Chapter 361: A Long Boat Ride

I’m down with ensuring there are no leftovers.

By the time I got back to the table, Winter had tried to drink coffee without spilling it or burning herself. April was nowhere around. Her tray was gone, but she was still in the mess somewhere.

I can sense that she is ecstatic about whatever she is doing and isn’t in any danger.

When the serving bowls came to the table, I dug in. I finished everything in around ten minutes. I was still hungry but wouldn’t ask for more until after the mess stopped serving breakfast. When putting my bowls on the dishwasher conveyor belt, I caught a glimpse of April off to the side. I went over to where she was climbing up into the lap of a male soldier to hug him. He held her to him like he was his daughter. She continued going around hugging on those with children at home and skipping those who didn’t. It seemed to make their day.”

“You have a precious little girl. I miss my girls a lot each time when deployed away from home. I don’t think I could let my girls go around hugging strangers, especially not when they were two,” she told me as she carried April back over to my table.

I took April from her arms and replied, “We have a strong bond, so I knew she wasn’t in any danger. It would only take a second or two to get over to her if something did go awry.”

Winter was a bit more alert but still having periods of staring off into space or taking ten to thirty-second-long cat naps. She was due to get whatever they had her taking that kept her stoned. I ensured that Winter was full before we headed toward the infirmary.

“You are here with your daughter anyway, so do you mind if we give her a once over? It was a long flight, and ships can cause some challenges for different people,” one of the nurses said.

I turned to April and asked, “You want to have a checkup while we are here? I think you are all caught up on your shots.”

“You are very considerate to ask her permission, even if she doesn’t yet fully understand what you are saying,” the nurse told me.

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” I said, pointing to April as she stripped down to her panties. “I take that as yes to the checkup.”

If that wasn’t a big enough surprise, April took the nurse’s hand and pulled her over to the scale and then waited for the nurse to tell April she could get on it now. On the wall beside it, they had one of the rulers with the thing they slide down to go right on top of your head to get an accurate measurement. April pushed back against the wall and stood up straight. In the specified room, April did her best to climb up on the exam table. I had to give her a boost, but she did the rest.

“Ta-mom-ma-ta-er,” April said as the nurse came to take her temp and then said, “oh-doh-soap” when the nurse checked her ears. She pointed to the tongue depressor and only said, “ah.” When the doctor came into check April over, he pulled down her panties to quickly look.

“April is a big girl. I use the big potty,” she told him proudly.

He gently spread her tiny mound open to check for a yeast infection and then told her I could get her dressed. April made sure he knew she was a big girl and could dress all by herself.

He smiled as he said, “Ah, two-year-olds. The average age for girls to give up diapers is around three years old these days. I’m surprised that April is potty trained this young. She is very independent too.”

Behave, April.

She was going to get angry at the doctor for ignoring her, but she just told him, “I right here.”

He got down to her eye level and said, “Yes, April, you are. I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you too. Most two-year-olds aren’t interested in what doctors have to say and rarely understand.”

“My parents took April in when her mom couldn’t care for her. I have siblings who are only months older than her, so my parents decided to adopt her. I don’t know exactly when she started potty training, but I think she began around eighteen months. From what the girls who babysit her said, she asked for a little girl potty and started doing her best to figure out how to stop needing to wear diapers. My siblings will likely be closer to three years old before they are potty trained, even though April seems to be doing her best to have them using the potty seats. Her birth mother is unbelievably smart, and I think that April gets it all from her,” I told him. “Now that she is big enough to do some traveling, I’m going to take her with me as much as I can.”

He looked over the paper the nurse had filled out and said, to April and me both, “April, you are growing exactly how you should for your age. Everything looks perfect.”

April clapped happily, which I recognized as directly imitating Molly, and she thanked him. She also went to hug the nurse to thank her too.

Winter was naked, with the room door open, and not caring that eleven sailors got a good look. She hadn’t yet gotten another of the goofy shots. The doctor that went into her room did close the door behind her. I could hear Winter talking about the doctor examining her pussy. Specifically, Winter said how it felt all funny, but not like when she played with herself.

It sounds like she tried to masturbate in front of the doctor and nurse.

She told them that it wasn’t working, and it always worked before.

The doctor told Winter that was because of the medicines they gave her. It didn’t let her get aroused to keep her from wandering around when she was on the drugs.

She seemed fine with that, and they gave her another cocktail of meds via syringe. When the doctor and nurse walked out, so did Winter, who was still stark naked.

“I don’t think they allow streaking on the ship, Winter. I’ll help you dress and get back up to bed. You need to get some more rest to let your mind process everything,” I told her.

