Chapter 10: Some Long Lost ... Faces

"I'm telling you, it's won't be the same without the two of you here," Alex told Kitty and Chalise, hoping to convey just how much he'd miss them.

"Park here, it's close and we're likely to be here a while," Cate suggested, pointing out a spot.

Alex did as she asked, before climbing out and grabbing the bags out of the back, unloading an extra set of bags he hadn't anticipated. "Hey, whose bags are these?"

"Those would be mine," Cate informed him, grabbing and moving them out of the way. When Alex turned to ask her what they were doing there, she enfolded him in her arms. "I didn't want to tell you earlier and I swore everyone else to secrecy, but I'm heading home."

"Home?" Alex blurted, shocked at this newest revelation. "What the hell? Why didn't you tell me? What about arrangements? You've got all our records, all our contacts!"

"Relax. Just shut up and hug me goodbye, you big lug," she advised him. "Don't worry about the details; they're already taken care of."

Alex glanced over Cate's shoulder at Kitty and Chalise, but they just shrugged, showing they had nothing further to add.

"Why is it you insist on blindsiding me every time I turn around?" Alex demanded, pushing her back so he could confront her. "Wouldn't it make more sense informing me of a sudden change this significant?"

"Hey, I'm not the only one who likes to create dramatic moments," Cate argued.

"She's right about that," Chalise chimed in. "Consider that scene in San Diego. You could easily have warned us what was going to happen, prepared us for what we were going to encounter, or at least assured Cate you weren't about to be killed and to not throw herself in front of you. But instead you chose to remain silent, just like she's been doing, all to achieve some sort of dramatic effect."

Alex blushed, realizing they'd caught him and recognizing they both shared the same propensity.

"Still, it would have been useful knowing what to expect. I could have made arrangements."

"Like what?" Cate asked sweetly. "If you knew, you'd have fretted and ignored everything that's been happening the past couple of days. You'd have screwed up your meetings and you wouldn't have been as quick in dealing with the producer yesterday."

"Well, at least it explains what the two of you were up to the last two nights," Alex said, glaring at Kitty and Chalise as he finished unloading the last of their bags.

"What the hell did you tell him?" Cate demanded rounding on her two friends, hands firmly planted on her hips. "I thought we'd agreed to not tell him anything?"

"We didn't say anything," Kitty said, holding her hands up to show she wasn't hiding anything.

"We simply told him he needed to pay you some more attention, that's all," Chalise explained. "We couldn't imagine you walking off if he hadn't had a chance to say goodbye properly."

"Well, I've got to admit, his goodbye last night was pretty spectacular," Cate admitted, grabbing her suitcases and leading everyone towards the terminal building. "It'll give us something to discuss on the plane," she added with a giggle.

"You're going straight home, then?" Alex asked. "Not on some secret mission like Gail did? You're just abandoning me and our mission?"

Cate stopped, releasing her suitcase so she could face Alex directly. "That's hardly fair. No, I simply wanted to return home and regroup," she answered, even as Kitty and Chalise rolled their suitcases around Alex like a stubborn boulder, blocking their path but not presenting an insurmountable obstruction. "In case you haven't noticed, you keep the stress at a fairly critical level here. Plus, I miss our parents and I also need to make arrangements for college in the fall."

"Oh, yeah, I'd forgotten about that," Alex admitted.

"That's understandable, since you're not attending college yourself, but there's a lot of prep work you have to do before you show up on their doorstep." Cate's arguments sounded a little too well-defined, as if she'd been practicing them for just this moment.

"Still, you could have given me a little warning. Like maybe when we were getting ready to leave the hotel this morning?"

"Don't worry," Cate told him, setting off for the walkway leading to the departure terminal, "I'm sure you'll manage to find a couple of girls to take over for me. You've never had any problem finding plenty of volunteers."

Though late in grasping the situation, Alex quickly got his act in gear, rushing forward to grab Kitty and Chalise's bags. "What about the damn mice?" Alex asked as he struggled to balance all the bags.

