

### Sharon L Reddy

### Hometown Kelly and the Gizmo Team

©2011

Target Yonder

Smashwords Edition

ISBN 978-1-58338-355-1

### Chapter One

It was Hell and always had been, but the only other choice was dead and he didn't get to make that one either. He'd worked not to wish he'd died with his parents in the accident he'd been too young to remember. He was alive and they weren't. Because they weren't, he was so rich he was kept alive. As long as he was, others had control of the wealth and used it, in his name of course, to make more wealth. They wielded the power it gave them, also in his name.

He wasn't asked if he wanted more wealth. He wasn't asked if he wanted to 'merge.' He wasn't asked if he wanted to close three plants and put over two thousand people out of work. He wasn't asked if he wanted to be alive. He had four nurses and five people who cared for his body. And none of them asked if he wanted to be alive. They were discussing another surgery. Not the physicians, the ones who controlled the wealth. His wealth. They discussed it right in front of him, but they didn't know he was there. No one did.

"It's probable the implant will keep him alive for a few more years. If he dies now, the Frazier deal will die with him. The potential profit is too high to suddenly have it fall apart. If his grandmother hadn't been crazy, we could have let him die years ago."

"She wasn't crazy. She just didn't expect her son to die within three days of her and her grandson to be a lump for seventeen years. Naming a bunch of charities as third down on the list of 'give it all to' was great public relations, when she did it when he was born."

"He's got one aide who's sure there's someone in there. He tried to get me to authorize a series of new tests. Years of tests and he wants to try a long list of new ones. I think he's going to be a problem."

"Why?"

"The implant will reduce personal care. I think he should be terminated before it's even discussed further."

"Agreed. He's becoming too emotionally involved with the patient. I'll tell Thurrel. Pitying the poor thing is one thing. Believing it's more than a body is going too far."

He heard the two leave and stared at the ceiling. He didn't know what the "implant" they were talking about was. He hadn't known one of the aides was sure he was aware. It didn't make him hope. He'd stopped hoping the day the physicians had said the neural activity they'd recorded was response to physical stimuli and nothing else. That had been when he was eight.

One of his aides came in and gently rolled him onto his side. It hurt, as always, but he appreciated it because he could see the television. This one usually turned him so he could see it. This one had been turning him to see it since he'd been hired. This one had taught him to read. He'd turned him to watch Sesame Street. He'd heard him tell one of the others, who moved his body and worked his muscles, that even infants liked the colors and sounds. He was sure he was the one, but he couldn't ask. So he watched the educational programming he'd tuned in. They were getting a degree in microbiology.

Jim Waters looked at the termination slip and check in his hand, again, and nearly stumbled down the steps of the huge mansion where he'd worked for almost three years. The reason for termination was a long explanation that basically said he was very good, but the wrong one for the job because he just couldn't accept the patient would not, could not, improve. It "highly recommended" him for employment in a position working with individuals who could appreciate his "careful attention to the needs of the physically impaired and determination to aid them."

He'd tried to get them to run new tests on the boy and they'd fired him for being sure they'd show something that hadn't been seen ten years before. He'd wanted a CAT scan and a trace of neural activity when the boy had something to see and hear to stimulate his mind. They'd fired him for believing he had one.

He got in his car and started home. He didn't know he wasn't going there, until he passed the freeway exit that would take him there. He didn't know why he had, until he was pulling into the parking lot of the retirement condo complex where Dr. Hoskins lived. He buzzed her door and smiled slightly when she yelled she'd heard, but she was "too damn old to move fast," across the intercom. She opened the door about two minutes later.

"Jim!"

"Hello, Doctor."

"What's wrong?"

"I was fired for becoming emotionally involved with my patient."

"What?!"

"I wanted them to run more tests. There are a lot that weren't around before. Dr. Hoskins, I'm sure that boy is aware. I checked and every test they ran was... wrong."

"Explain wrong."

"They didn't do anything that would stimulate his interest. They poked and prodded, flashed lights in his eyes and made loud noises, but they were just lights and noises. I think they're planning on doing something to him and wanted me out before they do it."