I headed into the room with her, carrying April, which wasn’t missed by the burly male nurse who blocked me from getting into Winter’s exam room, saying, “Whoa, there, buddy. That isn’t happening.”

“Sir,” I told him even though enlisted. “I have permission from her father and mother, a Navy Captain on this ship, to bunk with her. She is stoned out of her gourd and can’t do this for herself. You aren’t allowed to enter the female officer quarters that some bureaucrat forced the Admiral to assign to us. It seems not being eighteen means I need babysitting and that I can’t care for my daughter because I’m male. You may be in excellent shape and strong as an ox, but I will get into the room to help Winter, even if that means going through you.”

A Marine sergeant came over to tell the orderly, “This guy isn’t bluffing. He is the one that ran fifteen laps around the flight deck, wearing a full rucksack and carrying a minigun. Winter’s mom also designated him as one of her authorized caregivers.”

A female Marine first lieutenant came over and said, “David is big everywhere, but a damn better man than those I’ve dated over the years. We’ve been naked in the head at the same time. Five minutes after I met David, I didn’t even notice that he was a guy naked a foot away from me. Before you go there, the little girl in his arms is a good indicator that he isn’t gay.”

“What is the big deal about being naked around the opposite sex? Whenever I can find a place where they won’t arrest me for only wearing shoes, I’m a nudist. I got over popping wood around naked girls and women back when I was fifteen. There is nothing perverted or sexual about being nude around others. That all comes from those people who want to say everything is a sin and feel that a husband should never see his wife naked, not even when having sex for the sole purpose of procreating. I hate that they make people think that way,” I told them all.

Only when I started to walk out of the exam room with Winter’s arm around my waist and my arm around her shoulder to steady her did the orderly even notice I had gotten past him and dressed Winter.

“I’m quicker than I look,” I laughed. “I told you I was going in to get Winter dressed and take her back to our quarters. I much prefer a non-violent way of doing things whenever possible. Thanks for performing your duty to protect the patients here in the infirmary.”

I had April pat him on the back because I didn’t have a free hand. She giggled the whole time.

Back in our quarters, I took Winder to the head to do her thing, helped her brush her teeth, and then put her into some leggings, shorts, a sports bra, and a t-shirt. April said she wasn’t sleepy, so we headed back out to go exploring.

From my past experiences, as Mr. Smith, I made sure the ID card that gave me access to restricted areas of the ship remained around my neck. April wanted to “drive the big boat, again,” so we headed up to the bridge.

I felt my implant pinging me to let it through my shield. As we made our way to the bridge, I began having information pushed into my brain with details about everything my eyes saw. The data stream wasn’t strenuous enough to cause me to do more than notice it happening. Multiple times armed sailors, and the occasional Marine, checked my ID against their list of those authorized to enter. I saw the Admiral outside getting some air, so I headed that way.

A Lieutenant Commander intercepted us and asked April, “Would you like to drive the carrier again while your father talks with the Admiral? It will be more fun, I promise.”

If the Navy is ok with April driving a thirty-billion-dollar aircraft carrier, even if I can afford to buy them a new one if she wrecks it, then that works for me.

“David,” the Admiral started saying. “You seem to have been in the right places at the right time. I’m old enough to know when things look too good to be true, son. I have many unofficial channels that I can use to slip under the red tape when I find someone or something unusual like you. I’ve seen exoskeletons used for rehab. They are exorbitantly expensive and have limited success rates. Having some system that can download stuff into your head, like that TV show with the IT nerd, couldn’t be real. Governments around the world will kill to get their hands on that technology. They haven’t, so I decided it was bullshit, like the rest of your story. Then I found out that most of my trusted sources corroborated the details.”

We had to relocate to a different area, outside, due to some unwanted ears doing a made-up task.

“As I said before, there are some areas which are less secure than others. The wind makes a great noise deadening system for sensitive discussions,” the Admiral continued. “I carefully picked who I chose to investigate you. None is associated or have ever interacted with each other as far as I’ve been able to track. While no one, not even black ops, can find the hospital where you were a guinea pig. What they did find was undeniable evidence regarding the research data collected during your time at this hospital. You weren’t their first test subject for rapid learning, but you were the most successful to date. It went into detail regarding how they made great strides from pairing your knowledge with a computer-controlled resistive exoskeleton for some of your time there. This combination allowed them to show you can learn an action on the screen and build that muscle memory. No reports explicitly state it aided in your rapidly learning various martial arts, but the implication is there. Then we have your uncanny ability to fly virtually any aircraft, better than the fighter jockeys, and speak every known language better than those who have spoken it since birth. You are an anomaly.”