"Don't worry about them; you've watched me long enough. Plus I've left all my notes so it shouldn't be hard to figure out what to do."

"But I'm not even sure which ones are which. I'm also not familiar with your procedures," he whined, even though he knew he was bringing up pointless arguments, but he just felt the rug had been yanked out from under him and was struggling to reestablish his footing.

"The starving half dead ones are the Alex mice, the active fat ones are the Seers, the healthier ones are the Seekers while the lethargic ones are the normal mice, bored out of their little minds," Cate laughed over her shoulder, not granting Alex the benefit of taking his concerns seriously. She knew it was better to get this over with quickly. Humoring him would negate her efforts in springing this on him.

Alex hurried to catch up to her as she marched into the terminal, the glass doors opening to admit them. She was already heading to the check-in gate by the time he caught up to her, struggling with the girls' bags.

"Still... , don't I get to take some time to acclimate myself to this?" he asked.

Cate stopped, dropping her bags and grabbing his arms to reassure him.

"Don't worry," she said, kissing him again. "You'll handle everything. But I've got yet another surprise for you. Don't look, but I've got a couple people for you to meet."

"Huh?" Alex cleverly replied, trying to adjust to yet another surprise. His mind was already spinning wildly. He didn't know just how many surprises he could take.

"Hey, sailor, you look like you've been left adrift in a strange port without your emotional passport," a familiar voice called out. Alex quickly spun around, even as Cate smiled widely, looking like the Cheshire cat caught with a mouse dangling from its mouth.

"Becky?" Alex asked, unable to believe his eyes. He quickly noticed the person beside her, also familiar. "Melinda? What the hell are you two doing here? What is this, an episode of 'This Is Your Life'?"

"I love you too," Becky told him, enveloping him in a hug. "Though you need to get some more up-to-date references than 50's TV shows you were too young to watch."

"Yeah, if I'm too young to know about them, then how do you recognize the references?" he asked as his other sister, Melinda, joined their group hug.

"Hey, Alex, glad to see you again."

"So what the hell is going on?" Alex asked, pulling back and regarding everyone. "What are you doing here?"

"They're here to take over for me," Cate told him matter–of–factly. "I've already told them everything they need to know, except for the latest bits about Winona; you'll have to watch out for that little bitch," she urgently told them as an aside. "Other than that, they're both ready to take over for me. Here, you'll need these," she said, handing Becky her iPad and iPhone.

"Please, I'm in charge of those," Melinda replied, taking them both from her. "She's in charge of your experiments and keeping track of Alex."

"Keeping track of me?" Alex asked, not sure exactly what that entailed.

"Oh, you know, making sure you eat on time, tracking your followers, noting variations in your abilities," Becky explained. "We spent quite a while dividing up Cate's tasks. For everything she does, we could have used several additional sisters."

"I'm sure you could have found a few in Carbondale," Kitty suggested with a laugh.

"Yeah, but we didn't want to overwhelm our poor brother," Becky said. "As it is, it looks like someone left the farm this morning with the barn doors wide open."

When Alex hurriedly looked down, checking his fly, Becky stepped up, pushing his dangling jaw closed.

"You guys say hello, we've still got to check in," Cate told them, as she, Kitty and Chalise filed by.

"If everyone knew what was going on, why couldn't anyone bother to inform me?" Alex asked in exasperation. "I mean, what's the use of telepathic abilities if no one ever tells you anything?"

"Ixnay on the elepathytay," Melinda insisted, again pressing his jaw closed to emphasize her point.

"Yeah, if you can't speak in your 'interior voice', then don't speak at all," Becky cautioned him. But that comment caused Alex's thoughts to spiral further out of control.

"Did you know about this?" he asked, turning on Gini.

"Hey, I'm just the hired help. I don't make any decisions and I don't question what anyone else does unless it directly involves your safety," she advised, still casing the room.

"Some guard you are," Alex groused. "You can't even protect me from my sisters. What are you going to do if one of them tries to give me a wedgie?"

