The Euclidian: When Worlds Collide (uncut)

by Jay Cannon

  “I’m interested, but what would I have to do?”

  “The Chinese government is concerned about military threats against us. We would like to learn as much as possible about these threats and how to defend ourselves. You would be performing a great service to your country.”

  “Why me?”

  “Your access to people, your ability to speak multiple languages, and your great ambition make you highly qualified to help keep our country safe. So, are you interested or would you like to get back to your translation?”

  “You mentioned that I would make enough extra money to keep me comfortable. How comfortable are we talking about?”

  “See the Prada bag lying next to you?”

  “That’s the one I’ve been looking at in the Neiman Marcus store!”

  “Inside you will find two hundred thousand American dollars. It’s yours to keep, along with the bag. Each time we meet I’ll give you an additional bag with more money from any country you like.”

  “So far I’m extremely interested. Can you get that slut a job at the UN cleaning toilets?”

  “No problem.”

  “And I get my job back?”

  “A better job.”

  “Deal!”

  “Understand that if you accept this relationship with us it’s until death do we part.”

  “I can live with that.”

  Mr. Tsang waved his hand and said, “We’ll be in touch.”

  At that, Ms. Li was back in her own bed, clutching her new Prada bag full of money.

  The next day the UN Secretary General received a phone call. The voice at the other end instructed, “Ms. Li will be appointed as special attaché and Consuela will be assigned to cleaning toilets on the cafeteria level. If Consuela refuses, the secret documents under her mattress will be turned over to her government and she will probably spend a long time in prison, if she is lucky. If that makes you uncomfortable, view the DVD in your pocket covering your recent trip to Thailand. I don’t think your constituents would be happy to see you ‘bathing’ with those young boys. Are we clear?”

  “They were just attendants. There was nothing dirty about what we were doing.”

  “So your answer is no?”

  “I’ll take care of it tomorrow.”

  “Good. You won’t hear from us again.”

  Li Xiao began her new job at the UN, as did Consuela. Ms. Li spent the next few weeks developing contacts that could provide the information that the commander needed. At times she used the commander’s influence to persuade some of these contacts to see things her way.

  ***

  Aboard the Euclidian ship, the commander spoke to Ms. Li. “We have brought all our collaborators here for final interviews and then you can return to enjoying your life. Your much wealthier life. We want to make sure that we have all the details correct from your reports and that no new developments have arisen. As a parting gift, here is a Jimmy Choo bag with twenty million Euros. I’m going to bring in each of your contacts, one at a time. Let us know if you have any concerns about your conversations with them.”

  Pico followed Ms. Li into the interrogation room. The room was connected to an observation room that was surrounded by silk curtains, presumably to hide the ship’s metal walls. There were seats for people to observe what was going on in the interrogation room. A few moments later the German UN ambassador was shown into the room.

  “Guten Tag, Ambassador,” said Ms. Li.

  “Let’s dispense with the formalities and get on with it.”

  Pico was feeling weak. He returned to his body and found his hands had gone through the wall and that his container of fluid was missing. He was surprised that he had somehow eaten his way through the wall, and knew that ability would soon come in handy. He placed his hands on a new spot on the wall to regain his strength by soaking up some nutrients, and to see if he could make another hole. Once he was back to full strength he went to get more of the fluid but the trough was empty.

  Pico looked around the room and saw that one of the creatures had a large container of it. He scurried over and pointed first at his empty container and then at the creature’s full one. The creature looked down at Pico, made a grunting noise, and swatted him away. Pico ran to hide under a nearby cot. He thought for a minute and then grabbed his shaman stone. Focusing his telekinetic energy, he flung the creature’s pillow at a larger creature laying next to it. The first creature smiled and tried to wave off the other without causing trouble, but it turned an ugly shade of yellow and swung a large fist into the offending creature’s chest, slamming him onto the floor. The creature leapt from the floor and attached himself to the other creature’s head just in time for an overhead weapon to stun them both into unconsciousness.

  Pico seized the moment to grab a scoop of the liquid. Before scurrying off he turned to the creature and said, “Sorry!”

