Chapter Chapter Four: Welcome to… Santa Cruz!

Imogene could hear the soft gasp that escaped from between her lips as the world she knew shattered, replaced with something entirely new. Most of the parking lot was suddenly above her as she fell through the asphalt and the earth underneath. She looked up to see the surface moving away from her as the wind blew her hair up over her head. She then looked down and she could see the pavement at the feet of her father, her brother and…

“

!” she thought as cracks formed between her feet. A soft light shone through the crack as it slowly started to crumble and disintegrate.

“DADDY!” Gordon yelled as gust of wind blew across the plummeting threesome. Gordon lost his grip and so did Imogene. But Timothy Christian Schultz was not about to lose his children and held fast on to both of them.

“I’ve got you son!” he cried out as father and son locked eyes. There was fear to be found in the brown and blue orbs, but it was minor to the silent they traded. Timothy then looked at his daughter and lost most of his fright.

“Genie!” he whispered, floored at the light that shone around his daughter. A soft pink-purple aura burned around her entire body, giving them enough light to see where they were and where they were going. At the heart of the light was Timothy’s daughter, ignorant of the aura around her body. She was preoccupied with everything going on around them as they continued to fall.

“

?!” she thought, looking in all directions. The look of the ever-deepening pit fell away to stars of various sizes and shapes. Space was still black, but there was so little of it as so many clouds (also of various colors, sizes and shapes) stretched between the stars. Imogene had studied bodies of the cosmos, but she had yet to come across nebulae that gave off their own light. No, these could not be simple clouds in outer space. They were places – places of life – and she could feel the life coming from them. She looked and saw that she and her family had fallen from a particular glowing cloud. “

?”

“To some,” a voice answered Imogene and she frantically looked around to see who was speaking to her. “Do not fret, little one, we will meet again. This is not our time. I simply could not have your inquiry go without response.”

“My inquiry?” Imogene asked.

“What?” Gordon and Timothy asked as they both looked at Imogene.

“You inquired if this was heaven. Perhaps a better answer would be a question. Yes, I believe it is, and with that I pose to you this: It is heaven to some, hell to others… but is it what others consider a place which matters, little Courier, or should you go by your own definitions?”

“I don’t understand,” Imogene replied.

“Tell me about it!” Timothy exclaimed as he looked around. “But just hold on to me, kids, and we’ll be alright.”

“Another time, little one,” the deep, soft voice called out to Imogene and it was only then she realized that her brother and father could not hear it.

They lost their vertical stances as the wind increased and they were suddenly flying. Timothy thought it best to get arms around his children and brought them both close. Gordon was quick to embrace his father. Imogene did not struggle against him, but she did not cling to him either. She looked around as a burst of light came from her body, and the space in front of them responded in an explosion of light of the same color, but of far greater magnitude.

The light expanded in a nearly vertical disc fifty meters in diameter. The center of the disc gave way but the rim was maintained and the three flew through the hoop, entering some sort of a tunnel way. The walls were a soft pink-purple with streaks of multi-colored lights and Imogene shuddered as they flew into it.

“Genie!” Timothy cried out as he looked at his stunned daughter.

“She’s fine, ,” a soft voice called out to Timothy and he looked to his left. It was a reaction that had been hard-wired into his brain and he was powerless against it. Though the wiring had been voluntary, it had been over two years since any power had passed through those circuits. There was power in the grid now and a dead and dying part of Timothy was suddenly alive again. He stuttered and laughed, almost losing his breath before crying out.

“Eleanor!”

“Mom?!” Gordon managed a whisper as he looked upon the only Christmas Wish Santa would never bring; the only miracle he knew could never be his. But there she was. Not a photograph, not a clip from some craptastic camera which would never be fixed due to the last subject it ever recorded.

Eleanor looked at her boys and a soft smile broke across her face; a lone tear fell from her eye. Her love and pride in what they were becoming was obvious and Gordon cried as he reached out for his mother.

“Not much time here, Sport,” Eleanor said softly. “To make it layman, you guys are in a bobsled run and the driver is out.”

Timothy looked at his daughter and sure enough, her eyes were closed and her body was limp.

“Imogene? Imogene!!!” Timothy cried out as he shook his daughter, but Gordon kept his eyes on his mother whose smile brightened.

