Chapter 371: Returning Home; Part Three: It Was Hardest on the Fibbies

Saturday, June 9, 2007 (Continued)

My families and I discussed our next steps. I suggested my plan, making Mom decidedly unhappy because she's not big on evil ideas. The rest of us worked on her.

Prof told her, "They may be Government employees but they're no better than criminals, Felicity. Worse in some ways because they don't have a fear of prosecution to restrain them. They deliberately planned to avoid the local police because they know what they're doing is illegal. Mark wouldn't be suggesting what he is if our staff had been booked into the police system properly, so they've brought it on themselves."

I said, "I could ask to see warrants or legal authorization, but you know there aren't any, Mom. The DHS and CIA kidnapped me and it would've led to a horrible death for me, so Government kidnappers don't get ANY sympathy from me. They've got too much power and no responsibility, so now they're going to get a hard lesson about that. Tough shit for the participants this time, but hopefully other agents will discover the need to behave morally and legally in the future."

Vanessa added, "Mark is in too much danger if the Government is allowed to behave illegally. They've installed deadly gas canisters in our home so they can knock us out and interrogate us if they arbitrarily decide they want to. Do you want your family to be exposed to that level of illegal threat for the rest of their lives?"

"No, I CERTAINLY do not!" Which pretty much ended that issue.

The timing was tricky for one little nuance I wanted to include, so we planned our actions into carefully arranged stages. First we loaded everything and everyone back in the SUV and I carried it and the motorcycle on a wide loop around the hills to the west and north, to get us closer to our home without being observed. I set down in a hidden location not far outside the half-mile cordon. I went ahead so I could search around our home for hidden observers. There were quite a few people manning the cordon, but they weren't observing our home and neither was anyone else.

As I flew over my previous hiding place for my stash of guns and cash, I hid them again. While I remember to mention it, I had thought to leave payment behind when I stole stuff from people (sheets, helmets, etc., although probably not the motorcycle from the very nasty looking gang members), but I didn't want to leave any clues behind me. I felt a little bad about my pilferage, but tried to reassure myself with an "It's for the common good" sentiment. It was initially for my good of course, but I was also doing my best to keep human civilization in every w-dimension from collapsing into chaos, including this one, so it was for my theft victims' benefit too.

Then I went to collect the news team. I formed a Guardian Angel sight blob in each of their rooms, borrowed their phones to type a text message: "I have a scoop for you. Get up and get ready." I woke them up, covered their mouths to still their screams, and showed them the messages on their phones. To calm them down, I floated the cameraman's gear to him and the reporter's hairbrush to her.

They discovered their professionalism; in other words, the idea of getting a jump on their competitors for a Guardian Angel exclusive was irresistible. The cameraman got up and started getting his gear ready. The reporter got up and I was struck with an irresistible thought of my own. She was wearing a very attractive, mostly-transparent nightie, and what was under the nightie was even more attractive, so I didn't give the pair time to get dressed. As soon as they were vertical, I grabbed their gear and them, flying them out their balcony doors in their nightwear.

The Guardian Angel and news team - them sitting on invisible chairs to be more physically and emotionally comfortable - flew in formation to our home, with my physical body as far away from them as I could be. Our straight-line route took them over the Fibbies at our gate at a 25-foot altitude, something that didn't go unnoticed by the ever-vigilant enforcers of the American Way of Life, which as far as I can tell is: "Abuse power."

I gently placed the news team inside just inside our gates, the Fibbies rushing up to ask them, "What's going on?"

Leaving the news team to explain everything they knew to the Fibbies, I rushed to the rear of our hill to collect my families, flying us over the top of the cordon (those people were in trees so couldn't see us above them). Dad was the only one in the SUV, the rest I carried 'loose'. I placed the motorcycle just inside our northwestern wall where I'd collect it later. The loose people I placed on the ridge the Kids' House was on, in a position that was behind the ridge so they were out of sight of the Fibbies, and near the base of the ridge to be fairly close to the gate. I placed the SUV on the visible side of the ridge but quite a long way up it. The Fibbies saw it arrive, saw its lights come on, and would shortly see its being carefully driven down to the gate (I've omitted writing that the Fibbies would see Dad do those things because they wouldn't be able to make him out because our property had few of its lights on. I'd wanted the Fibbies to wait patiently at the gate rather than do anything else harder to plan for. If they thought all of us were in the SUV and coming to them, they'd wait for us to arrive). There was no easily driven route down to the gates for Dad, just some gardens and trees that he'd have to avoid, so his cross-country driving would seem unsuspiciously slow, giving me some more time.

