Chapter 4

"Welcome back, Hero Willy. I am glad to see you made the decision to become a Hero." Jasmine smiled after she said that.

"It took some doing for John and Beth to make it clear that I needed to do this."

"That is good of them. I am certain you will be a great Hero. Now if you will call to your Caretaker, I will be leaving."

"I don't think I am ready to do that yet." I stopped and looked at her; her beauty was breathtaking now that I wasn't concerned about being challenged by her.

"Do you need my help in selecting her or were the candidates I gave you not acceptable?"

"No, I have almost made a choice, but you see John told me of his greatest last wish, the one he could never give you."

"I am afraid the Powers that Be have worked out a way to block that from happening," There was a sad look on her face.

"So if you could, would you want to?"

"Why do you ask what cannot be?" She was near tears.

"That is not an answer to the question I asked."

"Yes, I would want a child of my own with a Hero. However, I told you the Powers that Be have stopped it from happening."

"Do you believe that John is a resourceful Hero, and that he knows ways to push past the Powers that Be rules?"

"Oh, I know of his stories of what he has done. I have been on missions because of his ability. But the portals are changed, and they have halted the ability to have a caretaker who has served another Hero get pregnant or return to Earth with him."

"If you could do something that might change that would you?"

"You know something, and I am not happy with all of these questions. What did John think he could do to change this?" She was finally putting her foot down, letting some anger flair in contrast to the frustration that she had shown when I was here last.

"Get in the healing chamber," I said.

"Why should I do that?"

"John said to try it. I don't know why but that is what he wanted you to do."

"I don't understand, but if John thought this would work then I will do it. I know and trust him. But please, if this is a joke or some way to get back at me for the way I treated you before..." she was near tears again.

"I never joke about Life-and-Death," I said as she got into the chamber.

John had not told me why he wanted Jasmine to do that but just that he did. I didn't know anything more than she did, but I had come to trust John and Beth and it was obvious that Jasmine trusted John. So in she went and when she came out, I took her to the bedroom.

We started off slow and tender, learning our way around each other's bodies. It didn't stay that way for long as we both cried out in release. I lay back panting, waiting for nature to take its course when she summoned for and then handed me a vial.

"Drink this." Since she had done as I requested on just my word, I didn't question her and drank it right down.

I was hard again when I put the vial back in her hand, and we were back at each other's bodies. It had been a long time since I had enjoyed a woman and Jasmine was a woman and more. She turned me every which way she could think of, and had the strength and agility to meet me at every turn. The term wildcat was made for her, and she was that and more.

"Those are restoratives and they will keep working until your body is near the point of death. Then I will put you in the healing chamber, and we will start again."

And we did that for hours upon hours it seemed. We were in a bedroom and there was no clock to tell me the time. It was simply us, sharing all we had with each other until the restoratives wouldn't work any longer. Finally, she put me to bed and just let me sleep. I have no idea how long I slept but when I woke up, she was sitting next to me on the bed.

"You are quite the Hero, Willy."

"I try to be, Jasmine Caretaker."

"Why did John think that being in the healing chamber would cause a change?" She asked.

"I don't know, he didn't say, and seemed to think it was particularly funny that he might have found a way around the Powers that Be's rules one last time."

"That is indeed Hero John. And he wanted you to do this for me?"

"He wanted to do it himself but knew that he couldn't. Beth says she is getting selfish and wants to keep him all to herself."

"How is Beth Caretaker? Hero John would never speak of her to me or of the life they had made there."

"She is well and they have a happy life with many generations of family. She did not want him just showing up dead at his portal one day if he failed on a mission."

"With so much at risk with their life there, I can understand it."

Then she gave me a serious look, "Who waits for you when you return?"

"No one, it is a long story."

"I am here until you call for your Caretaker. So we have the time."

"I would rather spend the time loving you now instead."

It wasn't the heated lust-filled battle we had previously; these were expressions of love that a man and woman shared. I remembered them from when I was first married. In someways, it was a painful memory. In others, that I could share this again when I was so angry with the ex, it was amazing.

We spent hours just being together. It was spent now with restoratives, showers, food, the healing chamber, and more loving. Oh, we had our frenzied moments but there were fewer now. I would make her get into the healing chamber after I had been. John thought she needed to be there as much as I did.

Hours had to turn into days and days into weeks, but we just loved on each other. We took time to talk about our lives some of the time. She was horrified that a man would have done that to me, let alone my brother; and how my parents had enabled him to do it.

She spoke of her home, and what she had done before she was chosen by John. How she would return there when she went back. We spoke of what she would do to keep John's secret safe from the Powers that Be if this worked. And then we loved on each other.

I had no idea how long we had been together, but I was sitting down to eat breakfast when she came out all smiles and looked at me.

"What?" I asked.

