what Sara interrupted a really good dream for.” Paige says with a wistful expression.
“Paige is a, umm, friend of mine who is good with computers and I thought that she might be able to help us.” Sara says with a warning glance at Paige when Paige looks at her with a raised eyebrow.
I think that Paige is wondering why she is a ‘friend’, because there seems to be more to it than that. What is Sara trying to hide or protect me from?
Paige regains my attention. “So, Bree, I was able to look up the CIA agents based on the info you provided Sara, but I need to know a bit more for my search.”
“Umm, okay. I can show you what they looked like and I have a video of what happened with everything they said and did; would that help?” I ask.
Paige’s eyes widen with surprise. “Sure?”
I play back the start of my kidnapping and up until I shoot John in the shoulder. “Stop!” Paige says, then with it paused, she intently studies the image of John. “Hmm, so we have two CIA agents with gunshot wounds...okay, I think that might help. I can search all the hospitals and clinics in the area for patients admitted this evening. They will probably be treated anonymously, but their wounds should be specific enough for me to get a match on them.” Paige turns back to Sara. “If I do find them, what do you want me to do?”
“Let me know. I am very interested in finding out more about this medical exam and who the ‘doc’ was that they mentioned. I might have to make a quick trip to Virginia.” Sara says menacingly. “Also, can you find out who their boss is? I might have some extra questions to ask of him, or her.”
“Okay, anything else?” Paige asks.
“Not at the moment, but I might have more work for you to do when you get back. How long do you think it will take you?” Sara asks.
“Oh, not that long. I just need to hack into the CIA’s personnel database and maybe root around some of their other less secure databases.” Paige pauses thoughtfully. “It could get a little risky if I need to go deeper into their ultra-secure mission and intel system, but I could use the challenge. How deep do you want me to dig?”
Sara purses her lips as she mulls the idea over. “Hmmm, let’s not take the chance right now. I just need to know who we are dealing with here. Sorry Paige, I know how bored you are right now, but we just can’t take the risk.”
Paige looks a little disappointed with that. “Sure. I’m sorry. You’re right, but this could get us a little payback.” She sighs with frustration. “Okay, with just the surface hack, it should take me five to ten minutes, tops.”
Sara holds Paige by her shoulders and looks seriously into her eyes. “Okay, do it, but be careful too, please. If there is even a chance that they will discover you, cut the cord. Okay?” Sara asks.
“Sure.” Paige says and receives a reward hug from Sara. Paige surprises me by giving me a quick hug. Then with a smile and quick wave, she fades away.
Paige seemed to be hinting at something else. Maybe something in her past, but I don’t see how she can break into the CIA’s systems. It is the freaking CIA! Their stuff is super-secure and super top ultra secret. If she can do what she seems to think that she can do, then when I get to Whateley; I am so going to try and be her friend. Also, I am witnessing a new side of Sara. This side of Sara is calmly planning on breaking into the CIA as if it is a normal and everyday thing. It is kind of cool.
“Is there anything that I can do to help?” I ask Sara in the hope that I will get to do something fun and exciting.
Sara smirks at me. “Haven’t you done enough over the last few days?”
Ouch. She just had to remind me. “Hey, it’s not my fault!” I say, somewhat petulantly.
Sara joins me on the couch and pats my leg affectionately before turning to face me. “Now, tell me the rest. Once you made it to the mall, how did you manage to evade the police, the MCO and find Lord Vincint?”
I tell Sara all about my illusion tricks and before I can get too far, she makes me show her what I look like as Chloe. Then, she embarrasses me by forcing me to admit that I had a crush on the real Chloe back home, but she does admit that I had good reason because Chloe is hot.
Sara is fascinated by the real life Lord Vincint and she decides that “Aunt Julie” is a keeper. “Hmmm, maybe the next time I have Lord Vincint in my grasp, I will have to ‘accidentally’ let him escape. So, you went out and attacked a SEAL team?”
I can’t stop the groan of shame. “You just had to bring that up?”
“Well yeah, I mean you should have realized that they might be friendly forces when you were able to crack their radio systems and if not then, you should have been more suspicious when you ID’ed their weapons.”
“I didn’t know...” I say with a definite whine.
Sara grows still and motions for me to wait. “Sorry, hold that thought. Paige is on the way.”
Paige materializes in the center of my living room. “Maybe I should add some Star Trek style transporter discs there.” I mutter.
That earns me a brief giggle from Sara before she turns back to her business mode. “So, what did you find?”
Paige looks at me curiously, like she doesn’t recognize me. Then, I realize why that might be. I am still in my Chloe disguise for Sara.
“Well, after doing a search on the local hospitals, then matching transactions made with government issued credit cards, specifically CIA issued cards, I was able to find the rendition team. They are currently holed up in a hotel in Williamsburg, Virginia.” Paige says.
Wow, Paige is good.
“And their boss?” Sara asks.
“As of yesterday, he is now former CIA Operations Director James Falk.”
Sara stops Paige. “Sorry, former?”
“Yes, he was allowed to tender his resignation...”
Sara’s expression darkens and more of those spooky tentacle things start to emerge from her body again.
Paige notices Sara’s display of displeasure and hurriedly provides more of an explanation. “But, he was also ‘burned’ or blacklisted. For them to do that, he must have really pissed off his bosses with his attempt on Whisper.”
Sara manages to calm down and the spooky stuff recedes back into her body. I really need to find out more about her and this new “Unkie” of mine. What is she and what is he? Do I really want to know?
Paige resumes her update. “So, without digging into the operations database,” She frowns with distaste by that limitation. “...I was able to find out that he had a long and successful career with the CIA. He served eight years in the Army as an intelligence analyst, made it to E-6, and then was hired by the CIA in 1982. Worked his way up from there. Nothing too juicy in his personnel file, but he did receive a commendation for his role in Project Kitten.” Paige says, putting emphasis on the last bit of data.
“What was Project Kitten?” I ask.
Paige and Sara glance at me with surprise. I think that they forgot that I was there. While Sara looks angry about something, hopefully not me, Paige’s eyes look positively haunted. Was she involved in this Project Kitten thing? How could something called Project Kitten be that bad? Did the CIA try to train Kittens to be spies or something? Maybe they turned cute kittens into deadly assassins, but then the kittens got out of control and they had to put them down? Okay, now I think that my imagination is running out of control.
“Umm, it was just a dark time for me and I still don’t feel comfortable talking about it, sorry.” Paige softly says as her eyes begin to tear up.
Now I feel bad for asking. I jump up from the couch and give her a hug. Not sure what possesses me to do so, but I just feel like she needed one. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.” I say while Sara smiles appreciatively at me.
Paige smiles through her tears. “It’s okay. Not your fault. So, Bree, is this what you really look like or what?”
I glance back down at myself and blush from embarrassment. “Umm, no. Sorry. This is the disguise that I used to sneak out of a mall with the MCO and police hunting for me. I really look like I looked when you first, umm, visited.” I say as I drop the virtual illusion of Chloe.
“Oh, okay. Well, you looked pretty like that, but I think that you’re prettier as yourself.” Paige says.
Sara coughs to get our attention and I am a little relieved by that since I was starting to feel uncomfortably pleased by Paige’s appraisal of me. “So, can you provide me with the address for this Falk guy? I think that I will want to pay him a special visit sometime very soon.” Sara asks.
Paige nods her head. “Sure, I have all that, plus his DMV records for you, too. Is there anything else?”
Sara studies me and ponders the question way more than I would think is necessary. “Yes, can you put together an ID and background for ‘Chloe’? I want it to be as real as possible, but we probably don’t have much time to make it bullet proof. It just has to be able to pass the standard background check process.”
Paige’s eyes gleam with excitement with that request. “Sure! What can you give me for her background?”
Sara glances at me with a bemused grin. “Chloe? How about if you fill Paige in on yourself while I go check out that new hot-tub of yours? Then, when you are done, join me.”
I find myself gulp for air at the thought of that. “Sure.” I manage to squeak out.
As Sara saunters from my living room and into the pool area, her outfit morphs into a very revealing string bikini thing and it is even more revealing than the one she surprised me with the first time. Both Paige and I take a few seconds to regain our focus. “So, Umm, this Chloe ID?” Paige says, breaking the spell.
I fill her in on everything that I know about the real Chloe back home and what Aunt Julie told her sister in New York. When done, five minutes later, Paige gives me another hug before she stands to leave. “I can’t wait until you get to Whately! I so wanna go over your internal security with you; maybe show you a few things...” Paige says, trailing off with as if she expects me to refuse her help.
“That would be awesome!” I say.
Why is everyone so eager for me to get to Whately?
I shake my head with amusement at that thought as I stand and follow Paige as she peeks her head into my Jacuzzi area. “Wow! This is nice.” She says with a wistful glance back at me before she turns back toward the frolicking Sara. “Heading out, Sara! I will let you know when her ID is ready.”
“Cool!” I hear Sara say. “Sorry! I would ask you if it would be okay with Bree if you could stay, but no rest for the wicked!”
“Hah! That means you should have left hours ago, right?” Paige asks with a grin that turns positively gleeful when Sara stands up in the Jacuzzi, topless while pretending to not notice that she is topless.
Well, she has to be pretending, right. I mean how could you not know something like that?
Oh yeah, so, topless, Sara pouts mischievously at Paige. “Paige! I’m not ‘that’ evil and I am insulted that you would make such an insinuation with poor young Bree there. Think of the children!”
Paige just laughs at Sara, but then, she glances back at me and notices how beet red my face is; Paige gives me a hug. “Don’t let her bully you...” She whispers into my ear.
“Hey! I heard that! I am NOT a bully!” Sara yells.
How did she hear that from way over there?
Paige sticks her tongue out at Sara, then winks at me and disappears.
“Awesome! Now that the party pooper is gone, get in here cousin! I only have 30 more minutes before I have to leave and you really look like you could really use another massage.” Sara says, still accidently displaying her rather awesome breasts for me.
I glance back to the safety of my couch, and then back at an expectant looking Sara. At what I am sure is my best deer in a headlights expression, she smiles, exposing her dainty, cute little fangs as the steam from the water swirls around her body. The steam provides just enough obscurement to hint that it could provide her with some modesty while not providing any at all. I feel a brief, very brief, feeling of respite when she sinks back into the water, but then, she arches her back up just enough to leave her breasts out of the water as she angles her body to let one of the water jets massage her shoulders.
Yep, she really is ‘that’ evil, if not more.
**
MCO Special Agent Lainer blearily slapped his alarm off. The glowing numbers told him that it was six AM and time for him to head back into the office.
“Three hours of sleep just isn’t enough.” He thought to himself as he forced himself to make his way to his bathroom so that he could take a shower to help him wake up. He peeled off his clothes from last night, they were wrinkled beyond fixing. He hoped that he had another clean suit to wear. It would not look good to his men or his superiors if he came into the office looking like a slob.
The warm water helped revitalize him and as his thoughts slowly began to churn, he found himself cursing the U.S. Government for their stupidity. Didn’t they realize how dangerous these mutants were to humanity? The MCO and organizations like the MCO where the only thing that stood between humanity and mutant domination because he knew that power corrupts. The MCO was the only reason that the damn mutants hadn’t realized just how powerful they were. They had to be repressed and divided because if they woke up and realized that they didn’t need lowly humans, the human race was doomed.
The government was hiding something here. Not really a surprise, but what was surprising was how well they were hiding it. Even with the cockup from yesterday, there still wasn’t even a whisper of data on their new top secret pet mutant.
“Whisper? What kind of name is that?” Agent Lanier asked himself as he absently washed his body. “Sounds like some sort of stealth name...”
“Why didn’t we spot her on the video feeds? Can she make herself invisible?”
“No...that can’t be it. That takes magic and Whisper doesn’t sound like a good magic powers alias. Not like Fey or Cirque anyway.”
He was rinsing the shampoo from his thinning hair when a sudden thought struck him.
“What if she is a shape shifter?”
Shape shifters where the ultimate secret weapon, capable of infiltrating even the most secure facilities. They made excellent spies and assassins, but they were also very very rare and thus valuable.
“Holy shit! That’s gotta be it.”
That was the only reason he could think of for the U.S. Government to want to keep her so secret. They didn’t want anyone to know that they had a shape shifter in their employ or that they were training one. Her fight with the H1 heroes indicated that she was very well trained already, but that she might be out of control. In his haste to turn off the water and get out of the bath, he accidentally turned off all the hot water first. The sudden splash of cold water made him gasp for air.
“Fuck! That’s cold!”
Agent Lainer forced himself to shave and he was in luck, he did have a fresh suit to wear. Still, with traffic it took him over an hour to make it back to his office. He spent the next two hours poring over the tapes and keeping his team well supplied with coffee. They looked for people who were seen entering the mall, but never leaving. Then, they looked for people leaving the mall who were never seen entering the mall. Then, just in case their target could have made herself look like one of the shoppers already in the mall, they also looked for people who appeared to have left twice.
They failed to spot anyone matching that pattern, but by 11 AM, they had six, no seven, possible matches for people who matched the enter and exit criteria. The seventh match wasn’t really a match, but it was interesting none-the-less. They spotted Mirage, a mutant who was known to be working for the CIA, among the crowds. She and her partner appeared to also be trying to find someone. Could that mean that the U.S. Government had lost their little shape shifting pet mutant? If so, what did that mean and how could the MCO benefit?
Now, it was just a matter of time and old fashioned detective work before they could try to match some names to the faces. Then, once they had the names, they could start narrowing down the suspect list and use that to pick up her trail again.
Yes, they already had one suspect that he felt confident that his team could identify and question in no time. It was the pretty blonde girl that they spotted speaking with a team of MCO agents, followed by a K-9 police team and finally spotted leaving via a late model BMW. She matched their search pattern, but he didn’t think that she was their target. Her behavior just did not fit with a wanted criminal, but if that girl really was their target; then she was pretty damn ballsy to attract so much attention to herself.
He just wished that the camera had been able to capture the license plate, but oh well; he would just have to make a few calls to speak with the MCO agents and the K-9 team to see if they knew anything about the girl that might lead them to her.
The remaining five suspects might be a bit tougher to track down, but that is why they paid him the big bucks. That made him snicker.
**
The morning and Uncle Jim starting his morning routine did not come fast enough for me. Sara was very very naughty, but she tried to tell me that she was just trying to help me with my body image problem by eliminating the mystery. She never kissed or touched me inappropriately and I am not sure if I am happy about that or not. She confused me so much, but by the time she had to leave; I no longer felt the need to avert my eyes every time she flashed me her boobs or when she made a show of displaying her body to me by lying next to the hot tub in a sexy pose. Instead, I was mostly able to keep my eyes on her face and hold a normal conversation. Mostly, because 30 minutes of desensitization therapy as she called it just wasn’t enough to completely rewire my brain.
After she left, it took over thirty minutes of swimming in the cold pool to cure me of my Sara thoughts. Even after my cold shower treatment plan, I still think that she is hot and even though she is my cousin, still not sure how that works, just thinking of her makes my insides feel strange and my nipples embarrassingly sensitive.
Uncle Jim rolls into the kitchen promptly at 6:30 AM. I think that I surprise him by meeting him in the kitchen, completely dressed and presenting him with a fresh cup of coffee and a smile for his morning commute to the court house. He does grumble a little bit about me being one of ‘those’ morning people. However, he seems to like the coffee, but I am not sure because I had only made it for my parents twice before. The first attempt didn’t go over so well because I poured too much coffee grounds and used too little water, but they didn’t spit out my second attempt later that month. Which was good, because I really wanted them to get me the new Xbox game. It didn’t work, but Lyndsay volunteering to wash the dishes for Mom that evening got her the new purse that she wanted. How fair is that?
While Uncle Jim works on his cup of coffee, I decide to see if I can get myself and him something to eat because a good breakfast is the best way to start the day. Or so my parents and teachers claim.
“So, Chloe? Are you going to refresh your disguise now, just in case?” Uncle Jim asks from the little breakfast bar built into their spacious kitchen.
I glance down at myself and realize that I still look like myself. “Oh, yeah. Sorry, kind of forgot.” I say. Then, simply call up my mental image of Chloe and cast the spell to make me look like that image. Unlike last time, I leave my clothes alone with the illusion. I only change my hair, face and body to match Chloe’s body. It comes much easier now and by not including the clothes in the illusion; I think that I could recast it in less than a second. As an added bonus, doing it that way took so little power that I think that I can maintain the illusion all day if I have to.
I spot some fresh bagels and a tub of cream cheese in the fridge. “Oh, Uncle Jim, would you like a bagel with your coffee?” I ask.
“Oh, sure, but I can do that myself.” Uncle Jim says, smiling appreciatively as his coffee starts to wake him up.
“Oh no! You just sit and drink your coffee. It’s not a problem.” I say as I dig the bagels out and glance at the eggs tray. Those would be good for his breakfast too, but I’d probably just end up with rubber hockey pucks if I tried to cook them. “I would offer to try making you some eggs too, but have only cooked eggs once before and that was with my mom’s help. So, I am not sure if I would destroy the kitchen or not with an attempt.” I say with a grin as I pop two of the much easier to cook bagels into the toaster.
Uncle Jim laughs.
“When is Aunt Julie going to wake up?” I ask as I wait for the toaster to finish its job with the bagels.
Uncle Jim glances at his watch, and then thinks about it for a second. “Umm, probably not for another hour. She drank one glass of wine too many last night and stayed up a little later than normal. So, I don’t expect for you to see her until at least 8.”
“Okay, does she drink coffee too?” I ask.
“Yep. One teaspoon of sugar and a splash of cream. If you have a cup waiting for her when she makes her way down stairs; I am sure that she will want to try and adopt you.” Uncle Jim says with a grin.
He silently watches me as I spread the cream cheese on his bagel for him. “You do like cream cheese, right?” I ask, probably just a little too late.
He nods and takes another sip from his coffee.
I serve him up his bagel, and then refresh his coffee. I am not sure why I am feeling so helpful this morning. I have never done this for my parents without wanting something in return, but I guess that I feel so grateful for their help that I just need to help in any way that I can. They didn’t have to help me, but they did. I start to feel my eyes tear up.
Damn it!
I turn back to the toaster and spread some cream cheese on my bagel as a diversion. I do not want him to see me crying over something so silly. I gain a little more time for my eyes to dry out by pouring myself a glass of orange juice before I join him at the breakfast nook.
We both eat in silence, until he glances at his watch. That makes me check my clock. It is exactly 0700 hrs.
“Time to head out. Sorry and I hope that you and Julie have fun today.” He says. Then, he surprises me by giving me a hug before he leaves.
Sigh...another hour before Aunt Julie wakes up...maybe.
{“Alpha One, Delta Two. Secondary’s vehicle is leaving the garage.”}
{“Roger Delta Two. Charlie One, Secondary is yours.”}
{“Roger Alpha One. Charlie One, over.”}
It sounds like Uncle Jim’s protection team is going to follow him to make sure he stays safe. That makes me feel better. I debate saying thanks to them, but I think that I have caused enough trouble already.
Would they want some hot coffee?
{“Alpha One, umm, Whisper One? Would you all like some coffee or something?”} I ask, suddenly feeling nervous that I am messing something up.
The 1.239 second delay in a response gives me way too much time to second guess myself. {“Hehe, thanks Whisper One, but I don’t want my boys getting spoiled on this op. Alpha One, Over.”}
{“Damn...”} I hear an unidentified mutter that my system automatically triangulates as coming from the team that is positioned in the back yard.
{“Oh, I mean, Alpha One, Whisper One. Sorry. Umm, over?”} I say as a cringe at how pathetic I sound to myself, but it did sound like Captain Howards, I mean, Alpha One wasn’t mad at me for asking.
After I recover from my embarrassment, I spend the next 15 minutes alone, bored out of my mind. I debate going into VR, but I just can’t dredge up the energy for that right now. So, I start meandering around the house and find my way to Uncle Jim’s office. His computer is sitting right there, in standby mode, all ready for me to play with. I shift my vision into the magical band and I can see a very faint residue from GEO. I debate just leaving his computer alone, but I really want to check my mail and surf the web to catch up on my manga and anime.
A touch is all it takes to wake his PC and bring it out of standby mode. He has it password protected, but I bypass that without thinking about it. Unlike my parent’s PC, his is actually pretty clean. I don’t spot any malware infections. I have two emails from John, which is a surprise since he might send me one once a month, if that. What really surprises me is the one email from Lisa. She has never sent me an email before and this one is pretty fresh. The timestamp tells me that she sent it to me late last night.
Bree,
I had so much fun hanging out with you the other night. I know that it was a little weird for you and John, but I can tell that he still likes you and thinks of you as his friend. Only a friend, especially after I threatened to break him in half if he tried to think otherwise. I just didn’t want my new BFF to feel weirded out by my horndog boyfriend and her best boy who is just a friend-friend. :-P
Okay, that’s a little ‘awkward’ and I am not sure if I should feel relieved or scared shitless. On one hand, I think that Lisa sees me still as me and likes me, but on the other hand, I think that she sees me as someone who might steal her boyfriend from her. That is so not happening!
Lyndsay told us that you were going to be going to some private school called Whateley Academy and not returning home due to some H1 attack. We were all devastated to hear that, even your sister. I didn’t tell you this, but I think that she was looking forward to taking you to the mall to shop for clothes; hehe
Hah! I knew it!
Anyway, the other reason I am sending you this is because my dad got a strange call from one of his old Navy SEAL buddies. After he got off the phone, he called me into his office and asked me a bunch of questions about you. I’m sorry, but I had to tell him about your change. Please don’t be mad with me! :-(
XOXOXOXO,
Lisa
Hmmm, how much do I want to bet that Captain Howards called Sensei Rogers? But, even more importantly, what is up with the hugs and kisses stuff?
P.S. Please stay safe and come home as soon as possible! We so need to go shopping! LOL
I knew it!
P.P.S. Oh yeah, my dad wants to take you camping with us this summer and he NEVER lets me bring any friends with. What did you do?
Yeah, what did I do and do I dare ask what camping with Sensei Rogers is like? I will have to reply to Lisa, but first, I need to read John’s emails.
John’s emails are pretty simple and refreshingly normal.
Dude! Where the fuck are you and when are you getting home so I can p0wn you in Ghost Recon!
Pfft, like that would ever happen and that is what I reply with.
Oh shit!
Should I have done that? Will they be able to trace me with my email? I start to panic a little until I remember that no one knows me as Brian and that my email is on the Gmail servers, so it isn’t even coming from the PC that I am currently using. I am probably safe, but just in case, I decide that I probably shouldn’t reply to any more emails. At least, not until later and maybe I should set up a new email address.
John’s second email is from this morning. He sent it only 15 minutes ago.
Dude! Lisa told showed me the news about your fight with the H1 assholes. Holy fucking shit man. Remind me to never piss you off! Anyway, I will still p0wn you in GR! LOL.
Lindsay also sent me an email and as I read it, I start to wonder if she was replaced by a Pod Person because I do not know this person. Her email is over a page long and it details everything that she has done since I left. She talks about how she feels about me and how sorry that she is for treating me so bad in the past. She tells me that she misses her big brother, but that she also loves her ‘big’ sister just as much. Yes, she used quotes around ‘big’ to remind me that she is now a little taller than me. Ha. Ha.
It takes me a few minutes to read it, but she predictably finishes with, “I can’t wait to take you shopping!”. I think that I am done with shopping. I was starting to think that it might not be that bad, but if I ever step foot in a mall again, it will be too soon.
I want to check my sites, but I feel a little guilty for using Uncle Jim’s PC without asking him first. I look around and that is when I spot his wireless router.
Crap! Why didn’t I think to try using that first and more importantly, why didn’t I check for wifi when I first stepped into his house? If I can connect to his wifi, I wouldn’t need to use his PC. I activate my wifi and try to connect to his service. It is secured with WPA2/TSA and I don’t have the password. So, I decide to see if his router will be willing to help me out. A simple touch, one second later I have the password and I am in.
I have never surfed the web directly before and I have to say that it is pretty cool. It is almost like that “Johnny Mnemonic” movie with cyberspace stuff. Everything looks like neon colored buildings connected with glowing white roads that lead to every building and I can soar above it all. I can also dive down and use the road to instantly go to any building that I know the address for. I lose all track of time as I explore and I discover that most of the sites that have passwords to access are super simple to bypass, but when, out of curiosity, I check out a bank’s website; I discover that it is very well guarded.
I would really like to send Dr. Edmundson and Mr. Reilly the videos from yesterday. They might help them find the CIA team, but when I try to connect to the mil-net again; no roads seem to lead to it. Maybe it isn’t connected to the internet?
“Chloe?” I hear Aunt Julie ask from upstairs.
Crap!
I check the time and I am surprised to discover that it is 0832. Holy crap! I lost all track of time, but wow, I think I have found a new toy to play with when I am bored with my VR world.
“Aunt Julie? I’m down here!” I yell as I reach the hallway outside of Uncle Jim’s office.
“Okay. *yawn* I will be down in a few minutes.” Aunt Julie yells just loud enough to travel down from the top of the stairs.
I race into the kitchen, pop another two bagels into the toaster, I’m hungry still, and pour her a cup of coffee. One teaspoon of sugar, a splash of cream later and Aunt Julie starts to make her way down the stairs. I set her cup down where Uncle Jim sat earlier this morning and smile at her when she walks into the kitchen with a surprised look on her face. She is wearing a warm looking white bathrobe over what appears to be a red negligee or something. I can only see a bit of red silk peeking up where the robe crosses her chest. She also has on a pair of warm looking fuzzy pink bunny slippers.
They are so cute and I can’t help smiling at her when I spot the slippers. They are the last thing that I expected to see her wearing around the house.
“Chloe? You made me a cup of coffee?” Aunt Julie asks as she spots the steaming cup sitting on the breakfast counter.
“Umm, yep. Before he left, Uncle Jim told me how you liked your coffee. I hope that it tastes okay for you.” I say, suddenly feeling a little worried that she I messed it up for her.
“Thanks Chloe! That’s so sweet of you.” Aunt Julie says as she sits down in front of her cup.
I anxiously watch her as she takes a cautious first sip. Then, she sighs with contentment and smiles at me. “Thanks, tastes perfect.”
Then our bagels pop up and she looks surprised at the sight of those. “You made me a bagel too?” She asks.
“Yep. Do you like cream cheese too?” I ask as I jump up a little so that I can pull a plate down for her bagel. I hate being so short.
“Yes, cream cheese would be great, but only a little. I’m trying to watch my weight.” Aunt Julie says with a grin before she hides it by taking another sip of her coffee.
“Okay.” I say as I reduce the amount of cream cheese that I was going to spread on her bagel. It might be easier to let her prep her bagel herself, but I feel better doing it for her.
“How long have you been up dear?” Aunt Julie asks just before she takes a bite from her bagel.
“Umm, I’ve been up since 0130 hours or exactly 7.1 hours.” I say expecting her to not be happy with that answer.
Aunt Julie stops chewing her bagel for a few seconds. She is not happy with my answer. “Chloe! That’s not healthy for a young...” She pauses for a fraction of a second. “...person. You need more sleep than that!”
I think that her pause is because she was going to say “girl” or maybe even “woman”, but she changed her wording at the last second. “Umm, well, I would like to be able to sleep longer, but it’s all that I seem to need now. The doctors checked me out, a lot, but the most that I have been able to sleep since my change has been 2 hours and that was only after a big day with a lot of stuff happening. So far, my normal sleep has been exactly 1.5 hours.” I say as she starts to look more and more concerned about me.
“As soon as I finish my bagel, I want to check you out again.” Aunt Julie says in her doctor to patient voice.
“Umm, okay, but...” I start to say before she gives me the “no buts” look. I decide to ignore it. “...I could just use Uncle Jim’s PC to show you everything directly from my medical status system.”
Aunt Julie studies me with a dubious expression. She opens her mouth as if to say no to that idea, but stops herself. “You can do that?” She asks.
I nervously nod my head. “Well, I think that I can. Dr. Edmundson has a special program on his laptop, but I am pretty sure that I can duplicate that for you on Uncle Jim’s PC.”
We finish our bagels, but I still feel a little hungry. I would ask Aunt Julie if they have any cereal, but she looks anxious to check me out. I sit down at Uncle Jim’s PC and connect to it. I search my system for the monitor program and discover that I have a copy of Dr. Edmundson’s exe that he runs on his laptop. I push that over to Uncle Jim’s PC, make a few tweaks to it so that it will work on this network, then I activate it.
Aunt Julie walks into the room just in time to see my health data start to fill the screen. She rushes over, gently pushes me to the side and studies my data. She glances back at me once, with a questioning expression. “Is that really you?” She asks.
I nod my head once. “Uh huh.” I say.
Aunt Julie looks back at the screen. “Amazing...this has everything. Heart rate, blood pressure, glucose, iron, oxygen content, red and white blood cell counts...If we had this at the hospital...” While she intently studies the screen, she absently reaches for her bag and pulls out her stethoscope. “I want to listen to your heart beat to make sure that what I am seeing is what is really on the screen.”
She takes a long time with her stethoscope. So long, that it is completely warm by the time she is satisfied and that never happens. “Amazing...well, I guess that you really are healthy or at least, your body is, but I still worry about how your sleep patterns might affect your mental health.”
Of course, she had to toss in that disclaimer for me. “Umm, sorry, but I feel fine in that area too. Well, except for all the emotions. Do women always feel so...umm...on edge?” I ask as I try to avoid saying ‘emotional’ or ‘hormonal’ because I know that my mom has bristled at those words in the past.
Aunt Julie stops and just stares at me for what feels like the longest time. I can tell that she is surprised by my question because I think that she forgot that I used to be a boy or she deep down inside, the doctor in her just doesn’t believe me.
{“Whisper One, Alpha One. I am on the way. ETA 5 minutes. Have some updates for you.”}
That snaps me to attention and makes Aunt Julie even more concerned. “Chloe? Is everything all right?”
“Umm, sorry. Yes, but umm, Captain Howards will be here in five minutes.” I say.
{“Okay, Alpha One. Whisper One, ummm, over?”} I say in return.
That causes Aunt Julie to panic a little. “Oh my god! I am still in my bathrobe! Are you sure?” She asks.
I grimace and nod my head affirmatively.
“Crap! Ooops, sorry. I need to put some clothes on! If he gets here before I am ready, just let him in and offer him some coffee or something.” Aunt Julie yells as she rushes from the office and scrambles up to her bedroom.
She doesn’t make it back down before Captain Howards rings the doorbell. “I’ll get it!” I sing as I run to the door. I stand on my tiptoes to peek out of the spy hole, just to confirm that it is Captain Howards. It is him, or it looks like him, but he doesn’t seem have his CAC ID on him, or it is shielded. So, I can’t use that to ID him. I open the door and motion for him to come in.
He looks surprised by my appearance as he furtively glances around to make sure that there isn’t someone else here. I am a little surprised by his appearance too. He is wearing a tasteful and expensive looking business suit with jacket and tie. I guess that showing up in this neighborhood or any “hood” wearing combat fatigues would be a little noticeable.
I decide to try and have just a little bit of fun at his expense. “Oh, hi! I’m Chloe. You must be Mr. Smith. Bree has told me sooo much about you.” I say using my best Chloe, the spoiled rich kid voice.
Captain Howards’ eyes narrow as he studies me. “Whisper?” He asks.
He still hasn’t entered the house. That means that I have an excuse to stay in character, right? “Who? Oh no, I’m not Whisper.” I laugh a little as if Chloe finds that idea amusing. Then, I glance meaningfully toward the kitchen area. “Whisper is in the kitchen...”
He takes the hint and enters the house without taking his eyes off of me. Yeah, I don’t think that he trusts Chloe. I happily smile at him as he passes me, then I softly close the door behind him and turn back to face him.
“Okay Whisper, what’s going on and why do you look like that?” Captain Howards asks.
I debate dragging the charade on, but he doesn’t look all that happy. I drop my Chloe disguise. “Hi, Captain Howards. I kind of forgot that I was in my Chloe disguise when I answered the door, but then after I saw your face, I just couldn’t resist. Umm, sorry?” I say, wilting a little under his stern gaze.
He doesn’t say anything, but his expression slowly shifts to a more thoughtful and less stern looking one.
I take that as a positive sign. “Umm, Aunt Julie is upstairs getting dressed. Would you like some coffee while we wait?” I ask as I move past him and head toward the kitchen.
“Sure.” He says, following me.
I motion him towards the breakfast nook as I pour him a cup. “Sugar and cream?” I ask, pausing before I bring his cup over to him.
He shakes his head, no. “Black is good, thanks.” Captain Howards says as I reach over and slide his cup toward him. “So, just how did you do that little trick there?”
I fix Chloe back in my mind and activate the spell again. “What, this?” I ask as I feel the magic settle over my body.
His eyes widen with surprise, but only briefly. I might have missed it if I had not been watching for it and expecting it. “Yes, that.” He says.
“It’s an illusion and I thought that Mr. Reilly would have told you that I could do some magic?” I ask as I hear Aunt Julie start to come down the stairs.
“I saw it on your file, but it just said that you had a Wiz one rating and grudgingly at that.” Captain Howards says as he takes a sip of his coffee, then using his cup, he salutes me with appreciation. “Is that how you were able to sneak up on my men last night?” He asks.
