Project Reunion

by Ginger Booth

  He snorted. “OK. Got it. Enlist women on quality of life issues. Anything else?”

  “No. Well... Your bandwidth sucks. And I don’t just mean your Internet connection. I mean you. You are too little bandwidth. Mary should be able to get onto the Internet herself. And brainstorm with other women making the best of level 1 lifestyles. And your Cocos when you pick them, and everyone else.”

  “If Mary had Internet, we wouldn’t be level 1,” Cam pointed out.

  “I bet you could rig a meshnet and funnel it through Tom’s Internet,” I countered. “Your Internet speeds would suck. But at least you’d have long-distance text messages through your area. You could collaborate locally through it.”

  There was a long silence.

  “What is a ‘meshnet’?” Cam asked intently.

  “Um, I’m not an expert,” I warned. “But basically a peer-to-peer network using smart phones? Message packets are forwarded from phone to phone to phone. When they can. The tricky bit is that connectivity is always intermittent. Great way to send text messages. They’ll get there eventually. Lousy way to watch cat videos.” There was a long pause. “Cam? Did I lose you?”

  “God, no. This doesn’t require powered cell phone towers?”

  “Patching in wi-fi or cell phone towers could give it extra range and speed. Allow messages to cross into the Internet, or across the Sound, for instance. But no, the phones talk to each other directly, short-range. Not through cell towers. You need to charge the phones of course. But if all else fails, you can charge a phone with a cook fire and a thermo-coupler.”

  “Yeah. The thermo-coupler dodge is even in the Resco manual,” he agreed. “Dee – have you ever mentioned this ‘meshnet’ idea to Emmett?”

  I frowned. “Not the sort of thing that comes up in conversation.”

  “Dee, on behalf of the greater Big Apple, I would like to commission a ‘meshnet’. For me, for Emmett, for New York.” His voice took on a silken tone. “How do I go about that?”

  I blew out a long breath, thinking. “The Amen1 team might know. Or a telecomm firm. Maybe ask at UConn. Do you have any connections in the engineering department?”

  “My mother is an engineering professor at UConn,” he supplied. “Professor Sarah Argyle-Cameron. Goes by her maiden name professionally. Argyle.”

  I made a note of it. “OK, sure. I’ll ask around. And call your mom for you – Dr. Argyle.”

  “You really don’t know what you’ve just done, do you?” Cam asked wonderingly.

  “I haven’t done anything yet. And I won’t, really. I don’t know how to set up a meshnet. I’m just acting as your secretary. Which was my point. Your bandwidth is too low. I’m busy. You’re busy. We’re a bottleneck. Someone else should be dealing with laundry and a meshnet.”

  Cam laughed softly. “Absolutely,” he breathed. “Did you have any other suggestions, Dee? Because I’m all ears.”

  “No... No,” I said decisively. “Those were the important ones. Although... It would be nice if people updated the Resco manual with stuff they figured out. I mean, I’m sure the authors did a great job. But they couldn’t think of everything.”

  “Absolutely. We do that. With this nifty thing you gave us called Amenac,” Cam replied. “Hey, Dee, mind a little unsolicited advice back?”

  My face burned a little. But he couldn’t see that. “Sure. Shoot,” I invited.

  “You’re nobody’s secretary. Ever. I mean, I’d really like to see you and Emmett work out. Good luck with that. But you’re not Emmett’s secretary, either.”

  “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “Well, this. You had important things to say. To me. And I wanted to hear them! You don’t need Emmett’s permission to call me. Ever. Dee... You’re a lot more powerful than you realize.”

  Yeah, my face definitely burned. “Well, thank you for saying so.” I sighed. “Though not as powerful as Emmett.”

  “I’m not so sure about that,” Cam replied. “Anyway – call, email, whenever. I’d love to hear from you. The inventory you sent today is pure gold. And I’m really looking forward to hearing more about this ‘meshnet’.”

  “Will do. Call me anytime, too. Hey, Cam? You said ‘good luck with that’, about Emmett. I think you know him pretty well.”

  “A bit,” he bit out.

  Yes, it was clear that Cam knew Emmett better than he was going to admit. “OK, I’m not going to ask how you know him,” I said. “Because Emmett says he doesn’t want me to know... some things like that. But, ‘good luck with that’? Any pointers, on Emmett?”