“Hey, Sport, give it a try for me,” she whispered, winking.

“Genie!” Gordon yelled as he put his hand on Imogene’s shoulder and shook her.

“What?” Imogene said as if she had just awakened from a very long and very deep slumber. She looked around and quickly came to the realization that she was not dreaming. She rubbed her eyes and quickly put away all the voices calling out in her head.

“

,” she thought. “

!

!” she thought as images passed through her mind. Some of them were tranquil, some reminded her of favorite science-fiction movies… and then there were some which took her back to the Movie Macabre, only there would be no commercial break, no ability to grab the remote and make the ugly go away! There was no way she could take her family to a place like that. There would be a time to review all of the facts ‘they’ were putting in her head, but the moment of the present required her full attention.

“You’re coming to a Minor Hub, baby,” Eleanor said as she pointed forward. “You’ll need to make a decision. Now j-”

“Back!” Imogene shouted. “I want to go back! Enough already!”

Eleanor smiled and Timothy had seen the countenance before. It was her smile. Something she had used more than once in the rearing of the children. Not for nothing, but even when Timothy did not agree with his wife, he greatly respected how she could practice what she preached.

Gordon, however, could find no place of equilibrium and fought to get away from his father and reach his mother. He struggled, but Timothy was too strong.

The tunnel fed into a large orb of light. All three could see the vast number of tunnels that led from the gigantic sphere. But as they entered, they quickly looped around an invisible pole and sped back the way they had come. Eleanor did not follow them. She remained at the center of the sphere and waved goodbye. She faded from sight before they were too far away. Timothy quickly batted his eyes to clear them of tears, but Gordon screamed and continued the fight to get free of his father’s iron grip.

Imogene could hear her brother and she closed her eyes as his pain cut into her heart. There would be no chance of reasoning with him, no way she would be able to tell him what she had seen and what she now knew of the place they were bound to reach, had she not turned them to go back.

“

?” she thought. “

!”

As they traveled back down away from the Minor Hub, Imogene could feel eyes looking at her. There were too many to count and far too faint to separate into individuals.

“

,” he thought as he sat in his rocking chair, his aqua-green eyes cast upon the starry sky. “

.” He lifted his pipe to his mouth and lit the bowl. “

.” He pushed back in his chair and relaxed. There was much to be done, but there would be some measure of time yet. Besides, haste was all too often a waste of material and now, more than ever, the moves he had to make demanded foresight and precision.

“Sacred pages!” he said softly between deep puffs of smoke.

She continued to look back, back to the place she had just denied herself from seeing, and it was curious, the feeling of remorse building up inside her mind. The eyes watching her fell away, pair by pair, until they were all gone. A few of the pairs carried feelings with them. Most were curious, but within a few deeper glares there was hope, fear, anxiousness and even relief. What she felt next caused her knees to buckle and she fell to the pavement and rolled.

“Pavement,” she whispered as she looked down at the asphalt. They were back in the parking lot and it was completely unchanged. Imogene looked up to see her brother and father also rolling from their impacts, but it looked like they had hit harder on the ground. Gordon actually managed to bounce, but he maintained the control of his body and simply flipped in mid-air and landed on his feet before stumbling a few more steps.

The grunts she heard behind her let Imogene know her father’s landing had not gone as well. She was lying in the middle of the parking lot and she looked down past her feet and she could see her father rolling into his jeep, some ten meters away. The jeep was already rocking before Timothy collided with it. In fact, there was dust blowing in all directions away from her. Trees were leaning and the leaves on them were shaking. As she looked around, she could see the effect was quickly weakening and she got up and ran over to her father who was slow in getting up.

“Daddy!” she cried as she reached him. He held up his hand and waved as he groaned in pain. Timothy had always liked his jeep; it was a very sturdy and dependable means of transport. But suddenly, Timothy did not appreciate how well his vehicle had been built, especially the wheels!

“I’m okay, I’m okay,” he said softly, still waving only his right hand. Imogene started to touch him and feeling this, Timothy waved her off. “No, no!” he begged. “Not just yet! Let Daddy just lie here a moment, baby. Daddy needs to make sure his spleen stays in his body.”

