“So,” Ms. Trace said, folding her hands atop the conference table as she regarded us smugly. “You’re telling me that after all of this, you’re not unable to produce Audrey, you’re just unwilling.”

“Correct,” Aleah nodded.

“She’s going through a lot right now,” I added. “If the chapter can’t stand on its own, without her, then so be it.”

Jessica wakes up all of sudden. Something caused her to become alert suddenly. She spots Sophie with a knife in her hand pointing towards the door of their room. Jessica reaches out with her gift and touched an unfamiliar mind. The person was trying to see the two women inside the room.

Sophie waits till the door is almost opened and pull it open as fast as she could. She moves out of the way as the person falls forward towards the floor. Sophie moves quickly and presses her knife edge against the person’s neck.

 
Introduction: This story is the fourth and final story in a series within a series. The overall series is the “Cynthia Chronicles”. This story is directly connected to “Simoné and the Second Time Around”, “Marti and the Doppelganger”, and Marti and the Doppelganger – a Follow Up”. Several of the stories in the Cynthia Chronicles left some unanswered questions. In “Bobbie and the Glass Ceiling” two of the antagonists are regressed to childhood. Now we will learn what happened to them. In “Randi and the College Professor” Randi and Frank Deere adopt Betty, a bit of a rogue witch. Betty was regressed to early childhood, but she kept her powers. As it turns out, Betty was a real blessing. We also learn a bit more about Cindy’s first born who is the first new wizard in probably close to a thousand years. Then there is a question that has been floated about. What about death?

Remember Betty? She was the young witch who tried to break up the romance between Randi Lewis and Frank Deere. She didn’t know there were other witches and had never had any formal training until she found a book of programmed learning for witches. She doesn’t understand her power and makes some significant, far reaching mistakes. Betty is given a second chance, and now she is the adopted daughter of the two people she tried to break apart. Things are going quite well as we shall see.

“So you’re telling me the ONE thing we have to do is climb this pile of boxes and crawl through that window?” I stared incredulously at the side of the theater.

“Well if you want to do more philanthropy we could have you clean up the flooding in the front,” Melissa shrugged. “The show is in like two days, we really need to get a bilge pump in there.”

Maxine is on the phone to her boss Sally on the Bank Holiday Monday evening. The events described in this part run in a parallel timeframe to those described in ‘Doing Business’.

“I want to do things right Sally. To me, that includes working out my notice. I don’t want to suddenly up and disappear. What if at some time in the future, I need to use your research team? I don’t want to burn my bridges and all that.”

There was silence down the phone.

“Sally?”

“No, I’m not some monster that you created. I’m trying to be reasonable and behave like an adult.”

Martina's and Aunt Miriam's enjoyment in hitting home runs pays off unexpectedly in an important mathematical breakthrough.

Jessica Harkness had knowingly said, “It was to be expected. An old maid’s last desperate fling. She’ll settle down to a couple of cats and a bitter looking expression permanently glued on her face in a few years, like Felicity Herbert. Nothing surer. Seen it all before I have, Alice. Lord knows what she’ll do when Miss Sophie marries Clara’s boy, for she can’t look after the place. It’s Miss Sophie that does all the woman’s work and no one will send a man round to help Miss Abi, it’s so sour and unpleasant as she is. A fool to herself that one’s been. She should have had half a dozen children by now, but I guess she couldn’t even be pleasant enough to a man to get him into and keep him in her bed. And Lord knows that’s not a difficult thing to do. A well fed and well bed man is like milk loaf dough in even a plain woman’s hands, and plain she is not. And besides it’s no chore, for a woman does need to be kept comfortable or in child so she can go about her work undistracted.”

“Come on Covern, why did you kill that woman that worked for the agency?” Tizzy was leaning over him, trying to get him to talk.
Her partner was standing nearby, just in case she got out of hand. He knew how Tizzy loves to use force to get her answers.

“Maybe he doesn’t talk unless he has a dildo shove up his ass?” Keith walks around him.

Covern was strapped into a metal chair in the interrogation room. There wasn’t any window or furniture in the room. He looks at both police officers and just smile at them.

When I had been promoted of course my father was proud of me, but he couldn’t tell a daughter he was proud of her! So he masked his pride and said, “I have instructed your mother to make enquiries about a husband for you.”

“Hey Doctor, we’ve had a special request come through.” Security Guard Flannery was pulling on a black dog leash attached to a collar around a young girl's neck with long curly black hair.

Dr. Heath turns around to the sound of Flannery’s voice “who is requesting the special request and what do they want?”

“Senator Biggs and he wants you to turn his lesbian of a daughter into a boy.” Flannery yanks on the leash. The teenage girl he had been pulling along on it, comes stumbling into the medical center.

[Sunday Lunchtime at Exeter St David’s Railway Station]

Adrian’s driver, Cliff was waiting for him as he got off the train from Bristol.

“How did last night go Boss?” asked Cliff as he got into the car outside the station.

“I think she will go for it. As Sally said, she has a great brain and she looked pretty good last night. As I’d hoped, she has gone away to think about things.”

Then he changed the subject.

Adrian had worked late into the night following Maxine’s tip about things starting to move. He’d made a couple of long phone calls to contacts of his in the USA before going to bed.

“Any news from Georgia? They should be online about now even if it is a Sunday?”

 
Introduction: This story is the third, the penultimate, in a series within a series. The overall series is the “Cynthia Chronicles”. This story is directly connected to “Simoné and the Second Time Around” and “Marti and the Doppelganger”. The latter left many unanswered questions. Some of those will be answered, some probably not. There are many references to previous stories in the series. If you are confused by some of them, just put it off to my senility. The Cynthia Chronicles takes place in a universe very similar to ours. Unfortunately, it might be too similar.

For any who read “Myrna and the Genetic Disaster”, this is the same story, only with the political rantings and scientific explanations removed. There may also have been a few edits and additions.

This is the eighth part of ten or maybe eleven. I had considered reorganizing the last few chapters of the story as there is quite a bit of skipping around and going back and forth in time. I decided the heck with it and left them as they were.

The girls take a short road trip to Chico, California to visit Rhonda and her family. There is a lot of bonding.

What you don't know, can be taught to you.