  Cam was silent, thinking for a few moments. Fortunately he used quick Connecticut moments like me. Not long Ozark moments like Emmett. “Has he talked to you about his divorce?” he finally asked.

  “I didn’t know that he was divorced until the Resco summit.”

  Cam chuckled. “Figures. You might ask him about it. I won’t tell you what I know. It wouldn’t do you any good, anyway. It’s not the content. It’s the talking between the two of you, that might illuminate something. Tread gently, though. That sort of thing.”

  -o-

  “I’m so glad we got a chance to eat dinner together,” I told Mangal, a couple nights later. “It seems we hardly have time to talk anymore.” Dinner was already inhaled, my foster-teen Alex come and gone. We were lingering at the table over herb tea.

  Mangal was my best friend, partner in cyberspace, and next door neighbor. We saw each other and talked all the time. We’d founded Amenac together. That day, he’d worked over my house all day, and we’d likely keep going until midnight. Emmett had given the green light on his Thanksgiving bash. The Amenac technical details seemed to multiply like rabbits. Mangal and I were the ones to stomp out digressions to the mission.

  Still. We rarely got time for that best friend thing anymore. Apparently today was some kind of Jain observance. Mangal was in the doghouse with his wife Shanti for working instead of communing with their local extended Jain-Nepalese-Buddhist-whatever community. Otherwise he would have spent dinner with her and his small children, not me.

  Mangal didn’t reply.

  “Oh,” I burbled on, “what did you and Shanti decide about another baby?”

  “Not to,” he murmured. “Not just now.”

  That should have opened a conversation, not shut it down. I launched a couple more conversation openers, dashed just as abruptly.

  “We should get back to it,” Mangal said, starting to rise.

  “Sit down,” I said, peeved. “Spill it. What’s wrong? Why aren’t you talking to me?”

  “I am talking to you.”

  “Mangal, you know what I mean. Why the cold shoulder? What have I done?”

  He fidgeted with silverware, preparing to sideswipe the awkward topic. But then gave it up. “Dee... I guess... We were a bit shocked when Emmett moved in. I was...happy for you. When you dated again. But...Emmett isn’t Zack. And living with someone, isn’t just dating.”

  “Agreed,” I said, puzzled, just to move him along.

  Mangal blew out. “Dee, you know I’m a pacifist. And now you’re partnered to a man whose life is dedicated to violence.”

  I stared at him. “Emmett is trying to save a couple million people from the hell-hole of New York,” I countered. “He is willing to kill if needed along the way. But I’d call that dedicated to saving people. Not dedicated to violence.”

  Mangal didn’t reply, or meet my eye.

  “Mangal, are you saying you’re not my friend anymore?” I asked in disbelief.

  “We’ll always be friends. I hope,” Mangal said softly. He still didn’t meet my eye though. “Friendships change.” He sighed. “Our friendship is based on work. Let’s get back to that.” He went back to his own home office to do it, though.

  -o-

  Later, I called Emmett and asked him how he and Mangal got along. They’d always seemed fine, no different than Mangal and Zack. Emmett’s answers seemed to match my observation.


  “Darlin’,” Emmett followed up, “what’s wrong?”

  I didn’t want to say it. But Emmett himself, and then Cam, had seemed to encourage me to talk to Emmett remotely, just as if he were home with me. “Mangal says he’s not my best friend anymore.”

  “Because you’re with me?” Emmett asked.

  “It’s that Jain nonviolent thing,” I agreed reluctantly.

  What I expected Emmett to say was, ‘uh-huh.’ What he actually said was, “Well, that sucks, Dee. I had, um... Did Zack ever tell you much about his ex, Grace? The Quaker? Oh, I know he did. You had that blowup the day of her funeral.”

  I frowned in consternation. “Zack told you about that?”

  That memorable fight had covered a lot of ground. Grace. Quakers. Adam. My decision to visit Ark 7. Betrayal. Amenac. A snow hurricane. I felt like a caroming pool ball just remembering it. I hadn’t considered before that Zack might blow off steam to his best friend Emmett, like anyone else, after a fight.

  “Uh-huh,” Emmett replied wryly. “Can’t tell you how much I looked forward to meeting you, after that. Seemed unlikely I’d get the chance. At the time.”

  “What did Zack say?”

