Chapter 7

The alarm from her phone woke us. “Fucking early again it looks like,” she said after tapping the screen.

“A little later though,” I said, noticing the morning light.

“Yeah. Let me use the toilet, and then you, and I’ll join you in the shower.”

“Sounds good, boss,” I chuckled.

“I bossed you here,” she frowned.

“Let’s see where this adventure takes us, okay?”

“Like we have a choice.”

“That’s the spirit!”

We laughed.

We had some time, the alarm giving us an hour, so our cleaning each other had me hard and her wet where it counted and she fucked me from above until she came and then sucked me until I did, washing off the added juices before finishing our shower. It did cut into our breakfast time, so we decided on bagels and cream cheese. I did make us some fresh orange juice and ground up some Kenyan beans for my favorite coffee, hers too it ended up. Dressed when drinking down the last gulp, we headed out.

In the basement classroom, Emily asked Pat, “Are we meeting any of the others besides those here before heading to this secret lair?”

“Not that I’m aware of,” said Pat. “In fact normally you would meet with me before heading there.”

“To get prepared,” Emily nodded. “Acclimated.”

“Exactly.”

“Normally?” I asked.

“There may be some urgency, though I do think it should be required.”

“Some sort of psychological process? Are we cognizant of it, or does it require some mind manipulation?”

“We have found it to be a significant help in adjusting to a unique environment.”

“You had problems with others before.”

“Thus discovering the need,” Pat nodded.

Amy and Gary arrived, ending our dialogue, though I realized Pat would probably remain vague anyway.

“Could you come over here a second Amy?” Emily asked.

“Don’t look so disappointed Gary,” Amy smirked before taking the few steps over to our desk. “What’s up?”

“We heard you’re staying at your house in Denver,” Emily started.

“The advantage of being second generation,” Amy nodded.

“We’d like to invite ourselves over.”

“Hmm. Let me talk to Pat.”

No snide comment full of innuendo. I couldn’t help being suspicious.

When she returned moments later she asked, “Could I use your laptop Em ... Amanda?”

“Sure,” Emily said.

Amy double tapped an icon of the mint building and a map appeared. “We exit here,” she pointed. “Instead of going right, go left, and kitty corner is a parking lot. One of the first cars you see will be a black Hyundai Kona with the license plate reading RU12BNX. Got that?”

“Yep,” Emily responded.

“What’s X?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Amy grinned. “Whatever we are or will be. Explorers. Exiters.”

“Extraterrestrials,” Emily suggested.

“Fill in the blank,” I shrugged.

“Excuse me,” said Emily. “I’m going to work while we wait for the others.”

“On what?” Amy asked.

“Some writing.”

“I guess I’ll look some things up on the internet,” I said.

“Like what?” Amy asked.

“Just exploring,” I chuckled, remembering the X. “It’s proprietary to the Brain Trust, isn’t it?”

“Yes, expanded as needed. Research, and entertainment as well. It also has a way of preventing cookies and masking our presence. Dad recruited computer specialists early on, hackers and coders and AI researchers and I guess an idea person who oversees and directs their work. None have been all that prolific as far as generating second generation children like me and Gary except Bradley, the idea guy and Gwen, his spouse. It seems the other computer nerds get all too obsessed with their work. A couple finally figured out they actually like each other, but their two kids are preteens. The twins, Jim and Jon, are Bradley’s kids.”

“The Australians?”

“New Zealanders actually. Gwen’s a Maori, supposedly from an important family, who supposedly ran away with Bradley and they disappeared. Probably the most controversial situation because of the publicity of Gwen’s extraction and the fact that, while quite intelligent, she hasn’t the baseline IQ supposedly required, but Bradley insisted he needed her as his sounding board.”

“And the twins?” I asked. About then I noticed Tex approach Emily and surreptitiously hand off the capsule we’d discussed. We exchanged a nod.

“Quite brilliant if a bit creepy with their finishing each other’s sentences, and just as clueless about social interactions as any of the computer nerds.”

“That’s why they’re the only single gender couple.”

