by Alexie Aaron
Ted was standing outside the truck when she drove up. He walked over and opened the door. He leaned in and gave her a long leisurely kiss.
“Wow,” Mia said when he finished. “What did I do to deserve that?”
“You came when I called. I needed you, and you came without question.”
“Gee, I kind of feel like a dog or something?” Mia said, scrunching up her face. “But if your kisses are the treats, I’ll be your bitch.”
“You’re too sweet to be a bitch, Minnie Mouse.”
Mia patted her stomach. “I hardly feel Minnie these days.”
Ted lifted her chin. “I love you for carrying our child, who is going to be enormous. You’re going to pop soon.”
“Gee, thanks for the warning.”
Ted helped her out of the truck, and before he let her climb into the command center, he lifted her up. He did his best, but Mia could tell her extra weight was a challenge for the wiry technician. To give him credit, he didn’t mention it.
“Where’s Murphy?” she asked.
“He went home with Dave.”
“The peninsula?”
“No and yes. Dave quit. He’s going to grab his gear and come and bunk with us a while. I didn’t think you’d mind. Mike drove the two of them.”
“Mike let Murphy in his car? Now that’s one for the record books. Did you say Dave quit? Why?”
“Well, you can either hear it exaggerated from my lips… or I recorded the whole thing.”
“You went to all that trouble for me?”
“No, I left the mics on and well…”
Mia hugged her husband. “Eavesdropping didn’t make the seven deadly sins, but I would be wary of doing too much of it. Glenda says, ‘You don’t really want to know what people think about you, do you?’”
The two of them walked over to the console where Jake gave Mia an enthusiastic welcome. The three monitors were filled with pictures of balloons. Their vibrant colors tested the expensive equipment.
“Hello, Jake, I missed you out at the farm,” Mia said honestly. She turned around and looked up at Ted and said, “I missed you most of all.”
“I think there is a story behind that comment. Let’s deal with one story at a time. This story is called, Burt, the asshole.”
“You know, we really need to stop picking on the man,” Mia said, trying unsuccessfully to find truth in her own words.
“Watch the tape, and we’ll talk later. I’m going to take Curly for a walk.”
“Be careful, I smelled a faint whiff of skunk as I got out of the car. If that machine scares a skunk, then it’s a tomato juice bath for the two of you.”
“I’ll be careful. I don’t think Curly’s circuits would survive the acidic nature of tomato juice. I’m going to run him in the shadows of the house. Just to have a look around. The poltergeists seem to have settled down.”
“Did the saltwater work?”
“Never got a chance to use it. Watch the tape, and you’ll see why.”
Mia scooted up to the table as close as she could, considering her pregnant body. “Gee, I should have brought popcorn.”
Ted reached under the table and brought out a bag of cheese corn. “Will this do?”
“Yes, if there is a soda to go with it.”
“Mia, I only have the Peppers…”
“If you’re worried about my caffeine intake, it’s five past midnight, I can have a can. I’ll just have to forgo a cup of the java juice,” she reasoned.
Ted opened the cooler and grabbed the full-charged caloric drink. Mia didn’t do diet soda, not now, not ever.
“Thank you, Teddy Bear,” she said. “Jake, I’m ready.”
Ted watched as the ghost in the machine started the compilation video tape he set up for her. He waited a moment before gathering up Curly and leaving the trailer.
He set the machine down and ran through the startup protocols. He could hear Mia talking to either Jake or the screen inside. He moved further away from the truck to give her privacy. This wasn’t normal for Ted. He was trying to wean himself from his eavesdropping ways. It was tough. As a mischievous child, he listened in on his parents’ conversations to see if their upraised voices had anything to do with him. And if so, he had a chance to come up with an explanation or get on his bike and hide out at Cid’s for a while.
