The Ties That Bind

by T. Starnes

  On Monday, I pulled the girls, including Emily, off to an empty table to talk. Just after Christmas Emily had migrated to our lunch table and was starting to gel nicely with the rest of the gang as she came out of her shell. While I still worried about long term ramifications from the confrontation with her father, for the moment he was leaving her alone and that reprieve was doing her wonders.

  "So, I've had a thought," I said once we were all at the empty table.

  "That's what that smell was," Vicki said with a grin.

  I just ignored her and kept going, "How would you guys feel about going away somewhere this summer?”

  "Really?" Zoe said, perking up.

  "Yeah. It's been a crazy year. I think a good end of the school year break would do us all good," I said.

  My four girls thought for a moment and nodded, but Emily looked sad. "I don't know if I can. Things are going good at home, right now, but Dad is still annoyed every time I come and see you guys. I am worried that if I take off for a week or whatever, it will make things go back to the way they were.”

  "I can talk to him," I offered. "I don't want you missing out on the fun just because you're worried.”

  "It's not that," she said shaking her head. "I know that at first he only changed because of whatever you said to him, but he's been making an effort. He's even drinking less. I think it's best if I stay home.”

  "Well, we still have time until the end of the school year. Let's play it by ear and see what happens," I said.

  "Ok," she said, although she sounded unconvinced.

  They all started talking about what we could do for vacation when Emily excused herself to go talk to one of her teachers. As soon as she walked away all three girls eyes tracked back to me.

  "When are you going to bring her on board?" Zoe asked.

  "When I am sure we have settled the stuff with her father," I replied.

  Tami frowned and said, "Why do you need to wait?”

  "Because she has enough stuff going on in her life, just with her dad. I mean, she doesn't want to go on vacation with us because of it. I buy her explanation, but it's still there, and it needs to be resolved. The last thing she needs is me going in and modifying her brain, giving her a whole new set of things to worry about.”

  "I don't think it will cause her to worry," Vicki said.

  "Maybe not," I said looking each girl in the eye. "But I want this to be clear. I am adamant that we clear up her family drama before adding our bullshit on top of it. I don't want you guys pressuring me to evolve her, or whatever, before I am ready. I gave in to the notion that she will join us eventually. Be happy with that victory.”

  They could see that I was set and all mumbled agreement. I knew that wouldn't last and it wouldn't be the last I heard of it.

  After school, I was making my way to Zoe's car to meet the rest of the girls and was surprised to find Sarah there instead.

  "Hey, Sarah. What's up?”

  She looked at me thoughtfully for a moment before asking, "What did you mean when you said you were going to evolve Emily?”

  Lipreading, damn it! Of all the things, I expected her to say, this was down at the very bottom of the list. I would say I tried to play dumb, but the truth is it wasn't really an act.

  "Uhh ... what?”

  "At lunch you told Vicki and Zoe and Tami you didn't want to change Emily yet. That you wanted to wait to evolve her. What did that mean? What are you planning on doing to Emily?”

  Damn it. First Josh, then Amanda, and now Sarah. We truly suck at keeping secrets. I thought about trying to pass it off as a lie, but couldn't figure out a way to do it and convince her. Sarah is fairly smart and if she observed the whole conversation, or at least my side of it since Vicki and Tami had their backs to Sarah at lunch, anything I might say would be an obvious lie. Which was something I wanted to avoid.

  "Do you have some time this afternoon to come back with me and the girls?" I asked.

  "What? Yes, I mean ... did you hear what I asked," she said, surprised at my seemingly abrupt change in direction.

  "Yes, I did. But this conversation will take a while, and I would prefer to have the girls involved.”

  Before she could answer, Zoe and Tami walked up.

  "Vicki caught a ride home with Megan. She had some family stuff to take care of," Zoe said throwing an arm around my waist.

  "No problem. Sarah is going to be coming back to our house for a little while," I told Zoe as we all piled into her car.

  She gave me a questioning glance but didn't say anything. We drove home making small talk but I could tell Zoe and Tami were both very curious. They liked Sarah, but I hadn't invited her over to our house before.

  Once home I lead everyone to the living room.

  "Sarah came to me after school with some questions. Apparently, she read my lips during our conversation at lunch, after Emily left," I said when everyone had taken a seat.

  "Ok," Zoe said, the importance of what Sarah had 'overheard' not clicking with her yet.

  "She saw me talk about the concerns I had in evolving Emily.”

  "Ohh," Tami said as both she and Sarah turned to look at Sarah.

  "Yeah ... Ohh. Since the cat’s out of the bag, I would like you two to give her a brief overview of what is going on. I am going to go get us some drinks and a snack, then I'll answer any question I can, ok?" I said. This last part was directed at Sarah.

  She just nodded as I got up and walked out of the room to let the girls do their thing. I always felt better when someone else could explain our situation. It seems incredibly conceited to go around telling people that you are a leap forward in evolution.

  I puttered around in the kitchen for a while to give the girls time to explain everything. Eventually I made my way back out to the living room with a tray full of drinks and snacks. As soon as I crossed the doorway, Sarah's eyes found me, and tracked my movements. Even after I sat down, she kept staring at me.

