Ally rolled her eyes. “Well, if they don’t, come to my house. I’ll trim it for you. I’m halfway through my classes for hair. I took them while I was finishing my senior year. Mom as good as told me it was my only option.”
Amber glanced at the television on the wall two table widths away. “There’s the ad I told you about. See? That one? The pretty one on the news they are calling Stephanie Morgana—that’s the one.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m pretty damn sure she’s not Morgana. I grew up with the girl. Unless the magic in her fixed that pimple problem and shrunk her nose, it has to be a model.”
Todd glanced at the television and saw Stephanie on the screen, using her magic. It was a clip from some paparazzi reporter who’d managed to get a shot of her goofing around in the streets. She was actually smiling, and she looked absolutely beautiful.
The girls could shove it. They had no idea what they were talking about. Their comments were merely jealousy rearing its ugly head as far as he was concerned.
Nonetheless, he didn’t say anything but turned to a few of the guys instead. They whispered to each other and he couldn’t catch what they said. “What are you guys bullshitting about over here?”
One of them looked up with a grin. “Stephanie Morgana. You were like her best friend, dude. Was that really her on the television?”
The Toddster kept himself together. “I think so. She always did have a happy smile.”
“Damn,” the guy said and looked at the others. “If I had known that, I’d have paid better attention. Who doesn’t like to watch a girl prance around with a body like that? Right, Toddster?”
Todd looked at them and managed to hide his irritation. “Huh? Oh, yeah. For sure. I have things to do for my mom today so I’ll head out. See you losers tomorrow.”
“Toooodddddsstteeerrr,” they all shouted.
He faked a laugh all the way out and halfway down the street. With his book bag over his shoulder, he shoved his hands in his pocket and his face went from friendly to irritated in a matter of seconds. He didn’t like Stephanie getting that kind of attention from the guys.
It was the first time he’d ever had to deal with something like that. She had always gone unnoticed by everyone but him and a handful of friends. They hadn’t even found her fun enough to pick on when she was in school.
Now, he heard all about her everywhere he went. People even came to their area simply to grab a pic of her old house or the school she went to. It was weird, to say the least.
By far the strangest thing for him, though, were the big photos on boutique windows, magazine covers, and an even larger one on the middle-class bus route. She looked like a super-hero, a girl he would have never thought he could call to shoot the breeze with. Oddly enough, she was also a girl he found himself becoming incredibly protective over—and perhaps not only as a big brother figure.
Stephanie lay on her back and stared at the ceiling in her room. She had a big grin on her face and finally felt at one with her team. They’d had a blast earlier that day messing around with the shields, and in the end, she was reasonably sure she had created one that might actually work perfectly.
Of course, far more practice was needed before she felt comfortable enough to throw them out during a battle, but one step closer was good. On top of that, she’d managed not to blow herself up.
She pushed herself up, leaned back on her hands, and gave herself a proud nod. “Not too bad a day, if I do say so myself.”
The phone rang and she bounced off the bed, assuming it would be Todd. He’d said he would call later that day but for some reason, he hadn’t. He’d probably fallen victim to a Twinkie and spent three hours trying to run it off so the recruiter wouldn’t notice.
The thought of it made her giggle as she picked the phone up. “You know, you should really call a girl back when you say you will. Girls do not like to be forgotten.”
“My wife tells me that on a regular basis, yet I never seem to learn,” a familiar voice replied, but definitely not Todd’s.
Stephanie raised her head and grimaced when she realized it was the ambassador. “Please forgive me. I expected you to be my best friend, Todd. I think I should probably check the number before answering automatically.”
V’ritan laughed. “I don’t know. You might start a new trend. It’ll be called letting a guy know the important things.”
“But then they’d never pick a phone up again,” she whined. “At least not the Earth ones.”
“Trust me, we don’t give the Meligornian ones that much more credit either,” he replied.
She walked over to her mirror and studied the white tips on her hair. They had actually begun to grow on her, and she barely noticed them when she wore her normal side-braid. “What can I do for you today, Ambassador? Please don’t tell me you lost another assistant.”
She could hear him chuckle, even though the joke probably went a little too far. At least she knew he found her sense of humor amusing. Regardless of what the social norms were when she wasn’t holed up in her quiet and mousy persona trying to avoid conflict, Stephanie was actually pretty sassy and definitely quick on the draw. Only Becca and Todd had ever really seen that side of her before.
“I actually do not need you to do a single thing for me,” he said triumphantly. “I called to tell you we will do something for you. In Meligorn, my people consider saving a life to be one of the most heroic deeds someone can do. Dying during battle in the attempt to protect someone is, of course, at the top of the list, but we prefer it when the hero lives. From those who live, the king and queen personally choose who will receive what the Meligornian’s call the Modfresha Garghilum. In English, it roughly translates to—”
“The Medal of the Valiant Soul.” Stephanie whispered the name out loud, having no idea how she had learned Meligornian so fast or how she knew the meaning of words she could swear she’d never heard before.
