Chapter 13

Sunday, March 3, 2030...

Well, today is the day. In just a few hours, Tam and I will be standing in front of the minister who will marry us.

The past six weeks have been very frustrating for us. Every vendor we approached attempted to sell us on the idea that we needed to expand the size of our wedding and reception. That also included the travel company we used to make reservations for our honeymoon.

Karen was excited about the information her reporters had gathered and was looking forward to publishing her article. Tomorrow, she would turn her reporters loose to interview the vendors we used and those we turned down.

It was difficult, but Tam and I stayed with our plan for a simple wedding. Bart and I were standing at the front of the church with the minister seated near his pulpit when we heard the opening bars of the Wedding March being played.

I had been surprised by the number of songs people used as their Wedding March song. We went with the traditional ‘Here Comes the Bride’ music.

Bart and I turned and looked to the rear of the church. Patty was coming down the aisle with her basket of rose petals. Every other step she would reach into her basket and scatter a small number of petals in front of her.

When she arrived at the front of the church, she had a dilemma. She still had a third of the rose petals in her basket. I saw her start to cry. I stepped forward and knelt down beside her.

I said, “It’s okay, Patty. Just scatter the petals here in front of the altar.”

When Patty had emptied her basket, she took her place in front of the alter. Our guests stood as quite settled on the church and we all turned to watch as Tam walked to the front of the alter. To me, she seemed to float down the aisle with an ethereal beauty surrounding her.

When we turned back to the alter, the minister was standing in front of us. We had requested a short invocation, so almost before we knew it, we were exchanging our wedding vows. When the minister said you may kiss your bride, I did so with an immense amount of love.

Our reception was typical, but small. When the reception ended, Jason drove us home.

During the past six weeks, we had tried to keep our getting married from the media, but we failed. We had been the center of many news articles. We couldn’t stop them from trying to interview us, but Gary had increased the number of bodyguard that went with us when we went out in public. Our bodyguard stopped the most determined reporters from approaching us, and we refused to answer the questions they shouted at us from a distance. The only media outlets we would talk to were The Scorpion and The Rattler. The Scorpion covered wedding preparations, our wedding, and the reception. The Rattler immediately started printing articles about how the reporters were once again hounding private citizens who only wanted the reporters to go away and leave them alone.

We changed our plans for our honeymoon. Tam and I had originally thought of a romantic two-week honeymoon for two. We decided to add Bart and Patty to our honeymoons, and honeymoon as a family.

We added Jason to our party for we needed someone to drive us around. A conversation with Gary resulted in Gary and four bodyguards joining our party.

A female bodyguard was assigned to Bart and Patty, one male and one female bodyguard were assigned to Tam, and I was assigned Gary and a male bodyguard. Those were the individual assignments, but all five bodyguards were with us when we went anywhere as a family.

Two of Mary’s Research/Writers went with us to document the reporters’ constant attempts at invading our privacy. The reporters’ newspapers had a hard time denying their reporters’ actions, which were caught on video tape.

Vic recommended that we don’t sue them, but to publish articles that would lead to them being tried in ‘the court of public opinion.’

I was wondering if some or all of the cost of our honeymoon could be written off as research for the articles The Rattler and The Scorpion would publish.

Monday, March 18, 2030...

Tam and I had set aside all of our responsibilities with SIMC and the LLCs during our honeymoon. I had placed Mary and Steve in charge while we were gone. Myra told us she would ride herd on Mary and Steve to keep them from contacting us, unless it was a major disaster. Karen said she would keep Steve in line.

We had enjoyed our honeymoon despite the problems we had with reporters hassling us for interviews. But now we were back to work, and had a lot to catch up on.

Karen had finished interviewing the employees and owners of the vendors we had interviewed to support our wedding, and over half of the articles were written. Gina had approved them for publication. Karen showed me her schedule for publishing and completing the articles. I told her to start publishing the approved articles per her schedule, and to accelerate completion of the remaining articles.

Steve was having a field day publishing articles about the reporters who kept invading our privacy during our honeymoon.

Mary’s group had grown significantly and were busy churning out exposés on the media outlets on our list. She had assigned close to half of the list’s media outlets to her four teams of Researcher/Writers. We added additional media outlets to our list and reprioritize the order in which we would assign the outlets to the teams.

Sunday, December 5, 2066...

“It has been six years, since Carl passed away at the ripe old age of seventy-one. We are gathered here today to celebrate Carl’s final accomplishment.

“Carl started courting me back in November of 2029, and him entering my life turned it upside down in a good way.

“I was one of those reporters who believed that my doing my job was more important than the privacy of the individual. But in 2029, A US Congressman shot and killed his wife and my husband while they were in bed together. My fellow reporters invaded my privacy and I learned what having your personal life made public was like. I did not like it.

“Six months later, Carl reentered my life. He took me out to dinner and throughout our meal I was feeling the intense attraction I felt the first time I met Carl. On my doorstep that night I attacked him with passionate kisses and hugs, but the timing and circumstances were wrong, so I struggled to stop myself from dragging him inside and up to my bed.

“Several weeks later, Carl proposed to me and I accepted. That evening, the timing and circumstances were right and we became lovers, and on the third of March 2030 we were married. Two years later, our daughter Helen was born, and three years after that I gave birth to our son Timothy.

The day after I accepted Carl’s proposal, he made a second proposal to me. He wanted me to become the owner of SIMC’s third on-line newspaper. I accepted and I named the newspaper, The Black Widow. That name seemed fitting since it was my fellow reporters’ handling of Harold’s death who changed my mind about the sanctity of the press. I decided The Black Widow would focus on politics, both state and national.