Dance Card: Chapter 1
Retrospective: From Dark as Light
“Good morning.” I said as false dawn became real. Around me, I could see over fifteen hundred girls and women, roughly two hundred boys and men. I spoke into a throat mike, they listened on ear pieces linked with a style of custom cell phone at their hips we issue to hires.
“Good morning.” I heard back from the managers as they begin getting everyone settled. The football stadium seating is mostly full. Somewhere between eighteen hundred and two thousand people fill them. No loud speakers were used this time. Our head sets were channel keyed, whoever was speaking at the podium was heard by everyone. If an individual had a question, it went to their manager who relayed it to theirs and upward. Anyone could speak to anyone if you knew their contact code.
“There are weighty questions before all of us. I realize most of you, us, have never met in person before, but believe me, there will be plenty of time to get to know each other.” I said as seats were found and my dried like a shallow puddle in a warm neveda summer wind mouth stuck open. I took a drink of water and paused letting it settle.
“We are here to decide if we want to stay doing this, but that decision rests on another, we can’t really continue if we do not do this menagerie in Florida. Yet doing that rests upon the decision of whether to do another smaller mission for the Saudis. All of these decisions though rest upon many shoulders, not just the management’s. I know many if not most of you are not volunteers.”
“I am sorry about that, yet I also know Mindy, yes she has vanished, no we have no clue where she went, didn’t choose people at random. She chose each and every one of you for a reason. Each of you that did not volunteer and a lot of those that did have used sex as a weapon or a tool of commerce.”
“You know yourselves, you know each other, some of you know me, most don’t, yet I have been asked to lead you. I have been asked to take the reigns that Mindy set down. I am not Mindy, different plumbing if nothing else. I think differently than she does. Unlike her, I am a real person. Yes. I said real person, the rumor of her not being quite a real person are quite true.”
“I could force, I have the codes, the phrases, but such is not my way. I am expected to use and trust you, you are asked to trust me. How then I ask, can you trust someone you don’t know. Simple, you can’t.”
“To tell you about me though, that tale would take days to cover from the time I was born, and most of it would mean nothing. Instead, I will tell you not about who I was, not about who I am, but about how I became who I am. Then you will judge me, you will decide, you will choose.”
“You can choose to leave. You can choose to support another. Or you could choose to support and accept me. I have only my actions to fall back on. I can only be judged by what I have done.”
“Before you talk amongst your selves though, I have a tale to tell you. A tale about a young man who stumbled across this amazing group of people. This begins years ago, all the way back last spring.”
“To begin with, my name is Wilhelm Thomas Giles. You have to understand something up front, I was fifteen almost sixteen and Kara was barely nineteen, in college on dual Cheerleading and Volleyball scholarships, and my six year older hippy not quite really a stoner brother’s girlfriend. I never have figured out what she saw in him, as for what he saw in her, that is as they say, a lot more obvious.”
Dark as Light: Dance Card
Wilhelm stared out at the airport. He knows he is in Florida, they just landed after all, yet he still feels as lost here as he did at home. He feels as lost as he did all of last weekend in fact, and all of the the week in between. He still doesn’t really understand the vote they took, or how so many could choose to continue. Out of about nineteen hundred, seventy six chose to go, the rest chose to stay. While he hadn’t had total approval, he did take a super majority of the vote and he still has no clue how.
Amina standing next to him on the ramp of the Israeli Mossad Leer jet providing transport can guess what is on Wilhelm’s mind. She herself, not a statement she could have made for herself that week ago, shares many of those concerns. She knows what she is. She knows she is not what most would consider mentally stable. ‘For Johhnie’ She whispers to herself anytime she thinks of the terms of her release, her parole, what passes for her freedom.
“It’s ok Wil.” Kara says reaching past Amina, not something many are brave enough to do now that she is unbound by protocol, to put a reassuring hand on his shoulder, “Either you at least try to take this on or we hand it all over to governments and bureaucracies. Think of the damage done to people by someone being expedient, think of what happens when denial hits the human being caught in the middle.”
“I know.” He acknowledges, “I know all that, I know we can’t trust any government, everyone involved has to be vetted personally.”
“There is no formula for this.” Their Massod guide says motioning them forward toward the waiting diplomatic car flying a Saudi flag.
“Hearts and minds and souls rest in the hands of man, men that is, and women, made of whatever is needed.” Their Saudi sponsor says gently as he to urges them forward.
“We can not trust words.” The Massod agent says gently, “It is not that we don’t dare, it is that we cannot trust in them. What you carry is needed, but government can never be trusted with it.”
“Nothing faceless can ever know of more than the fact that this kind of control exists. Think of what the Hitlers of the past could have done if they really could change people’s hearts.” The Saudi agrees. Their’s is a middle east friendship and cooperation on truly important matters that the West is blind to for the most part.
“It is fitting that there are three hundred of us here.” Wilhelm says stepping onto the ladder.
“This time.” The Massod guide laughs, “It will end better.”
“No debates, no lawyers, we need a lot more than three days though.” The Saudi guy says, “But we will be there when we are needed, for unlike them, we know your fall is our own.”
“Where are we headed first?” Wilhelm asks as they settle into the limo.
“A prebriefing to the opening briefing.” The Saudi laughs as they pull out.
“This way please.” A man said when they pulled into the side entrance of a hotel half an hour later. Despite, or perhaps because of the way the three-piece suit looked out of place on him, Wilhelm was puzzled.
“Who are we meeting?” Wilhelm asked.
“They are waiting.” The guard replied and Wilhelm realized the man acted out of uniform, though what uniform he could wear to make a suit appear out of uniform wasn’t clear despite the fact that his haircut gave lie to him being military.
“They came?” Amina asked quietly, having been silent since leaving the plane.
“Who came?” Wilhelm asks as they enter a room of the hotel, then falls silent.
“Welcome.” Says the priest.
“Good day.” Says the Imam.
“Shalom.” Says the rabbi.
“We are here to speak to you about the abyss and the soul.” The Priest says standing and offering his hand to shake.
“What?” Wilhelm asks in shock. The Priest is an older man, in his fifties as are his companions. All are in the simplest of vestments, the plainest of styles that says their rank without pomp or circumstance.
