“The Coffee Klutch is the same thing.""
That is when everything fell into place for Jones. The downtown dinner with the name the Coffee Clutch. The side room reserved every Tuesday night for the ladies of the town. The town had turned against Blythe. With 375 million in the stock market, they could do what they wanted. It now made sense. The banker not following instructions. The problems getting the DA and police to do what he wanted. It was time to get out.
“Harry, Blythe is going down. He has maybe six months before he looses his companies. I want you to pull all of my stocks out of his companies. But I need it done slowly and quietly so he doesn't know that I am quitting. How long do you think it will take?"
“How much money are you willing to lose in the deal?"
“As little as possible."
“Give me four months. To make this work you will need to make sure he doesn't suspect you are leaving."
“He won't."
Chapter 9
Eyes
I finished an article on the affect of deforestation on local water tables. I encrypted the story and emailed it to the home office. Move-over was watching me from the top of the computer case. Since he had to have his head on the computer's cooling fan and the fan was in back of the case, he was trying a new method of lying on the computer. He was on his back with his head coming out from under his shoulder. I scratched his chin. The cat's rumbling was three times louder than the old muffin fan on the computer. Just audible over the purring was the thrashing of the computer's hard drive.
I wondered if Blythe had someone trying to hack into my files. What about my work on gravity? The best way to protect something is not to protect it. I decided to send copies of my equations to every college and lab that I had email addresses to. If everyone had it with my name on it, no one could steal the information.
The sending of the emails took the rest of the morning. I needed to get away from the computers. I had work to do on the Contraption. I bought a new reflector dish. The dish was the only thing that seemed to be broken beyond repair. To protect the dish during the next test, I was welding steel straps to the Dodge transmission case. The straps were long enough to reach the dish. I would bend each strap to form a harness around the outside edge of the dish. I lost myself in the blue arch of the electric welder. Tomorrow I would start assembling a frame to mount the electromagnetic transmitters on. I was going to use inch and a quarter galvanized steel water pipes. The pipes were overkill for the frame but my dad had a stack of them left from the waterlines we had for the stock tanks.
All the work I was doing didn't stop the worries about Tabitha. Would she be alright?
* * * *
It took all week but Tabitha finally got Sue alone. “Suzie, I noticed something strange when you ran into me. You did it on purpose. I want to know why."
“You're paranoid. I never meant to hurt you. Let me go!"
Tabitha walked Suzie into the corner of the dead end hallway. “Talk to me."
“Get away. You're crazy."
“Maybe, but you are going to tell me what happened."
“Please. Please let me go."
“Talk."
Tabitha pressed into Suzie holding her against the wall. Afer a few minutes something broke within and Suzie's shoulders dropped, tears came. “So much money. I needed the money. I didn't think. I didn't ... not until I felt your leg break. God, why did I do it?"
“Who gave you the money?"
“Some guy. I don't know. He seemed to know I was broke. He gave me five hundred dollars in cash. A week later he came with another five hundred and said he wanted you hurt, bad enough so you would be out for the season. A thousand dollars. More than enough money to finish the year. But then he said he wanted it done during a meet. I said no way. But he showed me another five hundred. He left. He said he would come back in a week.
“When he came back, he told me the plan. How you would be knocked down and I would fall on top. It didn't seem real. I didn't want it to be real. He was willing to give me a thousand dollars more. I wanted that money..."
Tabitha left Suzie standing at the end of the hall.
* * * *
Ever since Jones got back from New York, he felt peoples’ eyes on him. The older waitress at the dinner seemed to glare as she filled his coffee cup. Two sheriffs deputies came in and took a corner booth. Between sips of coffee, they would look across the dinner at him. Fred from the bank came in and sat at a table near the cops. Jones overheard the waitress say to Fred, “Leena would be proud of you standing up to them."
Jones had to protect himself. He had to do Blythe's bidding until he got as much of his money as he could out of Blythe's companies. But he had to also keep up the dirty tricks on Czeminski and Karpinen. How was he going to do both with everyone watching?
“Excuse me. Mr. Jones."
“What? Sorry, I was thinking about some work back at the office. What can I do for you officer?"
“Oh nothing, I saw you studying your coffee so intently. I thought that something might be bothering you. Something you might want to tell me. But if it is just office work, I will leave you to it. You can't believe how much paperwork we have to do every day."
The waitress came and topped off his coffee. “Tom. Say hi to Oggie for me."
“I will. Good coffee today Fran."
“Mr. Jones, do you want anything else?"
“No. Just coffee. Thanks."
* * * *
Late Friday afternoon, I put out the automatic feeder and water bowl for Move-over, made sure his litter
box was clean, and put the lights and radio on timers so anyone looking in would think someone was home. I got into my pickup and drove to Tabitha's college. It was already dark when I got there. She met me at the lounge next to the main entrance to her dorm.
I pulled her in and held her. The relief of seeing her okay was so great. I don't know how long we stood there in each others arms but everyone was staring by the time we moved apart.
