Chapter 301: Garden Laborer by Day; Snooper by Night

Tuesday, May 2 to Wednesday, May 3, 2006

Prof made an appointment to visit his lawyer in the afternoon. Prof got them to take a stroll out of the office while he asked, "The Concerned Citizen who sent you the text messages about Mark has contacted us. He might be able to send us a copy of the DHS file on Mark, and perhaps even the CIA file. According to him, the CIA has Mark now, but that's all he knows at the moment. What's our legal position if someone sends us files like that?"

The lawyer was worried not only about the legal ramification of receiving classified documents, but the illegal ramifications as well. Wright and Moran had both been killed; seemingly in unrelated ways, but the coincidence wasn't believable. He advised, "It would be much better if the files are sent to several different media organizations. They're interested in the case enough already that they should react favorably. Once the files are in the public domain they won't be able to be suppressed, you can use them, and it should generate a much faster response than going through the courts. My main concerns would be, first, in making sure your hands are clean. You can't be seen to have encouraged the 'Concerned Citizen' in any way, especially not financially. Second, what might happen to Mark when the files become public?"

"It's three and a half months since he was taken, so we have to assume he's not going to be released unless we rattle some cages."

The lawyer had to agree with that.

Prof had thought that the DHS's computer system may not let emails be sent to news organizations, so back at OSU he described enough of the situation to Andrew to be able to ask about how to do what they wanted while keeping their hands looking clean.

Andrew answered, "No problem. I can create an innocuous email address and have it auto-forward whatever it receives to a list of other addresses. Give me the addresses you want to receive the information and I'll set it up on a computer that hundreds of students have got access to. They'll know it came from OSU, but that shouldn't be too bad."

Prof didn't have the list of final destination email addresses yet, so he told Andrew he'd get back to him.

^

I reported to work outside the gates of my own home, and was met by Vanessa, who let me in and gave me even more instructions about what needed doing. (Corvallis being so small, it's easy for Vanessa to pop back and forth from work like this, provided she wasn't giving a lecture.)

In among the conversation, she managed to drop enough double-meaning hints that everything had been good at their end after I'd left last evening, and how excited everyone was at having me around (then after a little pause) "to work on the garden."

When Julia, Carol and Donna arrived from school, they wanted hang around me, but I had to shoo them away after a little while.

Late in the afternoon, Julia came out to invite me to dinner. I was reluctant to do that too often so soon, but Julia insisted, saying, "My very good friend Ava West is coming and I want you to meet her. She's very sad at the moment and needs cheering up. She doesn't have a boyfriend, so maybe you'll be interested. Can I whisper something to you about her?"

"Okay." I had to bend over a lot less than used to be necessary for that. Being five inches shorter was VERY noticeable when I was around my two families as they all seemed so much taller than I remembered.

Julia cupped her hands over my ear, to whisper, "At school, I ordered Ava to follow your orders. She's very puzzled because we haven't done anything like that since you... , since Mark disappeared."

I stood up, saying, "I'm looking for a girlfriend, but I need to meet her first."

Because I was doing gardening work, I had excuses to go back and forth to Dad's workshop, especially when people needed to talk with me (we invented a few simple signals to indicate that). For example, when he came home Prof told me what his lawyer and Andrew had said, and told me that my snooping job was on once Andrew was ready. I modified the plan a little, getting Prof to obtain detailed instructions from Andrew for how to do what he'd said, but I'd do in another city instead because that'd be far better than setting it up at OSU. My paranoia was very justified because they'd already got me once, and would doubtless be out to get me again if they knew I still lived.

When Ava arrived, she was VERY curious about me. No matter how hard she looked, or what questions she asked, Julia's order made no sense. Even less than no sense because I had a criminal record, had only just arrived in town, lived in a tiny tent, didn't have a car, and I was even wearing some of Dad's old clothes (after my afternoon's work and a shower) which looked ridiculous on me. Presumably Julia had told Ava not to ask about it, because that was the only explanation for Ava's being silent about the issue when she was obviously so curious.

Toward the end of the dinner, I asked Ava for her address. She looked at Julia, who nodded encouragement, so Ava told me the street, but not the number.

"What number, Ava?"