“As you have just noticed none of us are of any real rank. High enough to talk and be heard, yet not high enough to draw attention to ourselves.”
“We, our institutions that is, have watched this struggle before.”
“Generation upon generation the battle for hearts and minds and souls goes on.”
“This time,” The Imam says with a grimace, “Our Inquisitionists.”
“Have gotten together,” The priest says with another grimace, “with remnants of ours and formed an unholy alliance.”
“Like we’ve never had those ourselves.” The Rabbi laughs, “We, all of us and our brother and sister religions that have fought this, have had among us those who ate souls.”
“We have tried, all of us, the route of governments, the route of heroes.”
“Of angels, of demons.”
“Of paladins.”
“Yet this is an evil of man, so as is fitting, man must fight it.”
“Man has never been able to stop his own evil.”
“Yet we mortals, the ephemeral host, come closest to succeeding.”
“Then we are here.” Wilhelm says with a smile, “Because I am a man and just a man. Yet I have a demon by one side and an angel on the other.”
“Yes.” The Priest says with a genuine smile, “I am glad you understand. We have not seen the Demon free and the Angel bound before though, that is new to us.”
“I am not an angel.” Kara says to them.
“But I am the demon.” Amina says sadly.
“Then this,” Wilhelm says as the bigger picture starts to focus, “Is where you decide if we are partners or bait.”
“Wilhelm?” Kara asks.
“It’s ok Kara, we’re on dagobah.” Wilhelm answers.
“And we face the three edged sword of truth.” Amina added.
“Your metaphors are very mixed.” The priest laughs.
“Yet very apt.” The Imam says with a smile.
“This is how all the meetings will happen.” The Rabbi says.
“Because this is how decisions are really made.” Wilhelm adds, “Councils are dog and pony shows to give a chance for newcomers and surprises so you know where to find both.”
“And now we have all learned what we need to know.” The priest answers.
“The demon though will have to prove her word.” The Imam says.
“No.” Wilhelm replies.
“You have not seen what we have.” The Priest says.
“The demon hides her true face from you, or perhaps it is no longer her true face. Yet it matters not, proof is needed if she is to remain free.”
“No.” Wilhelm repeats.
“It shall be done.” Amina states flatly, “And I know why. Because the second one tried to surrender and I took him anyway, and that was before I became dangerous.”
“Amina?” Wilhelm asked.
“It’s ok Wil, do it, I won’t fight.”
“I refuse.”
“Then you will have to have me rebound by the protocols as I was.”
“No.”
“Choose Wil, they’re right to ask, to demand. This is my penance, not yours. Think of it as a million Hail Marys in a single night. If I can’t bind myself with my own will, then I must be bound by another’s. I didn’t understand until I came to live with you. I never had peace before that. They all knew me and no male could relax around me, even when assigned. Yet you welcomed me, you alone did not fear me and that forced me to look at myself with other eyes. What I saw scared me.”
“Then we will have this discussion later, I’m not debating that while trying to figure all this out. I am here for the teams, not myself, so they come first.” Wilhelm said flatly.
“She said you would understand.” The Imam laughs with a cackle.
“Who?”
“We call her Lillith or Mirriam, old names with many meanings, though she is just Mindy to you.”
“Do you know where she is?”
“Of course.” The Rabbi laughs, “We consider keeping track of her to be no less a priority than tracking any other weapon of mass destruction. Does your government lose it’s arrows, leave them laying around for children to find?”
“You also consider us one don’t you?”
“You yourself are one.” The Priest says flatly, “We have reviewed the reports on Arak beside you, Angelique, the triplets and the changes in Amina. By all appearances, Mindy has gifted you with the rest of what she knows, though I personally suspect it is hidden away somewhere, perhaps near the temporal lobes of your brain? Behind a locked door?”
“I’m not playing games until I can learn the game.” Wilhelm states with more certainty than he really feels, “I’m sure this will all go on until everyone has a feel for us and I need my game face on, once I figure out the game so I can know what face to wear that is.”
“Wise.”
“Is she safe?” Amina asks.
“Yes.” The priest answers.
“Is she going to be ok?”
“Of that we are less certain.”
“She is with someone new, he shows promise.”
“How she finds so many with so much promise is one of her traits we worry about the most. We invest heavily in selecting and training ours to get one in a thousand that can merely replicate consistently what has been before, yet she wanders at random finding one every year or two that can grasp new things.”
“It means despite what we know, what we have learned, we are missing something.”
“Hold on.” Wilhelm pleads getting lost in the tradeoff, “That bounce back and forth is confusing, I can hardly tell who is saying what.”
“They do that on purpose wil.” Amina laughs.
“Why all this scrutiny for what amounts to a messenger service with benefits?” Wilhelm asks.
“Sometimes the medium is the message.”
“NO.” Wilhelm says flatly.
“What?” Kara asks.
“He doesn’t do that market.” Amina laughed.
“What market?” Kara asked.
“We need couriers we can depend on for secure communications.” The Imam says with a smile.
“You and your cultural exchange.” The Priest laughs.
“This has nothing to do with the prince.” The Imam defended with a smile.
“You were there with me at that last meeting with John Paul II.” The priest says an hour later after Wilhelm and company are gone, “You heard what he said. Is this it?”
“Yes.” The Imam agrees, “It has the same feel and it would with your and our extremists getting together.”
“I thought between us we got the last of them in the French Revolution and American Civil War?”
“Apparently not.”
“The knowledge leaks and war races across the face of the world when it emerges, every time.”
“It must be the ones who corrupted the Templars, the Wah Yen Nah.”
“The Desert Mother Goddess of water and rebirth has risen once again. There are so many to bring chaos and war, so few of us to hold the line.”
“Like before they will spread pointless war and death, then quench both with rebirth to rebuild and do the whole again. They deny our ability to leave this world despite our steps on the moon.”
“We have to tell the masons.”
“They will not fight, they never fight. They took an oath and they take that oath seriously.”
“Then I will go to Isaiah Abraham Smith of the Amish.”
“Hold for a while. Let us watch the demon to see if she is perhaps an angel wreathed in hell fire to light her way as she explores the abyss of the soul.”
“Dark as light to show the path to the strength it will take this time.”
