“Why her?” That question was coming from Terry. Fucking great, thought Gerry.
Gerry replied, “Because you are going to join her group.” He tried to continue his discussion.
Again Terry piped in, interrupting Gerry. “But why can’t we just go be by ourselves?”
Bethany Anne wasn’t going to have to deal with this ass in a moment, Gerry was getting pretty upset at his rudeness and Alphas had never been known for extreme patience. Gerry had been the the most patient over the years and he took a few deep breaths to steady himself. Maybe he was just getting too old for this shit. Nathan jumped on the table with Gerry and put a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll answer this.” Gerry nodded his permission and turned to jump off the table. Gerry noticed that the kid had moved from the wall to a position on a large box twenty feet to the left that allowed him to see Terry better.
Nathan waited for Gerry to finish jumping off and then answered the question. “The strictures are pretty specific that all Wechselbalg will have a pack structure and each pack will answer to a council for their nation or area in the world. Unless you want to join the Forsaken?” Nathan looked around.
Terry mumbled under his breath, “Like that bitch is any better.”
Pete noticed five guys in front of Terry turn around at his mumbling and two of the guys try to hide their smiles. He calmly palmed his .45 and then shot Terry’s left knee out. The shot was deafening, everyone jumped back from Terry as he screamed in pain and hit the floor his hands barely catching him before his head slammed into the concrete. Everyone stepped away from Pete as he calmly walked towards Terry.
Gerry was surprised, Nathan just stayed up on the table and crossed his arms waiting for this to play out.
“What the fuck, dude!” Terry turned on his side and used his hands to pull his knee up to look at the mangled mess the bullet had made of his knee. God it hurt!
Pete calmly came up to him. “Your name?”
“Terry, you fucking prick!”
“Well, Terry You Fucking Prick, The Queen Bitch’s Guard is very touchy regarding the respect Bethany Anne receives. Your comment…”
“I only called her a bitch, it’s her fucking name!”
“No, you suggested she is no better than a Forsaken. That first bullet was lead.” Pete then looked around at everyone watching him. “Every other bullet I have on me is silver. I’ll brook no disrespect of Bethany Anne, is that understood?” Pete got some mumbling. He raised his voice, “I said, Is that understood you wanking ass-grinders? If I don’t get some louder ‘I understands’, I’ll start shooting and continue shooting until I get some. Knee caps are particularly painful, just ask Paul Gleason. Oh, wait, you can’t because my team mates shot his fucking head off. Anyone besides this shit bag have any comments?” At this, he heard plenty of ‘I understand’s’.
No one had any comments. Pete put the gun back in his holster and put the catch across it. He reached down and grabbed Terry by the back of this jacket. “Come with me, ass-muncher.”
Terry tried and failed to reach behind him and grab Pete’s hands, his knee wasn’t healed and he could only push with one leg. The pain was causing him problems. Everyone moved aside and opened a path for Pete as he pulled Terry to the door. “What the fuck, dude? I still want to know what’s going on!”
Pete stopped and looked back at everyone staring at him, “Didn’t anyone tell you? You can’t get into the Queen Bitch’s Guards if just one of them says no. This patch on my shoulder?” He used his left hand to point at the skull, “Says I get a vote.” Pete looked back down at Terry, “and your ass isn’t getting in so you can leave now, or later in a body bag, I really don’t give a fuck.” He finished pulling Terry over to the door and opened it up. “Which is it going to be?”
Terry decided to pull himself up by the door knob and tried to exhibit a little decorum as he hopped out of the door and Pete closed it behind him. Everyone heard Pete say, “Good choice,” as he walked back over to the box and hopped back on top.
Everyone looked back at Nathan as he said, “Well, I guess I should have started out with introducing Pete of the Queen’s Guard.”
The rest of the meeting was very civil.
CHAPTER SIX
Las Vegas, Nevada - USA
Lance was meeting Nathan at the Omelete House near downtown Las Vegas. The restaurant had good food and huge portions, exactly what you needed for Wechselbalg. After Nathan and Pete ordered Lance realized they were attacking the food as aggressively as the other two. It seemed Nathan and Pete were trying to out-do Darryl and Scott on who could eat the most.
Lance just drank his coffee and had toast. He had eaten so much the day before at the Four Kegs that he skipped dinner and decided that skipping breakfast was going to be a good idea if he wanted to continue wearing the same size pants. How Scott had finished two of the Stromboli and was putting away this large of a breakfast amazed Lance. He needed to wake up his metabolism and he didn’t want coffee on an empty stomach.
Nathan and Scott had flown in yesterday and grabbed a room last night. “How did the meeting go?”
Nathan reached over to grab his cup and drank a bit of coffee himself before replying, “Pretty good. Once Pete got rid of the main rabble-rouser, it settled down. We have about six guys that are ready to apply right now so I need to get Ecaterina to set up travel for them and a place in Miami for the time being. Most of the rest are going to stay with the pack and have a much better attitude about it. There are a couple who are going to talk with their friends who couldn’t be there.”
