Chapter 157: Take the Long, Long, Long Way Home

Is there a plan here? What exactly are we doing with Ariel anyway?

After double-checking that Molly was buckled well into her five point harness I got on the I-95. We had about an hour before sunrise and Molly shot me a message that there were no police scheduled to be on the interstate between here and Fayetteville due to shift change. We have about three hours before we would see any cops. We should put as much distance behind us as we could in that time.

I started wondering if there was really something that got broken on my car when they brought it here. I had gotten on the interstate and didn’t see anyone behind us for at least a mile, probably further given my now better than perfect vision. Out of the blue there was a loud buzzing sound and a red light flashing above the radio bay. When I looked down at it I read that button it actually said “Push Me” on it. When I did I felt the engine immediately cut out. We were still cruising along at the same speed as before, only silently.

Molly and Ariel had both managed to doze off, but they were jolted awake when I floored it. The batteries dumped some serious power into the electric motors. It was enough to push us all back against our seats. I got the car up to around a hundred and twenty before I eased off the gas pedal. A little later I felt the engine kick on to power the electric motors and start charging the batteries.

Molly sent me a message that she had made arrangements for us to go to Fort Bragg, but said we would be there in around an hour, which wouldn’t work now at all. She had me keep going at this speed. We were safe and away from police until we got to Petersburg Virginia. There we would take I-295 to I-64. I only needed to follow the signs toward Virginia Beach. I was to wake her up when we passed exit twenty on I-264.

I pushed energy to my goggles and told them to help me keep my speed up as much as possible, but stay away from police and know about traffic before I came up on it suddenly. I really hadn’t need to bother. There were a few cars on the roads as I blew past Fort Bragg, but I was able to still do between eighty and a hundred all the way to where I hit I-64. From there I had to stay around eighty since there were a lot of people heading to work. I did have to slow way down as I got close to Norfolk. Once on I-264 I waited until I was passing exit eighteen and then I nudged Molly to wake her up. She took a few minutes to fully wake up and we were already passing exit twenty. She had me get off at exit twenty-one A. She navigated for me until we ended up outside a little brick building.

I got a message from Molly saying, “Go inside and show them your driver’s license. They will have a security sealed package waiting for you. Return to the car when finished.”

So I need to get out one of the top secret or other badges to pick this up? Would they really give some kid with a driver’s license a package containing who knows what?

Inside I tried to be calm as I waited to take my turn at the counter.

“Can I help you son,” an older guy in camo asked me.

“Yes, sir. I was told there was a package here waiting for me to pick it up,” I answered.

After he checked the computer he went over to get two armed guards.

Uh oh. This doesn’t look good.

They all came over to me and one of the men with a gun asked, “May I see proof of your identity sir?”

I handed over my driver’s license. He pushed it into a handheld scanner and waited a few seconds, but didn’t give me back my license.

“If you would please follow me sir,” he told me as the other man with a gun got behind me. The old man from the counter got behind him.

They took me to place almost right in the middle of the building. Here the men and women were all armed with sidearms. Both men with the automatic rifles took up a post guarding the door so I couldn’t get out. The man from the counter handed over my driver’s license to a woman in camo who put it into a machine connected to her computer. After asking me a few “security” questions, the answers for which popped up in my goggles, I was asked to follow her into another room. Here there were four more men with automatic weapons and a big bank vault type safe door. She had to use an ID, finger print and retinal scan to verify her identity before two of the guards used their IDs and retinal scans to make the big safe door unlock. Once it was open the lady very nicely asked me to follow her in.

I was asked to have a seat at a table in the middle of the room as she and one of the guards went over to unlock one of the small doors in the wall. From inside she removed a package that had multiple types of security seals. Each of them appeared to have different ways to indicate if they had been broken.

She placed the package in front of me and said, “If you would please verify the seals are all intact, we can have you on your way.”

They all looked untouched. A quick look with the place in my head showed the packages inside was wrapped in more layers of security and then in one of the small secured boxes that only someone like me could open. Once she had me sign that the package was still secured and I had received it I was given back my driver’s license and escorted back to the front. Just like that I walked out like I did this all the time.

In the car I opened up the package to find the box contained a military parking decal and the numbers for this year. It showed me where to apply it. A note with it said to be sure to put on a special film before I put the military decals on my windshield. This was so I could remove it and put it back on when it was required. There was also four military ID cards. Two had us as military contractors. The other two were dependent IDs. According to the attached note, these would give us full rights to shop at the commissary and post exchanges. We couldn’t do that with the military contractor IDs.