Ava looked at Julia again, who nodded again, so Ava reluctantly divulged it. She was living alone, the house was often empty when Ava was visiting her parents in Salem or was at my home, and I'd already admitted to having a criminal record, so Ava's reluctance was very understandable. I said nothing else, and the conversation moved on to other topics, often Katie's and Carson's illnesses and how Ava was managing.

I announced my imminent departure (not using those words) fairly early, mainly because I didn't want to look too entrenched yet if the CIA was watching. "I'll change into my dirty clothes to ride home in."

"But it's raining," protested Carol. "Someone can give you a ride."

"No need. My tent don' have a washin' machine, so's ridin' in the rain's a good way to wash."

"But it's COLD outside."

"I'm don' mind, Carol. Thanks."

Mom said, "You should leave some clothes to work in here. We could wash them for you."

"I don' have dat many clothes, Felicity." I looked at Julia when I added, "Maybe on Saturday I'll go to Kmart ta see what dey have on special. Maybe I could get three or four sets of someting."

Poor Julia was in PAIN, and there was nothing she could say. The CIA was lucky Julia didn't have my powers, because she would've delighted in exacting revenge for the agony they were causing her.

I was stuck in my tent until the rain stopped, which wasn't until after 10pm; too late for visiting Ava. I hadn't been given the list of media email addresses yet, so hadn't set up the auto-forwarding system, but some pre-snoop snooping on the CIA might be useful.

I changed into my black flying clothes, wore my ski mask as a hat, and went for a walk to find a good takeoff place. I varied them randomly among the many good possibilities in the area in case someone got suspicious about me, and I always used a very big sight blob to search around first. Someone might be hiding behind a fence or bush, invisible from the direction I was coming, but a sight blob zipping around overhead that could see as if it was daylight would find them.

While I remember to mention it, I was still refusing to fly in fog, clouds and rain. Sooner or later I was going to have to fly into them, especially if it was raining at the place I wanted to land. So far that hadn't happened, but it was only a matter of time. I figure the more experience I have with flying in general, the more comfortable I'll be when I have to do it in tricky weather.

I found a good spot, took off, and cruised over Ava's place just in case she was up. She was, still dressed and crying, so it was definitely time to cheer her up. I landed in a sheltered backyard a few houses away, rolled up my ski mask to make it into a non-threatening hat, then strolled to her house.

I knocked. When she called, "Who is it?" I nearly said, "It's Mark." That's a hard habit to break. I answered, "It's Ron Fisher, Ava."

"What do you want?"

"To cheer you up. Open the door, Ava. Julia gave you all the reassurance you should need at school today."

"I don't know you."

"You're about to start getting to know me though. Please don't make me use the 'O' word, sweetie."

Ava opened the door cautiously.

It took some doing, but I finally managed to convince her to come for a walk with me, leaving her cellphone behind, and taking just her house key off its ring as I was trying to avoid flying metal around the skies as much as I could.

We walked along the road, three feet apart, me with my hands in my pockets to be as non-threatening as possible. I was shorter than Ava, but I outweighed her and it was late at night, so she wasn't relaxed.

Partly to reassure Ava, partly to occupy the time until we reached a suitable takeoff area, I talked quietly while we walked, "I know how much Julia cares for you, and that she certainly wouldn't have talked about me at school the way she did unless she knew I wouldn't abuse your trust. I know you've described yourself in the past as being too gullible, but that description doesn't apply to Julia. If she's told you to trust me, then she has good reason for it."

One of the good things about Corvallis, in addition to the large proportion of bi-friendly girls - which MIGHT one day matter to me again - is that it has lots of trees and bushes, so it didn't take long for us to reach a suitable place. I stepped onto a property that had several tall trees with room between them for us to take off in.

Ava hesitated to follow me, so I said quietly, "Remember the very first conversation you had with Julia, when she wanted your permission to read your letter and look at your photos. She got annoyed by how hesitant and untrusting you were. This is another situation like that." As I'd intended, Ava was surprised and impressed that I knew about that. "You didn't know Julia then, but she turned out to be one of the most important people in your life. You don't know me, but I'm going to turn out to be one of the most important people in your life too. Julia knows that and I'm about to prove it to you. I promise that you'll be very, very happy in less than five minutes."