Ted maneuvered the centipede-like machine to the front of the mini mansion and stopped it at the threshold. Part of him feared what the hyped-up entities would do to Curly if they noticed him. It wasn’t just another machine to Ted. It was an extension of him, Cid too, really. When Jake ran Curly, it was as if Ted was having an out of body experience. Was Curly a toy? Partly. It was also very useful in the investigations. Ted had the patent pending, and once he had achieved securing it, he would offer and perhaps build the robot himself. It could be used for a multitude of reasons. Could Curly be the next big thing? He hoped so; the money would be nice. With a mortgage and a new baby on the way, Ted was focusing on building a secure nest egg for himself and Mia.
“Ah, Mia,” Ted sighed, looking down at Curly. It was she who gave the machine the absurd name after it had coiled around her. “It’s all curly,” she said. The actual name for the patent was Mobile Recon Device 1640Z7. Mia protested and pointed out that Ted gave girl names to all the large cameras, why couldn’t she name the machine Curly? She’d made her point. Ted gave in graciously and received the benefits of being Mia’s favorite inventor.
“What if she had met Tesla?” Ted asked the machine.
“What if who met Tesla?” Mia said behind him.
He turned around to see Mia staring at him. Her large green eyes danced.
“I betcha you didn’t know a prego could do stealth, did yah?” she asked.
“No, I thought the waddle alone would attract a flock of migrating ducks and give you away,” he teased.
Mia put her hands on her hips. “I do not waddle. Although a close relative, I’ve managed more of an inline skater’s motion to get places quickly.”
“Well it worked. What do you think of the situation?”
“Burt’s in trouble.”
“You’re taking Burt’s side? I’m flabbergasted.”
“I don’t think there should be sides. We’re all a team. When one of us goes down, it’s up to the rest of us to help. As Mike says, it’s what we do.”
“You’re not concerned that he’s trying to replace you?”
“There’s no replacing me; I’m one of a kind. Sure, Dave could be nurtured into an incredible investigator, but Dave’s not interested. He’s meant for bigger and better things. Instead of chasing phantoms, Dave’s going to Mars or Saturn or someplace like that.”
“He doesn’t have the grades to get him on that track,” Ted reminded her. “He’s barely making it in junior college.”
“It won’t matter. Once we give him the ability to feel comfortable with his gifts, school will be easier, and Gerald Shem will do the rest.”
“Shem? Are we talking about the same man? The guy who knows a guy?”
“Yes, and I happen to know that Gerald knows a guy who is working on including sighted individuals on space missions, especially if they are going to be visiting what could be dead civilizations. They are years away from making this into a tangible reality. So, in the meantime, we train Dave.”
Ted looked at his wife and saw she’d thought through the problem and come up with an amazing solution. It wasn’t that he didn’t think her capable - he knew she was smarter than anyone credited her for - it was that she’d grasped onto something more science than magic that impressed him.
“Whoa.”
“Is that a good whoa or a whoa you need to rethink this?” she asked.
“Definitely a good whoa. So you’ve got Dave’s future solved. I guess saving PEEPs will be a breeze.”
“Actually, PEEPs, according to our clever lawyer Alan, is more Mike’s than it is Burt’s. The trick is keeping Mike interested while we put Burt i
n a rehab facility for overly-inflated ego.”
“PEEPs could survive without Burt,” Ted said.
“But it wouldn’t be the same. I like the old fart. He is a challenge, I won’t lie to you. His problem is that he’s brought up PEEPs to being considered a highly regarded professional group, but he hasn’t evolved with it. He still thinks like an amateur.”
“You’ve brought PEEPs there with your talents and your connections,” Ted argued.
“Oh no, it was all of us working together that has gotten us this far.” Mia paused a moment and gathered her thoughts. When she was ready she said, “Burt had the dream of running a successful group of paranormal investigators. Being a dreamer has its problems. You see, dreamers are used to their dreams failing and are somewhat comfortable with that, so when the dream becomes a reality, the subconscious fights it as something foreign, and that’s when Burt acts out. No sane man picks a fight with a prego or takes on the guise of the villain when in actuality he’s a good guy.”
