Chapter 5

Dana’s turn:

I’ve been through a lot of changes since I turned fourteen almost two years ago. Living with Mom. Mom incarcerated. Living with Gramma – a huge step up in Dana’s quality of life. Connecting with Ed. Even more huge. Meeting the Community. Marrying Ed. Moving us to Alabama.

All that’s good. Really good. I’m loving the environment. Ed’s loving it, too, and Gramma’s married and she’s teaching her last, greatest class. None of her students here has an IQ that isn’t measured high on the Saffir-Simpson scale, with associated disruptions to normal life.

Normal life. What kind of normal life has ME becoming the big sister to four Munchkins, led by the pTerridactyl?

I asked her that question one day as we were sitting in the lab eating a shared apple.

“You’re closest to my age. You’re married. You have answers.”

“Cindy was younger.”

The blonde imp eyed me. “Now she’s older. You’re closest to my age. Most recent experience with the events.”

“Ah,” I said. Talking with Terri is NOT where you think you can get away with idle banter. “Cindy’s family situation was MUCH worse than mine, I understand.”

“We ALL had some kind of ‘mommy’ issues. You got rescued by your gramma. I got rescued by Dad and Tina.”

“Cindy got rescued by Mizz Helen.”

Little blonde thing shook her head slightly. “Not quite. Dan had already rescued ‘er. Mizz Helen recognized that. Kinda like your Gramma recognized Ed ‘n’ you.”

“And exactly from what does the vaunted pTerridactyl require rescuing?”

Gramma’s student sighed mightily. “From the burdens of unrequited love...”

I smirked. I know the game is afoot, so I will play. “Try again, Terri. I see Jerry around you and ‘unrequited’ does NOT apply. I know adoration when I see it.”

Smirk back at me. “Apparently vocabulary is a heritable characteristic. You KNOW what I’m speaking of, though...”

“I do. So how can I help, short of accessory to a crime and earning the distrust of important people in our lives?”

She smiled for me. That’s more of the natural configuration of her face. “You already do. Somebody I can talk with. You’re just the right bit of connection. Sometimes Tina’s a little too close, bein’ my stepmom. If I say how much I love Jerry she gets nervous.”

“Because she loves you and worries about you.”

“I know it’s a good reason, but sometimes I wanna just talk.”

“Here I am, sis.”

“It’s like that, isn’t it? You ‘n’ me – sisters.”

“We have a very big family here, you know.”

“I love ‘im. Not ‘stupid’ love like I see in our homeschool group. Real love. Like where we’re going together in life.”

“Very good,” I said. “I identify with that.”

“We see that together, me and Jerry.” Her eyes cut a twinkle at me. “Uh, make that ‘Jerry and I’, okay?”

“Uh-huh ... Part of what he likes is Terri being smart and funny.”

“I would hope so. We’ve talked about what he finds attractive in women.”

“Lemme guess. All those other things get eclipsed by Terri.”

“Your Ed probably says the same about you, huh?”

“He does. I didn’t understand, on a purely visual level.”

“Engineered package,” Terri told me. “Carefully selected components assembled in a specific manner to perform a specific function. The Creator did that with YOU for Ed. I want to believe He did that for me, with Jerry in mind.”

“That’s gotta be it, little sister. I’m fifteen. I can’t imagine what will change with me from here on out, but you’re still growing...”

“These seem to have stopped,” she said, her hands covering her breasts.

“I ain’t no double D myself, girl,” I said. “Ed says...”

“Same thing Jerry says, probably,” she smiled. “But they seem to be a big deal to lots of guys.”

“What’d Mizz Donna say? ‘If your guy needs big tits on you, you don’t need that guy’? She kinda knows...”

“Yeah. She knows. Prob’ly better than the rest of us.”

“Good advice. Ed tells me that he thinks I’m perfect the way I am. I asked about makeup, hair color, perms, clothes. He practically yelled that I was his idea of perfection.”

“I had that conversation with Jerry,” she said. “Jerry asked me if I’d thought about who I was speaking with. Said if he wanted those things, he wouldn’t be sitting there like a priest waiting for me to marry him. He’s right, you know ... Other women LIKE Jerry. I know of offers...”

“And so there he is, waiting on Terri. You got a guy in love with you and Lord only knows what causes that...”

“I’m in love with him too, Dana. Not being able to put my arms around him, not being able to get his arms around me, that’s the part that causes pain.”

“I understand that. But you wouldn’t know how that feels if you haven’t experienced it, right?”

“We have. Hugged. Cuddled. Lovely.” A sigh.

I looked at her face. She was baring her soul. Careful here, Dana.

“No further?”