“Benedict will not be happy.”
“Benedict is never happy, at least he isn’t as scary.”
“I take it I am not the only one who noticed the uptick in activity a month after his predecessor was called back to heaven.”
“No. Yet for a man with as nice a public persona as he had, I’ve never met anyone who could match his faith.”
“And who else could have made all those sides hold their breaths for a quarter century.”
“Even us, his own people, feared he might let the secret out if pushed.”
“I think we need to gather tokens again.”
“Let’s all just have some faith and ask for volunteers.”
“Hi all.” Kara laughed greeting Wilhelm’s parents, the Giles, at the gate to the park where they were working on control systems for the rides.
“Hello all.” Wilhelm’s mom laughed back and then stopped, staring at Amina.
“You’re right.” Mr. Giles said looking at his wife.
“Welcome dear.” Mr. Giles said pulling Amina into a hug then whispering into her ear, “Tell me you are using protection.”
“Hey wil,” Amina fake laughed while still hugging, “You know that conversation we were afraid of?”
“I think you don’t need to worry about breaking it to your parents.” Kara laughed.
“I tried to tell them not to worry about it.” Angi laughed.
“You have to admit though.” Ella giggled, “Watching them try to be subtle has been fun.”
“Thought you’ve been sounding funny on the phone son.” Mr. Giles said with a grin.
“Before you accuse, it was my idea.” Amina said pulling away from Mrs. Giles, “I have always had this thing where I cry sometimes. Wil saw it hit me and offered a shoulder. I am the one who crawled into his bed and cried on his shoulder all night. Then when it was over I wanted more and wasn’t in a mood to take no for an answer.”
“We’ve kept an eye on them.” Angi told them, “There are enough of us we were able to keep a pretty close watch when Kara couldn’t be there. Her aunt Jan, not blood by the way, had made her get an implant already figuring that it would hit her sometime soon, and they have been using protection as well, we kind of lectured her, them, on that.”
“How serious is it?” Mr. Giles asked seriously.
“As serious as he wants for my part.” Amina answered flatly as they headed into the park for an afternoon of fun in the sun.
“Hey Angelique.” A friend her hers, Clarice, said in greeting at the mall food court.
“Hey yourself, what’s up?”
“That’s what I want to ask you.”
“Have a seat.” Angelique said waving to a seat across the table from her.
“What changed?” Clarice asks as sits.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean you disappear for weeks at that Cheer Camp thing they do. No one can seem to find you there, then you reappear with Kevin of all people. I mean his dad was pro footballer, that’s great, but the kid is a dweeb and you don’t seem to care anymore. Don’t you care about your social standing at all?”
“Actually, yes I do.” She answered having dreaded this conversation happening. She knew it was coming with someone, but here it is. “I can also tell you I am not the same person I was at the beginning of the summer. I have a job now, did you know that?”
“I heard you were at that broken down burger place by the college.”
“Not so broken down anymore and I’m the assistant manager.”
“What?”
“I’m in charge of hiring and firing. I only have two people I report to and neither are much interested in second guessing me.”
“Great, I could use a job, who do I have to do to get on?” Clarice quipped smiling, though with a serious look, “Or is it who do I get off to get on?”
“Serious?”
“Do I need to be?”
“Why do you make fun of Kevin?”
“He’s a dweeb.” She states as though it were scientific fact about a bug.
“And that’s the difference. I happen to know he is more than that. Granted, he isn’t the socially gifted type of person we are. But he can talk about physics, philosophy and technology in the same conversation without once looking down on anyone just because they happen to know more or less than he does about something.”
“Oh.” Clarice stammered stunned at the attitude.
“Were full up on staff though.”
“Oh.”
“Sorry about that.”
“You’ve changed even more than I heard, what happened?”
“I needed help.” Angelique answered honestly, “Someone noticed that I did and got me maybe not the help I wanted, but the help I needed.”
“You needed help? With what?”
“And that is your answer to a lot of your questions.” Angelique growled, “He had enough brains to see I needed help and get me that help.”
“And you paid him back by doing him in public?” Clarice laughed completely misunderstanding.
“No!” Angelique replied angrily standing up, “Kevin isn’t the one who helped me, Wilhelm is.”
“Wilhelm? That kid?”
“He, is, not, a, kid.” Angelique growls one word at a time.
“What?”
“You are so childish caught up in high school games that mean nothing in the real world. Just how much do you think those jocks would risk to help you?”
“You were drooling over them yourself recently.”
“And there was a reason for that, a reason not of my making and he saw that. He saw it and he helped me, he helped me when he had no reason or need to.” Angelique hissed as rage at Clarice morphed into a hollow rage at the world. “He risked himself to help me and you know what his price was, you know what I promised in return?”
“No.” Clarice whispered, unable to comprehend where the tears came from.
“He made me swear to never go out with a guy who didn’t respect me. To always treat the guy like he treated me. His price was that I maintain self respect and now you make fun of someone I owe everything to? How am I supposed to feel?”
“I’m sorry.” Clarice whispers in confused apology as Angelique walks away tears streaming.
“Hi,” A tall man, over six feet though thin with narrow features, said rising as Wilhelm entered his sixth motel room of the day, and it is barely time for lunch. “Louis Templeton, call me Ell Tee.”
“Hello Ell Tee.” Wilhelm answered wearily, most of those he has met have been formal, not L T, “These are Amina and Kara.”
“Of course they are. I know the Mongoose though, we met some time back.”
“Ell.” Amina laughed finding a seat.
“Mongoose?” Wilhelm asked sitting.
“Yes. It was a name you used for her with several of the girls and it kind of stuck for us.” He laughed.
“I told you wil.” Amina laughed, “The amount of stuff we keep on file is scary.”
“They’re as bad as google I have learned.” Kara laughed.
“Right oh.” L T laughed.
“I’m sorry.” Wilhelm said breaking back in, “I know they gave me an itinerary of sorts, but I have no idea who you are with.”
“That’s because I’m not on your schedule.”
“Oh, I feel less stupid now.”
“I’m with what you might call MI’s five and three quarter or six and three quarter.”
“If it defies explanation or categorization they drop it on you?” Wilhelm asks.
