by Mel Todd
"I’ve never had a dream like that. It felt so real. Heck, I don’t even watch sci-fi." The sound of her voice in the early morning light made her feel a little more anchored into this world, weird as it was, it didn’t have spaceships or aliens. That made her pause.
Why did I think it was a spaceship and aliens?
She shook her head, shut off the alarm which would have gone off in a half hour anyhow, and headed for the shower, she had kids to torture and a sister to rescue.
On the drive down to her sisters she listened in horror to the news and that yesterday the cop had been kidnapped with a bunch of kids that could all shift, plus another cop killed.
She had to pull over at a gas station and get a large coffee to wash the bile out of her mouth.
I can’t tell anyone. No one can ever know. I don’t want to be put at risk. I can’t put others at risk like that.
She knew that this cop hadn’t chosen to tell anyone, but it didn’t change her determination to never let anyone know. Getting back on the road she listened to all the news stories but there was nothing else available. Finally, because otherwise she’d show up at Helena’s in tears, she flipped it to the music on her phone and let the beats wash away everything.
Pulling into the drive at Helena’s she had the odd dichotomy again as she looked at the house. Elegant, but warm, it screamed money and taste. Helena, eighteen months older, fell into everything with ease. Meeting her husband Oswald on a trip to Norway after she’d graduated college, he’d fallen head over heels for her. He then immigrated to America and created a very profitable ecologically friendly solar charging company. He’d already filed the patents before he met her and decided that America needed to get more into the solar arena. Working out of the Sacramento valley he had easy access to sunshine, smart people and easy trade via the port of San Francisco. It would be so easy to hate them for their easy success. But she knew they'd worked hard for what they had.
Helena had a Bachelor’s in Chemistry but had no desire to work in that field. Instead she’d set up an event planning business, and it had exploded. Both of them made good money, gave back to the community, loved their kids, and made Cass feel wholly like a failure. Even with a PhD, she lived in an apartment, owned nothing (except school loans), and had no social life. But she did love what she did, so she’d have to settle for that.
As she got out of the car, she grabbed her over-night bag and headed up the drive. Before she got there, the door flew open and two kids, honey blond hair, shorts, and t-shirts in neon colors came rushing out.
"Aunt Cass! Aunt Cass! You came to see us?"
She didn’t have time to get a word out before both kids had their arms around her, squeezing tight. It went a long way towards washing the stress of the week off her soul and she dropped her bag wrapping arms around them.
"Yes, I did. I missed you both." She looked up to see Helena leaning in the doorway looking at them a soft smile on her face. Once again Cass was struck with a bit of envy. Where her own hair appeared medium brown, Helena’s had red highlights that washed through it. Cass’s short compact gymnast body had morphed into a petite Venus in Helena, all curves and sweetness. With he addition of the two extra inches Cass so desperately missed sometimes, Helena appeared sweet, generous, loving, and “mom next door” sexy. Granted she was all of those things. She also had an iron will, never forgot a slight, and had a mind that could track people's likes and dislikes without effort. And she loved without restraint.
"Missed you." Helena said as Cass made her way up the sidewalk. The two kids grabbed their aunt's bag and were lugging it in. She pulled Cass into a hug and she sunk into it, welcoming the love, and pushing her secrets down where no one would ever know.
"Me too. So, what tortures do you have in store for me?" The running joke was Helena always trying to get Cass to style her hair, wear make-up and more flattering clothes while Cass never paid enough attention to remember how to do it when she got home.
"None." At Cass’s arch look she laughed. "Really. I’m swamped, Oswald is swamped, and the kids are driving me crazy. So glad summer camp starts next week. Two weeks to get stuff done. You can have anything you want. I have your favorite wine, your room is the same as always, just please go do something with the kids." She pointed to an envelope on the entryway table. "Two hundred cash, plus season tickets to Great America. Just keep them."
Cass started laughing. "Good thing I got here early. Fine, fine. Let me get into some shorts. I'll borrow one of your travel packs and your keys, and we'll be gone."
"Bless you." The words were said with heartfelt reverence and Cass laughed. Thirty minutes later the kids were packed up. Much to their enjoyment they headed to a day of sun, too much sugar, and amusement park rides.
Threats
This week on Dr. Phil: Does being a shifter unlock different parts of your brain? Dr. Phil has three shifters who have all had strange dreams about ships, working in groups with other shifters in weird forms, and a combined feeling it is real. Are they tapping into each other's minds creating these dreams, or are these dreams being implanted by aliens like some believe? Turn into Dr. Phil this week and see his take on this strange turn of events. ~ TV Ad
The weekend restored her spirits and rejuvenated her mind. She left among many hugs and kisses from Troy and Laila and big hugs from Helena and Oswald, but she was ready to go home. As awesome as the kids were, they were a different type of exhausting.