“We need to talk. Private. Let's go up to my room."
She swung around. Using the single crutch she needed to walk and with her cast as a prod, she pushed through the students in the lobby to the elevators. She already had the doors closing on the elevator car when I got there.
“Slow poke."
“If I had a stick I could use for crowd control, I would have gotten here at the same time you did.” We just held hands until we got inside her room. I wanted to hold her again but she pushed me away and told me about what she found out from Suzie. She insisted on me telling her everything I had done during the week before she let me pull her to the bed.
I was struggling with her bra straps before I thought to ask, “Where is your roommate?"
“She went home for the weekend."
We stopped talking for the rest of the night. I woke up in the morning to the metallic sound of claws on a window screen. It was something I was very familiar with, after all my family always had cats. I have expected a cat hanging from the window even if we were four stories up but it turned out to be a little nuthatch hanging upside down and watching.
“Ever since I got back to school, those birds have been hanging on that screen. I don't know why. There is no food out there and the trees are on the other side of the dorm."
“Tabby, I need to tell you the story that my Uncle Ben told be about Vietnam...
“I don't know how it fits but I somehow feel that we are now point men. Ever since the day those punks tried to take you, I have felt the danger building. Every day I feel myself become more attuned to what is around me. I wish I knew what those, those ... Yosie are thinking..."
Chapter 10
Testing
Spring was melting the snow. I wished I could be outside more but those pesky emails I sent to the colleges and labs had started a series of responses that took at least three hours every day to answer.
The rebuilding of the Contraption was finished and I was starting measurements. I
had hung a sixteen-pound bowling ball from the rafters and was measuring the strength of the gravity field by marking the deflection of the ball from the perpendicular. I learned my lesson from the first experiment and set the transmitter strengths to their lowest settings. The ball still moved more than a half a meter to the focus from a point one and a half meters away. I had set the ball closer but the gravity field had pulled the ball into the focus and it reflected the lasers causing the field to collapse.
I was counting the days to when Tabitha would be home during Easter break with both anticipation and worry. I wanted to show her the Contraption and bring her to see Uncle Ben if the weather held. But I also noticed that the numbers of watchers had increased. I was hoping that it was just because the warmer temperatures had brought more animals out and not that they were waiting for something to see.
The Chameleon had just organized the take-over of a smaller publishing firm. She ripped the pieces of the company apart and fired most of the workers. It resulted in a net gain of two million dollars to the company. Most of the money came from the retirement accounts of the workers. The smaller company had banked most of the retirement accounts into its own coffers. With the company in pieces, the Chameleon had been able to liquidate the accounts and substitute the cheapest retirement plan she could find. This place was already boring her. It was just a pale imitation of the Users. The joy she felt when she first discovering the intricacies of this society had faded to contempt with the ease of her infiltration. She decided that she would collect all the information the Users needed in a few more months.
* * * *
“Wow! Have you been busy. Okay, no coaching. Let's see if I can figure out everything you have done."
Tabitha spent the next hour looking over the changes I made to the Contraption. It was three times larger than when she left for school. Most of the size was accounted for with the inch and a quarter pipe that I used as a frame for mounting the transmitters.
“Okay, I understand the harness around the dish. I can see how you used the pipes to mount the transmitters. Did I ask why so large pipes? Wait, I seem to remember you saying something about having them already. I understand the bowling ball pendulum for measuring the gravitational strength. Could you tell me again why you have the transmitters mounted away from the dish?"
“Remember that gravitational strength decreases with the square of the distance?"
“Right, right. The extra distance lowers the force enough so the gravity doesn't affect the transmitters. I got everything but what the hell is that copper pipe and rubber hose for."
“Remember that all we got was a distortion when we first turned on the Contraption until Move-over dropped the dust bunny?"
“Yup."
“Well it took me a while to figure out what might have happened. I decided that the gravitational field was forming and the energy of the air molecules being accelerated around the forming field caused the distortion we saw. The combination of moving air and forming field caused the gravity field to fluctuate as well. A strong field couldn't form because everything was rippling until the concentrated mass of the dust bunny made contact with the energy. I was going to drop small pieces of dirt into the field to get things started but I realized that the lasers would bounce off the dust so I decided to minimize the bounce by injecting an air stream."
“Turn it on. I got to see this."
There was a humming and the boombox vibrated with the Mozart piece I put in the player. The distortion field formed and I blew into the rubber hose. Air streamed out the small copper tube and the field formed. A small blue ball of light glowed from where the focus of the dish was and a soft whistling sound came from the copper tube as air swirled around the blue ball. The bowling ball moved slowly to the focus. The blue ball faded and dissolved into a distortion field again. I blew into the hose and the gravitation ball formed once more.
“The field breaks down so I have to periodically blow a new concentrated air flow into the system. The blue glow I think comes from the near by air molecules collapsing in on themselves. I think..."
