Rescue (an Ell Donsaii story #11)

by Laurence Dahners

  Viveka was saved from retorting by a knock on the door. She stood abruptly and tugged at her blouse. Before she could go to the door her mother gripped her wrist and said, “Viveka… lean down here… your hair…”

  Resisting the urge to snap at her mother Viveka leaned down. Her mother reached up and smoothed a few hairs. “You’re very smart,” she said quietly, “and very pretty… but it wouldn’t do to get your hopes up.”

  “I don’t have my hopes up,” Viveka said as she left to go to the door. To her astonishment, when she opened the door, Dr. Pace had a small bundle of flowers in his hand. She felt heat rush to her face and was momentarily glad that her dark skin could not turn red like she’d seen happen to white girls when they were embarrassed. “Come in, come in,” she said as she took the flowers he was holding out to her.

  She couldn’t decide whether she should put the flowers into water first or introduce him to her mother first. She had never had anything like this happen to her before. Finally deciding that it was most important to show respect to her mother, she led him into the living room. “Mama,” she said, ignoring her mother’s wide eyed focus on the flowers, “this is Dr. Gary Pace. Dr. Pace, my mother.”

  “Namastē Ms. Janu,” Dr. Pace said, smiling.

  It astonished Viveka as she realized that he had taken the time and made the effort to learn the Hindi word for hello. She felt sad that his efforts were wasted on her mother who spoke English and her own adivasi tribal language, but did not speak Hindi.

  Dr. Pace continued, “Your daughter is absolutely brilliant. Her work has been tremendously important to us down at Allosci.”

  Feeling the heat rising in her face again, Viveka took a respite in the appearance of her sister at Dr. Pace’s side. “Dr. Pace, this is my younger sister Rana. Rana, Dr. Pace.”

  Pace smiled at Rana, “Well, you look like you will grow up to be beautiful like your sister. Do you like science like she does?”

  The normally talkative Rana shook her head, looking down and twisting a toe in the carpet.

  “I’m afraid not,” Viveka said, “she’s more interested in fashion.”

  “Well,” Dr. Pace said, rubbing his hands together, “shall we go? Our reservation is at seven, so we don’t have all that much time.”

  “Let me just put these in water.” Viveka said.

  For dinner Dr. Pace took them to a nice Italian restaurant. He said he’d considered taking them to an Indian restaurant with the thought that it might make them comfortable, but then had worried that Indian food here in America might not be all that much like their food back home.

  Viveka had not had Italian Food other than pizza when it had been delivered at Allosci for lunches. Her mother and Rana had had no experience at all with Italian food, but Dr. Pace was very courteous and helped them all choose menu items that they might like.

  He treated her mother very respectfully, and carefully drew her out in conversation during the meal. He especially acted interested in their lives back in India and repeatedly complemented her mother over the sacrifices she and Viveka’s father had made so that Viveka could get the education she so desired.

  When he finally dropped them off at the end of the evening, Viveka’s head practically whirled. Dr. Pace had been so polite. What would her mother think of him now? Why was he treating her and her family so nicely? Did he do this for all of his employees? Did he really think that she was brilliant?

  As soon as the door closed on his exit, Viveka’s mother turned to her and said, “He may not be sleeping with you now, but he wants to sleep with you.”

  Aghast, Viveka said, “He does not!”

  Narrowing her eyes, her mother said, “Grow up! All men want to sleep with all women. But, he in particular has his eye on you.”

  “You’re crazy! How can you be so sure that he’s not just a nice person? Besides, you shouldn’t be talking this way in front of Rana!”

  Her mother waved a hand in dismissal, “Rana needs to learn how men are very soon anyway. And apparently, so do you. You complained about how the men in India treat women. Men are men. Just because he is an American man does not make him any different. Go ahead and imagine if you want, that he is ‘just a nice person.’ But, listen to your mother as well, so that when he turns out to be just like all other men, you won’t be heartbroken.”

  Viveka turned and stormed away, unsure whether she was more angry with her mother, or with herself because she also wondered why Dr. Pace was so nice to her.

