WE WILL BUILD

by Michael Anderle

  The outside security spoke up, “Sir, I have Ms. Cheryl Lynn out here to see you?”

  Marcus thought for a second to put a face to the name, That’s right, it was Tina’s mom…

  Oh shit! He turned around and looked frantically, then his shoulders slumped and he responded, “Please let her pass.” He needed to take his medicine from her for his ‘field trip’. But thinking back on Tina’s joy at being in outer space made his eyes twinkle and he straitened up.

  He wasn’t letting Tina go into genetics without a full-court press to keep that incredible mind with him here in outer space.

  Even if it meant he had to weather the full brunt of Cheryl Lynn being upset.

  It wasn’t but a few seconds later that Marcus heard footsteps coming past the loud machines that William used to manufacture most of the little toys Marcus and Bobcat requested.

  He was inwardly focused, thinking, when there was a small knock on his door jamb, startled, he looked up and smiled, “Hello!” He stood to reach out to shake Cheryl Lynn’s hand, “Please come in and have a seat.”

  Cheryl Lynn quickly looked around the room. It had all sorts of lab equipment along with a large desk with a laptop and two large monitors connected to it. He had six medium sized televisions with different views of space on four and two videos of earth on another two. “Those are pretty.” She commented as she found a round chair to sit on. It was a stool on wheels. Not the best choice when wearing a skirt to sit down, but he didn’t have any other type of chair in the room for her.

  She could just imagine a bunch of teenagers grabbing the chairs and going outside to have chair races together.

  “Hmm?” Marcus turned around to see she was pointing to his outer space monitors. “Yes, they can be. Last week there was a large storm in China that had lightening flashing all the time at night, it was simply gorgeous.”

  She looked back to him, “Those are real?”

  He looked perplexed for a second then smiled, “Are you asking if there are real-time? Yes, those are real-time right now. In fact,” he walked over to the middle set and pointed to an area showing the United States. He put his finger about the middle of the continent. “If I walked outside and I requested a zoom down, the weather is nice enough that I could wave and you could see me smile at you.”

  Cheryl Lynn pondered for a moment, trying to decide if what she thought she heard was actually what he was saying. “You can see anywhere down to a person’s face?”

  Marcus shook his head a little, “It is all dependent on weather, smog and other factors. We are far enough from any city that smog isn’t normally a problem for us and there are no clouds right now. Plus, the optic capability we have learned from the Kurtherians allows us to zoom with far better resolution than our previous capabilities.”

  “What are you looking to do with the other monitors? Are they just pretty views?”

  “Unfortunately, no.” Marcus’s smile faded a little. “These are the four most likely locations that would bring unwelcome visitors to earth.”

  Cheryl Lynn stood up and walked over, “Like passes in the mountains?”

  Marcus looked back to her, with raise eyebrows. “Excuse me?”

  “I read a lot of westerns.” She pointed to the four space monitors, “It’s like you are checking out the four passes through the mountains that they could attack.”

  “Yes, that is a fair analogy. Based on my work with TOM, I have figured out the main three points where we might expect to see unexpected guests, the fourth one is something that ADAM came up with for reasons only he knows. I can’t follow his logic on that one.”

  “We really are going to go out there, aren’t we?” Cheryl Lynn had originally come to see Marcus for two reasons, neither seemed terribly significant at the moment.

  “Not only are we going, we already have been.” He mused aloud, looking at the screens. That was when he felt her finger stab him in the chest.

  He looked down to notice her previously engrossed look had become pointed. What had he said?

  “Speaking of ‘have’, you took my daughter into space!”

  Oh, that. He smiled to her and answered, “I did take her on a field trip. Did you know your daughter is the youngest person to have travelled above the thermosphere?”

  Each of Cheryl Lynn’s words were punctuated with another sharp little stab of her index finger, “You. Should. Have. Explained. To. Me. That. You. Meant. Outer. Space!” On the last word she stabbed him twice as hard.

  Fortunately, Marcus’s body was feeling a little less old due to some revitalizing liquid that Patricia had been providing him for the last eight days. Otherwise, his older ‘self’ probably would have hurt more from her fingernail.

  “Ms. Cheryl Lynn.”

  “It’s just ‘Cheryl Lynn’, leave off being proper when I’m upset with you!”

  “Ok, Cheryl Lynn. I told you we were going on a scientific field trip past the thermosphere. I am a rocket scientist, what else did you expect me to say?”