“What was that? Who was sneaking up on whom last night?” Aunt Julie asks from the edge of the kitchen.
“Umm, Aunt Julie, this is Captain Howards. U.S. Navy SEALS. Captain Howards, umm, Julie Stiles.” I say, playing the proper hostess in the hopes that Aunt Julie will forget what she just asked about.
Captain Howards stands and shakes her hand. “Pleased to meet you Doctor Stiles and sorry about the surprise visit, but I needed to update Whisper and you on a few things.”
Aunt Julie smiles at him. “Oh, it’s not a problem Captain Howards.”
“Kurt, please.” Captain Howards asks looking a little uncomfortable with this scenario.
Aunt Julie laughs. “Okay, well then how about Julie for me then?”
“That would be fine with me, Doct...I mean Julie.” Captain Howards says as he stumbles a bit with using her non-formal name.
Aunt Julie turns back to me with a questioning expression. I don’t think that she forgot. “Now, what was that about some ‘sneaking up’ last night?” She asks.
I anxiously glance over to Captain Howards. He doesn't look like he is willing to lend me a lifeline here. Actually, he looks like he is interested in hearing my side of the story. “Umm, well...last night when you were on your way home from the mall; I overheard someone on a nearby radio talking about a ‘Secondary’ being ‘inbound’ and I was worried that whoever it was, they were going to try and hurt you...” I pause and look back to Captain Howards. I really wish that he would just jump in and take over or even better say that it was Top Secret or something. He doesn’t.
“Go on, and?” Aunt Julie asks.
“Well, I sorta got mad and I took a knife...” I gesture toward the knife block sitting on the counter. “...and I snuck outside to try and stop them from doing that.” I say, cringing at the horrified expression on Aunt Julie’s face.
“Young lady! What were you thinking?” Aunt Julie asks as her horror shifts to anger.
“Umm, I was thinking...” I say before Aunt Julie stops me.
“No, I don’t want to know what you were thinking, because you clearly were not thinking! What if you had been hurt?”
“Ma’am, my men wouldn’t have hurt her.” Captain Howards says, coming to my defense.
Finally!
Aunt Julie turns on him. “Your men?! What men? Just how many of these ‘men’ did you have out there?” She asks.
Rut roh!
Now we are both in trouble with Aunt Julie.
“Ma’am, my orders were to protect Whisper, yourself and your husband until the CIA Rendition team was found. Now, as to your original question. I had enough to ensure the success of those orders.” Captain Howards says without emotion.
His answer seems to take Aunt Julie by surprise. I don’t think that she is used to dealing with the military. As a doctor, I think that she is used to getting answers to her questions. “I don’t care about your orders! What if she had been hurt?” Aunt Julie asks, glaring at Captain Howards as she reaches for me and clutches me protectively to her body.
“Aunt Julie, I know it was stupid of me, but they are here to help. They stopped that guy from hurting you...” I say, trailing off when I realize that I might have said too much.
“Wait, what did you just say?” Aunt Julie asks, turning back to me, then glancing over her shoulder at Captain Howards as if to say that it is all his fault.
“Umm...” I helplessly look at Captain Howards.
“Ma’am like I said, my team was assigned to protect both, you, Mr. Stiles and Whisper. A man was spotted acting suspiciously towards you in the parking lot last night. Two of my men intervened to prevent him from harming you, but the primary reason that I am here this morning is to inform you that my team is no longer needed here.”
Now it is my turn to panic. “What? Why?” I ask.
“The CIA Team was located and brought in for debriefing 30 minutes ago. As a result, we feel that the immediate danger has passed and that can safely pull back your protection.”
“Oh.” Aunt Julie says, sounding a little deflated.
“How did they find them?” I ask.
Captain Howards hesitates, as if debating if the information is secret. “Luck.”
“Huh?” I ask.
“They used a CIA issued credit card to rent a hotel room and from what I understand, those cards are not tracked. However, due to a glitch in the credit card company’s system, the transaction was flagged for review as a possible fraudulent transaction. That drew the attention of the CIA’s Internal Affairs.”
Wow, Paige is good. I really need to get to know her. “Oh, okay.” I say.
“Captain Howards, you said that you had a ‘primary reason’ for this visit and that has been answered, but what is your other reason or reasons for this visit?” Aunt Julie asks.
It seems like the adults are now more comfortable using the formal forms of address and I am amazed that she noticed that slip from him because until she mentioned it, I totally didn’t notice it.
“Yes, Doctor Stiles. The secondary reason for my visit this morning is to get back to your original ‘sneaking’ question. I need to know how Whisper was able to get the drop on my men so that I can address any training deficiencies that might exist.” Captain Howards says. He too is back to the formal mode of address.
Aunt Julie releases me from her protective grasp and turns to expectantly look at me. I glance over to Captain Howards.
“Umm, well, I cheated?” I hesitantly say as I glance back to Aunt Julie, then back to Captain Howards to see how much more I am going to need to explain that answer. I think that Captain Howards might be amused with my answer.
“Cheated?” They both ask in stereo.
I guess I have to show them. “Yes, like this.” I say as I cast my invisibility spell and take a step back as soon as I feel it take hold.
They both look shocked when I disappear right in front of their eyes, but Aunt Julie’s shock turns to panic almost immediately. “Chloe! Where are you?” She asks as she spins around trying to find me.
“Right here.” I say from off to her right, then cancel the spell before she really starts to panic. Her reaction surprises me, but Captain Howards looks thoughtful.
“I am certainly no expert on magic, but that seems like more than a Wiz One power rating to me.” Captain Howards asks.
I shrug my shoulders. “Maybe? I don’t really know. I haven’t been trained.” I say with complete honesty because I really don’t know. Fey’s and Sir Wallace’s assessment wasn’t official and I haven’t been trained so I can honestly say that I am not lying.
Captain Howards doesn’t look convinced by my answer. “You have an idea though, don’t you?” He says with a dubious smirk.
I really am beginning to wish that I was a better liar and that he wasn’t so good at reading me. I glance back to Aunt Julie and she looks a little lost, but also curious about my answer. “Fine...” I sigh. “I have been told by a person that I trust, that with training, I might be a five, but they didn’t really know what my rating might currently be and that is the end of this line of questioning.” I say, glaring at Captain Howards with frustration.
“Chloe!” Aunt Julie exclaims.
I turn to Aunt Julie. “I’m sorry Aunt Julie, but so far, having all these powers reminds me of that line from Spider-man.” She looks confused. “You know, the one about ‘with great power comes great responsibility’, but in my case, it’s just been a whole lot of trouble and I’m getting a little sick of it.” I glance back to Captain Howards, daring him to say something. “I could go off about all the other cra...stuff that has happened to me just in the last 48 hours, but I don’t think that needs to be said right now. I’m mad. I’m frustrated and all I want to do is just go home and forget that this ever happened to me, but I can’t.”
I glance back over to Aunt Julie and I can see that her eyes are about to spill over. She has that ‘I just want to hug you’ expression. I pre-empt her hug by giving her a quick hug then stepping away before it can get all mushy. I look back at Captain Howards. “Now, Captain Howards, would my video of last night’s little op of mine help?”
He smiles at me. “Why, yes. I believe that it might help answer a few of my questions now that I know about your ‘little’ trick there.”
We walk into Uncle Jim’s office and I sit down in front of Uncle Jim’s PC. After it comes back from hibernation mode, I restart my monitor program. Then, I pretend to use that interface to download the video to his PC instead of just directly transferring it. I might have let my magic rating slip, but there is no way that I am going to let him know about my computer skills.
“Do you want to watch it now or take it with you to watch later?” I ask as I glance around Uncle Jim’s office for a blank DVD ROM. I spot a box of blanks and turn back to look at Captain Howards as I grab them.
Captain Howards glances over at Aunt Julie and I can see him weighing the risk. If she saw the video with his men and their weapons, she might freak out. “How about if I just take it with me?” He asks.
I pop a blank disc into the PC and start the copy. “Okay, this is going to take a few minutes.” I say as I sit back in Uncle Jim’s comfy chair and then, spin back around to look back at Captain Howards and Aunt Julie.
Captain Howards reaches into his suit and pulls out what looks like a ruggedized cell phone, but unlike normal phones I cannot detect any signal from it at all. This one is either missing its battery, it is totally powered down or it is somehow shielded from my power. “Well, while we wait...This is a secure cell phone.” He holds it up for display before setting it down on Uncle Jim’s desk. “Mr. Reilly would like for you to call him at 1000 hours and the number to call is already loaded into the phone.” He says.
I check the time and realize that I have almost an hour before it is time to call him. I reach for it with my hand and it isn’t until hold the phone in my hand that I can sense its electronic guts. Unlike a normal cell phone that is turned off, with this phone, I can only sense the battery and the power circuit. I guess it really is secure.
“You just push the button...” Captain Howards starts to say as I push the button that is connected to the power circuit. “Okay, well. Whisper, Doctor Stiles, I am sorry that we couldn't have met under better circumstances, but I do wish you both the best.”
“Thanks Captain Howards and sorry about your guy.” I say as Aunt Julie looks back at me with one of those, “you have some explaining to do” expressions.
“Hehe, it is not a problem Whisper, but Spencer is a little put out by the fact that he will have to requisition a new vest and explain to our supply officer how he damaged his current vest while officially being on a training exercise.” Captain Howards says as he glances toward the door. It looks like he is ready to leave.
Aunt Julie picks up on his non-verbal communication and with a smile, she leads him to the door. I watch as they shake hands in what appears to be mostly friendly fashion. “Thanks for coming, Captain Howards, and please tell your men thanks for helping me last night.” She says after they finish shaking hands. She closes the door, then turns to me with a thoughtful expression that does not bode well for me.
“Now, young lady, where is that video from last night?” Aunt Julie asks.
~o~O~o~
Insert standard disclaimer here: The one that reminds everyone that this is a work of fiction. No one is real and any resemblance to someone who is real is purely coincidence, honest. This is also a Fan Fiction set in the Whateley Story Universe. No Canon characters were permanently harmed in the making of this story. I hope. :)
Note: Sorry for the delay. I think that you all know the reason(s). :) This "should" be the penultimate chapter. All my crazy ideas to drag this out have been soundly shot down. Thanks for my beta readers and resident SEAL expert for their feedback and patience. And last, but not least, djkauf for his magical editing.
~o~O~o~
I debate trying to tell Aunt Julie that the video is Top Secret, but I doubt that will work. She looks very determined. I lead her back into Uncle Jim’s office and with a touch of a few keys to make it look like I am using the PC like a normal person; I will the video to play.
“I really thought that they were here to hurt you and Uncle Jim...” I say, trying to mute the impact of what she is about to see.
I forgot to cut out the part where I sliced open her screen window to get out of the house. She merely raises an eyebrow at that display. Oh yeah, that is coming out of my allowance.
Aunt Julie protectively grips my arm as I begin my ‘attack run’. I do not need to watch the screen. I am more interested in what she thinks of it. I watch her expression as all the status, projections and targeting information flashes and overlays the action on the screen. She looks both amazed and alarmed at the same time. She jumps when I attack Spencer with her kitchen knife.
When the video stops, she does not say or do anything for what feels like forever. Is she going to kick me out now? Is she going to think that I am too dangerous or out of control to feel safe with me in her house?
Finally, she turns to me and silently studies me for another 3.213 seconds, not that I was counting or anything. “Well young lady, it certainly appears that you have a slight impulse control problem.” She says, without expression before her lips quirk into a smile that tells me that she might not be too upset with me.
“Umm, yes ma’am.” I say, blushing furiously.
“But, I can’t really fault your logic too much. They should have known better.” Aunt Julie says, frowning briefly before abruptly standing. “Come! Let’s check the damage, shall we?”
Aunt Julie leads me to the egress window. Without opening the window, she looks at the outer screen. “Hmm, I don’t see anything...” She says as she studies the screen intently for a few seconds. She turns to leave the room. “Wait here, I just need to turn off the window alarms.” She makes it to the room’s door before she stops and spins back around.
Rut roh.
“Say, just how did you open the window without setting off the alarm?” Aunt Julie asks as she studies me with suspicion.
Yeah, rut roh was right. Busted!
“Umm, I kind of told the alarm to ignore this window for an hour?” I say, hesitantly as I feel even more ashamed of myself.
“Oh, okay. So, could you tell the alarm to ignore this window now so that we can check out the damage?” Aunt Julie asks like it is no big deal.
I am not sure if she understands what it means that I can turn off the window alarm from here or if she understands, but just does not think that it is that big a deal.
“Sure.” I say as I touch the window frame sensor and connect with the alarm system.
Aunt Julie walks back over and looks at the window suspiciously. “Is it off?”
“Yes ma’am.” I say, waiting for her to freak out or get mad at me.
Aunt Julie pauses and studies me for a second. “Chloe, I am not mad at you for cutting the screen or taking my best chef knife.” She looks back at the window and sighs. “And, yes, I know that what you just showed me, even though it doesn’t look like much, is a big deal. I may be old in your eyes...”
I shake my head slowly back and forth. “You’re not...”
Aunt Julie smiles. “Hehe, thanks Chloe, but what I was getting at is, I do know enough about computers to realize that Jim’s PC was responding to your touch just a bit too fast and that ‘kind of telling the alarm to ignore this window’ is also a ‘big deal’.” She says, signing air quotes as she dropped her voice an octave or two.
I sigh with defeat. “Yes, ma’am.”
Aunt Julie surprises me by laughing gently and giving me a hug. “Oh, don’t worry about it, Chloe. I trust you. Your Uncle Jim and I had a rather long talk about you last night. He trusts you and that is saying a lot! I know that you are a good person and far too smart to try and use that power to rob banks or start Global Thermonuclear War.” She says with a grin when my mouth drops to the floor at her “War Games” reference.
Yes, I know, I know. That movie is way old, but it’s still required viewing for true geek certification. “Thanks Aunt Julie. I was really worried there. I was warned to keep that ‘little’ skill or power or whatever it is, secret because it scares people, ya know?”
Aunt Julie nods with agreement. “Yes, I can imagine that it would. Smart advice and I won’t say a word, but how much can you do with computers?”
I think she knows too much already. “Umm, how about a nice game of chess?” I ask, hopeful that she will understand and drop this line of questioning.
Aunt Julie holds up her hands in mock surrender. “Okay, okay, I get the hint. Now, about if we check the damage here?” She smiles reassuringly.
I know that she is going to be at least a little upset when she sees her screen. “Thanks and I am really sorry about cutting the screen.” I say because I am worried about how much one of those screen windows will cost.
I cringe as she slides the window open, then looks back at me with confusion. “I thought that this was the window?”
I cautiously peek at the screen in question. There is not a single cut, rip or tear to be found. Actually, it looks brand new. “Umm, it was. Maybe Captain Howards replaced it?” I ask, hopeful that he did instead of just swapping it out with a different screen window.
Aunt Julie ponders the undamaged screen. “Hmmm, well, if he did, then I guess I will have to thank him if I see him again.”
“Yes ma’am.” I say, feeling relieved.
“Now, how about if I cook us something better for breakfast than a bagel while we wait for your conference call?” Aunt Julie asks, smiling as she leads me back to the kitchen.
I am pretty hungry and that reminder causes my stomach to growl. “Sure! That sounds good to me.” I say, trying to cover my embarrassment.
She pauses for a second. “Yep, something is definitely in order. Omelets? Cheese, mushrooms, green peppers with some sun-dried tomatoes sound good?”
“Oh, yes, that sounds awesome, but you don’t have to do all that. A bowl of cereal would be fine.” I say.
“It’s not a problem.” Aunt Julie says as she begins pulling stuff out of the fridge. “Chloe, would you mind cracking four eggs into a bowl for me while I work on the other ingredients?”
“Umm, sure?” I say, hesitantly as I take the carton of eggs from her and grab a small mixing bowl from the cabinet. Breaking eggs; that I can do, and I can even do that without too many shell fragments. I manage to do it this time with zero shell, then she pours a bit of milk into the bowl and I whisk it all together. Aunt Julie gives me a quick omelet cooking class and I even manage to duplicate the results with my very own omelet.
After we eat, I make a second omelet all by myself. Aunt Julie is a little surprised by my appetite.
“I’m not sure why, but I seem to need more food now. They mentioned something about me possibly being an energizer, but it could also be due to my muscles just needing more fuel too.” I say, shrugging apologetically as I polish off the second omelet.
“Okay, one more thing that I will want to check on.” Aunt Julie says with a wry grin. “Oh, for the call, can you route it through the house phone like you did before?”
I study the secure phone for a second before decide to try cloning it. “Here, I think that you can just use this while I connect directly.” I say, handing the phone to her.
Promptly at 1000 hrs, I dial the number for Mr. Reilly with my internal cloned phone and the real phone connects at the same time.
“Nicholas Reilly speaking.”
“Hi Mr. Reilly. Umm, Whisper here with Mrs. Stiles.” I say.
“Excellent Whisper. I think that I can safely say that everyone in this room is glad to know that you are safe and sound. Of course, Captain Howards just finished briefing us on your little, umm, training exercise last night.” Mr. Reilly says, his voice sounding a little amused, but with some exasperation in there too.
“Yes sir, I know. I have been informed that I have some ‘impulse control’ problems.” I say as I feel myself shrink down to three feet tall from embarrassment. Aunt Julie does not help when she covers her mouth to hide a giggle. It also doesn’t help when I hear the rest of the people in the conference room laugh.
“Well, I hear that there is a school that can help with that.” Mr. Reilly says.
Now I am worried that Whateley will not accept me. “Yes sir, but do they let trouble magnets like me in?” I ask.
Mr. Reilly laughs at me this time. “Oh Whisper, I’m sorry, but I don’t think that you will have a thing to worry about on that front.”
“Oh, okay...” I say, still feeling a little unsure about that because I know that public schools are prone to kick out troublemakers and send them to the special education centers where they can learn a valuable trade skill, like small engine repair.
Mr. Reilly clears his throat. “So, down to business. As you already know, the CIA team was found early this morning and the members are currently being debriefed. The good news is that there are no other CIA teams on the loose; the bad news is that it appears that we have a leak with this facility. More bad news is that the MCO is still looking for you. The FBI informed us that the MCO managed to get a copy of the mall security feed from yesterday.”
“Oh, that’s not good...” I say as my stomach drops to my feet.
“No, it’s not. If they spot you on the video, then they might be able to find you.”
“Weeellll, I know you told me not to, but I kind of disguised myself with an illusion so I doubt that they will recognize me.”
I hear a new voice in the background sputter. “Impossible!” It sounds like the esteemed Dr. Remus. I stick my tongue out at him, which makes it a good thing that I am not in the room with him.
“Hmmm, how good an illusion?” Mr. Reilly asks.
“Is Captain Howards there?” I ask.
“Yes I am here and I have to say that based upon what I witnessed this morning; I have zero fears that the MCO will be able to identify her in the video feeds.” Captain Howards says.
“Well, that is certainly reassuring and I think it helps with our current plan. We would bring you in right now, but we need time to isolate the leak here. Because of that, we would prefer to keep Whisper with you and Mr. Stiles until Saturday morning. Will that be okay with you and your husband, Mrs. Stiles?”
Aunt Julie looks at me and smiles. “Oh, that won’t be a problem Mr. Reilly. She is an absolute gem! Will Chloe’s, I mean, Bree’s mother be able to join us?”
Mr. Reilly sighs with relief. “I am glad to hear that and as much as she would love to join her daughter; we all feel that her presence would increase the risk of detection since Mrs. Peters can be placed at the H1 incident.”
“I could disguise her too, I think...” I say.
“I am sure that you could, but remember what Fey told you about pushing yourself?” Mr. Reilly says.
I was hoping that he forgot about that. “Yes sir.” I say, despondently.
“I know that you probably miss your mother and I know that she misses you. I would love nothing better than for you to be on a Air Force dropship and at Whateley right now, but Mrs. Carson feels that would be too disruptive to the students during Spring Finals. The majority of the student body will be leaving for Spring Break starting Friday afternoon and an early Saturday arrival will be the best from a security standpoint.”
Did he just say ‘a dropship’? Wow! I would love to get a ride in one of those things. I try to keep the excitement from my voice. “Okay, I guess that if it is okay with Aunt Julie, then I wouldn’t mind staying with her for a couple more days. Are you really going to get me a ride in a suborbital?” I ask, totally giving away my excitement.
Once again, I hear the room laughing at me. “Yes. The Air Force has a training flight that has been on the books for over a month now. We could fly you out in my jet, but the MCO is watching that like a hawk and I don’t trust them to not try something stupid. They really hate secrets that aren’t of their own making.”
I try not to bounce up and down on my chair with excitement, but I fail in that too. “Yes sir!”
“Now, Captain Howards showed us the video from last night. Is there any way that you can connect to our network and upload the rest of your adventure?” Mr. Reilly asks.
“Umm, I tried, but it said that it couldn’t find it.” I say while wishing that I had thought to make a copy of it when Captain Howards was here.
“Did you try with the VPN client?” Dr. Edmundson asks.
“No, do I have one of those?” I ask as I take the liberty of searching for one myself.
>Searching...
>File Found!
>vpn.exe
>
>Execute? Y/n
Ummm, Yes?
>Initiating secure connection...
>Connected to darpa.mil.net
>Warning!
>This is a United States Government site. Unauthorized access will be prosecuted.
>Continue? Y/n
Spooky. Yes.
>Connected as node whisper.darpa.mil.net
“Well, yes, you should. It should be called vpn.exe. Can you search for it?” Dr. Edmondson says.
“Found it and I am connected now using Uncle Jim’s wifi, is that okay?” I ask both to Aunt Julie and Mr. Reilly. Aunt Julie nods her head.
>System Diagnostic Access Request from 192.123.10.9:2030
>Allow? Y/n
I guess that means that it is okay since that is the same IP that Dr. Edmundson used the last time. Sure, I mean, Yes.
I feel the data pouring out of me as Dr. Edmundson accesses the monitor. “Interesting, very interesting...” He says, distractedly and just loud enough for their conference room phone to pick up his voice.
“Can you upload the video from the abduction and up until you were picked up by Mr. Stiles?” Mr. Reilly asks.
I queue that file, but it is huge. “Umm, yes, but it is two gigabytes and over Uncle Jim’s wifi it says that it will take five hours to transfer. Is that okay?” I ask.
“Yes, that will be fine.” Mr. Reilly says.
I decide to break it into two parts before I start the file transfer so that they can view the kidnapping video sooner. “Okay, it is on its way and I broke it into two parts for you.”
“Great! Thanks Whisper. I am sure that we will be very busy analyzing the feed. I think that we are done here. Mrs. Peters, is there anything that you would like to say?” Mr. Reilly says as I hear people start to move around in the room.
“Yes, thanks. Now Bree, I love you, but please try to stay out of trouble and listen to Mrs. Stiles.”
“Mooomm...I will.” I say, feeling embarrassed by my mom’s reminder.
“Mrs. Stiles thank you so much for being willing to watch after my daughter.” My mom says warmly.
Aunt Julie giggles. “Oh please, it is not a problem.As I said, she is a delight to have as our guest and please, just call me Julie.”
I hear the room empty as my mom and Aunt Julie start discussing me like I am not here. I sink down into my chair. I wonder if a person really can die from embarrassment. I can hear the wistfulness in my mom’s voice when Aunt Julie tells her about the bikini and the skirt that she got me to wear.
“Is Bree still there?” Mrs. Townsend asks.
“Uh huh.” Aunt Julie says.
“Yes, I am here.” I say with Aunt Julie.
“Amanda says hi and wishes you could come to her slumber party Friday night.” Mrs. Townsend says.
Oh god! That’s just what I need to keep a low profile. Hang out at Amanda’s slumber party and be surrounded by a bunch of giggling girls. I wonder if they have pillow fights while dressed in skimpy nightgowns. Hmmm, maybe that wouldn’t be so bad. Oh wait. If I was there, I would be one of the girls dressed in a skimpy nightgown. I sigh with frustration.
“Thanks, Mrs. Townsend and say hi back please. I miss her already and I wish that I could go, but that probably wouldn’t be very safe with the MCO. They are probably watching your house since they saw you all at the H1 thing.” I say and the sad thing is that I really do wish that I could go. I wonder about myself sometimes. Maybe Sara is right, I just need to jump in with both feet and be the girl, na na na na na. No, that is much too perilous! Help! Help! I’m being repressed!
I am such a geek. That makes me stifle a giggle and causes Aunt Julie to look at me with a curious expression.
“That is probably true dear, but if something changes; you’re invited!” Mrs. Townsend says ending on a cheerful note and bringing me back to reality.
“Thanks, Mrs. Townsend. Maybe the MCO will give up...” I say, hopeful that will be the case since now I really do want to go.
Am I crazy?
“I hope so! Well, I need to get back to my desk. I’ll let Amanda know you said hi when I get home tonight!” Mrs. Townsend says.
Mom and Aunt Julie decide to chit chat some more. Aunt Julie asks what kind of foods I like, but I decide that it is time to run to the bathroom when my mom drops the gender pronoun. “He liked everything except eggplant and Brussels sprouts, but now that she is an elf and a vegetarian, I don’t know.”
I have a feeling that the conversation is just going to get more embarrassing for me and I am right when they start talking about how cute I was when I was a baby. I mute my phone because if I don’t hear it, I can pretend that it never happened. While in the bathroom, I check my Chloe disguise and even use the toilet. Damn cold toilet seats.
Now, in addition to the pee-standing-upper doohickey, I am going to invent a seat warmer for toilets. Like those hand warmer things that hunters use for their hands. Maybe something that is antimicrobial and will easily fit into my purse. As an added benefit, you can use it as a hand warmer! And if you call now...
I sigh as I finish wiping. I can’t believe that I am even thinking about this kind of stuff or that I would have a purse to store said device. If someone had accused me of having a purse last week, I would have seriously considered punching them.
My mom and Aunt Julie are still chatting, so I carefully sit down on the couch and watch some TV on their big screen. Yes, I could watch it on my built in, but they have cable. Strangely enough, I find myself watching Project Runway and it takes me hearing Aunt Julie end the call before I realize that I stopped on that channel. I quickly change to Dirty Jobs to help regain some man cred because there is nothing more manly than learning how to artificially inseminate a horse. Eeeewww!
I switch back to Project Runway just as Aunt Julie walks in on me. “So, your mom and I were talking and it sounds like you might need a few more clothes. Mr. Reilly has agreed to reimburse me for up to $2,000 worth of clothes for you. Do you have any colors that you don’t like?” She asks.
That is a surprise. I mute the TV and look up at her. “Umm, definitely no pink and maybe purple?”
“Okay, well, I need to run into the office for an hour to check on some patients. After that, I will grab a few more outfits for you and if that doesn’t take too long, maybe you can come with me to the grocery store?”
“Oh, sure, that sounds good because how many people attack grocery stores these days?” I ask with a grin.
Aunt Julie laughs at my joke while I decide to look up the crime stats on that very question. I do not find a lot, but it looks like convenience stores are pretty dangerous places. She runs back upstairs to her room to get ready and amazingly, returns five minutes later ready to go. She gives me a quick hug and races out the door looking extremely excited. “I can’t wait to go shopping for you!”
I follow her out the door and wave goodbye to her as she backs out of the garage. She smiles and before the garage door closes I see her mouth, “Stay out of trouble...” Geez, it is not like I look for trouble. Up until the past week, I managed to live a pretty normal and trouble free life. Can’t I use that as my record?
I check the upload status and the first video upload is only 39% complete with an estimated four more hours to go for the complete upload. Uploading files via the interwebs is so slow. I wish that I could connect via a satellite or something faster. Well, part of the problem is with the wifi. Hmmm, they have cable internet. The download speed is pretty darn fast.
Is the modem limiting the upload speed to 500 kb per second instead of allowing 10 mb per second like it does for the download speed? I find the cable modem and give it a closer look. Yes, it is the modem itself that is controlling both the upload and the download speeds. It looks like the modem is actually capable of 20 mb per second both ways, but the cable company is limiting it. I fix that little ‘bug’ and bam!, the ETA drops in half.
Crap! Now it is the wifi that is limiting the speed. I debate sending it faster, but that might raise more questions that I want to have asked. Hmm, I decide to tone down the cable modem upload speed limit to match Uncle Jim’s wifi speed limit and leave things alone after that. No sense in taking chances by attracting attention at this stage.
With that it going as fast as I can safely allow, I decide to watch some more of that fashion show. It is surprisingly entertaining watching these people come up with outfits out of nothing. That lasts for 20 minutes before I can’t take it anymore and I find a Mythbusters episode. Sweet! They are blowing up a cement truck! Male mojo infusion, check!
[ding-dong!]
The front doorbell rings. What the heck? Should I answer it? I peek out the door and there is a delivery dude there. I don’t detect anything strange about him. No hidden radios, CAC ID cards or ray guns on him. He has a handheld package scanner and a small mp3 player. I cautiously open the door just as he is about to turn and leave.
“Sorry it took me so long. Did you have something for my Aunt or Uncle?” I ask.
His eyes widen with surprise or something as he sees me. Did I forget to re-activate my Chloe disguise? Am I not wearing clothes? Why is he smiling at me and blushing?
He looks at the label on the letter sized package. “Is your Aunt named Chloe Stiles?” He asks.
That is a surprise. “Umm, no. I’m Chloe, why?” I ask, then feel dumb when I realize how stupid that sounds when he is holding a package in his hands that appears to be addressed to me. “Oh god, that’s pretty stupid of me isn’t it?”
He laughs at me, but it is a nice laugh. Not mean or anything. “No, not at all. It happens all the time. It is amazing how many people are surprised that someone would want to send them a package.” He grins as he holds out his scanner with the plastic stylus. “Sign here please.”
The scanner looks legit. No sign of a hidden stun gun or anything else. I grab it and sign Chloe Stiles in the box. He hands me the package with a smile. “Have a nice day ma’am.”
“Umm, thanks. You too...” I say, somewhat distractedly as I study the thin cardboard envelope and close the door behind me. I don’t detect anything electronic in it. So, it should not blow up on me if I open it. Who would send me a package and who would even know that I am here?
I set the envelope on the coffee table in the living room and study it for over five minutes before I dredge up the courage to open it. Okay, it was 5 minutes and 23 seconds. It is not my fault that my built in timer is so anal retentive.
It does not blow up and no knockout gas poofs out of the envelope when I open it. Inside I find a piece of paper with a typed note, a New York Driver’s License with Chloe’s name and picture on it, a Social Security Card, a Student ID card for some religious private school called The Saint Quiteria School for Young Ladies along with a class schedule, official looking birth certificate that says my name is Chloe Jessica Stiles with Mother listed as Karen Stiles and Father as Jonathan Stiles and the return portion of a round trip plane ticket from Norfolk to New York. The most important discovery that I make is that both my birth certificate and driver’s license says that I am 16, while the student ID card says that I am a sophomore. Sweet! I can drive!
With that discovery, I almost forget about the note.
Chloe,
Here are some things that might help you. Don’t worry, they are not fake. Remind me to de-register you from the school so that your “parents” don’t get called about you missing school next week. :)
Hugs,
P
Wow. Just wow. I REALLY need to be nice to Paige when I get to Whateley.
I decide to use Uncle Jim’s shredder on Paige’s note. No real reason to destroy it, but no real reason to keep it either. Plus, using the shredder is easier than eating it. Since my kidnappers left my purse back in the not so secret test lab, I don’t know what to do with my license and student ID card. The back pocket of my jeans will just have to do for now. I leave the class schedule, birth certificate and SSN card in the envelope. No reason to carry those around with me. That was my plan, until I discover that pockets are all sewn shut. Why do they do that? Don’t girls use their pockets?
I borrow one of Aunt Julie’s knives again and fix that little defect with my jeans, then satisfied; I slide my new license and student ID into my back pocket. No, I did not perform the pocket surgery while wearing the jeans and no, you do not need pictures of me without my pants on.
I make some lunch, watch more Mythbusters, watch a full episode of that other show, sorry, I can’t help it. It is kind of funny to learn how fashion designers think about clothing. It is just clothing, but they treat it like it is going to solve world peace or something. The show does have Heidi Klum though. She might be old, ummm, er, but she is still pretty hot and I love that German accent of hers.
At 1323 hours and just as the designers are picking their models, the phone rings. I let their answering machine pick up the call. “Chloe? It’s me. Are you there?” I hear Aunt Julie say over the answering machine. I race to the phone that has the answering machine hooked up to it and pick up the line.
“Hi, Aunt Julie! I’m here.” I say.
“Oh, good! Was starting to get worried.” Aunt Julie says with a relieved laugh. “How are you doing? Is everything okay? Did you have any trouble?”
“Hehe, nope. No problems here. I made myself some lunch and not once did someone try to attack me. It’s actually kind of boring...” I say, trying to sound disappointed by that.
“Chloe!” Aunt Julie says with a smile in her voice. “I’m almost done here at the hospital and it should only take me an hour or two to find you a few more outfits. Is there anything else you need?”
“Umm, a purse?” I ask, feeling very reluctant to admit that need to myself or her.
“Oh yeah. I can’t believe that I didn’t think of that last night. I have a few extra ones in my closet. Feel free to grab one while you wait.” Aunt Julie says.
Just like my parents, I feel a little hesitant to venture into their room. “In your room?” I ask, cringing as I immediately regret my question. My hair isn’t really blonde, why am I asking so many stupid questions this morning?