“Spot on.” Louis laughs but then gets serious, “I cut into your queue on purpose. I understand it you have someone of staff who has worked with or at least knows Dr. Tanjira’s works.”
“Sort of, Why?”
“We have someone, a daughter of someone important back home, both parents work not just in Buckingham itself, but around the royal family, often travelling with one or more of them. She just turned nineteen but about seventeen months ago she went on vacation to ski in Switzerland and no one heard from her almost a month. No one thought anything of it since she returned safely with a story about having run away with a young man to get away from it all for a while.”
“Sounds about silly enough.”
“That’s what everyone thought. Then one night one the armsmen over heard her telling her mother she had been somewhere when he knew she hadn’t. A quiet check was done to ensure it was just her meeting some boy she didn’t want to tell her parents about. That was May, mid June they were using an FMRI on her because she kept not remembering being somewhere.”
“The FMRI showed no problems?” Wilhelm asked.
“Oddly enough, yes it did show some issues, but not until we took to asking about differing times and places.” He answered getting quiet, “We found some of those times she had simply forgotten then remembered later, some of them though were not there, she remembered something completely different.”
“So you thought of us?”
“It is a lot like, yet what we found was different. With you lot when a memory is gone, it is gone. With her the right places still it up, but so did a new one.”
“New one?”
“Yes. We found two places near her temporal lobes with differing arterial and venous densities.”
“She has a tumor?”
“No, the tissue is healthy and it only lights up when indexing certain memories.”
“Oh god.” Kara whispers.
“Does she know?” Wilhelm asks.
“We explained it, we showed her the scans. She freaked, eventually we brought up and she ended up volunteering for the waking break protocols.”
“Jesus.” Amina hissed, “Why?”
“Part of the time she didn’t recall was her on camera accessing computers at the palace. To answer your unspoken question, no not just her parent’s work computers. She entered rooms with electronic locks that her parents had no access to and logged onto systems her parents aren’t involved with.”
“I still don’t see what this has to do with Dr. Tanjirah though?” Kara said puzzled.
“We were puzzled when the protocols accomplished nothing, even with the body dancing like a puppet, she had no memory of the event at all, and the little tumor like things lit up like Christmas lights when pushed that way.”
“Angelique, you compared to the scans we did of Angelique.” Wilhelm exclaimed.
“There were also similarities to Erin. You have a Cindy on staff who recognized Dr. Tanjirah’s work.”
“Yes.”
“We tried to reach her, she is no longer available.”
“What happened to her?”
“She is dead, very dead. We had the body exhumed and DNA tested to known relatives, it matched, we did that because we checked on research assistants first. We found a lot of car crashes and a couple of suicides. Not a single missing body in the bunch.”
“When did they start happening?” Wilhelm asked.
“Middle of July. We have a few leads yet to follow but so far it looks like your Cindy may be the leading surviving expert on Dr. Tanjira’s work.”
“That makes Angelique doubly important.” Amina whispered, “Because she had many of the same techniques used on her and the beds Wil designed work on her which means they should work on this woman who’s head you need to get into.”
“Exactly. What we want to do is deliver Diana to Cindy then have them both sequester themselves in your fort, where ever the bloody hell that thing is. We know it is in your neighborhood, but we can’t find it. Even ground penetrating radar doesn’t show it.”
“What about Angelique?” Kara asked.
“Yeah.” Wilhelm chimed in, “Isn’t she going to be a target as well since she did learn about what was done to her as it happened. Dr. Tanjirah talked very freely to her and she remembers it all.”
“That wasn’t in any report.” Louis replied looking annoyed, “So she should be fine for now. What we want to do though then is leave her running that burger thing and see who approaches her.”
“Going use her for bait without even telling, let alone asking her?” Wilhelm demanded.
“I’m in a sticky position.” Louis replied annoyed, “She was taken on a covered vacation, under the same security the family uses. Her parents work in Buckingham which means we have two moles not one. So as of right now the hope of discovering the mole and safeguarding the crown rests on a teen mind controller, a high end escort and a teen mind control victim running a burger joint as you yanks put it. It is not a situation designed to bring about much sleep.”
“That serious?” Kara asked puzzled.
“Yes. Everyone, and I mean everyone in the palace has been vetted, for generations in most cases and this means the mole or agent may not even know that they are.”
“Yet another reason they spread the rumor about the suicide bombers.” Wilhelm mused.
“Yes, and not just rumors. We have two, one in turkey and one in Saudi Arabia that fit the profile. So no, we are not feeling confident right now.”
“I’m sorry.” Wilhelm apologized, “I didn’t mean to make light of your position.”
“My apologies back. We’re the government, we’re supposed to have a handle on things like this yet we keep finding ourselves in someone else’s hands and it’s getting old. The idea of the public finding out the government has real, workable and usable mind control technology bears even less thought than turning to your kind does though, so here I am.”
“Thanks, I think.”
“I know someone in MCI who does direct body programming.” Amina volunteers, “I can contact him and see what he thinks.”
“Direct body programming?” Louis asks.
“His specialty is treating body issues and brain body interface trauma. He sometimes uses it as part of unconventional therapy. By isolating the person from their actions he provides iso and insulation in target cases where physical impulses cause physical behavioral loop feedback.”
“You seem well learned for one so young and until recently so controlled.”
“I see.” Kara interrupted with a smile, “Remove the indirect behavioral loop forcing a direct one that can be seen, but how do you give their body back?”
“I am going to assume you three can find a way to handle this then.” Louis said visibly disturbed at how quickly they seem to grasp the problem.
“We’ll need a 3D FMRI to really get this done right, is there one?” Wilhelm asks.
“Prototypes, you’ll need to speak to the Saudis.”
“Money?” Wilhelm asked puzzled.
“Money. I can’t have it traced directly.”
“Oh.”
“FMRI machines aren’t cheap in the first place, and the prototypes are expensive even by those standards.”
“Oh.” Wilhelm repeated.
“Hi father.” Angelique said looking up from paper work piled on her desk at the UCBJ. “Took you longer to stop by than I thought it would.”
“I thought you were going to that cheer camp thing this summer?”
“I was, now I’m not.”
“If you are done with that then it’s time you came home.” He told her.
