Chapter 2

“You okay?” Max asked. “Your eyes are pulsing.” I looked in the mirror and saw the gold specks in my eyes pulsing brightly. I knew that was the first sign of a possible eruption. I took a few deep breaths and relaxed.

“Yeah,” I said quietly.

“Maybe we should step out back and discuss our next steps,” he said. I nodded my head and followed him out. We stopped in his room long enough for him to make two cups of Adrestia’s tea, then went outside and sat on the bench facing the large rock. He offered me another cigarette and I accepted.

“You’re gonna get me hooked on these things,” I said.

“There are worse vices,” he said as he lit my cigarette. I inhaled deeply and took a sip of tea. I could feel myself starting to relax.

“And you thought you had it bad,” he said with a smile. I realized he was right.

“Did you hear the tone of her voice?” I asked.

“I did,” Max said. “She seemed very detached, emotionally. You think he may have drugged her or something?”

“No,” I said. “I don’t think so. She was cool, calm, collected. She deliberately calculated how she would hurt her husband and executed her plan. I’d love to take a look at her brain feed.”

“I’ll bet you would,” Max said. “I know one thing – the lawyers are gonna have a field day with this one. This isn’t just a civil case anymore. I don’t know if you caught it, but she admitted to more than one crime. The incestuous acts with her sister are enough to technically get her thrown in jail for a couple years. And that’s only one possible charge.”

“We’ll need to go to Orange County,” I said. Max nodded his head.

“I agree,” he said. “The sooner the better. I suggest we go home tomorrow morning as planned. Take the rest of the day off, spend some time with Ginger. Adrestia and I will make arrangements and we’ll go to southern California on Thursday. You and I will get together and work out our strategy on Wednesday. We should be able to do what’s needed on Thursday and return on Friday. Don’t forget, you and Ginger are coming to the gallery on Saturday.”

“Gonna be a busy week,” I said.

“Yes, it is,” Max said. We went back to our rooms and I got ready for bed. My last thought when I closed my eyes was of Ginger. The next thing I knew, I saw her in my mind, almost as if she was in the bed with me, laying on her side, nude. She looked at me with a big smile and the specks in her eyes actually twinkled. I smiled back and reached out to her, pulling her to me.

She wrapped her arms around me and we kissed deeply. I could feel her breasts against me and I began to respond to her presence. The next thing I knew, she had taken my now-erect cock in her hands and guided me inside her. She felt so good to me and so real. Far too real to be a dream, I thought to myself.

“This is no dream, my love,” she purred in my ear, almost as if she could hear my thoughts. “I’ve missed you so much. I need this,” she whispered as we bucked against each other. We groaned as we coupled and were soon crying out as we climaxed together. We held each other for a few minutes as we calmed down.

“Sweet dreams, my husband,” she said, giving me a kiss.

“As long as you’re in them, they’ll always be sweet,” I said. She smiled and we exchanged another kiss.

“I’ll see you in the flesh tomorrow,” she said. “I love you.”

“I love you more,” I responded. I slept like a log for the rest of the night and woke up to the sound of reveille being played on the camp’s speaker system. Even though it was 5:30 am, I felt surprisingly refreshed and couldn’t help but wonder about what happened the previous night. Was it real, or was it Memorex, I asked myself, thinking about the old commercial. I made a mental note to ask Smith and Jones about it the next time I saw them, which was scheduled to be tonight.

I got up, did my business, took a shower, dressed, and went to Max’s room. He opened the door before I could knock and looked at me.

“Ready for breakfast?” he asked.

“Sure,” I told him. We locked our doors and headed for the chow hall, where we enjoyed a large Denver omelet, hash browns, bacon, coffee, juice, and milk.

“Boy this sure takes me back,” Max said as he ate his omelet. John and Gunny Rob joined us as we ate. I pulled out a bag containing Joe’s phone and handed it to Gunny Rob.

“I got everything I need off of that,” I said. “Thanks.”

“You may want to get with legal,” Max added. “I have a feeling the authorities in California will want to examine it.”

“You think this has evidence of criminal activity?” Gunny Rob asked.

“I do,” Max said.

“So, what are your plans now?” Alan asked.