The ambassador paused and nodded. “That’s right. We’ll talk about that reading of Meligornian later but for now, let us celebrate. You are invited to Meligorn to join the line for the king and the queen to pin a Modfresha Garghilum on you. And the two guards who were with you on the night of the Gala will also receive valor awards. They’re not as stunning but are equally as well earned. You saved so many lives that night.”
“Oh, my God. I don’t know what to say. I have to tell Ms. E and Burt.” She stopped and made herself take a deep breath in an effort to gather her thoughts instead of babbling.
V’ritan laughed.
“We don’t have a date, yet. There are a number of commemorations planned, and the king and queen have yet to announce which one they’ve selected for that particular presentation. I’ll let you know as soon as I know. Okay?”
“Oh, yes. I’m honored. Thank you,” Stephanie replied and sounded more than a little stunned. “I’ll tell Burt and Ms. E straight away. Thank you for letting me know.”
They chatted for a few more moments before she and the ambassador ended the call. With her phone in hand, she skipped down the hall to find Elizabeth and Lars in the kitchen. He looked at her as she came in and grinned “You look happy.”
She snatched a grape from the bunch he was eating. “I had a call from the ambassador. The king and queen of Meligorn want to award me the Modfresha Garghilum—the Medal of the Valiant Soul. And you and Johnny will also receive medals for valor.”
They looked at her in complete astonishment, and she took a breath and grinned. “They want us to go to Meligorn to get them.”
Elizabeth clapped her hands, although her mind raced over the security implications. “That’s amazing, you two. That really is. And it is a very big deal for you to be offered one of those as humans. They don’t usually give them to anyone who’s not Meligornian. I am very proud of you.” Her face sobered. “When?”
Stephanie shrugged. “The ambassador said they hadn’t decided the date, yet. He’ll let us know as soon as he hears.”
The
other woman regarded her quietly for a moment, then laid a hand on her shoulder.
“I am so very proud of you,” she said and caught Stephanie’s gaze, her voice warm with heartfelt sincerity.
>>> RETRIEVE DATA: GMU RESEARCH: MORGANA (HIDDEN FILE)
BURT had his work cut out for him that morning. He had been so busy catching up on his normal duties in the system that he hadn’t been able to fully review the information Stephanie had brought to him on the third type of MU.
While he’d gathered it constantly in the background, his foremost attention was divided between a million different things. Not only were the schools overloading his system with end-of-year exams, but placements for university graduates also took up a large amount of his processing.
He knew that if he wanted to continue along the path he was forging, he would have to run the rest of the system as if nothing had changed. No matter what happened, he didn’t want even the slightest suspicion to fall on him and draw attention to anything else he might be doing.
That could spell the end of his project before he’d even gotten it off the ground. Not to mention what would happen to Stephanie and the others if they were suddenly shut off from his protection. Each day, the first thing he did was run the statistical numbers to tell him what the chances of that were. So far, they’d stayed very low and only spiked minutely when the battle broke out. Still, he would continue to check each day to be ready for the possibility
As far as his protegé and her theories were concerned, he felt she was right about the need to get into space in order to study the new MU. It was essential to know how it worked, where it came from, and what they could possibly do to harness it like she did with the eMU and Meligornian MU.
There was also the historical value it held, which gave them yet a deeper look into the past. The problem was that he had no understanding or data to tell him how he could accomplish getting her into space.
A couple of different and obvious solutions to the problem presented themselves. The first was to acquire a space shuttle. He ran the numbers for that repeatedly and came up with something more out of reach than he’d first had anticipated.
To achieve a level like that, she would have to be able to not only withstand the stressors of space but become a full-on crew member as well. In addition, there were the costs of the actual ship and flight.
BURT moved on to the other options. Out in space, seven orbital space stations were currently manned and stocked. Five were commercial and tourist-based, while the other two were manned by the Federation Navy.
They were all expansive and placed strategically in line with Meligorn. Many of them acted as a starting point for FTL cruisers to reach Meligorn.
Those flights started at a leisurely pace but quickly moved to a pace faster than the speed of light. Scientists had once thought such speeds impossible, but when the aliens had begun to arrive, they’d realized it wasn’t that impossible after all.
Of course, those of Meligornian descent were free to use the Wizard’s Gates. These were time and teleportation portals. They were also highly secured and came close to being some kind of time machine of sorts. It would be difficult to pass a non-Meligorn through one, witch or not.
Time travel had been the Federation’s obsession for years, especially after they’d realized that a simple jump across time was not sufficient for travel and that if you jumped time, you would also have to teleport as well. The Earth hurtled through space at a speed which would leave you floating there if you jumped back even a hundred years and didn’t compensate for the planet’s movement.
Nonetheless, it meant the Gates were not appropriate for Stephanie to use. That meant she’d have to use the space stations. For obvious reasons, BURT didn’t want her anywhere near the Navy side of things, which limited his options somewhat.
