Chapter 15

"Sissy, come on Sissy. We're going to miss the magic show." Sally stomped her foot and raised her voice. "I don't know what your problem is, damn it, but if you don't get going, Jamie and I are going without you. You've had enough time to calm down."

Sally pushed the door open to the suit's bedroom assigned to Sissy, and started to continue her yelling. "Damn it, Sissy! Where are you? Sissy?" On the bed was a note on casino stationary. Sally picked up the paper and slowly turned white as she read.

"Jamie!" cried Sally as she rushed through the suite door. "Sissy's gone! She ran away!

"What?"

"Here, look at this." Sally handed the note to Jamie and wiped at the tears forming in her eyes. "What are we going to do?"

"We're not doing anything. I'm going out to find her. You're going to stay here in case she changes her mind and doesn't get on the bus."

"Wait," rationalized Sally. "Kyle is in his room with Gerry. They can stay here and look for her. I'll give Kyle my cell phone and we can take yours. You may need me to help get her home."

"NO. You're right about needing some help, but I'll take Kyle. I don't want you out there if it gets too dark."

"Listen, Jamie. We had a big argument just before she left. I told her that if she didn't like my family that she should get a bus and move in with her real father. It's my fault she ran away. I have to go look for her too."

"I see. Well, OK Honey. Let's talk to Kyle."

Gerry laid her head on Kyle's lap and flashed a mischievous smile at her new fiend. "You were really nice to me last night. Thank you for pretending to treat me like a lady."

"You are a lady. There's no pretend in my opinion of you. People, good people, should be accepted as they are, not as others would like to make them. For me, being gay is me. For you, being female is you. Physically we are sometimes trapped in another form, but our essence is what we are."

"I've believed that all my life, but I fear that most people do not accept that."

"I guess I'm lucky in that Ron and his friends are very open to all flavors of life as long as you don't hurt someone or force unwanted ideas on them."

"What's the story with Ron anyway? I heard he was a missionary doctor. He seems pretty cool about things that most of those people are up tight about."

"Ron is my boss, but he is also the first heterosexual man that has befriended me since I came out. I truly love that man, but there is no way we could be more than friends.

"Remember Rhonda?"

"Yes."

"She is his daughter. She was shunned by the church they belonged to because of something she did for that very church. Everyone turned their backs except Ron. Even her mother disowned her. His support of his daughter destroyed his career, and almost killed him emotionally.

"During that something, she saved Sally Brown's life. When the Browns and their crowd found out what happened back in Oklahoma, they helped the Graves get restarted in Ohio. Lucky for me, because that's how I met Ron."

Gerry pulled Ron's head to her and gently kissed his lips. "Is there any way that you would be interested in developing a relationship with me? I'm not what you would normally be drawn to, am I?"

"You, Gerry, are special. I find you very attractive. Ron has always accused me of being slightly bisexual, he just might be right. Let's see where this goes. If nothing else, we could be very good friends."

Gerry smiled. "I'd like that."

A sudden knock on the door brought Gerry out of Kyle's lap and into a fighting stance filled with anger and fear.

Kyle placed a hand on Gerry's shoulder and pushed her back to the sofa. He then went to the door and opened it without checking the viewing eye. "Hi gang, come on in. What's up?"

A clearly agitated Jamie said, "Sissy is headed for the bus depot to go home to her father. Sally and I need to stop her. She is too young for this, and that area is not safe."

"Your right," said Gerry as she relaxed back into the sofa. "No kid should be running around that part of town after dark. In fact, you shouldn't either. Call the cops. They'll take care of this."

"We don't trust some of the police here. Besides, they won't do anything for 48 hours because there is no abduction. Anything could have happened by then. We'll go out. You take Sally's phone. We'll call in every half-hour. If Sissy comes back, can you look for her?"

"Of course we will," replied Kyle. "Sally, why don't you stay here with Gerry and Jamie and I will do the walking?"

"Kyle," whispered Jamie. "Sally has a reason to want to look. Do this for us?"

"I think your wrong to do it this way, but I'll do what ever you want me to."

"Thank you."

Three hours later, Jamie stopped about 3 feet from the entry to the alley and held her finger to her lips. At her foot was a bracelet that Paul had given Sissy at her last birthday. She pointed to the bracelet and whispered to Sally, "Sissy's."