"Jim, if you didn't care about your patients, you'd be playing football and making a lot more money, but they may be right about you becoming too attached. You've been taking care of that boy's physical needs eight hours a day, five days a week, for several years."

"Doctor, I can tell when he's awake."

"What?"

"He can't close and open his eyes, but he sleeps and wakes. He can't move, but he sees and hears. I'm not the only one who feels it. The last time they did surgery on him, the surgeon insisted he be anesthetized. He had the statements of a dozen doctors that it was unnecessary, but he insisted on anesthesia."

"Surgery?"

"Many. They've been going on for fifteen years, usually without anesthetic. The whole program was ordered not long after the accident. They've been doing skin grafts and such since he was a baby. He's a pretty young man now. I've seen what he looked like after the accident. It's odd to be grateful they rebuilt his face and got rid of the scars and still be angry that they only did it because he's rich. That is the reason, Doctor. I heard one of the trustees say it was worth the expense to have photos to show 'nosy do-gooders' he wasn't being neglected. He thought it was funny they wanted to be sure they were doing all they could for him, when they'd get several billion dollars if he died."

"Jim, that's reality."

"No, Doctor, it's greed. I think they've found something that will reduce the cost of his care and got rid of me before they did it. I'm not saying they're bad people, Doctor, but most of them don't think of him as anything but a business expense. Doctor, they don't want to know he has a mind. I don't know if he did when they did all those tests before, but I'm sure he does now. He was an infant, Dr. Hoskins. We know that the brain does develop after severe trauma in infancy, in some cases."

"You really are sure."

"Yes. I... can feel his presence. Find out what they're planning. Please. He's never had anything beyond an EEG. They haven't run one of those in years. Doctor, I want to be wrong."

"I understand that completely. I may have nightmares. Jim, those trustees have probably had them."

"I have. I've dreamed I was a marble statue and helpless to tell anyone I was alive. He's beautiful and I think I'm in love with him."

"I'm not in practice anymore or I'd be looking for financial assistance for you for therapy."

"That's why I'm sure, Doctor. I'm twenty-seven and I have three special friends, who assure I know I'm a healthy heterosexual on a regular basis. I never wanted to make love to a male before, but I don't make love to very many women and I have lots of volunteers. Basically, his gender isn't particularly important. That I love him is. I know how healthy I am, Dr. Hoskins. I couldn't fall in love with a vacant body, no matter how beautiful it is. I wanted to be there when he stopped being in pain."

"Stopped?"

"All the muscles are supple. All the surgeries that were scheduled are done. In a few days, he'll see live human faces for the first time when masks, gowns and gloves aren't required due to immuno-suppressants to prevent rejection. In a few days, he'll be 'cosmetically restored.' Doctor, he's hung like a horse."

"Why did you tell me that?"

"Who else could I tell? Who else wouldn't say too bad it was wasted?"

"Anyone in my profession or I'd do my best to get them out of it. Get in here and make tea for us. I'll get on the phone and see what I can find out. I'll probably want two or three others in on this, if I do decide something needs to be done."

"I'd prefer there weren't. I'm going to keep them from hurting him. I'd have stopped it before, but I'd have endured the pain to have the type of damage he had repaired. That's done. Nothing they do now is for his benefit. I intend to rescue him. I'm sure they'll call it kidnapping and say I'm 'sadly disturbed.' I imagine I'll be caught, but he'll get those tests. They can't pay you enough to believe I'm crazy."

"All right. I'm convinced. Let's get a judge in on it to start with and see if we can keep you out of jail."

Doctor Elaine Hoskins had many friends. She called one who wouldn't spend a great deal of time considering the financial ramifications on a 'human rights' case. Five hours later, a young woman showed her badge at the gates of a huge estate.

A judge hadn't been pleased with being put off. He'd decided he wanted answers now. He'd sent a marshal to get them. It worked well. The chairman of the board of trustees was on his way to the estate to answer them. The marshal smiled slightly and waited patiently. She wouldn't have had a receptionist put a judge on hold, then said call back at three the next afternoon.

