Young Again
Copyright© 2018 by Edward Douglass Patterson
Chapter 26: Disruptions at School
“Ms. Wainwright, Principal Schott’s note allows us to attend after-school activities today after missing classes.” Sarah handed the note to her.
Denise Wainwright read the note. “She doesn’t say why you missed classes.” She looked at Sarah and Ashley for an explanation.
“We were required to attend a meeting because of what happened this weekend. We are restricted on what we can say about it.” Sarah’s statement was accurate but misleading.
“Well, if Principal Schott knows what is going on. Will you be missing any more school because of this?”
“We hope not. We spend all day ensuring they wouldn’t need us.”
“Take a seat. We will start when everyone is here.”
Ashley and Sarah sat towards the back, away from the windows.
John Wilson came in and hurried towards them. “Everybody’s been talking about the video of your fight.” He stared at Ashley’s hand.
“Not much more than a scratch.” Ash was touched at the concern she saw on John’s face. “Did you tell them what you saw?”
“No, Kelly convinced Bert and me not to talk about it. Bert talked to Jimmy and the others, and no one said anything.”
Ashley looked at Sarah. Surprise was on their faces. She turned back to him with a smile. “Thank you. I don’t know if it was necessary, but we appreciate everyone’s concern for us.” She stopped and nodded towards the front of the room.
Denise was ready to start the meeting. “We received new information today about what this year’s robots will be required to do. The initial requirement was deemed dangerous by quite a few schools, so they had to come up with a new requirement. We and everyone else have lost time, but the requirements haven’t been made any easier, so we have a lot of work to do.” She used her mouse to select something on her computer. “I’ve just downloaded the requirements for this year’s competition. They have named the robots Cave Crawlers. They will be required to navigate in complete darkness in a simulated cave with water hazards and obstructed passages. The robot will operate independently in the cave. It will be required to map the cave and search for a specific object based on a general description, which will be supplied at the start of each run. The robot is to retrieve the correct object and none of the other objects in the cave. Upon exiting the cave, it will place the object inside a square and send a data file of its mapping to the judges. Scoring will be based on completion of the assigned tasks and the completeness and details of the mapping. Retrieval of the wrong object will count against the score. Time to complete is of secondary importance but may be a factor in a close competition.” Denise Wainwright looked up. “There are a lot more details, but you can read them later.”
Denise looked at the students before going on. She saw John Wilson with a questioning look on his face, and both Ashley and Sarah answered the look by shaking their heads no. When Ashley’s attention returned to the front of the room, she saw Ms. Wainwright and some of the students watching her. She blushed.
Denise wasn’t sure what had been going on between the three of them, but they hadn’t disturbed anyone. She went ahead with what she had planned to say. “Much of the equipment and parts we and everyone else have previously obtained aren’t optimal for the requirements for this robot. For one thing, we need to waterproof the robot. The judges will take that into account in the scoring by giving any group which only makes use of the original material a 15% bonus to their score. Our first decision is whether we try to obtain funding for additional parts and material to build a robot for this challenge or work with what we already have.” She saw Ashley nod, as she understood her question. Ashley raised her hand. “Ashley.”
“Ms. Wainwright, a robot with these abilities may be very important for a project we are working on. I will cover the expenses of any robotic team in our district which wants to purchase more parts and material to ensure they make the best robot they can.”
It took Denise a while to restore calm. “Ashley, I thought you wanted your donations to remain anonymous?”
“This is more important than what I want for myself. I cannot explain, but it will be announced before the end of the year. I expect there may be work available for the winning team next summer to help upgrade their robot for some additional specifications. Maybe additional teams if their designs show promise. Having several arrows in our quiver may prove useful.”
That is why the three of them reacted to the Cave Crawler requirements. Denise looked at John Wilson and wondered how he was involved.
Ashley saw Ms. Wainwright’s scrutiny of John. “John thought I might have something to do with the new requirements. I just found out about them.” I’m going to find out who might have guided the choice of the new requirements.
Sarah found dinner ready when she got home. She put down her book bag and hurried in to assist her mother. As she entered the kitchen, the phone rang. As she answered it, she saw her mother shake her head. “Pierce resident, Sarah speaking.” Her father and brother entered the kitchen, concern on their faces.
“Sarah, this is Connie Lange, San Francisco Chronicle. There’s a YouTube video of you and Ashley Sawyer defending yourselves against a man with a sword. I would like to get your point of view on what happened.”