  “Never mind,” Emmett said. “Best friend confidential. My point was Grace. When they were together. She tried to tell Zack that it was her or me. She wanted him to dump me as a best friend.”

  “What did you do?” I asked. “What did Zack do?”

  “I told Zack I loved him like a brother. And that wouldn’t change,” Emmett said. “Whatever he needed to do. I wanted him to be happy. But. It was something in him, not me. I mean, I wasn’t even here. I was an unknown somebody, on the far end of a phone line. It was Captain Zack, not Major Emmett, that Grace wanted him to swear off. Told him that I liked the Captain and the Zack. I thought he could do better, than Grace.”

  I laughed quietly at a memory. “That Zack’s taste in women sucked.”

  “Yeah, that too,” Emmett agreed. “Present company excepted. I don’t know, Dee. They’re not really parallel situations. Zack and I had years of history. Grace was new. Here, you and Mangal have the history. But your relationship changed over the years, didn’t it? You don’t hang out with him the same now as you did before Shanti came, or before the babies arrived.”

  “Yeah,” I said softly. “Yeah, that makes sense. It keeps changing.”

  “Darlin’, I’m sorry it hurts. There is a fierce streak in you, though, that I love. I hope you never have to kill another human being. But I think you could. And you would, to protect your own.” He chuckled. “Though I’d bet on you to find another way. I love that part even more.”

  “Thank you,” I breathed. “How do I love the fierceness in you, and the pacifist in Mangal? Both.”

  “They’re both in you,” he replied simply.

  “That’s pretty contrary.”

  “In most people, maybe. Not in you. I think it’s pretty cool.”

  “So what did Zack do?” I asked. “About Grace and you.”

  “Oh, you know. Zack. Tried to work it out with her. Stayed friends with me. Stuck to his guns. Just like she did. They had that in common. Grace was the one who resolved it. She dumped him.”

  “You wouldn’t dump me for staying friends with Mangal.”

  He snuffed amusement. “No. Neither did she, really. It was never about me. How did Mangal do with Zack?”

  “I guess he wasn’t happy with Zack, either.”

  Emmett sighed. “Well, I’m sorry your friend doesn’t approve of me. For what it’s worth, I like him fine. I like his wife even better. Shanti’s brave as a lion. Hope you feel better, darlin’.”

  “Yeah. Thanks, Emmett. You helped.”

  Chapter 18

  Interesting fact: Emma MacLaren – Emmett’s mother – ignored the directive that she had Resco authority for only one county. Essentially, the Missouri-Arkansas border troops grew bored. Their commander was happy to entertain suggestions to put them to good use. By Thanksgiving she coordinated three Missouri counties, all thinly populated.

  “Hey, there,” said Emmett, smiling so hard his chapped lips split. You could wear chapstick an inch thick here. It still wouldn’t prevent chapping, living on New York Harbor in November. I’d managed to surprise him, boarding his destroyer the night before Thanksgiving. He hadn’t expected to see me again until the refugee extravaganza two weeks later at Camp Yankee.

  “You so don’t belong here, darlin’,” Emmett mock-scolded, shaking his head in disbelief. “I should turn you over to the M.P.’s as a stow-away.”

  I grinned ferociously, and tapped my ‘PRESS’ badge. “Captain Flores was most accommodating.”

  Emmett had tossed the Thanksgiving dinner problem to Captain Niedermeyer. Typical of Niedermeyer’s solutions, a champion emerged who didn’t appear to have anything to do with the Coast Guard. Captain Gil Flores was Navy, and he coordinated Merchant Marine, Army, Navy, Marines, Coast Guard, National Guard, and a vast network of donations and logistics for the Dinner Bash Mobilization Detail. He’d also arranged for my overnight visit on Emmett’s destroyer to be a surprise.

  “No,” Emmett denied flatly. “You are not my media coverage.” As though to underscore this point, his own war correspondent team zeroed in on us on the deck for pictures. Team Flores had notified them, naturally. Emmett unclipped my ‘PRESS’ badge sourly and stuffed it in his pocket. We smiled and cuddled for a few camera shots, and then Emmett swatted the media duo away. I silently vowed to meet them later.

  “They’re doing news coverage, Emmett,” I picked up the argument. “We still haven’t done my personal interview.”

  “Yeah, they’ll do that, too,” he insisted. “Dee, this is every kind of wrong, you being here.” He looked like a starving man pushing food away, though.