  ***

  Shan came in from his run, toweling his face. Amy sat at the big dining table with several screens scattered around her. Zage sat placidly in the middle of the room. The baby boy glanced back a moment at the sound of the door, saw Shan then turned his attention back to the screen he’d been watching where some kind of National Geographic animal programming played. “What’cha doing Amelia?” Shan asked, looking at his son.

  “Checkin’ up on the payroll program my AI is running.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah,” she looked up at him, “Elsa asked me to check every so often to be sure nobody’d hacked it and to be sure it was keeping up with the cost of living.”

  “Ah,” Shan said distractedly squatting down next to his son and looking at him. “Aren’t you worried that Zage is going to take off and get into some kind of trouble? Seems like you gave me grief about that possibility a few months ago.”

  “Well, that’s true. But I don’t get so deep into what I’m doing that I wouldn’t notice if the world blew up.”

  “What about Zage though? At nine months shouldn’t he be doing something more than sitting around like a chubby little Buddha?”

  Amy got up, came around and knelt down next to Shan.

  Zage looked curiously up at them for a moment, then turned back to his animal show.

  Amy said, “Yeah, he should be crawling, or trying to. And standing while holding onto things. I’ve been a little worried about him, but Elsa asked the doctor about him at his six month checkup and the doctor thought he was OK.”

  “He seems happy though.”

  “Yeah,” Amy chuckled a little, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a happy baby. Or maybe peaceful is a better term. Your calling him a ‘little Buddha’ isn’t too far off.”

  “Maybe I’m worrying too much?”

  “He’s got his nine month checkup pretty soon. Surely if there’s something wrong, the doctor will tell Elsa then.”

  Shan lifted his eyebrows, “Hey, I should go along.”

  Amy arched one eyebrow back at him. “Yes, you should.”

  ***

  Ell pulled her rolling stool up to the lab bench in the basement. She had a five centimeter port set horizontally on the bench top. The new port controller she’d designed bulked large next to it. For experimental purposes she’d built the controller big enough to allow for manual control of the various parameters. She flipped the main switch on, and the port popped open. After asking Allan to dim the lights she dialed up the frequency of its opening and closing so she’d be able to see the surface of the port from the faint blue glow that emanated from the port’s surface at each opening.

  Once the port interface was readily visible she reached for the slider at the right end of her controller and nudged it up.

  Sure enough, the center of the interface bulged slightly up from the center. Punching her fist in the air Ell leapt up and danced a little jig around her stool. She’d tried it twice earlier and it hadn’t worked, but each time she’d found technical errors so she’d been pretty sure it wasn’t an error in the math.

  Sitting back down, she pushed the slider up, uncertain whether the port would fail as she pushed the bulge out farther. It continued to bulge up higher as it deformed itself toward becoming a half sphere. But, as Ell had expected she kept having to push the voltage higher and higher with less and less bulging resulting from the change. As she pushed the voltage farther into this region of diminishing returns it finally reached
a shape that appeared to represent a half sphere. When she tried to push it further than that, the port popped out of existence, or rather, the port simply stopped forming and reforming.

  Rather than being disappointed, Ell gave a little fist pump. She’d been afraid that something had been wrong in her calculations and that it might extend much further.

  That would have made it a devastating weapon. Coming on and off while protruding a long way could have made it into something like the light sabers of the old Star Wars movies. It would have readily cut through anything, and therefore been another piece of technology she couldn’t share with the world.

  Chapter Two

  Viveka started when a voice came over her shoulder.

  “I hear you’ve got something for me?”

  Viveka whirled, “Dr. Donsaii!”

  “You’ve got to call me Ell!”

  “Yes Ma’am,” she said standing up and moving to the end of the bench. She picked up a zip lock bag that appeared to be full of sand. “Here are your graphene beads.” She tilted her head curiously, “What are you going to use them for?”

  Ell grinned at her, “I can’t really tell you, but nothing really important. More of a party trick, actually.”