“Not happening.” She replied off handedly, continuing her paperwork as they spoke.
“I know we’ve had our differences.”
“But now you think it’s time I came home like good little girl.” She sneered, “Last time we spoke you were reminding me to be all grown up this summer and be a big girl.”
“Angel?”
“Angelique! My name is Angelique, remember, your unique angel, your one of a kind.”
“What’s happened?”
“I’ve grown up, happy now?” She snarled finally setting her paperwork aside.
“Now you listen here young lady.”
“Young lady, yeah, and we both know how young don’t we?” She yelled.
“What’s the problem?” Cindy demanded walking in.
“Butt out lady, none of your business, this is between my daughter and I.” He told Cindy but his tone softened as he realized she is over two inches taller than he is and a third again his weight.
“So it’s you.” Cindy said quietly and anyone who knew her knew that tone, but he didn’t know her.
“Yes it’s me, you know, Angelique’s father and she is coming home with me now, this instant.”
“You want me to escort him out?” Cindy asked smiling. “If he goes quietly I’ll even use the door.”
“No, not yet. He has paperwork to sign first.”
“What?” he demanded.
“Simple father.” Angelique said speaking slowly. “Either you sign my emancipation papers or I sign these other papers detailing what you did and what I went through as a result.”
“What?” He demanded.
“I’m not waiting on November Cindy, I like my freedom.”
“Want me to call the lawyer instead of the Sheriff?” Cindy asked.
“What’s it going to be father?”
“You wouldn’t dare, They’ll set you back.” He replied assuming that Cindy knew everything from the way Angelique was speaking.
“Ooh,” Angelique laughed, “They’ll set me back and I’ll just take the last two years over. I passed with my mind fuzzed with all the instructions you kept giving me about being a good girl, a grown up girl and doing what the grown up girls did. Think what it’ll be like with my mind clear after I already took it.”
“This is outrageous.” He nearly yelled.
“No father, this is black mail.” Angelique said levelly, “Now are you going to sign that or am I going to sign this?”
“What is going on? What are you doing here?”
“She is my assistant manager.” Cindy told him smiling, “The owner and I hired her because she is smart, hard working and has enough drive for three.”
“Assistant manager?”
“Yes, and I know I don’t stutter so get it straight. Your rather beautiful daughter is thankful you aren’t doing with her what you are doing with her aunt and maybe her mother. She wants to move out.”
“What are you talking about?”
“She told us about the yoga and the special exercise routine you helped her mother and her mother’s sister with. Who knows, maybe you helped a few others as well. Nice trick, where’d you pick it up from? And don’t tell me you invented it, you’re not that smart.”
“Umm.” He mumbled simply collapsing into a chair.
“Where?” Cindy repeated.
“I over heard a guy talking about something like it one day while she was getting treated, but before therapy started. He was talking about how the treatments helped the body grow new nerves and that until the process settled down the patients were vulnerable to suggestions so we had to be encouraging to them.” He answered, visibly deflating as he spoke.
“I won’t go into what you put your daughter through other than to say no sane responsible thinking adult would ever do or even allow it.” Cindy told him levelly, “So let me assure you of something. She is not leaving here with you or going to your house today, period. The only options you have are signing those papers and going home, or refusing and going to jail. You can have your life or you can make your daughter’s life even more miserable, your choice.”
“Why are you doing this?” He asked rather than demanded.
“Because my life is my own.” Angelique stated flatly, “Now decide. Either I call someone to go grab my things, and by my things I also include all my leftover supplies and medicines. Or Cindy calls the Sheriff’s dept. And we all go down a road none of us want.”
“Why?”
“You made me be a big girl! You made me do what big girls do! You trapped me by how you see them, you imposed your view over me, over my mind, you made me in the image of your thoughts and intentions. I am where I am because of you. You shot for the moon and made me foot the bill, pay the price for your dreams. No more!” Angelique nearly shouted obviously losing her temper.
“Everything ok Angelique?” Mid Chest asked entering her office hesitantly, the others behind her.
“Not now girls.” Cindy replied.
“Actually Cindy, now.” Angelique interjected standing up and grabbing her purse. “In fact this is the moment my childhood ends.”
“What?” Her father asks.
“Here.” Angelique says tossing a set of keys at the boobkateers. “You will take my father back to my house and he is going to show you around. Take some extra hands with you, guys and gals both, you are going to grab everything from my house that is mine or you even suspect might be mine. You three are in charge, be thorough. I have things on both floors and in the basement. Get it all and that includes my left over medicines he has locked away in case I needed follow up treatments.”
“Ok.” Mid Chest replies.
“Further.” Angelique says turning to her father. “If even once he fails to answer a question you call Cindy so she can call the Sheriff and the Lawyers. In this instance I have no privacy, you will pry into everything in the house, you will open every cabinet, every door, check every crevice or any other place anything even might be hidden. Even the safe in his private den he thinks I don’t know about.”
“Yes ma’am.” Mid chest replied staring.
“Speak to Tomias,” Cindy interjects, “Have him call the arcade. Borrow the event truck and crew, get her moved today. Put everything in the spare warehouse. We have some spare beds so she can use one of them.”
“If you don’t mind Cindy I’ll use a cot in here for the moment.” Angelique said softly.
“Since the next office over is unallocated just furnish it.”
“Are you sure?”
“We’ll call you a grounds keeper for the moment. You’ll have to pick a place to live when school starts though.”
“I can do that.”
“Now what?” Cindy asked.
“Now those three go take my life apart and put it in the warehouse.” Angelique told her while looking at the boobketeers, who stared back afraid, but obedient.
“Yes we can help you with the machines the English need you to use.” One of the Saudi representatives said with a genuine smile.
“You can?” Wilhelm asks looking at him on the other side of the table, ignoring the view of the setting sun from their third floor viewpoint.
“Yes. We anticipate needing your help with similar matters eventually.”
“You do?” Kara asked surprised.
“Yes miss, our culture is ripe with opportunities for such failures.” He replied levelly, apparently not bothered to be speaking to a female which pleasantly surprised Wilhelm, Kara and Amina.
“You sound like you already have a plan.” Wilhelm replies with a grin.
“I, or rather we, do.”
