by Simon Archer
“Everything you see to the right and left is ours,” Theo said.
The red dirt stretched forever in both directions with little variance other than the number of tumbleweeds. I stared out to the side windows of the truck for at least ten minutes before I felt us slowing down. I turned and looked out the windshield to see if there was something in our path that was causing the decrease in speed.
Directly in front of the truck was a small, spread out grove of sycamore trees. Theo navigated between two of them, and it was like the desert vanished. The area was shaded, and the temperature dropped fifteen degrees almost instantly. When the truck stopped, the three of us got out.
“How did these get here?” I asked Theo.
“Bev and I planted them about twenty years ago. They are fast growing and hold up to drought well. We thought maybe one day we’d have kids to build for, but that wasn’t the path our life took,” Theo said, reaching over and holding Bev’s hand.
The open area inside the ring of trees was large enough for a good-sized house plus some. The trees gave the air a fresh, clean scent. There were rows of trees creating paths off in two directions from the main open area. It reminded me of the tree-lined driveways I’d seen the last time I visited Vermont.
I turned to Theo and said, “It’s absolutely amazing.”
“We were hoping you might think so,” Bev said. “The question is… Is it beautiful enough to make you want to build a home here?”
I was still having a hard time believing that I was legitimately being offered land to build on, especially land this beautiful. I turned in a slow circle, looking up to the treetops. Little specks of sunshine were reflecting off the leaves, and it made the illusion of the canopy being sprinkled with glitter. Kennedi would love that view, I caught myself thinking.
I looked at Theo and Bev. They both had happy but anxious looks on their face. I knew they said they didn’t need an answer right away, but it was clear they were hoping for one. I’d never spent more than ten minutes deciding where any adventure would lead me, so I didn’t see the need for even more time to ponder this one.
“I would like to buy the land from you,” I said.
Theo shook his head immediately. “No. This is a gift. The deed would be transferred to you for ownership,” he insisted.
“Besides,” Bev started. “You are going to have enough expenses with building costs and all,” she finished.
“Please, no arguing about the land,” Theo said. “As you can see, it is out here untouched and will remain that way until the end of time if you don’t take it.”
I walked over to Theo and held out my hand. He reached forward, and we shook.
“You two are crazy, you know that?” I said. “You two are also the most generous people I’ve had the good fortune to know. We will accept the land.”
Both Theo and Bev broke out in smiles. “Good man,” Theo said as he let go of my hand. Bev threw her arms around Theo’s neck and hugged him like they had just hit the jackpot.
I turned around and was looking at the trees again when something occurred to me. I spun around on my heel and looked at Bev.
“I do have one little request for you, Bev. More like a question, really,” I said. “If we stay and build a home here, how hard would it be to convince you to open a restaurant with Ellie?” I asked.
Bev let go of Theo and put her hands on her hips. “You aren’t making conditions, are you, Mr. Clark?” she scorned jokingly.
“No, not at all, but I can’t think of a thing that would make either of you happier,” I said, making sure my tone communicated just how serious I was about the matter.
Bev looked lost in thought and stood that way for the next two minutes, at least. When she snapped back from wherever her mind had gone, she glanced up at Theo and back to me.
“I’ll consider it. That is a conversation that Ellie needs to be around for,” Bev told me, and then she swiftly returned to the truck and climbed in. She had a great knack for leaving a room, even where there wasn’t an actual room. She waved at Theo and me to get moving, and soon, we were headed back to the house.
When we returned to the house, Kennedi was sitting on the front porch swing. She stood up when we pulled up. Theo turned the truck off, and the three of us got out and met her on the porch.
“Ellie is in the kitchen,” Kennedi said as she came up to us. “She’s starting to prepare for the event.”
“Oh, well, I better go help her,” Bev said with a laugh as she hurried inside.
“Where d'you guys go?” Kennedi asked curiously.
I shot Theo a quick look. I had asked that he and Bev not say anything to Ellie or Kennedi just yet about the land.
“I have a surprise for you and Ellie, and I didn’t want you to know about it because I can’t show it to you right away,” I said with a smirk.
