“Somebody turn that damn thing off!”

There was of course no response from the empty space and the offending mechanism sat across the room purposely out of reach, continuing its klaxon-like bleating.

Charlotte rolled out of bed and strode over to the phone, not caring that she was unclothed. If whoever was on the other end happened to be offended by the sight of her nudity they could go attempt sexual acts not possible for the greater majority of the male of the species.

No such luck of course, it was the familiar grizzled face that greeted her whenever her services were required.

“Dammit Tommy, don’t you know what time it is?” She did her best to scowl but it was hard with the grin he was sporting.

“Well when I got back from lunch at Papillion it was about 1:30 so… maybe 2? Pretty sure its daylight out for a bit yet though!”

“And this is important for what reason exactly?” She deliberately moved back a bit from the phone to give Tommy more of an eyeful and was rewarded with the widening of his eyes as he realized her state of dress.

“Um… what?”

She allowed herself a small smile. “Where’s the body?”

He regained his focus. “Well that’s the thing… we don’t exactly have one…”

“Right… so… no body? Body parts maybe?”

“Not exactly….”

“Well what exactly do we have then?” At this point she was beginning to realize that the sunlight streaming into her face was entirely too bright for someone who’d had as much to drink as she’d had last night and popped on a set of sport shades that came easily to hand. She briefly wondered where they’d come from and then was reminded by a mild bit of discomfort exactly who had left them.

“Well I don’t quite know how to explain it… you just have to see for yourself. Mel should be there in 5 minutes or so to get you so grab your kit. You’re gonna love this one!”

His face winked off the phone before she could respond but she was already turning toward the bathroom with a sense of desperation quickly building. 10 minutes later she strolled out of the bathroom, hair still wet and precisely as clothed as she had been going in… minus the shades.

“Well now I wouldn’t complain if I had that view every morning!”

Charlotte looked over at the diminutive figure with an old briar pipe in her hand and blew a raspberry.

“Please, you’d have a coronary trying to keep up with me if I were even a little bi!”

She chuckled and relit her pipe. “Yeah but I’d die a happy woman! Now get dressed, I’ve got breakfast waiting on Gunther.”

“We’re in a rush then?”

“Eh, no more than usual really… but I added a couple new mods and I wanted to give him a chance to stretch his legs a bit. Besides, it’s a little choppy and I wasn’t in the mood for a beating today.”

“Still haven’t got Helga back together then?” Charlotte was busy throwing on clothes with seeming wild abandon but when she finished and settled a small infinity necklace just into the top of her partially exposed cleavage it looked like she’d just spent an hour agonizing over the right outfit.

“I’ll never figure out how you do that…”

“What? Just put some clothes on?”

“No, pick the perfect clothes and the perfect jewelry and even the perfect shades! Most women have to work at that!”

“It’s a talent?” She smirked in Mel’s direction, settled her shades in place and grabbed her go bag. “Shall we go?”

They made their way over a deliberately creaky looking walkway and out onto the equally alarming dock where a sleek trimaran waited. It rode fairly low in the water so it was an easy step down for Charlotte but she turned and assisted the smaller woman.

They both strapped in and the noise of a turboprop spooling up was muted as a clear canopy closed over the cockpit and cool conditioned air cleared the humidity. Charlotte opened the container offered and stared at its contents with a quizzical expression on her face. “What the hell is this?”

“I’ll tell you after you eat it…” Mel smirked in her direction as she busied herself with clearing the inlet into open ocean. There was a little bumpiness as they hit the previously mentioned chop but Mel deployed hydroplanes as soon as the depth was sufficient and poured on the throttle. The craft quickly rose up onto its planes and the ride became extremely smooth although their speed was steadily increasing.

Charlotte had finished the offered meal within a couple of minutes and decided her tea was finally drinkable so she pulled out the bag and squeezed to get the last bit out. After a sip and a heartfelt sigh she repeated the question.

“What did I just eat? I know there was grapefruit in there but aside from that…”

“Just grapefruit, avocado and a little Italian dressing.” Mel grinned at her.

“But I detest avocado! Erm… at least I thought I did. I may have to reconsider after eating that…”

“See, all you need is to open your mind a bit!” with that Mel smoothly ramped up the throttles until they were moving along at a fairly stupid speed. “We’ll be there in another 5 minutes so you might as well sit back and enjoy the ride… we just passed Breach Inlet and we’ll be hitting the harbor in a minute. They make me slow way down… idiots.”

True to her word, she throttled back to a speed just sufficient to keep them up on the planes as they passed the tip of Sullivan’s Island and entered the harbor channel properly, slipping past a laden freighter and swooping around to the passenger docks. Mel held position just long enough for Charlotte to clamber ashore before pulling away at what was for her a fairly sedate speed. A young uniformed officer held the door of an unmarked sedan for her and then drove as quickly as midafternoon traffic would allow toward Broad St.

“I’ll have to drop you off a little ways away Charlie, the perimeter is pretty large. You’re going to want these” He handed her a pair of disposable cleanroom booties which she slipped on before exiting the vehicle and ducking under the police tape. She looked back and flashed a smile.

“Thanks Markie. Tell your grandma I said hi and I’ll come visit next week, ok? The uniform looks really good on you kiddo!”

He beamed with pride. “I never woulda made it without you three pushing me Charlie. I’ll make you proud!”

“Markie I couldn’t be more proud of you already and your grandmother feels the same way. You just be yourself, that’s all. Let Mike take care of you a little more, you know he wants to. He understands more than you think…”

“I know…” He sighed “Its just… hard for me.”

“You know you can always give me or Mel a call if you need.”

“Mostly I don’t need anymore. Mike is good for me that way… and you’re right, he does understand. Its just that… we went through ten kinds of hell together and sometimes we can trigger each other, ya know?”

“And you don’t think there’s a reason I’m single? Yeah, I know…”

“I’ll tell grandma like you said. This is a nasty one…”

“Yeah I kinda figured from the booties. Now go home to your husband, I know you’re off shift already.”

“Yes Ma’am!” He threw a salute and rolled away laughing at her return gesture.

Charlotte turned and made her way down the street until the crime scene revealed itself. It wasn’t exactly hard to find.

“Tommy when you said you didn’t exactly have a body I definitely did not think along these lines! Talk about going Postal!” She shook her head as she surveyed the scene. The steps that ran along the front of the Post Office were sprayed with gore reaching halfway up the windows. It had leaked out across the sidewalk and into the storm drains before congealing in place and becoming a sort of chunky jelly.

“Well you know we never call you for normal stuff Charlie. We still can’t quite figure out how it was even done! Nobody saw or heard anything, there’s nothing on video and you know this street has mad surveillance cameras! We got as far as figuring out they probably used a woodchipper but that’s it.”

“How long till you have the DNA profile?”

“Profiles, multiple. 3 of them and no matches yet” He gestured at the scene. “Woulda taken one hell of a fat guy to make a mess this size”

“So all 3 profiles were male?”

“That’s the only similarity. Aside from that, we’ve got a Pacific Islander, a Northern European and a West African so they could be from pretty much anywhere. In a few hours they are going to be mostly in the drain…” He looked almost mournful at the idea, affronted that nature would be so inconsiderate as to wipe away his crime scene before he was done with it.

“You know, you could strain everything that gets into the drains… might get some particulates you’d miss otherwise…” She was scanning the scene, taking all the imagery she could get from her very expensive detection and photographic gear.

“Yeah I thought about that… rains gonna be too heavy for anything I’ve got as a filter though.”

“Try multiple layers of cloth, like muslin, something like that.” She paused for a moment. “Hey the distribution here looks pretty even. Have yawl been able to tell where one guy ends and the next one begins?”

He goggled at her for a moment. “Um… I don’t know. I’ll make sure we have a mapped survey before it rains.”

“Thanks Tommy, you’re a champ. Can you forward me everything you have? I’ve got a few things to take care of so I’ll be in town for a few more hours. Call if you need, ok?” She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek and made her way past the crime scene tape, stashing her booties in a plastic baggie and putting them in her purse after marking it. She strode along East Bay until reaching an alleyway which concealed the entry to a restaurant.

As she stepped inside she was greeted immediately by a warm tenor “Miss Charlotte, how nice to see you today. Would you like your usual place?”

“Good to see you too Jervy. The usual spot is fine. How’s May doing?” They walked up the staircase as they talked.

“She’s doing well, mending up just fine. I will never understand why that girl likes to do crazy things like jump out of a perfectly good airplane…” He shook his head mournfully.

“Right, nothing at all like top fuel dragsters then?” She smirked at him.

“Nothing at all alike! I stay on the ground at all times!” He protested.

“I seem to recall a car that got about 30 feet off the ground one day…”

“Well yeah but it wasn’t supposed to do that!” He chuckled ruefully. “Point taken. Glass houses and stones, yada yada…”

She slid into the chair he held for her and turned away the offered menu. “I don’t need it today Jervy. Can you see if Yves has some of his special roast and maybe just something light? Whatever he’s working on will do just fine. Tell May I asked her to call, will you?”

“I’ll do that. Girl needs to spend more time outside of that lab anyway. Its not good to spend so much time working. A night out partying with you lot is exactly what she needs. Thanks Miss Charlotte!”

“Don’t thank me yet. You’re the one who has to tend the hangover!”

“I think I’ve got just a bit of experience tending my daughter’s hangovers. Never fear, my Bloody Mary’s will save the day after!” They shared a grin and he moved off toward the kitchen while she pulled out a tablet and began working away at the imagery she had gathered earlier. A detail caught her eye, fine droplets reaching above the larger more visible splashes of gore.

Flipping through a few filtered views she pulled out further detail and noted what she found, dashing a note off to Tommy to ensure they took samples all the way up the face of the building and on the roof as well as across the street and on the roof there. She didn’t have a clear idea what she was looking at but the details had triggered the beginnings of one.

She looked up from her tablet and noticed that a carafe and cup had appeared so took the opportunity to pour herself a cup ad then spooned sugar into it before taking a deep breath of the vapor and then a cautious sip. A little sigh of contentment escaped as she turned her attention back to her work, finally putting the tablet away as Yves appeared with a plate.

“Hiya Yves, whatcha got today?”

“Just a small treat. Shrimp ceviche and a cup of she-crab soup. Interested in company for lunch?”
He flashed a million watt smile and her resolve to work suddenly fled.

“Of course, have a seat. Will you eat?” she saw Jervy arrive with a plate identical to her own. “Nevermind…”

He chuckled at her and she felt a familiar little tingle from the joy in it. “Sorry I ran out this morning… after last night I thought you’d want to sleep in a little and I had to be here….”

She reached over to touch his hand. “You just have to come back to make it up to me then… and maybe to get your shades…” She ended with a little teasing lilt and he swallowed hard.

“I wouldn’t dream of disappointing you. Maybe one day you will let me do a little more than stay the night, eh?” He took her hand in his and caressed the back of it gently with his thumb causing little thrills of pleasure.

“You know better than that Yves.” She slipped her hand free and picked up her spoon.

“I do Cherie, but you can’t blame a guy for trying. Maybe one day you will decide to share your life with someone and I would like to have a shot at being that someone.”

“I’m flattered Yves and I do have feelings for you… but you have to understand how hard that is for me. Maybe one day…”

“As you wish.” He joined her in eating and they sat in companionable silence until finishing.

“Thank you for leaving the cilantro out of my ceviche. It was wonderful but the soup is the true star! That was superb Yves, thank you.” She grinned at him and he returned the smile.

“Anything for you Cherie. I heard about the gore-fest over there, any ideas yet?”

She brought him up to speed on what was known so far and he shook his head. “Even in the army I never heard of such a thing! At least Thomas had the sense to call you. I’m sure you’ll have it figured out soon.”

“Your faith is touching. I’ve got a few things to attend to before I head back home.” She leaned over and gave him a quick kiss before rising and making her way out. Yves followed her out of sight with a wistful gaze before rising and bussing their table, heading back into the kitchen to continue preparing for dinner.

Charlotte emerged into the afternoon heat and made her way over a couple of streets to a concealed parking garage, waving at the attendant as she entered. She strapped on the gleaming vehicle that awaited, the door pulling down to close with a satisfyingly muffled thump as it seated and the locks engaged. The vehicle came alive and slid almost silently out of its space, rising on its suspension to give greater ground clearance.

Another wave to the attendant as she left and she was making her way off the peninsula, grateful for the soft and forgiving suspension which smoothed the uneven streets. Once she pulled onto the expressway to James Island speed increased and her car lowered itself, changing to highway mode. She kept herself to 75 miles per hour, confident the built in countermeasures would deflect radar and lidar but aware that she could only push it so far in this sort of traffic.

Afternoon rush hour had yet to begin so within a few minutes she made her way over to highway 17 and was soon out of town, traffic thinning as she passed Dodge’s. 20 minutes and some very aggressive driving later she crossed onto Edisto Island and soon pulled into a garage under a massively built beach house, plugging the car in before she made her way up into the house itself. Physical needs took priority and had her hurrying for the bathroom, exiting a moment later with a feeling of relief.

She wasn’t sure why she had felt the need to come to this house right now. It made her remember things she would rather forget, torments that had very nearly killed her before her husband and captor had a careless moment and enabled her to snatch a small paring knife. She concealed it until he got close enough and lashed out, catching him across the carotid artery.

He had backed away, blood fountaining from the wound and tried to hold it as he began to lose strength and sat on the floor abruptly. She sobbed and clutched her weapon with convulsive strength, watching him bleed out onto the cold tiles and wishing she could feel something other than relief as the blood spread between the cracks and reached in her direction. She crouched there for a very long time until the grey of morning made its way across the sky and reason came back to her slowly.

She managed to get his phone out of his pocket but screamed in frustration when she couldn’t unlock it. A search of his rapidly cooling corpse was futile and she began to wonder if she would be trapped here to die of starvation with a rotting corpse. The house was built like a fortress and locked down tightly with massive security doors, bullet resistant glass on the windows. She had tried for months to break out when he left but nothing she could do would more than scar the finish around a door or two.

Several hours of fruitless searching had her on the ragged edge of utter exhaustion, almost ready to admit defeat. The depression that came over her was so overwhelming she almost missed the muffled knocking at the door to the garage staircase.

“Mr Mcnair, is everything ok? This is deputy Rowling.”

There was a moment of silence and then the knock came again, louder. “Mr Mcnair, your car was crashed through your garage door, are you ok in there?”

When she first heard the knocking she could only assume it had been one of the men who had come to rape and torture her but after a moment she began to unfreeze. Even if it was one of the men, at least she wouldn’t starve to death in the prison this house was. The feeling of relief was so strong it was everything she cold to gather enough strength to go stumbling toward the door and weakly pound on it.

“Help me please. He’s dead and I can’t get out and I’ve been here so long…” She collapsed in tears, slumping against the door. She woke with a start at renewed pounding on the door.

“Miss, you need to move as far away from the door as you can ok? We’re about to tear it out of the wall and we don’t want you to get hurt. Can you get around a corner or behind something?”

She did as instructed going around a corner and peering past to see the door. “Okay, I’m safe now!” She yelled as loudly as she could manage.

“Okay, stay safe, we‘re starting now!”

He proved true to his word as the whine of hydraulics in the garage built to a crescendo and the door began to slowly pull away, dragging a fair portion of wall with it. It finally tore away with a rending screech and a thunderous fall down the stairs.

Before she could even move men came through the door dressed in full body armor, pointing weapons in every direction. In just a moment they declared the house clear except for the corpse and the woman huddled against a wall sobbing, trembling with fear. She was a fearsome sight, covered in blood, congealed blood matting her hair to her head, completely naked and clutching a tiny paring knife.

One of the men in regular uniform sat down a few feet in front of her, crossing his legs and sitting silently until she looked up.

“I’m Deputy Rowling. I was the one knocking on the door. I know this is hard for you but you need to tell me something, ok?”

His expression was gentle and she nodded.

“Do you need a doctor right away?” He watched her expression lose its slight relaxation and become something like terror as she shook her head violently.

“Okay, but you do have an awful lot of blood on you…” His tone was doubtful.

“Not mine…” she managed to get out.

“Okay, can you give me the knife? Nobody here is going to hurt you, I promise.” He watched unmoving as she looked down at the knife in her hands as if seeing it for the first time before she convulsively threw it away from her to clatter on the hardwood in the living area.

“Will you let the paramedics take a look at you? You might not be bleeding but you like you’ve been beaten half to death.” He drew another man near.

“This is Kenneth. He’s a paramedic and he’ll give you a quick examination, ok?” She nodded, still fearful but too exhausted to continue fighting.

With gentle movements Kenneth helped her to unfold herself and examined her while using wipes to remove as much of the blood as possible. His expressions as her bruises were uncovered gained a glittering hardness and she could tell he was becoming angry.

“I’m sorry. I’m too much trouble. Just leave me alone, I’ll be ok… I’ve had worse.” She was still tense, resisting slightly when he tried to maneuver an arm or leg to examine and clean it after taking swabs.

“Girl if you’ve had worse I’m amazed you’re alive. We really need to get you to the trauma center at MUSC as quickly as possible. The helo will be here in ten minutes and you need to go with them, ok?” He was wiping the last of the blood from her face and she gave a murmur of assent, too numb to give much more of a response.

He stayed with her and when they tried to transfer her to a backboard for transport she resisted, insisting on walking. It wasn’t much of a walk, more like managing to move her feet while Kenneth supported her weight. Moving slowly they made it out to the beach where the helo waited and as soon as everyone was secured they lifted and made best speed to Charleston.

Soon they were landing and the hustle of triage began in earnest. She suffered silently, only whimpering occasionally when one of her old breaks was handled carelessly. A sedative was offered once she’d told her story to the police and the doctors what seemed like a thousand times and finally, thankfully, the pain began to recede until it was a dull roar rather than the screaming agony it had been and she was able to begin to relax.

Relaxed or not, every time someone touched her even lightly she flinched away. Finally after what seemed like days of tests and machines she was left alone in a room with the lights dimmed after being given another sedative. Even with chemical assistance she lay there for hours, replaying the worst of the ordeals in her mind, feeling each remembered agony as keenly as she had when it happened. That was the closest she had come to a dream in a very long time.

Over the months the whole story came out, lurid details of her suffering in captivity, even doubts as to how much she could have suffered. They pointed to photos of their happy honeymoon, their years spent travelling the globe as a glamourous couple and the idyllic life they had shared. No one ever seemed to mention the threats to her loved ones, the wrath that left her unable to hide some of the bruises and the weeks she would spend away from the public eye while the latest healed.