He knows of those like me but doesn’t believe they can exist. The implant says that he knows about me having a windfall and the elite families, but not that I have ties to them.

I moved a bit closer and said, “You already know that I’m a trillionaire. I don’t think your sources were quite good enough to know that I have the three most powerful women in the world carrying my children. When they give birth, I will be the proud owner of two large harems.”

“Such a horrible burden. I would be willing to provide some breeders for you if you need someone to take the load for you,” he joked. “As crazy as that whole situation sounds, I do agree with the logic used to decide by the Darren person to give you his wealth should he die. The three heiresses don’t need it. From what I’ve witnessed so far, you are a well-behaved young man with an excellent head on your shoulders. It still doesn’t explain many of the unusual things about you that I can’t comprehend.”

I don’t know when he got on the ship or if he had this shell well hidden away should there be a need for an appearance, but the man-in-the-machine is damn good at appearing at the correct times.

The Admiral didn’t hear the distinctive tone to indicate that someone was here that shouldn’t be on board with the wind. I felt the man-in-the-machine using the purple all-access badge when he used it to access the secured stairwell up to the bridge. Much like he looked at the resort, Mr. Smith casually walked up from behind the Admiral.

“Fancy meeting you here, David,” Mr. Smith said, putting an arm around my shoulders. “Your little girl is getting smarter by the second. I can see she did indeed get her brains from her mother, but her manners are from your parents. I didn’t quite hear what she said when she turned back around to take the wheel. Should I ever decide to settle down a bit and have a child, at least one that I will take with me as you do with April, my girl will start learning to drive something a bit smaller. I’m thinking of a battery-powered boat in the pool until at least ten years old. A lot cheaper to repair or replace when they break it. But, hey, you can spare the three-hundred-billion to buy the Navy another one if she sinks it.”

The Admiral doesn’t need brown pants today, but only because he sees that he isn’t in deep shit.

To the Admiral, Mr. Smith said, “There is a lot I could tell you without needing to kill you, but it would put a Texas-sized target on your back. You’ve had a good career, and that isn’t something you want. Trust me on this. I have a lot of experience in this area. David is a great kid, as I think you see for yourself. He has always been a natural linguist, not even noticing that he picked up languages without trying until around the time he started high school. I’ve seen him do it with ones still known but only used by two or three people worldwide. He is faster learning a new one when he has access to read it.”

“He isn’t the first person I’ve met in the world with that talent, but David is the most adept. I don’t have any real interest in the numbers, and they briefed me about how a subset of military children learns the languages spoken around a new duty station within the first month. Sometimes it has been as short as a week with full emersion,” the Admiral replied. “It is his musculature, possessing grandmaster skills in most, if not all, known forms of martial arts and being able to hop into a jet to fly it like a Top Gun instructor. David is only seventeen.”

“I will give you that it is a bit unbelievable,” Mr. Smith told the Admiral. “Did you know that girls and women flock to him to see if he will knock them up to carry his baby without any strings attached? I’ve seen a lot more of what most people in this world can’t comprehend, and yet that is something that amazes me. I believe you’ve already found that his aura attracts people on the Autism Spectrum to him like moths to a flame. No one can explain it either, but the doctors who have witnessed firsthand are more pleased with how David can reach their patients where others have failed. Now that brings us back around to my answering some of your questions. I will start with the easiest examples.”

Mr. Smith explained about Molly latching on to me at the hospital, not because I saved her and her family from the tornado, but due to how she felt safe. I didn’t cause her skin to crawl. Being around me that day let her focus on slowing down her mind enough to talk to her mother for the first time in her life. That closeness led to Molly writing her app to help some Autistic people communicate where they can’t verbally.

He moved next to my being close enough to Darren’s appearance and mannerisms that the blind clinic to help some patients that were so angry about being blind that they were about to move to a psychiatric facility and written off as a lost cause by their families. Harsh but reality.

“That small act of kindness didn’t go unnoticed by the families of those children he refused to wallow in their self-pity and anger. He never asked for anything in return from any of the patients. You watched the live feed of him humoring the Seal team and then helping them get better instead of being a smug dick,” Mr. Smith added.

