Chapter 149

After a tussle, Diana managed to get the Superkitten suit on Billy. She had originally planned to make a devil costume for him, but changed her mind and made the Superkitten suit, instead. The blue material, almost a body suit, covered him down his back to his hips, but was shorter on the underside, stopping well before his groin. Hidden strips of Velcro fasteners closed the outfit. The red cape started on either side of his neck and extended down his back to stop just short of his hips. She had sewn thin plastic stiffeners into the cape to make it more rigid, causing it to stand out a little from his body to give the illusion of flying above his back. The front of the suit bore a stylized "S" in yellow and red, just as a Superman suit would have.

While the women held their breath, Diana put him down in front of a full-length mirror. At first, he didn't look toward the mirror, but sat to lick his paws, trying to ignore what had been done to him. Suddenly, he noticed the mirror. With tail standing straight out, his back arched and his feet together, he snapped his full attention to the mirror, hissing at the apparition there. Darting to the side near the wall, he cautiously looked back toward the mirror. Seeing no reflection, since the angle was wrong, crouching low, he cautiously crept along the wall toward the mirror.

Thinking the other cat must have gone toward the bedroom door, he eased cautiously along while the women waited, barely daring to breathe. As he passed the mirror, he sensed movement alongside himself. Spinning toward the intruder, he prepared to do battle with this strange-appearing cat. But the cat in the mirror was approaching just as he was, the thing on its back apparently moving on its own. Time to give this upstart a lesson in manners.

His left paw flicked out, claws extended, but instead of tearing out a chunk of the imposing cat, his paw bounced back. A windmill of flashing strikes, and the cat in the mirror remained undamaged. Bounding to the side, Billy crept back — then struck again, hissing and spitting. The cat in the mirror seemed just as fast, but somehow none of the other cat's blows landed, either.

Diana picked the kitten up and placed him on her shoulder, holding him close with a gentle hand as he hissed and spat. Stepping in front of the mirror, she continued to hold him while he calmed down, and eventually just stared at the mirror. There were two women and two cats, but the women seemed identical, and the cat in the mirror was still there, too. He raised a front paw for a second. The cat in the mirror raised a front paw. He raised the other front paw for a moment. The cat in the mirror did the same. Turning his face away from the other cat, he refused to acknowledge it, but his tiny brain continued to worry the concept of a cat that couldn't be touched.

He looked at his belly, turned his head and looked over his shoulder. He could not determine how to get the covering off, so decided to ignore it.

The women had been squealing, giggling or laughing as he fought the cat in the mirror. His mistress reached up and took him from Diana's shoulder, putting him on hers. "It's Halloween. You should wear a costume," she said as she petted him. "You will become accustomed to it, and doubtless like it, eventually."

Billy didn't know what she said, but she seemed pleased and at ease, so he would be too.

Selina turned to Diana. "My Queen, I understood that you were making horns for Billy?"

Diana smiled down at her. "I made them, but I got sidetracked by the Superkitten suit. He's too sweet to put horns and a devil costume on."

The little genius thought for a second. "Possibly we could pretend that he is really Superkitten, and Superkitten is celebrating Halloween by wearing devil horns."

"I don't..." Diana stopped before she could complete her sentence. We're adults pretending to be something we aren't when we put on costumes. Can't Superkitten be pretending, too? "Oh, why not?" she said with a chuckle. If our little genius wants to be a child for a while and pretend, so be it.

A smiling Diana was back in a moment with the tiny set of horns she had made for Billy's head. A thin strap secured them in place. When she slipped them on, Billy growled, not liking to have something on his head.

Selina put him in front of the mirror where he immediately spat and hissed at the new apparition looking back at him. He whacked the mirror with each front paw, then sat staring at the other cat, a barely audible growl coming from his throat.

"Superkitten in a devil costume," Arlene laughed. "We're going to have a ball."

Wearing their Halloween sweatshirts, everyone but Selina and Diana met in the living room.

"Ohmygosh," Arlene rushed out, clapping her hand over her mouth as she stared at Art. Then turning to Helen, "Wow. You did a great job. No one will ever recognize him."

Helen turned to Art. "Remember to concentrate on your walk — slightly longer steps — and your stance. Try to slump your shoulders a bit."

"I will."

Art stood very self-consciously before the scrutiny of the extended family. His clothes looked very much like those of a local rancher, from the well-used broad-brimmed western hat, to the old-seeming boots, and the "work-faded" jeans. He wore a short, scruffy beard that gave the impression of someone who couldn't grow a decent one. Helen had done something to his ear lobes which made them appear slightly thicker and caused them to stick out a little. His wire rimmed glasses set the disguise off, and somehow looked natural on him. His bright orange sweatshirt bore a large skull and crossbones across the chest, with "TRICK OR TREAT" written below in bold, black letters.