"If I tell you I will disappear, but Hero John's idea worked. You need to call your Caretaker, so I can meet her before I leave."

"I call Tammy Caretaker," and she came walking out of the door. But it was not the Tammy from the picture I had seen in the profile. This was Jamie in all of her beauty. There, in a shining green gown that looked to be fitted to her body. I held my mouth open as she walked to me.

Jasmine walked to Jamie and hugged her. "Take good care of Hero Willy, I am pregnant." And she was gone.

"Would you make love to me my Hero?"

"Who are you?"

"I am Tammy."

"Not from the picture I saw you aren't."

"Oh, that picture," and she changed into the picture of Tammy I had seen.

"What the hell is that?"

"What? You wanted Tammy and now I am her."

"But you were just Jamie," and she looked like Jamie again then.

"Stop that, tell me what the hell is going on. How can you look like Tammy and Jamie?"

She changed into Rachel then. "I have what you could think of as the abilities of a chameleon from Earth."

"I don't understand. The rules say that you have to be a woman from Cassandra."

"I am," she said with a smile and then changed into Tammy again.

"Cut that out and stay as one person until we straighten this out." I was on my feet walking towards her now.

"Okay, I will stay with this look," She smiled at me.

"You are going to answer my questions!" I walked closer to her; my body dwarfed hers. "So you're a woman from Cassandra?"

"Yes, I am."

"But you can change to look like other women?"

"Yes, I can."

"How?"

"How do I change or why can I do it?"

"Why can you do it?"

"This is Crossroads, right?" She asked.

"Yes, it is."

"Well the Powers that Be do not have only one game going, with only one world or people."

"I don't understand."

"My mother is from Cassandra. My father, whom I have never met, is from a world with a name that you could not pronounce. The men there have an ability that they are born with to do this. Not all, but some of them. And he passed that ability on to me when he and my mother were together."

"So you're a woman from Cassandra with a father who gave this ability to you at conception?"

"Yes," she smiled again and changed into Jamie.

"I said stop that. It's hard enough to keep this straight without you changing like that."

"Yes, my Hero."

"How is it you were the only choice in the profiles?"

"I heard you were chosen by Hero John to carry on in his stead. So I worked my way into being able to place all of my profiles in front of you."

"Worked your way?"

"Hero John is not the only one who has ever played in the gray areas of the rules. And I have an ability to help me with that," she smiled and licked her lips.

"I do not understand why you would want to be my Caretaker rather than a Damsel then?"

"One time with you or years upon years spent loving you, it is not that hard of a choice."

"What about your desire for a child with a Hero?"

"I think Jasmine answered that question."

"So you can manipulate your appearance. I chose Tammy for specific reasons. So the question is, was anything accurate in what you wrote?" I asked.

"All of it, there was no need to lie. Jamie, Rachel, and Tammy are different people in apperance. Who and what they are is accurate, including the education and interests."

"How can you be all of those people with their different interests and education?"

"My father's people age even slower than those of my mother's race. So I have had time to work on all of those degrees and interests."

"It seems that you didn't work on much with Tammy's."

"What is it that made you feel she was the one who would help you the most?" She changed into Tammy.

"You read my profile; you know that I am a trained professional on Earth, trained in the ways of war and death. What Jamie and Rachel offered was helpful, but Tammy understood survival. I needed a Caretaker who would help me survive in a world I knew nothing of."

"But she knew nothing of Chaos."

"I was certain that she would learn that as I learned the ways she survived."

"But those skills were not about surviving on Chaos."

"Survival is survival no matter the place. And I assumed that she had been well screened to allow her profile to be in my hands. It made an ass out of u and me again."

"What made an ass out of you and me?"

"I assumed something that I did not know and the word assume can be broken down into ass, u, and me. It's an old saying."

"I see," she said. "My Hero, you got more in the bargain than you asked for." I got another little smile.

I heard what she said but had reached a point where it was all too much. "Why is it so difficult all the time? All I want is a constant set of rules. My life on Earth is broken. John has manipulated them here, making me a party to that, and now the person whom I have to trust with my life has also. This was to be an escape from all of that, and now it is just as FUBAR as the rest of my life." I went over and dropped back on the couch.

Tammy came over and sat next to me. "I am sorry my Hero. I never meant to cause you pain. If you do not want me to stay because of what I have done, we will find a way to change this," she spoke with a deep emotion in her voice. Her body trembled as she sat there.

I pulled her close to me. "What is the matter Tammy?"

"My mother named me Janice. I don't use that name or image," She looked at me, and I saw that broken feeling that I felt in her eyes. I don't know how but I did.

"Show her to me, Janice Caretaker."

Janice stood up and dropped her gown, and then she slowly changed into a woman who was not the great beauty I had understood the women of Cassandra to be. Everything was not perfect about her. Her face was not perfect, her nose too large for it, a body that was pudgy. One breast was larger than the other, and she carried a mop of hair that could not or would not be tamed.

