Chapter 10

The rest of the week passed uneventfully, other than lots and lots of sex, wild nasty dirty sex. Jake and Mark found out from Valerie they were no longer the big men in the house. "Twelve inches," she said, smiling happily. They were sitting around the patio, it was an unseasonably warm Friday evening, drinking beer. Valerie was a little tipsy, and it took a lot of beer to get a woman that size tipsy. "See this can," she said, waving her half-empty beer, "it ain't got nothing on my man."

Jake just shook his head, laughing; it would take a woman her size to handle a man that big. Harvey blushed, but didn't dispute her any. Mary looked kind of scared, and then turned to Judy.

"Any chance you could exclude him from the 'Mary make yourself available for all sponsors rule' Judy?" she asked. Judy grinned while shaking her head no.

"Relax Mary, I doubt he has time for anyone else right now, Valerie's going to be catching up on the last twenty years or so."

Harvey grinned, slapping Valerie on the bare ass as she walked by headed for the cooler, the pop loud enough to make everyone else wince. Valerie just smiled and grabbed another beer. Seeing Mark's raised eyebrow she shrugged.

"Hey, I hear beer is almost impossible to get up there, so I'm going to get mine while I can."

Mark nodded; he couldn't argue with her, he just hoped she was a happy drunk. Harvey seemed to read his mind, winking at him.

"Don't worry about it Chief, she gets out of hand I'll spank her ass good." Valerie looked terrified, but couldn't hold it long. She soon fell apart, giggling like an elementary school girl.

"While we're all here, I want to bring something up," Jake said. "I've been doing some research, (his family groaned), and I think I've found a pattern to the pickups." This got everyone's attention. Mark sat up straight, if Jake could find a pattern, someone else might also.

"Can you predict when and where the next pickup will be?" he asked, a little worried.

"No, nothing like that Dad, just I've noticed that when the news starts reporting an increase in pickups, there are also small groups of people going missing, I assume in pre-packs. See, the media isn't reporting it as such, I mean, the newspapers are reporting disappearances here and there, but no one seems to have put it together that these are private pickups."

"It doesn't seem like a lot of people when you read each individual story, but take all of them in an area, and it's a big chunk. It probably helps that many of the people are from different towns, yet all are within thirty minutes of a common point."

Harvey looked at Jake like he had grown a second head. This boy, whom he already liked a lot sounded like a military analyst or something.

"You're telling me that by checking news stories and online reports that you can pinpoint where a pre-pack pickup took place."

"Well, I can tell you the general area, like the town in most cases, but in two cases I think I narrowed it down to a building." Seeing the looks he was receiving he shrugged. "I checked Google Earth, in both cases there's only one building in the area involved that would house that many people. One's an old roadhouse, closed down now but it's a large building, perfect for a pickup. The other's an old airport, same deal, it's no longer in use, except by kids who use the runway for a drag strip."

"Jake, did they ever use the same location twice?" Mark asked.

"I think so, judging on the neighborhoods where the people who went missing were from, I think they used the airport about six months ago, and then again last week."

"Is it in this area?" Harvey asked.

"No they aren't doing any pickups, well pre-packs, in our area at the moment, from what I can tell. The random pickups, those that take place at your local mall or 7-11 are truly random. The AI's are in charge of scheduling them, so predicting one of them is impossible. The pre-packs, on the other hand, can be noticed after the fact, basically too late to do the anti-Confederacy nuts any good, if that's what you're worried about. That is as long as they don't become predictable. Using the old airport twice, that's the start of a pattern, and if it happens again I would say they're taking a big chance." Mark looked thoughtful, but Jake had more.

"We kind of got sidetracked from my point," he said. "I've also noticed an overall pattern, it seems to start on the East Coast and work its way west. Of course, CNN reports anytime a colony ship arrives in orbit, and one arrived a week ago. The last time the same ship was here, they left a trail of unexplained disappearances across the US, starting on the East Coast. It looks like its happening again. I mean, people are disappearing again, starting on the East Coast."

"What do you mean, disappearing?" Judy cut in. "Don't the Marines notify family when someone is picked up?"

"Judy, think about it," Mark said, "if it's a pre-pack, especially if children are involved, it's usually going to include all or a large part of a family. Even with the need to keep the location and time secret, other members of a family are going to know ahead of time and therefore not be as quick to report the disappearance."

He turned to Jake, beginning to catch on to the boy's logic. "I bet most of the missing persons reports are generated by mailmen, or paperboys, probably even some jobs, if an employee is high enough ranking or reliable enough for it to be strange when they stop coming in to work."

"That's exactly right, but the point I'm trying to make is this, I think they'll be taking pre-packs in our area within two weeks, three at the outside. Dad, do me a favor, I would like the Marines to know I figured this out. The point is, if I can do it, granted its taken three weeks and a lot of work, but what could someone with a powerful search engine and a program that is designed to look for specific patterns do?"