Darryl pointed his fork over at Pete, “Rabble-Rouser?”
Pete seemed a little shy, he had done what he thought was the right thing at the time, but the ‘good job’ comments and back slapping after the meeting from both Nathan Lowell and Gerry both made him proud of his actions, and ashamed of just what a prick he was before he joined this group. Hell, he could have been Terry with the wrong prodding himself. “Yes, we had one guy that was mouthing off, saying Bethany Anne was no different than a Forsaken. If he hadn’t been heard by seven people around him, I might have let it go. However, once others heard…”
Scott finished for him, “Then he signed his own punishment papers. What did you do?”
Nathan took the story up. “He calmly shot him in the knee.”
Darryl piped back in, “Lead or silver?”
Scott answered, “Lead.” Darryl and Scott grinned at each other. Lead for the warning, silver for the rest.
Nathan grunted, “If you would let me continue?” All the guys just shook their heads with mirth in their eyes and continued eating. “As I was saying, he shot him in the knee, walked over to him while everyone gave him a wide berth. Pete asked him his name and he says, ‘Terry, you fucking prick!’ So, Pete calmly says, ‘Well, Terry You Fucking Prick, the Guard is very touchy about respecting Bethany Anne.’” Scott laughed out loud, “Then Pete drags this prick to the door, tells everyone that they can’t become a member if just one guard votes them out. He points to his arm and says that the patch means he gets a vote and that Terry isn’t going to get in. He allows Terry to hop out after telling him he could leave right then, or in a body bag later, Pete really didn’t care.” At this point, Darryl puts down his fork and is laughing as well. Darryl and Scott fist bump. “Terry leaves, Pete goes back to the box he was watching from and resumes watching. At this point, I tell the group ‘I guess I should have introduced Pete first.” Now, Nathan had the General laughing at the story while Scott was wiping the tears from his eyes. Pete’s face was completely red as everyone was enjoying what he did to Terry. “To top it off? That guy was the one that one of you gut shot back in our first meeting.
Darryl leaned across the table and high-fived Pete, “We shot the same guy!” Even Pete started laughing at this.
It took a moment for the laughing to stop and they all resumed eating again. Scott jumped into the lull, “How come you guys don’t get sued for randomly shooting people? I
s it because you’re in this pack situation or something?”
Nathan had just finished his plate and pushed it back, ““No... Well, possibly. However, Pete shot him with lead. By the time Terry could get to a hospital his knee would be significantly better and by the next morning you wouldn’t be able to tell he had been shot at all. So, what crime would he complain about?”
“Yeah, that makes sense.”
Nathan turned to Lance, “So, what is this you’re telling me about Patriarch Research? They have a possible strong AI?”
“That’s the brunt of it, yes. We’ve war-gamed the scenario a bunch of times in the Military. Well, we war-gamed a malevolent AI, so I know the gist of the concerns. It seems your effort to check out the company almost caused them to turn the software back on as it is some sort of Internet Defense program.”
“Really? That’s very interesting. I’m going to love this meeting. I wonder if they…” Nathan started muttering techno-babble speak as near as Lance could tell. Good lord, Lance thought, he was going to be bored today if this is what they were going to be talking about all afternoon. Or, he could try to learn it. He put a hand up to stop Nathan. “I don’t suppose you would translate that for me?”
Nathan smiled. He had warmed up to the General more than he would have thought. “Basically, I’m wondering how they transverse the IP addresses and do deep packet inspection testing. That is the first place to look. Then, you have to see what the commands are and…. I just lost you again, didn’t I?” Lance nodded his head. “Well, how do you want to play the meeting later this morning?”
Lance thought about that. It was beyond obvious he wasn’t going to pick up the technical details and frankly it wasn’t the best use of his time. “How about Jeffrey and I go golfing while you and his lead programmer, Tom Billings, talk?” After Lance had spent the afternoon sitting in on the meetings, he was pretty impressed with what the team had built and researched over the years. They had a few patents out generating income, but facing a dead end and without the usual directions from their parent company to refocus their efforts, for the last year they had been floundering. All of Jeffrey’s team seemed smart. He would let Nathan confirm that suspicion.
However, Lance was thinking this might be a good team to move over to some of the expected research from the spacecraft. He had asked Frank to do a deep background check on Jeffrey and Tom and would wait to get a response from him. But it might hit 60 degrees this afternoon and sunny, so he could get to know Jeffrey a bit better on the golf course.
“That sounds fine, I can do that.”
Pete decided to hang with the General while Scott wanted to stay with Nathan and listen in on the discussion.
After everyone met at 11:00 AM that morning, Lance suggested that he and Jeffrey go golfing instead of listening to the techno-speak for hours. Jeffrey decided this was a great suggestion. Darryl turned out to be a good golfer with an incredibly long tee off. They ended up making him tee off from the golds. Pete didn’t have much of a game and neither did Jeffrey. The General did pretty good.