“A man with a sword attacked us. We defended ourselves. Mother needs me to help put dinner on the table. Goodbye.” She rolled her eyes. “Was Connie Lange the only one who called?”
Her mother shook her head. “We stopped answering the phone.” The phone rang again.
“If it was just a couple, I could redirect them but with a bunch someone would guess I did something. Let me text Ash a warning.” Sarah started tapping out the message one-handed as she grabbed the salad and carried it to the table.
Jim Pierce watched the latest example of his daughter’s ability. “Why aren’t you getting calls on your phone?”
“The listing doesn’t show this number. The billing system has it but Verizon guards that system.” She put her phone away then turned and hugged her brother. “I can’t hug all of you so you are my token huggee. Thanks for protecting Ash and me.” She knew her parents would want an explanation. “The video was being talked about all day. Kelly told Bert and John not to talk about what they saw. They spread the message. No one said anything. We will have to find something else to do to say thank you.”
“Something else?” Jimmy wanted to know what the two of them had already done.
“Ashley plans to tell you and Jenny tomorrow since the two of you were the ones she was primarily doing it for. You’re not to tell anyone even after Principal Schott makes the announcement.” She quickly sat down, which cut off Jimmy’s questions since what they talked about at the table was restricted.
Jimmy picked up Jenny first even though she lived closest to school. “Ashley has a surprise. I wanted you to learn about it when I did.” When Jenny glanced at Sarah, Jimmy explained further. “She won’t say any more. It was for you and me, but it sounds like it’s for everyone at school. Principal Schott is going to make an announcement, but we’re not to tell anyone we knew about it.” He got a playful smile. “I don’t think it’s Woodside shirts with MSI on the sleeve.” The girls smiled at his jest.
“I’ll mention the shirts to Ashley, but it would have to be Sawyer Holdings, not MSI.” Sarah’s phone rang. “Sarah. Thanks. We will be ready.” She started an app on her phone. “Pull over and let Bruce take the lead. There’s a TV crew at the Sawyers. I’m going to duck down to give us a little more time. Ash is tracking my phone. She will run out from the far side of the house as you drive past. Stop before the next house so she can get in.”
Jenny took off her sunglasses. When they got to the Sawyer house, Jimmy slowed down, and Jenny’s head was out the window, acting as if she was trying to find out why the TV news crew was there. When Jimmy stopped, she hopped out and started towards the news crew, which allowed Ash to dive into the back.
Before Jenny was buckled in, Jimmy sped off.
“Thanks, Jenny, you distracted them so they looked away from the house. Then they turned back to the garage door when grandfather opened it. Jimmy, head away from school for a bit. Sandy is checking on whether there are more at school. Sarah and I may need to sneak in across the ball fields.”
“No. Jimmy, let us off across from school where parents drop their kids off. We will cross over with a group of students. Once we are on the school grounds, we’ll see what security does about reporters following students into school.”
When they got to school, traffic was snarled up. Security had been reinforced by an officer writing tickets. Principal Schott and several others were hurrying students into the school.
With the news crews distracted by the officer, Ashley and Sarah weren’t noticed until they were across the street. They ran to Principal Schott.
“Do you want us to meet them down the block so you can get the rest of the students to class?” Sarah asked.
“Do you want me to go with you?” Helen Schott knew the sacrifice of their privacy the girls were offering her.
“No, you will have enough to do getting everyone settled down. Our head of security is on the way. Stay close to your office. You will be getting a phone call you won’t want to miss.” Sarah saw Ashley nod and put away her cell phone.
Ashley let the way to the news crews. “Guys, ambushing us in front of the school got you some tickets. Go set up down at the shopping center parking lot. We are going to pick up some bagels and drinks at Einstein Brothers. We’ll talk to all of you after we get them.”
They walked right through the news crews, who pulled back as they got close. They acted like the girls were dangerous even without knives in their hands.
Ashley and Sarah carried big bags of bagels in one hand with their drinks in the other. Behind them, one of the guys from the bagel shop was carrying three trays of coffee. They changed direction when they saw the head of their security standing with the crowd of onlookers.
“Grab some coffee and bagels before we let them have any,” Ashley told Sandy and Jason, who had come forward to meet them. They started to reach for just any coffee but saw two with their names on them. Sandy just grabbed her coffee, but Jason smiled as he waited for her to go first.
