It looked like Tonati was on his way to seek their first morning encounter. As he approached Isabelle and the adjacent heat pump for the first time in seven hours, she separated from the water heater that had kept her safe from Tasha throughout the night. Tonati stopped to kiss Isabelle as he had intended. Together, they marched to the kitchen.
The morning shift of Tasha's Troopers had populated their new mobile command post that had arrived an hour before sunrise along with a fresh complement of 12 undercover vehicles. The new command post looked like a delivery truck for one of Apophis' many brands of bottled water. It was another one of Tasha's special designs from the hide-in-plain-sight series. The water-bottle truck was much like the cement mixer, a shining example of the philosophy to be so elaborate in her methods of surveillance and pursuit that few people would find suspicion in her activities. Police and private investigators would often rely on covert vehicles too small to draw attention. Tasha preferred her approach. The interior of the ten-ton truck was home to one of the warrior's numerous spyrooms. The only way to stay unnoticed with such large vehicles, Tasha reasoned, was to switch them out as often as practical. What was as much a factor as her strategic reasoning was Tasha's affinity for gadgets and machinery. The on-board crew of 3 Troopers that was working the first shift of surveillance had picked up Isabelle's image on several hidden cameras and sensors. It was time to notify Tasha who was still asleep.
Tasha was sprawled out across the bed in the trailer. Her covers were in a ball on the floor. The warrior’s eyes were moving in jagged motion under her eyelids. Her feet twitched like she was running in the air, then stopped moving. Tasha licked her lips when suddenly, the buzzing from her cell phone tore her out of her dream. Instinctively, her hand reached for the phone clipped to the side of her underwear. Her large greenish-brown eyes still seeking to return to her dream were slowly adjusting to the light of reality. With the phone to her ear she grunted,
"Methusa!"
The Trooper inside the water-bottle truck was on the other end. "Ma'am, we just reacquired the package. We found her in the garden with the wildcat."
Tasha was not very surprised. "Good. Pick me up with breakfast in 30 minutes. It’s time to put a leash on pussycat."
12 TASHA, TEETH AND TRIBULATIONS
So she could stay on the job uninterruptedly, Tasha kept the camping trailer stocked with a variety of disguises for herself and the Troopers. Costumes covered lifestyles from priests to balloon-vendors, homeless, and many more characters Isabelle was to encounter in her immediate future. It would have been difficult for most to recognize Tasha's lethal payload or intentions just from looking at her. Her jacket and boots concealed much of what her formfitting jeans couldn't. A purple top underneath, Tasha's sight would have conjured up the word sexy long before deadly in most minds. In many ways, Tasha was like the mythological Medusa who could never love because those who came too close and looked her in the eyes faced certain doom.
Tasha opened the camper door and stepped out. At the same moment, the water-bottle truck pulled up. Two columns of water bottles swung out like a door and provided Tasha access to the spy truck's surveillance room. She stepped up into the truck and the door of water jugs swung shut behind her. Tasha was ready for the hunt.
Isabelle saw little point in going to her office that morning. Most of what she did there involved use of the computer and, so far, there was no word from Ryan that he had reestablished her user account. Her dentist's appointment was at 10:30 which would have left little time at work, regardless. Isabelle decided to spend the morning at home. She had enough books and dissertations to comb through for information on quantum energy.
After breakfast with Tonati and a few studious hours, it had come time for Isabelle to head to her dental appointment. She expected to encounter more Troopers, but Isabelle never would have been intimidated into hiding out at home. There wasn't enough gas left in her car to go on any kind of excursions, so Isabelle took her bike. Her motorcycle was a Japanese enduro, street-legal but made for off-road riding. As soon as Isabelle sped out of her driveway on her shiny red bike, Tasha's Troopers fell into formation around her like a swarm of wasps. Tasha's water-bottle truck was already positioned ahead of Isabelle and took the lead. Encased in a cocoon of Tasha's Troopers, Isabelle glided through the urban jungle that appeared completely under Tasha's rule.
Tasha's rolling command post was holding Isabelle back behind stoplights far enough to gain a little bit of leeway. When Isabelle arrived at her dentist's office after a half-hour ride, the water truck was already parked curbside. A handful of Troopers were in the parking lot, repainting the stripes that marked the spaces. The platoon's cars encircled the property like a wild-west wagon train. Isabelle took note of her pursuers but figured the less fear she displayed, the more power she had over them. This was a strategy she had learned watching Tonati hunt. Isabelle parked her bike and walked up the seven steps that lead to Dr. Tibbets' office. When she entered the waiting area, she was greeted by the receptionist Aetna.
"Good morning, Isabelle. Dr. Tibbets isn't in today. Apparently his grandmother was taken to intensive care last night."
"Oh, no! What happened?"
"He didn't know. The hospital just called to say it would be best for him to come right away. Of course, he was on the first flight to Virginia this morning."
On any other day, Isabelle wouldn't have thought much of such an incidence, but with all the difficulties she's had, her curiosity was sparked. "Does she not have any family out there?"