Aunt Julie giggles. “Don’t worry. There’s nothing in there that will attack you.”
“Oh, I know, I think. I just don’t feel comfortable going through other people’s rooms.” I say, finding it ironic that as a rogue, that is my job in GEO.
“Okay, well, I need to go. I have my cell; call me if you think of anything.”
“I will...bye Aunt Julie.” I say as I hang up the phone and debate hunting for a purse. I do have a lot more stuff to haul around now, but then again, no I don’t. A driver’s license and a student ID is not “a lot of stuff”. I don’t have a phone. I don’t have or need makeup. I don’t have, but might need some of those tampon things, eventually. Okay, that decides it for me. I do ‘not’ need a purse right now.
Woot! Time for more of my show. I plop myself back down in front of the TV. Who will win this challenge?
[Ding-dong!]
What the heck?! Do Aunt Julie and Uncle Jim get this many deliveries every day?
“Coming!” I yell as scramble to the door and reach for the handle.
>Alert!
>Electronic surveillance devices detected!
>Searching...
>Match found!
>Mutant Commission Office device match...
>Covert Video surveillance device Model# C32KX
What does that do?
>Covert Video surveillance device Model# C32KX:
>Standard 720p video record mode
>Stereo Audio record mode
> 16 GB Onboard Memory w/ USB Interface
>Automatic Low light with flare compensation.
>Infrared equipped.
>Standard facial recognition matching algorithms.
Oh crap, I mean, crud. Does my illusion cover the IR spectrum?
“Be right there!” I yell as I run to the bathroom, switch to IR and view myself in the mirror. Yep, my Chloe IR signature looks like Chloe and not me. No elf ears detected. I flush the toilet then run back to the door.
Crap! Maybe I should have pretended to not be here. Oh well, too late now.
“Hi? Can I help you?” I ask as I cautiously open the door and am almost immediately bombarded with an IR pulse from their glasses. I pay more attention to what their system is doing than to them as it tries to find a match for my face. It fails, but it makes me wonder if it would have failed anyway. Do they even have a good scan of my real face? The failure sends a buzzer tone to their earpiece that I assume indicates a failure.
“Yes, we are sorry to bother you ma’am, but I am MCO Agent Schiller.” The dude on the right says, sounding genuinely apologetic as they both display their MCO badges to me. Agent Schiller gestures to the second dude. “And, this is my partner Agent Mattsen. We just need to ask you a few questions regarding a deadly mutant who escaped from police custody yesterday.”
Wow, they are really laying it on thick there. I never realized that I was both “deadly” or in “police custody”. Okay, I am Chloe Jessica Stiles. I am on vacation and I am missing the ending of my show. How will I ever find out who won the design challenge? I narrow my eyes with anger. “Again? Is this about that girl from the mall yesterday? The one who interrupted my shopping?!?” I ask, crossing my arms across my chest and insolently canting my head to the side.
“We are very sorry ma’am, but we are just following standard procedure and doing some random follow ups with potential witnesses to make sure we didn’t miss anything.” Agent Schiller says as he glances back to their car with longing.
Standard procedure random follow-up my butt! They had to have used the video footage that Mr. Reilly mentioned. “Oh, well, that’s easy. No. I didn’t see anything except for the Michael Kors purse that I couldn’t buy due to this missing mutant of yours. Can’t you all keep better track of them?” I say, huffing with frustration as I glance back at the TV impatiently. Now I have that show to thank for because until I watched it, I never even knew who Michael Kors was. I hope that he actually has some purses in his collection or whatever they call it.
They both take a step back. “Sorry ma’am. I think we got everything that we came for. Very sorry to have bothered you. Have a nice day!” Agent Schiller says before they both retreat back to their car.
“Fuck...I told Lainer that she wasn’t the one...why in the hell did we have to get the short straw?” Agent Schiller mutters to Agent Mattsen when he thinks that they are out of my hearing range.
I close and lock the door, then peek out the front window to confirm that they are really leaving. I detect an encrypted radio transmission from their car as they pull out and aggressively accelerate away. Yeah, I think that they are officially pissed and Chloe is off their suspect list. I hope.
The phone starts ringing again. Geez, now what? It is probably Aunt Julie again. I run back into the kitchen and pick up the phone before it can go to the machine. “Hello, Stiles residence. Chloe speaking.” I say.
“Chloe!?” Uncle Jim asks, sounding worried about something.
“Oh, hi Uncle Jim. Sorry, I thought you were Aunt Julie. Is something wrong?” I ask.
“Have the MCO come yet?” He asks.
I laugh. Okay, giggle darn it. I blame the adrenalin rush. “Oh yeah. Agent Schiller and Agent Mattsen just left. I got mad at them because they interrupted Project Runway. Why?” I ask, trying to stay in character just in case ‘they’ are illegally tapping Uncle Jim’s phone. I don’t detect any taps, but I also don’t really know what a phone tap ‘feels’ like either.
“Oh...” Uncle Jim pauses with surprise. “You got mad at them and they left?!”
“Well, yeah. I am Chloe Jessica Stiles and like I said, they were interrupting Project Runway. Why wouldn’t I get upset over something as important as that?” I ask.
“That worked?” He asks, incredulously.
“Yep, I can tell you all about it tonight during dinner and would you believe that I missed who won the design challenge?”
“Well, I guess everything is okay then?” He says hesitantly. “When do you expect, umm, Aunt Julie to be back?”
It sounds a little strange hearing him call her ‘Aunt Julie’, but it is part of my cover. “Oh, she just called and said that she was on her way to shop for some clothes, then, depending on how long that took, she would either come home or just go to the grocery store to pick up stuff for dinner tonight. Do you want me to ask her to call you?”
“No, that’s okay. I will be in court the rest of the afternoon. Just let her know that I should be home at the usual time.”
“Okay. Oh! Commercial is over. Is there anything else?” I ask with a touch of impatience for the benefit of any possible listeners.
“No, that’s it. Thanks Chloe.” Uncle Jim says, sounding a bit bewildered, yet relieved at the same time. Chloe seems to have that effect on people.
“No problemo! Bye Uncle Jim. Love ya!” I say cheerfully as I set the phone back down and cringe at my girliness there at the end. Where did that come from? This Chloe character of mine is affecting me now too. I need to change the channel back to Mythbusters or something before she takes over!
I switch the channel and some ultra-manly show about custom built choppers is on. Phew! I can practically feel the testosterone oozing back into me from the TV screen as the big old dude uses an axe to make a hole in his son’s office door. Not sure why, but it is kind of entertaining in a train wreck kind of way. That show ends and I am halfway through a very interesting show on sharks when I intercept the garage door signal.
Woot! Aunt Julie is home! I am so bored. I run to the door that leads to the garage and open it as Aunt Julie pulls into the garage. She happily waves at me as she shuts off her car and closes the garage door. “Oooh, Chloe! I can’t wait for you to try on some of the outfits I found for you!” She says as she excitedly opens the back and pulls out far too many expensive looking bags.
Her excitement, plus my chopper testosterone infusion causes me to pause. “Umm, okay. Do you need any help carrying things in?” I ask.
Aunt Julie waves me away. “Oh no! I can get it. Besides, I don’t want to ruin the surprise. I can’t wait to see what you think!”
“Oh, are you sure?” I ask as I take note of the growing pile of bags with alarm. How did she get so much in only an hour or two?
“Yep, why don’t you head upstairs to your room and I will bring your stuff upstairs for you try and see what you think.” Aunt Julie says.
I anxiously wait on my bed as she brings in the first load and sets them on the floor. “Wait here. No peeking.” She says before she runs back down to the garage for more bags.
Even without peeking, I can’t help noticing the expensive names on the bags. Macy’s and Nordstrom's are predominant before she returns with a couple Gap and Forever 21 bags. Oh yeah, and another Victoria’s Secret bag. Oh joy.
Counting last night’s purchases, I think she spent at least 2k on me. If not more. Aunt Julie reveals and has me try on a tan pair of leather ankle boots with a three inch stiletto heel. Yikes! She also pulls out a pair of comfy looking black with a hint of pink Puma wrestling style shoes.
“Sorry about the pink in them. They were the least girly girl sneakers that I could find.” Aunt Julie says, apologetically as I try them on and yes, they are comfortable.
The Victoria’s bag is easy. In that bag are a couple more bras and an assortment of panties, including some cute boy cut panties designed to resemble briefs. Did I just think that they were cute? Fortunately, she doesn’t have me try on any of those.
She does pull out a few pairs of shorts, two pairs of Capri pants and three more pairs of jeans. All of those, I kind of like the black jeans with the shiny vertical row non-functional buttons that rise about six inches from the hem. Yes, I learned a new word from that show.
The shorts, I think those are too short, too tight and no pockets. Why couldn’t Aunt Julie find me some nice and loose khaki explorer shorts that almost reach the knee? I mean, these aren’t Daisy Duke shorts, but they show way too much thigh. Which is fine with me when other girls wear them, but on me?
The Capri pants still confuse me, but I guess high water pants could be okay to wear in the summer instead of jeans. The fabric is thinner and probably not as hot. The pockets are worse than my jeans though. The rear pockets are totally fake while the front pockets are just a few inches deep. Why did they even bother?
That takes care of almost half of the bags. From the Macy’s bag Aunt Julie pulls out a dark grey skirt. “Now, this charcoal skirt is dressier. It is something you can wear to a meeting or job interview.” She says as she lays it on the bed. She matches the skirt with a white silk blouse and a matching charcoal blazer. Her words. I would have called it a jacket or coat even though it doesn’t look very warm.
Next, Aunt Julie pulls out some silk skirt thing. “This is a slip. It goes on under your skirt to keep the lines smooth and the skirt from bunching up or clinging to your legs.”
She lays that on top of the skirt and pulls out a pair of black tight looking things. “Cotton stockings with 10% spandex. The best I could find that don’t need a garter belt to hold up.” She says as she hands them to me, and then reaches into the bag and pulls out another black and two white pairs of the same.
They don’t trigger an allergy alert and that both pleases and alarms me at the same time. I am not really going to wear tights, am I?
“Okay, now let’s see if this stuff fits. Take off your jeans and top, and then put the tights on.” Aunt Julie says with an excited twinkle in her eye.
I dubiously look at the tights, then stick my toe in and start to pull them up like they are socks. “Whoa! Not like that. You will rip or snag them trying to pull them up like that.”
She has me roll them and slowly pull them up, past my hips. With these, I am not sure why I need to wear underwear, but there must be a reason or she would have told me to take my panties off too, right?
Next is the slip and that plus the tights feels real strange on my legs. The blouse is next, followed by the skirt. “Your slip is showing.” Aunt Julie says critically before she rolls it up around my waist to shorten it.
“Okay, is that bad?” I ask, wondering why a slip is treated like some forbidden thing to see, like panties or something.
Aunt Julie smirks. “Not entirely, but it can be embarrassing to have it show.”
“Why?”
“Because it isn’t supposed to show and if it does show, it tells people that your skirt doesn’t fit properly.”
“Oh, can’t you just buy skirts that don’t need slips and why not just wear pants instead?” I ask because this seems like a lot of trouble for silly reasons. Who cares if lines show or if the skirt clings a little?
“Chloe, Chloe, Chloe...I can see that your fashion education is going to be so much fun.” Aunt Julie says with a happy smile.
There is not a lot that I can say to that. She is having way too much fun with this and I can’t believe that I am wearing this. What happened to me? Are all the girls that I know, plus some that I don’t, along with the TV, conspiring against me? Was it chance that today is a Project Runway marathon? Now, I am starting to get paranoid, but is it paranoia if they are really out to get you?
Aunt Julie hands me the matching blazer suit coat thing and with that ‘look’ complete, she pulls out her super secret weapon. A box with a pair of shiny black pumps with a three inch heel. “Here, put these on and walk over there. I want to see how you look.” She points to the window.
I gingerly take the offered, umm, pumps from her. “Are you sure?” I ask, hoping that she will change her mind.
“Of course, other than some jewelry, the shoes are the only thing that is missing.” Aunt Julie says.
Aunt Julie watches me like a hawk as I take a step backwards to sit on the bed so that I can slide the pumps onto my feet. Why is she looking at me like that? I start to sit.
“Stop!” She says.
Surprised, I stop and look at her. “What’s wrong?” I ask.
“You can’t just sit. You have to smooth your skirt underneath you as you sit and keep your knees together. Remember, you wearing a skirt.” Aunt Julie says as she pantomimes her instructions.
“Oh yeah...” I say feeling a tad annoyed with all the rules, but I follow her instructions and sit down. The pumps go on without a hitch, but once again Aunt Julie is watching me, ready to pounce. I bet that she expects me to fall over or trip in the heels. Well, that is one area that I should not have problems with due to all my VR training.
I put that to the test when I stand without a single wobble and casually walk over to the window. Aunt Julie smiles at me when I turn back to face her.
“How was that?” I ask pleased with myself.
“Fine dear. Have you worn heels before?” Aunt Julie asks.
“Well, I had some two inch heels on my boots, but I have worn longer in my VR space to see what they were like.” I say, looking down at my feet and enjoying the feeling of being so tall.
“Ahh, that’s good, but look at your skirt.” Aunt Julie says, gesturing at it with her eyes.
I look at it and the back is a little crumpled. “Oh.” I say as I self-consciously smooth it out.
“Remember to also smooth it out when you stand.” Aunt Julie says.
“Okay.” I say as I walk over to the bathroom mirror so that I can see how I look.
“What is this ‘VR space’ thing you mentioned?” Aunt Julie asks.
I think that I look really really nice. Well, Chloe does anyway, but her question interrupts my pleased self admiration. “I guess that I can tell you...” I say as I collect my thoughts on how to best explain it to her. “Due to the nanites, I have this Virtual Reality thing that I can do inside my head. I have a virtual living room that I can relax in and read books or watch TV. I have a Jacuzzi and pool area now. I added that last night.” I blush when I mention that addition. “I also have a shooting range that I practice in, too.” I try to gloss over that, but she startles a little when I mention it.
“A shooting range? Is that safe?” Aunt Julie asks, sounding concerned.
“Umm, well, I guess so? It’s not real, but it is a lot of fun.” I say, shrugging my shoulders.
“Oh, so you practiced walking in heels in there, then?” Aunt Julie asks.
“Yeah, a little. Sara likes to visit every now and then and she likes it when we play dress up.” I say, cringing a little at how pathetic that sounds. Dress up? Really? Is that the best I could come up with?
“Sara is a virtual friend of yours?” Aunt Julie asks.
That question surprises me and a giggle escapes me. “Oh no, she’s real. She goes to Whateley and is Fey’s sister or something, so now she is my cousin because Fey sorta adopted me since I am a Sidhe elf...” I notice that Aunt Julie is looking a little confused. “...yeah, it’s a little complicated.” I lamely finish.
“Okay, I guess you can try to explain it all to me tonight or tomorrow.” Aunt Julie says as she stands and grabs another bag. She roots through it and pulls out a small black leather purse. “Here you go. You probably don’t have much to put in it right now, but you can’t go out without a purse.” She says as she hands it to me.
“Oh, thanks!” I say with a surprising amount of enthusiasm. Surprising for me anyway. I grab my jeans and pull out my Chloe driver’s license and student ID from the back pockets.
“What are those?” Aunt Julie asks suspiciously.
Rut Roh!
“Oh,” I try to laugh like it is no big deal, but it comes out as a no big deal giggle instead. “Sara managed to send me a real fake ID to help with my disguise. Sorry that I forgot to tell you about it when you got home, but...” I glance down at my outfit and all the bags.
“Hmmm, can I see them?” Aunt Julie asks as she holds her hand out expectantly.
“Sure.” I say as I hand her the IDs.
She studies them and holds the license up to the light in an attempt to discover if it is a fake. The license has the official looking hologram and Paige sent it to me, so I doubt that it is fake.
“It looks real to me and The Saint Quiteria School for Young Ladies is a pretty exclusive private school in Karen’s, umm, your Mom’s neighborhood. How did?” Aunt Julie asks with wonder as she hands them both back to me.
I shrug my shoulders. “Beats me, but I also have an official looking birth certificate, a round trip plane ticket and a class schedule downstairs on the kitchen table.”
Aunt Julie shakes her head with a mixture of confusion and wonder. “Amazing...” She says. Then, she thoughtfully studies me. “Hmmm, can you drop your illusion? I want to see how you look as yourself.”
I drop the Chloe illusion and gaze at Aunt Julie self consciously. What will she think?
“Okay, turn.” She says as she studies me.
I turn and catch my reflection in the mirror. I think that I look pretty nice, but I am not sure because I think that my pale skin, short black hair with the charcoal suit kind of makes me look a little too pale.
Aunt Julie purses her lips in thought before she joins me at my side. “Hmmm, I think that you could use just a little more color around your eyes and maybe something to bring out the color of your lips a bit more too. Maybe some green to help make your already gorgeous eyes pop a little more along with a touch of red on your lips.”
With that in mind, I cast a very minor illusion to add some smoky green eye shadow with a touch of red to my lips. Not too dark, but not too light. I do not want to look Goth or have pink lips. I keep the illusion open so that I can make adjustments to it if needed.
Aunt Julie looks at me with surprise as my make up changes to match her suggestion. “My, that’s umm, surprising.” She laughs nervously. “I mean, I guess it shouldn’t be, due to your Chloe disguise, but wow, just wow. Can you do that to other people?” She asks, sounding a bit hopeful.
I decide to drop the makeup illusion on myself so that I can concentrate on Aunt Julie’s look. Using a VR overlay of Aunt Julie, I change her hair from blonde to dark black and make it long and full of body or gentle curls as they explained on the show during the makeup and hairstyle portion. I give her that sort of wild and unkempt look that probably takes a lot of time and hairspray to achieve in real life. Then, I give her image dark red lips and to help make her blue eyes pop, I add a brilliant turquoise blue/green color around her eyes that fades to dark blue.
Essentially, I just follow the example that the pros did to one of the runway models for the big reveal, but I also tweak things a little to adapt it for Aunt Julie. I also add some thin dangly blue sapphire earrings that hang down to the top of her jawline and for a twist, a blue sapphire nose stud. I finish the look with a matching blue sapphire encrusted choker necklace and I smile at those additions. Sara is definitely a bad influence on me.
“What are you doing?” Aunt Julie asks, nervously.
“Nothing...yet.” I say as I lock her image in my head and open myself up to the magic.
Aunt Julie shivers a little as the magic settles over her and I can’t help feeling extremely pleased by how she turned out. All I need to do to complete her look is change her outfit to a tight black mini-skirt with some black leather stiletto heels and she would look, umm, my thoughts trail off there as I start to blush. Then, I notice that my nipples feel strangely sensitive and something low in my belly reacts in embarrassing ways.
“Chloe? What’s wrong?” Aunt Julie asks as she studies my face.
“Umm, nothing. Look in the mirror.” I say, managing to squeak out a reply.
Curious, Aunt Julie turns and spots her reflection. “Holy shit!” She says as she grabs for her hair, then runs forward to examine her face in the mirror. Her fake hair responds as if it was real when she runs her hands through it, but I can tell that she feels something wrong because her real hair is straight.
Aunt Julie laughs when she spots the stud in her nose. “Oh my! Chloe, this is so, ummm, well, I don’t know.” She cautiously touches the stud, then smiles when she realizes that it isn’t real. She also tries to grasp the choker. Finally, she takes a step back to take in the entire look as she turns her head from one side to the other.
“Wow...I thought your Chloe disguise was amazing, but this is...How long will this last?” Aunt Julie asks.
“Umm, I’m not sure? I think it might last for a few hours, but maybe a day. I can cancel it now though.” I say apologetically.
Aunt Julie doesn’t say anything as she intently studies herself in the mirror for another minute. “Hmmm, I like it. I might have to dye my hair black one of these days. I doubt that I could get away with the nose stud, but, surprisingly, I like that too.” She turns to me and laughs. “You’re a bad influence Chloe. I might have to get a magnetic stud for Halloween.”
Her grin fades as she looks at me with a calculating expression. “You know, if you could make this last for a day, you could make a pretty good living as a makeup artist. Heck, more than just a makeup artist...can you do this to me again tonight after dinner? I have something that I want to...” She trails off with a blush.
I grin and nod my head as I figure out what she probably plans on doing. Uncle Jim is going to be so surprised when he sees her.
Abruptly, Aunt Julie looks past me. “Whoa! It’s almost 4:30. We need to get to the grocery store so that I can cook dinner tonight. Can you cancel this...” She gestures toward her face. “Redo your Chloe disguise and then, let’s get a moving.”
I cancel Aunt Julie’s illusion and look down at myself. I am wearing a skirt and high heels. “Umm, shouldn’t I change my clothes too?” I ask, hopefully because I do not want to go out in public like this.
Aunt Julie glances at me without concern. “No? Why? You look perfect in that.”
“Umm, I don’t want to get anything on it?” I say, hesitantly as I pray for her to agree with me.
She waves my concern away. “Oh, we are just riding the grocery store and walking down a few aisles. Shopping is not like football or something.” She laughs.
“But...” I say, feeling the hope dwindle away.
“No buts, plus, we don’t have time for you to change right now. We gotta go. Come on.” Aunt Julie says as she motions for me to follow her out of the room. “And, don’t forget your purse Chloe.”
“I could stay here and umm, guard the house...” I say timidly and with the dreaded purse in hand as I let her lead me to the car and my doom.
Somehow, I manage to get into her SUV without too much trouble. I smooth out my skirt as I sit and even keep my knees together as I swing my legs into the passenger foot well. That accomplishment distracts me from my current emergency. Should I start up the STIMS?
Aunt Julie starts the car, opens the garage door, but stops backing out after only a few feet. Maybe she is stopping so that I can go back into the house where it is safe?
“Chloe. Your disguise.” Aunt Julie says.
Curses! Foiled again...
I recast it and she backs out to the street. I longingly stare at the nice and safe house as it disappears behind us. I look down and my stocking encased legs fill me with dread. I know that I shouldn’t feel this way. I walked all over the mall yesterday as Chloe and looking like I was wearing a much more revealing skirt, but that was not real and this is.
During the drive, Aunt Julie talks to me about dinner, but I find it difficult to pay attention. I think she says something about making stuffed salmon and some other stuff. I manage to nod my head or say “uh huh” at the appropriate places in the conversation to keep her going, but I cannot stop worrying about wearing a skirt in public. What if people laugh at me? I know, I know, pretty darn silly of me to worry about that since girls wear skirts all the time and the last time I checked, I am definitely still a girl.
“Okay Bree, it’s just a skirt. You can do this!” I think to myself.
“No I can’t!”
“Stop that! Yes you can! It’s just camouflage, remember?”
“But...”
Hey, yeah. It is just camouflage. That reassuring thought lasts all the way until Aunt Julie surprises me.
“Are you getting out?” She asks, looking over at me from her open door.
“Umm, sure?” I say as I flail with the door handle a few times due to my nerves.
Aunt Julie meets me on my side of the car. “Come on dear. You look fine. No reason for you to be nervous about this. It is just a grocery store and don’t forget your purse.” She says with a gentle smile.
We enter the grocery store and I feel somewhat reassured when no one points me out by yelling something like, “Hey! Look at the boy in the skirt! Ha ha!” No one said that irrational fears have to be rational.
“Relax Chloe. You’re starting to draw some second glances due to your panicked expression instead of your beauty.”
I sigh with frustration and that helps. “I know. I’m sorry, Aunt Julie, I’ve just never worn a skirt or heels out in public before and I’m so nervous about it. What if I do something wrong?” I ask.
“If anyone notices, I will just explain to them that you’re a recovering tomboy, but I really don’t think that anyone will notice a thing if you just relax.” Aunt Julie says as she inspects some broccoli.
“The other one is fresher.” I say, pointing to the clump that looks a bit greener to me.
Aunt Julie picks it up and then, turns and smiles at me. “Thanks!” She says as she puts it in a bag.
Aunt Julie helps me relax by explaining how to cook this vegetable or that with what seasonings and method. By the time we make it to the fresh seafood section, I am feeling a little embarrassed about my reaction. No one, including myself, sees anything other than a pretty girl shopping with her mother or older sister. I might be over dressed, but a lot of women are dressed the same way since the store is probably their last stop before they return home after a day at the office.
My outfit is almost the perfect disguise and that realization causes me to fully relax and enjoy myself. It is so nice to be out of the house and not being chased by someone bent on killing or capturing me. I am able to maintain that happy Zen state until we turn down the aisle that has all the feminine hygiene products, and then, we stop right in the middle of the display.
I look up and see a veritable tsunami of choices, options and colors ready to crash down on my head. Aunt Julie must need some tampons. She can’t be stopping here for me, can she? I wouldn’t know what to pick, I don’t want to know and the longer that I can put off that inevitable first purchase; the longer that I can pretend that I am not really a girl even though I am.
Besides, my mom stocked my purse, I avoided looking at them, and furthermore, pre-girl infection, I specifically avoided this aisle when I was forced to join my mom in the store. The one time my mom made me hand her a box of these things, I felt guilty and self-conscious until we left the aisle. What if one of the guys from school had seen me touching the box?
“Ahh, here we go, last stop. If I am not mistaken, you need some of tampons young lady. What brand do you use?” Aunt Julie asks as if it is the most normal thing in the world to ask another person.
“Umm, umm...” I stare at the shouting wall of girlhood reminders and I start to feel overwhelmed. First it was the skirt, plus all the additional girl stuff that I am wearing. Then it was appearing in public while wearing those things and now it is the one thing that I have been purposely avoiding since I turned. I want to run, but where would I run to?
“Doctor Stiles?” I hear a woman’s voice call out with surprise and distract me from my current emergency.
We both turn and I spot an older, well dressed woman approaching our position. She appears to be in her mid to late forties and makes me look underdressed. She smiles as she receives confirmation of Aunt Julie’s identification.
I glance sideways to Aunt Julie and she looks surprised to see the woman. “Mrs. Grantson? What a pleasant surprise.” She says with a smile.
“Oh my dear. It is such a pleasure to see you again. How long has it been?” Mrs. Grantson asks as she gives Aunt Julie a hug before stepping back. “Just look at you! How do you manage to look so young?”
“Oh, just healthy eating and regular exercise. You know, doctor’s orders. You’re looking stunning as usual. What brings you here?” Aunt Julie asks, looking a little embarrassed and flustered.
Who is this woman?
Mrs. Grantson laughs. “You mean why am I doing my own shopping when I don’t have to?”
Aunt Julie looks embarrassed. “No, no, no. I was just surprised to run into you today.”
“Oh dear, you don’t have to pretend. I would normally never step foot into a grocery store, but we are hosting a promotion party for Rear Admiral Jensen on Friday and I had to make some last minute changes to the appetizers.” Mrs. Grantson says before she turns her gaze to me. “And who is this beautiful young lady?”
“Oh, this is my niece, Chloe. She is on break this week so she decided to visit. Chloe, this is Admiral Grantson’s wife, Mrs. Victoria Grantson.”
I feel like saluting or something, but instead, I copy the curtsy that I performed as Whisper. “Pleased to meet you ma’am.”
“Oh my.” Mrs. Grantson says, clasping her hands together with pleasure. “Such fine manners. Just where do you go to school my dear?”
“Oh, I go to The Saint Quiteria School for Young Ladies in New York.” I say, then immediately regret my answer when I see her eyes light up with recognition.
Mrs. Grantson hugs me. “It is so rare to meet a fellow Sister of the Nine!”
Oh crap!
~o~O~o~
Insert standard disclaimer here: The one that reminds everyone that this is a work of fiction. No one is real and any resemblance to someone who is real is purely coincidence, honest. This is also a Fan Fiction set in the Whateley Story Universe. No Canon characters were permanently harmed in the making of this story. I hope. :)
Note: Well, this was supposed to be the final chapter, but it is not. Sorry. I know you all wanted it to end. This one took a LOT longer than I expected due all the usual excuses. Thanks go out to my beta-readers/editors/sanity checkers as well as djkauf for his magical editing.
~o~O~o~
“Yes, yes it is, but I just started there. Well, I actually start on Monday, so I don’t know if I really qualify as a ‘Sister’.” I think that I manage to cover my tracks rather well. I feel kind of pleased with myself. Maybe I am finally getting the hang of this subterfuge thing that my sister does so well.
“Oh, pshaw, young lady! That just makes our meeting each other even more fortuitous. You, your Aunt and your Uncle simply ‘must’ attend my party. It would provide an excellent educational opportunity for you.”
Okay, maybe I am not getting the hang of it.
Aunt Julie comes to my rescue. “Umm, sorry, Mrs. Grantson, but I am not sure if Chloe can attend. She is flying home Saturday morning and we already have plans to celebrate her final night with us.”
“Well, you simply must change them my dear Julie! Everyone who is anyone will be there. The Virginia Attorney General and even the Governor will be attending.”
Okay, maybe not. This is starting to turn into a tennis match. She serves, she volleys, oh! Smash! Wait, she makes an amazing save!
“Welll, I don’t know Mrs. Grantson. I will need to run it past Jim, and Chloe didn’t bring anything suitable for a formal occasion. How about if we think about it?” Aunt Julie retreats a little and gives Mrs. Grantson an opening.
Visions of one of those formal military ball things that I have seen on TV run through my head. Dudes in elaborate military uniforms with lots of awards on their chest and swords strapped to their sides walk about with cigars and glasses of brandy. Ladies in fluffy gowns gossiping about who did what with whom. Followed by some waltz style dancing where the love smitten woman stares dreamily into the handsome officer’s eyes as he twirls her around the room. Finally, the terrorists burst on scene and the heroic officer uses his sword to thwart the plot.
Okay, maybe not that bad.
Mrs. Grantson appears to take that as a yes. “Excellent! Well, I must be on my way, but I will send some invitations over to your house first thing in the morning.” She turns to me with a victorious grin. “And you, young lady, I cannot wait to introduce you to my nephew! You two will have so much in common.”
*panic*
I don't think she took Aunt Julie’s “think about it” the way that Aunt Julie intended it to be taken. I glance over at Aunt Julie, and she looks almost as dazed and lost as I do. Mrs. Grantson is almost a force of nature the way she bowls right over all resistance in her path.
I cannot believe that this kind of stuff keeps happening to me! What are the odds that some old lady who is putting on a formal party and knows Aunt Julie would run into her at the grocery store and then, have gone to the same school I am using as my cover? Even more amazing, she is hosting the party for Captain Howard’s boss and I would need to wear some formal gown, dress thing and dance with her nephew. Scenes from that movie with the Beast and Belle dancing around a fairy tale ballroom with dancing teapots flicker through my head. I am not going to be some Belle of the ball! No way, no how.
Why can’t some super-villain attack the store because he needs hot dogs for his minion party? That would be so much easier to deal with.
“Well, that was unexpected, where were we?” Aunt Julie shakes her head once to clear her confusion and returns to the feminine hygiene production selection as if nothing is wrong with what just happened. “Oh yes, here you go dear. I recommend that you try this brand.” She hands me a sort of pink colored box for me to inspect.
It is not pink. What color is it?
>Analyzing color spectrum....
>#FF00FF
Oh, that helps, not. What color is that?
>Magenta/Fuchsia
Isn’t that the same as pink?
>#FFC0CB = Pink
Oh, how silly of me to even ask and I thought that magenta and fuchsia were different colors. Oh man, what am I doing? It is freaking red! Well, more red, but I guess it has some purple in it too.
*sigh*
After that waste of processing time, I almost wish the box would cause an allergic reaction so I would have an excuse to drop it like a hot potato, but I do not. “Umm, I am not sure if I like the idea of, you know...” I glance down. “...but is it true that I could use these for dressings if I get shot? Because if so, I think these might be useful.”
Aunt Julie’s eyes widen with surprise. “Chloe! What in the...” She pauses as if she cannot believe that someone would even think of using tampons as dressings. “You ARE definitely not a typical girl!”
“Umm, yeah...hello?” I hold my arms in supplication to draw attention to my body.
She giggles at my display before becoming serious again. “But yes, I have heard them being utilized for that purpose by the military.” She turns back the tsunami of options, grabs a blue box and hands it to me. “Here, a medium strength panty liner will probably be a bit easier for you to adjust to, but you may still need to think about a regular tampon if you have a high flow.”
I now have two boxes of ‘feminine hygiene’ products in my hands. It has gone from bad to worse and I am not allergic to the second box either. I also do not like the sound of that ‘high flow’ thing because, gross; I don’t even want to think about it.
“Actually, I probably won’t need either of these. After the last time my clothes were wrecked, I programmed my...” I glance around to see if anyone is paying attention to us. “...stuff to just clean up any excess ‘flow’ that may occur.”
Aunt Julie does not look convinced. “Hmmph, well, you should still have some on hand, just in case. Put them in the cart and let’s get out of here before anything else happens.”
**
MCO Special Agent Lanier felt more frustrated by what should have been a simple mutant hunt than he could ever remember feeling before. He had nothing and the fucking target slipped through his hands, again. All the leads turned out to be false and he had squat to show for all the resources that had been placed at his disposal. He has had mutants get away from him in the past, but this one was different. Whisper was different because he still did not have any proof that she even existed. She appeared to be aptly named, but Ghost would have worked just as well.