The Guardian Angel had accompanied the SUV when it arrived, but once the SUV had been started, the angel departed in a high arc north and out of sight over the back of our hill, where I canceled it. That was a short-term misdirection because my body was already accelerating south to go to the motel where our staff were being kept prisoner. While I was still in range I turned on Julia's laptop in our upstairs study to use it to communicate with Dad later. Seeing that its power hadn't been drained by the Fibbies, I flew it down the ridge while it was booting, hiding it in some trees about four hundred feet from the gate.

I flew rapidly to the motel/prison where I made sure the four guards were not on the phone or using their radios. I'd timed events so the Fibbies back at the gate would have had enough time to have already informed these Fibbies that things were starting to happen back at the house, but after having done so would've ended their calls because nothing else seemed to be happening.

I simultaneously created a Guardian Angel in the motel room, blocked the tracheas of the four Fibbies, held them immobile, and rotated their heads through 360 degrees. They were dead from spinal shock before anyone had recovered from the surprise of the angel's appearance.

I lifted one of the cellphones off a corpse, typed a message on it, and floated it to Paul: "Security report to Anderson home for work now. Take FBI cars. Other staff stay here, call local police, report everything." I pushed the corpses within reach of the staff so they could find the keys they needed. Our staff's hands were manacled behind their backs so waking everyone up, searching the corpses, extracting the keys, unlocking themselves and then finding a phone should keep them busy for long enough that I wouldn't have a timing inconsistency caused by the staff calling the police too soon. I'd taken the cellphone off Paul and was removing every phone from the room. As soon as they were outside I crushed them and dumped the junk in the trash. The Guardian Angel zoomed through the wall in the direction of home and was canceled it as soon as it was out of the room. I accelerated myself rapidly toward home.

Meanwhile, in accordance with our plan, the Fibbies had gathered outside our gate to talk with whoever was in the SUV. They doubtless could've opened the gate but they were pretending to be polite. The news team had moved to a better position and had filmed the approach as Dad had slowly driven down the hill, pulling to a stop about thirty yards back from the gate. From that far away from the Fibbies he'd have to yell loud enough so I'd be able to hear him from where I'd be, once I arrived back.

Dad had gotten out and asked the Fibbies, "Who are you?"

"FBI Mr. Anderson. We're here to..."

"Where are our staff?"

The Fibbie boss opened the negotiation with, "I want to talk with you about that."

Prof and Vanessa walked into view from the back of the ridge, about two hundred feet away from Dad. Prof waving and calling out loudly to Dad, "Hi Steven, we're back. What's happening? Where are our staff?"

Dad called back, "I'm trying to find out."

"Okay. We'll check the houses."

Prof and Vanessa walked up toward the Kids' House.

Dad turned back to the Fibbies, asking, "What's the story with our staff?"

"We're investigating the theft of the nuclear bombs from Minot Air Force base..."

"The Guardian Angel did it. Everybody knows that. No one knew it was going to do that, so our staff had nothing to do with it."

"We're back, darling," called Mom, who'd just walked into view with Carol and Donna. "Where is everyone?"

Dad called back, "Good to see you again, Fely and girls. It sounds like the Fibbies are blaming our staff because the angel borrowed the nukes."

"That doesn't make any sense. How could they be responsible for what God wanted done?" called Mom.

I arrived behind the ridge, joining Julia. I'd seen Mom and my sisters pretend to arrive as I flew in, and it was too soon for Julia and me to appear, so we stayed put for the moment.

Dad called, "It seems stupid to me too. I'm trying to find out."