She removed a Glock 9MM from her purse and pulled the slide. The clunk of the shell entering the chamber made an ominous sound that echoed in the girl and woman's minds and sounded much louder than it was.

"Follow me by about 10 feet, and stay to the wall of the alley. Something's not right about this. Ready?"

Sally blinked her wide eyes and quickly nodded her head. Jamie followed the outstretched weapon into the ally and after only a slight hesitation so did Sally.

Sally moved about 10 feet in the alley when she heard a crash. Jamie called out a name and screamed for her to run for help. Sally turned to run and bumped into a solid mountain of a man. He jumped back and started shaking. Sally took a side step and ran from the alley.

After Callie slipped on a very transparent excuse for a robe, she led Harry to the mysterious trailers Paul had ordered to be flown in and placed by giant helicopters. Three trailers were placed next to each other and tied together with large bolts. Radiating from the trailers like the spokes on a wheel were 3-foot high rows of earth. The spokes were covered with desert flora that stood another 4 feet. The spaces between the rows were paths of decorative stone. At the beginning and end of each swell was a 3-foot in diameter round concrete post.

Harry asked, "What in the hell is this?"

"Some project Jack Ballard is working on for the government. I have no idea what it is, but it sure looks nice. I told Jack I'd fuck his brains out if he did something like this to the Main House. They did this in 4 days the equipment was flown out about 6 hours ago."

"He didn't take you up on your offer?"

"No, Jen threatened our lives if he did."

Callie opened the door to the trailer and handed the key to Harry. "I have no idea what all these 'Star Trek' think-a-whoppers are, but they sure look expensive."

"Holy shit!" whispered Harry.

"What is it?"

"Do you remember the phrase 'Beam me up Scotty?"

"Yes, I have always watched 'Star Trek'."

"Well, you're looking at how they would do it if it were real."

You mean a... ?"

"Sure is. Cal Polly was running experiments sending protons from one side of a room to the other when I went to school there. The process had to go through a cable when we worked on it, but this setup must not use any conductor."

"You worked on this equipment?"

"Not anything this nice, but maybe like its little brother. I knew Paul was working on a new communication system that could not be intercepted, but I had no idea how he was doing it."

What is this thing?

"Remember how they would beam someone up to or down from the Enterprise from a single transporter room?"

"Yes?"

"Well, we really don't know if that is possible, but we know that if we have a sender and a receiver we can transport very, very, very super small particles from one point to another. The idea here, I think, is to send a series of these particles in such a manner as to create digital messages.

"Because these messages are actual particles instead of a wave of some sort, they can't be intercepted, or if they were, someone would know it. Judging from the hardware set up on the roof and knowing that Paul's company bought two launches on Chinese space shots and three on the space shuttle, my guess is that he has some sort of geocentric satellite network setting in such a way as to form a very tight laser network where he can actually teleport his messages.

"This has to be some sort of portable test lab."

"Good guess, Harry, but not exactly."

Callie jumped into Harry's arms then gained control of herself. "Hi Paul, I didn't know you were coming out today. This is one serious mobile home. How does it work?"

"Thanks. The message is in the atomic makeup of the photon. If you remember the Caltech experiments, they had to entangle the transporting photon to prevent bumping it and changing it. In our experiments in the lab, we actually bumped the Photon deliberately to make a quantum hole to carry a bit of information.

"We copied some of the work with lasers done by the Australian National University and were able to send a series of photons quickly enough that we were able to create an instantaneous flow of information. We're not sure of the test, though."

"Why not?" asked Harry.

"When tracked with an atomic clock, the results indicated that the transformation was faster than the speed of light. I was always taught that Einstein's theory of relativity said that was impossible, but it did it every time we did the experiment. The only way this could have happened is as we punched through some quantum hole. We did something to the fourth dimension, time. If that were so, we could receive the signal before we sent it.

"So, what we have here is a field station to elongate the path of the transporter to check the time line of the original tests. It is really cool, but if we're right, this is too powerful to put on the market or to even get a patent. I don't know if I'd trust our own government with it. It's almost like a time machine, and human kind is not ready for that kind of technology.

"I'm afraid, though, that the only part of the system that is working right now is the lazier alignment connections. You should be able to tie into the internet and normal land lines through them, though. This makes you almost invisible on the web, so you can search out everything we talked about."