What it didn’t have to say the contractor IDs would get us into every single place on the base without any questions as to why we were there, well except for the commissary and vaults at the banks.

Once we were ready to go Molly directed us around to the Dam Neck Naval Base. Our military contract IDs let us in without any problem. They only gave a quick look at Ariel before telling us to go ahead.

After 911 I can’t believe they would just let Ariel onto base without any form of ID. She could be a woman dressed up as a little girl, exactly like she was now.

With Molly navigating, well pointing, we ended up at the Navy Gateway Inn and Suites right on the beach. Inside I showed them the contractor ID. A few minutes later they asked me for fifty bucks for two nights and then handed me three key cards for one of the suites. The girls went up as I got a luggage cart to get the stuff out of the car. Once we had unloaded everything in the room we headed to the Navy Exchange after a stop at the Navy Federal Credit Union. With the military contractor IDs, we were able to each get a cash advance off our credit cards for three thousand dollars since the ATM was capped at five hundred per day.

At the Navy Exchange the girls first headed to the shoe section. Molly picked up a pair of Vans that had a pizza design and gave me a goofy smile before putting them down.

Déjà vu! Why do I think I bought some of those before?

They both got a pair of running shoes and water shoes that fit them correctly. Then it was off to get bathing suits. It was pretty funny that Molly was getting another one since she still had the ones we got a few days ago. Ariel first went right to the women’s section to get a very immodest bikini. Molly put it back on the rack and took her over to the juniors section. After a few minutes of looking Molly sent Ariel into the changing rooms with a bikini and one piece. I was surprised by how well she did at picking them out. When Ariel came out wearing the bikini I saw it had ruffles that really hid her hips. The top didn’t actually matter since she really didn’t have anything bigger than girls who looked her age. The one piece was a real work of genius. The design pulled the eyes to the little bit of cleavage she had and away from her pussy, butt and hips. The patterns that started below her boobs got complex enough as it got lower it made your eyes want to look away from that area. Ariel went with the one-piece so Molly got her two more in the same size with different patterns. A quick run through the underwear section got her one almost sports bra, a ten pack of panties, socks and some thin t-shirts. Molly picked out some cute girl tops, shorts, skirts and two pairs of jeans that were currently the fashion for girls in junior high. As we were heading toward the front they went through the health and beauty section to get deodorant, powder and some pads.

Now that it was close to lunchtime we ended up at some club on the beach that had a buffet. All three of us ate like we had been starving for weeks. Both girls were barely able to keep their eyes open and sleepy, full puppy mode as we headed to our suite. Ariel managed to strip to her panties before staggering into the bathroom to pee. Molly fell asleep waiting for her turn in the bathroom. I got her stripped completely and as soon as Ariel came out I took Molly in to put her on the toilet.

Using the place in my head I made myself only see the energy inside her that kept her urethra closed. Pulling the energy out made it open right up to let her pee spray into the toilet. When she had stopped dripping I stopped pulling out the energy to let it close up naturally while I patted her dry. Ariel looked a bit surprised as I carried Molly in naked and laid her on the pull-out couch.

Might as well clue her in a bit.

“You probably noticed Molly doesn’t speak much, if any at all. She is autistic and I think I am probably the only person she has let touch her that doesn’t freak her out. If I put her in bed with you then you might roll over into her. This way she is all alone,” I explained.

She did ask, “So how do you two seem to communicate so well?”

“Don’t know. When I met her, when I was in the hospital ER, we just seemed to click,” I replied. “Her mom didn’t understand what Molly was trying to say, but I did. We just have a sort of connection that way. Plus she does have an app that she uses that somehow lets her move her fingers over it to crank out long sentences in a second or two.”

She gave me a smile as she stripped out of her panties before asking, “If she is sleeping there do you want to have a bit of fun now? I owe you a few big O’s now.”

“You do know that making someone feel really good isn’t a tit for tat system,” I told her. “Plus, you already dozed off twice now and haven’t noticed that your panties are still mostly on. How about I help you pull them back up before I tuck you into bed.”

She didn’t hear a word I said.

As soon as I got her panties up and tucked her in I went out to the car to get on my laptop, which I found conveniently stashed in the secure side pocket beside the batteries. I went back to the room to fire it up. I reached out to Paula to see if she knew what the hell was going on. She didn’t have any idea. No matter where she looked or searched she hit blocks of nothing. There had been data there before, but now it was completely gone. The more she dug the more blank places she found. Evidently whoever was doing the cleanup had completely wiped it out so that not only did it not exist, but nothing could exist there again, whatever that meant. Steve and Jane couldn’t find anything either.

