“Yeah, so? She would keep him in check regardless.”
“Who keeps Bethany Anne in check?”
“Well, I suppose…” Frank got quiet. “None of us really keep her in check, do we? It isn’t like she’s done anything that we actively oppose.”
Nathan shook his head. “Not really what I was trying to say. Maybe this is just my decades of experience freaking out, but having two of the strongest vampires in existence as a couple seems like a monumentally bad idea.”
“I don’t think you’re giving either one enough credit.”
Nathan put his hands to his face. “Yeah. That’s the same thing that Ecaterina tells me. I do try and realize that the Michael I met a few weeks ago isn’t the same guy I had to work with P.B.A.”
Frank searched his mental archives and drew a blank. “P.B.A.?”
“Pre-Bethany Anne. When I first met her, I thought she was either ignorant or psychotic when she would talk about slapping Michael’s head off or any of the dozens of other things she was going to do when she finally saw him again. Now, I’m not sure that she isn’t the more powerful of the two, and if she went bonkers... So, can you imagine if she’s in a relationship with Michael and he pissed her off? Even the best of us can say something to upset our better half.”
“Spoken like a man who has recently encountered this situation.”
Nathan opened his mouth, then shut it without saying a word. He had to admit that he was starting to sound like an alarmist. Maybe Ecaterina was right and his vampire racism was rearing its ugly head.
Frank tried to see it from Nathan’s point of view for a second. He tried to get Nathan to see it from another angle. “If not Michael or Stephen, then who? Are you saying that she’s better off alone? Do you trust a human not on our team?”
“Hell no.”
“How about a Were that isn’t in our group?”
“Hell, I don’t trust a Were that’s IN our group. Maybe Pete, but I think that he’s too young for her.”
“Ok, out of the humans in our group, did you have one in mind? If she ‘gets pissed off’ at a human, are you ready for what would happen if she forgets, even for a micro-second, and hits them harder than she should?”
He shook his head.
“Not even John?”
Nathan shrugged. “Talked to him already. He said he would die for her, just didn’t want to die in bed because of her.”
“So, no humans, no Weres… that leaves vampires. Stephen is out because I know he doesn’t think that he is the appropriate relationship for his Queen to be in.” Frank let his words drift off.
Nathan sighed, “Are you being nice and pointing out that I’m being an ass?”
“Are you?”
Their conversation was interrupted when Dan knocked on the door and joined them at the table.
Frank typed a couple of quick sentences into a secured notebook he had open for instances just like this. Little reminders for scenes in his book.
Dan got the meeting started. “Gentleman, we have a new war footing designation, it seems. Bethany Anne has officially, created a ‘unleash the dogs of war’ designation. So, I’m asking you to find where the terrorists that we need to visit are.” He looked up with a sardonic smile on his face. “I can’t just release the dogs anywhere, can I?”
After their meeting, Nathan went to go talk with Ben while Frank told Dan about the unfolding situation in Turkey.
Key Biscayne, FL USA
TOM, we need to get you hooked up. We’re going to need those new attack ships sooner, not later.
I’ve been testing the computer connectivity through the Etheric to my ship. My ship easily has the capability to use the connections to the internet from the Ad Aeternitatem or the Polarus. It can even grab connections whenever there’s a jet or cell phone tower within range. Not that there’s a cell phone tower within range right now.
Yeah, I guess no one can call you in the middle of the Atlantic.
I think they’re in the Mediterranean right now.
Wherever. Can you get on the internet?
Yes.
Wait, how is it that you can connect to our internet, but we aren’t supposed to be able to connect to your computers?
Because I’ve been studying your communications for many decades and the ship’s capabilities are significantly ahead of what this world has right now. It’s pretty laughable.
Yeah, well just because it hasn’t happened don’t be stupid. Humans are known to be good at figuring shit out.
TOM considered how easily Bethany Anne had started working with the Etheric and took her advice to heart. I’ll put in place some measures to… uh… defend against intruders.
I think Nathan calls them firewalls.
But fire doesn’t exist in digital signals.