Imogene grunted in pain as Gordon’s shoulder was driven into her side. They both fell to the ground and rolled, but Imogene was in too much pain to consider how to keep her brother from coming out on top of her.

“Why?!” Gordon screamed as he punched his sister in the face. Going into the tunnel leading to the Minor Hub had a lesser impact. “Why’d you do that?!” he cried out as he continued to pummel Imogene. He was not thinking of making his attacks clean, so only the first blow landed flush against Imogene’s face, but what Gordon lacked in technique he made up for with power. Imogene’s face, shoulder, chest and stomach were all in pain before Timothy could get to his son and pull him off his daughter.

“I hate you!” Gordon screamed at the top of his voice. Timothy had a hold of both of his hands and was easily lifting him. But Gordon still managed to stomp down on Imogene’s stomach. She curled up in a tight ball and rolled over on her side as she coughed and cried.

“What’d you do that for?!” Gordon yelled at the top of his voice. He was enraged, more than he thought he could be, even at his big sister. “Do you know where we were? Do you know where we were going? Why’d you bring us back?”

“Gordon!” Timothy snapped as he shook his son. “Gordon, stop it!”

“We were with Mom!” Gordon wailed. “She was right there! You see her all the time, but I don’t and you took her away!”

“We don’t know if that was your mother, son,” Timothy said, not believing his own words. It had been more than a simple look or image. There was a feel to what he saw, a very familiar feeling.

“Yes we do!” Gordon argued. “Yes we do!” Gordon was still trying to get back to his sister and heap more damage upon her body. Timothy had been given ample time to get a hold of his son’s shoulders and he lifted him off the ground and shook him again.

“You will not hit your sister again, young man!” Timothy barked in a voice he had not used in over two years. “Is that what your mother taught you?! Is that she taught you? Now you get yourself together pronto, mister, because I’m outta words here!” Timothy dropped Gordon to his feet and pointed at the jeep. “Go and sit!”

Gordon was still enraged and feeling so much pain that hysterics seemed to be the only option available to him. But there was a major obstacle standing in the middle of the path and that obstacle was ‘outta words’, which was never a good sign. Not even Eleanor continued a discussion after Timothy had been driven to that point. With a great huff and sigh, Gordon turned and walked toward the jeep. Timothy quickly turned to his daughter who was still on the ground.

“Baby?” Timothy called out softly to her as he put his hands on her. Imogene pulled away as she bawled. She was in pain, but Timothy could not tell which was worse, the wounds of her body or the deep one in her heart.

“Just leave me alone,” Imogene wept.

“No can do,” Timothy said as he picked her up. “Fight if you want, you’ll just look silly.” Imogene curled up in his arms and cried harder.

Timothy took a circular path back to the jeep. His daughter was not too heavy and the children needed some time. By the time he put her in the back of the jeep, Gordon sat in the front passenger seat with his head down and his arms crossed. Hardly a position of diplomatic inroads, but at least there was a cease fire.

“I’ve got to get my things,” Timothy announced before looking once again at his children. “If you can’t talk to each other then sit here in stillness and silence. But we’ve had enough of the flying hands and feet for tonight!” Timothy turned and started picking up the blown papers and his bag.

“You’re just scared!” Gordon said softly. “You’re always scared! It was the same when you were learning how to surf. You didn’t really try until I started.”

“

,” Imogene thought instinctively.

“…

,” she considered. “

.”

“Gordon?” Imogene choked as she spoke, but her little brother did not respond. Imogene looked away as tears continued to run down her face.

After a while, Timothy stowed his things in the back seat and got in behind the wheel. He looked at his kids and decided he had to address things before starting the car.

“Something incredible happened tonight, and since people seldom have the same hallucination, we can’t just put this to someone slipping us a ruffie and callin’ it a day. We all saw the same thing and we need to talk about that.

“And I don’t mean the last few moments of the trip,” Timothy was quick to add, glaring at Gordon.

“Nothing’s been right ever since we got into the fight at the park,” Gordon reported.

“Fight?!”

“Three on one,” Gordon answered. “They were all Genie’s size or bigger. She took care of two while I dealt with the one that was making the trouble. We took it to them before we cut and run.”

“

!” Timothy thought.

“Then there were more of them and they were all chasing us. Genie ran into some strange man and she came up holding diamonds and a head wound.”