“Oh, okay!” Kennedi said and skipped past me into the house.
Inside I found Ellie and Bev working up a storm in the kitchen. The counters were piled high with vegetables, fruits, and bread. One whole counter was covered with pies of various kinds. The two of them were chopping and whisking and buzzing around each other like they’d worked in the same small space together for years.
“What’s the smorgasbord for?” I asked, grabbing a baby carrot off the counter and popping it in my mouth.
“Hands off!” Ellie practically shouted. “We have the charity event today,” she said without stopping to look up at me.
Bev smiled and glanced over. “Ellie and I are responsible for quite an extensive menu this afternoon at the local VFW Chicken-shit Bingo Event. I have tickets for the two of you if you’d like to go,” she offered.
If it had been named anything other than ‘Chicken-shit Bingo,’ I probably would’ve said no, but in this case, I agreed to go. I didn’t even ask what the hell it was.
38
Four hours later, after a beer and a nap in one of Theo’s loungers, I found myself standing beside Kennedi, looking through a chicken-wire pen. Inside was a huge bingo board laid on the ground and three different-colored chickens pecking around. I had asked Theo what Chicken-shit bingo was, but he’d refused to give it away.
“Place your wager here!” I heard a loud voice boom from a nearby speaker. The voice belonged to a surly biker-looking gentleman standing in a small booth to our right. “Place your wager here! Only five dollars per chicken and twenty dollars per square!” he shouted.
“Let’s go place a bet,” Kennedi said excitedly. “All the money goes to the Childhood Epilepsy Foundation.”
We walked over to the booth, and I asked the gentleman standing there with the microphone, “How does this game work?”
“Well, you pick a chicken. Then you pick however many squares you’d like, and if your chicken poops on your square first, you win. If another chicken poops on your square first, you lose that square,” he said, laughing the entire time.
“I’d like to buy the board,” said a familiar voice behind me. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. I turned around and saw Alan Graves standing there with his CG, Krysta, trying to be invisible in the background.
Then I heard a violent hiss, and it took me a second to realize it was coming from Kennedi. She was standing rigid, and I saw that her claws were half-exposed. I quickly stepped in front of her. The hissing stopped, but I could feel the disgust radiating off of her.
“I’m sorry, sir, but there is a cap at six squares, and this gentleman was here first,” the burly biker said. His tone had lowered, and he was clearly not going to stand for confrontation of any kind.
I turned to the booth and laid down cash for six squares and the dark brown chicken. I grabbed Kennedi’s hand and pulled her away without even a single word to Alan in hopes that he would disappear. I wasn’t so fortunate.
“Clark,” Alan called after us. “Clark, wait just a minute.”
I stopped and looked at Kennedi. “You go see if Ellie and Bev need any help. I’ll be right the
re,” I instructed her. She had a murderous look in her eye. I thought it was her general disdain for Alan that had her so worked up until I saw her gaze soften. I turned my head and saw what she was looking at. Her eyes were on Krysta.
“I wish I could take her with me and away from that sour, abusive, waste of skin,” Kennedi hissed. “She told me about the way he treats her when nobody is around. It makes what I went through in the pawnshop look like a cakewalk.”
“Let’s talk about it later.” I put my hand on her face and turned it, so she was looking at me. “Right now, I need you out to go to Bev and Ellie.” Kennedi shot Alan a look that could have melted metal but slowly obeyed. She walked away, and I turned around just as Alan caught up with me.
“What?” I sniped at Alan.
Alan was huffing and puffing like he’d just run a marathon. Sweat beads were dripping down the side of his face. He looked like a fat man who had to outrun a rattler and was two seconds away from having a heart attack because of it.
“I’m glad I caught you,” he huffed. “Look, there seems to be a misunderstanding between us.” He continued to pant the whole time.
“I’m not aware of any misunderstanding,” I said coldly.