The only bit of physical evidence he had to support her existence was a crappy picture and a few eyewitness accounts from the H1 incident. The genuine fake U.S. Government issued MMID card that the fucking DARPA Deputy Director with delusions of grandeur flashed in front of his face only pissed him off even more.
The latest incident or sighting only added more confusion. The initial reports seemed to confirm Whisper’s existence, but now evidence was emerging that indicated it was all a hoax. A giant H1 plot designed to expose the danger that mutants presented to society. A plot that backfired on both the H1 and the MCO. The MCO’s justified strong response only seemed to raise public sympathy and sentiment for mutants. The pro-mutant movement was becoming like the pro-gay movement.
Everyone loved to help the minority freaks these days. What was next for the American public to approve of, gay marriage? Lanier shuddered from that revolting thought. He found it almost as repulsive as mutants allowed to run around without any MCO oversight.
He had bits and pieces. Fortunately, he had enough bits and pieces to show his bosses that he was onto something, but not enough to actually use in a court of law to justify the actions the MCO wanted to take with this mutant threat. He was not worried about any action the MCO deemed reasonable making it to a court. The treaty and the fear of the public were very effective weapons against any filthy mutant making a case stick against the MCO. No, the real problem was the simple fact that he did not have anything for the MCO to act upon, and that was the problem.
“Fuck! This is so frustrating!” His desk boomed as he slammed the palm of his hand against the flimsy file containing all his evidence. Somehow, the U.S. Government was successfully keeping Whisper’s existence a secret and with all the friends the MCO had in Congress and in Law Enforcement, secrets like that should not be possible.
He knew that the CIA had been involved, but again his only evidence of that hypothesis was the sighting of the CIA’s pet mutant, Mirage, at the mall. The FBI was also involved and the fact that they were involved and he still did not have any additional data on Whisper added even more frustration to his plate.
His “Message for you sire!” email alert drew his attention. At first, it appeared to be junk email due to the random appearing sender address, but the content of the message lowered the temperature in his office by a few degrees.
>I have some information to whisper in your ear.
>
>Meet me tomorrow to discuss our mutual career goals.
>
>09:30@Caribou by your apartment.
It took him a few minutes to fully process the implications. “Holy, fucking shitballs!”
It looked like he had a source that could blow the lid wide open on the case.
**
Aunt Julie and I manage to make it home without any further drama or excitement. Rush hour traffic kinda sucks, but Aunt Julie is able to avoid the worst of it by taking the back roads. After helping her carry a few bags into the house, I am finally allowed to change into more comfortable clothing. I am definitely a jeans and t-shirt kind of gir-person!
Helping Aunt Julie in the kitchen proves to be much more fun than I expected. My mom’s meals are good, but very simple. Aunt Julie’s recipes are very complex with tons of prep work involved, but the stuffed salmon turns out so yummy and I cannot help feeling some pride by the fact that I helped make it. Maybe I should have taken a Home Economics class instead of Electronics, you know, so I could meet chicks. Funny, but if I had done that, I probably would still be a boy.
While we are eating, Aunt Julie brings up Mrs. Grantson’s invitation with Uncle Jim. “It would be interesting, but we can’t go, right?” She finishes, sounding suspiciously hopeful that he will find a reason that we could go.
Uncle Jim pauses mid-bite, and then reflects on the idea as he enjoys his food. I try to telepathically gain his attention and tell him, “No, no, no. ‘We’ can’t go. It’s much too perilous.”
“Hmm, I am not sure, Jewels...” Uncle Jim glances over at me. “It could be rather risky to have Chloe there and if her identity was discovered, a very embarrassing situation for everyone involved.”
Aunt Julie sits back in her chair, exhales and takes a sip of her wine to try and hide her disappointment. “I know, but, I was kind of hoping that you would see a way because it has been a rather long time since we got invited to one of these events and it would be good for your career.”
Now I feel bad. “Umm, you two could go. I could just stay home and watch TV. It’s no big deal.”
Aunt Julie beams an award winning smile at me. “Thanks Chloe, but Jim is right, it would be too risky and I would like to plan something for us to do together on your final night here. I mean, it is not every week that my niece comes to visit, now is it?”
Phew! I feel relieved and Uncle Jim relaxes a little more. Aunt Julie is suspiciously silent for what feels like the longest time, 5.23 seconds. She sighs and puts her wine glass down. “Still, it would have been nice to find a dress for you so you could dance with that boy...”
I think she purposely timed her hope filled lament for when I was taking a sip from my glass. “What?!?!” I manage to gasp out between coughs as my water finds its way down the wrong pipe.
“Gotcha!” Aunt Julie points and giggles at me.
“Ha, ha, very funny.” I look over at Uncle Jim. “How do you put up with her?”
He reaches out, grabs her hand and then, stares at Aunt Julie with a love smitten look in his eyes. “Because, I love her.”
Then, they kiss each other. “Helll-lo, kid in the room...” I mostly pretend to be all grossed out by the display of affection, but it is kind of heartwarming too. I feel my eyes start to get a little extra lubricated, darn it.
They both laugh at me, but Aunt Julie gets up and gives me a quick ninja hug. “We love you too, dear!”
Now, I have to use my napkin to blot my eyes. Dang excessive lubrication problem.
The rest of the meal and dessert is almost like being at home with my parents, except not. Uncle Jim and Aunt Julie talk about their day. At first, I can tell that Uncle Jim is a little uncomfortable with me there. Neither one of them is used to having someone else at the table with them, but he warms up to me after we get into a spirited debate about GEO, much to Aunt Julie’s chagrin.
Well, initially Aunt Julie rolled her eyes and got up to refill her wine glass, but Uncle Jim wanted to learn more about what caused my transformation and that brought her back into the discussion. Especially, when we started talking about medical stuff and the nanites. I showed Uncle Jim the medical monitor and played the videos back to him. That got him more than a little pissed at the CIA, followed by the Navy for ‘invading’ his private property.
We end the evening by starting “Independence Day” in the home theatre, but at 2100 hrs and just when stuff is starting to blow up, Aunt Julie grabs my arm. “Chloe, I need your help upstairs for a few minutes, do you mind?”
Uncle Jim glances over at her as his hand hovers over the remote. “Do you want me to pause it for you?”
“Oh, no, that’s okay.” Aunt Julie says while I nod my head yes.
I want to watch stuff blow up, even if I have already seen it a few times already. “What?” I ask her, feeling a little confused.
Aunt Julie gives me the ‘come on’ look while Uncle Jim looks back and forth between the two of us with a confused expression. Reluctantly, I follow her while trying to catch a few more seconds of the action that I am going to miss. I have no idea what is going on when she leads me into her bedroom.
After a few seconds to confirm that Uncle Jim is not following, Aunt Julie shuts the door and turns me with a hopeful expression. “Can you give me that makeover you did earlier today? I kind of want to surprise Jim...”
Lightbulb...
I am more than a little surprised by her request and what it really means. I may only be 15 years old, but I do know a little bit about the birds and the bees. “Aunt Julie! That was just a joke, but it was kinda cool. Are you sure?”
She blushes and looks down for a second before she looks back up with an evil grin. “Oh yeah, I wanna surprise Jim and I think that your little trick will, umm, do the trick.” She giggles.
I am not sure how to handle this situation. I have never had an adult admit that they were even thinking about what I am pretty sure she is thinking about. I almost wanna cover my eyes and ears, and run screaming from the room.
TMI! TMI!
But, I don’t because, well, I don’t know why.
“Well, okay, but try not to get into too much trouble tonight young lady. I am not going to bail you two out of jail again!” I sternly scold her with my hands on my hips as if I am the parent in this situation.
Aunt Julie has the nerve to laugh at me, but she straightens up and tries to look all prim and proper. Yeah, I think I am going to have fun with this. I pull up the image of her from before with the long, slightly wild, raven black hair and the nose stud, but this time I make a few extra tweaks.
I add purple streaks to her hair and make her eyes a bright purple color, but I stop at making her makeup too Goth. Subtle eye shadow and blood red lips, but I add delicate vampire fangs. She nervously shifts back and forth and I grin as I come up with another idea. Instead of going full Goth on her, I add a full body dragon tattoo, but it is under her clothing so she won’t notice it until she looks in the mirror.
“Okay, I think I have the, umm, makeover ready. Are you ready?”
“I’m not sure now, I noticed you grinning there and now I am a little nervous...”
“Hehe, don’t worry, I think you’ll like it, but if not, I can change it.”
Aunt Julie cringes expectantly and closes her eyes. “Okay, I guess I am ready.”
It takes a bit more juice than the last time, but it is also more complex than it was last time. I added a lot more details. As the spell activates, I gasp at the sight of her transforming before my eyes. She looks absolutely amazing and I feel my body responding in ways that I find extremely embarrassing to even think about. She is my make-believe Aunt and I cannot believe that I find her attractive. No, attractive does not cover it. Hot. Hot is the word I am looking for. Actually, she kind of reminds me of Sara.
Oh...
Aunt Julie misinterprets my reaction and looks down at her body, almost like she expects to find a third arm or something. “Chloe, what’s wrong?!”
“Umm, nothing. You look awesome.” I manage to squeak out as I open the door and look back at her. “Umm, I’ll just go tell Uncle Jim that you want him to come up, in...10 minutes?” I close the door behind me and race down the stairs before she can tell me no and discover the tattoo.
“Chloe!” I hear Aunt Julie yell over the roar of the movie just before I make it back into the basement.
“What’s up?” Uncle Jim asks as I smoothly vault over the back of the couch to land back in my seat with a light, plop.
I am too embarrassed to look at him. So, I focus on the movie in the hopes that he will not see notice. “Umm, Aunt Julie wants you to come up to your room in 10 minutes, or so.”
Uncle Jim pauses the movie. “Did she say what she needed?”
I do not have to lie, but boy do I feel myself blushing. “Not exactly...”
Uncle Jim leans forward with the remote to restart the movie, but pauses and starts to stand. “Maybe I should go up now?”
I surprise us both when I grab his arm to stop him. “No!”
He slowly lowers himself back into his seat. “Chloe, what’s going on?”
“Umm, Aunt Julie is changing and wants to surprise you, or something...” I find it very hard to look at him. This is so awkward. Old people are not supposed to be all young and stuff.
Uncle Jim sits back in his seat with a surprised gleam in his eyes. “Hmm...”
I cannot take it anymore. “Can you restart the movie?”
“What? Oh! Sure, sorry...” Uncle Jim points the remote at the TV and hits play.
Phew! Stuff blows up!
We are both enjoying the movie and I think Uncle Jim forgot about Aunt Julie.
>Alert!
>Friendly Target [ Aunt Julie ] Entering Engagement Range!
I look over my shoulder and what I see causes me to almost panic. Aunt Julie is sauntering down the short flight of stairs wearing a black, mostly sheer negligee with a pair of red high heels and a smirk that exposes her fangs. Yes...red high heels, not pink or fuchsia or purple, red.
OMG! The tattoo turned out even better than I expected. I try not to stare. Okay, I think about trying not to stare, but I cannot turn away from her as she glides over to Uncle Jim.
“Jim? Can you come upstairs and help me?” Aunt Julie says seductively in his ear as she wraps her arms around his neck from behind.
Alert! Alert! Movie! Stuff blowing up!
I manage to force myself to watch the movie. I figure that if I stare at the screen hard enough, maybe I will not even notice Aunt Julie and Uncle Jim. Oh god, what did I do? Why did I make Aunt Julie look like that and why did she come downstairs? She knew I was down here. Aren’t old people supposed to be more reserved or something?
Uncle Jim does not say a word as he lets Aunt Julie lead him up away. Aunt Julie pauses at the bottom of the stairs. “And Chloe?”
“Yes?” My eyes remain fixed on the movie. She is not going to trick me into looking at her that easily.
“Thanks and we have more movies in the cabinet.”
“Okay...” My mouth feels dry and I can use a glass of water right now, but I guess that it will have to wait.
After “Independence Day” ends, I follow Aunt Julie’s suggestion and hunt for another movie. There is no way that I am going upstairs right now. Holy cow, I find “Smokin’ Aces”! My parents would never let me watch that movie, but I need a good distraction right now. Wow, there are some really cool guns in that movie and my system is able to identify each and every one of them. I am going to have to try some of those in my VR firing range tonight.
After the movie, I sneak up to my room and find the upstairs blissfully quiet. No evidence of, well, you know...
1.53 hours later...ding!
I am awake again, but I hear some unidentified action emanating from Aunt Julie and Uncle Jim’s room. I have zero interest in identifying said action so I retreat into my VR space. It is a good thing that Aunt Julie has the day off, but I think Uncle Jim is going to need a lot of coffee in the morning.
I try out the Barrett that the dude in the movie used. Wow, a .50 cal sure can pack a wallop. I am having a lot of fun blowing stuff up when someone taps me on my shoulder.
“Ahhh!” I jump and spin around to face the enemy. The Barrett is not all that great for close range stuff. I make it most of the way around before I realize that it is Sara who snuck up on me, ‘again’. How does she do that and why?
Okay, I guess I know why, but how is she sneaking past my alarm system?
Sara giggles and pushes the barrel away from her as she jumps forward to give me a hug. “Oh, that is a mighty large, umm, rifle ya got there, Bree. Are ya happy to see me or what?”
Oh man, not Sara now too, but I guess I should expect it from her. “No, I mean, yes, I am happy to see ya, but would you please stop sneaking up on me like that?”
Sara has the audacity to pout. “Oh, poo, that’s no fun...” She perks back up. “So! What kind of trouble did you get into today?”
“Sara! I do not ‘get’ into trouble, trouble finds me and this time it was some old lady at the grocery store-”
“Yeah, gotta watch out for those old ladies...”
“Sara! Anyway, Mrs. Grantson, wife of Admiral Grantson. She ran into us at the store and would you believe that she went to the same school that I am supposed to be going to?”
“Wow, what are the odds?” Sara says without surprise.
“Exactly! Because of that, she invited me to some ball or promotion party thing for Admiral Jensen so she can introduce me to her nephew.”
“On the plus side, no one shot you today, right?”
“Ha ha, no, but I did...umm, never mind.” I blush and stop myself before I admit to making Aunt Julie sorta resemble Sara.
Sara pounces on both my slip up and me, literally. She tickles me mercilessly while ‘interrogating’ me. “What did you do? Come on, you can tell me...”
I fold before she waterboards me. “Okay, okay...” I pause, gasping for air.
Sara stops with the tickle torture and holds me at arm’s length as I furiously attempt to gather my thoughts and figure out a way to lie to her about Aunt Julie’s make over. “Don’t make me kiss you...” She growls. “...because I don’t have all night. I have some other...” Her eyes narrow in anger. “...‘business’ to attend to as soon as I am done here.”
The way that she said ‘business’ gives me the shivers. The temperature in my VR space literally seems to drop by a few degrees. I want to know, but at the same time, I don’t want to know.
I decide to stick to the topic on hand. “Okay, I kind of sorta made Aunt Julie sort of resemble you, except, not.”
Sara’s eyes widen with surprise before settling into amusement. “Show me...”
Like an idiot, I make the mistake of showing her what Aunt Julie looked like when she came down to fetch Uncle Jim. Sara whistles with appreciation before she inspects my holographic model of Aunt Julie from all angles.
“Wow, hubba, hubba. Your Aunt Julie is hot and that tattoo is wicked cool.” Sara looks back to me with a slight bit of concern. “You did that with your magic?”
Now I am worried that she will be mad at me. “Yes, but it is just an illusion...”
Gone is the wicked and playful Sara. She walks over and studies my face. “How hard was it to cast? Did you have to force it?”
I shrug my shoulders. “No, it was pretty easy. The tattoo caused a little extra essence drain, but not too much.”
Sara studies me for a few more seconds to see if I am lying to her. She has a way of looking at me that makes me think she really can see into my head. Which is kind of funny, since she is in my head.
“Well, okay, but please take it easy. I worry about you and don’t want you to accidentally burn yourself out.” Sara gives me a quick hug and a sisterly kiss on my forehead before she pulls back.
Even after she is done, I feel the sensation of her soft lips on my forehead and it makes me tingle all over. I almost forget that she was talking to me. “Oh!” I snap back into the present. “Thanks, I will. I mean, I’ll be careful.”
“Good, you better be! Don’t make me come fetch ya!” Sara stabs her finger into my chest to help drive home how serious she is.
Oh man, she could do that? Why does that seem even worse than it sounds?
“Based on your encounter at the store, I take it that you got Paige’s present?”
“Yep, how-” I try to ask, but she holds up her hand and shakes her head. “Okay, got it. It’s a secret...”
“Smart girl, but don’t worry; Paige plans on taking you under her wing.” Sara saunters seductively past me, her fingers trail across my jaw line on her way to my firing station. She glances down range, inspecting my targets. “Looks like ya had some fun and I would join ya, but sadly, I need to go have a little chat with someone.”
Once again, I get the feeling that whoever she is going to ‘chat’ about ‘business’ is not going to be happy. “Umm, what are you going to-”
Sara stops me with a tight shake of her head. “You don’t need to know.”
“Oh...” Now I am really worried about her.
Sara presses her index finger against her lips. “Shhh...” Then, she gives me a warm hug. “I’ll be fine. It is you that I am worried about.”
“Oh, okaayy...” Now I am even more worried about her.
Sara steps back, gives me a quick appraisal. Her lips quirk into a grin that scares me. “You know, you should try that tattoo on yourself sometime. With your bod, I bet you would totally rock it...”
“Sara!”
“Ha! Well, gotta go...ta ta!” Sara waves and fades away.
As usual, I am both relieved and saddened by her departure. I briefly debate playing a sniper scenario with my new toy, but I cannot bring myself to go through with it. Shooting at target silhouettes and watching an actor in a movie is not the same as shooting at a person. I know that it would be more like playing a First Person Shooter on my console at home, but my system is too real. I sigh and shut down my big ass gun, or rifle as Sara euphemistically referred to it. I don’t feel like blowing stuff up any more.
I am feeling kind of bummed for some reason. So, I spend the rest the very early morning hours reading books and watching TV from the comfort of my living room. I decide to wear something simple, comfy and not girly. Sweat pants, dark blue, with a simple t-shirt. No Jacuzzi bikini romps, tattoos or dress up playtime for this girl, I mean, person.
<Thursday, 22-Feb-2007 06:00:00>
Uncle Jim’s alarm begins trying to wake the dead. So, I decide to put some comfy clothes on and make some coffee for Uncle Jim and Aunt Julie. I am pretty sure they are both going to be somewhat tired this morning. Of course, I will officially deny all knowledge of the reasons for that condition.
Wow, I am starting to sound like a secret agent now.
Uncle Jim surprises me by greeting me with an energetic smile and a spring in his step as he ignores the fresh cup of coffee I set in his normal spot at the kitchen counter. Instead of sitting down and sipping his coffee, he gives me a quick hug and a fatherly kiss on my forehead. “Thanks.” He says as he releases me.
I am not sure how to take that. “What was that for?”
“Oh, for making coffee...” Uncle Jim airily gestures before taking up his normal spot in front of his cup.
“Okkaaay...” I do not believe him for second, but I also do not want him to really tell me the truth either. Some things are best left unspoken. “Do you want me to make you a bagel again?”
Aunt Julie decides to make a surprise appearance. “I can do that. Chloe, why don’t you go ahead and relax. Do you want anything?”
Both of our gazes snap to Aunt Julie.
Uncle Jim smiles with appreciation while I am pretty sure that I look like a deer caught in the headlights. I know that her punk rock, Goth, sort of Sara appearance should not surprise me, but it does. She is wearing a fluffy bathrobe, but unlike my mom’s full length robe that almost reaches her ankles, Aunt Julie’s stops mid thigh. Holy crap, she still looks hot. My eyes don’t know what to respectfully focus on.
Her face would normally be the safe target, but the sultry vampire smile she is directing at Uncle Jim is, distracting. Adding to the ‘distraction’ is the tattoo on her legs. I cannot help it; my eyes are drawn down to them. She has such nice legs and except for the tattoo, they are all her own. The glacier melting kiss she bestows on Uncle Jim only adds to my confusion.
Adults are not supposed to act like this with a kid, I mean, a younger person in the room. Well, I guess I have seen my parents kiss each other like that, but my mom never looked like Aunt Julie does right now either. “Umm, No thanks, I can just go downstairs and watch a movie or something...”
I am a little surprised to see that my illusion is still active on her, but after I switch over to magic sight and inspect it; my illusion appears to be fraying around the edges. I guesstimate that it might last another hour or two, but until then, her hair and makeup will look perfect. Hmmm, maybe I can use illusionary disguises to make getting ready for school easier.
“Do you want me to cancel the illusion or just let it-” I stop with that line of questioning when Aunt Julie and Uncle Jim decide to give each other a steamy kiss.
Awkward...
I make my retreat, but halfway down the stairs, I hear Aunt Julie giggle. “Jim, not now...”
la la la la!
After Uncle Jim leaves, Aunt Julie makes her way down to the theater room. She leans over and gives me a motherly kiss on my forehead. What is it with the kisses this morning? Geez, a little late night, umm, nevermind. I cannot help it, but I catch sight of her cleavage through the gap in her robe. I blame the tattoo for how it wraps around and...well, draws the eye.
“Thanks Chloe, last night was...magical...” She says as she straightens back up.
“Do you want me to cancel it now?” I somehow manage to ask without my voice betraying the intense mix of confusion I am now feeling. She is my Aunt, but not my aunt. She is old-er, but not ‘that’ old. I am a girl...
“Sure?” Aunt Julie glances down at her chest as she opens her robe to peek at herself.
I find it very hard not to peek at her chest myself. She is not wearing a bra and the tattoo looks incredible as it wraps its way sinuously around her upper torso.
Aunt Julie sighs with regret. “I do like the tattoo though...”
I do too, but there is no way that I will admit that to her without turning myself into a bright shade of pink. “Okay...” I cancel the illusion.
Her real hair and makeup is a total mess, but at the same time; she still manages to look absolutely sexy to me and darned if I am going to tell her that. What in the hell is wrong with me?
Thankfully, Aunt Julie does not appear to notice my confusion as she absently runs her fingers through her hair. “Oh geez, I must look horrible now...” She says, and then slowly makes her way up the stairs.
No you don’t...
It is hard, but I manage not to do or say anything until after she was out of the room.
Whooosh!
I exhale a large sigh of relief. Holy cow, that was unnecessarily awkward.
After Aunt Julie is done with the hot water, I decide to follow her example and take a shower. I find that it is getting easier to deal with my body, but it is still a little strange. I mean, for one I have to wash and condition my hair. Two, the soap is girl smelly good and I have to use a washcloth because my smooth, hair free skin does not lather up as easily. Finally, and it might be a little weird to view this as a negative, but, I just cannot bring myself to pee in the shower like I used to always do.
Despite my mom’s protests, when I was a boy, it was not gross to pee in the shower. Just aim it at the drain and hardly a drop would fail to hit my target. See, that is not gross at all, but now? Yes, I know, technically, I could pee standing up like I used to, but then I would get pee all over my legs. I could squat, but that is not the same. Besides, I would still get pee on my feet and that is gross. Can girls aim?
Even though I did not do anything other than ‘freshen up’, it still takes me almost 20 minutes to finish my shower. Okay, 18.24 minutes, but it might as well be 20 minutes. No wonder why girls always take so bloody long in the bathroom. Thank god I did not have to shave my legs or my pits. I do not have a hint of hair anywhere below my eyes and I am perfectly fine with that condition. I think that I will consider not having to shave my legs as a minor reward for all the hassle of being a girl.
I dress casual in jeans and a t-shirt. Okay, top, sorry. I wish that was all, but bra plus panties, plus taking some time with my hair, plus attempting to match colors takes me another 30 minutes before I consider myself ready to leave my room. It is a good thing that I need so little sleep because if I had to wake up an extra hour early just to get ready for school I think that I would have to scream.
I find it a little disconcerting to see myself in the mirror instead of Chloe. I think I have been spending too much time as Chloe. It will be nice to finally get to that Super Mutant High School so that I can be myself. Well, my new self because being my old self would probably take too much essence to keep that kind of illusion active.
The delightful smell of breakfast greets me when I finally make my way downstairs. I follow my nose and as I enter the kitchen, a normal and non-sexy, but still attractive Aunt Julie turns and greets me with a smile. “Chloe, I mean Bree, perfect timing! I was just about to call for you.” She gestures to the pan on the stove. “I made you a mushroom, cheese and sun dried tomato omelet...”
I have never had a meatless omelet, but I practically inhale the thing. So, yummy and before I have a chance to ask, Aunt Julie starts a second. After breakfast, I help her clean up the kitchen and I am just starting to wonder what we will do today when the doorbell rings.
We both look at each other, followed by the clock for a second before I realize that I am not Chloe. It is 0950. Alarmed by both the time and by the fact that I am not disguised, I reactivate my Chloe disguise and anxiously wait for Aunt Julie to answer the door. If Mr. Reilly follows yesterday’s agenda, he could be calling any minute now.
“Mrs. Grantson?!?” I hear Aunt Julie say.
Curious about why she is here, I peek my head around the corner. As luck would have it, Mrs. Grantson spots me.
Her face lights up with a smile. “Chloe!”
Aunt Julie steps to the side and looks over her shoulder at me with a helpless expression. Mrs. Grantson takes that as an invitation and enters into the foyer. “Julie, I was in the area and I simply had to stop by and deliver your invitations myself.” She says as she hands Aunt Julie an expensive looking cream colored, I mean white, envelope.
It worries me a teensy tiny bit that I initially thought of the color as ‘cream’ versus white because it is white, just not all white.
*sigh* The things I stress about are truly mind boggling sometimes.
Without pausing for a second to allow Aunt Julie to counter-attack, Mrs. Grantson gives Aunt Julie’s house a quick inspection. “Lovely house you have here, Julie...”
Instead of being rude and pushing her out the door, Aunt Julie turns back to her. “Oh, thank you Mrs. Grantson-”
Mrs. Grantson holds up her hand. “Please Julie, Victoria...”
“Umm, okay, Victoria. You kind of caught me by surprise, but may I show you some more of the house?”
“Oh yes, why that would be delightful!”
“Chloe, would you mind taking Mrs. Gra-, I mean, Victoria’s coat and hanging it up for me please?”
“Umm, yes ma’am.”
“My, what a delightful niece you have, Julie. Such manners...” Mrs. Grantson turns her attention to me. “And, I cannot wait to see you at my party, young lady!”
I hang back as Aunt Julie guides Mrs. Grantson through the ground level of the house. As we pass the stairs that lead down to the home theater room, I cannot help thinking that somewhere down there would make a great hiding spot. I find myself checking the clock almost constantly. It is 09:59 and Mrs. Grantson is not even close to leaving. Aunt Julie and she are looking over the back yard and discussing what flowers should be planted in the spring.
>Incoming CDMA signal detected!
*ringggg*
My secret secure cell phone begins to ring from the kitchen counter. Aunt Julie glances over at it with alarm. With all the chatting she and Mrs. Grantson have been doing, I think that she forgot.
I smile at her and answer the phone from inside my head before it can ring again.
{“Hello?”} I hesitantly ask before I realize that I probably should have answered the phone more military-like with a “Whisper speaking, how may I direct your call sir or ma’am?”. I blame Mrs. Grantson’s presence for throwing me off my game.
{“Whisper?”} Mr. Reilly asks.
I can tell that he is using a speaker phone again. He must be in the conference room with everyone else again. {“Umm, yes sir, sorry. We have company and I am trying to not draw attention to the fact that I am on the phone right now.”}
{“Company? Should we send a team over?”} Captain Howards breaks into the conversation.
{“Ha-ha, umm, sorry sir, but no, that probably would be bad. It’s Mrs. Grantson, you know, Admiral Grantson’s wife. Is Admiral Jensen there?”}
{“What?!? I mean, yes, Admiral Jensen speaking...”}
{“Congratulations on your promotion sir. I’m sorry, but Mrs. Grantson ran into us at the store yesterday and now she is here with invitations to your party. She seems rather insistent that I go...”}
I can practically see Mr. Reilly clutching his head in pain from the headache that I must be causing him right now. It takes a good 10 or 20 seconds, 17.329 before anyone replies directly to me. During that time I hear some muffled conversion that boils down to, “Should she or shouldn’t she?”
Admiral Jensen clears his throat. {“Yes, well, Whisper, I think that we are all in agreement that it would be a bad idea due to the current guest list. I am sorry, but if your identity got out during the party, it could be somewhat politically dangerous for everyone involved.”}
He said that to me like I would be heartbroken over the denial. I am not. {“Oh, that’s okay with me sir. I understand and feel the same way. Yes, it would be much, much too dangerous for me to attend...”} I look back over at Aunt Julie and Mrs. Grantson. They are now sitting the living room and chatting about what she plans on serving at the party. {“But, umm, Mrs. Grantson seems very determined...”}
{“Hmm...”} Admiral Jensen ponders the problem.
Once again, there is some slightly muffled brainstorming between the participants in the conference. It sounds like Admiral Jensen knows Mrs. Grantson well. She is unofficially known as “Hurricane Victoria” because once she gets started on something, she is almost impossible to stop. I find that extremely funny because I can see her flattening all resistance in her path.
{“What if she is in the Witness Protection Program?”} Mrs. Townsend asks, sounding a little hesitant to be speaking up with all the heavyweights in the room.
That idea is greeted favorably and it even makes sense with Uncle Jim being the prosecuting attorney, but Admiral Jensen feels pretty certain that Mrs. Grantson would simply call the Governor or someone in the Justice Department to see what they could do to help poor Chloe.
{“Whisper, can you put Mrs. Grantson on the phone?”} Admiral Jensen asks with some reluctance.
{“Sir! Yes sir!”} Is it wrong for me to feel so eager to see how Mrs. Grantson takes the news? I briefly consider asking them if they want me to open up the monitor to allow video so they can see what I see, but decide not to because that could be kind of creepy.
I grab the secure phone and walk into the living room presenting the phone to Mrs. Grantson. “Ma’am, sorry to interrupt, but Admiral Jensen wants to speak to you.”
Maybe I should have opened up the video. Mrs. Grantson’s reaction is totally priceless. I don’t think that I have ever seen someone so shocked. “What?” Mrs. Grantson asks incredulously as she accepts the phone from me.
Even Aunt Julie looks surprised, but I think she can tell that I am enjoying this a little too much. “Chloe...” She frowns at me.
{“Victoria, sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but it would be ill-advised for ‘Chloe’ to attend the party.”}
“Jack? What? How?” Mrs. Grantson sputters as she looks back and forth between me and Aunt Julie.
Admiral Jensen chuckles. {“That’s kind of a long story, Victoria and sadly, not one I can share at the moment. OPSEC, you understand, but I can tell you that Chloe’s anonymity is key to the current mission and it would be very risky for Chloe to attend the party due to the current guest list.”}
Mrs. Grantson’s shock and confusion ends pretty darn fast, too fast. “I see...” She pauses to examine me, her head tilted to the side as she studies me with far more intensity than she has before.
I almost feel like she has some super power and can read me like my mom does. I dart a quick glance to Aunt Julie for reassurance. Aunt Julie is sitting very stiffly and giving the situation her full attention. She shakes her head once to signal for me to not do anything stupid. Well, either that, or something else. I never have been good with non-verbal.
Mrs. Grantson nods once as if reaching a decision. “Okay Jack, but I expect a full report when and if it is safe to do so.”
{“I will see what I can do, Victoria, but it may take awhile. This one goes all the way to the top of the flagpole...”}
Mrs. Grantson’s eyes widen with shock and something else, recognition. I think she knows who I am. Maybe I am better at the non-verbal communication thing than I realized.
“Understood, is there anything else that I should know?”
{“Hehe, not at the moment Victoria, but I almost do wish that Chloe could attend. I would love to actually meet the young lady who seems to be as adept in getting into trouble as you are at finding it.”}
Mrs. Grantson smiles and her eyes twinkle with a mischievous fire. “Someone has to keep you men on your toes. I swear that if the Navy didn’t issue you all uniforms, you all would be helpless!”
Admiral Jensen chuckles. {“Yes, maybe we should appoint you to the next uniform review board?”}
“Oh heavens no! I thought you liked me...” Mrs. Grantson shudders.
{“Well, we need to debrief ‘Chloe’ on a few more items. It should only take a few more minutes. Can you give her back the phone?”}
{“I’m here...”}
Mrs. Grantson appears surprised to hear me speaking on her phone while I am standing in front of her and not moving my lips.
Admiral Jensen sighs. {“I keep forgetting that little detail...Can you hang up your phone Victoria?”}
Mrs. Grantson hesitantly nods. “Okkaayy...” She fumbles for a second until I point out the red highlighted disconnect button. “Well, that certainly is a surprise!”
“Yes, ma’am. Sorry.” I take half a step back, expecting her to be mad at me.
She laughs and waves away my troubling thought. “Oh pshaw! Not your fault young lady, but, if you need anything; feel free to let me know. I am sure that the dashing men failed to properly equip a young lady for the rigors at hand.”
{“Captain Howards, was there any equipment that Whisper needed?”} Admiral Jensen whispers.
Crap. I kind of forgot that I had the audio routed so they could hear what I hear.