No one had taken it amiss when her usual months long absences turned into a year, then two. By then all of her friends had faded away, their overtures being coolly rebuffed by her husband or simply unanswered. She had been utterly alone with no one to care that she lived or died and the knowledge had eaten at her soul. The only thing that kept her going was the birds she could see from the windows, the fact that she could see life existed outside her prison.

Once or twice a week he would bring food, never more than just enough for a week if she ate sparingly. He didn’t trust her to cook for him, she had shrieked and fought her defiance until he simply beat her into submission. Eventually she learned to try to please him but it never mattered, the beatings never grew less brutal, the rape never less painful and humiliating. 5 years of hell, of terror and pain and she was finally free, at least in body.

Bones that had set badly had to be rebroken and allowed to heal properly and after that there was physical therapy, a slow agonizing crawl to simply be able to walk again. Once the bandages from reconstructive surgery came off she had to get used to a new face in the mirror. She had to admit that a lot of the flaws she had seen in her own hypercritical self-examination had been corrected. She was perhaps a little too flawless, everything in perfect proportion, the scarring completely hidden.

She had the beach house repaired but did not return. Instead she found a small island in the marshes that had a dilapidated old shack and a dangerous looking old dock. She paid a great deal of money to have it turned into a self sufficient fortress while retaining the abandoned look. The pier still looked like it would fall down at a stiff breeze but in reality would be untouched by a category 5 hurricane… as would the rest of her home.

It became her refuge as she gradually learned to move, to run, to fight. She studied exhaustively, devouring everything she could on any subject. She hunted and fished for food in the surrounding marshes as her physical condition improved and by the time she was ready to rejoin the world 3 years later she was an entirely different person from the trusting little girl desperate for validation of her identity as a woman.

Her hair had regrown to the small of her back and she was at a peak of physical fitness few ever attained. She never competed formally but her times for running, biking or swimming almost any distance were world class for male athletes, much less for other female ones.

In all this time she had not spoken to a soul, did not even speak to herself. She didn’t see another human being the entire time, having her meds delivered to a mailbox she checked once a month. It suited her, gave her time to heal from the years of horror and pain, time to learn not to hate herself all over again. Nothing could change her now instinctive distrust of others though.

The little girl who had felt free to tell her parents she wasn’t a boy, couldn’t pretend to be one anymore and been sure they would love her and help her be who she truly was.. That trusting little girl was gone forever and in her place was a grown woman with a need, a hunger, to bring men like the one who had killed her parents and stolen her from everything she had ever known to justice. A woman who wore the scars of her survival proudly.

Eventually she began to make her way to town, gradually acclimating to being around other people again, learning not to flinch when someone came too close, learning to speak again in a way. At first just enough to order a meal, in a voice almost too low to be heard as she looked downward, never meeting anyone’s eyes. She would eat quickly and neatly, never leaving a crumb or slight smear of sauce and then disappear, leaving a tip often larger than her bill.

No one knew her name, no one knew where she lived, only that she would arrive in a hired sedan and leave the same way. Only the staff at the various restaurants she patronized recognized her and they all deferred to her desire for silence, only speaking to her when she asked a question. She enrolled in postgraduate studies at three of the universities in her area, splitting her time between the Citadel, University of Charleston and the Medical University of South Carolina, completing multiple post grad degrees and proceeding to add doctorates in diverse fields.

In all this time, she never spoke unless spoken to, and only the minimum of words required. Her classmates knew her only as the ghost who seemed to always fade from sight even in the middle of a crowded room. None of them even knew her name and more than a few thought she could not speak at all.

She moved though the world as though she were not truly part of it, in some ways as though she simply didn’t exist. She didn’t want it to be that way, she wanted to have friends who she could share everything with, a normal life, someone to love and to trust with all of her being. She wondered if that had been taken away from her forever by that monster. Had she killed him only to spend the rest of her days in a prison of his making?

One day she arrived home to find an old wooden canoe tied up to her dock with an old woman who appeared to be taking a nap. Her skin was the color of dark milk chocolate and the wrinkles in her face seemed like a roadmap to a long and adventurous life. As Charlotte let her boat silently drift to kiss the dock and tied off the woman sat up and smiled.

It was an extravagant smile, one that told stories of love and life and pain and loss but mostly of endurance. “Its good to see you child.”

Charlotte was dumbfounded. Here in front of her was a woman she had thought long dead, the woman who had rocked Marcus and her in their cradles and sung to them of wild and magical worlds, of the marshes and the demons and spirits who dwelt within.

“Grandmother! How? I thought you were gone, dead… Oh god I’m so happy to see you!” She almost fell into the water trying to hug between boats until they clambered onto the dock and stood there for what seemed like ages clinging to each other.

Finally the older woman held her at arm’s length, examining her from head to toe. “For a dead girl, you look pretty good!”

“Rumors of my demise were greatly exaggerated Grams… it was a close run thing though. I can’t tell you how many times your words kept me from killing myself. I survived though, and I killed the raping bastard that killed my parents and stole me.” The steely tone in her voice was tempered with pain.

“I know you did child, and I’m proud of you… you did the Lord’s work that day. I’m worried about you though, you keep to yourself too much. Marcus does too since he got home from the war. I think it’d be good for the 2 of you to have a few drinks together, maybe start to learn how to talk again, you know?”

She must have seen the look on Charlotte’s face. “I know better than to try getting you two together hon… he and Mike are good together. I just think you might be able to help each other out a little. Neither one of you says a single word you don’t absolutely have to and you’ve both closed yourself off from everyone. You’re both hurting and I don’t know how to help. I never could help Henry, god rest his soul. He climbed into a bottle when he got home from Vietnam and just never came out. I don’t want that for my grandson…”

“Grams you know I’ll do everything I can to help. I’d rather keep my home a secret though. Maybe at your house?”

The old woman shook her head “It was the boy who found the place so nevermind secrets. He misses you child, you’re the sister he never got to have. Now I’m gonna go get him, I’ll be back in an hour or so. Why don’t you pull up some of those oysters you’ve got hanging in the water and get em on for a roast? I’ll bring Marcus and the beer but after that I’ll leave you two alone ok?”

“That actually sounds like a really good idea, thanks Grams.” They hugged again and the older woman paddled away seeming like she hadn’t a care in the world. Charlotte watched her until trees obscured her from sight and then went about getting things ready. She carefully built a fire on a concrete slab she’d left bare for the purpose, covering it with a sheet of corrugated metal roofing and setting a bucket full of water soaked burlap bags beside the fire. All preparation finished, she sat in a lawn chair watching the beginnings of a glorious sunset over the marsh, allowing her mind to wander with the noises of seabirds and the flipping splashes of schooling shrimp.

Over the past few years she had learned to be still within herself, to sit there as one with nature, breathing in tune with the land and water itself, feeling the myriad of small lives that surrounded her refuge, the refuge they shared with her. The slow quiet dip of a paddle into the water, the slight ripple that formed at the bow announced the arrival of the canoe and its silent cargo.

True to her word, the older woman unloaded a large cooler of beer along with 2 bottles of single malt before paddling away without a word, leaving her grandson standing awkwardly on the pier.

Charlotte wordlessly waved toward a chair and handed him a beer before she began to scatter the oysters onto the tin and cover them with the wet burlap. Another layer of tin went atop that and they sat in silence for a time while the oysters steamed. By the time the first batch was ready they had both finished a six pack and shared a shot each but the only words that had passed between them came when they clinked shot glasses and toasted “Absent Companions”.

Two wounded souls found companionship in a way that they had not for many years as dusk turned to darkness, lit only by the dim glow of their fire and fireflies off in the marsh. When the time came they removed the top layer of sheeting and sacks and each donned a heavy glove on one hand, picking up a stubby thick handled and bladed knife in the other. For a time they simply sat there, shucking oysters and slurping the liquor like the nectar of the sea that it was before letting the oysters slide on down to have a swim in beer.

The shells were flung out into the night in every direction to help establish new wild beds, a ritual humanity had followed since arriving in this place tens of thousands of years before. Together they spread a second layer to steam and then sat in the darkness again.

“I’m glad you killed that bastard.”

She paused, considering for a long moment. “I’m not. I haven’t slept the night through since I got off the meds. No matter how much he did to me I can’t get it out of my head, him pleading for me to save him and me hating him so badly that I wanted him to bleed forever. It doesn’t matter that there was nothing I could do anyway…”

She trailed off, sure she’d said too much and was surprised when he reached over and enveloped her in a hug. “Welcome to the soldier side Charlie…I’m sorry it had to be that way. I’m sorry I went off and signed up and wasn’t there to protect my little sister from that bastard.”

“It wasn’t your fault Markie… you had to go deal with your own demons, kill your own monsters. I know why you left and if you remember I’m the one who told you to do it. Don’t ever be sorry on my account big brother. The thing that matters is that we are both still here. We both lived through our own hells and came out the other side.”

“I don’t think you ever really get out of hell Charlie. It eats its way into your soul and never leaves.”

The darkness and sounds of the marsh enveloped them as they sat there, each trying to gather the courage to say what needed to be said. She was the one to break the silence first.

“I’m so sorry I got between you and Mike, caused you both so much trouble… I’m sorry I convinced him to sign up. He missed you so badly once you were gone and it became clear to both of us that it was truly you he was in love with. Its my fault you both had to go into that hellhole…” She was crying silently, tears glistening on her cheeks in reflected firelight.

“Never apologize Charlie. Shit happens and we both made it through mostly intact. Its not your fault some intel weenie fucked us over… but Mike and I made it out of there because we had to get back to you. We both love you Charlie, you’re our sister and so much more…” He was crying too now.

“Charlie we thought you were dead… no one had seen or heard of you for years… We even had a funeral, burned a boat and everything… We had no idea you were 60 miles away…”

This time it was her who moved over and enveloped him in a hug, stroking his hair as he cried against her chest. Finally she pulled his face up and forced him to meet her eyes.

“Markie, its not your fault. You and Mike did everything you could but not even the locals knew I was being held there… It was just luck he was so eager to beat on me that he didn’t wait for his garage door to open. I would have starved to death in that prison if that deputy hadn’t thought to check things out.” She stroked his check and then kissed it. “I’m touched by the Viking funeral. Thank you, both of you for that.”

“Grams lit the pyre.”

“Sounds like her.” She climbed off his lap and plopped herself into her own chair. “Now we’ve got us another bushel of oysters to kill and we’ve only just touched the whiskey.” She raised her voice so it carried into the darkness. “Mike I know you’re out there, I heard your bow ripple. Get on over here and give me a hug and then show your husband some love, will you?”

“Yes Ma’am!” came from the darkness and she could hear as he dug in with his paddle, quickly pulling up and tying off before stepping ashore. “I wanted you two to have a little time first…”

“Thank you for that Mike, you’re an angel.” She hugged him hard. “Now sit down, lets have a drink and get down to some serious eating!”

2 additional bushels were consumed and by the time dawn broke the whiskey was gone and the last beer was being drained. Charlotte showed them to a large bedroom with a king sized bed and helped both of them roll into it, watching them snuggle into each other with contented sighs before making her way into her own bed and falling fast asleep, still clothed and drooling into her pillow.

“Markie, its not your fault. You and Mike did everything you could but not even the locals knew I was being held there… It was just luck he was so eager to beat on me that he didn’t wait for his garage door to open. I would have starved to death in that prison if that deputy hadn’t thought to check things out.” She stroked his check and then kissed it. “I’m touched by the Viking funeral. Thank you, both of you for that.”

“Grams lit the pyre.”

“Sounds like her.” She climbed off his lap and plopped herself into her own chair. “Now we’ve got us another bushel of oysters to kill and we’ve only just touched the whiskey.” She raised her voice so it carried into the darkness. “Mike I know you’re out there, I heard your bow ripple. Get on over here and give me a hug and then show your husband some love, will you?”

“Yes Ma’am!” came from the darkness and she could hear as he dug in with his paddle, quickly pulling up and tying off before stepping ashore. “I wanted you two to have a little time first…”

“Thank you for that Mike, you’re an angel.” She hugged him hard. “Now sit down, lets have a drink and get down to some serious eating!”

2 additional bushels were consumed and by the time dawn broke the whiskey was gone and the last beer was being drained. Charlotte showed them to a large bedroom with a king sized bed and helped both of them roll into it, watching them snuggle into each other with contented sighs before making her way into her own bed and falling fast asleep, still clothed and drooling into her pillow.

And Now ********

Still unsure why she had come here Charlotte changed into a swimsuit and made her way out onto the beach, ensconcing herself in a chaise lounge and poring over the imagery from her tablet again. Something about the patterns, the way the gore splashed and then ran through cracks and crevices was bothering her and she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. It reminded her of the scene that had occurred in the house behind her but there was something wrong.

After an hour of fruitless searching she decided to give her mind a rest and went for a swim, finding herself accompanied by a small pod of dolphins. They swam and frolicked until the shadows began to lengthen and she took her leave of the small family. She took a quick shower of lukewarm water to wash the salt off before going inside and changing back into her clothes from earlier. Her car was waiting for her, seeming almost eager as she strapped in and slowly made her way off the island, waving to Deputy Rowling as she passed him parked in his usual spot behind the “Welcome to Edisto Beach” sign. He tipped his hat to her and made a “call me” motion, smiling when she nodded.

Once out of his sight she started pushing it and was doing well over 170 as she blew through Adam’s Run. She enjoyed pushing herself, her reactions on these narrow back country roads and the police knew better than to bother chasing her. Her vehicle was quite distinctive and if one of them felt the need to issue a ticket they would… but it hadn’t happened yet. She had raced half of them growing up on these same roads anyway and had never accepted pinks when she won.

Within 30 minutes she was pulling back into her semi-concealed spot in the downtown garage and giving her machine a fond pat while plugging it in. There was time so she decided a little treat was in order and made her way over to the Market for a dalliance with a gigantic slice of triple fudge cake and a couple of chocolate appletinis at Kaminsky’s. She was still engrossed in the imagery from the crime scene, feeling there was something right in front of her eyes that was missing. The staff was used to her oddities and huge tips so she was largely left to herself, although they did seat her with her back to the wall given the things she was working on.

She preferred the dessert bar in part because of the clientele. In a normal coffee shop or bar she would be bothered by people looking for a date or a hookup or even just some conversation but here the rowdy drunks were mostly female and generally not on the prowl. It didn’t hurt that the desserts were not just the best in town but served in portions large enough to enable 2 to split a single piece of cake and still be stuffed.

She had been there for what seemed like only a few minutes when a large presence settled in opposite her, picked up her fork and proceeded to demolish the large piece of cake she’d left and killed her drink to wash it down. She looked up and grinned at Tommy as he rubbed his moderate belly.

“You know one of these days you’re gonna mistake some other woman for me and get a fork in your hand for that trick.”

“Not likely, you’re pretty distinctive. I don’t know how you manage to eat while looking at that stuff. Which brings me to my point.” He leaned forward and his voice lowered a little. “There are microdroplets all up and down the street and even the next street over toward the Battery. On the roofs, in the trees, all over. How the hell does that happen?”

Charlotte put her tablet down and blanked the screen. “Tommy, as soon as I figure it out I’ll tell you. Right now all the options I can think of just don’t fit. We’ll see what the lab gives us tomorrow. Did you get the filters for the drains sorted out?”

“I took your advice, went to a fabric store and got a few bolts of cloth that will do the job quite well. It all had to be cleaned and sterilized but the filters are in place as of 30 minutes ago. We’ve got a couple of people down there to remove them if it starts to flood so we don’t lose evidence to backflow. Even if it doesn’t bring us anything useful on this case it is certainly something we’ll keep in the toolbox. What other sort of tricks do you know?”
“Always glad to help out Tommy but I don’t know any tricks…” she smirked to herself at his expression. “I do know Nora is waiting for you and I’m sure she’s hungry. Go get some sleep Tommy.”

“She’s a lab, she’s always hungry! But you’re right, I’ve been going since 0 stupid thirty.” He yawned and she pointed to a car that had just rolled to a stop outside.

“Your ride is here.”

He looked at the car and her and smiled. “Thanks. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Likely.”

He stood to go and turned back to her for a moment. “Charlotte… just… please be careful, OK?” He walked away without waiting for a response and she watched him get into the car before it rolled away on its safely automated journey.

Just as she stood to follow a call came in and she toggled her earpiece to accept. “Well fancy getting a call from a sexy man at this hour. How was the evening?”

She laughed at his response. “So, something can take your attention away from food, eh?” Leaving her usual discrete cash tip at the table she made her way out onto the street and began walking back toward Unity Alley. “I’ll be there by the time you can get yourself out of the kitchen!”

She disconnected the call and slowed her normal businesslike walk knowing it took more than 5 minutes for Yves to get out of the kitchen much less the restaurant. She used the time to order a car for them then just strolled along looking at the remnants of the dining crowd. The serious party crowd was just starting to crank up and the admixture could provide some entertaining people watching.

The atmosphere was a little subdued but there was a humming in her nerves, a tension born only partly from the distant booming of the approaching storm that lit ominous thunderheads from within. She found herself watching passersby with an eye tuned to more than just idle people, looking for the threat she could feel lurking somewhere in the city she loved. She absently toggled the incoming call and was a little surprised to hear Mel’s voice.

“Meet me at the dock as soon as you pick Yves up. This storm is gonna get nasty and I want to get you two home safely before it hits.” She sounded like her usual laid back self but with an undercurrent of the same tension Charlotte felt.

“I’m not even going to ask. You plan on staying at mine?”

“Nope, going on to spend the night with Tina at hers. Not a night to be alone, you know?”

Charlotte laughed. “Right, I bet you’re all shakin in your boots! Strumpet!”

“You’re one to talk! Cya in a few!” Mel disconnected.

In another minute she arrived at the door to the restaurant just as Yves was escorting diners out and bidding them good evening. The car rolled up just as he turned to Charlotte and she allowed him to open the door before she slid in and he followed. Within five minutes they were at the dock where Mel was waiting with the canopy open. They were quickly seated and making headway through what had become an extremely rough chop until Mel was able to get up on the planes.

The ride became fairly tense as Mel gained speed but kept it quite a bit below the speed she had achieved that morning. Even riding foils it was rough, wind rising and buffeting the little craft to and fro. By the time they pulled up to Charlotte’s dock Mel was visibly stressed, clipping out a curt goodbye and taking off as quickly as they were clear.