  Cheryl Lynn turned around, throwing up her arms, “How should I know?” She turned back around, “How about ‘I’m thinking of taking Tina half-way to the moon, we should be back by dinner. Is that ok?’”

  “Would you have believed it?” He asked.

  “Yes! No! …. I don’t know…..” She turned back to her stool on wheels and sat down. “I don’t know what I can or can’t believe anymore.” She looked him in the eyes, “Did you know that we have honest-to-God Werewolves walking around with us?”

  “Yes. I’ve been introduced.” He replied, confused a little with her question.

  Cheryl Lynn looked around then pushed her chair to slowly make her way to the door and shut it gently. She turned around to regard Marcus, “You’re human, right?”

  “Yes.” He made his way back to his chair. Even as ‘out of it’ as Marcus was for most social conversations, he could tell this wasn’t a science talk.

  She pursed her lips, “How do you deal with it all?”

  Sitting down, he said, “Could you clarify your question? What do you mean ‘all’?”

  “This,” she waved a hand around. “We are in a former military base. You have capabilities I thought only the deepest CIA type groups have. You just took my daughter.” She paused, “My only daughter,” she eyed him so he understood. Once he nodded his understanding she continued, “to outer-space. Not only took her there, but she went safely and was ‘back in time for dinner’. My own cousin is a mountain. Don’t get me wrong, he was big before and I know he’s been fighting the nosfertwos for a while…”

  “Nosferatu.” Marcus clarified.

  “Whatever,” she waved a hand, “the bad Vampires. My point is that even with all of that, do you know he was perfectly willing to take on three guys to help me? He called it nothing more than ‘a light scrimmage’. He was more worried that Bethany Anne was going to take away his chance to beat the crap out of those men than getting shot.” She paused. “Did you hear me? Getting SHOT!” she blew out her breath. “Bethany Anne’s own father looks younger than I do. You are the only one who looks close to his actual age. What are you, late forties, early fifties?”

  Oh well, it had been going so well Marcus thought. “I might be in my sixties.”

  “Wow,” she said, “Good genes.” She continued on, not thinking about Marcus, “And don’t get me started with Bethany Anne! She is hell on wheels, smart and driven. If John hadn’t talked her out of it, I’m not sure she wouldn’t have just killed those three guys that attacked me.”

  “Well…” She put up a hand to stop Marcus.

  “I’m just venting, Marcus.” She breathed in and out. “Don’t get me wrong. This is all incredible, but it is incredible good.” She looked over to him, “What if I’m not up to this?” Waving a hand to encompass his lab she continued, “What if I’m not good enough to be a part of the team? What if I have to take my children and go back out again?”

  Marcus waited for her to finish. When she
seemed to finally stop. He answered her in the kindest tone he could manage.

  “Can I tell you a story?” She nodded her agreement. “When Frank found me in California, I was a washed up has-been rocket scientist who had not only been fired from NASA after 30 years of service, but I had been kicked out of Space-X, one of if not the pre-eminent commercial venture as well. Why? Because I held onto outrageous beliefs and spoke my thoughts out loud and too often. No one in their right mind in that industry wanted me. Until Bethany Anne’s group, that is.”

  He looked around, smiled a little, then continued, “You know what makes this group so wonderful?” She shook her head, “It’s because Bethany Anne and her team doesn’t give a … a…” He floundered.

  “Shit?” She offered.

  He nodded, smiled his thanks and continued, “That you are the best. She cares about your heart. She wants to know that you are committed and will do your very best for the cause, for earth. Do you care enough to make this big blue globe of ours safe? Safe for your children? Safe for the children of people you will never meet and possible could learn to hate?” Cheryl Lynn was surprised at the question. For her children, of course but he was asking her to think about those who might, one day, try to attack her children.

  It was a hard question. But it finally crystalized her understanding. She opened her eyes to truly see what was around her. The teams far away, the ships she knew about but had never seen. The people she had only heard about.

  These people had opted to be above politics, geography, country. They believed in the future, the fight they knew deep down in their hearts was coming. They didn’t believe that the people of earth would unite in time to be capable of defending it.

  They were becoming the first line of defense for groups that would hate them, revile and ridicule them.

  She stood up and walked over to Marcus. She put her hand out and he took it. “Thank you,” she said. “Next time, the answer is yes, but explain what you are doing with my daughter first. Got me?”

  Marcus nodded his understanding then watched her leave his office.

  Washington DC, USA

  Barb was arching her back as she got out of her car. The neighbor’s cat had peed in her garage.