“Head wound?!”

“Bull’s-eye, Sport,” Imogene whispered and for a moment Gordon shrank down in his seat over his faux pas. But he was quick to remind himself that he was mad at his sister and this was only the beginning of her comeuppance.

“Are you okay?” Timothy asked.

“It’s just a small cut, Dad,” she answered.

“You mean a cut to your !” he said as he quickly started the engine. “We’ve got to get that looked at!”

“Dad, it doesn’t even hurt anymore,” Imogene replied.

“It’s a head wound, you don’t play with those!” Timothy’s voice came back at her stronger and louder. It was an uncommon tone, but not a new one. She knew it meant she could say all she wanted to say, but the conversation was over. The trip to the hospital was silent save for the CD player which played Vivaldi. “After that, we can talk about this strange man and the diamonds!”

“Mom?” Imogene whispered, hoping that she could initiate their conversation. But only the evening breeze seemed to answer her. “Our Sport is right, Mom, I’m scared!” She touched her forehead and her wound was still bleeding, though not as badly as before. “I was scared long before I got this cut on my head.”

The helicopter ride was anything but fun or smooth. The local authorities had been alerted to their presence; apparently the United States Air Force was not as reliable as they wanted everyone to believe. The AWAC plane that had been jamming Bolivian radar all of a sudden pulled away and left Samantha Vey, and her three teams, without cover. Still, her second chopper was able to pick up the robot, though the machine was late to the rendezvous point.

“

,” she thought. She sat in her seat, waiting for the report that what passed for the Bolivian Air Force had found them and was demanding that they land. That would have been the ultimate icing to the failure cake that was being stuffed down her throat.

“All aircraft are reporting stealth flight,” Brewer advised. “We’ve got mufflers engaged and all running lights are off. Pilots are using their night-vision and we are holding at an altitude of two hundred feet.

“Echo Two is a go, sir,” Brewer said to Makeen, giving the large, dark man the thumbs up and a smile. Her security chief nodded and returned his attention to the foliage his sharp eyes could see even in the darkness.

“Echo Two?” Samantha asked.

“A precaution,” Makeen replied as he turned to face his employer. “We have been surprised by McEmbree too many times to not have a fallback escape strategy.

“Echo Two,” Makeen explained as he leaned closer to Samantha, “… was designed to draw the attention of any military forces, should we be detected. You used military contacts before to mask the entry of your teams. It was reasonable for McEmbree to presume you would do so again. I believe the AWAC was recalled, perhaps by a false command.”

“He hacked the Air Force,” Samantha concluded.

“Not an impossible feat, given his history.”

“So you set up a diversion.”

“North of Santa Cruz,” Makeen said. “It should give us ample time to land the helicopters, break them down and load everyone and everything on the Starlifter at Vallegrande.”

“I don’t pay you enough,” Samantha smiled, pleased that something had gone her way. Even if it was her escape, there was at least some part of tonight that looked like Optimum Horizons knew what it was doing.

“On the contrary,” Makeen asserted. “I failed to net you your prize. We did not get the Shard, and McEmbree is still a free man.

“But do not take tonight as a total loss, Ms. Vey. We will need to review the recordings of the robot and see what we can gain from the information. Seth has proven himself to be a respectable adversary, but even he was not ready for us tonight.”

“What he wasn’t ready for was losing the Shard,” Brewer added.

“WHAT?!?” Samantha and Makeen said together.

“When McEmbree engaged the robot,” Avery Brewer explained while using a monitor with a map of Santa Cruz on it. “We picked up energy readings that displayed the Shard signature, but they were moving west.”

“Are you certain of the readings?” Samantha asked as she looked at the map.

“I ran diagnostics on both the energy readings and the time stamps. Every reading has been verified and confirmed.”

“McEmbree lost the Shard,” Samantha said with a degree of delight. Apparently it had been a bad evening for more than just herself, and now Seth could at least share a degree of her pain.

“By my fathers… curse me for a fool!” Makeen huffed as he quickly pulled out his Smartphone.

“What is it, Makeen?” Samantha asked. “One would think this news would put a smile on that stone face of yours.”

