The Ties That Bind

by T. Starnes

  I hadn’t spent much time with Marcus’s band of Engineers. While we chatted off and on; for the most part, they left me alone, even though I was mixed in with them off to one side of the viewing stand. After what seemed an eternity, the festivities got under way.

  The tests weren’t spectacular from where I was sitting, but I knew it would be an eye opener for the group crowded around the radar control set up. It was being manned by one of their people, and I knew they would have the best person they could get. After a few minutes the drone came silently whisking overhead, and you could see a commotion among the group at the radar station. From their excited body language, my guess was that no one knew the drone was there, 'till it got within visual range.

  It was eerie how silent it was. I hadn’t really considered it before, but with any machine flying through the sky, you just expected some kind of sound. Yet, this thing was dead silent. I am sure close up there were sounds, but at the distance it was from us, nothing at all was heard.

  Next came a series of higher altitude passes, which was supposed to make it easier on the radar guys, followed by several more low altitude passes were made. The low altitude passes would naturally be the hardest to detect, since the drone would be obscured by the natural signals given off by 'ground clutter,' but it also showed off one of the features we had touted: the lack of “buzz” commonly associated with the drones currently in service.

  There were a few of the low passes where I thought maybe I could hear something, but I wasn’t sure. Again, from my seat, it seemed like the audience was suitably impressed. This whole time the drone had also been snapping pictures and running a video feed from the installed surveillance array. After one more low pass, there was a thirty minute wait as the drone was landed and the brass examined its take. Their technicians had worked hard to hide pieces of intelligence in the testing area for the drone to find. This may not have been as sexy as a test where stuff was blown up for the spectators, but the true professionals in attendance would know the value of an intelligence gathering tool such as this.

  While we were waiting for the test to resume, that did get me to thinking. There was a strange dichotomy between my stated goal of trying to make the world a better place, and building military ordnance. On one hand, this seemed like one of those 'necessary evils.' We needed money to do anything I really wanted to do, and this seemed like the best shot at getting the funding we needed to move forward. On the other hand, the US military didn’t always have the best track record on what they wanted to do with that ordnance. If I were being dishonest with myself, I could qualify our building a drone by saying that it had no offensive capabilities, but the realist in me understood that the military could use the intelligence our drone could gather to kill just as many people as if it had a missile attached. If it were up to me, I would find a way to offload the drone project in its entirety, and focus on things like the desalinization project. But that was easier said than done. It all came back to the need for funding. This wasn’t something I was going to find a way out of, sitting here in these bleachers, but it would be something to ponder in the future.

  Ted, Ron, Marcus and a bunch of guys in uniforms tromped off into a conference room set up especially for their meeting. I went back to the hanger we had been assigned, and puttered around for what seemed like hours before Ted, Ron and Marcus entered the hanger. I took it as a very good sign that the three of them seemed to be in an extremely good mood.

  Ted walked up and exuberantly said, “We did it!”

  “You’re going to have to elaborate on that,” I said, smiling back at him.

  Marcus couldn’t hold it in anymore, and jumped in saying, “They were blown away by the test. They had both the test installation, and the Ellington control tower looking for SWEEP-1, and they never picked it up.”

  SWEEP-1 was the ID of the test drone that flew today. I was happy to hear the stealth features worked as well as Marcus had hoped they would.

  “They were also impressed by how silently it ran,” Marcus continued. “Their only real concern was the lack of offensive capacity, but I reiterated that this was one of those situations where you had to decide which was more important, stealth or payload. I told them they already had platforms capable of carrying out direct interdiction. What they didn’t have, was a solid stealth platform.”

  Ron’s head was bobbing in agreement, “They want to investigate further. They ordered five for testing purposes, and authorized an 'intent to order' for twenty more, if the testing proves out. A representative of the DIA also expressed an interest.” That was good news, the DIA, which stands for the Defence Intelligence Agency, is the intelligence gathering arm of the military.

  “They agreed on a price of four million apiece for them,” Ted added.

  I did the math quickly in my head. While we had let Ron inside the processes a lot, we never discussed the cost structure of the drone with him, since ultimately, his allegiance was still to the Air Force. Not that I felt that we were screwing the Air Force, but it’s best not to talk about profit with the customer.

  Marcus felt that these would not be selling in huge quantities, since they were more of a specialty item for the military. I figured, at best, we would be selling fifty of these a year; so I agreed we wouldn’t need a large production facility. Unfortunately, even a small production line would cost a fair amount.

  Our cost for producing one of these drones, including the manpower to put them together and the parts we were buying from suppliers, would come in at just about a million dollars each. That left a hefty fifteen million on the initial order, but nearly ten million of that would be needed to set up the production facility. This would leave us five million in operating capital, since we had just about used up all the money Ted and I had put into the project. This was enough, though, for us to start working on the next ideas. It would also allow Ted and I to recoup some of the money we had initially invested; which was good, since I was almost out of all my settlement money. I hated the financial pressure I must be putting on Mom.

  “So, when does the order for the first five come in?”