“And?”
“You present us with an opportunity to address another problem quietly.” The Saudi rep said speaking quietly. “A cousin of mine, another branch of the family, recently made two purchases we have been looking for a place to put without it winding up directly in the hands of the Americans. Though a safer place to put them has not been found.”
“What kind of purchase?”
“He recently purchased five kilos of fissionable core material from a partial warhead the Chechens had laying around. It, combined with the eleven kilos we acquired a couple of years ago that were eventually headed to Iran, need to be disposed of safely.”
“And we have something to do with that safe way?” Wilhelm asked terrified.
“Yes.” He laughed, “We are going to take that material to Fujitsu. They make buried vault or container based self contained power generation units rated at one quarter megawatt. Combined with a slight change in reactor type to something called a long chain breeder depleter reactor. We can turn our order for four of these units to go under your club, into at least eight, all the while assuring your government the materials are safe and secure, especially since they will be on american soil.”
“Whoa.” Wilhelm snapped, “We are not setup for dealing with anything nuclear, that is nothing like what we do.”
“Not to worry, it is safe. Your government uses these units and some larger ones on many military bases in your country. Once setup they are not intended to be user maintained. They run for twenty to thirty years, then they are simply replaced. The latest design puts the reactor with steam chamber in one shipping container, the steam turbine with generator in a second, with them secured together.”
“You make it sound like a portable reactor.”
“They are. We have them by the literal dozen. Many of ours are a design you would like. A simple reactor system with an electrostatic and temperature differential system for pulling moisture from the air, they work even in the dessert. We use them for cell phone coverage and drinking water in the deep desert among other things.”
“Wow.” Wilhelm and Kara whisper almost as one.
“In fact another of my cousins had one made that puts out more power and uses an olympic sized pool as the end point of a triple stage cooling system. That way he has power to his house all the time, and a warm pool even in the middle of winter.”
“Incredible.”
“We are putting four of these under the club to provide power. What we will do is use the material to provide the cores for four more of them and have them delivered to you.”
“Me?”
“Yes. We have spoken with the mongoose’s uncle already and he has no objections. In fact, he recommended two properties two doors down the hill from you be combined and made into a pool house for you with two of these under it to provide power for your fort. We know where it is, more or less, that it is accessible from your house easily, yet we can not find it.”
“Easily accessible, yes.” Wilhelm agrees, disturbed at the number of people who have looked for his fort.
“With them you would have four hundred and forty volts at about a thousand amps, plenty to power your fort and perhaps the cluster of houses the arcade now owns near you, most of the immediate neighborhood it appears.”
“I suppose you have some idea of what to do with the other two?” Wilhelm asked, again disturbed at the amount these people know about him.
“Yes, one would go to your burger joint, the UCBJ, absolutely love the name by the way, it even makes a related type of pun in my language. The last would be up to you, and I should warn you that there may be more than that, it all depends on the actual quality of the materials as delivered to us. We are simply throwing money at a problem and are, truth be told, quite happy to pawn off the materials on you. We have too many radical elements to keep that kind of materials around or in a standard reactor.”
“Why thank you.” Wilhelm answered with a grimace, “Just what I always wanted, a nuke in my neighborhood.”
“Oh don’t look so worried, the actual money is pocket change to us, and the royal house has been clear in it’s instructions to get the materials out of play. By putting it here in the states where it will be under constant surveillance and in a form that is hard to make into even dirty bomb material, my bosses are ecstatic and even your government is happy enough, mostly. Though they would rather just have it delivered to them as is, but not doing so helps us deal with some of those radical elements. Poking the US in the eye by giving the material to you in a useless form shows we are independent.”
“Sorry, it’s just that this is still so new to us, me in particular.”
“And you are confused as to why these meetings have been about everything except what you expected?”
“Yeah.” Wilhelm admitted, “I’m getting concerned. I anticipated this being about using us as a courier service, yet no one has said a thing about that.”
“That is because we, they, all know Mindy’s workers. They can do the bulk of the job in their sleep, these meetings are to get to know you. We have anticipated her having an heir for years and have gotten increasingly worried that she hasn’t. She keeps finding people of incredible talent, but until you she has not taken any of them seriously.”
“She hasn’t?” Wilhelm asks.
“No Wil,” Amina interjects, “He isn’t kidding even a bit. I’ve been in less than a year or so now, and I have heard grumbles from everyone about it. The biggest advantage the other side has had has been the ability to program people such that they don’t even know they are assets. Until Mindy came along, the purported good guys had to live with the idea that everything potentially had a leak.”
“Oh wow.”
“We, the UCA, are the only courier service that can be guaranteed to be free of leaks, and as a bonus we can carry messages in the clear because after a few days we no longer know the message. We can’t be reprogrammed without killing us and Mindy has never taken an innocent so no one has ever been able to accuse her being one of the bad guys.”
“Then this whole thing is an extended interview of me?” Wilhelm asks.
“Yes.” The Saudi guy answers.
“Because the only thing more scary to all of you and to the people in general than a private corporation having working mind control technology is a government, any government, having it?”
“’Spot on’ as my British counter parts would put it. Every government has a piece of course, most more than one. Yet even the US with it’s seven or more pieces is lost. The problem is that although they each work in their own way, each rules the other out. The function of each indicates the others can’t work, yet the other side uses them together as does Mindy.”
“How bad is it then? This concern.” Wilhelm asks.
“Each of us goes through patriots and psychopaths alike looking for hints and in total we get only a few a year despite the raw numbers we throw at it. Yet Mindy skips around the US and parts of Canada at apparent random, finding someone new with promise and inherent understanding at worst every other year, sometimes two in a year.”
“Oh.”
“Everyone of her finds can use multiple practices and use them together, yet she keeps looking and some of our superiors are getting pissed. We filter a million people a year between us to get hints and keep up with turnover. She travels wherever catches her fancy, opens a new arcade or beauty salon or jazzercise studio or other such thing or things that fits the area and finds a new multi adept to run it. We profile and update our profiles every time it happens and we still can’t predict enough to help us.”
“Then your descriptions of her as a loose warhead are not a joke?”
“No, not even a little bit. She is a line item in your covert intelligence committee budget.”