Terry Sandusky looked around her and wondered if they hung velvet ropes and gave tours of the place. It nearly shouted it was kept beautiful to look at but nobody lived there. She was there because someone was sure a not-quite eighteen-year-old kid did. She stood and smiled when a plump gray-haired man hurried in the door.

"Good evening, Marshal. I'm Walter Amunson."

"Sorry to interrupt your dinner, Mr. Amunson, but James Waters has requested tests on Keller Nathan Holland the Fourth. Judge Hernendez doesn't see the request as unreasonable, but could not contact anyone to discuss it. Mr. Waters believes there is some type of additional procedure scheduled. He expressed his concerns and belief all reconstructive surgery was complete."

"I'd better talk to the judge. Keller Holland was flown to Switzerland last night. He had surgery this morning."

"What kind of surgery?"

"A team of physicians developed an implant to aid in the care of vegetative patients. It both monitors the patient and stimulates muscle contraction to prevent atrophy. He'll require less care, but we approved it because all studies of the implant show the patients are healthier afterward."

"Does it hurt?"

"What?"

"Does it hurt to have muscles stimulated like that?"

"Marshal, vegetative patients don't hurt. They don't anything but breathe. Keller Nathan Holland the Fourth is alive because his family was extremely wealthy. Everything that could be done for him was, including reconstructive surgery that's a work of art, but he doesn't know it. He never did."

"I suggest you get him back here and get those tests done. I got off work two minutes ago, so that's personal advice. I've never heard of the implant you're talking about so it's real new. The tests on that kid are real old. You're probably right about him, but even I wondered why he'd never had a CAT scan. It's looks odd you discharged Mr. Waters today, Mr. Amunson."

"That wasn't planned. The discharge was, but not it would be the day the surgery was done. It was scheduled in two weeks, but the institute called and said get him there now and they'd take thirty percent off the surgical bill. They had a large group of surgeons who wanted to see it done."

"You've still got a problem. Good luck."

Terry got in her car and called her grandfather. She usually did when something bothered her. He was expecting her to call. She was late for dinner and she'd told him why she probably would be.

"Granddad, they did a real new experimental surgery on the kid this morning. I'm sure it's legitimately intended to improve his health and they checked it out well."

"So why are you mad?"

"Great-aunt Elaine doesn't make mistakes about people, Granddad. Judge Hernendez knows it. They haven't done any tests since a few days after they took a plate out of his head ten years ago. They didn't expect to find anything different, so they didn't look very hard."

"You did some research."

"I researched this one in the headlines and the court record. It was nine pages of proposed surgery and a half-page of court proceeding. There hasn't been a two-month period since he was born he wasn't healing after surgery. I'm including now. I'm going to Elaine's."

"Terry, Mike didn't tell you to conduct an investigation, just ask a few specific questions."

"Granddad, remember Dad yelling the university had cost itself a bowl slot about eight years ago. They wouldn't give a football player a scholarship for pre-med because it took too much time away from football."

"I remember the other results of that action far more clearly than the football season scores. Jim Waters is six-foot-five. Elaine said he told her lifting a person from a bath was a 'more personally rewarding use of muscle than slamming into someone else with the object of moving a football a hundred yards one way and then the other' and he'd get there on his own. I'll call her and warn her you'll be raiding her refrigerator because Amanda's putting your dinner in ours. You call Mike. He needs to know your personal opinion before you file your impersonal report."

"Currently, it's I want to do an investigation before I give a report. Except, I'm absolutely sure the only one who did anything wrong was the person who took several people with him, when he committed suicide with alcohol and a car. I'm also sure I don't like this implant, even if it does make him healthier. Granddad, I have visions of rows and rows of people jerking like the frog leg in biology when you touch an electrode to the muscle, and a yawning person watching cartoons, not the monitors that show the amount of fluid dripping in and running out."

"Good Lord, Terry!"