Tell that to a guy when his wife finds out he has a girlfriend.
TOM chalked this up to something he wasn’t going to get across to Bethany Anne. He made a mental note to call his defensive efforts firewalls and dropped it.
7
The Queen Bitch’s Ship Ad Aeternitatem, Mediterranean Sea
Bobcat stepped through the door into the ‘garage’ and saw Marcus unwrapping a box. “What’cha got?”
Marcus looked up as he tore off a flap. “Laptop that I can use to talk to TOM.”
Bobcat stopped a few feet away from the table. The complete lack of care Marcus was displaying while he ripped open the box told Bobcat one thing. This laptop couldn’t be returned. Hopefully it would work and they wouldn’t be stuck with it. Fortunately, when Marcus got into the main part of the wrapping he slowed down and they didn’t have to pick up foam pieces. Bobcat heard the door open behind him so he looked over his shoulder and nodded at William. He turned back around to see Marcus plugging the laptop into an outlet. “Do you have any idea how to reach out to him?”
Marcus looked confused for a second as he parsed Bobcat’s question. “To TOM?”
William sidled up next to Bobcat. “What’s going on?”
Bobcat nodded at Marcus. “Rocket scientist is about to wet his pants in anticipation of talking with Bethany Anne’s alien friend. But he didn’t think about getting a phone number.”
“Reminds me of a girl one time…”
“Stop!” Bobcat looked up at his old friend. “This is a girlfriend-free discussion zone. Shelly took all of my cash before I met Bethany Anne and I’ve been going nonstop since then. Now I have the cash and not the time.” He turned to face Marcus who was watching them talk. “Of course, if I had the time, considering where we are, it’s not like there are a lot of bars or places to meet someone in the middle of the ocean.”
Marcus got a glint in his eyes. “Men, these craft we are building will allow us to get to the nicest and hottest cities in the world in the amount of time it takes to drive from Miami to Orlando. You could meet girls in Rome on Friday night, Oslo on Saturday and Rio de Janeiro on Sunday. There won’t be a beach you can’t hit and still be back in time for the next shift. But first, I need to talk with an alien. Do you have any ideas?”
“Why the hell didn’t you say that before?” Bobcat and William came up beside Marcus and started looking at the laptop to see if there were any clues to what needed to be done.
There was a knock on the door. Bobcat looked up from the laptop. “Who is it?”
“Nathan.”
“Come on in.” He returned to looking at the laptop screen.
“What’s going on?”
Bobcat almost jumped out of his pants. “Damn Nathan! Don’t sneak up on a guy like that.” He returned his focus to the laptop.
Nathan was confused. First, he hadn’t snuck up on anyone. Second, all the guys were staring at a normal laptop screen. “What are you looking for?”
Marcus grumped, “How to talk with TOM.”
Nathan considered letting them search around the vanilla Windows install for a while. He then considered what Bethany Anne might do, to him, if she needed them online
sooner rather than later. “Guys, it isn’t on the laptop yet. I’ve got the chat program with me.”
Nathan took a step back when all three men turned as one and started eyeing him like he was the Thanksgiving turkey.
Marcus’ voice was quiet, yet oozed impatience. “I need that program, young man.” He was acting like a druggie.
Nathan reached into his pocket and pulled out a USB drive. “Got it right here. Give me some room…” All three men jumped back, Marcus holding the chair for him. Marcus was impatiently pointing from Nathan to the chair.
“Get with it, man! I’m not getting any younger.”
Nathan noticed Bobcat, behind Marcus, mouthing ‘aliens.’
Ok, Nathan could understand Marcus being impatient because he wanted to speak with TOM. What about these other two clowns? Nathan sat down and plugged the USB drive into the laptop. With a couple of simple commands, he started the installation process. He needed to load a set of usernames and passwords, all with the appropriate credentials. “So, what has you and William so anxious, Bobcat?”
William grunted, “Women.”
“Bars,” added Bobcat.
Nathan turned to look over his shoulder. “What? The chat program is locked into a unique communication protocol. You aren’t going to find women on this laptop.”
