The general replaced his cap and marched down the podium. The crowd continued on with their raucous shouting, but began to simmer down once Denny began his purposeful stride back to the main building. God he despised them.
* * * *
About a hundred yards away, up on a small hill, at one of the side entrances to the complex, two “marines” presented their retinas to a scanner and entered the compound’s grounds, just as the guards were occupied by a shift change. These two marines were now making their way toward the main entrance of the building. They heard familiar voices behind them, and as they turned around, the blood drained from both their faces as they recognized the danger approaching them from the south.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“Shit, our timing is shocking,” said the major, spotting the general only a few feet away from them. “Quickly, go inside. Don’t look behind you, I’ll stall him.”
Janine immediately swung around, joining the line of guards to enter the complex. There was one marine in front of her being scanned. At exactly the same moment that she approached the scanner, the general seemed to catch sight of the major. This time, remembering his manners, Graham quickly saluted the man.
“Major. What are you doing here?” asked the general, frown lines appearing on his forehead. “Thought you were off duty.”
The major felt his cheeks flush, barely managing the thinnest of smiles. “I had some errands to finish up and I heard all the commotion outside so was curious to see what was going on. I see you’ve had the pleasure of briefing the mob.”
“You mean the pack of vultures looking for a story where there isn’t one.” Pulling out a cigarette from his uniform pocket, the general lit up and took a puff.
“I guess this whole magnetic thing is a bit weird though, don’t you think?” said the major, desperately trying to sound calm and reflective.
“Weird, bizarre, unusual. It’s all the same to me.” He inhaled deeply then exhaled directly into the major’s face. Either he didn’t seem to be aware of what he was doing, or more than likely, he didn’t seem to care. “It’s certainly got the animal activists out in force again,” continued the general. “Damn fools, they’re a public nuisance. I can only imagine what they might get up to now. To be honest, if they all drowned while saving their precious whales, I certainly wouldn’t lose any sleep over it.”
The major was desperately doing his best not to flinch, despite the tightness in his chest becoming unbearable. Figuring out that he had probably given Janine enough time to get inside he said, “Well, General, I think you handled that all really well. Better get back now to those errands.” He once again saluted the man, spun around on his heels and joined the line for the retinal scan. Breathing a small sigh of relief, he hoped he had remained sufficiently calm so as not to raise any suspicion.
Out the corner of his eye he saw the general finish his cigarette, and start on a nearby sergeant who happened to have had the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
* * * *
“Damn that was close. Too close,” whispered Graham into Janine’s ear as he reunited with her inside the building. They were making their way toward the main lobby. To the left lay the corridor that led to the EMB control room, and to the right, farther along, was the press room.
“Yes, General Smith’s not one to be easily fooled. I interviewed him after the Milan fiasco two years ago. Let’s just say that for once I really had to work hard at an interview. He was no pushover.”
Graham sighed. “Let’s just make sure he doesn’t catch sight of us again. You need to get to the press room ASAP and then get the hell out of here.”
It was then that he noticed her bizarre disposition. She was behaving like a sniffer dog on the prowl for narcotics. Her eyes darted back and forth, sneaking quick peeks into each and every room they encountered. The woman was out of control. He grabbed her left arm and began steering her back toward the press room.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he snarled. “We don’t have time for your spy nonsense. The press room, remember, and then out!”
Janine mumbled some obscenity under her breath, ripping her arm away from the major’s grip. “All right, all right, just lemme go.”
At last, the press room came into view. The two of them scanned the corridor, and comfortable that they weren’t being pursued, Janine opened her purse, grabbed her press swipe card which gave her access to any press room in the country, and opened the door.
“I guess that’s it for you, Gray baby.” She winked at him. “This is as far as you’re going in accordance with the Freedom of the Press Act. Off you go now,” she said, dismissing him with a flick of her hand as one would do to a porter after being shown to one’s hotel room.
The major glanced back and forth down the narrow-tiled corridor, and then after making certain there were no inquisitive eyes, headed off toward his office. He prayed that she would do the sensible thing and grab her bag and leave immediately. Unfortunately, he knew it would sooner snow in LA before that happened. He didn’t realize in that moment the utter irony in that thought.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
After reading her a bedtime story and tucking her and Mr. Teddy into their new bed, Sheri gently planted a kiss on Chloe’s forehead and switched off the bedside light.
“Good night, precious,” she whispered tenderly.
“Good night, Mom.” Chloe’s face lit up, her intense blue eyes reminding Sheri of the first time she saw her daughter, just moments after her birth. She remembered someone telling her once that the strongest bond a human being could possibly share with another was that of a parent’s love for their child. From the moment she had held Chloe in her arms for the first time, she knew that to be true.
She was about to leave the room when Chloe called out, “Mommy?”
“Yes, baby?”
“You forgot to kiss Mr. Teddy goodnight.”
Sheri smiled and quickly obliged by kissing the furry bear on its head. The animatronics toy began to smile and nodded its head in approval.
“Now I don’t want to hear another peep from you or Teddy until morning, okay?”
Chloe nodded, then grabbed Mr. Teddy in her arms in a crushing embrace, turned over onto her left side and shut her eyes.
