Epilogue

“You’ve been working on your projects for the past week,” Mother Nightbloom said after the pleasantries of dealing with greetings and offers of tea were dealt with.

“I have. My friends on Earth seem to have the story well in hand and are working to expose our corrupt officials. It won’t do as much as I hoped, but it will do something to expose their plots and plans.”

“You’ve done something else, as well, I sense.”

Elara smirked at him. She had told him Mother Nightbloom would know there was more. He could not hide from her Lunar Intuition.

“Just finishing up things that I committed to for several customers.”

“Such as?” Mother had spent almost an hour a day with him or the two of them over the past week. Much of the time had been explaining his world and the work he did in it. She had been happy he was not cut off from his prior life.

“Mostly setting things up so I wouldn’t be totally cut off and people that need me would have a method of contact.”

The electronic dead drops he used for contracts worked just as well to let Amy know he was pleased with her work and would keep an eye on future opportunities. He also delivered the final set of code for his telecom contract to improve the power/bandwidth ratio. He was particularly pleased with that design leveraging the things magic and quantum manipulation had taught him.

“Yes, your radio chip designs.”

“I expect it will be in every mobile device within a few years.”

“Is that important to you?”

“It’s more about the security it gives me. I’ll get pennies for each SIM built with that technology as a licensing fee. Demand for those chips will be in the billions. That work will make me a very rich man if I go back to earth. It will give me options I might need.”

Elara paled at the thought of him leaving, but he reassured her with a smile.

“Well then, we should discuss your service here for the temple,” Mother said.

“Yes. What do you want me to do for the next five months?”

She took a sip of her tea. “Five months? I think you’ve mis-calculated, Finn. You were accompanied for six nights on your journey out from the temple, but then you had Elara with you for eight more in the Realm of Shadows and two more on your trip back. The temple provided you with an escort for sixteen nights. By your promise, that is a year and four months service here.”

Finn’s mouth hung open. Elara looked shocked but was also trying to suppress a smile at his expression.

“Eight nights in that realm?”

Mother Nightbloom nodded.

Finn sipped his tea, curious why he was not angry at her or himself. He had made a bad deal, since she once suggested a year for the whole journey. He thought about arguing, then looked at Elara again. She was as beautiful as ever, almost glowing in pleasure. He realized that mirrored his feelings. The temple might not be his home, but it was hers. And his home was wherever she was, he decided.

“What would you have me do as a service, Mother?”

“What’s next?” Isabelle asked after Amy and Conner settled into their seats in her corner office.

“The resignations and criminal prosecutions are moving forward, and we can cover those when needed, but the rest of the story is still playing out.”

Conner nodded. “Stocks of the companies involved are down but are predicted to recover unless more bad behavior is exposed over the next six months. Nobody has even hinted at the mastermind behind all these moves.”

Amy and Conner would not mention Devon McAlester out loud. Isabelle had seen Amy’s research, once, and told them to bury it unless they had proof-positive of wrongdoing on his part. Amy occasionally spent some off time looking but mostly heeded her boss’s suggestions.

“What about the NSA involvement?”

Amy frowned, looking for any phones. Isabelle’s was sitting prominently on her desk, within easy reach.

“They turned things over to the DOJ. I heard from a source that they are still looking for the original hacker but have stepped away from this part of the investigation.”

“No hints on who killed the Eddelson woman?”

Both shook their heads.

“Police think the killers escaped on foot, since they couldn’t find any video evidence in the cars that left the facility. The cameras around the area reveled nothing for the twenty-four hours around the murder.”

“Sounds like they are covering up their incompetence,” Isabelle opined.