  CHAPTER 11

  LONG ROAD HOME

  “Sorry my ass!” shouted Morgan’s foster mother. Morgan stood in front of her car with her three sons – the twins Don and Lon, and Ron the oldest son. She sometimes called Morgan “MorGON” to rhyme with her sons’ names, which Morgan detested. “MorGON, if you can’t finish your chores, don’t expect to ride around with us.”

  “Why don’t they ever have to do chores?” Morgan whined, pointing at her sons.

  “They’ve already proven they can be disciplined and follow orders. Now it’s your turn to prove that you can. So turn around, do like MJ, and Beat It!”

  Morgan pouted and turned back toward the house. Don kicked him in the butt, knocking him to the ground. “Yeah, get to it, punk.” The brothers all laughed as they walked to the car. Morgan grabbed his racket from next to the stairs and fired a ball into the back of Don’s head. Don spun around and started after Morgan but he fired another volley that delivered a ball squarely on Don’s crotch, dropping him onto the grass face first. Don moaned loudly as his mother looked back.

  “Get off the ground, stop acting like a baby, and get in the car before I come over and kick you in the balls my damn self. I can’t wait for you kids to grow up and get out of my house so I can get my life back.”

  Morgan ran into the house as the boys and their mother got into the car and drove off. He paused to look at his image in the mirror by the door, and ran his finger across the scar that was left after his foster mother, Cheryl, hit him in the face with a hot iron. He didn’t believe she had meant it, but he was scarred just the same. Cheryl caught so much hell from everyone about it that he had a month off from chores and could do whatever he wanted. She even took him to an amusement park and let him spend the whole day riding every ride. It had been just the two of them and he actually started to like her, but before long Cheryl reverted to her old evil self.

  To avoid his foster family’s wrath, Morgan rushed to finish his chores before they returned. He washed and dried the dirty dishes. He laundered, ironed, and folded all the clean clothes, arranged them in the laundry basket, and placed a bow on top. He made Don’s bed and cleaned up his room, and left a note that simply read “Sorry!” Just as he hit the bottom step to his basement hideaway he heard his foster family returning. He grabbed his tennis racket and balls and climbed out the basement window to practice in his favorite alley until Don cooled down. When he was playing at Wimbledon they would be sorry.

  During lunch the next day at school, Ron passed Morgan with a tray of food. “Salut, frère,” said Morgan. Ron just waved him off.

  “Who is that?” Ron’s friend asked.

  “That’s Morgan, my foster brother. He lives in our basement. He speaks Spanish and Italian and now he’s studying French. He says he wants to master the Latin languages. That’s why he’s wearing the headphones.”

  “Is he planning on being a diplomat or something?”

  “No, he wants to be an international businessman like that guy in that movie, The Thomas Crown Affair. He plans to get his MBA and live in Europe when he’s not on the tennis circuit.”


  “So he’s going to be a tennis star too? Why not football or baseball?”

  “He says in team sports you have to depend on other people and people are mostly undependable. He wants to know that he is winning or losing based on the strength of his own talents. Most of the time I just think he’s loopy. Other times I think he’s going to become somebody great. He’s one of the few kids in high school that enjoys going to class.”

  Morgan closed the door to the house after arriving home from school. Cheryl was there to meet him.

  “Hi, Morgan, how was school?”

  “It was okay. Science, math, and history are boring. They just teach stuff I learned already in my other school. No one picked me again to play basketball in gym class. In French class I learned that Lyon is the second largest city in France and used to be a Roman colony.”

  “Whatever, smarty pants. Go do your homework and then start on your chores. There are a couple of baskets of clothes downstairs by the washer. Vacuum upstairs once you get a load started.”

  “I finished my homework in study hall so I’ll just start on the clothes now.”

  “So much the better. Next week you won’t have to worry about all that. We’re taking a week off to visit my parents in Michigan. My father has the sugar and had his feet cut off. My mother is beside herself with grief and insisted I come up and visit them before he dies. We’ll probably see some other relatives and friends of mine on the way.”