"Hey, I stopped doing that years ago," Becky laughed. "But yeah, those are fond memories," she added with a wistful grin.

"See?" Alex said, looking again at Gini.

"Hey, you weren't the only one she did that to, and I never did it to you," Melinda argued.

"No, you didn't, but you had your own methods of tormenting me," Alex responded, frowning at the memories.

"Don't worry, if they try it now you can always melt their minds," Gini told him with a playful pout, despite her personal delight at watching Alex try to fend off the combined forces of his two sisters. Despite bulking up to compete against men, she still appreciated the way Alex's sisters all stood up for themselves. They weren't always right, but they weren't afraid to let you know where they stood. And that was something Gini respected.

"So these bags are yours?" Alex asked halting his complaints long enough to take in the obvious items standing before him.

"Yeah, we got in earlier, about two hours ago. Cate wouldn't arrange for us to be picked up any earlier, wanting to preserve our surprise, so we've been sitting in the coffee shop over there. Frankly, I could stand to pee," Melinda told him.

"Hey, I've got a nice wall outlet you could use," Alex suggested, only half-joking. Despite how well they turned out, he really didn't like this kind of surprise.

"How about you show us the car, so we can store our gear and then you can come back and say goodbye to all your girlfriends," Becky suggested.

Still grumbling, Alex led the way out after checking and seeing the three girls busy talking amongst themselves, not even glancing back to see how he was faring.

"Man, that took a long time! I didn't think you'd get a chance to say goodbye to everyone," Melinda observed as Alex drove away from the airport, heading out on the long drive back to San Francisco.

"It just shows I've got absolutely no control over when and where people might show up. The problem is, you have to address it right then or you might never see them again," Alex explained.

"Still, you'd think they'd be able to wait while you said goodbye to everyone," Melinda commented. "Not giving you time to say goodbye to your girlfriends was just rude."

"They were heading out as well," Alex replied with a heavy sigh. "They didn't count on my being there any more than I planned on meeting them. If I hadn't addressed them right away, they'd never have learned what they needed to know. By the way, you handled your initial indoctrination well, though there are a few rough points we'll have to work on."

"Yeah, like when you tried to describe colors you've never seen," Becky replied with a laugh.

"Hey, don't go getting on your high horse. You were the one who forgot to tell them about contacting Shanna so they could visit others in the community," Melinda shot back, showing just how nervous they both were about filling Cate's shoes.

"The important thing to remember is you've always got to be aware of who's around you, how they're reacting, and be ready to intercede in order to contact them. The Seers will usually force themselves on me, regardless of anything else they have planned, but the Seekers might very well continue on, never confronting me. The only reason I had to leave the girls was because the two of you weren't watching the crowds around us, and I had to stay to watch how you dealt with it."

"Well I'm glad you got to say goodbye, but it's still strange seeing you kiss your sister like that in public," Melinda said.

"What, kissing three different women in the middle of a large public airport is any more normal?" Becky asked. "Talk about not wanting to attract attention."

"She'd never have forgiven me if I hadn't," Alex insisted.

"Alex, you clearly aren't aware of how Cate regards you, even after all this time. You can literally do no wrong. She'd not only forgive you, she'd invent excuses for why you didn't," Becky countered.

"Is Gini going to be able to keep up with us?" Melinda asked, glancing out the rear window as Gini just squeezed through the turning light.

"She'll not only keep up, she can run rings around us with that bike of hers. She's an amazing driver, and her bike can get her through anything. But getting back on topic, can you describe more about what you're hoping to accomplish here? After all, I find it hard to believe Cate couldn't have handled her paperwork via the mail, or simply waited until we got back."

Becky sighed, expecting this to come up eventually. "It really wasn't about college," she admitted. "We pressured her, telling her we wanted to spend time with you. Given her reports on you, we were afraid if we didn't come out, we'd never see you again."

"Yeah, and this wasn't a recent decision," Melinda added. "She decided this some time ago. She made the arrangements while you were in Texas."

"If that's the case, then why didn't Mom and Dad join you? After all, I'm sure they're anxious to see me too."