Alan was getting closer to catching his breath. “We thought you’d bring Ellie, whom we gifted to you, to the skybox after your last match. Our photographer was brought in for a photoshoot with all of us. Then we were told you were at the after-party. Did you not get the message to come to the skybox?” he asked, although I was certain he knew the invite had been received.
“Oh, I was clearly aware that you were beckoning me to your skybox,” I said. “I chose not to go. I felt no need to celebrate with people working to stab me in the back.”
“Now, now. Don’t be like that,” Alan said, finally able to breathe normally. “I don’t know where you got the idea that we weren’t one-hundred percent on your side.” The false shock in his voice made me want to throat-punch the lying fucker. I took a deep breath, and an idea started to formulate. I let the air out and put a grin on my face.
“Must’ve been my misunderstanding then. Bad information perhaps,” I said, making my voice as even as possible. “I’ll be sure to bring Ellie to your skybox next match.”
“Glad to hear it,” Alan said. His pompous ass straightened up and puffed his chest out like he’d just won a pissing contest. “I’ll see you then. Oh, and don’t bring Kennedi. She is no longer welcome at the stadium.”
I felt the rage explode in my stomach and start to crawl up into my throat. Then I felt a hand on my shoulder and heard another familiar voice, this one was welcome, however.
“No way we’d want our Clark to break any stadium rules.” It was Charlie Lindy. “There’s no reason to think he would, especially after all that nonsense about him rigging his whip. You’ve got yourself an honest contestant here, Alan,” Charlie said commandingly.
I checked the anger coursing through my body and realized how much of a good thing it was that Charlie had shown up. I was about to take Alan’s sweat-covered head right off his fat body.
“Of course, we wouldn’t,” Alan said slowly. I hadn’t seen it before, but Alan was afraid of Charlie. “I’ll be going now. I forgot about a meeting I have to get to.” Then he scurried off as quickly as he could.
I turned to Charlie and reached out to shake his hand. “You don’t know just how perfect your timing is, Mr. Lindy.”
“Oh, I do. It looked like you were about to treat him like you do your opponents on the Platform,” Charlie chuckled. “Let’s go see what kind of masterpieces Ellie and Bev have cooked up for this crazy event.”
I laughed, and the two of us headed towards the food tent. “You mean you didn’t come here to watch chickens shit everywhere?” I asked Charlie jokingly. He just shook his head and smiled.
When we reached the food tent, we could barely get in, the place it was so full of people. It looked as though there were more people waiting on Bev and Ellie’s cooking than there were milling around the rest of the event.
“Clark! Charlie! Over here!” I heard Kennedi call us. She was peeking out a door on the side of the tent and waving us over. When we reached her, she grabbed my hand and pulled me into a room that was behind the cooking and serving areas. Charlie followed.
There were ten chairs set up around two large tables, and at the back of the room was a flap of plastic marking the doorway to the food. The tables were covered with trays of assorted appetizers, skewers, desserts, confections, vegetables, and dips. I headed straight for one of the turkey wraps I recognized from dinner last night. I popped it in my mouth just as Leah came through the flap-door.
“Great! You two are here!” she said, all smiles. “It is a madhouse out there. Bev called and asked if I could bring Macy down to help. Even with as fast as Ellie is, they could barely keep up. And that Ellie! Phew! She could command an army with how efficient she is and how she keeps everyone on track. Looks like they have it under control now, though.” Leah dropped into one of the chairs.
“I’m going to go help them,” Kennedi said and disappeared through the flap.
Charlie and I joined Leah in sitting down as I swallowed my turkey wrap and reached for one of the green olive pinwheels I’d spotted. Charlie scooted his chair closer to Leah and put his arm around her.
“Are you alright, babe? You look exhausted,” Charlie asked Leah.
Leah sighed and smiled. “Yes, I’m good. I’m being more dramatic than anything,” Leah giggled. She looked over at me and asked, “Where did Charlie find you in this crazy maze of people?”
“I was betting on chicken poop with Kennedi,” I said through a mouthful of pinwheel. I swallowed and pointed at Charlie. “It’s a good thing he did. Alan Graves showed up, and I thought Kennedi was going to murder him on the spot.” I was kidding. Mostly.
