by Elsa, Sandra
Trooper Ralston handed us our handhelds, wallets, shoulder holster complete with bullet hole, pistol, and every other personal item we'd had on us when hospitalized.
I snatched out the magazine and counted, three rounds left. "Dammit."
"Something wrong?" Ralston asked.
"I missed with five shots."
He grinned. "No you didn't. We fired two for ballistics, and two rounds are sitting on Captain Jarvis's desk made into necklaces as awards for the next attaboy picnic the watch hosts."
I grumbled. "Still one unaccounted for. You don't have your own bullets to use as awards?"
"You'll find two boxfuls of ammunition on your front seat. One for each round we kept. You’re a little bit of a celebrity. Any old bullets wouldn't be the same as those from the pistol that took out twenty-three criminals in one night. And one missed round I think you can forgive yourself for."
"How many more have you rounded up trying to leave?"
"Eighteen. But you just recover. We've got this handled we've already started a house to house search. Two-Three-Nine has sent us a dozen troopers since half of the people we're looking for, seem to come from there. And the president brought fifteen from HQ. They won't cause you a problem again. If you go out and you think somebody's watching you, it's probably us."
"Not sure that's such a great idea. I'm likely to be a little jumpy and I'm always trigger happy. If I sense someone watching me, I may shoot first and ask questions later."
"We'll use care. You managed to pull up on the night it happened when you saw it was us, we're not too worried about your judgment."
"You've been warned." I slid into the driver's seat and patted the boxes of ammo. My empty magazine was attached to my holster and before turning the key I filled both magazines even though I wasn't up to sliding the holster on over the wound yet.
A Hummer pulled up beside us and the president got in it. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, relieved that he hadn't tried to ride in our car.
At the house, he was already there and the temptation to take off for parts unknown was strong. If Harrison had been in better shape I’d have kept driving. For his sake I parked in the driveway and hurried to get the wheelchair from the back. I had the brake set and Harrison in the chair before the HQ blue uniforms of the troopers accompanying the president, emerged from our house and nodded to Jordan. "All clear, Sir."
Jordan came over and placed his hands over mine on the handles of the wheelchair. "I will do this for my son, Mrs. Kendrel. He's locked me out of his life in every other respect. You're injured and I can help. Please don't make a scene."
I snatched my hands out from under his as though they were made of molten lava and gave him a nonchalant, "Whatever," not about to admit that attempting to push the chair had hurt like hell.
In the house, Harrison managed to get himself unassisted to the couch and I laid down and put my head in his lap. He withdrew his handheld and synched it to the screen on the wall, then told his father. "You're welcome to stay, but we're relaxing. No threats. No challenges. No trying to worm details from us…"
Jordan held a hand in front of his chest. "You cut me son. I only plan to sit with the two of you.”
I closed my eyes and searched for the tiny blips of near black magic that was the signature of a beetle. "Honestly, Sir--" I squashed eight of them at once. "I'd think you'd get tired of wasting the citizens’ funds. With eight--oops nine," squash, "beetles I assume there are electronic ones as well. Nothing will be said in this house that I wouldn't say with you in the room. Why don't you just invite the good troopers back in to recover their electronics before I feel up to sweeping for them. If I find them they'll be scrap."
"How do you do that?"
"Apparently, I am my father’s daughter."
"Do you see magic, or feel it?"
Harrison's thumb rolled under my hair on my neck in a back and forth motion. I glanced up at him and he grinned. "Just saying."
"Saying what?" Jordan asked.
"Something private of course."
"You taunt me with vulgarity, then act like there's something too private to speak in my presence?"
"There is if we don't want you to hear it."
I did of course understand that Harrison didn't think I should discuss any talents with his father which made perfect sense considering the fact that the electronic bugs were probably being recorded. Jordan Drover was determined to have proof that would force me to register. I wasn't about to hand it to him.
"I take it you won't answer my question?"
"What question was that?"
"How do you find the beetles?"
"Standard, common, detective work."
"Lovely daughter-in-law, there is nothing common about you at all. So why does my son insist he needs you to make our plans work?"
"Dad! We're going to watch a movie. Either sit there quietly or leave. Better yet, sit there quietly after you make us some popcorn."
Jordan Drover tossed his head back and laughed. "By God, she has turned you into a man. Popcorn it is." He went into the kitchen and rummaged around in the cupboards, but it wasn't long before the sound of corn popping and the exquisite scent of buttered popcorn reached my nostrils. He rummaged some more then returned with two bowls, one he handed to Harrison. He took the other to the end of the couch and slid into the corner picking my feet up and placing them in his lap. I left it alone. There were other battles to be fought, this just didn’t seem that important. Harrison's arm came down along my side, and he started the movie he had chosen.
It was a thriller starring Sol Darrens and the blonde chick of the week. The woman witnessed a murder and the killer figured out somebody had been there and started hunting for the witness. Sol of course was the cop she ran to for protection. It was predictable but entertaining and Sol was nothing to sneeze at. Before Harrison he'd been one of my favorite distractions for quiet moments.