  "Pretty unbelievable, huh?" I said.

  She just nodded her head.

  "Did you have any questions for me?" I asked.

  She thought for a moment and said, "Is this for real?”

  "Yes," I answered. "I took us a while to figure it out; but thankfully Zoe's mom works as a researcher in genetics, and we have a pretty talented doctor helping us out, too. A lot of what the girls probably told you is still conjecture. It fits the information we have, but we are so far outside the bounds of normal that it's hard to say how much is guesswork and how much is fact. But yes, to the best of our knowledge, everything they told you is right.”

  "What are you going to do about it?" she asked.

  "For now, keep trying to figure things out," I said. "Long term our plan isn't that much different than anyone else's plans, at least genetically. I want to live a long and happy life, have kids, and raise them. The only difference is that when I have kids, we are almost certain, they will be an important step in spreading my genetic ... differences.”

  I stopped to take a drink and gather my thoughts.

  "If what we believe is true, that this is some sort of leap in human genetics, then it's important that we share those genetics with the world. Imagine hundreds of years from now, when my kids have kids, and their kids have kids, and so on. When my genetic line has spread far enough to constitute a significant part of the human population. Disease will be a thing of the past. People will live longer. And really that is by far the most minor of the effects it will have.”

  "Really?" she asked.

  "Yes. Hundreds of thousands of years ago our genetic ancestors' brains enlarged. That was a stunning leap in our evolution. With that increased capacity for thought, we were able to build tools. We could reason. We could invent. With it, we created the pyramids. We split the atom. We went to the moon. And that's all because of the change in how our brains work.”

  "Now, imagine a world where that mental capacity has increased again. What will our descendants be able to do? Will we figu
re out clean energy sources like fusion? Will we figure out how to colonize other planets? Will we develop ways of terraforming those planets? Faster than light space travel, increasing the lifespan of humans, nano-technology built at the atomic level. The possibilities are endless.”

  "Wow," she said looking a bit bewildered.

  "Yeah, wow. Of course, the tricky part is to make sure I am able to procreate, and my offspring don't go the way of the Neanderthals.”

  "I am surprised you haven't started trying to have kids already," she said.

  "Well, it's tricky. There are a lot of changes other than the mental ones, and they make things a bit harder. I will let the girls explain that to you in a little bit. The important part, for the moment, is that this needs to stay an absolute secret. Already way too many people know about it, and we need to try and keep that circle from getting any bigger, if we can.”

  "I can see that," she said.

  "I always knew you were a smart girl," I said. "Now there are some additional things. While spreading my genetics is difficult, I am able to pass on some of my nature to other people in an easier way. We have learned that if I can mix my blood with that of a normal person, they undergo a change that gives them some of my abilities. Most importantly the ability to repair defects in the body.”

  "I'm not defective," Sarah said defensively.

  "I know." I said holding up my hands in surrender. "Honestly, that isn't what I was trying to say. I just meant that we have the ability to let you hear again. I thought that's something I should mention. Honestly, if I could get away with going through a hospital helping everyone in the building, I would. But, for the moment that isn't practical.”

  She thought for a long moment before replying, "I'm sorry. I know you would never mean to say something like that. But no, I don't think I want you to change me in any way.”

  I was honestly very surprised.

  "Can I ask why not?" I said.

  "First, because I'm not broken," she replied. "It took me a long time to accept that. Just because I am different than other people, I am not less important than people who can hear. I am who I am. I like who I am. I don't want to go changing that.”

  "I can see that, but ..." I started.

  Sarah cut me off mid-sentence, "And there is another reason. If I miraculously had the ability to hear again, don't you think someone would notice. There is no way we could keep something like that secret.”

  I smiled at her and said, "Well that is an important consideration, but if that's the only reason stopping me from helping you, then I don't care. Sure I have reasons I want this to remain secret, but not at the expense of my friends.”

  "It's not the only reason," she said shaking her head no.

  "Ok, well I think we can let it drop for now. But if you ever change your mind please tell me. I count you as one of my friends, your happiness is important to me.”

  "Thanks," she said smiling.

  "Well, I'm going to call and ask Mary Ann to give me a ride up to work. If we are going to take off for a week, I want to make sure all my ducks are in a row before we leave. It also gives you guys time to answer any other questions for Sarah, without me hanging around making her nervous.”

  By the time Mary Ann swung by to pick me up, they were already starting to get pretty deep into it. There really wasn't much for me to do at the office, but I wanted to make myself scarce for a few hours. The larger contract was still in process, the original test order was well on its way to completion. Ronald's test run was still a little while off. His was still the project I was most excited about, but he barely had his first prototype done and he had some kinks to work out. Marcus said his theory was solid and should work, but cautioned me there would be a bunch of revisions necessary before we could move to stage two.

  When I got home, Sarah was gone, and it was just the girls and Mom. Zoe started in on me as soon as I was in the door.

  "I think it's cool she knows," she said. "I like her.”

  "Stop!" I said hold up my hand.

  "What?" she said.