“I think it would have to be a tag team if they ever had sex, which sounds kind of fun and they are quite handsome specimens, but that creep factor factors in. I’m just waiting for my dad to find a couple genius twin girls to match them up.”

I laughed. “I actually know a girl, part of my first class so she’d be twenty, twenty-one? Lana and her sister was Lena. I only had her for a few months before their family relocated to LA so her sister could train as a gymnast and get a full ride scholarship to UCLA. Lana kept in shape too, so they remained fairly identical. They had their differences in character though unlike it seems Jim and John, with Lana being more outgoing, more self-assured while Lena seemed shier and more demure, which probably helped her be more submissive to training. I managed to get Lana the testing and recommendations she needed to move onto college early, to USC for a full academic scholarship. She came in fairly late, experiencing the boredom and frustration of being a prodigy amongst regular students and teachers with too low expectations, so she was appreciative of my efforts and we remained in touch. Last I heard she’s at Stanford for her doctorate, her sister joining her as an undergraduate, realizing, after a poor showing at the Olympics, that she needed to shift her priorities, utilizing the resources of her intelligence rather than her physical talent in order to achieve success in the future. I bet Lana used her desirability as a genius to encourage the school to give her sister a scholarship despite the transfer.”

“What is Lana’s expertise?” Amy asked.

“Mathematics, as in being one of the few to understand the equations proving physics theories. Her sister is interested in medical research, not surprising specializing in kinesiology.”

“A math genius we don’t need, but kinesiology...”

I laughed. “The twins just made me think of them. Extracting them would be near on impossible since they have a tight knit family, though they are cute little brunettes, and I think the underachieving sister is brilliant as well.”

Amy smirked. “Maybe a field trip to get the twins laid.”

The twins arrived then, the last of the class. They looked young, maybe seventeen, their mixed blood giving them a healthy tan like coloring and interesting, not unattractive facial features. Muscles filled out their shirts showing they spent time working out. They had an uncomfortable air about them as if they’d rather be somewhere private rather than amongst their classmates.

“It would probably do them good,” I agreed.

“Let’s begin,” said Pat. “Take out your laptops if you haven’t already and return to the individual work you did on your house yesterday. Perhaps sleeping on it one night won’t get you the freshest of eyes for you humans, but work on it the best you can.”

The class responded, amused at the android’s condescension.

Realizing what I designed would probably end up being too much if I would be living within it for a lifetime and for other lifetimes for those who followed I tried saving it and creating a new house but discovered I couldn’t.

“Pat?” I asked. “I can’t seem to keep what I did and start an alternative.”

“No you can’t,” Pat explained. “One house per computer.”

Sighing I changed things, the walls becoming no longer glass, the color a muted white, grayed with a subtle blueness. I kept the back wall of the living room basically a huge monitor which made we want to get rid of the extra study, finding it an unpalatable intrusion in the space, forcing me to reduce the master bedroom, taking out its multiple use as our study space and creating a study on the other side of the kids’ room from the bedroom. I paneled the study in a light wood, though much of the walls would be lined with shelves, except... “Books?” I murmured to myself. Despite loving the feel of them, the weight and texture and the naturalness of paper, it would be an unnecessary luxury, an encumbrance really. I left half a wall with shelves, maybe for a few books and some objects, sculptures or knickknacks.

I kept the sliding doors, making them mechanical like the ones in Star Trek, even amusing myself with creating the woosh sound, with a small panel about the height of my hip so that the kids could reach it reading hand prints. Returning to the study, I placed a desk in it embedded with a keyboard which would be the control center of the house, a panel to program in hand prints. In front of it the wall would become the monitor able to be accessed by other computers plugged into the embedded keyboard.

The space opened up by removing the study in the living room I decided to create a mini salon area including a mini grand piano, replaced by a much smaller electronic one since it took up too much space, but which needed speakers to be heard, and that made me create a surround sound system with speakers embedded in the walls. The entertainment system would access those speakers, and I dreamt of including a record player. I enjoyed the old analog technology at home, or what had once been my home, and had quite the collection of vinyl, but realized that would be as much of an encumbrance as books. I needed to embrace a digital world embedded in a dark gray, nearly black amalgam of plastic and asteroid metal.