It was calming and restful to sit in our house and not think about anything. It was almost possible to forget that the man my feet were propped on, sitting on the end of my couch, was the president of the world. Halfway through the movie, somebody knocked on the door. Jordan Drover got up and went to let Nan and Jallahan in. They looked surprised to see him there. Even more surprised when he resumed his seat.
I looked up into Jallahan's concerned face and said, "Hey Dad. You two gonna join us. In the middle of a movie. Though I could take a bathroom break and maybe make some more popcorn."
I put action to my words and headed into the bathroom as he said, "What are we watching?"
Harrison answered him. Jordan followed me as I walked through the kitchen. He stopped to throw another bag of popcorn in the flash heater. When I returned, I lay back down and wrapped my arm under Harrison's leg and pulled myself tight against him, carefully avoiding the bowl of popcorn in the president's lap as I replaced my feet.
My father waved at the three of us.. "Is this more of your hedge-witchery, Jordan?"
"I'm innocent, Harold. I believe what we have here is detente." It sounded weird to hear the president call my father, Harold.
"He's telling the truth this time," I said, "odd as that may sound. Harrison and I aren't up to anything he'd be interested in, and it's our house. We told him he could stay as long as he was quiet."
Nan and Jallahan exchanged glances then settled down to watch the movie.
#
Détente lasted three days. During which I learned to look at the president more as a man and less as a power. He could be charming and attentive when trying to win somebody. His dark side was also more hidden when he relaxed, but far more easily noticed when he wasn't expecting to be thwarted or challenged at every turn if suddenly something threw him off track.
Dinner with Wally and Rollick ended up including all three of our parents and though their presence made for a slow start to the meal, my friends eventually warmed to the idea that they were just human and dinner wasn't a test of their manners.
<
br /> Second day out of the hospital, Harrison was walking without groaning at every twist so we agreed to an evening meal with the local watch. Nan and Jallahan joined us, but with that many civil servants in the room, Jordan felt the need to maintain his authoritative presence so he declined to eat with us.
The third day we went down to sun ourselves on the beach. The watch proved to be ubiquitous when we were outside. Detective Allen laid a blanket on the sand near ours, he had a pretty red-head with him and I wondered if she was another detective or just part of his cover. Out beyond the largest number of swimmers, a dolphin leapt out of the water chirruping in greeting. I watched her for several moments then waved and she did a tail-stand and disappeared.
"Somebody you know?" Harrison asked with an upward quirk of his lips.
"I believe it was Poppy."
"That's Poppy? I figured she'd be a mermaid. Paul's voice always turned affectionate when he spoke of her."
"He talks to her and she responds. I don't know if it’s a dog-human sort of relationship or if it's symbiotic. She's smarter than any dog I've ever met. That's for sure."
It wasn't long before Paul's head broke the surface. He saw us looking and waved then disappeared, reappearing on top of the pier, a few amused tourists fishing from the pier, glanced at him, then turned back to their rods which suddenly seemed to be aquiver with the catch of the day. I'd chosen a place near the pier on the chance that he'd join us. After slipping into shorts handed to him by the pier's keeper he walked toward us.
I scooted up against Harrison to allow Paul room on the blanket. "Do you sunbathe?" I asked. The thought in my head was, or do you dry out too much, but I didn't voice it.
In response he lay down on his stomach next to me, hip and leg pressing into mine, head propped on his hands as he stared down at me. "We worship the sun."
Harrison sighed, "We are clear on the fact that she's my wife, right?"
"Not a problem. I explained this to her the night we met. I enjoy the tactile feel of dry flesh against mine. Her allowing me to touch her is no more than her acknowledging my need. Trust me, the first couple times she nearly removed my hand with her smolder vision. It means no more than, we’re friends. I wouldn't presume to ask for more."
"Do you have women wherever you live?"
"Of course."
"Then why not bring one of them with you?"
"Because laying this close to one of them would give them the impression I wanted a relationship, and I do not."
Harrison frowned. "You see my problem then."
"She wouldn’t be unfaithful to you. I don’t interest her in that way. I thought you would sense this and not mind."
"I'd like to believe it. Guess I do, but she put me through hell when I met her. Hugging her friends, treating me like an enemy."
"An unknown quantity and a hazard," I corrected.
"Hazard?" Paul asked.
"A distraction I wasn't looking for. Somebody capable of sneaking under well-honed defenses and capturing my heart."
"It would seem he played his part to perfection."
"He was confusing, irritating, and persistent as hell."
"Wore you down?"
"Circumstances wore me down. Enough about us. Sufficient to say, Harrison has nothing to worry about, and we all know that. So how old is your Great-grandfather?"
"A hundred and thirty and quite healthy."
I reassessed Paul. "So how old are you?"
"How old do you think I am?"
"I thought you were about my age. I'm revising upward based on the math, unless one of your relatives was slow about having a family. If Great-grandpa was twenty when he started a family, that would make him what…forty when Grandpa started his own family and sixty when his great grandchildren were being born and finally eighty when they were old enough to have families of their own, that leaves fifty years unaccounted for. I'm basing my math on the average age of a person wishing to start a family being twenty. Now allow an extra decade for each generation and we're closer to putting you back to my original guess of thirty, but would every generation of a family wait until they were thirty?"