  "I know where you're headed and you can stop the train right there. One, you're already trying to add Emily, we don't need another girl in the wings. And two, she's not available. She has a thing going with Quam, and I am not about to steal another guy's girl.”

  "But …" Tami started.

  "No," I said again forestalling her. "I want to make this as clear as I possibly can. Don't even think about it. Do you understand?"

  They all nodded their agreement. I glared for a moment longer. They seemed to ignore my wishes every time they thought they knew better than me, and I wanted to make sure this wasn't one of those times. Vicki and Tami went home and we ate a fairly quiet dinner. Just as we were cleaning up, the phone rang.

  I was a little surprised to find Marcus on the other end. He didn't normally call me at night.

  "Cas, you need to come down to the warehouse. We had a break-in.”

  "What?" I said.

  I couldn't imagine why someone would break into the warehouse. We had used it for production of the prototype, but it wasn't being used for the production line, so it didn't have a bunch of supplies or anything. We had slowly been moving over to the warehouse and converting it into an open plan office, so Ted could get some of his space back for his business

  "Someone broke in. They tried to get into the patent safe, but Ronald came back to the office to pick up some files he wanted to look over. He saw a light in the window, and called the police. He stayed pretty far back waiting for the police, so wasn't able to get a good look when the guy took off.”

  "Good, that was smart. He doesn't need to risk getting hurt. I'm on my way out there, now.”

  I hung up and had Zoe drive me over to the warehouse office space. She had a million questions after hearing my side of the conversation, but until we got to the offices and I could talk to Marcus and the cops, there wasn't anything I could tell her.

  Arriving at the offices, I found Marcus and Ronald talking to a uniformed police officer. Thankfully, it wasn't my 'good friend' Jawarski, although it did feel like she was somehow involved in nearly every run-in I had with the police.

  I stood silently, and let Ronald finish giving his statement; after which the officer folded up his notepad, nodded to me, and left.

  "So, what happened?" I asked.

  "I had to come back and get some figures on the filter stress tests we have been doing. We have been trying to determine a schedule of parts wear so we could put together a replacement schedule. Anyway," he said waving himself back on topic with one hand, "when I pulled up, I could see a light from the window in the file room. It wasn't an overhead light, 'cause it was moving around or whatever. I figured it had to be a flashlight.”

  "At first I thought maybe I should go in and see what was going on, but then it occurred to me that anyone who was in the office with just a flashlight was probably not there for any good reason. It wasn't like there was a power outage. The light over the outside door was on, so I knew that the building still had power.”

  "I drove away, found a pay phone, and called 911 to report a possible break-in," he continued. "I then called Marcus to tell him what was happening. He told me to stay put, but I came back to the offices to try and keep an eye on the place until the cops got here. When I got back, the light was gone, and I didn't see anyone hanging around. About ten minutes later, a patrol car showed up. I let the officer into the building, but he didn't find anything. I guess whoever broke in had good timing.”

  "Or a police scanner," I said.

  "I didn't think of that. So about the time the officer finished walking through the building Marcus showed up. He checked out the file room and noticed the safe where we keep the pending patent documents had been messed with. It looked like someone had tried to cut it open.”

  They led me back to the file room and sure enough, there was a burned line cut about halfway down the safe. Someone was trying to burn their way into it with a
torch. The safe itself was really pretty basic and I hadn't even though we needed it at first, but Ted had insisted.

  "Why wasn't the alarm we put in triggered?" I asked.

  "It wasn't on when we got here. Ted is calling Mapes to see if we can figure out what's going on.”

  As if on cue, the phone rang. Marcus picked it up. His end of the conversation was extremely terse, mostly 'Ok,' or 'Yeah.' After a few minutes, he hung up and turned back to us.

  "That was Ted. He couldn't get hold of Mapes, and called the alarm company call-center directly. Apparently the code was deactivated using Mapes' alarm code," he told us.

  "Wait," I said. "I thought we had all agreed we were not going to issue him a code?”

  "Mapes wasn’t issued a code," Marcus said, "but the center was double checked. Mapes had a code with them, and that was the code that was used. Ted's at a loss to explain it, and he's trying to get to the bottom of it. He has talked to Jonathan, and we are going to get that private eye you're using, to look into Mapes background. See if we can figure out what's going on.”

  I frowned and said, "I hope he finds something fast. This thing with Mapes feels weird to me.”

  "Yeah," Marcus said. "I know."

  Chapter 19

  After having stuff happen on what seemed like a daily basis, the following several weeks were filled with the agony of waiting. We had to wait to see what, if anything, was going to happen to Steven Mertz. While I had gotten the impression from officer Jawarski that the situation was getting taken care of, it was impossible for us to know with any certainty; but going back to her again for more information, was something I wanted to avoid at all costs.

  Carter Talmon was looking into both Mapes, and Tami's family's church group, but he had been very clear that it would take time to get any solid information about either. He didn't need me bugging him every day for updates, and Jonathan assured me multiple times that he was very capable and we would know something as soon as he did.

  The contract for the full order of SWEEP drones seemed to be languishing. Ron had been increasingly hard to get a hold of, and the guys Jonathan brought in to work on the contract all said this kind of slow down didn't match with their previous experiences.