Aetna had no reason to find anything suspicious and replied. "She does, but Dr. Tibbets wasn't able to reach anyone in his family. It's the strangest thing - everyone's phone was either busy or there was no answer." Aetna took a bottle of nail polish out of her desk drawer and opened it as she continued. "Dr. Monahan is filling in for him. He brought his own assistant and everything. There she is." Aetna pushed the button for the door buzzer and Isabelle entered the patient area in the back office.
The assistant Enola greeted her with a somewhat insincere smile. "Hi, Isabelle. You're gonna love Dr. Monahan. He's just great with his hands." Enola's smile became more believable as she continued, "He takes me everywhere he goes."
The two had reached the exam room. Enola motioned for Isabelle to have a seat in the chair that was the centerpiece of the room. Isabelle settled into the long, contoured piece of medical furniture and Enola placed a dental bib on her chest. She had just fastened the strap around Isabelle's neck when the substitute dentist entered the room. His demeanor appeared overly friendly to Isabelle who took note of the unusually thick spectacles that defined the doctor's appearance. Isabelle's uneasiness with the situation rose. Her intuition told her that something was wrong, but logic convinced her to continue on. After all, few things are as unpleasant as bad teeth.
"Which tooth has been bothering you?" asked the doctor while slipping vinyl gloves over his hands.
"It's this one." Isabelle pointed best she could. "On the bottom and all the way in the back."
"Let's take a look, shall we?"
Monahan reached for the explorer that was next to a mirror and a few other basic dentistry tools. Isabelle could feel the sharp point of the cold steel instrument picking at her teeth. She could tell he didn't have the same empathy for his patients as her usual dentist. A few pokes and scrapes later, she heard his words.
"Good thing you came in today. Your number 16 and 17 tooth here in the front look like they need root canals - if I can even save them at all."
"Root canals? What about the tooth that's been bothering me?"
"That one is fine. There is just a little pressure from your wisdom tooth that's pushing through. I'd be much more concerned about losing my two front teeth."
Isabelle felt backed into a corner. "Sounds to me like I don't have much of a choice."
"Let's numb you up real quick." Monahan reached for the loaded syringe of anesthetic, held it tip-up and pushed the plunger in a bit.
His smile was strangely sinister as he watched a few drops of the contents squirt from the needle. He had one thing left to say. "Open!"
In no time at all, Doctor Monahan had injected the contents of the hypodermic into the gums surrounding Isabelle's front teeth. He pulled the needle out and pushed it back into some tissue that hadn't been injected. He drew a small amount of blood into the syringe. Monahan placed the syringe back on the tray where Enola picked it up. The traveling dental assistant removed the capsule that was now holding a small portion of Isabelle's blood.
"I'll be back when you're numb," Isabelle heard him say on his way out of the exam room.
She nodded “okay” while Enola slipped the ampule with the blood into a padded container. The dental worker was going through the motions of prepping the room for a double root-canal. She produced an array of seemingly torturous tools on the tray next to Isabelle's head. Enola reached into the pocket of her lab coat and pulled out a plastic box, just a little larger than a sugar cube. Out of Isabelle's field of view, she flipped the box's lid open. It was padded in foam-rubber and contained two blue spheres the size of pinheads. Enola placed the two tiny orbs on the tray just as Monahan returned to the exam room.
"Let's see if we can't save your beautiful smile," he proclaimed clumsily, drill in hand, as he began his procedure. After grinding away at Isabelle's teeth, he had some news for her. "Looks like this is your lucky day. We'll be able to fill those cavities without root canals."
With all the anesthesia and tools in her mouth, the best response Isabelle could muster was a distorted smile of relief.
"Enola, please go ahead and mix the compound."
The assistant combined an off-white powder and a clear liquid to make the filling. Unseen by Isabelle, Monahan placed one of the spheres into each of the two cavities before he sealed them with the compound Enola had mixed. A few moments of ultraviolet light from a special tool and the fillings were hard.
"There you go, as good as new."
Doc Monahan's voice boomed from the speakers in Tasha's command post. On the main viewer, a close-up of Isabelle revealed that the dentist's glasses concealed one of Tasha's many surveillance cameras. Another screen displayed a message:
Package Blue-Sphere Connection Active.
Isabelle responded to the suspicious-acting physician. "Thank you, Doctor. That wasn't so bad."
Her voice sounded clear as it came over the speakers. As each word rang out inside the bottle truck, it appeared in a written transcript on-screen. A satisfied smile spread across Tasha's face. "Now you're mine," she whispered under her breath, gently running a finger down the cheek of Isabelle's image on the monitor.
Isabelle was on her way back to the reception where Aetna had finished with her nails and moved on to plucking her eyebrows. "Do you think I could use the phone for a moment? My cell phone hasn't worked all day," she asked the rather bubbly person with tweezers.
"Of course, right over there."
Aetna's hand stopped tweezing long enough to waive her depilatory tool in the direction of a side table in the waiting area. Isabelle walked past the two Troopers who were pretending to wait for their appointments. She picked up the phone's receiver and dialed her father's home number. Instead of a ring or an answer, a recording played over the line.