  Again.

  She sighed and started looking for the urine. She also needed to figure out how bad the cat hair infestation was. She hated her allergies. The cat was cute but would look at her in a ‘you are my slave’ sort of way. It was a look that dogs never manifested in her opinion.

  After three minutes she calmly stood up and walked to her small workbench and picked up her can of disinfectant. She walked back and reached under a shelf to spray it at the bag of dirt she used for her potted plants. Once that was done, she calmly put the can away, got in her car and acted like she needed to get something from the store.

  Actually, the store was a fine place for her to think. Especially since she had spotted an electronic surveillance piece hidden in her garage.

  Thanks to her next door neighbor’s cat.

  She didn’t have the shakes until she had left the neighborhood. She wasn’t sure if they had gotten to her car yet, but she would operate on the assumption that her house was bugged. Not that bugging her house would net them much. She had not dated in years due to her work load and now the most they might ‘see’ was her sleeping or watching TV.

  She swallowed as she continued to think about what those watching her were probably doing.

  The hunter had become the hunted and she didn’t know what to do.

  She was in deep shit.

  QBS Polarus, Mediterranean

  “Come to me, you heartless little bitch!” Frank murmured to himself in his room. He was staring at his laptop screen.

  Frank had a wonderful time with Michael the previous evening. Frank let his previous concerns about Michael evaporate and just enjoyed Michael as a very long-lived individual while he tried to ignore Michael’s previous reputation.

  Make that very, very long-lived, actually.

  Michael had been a little sad to understand just who was causing trouble in the east, but it didn’t surprise him.

  “Yes,” he had answered Frank’s question. “I did know her mom. She was exceptional in all things both in and…” Then Michael suddenly looked around. “Sorry, but Tabitha can have sensors anywhere. That girl isn’t happy, happy unless she can hear everything.”

  Frank looked around, “Are you sure she hasn’t bugged this room?”

  Michael nodded, “Pretty sure. I’ve read her mind for anything to do with this room as best as I could. As of this morning, it was still fine.”

  “She would eavesdrop on you?”

  “Oh,” Michael shrugged, “She wouldn’t think it was eavesdropping on me, but that at some point we might have people in here that she would need to know what they are saying. She would simply consider it advanced preparation.”

  “You seem relaxed about that. That isn’t the Michael I knew before.”

  “Women seem to have a way of changing men.”

  “For the better?” Frank asked, itching to write some of this down.

  “Perhaps.” Michael answered, smiling like he knew what Frank wanted to do.

  Shit! It was because he did know what Frank wanted to do.

  “Hey, no reading my mind over wine!” Frank laughed.

  “Is that a rule somewhere I wasn’t aware of?”

  “No,” Frank took a sip, “but it should be.”

  “If it helps, I didn’t read your mind. I just know you enough to realize that when you looked around, you wanted your little writing books.” Michael reached back behind him in the study and grabbed a small notepad and pen. “Here,” he handed the two to Frank, “feel free to jot some notes.”

  And just like that, Frank was interviewing a thousand-year-old vampire over wine.

  He left a few hours later, a smiling Tabitha patting him on the chest and telling him to ‘remember her offer’ as she went inside. He shook Michael’s hand and went back to the ship for some sleep and then more research.

  Which is where he was now, pulling together the puzzle pieces on Kamiko Kana. What a sad disgrace of talent she was.

  Frank had read enough reports that what was ‘between the lines’ was just about as informative as what the report actually said. This was one savvy woman who had been working behind the scenes to acquire power for a long time. After his talk with Michael, Frank could understand she had a grudge. She believed that Michael was, effectively, the one who killed her Mom. Since her Mom had been involved with the serum, she had been at the labs when the bombs went off. There had been no chance for her Mom to survive.

  Then, it got tricky. She had made a few trips that he could track to China. That made her his prime suspect behind the Chinese efforts to hack Bethany Anne’s, formerly Michael’s, companies. She could either walk the Etheric or could swing into the myst form that Michael had spoken to him about. That certainly meant advanced Etheric skills of some sort. She had a large group of followers. So, either she held some type of respect or she had an advanced form of charisma. Either way, it was a pain to track her and would be difficult to keep her cornered somewhere.

  Frank went back to the Etheric tracking satellites, but so far nothing was reporting as positive hits. The one time they knew she had moved, the satellites hadn’t been in place.

  Well, perhaps the old fashioned method of finding someone would work.