“She is?”
“Yes. We, they, all of us, take keeping track of her that seriously. Every single person any of the allied states have located that managed multi discipline mind control went off the deep end, every one, yet not one of hers has. It is no longer just embarrassing, and it is getting beyond irritating.”
“This just keeps on getting bigger.” Wilhelm whispered.
“And it will for a while. Everyone in the alliance is curious about you. This will go on until they either understand you or get to know you well enough to trust you.”
“Oh.”
“Yes, as they say, oh.”
“Angelique?” Someone said interrupting her ruminations at the food court in the mall.
“Yeah.” She answered looking up.
“I wanted to say I’m sorry for before.” Clarice said sitting down across the table from her.
“It’s ok, I should have expected it.”
“And I should have held my tongue.” Clarice admits.
“No harm done.”
“Maybe not by me, but by someone. The grape vine is nuts with rumors.”
“About what?”
“That the last three days you have had the event truck for the Under Cover Arcade at your house with a lot of people. From what we can tell you are being moved out.”
“True.”
“Why are the trips handling your move?”
“The trips?”
“The triplets. The ones who thought they owned the male attention span until you moved to town.”
“Oh. It’s an assignment for them. They need to prove they can work together and separately.”
“Why?”
“They want to learn, they have to practice.”
“Learn?”
“They have delusions of making the college Cheer Leading squads.”
“With their looks they should be shoo-ins.”
“It’s as much about presence as it is about looks. They have the attributes, I need them to learn to use them properly and to develop some presence.”
“You’re different.”
“I told you, I needed help; I got it.”
“I have something I need to say.”
“Then say it.”
“I was told to tell you this by a cousin of a good friend.”
“And?”
“She said to say ‘There is a rumor’ to the right person, that it could help me find a job if I said it to the right person. Are you the right person?”
“Why now?”
“I wanted to say something before, but with what you said I got scared.”
“Do you have any idea what that it means?” Angelique asked tiredly.
“I was told that if I passed I could get a job that would pay for my education, my full education, but that job would be hard, though it would leave me prepared for the world when I was done.”
“You aren’t ready.”
“How do you know?”
“You can’t even say what you know, you know what the job entails and you can’t bring yourself to say it.”
“It would mean sleeping around a lot, for pay.” Clarice stated flatly.
“Look Clarice, you have a good future ahead of you. Your parents can afford college for you, with good grades you can likely afford some university, maybe even graduate.”
“And then what?” Clarice asks, “I graduate in a mountain of debt in an economy that will swallow me whole and not even notice.”
“And you’re willing to screw total strangers to better yourself?”
“That wouldn’t better me and you know it. You have cover, you have an organization, you have backup, I want, no, I need that as well.”
“You a virgin?” Angelique asked in an odd tone.
“No.” Clarice replies.
“Scared yet?”
“No.”
“You’re a lousy liar, that’s good.”
“If you say so.”
“How determined are you?” Angelique asks looking over Clarice’s shoulder, obviously at someone or something in the distance.
“Very, why?”
“You learn in life that if you want an exception made you have to make it yourself.”
“So?”
“So you want me to make an exception for you. Instead I am going to send you into a trap.”
“A trap?”
“Yes. We’ve been hunting an individual for a while now, well, they have, I’m still new to all this.”
“And?”
“Anyway.” Angelique laughed, “There is a bounty on this particular perp because he has slipped through two traps in a row.”
“A bounty?”
“Yes. Five grand. I’ll give you half now, you go with the man who will be joining us, make the appointment that will be arranged.”
“Appointment.”
“Yes. He, the perp, likes it young, you’re seventeen, a little old for him, but look fresh so he will take what he can get.”
“What he can get?”
“Yes. He will be calling a number in a while, I’m supposed to answer it, if you want this chance I will have that call forwarded to you instead. Take the date.”
“Date?”
“Yes. The perp is thirty three, a lawyer, and a real nasty peace of work. You meet him, you get to keep whatever cash you can get from him. You do the date.”
“Date?” Clarice repeated looking horrified.
“Yes, date. During that date, you will take his money to perform sexual acts with him. He likes it rough so you will be hurt before it is over, you will be bruised, you will be sore.”
“Aghh, why?”
“Because he has put at least two fifteen year olds and a fourteen year old in the hospital. Your job should you choose to except it, I hope you get the reference, is to distract him long enough for the watching team to gather the evidence they need to take this guy down once and for all.”
“Ughh.”
“Further, you will need to mix compliance with resistance in order to do this. However, you get the half up front and whatever you can get from him, to keep. When you get back you get to choose between the rest of the bounty and a job at the UCBJ.”
“Wait, you are, were, going to take this?” Clarice asked.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“It needs to be done.” Angelique answered.
“Are you trying to scare me off?”
“Yes. Is it working?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Angelique.” A man says joining them.
“Agent Riser.” She replies formally.
“I must admit that I was dubious when I was told the UCA had someone nearby that fit our needs.”
“And now?”
“And now I must say I am disturbed, your companion actually reminds me of my own daughter.”
“And you need to work on your comms discipline, she is a friend, not an asset, you should have checked.”
“Acknowledged.” He replied still visibly disturbed.
“However we may have an unexpected advantage.” Angelique says smiling, “I’ve been beaten, I’ve been raped, and it shows to some eyes. However Clarice here hasn’t, she wants a job at the UCBJ and we don’t actually have an opening, so I decided to make her an offer.”
“You’ve been what?” Clarice asked aghast.
“I’ve been raped.” Angelique told her flatly, “I told you, I needed help, I got it, do you get it now?”
“Oh.”
“I was told you were a little cold Angelique.” Agent Riser comments.
“But that was just sick?” She asks.
“Yes.” He replies.
“Which is actually half the reason I am offering Clarice here a chance. The perp doesn’t scare me, I’ve been had by most of the football team anyway, most of them at one outing, and in many ways it shows.”
“Yes.” He agreed looking at her closer, focussing on her eyes, “It does. That’s why we had to quit using Amina as well, that and she killed too many of the perps.”
“Amina?” Clarice asks, “Wilhelm’s girl? The one living with him, or is he really going out with the college girl his brother used to date? Kara I think.”