“Thanks for getting the bagels. It gave us time to get set up. Any suggestions?”
“No, we don’t want to miss any more school than we have to, but it may be impossible if this type of thing keeps up. They didn’t get in our face. I think they found out how well we were doing in the competition. We’ll talk more this evening.” Ashley was facing away from the news crews while Sarah was watching them. “Stay here.”
Ashley and Sarah approached the reporters. They stopped and ignored the questions called out to them. It took a few minutes before the reporters realized the girls weren’t going to answer questions shouted out to them. After they quieted, Ashley pointed to the one closest to her, and then waited.
The reporter glanced at the others before asking his questions. “Sarah Pierce, why did you hamstring the man after his sword was ___? He hesitated, trying to think of the right word.
“Shortened?” Sarah suggested.
The reporter reddened and nodded.
“I believe you all found out how we were doing in the competition. I would assume you also checked on Chanarong’s matches. He was in the finals for his weight class. Did you find anything out about his matches?” She saw at least one of them knew about the men he had injured. “Without the sword, he was still dangerous. I did the minimum attack I could do to allow him to be easily captured.” She pointed to the next reporter.
“Connie Lange, San Francisco Chronicle. Ashley Sawyer, Sarah’s answer matches what she told me last night. Why do you have people repeatedly trying to kill you and Sarah?”
“When they bombed the airplane, it was bad luck my family was on board. When I survived, they worried I might know something about the bombing and tell the authorities. Lately, I’m not really sure. I believe they are unhappy I’m taking trying to kill me personally.”
“Are they afraid of you and Sarah?”
“You might ask Chanarong if anyone should be afraid of us.”
Sarah pointed at another reporter.
“Don Armstrong, Fox News. Do you know about the drones that were stolen?”
“Yes.” Sarah started to point at another reporter.
“Can you tell us what you know?” Don hurriedly added.
“We were lucky the government got control of the mini drones.”
“We heard you were involved with that.”
“The videos showed you where we were. We had pizza while we waited for the police to talk to us. We and the police take it seriously that we were attacked and we had to defend ourselves.”
The questions continued with the reporters frustrated in not getting anything sensational from the girls.
“Ashley, you will inherit most of the shares in MSI. You are making major changes in the company. Why are you hurrying these changes?”
“Inheritance taxes. We saw the effect the loss of the majority of the owner officers of MSI was having on our employees. Grandfather, Len Smith, and the rest of the board of directors have decided we needed to ensure our employees don’t face that type of problem in the future. This type of question isn’t urgent and a reason to keep us away from class. We’ll send you information on how to talk to someone about any questions about MSI you might have. We would appreciate it if you wouldn’t seek answers in a way which interferes with so many students going to school.” Ashley waved goodbye to Sandy and Jason. She and Sarah turned and headed back to school.
When Sarah and Ashley got to the office, they found the staff in an excited conversation.
Mrs. Sizemore saw them. “Ms. Schott wants to talk to you before you return to class. She has a phone call and can’t be disturbed.
Sarah and Ashley took seats and pulled out their phones. They ignored the conversation about why the White House had called. They had a lot of things to check.
Sarah and Ashley sat down as Helen Schott closed the door to her office. She looked a few seconds at each girl before taking a seat behind her desk. She was still trying to understand them.
“You didn’t need to have the President call and explain why he needed you to miss school?”
“I figured it would help the next time they had to have us help. We thought we had it settled when we had the meeting with Secretary Simpson.” Ashley sighed. “See if you can get an exception for us to take the test this fall. We may have a lot more of this type of thing after Thanksgiving.” There was a slight pause. “If it doesn’t come out before then.” She saw Principal Schott start to ask a question. “No, there’s too much at stake.” Ashley changed the subject. “I told Ms. Wainwright and the Robotics Club I would fund the extra expenses for all the groups in the local robotics competition district. Grandfather is deciding who we will have working as advisors for our club.”
“This has to do with what will be announced.”
“This is really confusing you.” Ashley’s smile grew bigger. “Yes, I hope it will help. I don’t see us having any other solution before then.”
The bell rang. “I better let you get to at least a few classes today.” She hurriedly wrote passes to let them get into their classes.
“Captain McRae, you’re showing me a bunch of parts taken from a crash scene by teenagers and expect me to help you figure out what happened.” Abigail Bronson looked at the parts laid out over the floor of the warehouse.