I used the special way of getting bounced all over the world to finally get to end up on a heavily encrypted webpage that showed a plain chat window. This was one of the ways to get to Anna through the other people she worked for. I didn’t bother to ask for her. Instead I just asked if they had any information on what the hell had gone on and who the people were.

Almost immediately I got back

Organization: Unknown

Country of Origin: Unknown

Players: Unknown

Threat: None.

Status: All communications, radio signals, tracking, facial recognition inaccessible.

Summary: Organization terminated. Existence erased.

Only Living Agent: Code name Ariel.

Agent Location: Unknown

Requestor: Smith

Location: Unknown

Previous Location: Charleston, SC

Inquiry: Impossibility of Mr. Smith being verified present in multiple locations simultaneously?

I replied: Unknown. Possession of all access pass physically verified. Is it possible other Mr. Smith was an illusion?

Mr. Smith: Verified by unique all access pass security protocols. It cannot be faked.

I blocked all energy coming or going out of my purple all access badge except into the special slot in the laptop.

I sent them a message: Verify all access ID.

One Moment.
Verification Confirmed. Mr. Smith
Two identical Mr. Smith all access security badges verified at disparate locations. Explain.

Knowing what was going on I replied: Is there a possibility of all access pass originators discovered risk and generated matching identification to remove threat?

Analyzing Hypothesis...

A few minutes later my laptop beeped with their reply.

Hypothesis: Plausible
Summary: Only entities capable of producing badges can replicate identical signatures.
Inquiry: Do you know identity of this party.

I replied no.

I really don’t know the identity. The man in the machine never told me his name.

They said they were unable to investigate the issue further. I was warned if I came into contact with Ariel that she was likely to be extremely dangerous. I should handle her carefully.

What am I going to do with her anyway? If the people who she worked for are dead or on the run for their lives, I can’t have her around me if they find her. I can’t let Molly be in danger. Ariel knows enough about me to question if I’m really a fifteen-year-old boy.

It seems I had forgotten that the place in my head was tied into my goggles. I got back a reply.

“Ariel’s disguise is extremely effective. Facial recognition unable to obtain a match greater than seventy percent. She was never a threat, only a carefully manipulated pawn like all other parties ordered to track you. Each was sent the same termination signals, simultaneously, that were sent to Ariel. Only she survived. Records of their very existence were destroyed by a localized nuclear blast within each of their underground data center bunkers spread throughout the world. I was interrogating the highest ranking officer regarding their interest in tracking me, Mr. Smith. His head exploded from within by a device three times larger than that which was implanted in Ariel. Mr. Smith barely managed to exit the location before their self-destruction protocol was initiated,” the man in the machine told me. “I have completed a full review of the data downloaded prior to my presence being discovered and as they began a full data wipe process. All data analysis appears the decision to seek Mr. Smith was generated entirely by the man I was interrogating. Funds were delivered via normal armored car delivery or night drop into one of many accounts which automatically wired funds to the group which Ariel belonged. No guidance was given to them other than a name and location. Actions required to accomplish were left to the group to execute once sufficient details were discovered. With the data collected I was able to hypothesize that they sought to identify your connections, contacts and methods by which you are able to become an untraceable. A ghost.”

Well that was unexpected and seems really extreme. What were they worried about being found out about them? For that matter, who pushed the button to wipe them all out?

Before I could think more on it the man in the machine sent me another message, “A bit extreme, yes, but not unheard of or unexpected when I arrived on their doorstep they believed was known to only those sequestered within. I will require more time to compile the data from when you are unable to remember regarding your mission over your spring break. My progress right now is only based on supposition without solid facts. The current guess is that it is one of your new families that are seeking your location. You matched partial facial recognition at some location, which I was unaware of existing, which triggered the attempt to track you for further study. When she awakens, please congratulate Molly on her incredible capability to analyze multiple strategies simultaneously and utilize her growing list of very talented autistic Internet acquaintances. I wouldn’t have been able to arrange the creation, secure couriers and vault storage for the military credentials in under two hours without their assistance. My doing solely on my own would risk a red flag being raised by analysis of pencil and paper records to digital ones. All identification was processed through official channels against names which now persist digitally. I expect the physical records for the aliases birth to present are located within an inbox waiting for dependent in processing. Your contractor records will likewise be located at a more secure facility in a similar inbox awaiting processing and subsequent filing.”