by Laer Carroll
Maybe this was a demonstrator, a selling tool.
Shaker must have been watching for Sasha out the pilot's canopy. She leaned out of the cockpit and threw the shapechanger her dress. Then she continued looking over the shoulder of the pilot and Eliza, sitting at the controls.
"Yes, you can fly her back to the city," the pilot said. "They made the controls intuitive. But you have to get this right before I'll let you.
"Now, you'll tap this to turn the engines on when we leave. Check engines. See this scrolling info? Any oranges or reds you have to diagnose and get fixed. But everything will be green.
"So when you lift up on the yoke the machine goes up. Yes, just like that. Move it down. It goes down. Push forward to speed up, back to slow down. Tilt and the plane goes in the direction of turn...."
Helen came out of the cockpit when Sasha, slipping her dress on, beckoned to her.
"Try to minimize my part in this as much as you can, OK?" Sasha said. "Don't mention my name in a press release. Call me a security employee of the Thompson family. That's the truth. And play up the part of Kevin if you can. He pretended to Eliza they were safe, and to the kidnappers that he was cowed. And..."
"OK. OK. I can't promise anything but I'll try...."
"I'm staying the night with Kevin. I think he needs an antidote to what he's gone through. And I think he may really have saved Lizzie's life."
"And he's awfully cute, isn't he?"
Sasha smiled. "He is."
She looked around the insides of the craft.
"I never even heard of anything like this."
"The pilot said it's a research aircraft. Cost close to a billion dollars. The fuel is from a 'superbattery' and it flies on 'induced paramagnetism'."
"I want one, when they get a sedan model that costs, oh, a million dollars."
Shaker smiled smugly. "They're going to loan an 'AirSUV' to the Bureau for 'marketing purposes'. And I get first dibs."
Inevitably Sasha's part in the kidnap rescue was discovered. Groups of citizens viewed with alarm. Others defended her ferociously. But the news was a week old and there were new emergencies and outrages and happy surprises in the celebrities worlds.
Work picked up. Not much. The fashion world was very self-absorbed and it had adapted to Sasha. She was just another eccentric model.
She and Kevin were an item for a week or two and then their separate lives pulled them apart.
Two weekends later Sasha received an invitation to a private dinner with the Thompsons. She accepted. She had wondered how Eliza was doing. And she had liked the Thompsons. Underneath their clichéd appearance were real and likable people.
"So you liked the meal?" Eliza and Sasha had emailed back and forth on the subject of the menu for tonight and Eliza should be well satisfied. But this was the third time she had asked the question.
Eleanor Thompson said with a smile, "If the quantity she ate is any indicator of quality of experience, Sasha certainly did."
Sasha nodded, took a sip of a savory Argentine wine, and patted her belly. "Stuffed. Just enough." Though she could have eaten twice as much. Her body converted food beyond the immediate essentials to fat, highly compressed so that it served partly as body armor and partly as reservoir for when she exercised her near-superhuman powers.
The four of them were in the landscaped garden on top of the Thompson Building. Fairy lights made the garden a fairy land. On all sides Manhattan at night towered and glittered and winked in the chill autumn air. Air that was warmed all around the table by heat lamps.
The table was lit from above by seeming candle-light. The parents sat at each end of the six-seat table. Eliza and Sasha were across from each other in the middle. Each had a favorite after-dinner drink near at hand or in hand.
"I've been talking to Kevin," Franklin said. "I put him onto an attorney who assures me he can speed up his Green Card application. And I've invested in improving the ranch. Kevin argues, and the facts seem to support, that he can increase the clients of the ranch with some modest investments in upgrading the facilities and advertising. So we'll see what happens, increase or no. Then he can bring his sister over from Ireland. His parents are happy where they are."
He swirled his brandy and sipped it. "Commissioner Johnson got an upgrade on a key information facility he has been trying to get funded. I and a few of my friends put on a fund raiser for it—which Ellie helped put together. Thank God. I'm awful at that kind of organizing."
Eleanor spoke up. "And I talked with that nice Helen Shaker of the FBI. It seems that one of her kids is deeply into ballet. And since Eliza has given up on it there is a scholarship opening up."
Given up? Sasha eyed the girl suspiciously. Eliza looked angelic. Sasha knew that look. Gia was especially good at it.
"And then there's you. That's a real puzzle."
"Well, quit trying to solve it or you will—seriously annoy me." Sasha turned to Eliza. "So what is this new enthusiasm?"
The girl leaped up and pulled Sasha up from her chair and toward the elevator. Laughing Sasha made an apologetic face at the girl's parents.
In minutes the two were downstairs and headed toward Eliza's room.
"Ta da!" On the wall where a ballet poster had been was now a giant one of various students of Judo exercising or practicing in Judo gis. In the center was a slightly larger one of Sasha.
"Oh, Eliza. Do you know how hard learning Judo is?"
"I was good at ballet. I worked to be."
"No matter how good at Judo you get you can't defend yourself from everyone. It's not magic. "
"I know that. I investigated it. A lot." Sasha knew that look, calm, certain, determined. She had seen it for most of her life, from the inside. Eliza had set out on a voyage and obstacles were only for sailing around or trekking over.
"OK. Here's what I'll do. When I get back from Christmas in LA we'll train in the nearest dojo. I'll evaluate how you do and how much you can do. Then I'll help find you a sensei. You know what that is?"
"A master."
"More than that. A master teacher. People can be good at stuff and still be not-so-good teachers.
"Come to think of it, I know a good resource. That FBI woman. She has a black belt in Judo, a second level black belt in karate, and who knows what else. She also puts on a weekly workshop for advanced students."
Sasha put an arm around Eliza's shoulders and steered her back toward the living room where her parents had retired to a couch.
Perhaps an hour later when it was time to leave the Thompsons stopped her at the door to the elevator. Eliza hugged her around the waist, said "Goodnight" and stood back. Eleanor hugged her. Then Franklin said, "May I hug you?"
Sasha stepped forward into his arms. "Always can use a good hug!"
Standing back from a definitely good hug he put a hand on each of her shoulders. "From now on you are one of the family. If you ever have need come to us. And don't be a stranger."
Blinking tears Sasha Canaro entered the elevator and punched the button to take her down to the taxi waiting to take her home.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 - Awakening
Chapter 2 - Adjustin g
Chapter 3 - No Yakuza!
Chapter 4 - Deadliest Woman
Chapter 5 - Avenging Angel
Chapter 6 - Fashion Model?
Chapter 7 - Paris
Chapter 8 - Bloodhound
Chapter 9 - Kidnapped