{“Not that I am aware of sir...”}
Mr. Reilly clears his throat to speak. {“She was kind of dropped on Mr. and Mrs. Stiles with only the clothes on her back.”}
I don’t know why I feel the need to be ashamed by the fact that Mrs. Grantson hit the nail on the head with that observation, but I find myself glancing down at my clothes. The clothes that Aunt Julie bought me. “Umm, maybe a little...” I see Mrs. Grantson’s triumphant expression and it worries me because I bet she will want to take me shopping, or something. “But, Aunt Julie took care of that already!”
Mrs. Grantson turns to Aunt Julie with a smile. “You picked that excellent outfit she was wearing yesterday?”
“Yes, I wanted her to have at least one good general purpose professional outfit. I would have liked to get her more, but I only had a couple of hours.” Aunt Julie appears both relieved and proud about the praise she received.
I do not like the direction that this conversation appears to be heading. If Mrs. Grantson offers to take me shopping, I think I will scream. Why does everyone want to take me shopping? What is it about being a girl that means I need to shop for clothes all the bleeping time? Video game shopping, that I could understand. They release new games every week, but clothes? Clothes are just clothes, the only thing that is new about clothes are their colors, right?
I am jarred from my thoughts by Mrs. Grantson. “Oh my, Chloe dear, is everything okay? You look like you just saw a ghost.”
“Oh, sorry, I was just, umm, thinking. Please tell me that you are not thinking about trying to take me shopping-”
“Chloe!” Aunt Julie says.
{“Brianna Nicole!”} My mom says.
I cast my gaze down to the floor. I feel a little ashamed for my outburst. Well, maybe more embarrassed than ashamed. “Wellllll, sorry, but shopping and I do not mix.” My eyes begin to tear up and my voice catches in my throat. “Ever since, this...” I gesture to my body. “I can’t seem to go out in public without someone trying to hurt or kidnap me...”
Aunt Julie starts to reach for me. “Oh, dear...”
That ends it for me. The dam breaks and my tears begin to flow. I hate all this crying. I hate all the people trying to kill me. I hate feeling so helpless and having everyone telling me what to do. I just want to be normal again. “Why can’t everyone just leave me alone?” I manage to get out as I lose all control of my emotions.
I push myself away from Aunt Julie, disconnect the phone and run up to my room with tears streaming down my face. I throw myself onto my bed and scream into the pillow. Sometime during my meltdown, the secure phone rings again, but I ignore it. I simply grab my pillow and hug it to my body like it was a big fluffy teddy bear. I am not saying that I have used one of those objects because my mom carefully packed away Mr. Snugs when I out grew the silly thing two years ago. It got too embarrassing to have in my room when my friends came over. I miss Mr. Snugs.
“Chloe?” Aunt Julie cautiously steps into my room.
I hug the pillow tighter to my body and press my face into it in the false hope that Aunt Julie will go away.
Aunt Julie settles down next to me and sort of surprises me, causing me to flinch as she gently touches my shoulder. “Chloe, sweetie, it’s okay.”
I refuse to look at her. “No, it’s not...and I’m not Chloe. I’m not even me!”
“Oh dear...” Aunt Julie hugs me. “I know that it has been hard on you the last few days, but you do have people who care about you.”
Is that supposed to make me feel better? “Yeah, but I also have a lot of people who want to kill me.”
Aunt Julie hugs me even tighter, giving me an affectionate kiss on my forehead and then, releasing me with a sigh. “I wish I had a way to refute that statement, but I don’t. It’s true, but you don’t have to let those people run your life.”
“Well, they are and there is nothing I can do about it. I can’t go home, I can’t go to a mall, I can’t go to Amanda’s slumber party and I can’t go to Mrs. Grantson’s party even though there will be tons of military folks there. What can I do?”
“Yes, right now all that is true, but it won’t always be. A couple of weeks from now everyone will have forgotten all about you and all this...” Aunt Julie waves her hands around. “Will seem like a bad memory. Heck, you might even think it was fun because how many people get to live through a spy movie?”
I cannot believe that she would make that comparison. I look up and spot her mischievous smirk. “Fat chance of that ever happening...”
“Come on, what about my disguise? You have to admit that you had fun sneaking that tattoo in, right?” She sits back down on the bed and faces me.
I refuse to give in and agree with her. Even if she is right.
“And, what about Amanda? You liked hanging out with her and I won’t even go into the fact that you get to hang out with two cool older people like me and Jim!”
Dang it! I want to keep sulking, but Aunt Julie is breaking past my defenses. I accidently smile.
“There you go, dear, you’re so pretty when you smile like that.” Aunt Julie softly rubs the back of her finger under my eye, wiping away a tear.
I want to protest about being called ‘pretty’ because I’m not. Chloe is pretty, but she is just an illusion. Then, I realize that my Chloe illusion is not active. I bolt upright. “Oh my god! My disguise, did?” I look at Aunt Julie as my heart beats wildly in my chest.
She nods once. “Yes, it dropped when you left us and Mrs. Grantson felt so bad about causing you so much pain. She asked me to let her know the next time you are going to in town so that she can throw a big fancy party for you and all your friends.”
“Ummm, I don’t really have friends here...”
“You have Amanda, and she has friends, the friends that are going to be at her slumber party. I am betting that they would love to meet you and go to a party.”
It sounds like it could be fun, but I am not convinced. “Maybe, if I didn’t get the party raided by the MCO or someone else...”
Aunt Julie laughs at me. “Oh Chloe, I don’t think that you would have to worry about that. Mrs. Grantson would defeat them with a single glare!”
I cannot help it. I can picture Mrs. Grantson doing that and that causes me to giggle because it is such an absurd idea.
“There you go dear. See, it’s not all bad.” Aunt Julie smirks and then suddenly becomes all business. “Now, I need your help getting the other guest room ready.”
Someone is coming to visit? How can that be okay with me here? “What?”
“Your mom. Mr. Reilly decided that it might be a good idea if she was here with you. So, they are going to smuggle her out this afternoon.” Aunt Julie grabs me by my shoulders and looks into my eyes with a serious expression. “Well, unless you don’t want to see her...”
My eyes snap open and I gasp with shock that she would try to imply that I would not want to see my mom. “Aunt Julie! You know that I...”
She starts to giggle.
“You are so mean.” I say as I struggle and fail, to not smile, happy with her news.
“Yep, but first, let’s go down to the kitchen. I think a mug of hot cocoa is just what the doctor ordered.”
“Ha-ha, doctor...okay, but can I have marshmallows in mine?”
**
MCO Special Agent Lanier was in a foul mood this afternoon. All of his men were avoiding him as he sat, brooding in his office. The meet with the anonymous source was another dead end. Whomever he or she was, they never showed and he wasted two hours sitting around in the damn coffee shop when he could have been here getting caught up on all the f’ing paperwork.
This damn Whisper or whatever she was or might be called, was turning into a monumental pain in the ass. He was frustrated, his boss was frustrated and because of that, he could tell that his boss’s boss was also frustrated by the lack of progress. The MCO ‘never’ has had this much trouble finding a rogue mutant or any mutant before. The MCO has never had the U.S. Government actively working against them and stonewalling them at every turn either.
He found that little fact the most troubling because MCO’s popularity and public support has never been so low. “We are the good guys, damnit!” Agent Lanier slammed his fist down on his desk. “Can’t the public see that we are the only thing keeping them safe from the mutants?”
His thoughts were interrupted by a polite knock on his open office door frame. He looked up and spotted Agent Forester standing anxiously, holding a printout in her hands. “Umm, sir, sorry, but I spotted this little article on the CIA news blog.”
His frustration momentarily forgotten by both the sight of the attractive Agent Forester and his curiosity piquedby her find, he smiled and motioned her to come into his office. “Come in, come in. What did you find?”
Reassured by the fact that her boss was not yelling at her, she cautiously entered his office and set the printout on his desk. Agent Lanier quickly scanned the brief contents of the printout. “What the?” He looked up at Agent Forester.
“I think that he may have been involved with our little Whisper hunt. Director Falk surprised everyone by suddenly retiring from the CIA yesterday and this morning he was found dead by his wife. Apparently, he killed himself...or something.”
Agent Forester’s news made sense. It made a lot of sense actually, but why would he commit suicide if he was planning on meeting with him? Was it really a suicide?
“Was there a note or something?”
Agent Forester shook her head slowly back and forth. “The article didn’t mention one, but if he did suddenly, as they say, retire. Maybe he was actually ‘burned’ by the CIA and maybe he was feeling depressed?”
“That’s a big ‘maybe’, but if he was planning on meeting with me...” Agent Lanier abruptly stood and paced back and forth as he considered the implications. ‘If’ the late Director Falk was really the person he was supposed to meet and ‘if’ he was also forced to retire from the CIA instead of retired on his own and ‘if’ he really knew anything about Whisper, then, did the CIA kill him and make it look like a suicide?
If that was the case, then holy fucking shit, the U.S. Government was very fucking serious about keeping whoever this Whisper mutant is, a secret. That idea scared the crap out of him, but at the same time, it made him even more curious about what the big secret really was. Just who or what was this Whisper ‘thing’?
Agent Lanier looked up and was startled to see Agent Forester still in his office.
“Sir?”
“Good work with spotting this.” He looked over and smiled at Forester. “Notify Special Agent Billings and have him pull back all the surveillance teams. I’ll update leadership and advise them to drop our active investigation, but also to keep an eye open in case Whisper shows up somewhere else, like that fucking Whateley place.”
“Yes sir, but if it shows up there, what can we do?”
“Well, not much, but the MCO still has the right to interview and access any newly registered mutant. Whateley may be a cesspit for mutants, but they still have to follow the law!”
Agent Forester took that as her cue to slip out of the office. Her boss probably didn’t want to know that the last MCO interview team at Whateley had been kicked out for attempting to conduct an illegal, off the record interview.
**
I help Aunt Julie straighten up the other guest bedroom and eat another excellent Aunt Julie prepared lunch. Sadly, she has to leave for a few hours to visit her patients. Before she leaves, she reminds me to reactivate my Chloe disguise. I am not sure how I feel about that. It was kind of nice to not have it active for a few hours. While I was in Brianna mode, Aunt Julie used my new real name and somehow, I found that comforting. As strange as it may sound, I even enjoyed helping Aunt Julie clean and prep my mom’s room. I ‘never’ would have thought that kind of chore to be fun before. What in the heck is wrong with me? Did I get infected with some girl cleaning instinct?
My mom arrives, promptly at 1500 hours, escorted by Captain Howards and two of his men. I did not know what time she was due to arrive, but since the doorbell rang at exactly 1500 hours, I assume that 1500 hours was the plan.
As soon as I open the door, my mom bursts forth and scoops me up into a bone crushing hug. “Oh my god sweetie! Look at you!” She pulls away to inspect all of me. “You look so...different!” She resumes squishing me to death. “I was so worried about you! Is Mrs. Stiles here?”
I make a show of coughing a few times to refill my lungs after she releases me. “Geez Mom, and I thought that the bad guys were bad. You could have killed me with that hug!”
She laughs and gives me another squishy hug. “But, I missed you so much!”
Feeling uncharacteristically buoyant, I pull her towards the kitchen to help make room for Captain Howards and his men to enter the house. We were kind of blocking the doorway and they have both my mom’s suitcase and my suitcase in their hands. My suitcase is pretty light, but I know my mom’s is not so light.
“Sorry, but she had to visit her office to check on some patients and I think she was planning on picking up some more food at the store, or something. She’s an awesome cook, Mom!” I notice that my mom looks a little upset by my praise. “But, not as good as you...”
My mom waves away my praise as she takes in the kitchen. “Brianna, you don’t have to defend my cooking. I’m just grateful that Mr. and Mrs. Stiles were willing and able to take you in under such short notice. Especially under the conditions...”
Captain Howards steps forward as his men take positions that give them maximum visibility of both the front and rear entry ways. “About the ‘conditions’...it appears that the MCO has given up trying to find you. I was notified that they pulled away all their surveillance teams on our way here.”
“Really?!?” I glance between him and my mom in an attempt to see if he is trying to pull my leg. My mom nods with agreement.
“Yes, but I am not sure why.” Captain Howards frowns. “I thought that the MCO was more determined.”
I helplessly shrug my shoulders. “Maybe they realized that I wasn’t a threat?”
“No, I doubt that.” Captain Howards slowly shakes his head. “The spooks are probably going crazy trying to figure it out but, they appear to be out of the picture, for now.”
Oh wait, if the MCO is not looking for me. “Oh, so does that mean that I might have to go to Mrs. Grantson’s party now?” I cringe a little because I kind of expect him to say, “Yes.”
His eyes twinkle as he chuckles at me. “As delightful as it may be to have you attend, I don’t think you have to worry about that. Even without the MCO, all the other reasons as to why it would be a bad idea still exist.”
“Thank god...” I whisper with relief.
“Brianna!”
I grimace and turn back to my mom. “Sorry Mom, but I just don’t think that I am ready to get all dressed up for some stuffy formal military thing.” Belatedly, I realize that I may have just insulted Captain Howards. I turn back to him. “Sorry! I didn’t mean...”
He laughs with genuine mirth and even his men break into a quick smile before wiping all the evidence away. “Oh, you’re right. They can get kind of ‘stuffy’, but the food is excellent and as much as I hate to admit it, they can be good for your career.”
“Oh, good...”
Captain Howards purses his lips with consideration. “But, it could be fun to have you there. Just thinking about all the trouble you might cause makes me smile because a fire fight in the middle of a formal ball would certainly be memorable!”
I know that he is joking, but I don’t know how to take his idea of fun. I helplessly glance to my mom for support, but all she does is smirk and shrug her shoulders as if to say, “it could happen.” Well, that is what my rudimentary body language interpretation skills come up with for a translation.
“He-he, I’m kidding, but, honestly, I cannot wait for you to join the Navy and have you under my command. I think that you will make a fine addition to the Navy.”
“What? I thought I had to join the Army?”
“No, Whateley is an Army JROTC, but that doesn’t mean you have to join the Army. Besides, have you seen anyone from the Army trying to help you?” Captain Howards glances around the room as if looking for a hidden Army dude.
“Umm, no?”
“He-he, see?” Captain Howards’ posture returns to his relaxed and ready for action stance. “Anyway, I do hope that you will seriously consider the Navy when it is time for you to make your decision.”
I glance up to his eyes and meet his gaze. “Okay, I will. Thanks for your help!”
Like the professional he is, he raises his hand to initiate a handshake. Instead of shaking his hand, I feel the urge to hug him. I decide to succumb to my girl instincts for two reasons. One, because I want to and two, because it will probably surprise or embarrass him in front of his men. I give him a ninja hug before he can react and I follow my sneak attack up with a tippy toe kiss on his cheek. After all, that is what Chloe would do, right?
“Yes, umm, well, it has been a pleasure meeting you...” Captain Howards blushes a nice shade of red.
I cannot help feel a deep sense of satisfaction by his reaction and by the fact that both of his men grin at their boss’s reaction. I find it even more amusing when their faces return to blank slates as he turns to face them.
I will ignore the fact that I kissed a guy and the slightly rough texture of his clean shaven face against my lips. I will also ignore the fresh, subtle spicy scent of his aftershave and how nice I think it smells on him. I never noticed how handsome he is before. What a minute?!?! What in the heck am I thinking?
As I drop back down from my tippy toes and spin to face my flabbergasted mom, I feel my face heat up with what has to be a bright shade of red. Oh man, I really hope that my Chloe illusion is not showing my blush right now.
What is wrong with me? Camouflage, yeah, yeah, that’s the ticket.
Since Aunt Julie is not home and I am officially her niece, I see Captain Howards and his men out. All is quiet until I arrive back in the kitchen and my mom giggles at me. “Oh my god Bree, that was pretty funny how you got him to blush, but even more was the matching shade of red your face displayed!”
“Mooomm!”
~o~O~o~
Insert standard disclaimer here: The one that reminds everyone that this is a work of fiction. No one is real and any resemblance to someone who is real is purely coincidence, honest. This is also a Fan Fiction set in the Whateley Story Universe. No Canon characters were permanently harmed in the making of this story. I hope. :)
Note: Okay, I know, this was supposed to be the final chapter, but the characters seem to have a mind of their own. Yes, the previous chapter was also supposed to be the final chapter too. *sigh* I have a lot of ch 42 written, but I need to focus on Jade Skirt. So, there will be a delay on the real final chapter of Whisper. Sorry about that... Anyway, Thanks go out to my beta-readers/editors/sanity checkers as well as djkauf for his magical editing.
~o~O~o~
“Weelll, I have to admit that it was kind of funny...” My mom struggles to contain her laughter.
I don’t think that she is very sorry. “Are you sure that it is safe for you to be here?”
“Stinker!” She sticks her tongue out at me before finally composing herself. “So, tell me what happened. I mean, I know you told Mr. Reilly, but I wanna hear it from you.”
I am getting pretty good at telling the story. It only takes me 30 minutes this time around and that is even with my mom’s hug and sniffle interruptions. I follow that up with showing her the house and lugging both of our suitcases to our rooms. Her suitcase makes me glad that I am slightly stronger than I look because I would feel pretty wussy if I had to wait for Uncle Jim to lug it up the stairs for me. My suitcase is still only half full, thus it is fairly light, but I am sure that little deficiency will be fixed before I leave on Saturday.
She is very surprised by my admission that not only have I been helping Aunt Julie in the kitchen, but that I also helped her ready the guest room. She has me drop my Chloe disguise and show her all the new clothes Aunt Julie got for me and she gets a little teary eyed when I model the skirt thing for her.
“You should wear that on Saturday. It is practical and you look very pretty in it.” She says with her ‘this is not a suggestion’ expression.
“But, I don’t want to look ‘pretty’ on my first day and I don’t care about looking ‘pretty’...” I cross my arms over my chest. I am not going to give in on this.
“I know, but first impressions are only made once.” My mom tries a different attack vector.
Sounds good, but I am not sold. “How does me wearing this outfit help with that?”
“Perception is reality. If you show up looking like you do right now, no one will ever question your gender.”
I attempt to speak, but my mom signals that she has more to say.
“Now, I have spoken a lot about this issue with Ms. Carson and while she assures me that Whateley is prepared to deal your situation; She also told me that there have been a few students in your situation and they have found that it was easier on the student if they presented themselves closer to the feminine norm. At least, initially.”
“My situation? You mean my, you know what?”
“Yes...” She points at my body. “Your ‘situation’. I know that it has not been and is still not easy, but you should try to get used to wearing skirts as soon as possible. They are the uniform that all girls-”
“What?!?! You never told me girls at this school have to wear skirts? What the hell?”
My mom looks pained for a second. “Bree...language, please. No, I did not, but I also did not know about it until recently. However; Whateley is a private school...”
“Oh god, can’t I just go home and go back to my old school where I can wear what I want?”
“Sorry, but you, of all people, should know better than to ask that question. Seriously, Bree, it’s not that bad.”
“Maybe not for you, but I don’t want to have to wear a skirt.” I catch my reflection in the mirror and I have to admit that the skirtand leggings thing does look kinda nice. “Well, not all the time, but I certainly do NOT want to wear some schoolgirl uniform!” I shudder as I recollect some of my favorite Anime shows and all the fan service shots. Not that I complained that much at the time.
“Well, the girl’s uniform does have a pants option, but they try to limit it to the winter months.”
“Okay, it is still winter, so I will just plan on wearing the pants.”
“Bree...”
“What? Why do girls insist on freezing all the time? It’s too cold to wear a skirt, but I guess I could maybe wear this outfit on the first day. I mean, it is kind of like wearing pants, but not...”
“Okay, I’m not going to pressure you any more on this topic, but I was a little surprised about the uniform myself and I would rather have you find out now than at the school.”
I am not sure how to process that bit of data. On one hand, I thought she understood, but on the other hand, I kind of understand her point. I sigh with frustration. “I better change back into my comfy jeans and Chloe disguise now. I wouldn’t wanna get this wrinkled...”
Aunt Julie chooses that moment to arrive. Well, not in the room all sudden-like a ninja, but I detect her garage door signal. “Aunt Julie is home...”
Dang it, now I do not have time to change out of the skirt, but maybe if I wear it tonight, it will be too dirty to wear on Saturday. With that thought in mind, I simply reactivate my Chloe disguise and lead my mom downstairs so that I can introduce her to Aunt Julie.
We surprise Aunt Julie by meeting her in the hallway. “Oh, Chloe! You look, nice.”
It seems like everyone is conspiring to make me wear skirts now. “Umm, thanks. Aunt Julie, this is my mom...” I glance helplessly back at my mom as she rushes forward to give Aunt Julie a hug. What is it about hugs? “Umm, Mom, well, I think you know...”
“Oh my god, Doctor Stiles, thank you soooo much for taking care of Bree, I mean, Chloe and especially for allowing me to stay--”
Aunt Julie stops my mom. “Please Jennifer, Julie is fine and your daughter was a joy to have stay with us.” She looks over at me fondly. “If I am ever lucky enough to have a daughter, I would want her to be exactly like Chloe.”
I do not know how to handle her compliment. It was meant to be a compliment, but does she mean she wants to have a son who is turned into a girl? I am pretty sure that she does not really mean that, but how else would she have a daughter who was like me? Why is her compliment so difficult for me to just accept and feel happy about? Oh yeah, it’s because I am not used to being referred to as a ‘daughter’.
My mom graciously accepts the compliment, but glances back at me with concern before Aunt Julie drags her toward the kitchen. “Chloe, would you mind grabbing the groceries for me?”
I am not sure how to take her request right now. Things are going too fast for me to really figure out, but it is easier to just do it and think about it later. “Umm, sure.”
Thankfully, the groceries consist of only two bags and they aren’t that heavy. It only takes me a minute or two, 1.873 minutes, to fetch the groceries and return them to the kitchen.
“Thanks dear, just set them on the counter there.” Aunt Julie points to the open spot next to the fridge. “Oh, and you should go change. You would not want to get that outfit dirty. You will need it when we go out tomorrow night.”
“What?” My head spins around a few times with confusion. We are going out, that is good, but now Aunt Julie expects me to wear this outfit tomorrow night too. Oh, that might work out because girls cannot wear the same outfit twice in a row. It is in the girl rule book, somewhere.
“Well, we did tell Mrs. Grantson that we had plans already and now that your mom is here, Jim and I thought it would be nice if we took the two of you out for dinner and maybe a movie, our treat.”
“Oh, Julie, you shouldn’t have...” My mom says as I numbly make my way out of the kitchen.
Aunt Julie pokes her head around the corner to yell up the stairs. “Oh, Chloe, can you hurry because I would like your help getting dinner ready?”
I do not like how the dynamic has changed with my mom here. Why do I suddenly feel like a little kid? I liked how Aunt Julie treated me more like an adult and a friend than a little kid. Or, am I just imagining things? I manage to get back into my comfy jeans and girl t-shirt without too much trouble. The bra thing, that still sucks and I decide to rebel a bit by not wearing a bra. Seriously, women survived for millions of years without bras. My breasts are not that big. Why do I have to wear a bra?
The stairs kind of point out the need for a bra, but a little jiggling is not that bad. Maybe, if I was going to run or play a sport, I would want to wear a bra, but why would I need one for just walking around the house? Besides, they are in no danger of popping out of my t-shirt and it feels kind of nice not having that thing restricting my chest. I can breathe!
I was not imagining things. My mom and Aunt Julie are bonding nicely over a glass of wine. I still help Aunt Julie with the cooking and I find it interesting, but it is not the same. To make matters worse, my mom notices my bra rebellion.
“Young lady, why aren’t you wearing a bra? You do know that will cause your breasts to sag, right?”
I glance down at my chest. I am not worried at all about my breasts sagging. “Huh? Oh, I didn’t want to. This is more comfortable.”
“Actually, there is no medical evidence to support that claim.” Aunt Julie, MD comes to my defense. Hip hip hooray!
Now it is my mom’s turn to look confused. “There isn’t?”
“Nope, none at all. It is mostly a marketing thing the bra manufacturers use to sell bras, but I still prefer to wear a bra myself. Mostly, because in my profession, it helps me look and feel more professional with my appearance.”
Over the next 20 minutes, I learn more about brassieres and the history of brassieres than I ever wanted to know. I also learn that my mom is a C cup, but she experienced some sagging after breast feeding. She also grew two sizes during and she breastfed both me and my sister for a little over a year. Way too much information for me to handle, especially when the conversation shifts to babies, pregnancy and the joys of being a mom. You know, all the things I never had to or wanted to worry about, ever.
I might be a girl now, but I am ‘never’ going to have sex with a guy and this little info dump only reinforces my decision. Sex education classes should just hire my mom and Aunt Julie to come in and have ‘the talk’ with the kids. There would be zero teenage pregnancies.
Uncle Jim’s arrival brings some much needed testosterone to the conversation. As in, his arrival stops all the embarrassing girl talk and shifts the topics back to things I am more comfortable with, like which restaurant and movie should we go to tomorrow night. The restaurant is already decided, but the movie option proves to be more difficult than it should be. Again, my mom adds complexity to what should be a simple process. Uncle Jim and I want to see that new “Astronaut Farmer” movie, but Aunt Julie and my mom want to see some chick flick called, “In the Land of Women”.
Seriously? It is about a porn star and it does have some hot chicks in it, but nothing blows up and no one gets naked! Why would anyone want to watch it? Sadly, I cannot officially use the last negative, but I am sure Uncle Jim thought the same thing. Using their wifi, I am able to bring up show times and I find a nearby theater that has both movies playing and close to the same times. I do find a review that mentions some boob exposure in the chick flick, but meh. Uncle Jim and I will see the good movie where stuff blows up, while the ladies, I mean, my mom and Aunt Julie, will watch the yucky movie about women crying, or something.
We do the hot tub again that night, but it is not the same. My mom is tickled pink to see me wearing a bikini, but I just feel more self-conscious and the adult conversation is boring. Aunt Julie and my mom seem to enjoy each other’s company immensely, but I think Uncle Jim feels a little uncomfortable about how the conversation mostly seems to be centered on kids and babies. We decide to ‘retire’ to his office to play GEO. Well, for me to watch him play GEO.
Once again, he offers to let me use Aunt Julie’s laptop, but there is no way I am going to touch a computer with an active GEO session running. Who knows what might happen? I could end up changed into a dragon or something worse, like an ugly troll. No thank you, very much.
We ‘play’ until almost 2300 hours when a very tipsy Aunt Julie comes to retrieve Uncle Jim from his ‘den’ with my similarly tipsy mom in tow. “Jen, you have got to see this!” Aunt Julie looks back and giggles at my mom. “Chloe, can you, you know, but not the same?” She waves her hands airily about.
Uncle Jim glances over at me with an expression that is part enthusiasm mixed with embarrassment. I feel more embarrassment because now that my mom and Aunt Julie are standing side by side, wet and wearing next to nothing, I realize that my own mom is rather pretty too. I am not going to mention the MILF thing, because that is just so, so gross.
“You should change your mom too...” Uncle Jim is under no such restrictions.
“Oh my god! Chloe, can you do that!?” Aunt Julie’s eyes almost pop out of her head. She turns to my mom, swaying a little before she grabs my mom’s arm. “Jen, it is so cool!”
My mom looks hesitant initially, but Aunt Julie’s enthusiasm wins her over. “I know I probably shouldn’t encou, encour, allow you, but if you’re sure it’s safe...”
Wow, Aunt Julie is drunk and so is my mom, but I do not, under any circumstances, want to make Aunt Julie or my mom, look like Sara again. I am sorry, but the school uniform and Japanese school girl thing is the first thing that pops into my mind. That thought leads me to “Kill Bill” with that Japanese schoolgirl martial arts chick. Okay, she was crazy and hot, but never in a million years could I imagine her as girlfriend material. I will make my mom look like her and Aunt Julie can be O-Ren Ishii, or Lucy Liu.
Yes, it was rated R, but I watched it at John’s house and it was awesomely bloody. My parents would never approve of it.
I focus on my mom’s disguise first and build up the image in my mind. Long, straight black hair with bangs just above her eyes, skin tone, eyes and most importantly, the mini-skirt schoolgirl uniform. The full body skin tone proves to be the hardest and most draining part of her disguise. A full body dragon tattoo proves to be way simpler than changing someone’s entire skin tone.
The uniform adds another layer of complexity and essence drain, but based upon Uncle Jim’s gasp and Aunt Julie’s jumping up and down with excitement that draws my eyes to her breasts, I will judge my effort a success.
My mom looks down and notices her outfit, then pats it with confusion as her hands pass through what appears to be cloth. “You turned me into a Japanese schoolgirl?!”
My mom does not sound happy, but Aunt Julie is positively and uncharacteristically giggly about it. “Me now! Me now!”
Due to the skin tone and clothing drain from my mom’s disguise, I change my mind with Aunt Julie. I do not think I will be able to manage the O-Ren look and super complex kimo disguise. Instead, I imagine Aunt Julie as Elle Driver, Daryl Hannah’s character with the eye patch and sexy nurse’s uniform. Her illusion is a little easier since I do not have to change her skin tone.
Uncle Jim whistles. “Hello nurse...”
Thinking about that skin tone thing, maybe I could have made Aunt Julie look like O-Ren. Since they will not be able to take off their illusionary clothing, maybe I only needed to change her and my mom’s skin tone where it is visible.
My mom appears does not appear as enamored with my idea for her disguise. “You are in so much trouble young lady.”
I find it a little hard to take her seriously when she looks like she now does. Her parental image is completely absent as she comes across as, well, a teenage Japanese schoolgirl. Me, finding it amusing does not help.
“With me, now!” My mom spins on her heels, causing her short pleated skirt to flash her white panties before the sudden movement causes her to wobble a little bit. Regaining her balance, she marches out of the office.
I glance helplessly at Uncle Jim because I don’t really understand why my mom is so upset, but his eyes are all on Aunt Julie. Actually, she has Uncle Jim pinned to his chair as she straddles him. She is breathing heavy and passionately kissing him while completely ignoring the fact that there is a kid in the room. I am no expert, but I have to say that Aunt Julie is very drunk right now.
I quickly exit the office and as I close the door to give them some privacy, I sneak a glance back; Uncle Jim gives me the thumbs up signal. I am not sure if he is thanking me for closing the door or Aunt Julie’s disguise, but maybe it is both. Seriously, adults are not supposed to act this way. It is downright weird for them to be acting like sex starved teenagers. At least, I can count on my mom to act normal by being mad at me for something.
I track her to her room and prepared to face her wrath, I gingerly peek in and spot her sitting at the foot of her bed, crying. Which is very very strange when your mom does not look at all like your mom. “Mom, what’s wrong?”
She looks up at me with her tear streaked face and she looks so adorable with her school girl hairstyle and uniform. “I’m sorry, Brianna. I’m such a bad mom. I didn’t mean to push you so hard about wearing the uniform and the skirt.”
I enter her room, close the door, sit down next to her and give her a hug. “It’s okay Mom, I didn’t mean to make you feel bad. I was just thinking about...some...movie...” Oops, if she has not recognized her character, then I can’t let her know that I watched an R-rated movie without her permission.
“I know, you were thinking about wearing that silly uniform and you wanted to show me what you thought about it. Then, you made Julie look like a sexy nurse and I got mad at you. I’m so sorry!” My mom cries as she hugs me.
I was not thinking that at the time at all, but now that she mentions it; I think maybe my subconscious was thinking about it. However, I cannot take being hugged by a Japanese schoolgirl any longer and cancel her disguise. I am not sure if that makes things any easier on me since now she is in her bikini.
My confusion about what to think lasts barely a second. Okay, 0.43 seconds. She is my mom. I always thought she was beautiful, but until all this happened and I met Sara, Fey and Aunt Julie, I never thought about it. Seeing my mom next to Aunt Julie and truly seeing her as not just my mom, but as a beautiful woman too. Well, that is kind of mind blowing. I miss my boring and normal life.
“Mom, you should get to bed and I wasn’t mad at you, I love y-” Is all I can get out before she crushes me with a hug. I want to tell her that I only made her look like a kick ass character from a movie I watched and kind of gloss over the fact that the movie was R-rated, but I don’t.
“Oh sweetie, I’m so sor-” My mom hiccups, turns a little pale and then, bolts for the bathroom.
I add one more thing to my list of not-to-do. Drink alcohol. My parents have let me taste wine and beer before. I thought they tasted nasty, but why do adults drink if it tastes nasty and makes them barf, a lot? I helped my mom for 20 minutes as she alternated barfing, crying and apologizing to me for being such a bad mother. She felt like it was her fault that I got turned into a girl and then, she felt like it was her fault that she did not understand what I was going through. Finally, she felt like it was her fault that the CIA kidnapped me because if she had been there, she would have known.
“Mom, it’s not your fault-” I say as I rub her back and help hold her hair to keep it from falling into the toilet. I am interrupted when she barfs again.
“Thanks sweetie. Uhhh, when did I eat carrots?”
I do not want to look and the smell is kinda bad. So, I reach over and flush the toilet. “I wish I could help you...”
>Initiating Remote Medical Diagnostic Service...
What?!
I jump back a couple of feet.
>Alert: Remote Medical Diagnostic Service halted!
>Please resume contact with patient...
I am not sure if that is a good idea, but the nanites help me. Maybe they can help my mom too. “Umm, ookkaaay...” I say as I reach for my mom.
“What was that sweetie?”