I pulled her close to me, "You're lovely Janice."

"But, I look hideous. Almost all my life I have hidden this from the view of others."

"I do not see hideous." I kissed her.

"But you're a Hero and you deserve the best that Cassandra has to offer."

"Is there anyone who can help me more than you?"

"There are others as smart or smarter and much more beautiful."

"Would they risk showing me the side of them that is not beautiful?" I looked into her eyes.

"I don't know," She was shaking again and near tears.

"Would you make love with me my Caretaker?"

"Why do you want me?" She bit her lower lip.

"Because you feel broken and not worthy of love, and I have felt that same way for a very long time now."

"But you are a Hero."

"I am your Hero. And I want to make love to you."

"Why?" It was obvious that she had issues, having lived on Cassandra so long behind her masks.

"Because your love will make me the Hero I need to be on Chaos. Without it, I will just be a shell of the Hero I could be."

"But look at me." She had the tears streaming down her face.

"Yes, you're a mess. Everything isn't perfect and you let me see that. Everything won't be perfect on Earth or on Chaos. But I expect you to be perfect when I am with you on Crossroads."

"I don't understand."

"Finally, someone else is as lost as I am about all of this," I laughed.

Janice sat back and used her small hands to pound on my chest. "Stop that, it's not funny that I don't understand."

I tried to stop laughing, but it was difficult. "I have said 'I don't understand' more times that I care to count for so long now. To finally have someone else not understand; well, it's just funny."

She laughed with me then. "We're not exactly the best Hero and Caretaker material then are we?"

I showed her my war face. "When we have a mission I will be hell on wheels, and you will have provided me with the best Intel to complete that mission." Her eyes grew wide as she listened to what I said and stared at me, mouth open.

Then I relaxed and pulled her back to me holding her tightly. "Until then, you will love me like a Caretaker is supposed to love her Hero, and I will love you just as much. Both of us will be imperfect in all of that but loving each other, nonetheless."

"You don't care how I look?"

"You're beautiful to me, warts and all." I laughed from the diaphragm as she pounded on my back.

"I don't have any warts."

"That will take a complete inspection on my part to determine. Now my Caretaker, I want you like I have wanted no other woman, and you are going to take care of me." I got up and lifted her up and took her back to the bedroom.

She was an imp in that bed, driving me as crazy as I drove her. She would rotate from Janice to Jamie to Tammy to Rachel at various times. She would laugh as I got confused and angry, but she wouldn't let go of me.

If I thought Jasmine was a wildcat, I never knew what one was until Janice. She had that person inside who had only been accepted by her mother, begrudgingly. And when she found out that her daughter had the power to change how she looked, she had her do that. Her life had been hidden behind those three personas for so many years.

We all have those others within us that come out. I kept my Warrior hidden from others. I had been keeping the hurting man hidden. We both understood brave fronts. It wouldn't make us perfect, but it would let us be honest with each other and I could trust honest to help keep me alive.

I would have liked for it to be all about the loving and the passion, but there was a mission, and I needed to bring the knowledge she had acquired into my mind if I were to survive.

We had our differences, and the words we exchanged about them were not always pleasant. She decided she would not tell me anything about any Damsels until I understood and agreed to the fact that if it came down to the Damsel or me dying, she was expendable before I was.

That was a hard pill to choke down, and it likely added days to the time it took for her to begin to tell me about the Damsels. She was right, there was only one of me and there would always be Damsels. But my ego had a hard time sacrificing innocents to preserve my hide.

We came to a simply agreement. Kill everyone and anyone who posed a threat to either the Damsel or me. Now that was something I could understand. Kill them all and let the Powers that Be sort them out.

It wouldn't be pretty but it would be very effective. Of course I usually killed with single shots from either the M21 or M14 sniper rifles, or triple taps from the HK MSG3 if I was not the sniper for the mission. So there would be some changes in the methods but not the results.

"Are you ever going to finally tell me about the mission? The Damsel could be dying while you're here pouting because you need a promise from me," I said.

"Are you going to lie down on the floor and kick and scream too?" She snapped back.

"I thought you were worried about the health and well-being of the Damsel."

"Do you think I want to drag your dead corpse from one portal to the other and push it back for Hero John to see?"

"So it's all about you?"

"No, you idiot; it is all about you. I know the warrior in you will not leave a fallen one on the battlefield. And that it has been ingrained into you for years. All that I ask is that you do not sacrifice yourself for her because she is still going to be there and your death would have been for nothing."

And so the compromise was born. Forged in heated debate over what mattered in the long run. We both held our positions but could deal with the needed violence if that was what it took to survive.