“If McEmbree doesn’t have the Shard, we don’t have McEmbree!” But Samantha’s happiness was too great for the revelation to take any wind out of her sails. She smiled as she looked at the map. McEmbree lost the Shard! He had at last failed at doing something, provided what happened tonight had not been an arranged hand-off.

“Holy cow!” Avery yelled out as he typed commands into his keyboard. “We got a ! I’m sending a probe.” The helicopter was landing before Brewer got any readings and Makeen had to insist on Samantha leaving the aircraft in order to get on board the large carrier plane. She moved quickly, but she stayed near Brewer as he walked. She kept her eyes on the monitor of Avery’s portable computer. The small, unmanned probe was nearly at its top speed when Avery sent it commands to slow down and make preparations to go into hover mode. Samantha was now very glad she had kept some of her best weapons designs reserved for personal use.

Taking a seat beside Avery, Samantha’s brown eyes flared when she saw the confirmation of a . It had been so long since she had seen one, and she was surprised to see it was horizontal. That was very uncommon, as the access to the transit tubes was always the most difficult thing to attain.

“Confirmed!” Avery reported as he typed in another command to the probe. “It is a and…”

“And what?

“Kibbles and bits!” Avery panted as he shook his head, half in denial and half trying to verify each component of data he was receiving. “This is the biggest energy signature I’ve ever seen! It’s almost off the scale!”

Samantha grabbed the computer, snatching it away from Brewer. She quickly accessed the Shard Database, bringing up all the data she had been able to have recorded. Her second attempt at making a had been, by far, her best experience with it. It was vertical and the radius was almost two and a half meters. Though the science for reading was hardly exact, it gave a differential of plus or minus half a meter. The one that the probe was reading was eight minutes old, had a radius of fifteen meters and…

“There are two signatures!” Samantha whispered. “Someone made a and then turned right around and came back?!

“It was a test,” she declared. “Someone was testing the Shard! Makeen, see if we can get any satellite coverage for the last ten minutes. I want to know what went into and left from that area.”

“Getting that information might prove to be… problematic,” Makeen replied, holding up his Smartphone. There was a picture of Hiram Seaver which morphed into Seth McEmbree before it said, “You forgot to say Simon sez.”

“He tapped into our mobile network, Ms. Vey,” Makeen admitted. “And from what I am able to read, he is forwarding to the Pentagon, in your name, the very parcel of information you just requested. He has added instructions that whatever data is sent be wiped from the database.”

With as gentle a touch as he could manage, Avery Brewer reclaimed his computer. He had just taken hold of it when Samantha stood up, making a gesture to throw it to the ground. Avery’s hold was true and prevented the destruction of his equipment.

“And just how did he manage that?!” she yelled.

“I’m picking up a transmission,” Avery said as he looked at his screen and turned to face the rear of the plane. “It’s coming from over there and going to Santa Cruz.”

“No!” Samantha exclaimed softly as she moved quickly to the rear of the plane. “No, no, no, NOOOO!” she yelled as she opened the casing around the robot. Stuck to the chest of the machine was the device that had fried its primary power source. She did not know how it operated, but she recognized the look of it. It was Negatroxian and it was called a Binder. It had nothing to do with any office supply, but rather a small circular device that would sprout tendrils out along the edge of each of the main compass points. Once attached to its target, it was designed to deliver its package. This one was obviously set to deliver an electromagnetic pulse which shorted out most of the systems of the robot. This Binder was also equipped with a listening device. McEmbree had been listening to everything that had been said around the robot. But he had not heard Samantha until both she and the robot were put on the plane.

Samantha Vey screamed. She did not need to confirm it, but there was no sense in sending a team to kill Hiram Seaver if he was not involved in the events of the evening. She took out her phone and typed in the commands to locate Hiram. His GPS placed him in Australia, near the city of Sydney. Her phone rang and identified the caller as Hiram Seaver. Before answering the call, she verified if Hiram was using his phone.

“What do you think?” came across the screen of her phone. That phone was quickly destroyed which led to another series of Samantha’s screams. She stopped before Makeen reached her, and looked at Avery.

“Shut down the network!” she commanded as she took a different seat. “And get this heap off the ground!”

“Well played, McEmbree,” Makeen said as he removed the listening device. “But I am coming for you, my friend, and we shall see just how well you know me after all.

