Chapter 313: Meanwhile, Personal Stuff

Late-May to Thursday August 10, 2006 (Continued)

In this chapter, I'll write about a few miscellaneous topics that got missed during my discussing the progress of the negotiation.

The plan I'd formed back when I was in the CIA's custody - to get back into my families' lives by becoming a ten-fingered, short, Black guy - had worked as well as I'd hoped. The improvisation to destroy the CIA lab and leak some documents had worked pretty damned nicely too, giving us an $18.4 billion bonus. Only $1.5 billion for us personally, but as Mom is unlikely to ever say again, "Beggars can't be choosers." As a second bonus, we'd done an enormous amount of damage to the bioweapons industry and hopefully made it less likely for the DHS and CIA to abuse innocent people again.

We'd done so well that we had to ask ourselves, "Is it possible for Mark Anderson to come back somehow?"

There were various ways we could make that happen. My favorite was to wait six months or so then have Ron Fisher leave town. It'd take me a few weeks to turn my body back into Mark Anderson's, but that time delay would help make Ron's leaving appear unrelated. Then I'd arrange to have myself discovered in the CIA's possession in some corner of the world. One way would be for me to snoop around until I found a CIA jet being used for extraordinary renditions somewhere in Europe. I'd wait until it was flying nearly empty, then I'd make it crash, which I could very easily force to happen by flying next to it and doing some creative sabotage. I'd preferably have it crash in a country like France, where they are both civilized and highly distrusting of the American Government; those two traits perhaps being related. Everyone on the plane would die, but I'd be found injured but still alive in the wreckage. I'd recover physically, but wouldn't be able to provide any useful information about the terrible things the CIA had been doing to me for the last year, not even what country I'd been in. The world would leap to the obvious conclusion and the CIA's denials wouldn't be believed for a second. We could even sue them.

A plan like that would work initially, but Mom, Prof and Vanessa were sure that there'd been far too much scientific excitement about me, which would lead to Big Trouble if I turned up again. Some scientists and their organizations wouldn't be able to resist trying to get hold of me again. Even if we hadn't leaked my CIA file, dozens of immoral CIA scientists (those survivors of the lab's destruction that had already 'played' with me) would want to play with me again. With the leaking of the file, that risk had been increased a hundred-fold, but it'd already been far too high. Leaking the file had actually been a lucky event, otherwise we might not have appreciated how eager the scientists would be to get hold of my body again, and we might've risked Mark Anderson's returning.

I knew that the risk was even higher than Prof and Vanessa thought, because any tests done on my body after it was recovered from the plane crash - or however else I arranged to be discovered and rescued - would produce even weirder results, starting with the very first test they were likely to do: a blood test. The syringe would fill with gray blood, the scientists would be amazed, and the trouble would start. If that became public, people would get seriously freaked out. It was all too easy to believe that millions of easily inflamed ignorant people - of which this country has an astonishing number - would decide I was an alien that needed to be killed, and probably my family killed too, for good measure.

Even if I could get my blood to return to normal, the CIA experiments had shown us that there were many dozens of ways my body was unusual, and I wouldn't be able to get everything to return to normal, especially not my brain's level of activity. I could dampen it a lot, but there were thirty two minds in my head now, so even if their level of conscious activity was somehow reduced significantly, the new level times thirty two would still be far too much mentation. There was no possibility of scientists not doing an EEG either; it'd probably be the second test they'd perform. I'd also get no practice shots at trying to fail any of their tests, so I'd certainly 'fail' - by passing too well - many of them.

So we reaffirmed our previous decision - made early on in our building Mark up for the lawsuit - that Mark Anderson was never coming back. That meant Ron Fisher had to find a direction for his life. "There's no hurry for that," insisted Vanessa. "Wait until you've finished all the gardening jobs first."

"If you continue to pay me a few million dollars every couple of months, I'll think about it."

One of the objectives for the lawsuit had been to make Ron rich so I wouldn't have to spend the rest of my life tied down to being a gardener or mechanic. My marrying Carol would've been a very good Plan B, but what we'd done was far better because it got Ron Fisher and Mark Anderson immunized from prosecution for past crimes, such as murdering Ron Fisher and the rest of his gang.

The public justification for Ron's inclusion in the settlement would be easy (the public didn't know about the settlement yet). Mom and Dad would say, "Ron was working around our house every day and he was getting along well with one of our daughters, so we wanted him included in the deal to keep him from being bribed or targeted by the Government. It also reassures us that he's not chasing Carol for her money. All we personally wanted from the Government was $10 million for each of us. We're astonished and appalled how much money the Government kept throwing at us, but we never had any reason to take Ron off the list." [Which is what my parents did say after the settlement agreement was released.]