I never got a chance to finish. Tabitha jumped me. We wrestled in the garage for a while, hands sneaking
between layers of clothing. Finally, I ran and she hopped with her half cast leg into the house and the warmth of the bedroom.
The spring floods had come. I could never figure out where my uncle went when his cabin was flooded out. There was still snow on the north side of the trees and a nip to the air. Tabitha had helped pack the supplies and canoe into the pickup. It took an extra hour to pack but it was the most fun I had ever had loading-up.
Tabitha couldn't get comfortable with her cast sitting in the prow so I had her sit as cargo in the middle of the canoe. We were slowly drifting downstream. We floated past a bend and I saw the hollowed out woodpecker tree. The Pileated Woodpecker wasn't there but an eagle watched from the top of the tree.
I caught a whiff of wood smoke, the distinctive smell of cedar with the pungent mix of birch. I knew that Ben was near. Just past the next bend, Ben waved us to shore. The near bank was heavily flooded so we had to wade the supplies to Ben's canoe and ourselves to shore. Tabitha didn't want to get her cast wet and asked Ben for a lift. He was laughing so hard he nearly dropped her into the river. At the campfire, he had opened a can of coffee and started brewing. I don't know how he knew but he had three birch bark cups made and ready for us to drink from.
We drank the coffee slowly just making small talk about the early spring. Ben disappeared behind some trees and came back with a beautiful four-foot walking stick. It was made from twisted white ash and had been oiled to a bright sheen. Handing it to Tabitha, “This for you. Much better than crutches. Can I show you?"
Tabitha handed it back. Ben took it. Suddenly the stick was spinning, flying through the air. Ben did a series of smacks to a small tree, head height, stomach, and feet ending with the point of the stick smashing into the heart of the imaginary tree man. He handed the walking stick back.
“You have puukko?” I pulled the knife from where I hung in under my left arm. “Good. She will need a knife too. Take her today and buy her a good one."
Turning to Tabitha, “He told you about being at point. But remember being at point is more than just you and everything else. There are those following.” He stopped talking and refilled our bark cups.
He carried Tabitha back to the canoe. Before he could back away, she grabbed him by his scraggly beard and kissed him. Ben fell on his ass, waist deep in the water. He started laughing, splashing water at Tabitha and me. “Dan you better take good care of her. I recommend a good spanking when you get home.” Tabitha flushed to a bright red. But when she turned back to look at me her eyes had a bright sparkle.
The eagle watched us as we paddled upstream.
When we got into town, I bought Tabitha two knives. I couldn't find a puukko so I bought a Marine Kabar and a balanced throwing knife. We were very sober by the time we got back home until Tabitha dropped her pants and reminded me that I was suppose to give her a spanking.
It was May and the emails were becoming a real problem. Finally, I decided that the easiest thing to do was to schedule a demonstration. Tabitha said that she would be done with her classes by the twenty-eighth. I decided to give the demonstration on the thirtieth. After checking the date with Tabitha, I sent emails to everyone giving the date and location. I put in for two weeks vacation at the end of May and got back to proofreading.
* * * *
The Chameleon was mad at herself. She had been so busy playing games with her new identity that she forgot to keep up with the scientific news. Her neglect was brought to her attention when she reviewed travel expenses for her company's science magazine. The physics reporter was asking for expenses to go to Northern Minnesota. When she questioned him, he showed her a dozen pages of equations and experiments that were being done all over the world. All of the work was based on an original set of equations from a Daniel Karpinen. Ever
yone was questioning if Karpinen actually did the original work. He was a proofreader for a competing publisher and not a known research scientist. The speculation had become a topic between all of the science/mathematics magazines and had increased the interest in Karpinen and his equations. Karpinen was set to run an experiment based on his equations for anyone interested on May 30th. After a quick check, the Chameleon found that most of the scientific publishing world and many of the scientific labs were sending people to Minnesota.
The Chameleon had to stop the demonstration. She was not an expert in physics but she was skilled enough to recognize a quantum leap in technology. Some aspects of gravitational control showed by the equations would put this human race at close to equal footing with the Users. She had to find out what Karpinen knew and who he told. She then had to destroy the work in such a way as to give the impression that the whole thing was a scam.
The first thing she did was tell her reporters to be very careful with the story. Reminding them of the cold fusion fiasco of a few years ago, she told them they had to be supercritical of the event. There was only a week and a half left before the demonstration. She had her staff detectives make an emergency physical review of Karpinen's home. While waiting for the report, she would travel north preparing for the sabotage.
May 27th. The Chameleon finally received the detective's reports. She was staying a half a day's drive from Karpinen's home. The farm looked isolated. The phone and power lines seemed easy to compromise.
* * * *
Jones was nearly finished with Blythe. He had tried to stop the takeover of Blythe's companies but after the Coffee Klutch drew first blood, the Wall Street sharks chewed apart his companies. His last act for Blythe was to arrange some physical act against Karpinen. He had put it off until now knowing that the police would zero in on both him and Blythe. His thoughts were interrupted by the conversation at the booth behind him.
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