“We’re going back right after breakfast. Our flight leaves Spokane at 11:00. We’ll be following up on some things later this week in California, see what we can find,” Max said.

“What do we tell Nelson?” Gunny Rob asked.

“Tell him we’re looking into his case. We’ll be back in a couple weeks, regardless of what we find,” Max said. Gunny Rob looked at me.

“What do you think, son?” he asked.

“I know what my gut’s telling me, Gunny,” I said. “But I’d rather wait and see what we learn down there before I say anything.” He nodded his head.

“Alright,” he said. “I guess we’ll see you two in a couple weeks, then.”

“We’ll be here,” Max said. We stood and said our goodbyes after we finished eating, then went back to our rooms and packed up. We turned our card keys in to the receptionist, said our final goodbyes, and left the camp.

I called Ginger while Max took care of the car rental to let her know we were about to board the plane in Spokane.

“We’ll be leaving here shortly,” I told her.

“I know, silly,” she said.

“You know?” I asked.

“Of course. You left your itinerary, remember?”

“Oh, yeah. I guess I did,” I said sheepishly.

“How did you sleep last night?” she asked. I detected a bit of mischievousness in her voice.

“I slept very well, thank you. How about you?”

“Like a baby,” she purred. “Did you enjoy yourself last night?” she asked in a very low voice.

“I did. Wait, was that for real?” I asked, shocked.

“Uh, yeah, it was. I told you it was real last night,” she said.

“Wow,” I said. “We’d better tell Smith and Jones about this. They’ll definitely want to know.”

“I know,” she said. “They’ll be over this evening, by the way.”

“Yeah, I know,” I said. “So, did you enjoy that last night?”

“More than you’ll ever know,” she said.

“I guess we’ll have to do that more often,” I told her.

“Got that right, stud muffin,” she said. “I’d better get going. I’ll see you when you get home. Love you.”

“Love you too,” I said, ending the call. I looked up and saw Max watching me.

“You two lovebirds finished?” he asked. “We have a plane to catch.”

“Yeah,” I said. “We’re done.” He nodded his head and I followed him to the terminal.

...

Ginger flew into my arms when Max dropped me off at the house. She wrapped herself around me and it felt so good to be home with her again. We said our goodbyes to Max and went back into the house. After I put my things away, we embraced each other again.

“So, I take it you had a good trip?” she asked.

“Yes, it was very productive,” I told her. “Max and I will be going to southern California to do a follow-up on Thursday. We’re planning to be back on Friday. I had an idea about something I wanted to run by you,” I added.

“You mean, setting up a server for the brain feeds and showing me how to use your app so I can help you review them?” she asked. I looked at her, stunned.

“Yes, how did you know?”

“It just came to me about an hour ago,” she said. That was about the time I had the idea. I would definitely have to talk about this with Smith and Jones tonight.

“Well, what do you think?” I asked her.

“I think it’s a very good idea,” she said. “You obviously don’t have time to spend digging through other people’s memories and I already told you I’d be more than happy to help you in any way I could.”

“Alright, I’ll start planning it out,” I said. “Have I told you lately that I think you’re the absolute best?”

“I think you may have mentioned it a time or two, but a girl likes to hear that more often,” she said with a smile.

“Well, you’re the absolute best and I love to pieces,” I told her, making her smile even wider. “So, what did you find out about Lee and the Hamilton Group?”

“I’m still putting together a portfolio on them, but so far, everything seems to be on the up-and-up. Lee is a very well-respected member of the community down there and the law firm is doing very well,” she said. “They have several elected officials as clients and one of their lawyers was elected to the State Assembly in the last election.”

“So, they’re politically connected?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. “The firm has its own PAC and they contribute the maximum to a number of candidates on both sides of the political aisle. So far, about 95 percent of their benefactors win their elections.”

“Interesting,” I said. “So, nothing jumped out at you? No red flags?”

“No, nothing,” she said.

“Which means Lee is very good at covering his tracks,” I said.

“Apparently so,” she said. “You may find this interesting. Lee is being considered for a ‘man-of-the-year’ honor by a local business group down there. It’s set to be announced at the group’s annual dinner in about six weeks or so.”

“Really?” I asked. “Even more interesting. I’ll mention that to Max tomorrow. Thank you for doing that, by the way.”