Perhaps feeling rebellious, I created a rack on the wall behind the piano and filled it with analog instruments, the strings of a viola, a cello and an acoustic guitar, the brass of a trumpet and a trombone, the woodwinds of a soprano and tenor saxophone and a bass clarinet, my favorite instrument. No room for a drum set, I hung various percussions devices like bongos and shakers and what I found out was called a guiro, a gourd with ridges.

Even more rebellious, I transformed the outside of my house into an old home in the woods even having the roof being thatch. No more asphalt or white cement leading to it, but a path of crushed brick. The door became a rustic looking wood. Just low bushes in the yard, I kept the garden, but gave it an amorphous roundness matched by the reflecting pool, the sculpture/fountain it reflected similar to the soft, curving, vaguely human forms of a Moore.

Deciding it complete, I looked up and into the smiling eyes of Emily. “Done?” she asked.

I looked around. All the laptops had been closed except the French woman’s, which she had placed on the dais in front and was conferring with Pat. A general murmur of conversation filled the classroom. Emily bit into her sandwich, and I saw mine beside my laptop.

“Need to talk to Pat?” she asked.

“No,” I smiled and closed my laptop. “What’s going on?”

“It seems we’ll be discussing the time table.”

“Meaning?” I asked excitedly.

“Yes. Plans for heading to space probably within a couple months.”

“Wow. What’s up for discussion?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe the time needed to gather all the things for the houses?”

“Built in a couple months?”

“The enclosures I’m sure are already built. They have robots to build the interiors.”

“Of course,” I said. “How does everyone know this? I was distracted, but I’m sure I would have heard Pat announce it.”

Emily opened a drawer in the desk and a small hinged plastic container. In it was what was obviously an ear plug with a slight extension in the familiar dark gray. “Put it in, Joe.” I noticed she had one in her left ear.

I did and heard nothing.

“Pat switches to public mode when he wants to be heard,” Emily explained.

“And it can be individual as he chooses.”

“Yes.”

I saw the beautiful French woman nod looking somewhat satisfied, close her laptop and return to her seat beside the German.

“Can you hear me Joe?” I heard the odd metallic voice of Pat. His mouth didn’t move.

“Yes,” I said.

Neither did his mouth move when he announced, “Ten minutes more for lunch and then we’ll begin discussions.”

“I like it better when his mouth moves,” I said.

“Me too,” Emily nodded. “What took so long?”

“I decided to do it all over again.”

“I saw and I agree,” she smirked.

“Cheater,” I chuckled.

“You didn’t cheat?”

“No.”

“Great minds then,” she grinned, giving me a kiss on the cheek. “Hannah texted me.”

“Oh?”

“She had early classes today and later classes tomorrow. She asked if she might visit this evening.”

“What did you reply?”

“That I wasn’t certain and I’d text her as soon as I was.”

“Sounds like she could work Tuesdays,” I said.

“She does work Thursdays,” Emily reminded me. “Tuesday would be study day.”

“And if Monday is the same classes as Wednesday, she said she had to wake up fairly early.”

“A safety response?” Emily shrugged.

“Makes sense.”

“Or maybe it would seem early if she’d rather sleep in from a weekend of work.”

“That also makes sense,” I chuckled.

I finished my sandwich, Emily having already finished hers.

A three month calendar appeared on the large monitor with today’s date, a date almost exactly a month later and another the following month had the squares in red.

“The first launch will happen in a month,” said Pat. “Your houses will begin launching in two months. Questions? No need for hands, I will pick.”

“I thought we had time for vacation,” I heard the Frenchwoman ask in my headphone. “Heinrich and I planned to tour the world with Jock’s approval.”

“Class will end this week,” Pat explained. “You will have your time, Marie. Others may join you in this sentimental goodbye journey at Jock’s approval.”

“These times are set?” I heard my voice ask in my ear. “First question,” I added causing amusement.

“Yes,” Pat simply answered.

“Second questions, will there be contingencies, for weather for instance.”

“Not needed. We launch early and where no one will notice. The weather is not a factor.”