“Nobody expects you to figure out what happened unless we find something with very unusual damage. We want you to identify which parts may be closely related to other parts. If you can find two parts which fit together, it will be a miracle. Any function of a part you can identify would be helpful. We are trying to figure out how to get more of the parts without letting anyone know what we are doing.”
“This is a UFO?”
“Abby, that’s an understatement.” Sheila saw Mark Sawyer along with Professors Tony Jacobson and Debby Winston had entered the room without her seeing them. “Abby, this is Professor Tony Jacobson and his wife, Professor Debby Winston. Tony is Ashley’s cousin. They are archaeologists, and they requested technical help in figuring out what we have here. Abby Bronson was the Investigator-In-Charge for the crash Ashley was in.”
“This isn’t a recent crash.”
“Another site we have is thirteen thousand years old. We expect they are related but not built by the same species.”
“Why do you think the two sites are related?” Abby was realizing this definitely wasn’t a normal investigation.
“The one Debbie dated as thirteen thousand years old has an active weapon which shot down an A-10. We suspect we don’t have many unknown periods in the distant past which had the ability to shoot down flying craft.” Mark saw that Abby was beginning to understand the magnitude of the investigation. “The weapon was an EMP beam weapon. We don’t know too much about it and don’t want to experiment with what it can do. We are concerned the bunker might have a self-destruct directive if it is unable to handle what it perceives as an attack. That is a different site than the one for which we requested your help. We have a crash site which recent erosion has uncovered in Hawaii. Since we don’t yet have access to the California site, we are concentrating our investigation on all these random pieces.”
“We will need more help.” Abby looked over the hundreds of pieces scattered across the floor.
“Make a list of who you need and the expertise you need.” Sheila McRae told her. “Whoever we bring into this must be someone who can keep quiet about this for the next few months. If you know any Chinese or Russian nationals who meet those requirements, let me know immediately. Both governments are working with us on this.”
“Sheila, the Russians aren’t ready to join us yet. They are still getting their government set up.” Mark reminded her.
“If we tell them we need someone or some type of expert, I think they would have them on a plane as soon as they could. I took their problem as not being able to do anything officially. We could probably end up with a group of Russian tourists working with us.”
“I hadn’t considered that.” He started to leave, then turned back. “I have a doctor’s appointment. There are very modern mechanical and electrical testing areas available in this facility. If you need people for them, let me know.”
“He looks a lot younger than he did. What are the doctors doing to him?”
“Trying to figure out why he is younger.” Sheila paused. “We also have a number of Stanford professors in the biological sciences working with us. If you find anything biological, let us know, and you will have their help as soon as they can run here.”
“Why does looking at these parts seem like a very small part of what you are doing?” Abby asked.
“Because you are very good at reading clues. Let me give you an overview of everything we are doing.”
Mark and Wayne were talking with Cecilia Van when Dr. May Flowers and Command Barnaby Stanley entered the infirmary where the first experiments were to take place. “Cecilia, if there is anything else we can help you with, let me know. May, Barnaby. I asked Wayne to join us. He was very curious about what had happened to me when we first met, and he is considering working on this project when we have the terrorist dealt with. I thought his insights on things, though lacking in a medical background, would be useful.”
May and Barnaby laughed. “Mark, Wayne’s father, Daniel, was one of our professors in medical school. I was sorry to hear about him having Alzheimer’s. I don’t know if we will discover anything in time to help him, but I would be willing to include him in the testing of anything we may discover.”
“Thank you. Mark, I meant to tell you.”
Mark raised his hand to stop Wayne. “I’m glad I thought to include you. My intentions are to make whatever we discover available to everyone. Those who have a special reason to be interested in the research are likely the ones to work hardest. I’ll leave it to the doctors to conduct this research.”
“Mark, the tests we want to run today are just to get a baseline of your current physical condition. You mentioned you asked Ken Overton to set up a body development program for you.”
Mark nodded. “I wanted to check with the two of you first before I start on a course of action.” He hesitated. “I’m in better shape than I have ever been in my life. I suspect the changes are more than just growing young. My thoughts are to have Ken put together a program which would seek to determine the limits of the changes. One of the changes I have noticed is my ability to recover after exercising. I have been doing sit-ups, pushups, and treadmill at home. It takes a lot to tire me out, and I recover quickly. I was never very athletic, so I don’t have a past history against which to compare what I can do. Which is one of the things I need your help with.”
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