Chapter 10

I spent a couple of hours in meditation, and several more doing my katas. Then I went out and found a shady spot beneath the tree where Snow usually kept watch. I laid down and, one by one, the wokitas came over and laid down with me or on me. I noticed that there were never all five of them at one time. It was a peaceful time and I slept. It was mid-afternoon by the time I was slept out.

I gently pushed Hoagande off my chest, where he had sprawled. Okay, I had to shove him hard, because he was now a fully grown wolf-akita and that meant he weighed more than me. He lifted his head from near my feet and I swear he looked over his shoulder and smiled a wolfy smile. He stood and gently stepped over me, then he went over to the water trough they all shared and took a good long slurp. I got up and went in search of ‘da boyz.’

They had rearranged the basement back into an exercise room, complete with padded floors. They were sparring, full contact but with head and body pads. I sat on the steps and watched. They each tended to go back to what they had first learned. Rock relied most on his legs – Tai Kwon Do style. And Bear fought mostly with his hands and arms – in the Karate way.

“Okay,” I called out. “Now switch!”

They stopped and looked at me. “If I tell Maritsuki-san that you, Rock, are fighting with your legs, mostly, and Bear is back doing Karate, mostly ... what do you think he’ll say?”

Bear said, “I’ll drown with a sock in my mouth.”

Rock and I both looked at him with a quizzical expression. “Huh?”

Bear explained. “It’s the end of an old story. Probably Okinawan.

“See, the Emperor’s son was said to be epileptic. One day the lad had a fit in his bathtub. What to do? ‘Throw his dirty clothes in with him,’ said the Emperor. ‘That way they’ll be clean when he gets out.’ The Emperor laughed.

“So, the Emperor’s slaves did just that, not knowing he was just joking. And he died with a sock in his mouth.

“It probably makes sense in Japanese.”

I said, “I’ll have to get the real translation from your father, I guess.”

Rock shook his head. “Man, you’re weird, you know that?”

“Well, anyway ... Don’t be so rigid in what your fighting style is. Use Maritsuki style ... or ... I’ll put your socks in your jocks.” And I stuck my tongue out at the two of them. I went back upstairs.

I flipped on the TV and watched ‘General Hospital.’ Nothing had changed since I last watched it, except one of the characters had ‘almost died.’ I could tell because his face was wrapped in bandages. That was a sure sign that the actor who played the part had left the show and was now replaced by whoever was under the bandages.

The guys came up from sparring and headed for the bedroom, presumably to shower and change. I thought about it – you know, IT – but decided not to. There was something I wanted to accomplish this afternoon, besides a quick boink ... or a slow double boink, even.

When the showers were done, they came out of the bedroom looking like Ken and his twin, Ben, from the Barbie ads. They were perfect Ivy League twins on a day off: short sleeved polo shirts, chinos, and loafers with tassels on them. “Where did you buy THOSE?” I yowled.

“Montgomery Ward’s catalog. They said the girls would love the look,” said Rock.

Bear threw in, “We can always wear ‘em for the next Halloween Party.” He did an almost perfect catalog model pose.

“Ken and Ben, that’s what you look like. Little Indian boy dates for Pocahontas Barbie ... C’mon, let’s get over to Factory #2 and see what Chas is getting into.”

...

So ... that’s what we did. Chas was not in the Factory #2 section that was apportioned to him. We found him about one-eighth of a mile outside the Factory. He was setting up a table and some equipment with the help of a couple of guys from the security team. It was even outside the perimeter of the security fence. There was a pair of heavy-duty extension cords leading out from the Factory window to his table. There was a beach umbrella set up so he’d be in the shade.

“Hi, guys,” I chirped when we were in range. “What’s all this?”

“Oh, hello, Lexi,” he said, not lifting his head from his work. “Do you think this is far enough away from the Factory?”

“Um ... I don’t know. Far enough away for what?”

“Well, I’m getting ready to fire the argon and fluorine lasers at the first set of lithium crystals,” he explained. He pointed to the chemical tanks under the table, and the lasers (I presumed) on the table. “Although I followed all the steps that S2D2 said to do, I wasn’t exactly positively sure that it wouldn’t blow up. So, if it did, I didn’t want to take out the whole side of the Factory.”

[Lexi, it’s not going to blow up. He’s using such miniscule power to the lasers and the quantity of the lithium crystals that it just cannot explode.]

“I mean ... if it does blow, this way it’s only the chemicals and the laser devices, right?” Chas said.

[It’s about $45,000 of supplies and equipment. But not to worry. It’s not going to blow up.]

“Hmmm ... I understand completely. Better safe than sorry,” I said. “Where are you planning to be?”

“Oh, I’m going to put it on a timer and ‘get outa Dodge. You can bet your life on that, Pilgrim.’” It was the absolute worst John Wayne imitation I’d ever heard.

“Uh...” I said, “by the way, when you get to working on the full size – uhm (I looked at the guards nearby, and dropped my voice to a whisper) – the fusion power experiment, how big could the explosion be? I mean if it explodes instead of combines like it should.”

“Do you know how big the Nagasaki atom bomb site was? It’s about one mile in diameter. That’s the initial destruction area. I guess the resulting FUSION explosion could be at least that big. But maybe as much as five miles across. Who knows?” There was a gleam in his eye at the thought of a ba-da-boom that big. “But we won’t let it explode. We’ll be very careful. That’s why I’m doing this in small increments.”