TKG08 WE WILL BUILD Rel 01 (14 page)

“Well, actually Richard and Samuel are still alive.
 
I’ll deal with those two later, though.”
 
Her upbeat tone sobered when she mentioned the two Vampires.

Stephen nodded.
 
He knew the history between the three of them.
 
At one time, they were very close.
 
“Please leave them alive.”

“Why?”

Stephen replied, “Bethany Anne is making requests for Vampire guards at the base in Colorado.
 
Maybe you could let them work their dastardly deeds off?”

“Don’t you go and support their antics!”
 
She growled.

“I merely mentioned that Bethany Anne, your Queen, wants to recruit Vampires, Gabrielle.”

“Fine!
 
But I’m still going to kick their asses.”

“Understood.
 
It that all?”
 

“Why, is there a hot date for you?”

“No, but I have a conference call with the European Pack Council in five minutes.”

“Sorry, yes that’s it, and thank you.”

“Your welcome.”
 
Stephen said goodbye to Dan and Frank and stepped back out of the conference room.

“So, can I have my men?”
 
She asked.

Dan replied, “Young lady…”

She interrupted Dan, “See!
 
That’s how you get in my good graces, Frank.”

“If you interrupt me again, Gabrielle, I not only won’t send John and Eric, but you will be recalled.”
 
Dan’s voice was firm.

Dan waited a second, but received no additional comments.
 
“Very well.
 
When we have a target, we will plan the op and get you the people.”

“Alright, I understand.
 
If you guys don’t need us, I’ll drop off.”
 
She replied.

“Nope, that works.
 
Talk later.”

They said their good-byes and dropped the line.

---
 

Two hours later, Frank was still up working, trying to track down anything on this Vampire.
 
Whether it was in his archives from back in D.C. or on the web.
 
His spiders were crawling the dark web, but he didn’t expect to get many hits.

He looked over at his phone and sighed.
 
He reached over, opened up the contacts and then hit Michael’s number.

Michael picked up on the second ring.
 
“Hello Frank.”

Frank answered, “Hello Michael, do you have a minute?”

“If I hadn’t had a minute, I would have allowed your call to go to voicemail.
 
I’m well aware that many are still very hesitant to speak to me.
 
Therefore, I’m sure that whatever is causing you to seek me out, it isn’t to discuss the weather.”

Frank wasn’t sure how to respond to Michael.
 
Everything that Michael had said was very true. He had hesitated to call Michael himself.
 
Out of everyone, it was probably only Bethany Anne who would just pick up the phone and call him.

“Frank?”
 
Michael asked.

“Sorry Michael,” Frank finally responded. “I was just caught off guard by your statement.
 
You know, in all honesty I’ve never thought about how lonely your life must be at times.”

There was a sigh on the phone, “That is probably the biggest issue, Frank.
 
As you age, it is difficult to keep going when friends and loved ones age and pass away.”

Frank made a spur-of-the-moment decision, “Michael, are you doing anything for the next couple of hours?”

 
“No, why?”

“Because I’m going to come see you.”

This time, is was Michael who was surprised.
 

It took Frank ten minutes to get Dan’s approval to get a Pod and start on his way to Argentina.
 
At the moment, he felt even more alive than he had in the last couple of years.
 
He was hurtling through space with the world splayed out beneath him.
 
Half in darkness, half in light, it was beautiful.
 
Frank was content, he was paying back a friendship debt he owed Michael for decades.

As the Pod came down in Michael’s backyard, Frank could see the back door open and Tabitha streaking out with Michael sedately following behind her.
 
Tabitha’s smile could just about reach both ears, he thought.

When the Pod touched down, he reached up to unlatch the doors and they opened.
 
Tabitha reached in to help pull him out, “Hey pops!”

Frank looked at the younger woman, “Pops?
 
Who are you calling ‘pops’?
 
I’m a healthy looking young thirties I’ll have you know.”

She waved a hand, “Pshaw!
 
You could pass for an older twenty-something if you would stop wearing clothes that are as awesome as unicorns puking rainbows on the head of baby dragons. And for God’s sake, stop tucking in your shirt!”
 
Tabitha came up and started ripping his tucked in shirt out of his pants.
 
“Nothing says old like a tucked in shirt!”

“Nothing says sexual attack more,” Frank countered, “than a young and attractive woman ripping my clothes off in a backyard at night!”
 

“In your dreams! It isn’t a sexual attack, call it emergency fashion services.”
 
She stepped back and eyed him, “Oh yeah.
 
Let me take you out on the town, I’ll get you laid.”

Frank was poleaxed!
 
He looked over to Michael who was standing back behind Tabitha. Frank had such a look of ‘help me’, on his face, that it caused Michael to chuckle.
 

Tabitha patted him on the chest, “Don’t worry, I’m sure your younger body will be thinking about this and I’ll have you taking me up on my offer in no time.
 
Anyway, gotta go!”
 
She stepped around Frank and turned to sit down in the Pod. She looked around in confusion, then asked, “Um, now what?”
 

Frank turned and realized that Tabitha hadn’t been excited to see him, she must have been able to get permission to go up in a Pod.
 
He smiled, “Buckle in.
 
There is a small pouch if you get sick on the right side.
 
If you mess it up, you clean it up.”
 
He made sure she had the seatbelt on correctly.
 
“Pay attention to the instructions on the screen.
 
Wipe to turn the screen on or off.
 
Use the Mic in the top right to request anything and don’t be out too late!”
 
He showed her how to open and close the doors.
 

She said “Ok Pops!” at the last second before she closed the door.
 
A couple of seconds later, the Pod smoothly rose up fifteen feet, then rocketed up and disappeared.

Frank was looking where the Pod had disappeared, “That will always be cool.”

Michael walked up and stood next to him, “Would you care for dinner, or just drinks?”

