Chapter 23

Monday morning was a bit of a repeat of the day before. Up, out for a run around the property, in for a shower and then breakfast. Since I hadn't gone shopping for that missing waffle iron, I was still not getting that breakfast, but a quick survey made me think that I could do french toast, even if it was just the plain frying pan style. I found cinnamon and vanilla extract in among the spices and there were plenty of eggs still and I'd remembered to move the link sausage from the freezer to the fridge the night before while fetching the frozen egg rolls. So I had french toast and link sausages. The new coffee maker made good coffee, I decided after my second cup of the morning.

It was Memorial day. There were probably parades and picnics and all kinds of other events going to be happening all across the country today, but I wasn't all that anxious about participating in them. Cooper and I were vets, and Cooper was a recently discharged one. That made me wonder about Cooper's uniform and the other things he should have come home with. Where were they? I tried wondering to him non-verbally for a while, but it didn't seem to be working.

"Cooper, I started to ask. "Where..."

"Where's my uniform?" he asked before I could finish.

"Yes!" I said triumphantly. It had worked in one direction, at least. No one said anything for a while, when suddenly it seemed like I just knew. "You mailed them home, didn't you?"

"I did. Mail from the Philippines to here is pretty slow, but I paid to have them sent FedEx once they got to Seattle. I almost expected them to beat me here."

"Don't forget its a Holiday long weekend,"

Then the three of us were all silently cheering each other as we realized we'd managed to do a little transferring in both directions.

"Still, it required effort," Bud reminded us when we'd calmed down. "We've got some work to do if we hope to have it happening effortlessly."

Which got Cooper and I curious again about the whole super hero pronouncement. To say we had questions was a major understatement. We had just begun bombarding him with them when my cell phone chimed to tell me I had an email. When we walked back to the living room we saw that the open Chrome browser in front of us had popped up a window telling us the same thing.

It was from Kelli, and all it was was was a picture and the subject 'Wish you were here'. The picture showed Kelli wearing shorts and a halter top sitting on a three wheeler and waving at the camera with a sandy beach and the sea behind her full of breaking waves.

"That is a picture designed to keep you interested," Cooper commented.

"Well its doing its job then," I laughed. "Its keeping us interested, isn't it?"

"That it is," he added to the laughter in our head.

"She must be there right now," I commented, looking at the picture on the laptop and then at the sun shining through the window. "How'd she do that?"

She sent the picture from her cell phone's camera. We can do the same thing with ours," Cooper explained.

"Wow," I said, realizing again How much I didn't know about the way things worked these days. "We could send her one back then, if we wanted, and wouldn't be sending her a picture of us just sitting at home being dull and boring."

"So lets go for a ride or something," Bud suggested. "Are the roads so unsafe this day that you don't want to risk any travel at all?"

"No, but I thought we were supposed to be training?"

"We've already done some training today, with you and Cooper managing to send to each other non-verbally. It is not our intention to keep you from having a complete life, and to be completely honest with both of you, I enjoy the experiences you have as much as you do."

There were obviously still things we didn't know about Bud, and about the 'People' who had managed putting us together here in Cooper's body. I got the sense that he was reluctant to tell us too much, and that it would have to come out over time. Fair enough, I thought. Neither Cooper or I would have this life if it hadn't been for Bud and his 'people'. I felt Cooper silently agreeing with me, and smiled at the reaffirmation of our recent success.

"You know, its not like in the old days," Cooper told us. "Just because its a holiday doesn't mean the stores are closed. We could go shopping for that waffle iron if we wanted. A lot of places have big Memorial weekend sales. We could even go looking for the exercise equipment we want for the basement."

"Do you think you will be able to recognize the equipment we'll need?"

"I think so, and if I don't, we can always hire someone to come out and look at the space and give us a professional estimate."

"Can we go down and take a picture with the cell phone to show them?"