“No. But hugging. Being held. Kissed. It’s sooooo good.”

“I know. But in your case, so risky...”

“I know. Stupid. Maturity because of a number. And stupid, because if he was MY age, nobody could lay a finger on either of us...”

“Your dad would kill ‘im...”

“Dad loves me. I strive to maintain Dad’s respect. Tina’s too. Everybody’s, really. Quite a burden when Jerry has me in his arms...”

“I know the feeling, Terri, but many days I had to just go home with only warm thoughts. There was a long time before we even got to the huggy stage.”

“I know,” she said sadly. “Warm thoughts.”

“In retrospect,” I said, “it made those little kisses and hugs shine like candles in a dark room. And when we finally DID get legal, wow ... I still lay back in his arms and remember. Memories, Terri. You’re building memories.”

One of the girls from Auburn – a real college-aged student – came into the lunchroom for a break, so Terri and I changed the subject to flying. Well, not US flying, but a control package for autonomous aircraft.

That part of the robotics effort is doing well. We’ve gotten the ‘model’ aircraft to buzz around the community, taking off, flying to a destination, returning, and we’ve played with ‘drony’ activities like having it orbit the community waiting for us, letting us divert it from its prescribed orbit to go off and take pictures, then have it return to orbit and finally land back at the airfield.

Major Kettler’s impressed. I think that’s a good thing. Our test platform is a big model airplane with a modified chainsaw engine for power, and we’re talking about how we can deck out one of the ultralights, but we think we need emergency cutouts and a safety pilot sitting in the thing.

Major Kettler says that the military is interested in further development along our path and keeps telling us about a million acres in Nevada to play in.

Other thing Major Kettler seems to be interested in is Tara Helton. It brings a smile to my face. Sure, he’s got twelve years’ age on her, but he’s attractive, and she’s attracted, and vice versa. Derek’s a direct beneficiary, too.

My involvement? Nothing, other than being a happy observer. I’m still waiting to hear an unhappy comment from the married couples in the community, at least one past the ‘overcooked my scallops’ variety.

It certainly isn’t going to come from me. Ed and I are, as far as I’m concerned, still on an extended honeymoon.

Terri passed by my workstation.

“Research,” I said to her.

“Research?”

“Yeah...” I smiled. “This autonomous flight thing. I think I need to do some flying so I can get my head into it.”

She smiled back at me. “A little chilly, but doable, you know. How about three or so? Gets dark so early in dead winter.”

Cindy came whistling past us.

“You’re in a hurry,” I said.

She stopped. Just got called to the engineering office. “Something’s afoot. Gotta run.” She was NOT looking particularly disturbed, so I assume that nobody’s hurt, but still, very seldom do we see Cindy walking that fast.

Then she turned, like a light came on, and said “Hey...”

Cindy’s turn:

We all know about how intrusive a cellphone call can be in one’s day and so when mine went off with Dan’s ringtone, I knew it wasn’t a ‘Hi, babe. How’s your day?’ call. I answered. Laughed.

“Hi, babe. How’s your day?”

“That’s sooo cliché, baby,” I laughed. “I’m in the lab, we’re running a centipede around under tables; it’s pulling a communications cable. Somebody stepped on the cable to see what the robot does. Interesting.”

“Don’t make it too useful. It’ll put people out of work. I got a hot one, punkin.”

“How hot?”

“Co-op in Oklahoma. Transformer popped. They need somebody NOW!”

“It’s after lunch. What’s ‘now’ mean to them?”

“It means you’re filing a flight plan right now for Guymon, Oklahoma, and Jason’s rounding up a couple of technicians and a full set of test equipment. In a hurry. We’ve been trying to cultivate this account.”

“I’m walkin’,” I said.

“Got your crash bag?” he asked. That’s a ‘Dan’ thing. Okay, it’s actually kind of endemic to the group – lots of us keep a ‘crash bag’ or as some people less politely term it, ‘SHTF Bag’ where feces hits the ventilator. Mine carries a change of outerwear, two sets of underwear, couple of pairs of socks, some basic toiletries, a little first aid kit, a bottle of water and some nutrition bars.

“Got the new one in the hangar,” I said.

“Okay, baby. I’m sending you the details. Jason’s herding technicians right now, making outrageous promises. They’ll meet you at the hangar.”

A couple of people stop me on the way out the door.

One of ‘em was Dana. She asked if something was wrong.

“Nope. Hot job.” Then a lightbulb went off. “You up for a quick over-nighter? I need a co-pilot.”

“What’re we flying?”

“Lotte,” I said, giving her the Pilatus’s nickname. “Can you get Ed’s buy-in?”