  “Oh, I was hoping it was another of your world changing inventions.”

  A little bit embarrassed that she had had Gary and Viveka invest so much time in her “party trick,” Ell changed the topic. “How are you getting along? I hear your mother is here for a visit?”

  “Yes, and my younger sister, Rana. It has been a lot of fun to have them here.” Viveka said a little wistfully, carefully not mentioning any of the friction between herself and her mother over Dr. Pace’s interest and attention. “They’ll be going back soon, and I’ll get back to my lonely little life.”

  Ell tilted her head and frowned, “Oh, I’ll bet you are lonely here. It’s probably been difficult making friends?”

  Viveka nodded.

  “I hope you know that Gary thinks the world of you? But maybe we need to do something to get you more involved with other people?” She rubbed her chin like she was concentrating then said resolvedly, “I’ll talk to Gary about it.”

  As she walked away Viveka felt torn. Relieved that someone was going to help improve her dismal social life, sad that she needed help, and worried about what Dr. Donsaii would say to Dr. Pace.

  She hoped it wouldn’t be too embarrassing.

  ***

  Ell fidgeted as she watched Dr. Rowski putting Zage through his nine month checkup. Zage seemed to be watching curiously as Rowski examined him, studying the otoscope before the pediatrician got it in his ear, then grinning when Rowski flashed the light in his eyes and looked in his mouth. When Rowski finished listening to Zage’s heart he got a grip on the end of the stethoscope and held it up where he could look at it for a moment.

  Rowski put him in her lap and studied him, “He seems physically healthy. You say he can crawl, but seldom does?”

  Ell nodded, feeling apprehensive. It didn’t sound like that was normal.

  “And, if you hold him up,” Rowski lifted him, “he always just pulls his legs up rather than trying to stand?”

  “Pretty much,” Ell said, glad that her voice hadn’t broken.

  “And he watches videos, but not cartoons?”

  “Yes, Ma’am,” Ell said, trying not to sound disconsolate.

  Rowski tried to peek-a-boo with Zage, but when she hid her face, Zage turned to look at his mother. When Rowski peeked back out at him he didn’t seem amused.

  “He used to seem to like that game, but not anymore,” Ell said.

  Rowski turned to look at Ell and Shan, “And you’re worried.”

  They nodded.

  Rowski said, “Try not to get too wound up about it. It’s true he’s behind on some things, but he’s ahead on others. What are you worried might be wrong?

  “I don’t know,” Ell said, almost plaintively. “Autism, cerebral palsy? He just doesn’t seem to be doing what he’s supposed to be doing.”

  “Well, he doesn’t have cerebral palsy, his coordination and limb use is too good for that. Autism, that’s hard to diagnose at this young age, but he smiles and looks me in the eye, so I don’t think it’s that either.” She paused, looking at Zage who still had his head turned to look at Ell. “Zage?” she said.

  Zage turned his head back to look at the pediatrician.

  “And he responds to his name, also a suggestion that he’s not autistic.”

  Ell said, “We’re thinking about getting him into some kind of pre-school so he can be around other kids.”

  Rowski lifted an eyebrow, “He hasn’t been around other kids? Not in day care or something like that?”

  Ell shook her head, feeling despair over the thought that she might not have been raising her son right. “Should he have been?” The fact that they could afford to have Amy care for Zage had seemed like such a good thing. What if it had actually been bad for his development?

  “Well,” Rowski said, “seeing and being around other kids might inspire him to do some of the things that kids his age normally do. ‘Pre-schools are for older kids though.” She frowned at the puzzling baby. “I think it would be a good idea to get him around other kids somehow if you can. There’s a couple of ‘Mother’s Morning Out’ programs that start at age 1. Meanwhile, you could try to find another mother with a child the same age and let them play together.” Rowski looked up and smiled at Ell, “Try not to worry too much though. Other than being overweight he seems awfully healthy.”

  Shan said, “Should we be putting him on a diet?”

  She smiled, “I wouldn’t worry too much, but you might feed him just a little less.”