"Okay. I hope they're okay. Where's everyone else?"

Prof called out from just short of the Kids' House, "We're up here, Felicity. The angel delivered us after Steven, and I guess it's getting Julia and Mark now."

There was some more back and forth, which I won't bother quoting as it was all meaningless crap.

Prof and Vanessa first, then Mom and my sisters later, walked into the Kids' House where they started turning on lights and saying things like, "It's good to be back", "I hope the angel gets the others okay", and other misdirections or ordinary comments for the bugs' benefit.

Dad got back to talking to the Fibbie, but that was meaningless crap too, in both directions.

Julia and I walked into sight, holding hands and yelling out to Dad, "Hi Dad! Are we the first ones back?"

Dad answered, "You're the last. Everyone else is in your home."

"Where are our staff?"

"I don't know. It seems the FBI is holding them hostage or some..."

The Guardian Angel appeared right beside Dad, startling him even though Dad expected it to happen soon after I appeared. The laptop flew into sight and decelerated into a hover beside Dad, at an angle where the cameraman would get a clear shot of it. The light from the Guardian Angel on Dad's other side was helping too.

Windows was just finishing booting. I opened a blank Word document, changed the font size to 24, and typed:

To: FBI.

I told Mark Anderson father tell lawyer tell TV tell everyone:

"Home is Embassy of God. All good people back. All bad people gone never come back. No tricks."

I know TV tell everyone. You know. You chose disobey God.

Dad read it out, accidentally stumbling over the message body's first line and having to restart it, which nicely emphasized the non-rehearsed nature of his reading. The moment Dad finished the last word, a second angel shot out of the original, speeding very rapidly in the direction of the motel/prison. I made the 'Rescue Angel' shrink in size as it departed, creating an optical illusion of it going much farther away than it really had, which had been exactly 518 feet minus how far away from Dad I was.

Several of the Fibbies reached for their communication devices, obviously to warn their motel team.

I called out to Dad, "Do you need any help, Dad?"

Dad called back, "The angel's doing everything! I just read what it writes."

"Okay. I'll check on the others." Julia and I turned to walk up the slope. It'd take me quite a while to walk out of range, and heading the wrong way would make me appear innocently unconnected to the angel. If the 'negotiation' took longer than expected I'd either invent some excuse for returning to help Dad, or just sit down behind some bushes in the dark.

Meanwhile, the angel that had remained behind had picked up the head Fibbie by the head, putting a lot of strain on his neck and making him panic ineffectively. He was only three feet off the ground, but his staff were totally unable to help him. Pulling down on him certainly didn't help, a fact that their boss shrieked at the pullers. He waved his arms around his head, unsuccessfully trying to fight off something that wasn't there. Then he tried to pull my fingertips off his head, but he never had a hope of making a difference.

Most of the other agents already had their guns out and pointed at the angel. The suspended boss was going for his gun too. With Dad being so close, I had to be careful. The Guardian Angel rose in the air and all the guns tracked it. Once they were pointing upward safely, I grabbed every agent's hands. There were sixteen hands in total, counting the suspended head Fibbie, and I raised them all so high that the hands' owners were having to stand on extreme tiptoe, and in one case, three feet higher. I removed their guns by pulling on them with far more force than the Fibbies could resist, and floated them inside the gate where I formed them into a nice floating line pointing toward the Fibbies. They were still dangling from their arms so they couldn't do anything to avoid being their own guns' targets.

The 'Rescue Angel' returned just as rapidly and optically deceptively as it'd left, merging with the original angel, which typed another message. Dad read out, "Four bad men kidnappers now dead. Good men free. I told security good men come here; told gardeners and other good men call police tell what bad men did." God's helper on Earth constantly referring to our staff as "good men" and the Fibbies as "bad men" would play very well on TV, as would its instructing our staff to call the police.

The Fibbies looked very unhappy. They couldn't get their hands down or move away, their guns were pointing at them, four of them were apparently dead, and they were being filmed. I don't know how much having the police called added to their misery, but I doubted it made them feel any better.