“Nothing...” I rest the palm of my hand against her back. I immediately sense a drain of my nanites as some, a few thousand, rush out of my body and into her body via my hand.
>Remote Medical Diagnostic Service Interface...transfer complete.
>Remote Medical Diagnostic Service Interface...building...[xxx%]
Followed by a percentage complete indicator that slowly creeps from 0% toward 100%. Is this a good idea? I start to pull my hand away, but as I do I feel my connection to the nanites in her body began to degrade. Okay, maybe it is safer if I maintain control until they are done and then, tell them to abort or something. It takes an agonizing 30 seconds before the indicator reaches 100%.
>Remote Medical Diagnostic Service Interface...scanning patient...
Well, that does not sound too bad...
A small window opens up in my HUD and my mom’s medical status begins to fill into a monitor page. Just like mine, it shows that cool EKG heart graph thing that goes ‘bing’, along with pulse rate, blood pressure, blood oxygen level, etc...more information than I know what to do with, but everything seems to be okay. I mean, no flat lines or anything bad.
>Alert! Patient blood alcohol content = 0.12%
>Recommended treatment:
>Administer 16-20 oz fluids.
>Administer nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory.
>Administer glucose.
I guess I spoke too soon.
Oh, yeah, she is drunk, but is 0.12% bad? Seems like a pretty low number to me, but my mom is pretty sick so maybe it is a high number? Isn’t 0.08% considered drunk driving or something? How can I ‘administer’ all that stuff, exactly? Give her a glass of water and I am going to guess that second thing is aspirin and call Aunt Julie in the morning?
Oh yeah, the glucose thing. Sugar, but I doubt I can get my mom to guzzle sugar. She always gave us crackers when we were sick, maybe those will help. I let go of her and take a step back.
>Alert: Remote Medical Diagnostic Service Interface...Disconnected.
“I’ll be right back!” I run downstairs and raid the kitchen. Large glass of water and bag of plain crackers in hand, I rush back to my mom. She is still on the floor, hugging the toilet and just as miserable. Geez, I am definitely never going to drink.
“Here mom, drink this.” I help her sit up enough to drink the water and surprisingly, she gulps it down without complaint.
>Remote Medical Diagnostic Service Interface...connected!
>SCRAM halted...
>Warning: Remote Medical Diagnostic Service Interface...system at 83% efficiency.
Why is it at 83%?
>Remote Medical Diagnostic Service nanites began SCRAM instructions due to loss of C3 system.
Oh, I guess that C3 means me and I have to touch her to maintain control of the nanites. I do not think I need to have them in her anymore and since Dr. Edmundson kind of freaked out when I leaked some blood on the ground; it would probably be safer if figure out a way to remove them from her body.
Umm, Remote thing, you can come on back to me now.
>Remote Medical Diagnostic Service Interface...Shutdown initiated.
>Remote Medical Diagnostic Service Interface...Starting nanite material retrieval...
I feel the nanites flowing back into my body through my hand. It kind of tickles, but it only takes 15 seconds to finish.
>Remote Medical Diagnostic Service Interface...Retrieval, Complete.
After that, I help her off the floor and she sits on top of the toilet cover. She also munches on the crackers, drinks a few more sips and keeps that down. So, I open the medicine cabinet and grab some ibuprofen. That is a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory, right?
>True
Why is a simple ‘true’ not so reassuring?
>Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, usually abbreviated to NSAIDs–but also referred to as nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory agents/analgesics (NSAIAs) or nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medicines (NSAIMs)–
Stop! Please. Okay, I get it...geez.
I hand my mom two ibuprofen and more water. “Here, take these...”
As she accepts them, it looks like she is going to cry again. “You’re so good to me...you shouldn’t have to be taking care of me like this...”
Yep, she starts crying again, but I manage to get her to eat more of the crackers. Actually, she eats an entire bag and drinks another full glass of water before I help her to bed. She regains just enough strength and coordination to strip herself out of her bikini as if I am not even in the room. “Ahh, that is so much better! Hey, you’re right; it does feel better to not wear a bra!”
Come on Mom, I know I am a girl now, but this is getting ridiculous! I don’t say that though. Instead, I politely avert my gaze as she climbs under the covers.
“Thanks sweetie!” She beams up at me as I help her pull the covers over herself.
This ‘sweetie’ thing has got to go. “Umm, no problem Mom. I hope you feel better in the morning, but can you...” I notice that her eyes are closed and she is already asleep. “...nevermind.”
I turn off the lamp next to her bed and leave the room, carefully closing the door behind me. “Phew...” I rest my back against the door. That was a lot of work, but I hope my mom is going to be okay. What about Aunt Julie? She appeared to be just as drunk as my mom.
The door to their room is closed and I don’t hear any sounds coming from it. No sounds are good because I would not want to hear what I think they probably did down in Uncle Jim’s- Crap, I thought about it and, umm, TMI. Just in case, I sneak over to their door and listen. All I hear are the sounds of two people breathing slowly, as if sleeping. It sounds like Aunt Julie is snoring a little too. Well, I hope it is her because if not, Uncle Jim has a very high pitched snore.
I debate attempting to shift into thermographic and see if I can see through the door. You know, just to make sure she is okay, but that might show me more than I want to see. I am sure she is fine. She is a doctor. She has to know how to treat a hangover.
I return to my bedroom, change into my very own silk pajamas instead of the flannel pajamas Aunt Julie bought me. It takes a few minutes of tossing and turning from worrying about my mom and Aunt Julie before I manage to fall asleep. It would be really great to sleep for a full 8 to 10 hours like I used to, but I don’t. 1.5 hours later and I am wide awake and bored.
I hear a toilet flush and immediately worry about my mom. What if she is sick and needs help? I open her door and take a peek. Nope, she is still peacefully asleep in her bed. Once again, I hear the unmistakable sound of someone barfing and crying at the same time. That has to be Aunt Julie.
I take a few seconds to listen at their door and the only sounds I hear are Aunt Julie repeating my mom’s earlier performance with the toilet bowl. I decide to try and help, but I discover that their door is locked when I attempt to slowly turn the handle.
“Crap...” I mutter with defeat. Maybe it is just stuck? I try it again, but this time it feels like something inside the door handle moves and then, the door opens for me. I guess it was just stuck.
I sneak a peek inside their room and Uncle Jim is cutting some serious Z’s. I doubt he is even aware that Aunt Julie is tossing her cookies in their bathroom. I tip toe past their bed and silently make my way into their master bathroom. Sexy nurse Aunt Julie is hugging the toilet and I find that image hard to wipe from my brain. Harder than my bikini clad mom.
“Aunt Julie, are you okay?” I gently touch her shoulder. Dumb question, I know, but it works.
She looks up at me her perfectly disarrayed long blond hair, dainty old fashioned nurse hat, Red Cross eyepatch, perfect makeup, but with tears slowly trailing down her face. “No...I drank waaayy too much...Oh my god!” She barfs, again.
“Umm, I’ll be right back...” I sneak back down stairs, grab some additional supplies and treat Aunt Julie the same way I treated my mom. I find the nurse thing a bit distracting, so I cancel her disguise. That makes things worse because she is completely naked.
Why does this keep happening to me and why now? Why not last week or last month when I might have found it more enjoyable. Well, less confusing anyway. Okay, I would probably have been even more mortified, but it would have been a gloriously epic story that I could tell my friends and be instantly popular and famous.
*sigh*
I grab her bathrobe and help her get dressed. Well, mostly I just drape it over her body and she works out the rest, but I do have to help a little. Why can’t she have a mom bathrobe instead of this sexy mini-skirt robe?
Treatment complete, I help her back to bed and since I expect it, I manage to avert my eyes before she disrobes. Naked, she pulls me into a loose hug and gives me a kiss on my cheek. Seriously, why couldn’t this have happened when I was a boy?!? Oh yeah, because it would have ‘never’ happened, except in my wildest dreams.
“Thanks Chloe...” She attempts to fight off a yawn, but fails.
My Chloe name acts like a splash of cold water to bring me back down to earth. I help tuck her safely into bed and then, I return to my room with the plan to play in my VR world until Uncle Jim wakes up. No visits from Sara and after her mention of a mysterious ‘chat with someone’ from last night, I am a little worried about her.
I decide to relax in my hot tub in the hopes that will lure her into making a visit, but it doesn’t. I even go topless for a few minutes before I feel silly for trying to lure Sara by flashing my breasts. What kind of girl am I? Wow, that makes me laugh. I give up worrying about my mental problems and play in the shooting range, followed by some reading and TV in my living room.
<Friday, 23-Feb-2007 06:00:00>
I hear Uncle Jim’s alarm and I sneak down to the kitchen to get a pot of coffee going for him. My plan is to hang out with him until he leaves, then grab a shower before my mom or Aunt Julie wake up. Based on their condition, I don’t expect them to be alive until at least eight or nine, maybe even later because the last time my mom drank a lot of wine with Aunt Barb, she was not up until noon.
Uncle Jim takes an appreciative sip of his coffee. “How is your mom?”
“Umm, I think she is okay. She barfed a lot, but I helped her and made her drink lots of water before she went to bed. How is Aunt Julie?”
He winces with pain as he takes too large a sip. “She’s out, but she will probably be very miserable this morning since she went straight to bed.”
I shake my head slowly back and forth. “Oh no, she woke up and barfed.”
“She did?” He stops mid sip.
“Yeah, it was around 0144 when heard her barfing. So, I helped her by making her drink some water and take a couple of ibuprofen like my mom.”
“I thought I locked our door?” He shrugs, looking mystified but not too worried. “Oh well...”
I decide not to mention that I thought it was locked at first too. Maybe he only half locked it?
Uncle Jim glances at his watch. “Oh, gotta go!” He says as he walks around to put his cup in the sink. “Hey, can you ask your Aunt Julie to give me a call when she finally wakes up, please?”
“Sure-” I am a little surprised when he gives me a quick hug and a kiss on my forehead.
“Thanks for the coffee!” He rushes out of the door without seeming to realize what he just did.
Okay, I am a lot surprised. It takes hearing the garage door close to snap me out of my stupor. Why did he do that? Must be my glamour or he has just been thinking of me as his niece for too long. Yeah, that is probably it. He was just playing the role as my favorite uncle.
My shower is a shower. I do not have any problems with my breasts and any other part of my anatomy from the safety and privacy of my shower stall. With all the swimming and Jacuzzi time getting my longer hair wet, it barely even registers with me that I haven’t always had longer hair. Since I have my suitcase, I am able to use my own shower stuff. That is a plus, but I still do not like the fact that everything smells so flowery and girlie. I know it smells nice, but why can’t they make this stuff without scents? Why does everything have to sound edible or pretty to look at?
I manage to clean my girl stuff without feeling too freaked out over it. Actually, I am almost a little ashamed to admit it, but I purposefully touch myself down there. You know, just to make sure I got everything cleaned to specification. I don’t see stars or feel my knees get weak like girls are supposed to. Well, according to the magazines and internet stories anyway. In some ways, that is almost a letdown for me because maybe I have been making a big deal about it for no reason.
Okay, maybe not ‘no reason’, but still. What is the big deal? So, I no longer have a penis and now I have a va-vagina. Phew! I said it! It’s not the end of the world. I am still me and I even have cool super powers as part of the deal. Maybe, it’s not so bad being a girl, as long as I can be ‘my’ kind of girl.
I don’t have to wear dresses and like pink, right? I can wear pants and no one will think it is strange. That is something boys can’t do. I mean, they can’t wear dresses, even if they wanted to, without people thinking they are strange.
It feels nice just standing under the warm water as it beats down on me. Well, until it starts to turn cold, but then I crank it up for another 20 seconds before I finally get out of the shower with a sigh. I feel relaxed and I don’t even rush to cover my body. No one can see me and the mirror is all foggy. I decide to blow dry my hair and defog the mirror at the same time.
As I work on my hair, I sort of take in my body without focusing on the specifics and I have to agree with Sara. I do have a ‘rocking’ body. I think I am very pretty and my new hairstyle is kind of growing on me. After all, it is what I picked for Whisper in GEO because I thought it looked the best on her. Short, but still very sexy and feminine. Also, except for the extra steps, very easy to maintain compared with what I have seen my sister go through with her hair.
I decide to wear a bra today. It was nice to go braless, but I did not really care for all the extra ‘bounce’ in my step. I also elect to take a huge step and put some makeup on. Okay, not real makeup because that would be hard, but I do apply a very slight illusion to myself. Following the magazine’s advice and essentially repeating what I did in the girl’s bathroom with Amanda, I make my eyes a little darker and match the eye shadow to my top. I also make it appear like I am wearing a slightly darker shade of red on my lips. Nothing too dark, just a few shades darker than my natural color.
After all, Chloe wears makeup all the time. What is the big deal for me to wear just a little? That thought last all of two seconds after I check myself out in the mirror. “Holy crap...”
With just that little touch of makeup, I am freaking hot. What in the heck am I thinking? Chloe looks very pretty with makeup and I have been her so much the last few days that I am sort of used to seeing a pretty girl in the mirror. What I am not used to seeing is myself in the mirror and thinking I am even more beautiful than Chloe. I know my mom would feel delighted, but I don’t think I am ready for this step just yet. I cancel the makeup effect and feel relieved to see my new real and unadorned face.
I am still very pretty and the way I absently curl my lip with frustration is kind of cute.
*sigh*
I hang out downstairs, watch real TV and read some of Aunt Julie’s medical magazines until 1027 hours when I hear a toilet flush. My system triangulates the sound as coming from my mom’s bathroom. I decide to put a fresh pot of coffee on and grab another bottle of ibuprofen. The coffee is almost done brewing when my mom stumbles into the kitchen like a zombie attracted to the smell of fresh brewed brains, I mean coffee. She is wearing her full length mom bathrobe and looks a little more disheveled than normal as she takes a seat at the breakfast bar.
“Uhhhhh, my head...” She props her head up with her hands.
“The coffee is almost done, would you like an omelet with a bagel and cream cheese?” I glance over my shoulder as I reach up to grab a coffee cup for her.
My mom glances up and her mouth opens like she wants to say something, but she is having trouble finding the words. “What?”
I feel extremely pleased by her reaction. Her confused, ‘who are you and what have you done with my daughter’ expression is priceless. “Aunt Julie taught me how to make an omelet. Would you like one?”
“Umm, sure?” She still looks a little lost.
“Good, because I am kind of hungry too...” I start by taking out the omelet pan and all the fixings. After that, I serve her coffee, just the way she likes it at home, cream with no sugar. She silently watches as I busy myself cooking for her. I can tell she is impressed and more than a little surprised. After I serve up her omelet and bagel, I hear Aunt Julie’s toilet flush and I decide to get started on an omelet for her.
Aunt Julie arrives in pretty much the same condition as my mom, except she is wearing her much shorter bathrobe. I notice my mom cringe and rub her temples as Aunt Julie takes the chair next to her. I guess with her empathy power, she is probably picking up some of what Aunt Julie is feeling. “Thanks for making breakfast and for helping me last night Chloe, I, umm, I guess we...” She and my mom share guilty looks. “...had a bit too much fun.”
“Oh, it wasn’t a problem. I am sorry that you all feel so bad.” I distract myself by starting on my own omelet because I am starving! Why didn’t I make something sooner?
Aunt Julie takes a bite from her omelet. “Mmmm, good. Well, I think I would be even worse if it had not been for your help and making me drink all that water. How did you know to do that?”
“Oh, I just looked it up...” I try to concentrate on flipping my omelet while hoping my mom is still too sick to really focus her Jedi mind trick powers on me. “Oh yeah, and Aunt Julie, Uncle Jim wants you to give him a call.”
After reassuring Uncle Jim that she is okay, Aunt Julie and my mom take the rest of the morning pretty slowly. Aunt Julie prescribes them each some ibuprofen along with plenty of fluids and by noon, they are both finally able to start moving. Aunt Julie leaves right after lunch to check on her patients and ‘pick up a few things’. How much do you want to bet she is going to buy me a few more outfits or something?
My mom and I spend the rest of the afternoon doing some laundry and cleaning the house for Uncle Jim and Aunt Julie. It is kind of boring, but it beats sitting around and doing nothing. I already knew how to do my own laundry, but I did not know how to properly wash all the new ‘delicates’ that I own. What a pain. Whites and Colors, those should be the only two options. Whites, Brights, Colors, Darks, Delicates, and Hand wash and dry clean only are just too many things to worry about in the quest for clean clothes.
Mr. Reilly, along with Dr. Edmundson and Captain Howards, calls at 1300 hrs and gives us an update on the investigation. They found a backdoor tap on Aladdin's super duper auto-magical test machine that sent results to the CIA. Well, it was more of an on purpose backdoor since the CIA originally funded the development of the device. It just got overlooked when the project was transferred to the DOD. That is the claim, but I can tell Mr. Reilly does not really buy it.
Mr. Reilly also tells us about the forcibly retired CIA dude committing suicide. Suicide, really? I was a little skeptical, but Mr. Reilly claimed they found a note and then, immediately classified it so high that not even he could read it. The President was only able to tell Mr. Reilly that the dude was sorry for ordering my kidnapping and for something else that was very very bad.
I purposely forget to mention the little trick with my nanites. Mostly because I do not want to worry my mom or give them an excuse for me to return for more testing. I just want to get to that Whateley place and stop having people trying to mess with me. I do let Mr. Reilly know about the plans for tonight and after consulting with Captain Howards, they give me the all clear. Captain Howards hints that he may have a few of his men in the area, just in case. It is just dinner and a movie, what could go wrong?
Okay, jinx question, knock on wood and all that, but it should be pretty safe. We are planning on eating at an Italian restaurant, so maybe the mafia could bust in with some dude wearing cheesy suits, gold chains and machines guns yelling, “Say hello to my little friend!” as they shoot up the joint, but I figure the odds of that are pretty low. This isn’t New York City or the movies.
For tomorrow, the plan is for Uncle Jim and Aunt Julie to drop me, as Chloe, and my mom off at Norfolk International at 0730. It fits with my disguise, but I am not sure what their plan for my mom is. I could make my mom look like Aunt Julie and then, we could do the old switch-a-roo in the bathroom, but I am sure Mr. Reilly would not approve of me using my magic, if he knew.
Anyway, they didn’t ask me for my opinion on the plan. So, after we are dropped off, we will make our way to the baggage claim area and one of Captain Howard’s men and Airman Jessica pretending to be his girlfriend/wife, will meet and take us to Langley for my dropship ride.
My ride is confirmed for 0900, Saturday the 24th on board one of the Air Force’s new CS-5 sub-orbital heavy lift vehicles. My ETA at Whateley will be 0934. A very, very short flight, or hop as the pilots like to call them. The military likes to call them SHLV’s, but everyone else calls them ‘dropships’. They don’t really ‘drop’. It is more like a controlled fall, but it was an idea they stole from some futuristic giant robot fighting game and the grunts decided to call them that. Vomit Comets has also been used to describe them, but never ever where an officer can overhear you say that. Yes, I did a lot of research on them once it was confirmed and I cannot wait!
The official reason for the flight is to deliver some additional ‘training’ materials to the Academy for the JROTC program. The thing can easily haul four M1A2 Abram tanks with some room left over. So, I am not sure what kind of ‘training’ materials would need a dropship or why a school might need said ‘training’ materials, but I am not going to complain.
**
“Hey boss?” MCO Agent Roberts poked his head into Special Agent Lainer’s door.
Lainer looked up from his slowly decreasing stack of overdue paperwork. One more burden caused by that f’ing ghost mutant. “Yeah?”
“I found something that you might find interesting...might be another lead on that Whisper mutant.”
Lainer sighed and sat back in his chair. “Do I really want to know?”
“Maybe, maybe not, but the Air Force just scheduled a flight to that Whateley place tomorrow morning for one of their new CS-5 dropship things. They are flying out of Langley...”
Lainer sat back up and glanced over at the still mostly empty folder labeled “Whisper”. “That is one hell of a coincidence...Any cargo listings?”
“Nothing specific. Even our sources can’t get that from the military.”
“But, they have to have something, right? They would not waste a CS-5 just to carry a single mutant...”
Roberts shrugged his shoulders and grinned. “Well, this is the U.S. Government, but they do have a cargo euphemistically labeled as ‘training materials’.”
“Is that Nicholas Reilly bastard still at Langley?”
“Yes sir, but his pilot filed a flight plan that included three unnamed passengers for a flight from Langley to Los Alamos, New Mexico this evening.”
“Any guesses on who those three might be?”
Roberts absently ran his fingers through his hair as he thought it over. “Well, probably Dr. Edmundson, maybe Mr. Reilly himself, but it could also be our target and someone else. There was an older woman listed in the original police reports for the H1 inci-”
Roberts jumped when his boss slammed his fist down on his desk with frustration. “Damn it! I just know something is going on, but we don’t have the resources anymore.” Lainer sighed and leaned back in his chair, rubbing his temples as he thought it over. “Okay, it can’t hurt. Dispatch a pair of field agents to the airfield in New Mexico. Have them observe who gets off the plane there. If the damn thing even arrives. Hell, it might be another red herring...”
“Yes, sir. What about the dropship?”
“I am not sure...” Lainer absently drummed his fingers on his desk for a few seconds before abruptly stopping. “Okay, I will make a few calls and see if we can task a MCO recon ship to shadow the Air Force’s dropship. Since the air space around Whateley isn’t as protected as Langley, maybe get some spy shots of this Whisper when she exits the ship.” He reached for his phone, but paused before dialing. “Oh yeah, see if you can get a hold of the new enrollments list. There has to be some official MCO reason we can use to leverage a copy of that list from their administration. Besides, the list should be pretty small this late in the school year, right?”
Roberts shrugged his shoulders noncommittally. “Yes sir, anything else?”
Lainer glanced over at his soon to be even larger stack of paperwork and sighed. “Yeah, can ya get me another cup of coffee?”
**
I was right about Aunt Julie picking up some more clothes for me. She returned with not one, not two, but three new outfits for me and by outfits, I mean skirts. One white pencil skirt, a black top and black three inch heels. A short black skirt with a long, black lacy over skirt thing that stopped at my ankles with a pair of mid-calf black leather boots, no heel. The final skirt was a kinda weird, but kinda cool, jade green longer in the back than in the front thing, asymmetric A-line skirt is what Aunt Julie called it. She got me another pair of shoes to go with it. Some strappy black open toed one inch platforms with additional two inch heel things. Seriously, no wonder why girls have so many freaking shoes if they have to have one pair for each outfit!
Both my mom and I protested, but it did no good. Well, I was sincere with my protest, but I could tell my mom was tickled pink. Especially when she had me model each outfit. I hate to admit it, but I kind of liked the black lace skirt thing. By kind of liked, I mean I disliked it less than the other two skirts because I am pretty sure if I saw a chick wearing it; I would think she was pretty bad ass. That did not stop Jedi Mom-Ka-Nobi from ‘recommending’ that I wear the black skirt for our evening out. “No sense in getting the skirt you plan on wearing tomorrow, dirty.” was her rationale.
I tried to argue that I could just wear my jeans and create an illusion to make it look like I was wearing the skirt. That did not work. I also tried to claim I could not fight with the long lacy skirt part hanging down to my ankles. Any guesses on how that statement was received? Beeeemmmp! Wrong answer Brianna Nicole Peters because ‘you’ are not going to get into a fight. I debated for, like half a second, reminding her about the H1 attack, but I knew it was a lost cause. My mom had ‘that’ look in her eyes. You know, the one your mom gave you that worked like a rattle snake’s warning rattle. Keep it up and I bite you! Yeah, that one.
Chloe, wearing the skirt got a lot of second, third and fourth glances by the boys. She also earned a few mean glares from a girl or two, but it was not my fault, so they can all go to heck! Chloe looked hot, but she always looks hot. So, it is not my fault.
Oh yeah, my mom was disguised as my mom. Confused yet? She was disguised to resemble Aunt Julie’s sister-in-law, Karen. Who is supposed to be my mom, but not, because I am not really Chloe Stiles. I am not sure how Chloe’s mom made it down to Virginia, but we couldn’t have my mom go out as herself since the MCO might recognize her from the H1 attack.
I guess we could have asked my mom to stay at home, but that was never really considered as an option. All it took to disguise my mom was a current picture of Karen and a few minor illusion tweaks later, my mom was a dead ringer for Karen, Chloe’s mom. I found that a little spooky, but my mom found it downright creepy to look in the mirror and see someone else’s face. I did not think it was that big a deal, but I guess I am getting used to not being myself because I have not been myself for almost a week now.
Dinner was good, but having David, our waiter, flirt with me was a bit hard to get used to. Yes, he was definitely flirting and even clueless me could tell. Especially when my mom and Aunt Julie decided to help encourage the poor guy by shifting the conversation to my ‘recent’ breakup with my boyfriend back home when he returned with our appetizers. I guess it worked out in the end because he ‘forgot’ to put my appetizer on the bill while at the same time he remembered to put his phone number on the receipt. “Just in case we have a problem with the bill...”
The movie was kind of good with the back yard inventor triumphing over big government and big business to prove them all wrong. Uncle Jim and I came out of our movie with smiles on our faces and feeling uplifted. My mom and Aunt Julie emerged from their movie with puffy eyes. They claimed that they loved their movie and wished we had watched it with them, but I do not think you should exit a movie crying and claim you ‘loved’ it.
No one tried to attack me or rob Uncle Jim. No Batman origin scenarios for me to worry about. We had a nice night out and except for the dude flirting with me, it was almost relaxing. Not even running to the bathroom after the show was a stressor because there weren’t that many women in our show. We had to wait an extra ten minutes for my mom and Aunt Julie to make it through the women’s pee-pee dance line and out of the bathroom when their show ended. As a result, I felt normal for the first time since I changed. Well, almost normal. Okay, more normal than usual.
Since my mom and I are supposed to meet someone from Captain Howard’s team at the real airport tomorrow at 0730, we needed to get up at zero dark thirty, or 0500, to get ready so we can leave at 0700 hours. I tried to tell my mom I only needed 30 minutes, from start to finish, to be ready, but my naive time management experience was overruled by my mom. I do not know why I protested the 5am time, probably habit. Heck, I am going to be awake long before that time anyway.
We get to bed a little late at 2310, or 11pm for you civvy types and ‘ding!’ I am wide awake almost exactly 1.5 hours later. Okay, 1.5223 hours later. Why can I only sleep for 90 minutes and why is it consistently 90 minutes? Well, except for that one time when I managed to sleep for two hours the first night home.
>Searching....
>2,160,000 results found! Display Y/n?
Umm, no thanks and holy crap that is a lot of results.
Okay, it is now 0043 hours and it is probably a tad too early to start getting ready. I guess I could take my shower and get that out of the way, but first, I will hop into my VR world for an hour or two. Maybe Sara will show up.
I suit up in my black vampire hunting tactical suit. It is not a cat suit, no matter what Sara might call it. Once I am satisfied with how I look, I decide to play with the Barrett again, but with a sniper scenario. It is not a lot of fun using that monster in a tiny range when it was meant to be used for super long range stuff. I start out with a very realistic, shoot the bad terrorist’s head off scenario, but I can’t do it. The bad guys are too realistic and I have zero interest in watching someone’s head explode like a watermelon hit by a sledge hammer. When did I turn into such a wuss? John and I played these kinds of scenarios on his PS3 all the bleeping time, but, while the graphics are good on the PS3; they are not ‘real’ good like my VR sim.
I think seeing a real person get shot has kind of changed my perspective on a few things. So, I change the bad guys to general, all purpose super-villain robots. My first few attempts only cause the robot to miss a step when my round bounces off it, leaving a good dent. It takes a few shots to find a weak spot, but that also allows the bad guy bots to figure out my location. Their sniper counter fire is downright depressing. I get deaded a couple of times until I figure out I should shoot once and move because two or more shots allows them to triangulate on my position. Once they have my position down, lots of artillery falls from the sky and ruins my day. I guess the enemy hates snipers or something.
Crap! How can I kill them if my rounds won’t penetrate their armor?
>Recommend Mk-211 AP
Wow, it is both armor piercing and incendiary. How cool is that? Okay, I guess I can try that.
OMG! Fun!
One shot and the robot’s head blows up with a shower of flame and sparks, but it doesn’t kill them. Apparently, the model I used has their brains in their highly armored chest. Of which, the new AP round slices through like a hot knife through butter. Which, sounds like a good analogy, but how do you get the butter to your toast with the same hot knife? Don’t answer that, it is a trick question.
I quickly discover that terminating the leader bot is way more effective for causing confusion with the enemy than it is to terminate a general purpose soldier bot. I guess I should have known that already, but I was more of a spy in GEO than an assassin.
I also discover that while my all black tac-suit is good for sneaking, adapting my suit to match the terrain is even better. Just like in GEO, I can chameleon my suit to blend into the background and as long as I am not moving; it is almost as good as being invisible. My Whisper face mask set to match my suit adds even more to my concealment factor.
Hmmm, I will have to look into duplicating this effect with my magic. It could come in handy.
I feel rather pleased with myself for sneaking in and getting a shot on a robot with stars on its shoulders. Especially when it blows up with a spectacular display of fire and sparks as its arms and legs blow out of its torso from the incendiary part of my rounds. I do not wait to see what else happens as I turn around to un-ass the AO and spot someone standing behind me.
“Ahhh!” I fall backwards and onto my butt as I reflexively raise the Barrett’s barrel to aim my weapon at the woman’s chest. I do not get very far before I realize it is Sara. How does she keep sneaking up on me? “Sara! Stop doing that to me!”
~o~O~o~
Insert standard disclaimer here: The one that reminds everyone that this is a work of fiction. No one is real and any resemblance to someone who is real is purely coincidence, honest. This is also a Fan Fiction set in the Whateley Story Universe. No Canon characters were permanently harmed in the making of this story. I hope. :)
Note: So, this is it...the final chapter of Whisper Book One. This is the official end of my first story, ever. I didn't think I could write something like this and if I had know what it was going to become, I doubt I would have had the confidence to start it in the first place. Ya see, this was really just going to be a little Spiderman Retcon, but no plan survives contact with the enemy. :) Special thanks goes out to Nicky82 over at TCH for his attempts to keep my from 'jumping the shark' with this story. He had to put the brakes on a lot of my crazy ideas. Draflow for his tactical expertise and I miss him lots. Beyogi for his almost daily feedback and suggestions. Last but not least, djkauf for his magical editing.
~o~O~o~
Sara has the nerve to giggle at me as she blithely ignores the sniper rifle that I almost shot her with. “Nice camo effect ya got there.” Sara blinks as my suit re-adapts itself to my background. “Having fun blowing up robots?” She casually saunters over to where I had been lying and studies the results of my last shot. I turn back and join her to see what she finds so interesting with my scenario.
“Umm, yeah, it is kinda fun...” I watch as the soldier robots scramble to aid the burning general robot. The enemy robots spot the two of us standing out in the open and pretty quickly, a whole crap load of bullets, missiles and artillery heads our way. I pause the game before anything can get close.
“Why robots?” Sara frowns as she turns her head to look at me like she already knows the answer.
I feel a little ashamed by my inability to use virtual real people as my targets, but I cannot help it when the simulated scene where my mom was shot by the H1 dude plays itself back to me. “Umm, I didn’t wanna kill anyone...”
Sara pulls me into a hug followed by a peck on my forehead before she releases me with a heavy sigh. “You may not have that luxury in the future...” She looks so sad as she glances back at the frozen robot army before turning back to me. “But, I think we can worry about that another time. Now, tell me how your day went!” She grins at me. “What kind of trouble did you get into?”
“Sara! I do ‘not’ get into trouble. Trouble finds me...mostly...” I sigh with frustration and switch us to my living room with me already sitting on my couch. One leg folded under the other with my back wedged into the right armrest so I can face Sara.
“Okkaaay, then what kind of trouble found you?” Sara plops down next to me on the couch.
I notice my tac-suit changing colors to match the couch and I decide to switch to a casual sweat pant outfit. It will probably be easier for Sara and me to chat without me blending into the furniture. I could just cancel the chameleon effect, but Sara would probably find some way to tease me for wearing my slayer cat suit. I mean tac-suit. I decide to try and distract her by giving her my best smile. “So, how was your day?”
“Ya know, you could have just kept your cat suit on, meow...” Sara sees my bluff and raises me $20.
I cross my arms over my chest. “It’s a ‘tac-suit’ and I wanted something more comfortable to wear.”
“Uh-Huh, so, trouble?” Sara lies down on her stomach facing me, expectantly resting her chin in her hands with her feet kicked lazily up in the air.
“Come on, don’t you think I can go one day without getting into trouble?” I cannot help whining a little.
“Nope, not at all. Spill it.”
“Geez, okay, but it wasn’t really trouble, trouble. More like, ‘I can’t believe it’ sort of trouble...you probably wouldn’t find it all that interesting really...”
“Breeee...don’t make me tickle you...” Sara sort of growls my name.
“You would, wouldn’t you?”
Sara goes from relaxed to pounce mode in a blink of the eye and she breaks me in less than 10 seconds of tickle torture.
“Okay, okay! I’ll tell you!” I manage to gasp. I could have lasted longer, but I didn’t want to.
Sara gives me an extra 10 seconds of tickle torture before she stops. “See? I told you zat vee have vays of makin’ peeple talk!”