  Despite the pediatrician’s admonition, Ell couldn’t help leaving with a sick feeling in her stomach.

  Outside the office she turned to Shan, “Should we get another opinion?”

  “I think we should relax. The doctor didn’t seem all that worried.”

  ___

  Long after they’d gone, Rowski’s mind kept coming back to baby boy Zage Reyes. Could she be missing something? The baby seemed healthy and seemed so far ahead with some things like motor coordination. But barely crawling and not trying to cruise at all? Could this be some kind of rare syndrome?

  ***

  Dupree Fallon looked around at the men in the little cabin, pleased by their serious looks. There’d been some jackin’ around that afternoon and from the shooting scores it had become evident that some of them hadn’t been keeping up with their target practice. Focus on the positive, he thought to himself.

  “OK,” Dupree said, “Redman, the way you bypassed the AI on that

  truck was pretty impressive. You’re sure you can do that for any truck?”

  “No, only Toyotas.”

  Dupree frowned, “Why Toyotas?”

  Redman, an unemployed electrician whose real name was Joseph Bindless, shrugged. “If we’re gonna steal a truck and blow it up, I didn’t want to be takin’ it from someone who buys American.”

  Dupree smiled like a shark, “Good thinkin’. And that software is going to let you make it drive wherever you want? I mean off the street and right into a building?”

  Redman spat into his cup. “Right into a building. Out the other side if you want.”

  “Excellent work. The SCDF could use more men like you.” Fallon turned to Jerry Winlake, codenamed Salem. As much as possible he tried to keep it so that they didn’t know each other’s real names or addresses. What they didn’t know they couldn’t tell the Feds if those SOB’s got ahold of them. “How about you Salem? Have you found a source of fertilizer?

  Salem, dour as always, nodded. “Farmer. Keeps it on hand.”

  Dupree went on around the room. They had detonators and Tevex stolen from a West Virginia mine. Salem had containers and a source for fuel oil in the form of a couple of partly empty fifty gallon barrels of diesel. They had found a location with equipment for mixing the f
ertilizer and the fuel oil in proper ratios. Every step was planned to occur far from any of their homes or workplaces, using stolen or borrowed equipment that couldn’t be traced to them. They had used a refurbished AI to download a pre-established list of queries on bomb building over a PGR chip. Once all the information was on the AI’s memory, they’d destroyed the chip, moved the AI and never hooked it back up to the net again. There was no way those data dumps could be traced to any of them. Any time they needed the info from the AI off site, they printed it out as hardcopy. Then they burned the hardcopy when they were done with each step.

  Dupree’s son Ellis Fallon, codenamed Cola, had worked out most of the plan, a fact in which his father took great, though silent, pride. The boy had also won their sharpshooter prize today. A chip off the old block, Dupree thought, if only more of the SCDF were up to his standards.

  “OK,” Fallon said, “I’ve picked us a great target. That God damned abortion trial is set to happen at the US District Court in Florence next month. If those liberal pantywaists make a pro-choice decision, we’ll blow Hell out of their building by sending in the truck that we’ll have already parked outside. If they step up and decide in favor of the right to life, then we’ll move the truck across town to an abomination of an abortion clinic located on Elm Street. We’ll deliver a message there telling the world that we agree with the Court!

  ***

  Jenny sat down next to Carter. “Daddy, are things OK at work?”

  Carter put down his screen and looked at his ten year old daughter. She’d always been serious and had truly been affected by the period when he hadn’t been able to find a job a couple of years ago. Sometimes it seemed that she couldn’t stop worrying that the good times that had resulted from his employment at ET Resources might come abruptly to an end. This wasn’t the first time she’d asked how things were at work.

  Concerned that she worried too much, he tried to evince a positive attitude even though the fact that the President seemed to have it in for Dr. Donsaii made him a little nervous himself. What if Stockton tried to nationalize the company? He feared that if government bean counters were in control they wouldn’t be so generous with salaries. Though lord knows, he and Abby knew how to get by on a lot less than he earned now.