  “Soon, actually,” Ron supplied. “The General was very impressed, and they have the room in the testing budget for the order. The larger order will have to be part of ninety-seven’s military budget. That should be submitted in the next couple of months, so it can go through the congressional approval process. Assuming it doesn’t get pulled out of the budget … and with something this relatively small, I don’t imagine it will be … it will be September or October before it is finalized.”

  That was a lot longer than I was hoping. We would have to go ahead and build the production line, so we could push the initial five out; but then we'd have to just sit on it for six months, until the budget process concluded. That meant we would have to live off the five million that would be left over, until then. That sounds like a lot, but when you are talking about doing R&D on new projects, which I wanted us to start, it wouldn’t last all that long. Still, it was what it was.

  “That’s great news,” I said smiling back at them.

  For all my weighing as to what the money meant, it really was great news. We had just become a solid company, with a strong possibility of becoming something more.

  “You have a lot of work ahead of you, getting the production line set up,” I said, turning to Marcus.

  “Yeah, I know. I'm really looking forward to it. We'll get plans put together, and sit down with you and Ted on Friday. That should be enough time for me and my guys to get the basic outline of how things are going to work.”

  “Sounds good to me. Let’s get this stuff packed up, and get back to home base.”

  Ron took off, saying he had to rejoin his bosses. The rest of us started packing up and getting everything back to the warehouse where we had built the original prototype. It took pretty much the rest of the day. It was a little back breaking at times, but we got everything back before dinnertime and Ted gave me a ride back home
.

  The rest of the week was pretty packed. I found myself at our “production” warehouse until late every evening, helping out where I could. Even though I had been reading pretty aggressively into engineering, I wasn’t up to snuff enough to help on the building of the actual drones, so I was put to work on the more scut work parts of the project. That was fine with me. I wanted to get these five drones built every bit as much as Marcus and the other engineers did. It meant being able to move the company forward to the next project.

  I did spend one long evening with Ted and Marcus going over budgets. Ron had already managed to talk the general into pushing through a first payment on the test drones. That was good, since we needed a hefty portion of that payment to get the necessary supplies to build the drones. While the stealth paneling would take some time, we had already started in on some of the modular component systems.

  Before I knew it, New Year’s Eve had arrived. We let everyone knock off early, and I caught a ride home just after lunch. I had managed a brief call with Emily earlier in the week, and I arranged for us to get together on New Year’s Eve. Her parents were going to be out until early in the morning, so she decided to push it, and hang out with me until midnight. I knew Margaret would be working late, so I had also invited Tina over, since she would be all alone at home otherwise.

  Tina showed up first, giving me a hug when I opened the door.

  “Hey, Sis, a bit early aren’t you?” I said, considering the sun hadn’t even gone down yet.

  “Yeah, but Mom already left. I was going to let you make the snacks for tonight, but I figured Emily might prefer something edible, instead.”

  I hip-checked her in response. She just laughed as she scooted away from me and made her way to the kitchen. I sat at the kitchen table while she started pulling things out of the fridge.

  “So, what’s on the agenda for tonight,” she asked as she worked.

  “I have no idea. You will remember planning social events has never really been my thing. I was kinda hoping I would invite you and Emily, and you two would figure it out from there.”

  “Ha! You are totally spoiled by your girls, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah, pretty much.”

  “Ok. Well, I'm sure we will figure something out.”

  Tina knew about my work, and had a bunch of questions about the test. She was very happy for me that it had gone so well. I did warn her off discussing it with Emily. Not that I was planning on keeping her in the dark for a long time, but I wanted to ease into it. News that I am part owner in a company making military hardware, or that I am some sort of genetic aberration, wasn’t something I wanted to drop on her until I was sure the time was right. Besides, her home situation still left me with a nugget of concern about her, and how she would ultimately fit into our unusual family.

  Shortly after dark Emily showed up. As I had with Tina, I was greeted with a hug, although I added a brief kiss on top of that. Pulling apart, I found Tina behind me, grinning.

  “Emily, you’ve met Tina, right?”

  “Yeah, she came along on one of the outings with Zoe and everyone else. It’s good to see you again,” she said smiling at Tina.

  Tina didn’t hesitate but came up and gave Emily a hug. I think many people who get close to my group are surprised by how affectionate we can be, although I knew Tina also felt she was doing her part in helping the girls and their plotting.

  “Good to see you, too. Now, come with me to the kitchen. Cas is playing 'dumb boy,' and wants to leave all the planning for tonight up to you and me.”

  Both girls were laughing, generally at my expense, as they walked off towards the kitchen. I decided to leave to stay out of their line of sight, and their teasing. I moved into the living room and sat on the couch to wait. Thankfully, it didn’t take too long.

  After just a few minutes the two girls returned carrying a bag of chips and what looked like queso, and laughing.

  I looked over at the laughing girls and said, “What?”

  That caused even more laughing, never a good sign. I chose just to ignore them.

  “So what’s the plan for tonight?”