"Think of it, Granddad. One person could give all the care necessary to a large number, if a computer was doing everything else. It sounds like too many are interested in that implant to me. There aren't enough unoccupied bodies with money for them to deduct a third from the bill for a demo patient. Be a nice way to keep a body functioning after the brain died though. Might really lower the cost of organ transplant."

"Gruesome, but I'd cheer if there was some way for more lives to be saved by transplants. I signed my organ donor card. I know you have too. Why are you so sure Jim Waters is right and all the rest are wrong?"

"Because I think he's the one who most wants him to be the one who is wrong. You're hired. If he's right, I may help him get that kid out of there. We'll both need a good lawyer."

"Terry, they'll run the tests and get the best help to give that boy some kind of life if Jim is right."

"Will they, Granddad? Mr. Amunson would, but would they all? Will he get a report thorough testing was done, but not what tests, or all of what they said."

"I may call Elaine and tell her I'm paying for your dinner hour. You've got a hunch something is wrong with this whole thing."

"Yes, and everyone in it is innocent, so far."

Elaine Hoskins finally got some information on the implant. A neurosurgery resident in Africa faxed her a report on it. She arranged five thousand dollars be sent to help fund his education as a thank you. He'd politely asked for the price of sending the fax back. He'd borrowed it. She sent Jim to answer the door. She'd just called George back when his granddaughter walked into the bedroom she'd turned into an office. She nodded to her and motioned her to a chair.

"Experimental procedure is an understatement, George. He's the fourth and the first was less than two months ago. The stats look terrific, but I've got problem with drawing conclusions about a procedure that fast and real problems when it includes a mechanical device. I ask how long the warranty is on a kitchen appliance. It bothers me I had to get on the internet to find someone who'd heard about it. I couldn't even find out where someone was working on it, let alone who. They may have done this one at a discount so they could keep the project going. She's here. Jim! George says feed Terry whether she feels like eating or not! Go get something from the deli! Of course I want to talk to her alone. Since I'm not getting paid, I'll tell you all about what I think you should know about later."

He endured. It wasn't a choice. He longed for an end to it forever long before it ended. He always did. His eyes shut. He longed for the gentle hand that had closed them and the soft deep voice that had told him to sleep well. His eyes opened and his calves contracted. His calves relaxed and his thigh muscles contracted. His buttocks were next, then his back. The order never varied. He endured. It wasn't a choice.

### Chapter Two

Jim watched the ambulance pull into the drive of the estate. It had been two months. The doctors at the clinic had suddenly changed their minds about keeping him for four. Dr. Hoskins was trying to find out why. She was trying to find out anything at all. She didn't know he was there, or that he still had a working gate card. It wasn't his. That had been cancelled.

He inserted the spare 'master key.' He'd had it almost two years. That's when a nurse had thrown it at him and told him to "answer the damn door," because they didn't pay her to put away groceries. He'd continued to accept deliveries on the housekeeper's day off, even after the nurse had been replaced.

He'd almost forgotten he had the card. They'd given him one that would open all the doors he'd needed to go through instead of raising his salary for the extra work the housekeeper mentioned he did, several times. She hadn't liked the nurse either. He wondered if she remembered telling him to keep the master because their list of "needed" and hers probably didn't match. She wasn't around to ask. The house had been closed for two months and it had been expected to be four. It didn't make sense to have a live-in housekeeper in an empty house.

He drove up the drive in the "super-size" van he'd bought for two hundred dollars cash the morning previous. It still had the name of the market that had used it for ten years on the side. It didn't have the same engine or transmission in it as it had the day before. He was a bit short on sleep, but he expected to get a nap in ten or fifteen hours. He expected to be caught, but he didn't intend to make it easy and the implant would be gone. He walked in the back door and told the man in the kitchen he was the first one who could get there to help with the patient.

"I didn't realize anyone was coming."

"He doesn't clean himself or watch his own monitors. I usually fix my own lunch."

"There's nothing here to fix."