With a little more encouragement, I got Ava to follow me among the trees. The last couple of steps I took were onto a very large base-plate for my Magic Flying Sled. I turned to face Ava with my sled's body behind me, so if it took off and tilted as it normally does, I'd be lying on my back. Ava's last step had put her onto the NP-plates too, although she hadn't noticed that as they can be one-sixteenth of an inch thick, so they just felt like hard ground.

I said, "Before I do anything else, I have to close my eyes for two or three seconds. Just wait where you are please." I shut my eyes and used a sight blob to scan around the area. There weren't any CIA agents wearing night-vision goggles hiding behind bushes, so we were fine.

^-- "Something very strange is about to happen and I don't want you to scream in surprise. I can think of a very good way of stopping that happening. Do you trust Julia enough to obey me when I order you to give me a long kiss?"

"I trust Julia, but I don't know you enough to want to kiss you."

I probably hadn't been smart to make it about kissing, so I said, "Fair enough. I'll leave out the kissing, and just tell you that something very unusual is about to happen, and I order you not to yell out in surprise. Can you obey that order?"

"What's going to happen?"

I cheated. Ava was shifting her weight from one foot to the other, so I took advantage of it to blast off with a 2 g acceleration, almost immediately followed by tilting the sled so it was going up at about 75 degrees. The sudden extra weight and changing 'floor' angle caught Ava by surprise. I relaxed the upward thrust to barely any at all, let her fall into my arms, then held her tight while I resumed the 2 g upward acceleration. It took Ava a couple of seconds to collect her wits enough to react to her lying on a strange guy who was holding her. She understood that, and wasn't comfortable with it, so that got reacted to ahead of the other weird feelings. Ava started pushing herself off me. There was no danger of her stepping back enough to fall off, as the sled was already fully walled - making it more of a flying silo than a flying sled - but I didn't want her to feel constrained and panic. We were high enough now that I didn't have to worry about anyone hearing us, so I said, "I'm Mark Anderson, Ava. How are you, my love."

"Huh?"

"Your Nipple Power is now a lot more powerful than it used to be. Look down."

It took Ava another second to recover from the shock of a Black guy calling himself my name, and then the reference to the secret "Nipple Power", before she could process "look down". Then she got another big surprise. I'd eased back on the acceleration as we rose, but we were already three hundred feet up and still rising.

Again before Ava could react, I said, "This is your Nipple Power flying us." I used a couple of fingers to rub one her breasts through her coat. Not much sensation would've gotten through, but enough to give her the idea. "I REALLY am Mark, sweetie. Some bad men captured me and I had to change my looks. Julia knows I'm Mark, that's why she ordered you to obey me."

"But you're BLACK!" And as an afterthought, "And we're FLYING!"

"Yeah, cool huh? Flying I mean; being Black is a pain. I'd much rather have my real body back, but the damned CIA are stopping me doing that."

"Are you really Mark? You're not pulling my leg?"

"How many people do you know have Nipple Power, that Julia would trust to give you orders, and that can do super-strange stuff? To get away from the bad men who kidnapped me, I had to learn how to change what I looked like and to fly. That's why it took me three months to get home. It's not easy to learn to fly! You should try it sometime." I let her appreciate my sense of humor for a second - she had a lot of sadness in her life and it was good to do what I could to relieve it - then I said, "How many people know this?" as I started reciting the letter she'd sent me asking to be my girlfriend. Then I told her about my marathon run, and a couple of other things only Mark would know. "Now you can ask me whatever questions you want."

Instead she threw her arms around me and started crying.