“You sound like you’ve been reading Cid’s books,” Ted teased. “You make a lot of sense though. So what do we do? This group is fractured. Speaking of, Cid called from the hospital, and Audrey’s torn her rotator cuff and broken her clavicle on the right side.”
“My god, that has to hurt.”
“It wasn’t pretty to watch happen either. Anyway, she’s headed to her parents for TLC when they release her in two days. Matt’s at the hospital with her now. Cid’s headed home.”
“We should go and see her,” Mia insisted.
“We will tomorrow. Bring her something to cheer her up. In the meanwhile, I’d like you to go back to the safety of the trailer before I open this door. These guys are not only mean but, I fear, deadly.”
“How about not opening the door?” Mia asked.
“I would feel better if we had eyes on the inside.”
“Fine, but I’m standing here until you get Curly inside and close the door.”
“Mia, they are dangerous. Now is not the time to be pigheaded,” Ted argued. “Please don’t fight me on this. I’m Batman, but I can only do so much to protect you and batboy.”
Mia chuckled. “Great name for him. He’s been swinging a bat inside me for a while now. I’ll go. But take care of yourself, Batman. We need you.”
Ted waited until Mia had walked the length of the drive and climbed back into the truck before unlocking the door. He let half of the double doors swing inward and moved Curly inside. Before he could step inside to grab the door, it slammed shut.
“That was me,” Mia called.
Ted spun around to see her leaning out of the back of the truck. She quickly ducked back inside. Ted gingerly tapped the doorknob, and when he didn’t feel the expected heat, locked the door. Mia had used telekinesis to shut the door. In the past, her brand of mind power usually ended in a fire because she super-heated anything she chose to move. The farther away an object was, the worse the heat. She had scorched Angelo’s wings saving him from a deadly fall. What had changed?
Mia was running through the footage they had accumulated so far when Ted climbed into the back of the truck. He sat down and transferred the controls from the portable joystick to the console. Mia scooted over and watched as his fingers flew over the keyboard. Soon, the monitor was receiving Curly’s video feed. Once this was settled, Ted turned his chair so he was facing Mia and asked, “You wanna explain the door thing?”
“I didn’t want to take the chance of you being trapped inside the house, so I pushed it shut. Sorry it slammed. Actually, I pulled it shut…”
“It shut, but how come it wasn’t hot?”
“Oh, Anatolie Gabor gave me the secret of how to control the environment while using telekinesis before he, well… left,” Mia said in an odd voice.
“So you’re saying that you’re not starting things on fire, but the environment is?”
“Yes, no, let me explain. I’m using the molecules around the item-to-be-moved more correctly than before, less friction. It sounds hard, but it’s quite easy once you get the knack. Watch.”
Mia drew out a small box of wooden matches. She drew out a match and lifted it with her mind. She twirled it like a true Texan majorette, putting the match through its paces. She put out her hand, and the match landed in it. “Go ahead and feel it, no heat.”
Ted picked it up and studied it. He held on to the wood end of the match and requested, “Light it.”
The match trembled slightly, and the business end burst into flame.
“Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle,” he said mesmerized.
“Well, you may be, considering the gene pool of the Martin and Cooper spawn. Between your sister’s kids and Sabine’s triplets, you have yourself a barrel full of monkeys. Speaking of which, we need to go Christmas shopping.”
Ted shook out the flame and put his head in his hands a moment.
Mia watched him for a moment before speaking. “Are you alright?”
“I’m feeling a little overwhelmed,” he confessed.
“I’ll stop the telekinesis if it makes you uncomfortable,” Mia offered.
“No, it’s not that. That’s amazing. It just occurred to me that we are having a little boy with half the genetic makeup of the Martin side of the family. My nephews, Condom and Condom, are an extreme handful. Add in the possible magical abilities from the Cooper side, and suddenly I’m Darrin Stephens with a Tabitha on my hands!”