Charlotte followed with her eyes until Yves drew her attention by pulling her around for a kiss. They made their way indoors but Charlotte didn’t fully relax until she got a text from Mel notifying her of a safe arrival at her girlfriend’s home. With that worry taken care of she was able to enjoy the dinner Yves had brought for them to share and soon they were sharing a smoke and a cocktail while watching the storm roll in from offshore. They both enjoyed the wildness of the marsh in this kind of weather and the lightshow nature was providing but after a time Yves clearly had other things on his mind and as he kissed her and stroked sensitive spots she gradually caught fire.

The remainder of the storm went unnoticed, at least by them. When Charlotte awoke she lay there for a moment in the cool morning light listening to rain still pounding down outside. Yves stirred and mumbled as she gently moved his arm and slid out from under, making her way to the bathroom without waking him. Her thoughts were back on the case until he joined her in the shower and they spent a time enjoying each other before turning to the business of getting clean which was in itself quite sensual.

By the time she was dressed Yves was just plating duck egg omelets for both and pulling a pan of crispy bacon from one of the ovens, croissants from another. He slid the plates onto the table and sat opposite her.

“You went to Edisto yesterday?”

She found herself unable to look at him for some reason and didn’t reply for a moment as she addressed a croissant, immersing herself in the taste and smell. “Something told me to go back there and… I don’t know. Its not as hard as it used to be. I swam with a dolphin family and it was freeing somehow. I think I finally realized the ghost haunting that place wasn’t actually him… it was me.”

“So it was good?” She pulled her eyes from the food and finally looked up into his face with a question on her lips. “I know what it is, to be a ghost. You feel like you should not have survived and wonder if you really did…”

He looked so sad in that moment, it was instinctive to reach across the table and capture his hand with her own. “No one should have to know that feeling…”

They held hands for a moment, each of them taking comfort from the simple contact. When they finally did release and go back to eating it was a moment before either of them spoke.

“I don’t want you to go anywhere Yves…” She trailed off and then gathered herself. “I mean… I want you to stay. More than just overnight, I mean. However long… you know…” That was as much as she could get out and she sat there watching as he examined her and chewed.

“I don’t want you to feel like I’m pressuring you… but I think I have been clear about what I want. Are you sure you want this?” He took another bite and this time it was him sitting there watching while she toyed with her food.

“This is so much harder than I thought it would be…” she had taken to ripping the remnants of her croissant into little pieces. “Yes, I’m sure I want this… you… I have been for a long time now. Its just extremely difficult for me to truly let anyone in. Into my home, yes, but more importantly into my heart. To even admit that I want that was so hard to do... I’ve been so terrified I kept you at arm’s length and I shouldn’t have.”

She had finally finished ripping her croissant to shreds and was now breaking off little pieces of bacon to stack on a bite of omelet. She finally lifted her fork and stuck it in her mouth, chewing slowly as she watched him finish eating. He wordlessly rose and took both of their plates at a slight nod from her, placing them in the sink before he turned and took her hand, pulling Charlotte to her feet and into his arms. She clung to him tightly and they just stood there for a time taking comfort in each other’s embrace.

“I really need to get a better boat then…” he chuckled and she relished the sound, the smell of him.

Charlotte pulled back and looked into his eyes. “I, um, have something to show you…” She led him down a corridor to a heavily reinforced hatch and keyed the combination. Thick bolts retracted and she hauled against it with all her weight causing it to swing silently open. The familiar surroundings of the “parking lot” were revealed but floating moored next to her sleek 2 seat ‘foil was another with similar coloring and a larger model that would seat 6 easily with significant cargo.

“Mel has been working on these for me… I had the larger model in the works for a while now but you need a runabout too…” She trailed off uncertainly.

He swept her up into a hug and just held her for a moment. “Thank you Cheri… No one has ever given me a boat before! I don’t even know what to say!”

She laughed at his glee and deadpanned “Say you’ll let Mel teach you how to pilot it.” He looked at her with mock hurt and she giggled at him again. “These things are massively overpowered and as touchy as a racing bike on steroids. The autocompensators make them easy to pilot at a decent speed but if you are in rough conditions or need a serious turn of speed it’s a different animal. Screwing up in those conditions can get you killed.”

He sobered and looked at the boat with new respect. “Why won’t you teach me?”

“I really suck as a teacher. Besides, you need to learn good habits, not my habits. Would you like me trying to teach you how to drive Oscar?”

“I think not. I’ve never seen better but I don’t have a clue how you do it and I don’t want to know. Your driving scares the hell out of me!” Yves shook his head as she laughed at his response. “I will ask Mel.”

She unexpectedly hugged him tightly. “Thank you Yves… I couldn’t stand to lose you…”

He was a little lost at her sudden turn and could only hold her as she clung to him. When she finally did let go she looked up into his face, gave a quick nod of satisfaction to herself and detached to lead him back out of the “parking lot” before she secured the hatch.

“I have no real reason to leave the house today...” Charlotte looked over her shoulder at him as he followed her down the corridor.

A little later they lay intertwined on her bed catching their breath and Charlotte was absorbed in the way light fell across his chest as his breathing began to slow, half in a daze and still not quite sure she hadn’t had an out of body experience. “I could get used to this…” she groaned out and he chuckled.

“I don’t think I could Cherie… My heart won’t stand it…” Yves laughed again and she relished the sound, velvety and rich. “But I would die a very happy man!”

“You don’t get to die anytime soon Mr Montgolfier!”

“As you wish… I suppose I will only be mostly dead, eh?” He chuckled again as she swatted him lightly.

“You’re hardly a Dread Pirate… but you are my Wesley.” She kissed him deeply before rolling away and to her feet. When she came out of the bathroom he was engrossed in a news story about the killings, staring at the screen with morbid fascination at the scene as it had looked the previous day, then at a flash of a reporter standing in the rain gesturing at the now much cleaner building and sidewalk.

“Police have no solid leads on what they say are the grisly murders of 3 men. Their remains were deposited all over the front of the Post Office here on Broad Street in an as yet unknown way. Police tell us the investigation is ongoing and ask that anyone who saw anything night before last on Broad Street between 4:00 and 5:00. If you have any information call the local police or our tip line here at channel 5. For Live 5 News, I’m Debbi Jacobs.”

The scene cut away to the anchor desk and a man began droning on about street closures due to flooding. That was hardly news to anyone who had lived in the area more than a year or two and they tuned it out by habit, Charlotte with the old familiarity of a native daughter and Yves with the casual disregard of a transplant who’d grown roots.

Yves looked over and saw the suddenly grim expression on Charlotte’s face. A wisecrack died unuttered and he swore under his breath in French before rising to take her in his arms. It was some moments before she could manage to relax and return the hug, breathing deeply to calm herself. “Feel better?”

It took a second for her to realize he had spoken and she pulled away to look up into his face. “About as good as I’m going to get…” She pulled away and stood looking out into the pallid day.

He busied himself for a moment at the table, then drew her to a futon that looked out over the water, grey and restless, distance obliterated by hissing rain. They both sat there in silence, her thought-fugue uninterrupted while he lit up and they shared a smoke. About halfway through she looked at him, clearly back in the room mentally.

“I don’t know where to start Yves. There has to be something I’ve missed…”

“Or something you saw but didn’t understand what it meant at the time. Stop trying to see the pattern and let your subconscious work on it for a little bit. You know this Cherie, I have seen you work before.” His hand worked around as he talked and began to tease out the knots of tension that had formed in her neck and shoulders as she relaxed into his ministrations.

“You’re right… if you weren’t here I’d just be going over and over the same information, trying to cudgel an answer out of my brain. Thank you Yves.” She turned and kissed him lightly.

“Nice to know I’m useful for something…” he teasingly murmured.

“I wouldn’t care if you weren’t, you know…”

“Useful?”

“Or helpful, or a world class chef, or amazing in bed…” Charlotte paused. “Well okay, maybe that last one would make a difference…” She squealed as he tickled her gently, rolling over and around to sit astride his lap, facing him.

“I mean it Yves. I want you for you, not for anything you can do or provide… just you, here, with me. Everything else is a bonus.” She kissed him gently and looked into his eyes.

He returned her regard, losing himself in the green-flecked amber of her gaze. “I am hopelessly in love with you, you know…”

“I…” she had to almost force the words out “I am hopelessly in love with you too Yves. It is still very hard for me, so be patient when I freeze up, ok?”

“For you Cherie, I will wait until the mountains themselves erode to nothing. I understand what it is to be hurt so badly you do not think you will ever be able to love, to trust… to truly live again…” a tear made its way down his cheek “But it does get better. You know this, you have come so far from the invisible girl who ghosted in and out of people’s lives and restaurants.”

Charlotte gently kissed the tear away and brushed his lips with her own. “Thank you. I know it does but I have times still when I just need to retreat, shut the world out…” She kissed him gently again “but not you. I never want to shut you out Yves.”

She slid backward, put one foot to the floor and spun away, pulling him up with her. “Now, you need to learn a few things about this house.”

Several hours later they were in the kitchen, Yves displaying his prodigious knife skills while Mel, Charlotte and Tina looked on with something approaching awe. He looked up at the 3 women while seemingly blindly chopping away. “So Tina, Charlotte tells me you designed the place?”

Receiving an affirmative nod he continued. “I think you did an excellent job. It has a very light and airy feel, not at all what I would have expected from a hardened bunker. The job of camouflage you did on the island is impressive… I would never have guessed a ramshackle looking little island shack would harbor such a home if I hadn’t been here already. I am impressed in every way.”

He swung his attention to Mel. “You designed the weapons emplacements?” He swept his cutting board clean and turned to the cooktop for a moment, swinging back as loud sizzling noises came from a skillet.

Mel puffed on her pipe for a moment, emitting sweet smelling blue smoke. “Not exactly. I designed the weapons. The emplacements and the overall defensive design? That was all Charlie.” She gestured with the stem of her pipe. “Your girl here is absolutely fiendish. She built the surroundings for a mile out in a virtual sim and spent a year trying to crack it, making improvements every time she succeeded. Then she put it out there for gamers and gave that another 6 months. Lots of SF types seemed to like playing that sim and they got really creative on both ends, trying to crack the design and building improvements to it.”

“Wait… this is the house from SwampSeige? It doesn’t look anything like the sims!” he paused and considered for a moment. “Of course it doesn’t… you took all the lessons you learned and used them for a new design.”

Mel nodded and continued. “We both knew her from designing and building the original place but it was years later that we met her in person. She turned up at Tina’s place one morning, scared the hell out of both of us. I was out on the dock looking at the water one moment, turned around and there she was with a net bag full of crabs in one hand, spear gun in the other and like 6 knives strapped to her legs and arms. Nothing else but a tiny string bikini. I almost fell right into the water I was so shocked, Tina runs out with gun drawn and there they are, spear gun against 9mm at like 30 feet.”

Yves was chuckling to himself envisioning the scenario as he spun around, popped the results of his knifework into another skillet and gave the first one a good shake and toss. The aromas were beginning to build and there was yet another batch of ingredients ready for prep so he worked on. “I would have loved to see that one! Who backed down first?”

“Have you seen her in that getup? Scary as hell and dead sexy. I don’t think I could have pulled the trigger if I’d had to… and I suspect it wouldn’t have done any good if I had. I think I’d want a hell of a lot more firepower than that to go against your girl here.” Tina laughed ruefully. “There I was being all Betty Bad-Ass and she just gives me this big lazy grin like a tigress licking her chops after a tasty meal. Damn near pissed myself.”

“Didn’t stop you from ogling her the rest of the night!” Mel hooted and slapped the counter.

“Me? I thought we were gonna have to push your eyeballs back in their sockets!” The couple teased each other for a moment while Yves paused, looking at Charlotte in an odd way. She caught his look and licked her lips just the tiniest bit, smiling as she watched him adjust himself subtly. The interplay wasn’t lost on the other couple as Tina watched and burst out laughing.

“Go easy on the poor guy Charlie! We want to eat before you drive him to a stroke or something!”

Charlotte pretended to be aghast. “Me? I haven’t done anything at all! I’m just sitting here!” The other 3 just looked at her until she burst into a fit of giggles.

“I knew it! She does do it on purpose!” Mell got out between her own laughter.

“I do not!” Charlotte thought for a second “Well mostly I don’t… I can’t help it if people get all bothered with me sitting there doing nothing. Blame it on the surgeons.”

“I’ve seen your before pictures. I couldn’t tell much difference…” Tina was quieter now, almost somber.

“Yeah… you haven’t seen the photos from when they took me out of house at Edisto. My own mother wouldn’t have known me.”

“Still… its only partly your looks. It’s the way you carry yourself, like you’re always dancing but ready to do violence in an instant. You just have this presence about you, like a coral snake. Beautiful, but the sort of beauty any sane person runs away from as fast as they can.” Tina’s tone had regained a little of its jocularity but was still serious.

“How odd.” Charlotte mused. “That’s totally not how I see myself, or what I want to project…”

“That’s why you have such an impact. Anyone who watches you for more than a second can tell there is no artifice with you. I don’t even think you’re capable of lying on purpose except by omission. I think you’re the most… uncomplicated person I’ve ever met.” Tina smiled at her again. “Trust me, that’s a good thing!”

Yves chimed in “She’s right, you know. I’ve seen you walk into a crowded bar… its like a tigress walking into a gathering of housecats. People instinctively clear space around you without even realizing it. At the same time you can sit in a chair in the middle of the place and its like no one actually sees you. Fun to watch even if it is a little spooky.”

He had his attention fully on the cooktop at this point, all 6 burners occupied by now. Delightful smells filled the air as he shook and flipped, stirred or otherwise manipulated pots and pans. 2 ovens were occupied and close to finishing their timers as he added sherry to one skillet and cognac to another causing great billows of flame as the alcohol caught fire. Conversation lagged as they watched him work and a few minutes later the meal was ready, plated and on the table.

After a moment to admire his plating they all dug in. Appreciative moans filled the air as they all savored that first intense burst of flavor before following Yves’ lead in taking a sip of the excellent wine he had decanted earlier.

“Wow… I think this might be the best thing I’ve ever tasted. You are an absolute genius Yves! I didn’t even know half of this stuff was edible.” Mel took another sip of her wine and savored for a moment before returning her attention to the plate.

“Charlotte taught me about what was safe to eat but the idea is as old as cooking. Now they call it being a locavore but mostly it is the way people have eaten for all of human history. It is just using what is locally available.” He shrugged and continued eating.

“Whatever. False modesty does not become you Yves.”

That drew a laugh from the table and another shrug from the now red-faced chef. Good natured banter between the four accompanied the remainder of the meal and the stunning pluot tart he produced for dessert paired perfectly with an almond and cinnamon infused absinthe.

Once finished Mel and Tina made short work of the dishes and shortly the 2 couples were ensconced in lounge chairs, each nursing another glass of absinthe as dusk descended upon the marsh, welcomed by the sounds of its nocturnal inhabitants going about their business.

They sat there well into the night drinking and smoking, getting quite thoroughly smashed and enjoying each other’s company along with the cooler night air that was becoming prevalent this time of year. The easy flow of conversation between friends made the hours pass quickly until the two couples unsteadily made their separate ways to bedrooms which were fortunately soundproofed as well as the rest of the house.

When Charlotte awoke the next morning sunlight was streaming into the room and her eyes were a little sensitive but overall she felt quite good. Yves had already gone but had left a note.

‘Cherie, Mel is teaching me how to drive your wonderful present. See you in town this afternoon? Yours, Yves Montgolfier’

She smiled fondly and took care of her immediate physical needs, then donned a swimsuit, stretched and made her way to the end of the dock before jumping in and swimming strongly but quietly out into the day. An hour later she made her way to land and began to run, settling into a long loping stride that was deceptively fast on the sandy trails. 90 minutes later she arrived back at her starting point, then changed footwear and mounted a road bike. The outbound leg was upwind today against a 15-20 mph breeze but she stayed above 35 mph regardless, letting her mind slip into an endorphin fueled half trance.

After an hour she reversed course and upped her tempo, occasionally reaching over 50 mph when the wind gusted at her back. She arrived back at start in well under 45 minutes then spent a few minutes stretching and cleaning her bike before stowing it back in the hidden shed. Footwear stowed she was back in the water for another hour, ending where she had begun. As she approached she heard then saw a small boat making its way toward her home with an small trolling motor, clearly trying to be stealthy.

Her normal swimming style was close to silent so Charlotte had escaped notice so far but she exhaled, then inhaled as deeply as she could, submerging with barely a ripple and making her way under the murky water to the scant shelter of a few tufts of marsh grass. It was enough and she made her way unobserved through a small channel to a camouflaged hatch sunk in the water. She manipulated the controls with her toes and felt the tug of water filling the chamber below her before the hatch opened and she took a few deep breaths before diving through. Once inside she punched a single button and the hatch swung closed before powerful pumps pulled the water rapidly out of the airlock.

Within 2 minutes she was standing there dripping onto the deckplates as the inner hatch swung open allowing her access to a surprisingly spacious tunnel. Charlotte ran down the tunnel at top speed, through another airlock that allowed both hatches to be open since there was no pressure differential. She sealed both hatches behind as she made her way through a corridor to the primary nerve center of her defensive systems.

She took a quick moment to strip and dry off with one of the towels she kept in here for any sort of liquid based emergency and sat, calling up external views and setting defensive systems on ready standby. This allowed her to take the house to full alert within 20 seconds and still maintain an extremely stealthy posture, looking like the rickety shack it pretended to be. She replayed the feeds from audio pickups and listened to the men bickering about some package they were supposed to pick up.

One of the men finally checked his phone and discovered they were several miles away from where they needed to be because he’d managed to turn the GPS off so it wasn’t updating their position. After a few minutes of them swearing at each other they abandoned stealth and roared back in the direction they came from using an overpowered outboard. Charlotte kept an eye on them until they were well away and left the systems to follow their acoustic signature, confirming that they were indeed heading for the destination indicated in the date cloned from the active phone.

She took a moment to trigger a cleaning cycle in the outer airlock and sent cleaner bots to mop up the trail of water and mud she’d left. Housekeeping taken care of she made her way to the bathroom, tossed her muddy suit into a sink full of water and took a full 30 minutes to luxuriate in the needle sprays of the showerheads as the water temperature gradually increased. This time of year the water was getting fairly cold and even with the vigorous activity of the past hour her skin was chilled.

She emerged from her shower, dressed and browsed through her inbox sorting the various messages before digging into the highest priority as she savored a cup of yogurt. The first was the lab report on the particulates gleaned from the drains. It confirmed the initial assessment that everything was consistent with the use of a wood chipper that would produce particles larger than sawdust but smaller than wood chips.