Lance didn’t receive any feedback from Frank all afternoon, so they dropped Jeffrey back off at the Patriarch Research offices. They picked up Scott whose head was ready to burst from listening all afternoon. Nathan had a couple of more items to review with Tom and he would drive their rental back to the airport later. Ecaterina had them all on an American Airlines flight, first class, to Miami that night.
They all decided to go and play a few games at the Aria and then left to go to the airport themselves. Pete had been surprised to find a paycheck deposited in his bank account. While all of his expenses had been covered, this was the first time that he had earned his own money and was pretty proud of the event. Darryl and Scott tried to get him to celebrate by buying everyone dinner. He smiled and passed on the option. He did; however, spend $500 on slots. It hurt a lot more when he lost his own money.
The General took this time to setup another reminder to call Patricia. He had been in a meeting yesterday when his 3:00 PM reminder came up and now it was too late to interrupt her. Maybe tomorrow would be better.
Brasov, Romania
The travel from Stephen’s house back to Brasov had been pretty uneventful. While being careful with sunlight, even taking Gabrielle wasn’t too risky. If they could have, they would have left her back at Stephen’s house; however, they didn’t want to risk landing the craft on land again. Once they took off it was going to be the SEA AXE or nothing. Hopefully nothing didn’t mean sinking into the Atlantic Ocean!
Ivan had come back to Brasov with them so he could stay with Gabrielle as much as time would permit. This caused Stephen to join them. From Brasov, the two of them were going to move on to Germany and meet with the European Pack Council. Stephen needed to get a handle on Europe so he decided to go and see the Weres directly.
Bethany Anne had tried to get Ivan to introduce Gabrielle to his mother, but Ivan wanted nothing to do with that idea at all. He told Gabrielle it had nothing to do with her vampire status. Then, to prove his point he had to tell what happened to his sister, Ecaterina, when she left to go to America with Nathan. Gabrielle was humored at this. “What if I just explain I can’t have children?” Ivan didn’t have an answer to that.
Presently, Gabrielle was wrapped up as tight as they could make her. Their helicopter pilot looked at Gabrielle a little funny. Bethany Anne explained she was very sensitive to the cold. It was a bit difficult to get her into the chopper at first, but they managed. Bethany Anne heard Eric tell Gabrielle she should have laid off the bonbons. She didn’t hear a ‘fucking ouch’ from Eric, so she could only presume Eric had something coming later.
John and Eric had the backpacks. These were heavily packed and sized appropriately for the men to carry. Other than the basics for going deep into the back country, the guys also had eight packs of blood in case Gabrielle or Bethany Anne had an urgent need. The guys would prefer not to be the first choice should either of the ladies get hungry.
The helicopter pilot was as good as the website had claimed. Bethany Anne had him hover 15 feet above a flat area. John and Eric tossed the backpacks out and the four sets of skis. The group had no plans on using the skis during their trek up the mountain. However, four people flown into the mountain were expected to be skiing back out and it would cause too many questions to be without so they bought four used ski sets and brought them along. The sun had set behind the mountain, so there wasn’t any direct sunlight and Gabrielle had peeled a layer off of her outfit.
Eric had his feet out the door and yelled back to them in the copter, “Ok, looks about fifteen feet. How are we going to make sure that it’s safe to jump down?”
Gabrielle yelled, “Thank you for volunteering!” Eric had barely turned around before Gabrielle’s push jettisoned him from the copter to land below in a large snow bank.
John looked over, “Seems safe enough.” He jumped on his own to land near Eric. Bethany Anne pointed to Gabrielle and then the door and the woman was out quickly. Bethany Anne looked around to make sure they hadn’t left anything behind then patted the pilot on the shoulder, stepped out on the helicopter landing skids, shut the door and dropped down. She barely had to flex her legs on landing. The pilot pulled up and away gently before the engine got louder and the helicopter left them in just a few seconds.
“Gott Verdammt, Gabrielle! What was that shit for?” Eric was still getting snow off of his face. “I could have been killed!”
“If you had eaten fewer bonbons, you might not have landed so hard.” Gabrielle was busy getting taking the outer coats off of herself.
Eric was smiling at her, “Ah, my payback was a bitch. Boy, a little testy on the weight comment, much?”
Gabrielle stopped to consider his comment. The payback really was a little over the top and she wouldn’t normally have cared about the comment. However, she had been miserable inside all of the clothing and the fat comment had stayed with her the whole trip. “I guess an apo
logy is in order, Eric. I’m sorry for not making sure you would be safe enough before pushing your ass out of the helicopter.”
Eric finally stood up and grabbed the backpack John was holding for him. “Wait, what? What do you mean ‘safe enough’?”
“I should have made sure you wouldn’t be dead before I could give you some blood to heal you. I trusted the pilot to make sure we weren’t over a canyon or something.”
“So, no apology for pushing me out?”
“God, you are such a whiner Eric! You live and nothing is broken. Be thankful for that at least. You made fun of a woman with a fat joke, that I didn’t drain you dry right then was a very restrained response in my opinion!”
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