Janice began a near flawless changing of her appearance between the four of them. It was almost like a strobe light effect as she did that. We ended in the bed one last time, and she finally settled in as Tammy and told me of the mission.

My body was satisfied and my head felt it was near bursting with knowledge at this point. I needed to get back into the field to apply everything I knew and the addition of everything she had added until we came to our agreement. The itch all operators know was burning within me. She gave me one last restorative and sent me off to the shower.

I questioned her and she said. "It will be a long time before you have another one." She sent me back to the shower with a kiss and had my clothes laid out next to the Portal when I returned.

The Portal shimmered as I dressed, and she brought me over to it. I got a sizzling kiss from her, and then she pushed me through. There was light coming in through the open door in what had to be the vault. I walked to the door and peeked out. There was a manager sitting at a desk and a couple of tellers at the windows.

I took a deep breath and walked over to the manager. He looked up and I said. "Hello, I was wondering if you knew where I could find a job."

"There are several businesses here in town. You could try the inn, the tavern or the stable." He looked back down at whatever he was doing.

I walked over to the door and grasped the handle. I pulled the door open and walked out onto the stoop that led up to the bank. What hit me then was the smell! I had been in jungles with rotting vegetation and dead bodies that did not smell this bad. I would swear that whatever was in the air was attaching itself to my skin. Well, I could sit and whine about it or move forward and find a job.

I looked up and down the street that went through the center of town. It was full of ruts from when the wagons and animals had passed over it after it last rained. It was also covered in various types of fecal matter from whatever had passed. I thought; maybe I should become the bank manager and go back inside to take his job.

I made my way to the building on my right and found it to be the inn. When I asked about a job, I found there wasn't any. At the end of the street was the stable but before that was the tavern. I stopped in the tavern and the bartender told me they needed a person to help with the cleaning and in the evenings. It didn't pay a lot, but I was assured of a meal and watered wine when I was working.

I thought about it and decided that tossing out drunks and scrubbing the floors was better than shoveling horseshit so I took the job. Since I didn't have anywhere to go, I just started working then.

Rolf owned the bar and wasn't very chatty. He had me hauling things around and cleaning the bar, the floor and the outhouses, which were out back. I had spent my time cleaning during basic training so it wasn't anything new for me but wasn't pleasant either. I wondered if Janice could see me and if she knew I was missing a shower already.

It was near dusk when he had me sit down and gave me a bowl of stew, some bread, and a cup of watered wine. I missed the food from Crossroads with the first bite. SOS had a step up on this slop, but it held some form of nourishment, so I ate it and washed it down with the watered wine.

I took everything back to the bar and Rolf took them and dropped them somewhere behind the bar. I would likely be washing them later tonight.

"It's a rough crowd that comes in here. Be careful not to wind up dead tonight."

"Why would I wind up dead?"

"There are those who like to see if they can kill my help just for the sport of it."

"That is a rough crowd."

"You being so big will only make them want to try."

"They can try, but I don't have any weapons. It won't be much of a fight."

"Here," he tossed a dagger on the bar. "If you're up close that is better than a sword."

I picked it up and looked at him letting my war face out. "Do you have a problem with me killing them in here?"

"That ... That's your business, but if you survive and aren't hurt too bad, you're responsible for cleaning up the mess." He turned away, not wanting to see my face, I guessed.

"Not much faith in me surviving or not being hurt?"

"They killed the last three; a shame because the last one was a good kid."

The night started out slowly, and then it got busier. There were gamblers and others all around. I was in the back, washing more dishes and cups when they came in. It wasn't hard to know who they were. I looked at Rolf and he looked back at me and gave a slight nod of his head.

There were five of them with the largest the leader. I saw him staring, sizing me up as his next victim. He was going to be in for a shock. I could kill from a distance, but I was trained for up close and personal and I wasn't going to wait for it to be a fair fight.

The moment he threw an insult at me, I would attack with a vengeance. He was going to be the one I killed first. Chop off the head and the rest of the snake dies quickly. I waited and sized them up as the night progressed. They were on their tenth pitcher when he had decided that he was ready.

The leader had knocked one of his crew across the table and then horse-played, creating a mess that needed to be cleaned up. Rolf gave me the eye, and I knew it was going to be soon.

"Rolf, send that puke to clean this mess up and fetch us some more drink," he cried out.

I moved the dagger into the front of my pants while I was behind the bar out of his sight. I took two pitchers of watered wine with me. I held them low to block the dagger from view.

My five killers were all standing around the table. No doubt this was to be a pig sticking contest and I was the designated swine. I made my way slowly to them, letting them think I didn't know anything and was likely a big and mentally slow guy just doing a job that fitted my movements. The one on the left moved his hand to his belt as I got closer. His dagger was within reach and the tavern got quiet as I got closer. I was three feet away when I saw the one on my right move his hand to his dagger. I was two feet away when I made my move.