“You’re very welcome,” she said.

...

That evening, Smith and Jones sat quietly and listened as we detailed the changes in Ginger and the strange occurrences over the last few weeks. Ginger showed them her journal and they read through it quietly. When they finished, Smith pulled a device from his briefcase, opened it up, and ran it around Ginger’s head, then mine. He sat back down and the two of them conversed in their language as they looked at the device.

“What’s going on?” I asked, a bit impatient. Smith looked at me before speaking.

“I take it you two are still exchanging genetic material?” he asked.

“You mean, having sex? Yes. Why?” I asked.

“It is difficult to adequately explain in your limited language,” Smith said. “It appears the two of you are going through a cellular synchronization.”

“What?” I asked.

“Let me put it in terms you might be able to understand,” Jones said. “You understand your computer and network technology, is that right?”

“Yes,” I said.

“What is happening to you is similar to what happens when two computers connect on a network. Right now, your minds are engaging in a ... handshake, of sorts. They are connected to each other on a cellular level. As a result, your brain waves are synchronizing much in the way that computers can synchronize on one of your networks,” he said.

“In short, your two minds are beginning to function as one,” Smith added. Ginger and I looked at each other, shocked. “Her thoughts will be your thoughts and vice versa. You will each maintain your own identities and personalities. You will continue to have your own dreams and aspirations. But they will no longer be just yours alone. Of course, this means that over time, you will not be able to keep secrets from each other, and there could be other ramifications.”

“We will need to develop a protocol to ensure that your base system remains separate from that which you share, just as your computer servers have their own operating system and programs,” Jones said.

“What about the baby?” Ginger asked. Smith ran the device over Ginger’s abdomen and the two of them examined the results before responding.

“Hmm,” Smith finally said.

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“Your offspring are well within normal parameters,” Smith said. “They are functioning exactly as they should. They will become part of your neural network and will link to you just as the two of you are linked to each other. For them, it will be as natural as breathing or eating.”

“Them?” I asked.

“Yes,” Jones said. “Two lifeforms are gestating within your wife’s body. One male and one female. Did you not know this?”

“No,” Ginger said. We looked at each other. Twins! We’re having twins, we each thought.

“So, will they have the same abilities as I?” I asked. Smith and Jones looked at each other, then at me.

“Yes,” they both said at the same time. “In fact, you could say they will be the first in your species’ latest evolution,” Jones added. Holy fuck, I thought to myself. I sensed the same from Ginger.

“Ah, that’s right,” Smith said. “Human offspring are not mentally mature at birth.”

“True,” Jones added. “They can be quite ... precocious and demanding at first.”

“That could be ... catastrophic,” Smith said. Then it hit me what he meant. I could just see one of our children blowing the house up during a temper tantrum. Or the neighborhood.

“We will need to develop protocols for the upbringing of your children,” Jones said. “Something that will ensure they mature while maintaining the safety of everyone else.”

“I know I’m still transitioning, but what about Ginger? What about the changes she’s experiencing?” I asked.

“She is in transition as well, however, her transition is much slower, and therefore, more manageable,” Smith said. “We are developing a training plan for her. As for you, Cameron, we need to do more work on your anger management. You need to learn how to control yourself a bit better.”

“The exercises you gave me seem to work just fine,” I said.

“Which is why you nearly blew up at Camp Rollins,” Jones said sarcastically. “The exercises were intended to stop sudden outbursts, but nothing more. We will work on this starting tonight. In fact, we’d like both of you to participate.”

“I think that would be a good idea,” I said, looking at Ginger, who nodded her head in agreement. We went through the workout with Smith and Jones, which I felt helped both of us. Before they left, I hit them up with a question.

“Just curious, what’s my capacity? How many years of memories can I realistically download into my mind?” I asked.

“You should be capable of holding roughly 750 years’ worth of information. That should be far more than enough capacity given the average life span of your species,” Smith said. “In fact, with that amount of storage space, you should be able to easily hold multiple brain feeds at one time. Why?”

“Just curious. What happens if that capacity is exceeded?”

“In that case, the brain feed is rejected and sent back to its origination,” he explained.