Jeff stared at the young agent. It was Art, but it wasn't Art. The Prime knew that one thing that could not be changed with a disguise was the distance between a person's eyes, but Helen had done something that made Art's eyes appear to squint ever so slightly. There was no visible makeup, yet the impression was there. Taken singly, the changes Helen had made were subtle, but together they made a profound difference in the young agent's appearance.

"Well done, Wife," he said as he embraced his resident genius.

"Thank you, Husband," she said, hugging him back, then turning to Sandra and Bobby, "Remember, only one of you should be with him at a time. The other stays close to Jeff. The slavers know Art had two nurses back in Atlanta. Now, he will appear to be just one of many couples there tonight. Plus they could never imagine him being well so quickly."

"I'm with him at the trunk or treat," Sandra said, "and Bobby will be with him at the haunted house."

"I think the both of you can be with him inside the house without calling any attention to the three of you, but not outside," Helen said.

"Yes, Ma'am," the three said in unison, but when Helen glared at them, Art changed it to, "Yes, Helen, and again, thank you."

"The Ma'am ceased when I retired," Helen said, "and you're welcome. I had fun working with the disguise."

Helen turned to her husband. "I ordered his boots online, and received them day before yesterday. Nat, Nicki and Whitney lightly sanded them, rubbed some dirt into them, and also gave them a few nicks so they would appear old. I cut and attached a strip of leather onto the right boot heel to change his walk slightly, thus also shifting his shoulders somewhat as he stands or walks. The hat came from my supplies I had for the kids in my advanced drama class."

Jeff stepped a little closer to the three. "I have some suggestions that you already know, but just to reiterate, practically everyone has a camera on them these days, and many cell phones have a video function as well. If you see anyone taking video or pictures of you, don't call attention to yourself by quickly looking away or trying to get out of the scene in a hurry. I would suggest just turning and moving normally out of the scene as if you have a casual purpose in doing so. You're just one of the local ranchers who is probably bored with the whole trick or treat thing that your wife has dragged you off to.

"People love to put their videos and pictures on Facebook and other social websites. Even if a video with you in it goes up on one of these sites, no one will notice you unless you have called attention to yourself. And if these slavers have access to facial recognition software, and by some insane run of luck happen on a video of you taken tonight, I doubt if the software will ever notice you with the way you look now. It might be interesting to see if our AI is able to recognize you when we come back from the trunk or treat. If it asks who you are when we get back here, obviously we'll know it didn't recognize you."

"No way will it recognize me," Art said, turning to look at his reflection in the big window. "The program they let us experiment with at Quantico would never do it."

"Ten bucks says ours will," Ann said.

Art blushed. "Can't meet your bet. I don't have a dime — remember?"

It was Ann's turn to look embarrassed. "Sorry. I forgot you had to leave everything. No money then, and I don't bet for real, anyway. But I still say our software will recognize you."

"He may be right, Ann," the Prime cautioned. "Art has been introduced to our AI and would normally be recognized when we start back up the drive, but with the beard, glasses and with what Helen has done to his eyes and ears, there's probably little chance the AI will recognize..."

"Oh yes it will," Laura said, smiling at her daughter, just as Helen joined in to agree, also.

Jeff had allowed Laura to "look at" his programming code for his radar. In a matter of hours, she had "tightened up" the code until the program ran noticeably faster. In their spare time, she, Ann, Arlene and Helen had been working on the code for several weeks, and were also working on the code for the AI. Although early on, Laura had let Jeff test the improved code for his radar, all four of the women had quickly become secretive about both projects. He knew they were still working on the AI's code because the program seemed to continue to get brainier, and he suspected they were "smartening" up the radar code as well. He had no real idea what they were doing with either program, and asking only led to smirks and teasing comments like, "You'll see."

Frustrated, at first, he had tried to tactfully question Laura about his radar program, but he had long known that he was an amateur programmer compared to her. Helen, on the other hand, was a true genius. She read at a phenomenal speed and remembered everything. Selina was probably just as smart, but Helen had years of study and life to accumulate a vast amount of knowledge. Laura wasn't a genius — didn't have the intellect or a photographic memory, except ... when it came to programming. She could scan through a program, reading the code, and in minutes understand the program. Seemingly in moments, she could find errors that others would spend many hours locating, if they managed to uncover them even then.