Frank turned and held out his hand, “What kind of wine do you have?”

Michael smiled and shook his hand then turned to walk into the house, “I’m sure some of the best in the world.
 
I’ve not tried to drink too much of Anton’s cellar yet.”

“Well,” Frank said following Michael. “Since it was shit he caused that you and I were cleaning up most of the time, I feel like the little unlamented bastard owes me.”

Michael chuckled as they went in the house.

TQB Base, Colorado – USA

Marcus was in his office, contentedly working on calculations.
 
His laptop was plugged into two monitors with one of them devoted to his chats with both TOM and ADAM.

He was in scientist heaven.

The speaker activated and ‘beeped’ him, he hit the button, “Yes?”

The outside security spoke up, “Sir, I have Ms. Cheryl Lynn out here to see you?”

Marcus thought for a second to put a face to the name, That’s right, it was Tina’s mom…

Oh shit!
 
He turned around and looked frantically, then his shoulders slumped and he responded, “Please let her pass.”
 
He needed to take his medicine from her for his ‘field trip’.
 
But thinking back on Tina’s joy at being in outer space made his eyes twinkle and he straitened up.

He wasn’t letting Tina go into genetics without a full-court press to keep that incredible mind with him here in outer space.

Even if it meant he had to weather the full brunt of Cheryl Lynn being upset.

It wasn’t but a few seconds later that Marcus heard footsteps coming past the loud machines that William used to manufacture most of the little toys Marcus and Bobcat requested.

He was inwardly focused, thinking, when there was a small knock on his door jamb, startled, he looked up and smiled, “Hello!”
 
He stood to reach out to shake Cheryl Lynn’s hand, “Please come in and have a seat.”

Cheryl Lynn quickly looked around the room.
 
It had all sorts of lab equipment along with a large desk with a laptop and two large monitors connected to it.
 
He had six medium sized televisions with different views of space on four and two videos of earth on another two.
 
“Those are pretty.”
 
She commented as she found a round chair to sit on.
 
It was a stool on wheels.
 
Not the best choice when wearing a skirt to sit down, but he didn’t have any other type of chair in the room for her.

She could just imagine a bunch of teenagers grabbing the chairs and going outside to have chair races together.

“Hmm?”
 
Marcus turned around to see she was pointing to his outer space monitors. “Yes, they can be.
 
Last week there was a large storm in China that had lightening flashing all the time at night, it was simply gorgeous.”

She looked back to him, “Those are real?”

He looked perplexed for a second then smiled, “Are you asking if there are real-time?
 
Yes, those are real-time right now.
 
In fact,” he walked over to the middle set and pointed to an area showing the United States.
 
He put his finger about the middle of the continent. “If I walked outside and I requested a zoom down, the weather is nice enough that I could wave and you could see me smile at you.”

Cheryl Lynn pondered for a moment, trying to decide if what she thought she heard was actually what he was saying.
 
“You can see anywhere down to a person’s face?”

Marcus shook his head a little, “It is all dependent on weather, smog and other factors.
 
We are far enough from any city that smog isn’t normally a problem for us and there are no clouds right now. Plus, the optic capability we have learned from the Kurtherians allows us to zoom with far better resolution than our previous capabilities.”

“What are you looking to do with the other monitors?
 
Are they just pretty views?”

“Unfortunately, no.”
 
Marcus’s smile faded a little.
 
“These are the four most likely locations that would bring unwelcome visitors to earth.”

Cheryl Lynn stood up and walked over, “Like passes in the mountains?”
 

Marcus looked back to her, with raise eyebrows. “Excuse me?”

“I read a lot of westerns.”
 
She pointed to the four space monitors, “It’s like you are checking out the four passes through the mountains that they could attack.”

“Yes, that is a fair analogy.
 
Based on my work with TOM, I have figured out the main three points where we might expect to see unexpected guests, the fourth one is something that ADAM came up with for reasons only he knows.
 
I can’t follow his logic on that one.”

“We really are going to go out there, aren’t we?”
 
Cheryl Lynn had originally come to see Marcus for two reasons, neither seemed terribly significant at the moment.

“Not only are we going, we already have been.”
 
He mused aloud, looking at the screens.
 
That was when he felt her finger stab him in the chest.

He looked down to notice her previously engrossed look had become pointed.
 
What had he said?

“Speaking of ‘have’, you took my daughter into space!”

Oh, that.
 
He smiled to her and answered, “I did take her on a field trip.
 
Did you know your daughter is the youngest person to have travelled above the thermosphere?”

Each of Cheryl Lynn’s words were punctuated with another sharp little stab of her index finger, “You. Should. Have. Explained. To. Me. That. You. Meant. Outer. Space!”
 
On the last word she stabbed him twice as hard.

Fortunately, Marcus’s body was feeling a little less old due to some revitalizing liquid that Patricia had been providing him for the last eight days.
 
Otherwise, his older ‘self’ probably would have hurt more from her fingernail.

“Ms. Cheryl Lynn.”

“It’s just ‘Cheryl Lynn’, leave off being proper when I’m upset with you!”

“Ok, Cheryl Lynn.
 
I told you we were going on a scientific field trip past the thermosphere.
 
I am a rocket scientist, what else did you expect me to say?”

Cheryl Lynn turned around, throwing up her arms, “How should I know?”
 
She turned back around, “How about ‘I’m thinking of taking Tina half-way to the moon, we should be back by dinner.
 
Is that ok?’”

“Would you have believed it?”
 
He asked.

“Yes!
 
No!
 
…. I don’t know…..”
 
She turned back to her stool on wheels and sat down.
 
“I don’t know what I can or can’t believe anymore.”
 
She looked him in the eyes, “Did you know that we have honest-to-God Werewolves walking around with us?”