Due to quarantine in the area you are calling, your call cannot be completed as dialed. Please try your call again later.
Isabelle could feel the blood flushing from her face and land in her stomach. She had little concern facing whoever this new-found enemy was herself, but she knew they were too much for her father to be victorious. That much aggression directed at Isabelle and her father at the same time could not have been a coincidence. She knew there was a common thread. Barely acknowledging the receptionist's good-bye, she went outside. Isabelle was sunken in deep concern. She took a seat on her bike and with her helmet on, she rode off.
Tasha's dark platoon and command post took pursuit of the young lightworker.
13 LION CAGE
After a brief stop at home, Isabelle had reached her father Lionel's neighborhood. Tasha and her Troopers loosened their noose of surveillance enough to stay unnoticed. The water-bottle truck and its 12 undercover cars swarmed out and populated the side streets to keep a low profile. After all, Tasha knew Isabelle would try to get to her father, and that in itself was going to draw plenty of attention.
The neighborhood was eerily quiet. Isabelle was used to seeing people in their yards or walking their dogs, but this day even the birds were gone from the trees. She approached her father’s street. She saw the reason for the unusual silence. A row of dark SUVs and an armored personnel carrier reinforced a roadblock hurriedly cobbled together with wooden barriers and a double-helix of barbed wire. A sign warned:
Monkey Flu Quarantine
Several Troopers dressed in black combat uniforms and armed with machine guns stood in threatening poses in front of the barriers. Isabelle rode up to the roadblock.
A Trooper raised his weapon and shouted, "Quarantine area - no stopping!"
Isabelle opted to voice her intentions. "My father lives over there. I've been trying to reach him. I must see him."
Another Trooper cocked his gun and took aim at Isabelle while barking, "Communications with quarantinees are not permitted. Phone calls could be used to encourage others to evade proper health protocol. Keep moving or be fired upon!"
Isabelle closed the dark visor of her helmet and sped off. She wasn't leaving, though. Instead, she rode to the fire-access road that lead up the hill behind Lionel's house. Isabelle and her father had often gone for walks there. Lionel enjoyed being on that road because the hill obscured the city and left him a view of nothing but trees and the back of his house. Isabelle could see the dining room window. Inside, Lionel's grandfather clock struck noon. The table was set for supper for one. She saw her father enter the room. He looked weak and ill. Her perspective didn't allow her to see his face grimace a groan as he took his seat at the table. Isabelle pointed the bike's headlight towards him and flashed the high-beam on and off. Lionel took note and a smile came to his face when he recognized his daughter on the hill outside. She pulled her reporter's walkie-talkie out of the saddlebag. Its weathered chassis bore the beacon of truth. Three words at the base of the symbol’s torch identified it as part of Lionel’s lifetime achievement.
Alaska News Network
Isabelle saw the joyous expression on her father's disease-stricken face. She waved the two-way radio in the air next to her smiling face. Lionel didn't take long to catch on to Isabelle's idea. He signaled "O.K." by touching the tips of his index finger and thumb together and left the dining room.
Lionel went to his study, a room clad in dark cherry wood and mahogany. Journalism awards just like the ones in Isabelle's home and office filled various shelves. An entire wall was covered in plaques and framed photographs of the de Fleur family before the separation between Gemma and him. On the floor beneath the decorated wall was Lionel's old reporter's chest - a trunk where he kept the tools of his trade from before they had become digital toys. He pushed the lid open. Among the items inside were his first newsman's typewriter, note pads filled with interviews of world leaders and the item he came to get: a tabletop two-way radio. Lionel grabbed the transceiver with its attached microphone and hurried back to the dining room best he could. Lionel's breath was short and labored. Beads of sweat were forming on his forehead. The virus had taken quite a toll on his health. Isabelle's father placed the device on the side table under the window. He saw Isabelle's face light up when she spotted the radio. When Lionel plugged it in, he had his doubts whether he'd be able to talk to Isabelle at all. The transmitter required the use of a rooftop antenna to function. He flipped the old-fashioned power switch to the on position. The frequency dial glimmered yellow. Lionel turned the selector to channel 23, which he and Isabelle had often used when she was following a hot story. He held the microphone in front of his face and keyed the ta
lk button with his thumb.
"Isabelle!"
Her voice came crackling over the speaker. "Dad - are you okay?"
"I've got the flu. Some of Apophis' goons gave me a shot and ordered me to stay home."
"I'll get you out of there!"
"They killed the Weavers' dog and took the whole family with them." Lionel sneezed, sweat covered his face. He was weakened so much from the illness that he pulled a chair over from the dining table and sat down.
It made Isabelle suffer to see her father who had withstood foes and disease all his life be too ill to stand up. This bothered her more than the night with the water heater or Tasha's attempts to intimidate her. Isabelle kept up the front of a smile and keyed her radio. "I'll go on the air with this," she said with a tone of certainty, but Lionel knew that wouldn't help the situation.
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