“Sort of.” Angelique laughs without clarification.
“Anyway, she no longer has that innocent look his kind like so she is useless now.”
“Good for you and the perps.” Angelique laughs again.
“They live longer anyway.”
“I saw what she did to Carl, right through his cup too.” Clarice whispered.
“She’s done worse than that young lady, far worse.” Agent Riser says firmly, “But she has been on better behavior since she went with Wilhelm.”
“So how long do I need to keep this creep distracted?” Clarice asked, her mind obviously made up.
“Based on the traps he made it out of we estimate thirty to forty minutes to get into position without setting off any of his alarms. He’s no techie, but he can afford some very good ones.”
“Forty minutes?” She asked.
“Yes. And anywhere from five to twenty minutes after that to get what we need on film.”
“So an hour?”
“Yes. It’s sick, but yes.”
“And you can nail the bastard?”
“Yes.”
“And I will have a job, a real job, at the burger place?” Clarice asks staring at Angelique.
“Yes.” Angelique answers.
“You quit being a bitch and fill me in on the real details.”
“I will fill you in, you will have earned it.” Angelique admits, leaving the rest unmentioned.
“This is Tianna.” The Saudi Arabian rep, Ammad, says; introducing a five six girl of maybe seventeen years to Wilhelm, Amina and Kara.
“Tianna.” Wilhelm says nodding at her.
“She is here today because she has a problem. Not that it is her fault, but none the less a problem. She has been kidnapped three times in the last two years and the last time they tried to alter her. Nothing workable mind you, just the usual historic rape and torture.”
“Uggh.” Wilhelm mutters staring.
“It was unpleasant.” Tianna replied softly, obviously scared to speak above a whisper.
“What can we do?” Kara asks.
“I don’t want to be scared again, anymore, ever, ever again.” the whisper tells them.
“How far are you willing to push?” Amina asked staring at her.
“As far as it takes.”
“She’s brittle.” Kara observes.
“I have the hard part, I need to the flexible filling, I have to learn to bend or my mind will finish breaking eventually.”
“We have arranged for her to transfer to your school as a foreign exchange student.” Ammad says with a smile, “The paperwork shows she is here for medical treatment and will be missing school from time to time. She will be staying with you much as Amina is, shadowing your classes much as she did so that you have access. When you are ready to proceed, we will tell the school she is in treatment while you do your thing.”
“You don’t have to do this you know Clarice.” Agent Riser reminds her.
“I know.” She replies looking at nothing, “However I do thank you for telling me that you need about a minute on camera once you arrive, not an hour.”
“I was simply trying to get you to go away. Won’t make it any more fun though until we get there though, and that won’t be immediately.”
“No, I know that, but this needs to be.” Clarice says with far more bravery than she really feels.
“Why are you so determined?”
“Because without this to force an opening there, I will be stuck on the same track as everyone else in this God forsaken middle of no where. I am getting out of here and the only way I can do that without as good as killing myself is to have an education and shelter. This gets me that shelter so I can get the education.”
“I must admit to being surprised you can get away with this given your parents.”
“What they don’t know can’t hold me back. Dad wants me to marry one of the local jocks and raise more of them, no way. Mom wants me to go shopping at college for an out of towner, again, no thank you. I want to live my own life and this puts me on my way to achieving that goal.”
“So what do we know on the Mindy front?” The Vatican representative asks of the people assembled at the large conference table.
“She has found another.” A younger beaded man offers holding up an electronic tablet, “Exact details as best we know them are under Lilith as usual, look in the updates for the latest.”
“Already?” An older man with a russian accent so thick you could cut asks.
“Yes. She appears to be entering her terminal phase.”
“Certainly took long enough.” A man with an NSA ID badge observed.
“Longer than anticipated.” The Vatican rep says into the ensuing silence, “Far longer than any of us are happy with. Her organization has grown to the point of becoming a real asset and it appears we are going to have to treat them as one.”
“Are we any closer to understanding how she finds them?”
“No.” The bearded man admits, “In fact both of the recent finds contradict our models in several ways, invalidating them apparently, on the surface anyway, though a couple of analysts were sounding hopeful about something. While she is not entirely happy with either one of them, between them they seem to be what she sought all along.”
“So she is done hunting, has found what she needs, is entering her anticipated terminal phase as her personality gestalt deintegrates, and we might actually know less now than we did when this mess began.”
“Essentially.” He admitted, “Though one of the princes made a comment about her being virgoshian, but the interrogators are convinced he is just trying to get out of solitary.”
“Likely, but see if the others react to it. How did she arrange this? Any ideas anyone?”
“You think she arranged the timing of her probable demise to leave us more informed and less knowledgeable on purpose?”
“With her I assume planning when things work and malice when they don’t, I get fewer ulcers that way, overall at least.”
“At least I wasn’t the first one to say it out loud.” Someone mumbles and the sentiment is echoed around the table, though quietly.
“Oh god.” Clarice whimpers almost silently as his hands invade her bra, grasping her bare breasts and all she can do is try not to squirm. He is over her, pinning her arms to her sides where she lays on the bed.
“Go ahead, scream in ecstasy or pain either one, I like them both.” He says squeezing her breasts firmly, bringing another squirm as he continues speaking, “Though fear is a nice substitute.”
“Why?” She pleads as he begins freeing his erection while still holding her pinned under him where he knelt over her.
“Because you taste better this way.” He gloats as he surprises her by picking up her head to place something around her neck after only loosening his pants.
“Taste better?” She asks as her head settles back and she tries to figure out what the lump under her neck is.
“Take off your shirt.” He orders getting up from her.
“Why?” She demands, pissed at having been pinned, then screams in agony collapsing back onto her back as her neck explodes in fire.
“Take off your shirt.” He repeats five seconds later when the burning stops.
“Yes sir.” Clarice replies trembling as she complies.
“Good girl,” He answers enjoying watching her, “Since you are obeying I will now inform you that you are wearing a compliance collar, much like the ones used for training dogs or other bitches. Now take off your bra.”
“Yes sir.” She replies panting in fear while complying and praying it would soon be over, “Why the collar when you already paid for me?”
“Because I like knowing you can’t help yourself.” He answered examining her now bare breasts.