"That's simple," Becky replied. "They knew they'd never be able to fit in. Could you imagine the poor reticent Watchers, trying to approach you while your parents are fussing over you? They realize this is your life now, and as much as they miss being near you when they might never see you again, it's best for both you and your mission. Though I'll add, they really appreciate your phone calls, so I'm going to be on your ass to make them more regularly than you have been."

"They're 'Seekers', not Watchers," Alex emphasized. "You need to get the terms straight, as they feel the earlier term diminishes both their involvement and their contributions."

"Yeah, yeah, it was just a slip of the tongue," Becky said, trying to cover her slip of the tongue.

"But that's just it. This is the only chance we have at these people. Very often, if we blow it or we miss someone, we'll never see them again, and they'll never learn what they are and what they can achieve."

"OK, we got the point," Melinda said, cutting off his lecture. "We both screwed up and we both have a lot to learn."

"That's fine. I just wanted you to realize it. I don't expect you to learn this all on your first try. After all, we've been struggling with it for some time, and I still keep screwing up. But let's get back to why you're here," Alex said, trying to pin the girls down a bit more. "I'm still not clear on what you're here for."

"Well, while we weren't lying about wanting to spend more time with you, we talked with Cate about wanting to know you a bit more... personally," Melinda explained. "Despite her reactions to my previous attempt to fool around with you, she realized we both think the world of you and we're both impressed as shit over what you've achieved. So she proposed we take over for her like this so we could both spend some time with you."

"Wait, you mean you're both here to sleep with me? And Cate not only knows, but she helped arrange it?"

"You see, that's why Cate keeps surprising you like she did today. It's because you're not always the brightest bulb on the tree," Becky teased. "Sometimes it's just easier to let you drift in oblivion, rather than risk distracting you by explaining what's being planned."

"And you both want to sleep with me?" Alex asked again, still not able to wrap his mind around the concept.

"Alex, I wanted to strangle Melinda as much as Cate did, not because of what she did to Cate, but because she did what I'd been fantasizing about before I could manage it. When Cate came down on her, I knew I'd lost my shot at it," Becky explained, revealing just how emotional the topic still was for all three sisters.

"And I trust you've discussed this between yourselves?" Alex asked, still cautious. "You realize it'll likely involve a lot of other people. I have no control over who I end up sleeping with, or even when."

"Yeah, we understand that," Melinda said. "You're the central figure of your people, and as such, you belong to them, not us."

"And you also realize, if we do this, it won't just be us? You'll either end up in bed together or with a bunch of other naked women?"

"Alex, this might come as a surprise to you, but this is the twenty-first century and it's almost impossible to go to college anymore without experiencing girl-girl love," Melinda informed him. "I'm not saying you can't avoid it if you're not interested, and a lot of women don't, but everyone is aware of it. We all know it's the number one male fantasy, and there are a bunch of women pining after our bodies as much or more than the men are. If you have any leanings in that direction, you're likely to experiment in a college setting."

"Both of you?" Alex asked, still having trouble accepting this newest revelation about his two older sisters; whose sex lives he'd never really considered before.

"Both of us, Alex," Becky confirmed. "I got involved in a steady relationship with a girl named Natalie when I was doing my thesis just so I wouldn't have to date but could still get some regular sex. It didn't cut down on the drama at all, but it was nice not having to go fishing for dates all the time."

"Geez, I never knew."

"There's a lot you don't reveal to your family when you come home," Becky told him.

"Yeah, I can imagine that. Dad just about freaked when he learned about Cate and I. But then, he just seemed to accept it one day, clear out of the blue."

"Yeah, sometimes they do that, and other times they never speak to you again and you never speak to them. And you never know ahead of time just how they're going to respond. It's pretty damn scary," Melinda said.

"OK, I now know you both have lives I never knew about, and why you never confessed these details before, but I'm still interested in this whole situation. Are we talking about a one-time thing? A recurring relationship? A steady arrangement like I had with Cate? The two of you together or alternate nights with each one? Or whoever's in the mood whenever I don't have anyone else in my bed?"