Sheri deftly closed the door behind her and returned to the kitchenette, where Steve was pouring them both a cup of coffee. She in took a deep breath, grateful for Steve’s presence. He was the antithesis to Simon, who she now detested, but it hadn’t always been that way.
Sheri was just a baby when her mother died in a road accident, and following her father’s suicide at the age of twelve, she was sent to live with her maternal grandmother. Up until her father’s death, she had always been a daddy’s girl and his suicide had shattered her outlook on life. After that she had shied away from boys, believing that she would never find a man as warm and kindhearted to replace him, and even though she had idolized her father, she never forgave him for having abandoned her. This inner conflict had done a sterling job of isolating her from the opposite sex all through her teenage years. Then in an awkward moment in the high school cafeteria, she had met Simon, and her world had changed.
He was nerdy, what most people described as geeky, yet somehow she found him interesting and appealing, even if it were in an impish sort of way.
At first, he was extremely sweet and caring. She still recalled the first time he had asked her out. How shy and clumsy yet somewhat endearing he had been, and in some strange way he had indeed reminded her of her father. He was the perfect gentleman; from opening car doors to picking the right restaurant, to the tentative way he carefully listened to every word she said. Then, at the end of the evening, he did not try to take advantage of her, but rather escorted her to her front door, arm in arm. She vividly remembered how her heart had melted when he thanked her for a wonderful evening, before tenderly sweeping a stray hair from her cheek and then gently kissing her on her foreh
ead. After a tight squeeze of her hand, he said goodnight and slowly made his way back to the car, his hands causally buried in his pockets. That was the beginning of a magical time in their relationship and the rest quickly followed on from that. But it was his incredible intellect that she had fallen in love with. The man was a genius with an IQ well above her own.
They both got scholarships to MIT, and married in their sophomore year. Simon discovered then that he had an incredible knack for computers and encryption processes, and they both knew that he was destined to find greatness well before her. Even so, he never tried to make her feel anything other than wonderful and brilliant. It was a good time in their lives.
Then things started to change. At first it were their different interests that drew them apart. Sheri was drawn toward the mysteries of the cosmos, and the myriad discoveries that beckoned her on, while Simon seemed more preoccupied with money and how quickly he could acquire large sums of it.
Then eight years ago, their marriage started to come under strain when Sheri secured a high-tech job with NASA, while Simon struggled to compete with the numerous computer scientists, who were now a dime a dozen. It didn’t matter that he was a thousand times brighter and extremely more proficient than the others. In the world of information technology, he became just another statistic.
As many do, when life conspires against you, he turned to the clutch of alcohol and began a slow and steady path toward violence. At first there were little things, like yelling at Sheri for not making sure that his dinner was hot enough or his shirt ironed enough, and that might have been where it would’ve stopped if he didn’t have to sit and watch his wife climb the scientific ladder of success, a constant reminder of what a failure he had become. Sheri was soon a respected radio astronomer, invited to join the NASA team on the top secret “EMB” project. Sworn to secrecy, she wasn’t able to share any of it with him, and he despised her for that.
There were many times when Sheri had considered just walking out, but on the rare occasions when he sobered up, he could actually be quite endearing and affectionate and she would easily slip back into the old routines, reliving their past and passionately hoping each time that “this time” would be different. Then one day he crossed a line, viciously backhanding her across the face in a fury, resulting in a bruised, blackened eye. She managed to gather enough courage to move into the spare room for the night, but to her surprise, the following morning she was presented with breakfast in bed and a dozen red roses. He apologized profusely, and she so desperately wanted to believe he was repentant, so she did.
This pattern of abuse, followed by episodes of what seemed to be deep repentance continued on until one night during a remorseful surprise trip away to Hawaii four years ago, when Chloe was conceived. She was a mistake, but as it turned out, the best possible mistake that Sheri could ever have made.
After her birth, she enjoyed a brief respite from the abuse, but soon the old pattern emerged again. Life with Simon became increasingly unbearable, yet Chloe adored him, and Sheri couldn’t bear the thought of what leaving him might do to her daughter’s emotional state of mind. Despite Simon’s behavior, she didn’t want Chloe to miss out, like she had with her own father. Simon may have been a lot of things, but an absentee father he was not. It was the one thing that he had actually managed to get right.
Then one night, about nine months ago, he came tottering home from the bar, completely intoxicated. After cursing and pushing Sheri around for what seemed like over an hour, but in reality was no more than a few minutes, he viciously smashed a bottle of vodka over her head. The immense blow knocked her to the ground, and the next thing she recalled was waking up in St Vincent’s Hospital, following surgery to drain a subdural hemorrhage from her brain from which she could have died.