In the weeks before we settled, we had several times discussed what I could do after the settlement - or court case, if it came to that. [By the way, we had the house swept for bugs frequently. We even rented some equipment from the LA debugging firm to make sure our underground rumpus room was permanently bug-free, that being where we held our top-secret conversations.] I wouldn't be able to openly show my genius, so I couldn't graduate three degrees from OSU, but I could still study their online material informally. Not until after the negotiation/case was over because we didn't want anyone in the Government to get suspicious about our internet usage as Moran had, investigate, and find that Mark was still alive, as that would ruin everything! First we wanted me to get immunity and we to get very, very rich, and then we'd find a way to let me study. With as much money as we'd have, many things should become possible. All four parents wanted me to get back to studying, and Prof even came up with a post-settlement plan for how to make that possible without putting the DHS on my ass again.

What I'd do with the knowledge I'd acquire from studying wasn't clear, but education is good and it gave me something to do. One idea was to have me as a backroom guy. We'd have some sort of business or science company which I'd help run (Julia insisted I'd be the boss), but I'd be behind the scenes where very few people would be aware of my involvement. Julia would be the publicly acknowledged boss. I didn't think she'd have any problem acting bossy.

Whatever my main activity in life would be, Vanessa was also eager for MAF to get the benefit of my wonderful snooping ability from time to time. If I helped MAF blow the lid off a major Government cover-up every few months, that would soon be scaring the shit out of State and Federal Governments. There was a risk to me in such activity, but it was low, especially if I did it infrequently and randomly.

None of these issues needed to be decided on quickly, and it was definitely better for me to keep on being a below-the-radar gardener until we'd finished dealing with the Government, and until the post-settlement media frenzy had died down.

I didn't mind carrying on gardening for a while as it was more enjoyable and challenging than I'd expected. Knowing Vanessa as I did, I should've expected that. Vanessa would give me a good description of what she wanted done in an area of the garden, and then I'd be in charge of making sure it happened. I had to research aspects of the job, get all the materials, do most of the work myself, hire whoever needed hiring, make sure everyone did what they should do, pay the bills afterward; Vanessa's signing the checks giving her the opportunity to review my management skills. The property did need a lot of work because so much of it had been in grapevines before, and Vanessa did have a lot of ideas about what she wanted, so it was a significant learning experience for me and fun to see the progress being made.

The above was my situation as of settlement day, August 10. This chapter is about personal stuff during the two months of the settlement negotiations, so I'll back up and discuss some of the events during that period.

One VERY welcome development was the progress in forcing my brain to adapt so that Visual Processing Centers A and B both gained the functionality they were each missing and that I considered important. Ideally both of them would eventually gain every visual processing ability that either of them had now, but there were a few important functions that each visual center needed as quickly as possible, especially Center B since that was so primitive.

Visual Processing Center A was the first to become as good as I wanted, and I became able to spend increasing proportions of the day with my eyes' vision going only to Center A. I wasn't stupid enough to drive a car with my vision working like that, and juggling pairs of socks was a comical way of demonstrating A's incompetence in some areas, but I was getting there for the usual everyday tasks. My shins were thankful. I was long past the point where seeing two different scenes - one in each visual center - disoriented me. You don't get disoriented when you're moving around a room with a TV showing a different scene (it'd been trickier than that, but that'll give you an idea).

Center A's becoming useful most of the time meant I could rely on it keeping my body on course while I created a sight blob and used it for long periods of time to do other things, such as to supplement the guards patrolling inside our wall. That sped up Center B's adaptation nicely.

My ability to recognize faces was messed up sometimes, but getting better. If I saw someone with Center A the first time, I couldn't recognize them in B, and vice versa, but successive sightings in the same center were recognizably the same person. That was a significant improvement in B because it hadn't been able to do facial recognition at all initially. I was getting closer to A and B being interchangeable, as indicated by the A and B images of a person getting noticeably more similar in appearance and how my brain reacted to the sights of them.

The end of the school year arrived very quickly. The important news was that Katie and Carson were still hanging on. Katie was doing better than expected, and if she kept hanging on so well, she might last as long as Carson. It looked likely that both of her parents were going to see Ava graduate.

I spent a lot of time with Ava helping her study, leaving the other girls to do their own studying. Ava hadn't had a good year academically so she was feeling worried, and at times even downright panicky, about her exams. I tried to boost her confidence and help as much as I could, but I didn't have much effect.

A week and a half out from her first exam, I was helping Ava study when she lost it again, crying and saying she wasn't going to pass and her Mom and Dad would be so disappointed.

"Fuck it, Ava; we'll cheat to make sure you pass. We know you're smart enough to graduate and it's not your fault you can't study. You and I will do your exams together."

"{Sniff}. What do you mean?"

