Chapter 9

“Aaiiieee!” Lisa’s ear-piercing squeal reverberated throughout the house.

She raced around the corner into the kitchen with her daddy, Jake, in hot pursuit. They were both laughing so hard they could hardly breathe. Jake made a desperate grab for her and she squealed again, dodging toward the wall next to the refrigerator.

“Ah-ha!” Jake crowed triumphantly. “I got’cha now!” He lunged toward his daughter and wrapped his arms around... Nothing! He crashed heavily into the wall. ‘Damn! Missed!’

Lisa popped back in on the other side of the kitchen, laughing gleefully. “I won! I won!” she shouted to the world.

Béla appeared next to Lisa and quickly picked her up. Lisa squealed in pretended terror. “I won,” Béla said, smiling at her daughter. Then she kissed Lisa on her nose.

“Thanks,” Jake panted from the floor of the kitchen. “Getting her to take a bath is getting more and more...”

“Exciting?” Béla asked. “Come on, darling. Let’s show Daddy how it’s done.”

“Okay,” Lisa said, suddenly acting very mature and polite. She and Béla suddenly vanished.

There was a loud splash and an angry yell from upstairs. It was an adult yell. Jake lay on the kitchen floor, too contorted with laughter to get up. Lisa had evidently teleported her mother into the bathtub.

“You!” Jake heard Béla yell. There was another splash and a child’s squeal. Jake could see it all in his mind. ‘Now they’re both in the tub!’ He clawed his way to his feet and took off towards the staircase, listening as they playfully splashed water at each other. ‘Yes! I definitely want to see how this is done!’ he excitedly thought to himself.

“Incoming transmission,” the wall console reported.

“Damn and double-damn!” Jake muttered, stopping his head-long flight up the stairs. He turned around and came back down the stairs and asked, “Who is it?”

“Jake Hedron,” the console responded.

“Open the line,” Jake commanded, suddenly more cheerful about the interruption. The face of his son appeared on the wall monitor.

“Hello, father,” Jake Hedron said. “I thought I’d call and give you good news.”

“Hello, Jake,” Jake said. “It’s good to see you. How’s your mother?”

“Oh, she’s ... mother,” Jake Hedron said, tactfully avoiding a direct answer. “You know how it is. She’s keeping busy. I haven’t actually seen her for several months.”

“Oh? What have you been up to?” Jake wanted to know.

“Well, Dad, if you must know,” Jake Hedron paused for effect, “I got married.”

“Married!” Jake exclaimed happily. “You found someone who’d actually marry you? Who is she?”

A perky little redhead pushed her way into the view screen. “Hello, Father-in-law,” she said, waving her fingers.

“Hey! Isn’t that...” Jake couldn’t quite remember. “Yes! She’s that foreign agent who rescued you.”

“Tabatha,” Jake Hedron supplied the name. Tabatha nodded happily.

“So! She caught you at a weak moment, I presume,” Jake teased. “What is that behind you? Ocean? Are you on a ship?”

“Yep! We’re on our honeymoon,” Jake Hedron admitted. “We’ve flown to Italy and we’re taking a cruise ship back. We’ll be arriving in Miami in about, oh, ten days.”

“Well, how about that,” Jake said, stunned that his extended family was extending itself further. “So, when are you coming to visit? Béla will want to meet your new bride, you know.”

“We could be there in, oh,” Jake Hedron looked at Tabatha. They talked quietly for a moment. “How about two weeks?”

“That’d be fine,” Jake told them. “I’ll let Béla know, too. We look forward to finally meeting you face to face. Both of you, of course.”

“You mean you’ve never met your dad?” Tabatha asked.

The screen went dark. Jake chuckled to himself, then went back upstairs. It was awfully quiet up there. Too quiet...

There was water splashed all over the bathroom. There was no Béla and no Lisa anywhere. Béla’s clothes were in the bathtub, soaking wet. Evidently she’d teleported right out of them. Jake sighed, thinking, ‘No telling where they went... ‘

Jake flipped the switch to clean the bathroom and went back downstairs. Wherever they went, they would be hungry when they got back. Their mental exercises always took a heavy toll on their metabolism. He went into the kitchen to decide what to fix for lunch. Sandwiches for us, and, hmm. What would Lisa like?

They had recently discovered that Lisa liked potato soup. And not just any brand, either. It had to be Campbell’s. ‘She likes salty, lumpy, carbohydrate soup. Yuck!’