That wasn’t actually a clue in itself although it did provide some possible pointers to the type of equipment that might have been used. Another analyzing the patterns of distribution and the blood droplet scatter gave exactly the result she was beginning to suspect. There was no way for anything on the ground to have been the delivery vehicle while still leaving the total absence of a trail. The remains had also not been dropped from a height greater than 80 feet and at no significant speed. That ruled out a crop duster or other conventional aircraft and the lack of noise report ruled out a helicopter.

That left a drone but anything which could carry the amount of weight that had been dumped was large and noisy enough to be seen and heard especially when the city was at its quietest in the predawn hours. Charlotte spent another hour or two going over the available information without gleaning any novel insight before she washed her dishes and made her way to her runabout. After double checking to make sure the house was fully secure she centered the small boat in the empty end of the area, then triggered the doors.

A portion of the roof slid inward then retracted beneath the stationary portion while a frame large enough to allow a 25 foot boat raised itself and the water it enclosed through the roof into daylight. Marsh grasses hid the boat completely and would have hidden a much larger boat if needed. The front end of the platform opened once the water level equalized and she used the small trolling azipods to quietly make her way out of the enclosure, still sheltered from view. The lift retracted and the hatch cover slid back into place, barely visible when looked at directly.

She followed a path out through the grasses which after a couple of sharp turns debouched some distance from her island into another passage and thence to more open water. Once she was some distance away she started the engine and slid the canopy forward to seal out the wind and noise of her passage. She set the throttle at 11% and made an increasingly fast passage out of the marshes and past the surfline, already up on her planes with the much lighter craft. Once in open water the planes crawled outward to provide additional stability and the craft rose a little for visibility and wave clearance.

Assured by her instruments that no traffic was detected she moved the throttle up to 35% and held there. There was no great hurry and the storm had left behind a beautiful day so she cruised along at just over 50 knots in comfort, enjoying the way the sun sparkled on silty brown seawater. 25 minutes later she throttled down and settled to 30 knots, steering well clear of an outgoing freighter and a few small craft as she passed Fort Sumter before bearing off to port and entering the Ashley River.

The Coast Guard station fell away to her right and Charlotte eased the throttle back, reducing speed as she approached the marina and finally throttling down far enough to lose lift from the planes. She cut the main engine, extended the azipods and allowed the canopy to slide back as she maneuvered into one of her slips. She triggered the docking systems and strong magnets attached to docking cables activated, pulling the lines to the sides of the slip and holding them in place while tensioning the lines so that the small craft sat not quite touching one side and as stable as the dock itself. After a final downcheck she climbed out and onto the dock, bringing a large shoulder bag/backpack along. Once she verified the boat was locked and secured she made her way out to Lockwood and caught the DASH down to East Bay, getting off at Queen Street and making her way to Unity Alley.

It was still too early in the day for the restaurant to be open so the front of the house was abandoned as she let herself in and made her way back to the kitchen. It wasn’t exactly quiet in the kitchen but unlike many kitchens the noise was almost entirely that of cooking. Requests and acknowledgements were calm and unhurried, lending an illusion of languor but if you paid attention the movements of the chefs were well practiced and economical. The activity was actually winding down at this point with almost all prep completed so there would be time for a 45 minute break before getting ready for service in 2 hours.

Charlotte greeted a few of them as she walked past toward the small office where Yves was putting the final touches on the presentation he had planned. He heard the door open but was focused on his work so she was able to surprise him, slipping her hands down over his shoulders into his shirt and caressing his chest, plucking lightly at the wiry hairs. He leaned back and turned his head to share a kiss, then turned back to his work, saving and closing before sending it to the printer and turning to kiss her properly.

“Did you have fun this morning?”

The smile on his face was answer enough. “Mel had me up to 60% throttle today. She says I need a lot more practice before I’m ready to go faster than that but I think maybe I need a little touch of insanity too…”

“Smart boy! What’s for lunch?”

Yves rose and held her hand, leading her out into the dining room where a table was ready for them, tall glasses of iced tea with beads of condensation making their slow way down the outside of the glasses. He pulled out her chair and pushed it in as she sat before taking his seat and a sip of tea. Charlotte followed suit and savored before taking another sip and letting out a small sigh.

“Apricot?” she questioned.

“You like?” Yves quirked an eyebrow at her.

“Its delicious! Light and just sweet enough, the tea is strong enough to stand up to the ice but not bitter. Seriously though, whats for lunch? My stomach has decided I’m trying to starve it and is staging a rebellion!”

He laughed at her expression as a large plate slid in front of her immediately after her last word. A large sandwich occupied the plate, held together with decorative skewers and paired with lightly herbed roasted potato wedges and a largish quarter pickle.

“Plumwood smoked pork and bacon, fried green tomatoes and field greens with an onion and fennel aioli on grilled sourdough. I’m calling it the Unity Club. Taste it and see what you think!” Yves watched as she managed to get a bite of the double decker sandwich and grinned at the beatific expression that came over Charlotte’s face as she chewed.

“Oh wow… I think I could marry this sandwich…” She took another bite and Yves followed suit.

Sometimes the quality of a dish can be judged by conversation at the table. By that measure it was a raging success since neither of them spoke and the only noise was that of eating and Charlotte’s appreciative moans. They took their time and were still finished in just a few minutes, Charlotte leaving her customary spotless plate and neatly folded napkin and leaning back into her chair with a sigh of satisfaction.

“I’m totally gonna get fat if you keep feeding me like that…”

“Not a problem, I will simply have more of you to love!” Yves grinned at her. “Besides, I’ve seen you take down eight thousand calories a day for weeks on end and actually lose weight. I’m guessing you did your usual insane workout this morning?”

“Funny, I seem to remember someone keeping up with me on my ‘insane workout’” she did air quotes and smirked at him “Out of the water anyway…”

“I couldn’t move for 2 days after that. Never again.”

“Typical man, can’t handle a little pain…” Charlotte laughed at his expression. “Hey it took me a long time to get to that point… and to be fair, a lot of pain. There was a time not that long ago that I couldn’t walk a single step much less run. It started out as physical therapy and turned into something that gives me strength, helps me keep centered and not just going completely out of my mind.”

Charlotte took a sip of tea. “You know exactly what I mean, cooking is the same for you. Like a meditation in a lot of ways.”

“So did your meditation help clear things up any?”

“Well I worked out a couple of possible things but I’ve still got a lot of checking to do. One thing for sure, this is more than just a killing, even one for revenge. Not just for revenge anyway… there’s something more to it. This is someone sending a message, but to whom and why so publicly? It just doesn’t quite make sense yet. I should have a comprehensive assay from the lab results tomorrow and if it confirms what I think it might it tends strongly toward one idea.”

She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Even that only gives me a pointer toward methodology. I suppose its better than nothing…”

Yves leaned forward. “So you have nothing to work with right now?”

“I’ve got quite a lot… and nothing at all.” She paused for a moment “Well not quite nothing. I can tell you we’ll see another killing soon.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Can you imagine one gang doing this to another and there not being reprisal killings?” She quirked an eyebrow at him.

“I suppose not. Do you think this is the beginning of a gang war? I didn’t really think you had a gang problem here.” Yves’ face took on a harder cast.

Charlotte took a moment to reply. “We don’t.” At his quizzical look she went on “We have some punks that think they are gangbangers but nothing like what you’d see even up in Columbia. There are some smugglers but small time stuff only… Its really very tame around here. We’re just not terribly convenient as a smuggling route and since weed was legalized back in ’29 there isn’t that much to smuggle anyway. Biggest criminals around here are land developers…”

“Land developers?”

“Yeah they will do just about anything to get permission to build on sketchy land. A little bribery, that sort of thing… nothing much really. One of em did get caught running a brothel…”

Yves snorted a laugh “A brothel? Really?”

“Yep. Got to know him through a friend in the building trades, he’d done some work for the guy. Seemed squeaky clean, wife and 3 beautiful kids, deacon in his church, ex fighter pilot… I thought he was a nice guy. Then one night on the news there he is being arrested for pimping…” Charlotte shook her head. “You never can tell I suppose. I mean hell, look at what was done to me, and by ‘Respectable Members of Society’ no less”.”

“Were you ever able to find out any more about the other men?”

“Nothing… “she sounded defeated. “I looked and I did everything I could but they always had this hood/mask thing that wouldn’t even allow me to scream… I damn near suffocated from snot plugging up the little tubes they had in my nose. They would tie me up off the ground, wrapped so tight I could barely breath and take turns hitting me and raping me and it went on for so long I thought it would never end… that I would die there.” Charlotte was crying now, hugging her knees to her chest in the chair.

Yves moved over to embrace her and signaled to Marge. The solid woman was busy drying her hands with a towel before slinging it over her shoulder. As soon as she saw what was going on she leaned down and spoke into Yves ear.

“You take Miss Charlotte home. She needs you and a safe place right now and we can take care of dinner. I already ordered a car for you, it will be here in 2 minutes. Right to the marina, you understand?”

Yves nodded jerkily, not at all on any sort of stable emotional footing. He had not known of the worst of the horrors she had experienced… for that matter he still didn’t but he was beginning to realize that he might not want to know. Was he even strong enough to hear about it without going mad?

The one thing he did know was that he was utterly in love with Charlotte and had been from the moment he saw her, eating alone and being invisible in his restaurant.

“Thank you Marge” he tried to think of something more to say and just wound up repeating “Thank you…” as he gently gathered Charlotte into his arms and carried her out to the waiting car. Within 10 minutes they were at the marina and he went toward the slip where he was moored until she muttered in his ear.

“Take mine. Homing system.”

Yves did as instructed and soon had her strapped into the rear seat. He clambered in and saw a button on the display which he pushed. A voice sounded in the cabin.

“Primary pilot impaired function. Secondary pilot incompletely trained. Shall I initiate homing function?”

“Yes please, and thank you Paul. Maximum safe speed please?”

With no further ado the boat disengaged cables, backed out of the berth and swung on its axis while spooling the turbine up. They were already up on the planes as they cleared the piers and their speed steadily increased. By the time they left the harbor the throttle was at 80% and still moving upward. They were doing well over 150 knots and still accelerating, passing Isle of Palms and Dewees island in less than 7 minutes before the boat throttled down to a mere 90 knots and caromed through the tidal channels and into the maze leading to her home. The door was retracted and within minutes they were safely into the ‘parking lot’ with Yves unstrapping a still sobbing Charlotte and carrying her gently to a sofa where he could watch while he prepared her a drink.

He poured 3 measures of grain alcohol into a tumbler and splashed in some orange juice with a couple of ice cubes, gave it a stir and handed it to Charlotte who took it in a shaking hand and used her other hand to steady it enough to take a sip. She snorted at the strength, then took another deeper drink, draining half the glass. After a couple of ragged breaths she finished it off and gave it back to Yves with a hand that was shaking only slightly less than before. He understood and refilled it, this time adding a flowery smelling liqueur rather than juice.

This time she took a smaller sip and turned a wan smile of thanks on him. He came over to sit beside her and just held her in his arms as she slowly finished her second drink, gradually relaxing.

“I’m sorry I went to pieces on you there…. I understand if its too much, if you don’t… can’t… deal with it. I… I’m damaged goods Yves, like really damaged…”

He held her tighter for a moment, then pulled her chin around with his finger to look into her eyes. “I have seen broken people Cherie. They allow their pain to overcome them so completely that they cannot live. That is not you my love. You are one of those people who respond to adversity by making yourself stronger, by standing up to things that scare the shit out of you.” He kissed her, a gentle brush of the lips.

“A bone, when it is broken, becomes stronger in that place once it heals. You are like that except you were broken everywhere and it made you who you are, the woman I love. Yes you are damaged. I am damaged. You have held me and soothed me when I had episodes… And you understand, more deeply than anyone ever has. You will never be too much to deal with Cherie… I do not think I could manage without you, not anymore.” He kissed her lightly again.

“You’re the strongest person I know and if you need me I will always be here for you. No such thing as too much, ok?” He held her eyes for a moment until she pulled herself into his embrace and onto his lap.

This time the kiss was long and deep and when it finally broke they simply looked into each other’s eyes’ for a moment. She looked up at him, picked up the glass he had set aside and put it in his hand. “Drink up. In about 20 minutes I’m going to be extremely stoned and I want you in the same frame of mind.”

She got up and filled another glass for herself, this time with a normal strength vodka and more of the fragrant liqueur. “Amazing how delicious the taste and aroma of good cannabis can be. Trust the French to come up with a liqueur like this…”

He busied himself refilling the glass he held, having drained it in one go. “One particular Frenchman anyway. My twice great uncle on my father’s side began making a version of it during the war as medicine and after the war he worked for many years perfecting it. It was illegal but for such a marvelous taste who cares what the gendarmes think, eh?” He laughed “Besides, its not like my ancestors were well known for being sensible…”

Charlotte took a sip of her drink, looking at him over the rim of her glass. “Can you imagine what our kids would be like?”

Yves nearly dropped the bottle mid pour but steadied his hand and finished before carefully setting the bottle down and taking a deep slug of his drink. “Cherie… I would love nothing in this world more than for you to be the mother of our children. I cannot imagine anyone else who would be able to keep up with them!” He sobered. “But I did not think this was possible”

Charlotte took another sip of her drink and set it down. She took a seat and drew Yves down beside her, their legs intertwining as they faced each other. “It is an experimental treatment. My own stem cells used on a matrix to form the organs properly, the correct endocrine balance to get everything to differentiate into the proper tissues…”

“Do you mean?” Yves face was a mixture of confusion, elation and fear. “Do you mean you could become pregnant, have a child? We could have a family, our babies?!?!”

“One day, maybe.” Charlottes tone was somber. “Two years before I’m fertile but they say 5 years would be better. Thats if it works at all… we don’t know yet. Right now I have the uterus and ovaries of a 10 year old but they are growing fast. Anyway, technical details.” She leaned forward and kissed him, a slow lingering sensuous kiss. “The point is, yes, I might be able to have your babies one day… and I very much want to.”

Yves returned the kiss in kind and they spent the next several hours in bed… and on the futon, and the kitchen table… there were a few other places but by the time they were both happily exhausted sunset was casting its garish lightshow over the sky and they fell asleep tangled together on her… now their… bed.

This chapter is a bit short but it seemed like a natural break point so here it is.

**Previously**

Charlotte took a sip of her drink, looking at him over the rim of her glass. “Can you imagine what our kids would be like?”

Yves nearly dropped the bottle mid pour but steadied his hand and finished before carefully setting the bottle down and taking a deep slug of his drink. “Cherie… I would love nothing in this world more than for you to be the mother of our children. I cannot imagine anyone else who would be able to keep up with them!” He sobered. “But I did not think this was possible”

Charlotte took another sip of her drink and set it down. She took a seat and drew Yves down beside her, their legs intertwining as they faced each other. “It is an experimental treatment. My own stem cells used on a matrix to form the organs properly, the correct endocrine balance to get everything to differentiate into the proper tissues…”

“Do you mean?” Yves face was a mixture of confusion, elation and fear. “Do you mean you could become pregnant, have a child? We could have a family, our babies?!?!”

“One day, maybe.” Charlottes tone was somber. “Two years before I’m fertile but they say 5 years would be better. Thats if it works at all… we don’t know yet. Right now I have the uterus and ovaries of a 10 year old but they are growing fast. Anyway, technical details.” She leaned forward and kissed him, a slow lingering sensuous kiss. “The point is, yes, I might be able to have your babies one day… and I very much want to.”

Yves returned the kiss in kind and they spent the next several hours in bed… and on the futon, and the kitchen table… there were a few other places but by the time they were both happily exhausted sunset was casting its garish lightshow over the sky and they fell asleep tangled together on her… now their… bed.

***** And Now*****

The barest hint of predawn crept into the room as Charlotte quietly donned a swimsuit and ran through a stretching routine before slipping into the water. 5 hours later she pulled herself up onto the dock to be greeted by the smell of something delicious. Yves was still cooking and they shared a quick but passionate kiss before she went on to the shower.

A few minutes later they ate together, neither having bothered to dress. There was a pregnant silence between them at first but Yves broke the ice.

“When you told me about your being transsexual that first night I didn’t think anything of it… all I saw and felt was the beautiful woman who danced in my arms and whose lips tasted of the finest wine. I was… am… intoxicated by you. Sometime after that I realized I had fallen in love with you and I began to dream of a life with you…” He took a sip of his coffee and was silent for a moment.

“One of the things I dreamed was that perhaps we could adopt children, give a loving home to those who had none. I’ve seen you with children and you are a natural mother so I hoped you might share that dream…”

Charlotte broke in “Why didn’t you ever mention it?”

“I was afraid I would chase you away… I knew you had been hurt so badly before and I didn’t want to make you feel that I was… like him, you know? I did everything I could to make sure of that and I think by doing that I hurt you. I love you Charlotte and I would never intentionally cause you pain…”

“Yves you have not caused me pain… you have given me joy. If for some reason I am not able to bear our children we will adopt, absolutely. We might adopt anyway…” Charlotte sipped at her coffee, watching the smile spread across Yves’ face. “I have seen you around children too and you are as much a natural father as I am a mother. We were both lucky enough to have loving parents and I want to pass that love on, to pay it forward.”

She took another sip and sighed. “I grew up thinking it was impossible even to adopt and that was entirely aside from the question of finding someone who could love me. Things were very bad here for people like me back in the Trump/Pence years… My parents homeschooled me so I wouldn’t be sent to a conversion camp. There was Grams, and Mike and Markie… but aside from them and my parents my teen years were spent alone. I wasn’t unhappy, I knew it was the only way I could be safe…”

Charlotte sat for a long moment, staring into her cup. “Then when I was 18, I’d just finished my bachelor’s and was on my gap year before grad school when I met Roderick… He swept me off my feet and for a while I was so happy… Then he started wanting me to have sex with other men and when I refused he threatened my parents… said he would kill them if I told anyone.” She was quietly crying, tears falling unheeded into her rapidly cooling coffee.

“So I did what he said but it got weirder and weirder and in the end I was just being tortured and raped for days on end… I was left alone but trapped, no way to even know where I was and almost no food except when it was time for another torture session. He showed me video of them skinning my parents alive after I got a message to them…”

Quiet crying had progressed to hiccupping sobs and Yves picked her up to carry her over to a sofa settling her in his lap, held securely in his embrace while she wept out the anguish that filled her heart.