I interjected, “Do you have any idea what horrors my mom would find to inflict on me if she ever found that I was an arrogant prick to anyone? I only got a pass on North Korea because it was still Christmas at home, and I was going to get my daughter from the brain-dead, inbreed moron who thought it was my fault he can’t father children. Before you ask, let me summarize, as I doubt even Mr. Smith here has any of that detail. During one of my resort visits with my friend, I ran into the woman the moron’s dad bought from her family. He blamed me for her not being a virgin anymore, and thus, I ruined her. That caused her to miscarry his daughter, not the fact that his DNA needs chlorine from inbreeding. I didn’t pay much attention because April was my primary concern. This guy’s family tree needs a supercomputer to analyze the DNA to figure out how his mother and father were born from the same parents and are each other’s cousin, aunt, or uncle. As far as he was concerned, losing his daughter was my fault, so he was going to kill my daughter in return.”

“I still don’t know who provided you the aircraft or weaponry, and very little stays secret from me,” Mr. Smith replied.

That I do know is accurate, and I find it fascinating.

Corwin, Skylar, and Mary seeking the safety of my home after their fathers died in that evil lair spoke volumes. The man-in-the-machine explained how I treated the people who came to my house to pay me what they owed Darren, put me at the top of their list of friends outside their elite world, and someone they wanted to ensure never came any harm. I offered what little I had to feed my guests and opened my house to them as if they were friends from down the block.

“The moron that took April did have enough brain cells to know that if he tried to get his plan into motion using any form of electronic communications that he was screwed before he could even get started. Those watching over my home to keep it as a safe place would exterminate him at the first suggestion of him contemplating his revenge. He spent over a billion dollars, having everything done face-to-face. The ones who shot up my house had no idea about the others before the attack started. April and I were to be kept alive, but the rest were collateral damage,” I explained. “Dipshit knew he was fucked as soon as someone found out, so he didn’t care about any vendettas. He had some great men and women killed that were only doing their job. I ensured that their spouses and children were well taken care of since it was my fault their loved ones lost their life. They shouldn’t be forced to have a financial burden on top of everything else.”

“I am still unwilling to believe that David is not some lab experiment or some cybernetic replacement after his friend’s accident,” the Admiral told us.

Mr. Smith has something up his sleeve when he asked, “Could we possibly move our conversation into the secured war room? I need to show you things to provide some explanation, but they require an NDA and a bit of trust. Will you humor me?”

The Admiral had his curiosity piqued, and we headed inside.

“Mr. Smith, sir,” an Ensign said, holding a small suitcase. “This arrived for you while you were outside. I have no point of origin as we’ve had no arrivals or departures in the last two hours.”

Yeah! Try and figure that one out. How did Mr. Smith get himself and that onto the ship unnoticed?

Once the room was verified secured, and we wouldn’t be disturbed, Mr. Smith had the Admiral read and sign an NDA regarding the specialized hospital. Mr. Smith pulled a smaller and lighter version of the headset they showed me using at the hospital while wearing the exoskeleton the Admiral had already seen me using from his research into me. Once connected to the laptop inside the suitcase, he flipped it on without warning the Admiral first. The place in my head showed the computer sending in energy around the Admiral’s head as it fed information into his eyes and through his ears.

The man-in-the-machine told me, “Something I’ve been perfecting since Paula’s recovery. It can’t teach just anyone the way you learned the multitude of things you can do now. I did find out how to stimulate an ordinary human’s brain in a way that transfers visual and auditory from short-term memory into long-term memory. Right now, I am giving him the equivalent of twenty years’ worth of knitting knowledge. In his youth, he spent a significant portion of his time with his grandmother, who was always knitting something whenever she was idle. He is a bit of an experiment. My analysis estimates that he has more than general knowledge about the subject, but social stigmas prevented him from ever trying to learn it. In his hands, I will place knitting needles and provide multiple skeins of yarn to knit the small watch cap that he will know how to make without needing any plans.”

I didn’t know what to expect. Once the Admiral had the knitting needles, he appeared to look down at the yarns. I learned that he saw what is on the table for a fraction of a second longer than the other images he was seeing. He began knitting away. After ten minutes, he began working in red yarn into the pattern where he had only used pink before. The man-in-the-machine increased when the Admiral saw what he was knitting until the man in the machine could remove the headset without the General stopping his working on the watch cap.

Mr. Smith let the Admiral finish knitting red into the pink watch cap before clearing his throat.

“I’m not sure what exactly I was supposed to have to happen, but I didn’t see or hear it doing anything,” The Admiral said as he continued knitting away without even seeming to notice him looking down from time to time to check his work.

He was nearly finished when I said, “That is precious. April will love it! How long have you been knitting? I mean, this isn’t something I would think an Admiral would take up as a hobby, given women pretty much only do it. You do great work.”