Bobcat barked a laugh. “Although funny, what he meant is that, once we have these ships running, Marcus tells us we can hit any of the hottest beaches in the world for dates within three hours.”
Nathan turned back around. “So, saving the world from alien invaders isn’t enough? But, getting to a beach in Brazil to pick up a super-hottie in three hours is enough to get your drive up to… err … peak performance… No, that isn’t right…”
“Hell-to-the-yes.” That was William, ever to the point.
Marcus took up the conversation. “I wanted help. I figured that I needed to find a motivational force. Something that would provide an ever present, and useful, encouragement for younger men. Something that would bring about a renewed enthusiasm for completing the task more quickly.”
Nathan pulled the USB drive out of the laptop. “Well, that’s it for the laptop. Let’s not let it outside of this room and for sure not off this boat. Not that it probably matters, it isn’t like there’s any proprietary data.” He stood up. “Don’t put any other programs on here. If something happens, just turn it off. If that happens, you will then need a new password that I will have to give you. So, if you disconnect it from the wall and it runs out of juice you’ll need to find me, understood?”
The men all agreed they understood, so Nathan left them.
Before he met Ecaterina, Nathan had been chased by enough women that he considered dating a chore. Since he had met Ecaterina he had no desire to be chasing women. So, he logically understood Bobcat and William’s interest, but that was all.
Speaking of Ecaterina, he had an hour to spare before his meeting with Ben. He headed off whistling, to hitch a ride back to the Polarus.
Back in the garage, Marcus was sitting in the chair in front of the laptop. He had the chat window open, staring at it.
Behind him, Bobcat looked over at William who shrugged his shoulders. Bobcat looked down at the scientist. “What’s the problem, Doc?”
“What do I say?”
William said, “You’re not dating him, say hello and let’s get this rocket stuff moving.”
Marcus typed into the laptop’s chat window
>Hello?
The chat window was immediately filled with a response.
>>Hello, this is TOM. Who am I addressing?
>This is Dr. Marcus Cambridge.
>>Hello, Dr. Cambridge. Or would you prefer Marcus?
>Marcus is fine, thank you.
>>No need to be so polite, Marcus.
>I’m sorry, it has just been a passion of mine to meet an alien and now I’m actually communicating with one.
Marcus jerked around and looked up at both men. Both looked at him, confused. He said, “You guys aren’t punking me, are you?”
“No. Although that would be funny as hell.” Bobcat replied while William chuckled.
Mollified, Marcus turned back to the chat window where a response waited for him.
>>Marcus, not to put this too bluntly, but you’re not my first. My first human contact was over a thousand years ago. So, I’m not a virgin.
Bobcat burst out laughing behind him.
Marcus smiled. He recognized an effort to put him at ease. Shrugging his shoulders, he wrapped his fingers together and cracked his knuckles. “Let’s get to work, gentleman. We have some serious hot rods to build!”
The men spent the next three hours working with TOM on the ship’s capabilities and drive specifications. TOM explained things and Marcus translated them into what would help define their ship’s design parameters. At the end of the session, Marcus told TOM ‘goodbye for now’ and he sat back, amazed.
Marcus had his head tilted back, staring at the ceiling. “I’ll be damned.”
Bobcat put the bucket of beers on the table and reached in to get one. There was a Coke in the bucket for William. Marcus waved off Bobcat’s offer. “Not yet.”
Opening his bottle, Bobcat took a swig. “Why are you going to be damned?”
Marcus stood up and tried to pop his back. It felt stiff and sore from sitting so long. “It’s an anti-gravity device. If Podkletnov could see even half of this information he would shit bricks, I’m sure.” Marcus walked over to the whiteboard. The guys had written down some information for him while he was chatting with TOM. “Right here, this calculation that William wrote down almost verifies his and Modanese’s calculations for anti-gravity pulses at sixty-four c.”
Bobcat interrupted Marcus, “Doc, remember not all of us know your shorthand.”