After a time the tears tapered off and she simply held tightly to Yves for a few moments before leaning back to look up into his face. “You must think I’m crazy, freaking out on you so much.”

“We all have our own crazy Cherie. That is a part of what a relationship is… handling each other’s crazy. I don’t think that word fits you anyway. You’re the sanest person I’ve ever met, which considering what you’ve been through is an absolute miracle. Don’t be ashamed to share that with me… I will always be here for you and sharing a burden makes it less, yes?” He reached down to kiss her tenderly. “Now go check your messages, there’s an encrypted one from the lab.”

Charlotte launched herself from Yves’ lap and snatched up a tablet, applying her thumbprint, retinal scan and password to unlock the file. She spent the next hour engrossed in the results, checking some items on another tablet she held. Yves grinned at her newfound exuberance and dutifully kept her supplied with coffee until she came out of it with a smile on her face.

“I knew the spatter patterns and the clotting were weird! From the concentrations there were at least 8 separate dumps and they were all mixed together and I mean thoroughly mixed. Like the remains were put in a large container and mixed for quite a while. That’s not the kicker though! The whole gory mess was loaded with enough anticoagulant to make a living person bleed out through their pores! These guys were stored for… I don’t know how long.”

Charlotte glanced at the time. “Shit, you have to get into town! Want me to take you?”

Yves had already dressed and refilled her cup once more before bending down to kiss her. “I love you Charlotte and thank you but I need the practice and I’m not going over 30% anyway… its not like the boss is going to chew me out for being late!” He headed for the ‘parking lot’ “Besides, I get the idea you’re going to be out and about today so I might need to get myself home!”

With that he closed the hatch and Charlotte sat back in her seat for a moment, bemused. It had felt so familiar, so comforting to be kissed and assured of his love in that way, casual though it was. She had missed that easy intimacy which had only been hers in childhood for so long that it was almost foreign and yet she yearned for it more than she thought possible.

She sat for some time, simply treasuring the feeling. After a time she turned her attention back to research and soon realized she needed more room to work than the tablets provided so she shifted to her study. She was still there sifting through databases and purchase records she should not have been able to access when Yves arrived home that evening.

Charlotte didn’t notice at first when he called her name but definitely paid attention when he found her in the study and reached down to kiss her deeply. She had a moment of panic until she realized it was him then relaxed into it and returned it in kind.

He dipped a finger in her still mostly full and very cold coffee cup and shook his head. “You haven’t moved since this morning, have you?”

Charlotte thought for a moment then tried to jump up and run for the bathroom. Unfortunately her legs didn’t agree with her intentions and she wound up nearly falling over in her haste. Yves gently caught her and helped her hobble to the bathroom, closing the door and remaining outside while trying not to laugh at the heartfelt sigh of relief coming from within.

Charlotte emerged with a much relieved look on her face and pulled Yves down into an intense kiss. Once they broke for breath she couldn’t keep the smile off her face. “I’ve found it! That much of the substances used had to be traceable and it was… to a shell company, and another shell… damn corporate crooks and their onions! I even managed to get down to the accounts used to supply the money but the damn Cayman banks are tighter than a tick’s ass.”

“Anyway, so I started looking for a drone that could carry 1/8 of the total weight since the splatter patterns and densities made it clear that there were 8 drops.” Charlotte walked into the kitchen and poured both of them a double shot of cannabis infused absinthe. They both took small sips and savored the floral taste mixed with the bitterness of the wormwood.

“And you found something? Yves arched an eyebrow at her as they sat.

“No. Well I didn’t find anything off the shelf anyway but I got started thinking how I’d build for the specs needed and what I’d use, where I’d obtain it, that sort of thing. I came up with several workable designs but even the lowest noise was over 70 decibels, very much loud enough to have been heard.”

Charlotte took another sip and paused for a moment. “Anyway, I scrapped all that and went back to the drawing board. I’d been thinking about it the wrong way. A lighter than air craft would be quiet but large enough to attract attention so that was out. A normal drone was too noisy so that was out. But what if I used a combination of a smaller gasbag and less powerful fans? That got me down to the 45 decibel range but still enough that someone should have noticed.”

“Okay, that makes sense…”

“So anyway I finally had this ‘Duh!’ moment and realized… active noise cancellation. At 45 decibels it worked well enough in sims to reduce the noise to under 20 db. The noise of the… erm… deceased… hitting and splashing all over would have been louder. If it all happened at the same time it would just be the one noise, hard to pinpoint like a single gunshot can be.”

Yves shook his head and took a sip of his drink. “I am really glad I’m on your good side. You are one very scary woman…”

She laughed at him. “I have to go out to the Weapons Station tomorrow. If anyone has records of the control signals used for those drones they will and I know just the fellow to talk to…”

Yves pulled her into him and she relaxed against him. “So do I have anything to worry about then?” He teasingly murmured into her ear.

Charlotte snorted. “I think not. Gordy is like a grandfather to me and he doesn’t swing that way anyway… although he is kinda cute…” she teased in return. “Besides, with him I don’t have to screw around for half the day while the buck gets passed ever higher. He knows exactly what I’m cleared for.”

Yves blew into her hair, causing Charlotte to giggle. “Why am I not surprised you have the clearance required for that sort of thing?”

“Hmmm… perhaps its because you have the clearance to know that I do?” She twisted around to look at his face as his expression went briefly blank.

“I knew it! You sneaky bastard!” She was laughing as she said it and kissed him while he did his best to hide his chagrin under the duress of considerable distraction. “Of course I know you checked me out Yves, I did the same for you! Its a reasonable thing for people like us to do, especially if we are going to share our lives together.”

Yves pulled back a little and looked into her eyes. “I don’t quite understand Cherie. I am very happy that you want this but just a few days ago you turned me down and then right after changed completely… Why?”

Charlotte got up and refilled both of their glasses, taking a sip while handing his back to him. She sat sideways on the sofa next to him, one leg tucked under and was silent for a moment. “When I went out to Edisto” she began in a near whisper “I swam with that dolphin family and I saw the mother and her kids and it made me want that so badly, want you to share that with me so badly…”

“Its like I said before, I realized the ghost was me and that I was the reason I couldn’t have that happiness… that it was me and my…issues…” She took a sip and a deep breath “Here I have this wonderful man who is everything I could ever want and I keep pushing him away when he makes it clear he wants the same thing I want. It just hit me and the only thing I could see myself doing was to finally allow myself… allow us… a chance at happiness.”

She leaned over and kissed him deeply. “So that was what I did. I guess I’d been getting there already since I’ve had Mel working on your runabout for like 2 months now but it all came to a head right then and I had to say… do… what I was feeling… What I have been feeling for longer than I’ve let myself admit.”

“I think that’s the most you’ve ever said to me about your emotions, how you feel about… well anything really. You usually deflect in some way when I bring things like this up.” Yves was persistent but gentle in his tone.

“You’re right and that’s something I’m trying to work on. Just… promise me if you catch me doing that with you that you’ll call me on it, ok? I’ve been doing that for so long that its second nature and I don’t want it to be anymore. I want to share my thoughts and feelings, my life, everything with you. Its just… that’s an ability, knowledge that was taken from me and I’m having to relearn it. You said I was broken in a lot of ways, and when those breaks heal they are stronger… but this is one of those breaks that has just begun to heal and it is still very fragile and the nerves are very raw.”

Charlotte had to take a moment to get her thoughts in order. “I’m gonna freak out on you a lot for a while. There’s so much stuff that I never truly processed, never allowed myself to think about and now that I’m letting the emotional walls down and letting the good stuff free all the horrific crap is coming out right along with it. I know all this stuff intellectually, I’ve certainly got the degrees for it… but the reality of doing it… That scares the shit out of me.”

“I can’t say I can even imagine Cherie… but I am here. Freak out all you need to, I’m not going anywhere.” Yves pulled Charlotte around and cradled her back against his chest, his arm around her waist. “I’ve got you my love, and you have me, body and soul. All the rest is just the shit we have to deal with… together. Not alone, never again.”

After sitting this way for a time, each of them finishing another glass of liqueur Charlotte raised herself back into a position facing Yves. She began to talk, about everything as it had happened, every detail which was burned into her memory. The evening fled away as Yves made them dinner and still she talked, sometimes shaking and crying and twice more even breaking down completely but more hugging and comforting and liqueur helped her to get through it.

Finally it was early morning and she was talked out, hoarse and exhausted but in that state of mind that doesn’t allow sleep. Along the way Yves had shared his own demons and she grew to know the horror and pain that had been his burden.

“We’re both pretty fucked up, huh?” By this time they had drained the bottle and started on another. Charlotte looked up into his face from where she had nestled into his side, a small smile on her face.

“Els fotuts són els que no poden funcionar, no es pot viure, no pot, finalment, aprendre a estimar de nou. Som els supervivents, els que vénen de l'altra banda segueix viu en lloc de ser emocionalment mort ...” (The fucked up ones are those who cannot function, cannot live, cannot eventually learn to love again. We are the survivors, the ones who come out the other side still alive instead of being emotionally dead…)

“Ok, so we’re survivors, but that doesn’t make us any less fucked up. And English please, my Catalan really sucks and I’m too stoned to be puzzling it out just now…” She softened her words with a kiss.

Yves returned the kiss and favored her with a lopsided grin. “Sorry, I didn’t realize I was doing that. It was the first language my mother taught me and I was… am… just so comfortable with you…”

“Then I will just have to work on my Catalan won’t I? Right now I just want to lie here in your arms and watch the sun come up together. You know neither of us are going to be in any shape to do much more than walk around the house until tomorrow, right?”

“I thought it was already tomorrow…” Yves mumbled with a chuckle and Charlotte relished the feeling of the rumble in his chest.

“Good. I’ll message Marge for you and Gordy for me… although that does mean we’ll have to put on an oyster roast tonight cause I know Gordy and he won’t want to do anything on a public level. If what I’m beginning to suspect is right this all needs to be done as invisibly as possible and inviting an old friend for an oyster roast is pretty innocuous.”

“Are you going to share any of this with Thomas?”

“I can’t Yves. Tommie is an awesome guy and I love him to bits. He’s a first-rate cop for a town like Charleston… but this is something way out of his league. I like my friends alive and the best way to keep them that way right now is to keep them as ignorant as possible, let them believe I’m chasing my tail. I wouldn’t even let Mel and Lisa in but they are already in at least partly and we’re going to need them if I’m right about this.”

“You are beginning to make me a little nervous here Cherie. This sounds like you are planning to start a war.”

“I have never in my life started a fight Yves, not in that way.” Charlotte’s expression was stony, her tone flat and emotionless. “Given a choice, I will run away from a fight. I do not think I have a choice here. The first blow has been struck and it was by our enemy. They will strike again but it will be for the last time. This will not be allowed in my city.”

“Ah, then you are planning to finish a war. I will be by your side every step of the way Cherie. I have your… backside?”

“Six Yves, the phrase is ‘I’ve got your six’. It’s a reference to a 12 hour clock where 1800 would be 6:00 PM and therefore at the bottom of the clock, meaning the back.”

“You Americans are so strange… I still can’t get used to thinking in your bizarre Imperial measurements… And what sort of sense does a 12 hour clock make?”

“None at all but you do indeed have my backside as well… if you can manage it that is.” Her tone was teasing.

“Not even with a truckload of little blue pills Cherie. The mind is willing but the body is weak, non?" Yves kissed her lightly.

They lay there together as the first hints of light turned into the blaze of a new day, Charlotte having attended to the needed messages. Eventually they fell asleep cuddled together, caressed by sunlight that penetrated their bones with warmth and comfort.

***Previously***

“You are beginning to make me a little nervous here Cherie. This sounds like you are planning to start a war.”

“I have never in my life started a fight Yves, not in that way.” Charlotte’s expression was stony, her tone flat and emotionless. “Given a choice, I will run away from a fight. I do not think I have a choice here. The first blow has been struck and it was by our enemy. They will strike again but it will be for the last time. This will not be allowed in my city.”

“Ah, then you are planning to finish a war. I will be by your side every step of the way Cherie. I have your… backside?”

“Six Yves, the phrase is ‘I’ve got your six’. It’s a reference to a 12 hour clock where 1800 would be 6:00 PM and therefore at the bottom of the clock, meaning the back.”

“You Americans are so strange… I still can’t get used to thinking in your bizarre Imperial measurements… And what sort of sense does a 12 hour clock make?”

“None at all but you do indeed have my backside as well… if you can manage it that is.” Her tone was teasing.

“Not even with a truckload of little blue pills Cherie. The mind is willing but the body is weak, non? Yves kissed her lightly.

They lay there together as the first hints of light turned into the blaze of a new day, Charlotte having attended to the needed messages. Eventually they fell asleep cuddled together, caressed by sunlight that penetrated their bones with warmth and comfort.

*** And Now… ***

“Well doesn’t this look cozy! I see you’ve decided to let the young pup sleep indoors then?” Charlotte opened her eyes to see a familiar figure grinning at her.

“You leave him alone Gordy, he’s a marvelous cushion! Except for that one bit that seems to be getting a little less fluffy...” Charlotte returned the grin and gave a deliberate wriggle, eliciting a groan from beneath her.

“Get off me woman! I need a bathroom now!” Yves didn’t wait, levering himself up while still supporting Charlotte who squeaked a bit before they both went for separate bathrooms at the best speed they could muster.

When they both returned having taken care of business Gordy was sitting at the table with 3 tumblers of single malt poured. “Bit o’ the hair kids?”

“Different dog but whatever…” Charlotte answered as she sat and tossed back half the glass. Yves followed suit but without the comment.

Gordon took a sip of his own and smiled in appreciation. “You did inherit your father’s tastes in whiskey girl.”

“Well I do have a slightly larger repertoire… but I’ll grant there’s very little can beat a good Ardbeg Kidalton. There’s a case of it in the other room with your name on it.” Charlotte grinned at him.

The three of them made their way to the concrete pad and got the fire going, giving it time to establish a good bed of coals while adding more wood and carrying a cooler full of beer out, along with seats. Soon enough the sheet roofing and burlap sacks were in place and the first bushel of oysters was steaming.

“So why the 2 extra seats?” Gordy was blunt about his curiosity.

Charlotte frowned a bit. “Cause we have 2 more guests on the way. Can’t be helped, they already read themselves in and I need both of them anyway. And here they come…”

The noise of a turbofan could be heard getting rapidly closer until it suddenly cut and the noise of planes retracting was a barely audible hum as the ‘foil bumped gently against the dock less than a half inch from Gordy’s Jon boat. Grapples ticked into place and the canopy slid back, disgorging Mel and Tina along with another cooler of beer and a net bag of crabs.

Noisy greetings were had all around and a large pressure cooker was filled, dosed liberally with crab boil and filled with crabs. Once the water began to steam the top was attached, pressure set and a timer put in motion. They all adjourned back outside and made inroads into the beer while the food finished itself, carefully avoiding the topic which had brought them here.

Despite the necessity which drew them all found the companionship convivial, the easy familiarity of kindred souls making the evening more enjoyable than any of them had expected. The last oyster had been shucked, the last bit of succulent flesh sucked from a crab claw and the debris flung into the night before bottles and garbage were gathered and stowed in the appropriate receptacles. The coals were soaked with a few buckets of water which also served to sluice off the concrete pad to its normal dingy looking dilapidation.

They all retired inside and gathered in the main room, each with their choice of drink and having made themselves comfortable. The moderately sized screen which could be seen from the windows began the opening sequences of an action movie while thick shutters slid down to seal the structure completely. The displays integrated into the windows showed anyone who might have been watching a spectrally complete picture of 5 people enjoying a movie with minimal conversation.

Once the house was fully secured a message displayed on the screen and it shut off. A spheroid descended from the center of the ceiling a few feet while the lights dimmed and suddenly a hologram of Charleston and the surrounding area sprang into view, occupying the cleared center of the room entirely. The view zoomed in on Broad Street and shapes the size of a tractor tire but fatter and with no holes in the middle moved slowly and quietly above the Post office about 60 feet high. A patrol car made its way down the street and onto East Bay headed for the Battery.

Once the car was 2 blocks away the drones drifted over the sidewalk and suddenly a subliminally heard buzz stopped as a ghastly red curtain of gore fell from each one, splashing widely while the drones which had held the bulk suddenly shot upward in total silence.

The silence was echoed in the room for a few moments as all present digested the simulation Charlotte had just shown them. Gordy was the first to speak.

“About that whiskey” He took a sip of the substance in question. “Bribery will get you everywhere, kiddo.” He sobered a little and leaned forward. “In this case it isn’t necessary. I want these bastards so bad I can taste it but legally I can’ touch em… diplomatic immunity.” His expression soured and he looked at the other four.

“You four, however, are private citizens.” He slid a datachip across the table to Charlotte. “Here’s the traffic from that night, all of it. I singled out microburst control transmissions for some kind of craft so I figure that has to be what you’re looking for. It fits a swarm like you figured.”

“Hybrid gasbag/fan drones, each just enough to carry the load required and dump it all at the same time. If they built them the way I figured then altogether they put out about 29 db after noise cancellation with a spike about 40% higher than that when the drop occurred, after which the fans simply cut out and the gasbags rose quite rapidly until they were out of audible range before reasserting directional control and returning to wherever base is. That time of night on Broad Street its absolutely deserted and it wouldn’t even trigger the surveillance cameras to record… Their thresholds are set high enough to not be triggered by birds or rain…”

“You haven’t told anyone about this? Aside from the gnome, the pixie and Jarhead boy over there I mean?”

Yves spluttered on a half swallowed sip of whiskey. “Jarhead Boy?!? I will put any of my Commando Trepel against your SEALS!”

This was an old argument for both of them, one they had enjoyed while serving together in unnamed places and they both warmed to it for a moment, settling down when Charlotte laid a hand on each of their arms. “Lets get to business boys and you can get back to your dick measuring contest later.”

“Oh there is no contest on that level...” Yves began but was silenced by Charlotte’s look.

“Gordy were you able to get any sort of directional indication?”

He sighed. “No… we wouldn’t have gotten this if you hadn’t managed to push the latest upgrades through. I’d still love to know just who the hell you’re friends with…”

She grinned at him. “I really don’t think you would. Point is, these guys are gonna do something else again soon and now we know what their control signals look like we should be able to triangulate with my comms, yeah?”

“I may have to be a little messy getting you the data because the time frames here seem pretty compressed.” He looked over at Charlotte “I’m going to leave footprints, no way to avoid it. Can you cover?”