From now on, every baddie - by which I mean Government agent - would think twice before mistreating our staff, and obviously before mistreating us too. What I particularly enjoyed was that the motel was 2.5 miles away. That the angel could split in two and operate independently had to be VERY scary. I'd created eight angels to zoom around the cars that were chasing the angel at Beale AFB, but those guys might not have been listened to attentively. This event was being captured on film and it proved that the Guardian Angel could split in two and operate 2.5 miles apart from each other. How many times could it split and how far apart could they operate? The Government already knew how destructive the Guardian Angel could be, so if thinking about its being able to replicate itself didn't teach the authorities some caution, it was hard to image what teaching that lesson would take.

In addition, the Rescue Angel had apparently accomplished its mission in about fifteen seconds, which was a speed of 600 mph, not allowing ANY time for what it did at the motel. It should come out from the police statements that the angel's rescue had taken about ten seconds, implying a flying speed of 1,800 mph, which was a sonic boomless Mach 2.5. During some of the air base raids I'd had the angel move faster than that, but this was on videotape. The authorities would be under no illusion (hehe) that angels were faster and more dangerous than they ever imagined before. So much for the 500-foot limit!

If the Fibbies were unhappy before, you should've seen them when I dropped 95% of their local boss to the ground. Because I was holding their arms up in the air so forcefully, they couldn't even dodge the blood spurting out of the stump of his neck.

As carefully required by the script for this stage, Dad waited until there was enough quiet - that took a while - then called out, "Who's second in charge?"

Naturally enough there wasn't a volunteer. Even though all their hands were in the air, I didn't think any of them were volunteering. I typed a couple more lines:

Agent In Charge: Dillon Anders.

Deputy Agent In Charge: Nathaniel Matthews.

Dad read them out.

We'd scripted this little bit carefully as we weren't sure that the onsite boss would be Agent In Charge, as maybe that guy was back in DC, which would presumably make the onsite boss the deputy. We didn't want the angel to incorrectly identify someone as that'd damage the angel's reputation, but we did want to name the two agents because it demonstrated the angel having access to information it should have no way of knowing, given that it'd only just arrived here. That it could pull the names and positions 'out of the air' had to be scarily impressive too.

I didn't know his name, but I knew who the local 2IC was from my having observed the way the Fibbies interacted with each other. I lifted that guy by his head, exactly as I had his predecessor.

He cried in terror.

Dad demanded, "Are you Nathaniel Matthews?" As using that name implies, we'd guessed that "Agent In Charge" meant onsite.

"PLEASE don't kill me!"

Dad answered, "I'm not doing anything; you're doing it to yourself. The angel's message on TV was it wanted all our staff to be free and all you guys gone.

^-- "You're unbelievable idiots! We don't know any more about the angel than you do, and the angel warned it'd cut the heads off anyone who was still here. How on Earth did you think it'd react when you stayed here AND you admitted to kidnapping our innocent staff to force us to answer your questions, AND you were the guys who almost killed Fely and me a few days ago?"

Dad was interrupted by several of the Fibbies all declaring that they'd had nothing to do with that. Some of them even going so far as to say the FBI hadn't been involved, which they had no way of being sure of. There were various other pleadings, and then one of them said the predictable, "We didn't have a choice; we were ordered to stay."

Which wasn't quite the intro Dad wanted, so he asked, "Were you ordered to kidnap our innocent staff?"

"YES! We were! We're innocent too."

They were coming across as cowards, but see it from their point of view: They had a headless corpse at their feet that'd pumped blood over most of them since they'd been in a circle around their boss when his headless body collapsed to the ground, they were held on their extreme tiptoes helplessly and magically, their guns were hovering in midair pointing at them, they knew the angel was capable of cruising through Air Force bases spreading massive destruction all around it while ignoring everything the Air Force hit it with, they knew it'd killed the FBI's Director and Deputy Director, knew they'd illegally kidnapped our staff, knew the angel had said it'd cut people's heads off, and it was still holding one head in the air to prove it. They expected to die horribly very soon, especially Nathaniel Matthews.