“Permission to disembark, Ms. Vey!” Makeen said in a loud, crisp voice. While she was getting angrier and angrier, Makeen was, as always, plotting and planning. Avery had tracked the Binder transmission and it was in Santa Cruz. Seth was close by!

“Come back with McEmbree or don’t come back at all,” Vey replied as she closed her eyes. Makeen stepped off the plane with the device in hand. As soon as he was clear, the plane started moving down the runway. Makeen walked toward the small tower where he knew he could find civilian clothes.

“I know you can hear me, Seth,” he said softly as he spoke, still holding the device as if it were a precious gem. “And you can hear the plane taking off. So this is no ruse, no trick. My life is on the line and the only way to save it is to either end yours or bring you back to Vey. I do not intend to die, Seth!” Afzal Makeen Shamir crushed the device and threw it to the ground.

“Well, that makes two of us, Makeen,” Seth said as he lowered his headphones from over his ears. He was getting the information the Pentagon thought Samantha Vey was requesting. They also confirmed they were deleting the files per her request, but expected to be compensated some time in the near future. Looking at the pictures, Seth saw the .

“My, aren’t you a powerful little thing!” he said as he started to save the files to his hard drive. “And here I was hoping for a chance to get to know you. But I’ve got to see to it that Samantha Vey stays as far away from you as possible.

“Still can’t wrap my head around the gratitude from the Shard!” he whispered.

“

!” Seth thought as he looked through his binoculars. Makeen had already changed into more appropriate clothing, but it was his face that drew Seth’s attention. He looked like a zombie. He was lifeless; with only one objective to which he was deeply dedicated.

“But all that has got to wait while I deal with my own personal bloodhound.” Makeen stopped walking and looked up, as if he could see McEmbree in the midst of the foliage and topography. Seth jumped and dropped the binoculars. He picked them up, but did not bother to look again. The last thing he needed was the fear that looking at Makeen often generated. He had to remain calm and alert. He grabbed his belongings and loaded up his 4x4. He would ride right by Makeen, give or take a few meters, and plunge into the heart of the Amazon Jungle. His GPS was functional and he had more than enough fuel to make his next fuel stop. If he carried out his plan, he may have found the means to weaken Samantha Vey even further.

“

,” he thought as he engaged his muffled motor and lowered his night-vision goggles. “

.

!”

The doctors had done their best, which to Imogene meant they had done their worst, but by the time they arrived at the hospital, there was no sign that Imogene had even been injured except for the condition of her clothes. They ran all sorts of tests and Imogene pleaded with her eyes for her father to get her out of this awful place. The only thing that Timothy would see would be the doctors…

they were done testing everything from her head to her toenails.

“That was pleasant,” she said as they walked out of the hospital.

“I guess the punishment fits the crime,” Gordon said bitterly.

“Gordon!” Timothy snapped. The young boy simply kept walking until he climbed into the passenger seat of the jeep.

“I’ve had enough of that attitude, young man,” Timothy said as he reached the car.

“It’s okay, Dad,” Imogene said softly, barely containing the tears brought on by Gordon’s statement. It had taken some time, and a few lessons from her mother, for Imogene to build up the barriers around her heart that those who dared to be different often needed. Trouble was they were never set to guard against her Sport. She took her place in the back seat and Timothy decided not to press anything. He hoped that the only thing they all needed was a little time.

“

,” she thought. “

!

!” Imogene looked around, expecting to see someone looking at her, but she saw nothing and the jeep pulled away in the next moment.

The drive home was, as expected, very quiet, and Gordon was out of the car before it had come to a complete stop.

“I’m not hungry. Goodnight!” Gordon said as he slammed the front door of the house behind himself.

“He’s definitely in a chippy mood,” Imogene said.

“What do you expect?” Timothy found himself saying without realizing the words were escaping from his lips. Imogene looked at her father and he knew he had hurt her. “Genie, I-”

“Don’t bother saying it,” Imogene cried. “It would just be a lie. You hate me too!”

“Neither of us hate you!” Timothy yelled, again surprising himself. “But if you thought we would come through something like that without a few scars, you’re fooling yourself. But we don’t hate you!” Tim added. “We hate the situation and the feelings surrounding it.

“You know… honey… it’s just like the time you lost your first soccer game by shootout.”