“Okay, okay, okay...well, you see...” I tell her about Mrs. Granston’s surprise visit at the house and how she was finally convinced by Admiral Jensen to de-invite me. My mom being allowed to stay with us and the MCO’s mysterious withdrawal.
“I hoped that might happen...” Sara distractedly smiles for second.
“What?” I wonder what she meant by that. Did Sara scare the MCO or something?
“Oh, nothing...do go on. Even your not-trouble is fascinating!” Sara smiles innocently up at me after she resumes her chin in hand position on the couch.
I tell her about my mom and Aunt Julie getting drunk with me changing my mom into Gogo Yubari and Aunt Julie into Elle Driver from Kill Bill, after they both asked me too. Sara finds it hysterical until I tell mention my mom getting upset because she thought I changed her into a school girl to be mean about the Whateley uniform. I kind of gloss over the puking and my remote medical thing. I explain the flight plans for tomorrow and finish my story with a nice, trouble free, dinner followed by movie.
“Hmmmphh, where is the earth shattering ka-boom?” Sara pouts.
“Hah! It can’t rain all the time...” I toss a quote back at her.
Sara stands and concentrates for a second. “Okay, so barring any further trouble, like someone trying to hijack an Air Force dropship, you will be here tomorrow morning. Hmmm, I would love if you could stop by and visit me, buuuuttt...That is probably a bad way to start your introduction to Whateley.
I know she is some sort of demon, or something, but I thought she was also my friend. Is she one of the popular girls at school and being seen with me would lower her standing? “Bad? Why?” I glance down to prevent her seeing the bleeping tears threatening to spill.
She drops down in front of me, grabs my hands and looks up at me. “Look, it’s not because I don’t like you, Bree.” She sighs heavily and her voice drops to barely a whisper. “It’s because I care very much about you and it would kill me to see you get hurt.”
I look into her demonic red eyes and see a painful loneliness that makes my heart ache. “I don’t understand. How could being friends with you get me hurt?”
“It’s complicated...” Sara pauses, closes her eyes and sighs.
I wait for her to continue.
“I am not sure if you are ready or not, but my dad, Gothmog.” Sara hesitates and I can tell she is not sure about continuing. “Oh yeah, I told him about you. He really wants to meet you. Hey, are you hungry? Maybe we should call it a night?”
Now she is trying to be evasive. “Sara...” I stare her down.
“Fine...well, he’s what is known as a Great Old One, or GOO.”
A Great Old One, they do not sound that bad. “Umm, okay?”
“You’ve never heard of a GOO before, have you?” Sara asks as I shake my head back and forth. “Have you heard of Cthulhu?”
Oh crap! Cthulhu, I have heard about. He’s in one of the original D&D Mythology manuals and from what I recall, he is bad, real bad, super insanity bad. Do not cross Go! do not collect $200 bad.
“I see you have, well, my dad is kind of a brother of Cthulhu and as a result, I am also a GOO, but more like a baby GOO.”
I cannot help it, but “goo-goo gah-gah” immediately comes to my mind and I start to smile.
“Don’t even think it...” Sara softly growls, but I can see the beginnings of a smile on her face. She pauses as I work to eliminate all traces of humor from my expression.
“Now, as I was saying...GOO’s are considered by most people to be, at their best, merely bad while the people who really know more about GOO’s, well, those people hate us and they see me, a baby GOO, as a threat to humanity.”
I look back up at her face, alarmed by her news. “But, I don’t think you’re evil...” I recall all the sort of evil, well, more like mischievous tricks she has played on me. “Okay, well, not a threat to humanity, but evil anyway...”
Sara giggles and affectionately messes up my hair before stepping back, conveniently out of range for a reprisal. “I am glad you feel that way, but there a people who feel it is their God given right and duty to see me dead. People who under any other circumstance, would be considered a good person, but they fear me. They fear me a lot and it would kill me to see you get hurt because they will use anyone and anything to hurt me.”
“I don’t care. I can help you...” I hope that she will let me, even though I know she is trying to explain why she will not.
Sara leans down and plants a warm and tender kiss me on the top of my head. “No, my lovable, innocent friend and cousin, you are going to be busy enough taking care of yourself. You do not! want to add my troubles to your plate.”
Sara makes me sound like a little kid. “Hey! I am not ‘that’ innocent and I am not about to do nothing if one of my friends are in trouble. I’m not afraid. I can help!”
“Hehe, I know you would, but I would rather you not go looking for more trouble by immediately associating yourself with me.” Sara drops to her knees in front of me and looks earnestly up to my face. “Look, I’m not telling you this because I don’t like you. I’m telling you this because I care about you, a lot.”
Her advice goes against everything I know. I do not like it, but at the same time, I think I understand what she is trying to tell me. “Oh...So, what should I do?”
Sara purses her lips with concentration. “I would try to keep your head down, don’t attract attention and learn all you can. It’s kinda like being in BASIC training. If the Drill Sergeant learns your name, then you’re in trouble.”
I do not have any experience with BASIC training, but I have seen a few movies and it was always the trouble maker or the easy to pick out person who got slammed by the drill sergeants. I am an Elf, sorry, Sidhe and as a result, I am pretty sure I will stand out and be noticeable. “Would it help if I disguised myself as a human then?”
Sara’s eyes briefly flare with excitement as she considers my idea. “Actually, that might not be a bad idea, but it will only be a short term solution.” She crosses her arms and taps her foot as she mulls over the idea. “There are students who will see through your illusion, but it might take them a few days to notice and that would give you time to establish yourself better. Once your Sidhe heritage is revealed, you will draw attention to yourself due to Nikki also being a Sidhe and one of the most popular girls at school.”
I summon a mirror and study my reflection. “Hmm, what if I keep it small and only change my ears to look human, maybe my eyes, those kinda stand out too...” I do not actually use my magic in VR to change my appearance, but I do simulate using my magic. I guess I could have just willed the change, but it seems more realistic. There, done! No need to OCD about how I do it in my VR world.
Sara smiles as she studies my face. “That could work. You’re still you, but not. Very subtle and it may even escape detection for a longer time. Hard to say for sure though...so just don’t count on it working for too long. In other words, have a Plan B.”
Me, I am torn by yet another disguise for me, but there is no need for me to go all angsty about it. I mean, what is one more disguise and as disguises go, this one is actually pretty minor. I still look like me, well, the new me, and not someone completely different, like Chloe.
Sara reaches over and gives me a quick hug before she grabs both of my arms and turns me away from the mirror, facing her. “What’s with the sad face?”
I drop my eyes, past her very distracting breasts. I am a little embarrassed about how I am feeling, but it is so complicated and I have no idea how to start. “I’m just not sure who I am any-ack!”
Sara does not let me finish. She crushes me against herself and speaks softly in my ear. “Shhhh, you’re you. Brianna Nicole Peters who was once Brian. People change, just some change more than others, but as long as you stay true to yourself, you will always change for the better.”
It feels good to be hugged by her. Well, more than good, but I refuse to acknowledge the warm tingly feelings she is causing me. “Umm, I like that,” I almost moan before I focus on her words to distract myself. “But it sounds kinda warm and fuzzy coming from a demon...”
Sara releases me and all the light in my room appears to want to absorb into her. “Don’t make me tickle you again...” She raises her arms and flexes her fingers threateningly as she pretends to stalk me.
I know that I should be scared, but it’s Sara. “No, no, not that. Please don’t throw me in the briar patch...”
“Brat!” Sara giggles at me. “Well, I hate to say it, but I must be off. Now that I’m a TA, I have tests to grade and virgins to sacrifice...” She looks at me with an interested eyebrow.
“Sara! You, you...I give up!” I throw my arms up with surrender before I turn away from her so she cannot see how close to crying I am right now.
She hugs me from behind, wrapping her arms under mine while giving me a tender kiss on my neck. I lean into her as she makes my entire body tingle with desire. She gently spins me around to face her and surprises me with a quick kiss on my lips before fading away like the Cheshire cat, fanged smile glittering as it fades and disappears on me.
“Well, that was, umm, distracting...” I absently rub my still tingling lips as I shiver from the after effects of her touch.
“Okay, focus!” I mutter to myself as I try to come up with a plan. Due to Sara’s info-dump, I have a lot to think about. It sounds like my basic goal will be to get in, not be noticed by anyone and get out. That should be fairly simple, right? Other than JROTC, I am not planning on joining any group and being with the JROTC folks should help me.
Okay, it is 0300 and I have two hours before anyone wakes up. First, I think I will take my shower and be ready to go. That way, I can do all my planning and the hot water will have a chance to refresh for everyone else. Not that I plan on taking a super long shower, but it can’t hurt.
The shower ends up taking a tad longer than I expected. No, not for ‘that’ reason. I accidentally got my hair wet and then, I decided to just wash it. In addition to that, I spent a few extra minutes under the water, simply enjoying the sensations of the warm water against my skin. I think I am beginning to get used to my body and *shudder*, even enjoy how the girl soaps make my skin smell and feel.
I decide to follow my mom’s advice and wear my skirt outfit. I will also need to get the girl’s uniforms ASAP and worst of all, I probably should wear the uniform skirt for the first few days too. It should help me blend in better since I assume most girls will be wearing the uniform skirts instead of the pants.
I study my reflection in the mirror I cannot get over what I see. I know it should not come as a surprise, but it still is and I think I feel even more shocked because I am not in disguise. I am me, not Chloe and if I saw a girl who looked like I do now, I would have totally been in love with her. Maybe when I apply my human disguise I will not look so pretty?
I focus on looking human with just my eyes and ears and then, I cast my illusion spell. My features change and nope, I still look pretty, but not as exotically pretty. Something looks wrong though. I hate to say it, but I think my eyes are kind of plain now. Maybe too plain because I cannot remember the last time I saw a girl without at least a little eye shadow. Crap, this is getting more complicated.
*Sigh*
I add a hint of eye shadow to help my eyes ‘pop’ and now my lips look a little too pale. Girls at my school always have lip gloss or something, right? Okay, I add a slightly darker and glossy sheen to my lips.
I recheck my reflection and I cannot go out looking like this! What in the heck am I thinking? There is no way that I can pull this off! Everyone will look at me and think the same things I would have thought about the hot chick I now look like. Plus, everyone notices the hot chick. How am I supposed to not attract attention if I look like this?
I wipe out my illusions and ransack my clothes for something less girlish to wear. I can wear what I wore to the mall with Amanda because showing up in jeans and a t-shirt will work, right? I quickly switch into my jeans, but now I realize how tight and restrictive they feel compared to my leggings and skirt. The jeans also show off my butt. I need a long sweater or something to cover my butt, but I don’t have one. Crap, even with all these clothes, I do not have anything to wear!
Now I sound like my sister, except she has an entire closet full of clothes. I am NOT going to be one of those girls! I absolutely refuse to stress out about what to wear and waste all my time trying on different outfits while asking my boy-. Okay, asking my parents if this such and such makes my butt look fat. Even though I just thought my butt looked fat in the jeans.
Sigh, I can’t win, can I?
Grrrrr...okay, fine, I will wear the bleeping skirt thing with the ankle boots. I reactivate my human disguise, complete with the makeup effect. There, that’s not too bad. It ‘only’ took me 20 minutes to figure out what to wear. Ha! I am finally ready to go, mostly. I waste another 10 minutes packing my suitcase. It takes some work getting all my new clothes packed in there, but I make it happen. Being able to use my extra strength to smush things down helps a ton with getting the zipper to close.
I feel pretty happy about still being able to get all my stuff into one medium sized suitcase, until I remember all my new shoes and toiletry items. Dangit! I need a larger suitcase now. Packing girl clothes sucks!
I decide to leave the packing alone. I figure my mom will have some ideas on what to do about all my clothes. Maybe she can take some home with her. Instead of worrying about it, I make my bed and sit on it, cross legged, facing the door while being extra careful not to wrinkle my skirt. Satisfied, I enter my VR living room and add on an extra room. I make the room into my office slash command center complete with a high tech Star Trek inspired sliding doorway.
I stick with my Star Trek theme and make it kind of like a bridge with a captain’s chair and super large main screen display. I even make my default screen saver look like a moving star field. Designing and building it only takes a few minutes, so I break it in by beginning my plan of attack for surviving Whateley.
First thing I do is pull up Google maps for the satellite image of the school grounds. Second, I open the Whateley website and overlay their rather rudimentary grounds map to the satellite imagery. It appears that Whateley has more than a few structures that are not listed on their website.
They do have a student and faculty login. I assume that they must provide some additional manuals and guides to authorized users. I debate trying to hack into their site, but the risk is probably not worth it since I do not even know where to start. Besides, getting busted and in trouble for trying to hack their site would probably not make the school happy with me.
I bet the military has some good maps of the school. I check my Mil.Net access and surprise, surprise, Dr. Edmundson left it open. Sweet! I find some highly detailed topographic maps along with super high resolution satellite images of the school grounds. The military even has some thermographic and ground penetrating scans of the area. I am a little surprised that I can access the images because they are stamped “Top Secret”, but I guess my access level is pretty high because it lets me view them without any extra hassle.
Hmmm, there appears to be a lot of underground areas. I add all those to my map overlay, creating layers that I can hopefully fill in when I start scouting the school. The week break before classes start and all the students return should give me some excellent scouting opportunities.
Once I have a class schedule, I can plot out all my routes, sticking to high traffic areas. It looks like there are a few shortcuts worn into the grounds, but I might want to avoid those because taking the less traveled routes makes it easier to be noticed and separated from the herd.
A lot of my plans will depend on which dorm, or “cottage” I am stuck in and my class schedule, neither of which I have. As a result, I do not get very far into my planning session when Uncle Jim’s alarm goes off. I pause everything and run downstairs to start the coffee for the adults. After I get the pot started, I run back up and wake up my mom before returning to the kitchen to wait out the arrival of the dreaded coffee zombies.
Uncle Jim is the first to arrive. “Chloe, I mean Bree, you look...different.”
I am not sure how to take his feedback. Is it bad, or is it good? I glance down at my clothes to see if something is showing. Nope, just the bumps on my chest getting in the way. “Umm, different?”
Uncle Jim chuckles softly as he pours himself a cup of coffee. “Yes, one, you’re not Chloe and two, you’re following your GEO disguise plan by making yourself look human. Very good idea.”
“Oh...” I guess he is complimenting me.
He takes an appreciative sip from his cup and smiles at me with a twinkle in his eyes. “Plus, you look beautiful.”
“What?” I retreat a step as I feel my face flush. It is one thing to realize I might be a pretty girl, but it is a completely different thing to have someone else tell me I am not just pretty, but beautiful. Especially when that someone else is a man.
“Relax Bree, Chloe was or is a very beautiful girl and you did a fine job pretending to be her. You will be fine.” Uncle Jim reaches out and gives me a supportive hug before he takes his usual spot at the breakfast bar.
“Umm, okay, I will try, but this...” I point to my face and pan down to cover my entire body. “...is going to take some getting used too because, well, you know...”
Uncle Jim nods with agreement. “I know, but in all honesty, I can’t say I know because what happened to you is just not something I ever considered as a possibility. If it happened to me, I can only hope that I would be able to handle it as well as you are.”
His honesty simultaneously surprises and reassures me. “I didn’t really think I was handling it all that well...”
Uncle Jim pats the chair next to him. I take his invitation after grabbing a glass of OJ.
“Trust me on this, you are...” Uncle Jim waits for me before taking another slow sip of coffee and then, stares at the steaming black liquid, deep in thought. “I have known you as Whisper for over a year now. I know, I know, I didn’t really know you, not the real you.” He looks up and focuses on my eyes. “But even online; I could tell you were a good kid. Smart, but not a smart ass. Loyal and honorable, even though you were playing a thief. I knew I could always count on you to get the job done and some of the jobs you pulled were truly epic.” He grins. “Hehe, it’s almost a shame you were so modest because if more people knew about your exploits...well, okay, maybe it’s a good thing that they didn’t.”
My eyes are threatening to leak again. Dang it.
Uncle Jim looks back down at his cup. “What I am trying to say is that, well, you’re far stronger than you think you are and boy or girl...” He looks back up at me. “You will be fine as long as you are true to yourself and...” He lightly taps me on my chest. “...follow your heart.”
His advice sounds like something my dad would tell me and that realization, plus the fact that Uncle Jim sounds like he really cares about me; causes my eyes to totally leak. I grab a napkin and he pulls me into a loose one armed hug with my head resting on his shoulder. He turns and gives me an affectionate kiss on the top of my head before releasing me. “Thanks, I will try.” I say and surprisingly, I feel better and more sure about myself. “Umm, do you want me to make you a bagel or something?”
Uncle Jim shakes his head. “Not this time. Your Aunt Julie and I are planning on taking you and your mom out for breakfast before we drop you off at the airport.” He glances at his watch and then, briefly turns to look up the stairs. “Well, if we have time...”
It is only 0534 and I think it is possible, but I don’t know how long it will take my mom to finish getting ready or if she knows about the breakfast plan. “I should go check on my mom then.” I pour her a cup. “And, bring her some coffee. That might help.” I grin at Uncle Jim.
Surprisingly, my mom is almost ready to go. She smiles appreciatively at me as she pauses to take a sip of her coffee. Once the first sip is done, she re-opens her eyes and inspects me. “You look very nice Bree. I am glad you decided to wear that outfit today. You even did a good job with your makeup, or illusion?”
“Umm, illusion, and thanks, I guess, but I still feel weird dressing like this and worrying about my makeup...” I sort of just space out with the makeup concern.
She stops and gives me a quick hug. “You’ll be fine.”
I notice her suitcase is mostly packed, but I guess she never had to unpack it either. I mention the problem with my suitcase and she just smiles at me. “That won’t be a problem dear. Aunt Julie has an extra suitcase. Why don’t you go get it from her and meet me in your room? I will help you pack everything.”
Aunt Julie compliments me on my outfit and after Uncle Jim’s compliment followed by my mom’s, I respond favorably and don’t freak out in the slightest. She gives me a very nice, hard cover, rolling suitcase that is actually slightly larger than my suitcase. Maybe my mom will be able to fit everything into one suitcase now.
She does not even try. Ten minutes later, I have two mostly full suitcases and that puts the final nail in the girl coffin. It is official; my luggage now weighs more than me. Okay, maybe not, but it is close.
We make it out of the house in time for us to eat breakfast. That is a new experience because none of us are in disguise. Well, except for me in my human disguise, but no one tries to rob the diner or attack me. So, I guess I might be able to stay out of trouble for a few days. We have a tearful goodbye at the airport, but all the other people, rudely honking their horns, help to cut the public displays of affection to the bare minimum. I have to promise to email and call as soon as I can, but that is kind of expected.
Walking through the airport is very distracting for me. Not only are there lots of people, but there are also tons of signals from all the various personal cell phones, police, emergency and military band radios and the many wifi networks. It is too much, but I do not want to miss a possible attack.
Filter on keywords: target, Whisper, MCO and H1.
>Filter set
And, all the spam conversations minimizes down to a small window.
*cheer*
As we enter the baggage claim area I hear: “Brianna! Over here!” I turn and spot Airman Reynolds, I mean, Jessica, in civilian clothes hanging on the arm of the SEAL dude I recognize as Delta One. Jessica has a sparkly wedding band on her finger. So, I guess they are pretending to be married since she did not have a ring the last time she drove us to the testing facility.
My mom looks happy to see Jessica, but until I get into range to scan for their CAC ID cards, I am going to be a little suspicious of them.
>U.S.A.F./RA/Airman First Class/E-3/Jessica/Ann/Reynolds/xxx-xx-xxxx/A-/FALSE
>U.S.Navy/RN/PO2/E-5/Grant/Jonathan/Brooks/xxx-xx-xxxx/B-/FALSE
Oh, so that is Delta One’s name. Grant is kind of an unusual name, but oh well. I guess they are who I think they are. After we put on the standard, “Oh my god! It’s been so long! You have gotten so big! ( By the way, that is directed at me. ) How was your flight?” greeting slash show, we are whisked away in a fancy new Mustang GT. Swa-eet!
The Mustang sounds nice, especially when Brooks punches it to merge onto the highway. It accelerates pretty darn fast too.
>Alert: Encrypted military grade radio transmissions detected!
>Searching...
>Template match found!
>Implementing Template...
{“...lear.”}
I am a little worried about the transmission, but then I calm down when realize it came from Brooks. He glances over his shoulder. “We’re clear. No tails.”
At Langley AFB, our car is waved through the front gates with barely a second glance by the uniformed Military Police dude, but we pick up an escort vehicle and another tailing vehicle as soon as we get a few hundred yards past the gates. We are led to another set of gates that lead to some huge hangers with rows of fighter jets parked outside. The final hangar has a huge CX-5 Dropship parked outside and we are escorted into the hanger. The doors rapidly slide closed behind us.
Inside the hanger are a row of new F-22 Raptors and few people in dress uniforms. I spot and recognize Mr. Reilly, General Evans and Captain Howards right away, but I do not recognize the additional two men wearing Navy dress uniforms. Not until I zoom in and read their name tags anyway.
Admiral Jensen and Admiral Grantson, that is a surprise. I lean forward and get Jessica’s attention. “Does the Air Force know that the Navy is invading their turf?”
Jessica and Brooks look at each other and laugh. “Too funny, Bree!” Jessica says, looking back at me with a grin.
There are a few more lower ranked officers and enlisted folks helping out, but there is one woman who stands out because she is not wearing a uniform. Instead, she is wearing a simple dark blue women's v-neck top, with jeans and trekking boots, as well as an old leather coat. Her outfit was obviously put together with functionality in mind, but I think it has an urban badass mixed with cyberpunk feel. Her outfit wouldn't have been out of place in that Bladerunner movie Dad likes so much.
Brooks gives me a hand out from the driver’s side, while my mom is assisted by Jessica. “Umm, Brooks, do you know...” I don’t manage to finish my question because I hear my sister yell. “Mom! Bree!”
I look over and spot my dad grinning sheepishly as Lindsay runs forward to hug Mom. I walk around the rear of the Mustang with the intent to help Brooks with our suitcases.
Lindsay has other ideas. She rushes over, but stops a few feet away with wonder in her eyes. “Oh. My. God. Bree? Is that really you?!?”
I do not know what she is so gaga about. “Umm, yeah, but how di-”
Lindsay crushes me with a hug and almost bowls me over. “Oh my god! I was so worried about you! John and Lisa were too!”
I am glad I am wearing my boots with the two inch heel because they make me slightly taller than my little sister. Hey, it isn’t much, but I have to take my victories when and where I can. “Hehe, sorry Lindsay, I kinda expected you to have taken over my room already.”
“Ha! I wouldn’t want your stinky room, but...” Lindsay steps back and takes in my outfit with an appreciative smirk. “...I can’t wait until you come home because it looks like you will have so many outfits I can borrow!”
Say what?!?! I am shocked that my sister would say something like that, but not. “Hey!”
“Girls, we need to pay attention now...” My dad calls out sounding slightly hesitant with his pronunciation of ‘girls’.
Lindsay closes ranks with me as she turns back to face him with her patented angelic expression. “Yes, Daddy, sorry...”
I am still getting over Lindsay’s idea about borrowing my clothes. It takes me half a second to connect my dad’s “girls” as also applying to me. Lindsay bumps me with her elbow. “Oh, yeah, sorry...umm, Dad.” I am not calling him Daddy, but I do take some comfort by the fact that my dad seems a little unsure with the idea that he now has two daughters now.
“Oh my god, Bree, this is so cool!” Lindsay whispers as she grabs my arm to keep me from escaping, or something. It cannot be because she likes me and wants to be with me. Little sisters are not supposed to like their big bro- err, older siblings, it’s a rule somewhere.
Mr. Reilly clears his throat. “Yes, now, first of all, Whisper, I would like to introduce you to Admiral Jensen...” He points to him as Admiral Jensen takes half a step forward, hand extended.
I break free from Lindsay and shake his hand. “It’s nice to finally meet you sir. I’m sorry I missed your party last night.”
“Oh, think nothing of it young lady, but Admiral Grantson’s beautiful, young wife practically badgered me the entire night about you...” Admiral Jensen glances over to Admiral Grantson as if he is surprised to see him standing next to him.
Admiral Grantson steps forward, interrupting Admiral Jensen. “If you think she was badgering you, try standing up to one of her interrogations!” He turns back to me and firmly shakes my hand. “It is a pleasure to meet you. I have heard good things about you and the Navy is looking forward to accepting your application to join when you are done with your schooling.”
I sneak a glance over at Captain Howards. He looks suspiciously innocent. “I’ll think about it sir, but I’m not really that good, unless you count getting kidnapped by the, umm, and pissing off the MCO as good.”
They both chuckle at my statement while Mr. Reilly grins and points me to the next person in the line, or line-up, depending on how I look at it. “Finally, we have Flashback and she is here to help us sow even more confusion with the MCO. Oh yeah, and she is how your father and sister were able to join us.”
I am a little confused by Mr. Reilly’s introduction. I have never heard of her, but based on her code name and the fact that my dad and sister are here, I am going to guess that she can teleport people. I am not sure what he means by ‘sowing more MCO confusion’. “Nice to meet you ma’am. Are you able to teleport or something?”
Flashback smiles and gives me the thumbs up. “Got it in one!”
I have a bad feeling about this and I glance back to Mr. Reilly. “Umm, what exactly is the plan now and does this mean I won’t get a ride in the CX-5?”
“Yes, and no. We have a plan that will mess with the MCO and Flashback here is going help make that happen.”
“And I just love to f-mess with the MCO!” Flashback smiles at me.
“Oh, so what is going to happen then?”
“While the MCO watches, and I am sure they have an eye on our dropship out there, you will board as planned and take off, but Flashback will be there with you and port you to Whateley while the dropship travels to Afghanistan and a few additional long haul destinations. We figure it will be rather costly and frustrating for the MCO when all it’s said and done.”
“Oh...” I am not sure about the new plan, but I have never teleported before. I wonder what if feels like to have all of your atoms blasted apart and resembled somewhere else. Is that how it works?
“Does it hurt?” I ask before I completely think it through. I am being a wuss because if my dad and Lindsay could handle it, then I should be able to handle it also. I start to blush from embarrassment before the sound of my stupid question fades away. “Oh god, please forget I asked that...”
Flashback grins at me. “Asked what?” She asks, pretending like she did not hear me embarrass myself.
Lindsay is not as cool about it. “Well, that’s my ‘older’ sister for ya! She can handle getting shot, but try and do something ‘simple’ like teleportation and she totally chickens out!”
“Lindsay!” My mom admonishes my sister with a smirk that tells both of us that she is not really mad at my sister.
Everyone else begins to chuckle and I attempt to recover some cool factor points with a bow. “Thank, thank you very much! I’ll be here all this week...” I realize I should have curtseyed instead and hastily correct my mistake, causing another round of laughter at my expense.
I glance helplessly over to Mr. Reilly. “Umm, are we there yet?”
Mr. Reilly glances up to the ceiling, pretending to be frustrated by the age old question. “Hehe, no and we need to give the pilots some time to finish securing their cargo and running their preflight checklists. How about if we give you and your family some alone time while we wait?”
He escorts us to an office inside the hanger and closes the heavy duty glass and metal door behind us to give us some privacy. Predictably, my mom and dad give each other an embarrassingly affectionate hug and kiss. Lindsay and I both look at each other and groan, then giggle. Yes, I giggle. So, sad. I have fallen so far in such a short span of time. Once the ‘rents reluctantly part, Dad holds out his arms and gives me the ‘look’. You know, ‘the come give your dad a big hug’ look and not the ‘hey Sport, come gimme a high five’ look.
I am a little reluctant and unsure, but Lindsay gives me a gentle, yet forceful nudge and I fall into my dad’s arms. He crushes me to his chest and it actually feels pretty good. I feel safe and protected in his arms and I cannot remember the last time he gave me a hug. I guess I missed them more than I realized because I start to cry. Well, if I was still a boy, it would be called ‘crying’, but as a girl, it is more like a little wet eye, sniffle cry thing. I mean, I no tears fell, so technically, I was not crying. Right?
I wipe away the excess moisture on his shirt and laugh to cover my embarrassment. “Oh my god, sorry, Dad. Dunno what came over me there...”
Dad musses my hair a bit and gives me an affectionate kiss on my forehead. “It’s okay Bree, I kinda missed being able to give you hugs when you grew up on me and realized it wasn’t cool for boys to hug their dads.”
“Ha! It’s still not cool, but I’ll let it slide, this time.” I smile up at him. “Umm, thanks Dad and sorry for being such a hassle for you and Mom...”
I turn to apologize to Lindsay too, but she is just my little sister. It would upset the delicate balance of power in our relationship. “Umm, but not you Lindsay. You’re still my little brat sister!” I stick my tongue out at her.
“You, you little...meanie!” Lindsay ruins her tantrum by breaking down and happily grinning at me as she taps her foot in mock anger. Finally, she crosses her arms and begins her interrogation. “Okay sis, spill it. What happened, starting with those H1 jerks!” She practically growls and if I did not know her better, I would think she felt protective of me.
It is also a little weird having her call me ‘sis’ instead of ‘bro’ and I have no idea how I can condense everything down to only 15 minutes, but I surprise myself by getting the story down to only ten minutes. I do it by sticking to only the H1 and CIA incidents. My mom and dad hold each other tightly when I cover the H1 ‘fun’ while Lindsay surprises me by giving me a hug and tearfully thanking me, both for saving Mom and for not getting myself killed. She has trouble believing I had been shot, not once, but twice. Even with Mom backing me up, she still makes me show her where I had been shot. She looked suitably impressed by the fact that I healed so quickly and without a scar.
During my story, Dad was hard to get a read on. He alternated between looking proud of me, horrified at what happened, concerned for me and Mom, and pissed off, but not pissed off at me. Thank God!
My family is so awesome. I always knew deep down, that my parents loved me and I am pretty sure Lindsay and I loved each other, but we did not really show it. Now, I feel practically invincible. I have gained an Aunt and an Uncle and made so many friends over the last few days. Friends I would have never been given the chance to even know if it had not been for my accident. Okay, so I only made three, Nikki, Sara and Amanda, maybe four if I count Brenda back at the labs, but that is a world record for me. I mean, I knew a few people, but I only had Lisa and John that I could count as friends.
Whoa! If I keep this line of thought running, I might start thinking being a girl is a good thing. However; I am sort of amazed. It is hard to believe I could get into so much trouble and have so many things in my life change in only a few days. Aside from being shot, well, and kidnapped, okay, and being attacked, I cannot help thinking how bored I would be if I nothing had happened to me and I was still a boy.
If I was still a boy, I would probably being doing my chores, playing some, okay, lots of GEO or hanging out with John. Maybe doing some jujitsu practice at Sensei Roger’s dojo, not exactly excitement-ville. Well, unless I got to practice against Lisa, but she is John’s girlfriend and she always kicked my ass. So, where was I?
Oh yeah, I don’t remember thinking of those activities as boring before, well, except for the chores. I actually remember looking forward to playing GEO all day or blowing stuff up on John’s PS3. All that ‘fun’ stuff seems kind of boring now that I think of it. Is there really something wrong with me? Do I subconsciously look for trouble now? You know, the old, ‘if you’re not living on the edge, you’re taking up too much space!’ adrenalin junky mantra?
Maybe, because now, I am going to get a ride in a freaking Air Force dropship and be teleported, yes, teleported to my new school. How cool is that?!?! The dropship and teleported thing. Totally not the school thing, because school is kind of meh. I know it is a super mutant school and might be a little cooler than a public high school, but it is still school.
I am a little startled and disappointed when Mr. Reilly politely taps on the door before opening a crack. “Whisper, it’s time.”
My family wants to walk me all the way out and up the ramp, but Mr. Reilly stops them before we get to the hangar doors. He points up and off to the right. “The MCO has a scout ship parked over that way, on the edge of Langley Air Space, but close enough to use their optics to read a small bumper sticker. We can’t let them see you guys.”
That announcement causes another round of quick hugs before I am able to peel myself away. Towing my excessive luggage behind me, I exit out and onto the sunny tarmac. I am tempted to try waving to the MCO dudes, but in a rare burst of impulse control, I stop myself. Hey, it’s progress, right?
An Air Force Master Sergeant, with a nametag of Evans on his uniform, snaps to attention as I approach and then, politely leads me into the huge ship. I wonder if he knows General Evans. I know it is ‘space capable’, but it does not look like one of those early 1950’s and 60’s streamlined things the sci-fi writers envisioned back then. No, it looks more Battlestar Galactica or Firefly, but definitely not Star Trek.
I can only see the rear half of the monstrosity that should not be capable of flight, but from the pictures, I know the thing looks like a boxy Frankenstein marriage of a Whale Shark and a garbage truck, if that makes any sense. It looks like the designers tried to make the nose streamlined, but gave up and slapped a bunch of boxes and engine pods on the thing in an effort to use raw power to make it fly.
From the rear it appears to be wide enough to drive three tractor-trailers side by side. In the center of the thing, there is a big, heavy duty ramp descending to the pavement from about 10 feet off the ground. It doesn’t have wheels, just massive, hydraulic activated steel skid plates supporting its weight over as wide of a space as possible. Inside, can see rows of HUMVEES secured to the deck with heavy duty straps.
The Air Force currently has 5 of these monsters in service with another 15 on order with half of those slated to go to the Navy. They cost just shy of 3 billion a copy, about three times what the Navy pays for a new destroyer, but considering what they can do and how much the old Space Shuttle cost, 3 billion is a steal.