  Tina adopted a weird demure look which hinted to me as to what the conversation in the kitchen was really about, something else I decided it was best to just ignore and move past. Thankfully, Emily decided to answer my question.

  “For now we are gonna take it easy, maybe watch some TV and snack. Then a game, and later, music and dancing.”

  “Here?”

  “Yep.”

  “But there is only the three of us.”

  “So? You have a radio. You have an open room. It will be fun.”

  'TV' turned out to be a romantic comedy. I found myself bracketed on the couch between the two girls. After the conversation the other day, I thought I was back in safe waters with Tina. But, she was making nearly identical moves to what Emily was doing, and it was clear she wasn’t through with me. I knew this was going to come to a head at some point. I just hoped it wouldn’t be tonight, with Emily here; since any conversation about Tina and I, would almost certainly end up in areas Emily wasn’t privy to, yet.

  After the movie and double cuddling on the couch we played a game called Taboo. I hadn’t heard of it before, but apparently Tina had found it in one of the closets. It was a card game that involved trying to guess words on a card, without using a prohibited list of words. I think it was meant for an even number of people, but the girls managed to make it work.

  After that was the dancing, which frankly, was weird. We put on music and at first it was fast dancing with the two girls dancing up against me, both a little provocatively. Then the radio switched to some slower songs. For the first one, Tina excused herself and Emily danced up close to me, cradling her head on my shoulder. Even though we were just in my living room, I was enjoying that. What was weird was when another slow song came on, Emily excused herself, and Tina danced up against me. Clearly the two had worked out the dancing order beforehand.

  Keeping my voice down I said, “Tina, what are you doing?”

  She looked up at me with her big brown eyes, “What do you mean.”

  I didn’t buy her innocent look for a second.

  “You know what I mean. You have been putting the moves on me all night. I thought we were past this.”

  “Past it … no. More like accepting it.”

  “Tina, we can’t …”

  “I know, Cas. It’s ok. Just go with the flow, tonight. I won’t try to push any more than I have. We can talk about it when the girls get back.”

  I frowned at her, but she just put her head back on my shoulder Emily walked back in the room. I decided to let it drop for the time being, until I could have a private moment alone with Tina to put my foot down.

  It was nearing midnight and Tina had gotten ginger ale in fancy glasses for us. It looked mildly like champagne, and I guess for a bunch of underage kids it was the best choice for us.

  We counted down the final ten seconds along with the TV that showed a scene of Times Square. I guessed that it was a recording, since they were an hour ahead of us. As the ball dropped the three of us shouted ‘Happy New Years’ along with the TV at which point Emily laid a big kiss on me. I was surprised when she stepped clearly out of the way and Tina stepped up.

  “Tina, don…” was all I got out before she, too, kissed me.

  She now knew about the effects that kissing me could have. I knew this would end badly, but done is done. I still gave her a glowering look when she pulled away, and she had the good sense to look chastened.

  We all sat down to watch the festivities on TV as the world said goodbye to 1996, and hello to 1997.

  “Don’t you have to get going pretty soon?” I asked Emily.

  “Yeah, in the next thirty minutes; but I just want to just sit here on the couch with you until I have to go, and relax. This is so nice. I don’t want it to end.”

  I heard a “me too” from the other side of me, which cause
d me to frown slightly. However, it's hard to be to upset with two girls pressed up against you.

  “Ok. Just a few minutes, then.”

  That was the last thing I remembered, until I opened my eyes against the harsh glare of morning. I looked down at the two girls nestled against me and smiled for a moment, basking in their affection … and then it hit me!

  It was morning!

  “Emily, GET UP! It’s morning! We feel asleep!”

  As Emily pulled herself awake and comprehended the situation, I could see the real fear in her eyes. I knew for a fact that things were about to get very bad.

  Chapter 15

  The words took some time to sink in, as her brain was still fogged with sleep. As they did, Emily began to slip into panic mode.

  “Oh my God, Cas! I am in so much trouble! What am I going to do? I can't go home!”

  “I don’t think we have a lot of choices. If you don’t go home, they will call report you as missing.”

  “You don’t understand … My father …”

  I pulled her into a hug, “I know.”

  She pushed me away, “No, you don’t know. He gets mad when things aren’t just right. He likes order, and things being the way they should be. And Mom … I just …”

  I grabbed onto her tight and pulled her to me. She resisted at first but after a moment of hugging her close to my chest, her muscles relaxed and her panic devolved into sobbing.

  “It will be ok. I will go with you.”

  She pushed back hard out of my embrace, “You can’t.”

  “Yes, I can. Emily, I told you, I know what's happening. I am not going to let you go home by yourself and get hurt.”

  "But what can you do?”

  "Hopefully, I can talk to your dad, and try and reason with him. If that doesn't work, I make a pretty good human shield. Whatever happens, I cannot let you go home and face him alone. I will not let you get hurt.”

  A smile escaped her lips despite her panic. She looked completely conflicted but eventually I saw her start to give in to my arguments. I don't know if it was the fear of going home alone, or my argument that persuaded her, but either way I was glad she was at least accepting my help.