"Then I need to get something. I'm going to locate my patient then head for a mini-mart. I left the back drive open for deliveries. I'm parked out front. All right if I use that door?"

"Who are you supposed to report to?"

"I didn't get a name. They may not have been sure who'd be here. I was given a card for the gate and a case history when I was hired. I'm also ahead of schedule. I wanted to see this place, but patient comes first and missing lunch makes me grumpy. No one should be looking for me for a few minutes at least, if anyone does. I got the impression this wasn't a well-planned move."

"The layer of dust on things agrees with you."

Loren Demus watched the big young man walk through the kitchen door and smiled. He headed for the basement with a flashlight in his hand. Check everything meant everything to him and it was a nice distance from the monitors for the next few minutes. A friend had told him he should be, if a big young man showed up at the door. He'd also told him he didn't want to know anything else.

Jim looked in the room where Keller had been. The bed was empty and unmade and wires dangled from holes in the wall where monitoring equipment had been mounted. He almost got caught by the ambulance attendants coming down the hall. He went the direction they'd come from and finally found Keller on a gurney in a small stuffy room. He grabbed the unit from the cart beside him, tossed it on top of him, picked him up and 'ran' for the door. He was very angry. He might also have less time than he thought. He didn't know someone had already arranged a bit more than he expected.

A woman was at that moment explaining there was no record of a request for a nurse to that address. A few moments later a physician confirmed he'd told his nurse to employ one. She confirmed she'd told his receptionist to employ one. The receptionist confirmed she'd left a message in the temporary employment firm's voice mail. The message was finally found. The service would have someone there in the morning. Martin Fuller sighed and relaxed when he found someone who would send a person to the house, as soon as they found someone who could "read a monitor."

He left a message for the house and grounds maintenance supervisor that someone would be coming. He was pleased with that title. He'd come up with it and saved a great deal by paying one person a bit more full-time and two part-time employees a great deal less to scrub toilets and do hand mowing and edging on the lawns. Mr. Amunson had told him he was pleased with the restructure of the caretaking staff on the estate. He was a good boss.

Martin was pleased he'd been able to straighten out the mess for him. The political fundraiser he was attending that night was important. His boss would have headed for the estate to watch monitors himself if he hadn't found someone. It was because he was that kind of man that his voice and presence at the fundraiser were truly needed.

Loren Demus listened to the message and smiled. Room monitors were down. The computer reported a slight power drop on the system. One looked for such things immediately, not after the lights went out or the fire was put out. It was his job. The big young man had impressed him as probably being exceptionally good at his too.

Jim gently laid Keller on his stomach on his kitchen table. The kitchen gleamed and it was as sterile as he could make it. He started the IV drip, knelt in front of Keller and gently lifted his head so he could see him.

"It hurts me every time I see your muscles knot. I know it's too hard. I'm no surgeon, but I had plans to be. I also had a gizmo wizard as a sidekick for six years. I figure that ups my chance of getting that implant out of you. That's where we're going. Everyone knows she absolutely hates my guts. Her dad and I are the only ones who know she still loves me too. The scar makes me real mad, but maybe there had to be one left that showed. I'll know when the anesthetic takes effect, Keller. Bitsy is going to think it's hilarious that I tossed all my careful plans out the window when I fell in love with a man. Are your grades in microbiology better than mine Keller? Yes, I see you in there. I told you the pain would end when the mandibular surgery healed. I didn't lie. I just didn't know I was going to have to end it. Fight, Keller. Fight to stay alive. I love you. I'm not sure I could forgive myself if I killed you trying to rescue you."

He felt himself going to sleep. Awakening was always painful, but this time he wanted it. He had a goal. He'd never had one before. It wasn't stay alive. It was tell the man with the gentle hands and voice he was right. His grades in microbiology were better. That was a much more difficult goal. Of course, staying alive was the first step.

Jim couldn't do anything but cut the filaments leading into and out of the unit beneath the skin on Keller's back. He couldn't take them out, but wasn't really worried about them. He didn't know what they were, except made of non-toxic material. It only took him about four minutes in all. He'd practiced the removal of the implant in his mind and tying stitches physically. He sat beside Keller and wept in relief when he suddenly knew he was awake.