  “Why wrong?”

  “Darlin’, do you see all these troops? They don’t get to see their wives and boyfriends this holiday, or their ankle-biters and chihuahuas.”

  Ah. He actually meant it – he didn’t believe I should be there. Well, that sucked. He’d just have to get over it. I pursed my lips and retrieved the ‘PRESS’ badge from his pocket, and re-affixed it to my cherry red swing coat. A swing coat strategically reinforced with velcro to lock it closed, while merely looking free to swing. I was no novice to the grey New York winter wind-scape.

  “I brought food,” I announced practically, refusing to buy into his hum bug-itude. “Let’s hide in your cabin and eat it. Then you won’t have to stand here looking mortified by me anymore.” I narrowed my eyes and tilted my head at him. “Or would you prefer I embarrass you further?” I leaned my face closer to his. “I could, you know. Embarrass you. Much, much further. You’ve seen it happen.”

  “Uh-huh.” He relented, laughing, and drew me into a hug. He kissed me on the cheek, though even yet not on the mouth. He broke it off and picked up my bag and food box, and led the way into the ship.

  I was glad he was leading. He couldn’t see my face as I gulped heading into the grey belly of a Navy ship again. The Coast Guard boats hadn’t bothered me. Nor the ferry doing Greenwich-to-Apple-Core transport. Nor the little kodiak that whisked me over to Emmett’s destroyer. I grew up on Long Island Sound. I love boats. But I’d only been in the one Navy ship before, and that didn’t end well. Fortunately, a destroyer is a much smaller boat than the Ark 7 aircraft carrier. And HomeSec was on my side now. A development that still made me faintly nauseous.

  After a long journey through the warren of pipe-lined grey corridors, we arrived at a surprisingly posh suite, with separate bedroom, couch-lined sitting room, and private bath. “Wow, Emmett. What does the captain’s cabin look like?”

  “This is the captain’s cabin,” he explained. “His port cabin. At sea, he has a cabin near the conn.” He stowed my things in the bedroom.

  He didn’t grab me and throw me to the bed the way I was kind of hoping. Not even a clinch. I sighed and took off my coat and winter things. He leaned in
the bedroom doorway and looked at my feet.

  “Darlin’, those shoes...”

  I looked down at my sensible middle-height heel pumps. “I brought deck shoes, too,” I allowed. “They look kinda foolish with a dress.”

  “Good,” he said. He dug my pink-and-green plaid deck shoes out of my luggage and handed them to me. “Come!” he called at a knock on the hatch.

  A Navy woman in a royal blue jumpsuit entered, beamed at me, and handed Emmett a tablet. He sat on the couch by the door to look it over. Multi-tasking, he asked her, “How’s your track record at guessing my answers, Lieutenant?”

  “Maybe 40 percent, sir.”

  Emmett appeared to be signing off on things. Or not, as the case might be. A number of items he corrected, denied, asked questions, or otherwise disagreed with. After five or ten minutes, he handed the tablet back with a smile. “Thank you, Lieutenant.”

  “Sir. The captain’s mess is at nineteen hundred,” she noted. “He’s looking forward to meeting Ms. Baker.”

  As the hatch shut, I muttered, “We can’t eat dinner alone?”

  Emmett shook his head slightly. “Two more aides,” he warned. He reached over and brushed hair out of my face. Hooked his hand around my neck to draw me to him for a kiss. And the hatch banged again. He dropped his hand. “Come!” he called.

  His invitation was apparently optional. The next guy was already stepping into the room, this one in forest cammies. Marine combat uniform, at a guess. He braced and pretended I wasn’t there, after handing a slate to Emmett. Again, after a first-pass perusal of the list, Emmett asked, “What’s your track record, for guessing my answers, Major?” He didn’t stop processing the stuff on the slate.

  “Haven’t really kept track, sir,” admitted the Marine.

  Emmett nodded absently. He was busy frowning at something in detail. He took out his phone and took notes. A to-do list, I feared. Several other items on the slate generated notes as well. I gave up and drifted into the bathroom to touch up my face for the unwelcome dinner with the captain. The Marine left, but Emmett continued working on his follow-up. The promised third aide showed before that was done, and had to stand waiting for Emmett’s attention. Army this time, or perhaps National Guard. Emmett asked again about his track record.