They actually had some, so he put it on to heat. Ten minutes later, his girls were back. They were both naked, and Béla was panting heavily.

“She can fly!” Béla gasped. “And she... teleported... halfway across the damned planet!” She took a moment to catch her breath.

“Sweetie,” Béla said, now talking to Lisa. “You’ve got to be more careful. You can’t let people see that we’re different. They will hunt us down and they will kill us!”

“But I wanted to show you,” Lisa insisted, a definite whine in her voice.

“Show me what, sweetie,” Béla asked.

“The pretty lady,” replied Lisa.

“There was a lady?” Jake asked.

“Yes,” Béla replied, still catching her breath. “We teleported somewhere ... I don’t even know where we were – I was just following Lisa! Some woman started chasing us and cursing. She probably thought we were witches or something.”

“Did not!” Lisa insisted. “She wasn’t chasing us!”

Béla looked at her daughter and smiled. ‘How do I make you understand, darling? What you did was so dangerous... ‘

“Was not,” Lisa said, more quietly. “I wanted to show you.”

“Show me what?” Béla asked, more insistent, now.

“The lady!” Lisa insisted.

Béla sat down and gently took Lisa in her arms. In all of Lisa’s short life, she had kept her mind shielded. It was shielded now. Béla couldn’t get in without risking her daughter’s sanity.

“Tell me about the lady, honey,” Béla coaxed her. “Why did you want to show her to me?”

“Cause,” Lisa replied, her eyes looking around the room.

“Cause why?” Béla asked quietly.

“It was Tanya’s lady,” Lisa said.

‘Tanya’s lady? Oh, God! That was Katie?’

Lisa nodded.

“What are you two talking about?” Jake asked.

“She says she knows where Katie is,” Béla said, so surprised that she forgot to close her mouth after she told him.

“That’s impossible!” Jake replied, frowning at what she’d said and not daring to hope... “Katie’s locator shows that she was in that hospital that blew up.”

“Jake,” Béla said, standing up, still holding Lisa. “If there is any possibility that the woman I saw was Tanya’s lost daughter, I’ve got to go find her.”

“Okay,” Jake backed down. “Do you want to eat first? I’ve got soup and sandwiches.”

“No,” Béla replied. “We should be right back.” Béla teleported outside the cabin and put Lisa down.

“Can you take me to where Katie is?” Béla asked.

Lisa nodded.

“Do you want to fly up and then teleport?” Béla asked. “It’ll be safer. That way you won’t materialize inside a tree or something.”

“Okay,” Lisa agreed.

Béla watched in amazement as Lisa twisted her baby shoulders around and, for the second time ever, formed the most beautiful, delicate webwork of wings she’d ever seen. Lisa wasn’t strong enough to jump up into the air, so she simply teleported up ten feet.

Béla watched from the ground, amazed. Lisa was simply hanging in the air. She wasn’t flapping her wings. She didn’t know she had to.

‘She wouldn’t be strong enough to hold herself aloft, anyway, ‘ Béla realized. ‘She must be levitating! Wow! How I’d love to see inside your mind, my little darling... ‘

Béla leaped into the air and flew up to where her daughter was waiting. “Okay, honey, take me to Katie...”

A brilliant circle of fire appeared right in front of them. Two objects flew out of it and fell, flaming, to the ground. Béla could hear a horrified screaming in her mind. She looked down.

‘Elaine!’

‘Elaine! What is it? What happened to you?’

Béla dropped down to her badly burnt sister. ‘Feed!’

‘Too late ... already dead ... You killed us all!’

Béla and Elaine both screamed as Elaine’s body dissolved in fire. Terrified, Béla shoved away from the flames and watched her sister’s body completely disappear, enveloped in flames. There weren’t even ashes left. It was like she had been ripped out of the physical universe.

The object that Elaine had carried with her suddenly exploded. In the instant that Béla looked at it, she had recognized it as a Praetor!

‘Praetors can’t blow up!’ Béla thought, concentrating on the problem she could confront. She wasn’t even willing to consider that her sister... ‘just died right in front of me!’

Béla knelt on the ground, shaking in terror and grief. ‘She said I killed them all! Praetor! Explain! What just happened?’

‘Please wait. Still analyzing download.’

‘What download?’ Béla demanded, terrified and angry.

‘What are you talking about? How did it change?’ Béla asked, frightened, now.

‘I can only compare the history of the Praetor from the future to the history I have recorded, to date.’