"Anesthetic is always a gamble, Keller. I didn't have any equipment used to better the odds, but I just couldn't do it without it. You're about to lay on a couch and watch TV for the first time. I've got a plastic sheet and a couple thick blankets on it so don't worry about it. No cameras, Keller. No monitors, servants, security guards or the money it takes for them. I gave thirty-day notice I'm moving and paid a month's rent, so we're going to be pretty cash short. I've been working for a temporary agency, but that's not full-time."

Jim gently rolled Keller into his arms and carried him into the living room. He arranged him in the position he liked, when he was laying on his stomach watching TV. He'd played enough football to have found one he liked to 'baby' about every part of his body at one time or another. He adjusted pillows, turned on the TV, then squatted down and grinned at him.

"Wait'll you see what else is on television besides Sesame Street, sitcoms and college classes. The trustees didn't subscribe to any adults-only channels. You were eighteen yesterday, Keller. Your birthday present is a dirty movie or two. It's traditional. Expect bad acting and lousy plots. It's visual stimulation and reality does not intrude. Since you're not expecting artistic quality, it's a nice surprise when you get it instead of a disappointment you don't. Most people make love with someone they really like a couple times a week, though the adventure of discovering someone special and a new relationship definitely increases the frequency. I wanted to just talk to you so much, Keller, but I was trying to get them to run tests I know would show you're aware of what transpires around you and was being extremely professional for the camera. I have to paint the van and modify the interior of an RV enough it'll fit in it. We don't want me to do too good a job on the inside. Bitsy needs an excuse to rebuild it for your comfort and deserves to get to yell at me and call me an idiot while she does it. I'll look in on you often, but I have to leave you alone. Keller, you're a very well-endowed man. That has no real relevance to anything and being smug about it is expected and acceptable as long as you remember it doesn't."

He wasn't confused by that statement. He hadn't been confused since the man had come into the room where the attendants had left him and picked him up, but he certainly wished he'd tell him his damned name! It was the only one of the staffs' names he'd never heard and it had been driving him crazy for three years. He suddenly noticed what his eyes were seeing.

Jim walked into the living room to see if Keller needed fresh blankets. He sat down in front of him and laughed until he cried. He had the proof he needed. He reached over and picked up the phone.

"I'm calling a psychiatrist. I couldn't afford to do it if I was a patient. She's retired or she might decide I should be. Good. This time I hoped I'd get a message machine. Doctor, the test results are in. He got a hard-on watching a porno movie. Tell them to leave us alone. He's in the care of the professional who knew he was aware. I'm the best for the job period. Something was wrong with that implant, the procedure, the doctor, the clinic or something. If it hadn't been, you'd be getting this message in two months. I removed it. I've got an idea for some gizmos to make his life more pleasant. You can't see much of the world laying on your back and one side or the other doesn't widen horizons greatly. Tell them to leave us alone. I'll tell the judge, the jury and the press exactly how many times he had surgery without anesthesia. Oh, if he does need good help fast, they'll get the medical bill. I have his identification. It was taped to his chest. Tell Mr. Amunson I love Keller and we both know he always did his best for him. Tell the rest to be glad he's the only one whose effort counts. I won't call again, but I'll take him in for a checkup some place every so often and send them the report and the bill if they don't try to find us. I'm going to put him in the front seat of a van and show him America. Thank you, Dr. Hoskins. Good-by. That's the plan, Keller. It's a lot looser than any others I ever made. It's also the first one that didn't have people calling me 'Doctor' as its final goal. I didn't give it up for you. I discovered it was no longer important to me and pitched it as impractical, under the circumstances."

Keller wanted to tell him he did feel smug. He wanted to tell him about the funny movie in another language with words at the bottom of the screen. He wished he'd been able to read what people had been saying around him for two months. Most of all, he wished he knew his damn name!