The visit had been great and other than expressing horror about the tragedy about the missing kids, they didn’t talk about shifters at all which made her feel a bit better. But she didn’t mention her ability, still too worried, too raw to even consider it.
Construction caused the drive to be a longer than normal so she listened to music and wondered what else would be on her schedule for tomorrow. Chuck would have something to say about her vacation day but she had lots she rarely used so he wouldn’t say much besides making her feel small. The ringing of the phone surprised her, and she glanced at it. The caller ID displayed unknown, so she declined it and continued driving. The ringing disappeared and no voicemail appeared so she shrugged
Figured, I hate spam phone calls.
A minute later she received a video message from a number that simply it displayed 0101. When she pulled into her driveway, she looked at it, frowning.
No one sent her video messages. Aside from doing video calls with the kids she never used video messaging. Cass saw no need. Beside her social life began and ended with Helena.
Shrugging, she clicked it and it started to play, a figure in a dark room speaking.
"Cassandra Borden. You are not very good at getting clues. When your request was rejected that should have been your first clue. When your supervisor so nicely informed you of reality that should have been your second clue. Instead you published, in not just one but three different journals your findings. Let me make this clear. If you do not retract your articles and claim you falsified the data, you will regret it for what is left of your life. You’ve been warned. I only make one warning and you won't like the consequences if you do not do as I say." With that it went black with the play triangle imposed on top of it.
The speakers voice had been digitized and warbled. It wasn’t until the last bit played out that it registered exactly what the message meant. Her heart froze in her chest and she blinked at it feeling a wave of nausea and dizziness wash over her.
Cass clicked it again and it played again. She just sat there her mouth full of the taste of bile.
"Did I just get a death threat? Over lichen?"
With a hand she fought to not let shake, she set the phone down looking at it like it might explode on her.
Cass forced her mind into order and started to create a plan. "First, call the cops and show them. File and get someone to talk to people at work. The police will help and know how to track this. Then I need to let corporate know. They will not be happy about having their research threatened." She reach
ed for the phone, and then watched in disbelief as the video sitting on her screen, collapsed into pixels and disappeared from her phone, then the message header did the same. The strange similarity to this and the dream had chills running up and down her spine.
Cass grabbed her phone and searched, but there was no evidence that anyone had ever sent her anything and with that gone the cops would never believe her. She sat in her car and just stared at the phone, unsure what to do.
Finally, Cass shook herself, she wouldn't find any answers sitting in the car just staring at the phone. She slipped it into her purse, grabbed her overnight bag and headed to her apartment. Her locked door made her feel better until she unlocked and pushed it open and came to a halt just inside her doorway.
Cass didn't regard herself as OCD, not quite. But she liked having everything just so, it made life easier to know where everything was, and everything in her place was just off. Nothing major, nothing most people would have noticed if she hadn't done a quick clean before she left. And the cologne? She closed her eyes and inhaled, yes there it was, a spicy male cologne, one she didn't remember smelling, and she knew she hadn't had anyone in her apartment for ages.
Huh, so my ability to smell as a human has been enhanced too.
Part of her mourned the fact she didn't have any baselines to do experiments against, but the bigger part of her tried very hard to not freak out at the idea of someone being in her place. Just to be sure she walked through the entire place quietly, and the scent followed everywhere.
Think logically, someone was in here. Why would that happen? Logical, not a conspiracy theory.
She pulled open her phone and called the front office. The property she lived in had a rental office open seven days a week, except holidays.
After identifying herself, she asked the questions. "Hey, I was gone for a few days, do you know if anyone had to come into my place for a maintenance item?"
"Let me check, Ms. Borden." Sound of pages being flipped in the background before the person came back on line. "Nope, nothing dispatched. Is something wrong? Do I need to schedule one?"
"No, just double checking. Thanks." She hung up before any more questions could be asked and stood there biting her lip.
You've eliminated one logical option. Any others?
Helena was the only person with a key and she knew where she'd been for the last few days. There had been no mention of a break in, and her key ring had been what Cass used to drive the car to the amusement park. So that key hadn't been stolen.
That leaves the conspiracy theories and gives credence to the idea that whoever was in here also sent me that video. But what were they looking for here? All my data is also at the lab and secure.
That thought had her eyes narrowing in suspicion. She headed to her computer, looking carefully at her desk. Sure enough, all her stuff had just slightly been moved, including her wolverine journal. With quick keystrokes she pulled up her personal files, everything on the lichen experiments were gone. Deleted. Growling she pushed that to the side as she logged into the work system and pulled up her files.
"Son of a bitch. I don't think–" she cut the words off and sank back in her chair. "I need to think about this." All her data she'd loaded had been removed, and it looked like it was just missing. The odds were if she put it back up Sunday, they would pull it tomorrow. There were ways around this process. Normally she'd have shrugged, sent an email with the data attached and moved on. But in this case that might not suffice.
How badly do I want to push this? What can be so important to make them call and threaten me? I'm pretty sure they searched my apartment, hacked my computer, and removed my files.