  “Do you think he’s going to die soon?” asked Morgan with a worried look on his face. He was thinking of his mother’s fate.

  “No, Morgan,” she said with a sardonic tone. “Evil don’t die. It just festers until it infects everything around it and lives on in everyone it touches. I know. I’ve had my own struggles trying to rid myself of it.”

  On the following Saturday the SUV was packed and ready to go. Ron was the oldest and would be riding shotgun. He would also get to drive for part of the trip since he had his license, but only in the daytime. Don and Lon complained as usual, not wanting to be stuck in a car for hours on end to meet some old people they didn’t know. But Cheryl quickly ended their complaints.

  “If you think I’m going to leave you alone in this house for a week while your father is at work, you’ve got another thing coming,” she shouted, hands on hips and shaking her head. “Stop your whining and get your bags in the car. Don’t forget your laptop and DVDs. We won’t be stopping until we pull over for gas in Columbus. I suggest you use the bathroom now. I got food in the car so all you need to do is SHUT UP AND GET IN!”

  “What if I have to pee an hour from now?” Lon whined.

  “Then you have to use a pop bottle, the window, or your pants,” she replied with a serious look.

  They all piled into the SUV. Morgan was forced to sit in the far back, surrounded by the luggage, so Don and Lon could place the laptop between them and watch movies. Morgan was also responsible for passing out food and taking care of the trash.

  They reached Columbus in seven hours and took a thirty-minute break to gas up, stretch their legs, use the bathroom, dump the trash, and get more food. Lon and Don threw a football around, Ron texted his girlfriend, and Cheryl called her mother to let her know how the trip was going. Morgan practiced his French: “Regardez les arbres avec leurs feuilles. Regardez le fleur avec ses petales. Regardez la pelouse, ouch!”

  “Regardez la football hitting you in the head,” laughed Lon.

  “Lon, knock it off before I come over there and smack you,” yelled Cheryl. “All of you get back in the car. Next stop is your aunt and uncle’s house in Detroit. Remember to call him Uncle Boyce and her A’Ella for Aunt Ella.”

  “Why do you call her A’Ella?” asked Ron.

  “When we were kids we had a hard time saying Aunt Ella. It mostly came out A’Ella, so now that’s what everyone calls her, even if she’s not their aunt. Weird how those things work out.”

  “Do they have any kids?” asked Lon.

  “They have four kids. Joe left home already, but still lives in Detroit. Joyce and Janis and Louis still live at the house. Louis is the cool one.”

  “Maybe we could hang out and hit some spots,” exclaimed Ron.

  “You can hang out with Louis all you want. But the only spots you better be hitting are the mall and the movie theatre. I do not want you drinking and going to bars underage. You can drive until we get to the outskirts of Detroit, then I’ll take over. I need me some rest.”

  Ron took the wheel and four hours later they pulled into Detroit. Cheryl took the wheel and drove them to their cousins’ house on the north side, off of Seven Mile Road.

  “Wow, our cousins live by Seven Mile Road. I didn’t know that really existed. Do they live near Eminem?” asked Don.

  “Since he lived on Eight Mile, they live about a mile from where he used to live before he blew up,” responded Cheryl. “Let’s go inside and say hello to everyone.”

  As they piled out of the car, stretching and yawning, Uncle Boyce and A’Ella came out the side door to greet them, followed by Louis.

  “Hey, niece,” said Boyce, giving her a hug.

  “Hey, uncle, let me introduce you to the kids. This is Ron, the oldest. He’s seventeen and graduates next year. These are my twins. Get over here, you two. This is Don and Lon, fifteen and going to the tenth grade. The one climbing out of the back is Morgan, my foster child. He don’t talk much, but he’s plenty smart and works hard. Y’all say hi to your aunt and uncle.”

  “Hi,” they said in unison with shy smiles. A’Ella gave them each a hug, stopping to give Morgan some extra attention.

  “Just because you weren’t born into the family, I don’t want you to feel like an outsider, okay?”

  “Okay,” replied Morgan.

  “Why don’t you put your stuff inside and come to the store with me?”