“Last question, the first launch?”

“The advanced guard, those needed to set things up on the ship. They have already designed their houses and the houses will be ready for launch.”

“Everything we asked for will be in our house by then?” asked what sounded like the African gentleman.

“No,” said Pat. “What we determine to be essential to your needs, yes, but anything we are unable to obtain beyond that will not be cause for delay.”

“You labeled this a discussion,” I heard Emily argue, “but that presumes some give and take. This sounds more like you giving us the facts.”

“Your question, Amanda?”

“I have ... things to do which will continue months down the line.”

“There will be a virtual tether between spaceship and earth for some time. Does that answer your question?”

“Yes.”

“Will we have vacation time like Marie and Heinrich?” I heard Tex ask.

“Yes, at Jock’s approval.”

Amy asked, “Will we be returning to the mountain upon completion of the class?”

“Yes. All will be required to be there since the crew has finally been completed,” Pat nodding towards Emily and me. “Once there, you will have a dinner in the grand hall, after which Jock will give a speech regarding the final stages of the project and then there will be a dance. The following day, once you fragile humans recover,” he smirked, “Jock will meet with you individually and as couples. Once that’s completed to Jock’s satisfaction, you may have your vacation time. This will complete the class today. Tomorrow you will be free to do as you wish. Thursday you will synthesize two houses into one and Friday we will examine the results. Be open to adjustments with that final day. As before you may leave as you came, two minutes between.”

Though I wanted to communicate to Amy my thought that we might delay our visit, we felt compelled to leave as soon as possible, gathering our stuff and heading to the elevator. Outside we headed left, found Amy’s car and wandered around the parking lot as if searching for ours until we spotted Amy and Gary and joined them at the Hyundai.

“Joe’s legs mean he’s always shotgun,” Amy smirked while opening her door. “And the car was open since I opened it in the classroom.”

“You could have said,” Emily chuckled getting in the back with Gary.

The Eddinger family home was a suburban monstrosity, a MacMansion seemingly plopped down amongst others with little yard surrounding it. Gary walked out of the still opened garage.

“His family lives next door,” Amy explained.

During the thirty minute trip, Gary and Emily chatted, a slow start but Emily has a way of charming just about anyone into comfortable conversation, perhaps from years amongst ogling, drooling nerds. Amy and I kept mostly quiet, my doing since I replied to her questions with one word answers, doing what I could to suppress her garrulousness. It was my way of helping Emily and Gary to get to know each other, figuring Amy would dominate any conversation in the car.

“I like him Joe,” Emily reported as we entered the McMansion through a door leading to a landing between staircases leading up or down. We went up.

The spacious home had been comfortably done without a lot of work. “In here,” we heard and followed Amy into a large living room with a couple comfortable couches and armchairs, all a matching sand color. A large glass coffee table sat at the center. Quiet jazz came from the speakers. Both armchairs were occupied by Eddinger père and fils, two tall handsome arrogant blonds, father in his late forties and son in his mid-twenties. The son indeed looked like one of those Nazi Aryan sculptures come to life.

“Jock I presume,” I smiled, nerves kept at bay. “And you must be Thadeus.”

“Thad please,” Thad muttered.

Neither got up so I presumed handshaking wasn’t in order, and Emily and I sat together on one of the couches, Amy sitting across the table from us on the other couch.

A tall attractive blonde woman about Jock’s age entered carrying a large tray with six mugs, a large metal carafe and fixings. Setting it down on the coffee table, she poured a cup for her husband and herself. “Help yourself,” she said, sitting closest to her husband beside their daughter.

I prepared cups for myself and Emily, of course knowing her preference. Brother and sister followed.

“I’m glad you two joined us,” Jock began, his voice low and melodious, his Australian accent obvious.

“Here or for your project,” Emily smirked.

“The project of course. You two were the last pieces, purposely chosen to arrive later.”

“Fresh eyes,” I guessed. “Meaning you’ll want my psychological perspective at the meetings of individuals and couples.”

“And to establish Thad’s leadership, his captaincy and his confidence before my strategic skills could undermine them,” Emily added.