“I see,” I said. “Thanks, I was just wondering.”

“Have you experienced a brain feed rejection?” Jones asked.

“Yes, it happened once and I was curious to know how that could happen,” I said.

“We can upgrade that subsystem if you feel it is necessary,” Smith said. I shook my head.

“No, I don’t think that’ll be necessary,” I said. “But thanks anyway.” So, I thought to myself after they left, THAT’S why I didn’t get Adrestia’s brain feed. But, I recalled, I had no other memories stored at the time I tried connecting to her. Then the implication of that hit me. That would mean Adrestia was more than 750 years old. That’s impossible, I thought to myself. But, I realized, it’s really no more impossible than what I have been experiencing these last few months. I’m definitely not in Kansas anymore.

“What’s that about Kansas?” Ginger asked.

“Oh, I was just thinking that we’re not in Kansas anymore,” I said.

“You got that right, sports fans,” she said with a chuckle. “So, how do you feel about the idea of us being able to share our thoughts?”

“On one hand, I can see how it could bring us closer together,” I said.

“But, what if one of us has an impure thought?” she asked, echoing my concerns.

“Why do you ask? Are you having impure thoughts about your co-workers or something?” I asked jokingly.

“No,” she said. “I’ve already been down that road, remember?” I could tell that whole period in her life still bothered her, so I decided not to make an issue of it.

“Yeah,” I said. “I guess we’ll have to just take things one day at a time. You know, it’s one thing to have a stray thought. We all have them. It’s another to act on it.”

“I suppose you’re right,” she said after a while.

Later that night, Ginger and I held each other in bed. We had just wrapped up a steamy session of sex and were basking in the afterglow.

“I’m scared, Cameron,” she said quietly.

“About what? Having twins?”

“Yeah, that can be a bit scary. But I was thinking about having twins with super-human abilities in a world full of fucked-up people,” she said. “How are we going to deal with that?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “With a lot of love and a lot of patience, I suppose. You know, we could always read some old Superman comics and see how Clark Kent’s parents dealt with him,” I added jokingly.

“Oh, yeah, let’s rely on a comic book,” she responded with a laugh. I laughed with her. Yeah, it was a silly idea, but at this point, I was ready to consider almost anything.

“Let’s see what Smith and Jones come up with,” I finally said.

“We’ll need to tell your parents,” she said.

“Yeah, we will. That’s going to be an interesting discussion.”

“And what about school? What do we say then?”

“Oh, that’s easy. We’ll just tell the principal that our children have super-human powers and can blow up the school with a single thought if someone pisses them off,” I said half-jokingly.

“That’ll go over like a lead balloon,” Ginger said, laughing. “Please, I’m being serious here. What do we do?”

“Maybe we should think about home-schooling,” I said.

“But they need to socialize with other children,” she countered.

“You’re right. I guess we’ll just have to see how things go. Who knows, maybe they’ll be well-adjusted enough that it won’t be a problem. That’s not all that’s bugging you though, is it?”

“No, it’s not,” she said quietly. “All this talk of neural networks and transitioning and mental links – I mean, how do you cope with all of it?”

“It’s not easy, I’ll admit,” I said. “I try not to let it overwhelm me. Just look on the bright side, though.”

“What’s that?”

“We’ll never be able to say we couldn’t get in touch with each other,” I said with a smile. She chuckled and slapped my arm.

“I’m being serious here, and you’re making jokes,” she said.

“Look, if worse comes to worst, we’ll buy an island somewhere and start our own civilization of super-powered human beings, okay? At this point, I’m focused on the here and now. And right now, I’m in bed with the most beautiful woman in the world who just happens to be carrying my children. I’ve never been happier or more in love with anyone in my entire life,” I said.

“Oh, Cam, that’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me,” she said as she snuggled into me. “You know what I really need right now?”

“What?” I asked.

“Right now, I need another big dose of your genetic material,” she said as she grabbed my cock.

“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “One dose of genetic material coming right up. You want fries with that?” She giggled and took my manhood into her mouth.

...

“Good morning, Cam,” Sally, Max’s receptionist, said as I walked into the office. “Max is waiting for you.”