Marcus picked up the green dry-erase marker. “Speed of light. Sixty-four c is sixty-four times the speed of light.” Marcus added a couple of mathematical notations. “The only thing is, TOM’s people had the ability to make it quadruple in capacity. So they can go two hundred and fifty-six c for short bursts of time.”
William opened his Coke carefully. Bobcat had ‘accidentally’ shaken one up on him more than once. William had to go and take a shower to get the sticky stuff off. “Wouldn’t you die from the acceleration?”
“Good question, but no.” Marcus grabbed the red marker. “Here are the notations on how to build a locally transitive gravity shield so that the effects warp around using a gravity sphere.” The mathematical notations might as well have been Sanskrit to the other two.
William looked over at Bobcat. “Is he punking us?”
This time, it was Marcus that barked a laugh. “Gentleman, if we can fabricate the right shielding I could get you to Brazil in five minutes. Of course, you’d probably destroy anything within a quarter mile of your vehicle from the shock waves.” He turned back to the whiteboard using the marker to scratch the back of his head.“Guess that means a limiter for atmospheric travel.”
It was another hour before the doctor sat down and accepted his first beer of the night. He was officially the most knowledgeable scientist in the world related to anti-gravity and light-speed travel between the stars. And, it annoyed him that except for these two men and one alien, no one had a clue.
Well, they would soon enough.
Key Biscayne, FL USA
Bethany Anne had Nathan and Frank on a conference call.
“So that about sums it up. Both of you say that Tabitha is solid and she’s an almost terrifyingly good hacker. She passed your background check, Frank. And Nathan, you also have Ben’s opinion to back up performance reviews from her bosses, right?”
Nathan said, “Yes. Although her bosses are just about as happy with you taking Tabitha as they were when I took Ben away from them.”
Bethany Anne replied, “Can’t be helped. I need someone really good that’s already been exposed to the UnknownWorld, and she fits the bill perfectly.”<
br />
Nathan knew there was something else going on with this. He thought he could feel an undercurrent of mischievousness in Bethany Anne’s voice. “Boss, anything else you need to know about Tabitha?”
“Yes. Is she snarky? Maybe a bit of a pain in the ass?”
Nathan looked over the table at Frank, who shrugged but answered as best he could. “The background check showed a few run-ins with the law before she was eighteen. She has a bit of a chip on her shoulder. Is that a problem?”
“Fuck no, not for me anyway. I think she’s perfect!”
Nathan wanted to bounce his head against the table a couple of times. “Boss, who is going to be utilizing Tabitha’s skills?” Frank’s eyes started to open wide and his mouth made a little ‘o.’
“Guys, I thought you knew? Michael has asked for some help to find someone who can replace Carl. He needs a person to fill the technical liaison role for him in South America.” Her answer was so smooth Nathan was sure that she was doing her best to not laugh out loud.
Nathan agreed to get Tabitha and her traveling clothes ready. Paul would go and pick her up in Texas. Bethany Anne would take her down to Michael after she arrived in Florida. They said their good-byes and hung up.
Nathan stared at Frank.
Tabitha and Michael together? Oh god in heaven, what was Bethany Anne up to?
Michael was standing in the house where Anton had held his last party. He was looking down off of the balcony to the floor where Bethany Anne had killed the two Nosferatu that Anton’s scientists had created. It was the location that Bethany Anne could most easily remember. It would be her target when she translocated from Miami down to Argentina.
He was staring at the spot where he expected Bethany Anne, and the guy who would become his new technical support specialist, to appear.
His face was carefully controlled. He didn’t want Bethany Anne to get any ideas from the fact that he had actually arrived five minutes early. He wanted time to make sure that he was in the perfect place to witness her arrival. When she arrived she wouldn’t immediately be able to see his face, yet he would be able to see hers.
Kurtherian Gambit Boxed Set One: Books 1-7, Death Becomes Her, Queen Bitch, Love Lost, Bite This, Never Forsaken, Under My Heel, Kneel or Die (Kurtherian Gambit Boxed Sets) Page 112