“Father insists your advice will be necessary,” Thad muttered.

“And you don’t?” Emily asked.

“We’ll see,” Thad grinned arrogantly.

“I like a challenge,” Emily giggled.

Her giggling could be disarming and misconstrued, a dumbing down of her presence, but misevaluating an enemy, undervaluing their abilities, is always a strategic mistake. Thad’s arrogant grin broadening proved his.

“Thaddeus!” his father growled. “You will listen to Amanda! You will accept her advice! You will learn from her!”

“Or else what father?” Thad returned smugly.

“Or else you lose your command!”

“And let that half-breed muscle head Tex be captain?”

I realized one of the reasons we were here was to be audience to father shaming son.

“That half-breed,” Jock simmered, “is a genius like everyone else joining us. Though I’m wondering if you missed whatever genes there might be from parents to son thinking he’s not your equal and your better.”

“My better?”

“Yes Thaddeus! He at least knows how to lead a group who have equal abilities as him.”

“A fucking quarterback?”

“Exactly, even if the abilities had to do with physical rather than mental, he marshalled a bunch of egos into a unified group. Not by prancing around declaiming his superiority even if, mentally, he was by far their superior. But by guidance and support and making them better and giving them methods and structures to utilize their strengths even if their strengths were never quite enough to be champions they could achieve much more than they ever could without him.”

“By coddling and befriending those Neanderthals?”

“By any means necessary, so yes. And despite his mental superiority, by being natural about it, the befriending became genuine. Even Neanderthals can figure out if someone is disingenuous. A leader has to gain the respect of his followers.”

“Command means commanding meaning absolute confidence and expecting absolute obeisance.”

“No questioning your authority?” Emily chipped in as Jock had expected.

“Of course not.”

“Even if at every station are experts at whatever they do? Geniuses in fact?”

“I would ask their opinion before making my decision.”

“And what if they’re intimidated by you so that their opinion would be what you hoped to hear?”

“Why would they do that? They would express the best choice for the ship.”

“Would they? Or would it be the best choice for you?”

“One and the same.”

Emily shook her head.

“Tell them your research concerning leadership and the troops,” Jock asked.

Emily nodded. “An army psychiatrist during the Korean War essentially correlated command with battle fatigue as they called it then, PTSD now. Though he never specified the exact weaknesses that would provoke bad leadership back then, it has been explored over the years, even specialized. Joe has studied some of those results.”

“I have,” I said.

“There’s a particular type, a cliché really because of its commonality, I like to call the prancing lieutenant, like one of those prancing show horses. A greenie the enlisted would call him since he’s green as far as battle testing, fresh out of the academy, who feels superior because he’s an officer compared to the lowly enlisted despite them knowing much more than him the realities and horrors of war. Immediately there’s a disconnect between him and his men at two levels: the classism he embraces and the lack of experience. His arrogance ordering them about like cogs than humans only makes it worse. They don’t respect him and question every order to the point of near mutiny.”

“What has that to do with me?” Thad declared proudly, proving her point. “Everyone will be equal in experience.”

“Yes it’s a significant difference from the example,” Emily argued, “but it’s the attitude that’s the problem. Treating your colleagues not as colleagues but as underlings, as lower beings, like you thinking of Tex as a mixed breed muscle head which makes me think your similar looks to the Nazi’s ideal version of a man more appropriate than it should be. If you believe your race or gender somehow superior to others dooms your command, what with the mix of races and genders Jock has compiled.

“Would a king rather be feared or respected? Aside from you not being king, the answer should be to be respected and the reason is the culture of the group, being comfortable rather than intimidated. Intimidation is a lot more conducive to PTSD, and a group comfortable with their place and respectful of their leader because of the comfort he engenders along with the competency of his leadership produces the least likely promotion of PTSD, at least as far as it relating to poor command. The horror of war has a way of promoting it all on its own. Bottom line, should the people you work with come to work afraid to be around you or happy to be with you?”

“The point is,” said Jock, “You need to fix your attitude, starting with accepting Amanda’s input, or I will put Tex in command. Understood?”