#17: <Make a note that we need to buy some handkerchiefs.>

#29: <It's a good thing we don't need to flap our hands to fly, or Ava's squeeze would have us plummeting to our deaths.>

#1: <She's very emotional. If she fills up the sled with any more tears, we're going to need another mind to hold us up.>

#10: <I'm guessing that you weren't one of the minds that studied Physics.>

I'd expected... [[I'll digress for a moment. More than ever before in my writing, "I'd expected" is a misleading statement. There are thirty two of us, so we probably expect all sorts of things most of the time. When I write something like that, I'm usually referring to the average or majority of all of our opinions. Or maybe only some of us will be thinking what I'm writing but it serves the autobiography better to use their minority idea. Sometimes I've got a single mind in mind (so to speak), and if so usually - but not always - it's the mind that this autobiography started with (who is now called #6 after the merge in the Casino Kidnappers' basement). This digression doesn't really matter much; I just thought I'd mention it. (When I wrote, "I just thought I'd mention it", that was about just the one of me who is currently writing this autobiography. Explaining "who" that author is would confuse you much more than the previous explanation, so you'll have to wait a while to read about that happening.)]]

... I'd expected Ava to repeat what everyone else I'd come back to had done: ask about my 'adventure', so I felt a total heel when Ava sobbed, "Mom and Dad are dying!"

My heart went out to her so much that our NP control lurched a little, which gave me a brief scare. It was so brief Ava didn't notice, but I sure did. Fortunately, although it takes conscious thought to create and use NP, maintaining NP effects where they are is a virtually thoughtless activity now. My subconsciouses take care of it, like they keep the heart beating, and other regular activities. It also takes them thirty two seconds to self-cancel if I get distracted, so that's a very nice safety feature for my Flying Sleds.

"I'm SO SORRY I haven't been here for you, Ava. I feel terrible about that. I went to Salem last night to see you parents."

"Mom's very sick."

"Yeah, I saw. Julia told me your mom's trying hard to see your graduation."

"She's trying, but she's already having a lot of pain. I hope she..." Ava burst into tears again.

I spent a long time cuddling and comforting Ava at 1,500 feet, being blown away from town.

It took several minutes before Ava calmed down enough to notice that she was standing in midair. She suddenly stiffened, grabbed hold of me tighter, saying, "Oh!"

"It's all right, sweetie. You're perfectly safe up here with me. Don't try coming up here by yourself though."

"{Giggle}. You're amazing. I've never heard of anyone ... HEY! Can you cure Mom and Dad?"

It'd be too cruel to offer any hope when I was pretty sure I couldn't. If I told her there was a 10% chance I could, Ava would feel even more horrible when I couldn't. Better to say I couldn't now, and if I somehow could, that'd make her happy later.

"Sorry Ava. I wish I could, but I can't do everything."

"Could you learn how, like you learned to fly?"

"Sorry again, sweetie." I was going to explain the flying was just NP-pushing harder, and pushing couldn't cure her parents, but Ava's hope had crashed as soon as she heard the "sorry". There was no need to provide an explanation. I just said, "I wish I could help them Ava; I REALLY do."

"Can you sleep with me tonight please, Mark? I don't want to be alone."

#2: <Can we? How will that affect our cover story?>

#23: <If they're bugging her house, which is surely going too far, they'll think we got lucky during our walk. As long as we get her to call us Ron, we should be okay.>

#20: <It's suspicious that we're getting together with Mark's girlfriends so quickly after we arrive in town.>

#8: <First, we are NOT going to be avoiding Ava! If we were going to avoid her, we shouldn't have told her who we are. She needs us, and her need is a lot more important than the small risk we'd be taking, so we have no choice.>

#23: <We just have to tell Ava not to call us Mark, or to ask us how fast we can fly, or things like that.>

#9: <It means we won't be going to Fort Dodge for some pre-snoop snooping tonight, but that's hardly urgent.>

I answered, "I'd love to. I've missed you very much. I need to..."

"THANK YOU! It's wonderful that you're back now, even if you look so different."

"Which is my next point. Remember at dinner no one called me Mark? They called me Ron and pretended not to know me well."

"Oh yeah. Were they tricking me?"

"NO WAY! I don't think anyone would play tricks on you these days. I know you're preoccupied, but you might've noticed that I've been missing for the last three months?" I smiled to show her I was joking, then carried on, "I was kidnapped AGAIN! I've really got to stop letting people doing that to me. The Department of Homeland Security and the CIA have had me locked up and were doing medical experiments on me. They even drilled a hole in my skull and took some of my brain out."

"Oh no!"