Dad countered, "If your boss ordered you to kill the President, would you? Of course not. You pick and choose what crimes you're willing to commit. You agreed to kidnap our staff because you thought your all-powerful FBI would protect you from the law. So how's your illegal agency doing at protecting you now?"

More incoherent, useless replies. That didn't matter as this was all for the benefit of the camera.

Dad added, "The angel told the President to order everyone to stop hassling Mark because God's plan for Mark was more important than whatever stupid ideas you morons thought you were going to accomplish by kidnapping our staff. The angel said it'd cut the heads off bad people who were still here, and angels keeps their word, so now five of you are dead..."

I typed "Are you finished yet?" on the laptop. A little bit of possible-humor from the angel wasn't inappropriate and fitted my longer-term plan for it. I moved the laptop in front of Dad, cutting off his tirade. The Fibbies couldn't see it but the camera could.

Dad laughed. He knew I'd interrupt him but we hadn't scripted how. Similarly unscripted was the only point Dad had to make next, which was that we just wanted to be left alone. How he did it was up to him. He did it by ranting: "No I'm not! I'm fed up with the fucking Government morons who keep sticking their noses into our lives. They kidnapped Mark two years ago because they insanely thought he had mind control powers, fer Christ's sake!

^-- "And two years later they're still acting just as stupidly and criminally. Kidnapping our GARDENERS to force us tell them things we don't have a damned clue about! How fucking stupid is that! The angel dumped us in the middle of nowhere, back in the hills somewhere, and then it flew off. We didn't have a clue what it was going to do. You don't honestly think God checks Its plans with us first, do you? When we found out it'd taken some nukes we were as scared and worried as everyone else. If you want to know anything about the angel, ask the Chief Moron Bush. He said God told him to invade Iraq so he's obviously in better contact with God than any of us are.

^-- "I feel like the only sane person in a lunatic asylum. We've got the FBI, Secret Service, Homeland Security, CIA and God knows who else fighting all around us while the angel tries to convince you all to back off. I'm FED UP with the whole thing! All our kids have got exams on Monday. How on Earth can they get good grades with all this crap going on!

^-- "We haven't committed any crimes. This is ALL because the fucking Government is nosey and doesn't care about committing crime after crime just because it has the power to do whatever it wants without caring about ordinary people or the law. Its stupid power-games got Mark killed two years ago, and now five more people are dead today, and if that fuckwit Bush doesn't pull his head out of his ass he's going to force the angel to set off a nuke to prove it's serious..."

#14: <Dad's REALLY venting.>

#12: <Yeah. The whole Resurrection Plan has been much higher pressure than we thought it'd be, and the parents have had to absorb the worry of it all.>

Dad kept it up for another minute, forcing me to stop walking toward the Kids' House or I would've been out of range and earshot, although the way Dad was ranting, earshot wouldn't be a problem for another few hundred feet yet.

Dad managed to include, "We just want to be left the fuck alone!" toward the end of his rant. He actually did a VERY good job. Excessive, but still very good. Provided the studios didn't edit him poorly, he'd come across as he is: a VERY concerned, loving parent. Especially the concerned part.

Then it was the angel's turn again. I thought of typing, "What he said," but had to reject it as too flippant. Instead I wrote the following, letting Dad read out each line after it was typed:

I angry-sad also.

God resurrected Mark Anderson and has plan for Mark Anderson. God plan more important than human plan.

All humans stop their plans for Mark Anderson unless Mark Anderson happy with.

I do not want to kill anything, but you not understand-learn. Killing only way to stop you.

God want me protect Mark Anderson. I must protect Mark Anderson. If you not stop I forced to kill many.

No more humans do bad things to Mark Anderson. Why you not understand? Is simple.

All good people come back. All bad people go never come back. No tricks. Is simple.

Go now.

I enjoyed typing "No tricks." We'd included that requirement in our phone call with our lawyer, but now we knew that there were bugs and gas canisters in our homes. The Fibbies would shortly be fleeing for their lives, leaving their "tricks" behind, which we could later claim was them breaking God's instruction YET again! That'd allow us to put even more pressure on them.