Two of the seven space stations were Navy only, and there was a naval presence on each of the remaining five. Of those, three had too much of a Navy presence to be considered truly safe, and that included the Meligornian station, where FedNav provided the security.
This only left him with two. One of the smaller ones was essentially a place dedicated almost exclusively to the wealthy who wanted a vacation in space without venturing too far from home. The mid-sized one had a strong commercial presence but only a small naval one.
While not particularly on par with what he had hoped for when it came to research space, the mid-sized one was better than setting up on anything belonging to FedNav. Even better, the commercial presence meant ONE R&D’s interest wouldn’t be thought of as unusual. This would not be the case if he tried to set up on a tourist resort for the wealthy.
When he dug deeper into his company and increased its usefulness, BURT looked at the stockpiled resources. Some would be needed to help test the students who had “failed” the two percent suggestion for prep school entry.
He knew these people were geniuses of sorts and capable of taking on the system. In addition, he knew that even though they were far superior to most of the others, they were stuck with going about their business like no other options existed.
Finding the ones outside the testing fields was where his real interest lay. The problem was exactly that, however—finding them and confirming their abilities and intelligence.
BURT had run with the one simple idea sparked by his first encounter with Stephanie Morgana. But now, buried in ones and zeroes as he sifted through the most secretive data in the world, he had his computer hands full and his virtual mind even fuller.
Cindy sat at the table, straightened her papers, and drew the phone closer to her and the seat Mark would sit in as soon as he perfected his tie-tying technique. They were preparing to call Stephanie and have their investment discussion with her.
This was in accordance with the terms she and Mark had come up with when their daughter had raised the suggestion. It was a little backward in the negotiation process, of course, but at least they knew that.
She glanced over her shoulder, glared at her husband, and snapped, “Mark, get your butt over here and sit down so we can call our daughter before she turns sixty.”
“All right, all right.” He groaned. “She will have to deal with the untied look.”
Cindy smirked. “I think she’ll overlook it this time. Are you ready?”
Mark nodded. “Oh yeah, let’s get this business venture stamped, signed, and put into place.”
She clicked the on button and Stephanie’s speed dial. When her daughter’s holographic head appeared, they could see she was smiling from ear to ear. “Good afternoon, Cindy, Mark.”
Her mother smirked, obviously imagining the girl in a business suit in a meeting at some top firm. Her father fiddled with his tie and grumbled about the skinny versus the fat side.
Cindy nudged him with her elbow and cleared her throat. “We have had sufficient time to review your proposal and have come back with a counteroffer.”
Mark straightened and picked up the paper in front of him. “We will accept the thirty-K for ten percent, but under the conditions that you receive eight percent for the total and another two percent for agreeing to do two sales calls per year, with ten percent commission on the first year of billables per sale.”
Stephanie wrote as he talked and nodded to acknowledge him. “Very good. So, let’s break it down. The investment stays the same—thirty-K credits. I will receive eight percent of total profit no matter what. Then, I will only receive another two percent if I make two sales calls a year.”
“Yes,” Cindy replied, “and then, you have the commission.”
“Right. The ten percent on the first year of billable sales. That is the icing on the cake for me. Basically, make two deals and reap the benefits for an entire year both in the total two percent benefits and a ten percent commission.” She looked happy with what they’d offered.
Her mother smiled and leaned her head on her hand. “You look so adorable in your dress-up clothes. I can already see you commandin
g a board of assholes and sticking it to them really well. But you don’t have to be a businesswoman. You merely look good in the suits.”
She snickered. “Thanks, Mom.”
Mark cleared his throat loudly. “You mean, Cindy. So, what do you say to the deal?”
Stephanie drew a deep breath and read through the notes. “I say, as long as it comes back legally documented and we both feel comfortable with it, I’m all in. One hundred percent. Send over the legal documents once you have them drawn up, and I will have someone witness my signature before I send two copies back to you. One copy will be for your personal records and one for the company.”
Cindy clapped. “This is so exciting. I love you, sweetheart.”
“I love you, too.” She included them both in her smile. “This will be awesome. I hate to jet but I have to get back to work. Send me an email so I know when the docs are headed my way.”
“We will,” Mark said and waved along with his wife.
He ended the call and leaned back. “Well, was that really worth getting all dressed up for?”
Cindy slapped his leg. “It’s not every day you go into business with your daughter. You should be excited for her.”
“Oh, I am,” he replied. “But I’m not excited for myself. This shirt fit me when I was twenty-five. I think the buttons are the only thing holding it all together.”
She giggled and tapped her papers on the counter. “You know, she’s got us on one thing.”
He nodded with a laugh. “I know. Do you know any lawyers?”
His wife thought about it for a second. “Only one, but I dated him.”
His expression went flat. “Yeah, he’s out.”
Chapter Seven
The guys sat in their common room, their feet up, listening to music and simply hanging out. The watch had been taken over by the B team, which had swiftly been added to after the last battle. Ms. E knew she needed to keep the primary team more available to move quickly if she needed them.
Witch Of The Federation (Federal Histories Book 2) Page 7