“Thanks, Sally,” I said. “And good morning to you as well.” I went into Max’s office and found him sitting behind his desk, a lit cigarette in his ashtray. Two cups of hot tea were sitting on his desk and I knew one was for me. I sat down and took a sip of tea.

“Morning,” I said.

“About damn time you got in,” he said with a smile. “I take it everything went well last night?”

“It did, thanks. Ginger’s working up a portfolio on Lee and the Hamilton Group. No red flags so far, but she did say he’s being considered for some kind of award.”

“Interesting,” Max said. “Oh, I got something for you,” he added as he pulled a tablet out of his briefcase and handed it over to me. “Adrestia put an application on it for you. It’s just like the one I use. Go ahead, turn it on and use 1234 to unlock it. You can set the code to whatever you want.”

I opened the tablet and found only one icon on the main screen. That was odd, I thought. Max told me to go ahead and launch it, so I did.

“What is this?” I asked.

“It’s a tool that lets you perform real-time surveillance on anyone, anywhere and at any time,” Max said.

“How is that possible?” I asked.

“Trade secret. I’d tell you but then I’d have to kill you,” he added with a smile and a wink. “Just kidding, of course. Actually, it’s something Adrestia cooked up. It’s a lot like what you can do, except you don’t need to have a previous mental connection to the target.”

“Feds would probably go nuts with something like this if they ever learned about it,” I said.

“They won’t learn about it, trust me,” he said. “Watch how this works.” He showed me how to search for anyone I wanted. He entered Roger Lee’s name in the first box and “Orange County, California” in the second box. A list of Roger Lee’s showed up, but one had a yellow star next to it.

“I took the liberty of drilling the search down myself to save us some time,” he explained. He selected the name and the main window appeared. We found ourselves looking at a man sitting at a desk inside a well-appointed office. I recognized him right off.

Max selected another icon and a smaller window appeared below the video. I saw gibberish scroll across and wondered what was going on.

“That’s the thought monitor,” Max said. “It’s synchronizing to his brain. Give it a couple minutes.” Sure enough, after a few minutes, the gibberish changed to something that could be read.

“This is what he’s thinking?” I asked.

“Yes, it is,” Max said. “As you have probably already surmised, he’s reading some paperwork in front of him and thinking about how he plans to handle the case he’s working on. We heard a knock on his door.

“Enter,” Roger said abruptly. The door opened and an attractive brunette walked into the office carrying two cups of what I assumed was coffee. She handed one to him and kept the other for herself, taking a sip.

“Caramel mocha, decaf, just like you wanted,” she said with a smile. He looked up and smiled back at her.

“Thank you, Veronica, this is just what the doctor ordered,” he said before taking a sip. “Perfect,” he added, wiping his mouth. I looked at Max.

“Did he just call her Veronica?” I asked.

“That’s what I heard. You thinking what I’m thinking?”

“That she’s Nelson’s ex-wife? Yeah,” I said.

“Let’s watch and find out,” Max said. As we watched, Roger closed his folder and turned his attention to Veronica.

“So, have you found out where that loser ex-husband of yours is hiding out?” he asked. The woman shook her head and sat down.

“No, I haven’t heard anything from anyone,” she said.

“I haven’t had any luck either,” he said.

“Why are you so interested in finding him?” she asked. “You’ve taken everything from him. You got me. We destroyed him. Why not just let it go so we can move on with our lives?”

“I haven’t taken everything yet,” Roger said. “He’s still working at that bank and he’s still drawing air.”

“You promised me you wouldn’t kill him,” she said.

“And I don’t intend to. Not unless he forces my hand. I’d rather he did it himself. You know that. You’re not going soft on me, are you?”

“No, sweetheart,” she said. “It’s just that I’d rather forget about him and focus on us.”

“I’d like nothing better myself,” he said. “But there’s one thing I need to do first.”

“What’s that?” she asked.

“I need to piss on his grave,” he said grimly.

“Haven’t your investigators found anything out?” she asked.

“No. Useless bunch of worthless fucks haven’t been able to find out shit. So I hired in some guy from back east.”

“Oh? Who?”

“Some gumshoe named Hammer,” he said. That got my attention. “Found him in Atlantic City, running from some mob types. Fixed his little problem for him, then brought him here to find your ex.”