We hadn't been sure how to end the confrontation, so it'd been left open for me to decide at the time. I might've snipped another head or two, although everyone much preferred that I not do that. I might've exposed the sensor poles in our gate, and/or shown the photos of the bugs, and/or shown the Mission Overview page. I decided that there was no point in creating more fear or in using ammunition that might be useful later. Plus it'd be fun to feed false information to the microphones. And maybe a true miracle might happen: a Government agency might honestly confess to what it'd done to our homes and ask to be allowed to remove it all. It'd be good to give them the opportunity to show some responsibility. If they didn't - and I knew what my money was on - that could possibly be highly rewarding as we might be able to use it to extract a second $216 billion from the criminally stupid and stupidly criminal Government.

My overwatch sight blob - I had my eyes shut more often than not to enable a second sight blob - could see what I assumed was Paul's convoy approaching. Still half a mile away but it'd be easiest to have the Fibbies on their way before Paul's people arrived. So when Dad read out, "Go now," I let go of all the Fibbies. Most of them ran for their cars with no hesitation at all, especially Nathaniel Matthews.

A couple of them - God knows what they were thinking - hesitated. I didn't find out whether it was to retrieve the corpse of their ex-leader, their guns, or for some other highly important reason, because Dad yelled, "The angel said 'Go now!'"

They decided to follow the angel's instruction. Their hesitation had been so stupid that I would've thought they were Christians, but surely Christians would have obeyed an angel the first time?

I tossed the head and body onto the grass at the side of the street, made sure all the guns had their safeties engaged, and put them inside our gatehouse. It's actually more of a booth than a house, but it's a very well-armed booth now.

I decided to jog down to join Dad. He probably needed a pat on the back, at the least. I was also feeling guilty about not working in a "Leave Ava alone!" command, and thought to ask Julia to go inside and call the hospital to find out how Ava is and when she can come home. Then I really started worrying about Ava. SURELY the FBI wouldn't do anything stupid with her, would they?

I whispered to Julia, "I want to go give Dad a hug because I think the last few days have been very hard on him, but I think I better scoot to check on Ava in case the FBI decides 'second time lucky' when it comes to kidnapping people to use as leverage against us. I don't want to fly around without my crash helmet and sheet, and I don't want to go get them if we're under observation already, so I'll grab a ride with one of Paul's cars. Come down to take over Dad's hugging from me please?"

"Sure. Ava should be able to come home now unless there's been a problem, so bring her back if you can."

"I will if the hospital lets us."

We jogged downhill.

Paul's convoy arrived before us. Dad had hit the button to open the gate and they'd driven in and parked in the visitor area. A reunion conversation was getting underway when I ran up.

I gave Dad a quick hug, and said, "GREAT job, Dad! You did us proud. Sorry to be quick, but I'm worried about Ava. I want a ride to the hospital RIGHT NOW to check on her. Paul, can I grab a couple of your guys and one of these cars please?"

Paul looked to Dad for approval, who amused me by saying, "What he said."

Paul indicated four guys.

While they were getting the car started and turned around, I whispered to Dad, "Make sure to keep Paul and the other security guards out of the bedrooms with the vents papered over." If we keep our bedroom doors closed there shouldn't be any chance of a guard seeing the paper. Our guards rarely go into our houses, mostly just Paul or a shift manager, and then we talk to them in the living areas rather than the bedrooms. A little care should avoid us having to say "The angel told us to" about the paper covers. That was worth avoiding because it seemed weak and would ruin our ability to later pretend that we didn't know about the gas canisters.

Dad nodded.

I jumped in my ride and we took off, except that we actually stayed on the street surface this time.

I said, "Please hurry. The FBI hasn't been law abiding recently and I'm worried about Ava."

While they were hurrying - it was a VERY good thing Prof wasn't watching them drive - we compared notes about our recent experiences. I told them, "We were stuck in a crude cabin way up in the hills somewhere. Sleeping on the floor, that's how crude it was. We had food, a radio and our school notes which our parents made us study. We missed all the fun, which I guess is what the angel intended. How about you guys? You weren't at home so I guess you were having an easy time slacking off somewhere?"