"You're full of questions," Becky observed. "Most guys would know better than to look a gift horse in the mouth, but Cate gave us a good feel for how your life is organized. We're planning to get as much time with you as we can, and we're looking to emulate Cate in how she slept with you each night and got to experience the strength of your aura on a regular basis."

"Uh ... you realize you probably won't experience quite what she did? What she feels is based on her exposure to me from a young age, apparently when she was young and her genes were more malleable."

"'Uh' yourself," Becky teased, "but I don't think genes work that way. They don't lose their 'malleability' and that malleability is generally called 'genetic mutations'."

"OK, whatever, the fact is Cate has a unique ability no one else does."

"Still, you understand what we're trying to say," Melinda said. "We're looking to spend as much time with you as we can; whatever it involves. We're also going to be less preoccupied with 'correctness' than Cate was. Your people seem to be fine with whatever you do, seeing as how you're a special case, so we're assuming they won't object."

"This from the person describing how hard it is to admit the truth to your parents? Need I remind you everyone reacts differently, and not everyone is likely to be as forgiving as those who were already tuned in enough to recognize what's going on?"

"Still, we only have so much time, so we don't plan on wasting it. We realize we can't have sex with you every night, but we'd at least like to be as close to you as we can, even if it means helping you have sex with someone else."

"Again, that might be easier in theory than in practice," Alex suggested. "By the way, how long is this supposed to be for? Is Cate coming back? Are the two of you staying until I return home? No one explained the details."

"We're supposed to be here until you reach Seattle, however long that takes," Becky explained. "Once there, we'll book a flight home and Cate will come back."

"You need to realize it's more involved than just us wanting to be with you," Melinda said. "Cate ... uh ... Cate's been terrified about you ... uh..."

"You mean she's nervous about my dying. You're allowed to say what we all know is going to happen," Alex told her.

"OK, Cate's nervous about you dying and she doesn't know how she'll handle it. She's been trying to prepare for it, and she wants to be sure she can handle it when it occurs, so she arranged this some time ago so she'd know how she'd cope without you. So she plans to wait as long as possible before returning. She's not so much giving us a chance as she's allowing us to distract you so you don't have to suffer what she's putting herself through."

"Wow. That's a lot to process. Shit. I guess we should have been discussing my death more, but frankly, the only way I can continue is to block it out of my mind. If I concentrate on my own death, on what it implies and what it'll be like and especially what it'll do to Cate and everyone else, I'm afraid I'll freeze up and be unable to continue with what I need to do. Frankly, I feel whoever is behind all of this, whether otherworldly spirits or some unknown god, is purposely allowing me to block it from my consciousness, just so I don't suffer a nervous breakdown."

"That's quite an acknowledgment from an avowed atheist," Becky observed. "Are you beginning to rethink your basic theology?"

"Me? No, I still don't believe in souls. And even if there is some other universe with some kind of 'spirits', I see it more as another life-form and we just don't understand what kind of bodies they have. Life can't exist without a physical body. What form that body takes is anyone's guess. However, I'll admit my experience in Utah has made me a little more understanding of this whole belief in spirits. While I still don't believe in them, there seems to be something which reaches out to us—communicates with us—and I'm not sure I can discount it in whole or in part."

"That's a long-winded way of saying you haven't changed your mind," Becky responded. "But your experiences, and your own views, have changed everyone's basic theology. Your girls have each radically adapted their own beliefs. While not many of us are willing to accept your atheism, we've all had to adjust our beliefs in what constitutes a spirit."

"Well, I'm glad I've had an effect on your lives, though whether that's positive or not I'm not entirely sure," Alex responded. "So we're talking about a full-on threeway relationship for the next several weeks, at the very least?"

"Yes."

"Exactly," Melinda echoed her sister.

"And Cate believes she's OK with this?" he asked, clearly not convinced.

"That's what she says," Melinda answered.