I didn't want to explain out loud because if we were bugged the baddies would hear enough to work out that I'd destroyed the lab and was Majestic Countdown too. So I grabbed a pen and Ava, and took us to bed. Under the bedclothes I concisely whispered my plan in her ear and moved her pen-holding hand with my NP to show her what I meant. I was going to hang around near enough to her exam rooms that I could supervise her with a sight blob. If she was making too many mistakes or was stuck I'd use NP to help her enough to make sure she easily passed. For short answers I could move her hand to write the whole answer directly. For longer answers, I'd push her hand to write some key words, and let her expand on them.

We practiced a bit, and as soon as she got the idea to relax her arm when I took over, it was easy. Ava felt MUCH better. She knew I was INCREDIBLY good at passing exams, so she didn't have to worry anymore.

I joked, "Make sure you don't wear a bra or panties when you take the exams. That way I'll have something to play with while you're answering the easy questions."

I demonstrated what I had in my dirty mind, causing Ava to exclaim, "I won't be able to answer ANY questions if you do that to me!"

"In that case you'd better pay me in advance for my services."

Half an hour later, Ava was VERY relaxed and unworried. I lightly smacked her on the ass to get us moving to the shower, then back to studying. Without the pressure of failure, Ava's studying greatly improved.

I later told my families (except Donna), very quietly and cryptically, that "When Ava's doing her exams, I'll be helping her pen..." I said nothing else, just using NP to move their hands slightly. They'd been worried about Ava's exam performance too, so they got the idea reasonably quickly. No one had any objection. I doubted very much that they could've gotten me to change my mind even if they had objected.

Now I had to do a lot of studying myself, to make sure I knew all her subjects. I can read thirty one sources simultaneously now, so it didn't take me long. I laid all of Ava's notes and textbooks in many piles on the floor under the pool table in our games room, with blankets draped off the table to completely hide what I was doing in case of the very unlikely risk there was a camera bug in the room. Overnight, I did eight hours of reading, thirty sources at a time, totaling the equivalent of 240 hours (six working weeks) of nonstop reading. A couple of nights of that were all I needed. It wasn't an ideal way of studying, but it was easily good enough to ensure that Ava would pass.

I prepared some sample questions for Ava: some easy, some hard; some short, some long. When Ava next came to study at our place, we went into separate rooms and we practiced our cheating method. It worked well, except that our handwriting differed so much. We solved that by when I tapped her on the back of her hand, she'd turn her answer book to the back page where I'd give my answer. She'd then rewrite it in the right place of her book. The last page would fill up with assorted notes, which she'd cross out heavily before handing her answers in at the end. It'd slow her down a little, but I didn't expect to have to help her much.

At the start of exam week, I drove the girls to school and then parked somewhere nearby. I locked the doors, reclined the seat, pulled my cap over my eyes, and pretended to be asleep. Proximity would inform me if anyone came with twenty four feet (I know I keep mentioning that, but for some reason I find it REALLY cool).

Even before the students had been let into the exam room, I used NP to let Ava know I was looking after her. She'd forgotten my instruction not to wear panties, but it was easy for me to pull them down a couple of inches. It cheered us both up. I also let her know I was with her as she walked into the exam room and sat down. There was no way she could fail, so she was smiling happily.

I'd told Ava that I'd let her make some mistakes or skip some questions if she didn't know the answer, because her getting very high scores on every exam would be too suspicious. She understood that, so wasn't frazzled when she had some troubles during the exam. I helped from time to time, especially when it required only a brief effort.

That was the case with all of her exams. I aimed to add about 15 to 20% to her result each time; a little less in the subjects she was good at, and a little more in the ones she struggled with.

The school had promised to grade Ava's exams quickly so she could let her parents know asap. The day after her last exam, the high-school's Deputy Principal called with her results. Unsurprisingly she'd done fine, so she'd be graduating next week. Ava rushed to tell her parents the good news. The following week they watched her graduation via a webcast.

Carol and Julia did well too, not that there'd ever been any doubt about those two. Donna did quite a lot better than her normally VERY average results. Living with the Williamses has that effect on students.

On the topic of Ava and her parents, I should mention that not long after I'd taken Ava for her first ride on my Magic Flying Sled, she'd asked me about taking her parents for a flight and revealing who I was. Maybe I'd just fly her father, because her mother might be too sick to go outside. I could think of quite a few pros and cons, so the answer wasn't obvious to me and I'd suggested it needed a family conference (excluding Donna, as she didn't know I could fly).

Ava had several reasons for suggesting it, her biggest reasons being her wanting to share her pride in me with her parents, and wanting to give her parents (excuse the expression) "an experience of a lifetime."

My four parents weren't happy about the idea. The deciding point was Mom saying, "Apart from each other, the only thing your parents are thinking about now is whether you'll be all right, Ava. Telling them Mark's alive and in an extreme disguise because his life would be in terrible danger will cause them to worry greatly about your being in danger by being near him. They're not worried about Mark, or Julia, Carol, us, or anyone else; only you. Your safety is even more important than money or graduating, so it wouldn't be kind to give them that worry."