"Oh yes, the assholes. Fortunately, the part of my brain that likes being with lovely girls was left intact," I gave Ava a squeeze. "If the CIA find out that I'm still alive, they'll be UNBELIEVABLY angry. To escape from their secret lab, I had to kill lots of very bad people..."

"Oh no!"

"Yeah, I'm afraid so. I was locked in a secret, underground laboratory where hundreds of VERY BAD people made diseases that could kill millions of people. I had to kill some of them to get out, and then I set a fire to burn down the lab they were making their horrible diseases in. Mom and Dad, Julia, Carol, and the Williamses know what I did, and they're okay with it because the people I killed were very evil people doing very evil things. But if the CIA learns that I wasn't burned up in the fire, then they'll make me the most hunted man in America. I destroyed a very expensive, top-secret laboratory, and I killed lots of their evil scientists, so the CIA would be screaming in anger. That's why I had to change how I look. I AM Ron Fisher now, just like I described at dinner. As far as everyone in Corvallis is concerned, Mark Anderson is still missing. We think our house might be bugged by the CIA, so everyone is being very careful to call me Ron. When we land, you have to do the same thing. You've done wonderfully well at keeping all my secrets so far, but now you've got a FAR bigger secret to keep. Can you remember that I'm Ron Fisher and never call me Mark?"

"Oh boy! I thought I had troubles, but you've got super-problems. Hey! You're a super-man now! You can fly, just like Superman. That's so cool."

"It certainly is. That's how I got away from the evil men. I don't want to give you a hard time, Ava, but I REALLY need you to take me seriously. The DHS and CIA are criminals and they do illegal things, including kidnapping and killing innocent people. All of my and Julia's family would be in serious danger if anyone learns that I'm Mark. You have to promise to keep who I am secret."

"I promise."

"Say 'I promise RON!' Try to get into the habit of calling me Ron as soon as you can."

"Okay. I promise RON. You're NEVER going to be Mark again?"

"I can't, sweetie. It's even worse than that, because I can't be a genius again, can't play soccer, can't do any of the things that Mark used to do that made him stand out. If I do, the CIA will suspect I'm the same person. Then all they'd need to do is get one of my hairs or a blood sample, and they'd discover that I'm Mark. Then they'd do more experiments on me to discover how I can look like a Black guy."

"That sucks! You're not going to stay a mechanic and gardener all your life are you? That'd be such a waste! You ARE still smart, aren't you? You're Ron on the outside and the same Mark underneath, right?"

"Exactly right. I really am Mark, just with my skin color changed and a few other things."

"But you're much shorter too! How could you do that?"

"My body is very adaptable. It takes several weeks or months, but it can slowly change, including getting shorter. Also it can grow new fingers." I held up my left hand, with the middle finger extended.

"That's amazing! {Giggle}, but not very polite. Hey! If you're not Mark anymore, that means you can be Carol's boyfriend properly now."

"Yep. That's the ONLY part of this whole mess that's good. I could even marry her if I wanted, but I wouldn't do that to Julia. The marriage that Carol, Julia and I had - that you came to - that still applies. Just because I've got a good suntan doesn't mean that marriage has become invalid."

"Much more than a suntan. What about your money, car, house and all those things?"

"I'm legally and publicly Ron Fisher, so none of those have got anything to do with me. Eventually Mark Anderson will be declared legally dead and then his Last Will and Testament will go into effect. Mom, Dad, Carol and Julia will get his money, with a little for you and Donna."

"That's terrible! You've got NOTHING!"

"It's not totally bad. It means I can go back to shopping for my clothes at Kmart..."

"Oh you POOR THING! That's TERRIBLE. You used to have such good clothes too. They're going to go to waste! What a pity you can't wear them."

"I couldn't wear them anyway. I've gone to a great deal of trouble to avoid looking like Mark, so I wouldn't wear his clothes even if I was the same height."

"I was thinking of color, but height and shape too, yeah. Sorry, but you're nowhere near as sexy as Mark was."

"No need to apologize. I chose to look the way I do. Staying alive is more important than looking good. We should go down soon so you can get some sleep, but if you've got any more questions, now is the time to ask them. Once we've landed, I don't want you to ask me ANYTHING about Mark or my abilities. Don't suddenly ask me how fast I can fly, or anything like that. The CIA probably isn't bugging your house, but it's very important that you get into the habit of treating me as Ron."

