Chapter 23: Guys and Dolls

It was four-and-a-half hours straight through from Marietta to Bedford in the Aztec. No one wanted to do that again. Even Jake and Toby's bladders were feeling the strain. It wasn't one of Misty's best landings, either. Holding an airplane steady while doing the pee-pee dance was not a skill that she had acquired.

Jake had been concerned about traveling to Boston. After all, he was out on bail pending trial for felony assault. Lesa assured him that nothing would be said. He was innocent until proven guilty, and being charged with a felony would not hamper his right to vote, carry firearms, or travel to another state. She had it on good authority that his case would not come to trial as long as the incumbent District Attorney was in office.

Jake had asked her, "How can you be so sure I won't be prosecuted?"

Lesa explained, "Because I know almost everyone the District Attorney is sleeping with. He likes young stuff, very young stuff. The DA determines which cases are brought to trial and when. I predict that when he does go to the Grand Jury with your case they're going to return a 'no bill' and the charges will be dropped."

It was the Friday after Thanksgiving and the MIT campus was mostly deserted, but arrangements had been made with some of the principal contacts in Boston. Few of the physics geeks had a life away from campus. Some had gone to their parents' houses for the holiday celebration, but most used the quiet time to get more work accomplished.

Misty and Janet had a room with two queen beds, but Jake, Toby, Leslie and Tiffany had a three-room suite. The central room had a wet bar and kitchenette. It was setup more as a den or living room than as a bedroom. To the left and right past the kitchenette from the entrance were doors to the adjacent rooms. There was even a balcony through sliding doors that were located directly across the room from the entrance. Tiffany and Toby had taken the room with two queen-size beds; Leslie and Jake were in the one with a king-size bed and a Jacuzzi tub.

Toby had finally cornered Darlene and browbeaten her into meeting him at Finnegan's Pub on Friday afternoon after Thanksgiving Day. He skipped the late lunch with his traveling companions at the hotel and headed for Finnegan's after dropping his bags in his hotel room. He figured he'd get a sandwich at the pub while waiting for Darlene. He'd been at the pub for over an hour and was about to give up waiting and go searching for her when her silhouette appeared in the entrance.

There was no mistaking Darlene's unique fashion sense. She stood out in any crowd wearing a beige long-sleeve turtleneck sweater above a similarly drab pleated skirt that almost reached the floor. Her glasses were much too big for her face, and her mousey brown hair was a disaster. The insult 'you're ugly and you're mother dresses you funny' would not have been out of place.

Toby jumped off of the barstool and headed for the door as though he'd been shot from a cannon. Darlene's eyes had not adjusted to the darkened room; so, she couldn't see his hasty approach. Her nerves were failing, and she was about to retreat through the door when she was captured by Toby's two-handed grip on her hand and elbow.

"Darlene, I'm so glad you could make it. Please, join me at my booth." The fact that he had been sitting at the bar was something he was sure he could overlook. He considered sitting on the same side of the table as Darlene, but though that would too obvious an attempt at trapping his seriously nervous quarry.

Toby signaled a barmaid with his hand. "What would you like to drink, Darlene?"

Darlene mumbled as though she were speaking to her hands, "I don't really drink much."

Toby glanced up at the waitress, but kept his attention on Darlene. "I'd like another Guinness and bring a Miller Lite for the lady, please." Toby captured both of Darlene's hands in his left hand, and only allowed one of them to escape. "Tell me what you've been up to since the sorority party. It's been what, almost a month? You were telling me about a fascinating experiment you were about to try with a plasma beam."

Darlene fidgeted and shrugged, "We were able to sustain a deuterium-deuterium reaction for twenty-two seconds before the excess heat tripped the safety."

Toby sounded more impressed that he was, "Wow, that long. There must have been a lot of energy to heat the toroid that fast."

Darlene was a little more animated, "We didn't use magnetic confinement. We were experimenting with inertial confinement of linear plasma beams and triggered the reaction with a laser."

Toby kept Darlene talking and drinking for over an hour. He almost lost her when he suggested that they meet his friends at their hotel. But the modest quantity of alcohol Darlene had ingested was sufficient to impair her judgment just enough to be pliable.

The three-block walk in the brisk air was almost enough to clear Darlene's head and restore her flight response, but Toby got her into the lobby. Fortunately Leslie was just inside the entrance waiting for Charles Brenner and stood up as the pair approached. "Hi Leslie, you remember Darlene." Toby then asked, "I was wondering if you'd mind if we joined you and Charlie this evening."

Leslie wasn't sure how Charles would take to the idea. "Sure. You know, Darlene, you're about the same size as Tiffany. How about we see if she has something you can wear?" Leslie got on her cell phone and spoke with Tiffany. " ... Thanks. We'll be right up."