  “Okay!” said Morgan, excited to see someone showing interest in him.

  “Louis, what’s up?” said Ron. He gave Louis a social handshake and warm hug. “I heard you were the coolest person in the family. Can you show me around Detroit?”

  “Sure, cuz. Why don’t you grab something to eat and we can hit the streets.”

  “Louis, no drinking, drugs, or fast women,” said Cheryl, shaking her finger with eyebrows raised.

  “You mean like we used to, Salt Shaker?” replied Louis.

  “Don’t be bringing up my old nicknames. Just because we used to do it, doesn’t mean I want him doing it. Have him back by midnight, alive and sober. We’re leaving early tomorrow and I don’t want to be dealing with his hangover. All of you grab your stuff and take it into the house. A’Ella will let you know where you’re sleeping.”

  “Niece,” said A’Ella, “you can take Joe’s room.” The twins can have Janis’ room. She’s going to stay at a friend’s house tonight. Ron can sleep on the living room couch and Morgan can take the couch in the basement.”

  “Not again,” bemoaned Morgan. “Why do I always have to sleep in the basement?”

  “Don’t even worry about it,” said A’Ella. “It’s the coolest place in the house. You’ll have your own TV, and there’s a pool table and a couple hundred CDs and DVDs. Janis works at Virgin and brings stuff home all the time.

  “Really?”

  “You better believe it.”

  They all went into the house to put their things away. Later they met at the dinner table in the formal dining room where Joyce and Janis were setting the table.

  “Are you our cousins, too?” asked Ron.

  “Yes, I’m Joyce and this is Janis.”

  “You two sure are fine.”

  “Hey, we’re your cousins, not some hoes in the street. Sit down and fix your plate before I shove a chair up your ass,” said Joyce, visibly annoyed.

  “Sorry,” said Ron.

  Janis smiled. “Don’t mind her. She’s always angry about something. I like being called pretty. Of course, since you’re my cousin, I’d still like to smack you o
n the back of the head with a frying pan and bury you in the backyard.”

  The two sisters high-fived each other and headed into the kitchen, cackling. The rest of the family sat down at the table to eat. The Watts family had grown up in Mississippi where they learned southern cooking, and for dinner they had a traditional meal of friend chicken, black-eyed peas, collard greens with pork knuckles, and corn bread. They all held hands as A’Ella said grace, and dug into the food.

  After the meal, A’Ella grabbed Morgan and they headed to the garage. A’Ella turned on the light in the three-car garage to expose her husband’s Buick Enclave, Joyce’s Ford Taurus, and A’Ella’s blue Porsche. When she told Morgan to get in the passenger seat of the Porsche, Morgan’s eyes lit up. The garage door opened and A’Ella popped onto the street and entered the highway, quickly reaching eighty miles per hour. Morgan was surprised, scared, and excited all at the same time. A’Ella was wearing designer clothes, high-heeled shoes, and nice jewelry. When she pulled a cigarette from her Hermes purse, he noticed a wad of cash inside.

  “You don’t worry about getting mugged?”

  “Not me,” she said confidently, blowing smoke out of the sunroof. “I carry a knife with me all the time and I’m not afraid to cut up a fool. You better believe that!”

  “Now I see where your daughters get their toughness.”

  “In this town you have to be tough or they will chew you up and spit you out. If someone comes after you, you let them know you are willing to fight to the death and they’ll back up off of you. Enough of that crazy talk. I hear you are learning French. Let me hear some of it.”

  “Yes. I mean, oui, madame. Je suis content de faire votre connaissance.”

  “Tres bien, mon petit. You keep studying, boy. It will come in handy when you go to Paris. And trust me, you will make it there someday. I love Paris. The clothes, the perfume, the food, the shows, tous ca! Another thing. Promise me that you will never get on food stamps or unemployment. Handouts are for people who are not willing to make a valiant effort to get a job. Any job. You stay in school as long as you can. The more you know, the better chance you will have in life. This is where we get off. There’s a great Whole Foods store here where I love to buy groceries.”