Although Sheri made a full recovery, at least physically, Chloe was never quite the same after that night. The horrified two-year-old had been standing in her pajamas waiting to be put to bed when she witnessed the sickening blow to her mother’s skull. For weeks after that incident she would awake in terror, screaming about blood and being cut open. This time Sheri was certain that Simon had gone too far, and she finally gathered enough courage to evict him and press charges. He was issued with a GY6 new-generation micro-restrainer, while awaiting a court hearing. Both her and Chloe’s identification information was entered into the device. They both wore a simple GPS wristband, which would glow red if Simon approached the exclusion zone, warning them that he was in the vicinity. If he then entered the invisible ten-mile radius, an alarm would activate on his wrist, alerting him to their nearby proximity. Unlike Sheri and Chloe’s wristband, his was wirelessly linked to the national power grid, and if he tried to break that radius, he would instantly receive a 2000-volt electrical shock delivered from any of the nearby electricity recharger pylons in the area. This would be enough to knock him off his feet, making him think twice about continuing his pursuit of them.
Both times, however, the restrainer had failed and he had somehow managed to disable the device and silence the police alarm. Sheri could well understand the trouble he would go to in order to see Chloe, but occasionally he would stalk her, even when Chloe was at school. He would call her sporadically, saying that he still wanted her, still needed her, and he had become increasingly obsessed with controlling all aspects of her life. He had to have her all to himself, despite the fact that he knew Steve was on the scene.
While in hospital, Steve had visited her daily, often visibly upset and shaken over the way Simon had treated her. Even though Steve was just a work colleague at the time, she liked the man and felt herself being drawn to him more and more, but she knew all too well that first impressions were not necessarily lasting ones. Steve was always attentive, charming, and sweet, but hadn’t Simon been just like that at the beginning of their relationship? She trusted nobody, and was planning on being much more protective over her heart this time.
This all changed on one miserable wet fall day, while she was still convalescing from surgery at home. That day happened to be Chloe’s birthday, and also the day that she fell in love with Steve. Being confused and bedridden for weeks, she had been unable to venture out to the shops in search of a birthday present for her daughter, but couldn’t for the life of her bring herself to tell Chloe that Mommy had no gift. Her daughter had climbed into bed with her that morning and Sheri was about to break the shattering news when Steve appeared at the door with a large gift-wrapped box. Chloe’s eyes instantly widened and her face erupted with excitement when she saw the present.
“Chloe, look what Mommy bought you for your birthday,” he said, grinning as the little girl hurriedly tore off the wrapping paper to reveal a large animatronics toy in the form of a bear, which she instantly anointed with the name Mr. Teddy. Sheri knew from that moment that Steve was not only kind and gentle, but that he was also thoughtful and sensitive, something that Simon never was or could ever be. Their relationship warmed and evolved into something that Sheri never imagined possible. Steve was everything she could ever want in a man, and now she shared everything with him.
* * * *
“Is she asleep?” Steve asked.
“Almost. She’s exhausted and has no idea why she’s here, and I just hope she doesn’t lose it again, like what happened after Simon put me in hospital.” Steve flinched at the memory.
“She doesn’t function well when she’s away from home and her familiar environment,” Sheri finished. She was sitting opposite him in their makeshift open-plan apartment the general had provided for them. It was a small room complete with the essentials such as a fridge, holographic TV, microwave oven and a couple of leather sofa couches. Steve had been offered his own apartment, but Sheri insisted he move in with her.
“She’ll be fine,” he said in a calming voice, taking her hands in his.
“Oh, Steve, I don’t know what Chloe and I would’ve done without you. You’ve been our rock these last six months,” she said, choking bac
k tears.
“Honey, I know times are tough, but they will get better, I promise.” He gently kissed Sheri on her cheek and embraced her firmly, stroking her hair. He thought about his past, the polio and the multitude of rejections from the fairer sex that he’d suffered throughout his life. He remembered the hurtful taunting he was forced to endure from the other kids at school, not to mention his own father, who should’ve been comforting him. Only his mother had been there for him, at least until he was twenty when she, too, had died from a heart attack, probably brought on by all the stress she’d had to endure from Bill, his father. God he missed her.
Skinny mill inky, skinny mill inky, nerdy ugly skinny mill inky, they used to chant when the teachers weren’t around. It was amazing how cruel children could be. For a long time it had been unimaginable to him that he would ever find someone to share his life with, let alone someone as beautiful and kind as Sheri. Every day he had to pinch himself to make sure he hadn’t just been dreaming her. He hated himself for feeling so helpless when it came to protecting her, but he knew she had experienced enough domination from Simon, and that the best way he could show his love was to simply support her with her decisions. He wanted her to rely on her own inner strength. That is, after all, how he himself had gotten through the pain of his childhood to become the successful adult he was today.
They moved to the couch and turned on the TV. Instantly, a holographic image of an attractive brunette materialized in their living room.
“Good evening. This is CNNA with the eight-thirty update. I’m Susan Moore, standing in for Janine Fuller while she is on assignment. I’m currently outside NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, with the latest update regarding the magnetic polarity crisis. As you are most likely aware from earlier updates, it was confirmed by scientists at lunchtime today that the Earth’s magnetic poles have unexpectedly reversed polarity. Zoologists noted a change in the migratory patterns of birds and animals after multiple communication satellites began functioning again, having mysteriously being taken out of action by a huge burst of solar activity at roughly ten am local time. It is therefore unclear exactly what time the magnetic field flipped, but it would have been sometime within that eight-hour window.”
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