Charlotte had to think about just how far down the rabbit hole she had to take her companions before replying.

“Gordy… if this is what and who we both think it is… do you really care if I can cover?”

“If we can finish this? Not even a little.” Gordy answered without hesitation. “I just wish I could go in with you…”

“I can piggyback him in” Tina offered. “Full-spectral visuals, audio, the full feed I get from your gear. He’ll have a greater range of vision and can focus on things you can’t. You’ll have full comms too. No sense bringing The GordFather along for the ride and not giving him a voice.”

Gordy almost managed to hide his reaction as his old handle was revealed. Realizing he’d failed he chose to take a sip of whiskey while looking at Tina. “You’d be Manny’s kid then?”

Tina returned a grim smile. “Christina Kassis at your service. You were there for my poppa’s funeral. I was only 12 but I remember I heard you say ‘This is no life for a man with a family’. I didn’t know what you meant or why you said that for a long time…” She paused for a sip of her own and the others followed suit.

“I found out what happened to your daughter after… everything that made it into any sort of record I could access. Then I realized what you meant and I was sick… for… I don’t know how long. Those pictures still make me want to puke and kill at the same time. I’m sorry my poppa failed sir… there isn’t a thing in this world I want more than to help make his death… their deaths… count.” If the atmosphere in the room had been heavily freighted with emotion before now it was so thick it made breathing seem almost impossible.

“My daughter, your father and 2 other men paid with their lives and in the doing saved a lot of children who were going to be sold as property, as slaves. Their deaths already counted for more than most from that alone. Manny… your Poppa… didn’t fail. He took his team into a trap knowingly, purely to buy time for the local yokels to show up. There was no way he could have saved my daughter, she’d been dead for hours before they made it to site…”

Gordy sounded haunted, clearly remembering that night. “Manny and his team didn’t go in there to save his CO’s kid. They went in there to save the kids of total strangers, knowing there was a piss poor chance of surviving. My daughter gave her life to get out the radio transmission that gave us their location.” The haunted tone in his voice had hardened to grief and anger mixed with pride.

“No failures child. Heroes every one…” was all he managed to rasp out before the tears took over.

Tina disengaged from Mel and went over to Gordy, just hugging him and crying along with him. The others waited in silence, not wishing to intrude on this moment so long in coming for both of them.

Eventually they pulled themselves together and Gordy turned his attention to Mel “So whats the story with short stuff over there?”

Mel pretended to splutter indignantly. “You old fraud! Short indeed... I’ll have you know I’ m a full four inches taller than my mother!”

Gordy laughed at her. “Oh I know full well, remember who marked the doorsill when you hit 4’ 8 ¼”?” he chuckled again. “I don’t think I’ll ever forget you standing there doing your absolute best to carry a torque wrench taller than you were…”

“They haven’t managed to drag her out of a greasepit since…” Charlotte chimed in with a giggle.

“Grease pit?!?!? I am straight up offended now…” Mel belied her words with a laugh.

“I’m betting her shop looks like a clean room...”

“Gordy If you ever saw a cleanroom with unidentifiable bits of machinery and fairings and whatnot scattered around it seemingly at random, then yes. The girl just has no appreciation of good honest mud!”

“You should see her idea of a mudroom! It has, like, actual mud in it!”

“That’s a mudbath! Besides, you like it just as much as I do!” Tina plopped herself down beside Mel again and whispered in her ear.

“In Mud?!?!?” Mel got a horrified expression on her face before collapsing in laughter.

“I am fairly sure I don’t want to know…” Yves remarked to the air.

“Right, back to business. Thanks for the info Gordy, I’m going to see what I can tease out of it.” He nodded and Charlotte continued.

“Mel, can you have DarkWing operational by tomorrow night?”

“Darky is good to go, I’ll have Hekyll and Jekyll for overwatch. You’re gonna wants the Bats aren’t you?”

“You know me too well…” She turned to Yves. “I know you’ve flown tactical gliders before. Just think of it like that… but with engines and weapons. We don’t have the toys the big boys get to play with but we make do…”

“Now that’s something you want Charlie teaching you how to pilot. I’ll have em out here by midmorning and it should give you enough time to get a solid feel for it. I built em with the widest flight envelope I could manage but she loaded so much stuff on em they can be a little tricky…” Mel thought for a moment. “I’m sure you’ve got your own stuff… but we’ve got a few other toys you might find useful too. I want you learning with full kit on cause that’s the way you’ll be flying.”

“Full kit? What does that mean? I will take my own weapons and harness, thank you very much!” Yves looked indignant and Gordy simply smiled to himself, having already been the beneficiary of some of the girls’ technological largesse.

“Of course you will Yves, I wouldn’t have it any other way. But if you are going in with me, you will also wear the kit I give you. Trust me, you’ll like it.” Charlotte kissed him into confused submission.

“Now, there isn’t much more in the way of planning to do just yet. There’s no nonsense with rushing to save potential victims… I’m sure the next poor bastards are already in the mixer. Anybody else got anything to add?”

Receiving no answer Charlotte nodded to herself. “Right then. Yves, call Marge tomorrow morning and let her know you won’t be in the next few days. We’ve got to get you checked out on some new equipment in a big hurry and its going to require full focus. I’ll be training you on the Bats till I feel you’re up to speed, Mel will give you some more advanced lessons with the ‘foils.”

“Sounds like fun so far!” Yves sounded enthused.

“You’re also going to have to become proficient with your new gear. Its mostly pretty intuitive stuff and easy to pick up on but I don’t want it slowing you down. Being able to dial senses up and down can throw you off if you’re not used to it.”

Yves looked slightly less enthused but curious “Dial senses up and down?”

“Vision in normal and several different combinations of sprectra. Hearing tunable in several different ways including stepping up or down as required for sounds outside human range. That’s the basics but you’ll get a feel for it pretty quickly. That’ll be first order of business before we go flying tomorrow.”

“Works for me!” Yves enthusiasm had returned.

Things wound down quickly after that, each of them having another drink before making their ways to various bedrooms. Yves was in an amorous mood and Charlotte was feeling a bit randy herself so it was a good hour and a half before Yves was drooling into his pillow and Charlotte rolled gently out of bed. She retrieved the datachip, slotted it into a receptacle in her study and set up several analysis routines, leaving them running as she returned to snuggle up to Yves’ bulk and dropped off to sleep quickly.

Charlotte was up within 5 hours and beginning her review of the analysis. Several patterns almost jumped out at her and she quickly devised a filter, leaving it running again and making her way into the kitchen for coffee. By the time the coffee machine had finished doing incomprehensible and somewhat noisy things she poured herself a large cup of coffee in a wide bottomed insulated mug, turning around to find Tina blearily searching through cabinets.

She produced another mug, filling it and adding the requested cream and sugar, shuddering a bit as she added the cream. “Can’t imagine how you can drink the stuff this way…”

“Me? You put so much sugar in yours its more like syrup! Anyway, what’d you come up with so far? I saw another filter running but it wouldn’t give me any parameters.”

“I think I’ve isolated more than just the drone control signals. If I’m right, I’ve got a pretty full read on their comms to date… metadata anyway. Using burners doesn’t help much if you maintain the same general movement patterns. Thing is, I’ve got several sets of patterns and I haven’t managed to quite get anything that gives me a location more specific than within 50 miles of here and somewhere near the coast.” Charlotte didn’t mention the other set of connections she’d pulled up and what she thought it might portend. One nest of vipers at a time…

“I think we’re going to need to have some heavy extraction options. I’d rather go in dark but if it comes down to it I want to hit fast and hard and if possible vanish… but if we have pursuit I want some serious options. Do you think Mel can have Helga running by tonight?”

“Mel already has Helga running, its just the upgrades that were a bit fiddly. I got it sorted yesterday… well mostly anyway. No worries, she won’t fail you in a pinch! Now that you’re done speaking unkindly about my babies, where the hell is my cup?”

Tina had seen Mel coming and already had her coffee ready, handing it over along with a kiss. “Charlie knows better than to speak ill of the Undead…“ The two ribbed each other back and forth as Charlotte set about making them a hearty breakfast. By the time she was ready to plate the two men had made their way in and acquired cups as well and they were all sitting around the kitchen table. Charlotte started by bringing over several condiments including catsup and steak sauces, hot sauce, a few other less identifiable things. She then stacked 4 of the plates along one arm, picked up the last and proceeded to circle the table, finishing with her own plate and sitting.

Tina and Mel were both aghast at what sat before them. A large steak seared to perfection was topped by 2 eggs, very sunny and sautéed mushrooms. A large pile of hashbrowns which had ham, onions, cheese and several other things in it kept it company on another plate, both filled to capacity.

“There’s no way I could eat this much in a whole day!” Tina spluttered. Mel nodded her agreement, unable to speak due to the piece of steak she was chewing just then.

The other 3 dug in with gusto and polished off the large meal in very short order while Tina and Mel managed to make some inroads before leaning back and declaring they were stuffed beyond belief. The other 3 quickly divided the remains of their meals and devoured those as well.

“How the hell do you eat like that and still look like that?” Tina’s question had a tinge of jealousy to it as she was always watching her weight.

Charlotte waved airily at the detritus of the huge meal. “Oh this? We’ll burn this off before lunch.”

“Wait, there’s no seconds?” Gordy nudged Yves who promptly assumed a hangdog expression and stared longingly at his empty plate then back up at Charlotte.

“I think now she has caught me, I shall be starved to death. Is this how it starts?”

“Hush you. I need you able to move and besides, a light breakfast is good for you!” Charlotte grinned at him as she rose and circled the table, somehow managing to make all the dishes vanish in one pass and everything else on the second. Within 30 seconds she had wiped the table clean with a sanitizer soaked cloth and dried it, leaving the dining area spotless as she gave the floor the same treatment.

She spent another 5 minutes in the kitchen while the others simply watched, drying and hanging the last pan and giving a last wipe to the grill top before surveying the kitchen, straightening a filter in the hood and polishing away a speck invisible to them. The kitchen looked as though a professional cleaning crew had just finished with it and she gave her characteristic little self-nod of approval before turning to see the other four watching intently.

“What?”

Yves was the first to speak. “I have seen trained teams of 3 do that in the same time and they were hurried. You looked like you were dancing…”

“Not looked like, she was dancing! And damn sexy too. Hubba Hubba!” Mel fanned herself dramatically with a hand.

“That’s what it is! She isn’t ever NOT dancing!” Tina was excited with the realization. The others turned to look at her but Charlotte understood exactly what she meant. “She had to relearn how to move, from the beginning! Most of us do that in childhood and pick up various unconscious ways of holding ourselves, of moving, of walking. You can see how that has been retrained to an extent in a lot of hard-core military types, dancers and martial artists.”

“Charlotte learned to move as an adult woman, not as a toddler. It was like she had a clean slate and good motor control to begin with so when she learned, to dance and how to fight and run and swim and all of it… All of it, every single move, is a dance. When she fights, she dances. When she fucks she dances. When she cleans a kitchen, she dances. Its not even conscious and likely never was… its just a product of who she is. Every single movement directed, no spare motion at all.”

Charlotte decided to interrupt. “Enough about me and dancing. Honestly its not something I like to talk about.”

“You might not want to talk about it Cherie but you and I are going to be dancing together very soon…”

“We’ll discuss this on the run this morning. First we get you kitted up and checked out on the augments.” She held up a hand to forestall the inevitable protest. “I know you don’t have your gear here but wait till you see what we’ve got for you. I think you’ll like it.”

“Gordy, you’re going to get a chance to play with the gear on your end too. As of now, you’re shipwrecked. Your boat is going to be found somewhere down around St Helena in a couple of days. Whether you are ever ‘rescued’… well, that’s gonna be pretty much your choice. Don’t even bother giving me an answer until this whole thing is over, ok?”

The large man was mostly impassive save for a quiet “Hooah”

“Goddammit Gordy, don’t go all soldier boy on me.” Charlotte glared at him.

“Cherie, you started it” Yves continued before she could protest “and rightfully so. This is your operation, we are your team under your command. He simply acknowledged that fact and your orders in the fashion to which he is accustomed.”

Charlotte looked chagrined “Sorry Gordy, I hadn’t thought of it that way… or quite realized the tone I’d adopted. Thank you Yves”

“Don’t worry about it kid. You’re doing exactly what you need to be doing and Yves is right. Your op, your team, your orders.”

Charlotte could still tell that he approved of her apology and her thanking Yves. “Tina, can you get started on the gear with Gordy while I get Yves kitted up and checked out? I should have us ready for a run in an hour so you’ve got a little bit. Mel, we’ll need the Bats in about 3 hours, configuration Delta-3 please. I figure an hour for basic flight checkout, lunch and then we get to go have some serious fun!”

“Charlie you can’t go up for practice runs with no chutes! Those things are… dammit! Nevermind…” Mel realized before she’d even begun to properly argue her point that it would be useless. “Just stay over water when you start with the truly insane shit please.”

Charlotte grinned at her “Aww, you take all the fun out of it!” She turned to Tina and put on a hangdog expression. “Your girlfriend is being mean to me!”

“Hey you don’t have to live with her, she puts the damper on my fun all the time!” Tina smirked at Mel.

“Only because you two idiots insist on trying to kill yourselves 8 days a week!”

“Right… this from the girl who made freaking nitroglycerine in 4th grade!”

“Nitrocellulose! Geez… blow up one little boat and everybody thinks you’re an explosives nut!” Mel was sporting a maniacal grin.

“And this would be why she’s so good at weapons design!” Charlotte interrupted the banter. “Mel, I want him trained without a safety factor. He’s just like me, give him a fudge factor and he’s likely to want to use it. The Bats can take a bath just fine and it’ll do him good to worry about it.”

“Wait, so who’s the mean one again?” Yves was giving his best confused puppy look.

“Oh its definitely me…” Charlotte purred at him.

“Then all is right with the world! Abuse me! Make me do strange and insane things! Can I haz flamethrower?” He looked hopeful.

The others laughed at him and Charlotte gave him a quick kiss. “Maybe later… for now, you get to be randomly manipulated by a maniacal fitter!” She pulled him up and out of the dining area as he feigned terrified resistance to more laughter from the others.

Once in the armory she ordered him to strip and don a thick bodysuit, explaining it to him as she helped him learn how to put it on. Once he was fully fitted, had jumped around a bit and discovered how insanely comfortable the garment was she donned her own suit and opened a cabinet filled with various types of weapons mounting systems, combat webbing, attachable hardpoints and other less identifiable gear.

“For now. Lets get you kitted up as close to your normal rig as possible then we’ll start adding stuff, ok?”

Within a few minutes he had assembled an odd mixture of combat webbing, strap on holsters and sheaths and was checking things for comfort, noise, or any snags. Satisfied, he turned his attention back to Charlotte who had decked herself out so completely that most of her bodysuit was covered with fairings or armor with hardpoints on it. He stared for a moment before she began attaching similar items to him, carefully explaining what every item did, how to use it and how to attach or detach it.

He had expected this weird form of high tech land warrior gear to weigh much more than it did and was pleasantly surprised when she finished and he jumped around a bit to test fit and comfort again. “This can’t be more than 15 kilos! This must be very light armor…”

“Well it won’t stop a .50 rifle at anything under 500 meters but aside from that I think you’ll be surprised. This is a combination of a highly reactive superfluid and piezogenerative lattice both imbedded into a hyperballistic matrix and sandwiching multiple pure layers of superfluid and crystal. It is both armor and power source for all of your gear. Sections built in can provide some degree of first aid such as applying an effective tourniquet to an injured extremity. This can occur both automatically and at your discretion.”

“Automatic temperature regulation is a side effect of the armor/power matrix and will keep you comfortable in anything from Antarctic weather to near boiling. Even fairly large breaches can self-repair in seconds.”

Yves was astonished. “Cherie, I knew you had some very nice toys but this… I’ve never heard of anything like it!”

“Oh its just something Mel and I cooked up. We were actually trying to design a spacesuit and discovered that our design was very good for that purpose but with some modifications could also be the core of a total warrior system. I’ve got some other ideas in mind for future versions but for now this is totally proprietary and in the blackest of boxes.”

She picked up a helmet and locked it into his suit in a way he couldn’t quite understand. Cool air flowed in as he inhaled and he took a moment to get the feel of the device on his head. “I barely feel like I have a helmet on at all! My field of vision seems normal, hearing seems normal… wait, can you hear me?”

Charlotte giggled at him. “I’ve got everything on normal passive right now so yes I can hear you. Now watch me fasten my helmet so you know how to do it.” She demonstrated twice before he nodded and she instructed him to remove and reattach his own helmet, then made him do it a few more times until he could get it on and off very quickly.

Once they were both fully situated with helmets on she proceeded to run him through the various augments that were available to him and their control systems. Almost exactly 1 hour later she led him out through one of the waterlocks and as soon as they were free she activated a system which caused fins to unfold from the soles of her suit and flip outward. He copied and without breaking the surface she led him through the murky water which thanks to the augments the suit provided was actually very easy to navigate.

They had exited as the tide was finished running out so she led him out onto a wide expanse of deep and clinging mud and demonstrated just how terrible the stuff was by sinking almost hip deep into it. She extracted herself with some difficulty and after a quick rinse showed him how to reconfigure the suit for the deep pluff mud. What had been fins when folded back in now spread and bent downward at the edges almost like snowshoes. The increase in surface area and the downward bend made the mud not exactly easy to walk on but doable.

When Charlotte started to run Yves discovered that it was much easier the faster you were going so they enjoyed a little romp amongst the mudflats, madly sprinting across a landscape that denied passage in any other gear unless sliding along on your belly. She had him madly cycling through the augments to see the various details he could pick out, even how he could see dimly down into the mud a few inches. Once he was comfortable on the mudflat she led him onto more solid ground and the mudshoe configuration reverted to one more suited for the terrain.

Yves found himself straining to keep up as she dashed through the dense undergrowth at a speed he knew from experience wasn’t her best but he was also taking time to experiment with the newfound senses he had gained, discovering which combinations worked best or were an active hindrance in that type of environment. He was almost surprised when she burst back out onto open mudflats, footwear reconfiguring on the fly as she dashed for the water but he went with it and followed, putting on a burst of speed and drawing even as she ran toward the water.

She didn’t let up, pulling an odd sliding maneuver that allowed her to skate over the surface of the water for a short distance before she allowed herself to fall forward into knee deep water and vanish completely. Yves switched filters on the fly and just managed to catch her spidering her way along the bottom several yards away from where he’d first looked. Without that particular combination he would have been completely unable to detect her presence.