“Yes father,” Thad murmured, a simmering anger obviously under restraint.

In a way I couldn’t blame him, being called out in front of strangers and his sister, shamed really considering his arrogant nature, i.e. his pride. I hoped he got the message, but doubted he did or more pertinently wouldn’t do anything about it except, more than likely, to lash out at Emily. Essentially his father ordered him to change his character and the psychologist in me knew how problematic that can be, in fact near on impossible. In obvious cases, curing sick minds, whether it be schizophrenic, psychotic or bipolar, has few if any successes, often merely quieted by pharmaceuticals which, when not taken, the sickness reemerges. But people who have what might be called character flaws, unpleasantly cynical or a low threshold for frustration creating temper tantrums or uncommunicatively guarded or, in Thad’s case, arrogant aren’t necessarily aberrant and wouldn’t likely be given pills to quiet those flaws. So how would anyone change them? Grow up some might say, but what if they already have grown up, matured into those flaws? Did his father give Thad an ultimatum, stop being an arrogant asshole or get out, one which Thad couldn’t abide? Or was he communicating to Emily and me telling me, the psychologist and the veteran of problems with geniuses, to fix his son, and to Emily to make sure his son accepts her as his strategist? It made sense, both the shaming and the assigning.

“Jock?” I started.

“Yes Joe.”

“Choosing ... uhm ... Amanda to become strategist for the ship, what exactly are you anticipating?”

“That’s the point,” Jock smiled, and for the first time I saw where the apple might not have fallen all that far from the tree, the overbearing confidence leading to arrogance, specifically in his condescending reply. “Venturing into the unknown requires anticipating anything and everything.”

“Yes of course,” said Emily. “Does that mean the ship is armed and armored? And do you have any inkling of what we are armored and armed against? Did the alien information suggest...?”

“Yes,” Jock admitted. “It told of other space travelling civilizations, and some of our preparations have made use of that information, including proprietary armament and hull protection. At the same time the aliens made no mention of faster than light travel so that these distant civilizations would be an unlikely threat having hundreds of light years between them and us.”

“Unlikely,” Emily pointed out.

“Yes,” Jock smiled. “I’m so glad you two decided to visit us today. Originally we planned to have Amy bring you out here once class ends on Friday, but I believe this is better. More time aware of the limits of your time in Denver. You see, after the weekend I will want you to join us in what is amusedly called our mountain lair for a week of acclimation before the rest arrive. You Amanda and Thad will begin your work together, and Joe will be going through some files with me.”

“Wearing my psychologist hat,” I interrupted.

“Yes. Exactly.”

“You’ll want me at those meetings with the crew.”

“Yes. Anyway, it will be a busy week with both acclimation and your duties. So enjoy your time here, but not too much. Understood?”

“We understand the conditions, right Joe?” Emily nodded.

“Yes of course,” I replied.

“Please be careful to whom you fraternize with. I’d prefer you getting to know your future crew.”

“Hannah,” I thought and so appeared did Emily.

“We’ll have plenty of time to get to know the crew,” I said. “Our time, however limited, is our own, and again we understand the constraints. We’re also quite aware of your scrutiny which you have made apparent. Fortunately Amanda tends towards exhibitionism.”

She slugged my shoulder but laughed. Making light of the constant spying seemed to have its intended effect. Everyone, even father and son, looked amused.

“Would you stay for dinner?” the quiet Martha asked.

“I’m afraid we have plans,” Emily said. “Thanks for the coffee, but Gary and I were having a very nice conversation before we arrived here. He lives next door, right?”

“I’ll take them over,” said Amy.

We found Gary in his basement full of devices, one of which he was toying with.

“What are you working on?” Emily asked, pulling a chair beside him.

Amy guided me to an unmade cot in the corner which I figured probably got more use than his bed in his bedroom.

“What exactly is your expertise?” I asked her once we settled atop it. “I remember your situation, which now makes sense, being homeschooled and I helped you get appropriate accreditation so you could take classes at NYU. Journalism, wasn’t it, with media studies?”

“I always wanted to be a news diva,” she laughed.