“I thought you were going to murder him right on the spot!” Charlie added.
I started to reach for another pinwheel but stopped. I had both Lindys here with me, and an idea had been brewing in my mind since last night. It was the perfect time to bring it up to them.
“Charlie, Leah, I want to run something by you,” I started. They both looked at me and nodded.
I crossed my hands and leaned forward on the table. Even though the crowd in the front part of the tent was loud enough to make our conversation private, I wanted to be extra certain that we weren’t overheard.
“I’ll be blunt,” I started. “I want to stick it to Omnicorp. I don’t want to sink to their level to do it, though. Last night I thought we found a way to do it and actually leave a positive impact in our wake,” I paused to see their reaction. Both of them continued looking at me without a word.
“Leah, I saw your reaction to Macy being liberated from Omnicorp’s ‘vice grip.’ I saw the look of joy on Ellie’s face when she was able to go fifteen minutes without battling an Omnicorp virus,” I said. “And Charlie, I could tell how relieved you were to see your wife so happy.” I paused again.
Charlie leaned forward and put his elbows on the table, indicating that I still had his full attention. “Go on,” he said.
“The program I wrote and Kennedi’s ability to do hardware modifications gives us the opportunity to not only let the cat girls be themselves but also acts as a tool to insulate their owners from Omnicorp’s illegal data mining. I’d like to make the modifications widely available and expose Omnicorp’s actions,” I explained.
This time Leah leaned forward. “Why tell us this, Clark?” Leah asked. Her tone was curious, but her eyes showed that she had shifted into full-on business mode.
“Two reasons,” I said. “One, the program would have sat on the shelf after Ellie was fixed if you hadn’t let us modify Macy, which showed us just how positive a difference the changes can make. Two, you are my kind of humans, and simply put, I’d like to work with you,” I finished and sat back in my chair.
Charlie and Leah looked at each other and nodded. Sometimes it
really seemed like those two had a secret language they could speak through their eyes. They looked back at me, and Charlie sat up in his chair.
“Leah and I had a conversation last night about how big a difference your modifications made in Macy,” Charlie told me. “We actually wanted to approach you about helping some of our close friends out with their CGs. They, of course, would pay handsomely for the use of your program. We didn’t think you were staying in Elko, so the concept of a bigger operation didn’t come up.”
“I didn’t know I was staying in Elko either, until this morning,” I told them. “We will be building on a plot of land just next to Theo and Bev’s house, but here’s the thing. It doesn’t matter where I am or where you are. As long as there is a trained CG available to hardwire to the one wanting to be modified, the program can be installed.”
Again, Charlie and Leah looked at each other. Leah looked back at me and asked, “Where do you see us fitting in?”
“Simple. Marketing,” I said, having already thought of the answer. “You have access and clout with the market that buys and builds cat girls. You also have a marketing staff in place for your other business interests. Think about this: Your current clientele being given first shot at modifications that will keep Omnicorp out of their casino activities, out of their finances, out of their various affairs. Not only would you increase your bottom line by offering CG upgrades in conjunction with your other high-end client services, but you’d guarantee yourself a special place in the hearts, and wallets, of those who want to keep their matters private. They’d never go anywhere else.”
Charlie looked lost in thought as I laid out my plan. While he processed the idea, I turned to Leah.
“Leah, you’d be able to spearhead a campaign for the ethical treatment of cat girls. You have the passion and the connections. This would give you not only a source to fund your campaign but a tangible tool to assist those who would join your cause,” I said, figuring she had already started thinking along those lines.
Once I’d said my piece, all that was left to do was wait. Both Lindys had fallen deep in thought. Charlie looked like he was drafting a business plan in his mind while Leah looked as though she was event planning for awareness galas. The silence hung in the room for what seemed like an eternity, but I was determined not to be the next one to speak. My cards were on the table. Now it was up to them. I knew I could go about my plan without them, but it would be a much longer, more difficult road plus I’d miss the pleasure of working alongside two like-minded people I’d come to consider good friends.