Abandoning any idea of stealth, he simply splashed into the water until he could swim and struck out on the surface in a powerful stroke headed well away from where Charlotte was still ghosting along the bottom. He went a few yards, then stopped and sunk to the bottom where he began a similar bottom crawl, still away from her position. He circled around behind a small hummock of grasses and was proceeding toward what he’d projected as her position when he felt a tap on his wrist from beneath and jerked back in surprise as a shape rose from the mud and wrapped itself around him.

It took a moment to realize the animal wrapping itself around him was Charlotte and he’d been taken so completely by surprise. By the time he managed to react she’d unwrapped herself and was arrowing along the bottom faster than he could follow. They played cat and mouse all the way back to the waterlock before she allowed him to catch her, then pulled him down inside and hit the purge button to close the outer door and drain the water. She waited until the murky water had drained before she started an occupied cleaning cycle and strong blasts of water from all sides flushed all the mud out and off of their suits. When the cleaning cycle finished and the inner door swung open she pulled him out of the lock and hurriedly doffed her helmet while he did the same and they met in a passionate kiss.

“That was so much fun!” Yves was delighted, unable to stop smiling even as he struggled to get his suit off. Charlotte looked at him oddly for a moment then giggled, realizing she’d forgotten something very important.

“Just let it go.” At his incredulous look she blushed a little. “Feature of the suit. It can’t take care of fecal matter but urine is no problem. It was originally designed to be a short duration EVA suit and we’d have to have been supremely stupid to leave that bit out. Turns out to be useful anyway as it can be used to increase power output in severe drain situations.”

Yves stood there for a moment with a frustrated look on his face before it turned to one of relief as the obvious took place. “There is no feeling of moisture or anything… very bizarre but cool too! I do not think I could get used to doing this in front of people though. Do we get to go flying now?”

His abrupt return to a high pitch of excitement made Charlotte laugh and kiss him again before she dragged him into the ‘parking lot’ where Mel was waiting, already strapped into a larger and beefier looking version of the cargo ‘foil that was moored with their runabouts. They both strapped in and the canopy lowered as Mel maneuvered over to the boatlift and triggered the mechanism. Once they were up and out of the entry channel she brought up the turbines. Much more massive and powerful than the ones that powered the smaller boats they provided enough thrust to have them up on the planes very quickly and the passage through the shallow channels belied the initial impression that this large craft might be less maneuverable.

Once they got out into open water Mel began to steadily ramp the throttles upward and the craft leapt forward, automatic damping systems kicking in and making the ride extremely smooth and quiet. Charlotte watched as they passed 130 knots, noting with approval the continued smoothness of the ride.

“I’m glad you got that nasty little harmonic ironed out… I knew it wasn’t a safety issue but the damn subsonics just set my nerves on edge.”

“You and me both! I’ve got a few more little tweaks I got in once I got the idea this was coming. I think you’ll approve.” Mel had been steadily ramping the throttles up as they spoke and by now they were passing 170 knots and still accelerating. The ride got even smoother as the planes retracted into the hull, leaving the craft flying on surface effect and still accelerating. They stayed within 2 to 3 meters of the water’s surface for almost 20 minutes before she eased back on the throttles and the planes crawled back down into the water.

A combination of reversed thrust and flared control surfaces brought them smoothly down and to a rest before the canopy crawled open. Charlotte unstrapped and lead Yves through a hatch and into the cargo space which had also opened to the sky. With Yves’ assistance she hauled an extremely heavy and vaguely delta shaped package out of stowage and into the open space, then another to join it. She put her helmet back on and motioned Yves to follow suit, then touched a control which caused the package to unfold from either side, revealing… very little.

He followed suit at her request and watched with interest as she backed into the shape and it attached itself to hardpoints mounted on her suit. Again he followed suit and as he felt the attachments lock home a new set of displays became available in his helmet. Charlotte ran him through the flight controls quickly, then straightened up with visible strain, watched until he did the same with a surprised grunt of effort, then gave Mel the signal.

The front canopy had already closed and the wind over the craft was nearly unobstructed as the engines spooled up gently. They moved forward slowly, reaching a speed of about 20 knots before Charlotte triggered another control and suddenly the ungainly contraption on her back sprung open into something that looked about as much like a hang glider as an F47 bore to a Wright flyer. She triggered another control and suddenly the wings formed into a high-lift configuration causing the speed of their passage to lift her into flight.

She triggered her own engines and kept pace, hovering just over the moving boat while Yves’ craft unfurled and he gingerly warped the wings, providing just enough lift for a short hop, then repeating before snapping into she same high lift configuration she had used and smoothly triggering his own engines as he rose. Charlotte watched with approval as he experimented for a moment, then dropped down and back a little before sliding up into formation beside him.

“This is almost like having wings!” Yves’ excitement was clear in his voice. “I have flown tactical gliders, small aircraft… all sorts of things but this is more instinctive.”

“You’re a natural from what I can see. Now… I said I was going to give you a basic checkout but what we’re really going to do is play a bit so you can truly get your wings under you. This is the heaviest configuration these craft can run and as you notice we had to get up to almost 20 knots to get enough lift to take off. Once you’re grounded on anything but water, you’re staying on the ground unless you ditch the heavy weapons. In water you can actually get airborne again, with a little difficulty in shallow water and a lot more fun in deeper.”

Charlotte had been leading him subtly so that they rose while cruising and suddenly she flattened and tucked her wings while diving and increasing power to maximum. Her speed shot up as she dove and then flattened out a bare meter above the wavetops, skimming along at just over 100 knots. Yves followed suit and the chase was on as they climbed and swooped and played tag through the sky, exuberant with the sheer joy of the experience.

Too soon for either of their tastes she was guiding Yves back down to a safe landing on Helga’s open afterdeck and following him, then downchecking and stowing the Bats. Within a few minutes they were in the boatlift and shortly thereafter were gathered around the table making inroads on giant burgers Tina and Gordy had collaborated to make both difficult and extremely messy to eat. The mad fliers each had a huge plate of fries along with the burger while the other 3 ate more modest amounts.

Even Gordy stared in disbelief as they each piled another burger with every available fixing and wolfed it down, then slowed as they split yet another one. They both leaned back and sighed at the same moment, fully sated. Charlotte let out a quiet belch and giggled at Mel’s look.

“Gotta have fuel! Got the drones ready?” The look of amazement turned to one of mulish stubbornness.

“Yes I do and you’re not going anywhere for an hour, not after eating like that! More to the point, I’m not going anywhere so cool your jets missy!” Mel got up and huffed off to the bathroom with Tina watching affectionately but unwilling to move just yet. They sat and talked until Yves got up to make use of another bathroom and Charlotte followed to show him the fastest way to get out of the suit. Afterward they lay in bed and drowsed for a half hour or so more before donning their suits again and emerging to find Mel ready to go.

After another fast trip offshore they were in the air with power replenished and Charlotte began walking him through the weapons systems. Yves had been aware they were carrying heavy weaponry but was astounded to discover the amount of firepower they were actually carrying. Over the course of the afternoon she checked him out thoroughly including live target practice with drones followed by drone vs human dogfights. Mel fueled and rearmed them several times, telling them to stand clear while she efficiently did in 5 minutes what would have taken either of them far longer.

Late in the afternoon, confident that he was fully able to use the capabilities of the Bat, Charlotte decided to demonstrate a particular landing technique if you needed to put it down immediately. Yves watched with interest as she marked a simulated ground level, then dove toward it, pulling up and flaring at the last moment while cutting loose with continuous fire on all weapons. The recoil slowed her past stall point until she pulled up to sit neatly on the invisible line before beginning to fall and recovering into flight.

Yves tried and on the third attempt managed to duplicate her maneuver although with his additional bulk he had to start firing and flare earlier to do it. Once he had the technique down it was time to land for real, this time on the water. That was useful in another way, teaching him how to get back in the air. In heavy configuration it meant turning upside down ad dragging along in the water until they got lift from surface effect, then flying that way until they were high enough to flip and fly upright. They flew for a while longer before diving down out of the sky to meet the waiting boat. He was still exhilarated by the day’s activities but the physical effort had them both sitting quietly while Mel brought them back home.

They took time afterward, cleaning all the gear including Bats, suits and weapons with careful instruction to Yves and the occasional scolding about mud in places that it shouldn’t be able to get into from Mel to Charlotte. Once everything had been downchecked and rechecked it was all stowed in a ready posture on Helga with Mel handing them each towels as they took off the suits.

“Mmmm, you smell good…” Charlotte murmured as she leaned into Yves and they half supported each other into their bedroom where they dressed in comfortable shorts and tops.

Yves took a moment and sniffed his armpit. “Well I don’t smell bad… not the way I’d expect to after the kind of workout we had today.” He leaned down, raised her arm and sniffed her armpit. “You on the other hand smell delicious! Another feature of the suit, eh?”

“Actually yes. All the yumminess of pheromones without all the nastiness of BO. It was an almost side-effect.” Yves raised his eyebrow at her. “You know, one of those things that’s like ‘Hey I can do 10 cool things at once and 3 other nifty but nonessential things for nothing extra so why wouldn’t I?’”

“Right. Insane scientist logic.”

“That’s Mad Scientist I’ll have you know!”

They made their way into the dining area and were sniffing appreciatively at the smells Gordy and Tina were generating. Mel joined them after being warned off by her girlfriend, although not before collecting a kiss. A huge meal arrived at the table shortly thereafter to be greeted by loud acclaim and they all sat down to demolish it. As they had at lunch Yves and Charlotte ate a truly astonishing amount of food, washing it down with large glasses of tea while the others ate more slowly. They all finished at roughly the same time although Charlotte was still working on another large wedge of pie.

She gestured at Gordy. “I haven’t had Rhubarb pie like this since I was a child. Around here people always ruin it with strawberries. Thanks Gordy!”

“I had to take my mind off the insane shit you two were doing. Very cool stuff… but absolutely batshit crazy. Charlie, that marsh run was one of the coolest things I’ve seen in a long time and that little ambush you set for Yves was nothing short of brilliant. I knew you were there and still couldn’t spot you in his feed until the very last moment, probably about the same time he felt the first touch by the reaction time.”

Gordy went on to dissect both of their performances but had very little negative to say. “Overall,” He concluded, “I’ve rarely seen the equal of either of you on the ground, never in the water or air. I’d pity the poor bastards you’re after but I have no pity for slavers.”

“Thanks Gordy. We’re gonna do a night run about 0200 and I want you along for that too. Yves and I are gonna catch some sack time and we’ll see you at 0130.” Charlotte lead Yves into the bedroom where they spent a few moments nuzzling before falling asleep in each other’s arms, utterly exhausted.

“I had to take my mind off the insane shit you two were doing. Very cool stuff… but absolutely batshit crazy. Charlie, that marsh run was one of the coolest things I’ve seen in a long time and that little ambush you set for Yves was nothing short of brilliant. I knew you were there and still couldn’t spot you in his feed until the very last moment, probably about the same time he felt the first touch by the reaction time.”

Gordy went on to dissect both of their performances but had very little negative to say. “Overall,” He concluded, “I’ve rarely seen the equal of either of you on the ground, never in the water or air. I’d pity the poor bastards you’re after but I have no pity for slavers.”

“Thanks Gordy. We’re gonna do a night run about 0200 and I want you along for that too. Yves and I are gonna catch some sack time and we’ll see you at 0130.” Charlotte lead Yves into the bedroom where they spent a few moments nuzzling before falling asleep in each other’s arms, utterly exhausted.

*** And Now…***

Yves woke to sun streaming into the bedroom and groaned as he moved. Their night run had been unexpectedly brutal and he was feeling the punishment. Charlotte had proven to be even more adept on land in darkness and had taught him a few things about how to move. By the time dawn’s faint light showed he was very nearly able to keep pace with her and much more quietly than before although she did chide him about making more noise than a bull crashing around. They entered the waterlock just after watching the sunrise together, eyes barely out of the water and completely hidden unless you knew how to look for them.

The sunrise together in that way had been oddly and unexpectedly romantic which had his thoughts turning toward the future as he dealt with morning routines and emerged into the sitting room to find Gordy watching a football game.

“Anyone else around?”

The older man looked over at him after the play ended. “Nope. Tina and Mel are over at her place. Mel needed some tools and they both needed some clothes. They’re also setting up a secondary array so I don’t have to rely on outside systems. Charlotte ran down to Edisto to install some new hardware there and get it tied in. Next time we see those control signals we’ll have the bastards to within a few yards.”

“Good. I can tell this is biting at you and Charlotte so there is some past here. This has to do with the people who did those horrible things to her, yes?”

Gordy muted the screen. “More than that Yves. The people responsible for the deaths of my daughter and Tina’s father got away untouched. We wiped out one small group of nasties but their bosses weren’t there or anywhere near and we never could manage to trace it back and find them. We have a good idea who is behind it overall but they are out of our reach, protected by diplomatic immunity and some serious firepower. Even covert teams were out of the question because the governments in question are nominal allies.”

“Blood cries out for blood. I understand this well.” Yves paused for a moment. ”I think I will be very busy trying to keep up with Charlotte and guarding her back though. You saw how she was this morning.”

“Guarding her isn’t your biggest problem.” Yves cocked a questioning eyebrow “She’s a berserker. I’ve seen it in her… if she runs into heavy opposition she’s one of those people who can’t be stopped without killing her and with her armor that will take some pretty serious firepower. She will kill and keep killing until there isn’t anything alive around her that offers hostility… and then she will break.”

Yves was trying to deny the truth of Gordy’s words but he knew it was futile. Both of them had seen comrades succumb to battle-lust and go into rages that clouded everything about them but the instinct to fight and kill.

“What can I do?”

“For most there is someone whose presence can stabilize them enough to keep them from going over the edge or pull them back once they have gone. You are that person for Charlie. Stick close to her, make sure she always knows you’re there… and stay alive. That should be enough.”

Yves sat there lost in thought for a few moments. “Is there no other way to help?”

“The only thing that can help her right now is to slay the demons that torment her and she finally has a chance. I’d be right there with you both if I could and I’ll be there watching your backs as much as I can but in the end its you and her on the ground. Get in, gather intel, destroy, extract. Keep it as businesslike as possible and she’ll stay on an even keel… as even as she gets anyway.”

“Charlie, unstable? I can’t imagine what would make you think that!” Mel’s voice came from the corridor as she stepped out of the comms room. “I mean, aside from the fact that I’ve met more stable nitroglycerine that is. Gordy’s right Yves, you just need to be there for her. You didn’t know her before… um, well before you knew her. There was a part of her even people who had known her literally from birth couldn’t touch but you have. She’s in love with you and it anchors her… you anchor her… in ways nothing else could.”

“That is… I don’t even know what to say. I am happy she feels that way… I have been in love with her for years now and hoping that she would allow herself to love me in return. Only Gordy knew me before I met her but I was not the easiest fellow to know either. If I have helped her she has helped me every bit as much and I am a better man for knowing her.” He thought for a moment “Besides, stability is overrated.”

“Well said young Jedi!” Tina bopped into the room carrying a mass of cabling and dropped it into Yves’ lap “Now be a dear and untangle these for me while I get something on. Charlie left right after we did so she should be back from Edisto in an hour or so and I want to be done by then because you kids are on alert per Charlie. She’s got her weird witchy shit goin on and she thinks it’ll go down tonight or tomorrow night. Either way I want you both as well fed and rested as possible. That means you too Gordy so sit down.”

Gordy stopped halfway out of his seat and lowered himself again before finally rising to his feet and heading off toward a bathroom. Yves decided following orders was the better part of valor and tried to get into the football game although he wasn’t really a fan of either team. Tina handed him a large glass of tea and refilled the one Gordy had been working on before rejoining Mel in the kitchen.

Gordy rejoined him and they managed to rouse some interest in the game while loud banging emanated from the kitchen. They looked at each other, considered for a moment and decided investigating would be a bad idea so focused on the screen. Soon enough the banging stopped and other noises took its place so that decision appeared to have been the correct one.

20 minutes later Charlotte walked into the room and plopped herself down beside Yves after a quick kiss with Mel following behind her, spatula in hand.

“Dammit Charlie, I thought I told you surface effect on the runabouts wasn’t stable enough yet! What the hell is wrong with you woman?!? Just because it can go that fast doesn’t mean it should!”

“Cool your jets girl! I was in a rush to get back home and I felt the need for speed in a pretty severe way so I maxed it. You’ll be glad to know that nasty little flutter eases out above 212 knots and its actually a pretty decent ride although you have to pay attention. That little spot between 200 and 212 is a little beyond squirrely though. I played with it and if you do it right you can run through that spot up and down in under 2 seconds so its workable… but I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. I’ve got a couple of mods in mind that should help on that front and may serve to massively increase speed and flight envelope. Its something to play with anyway.”

The smaller woman’s temper faded as rapidly as it had appeared. “This is that full flight mod you were talking about?”

“Yep. It’s a minor hull mod with small extensible wing/control surfaces and a bit more power.”

“Let me guess, you’re thinking about adding another engine?” Mel thought for a moment. “That’s a serious weight penalty for the additional thrust. Wouldn’t it be better to just go with a larger engine?”

“Not with the flight envelope we should be able to achieve. The whole thing revolves around additional speed and small lift surfaces being enough to go beyond surface effect and into true flight but that means you need power to set it back down properly. I suppose you could do some sort of crash dive and flare maneuver but even with the additional lifting surfaces it would be… I’d hate to try it. 20% or less chance of surviving it on a good day so yeah… 2 engines but 2 bigger engines!”

“Ok, we’ll work on that once this is over but for now… please keep the damn thing in the water!” Mel was gesturing at her with the spatula.

Charlotte sighed and pouted at her. “You never let me have any fun! Meanie!”

“Yves, talk some sense into her!” Mel’s protest was tossed over her shoulder and only halfhearted as she disappeared into the kitchen knowing full well her pleas fell on deaf ears.

Yves, deciding cowardice was the better part of valor, did no such thing. Instead he reached out to wrap an arm around Charlotte and they watched the football game with Gordy until it was time to go in and eat.

Between them they ate easily twice what the others did and once finished they all watched a show together before Charlotte led him out of the room for the evening. After some exertion on both their parts they fell asleep as dusk stole over the marsh.

Charlotte came to awareness already moving as Yves rolled out of bed on the other side and they ran for the doorway, almost making it before the blaring klaxon stopped. They did not stop with it, piling into the newly designated ops center to find Gordy already beginning to kit up. Noise from further down the corridor told of Mel opening the hatch to the ‘parking lot’ while Tina was busy correlating signals data.