"What do Mom and Dad think about this? I mean, Dad almost went over the edge when I got together with Cate. How does he feel about the two of you dedicating yourselves to sleeping with me, an arrangement which isn't even as permanent as what I have ... had with Cate?"

"I think you'll have to discuss that with them," Becky advised. "We just told them our plans to come here and help you. We didn't discuss exactly what it entailed, and they knew enough not to ask, though I don't doubt they know what we planned."

"Yeah, it seems everyone always knows more than I give them credit for. So did Cate tell you anything about Winona?" he asked, changing the topic.

"Not much," Becky explained. "She told us about what happened in Utah, about how she's supposedly pregnant with your heir and how she showed up here. Even that she's supposed to take over for Patty and Cate doesn't trust her, but apparently there have been some changes since then we haven't heard."

"It seems Winona and Cate blew up at each other. Winona yelled at her, saying she knew Cate didn't like her, but she couldn't control her or how I reacted to her."

"I can't imagine Cate taking that well," Melinda observed.

"She didn't. She proceeded to tell Winona how she was only trying to sink her claws into me, how I was bigger than any one woman and she couldn't have me to herself."

"And what do you think? Do you trust her?" Becky asked.

"Forget that, are you going to sleep with her?" Melinda pressed. "Despite what Cate thinks about her?"

"It's complicated," Alex temporized, staring straight ahead so they couldn't see his reactions. "Winona is going to be the mother of my child, so she deserves a fair amount of my time. We're also going to be together a lot, and it's hard to predict what'll happen during that time. However, she also told me while we were leaving she planned to take me to bed when we got back. In fact, when I suggested she take a private room to help appease Cate, she took it to mean I planned to use it for our private liaisons behind Cate's back."

"Ah, the plot thickens," Melinda observed, smiling at the intrigue.

"So how are you going to handle it?" Becky asked, trying to figure out Alex's plans. "Are you going to sleep with her? Either when you get back or later?"

"I honestly don't know. I hate to betray Cate like that, but I don't feel like I can cut Winona out of my life, either physically or emotionally. And I'm pretty sure Cate is more concerned with my emotional life than she is about who I sleep with at this point."

"By the way, speaking of how many women you've slept with, Mom suggested we stock up on rubbers when we talked about this trip," Melinda said. "I'm pretty sure she knows what we're doing and she's worried about how many people you've been sleeping with, all without having regular checkups."

"That's a valid concern. I've made a point not to sleep with anyone too questionable, and so far I don't seem to have picked up anything obvious, but I'm sure I've been exposed to chlamydia, at least."

"Actually, according to national studies, undiagnosed STDs are actually lower than you'd expect," Becky advised him. "They currently say it's only about 8 to 10%, which is still a lot, but it also reinforces you may have avoided it so far."

"So, are you planning to use Mom's rubbers?" Alex asked. "God, that's the strangest thing to say out loud. It's almost like asking whether you're going to use protection when you sleep with your father."

"Well, in a way it is," Melinda pointed out. "After all, we're talking about sleeping with our brother, without protection."

"Are you sure that's smart?" Alex asked. "Undiagnosed chlamydia can result in infertility."

"We're both aware of the dangers of STDs. As one almost scientist and one science student, we're both smart enough to read up on the basic literature."

"That doesn't answer the question," Alex argued.

"Well, as dangerous as it potentially is, we trust you, we also trust the 'spirits' guiding you, and frankly, we aren't about to underestimate the effect of your aura on those exposed to you. We'd no more put on protection with you than we would put on gloves before touching you."

"Actually, in terms of danger, I think you'd do better learning how to read people's reactions to me based on Cate's research. You're more likely to get killed by a stray bullet than you are from a stray STD. Besides, I got tested when I hit L.A."

"That's good, but don't forget checkups. After all, you're not just doing this for you, but for everyone else. But speaking of how people respond to you, that was our research as well," Becky pointed out. "And we plan on doing just that, although it might take us a little while to get the hang of it."

There was obviously a lot more they'd have to discuss and they still had a long drive ahead of them, so Alex settled in, preparing to cover a lot more territory, both geographical and personal.