Ava understood that. She was disappointed, but that was the end of that idea. Her parents would never know that Ron was Mark.

Just after lunchtime one day, I was working away in the garden as usual when there was some yelling from the front gate, which turned out to be the Fisher family. I recognized them from when I'd snooped their home, so recognition wasn't a worry. No part was a worry really, as enough time had gone past that my changes in speech and behavior could be excused. The Fishers were just a possible nuisance.

I invited them in for coffee. I'd killed over two hundred bioweapon researchers and nearly a dozen thugs including the Fisher's son, but I wasn't rude enough to turn them away at the gate. Not the first time they turned up anyway.

I spoke decently (no, "How ya doin', Niggas?"), so they queried me on that even before the gate had closed behind them. I'd modified my voice box to sound like their son (proximity was good enough that I could 'see' my voice box operating, so I'd been able to consciously direct changes to it until trial and error experimentation got me what I wanted), but there were still many differences between their son's speech and mine - words, grammar, rhythms, etc. I didn't care; I just told them, "I'm changing my speech as fast as I can so I sound proper. I wouldn't have gotten a job here if I spoke like before."

The Fishers expressed lots of concern about my absence, how I was getting on, and what I was doing for a job.

My answers were, respectively: "My message through the lawyer was not to worry about me", "Fine", and "Unskilled garden laborer."

That was just during the walk down the drive. Once we got inside, they admired the house and wanted the tour.

"Nope. It's not my house and the owners wouldn't like me showing strangers through it."

"We're not strangers; we're ya fam'ly!"

"You're strangers to the people who own this house." I started making coffees and a coke for the youngest.

I'd stayed out of the media spotlight and I doubted the Fisher family were on friendly terms with Bush's legal team - who'd seen my name in the proposed settlement agreement - but somehow the Fishers had gotten wind of my whereabouts and they felt sufficiently motivated to come visiting. I asked, "How did you know I was here?"

They didn't word it this way, but what had happened is they'd seen me in the background of some of the TV shots about the family that was going to be making $242 trillion dollars, and they'd phoned the local media. The media hadn't known anything about me (this was before the Mark Anderson Memorial Bill was publicized), but had suggested the Fishers call the local cops. That wasn't something the Fisher family would normally do, but they weren't normally in close proximity to hundreds of trillions of dollars either, so a change in behavior seemed justified. The cops knew I came from LA, so they'd confirmed my presence in town to 'my' parents. [I'd informally reported to the cop station five times in total, so they'd know who I was and how diligent I was about finding myself a new home, in case the DHS or CIA subsequently checked up on Ron Fisher having a realistic arrival in town.]

The above paragraph's insinuation that the Fishers were motivated by money was deserved, because it didn't take long for that to come up as a topic. They tried to motivate my generosity by pulling on the family heartstrings, which didn't have much affect on me. From what Ron Fisher had told me, they weren't even likable, let alone lovable. They weren't particularly bad parents, but they certainly weren't good ones, and they weren't my ones.

When their family love tactic didn't work, they tried family loyalty, then a guilt trip, then suggested that they were thinking about moving to Corvallis for the good of my brother and sister.

"Do whatever you want. It's a free country."

#22: <Not if the DHS or CIA have got hold of you.>

"We can' afford ta move."

"Then I guess you won't be moving."

"You kin help us."

"I've got $4 in my wallet. I doubt that'd be much help." I had more than $4, but I was too busy not being rude to not be dishonest.

"Aren't ya gonna get somethin' from the rich people?"

"My small paycheck at the end of the week."

And so it continued. They'd outstayed their welcome even before the coffee was ready, so by the time they'd slowly drunk it, I was more than ready for them to leave.

They didn't go easily, but they finally did leave. As soon as the gate had closed behind them, I stated, "Don't bother coming back. I left you for a reason, and I don't want you back in my life. You won't be let in again."

They thought that was a terrible thing for their son to say, which it would have been.

The only contact I was tempted to have with that family was to try to encourage the two kids to go to college, maybe by contributing $15,000 or $20,000 toward their fees. But doing that would almost certainly lead to more money requests, and they actually meant nothing more to me than the million other disadvantaged kids in LA. I felt guilty about killing their big brother, but my current behavior toward the family would be a considerably better role model for the younger kids than the real Ron Fisher would've been.

The Fishers would most likely be back when news of my becoming rich became public knowledge. They'd been warned not to, but they would. Hopefully they wouldn't make too much of a scene when they were refused entry, and their 'fair share' of whatever money I got.

I told the others about the Fisher family's visit over dinner, asking my current families not to have anything to do with my previous family in the future.