Paul put his arm around Callie and gently kissed her lips. As his eyes ran up and down her body, he let out a slow wolf whistle. "And you wore this so Harry could concentrate on his work?"

"Why Paulie, don't you like the Christmas present Ester bought for me this year?"

"Hell yes I like it. You just need to tone it down a little. Harry has a lot of work to do, and I don't know any man that could focus with you in that outfit. Is it one of Jen's?

"Of course, I get, no, I deserve only the best."

"Jack and Mitchell are going to be here in a few to give you a run down on what we need. I..."

"Paul!" shouted Rhonda as she jumped out of her SUV. "Get in the car. Quick! Jamie's hurt. We need to get you to the hospital."

Paul ran to the driver's side of the SUV and Rhonda pushed him to the side. "Other side, you need to do some phone calling while we are on the way."

Rhonda noticed Jack running up to the com center. "Jack get the satellites tuned in to us and follow us all the way to Las Vegas General Hospital. Jamie's been mugged. She's in the hospital and I'm taking Paul to her now. Call us when you're up and running." She looked at Harry. "See if this asshole can be of any help, though I doubt it."

Rhonda pulled out of the ranch's driveway and onto the highway. The green security lights of the vehicle were flashing as she raced to Paul's wounded wife. Suddenly a large phone started chirping between the seats. "Take that, will you, Paul?"

"Brown!" Paul pushed a button on the side of the base unit and a voice came out of the bag.

"Harry used to work on something like this at Cal Polly. He knew a short cut around the warm up procedures. Paul, I hate to say this, but from what I can get out of Ron we have a real problem. Her skull was cracked in three places and there is serious brain swelling. The Ohio National Guard has a Doctor Jessica Volker from the Cleveland Clinic in an F16 somewhere over Indiana right now. The doctor's assistant in supervising on a high speed internet link right now, but it's gonna be tough."

"Prognosis?" asked a sober Paul.

"Ron just doesn't know."

"What happened?"

"We don't know," came Ron's voice over the link.

"Ron?"

"Yes, Paul. Harry got us connected through a land line from the hospital."

"What can you tell me about Jamie's condition?"

"We've got her on life support now, and that seems to keep everything level right now. I have to be honest with you, Paul. Her brain activity is really weak. We are going to be lucky not to have some type of brain damage due to the trauma."

"Ron, will she live?"

"I don't know."

"What about the girls?" There was a strange silence on the other end of the phone. "Ron? Ron, did I lose you?"

"No, Paul. I'm here."

"Well, what about Sally and Sissy?"

"Jeff and Muffin; Kyle and Gerry; Mathew and your mother; and TC and Teresa are out looking for them now. Jen is acting as a central point of contact and searching the casino with Jones and some of the other casino security people. Cy is calling around town to see if he can get the police involved."

What, weren't they still out shopping?"

"No, Jamie and Sally were out looking for Sissy when Jamie got hurt. No one knows where the girls are."

"Where are Shawn and Bob?"

"They went into hiding for their honeymoon right after Shawn came back with Jamie and Muffin. Cy has some people trying to track them down. We think they're heading to Fallen, Nevada."

"Fallen? What the fuck is Fallen, Nevada?"

"The Navy's 'Top Gun' program is at NAS Fallen. Bob said he wanted to see some of those planes up close. Cy's manager in Reno made a call, and set up flight line passes for he and Shawn. We have messages out to them in several places, and the State Police are looking for them on the main highways. The trouble is that Shawn likes to take all the little back roads to see the country. She heard about this place called Rainbow Canyon. They could be anywhere."

"Ron, you're a good friend. Thanks for the update. We'll see you in about 40 minutes." Almost by rote the professional policeman had taken control of Paul. When he put the phone back into its holder, however, the policeman leached out of him and he slumped into the seat and quietly sobbed into his hands.

As she felt the pain of the stricken man next to her, an all consuming anger filled her. "I can't believe Sissy did it again. Doesn't that girl ever learn?" she whispered to her self.

"What?" sniffed Paul.

"Just a little prayer."

"Thank you."

The anger was immediately replaced with guilt as she started to pray for Jamie's recovery and for the safety of the two girls, and besides, what her father told her was in confidence.

The pain in her head slowly faded as Jamie picked herself up from the ground. She looked around at the foggy meadow. The sun was just starting to break through the morning mist as the first rays of warm sunlight touched Jamie's naked flesh.