"They would if they were a long-lived species with little room to expand their population. My father was actually forty when I was born. But that's balanced out by Great-grandpa who was twenty. I'm thirty-five."
"No Mrs. Whitover in sight?
"We're overpopulated now. There's someone I've had my eye on, but once commitment enters the mix, females start thinking of family and we're too overcrowded--"
Harrison opened the discussion on his mind. "What would you say if we could offer you the ocean?"
Paul laughed. "I know you're the president's son, but that isn't yours to offer."
"Yes, it is. Frankie and I have been working on a project outside the domes, a ways north of here. We'd like you to go with us the next time we go up there."
"Outside the domes? We don't take well to rebreathers."
"No rebreathers," I said.
"It's been a thousand years since we managed to kill our planet.” Harrison said. “It's been healing on its own. We're adding a little push to re-grow plants and eventually add animal life forms. We just need to figure our way around the storms."
Paul's interest sharpened. "And the oceans?"
"We think they're ahead of the land in recovery. At least we have found some natural plant life. We believe that's the main reason there's oxygen outside the domes."
"And what do you want my help with?"
"Seeing if we're right," I said. "We've both had our hands and feet in the ocean but what do we know about what's healthy and what's not? Hasn't killed us, or even made us sick, but it's not our natural environment. We need to know if ocean life is already present, or if the water is healthy enough we could repopulate it."
"You're serious? That would explain Poppy's interest too. I bet she sensed you'd been in other ocean water. You haven't gone swimming in it?"
"Books are filled with rip tides and undertows and we don't know much about currents," Harrison said. "Nor can we breathe underwater. I'm perfectly happy staying on land."
"Let me see if Great-grandpa will eat supper with us. He doesn't leave the water very often these days but for this he might. He's the scientific mind in the family. If Harrison’s father's around he's not likely to come out though. The only people who know we exist, are those we want to know. Is this project something he started?"
"He started it. He collected the initial data that let us know the atmosphere was breathable. He's probably the first man in a thousand years to venture outside without a rebreather--though knowing him, it was probably some poor sod who was drugged out of his mind. Can't picture him risking his own life, no matter what the charts were telling him. I was heavily involved in his plotting and designs until I found myself outside District Seven, floundering for my very existence. Frankie became the rock I clung to as I learned a whole new way of life. She made me realize we could probably do this without him. Make it someplace he has no dominion."
"But he's still hot on it?"
"Very."
"Thus the listening devices in your hospital room. His sudden claim of his son. This explains a lot."
"If your great-grandfather doesn't want to risk running into him we can plan dinner for four days from now. There's only so long he can stay here. My mother and Frankie's father are getting married tomorrow, I figure they'll head back soon after that. Be nice if your Great-grandfather could meet Mage Jallahan, but I doubt my father's leaving without them."
"Your parents are getting married?"
"Seems they bonded over their missing children."
"Frankie was missing too?"
"Told you, I just met my father a couple months back. It's a long story and not particularly pretty, so we'll forego the past," I said.
"Nothing says your father cannot come back without Harrison's father. Doesn’t he plan a honeymoon?"
"Considering how little we've seen of h
im, I rather assume he’s already honeymooning."
"Then send him and his wife to the pier tonight. To enjoy the full moon on the water."
"Good thought," Harrison said. "If we're not with them, it's unlikely my father will care what they're doing."
"And now I must go discuss this with Poppy. She'll be delighted to understand her attraction. You have no idea how she's chattered at me trying to convince me to get to know you better. Not a moment's peace. If this seems possible, I'm sure she'll volunteer to explore the vastness of the true ocean."
"We'd love to have her, but getting her out of the dome could be problematic," I said.
"But not undoable," Harrison said. "If we're certain outside is healthy, we can put a door in the lower edge of the dome where nobody else will notice. Best talk to Jallahan about underwater lasers and things of that sort."
"Lasers are illegal--"
"Because they can cut the domes," Harrison said with a smile. "We'll probably need to affix a door of some sort to prevent a constant mix. I'm sure that even if we succeed in our efforts, there will be plenty of people who have no desire to mix with the outside world."
Paul stood up. "Unless you plan to go inside to eat, I'd best be getting back in the water. We like the sun, but too much direct exposure dries out our scales to the point they slough off and I'm about at my limit."
"I could certainly eat, but inside we don't discuss this." Harrison stood. Only a slight grimace crossed his face as he used his abdomen to help himself up. "Out here with a little distance and no permanent fixtures to hide a bug, we should be safe enough having this discussion. But even after my father's gone, I don't think I'll say much anywhere inside."
"Do you really believe that you can get out from under his rule just because you live outside the domes?"
"He seems to think so. He's certainly putting enough effort into making sure we don't get there first." Paul offered me a hand and pulled me up off the blanket. We folded the blanket and towels and headed for the boardwalk.