“You really think this is the ideal time to bring that up?” Imogene snapped.

“Yes!” Timothy fired back.

“Why?!”

“Because you swore you hated Sharon!” Timothy huffed as he began to pace. “If it hadn’t been for her mistake, she would have not made that to tie the score in the first place. You didn’t really hate Sharon.”

“I can remember not liking her much, either,” Imogene pointed out.

“Well, right now, me and your brother don’t much like what you did!” Timothy explained. “But if you think that I would hesitate to do anything for you,” Timothy said as he walked over to his daughter, taking hold of her face. “And I mean anything, you’re sun-fried! This family is still dealing with the fact that your mother isn’t with us anymore and, POW, there she is, as big as life. Just as beautiful as-”

Timothy pulled Imogene close and even though she was still crying, she did not fight him, putting her face in her father’s chest. “It just really hurt, Genie. That’s all. And you’ve got to understand that you did not hurt us because you didn’t take your mother away.”

“It really looked like I did, Dad.”

“No,” he argued, putting his eyes in hers. “Your mother, my wife, died two years ago and it had nothing to do with you. It was something that none of us could control.” Timothy chuckled. “Not that your mother believed too much in trying to control anything.”

“Can’t control the wave,” Imogene smiled. “The best you can hope for is to ride it.”

“And this is a wave we all have to ride in our own way,” Timothy said softly. “And for me and your brother, we’ve got some things messing with our minds and that’s gotta be cleared up before we paddle out there.

“This does not mean you are standing in the clear, though, young lady. Something’s going on and it’s so outside the box that ‘weird’ only describes the symptoms!”

“Nothing about today makes sense,” Imogene agreed, remembering her dream from the morning. “You might want to sit down though. It’s not a long story, but it hits pretty deep.

“It started this morning with a dream. Or at least I think it was a dream. I was at the beach with Mom and-”

“By the way, flush those meds!” Timothy interrupted. “The problem is not with you, baby, that much I know.” Imogene smiled at her father as her head tilted to one side.

“Thanks, Daddy.”

“Okay,” Timothy waved off the good tidings and got back to business. “Cut the smiles, get back to it.”

Imogene took in a deep breath and started with the fight and took her father through each event, even the voice she had heard as they fell through the . When Timothy asked why she called it that, she told her father the path which led to the Minor Hub had come with a download of information.

She spent nearly an hour talking about the images she had seen, saving the most horrifying for last. To his credit, Timothy held his questions. He was a man of exact science, vetted formulae, precise measurements and a very predictable outcome to his efforts. Nothing that came out of his daughter’s mouth rang true to what he wanted to hear, but at the base of his confusion and growing concern was a simple truth: “I don’t know and there is little chance Genie knows either. Asking her questions she cannot answer will only make things worse.”

“Helluva day, huh?” Imogene asked, announcing she was done with her recollection of events.

“Well, tomorrow is not going to get too much better,” Tim said as he put his hands on his hips. He had been thinking on what to do the entire drive home from the hospital and even more during the tale he had just received. He came up with a lot of questions but only one answer: Timothy Schultz, get your children away from Bolivia! He had been trying to argue against that plan, but he was not gaining any ground of a reasonable argument. “You’ll need to pack, baby. I’ll get Gordon packed up.”

“What about you?”

“I still have a job to do,” Timothy answered. “I can spend some time away from here if I leave Miguel in charge, but that will only be the time it will take to get you guys back to the States. I’ll call your uncle and see how he’s set to look after you two while I wrap things up down here.”

“Uncle Frank?!” Imogene shrieked.

“What?” Timothy asked. “You two love your Uncle Frank!”

“We loved him when we were kids, Dad,” Imogene stated. “We loved him when… Anyway, I’m old enough to look after Gordon and me.”

“With the way he’s acting right now? Not to mention tonight’s events… not on your life. Discussion’s over. Get packed and get to bed. We’re jumping on the first plane out of here in the morning.”

Imogene walked to her room and started packing as she heard her father browsing on the computer, making flight arrangements. She looked at the door that separated her room from Gordon’s and she made several approaches, but she never reached the knob, let alone chanced opening it and making herself a target for his latest barrage of verbal daggers.

“Goodnight, Sport,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”