"She's not expecting Henry for another two hours and hasn't started getting ready yet. Come with me, Darlene." As they were walking away Leslie asked over her shoulder, "Be a dear and entertain Charles for me." Toby nodded assent.

Toby greeted Charlie when he arrived. Toby and Charlie had been in the hotel's piano bar for almost an hour when Leslie got their attention. Charlie left enough cash on the bar to cover their tab, and the two went to join Leslie and the cute brunette standing a bit behind her. Toby was about to ask what happened to Darlene when he realized that the slender frame in her shadow belonged to Darlene.

Charlie stepped up and kissed Leslie, "Hello beautiful. I've put off our reservation for an hour and asked Toby to join us. I hope you don't mind. We need to get rolling or we'll even be late for the later reservation." His eyes finally left Leslie, "Who is this? ... Darlene?" His surprise registered with his recognition of the brunette.

Leslie stepped aside, "Tiffany and I put together a few things. Thank heavens Darlene had contact lenses with her. Those awful glasses totally hid her beautiful eyes, don't you think?"

Toby and Charlie were stunned. Soft brown curls framed Darlene's face. The hint of mascara and eye shadow enhanced her large brown eyes. Strategic shadows and pale lip-gloss drew attention away from her nose and made it appear smaller, almost cute. She was wearing a sheer blue dress over a camisole and half-slip. There was only so much exposure that Darlene could handle. It had almost required physical restraint for her to leave the ridiculous bra she had been wearing upstairs. It was obvious that there were real tits under the thin material. The brown loafers didn't quite match the outfit, but Tiffany and Leslie's selection of sexy flip-flops was more than Darlene could endure.

The four of them got into Charlie's car and headed toward dinner at a very nice restaurant.

Charlie knew Darlene, but the two had never collaborated on a project. Neither of them had much in the way of social skills, although Charlie had been included in some group activities that had netted him some sexual experience. He kept dividing his attention between the sexual superiority of Leslie's charms and the astounding changes in Darlene's appearance.

After dinner, neither Charlie nor Darlene was interested in dancing, and there was nothing at the theaters that appealed to them either. Rather than call it a night, they both agreed to return to the suite with Toby and Leslie. Charlie held to the hope that something would happened while Darlene was secure that nothing would happen with both Charlie and Leslie present.

During the short ride back to the hotel, Toby broached the subject of the impending Sa'arm occupation of Earth. During the conversation it became clear to Leslie that she was the only person in the car with a CAP score below six-point-five. While it was depressing in some respects, it was encouraging at the same time. The more sponsors than could be included, the bigger the colony and the better the chance they had for success.

Both Charlie and Darlene expressed a desire to leave Earth, but not in a combat role. They each felt that they could contribute more through technological advancement than through their tactical capacity, so neither had volunteered.

While both Toby and Leslie were aware of the attraction between Darlene and Charlie, they mutually agreed to keep the pressure on with the original pairings. They were not confident that Charlie could be assertive enough to penetrate Darlene's defenses.

Toby had not been able to draw either Darlene or Charlie into a technical discussion since leaving the restaurant. The intellectual discussions focused on the changes in society and personal relationships since 'Average Joes' became a popular series. Both Darlene and Charlie were clearly anticipating some kind of social encounter with Toby and Leslie, though not necessarily sex.

Misty and Janet had arranged to double with Harry Mulligan and Jamal Warner, two of the five associates of Dr. Grayson who were at the sorority party. The plan was to talk them into a tour of the lab. Failing that, Janet and Misty would find a way to be invited to the apartment the two men shared.

Harry was a typical physics geek right down to his maroon cardigan sweater and gray corduroy slacks. He was a bit short and round, barely taller that Misty. He had dark brown hair and eyes, was a bit chubby in the cheeks, and of course, wore the obligatory thick wire-rim glasses.

Jamal was tall and lanky. He would have been a good candidate for basketball if he had had any kind of hand-eye coordination at all. Jamal looked the part of the athletic black man, right down to his short Afro, but he was terminally clumsy. Jamal was a mathematician and specialized in probability. He was a wiz at predicting molecular collision outcomes, and was banned from most of the casinos along the east coast because of his knack for predicting cards from a five-deck shoe. To Jamal, nothing was truly random.

Misty and Janet stepped out of the elevator five minutes after Harry called them from the lobby. They were not advertising and planned to make Jamal and Harry work for every inch of ground they won.

Misty wore a white long sleeve blouse with Irish lace collar and cuffs. The dark gray wool skirt came almost to her knees. The white and gray diamond pattern socks almost reached her knees from the brown penny loafers that dressed down the outfit.