They are built like wet water ships, with air tight hatches and share a lot of the same technology and construction techniques. As a result, they are causing some interservice rivalry between the Air Force and the Navy and due to their space flight capability, NASA.
Okay, not just ‘some’ rivalry. The Navy is fighting tooth and nail over them claiming that space is more like the ocean and the Navy knows more about operating in that kind of environment than the Air Force. The Air Force points out that they are “aircraft”, not “ships” because they fly and as a result, belong with the Air Force. It’s a big cat fight and no one can predict what will happen in the long run because some of the ‘experts’ are starting to suggest that they are both right and they should combine the two branches into an United States Space Force or Space Navy. Yeah, that terminology is causing some arguments also.
Politics aside, the science behind making a ship like this work is nothing short of incredible. Their design and construction had to have driven more than a few Gadgeteers insane and exactly how they work is still Top Secret, but I have heard each engine is actually a working fusion reactor. They also say it has some sort of anti-gravity device to make it lighter. Again, that is all Super Top Secret and I cannot say for sure if it is true or not, but we had a few ‘debates’ about it during science class last year.
Inside, I count ten HUMVEES tied down to the floor in what looks like a balanced arrangement. There are also few large pallets of MRE’s, water and ammo near the center of the massive cargo bay. The sergeant lets me gawk for a few seconds before he points me to the staircase that leads up to the next level. “Ma’am, head up the aft cargo bay access ladder. Leave your bags here. I will secure them for you.”
I look back at him, unsure what to do. He called me a ‘ma’am’. Weird, but I guess it’s better than ‘miss’. I don’t know why, but ‘ma’am’ somehow sounds more respectful. “Umm, thanks, Sergeant Evans, but I think I will need them because the plan is for me to jump out before we land.”
He plugs in his helmet into long, flex cable that is attached to a box on the wall, umm, bulkhead, or is it a fuselage? He glances skeptically back at me as he keys the mic attached to his helmet. “Captain, our rider says she needs her luggage because she plans to jump...did I hear that correctly sir?”
I cannot help it. I accidently, on purpose, listen into his conversation. I am standing right next to him and his hard-line intercom thing is not encrypted. “Button us up and send her up Evans. I have no idea what is going on, but the hanger has two admirals, a general, the Deputy Director of DARPA, a few folks that could be Navy SEALS and our tasking came directly from the Pentagon. If our rider claims she is somehow going to jump out before we land, then it is probably true and above both of our security clearances. So, you never heard her say it and you never officially saw her board, right Sergeant?”
Sergeant Evans stiffens to attention. “Yes sir!” He turns off his mic and shakes his head with confusion. “Okay, sorry ma’am. Wait here while I close us up. I’ll escort you to passenger compartment.”
The big tailgate slowly raises and locks into position with the red light turning green when the door seals. Sergeant Evans performs a few quick visual checks to confirm the seal and then, he leads me up the stairs and into a large open area directly above the lower cargo deck. It is a bit noisier in here due to all the men in desert camouflage uniforms shooting the breeze with each other.
My CAC ID system goes bonkers with all the soldiers, oops, sorry, Marines. There is an entire company sized element strapped down to heavy duty reclining lawn chairs made from cargo netting. Based on the number of Marines sawing logs, I guess they may be kind of comfortable.
As I am led through ‘Marine Country’, the conversation around me dies down as I quickly earn everyone’s undivided attention. Hello, there is a pretty teen girl wearing civilian clothes in the area. Everyone look. She is way more interesting than the back of your buddy’s head. I anxiously smile and wave at them while wishing I had known they were going to be here. I would have tried to bring some cookies for them, or something. Hey, that is not me getting all girlyfied and domestic. I heard that servicemen, and servicewomen, thank you very much, love to get cookies and other home baked goodies when they are deployed.
“This way ma’am.” Sergeant Evans motions for me to follow him forward to a heavy duty hatch or door. I guess the hatch is designed to be airtight because it looks a lot like something you would find on a Navy ship. Opening the hatch for me, Sergeant Evans offers to help me lift my suitcases over the small lip, but I easily lift them over and into what looks like an airlock. There is another closed hatch ten feet in front of us with a red light glowing above it. Sergeant Evans closes and secures the hatch we entered and the light above the other hatch turns green. He opens it and motions for me to follow him down a surprisingly wide hallway that leads to an open area containing a five by five row of first class airline seats, complete with five point safety harnesses. They have got to be way more comfortable than the webbed seats the soldiers are stuck with.
Sergeant Evans appears a little surprised to see Flashback seated in this section with a Marine Full-Bird Colonel, a couple of majors, three Captains and a Sergeant Major sitting as far away from her as possible without looking like they were trying to distance themselves from her. My system automatically reads all their CAC ID cards and helpfully supplies me with their ranks, unit, full names and combines that info with the Mil.Net network, of which, this ship is a node on. It tells me even more stuff I probably should not know about them and their mission to FOB Delaram, Afghanistan.
Oh, there is an alert posted only 29 minutes ago about an increase in suspected Taliban fighters in the town they are going too. Since they were going over op-plans for when they land, I wonder if I should tell the Colonel Braxton about it.
I don’t because one, it would probably freak him out. Two, he will probably check his intel when he lands and three; I don’t want Dr. Edmundson to be given a reminder about limiting my access again. Is that wrong?
Flashback further surprises Sergeant Evans by standing up and happily motioning me to come join her. “Whisper, over here!”
Her surprise outburst stops the planning session, causing them all to twist around and look at me. With the spotlight on me, I blush and nervously wave hello to them. “Umm, sorry and hi, don’t mind me because if you all need to talk about Top Secret military stuff, I probably wouldn’t understand a word you’re saying.” I lie to them and it looks like they buy it, because Colonel Braxton’s frown turns upside down before he turns back to his men.
Should I tell him? Oh, the hell with it. It would kill me if I hear on the news about some Marines getting surprised and killed. I detour over to the Colonel’s chair. “Oh, Colonel Braxton, sir?”
He appears a little surprised by me addressing by both name and rank. “Yes, how may I be of service to you, young lady?”
Okay, now I am really feeling nervous because, while he does not look mad at me, he definitely has that aura of command. I almost feel like I should salute him, or something and I am not even in JROTC yet. “Sorry to bother you sir, but are you going to Afghanistan?”
He quickly glances to his officers before giving me his undivided attention. I expect him to yell at me now because I probably was not supposed to know that, but instead, he gives me one of those patient, children ask the darndest questions kind of smiles. “I can’t really say, but why do you ask?”
“Oh, well, I just heard something on the news about an increase, well; they called it a ‘surge’, of suspected Taliban fighters entering around some place called FOB Delaram. I had never heard of that place before, but it sounds like it could be in Afghanistan. So, I was just wondering...” I trail off as his face slowly transforms itself from patient amusement to steely determination.
He nods once. “I see, and you say you heard this on the news?”
Oh, crap. He knows because there is no way the news would have reported something like this. “Well, not really on the news, more like on some military news website that I stumbled across while I was waiting for them to let me board this thing.” I need a distraction. “Oh, hey, I think my friend is getting kind of impatient. Umm, I’ll just be...” I point to Flashback. “...over there if you need anything, umm, sir. Sorry...” I say as I quickly make my escape.
I leave Colonel Braxton and his men looking extremely stunned. One of the Captains dig into his bag and pulls out a ruggedized laptop. Crap, I shouldn’t have told him that bit of ‘news’. I am going to be in so much trouble when Mr. Reilly finds out. I try to make myself look very busy with getting my luggage sorted and myself buckled into my chair next to Flashback.
She turns to me once I am finally done. “Hey Kiddo, what was that about? They all looked kind of surprised there.”
Yep, I am definitely going to be in trouble now. “Oh, I just told them about some news story I saw about Afghanistan. Nothing special...”
“Oh, okay. Well, are you excited yet?” Flashback asks, appearing to buy my story.
“Heel-heck yeah!” I almost said a bad word there, sorry but I am a little excited. She probably is used to riding in super high tech space vehicles. I bet her team has one of those X-Men style jets or something. “Okay, maybe I am feeling a teensy, tiny bit excited about it.” I laugh at myself.
Flashback smiles at me and I find myself admiring how calm and relaxed she looks. “Since you’re a superhero or something, don’t you get to ride in things like this with your team all the time?”
Flashback chuckles and shakes her head no. “No, not anymore, but back when I was active, we used to use something like this to get around.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you still might be a hero. You don’t look that old to me.” I cringe as I finish saying that. Good job Bree, open mouth and insert foot.
Flashback’s eyes sparkle with amusement as she laughs at my faux pas. “Well, thanks. I am kind of glad you feel that way.” She glances interestedly around the passenger area. “I have to admit the new stuff is pretty damn cool though. This monster is probably twenty times larger than the little thing my team used.”
Phew! I am glad she isn’t mad at me for calling her old, but now, I feel a little intimidated. Flashback is like a grizzled veteran compared to me. “Oh, okay. So, about this teleportation thing...”
She smiles at me. “No, it doesn’t hurt, kiddo.”
“Oh, phew! I was worried.” Another thought hits me. “What about our inertia?” Flashback looks at me curiously. “I mean, we will be moving pretty fast up there. What happens to all of our inertia?”
She blinks with surprise and then, shrugs her shoulders. “Good question, but it just works. No one really understands how it works, it just does.”
“Attention, this is your Captain speaking. On behalf of the United States Air Force, I would like to welcome you all aboard our ‘little’ toy hauler.” He paused for a second to chuckle once at his euphemism. “We will achieve zero-g during our flight and due to our trajectory; we will have a good 10 minutes of zero-G, inner ear confusion. Please have a barf bag ready because no one likes to be puked on and the crew hates the cleanup. Thank you and we will begin our 10 second lift off countdown in 30 seconds. If you are not strapped down, please do so at this time.”
Gosh, this is so exciting! I just hope I don’t barf because I really want to play in zero-G. It looks like so much fun when they show the astronauts playing around in the space station or during rides to the moon base. I glance back over to Flashback. “Umm, when will we be, you know, leaving?”
“Don’t worry Whisper. We will stay until they start re-entry. I wanna play in zero-G too.” She giggles at me.
Oh, that is a relief, but now, I feel a little anxious and curious about the dropship. A slight vibration begins to slowly build. What in the heck is happening?
>VIK Interface....found!
>Connect? [Y]/n
Whoa! I have never used the Vehicle Integration Kit before. I wonder what it does, exactly. Okay, Yes, connect please.
>Initializing....
I do not have long to wait as my vision is overlaid with all sorts of instruments. I see radar screens, navigations screens, communications systems, throttle position sensors, flight control sensors, external camera views, weapons systems, power systems and more. It is like the Black Hawk helicopter, but easier. I sure hope I can’t mess with any of those. You know, by accident, because that would be bad.
>Read-Only mode activated!
Oh crap! Thank god I thought about that. Wait, I could have taken over and flown this thing?!?! This VIK thing is too cool.
{“Tower, this is Air Force Heavylift Charlie X-ray zero two alpha...nav is locked. Ready to begin countdown on your mark.”}
{“Charlie X-ray zero two alpha. Affirmative. Window opening in three, two, one, mark!”}
I anxiously watch as the Captain engages the throttles, causing the entire ship to vibrate like a car driving over a cobblestone street. I expected it to be a lot worse, but I am distracted when Flashback reaches over and grabs my hand, giving it a good squeeze as we lift straight off the ground like a helicopter. At first, we are all gently pushed back into our seats we slowly begin to pick up speed when the ship simultaneously begins to move forward. The gentle squeeze turns into a heavy kick in the pants as the floor quickly tilts from zero degrees to 70 degrees and the rear engines go to full throttle. Now, the vibration is more like I expected it to be. It feels like I am riding on one of those old wooden roller coasters that shake, rattle and bang their way around the tracks. Flashback squeezes my hand even tighter. Wow, she has a pretty strong grip.
I look over to her and she has her eyes tightly shut with her jaw is clenched. She is the last person I expected to be worried about the take off. “Don’t worry, all systems are green. Nothing ttooo...” I stutter a bit as we hit a rough section of track on our super duper roller coaster of doom. “...worry about!”
“Hehe, yeah, I know, but take offs always get me.” Flashback lets off a little on the hand pressure.
I watch as the altimeter starts climbing, it goes slowly at first, but rapid picks up speed until the numbers are whizzing by. 1,000 feet takes a few seconds, but 2,000 is faster, 3,4,5, 10, 15, 25 fly past as we continue up under a constant 3.0 G’s of acceleration, just like I remember reading about the old Space Shuttle launches.
{“Oh, that MCO bogey is flying a little sloppy back there Captain.”} The weapons officer calmly notes over the crew intercom.
I focus on the radar and tracking systems, spotting the MCO ‘bogey’. It is climbing pretty rapidly, so I am not sure what the weapons officer meant by ‘sloppy’.
{“Yeah, command warned me about them. Keep an eye on them and warn me if they do anything aggressive or if they break off.”}
{“Yes sir.”}
“Hey, Whisper, are ya there?” Flashback shakes my arm to get my attention. With the G’s we are pushing, waving her hand in front of my face would probably be a bit hard unless she had super strength.
I could twist my body to face her directly, but it is easier to simply turn my face to look at her. “Umm, yes, sorry. What’s up?”
“I asked you if you thought the MCO was following us.”
“Oh, yeah, they are, but the weapons officer says they are flying a little ‘sloppy’, or something.”
Flashback’s eyes open with surprise before narrowing as she considers my information. “What? How?”
Uh oh. “Umm, I am kind of listening in on their radios?”
Flashback purses her lips. “You do know that they don’t use radios, right?”
I can only nod my head in agreement.
She starts to say something, but pauses and tries to shake her head before realizing it would take too much effort to pull it off. “Okay, I guess I can kind of see why Mr. Reilly is so worried about you...”
I do not think I am that bad. Really, I know I would not abuse my powers. Well, not on purpose anyway.
“Transition coming up in 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1...”
The engines throttle down, then to zero while the nose drops to more of a level flight path, causing everything in the cabin to start floating. Yippie! I look sneak a peek at the Marine officers and Colonel Braxton does not look happy. He reaches for the barf bag as he mutters. “I hate this part...”
Sergeant Evans enters the cabin, slowly flying like he has super powers. “We have ten minutes before we begin our descent and counter burn. You may now fly freely around the cabin, but be careful, gentlemen...” He skips a beat before he remembers we are in the cabin. “...and ladies because inertia can hurt.”
It is a lot of fun flying around the cabin and I am so glad I have leggings under my skirt because I would be so upset if I had to worry about flashing my pan-underwear at everyone as I bounced and flipped off the walls, sorry, bulkheads. It only takes a little force to cause a big change in direction. My reactions are pretty darn good and even Flashback looks a little jealous at how easy I am making it look. It is so fun doing barrel rolls and zooming all over the room. I wish I could fly for real because flight would be such a cool power to have.
A couple of the braver and younger officers join in and we have some fun playing with water bottles by squirting a little out and gulping the floating drops down. Sadly, all the fun has to end sometime. I spot Flashback wave at me to join her. “Grab your luggage. It’s time to bail.”
“Ahhh...but this is so much fun!” I grin as I fly down to grab my luggage. I get a little too cocky because pulling out my luggage causes me to temporarily lose control and bounce off the ceiling. “Ow...”
Flashback grabs me and helps get me steadied. “Thanks...” I blush, feeling embarrassed.
I glance over at Colonel Braxton and his crew and discover they are all looking at the two of us with interest. I am still a little nervous about my intel dump, but Flashback waves at them before turning to Sergeant Evans. “Thanks for the ride. Give my compliments to the Captain.” Finally, she glances over to me and whispers. “Ya might wanna close your eyes for this next part...”
~o~O~o~
Master Sergeant Frank Evans had done and seen a lot in his 15 year career in the U.S. Air Force, but the last two years as the loadmaster for the Air Force’s new CX-5 Super Heavy Lift Star Master was the cherry on top of a delicious fudge sundae. He was very proud at being the first authorized wearer of the Air Force’s Enlisted Mission Specialist Astronaut Badge. Based on that, he felt confident he would get his second ‘hump’ and be promoted to Senior Master Sergeant within a year.
As the loadmaster and senior enlisted crewmember, he was used to assisting with and giving tours of his baby to Generals, Foreign heads of state, Senators, Governors, wealthy businessmen, their significant and not so significant others, but his latest passenger was an utter mystery to him and the rest of the crew. He did not know what to make of the young and very pretty teenage girl who calmly walked out of the F-22 Raptor hanger towing behind her luggage as if she was boarding a commercial flight because if the rumor mill was correct, this teenage girl was anything but ordinary.
Soon after they had set down at Langley AFB, Captain Everhart reported from the cockpit that multiple cars with stars on their flags were pulling into the hanger. He and the crew had been informed they were there to pick up two additional special passengers, but they were not to speak to anyone about it. The operation was blacker than black. Forty-five minutes later, this young slip of a girl was boarding his craft and no one came running out of the hanger to try and stop her. He expected a second passenger, but was told to button her up and prepare for takeoff as soon as the girl stepped foot in his cargo bay. That told him she had a lot of brass behind her and that data point made him even more nervous because the rumor mill was also saying that the President was directly involved.
Now, he watched with open amusement as the girl, whose name he still did not know, but had overheard her being called, Whisper, giddily and with rapidly increasing confidence flew around the cabin. She bounced off the bulkheads, performed flips and barrel rolls with a joy that was infectious. A few of the jar heads were also unable to completely suppress their delight in the young girl’s antics and eventually, they began to encourage her to play by pulling out some water bottles to make zero-g water bubbles.
Officially, he was supposed to prevent such tomfoolery, but small drops of water were much easier to clean up than barf. So, he let it slide because the girl and the jar heads were having fun. He shuddered involuntarily at the memory of the last barf cleanup party he had to supervise and assist some of the junior enlisted crew with.
The other woman who had appeared, as if by magic, in the VIP passenger cabin was also a mystery. When he asked, he was informed that she was their second passenger, but how did she get on board without anyone spotting her? Regardless of that mystery, the woman appeared to be enjoying her time in zero-G. Unlike the girl, she was much more subdued and cautious, but he could tell she had some experience in zero-G by the economy of her movements. With one minute to go before counter burn began and the return of gravity, the woman called the girl over to her.
He winced sympathetically when the girl over corrected and bounced off the top of the compartment when she pulled out her luggage. It was an easy mistake to make and she was not hurt, so it was not worth giving her a gentle safety reminder. He was more curious about what the pair thought they were doing. Did they think their ride was about to land? He was about to warn them to get buckled in when the woman looked at him.
“Thanks for the ride. Give my compliments to the Captain.” She said with a grin as her eyes twinkled mischievously.
Next, she leaned over and whispered something to the girl before looking back up, then, with a wink towards the confused Sergeant Evans and the rest of the curious ground pounders, she, the girl and the girl’s luggage simply disappeared.
“Deceleration burn beginning in 30 seconds!” Captain Everhart announced of the craft’s intercom.
“Crap!” Sergeant Evans gave the empty area the two had been standing one last glance before he scrambled back to his acceleration couch and buckled in. “I wonder where they went?” He muttered softly just before the G forces pressed him into the cushions.
~o~O~o~
I rapidly close my eyes, but I still see a bright flash followed by a little less than a second of vertigo, 0.823 seconds to be exact. I am not sure where the ‘light’ came from, because it felt more like a thousand microscopic flashbulbs all going off at once. Further evidence of Flashback’s teleportation power destroying the bonds that hold my atoms together.
I blink my eyes a few times to try to try and clear my vision, but when I stop blinking, I discover a few things. One, while it was somehow bright, it did not hurt to have all my atoms blasted through space, or whatever, and two, I am now standing in front of a desk and inside a neat and tidy office. An older, maybe 35 year old, beautiful, blond haired woman is sitting behind the desk, wearing what I would consider ‘professional’ attire. A white blouse with a dark grey jacket, subtle makeup, limited jewelry and she has a phone to her ear.
“Thanks Nick, they just arrived and I have all of her paperwork. I’ll take care of everything.” She smiles a greeting to us as she hangs up the phone.
Who is she? The marble name plate sitting on the front of her desk simply reads “Mrs. Carson”, but she can’t be her. She must be Mrs. Carson’s secretary because she is way too young to be the Headmistress of this place.
I glance around, spotting the closed door behind us. I kind of expect this Mrs. Carson woman to open it up and come through any second now. The woman regains my attention when she abruptly stands and holds her hand out to Flashback. “Flashback, nice to see you again.”
“Good to see you again too Liz. I expected to see more gray hair from attempting to manage this place.” Flashback says with a grin as she shakes the woman’s hand.
I guess they know each other because this ‘Liz’ woman fondly laughs at Flashback’s remark. Due to her shaking Flashback’s hand, I kind of expect her to shake my hand too, but instead, she simply nods politely at me and gestures to the two guest chairs positioned in front of the desk. “Miss Peters...”
“Well, I hate to pop in and run, but I have a few more ‘deliveries’ to make. Liz, it was nice seeing ya again. Whisper...” Flashback gives me a friendly little nod and a pat on my back. “It was nice meeting you and your family. I think you will enjoy it here. Have fun!” She waves one more time and simple disappears. No flash of light, sound or smell of sulphur to make it cool. Her teleportation thing is actually a little lacking in the special effects department.
With Flashback gone, ‘Liz’ returns to behind Mrs. Carson’s desk and sits back down in the chair like she owns it. I feel a little awkward and unsure what to say or how to address her because I am pretty sure that addressing her as ‘Liz’ would sound like I was being too familiar with her. I mean, she might only be a secretary, but she is still an adult. She kind of looks familiar to me though. Where have I seen her before?
>Scanning for matching facial features...Match found!
>Lady Astarte, Ms. Elizabeth Amelia Carson, Divorced in 1995. Previous aliases are Miss Champion, Lady Champion, Comet Queen, Ms. Might
>24-JUN-2004 18:12:32.0283 while viewing “Famous Superheroes and Villains. Where are they now?”
Oh yeah! Now I remember watching that show with my dad when I was 12, or so. Holy crap! No way, she is Mrs. Carson?!? If she is divorced, why does her name plaque still have “Mrs.” as her title?
I am a little distracted from that question when The Lady Astarte turns to me with an enigmatic smile. “Welcome to Whateley Academy, Miss Peters. I am Mrs. Carson, Headmistress. My staff and I are looking forward to assisting you reach your potential.” Her lips press together as she leans slightly toward me. “Now young lady...”
I wince at her address. It does not sound like a promising start. My parents only call my sister a ‘young lady’ or me ‘young man’, well, called me that, when we are in trouble.
“I understand you have had quite the little ‘adventure’ reaching my humble school.” Mrs. Carson takes some of the sting out of her previous address by giving me a small smile to let me know she isn’t mad at me. I hope so anyway.
She leans back in her chair, keeping her eyes focused on me. “Not as uncommon of a situation as you might imagine...” She tilts her chair forward and opens a thin manila folder that has my name, “Brianna Nicole Peters/Whisper” neatly printed on the tab. Inside is my application form, all filled out and signed by my mom, Mr. Reilly and Mrs. Carson.
I relax a little because this is more what I was expecting. Simple administrative stuff where she maybe has me look over and sign some additional things, nothing to worry about. She calmly leafs through a few pages and stops at a sheet with the header of “Mentor Assignment”. Sir Wallace’s name is printed there, along with Fey. There is also a small paragraph in Sir Wallace’s handwriting that while initially a little hard to read from my position, once I scan it, flip it and expand it in my HUD; I find out it is Sir Wallace’s appraisal of my magic powers. This could be bad.
“I am glad that Sir Wallace saw fit to evaluate you and you should also consider yourself very fortunate that he is also willing to take you under his wing. However; I see that you have also met Fey and share a common heritage with her, correct?” Mrs. Carson raises her from the paper and looks expectantly at me.
“Yes, ma’am.” I decide to keep the answers simple because I am not sure why she brought up Nikki, I mean Fey and our Sidhe heritage.
“I see.” She nods her head and purses her lips.
What? I only said yes. I know Sara warned me to stay away from her and take it slow with Nikki, but did I somehow let Mrs. Carson know I’m friends with Nikki and she now considers me her cousin? Is Mrs. Carson going to tell me to stay away from Nikki too?
“Nikki spoke to me after her visit. She had nothing but good things to say about you, but she did let it slip that you were her cousin now. Is that correct?” Mrs. Carson asks even though she obviously already knows the answer.
“Yes, ma’am. We aren’t really related, but Aunt Aunghadhail kinda ‘adopted’ me.” I probably say too much, but at least I don’t tell her Aunt Aung also called me her ‘champion’.
Mrs. Carson’s eyes flare with astonishment and she leans back into her chair with groan. “Great, please tell me you don’t plan on letting everyone know you are cousins...”
I know I shouldn’t be surprised because both Nikki and Sara warned me about how popular Nikki is at this school, but I am sort of surprised by Mrs. Carson’s reaction. “Well, I wasn’t planning on it. Sara-” Crap. I wasn’t supposed to let anyone know that I know Sara.
Mrs. Carson jerks as if I just hit her with a thousand volts of electricity. “What did you just say!? Please, please tell me you don’t know Sara Waite, aka Carmilla.”
Sara’s last name is Waite and her code name is Carmilla? Well, I didn’t know that. “Umm, no? I don’t know anyone named ‘Sara Waite’, why?” I very carefully ask because it sounds like Mrs. Carson would not be happy if I told her I knew Sara.
Mrs. Carson sighs with relief. “Good, because it is probably best if you didn’t know her.”
Now, I am a little confused. Why does everyone hate her so much?
Mrs. Carson notices my expression and sighs. “You’ll probably see her; she is friends with Nikki and even sort of resembles her due to a botched attempt on her life. She and Nikki now consider themselves as Blood sisters since it was Nikki’s blood some idiots thought would poison and kill Sara. I recommend that when you do see her, that you are not seen as being too friendly with her, it could cause problems for you and the school, okay?”
I slowly nod my head with agreement while I mull over the latest data point regarding Sara’s ‘popularity’ at this school. Wow, someone tried to kill her with Nikki’s blood. That sounds totally crazy. Why do people hate Sara so much? What if Mrs. Carson finds out I sort of lied to her about knowing Sara?
I sigh with frustration. Darn Cub Scouts and that pledge they made me take about being ‘morally straight’. See, that is why I am such a bad liar. Well, that and because my mom is an empath.
Mrs. Carson looks so hopeful and pleased by my initial answer. Why can’t I let her be happy? “Oh, that ‘Sara’. I’m sorry; I didn’t know her last name was Waite...” I pause when Mrs. Carson surprises me with a little moan or maybe it was a whimper.
“Go on...” She patiently motions for me to continue.
“Well, the Sara I know is kind of this pretty Goth vampire demon goo thing and her Dad, Gothmog, is kind of my Uncle now and he really wants to meet me, but she can’t be this Sara Waite/Carmilla person you’re worried about, can she?” I ask while Mrs. Carson slowly lowers her head and presses her hands against her temples.
She looks a little upset with me. Maybe I should have ignored that outdated little Cub Scout motto? I mean, it didn’t say anything specifically about ‘lying’ and I can’t really be in the Boy Scouts and continue working on my Cub Scout badges anymore either.
“Mrs. Carson, are you okay?” I ask because she is starting to make me worried about her.
She straightens herself back up, calmly closes my folder and looks me in the eyes with almost a pleading expression. “Okay, that was...unexpected, but please tell me you aren’t planning on trying to join either Team Kimba or Sara’s Pack?”
I am pretty sure I know the correct answer to this question and even better, I don’t have to lie or try to lie about it. “No ma’am. Sorry...” Feeling a little ashamed about stressing her out and not keeping my mouth shut, I glance down at my legs as I softly answer. “Sara warned me about being seen with her and how popular Nikki is here. My plan is to simply learn, do the JROTC thing and go home this summer to be with my family.”
I look back up at Mrs. Carson. She is thoughtfully studying me and I think she looks a little less stressed now. “I see, well, I will just have to see what I can do to assist you with that plan.” She perks back up, reaches back into my folder, extracts two, nearly identical forms titled, ‘Quarters Assignment’. She sets them, side by side, on her desk and looks back to me. “Stand up for me please.”
Now, I am getting worried. Why does she have two forms for me? One has “Cottage: Poe” and the other as “Cottage: Whitman”. I anxiously smooth my skirt and not wanting to cross my arms against my chest because it might make me look as impatient, I hold them behind my back.
Mrs. Carson purses her lips and narrows her eyes as she studies me. “Could you get me the SAT study guide book from the shelf over there?” She points to a bookshelf on off to my right and about 10 feet, 2.83 meters, okay 9.3 feet from me.
I return with the requested book and set it on her desk. That seems to make up her mind as Mrs. Carson nods once, more to herself than me. “Thanks.” She hands me the Whitman form. “Okay, please take this and give it to Ms. Hartford. She will send for someone to escort you to your cottage.”
I spare a quick glance over the form. It is mostly filled out and signed by Mrs. Carson, but no room number has been assigned to me.
Mrs. Carson notices my gaze. “Yes, you will be assigned a room based on the house mother’s recommendation.” Still sitting, she rests her hands on her desk, clasped together like a fist in front of her. “Now, I realize with what I am about to say to you that I am probably not being fair, but in light of who you already know here; Please try not to model your first week here based on your friend’s first week and try not to get into a fight with a Ninja army like they did.”
Pulling my suitcases behind me, I trip a little on my way to the door as both her plea and the ninja thing takes me by surprise. “Umm, okay?” I hesitantly agree with her because I wouldn’t want to fight off a ninja army either. Why would an army of ninjas invade a school and why does just knowing Sara and Nikki make Mrs. Carson think I will get into trouble with an army of anything? Okay, maybe an H1 or MCO army, but it would not be my fault!
[The End of Book One]
MCO Special Agent Lanier felt abso-fucking-lutely furious. He had just spent the last 43 hours, almost two full days, as an observer, crammed inside the tiny MCO scout ship as it trailed the Air Force’s monster dropship all over the freaking world in an attempt to find out where the U.S. Government was taking their little pet mutant. Only to have all his time, the MCO’s money and equipment usage completely and utterly wasted.
They easily spotted the young human girl, who resembled their target, suitcases in tow, walk across the tarmac and disappear inside the CX-5, but she never exited the damn thing! What in the hell happened to her and where did she go? Was she living inside the fucking ship now or did she somehow sneak out with the Marines when they landed in Afghanistan? He had already pored over the footage in an attempt to spot a girl dressed up in a Marine uniform, but no luck there. It was as if she had never boarded the fucking craft, except he had proof that she had!
She had to be a fucking shape shifter, or else the girl had been a decoy, but that still did not answer his question of what happened to the girl. He briefly debated attempting to get permission to storm and search the CX-5 after the crew had locked it down, but he knew there would be zero possibility of that course of action being approved, or even considered as sane. He would have probably been kicked out of the MCO if he had even suggested it.
He knew he was borderline, or maybe beyond it, obsessed with Whisper, but he hated mystery mutants and secret government programs with a passion. It was one of those secret government programs that got his brother killed 10 years ago. The military thought they finally had a super soldier serum perfected and his brother volunteered, yeah, right. His brother was a fuck up who had been promoted to Sergeant twice, been busted down to Private three times and was a whisker away from being booted from the Army when he suddenly ‘volunteered’ for some secret program.
It looked like the serum worked. For two years after he ‘volunteered’, his brother was a changed man, in more ways than one. Not only was he super strong, fast and nearly invisible, he was also a model soldier who was quickly promoted from Private all the way back to Sergeant for his strong leadership qualities. All that came crashing down the day he snapped and went on a rampage in a crowded shopping mall, killing 10 and wounding 15 others before an MCO Fast Reaction Squad was finally able to bring him down.
It took Agent Lanier years of digging and using his MCO contacts to find out what really happened to his brother. At first, he hated the MCO for killing his brother, but once he learned the truth; his hatred shifted to the government for making his brother into the monster that was still used as an example for why the MCO needs to exist.
So, if this Whisper girl or person was part of some new secret government program, he had to find out what it was and stop it before it was too late. Before she snapped liked his brother did and killed a bunch of innocent people. Since the government had proven itself incompetent and responded by covering things up, it was his duty, as an officer of the MCO, to find and eliminate this threat before it was too late.
First, he had to find her. If she had not been fooling everyone with her age, she was young and that could only mean one thing, she had to be at that fucking school, Whateley. He grinned with anticipation. Yes, this could be the lever the MCO could use to finally get that abomination closed down for good. With Whateley closed, those fucking mutants would have nowhere to hide and no one would dare try to protect the freaks.
To do that, he needed to get someone into Whateley, a spy, but he did not have one of those available or even know where he might get one. The MCO was a large organization, there had to be a solution because he knew of several mutant organizations that had been infiltrated by specially trained and loyal MCO mutants in the past. It didn’t matter if they sometimes died in the process, at least their deaths helped humanity.
His old commander was stationed out west somewhere and was running some super secret mutant research facility. Perhaps he would know or know someone who would be willing to help?
Happy for the first time in days, Special Agent Lanier pulled up his contacts list and sent Colonel David ‘Buster’ Fairbanks an email. Oh yes, he had a good feeling about this course of action.