Cass stared at the wall, her mind spinning. It wasn’t the data she was worried about. Her computer backed up nightly to a secure cloud storage server that had a Remote Secure Access token to get into. You didn't mess around with experimental data, it could be worth millions sometimes. She also had another secure server that she uploaded her work data to which was also locked under another authenticating token. That one the company also had access to. The application to delay construction was public, so altering that wouldn't have been that hard.
"It's a bloody construction project, dammit. Why should they care about a delay of months to a few years? Lichen is easily transplanted once you identify the environmental concerns. Ah, journal articles. They couldn't get those back. Wonder if I would have noticed they removed the information if not for that message."
She paced around her living room as she thought, but the more she thought the madder she got. Finally, she threw herself back down in her office chair and grabbed her phone.
Bring it assholes. No one messes with my data.
It took her twenty minutes, but she reattached the files. Then she emailed the reviewing committee with the explanation of a technical glitch when attaching files, and here was the documentation if needed for any reason.
She then sent another email to each of the journals she'd submitted to and provided the research. Because the patents were already filed, her Demeter, LTD would make the money on anything that came from her research but the bonuses were nice if anything made big money.
Whatever, the die was cast and she'd stick to her guns. Looking around her house she sighed. It looked clean, but she could feel and smell, the presence of whomever had been in here all over her house. With a frustrated grunt, she started cleaning and removing the trace of who had been there even as the video replayed in the back of her mind.
She tossed and turned that night and would have almost relished one of those strange dreams to distract her from her thoughts. Instead only nightmares about having her journal articles laughed at, trying to stop bulldozers beside some quiet lake, and Chuck throwing pieces of lichen at her occupied her night.
When the alarm went off, she lay there panting and sweat soaked.
"Stupid brain, next time give me spaceships and sci-fi, that at least was interesting."
10
Refuse to Give In
Why do we shift? Not the mechanics of it, that is for scientists. But why as humans, when some of us found this ability, do we love being an animal? What is it about the animal state that we crave? Is it a weakness or a strength? No one knows the answers to anything about being an animal, but my question is - if we are ourselves animals, how can we justify eating animals? Are they not us? ~ Editorial Opinion
Stress, due to wondering if she'd made the right choice about pushing whoever made the threat, followed Cass all the way to work. For the first time ever, pulling up to the lab as the first person there made her worried. She looked at the building with sharper eyes. Seeing the lack of escape routes, the two exits to the building, and the lights in the parking lot that in the winter barely gave you enough light to make your way.
"Stop it. You're being silly. It was some idiot trying to scare you."
And succeeded.
That mental voice, small and sounding too much like her niece Laila made her huff in frustration. She shut her car door, maybe with a bit more force than it needed and headed towards the building, there were experiments waiting for her.
The lab seemed big and empty with shadows in all the corners. In the locker room everything creaked and made sounds she'd never heard. Heading into the lab, her coat, goggles, and hair net on, she didn't put her headphones on wanting to hear when people came in. Cass felt the building slowly come to life. Simon came in and headed to his corner of the lab. Other creaks and sounds made it feel safe and welcoming, but she spent the day with half of her attention on her surroundings, and half on her experiments. It left her exhausted.
At lunch she ordered delivery and sat down in the break room to eat, watching her coworkers. None were friends, but she'd never regarded them as enemies. Well except Chuck, but that was because he was an ass. The other people she knew to smile at but that about covered it. No one looked at her out of the corner of their eyes or seemed to be overly interested in anything except their own
lunch. By nature they were a quiet group, living in their own heads as they struggled with whatever problem they were involved with currently.
So why does anyone care about me? Or more accurately why does anyone care about this project badly enough to want me to pull journal submissions?
The thought still had her furrowing her eyebrows when she went back into the lab and looked at what she had accomplished so far that day. Exactly nothing.
Okay, obviously the lab is not where my mind is today. Let's go do the research that should have occurred to me yesterday.
She cleaned up her space, put everything back, and checked on the lichen, adding a bit of moisture to the environment. Then, once in the locker area, she divested herself of the hairnet and goggles, muttering to herself as she tried to convince her hair to not stick up in every direction. Giving it up for a bad effort, she headed to her computer.
First, she pulled up her application and a sigh escaped as she saw it had been accepted and the attachments checked in. Now they could still deny it, but here at least they admitted they had received her evidence. It might not change their minds, but she'd done what she could.
She performed a quick double check on her journal write ups. The ones she had submitted to were small niche journals. No major researchers read Journal of Fungi or Journal of Plant Interactions but having the write ups added up to a good reputation over time.
And what are you going to do with that reputation?
That question she couldn't answer so she ignored it and looked up the location of the lichen. Finding it wasn't as easy as she thought it would be. She'd never bothered to look for it before and it took her three times reviewing the submission before she realized they'd only provided coordinates.