Janet wore a scoop neck, pale blue sweater that matched her eyes. The cable knit pattern added just enough bulk at strategic points to make it unclear whether or not her D-cups were unfettered. Her tight wool skirt was a few shades darker that the sweater and her stockings were a darker blue than the skirt. She wore a pair of navy blue low-heeled sandals to keep from towering over everyone.

The foursome went to a popular club after dinner. It only took a couple of trips to the dance floor for Jamal to be reasonably certain that all Janet wore above the waist was what he could see. Janet had also allowed some exploration of her ass, and Jamal was also correct in his prediction that the skirt only concealed a garter belt and the tops of her stockings.

Harry was less certain about what he would find if he started undressing Misty and the possibilities of what he might find there kept him in a state of sexual excitement. That made him very pliable to anything Misty suggested. Harry had pretty much ignored the dumb blonde that was occupying Jamal's attention, but somewhere in the course of the evening it occurred to him that she had kept Jamal talking about his wild theories of probability all evening. Could she really be engaging him in an intellectual conversation? Surely not!

Misty knew she was not the intellectual equal of anyone in the foursome. She kept Harry entertained with topics that may not have been as lofty as nuclear physics, but were relevant to the social climate and current events.

Both Jamal and Harry were eager to show off their academic achievements, and they had access to the physics lab even on a holiday weekend.

"This is really cool," Misty commented as they entered the main computer room for the Department of Physics.

Harry was almost apologetic, "What we do here is mostly theoretical. The actual experiments are conducted in Texas or New Mexico where there is less population density in the event something goes wrong."

Janet asked, "What could go wrong with a fusion reactor that a little Spackle and paint couldn't fix?" Jamal and Harry gave her dumfounded looks. When she could no longer hold a straight face, she burst into laughter.

Harry spent about a half-hour showing Janet and Misty the current experiments that they were developing, none of which appeared applicable to high-tech weapons. Janet asked, "What are some of the experiments others are pursuing?"

Harry brought up a secure site's Web page that listed the title, staffing, and synopsis for all of the active experiments. Janet noticed that there was only a couple of minor, low priority tasks with Charles Brenner's name associated with them. This seemed very odd because Brenner wasn't really the graduate student he always claimed to be; he was actually a junior member of the faculty. Janet found absolutely nothing with Dr. Grayson's name.

"Is Dr. Grayson no longer directly involved in any research?" Janet was genuinely confused.

"Not at this facility," Jamal replied.

Misty was following Janet's line of inquiry, "Where does he do his research if not here?"

Both Jamal and Harry appeared evasive and just shrugged their shoulders.

Rather than let the mood of the room tank, Janet asked, "Okay, so who in the physics world around here are the biggest party animals? Misty and I want to host a party before we apply to the graduate school just to be sure we're not moving into a dead zone." She leaned in and kissed Jamal, "Come on, you can tell us who the bad boys and girls are that you hang out with, can't you?"

Misty added, "Yeah, bring your address books with you and we'll head back to our hotel and see what kind of last-minute get-together we can swing for tomorrow night. We can probably get a meeting room at the hotel along with a couple of suites and play some party games that the sorority house couldn't get away with."

Janet upped the ante with, "If you guys can coax some guys and gals to the hotel tomorrow, then we can see who's timid, and who's up for a round of 'Hide the Salami'. What do you say?"

Jamal and Harry almost hurt themselves shutting down the center and locking up in record time. However, as Harry was driving across the campus enough blood drained out of his dick for him to be able to think of something other than a mental picture of Misty impaled on his spike. Jamal was at a disadvantage because Janet's sweater was easily defeated by his roaming fingers giving him no chance to think with his big head.

Harry turned to Misty at a stop sign, "Why are you doing this? What are the two of you really after?"

Misty paled slightly, but recovered well. "What do you mean? We just like to party."

Harry shook his head as he eased through the intersection and continued across the abandoned campus. "No, you guys are too hot to have to come all the way here from Georgia just to party. Even if you did, Jamal and I are hardly prime party animals. Why are you here, really?"

Jake spent Friday evening at the campus library researching published graduate theses. This was something he could have done from the hotel, but wanted to get a feel for the facility and see who he might encounter on a holiday weekend.

He had copied several papers to a memory stick and was sitting at a table looking them over when one of the library staff approached him. "The library closes in fifteen minutes. I haven't seen you around here before. Forgive me, but you appear much too young to be a student. Perhaps I can help you find what you're looking for?"

Jake looked up into the rather plain face of a brunette who was not much older than him. "Hi, I hope I'm not in the way or keeping you from closing and going home."

The brunette put a hand on Jake's shoulder, "Oh no, not at all. I'll be here until closing. I'd just hate to have to run you out before you got what you came for." She had worked herself around the corner of the table where she could see what had Jake's attention. "Oh my, that's a very advanced paper. Do you really understand what it's about?" She appeared skeptical.