"How fast can you fly?"

"About five hundred miles per hour."

"Wow. You could go to Hawaii for the weekend."

"I'd be worried about trying to find a small island in a big ocean, but I can do Southern California, Miami, or other easy-to-find places. I've been thinking about taking you, Carol and Julia somewhere nice for a weekend."

"I don't want to leave Mom and Dad."

"Of course. We're going to be friends for many years, so there'll be plenty of chances for a trip whenever you want to."

There was a practical problem too. Carrying four of us would reduce my top speed. Not because of the weight; that'd barely require one more mind to hold us up. The extra weight would also reduce our acceleration, but it only takes seconds to get up to top speed anyway. The major effect of carrying more people was from needing a bigger sled. That'd increase wind resistance significantly, and that would limit my top speed the most.

I repeated, "Do you have any more questions?"

"You REALLY can't help Mom and Dad?"

"If I could help them, I would. I would LOVE to be able to save them for you if I could, especially because I feel so guilty about not being here for you the last few months."

"That wasn't your fault, Mark. It was..."

"Call me Ron, Ava."

"Oh yeah. Sorry. I'm surprised how hard that is to remember. You look so different, but talking to you again is just like it used to be. Except we're way up in the air."

"Yeah, it's tricky to remember. Try to say Ron in every sentence. Like you normally say someone's name sometimes, but say it far more often."

"Okay Ron. Like that, Ron?"

"Perfect. I've got a request for you. When you next go to visit your parents, can I come with you please? I'll be going as Ron, and I don't think I should tell them who I really am. I just want to see them while I can."

"Sure. I'll be going tomorrow after school. Do you want me to pick you up?"

"Remember to say 'Ron'."

"Oh yeah. Do you want me to pick you up, RON?"

"Yes please. I'll be working in Vanessa's garden, so pick me up from her place, please."

"It sucks that it's not your place anymore, Ron."

"It sucks big time. The CIA has a lot to answer for. The CIA, the DHS, and especially their bosses for giving them power to kidnap kids without having to take responsibility for it."

^

[[To try to be fair to the DHS and CIA (not something I'll be doing often), I had bad luck getting Moran as the guy in charge of the initial investigation into the financial activities of my two families. It was his paranoid mind-control fantasy that started the ball rolling so far downhill. When Moran wanted to pass me on, if he'd chosen a random DHS boss, I probably would've been okay, but Moran deliberately chose Wright, and pushed Wright's buttons to put him in a frame of mind that considered me a threat. Then Wright deliberately chose the worst person he knew: Phillips. That chain doesn't prove that everyone in the DHS and CIA are evil, criminal, child abductors.

On the other hand, there were many S&T and CIA people who knew I was innocent of any terrorist intent, and that I was being held and experimented on against my will, and none of them did anything to help me, so I'm going to stick to my initial belief that the DHS and CIA are organizations that commit evil acts, even if not everyone in them is evil.

There have been innumerable psychological experiments done that prove that people are extremely easy to corrupt by authority figures, pressure from their peers, of even just by expectations. See the "Milgram Experiment" and the "Stanford Prison Experiment". Julia would recommend googling them.]]

^

Just before we descended, I told Ava, "No one else knows I can fly. I'm waiting to surprise Julia and Carol, so please don't mention it to them."

"Oh boy. They're in for an AMAZING surprise. I won't tell them, Ron. Umm, can I kiss you please?"

"Best idea I've heard all day."

A minute later, Ava declared, "You ARE Mark!"

#11: <Forget fingerprint and eyeball scanners. They should build security systems based on kiss-ometers. It's amazing how definite the girls react when we kiss them.>

#7: <Yeah. It doesn't seem to matter that our lips are twice their previous size.>

Ava and I landed soon after that. I walked her back to her house and we went to bed. Ava did make the mistake of saying, "You're bigger," but I NP'd her lips together before she could make more references to my previous body shape. I said, "You're pretty," and she realized she should say no more. It was true that I was slightly bigger. I thought it was because this body was copied from a 19-year old guy's, so was a little more mature.