“John’s Island, down toward Kiawah. I’ll send you more info on the boat. Mel says go in 30 seconds.” Tina’s tone was crisp but filled with suppressed excitement as her fingers played over multiple input panels.

Within 2 minutes they had already left the channels and were out into open water where Mel poured on the throttle and had them in surface effect mode very quickly. Yves and Charlotte had already pulled their suits on at that point and were attaching the rest of their gear as they flew. By the time Mel throttled down and they felt the planes enter the water they had already staged the Bats and were ready to clip in while the rear canopy opened.

They gave each other a final visual check, each tugging or slapping bits of the other’s rig as Mel’s voice sounded in their comlink. “Bat deployment in 20 seconds. I have DarkWing and the crows on overwatch and I’ll patch it over to you once you’re in the air. Be advised there is significant phone traffic at the location and at this time sensors tentatively show approximately 30 personnel on location. Retracting canopy now.”

With that warning they both clipped into their aircraft and brought up their systems, both of them deliberately staying out of the airflow until they were comfortable with systems check. Charlotte was the first to step into the wind and snap into high lift configuration but their speed was close to 40 knots and that resulted in her vanishing into the night with a rapid upward jerk. Yves followed suit and soon they were in the air, headed toward the target location at maximum speed.

“Be advised I have more personnel inbound, multiple civilian vehicles traveling at a high rate of speed. Sensors indicate possibly 50 additional hostiles. Recommend slowing approach to observe before contact.” Tina’s voice was even more crisp than it had been earlier.

They pulled up to gain altitude and continued toward the target site at a slower rate, steadily climbing above 500 feet and engaging active noise cancellation to mask the remaining sound their engines emitted as they loitered. Easily visible from this height was a caravan of blacked out utility vehicles running at high speed directly toward their target and as they watched from above the vehicles turned onto the access road and came sliding to a halt in the midst of a small clearing. People piled out of the vehicles, already in the midst of a large and growing firefight.

It took some minutes for the fighting to ease and during that time Charlotte had been interacting with Tina, comparing patterns and finding an answer that made her grin savagely as she turned her attention back to the immediate scene. “Nothing but hostiles here and they’re doing a pretty good job of taking each other out. Looks like fewer than 20 left combat capable out if this little mess and we have multiple bears inbound.”

Yves spoke up. “Recommend abort at this point.”

“”Concur. Base, detail crows for overwatch and LEO assistance. Shift Darkwing to new target, CAP, and send crows to follow as soon as all hostiles apprehended. Mobile, please shift position to provide closest available wet extraction.”

With that she dove to skim just above the forest canopy until they were far enough away to increase throttle. They both climbed and went to maximum power headed further down the coast wondering just what they would find until Tina’s voice broke the silence.

“Target multiple hostiles, count three-eight human, multiple canines. Also multiple noncombatants, appear to be juveniles, count estimated five-seven.”

Charlotte studied the information that came up on her displays critically. “Advise mission alteration. Objective is now rescue of noncombatants. Combatant elimination secondary. Advise LEO location, estimated numbers all categories.”

It was a moment or two before Tina’s voice came back. “LEO ETA two-zero mikes. Crows free, inbound to site.”

Mel’s voice followed “Mobile ETA 5 mikes. Noncombatant extraction not possible due to terrain and capacity limitations.”

Tina cut in again. “2 school buses en route for extraction and reinforcement, ETA one-five mikes. Count one-eight friendlies, possible additional friendlies inbound. Be advised they are aware of your possible presence.”

“My cup runneth over…” Charlotte muttered under her breath.

The images relayed from DarkWing enabled them to plan as they approached. The proximity of the armed hostiles to their prisoners and the overall layout took their previous shock and awe plan completely out of the equation and made stealth the priority for as long as practical. With this in mind Charlotte decided they would come in as silent as possible and drop from the still flying Bats which would continue under remote operation so they would have additional air support available if they needed it.

Gordy worked with them on a plan that should allow them to eliminate around 1/3 of the hostiles before raising an alarm amongst the sentries and planning follow ups to take advantage of aerial support once their presence became known. They had everything in place and ready to go as the two stealthed in with engines almost entirely masked and dropped into a small clearing, rolling to absorb the momentum they had no other way to shed. The Bats ghosted silently on while they gathered themselves and went their separate directions toward opposing edges of the hostile compound.

The entire team was silent as they got to their planned locations and both signaled ready, rising and silently dispatching their chosen target before hiding the body as well as possible and proceeding to the next. In this way they made a little more progress than they had estimated but when discovery came it was hard and fast. Fortunately for their response, it was also very poorly aimed ‘Pray and Spray’ fire and they were untouched but now had to deal with 6 more hostiles outside the walls and another 20 or so inside.

Gordy’s voice came through their coms. “Crash in 4, Gamma-3”

They each sprinted toward the wall, counting on speed to avoid direct fire for the seconds before self- guided rounds found their designated targets and ripped each of the hostiles who had been firing nearly in half so that they were momentarily clear. They used the time to get over the wall and directly into the middle of a chaotic situation where they were able to slip around and eliminate another combatant each before drawing fire from the remaining adults. It was all small arms so no real danger to either of them but there were children huddled in terrified clumps, screaming and crying, others trying to comfort them and still others who had picked up weapons from their fallen captors and were simply firing at anything that moved until they ran dry.

Gordy was servicing targets from above as he could but the scene was not conducive to sniper fire so Charlotte and Yves were mostly on their own. The occasional hit from unpredictable directions caused their armor to momentarily stiffen in spots as it absorbed and distributed the impact but it didn’t significantly impede their movements and they both moved through the madness with deadly efficiency. The sounds of gunfire tapered off and Yves was moving to clear a small pocket of resistance when Charlotte saw one of the men seize a child, followed shortly by another who attempted to hide behind the slight frames of the children.

Without thought she launched herself into a running kick toward one of them and as he moved his head to the side she curled her knee around his neck, snapping it violently while changing her directional momentum to bring her around moving in the direction of the other who had yet to realize his companion was quite dead. He got off a wild shot which missed her as she buried a throwing knife in his throat and rolled away to her feet to find… no resistance. Yves had cleared his area and there were no more armed adults although a few children still held long exhausted weapons in white knuckled grips of desperation.

Before they had a chance to offer help Tina’s voice came over their coms. “Incoming LEO airborne ETA 4 mikes, multiple bogies. Buses ETA 3 mikes. Frying Pan in effect, option pi.”

They glanced at each other then moved to secure weapons and ensure none of the captors would be able to offer resistance but the children, terrified and reacting in all the ways terror brings were avoided entirely. They vanished over the wall and made a great show of crashing inland before they quietly doubled back and around, darkness hiding them as they ran across mudflats interspersed with half solid grassy hummocks and underbrush where land was more solid but their objective now was speed and they focused on that.

More quickly than they thought possible they were scrambling up into Mel’s boat and she had it up on the planes before they managed to get seated, the canopy already halfway closed. By the time they got strapped in the canopy was closed and they were accelerating as quickly as possible, the thrust pressing them back into their seats and side to side as the boat followed its programmed escape course at the highest speed it could manage. Before even leaving the channels they had transitioned to surface effect flight and were making maximum possible speed directly out to sea. Mel was focusing on her craft but Yves and Charlotte were both unable to tear themselves from the scene that played out in their displays, relayed from DarkWing high overhead.

By the time the Law Enforcement aircraft arrived the locals had been there a full minute already and were all in and around the compound. One of them was trying to talk to a young girl who was clutching a weapon the two knew to be empty, trying to convince them they were there to help and having no luck. He moved toward her and jerked backward as the hammer ticked home on an empty chamber, then gathered himself and went to his knees in front of her, unloading his weapon and putting it down. They were frozen like that for an interminable instant before the area was filled with police of every description and the locals all safed their weapons before carefully laying them on the ground.

Once they were sure the situation was under control they flipped that feed away and took their helmets off. Charlotte sat there in the darkened cabin with tears coursing down her face, barely able to contain the unnamed grief that felt like it was ripping her chest apart. Her control was so rigid that she was only able to hear the edges of Yves’ voice as he tried to say something to her and her vision was tunneled directly in front. She wanted to move, to respond to him yet her ability to move, to speak, even to think was simply gone.

Even when the canopy opened and Yves gently unstrapped her then carried her into their bathroom she was unable to react to his kisses and words of love. He gently sat her down against one wall of the shower and adjusted the heads to focus on a spot in the middle, under the waterfall head. He came back over and gently removed her suit, yanking his off with rough haste and carrying her into the riot of hot spray before sitting down, cradling her in his lap as the warmth and his touch finally penetrated her stupor.

Great ragged sobs of long pent grief came tearing out until her voice was ragged and she wasn’t even sure if she was breathing anymore. All the while, Yves held her and comforted her with half heard words and the solid reality of his presence, his love until she eventually fell asleep in his arms with hot water streaming over both of them. Yves sat there for some time longer, grateful that the water hid the signs of his own tears.

Eventually he shut off the water and Charlotte awoke at the touch of cool air on her skin. She looked up at him for a moment in silence before she spoke.

“I’m sorry.”

Yves was dumbfounded. “Sorry for what Cherie?”

“I… I couldn’t keep it together. I’m sorry I was weak, that I broke down like this. I thought I was better than that…”Charlotte was on the verge of tears again.

“Weak? That is the last word I would use. You are ashamed of an emotional reaction after combat? You think crying makes you weak?”

She nodded, unable to speak.

“Some of the best men and women I have ever served with had similar reactions, I do too… It is a part of our humanity. For you, with the trauma that you lived through the simple fact that you were able to move at all, much less in the ways that you did, to perform at a level very few reach until the job is done? That is nothing short of heroic. I do not think you are weak Cherie, I think you are possibly the strongest person I have ever known.”

Yves helped her to her feet and began to dry her with a large bath sheet, while she reciprocated and in a few minutes they were in the bedroom getting dressed before joining the other three in the common area. Gordy had heavy snacks laid out in the kitchen but for the moment none of them were interested in food, choosing to get altered as quickly as possible first. To that end they started out with beer and began to add shots of tequila every few minutes while they each puffed away at a finely carved meerschaum pipe which contained one of Charlotte’s special varieties bred specifically for a giggly high.

It was a good choice, helping to raise the somber mood they all arrived in and allow them to talk about it a little without getting seriously into the emotional baggage. They stayed up to watch the morning news although by that time they were all staggering drunk and laughing at the newscasters as they described the ghostly figures who had eliminated the last of the hostiles. They made their way to bed and just as Charlotte drifted off she herd Yves sigh almost under his breath. “Bona nit amor meu…”

She just managed to murmur the same words back to him in English before she fell asleep. “Goodnight, my love…”

When she awoke it was late afternoon and sunlight was steaming into the room causing dust motes to dance in the streamers of brightness. Yves’ arm was pulling her into him and he was stretched out on his back while she curled around him, her head resting on his chest and one leg thrown over him while the other foot sat gently on top of his. A gentle kiss was her awakening and as they kissed he stroked her in the ways that they had taught each other and they caught fire, making love with the same intensity they had each felt in battle. Afterward they lay together, her head again cushioned on his chest as their breathing slowed.

“Why are you crying?” Yves held a tear he caught from her check on his fingertip before popping it into his mouth. He tasted for a moment, rolling the flavor over his tongue while he thought. “These taste like…happy crying mixed with grief….”

“It is because I love you. It is because I am afraid that you will be taken from me like my parents and my life were…. It is because I don’t know what to feel!” she sobbed quietly. “I killed… so many people and there was nothing in my heart but a thirst for their blood and the desire to protect the children. What is wrong with me…? Her words tapered off into a whining cry and she buried her face in his chest.

Yves held her, his mind racing. “Cherie… There is nothing wrong with you. Nothing that isn’t wrong with me and every other person who has had to take a life. Nothing that isn’t wrong with anyone who has been in the sorts of situations we have both been in, with life and death riding on what we do in that instant. You… We… are what evolution made us, a creature that is really extraordinarily deadly if it needs to be but intelligent and caring enough to hate that necessity. You can choose to reject that truth or you can embrace it as part of the whole of who you are.”

He pulled Charlotte’s chin up until she met his eyes. “I don’t think what you did today was wrong in any way… I was right there with you. You went in there and did what you needed to do to save other people’s children, you did it without hesitation and every single one of those kids is alive because you did that. You didn’t think about the cost to you aside from ensuring it didn’t interfere with the duty you set for yourself. That you break down after such a thing… I would be a little worried if you hadn’t reacted fairly badly.”

Yves drew her to him and kissed her softly, murmuring just inches away with the heat of his breath on her face and lips. “There is nothing wrong with you Cherie. Everything is right with you. Even the ways you are broken speak well of you.”

“I wish I could believe that.” She put her head back down on his chest.

“You don’t have to believe it. I believe for both of us. When we have children I cannot imagine anyone better to take care of them, keep them alive… teach them to be good people. I love you Charlotte and I could not do that if I did not respect you. You know this about me.”

Charlotte lay there for a few more moments enjoying the warmth of his embrace before rolling out of bed. She came out of the bathroom a few minutes later and joined Yves in the common area, watching while he began to prepare food. By the time it was ready the other 3 had joined them, all somewhat the worse for wear after the previous night. There was very little conversation while they ate, the emotional freight of their actions coming home to roost in the brightness of the day.

“I’m retiring.” Gordy dropped the words into the silence as they finished eating.

“You? Retire? What brought this on?” Charlotte inquired.

“30 years brought it on. Up or out and there’s no up left for me.” He leaned back and patted his belly. “I’d given some thought to building a little place not too far away from here, that is if you don’t mind. I might have been born a mountain boy but I think this place has gotten into my blood and I’d like to settle here.”

“Of course you’re welcome here. I mean that literally. You are welcome in our home for as long as you wish to stay. If you want to build nearby that’s awesome too. You’ve been family to me for a very long time Gordy and I know you don’t have any other family left. All of us want you to be our family. Please let it happen?” Charlotte was turning on the big sad puppy dog eyes in a serious way with predictable results.

“I can’t imagine how you thought I was going to do anything else. One of these days there are gonna be a bunch of kids running around here and they’ll need a grandpa to keep em from eatin the gators.” Gordy smirked at them.

The moment was interrupted by a proximity alert which they shut down as soon as Tina verified it was Tommy incoming. A few moments later Charlotte was waiting at the dock to tie off and give him a hand out of the boat with Nora leaping up right alongside, tongue lolling to the side in a doggie grin.

“You look like shit. Wannna drink?” He simply nodded and followed her into the house, taking a seat in the common room while she poured him a generous glass of whiskey and a bowl of water for the eager lab.

Tommy drained the glass and held it out for a refill. “Do yawl have any idea of the shitstorm I had to deal with this morning? I had everybody from SLED to the Feds crawling up my ass and the only reason I’m not still neck deep in it is because Homeland took the whole damn thing and black-boxed it.”

“Good. This thing is so far above any of our pay grades its not even stupid and you’re better off out of the loop. I’m assuming you kept my name out of it?” Charlotte cocked an eyebrow at him which was met with a sigh.

“Officially, we don’t know shit. Your name did come up but only when they asked about the material we used for the drain filters… they thought it was brilliant. We played stupid otherwise, not that it was any stretch and they didn’t think any different. The one thing they did leave with us was all those kids… Hopefully we can find their parents or a relative who can take them.”

“What about the kids? Are they all ok?” Charlotte was trying to hold the level of emotion she felt out of her voice and not succeeding. Yves moved around to wrap an arm around her waist in support.

“A little beat up, not much though. They were to be sold as slaves and the buyers don’t like the merchandise abused before they get a chance to do it themselves. Some of those kids are just amazing….” He shook his head, staring into his glass which had emptied itself again. “At least 2 of em are like you Charlie and I’m pretty sure there are a couple of transboys too. I’m worried we won’t be able to find anyone to take them and you know how poorly variant kids fare in the foster system.”

“The answer is yes.” Charlottes tone brooked no argument. “If any of those kids can’t be returned to a loving, nurturing environment we can make sure they have a safe place. Its not just us here, there’s a whole community who will help. You saw what happened once the locals figured out what was going on. First thing they did was load for bear, grab some buses and go in there to rescue those children. You know as well as I do what kind of good people we have here.”

“Doesn’t mean I’m not going to worry. There’s no shortage of bigoted assholes around here either.” Tommy groused.

“I’d be worried about you if you didn’t worry Tommy. That’s you, always concerned with truth, duty and the welfare of others above your own. At some point you have to take care of yourself you know?”

“How the flyin’ hell am I supposed to take care of myself when I know you’re out there doing shit that can get you killed!? What were you lot thinking?!?”

Charlotte sat on the arm of his chair and hugged him to her side. “I was thinking that I didn’t want to go to the funerals of my friends who would have walked into something so far outside their area of expertise I doubt any of them would have survived. Those kids are peacetime cops Tommy. They aren’t like you and some of the oldtimers that have not just seen but eaten the elephant.”

“I see your point but you guys ran up a kill count over 150 bodies! Wasn’t there some other way?”

“We aren’t the ones responsible for most of that. We watched while two batches of em tore each other to shreds and left some aerial support to help the LEOs when they got there. I won’t say we weren’t happy about it but we didn’t do it. Now the location where you found the kids… I don’t think I should either confirm nor deny our presence.” Charlotte almost winked at him with that last statement.

“Well I don’t think you have to do either thing. Next time pick your blade up.” He pulled Charlotte’s throwing knife out of his sleeve and flipped it to proffer it handle first.

“Thanks Tommy!” Charlotte leaned over and gave him a hug again.

“I don’t even want to know what happened there, I’m just glad you got out before anyone else arrived and that you’re unhurt. Just… lay low for a while, huh?”

“We’ll certainly keep out of sight for a while! Yves and I need a nice long trip to get to know each other better and I figure we’d like a bit of company in the bargain. I wouldn’t worry about us Tommy, I hear Jakarta is a great place this time of year!”

Tommy just buried his head in his hands for a moment. “I don’t even know why I bother trying…”

“Oh please, you just wish you could come along. We’re gonna nail these bastards Tommy, every last one of them. It not just us, there are other teams all over the world dedicated to ending slavery once and for all and we won’t stop until every last slaver is dead.”

Tommy just looked at her in amazement while the others gave nods of agreement.

“Got any room for an old detective past his prime?”

“All you had to do was ask.”

The End… For Now…