“Bewitched right?” Mia asked, not fully caught up on the sixties and seventies sitcoms that Ted loved to binge on when he was in a loafing mood.
“Yes.”
“You have me to help you. Batboy may be an ordinary child.”
“If he has wings, I’m going to kill Angelo, Mia.”
“You were there at the conception. Angelo had nothing to… Well, fuck me and leave me a rose, he did, didn’t he? If Judge Roumain wasn’t worried about me accompanying you and Angelo into the dark world, he wouldn’t have had you knock me up.”
“You make me sound like a thug,” Ted teased. “Knocking up women so they can’t get lost in the nether world. Hey, that’s a career path. Perhaps Dave would…”
Mia hit Ted on the arm.
“Spousal abuse!”
“I barely touched you,” Mia said. “Hand me a grapefruit, and I’ll show you spousal abuse.”
“I’m never letting Dave pick out the movie on classic night again. It’s giving you bad ideas,” Ted said.
“Wuss,” Mia commented, turning her chair’s back to him.
Ted reached out and started to tickle her. She could have protested, but it felt so good to laugh uncontrollably. He stopped when she got the hiccups and the baby started kicking her. She grabbed Ted’s hand and placed it on her stomach so he could feel his son move within her.
“That’s cool,” Ted said, wrapping his arms around his wife. “I love you, with or without a grapefruit.”
Chapter Three
Cid looked down at the IOU that Mia left and blushed. Was it the promise of baked goods or the hearts and flowers doodled all over the paper that touched him? He knew Mia had to be seriously craving sweets to cross his threshold. Had he been ignoring her? Ever since Marta Steensen stepped into his life, he had been a bit preoccupied. He had been working on getting his general contractor licenses for the city of Chicago as well as each thriving community in northern Illinois. Being a paranormal investigator didn’t pay much. Ted let Cid live free-of-charge over the PEEPs office, and he did share a few patents with Ted. But he couldn’t ask Ted for money to go on dates with the statuesque code inspector. That was just asking too much. Although, he suspected that Ted and Mia would do so without a thought. But they had a little one on the way, and Cid was a grown man capable of earning a living.
Burt’s selfish attitude tonight was the final straw. The investigation had been chaotic and tense. Mia wasn’t there to joke with Ted. That always seemed to put the group at ease. Burt’s joy over not having Mia around was way over-the-t
op. His disregard for injured Audrey was the tipping point. Cid’s quitting was an impulse, but the more he thought about it, the more he felt he did the right thing.
“Domino,” Murphy’s voice echoed through the room.
“Whoa!” Cid said as he turned around to see the farmer standing in his doorway. “Domino?” he questioned.
“You quit, Dave quit, Mike’s quitting.”
“Domino effect. I was the first to fall. Sorry, Murphy, but Burt’s been riding me a lot lately, and I’ve had enough.”
“Where’s Mia?” Murphy asked.
“Ted called her. Burt left him alone to mind the house, so Mia drove the truck over to be with him.”
“Dangerous.”
“Ted will make sure she’s safe.”
“Mia will make sure Ted is safe,” Murphy countered.
Cid laughed. “You’re right. Mia takes care of us all, doesn’t she?”
Murphy nodded. “Dave’s in the house. Doesn’t know where to put his things.”
“Whoa, Dave moved out of Burt’s house?”
“Ted said he could stay here. Mike brought us home.”
Murphy was starting to fade. The effort of having a regular conversation with Cid was draining the ghost’s energy.
“First, you stop talking, you’re fading away. Second, I’ll get the boy settled in. Tomorrow, we need to sit down and figure out what we are going to do about the kerfuffle I caused.”
Murphy smiled and disappeared.
Cid walked out of his apartment using the exterior stairs. He saw Mike standing by his car talking on the phone. Not wanting to intrude, he nodded at the senior investigator as he passed him.
“Wait a moment,” Mike said, lowering the phone. “Mind if I come in and bend your ear?”