“Has he found anything?”

“Not yet, but he’s hot on the trail. Went by his apartment the other day. Found out he hasn’t been around for the last couple of months. All his bills are being paid, though, and his mail is being held until just after the end of next month,” Roger said. “He’s asking around, though.”

“What happens if this Hammer guy finds him?”

“He’ll do what he’s been paid to do. Enough about your ex. Are you still my little slave?” he asked with a sneer.

“Of course,” she said. “You know I’m yours to command.” He smiled wide and pulled back from his desk.

“Then what are you waiting for, my slave? Why aren’t you under my desk sucking my dick?” She smiled and crawled under the desk as he unzipped his fly.

“Watch this,” Max said. As I watched, he moved his finger on the screen and the camera angle followed his movement. He touched another icon and zoomed in. By now, we could clearly see Veronica with Roger’s cock planted firmly in her mouth. I looked at Max, shocked.

“How is that possible?” I asked.

“Trade secret, remember?” I shook my head in disbelief.

“You recorded this, right?”

“Of course,” Max said. “Man of the year, huh?” he asked with a snort.

“Yeah,” I said sarcastically. A germ of an idea began to form in my mind. I connected to Hammer’s mind to find out what he was doing. At that moment, he was in bed with what looked like a hooker. She seemed to be well-worn and a bit long in the tooth, but I wasn’t there to judge Hammer’s taste in women.

Projecting myself through his mind, I looked around the small motel room and discovered that he was in Westminster, California, one of the many communities that filled Orange County just south of Los Angeles. I made a note to myself and disconnected from his mind.

“Where the hell were you?” Max asked. “I tried talking to you, but you just sat there staring at the desk.”

“Sorry, I connected with Hammer’s mind. He’s located in Westminster, California. Last I heard, he was in Atlantic City. I wanted to see if the Hammer Roger spoke of was the same guy. It is.”

“I take it you’ve had dealings with this Hammer?” Max asked.

“Yes, I have. He worked for Bergstrom for a while,” I said. “After he was sent to prison, he wanted Hammer to kill us. I convinced Hammer it would be best if he left the area.”

“I see,” Max said. “Are you alright? You seem to be a bit stressed.”

“I’ll be fine,” I said. “It takes a lot of effort to project myself through someone’s mind.”

“I imagine it does,” he said. He pressed a button on his intercom. “Sally, would you mind bringing in a couple cups of tea, please?” he asked.

“Of course, Max,” she said in response. “I’ll be right there.” A couple minutes later, she came into the office with two cups of hot tea and set them on the desk.

“Thank you, Sally,” Max said.

“You’re welcome,” she said before leaving the office. He pulled out his cigarettes and offered one, which I took. We drank our tea and smoked our cigarettes as we discussed the plan for our visit to Orange County. Then we spent the next two hours or so rehearsing my part, with him playing Roger. By the time we finished, I felt like I had a good handle on things.

“Why don’t you call it a day, go on home, rest, pack and spend some quality time with your wife,” Max said. “I’ll pick you up at 7:00 am so we can get to the airport in time.”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” I said. I went home and packed my bags for the trip. Ginger got home from work about the time I finished.

“You about ready to go?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’ve got my martial arts class this afternoon, but other than that I’m all yours. How was work?”

“Oh, pretty much the same old, same old. You know how that goes,” she said.

“Yeah, I do. Listen, after my class, you want me to bring home a pizza or something? Maybe we can hang out on the couch and ... play.”

“Play?” she asked, raising her eyebrows. “That sounds ... interesting. Does this play involve swapping genetic material?” she asked with a smile.

“It just might,” I said, taking her in my arms.

“Well then. I guess it’s pizza and playtime tonight,” she said before giving me a kiss. “What time is Max picking you up?”

“Six o’clock,” I said. “So I’ll have to get up earlier than normal.”

“Well, better get going then, so we’ll have time to play,” she said.

I went to my class and stopped off for pizza afterward. I got a large half veggie and half meat-lovers with extra sauce. The half veggie part was Ginger’s and the other was mine. I though about calling her to let her know, but decided instead to connect directly to her mind.

“I’m picking up the pizza now,” I told her in my mind when I saw her smiling face.