When she wrote code, it was right the first time, every time. Jeff's programs worked — after he debugged them — but she had tightened his code before on other projects, seemingly effortlessly, and so quickly he wanted to pull his hair out just watching her. In addition, she typed at a blazing speed as she wrote her code. The new owners who had taken over her company and downsized were fools to have let her go.

Selina and Diana walked in, the child wearing Arlene's gremlin costume. Those who had not previously seen it were stunned at the realism the costume presented. Billy was riding Diana's shoulders, and although he knew that Selina was inside the beast that walked beside them, he refused to ride its/her shoulder. Every time Selina came near in the costume, he would growl, instinctively deepening his voice as if trying to sound bigger.

Selina raised the gremlin head a little and spoke to Billy.

"Mmeeeow," he responded.

When she settled the head back in place, he began the low growling again.

Laughing, Jeff took the kitten off Diana's shoulders, holding him up before the Prime's face. "Come on, Mr. Superkitten with the devil horns, you can be my buddy tonight."

When Jeff placed the kitten on his shoulder, Billy dug his claws into Jeff's shirt for purchase, and hissed at the gremlin costume.

Jeff, having heard Art's remark about not having any money, stepped to the side for a moment. Diana eventually glanced in his direction. He nodded to her, then with his hand by his side, rubbed his thumb and index finger together and glanced at Art.

After frowning for a moment, his Queen got it. "Money," she mouthed back at her husband.

Jeff nodded and grinned; the Queen smiled and left the room. Returning from the safe a few minutes later, she called Sandra and Bobby into the hallway. When they were well down the hall and out of sight of the others, the Queen turned to them, a little worried. "I don't want this to embarrass you two, but my husband has just reminded me to do this, and ... I want to apologize for not having done it earlier. I'm giving you this to tide you over until you can get to your own money."

With that, she handed each of them a number of bills folded over to produce a tight little bundle. "This is for Art," she said, handing Bobby another small bundle.

"My gosh. We can't take this," she said as she thumbed through the bills, her eyes getting bigger and bigger. "This is way too much," Sandra hissed out.

"Yeah," Bobby agreed.

"I put several smaller bills in with the others, so you can more easily buy drinks and food, or whatever while we're out."

Both nurses were shaking their heads. "Okay. Okay," the Queen said. "I know this is embarrassing, but I don't want it to be. We're not going to allow you to walk around without funds of any kind. You're family — brothers and sisters. One day you'll realize that we really mean that. There is no family closer than the members of our clan are to each other, and you're part of us now. What's ours is yours. Now please tell Art what I said, and remember, if you refuse us, you will hurt us deeply — very deeply."

The nurses looked at each other, not wanting to take the money, but not having a lot of options at present. "We'll pay you back," they said in unison.

"No," the Queen said a little more sharply than she meant. "No," she repeated less sternly as she reached to touch them. "This is family money. God has blessed us and continues to do so. We firmly believe that he would take it away from us if we didn't share. Besides, giving to you is like giving to ourselves. Now go give your man his money, and please try to make him understand. Art is an Alpha, and you're his women. You three are part of the Matthews clan now — just as much a part as any of us."

After hugging her, the nurses turned into a nearby suite to use the restroom to dry their tear-filled eyes before approaching their man. "He's not going to like this," Bobby said to her sister as they looked at each other in the vanity mirror.

Sandra let out a derisive chuckle as she blotted her eyes with a tissue. "That's an understatement." She fought back tears again before continuing, her voice ragged. "How did we get into this? We need to get jobs, but how are we going to do that without giving ourselves away? We would have to get our nursing licenses transferred out here to work in this state, and I don't know what Colorado requires, so we need to research that. But these people ... these slavers are probably watching for an inquiry about our licenses. What are we going to do for an income?"

Bobby hugged her. "Same for Art. How can the FBI put him back to work? With what this ... group has already done, you know they will find and kill him if the FBI tries to use him as an agent again."

Struggling to control her emotions, Sandra took a deep breath, the anger showing in her voice. "The FBI set him up for this. They're the ones who sent him on that undercover thing. He did everything right, and now look what that got him. Surely they won't just abandon him. But ... he can't even talk to them. If he does, the slavers might find out. Oh, shit, if it weren't for the Matthews, what would we do? But I don't want to accept their charity, either."

Art, at Diana's suggestion, walked into the vanity area with Bobby and Sandra. He pulled them to him, encircling them in his arms. "Diana said you were having problems."

That started the tears again. "She gave us money — a lot of money," they both wailed.