Jim smiled and began cleaning the garage. The practice he'd put in on everything from masking to using an airbrush had paid off. The oversize van wasn't a work of art, but it looked good and not like it had been done in about six hours total. He checked on Keller. He was asleep. He checked the time and dashed out. He could do it in eleven minutes if he moved fast. He jumped in his car and delivered it and the painting equipment to the custom shop, that had accepted the car in trade for the interior they pulled out of an RV, a rebuilt engine and transmission and rent of the equipment for "awhile." The trade had been reasonable. The car was a sixty-six Mustang and he'd done all the mechanical work on it. They'd make more than the cost of a new sprayer and airbrush when they finished the body work and painting it. He caught a city bus home.

Keller awoke and saw the man was laying in the floor beside the couch. He smelled rather strong, but he didn't mind it at all. He knew the smell was because he'd been working very hard and he'd probably been too tired to even take a bath. It surprised him a great deal when he sat up and smiled.

"Good morning. I've got a rig on the toilet to hold you on it. I'll take a fast shower, then we'll see if gravity worked, or you need some assistance. I've currently got some baby food, but there's a blender in the van. Keller, you ought to be laying in a puddle and you're not. I want to think you have some control over your bladder, but it's not likely. If gravity and muscle massage don't work, I'm going to have to catheterize you. If you bleed, I have to take you to a doctor, but I do know one who won't mention I did unless directly asked and she's unlikely to be questioned. The van's done except for removing the masking. Now, this is the same equipment used by other people who don't have motor control over their bodies. This piece will keep you from spraying the cabinets over there. Think about relaxing, Keller. Another patient I worked with shouldn't have been able to use the toilet like she did, but she hated 'wearing diapers.' She put herself on a precise schedule and did it. We won't do that. We'll eat when we're hungry, drink when we're thirsty and guess at when you'll need to use the toilet. Keller, you're not my patient any longer. That ended when they handed me a termination slip the morning after they took you to that clinic. Maybe you know they took you over there two weeks early because the clinic offered a discount 'now.' If they hadn't, I'd have gotten you out before it happened. Our psychiatrist had a judge working on it. Oh, Dr. Hoskins knows where we're going and will check up on us. She knows who Gizmo is and I told her that's where we were going when I said I had ideas for the van. Gizmo, Bitsy, is the girl everyone thought I was going to marry. I'm including myself. When I figured out it was going to take me about fifteen years to get into medical school, I said good-by. It wouldn't have been that long, but I didn't expect to be able to take seventy percent of my undergraduate classes by extension while I was working. Yes! Good old gravity. You are going to like baby food. I like baby food. I'm going to put tiny chunks of Lifesavers and SweeTarts on your tongue to melt. No one knows what you can do, Keller. No one has ever looked to find out why you have no motor control. No one knew you were there. My arms around you is my therapy for my nightmares, Keller. So, want to be called Nate?"

He was suddenly very surprised. He did want to be called something else, but it wasn't Nate. Surprise was too small for what he felt when the man stepped out of the shower, dried off and continued the 'conversation.' He was surprised he thought of it in that way too.

"I don't think Nate really suits you. It probably makes you feel good to hear your name used to you. Sounds odd, but that's because most people hear their names most often when they're talked to, not talked about, but I still feel like... I've got it. It's what all your real friends would have called you. Yes, you're stuck with Kelly. It's the right name for who you are. It's important to me that people I introduce you to know who to look for in your eyes, Kelly. Uh, huh, I like it. Let me see if you do. Oh, I think that's a definite yes I see in your eyes. If I'm wrong, you're going to have to figure out a way to thump me and tell me to call you something else. Kelly, I have hope. You are as healthy as most young people your age who don't have your physical problem. That's downright odd. You are that way because you're very rich, but I don't think that's enough. Some of it is you, Kelly. Why don't you have control over your body? Or do you have control over some of it, but don't know how to increase it? Or if it can be. I want to take you for the most advanced tests to find out, but I won't. You've been a patient too long. Now you're a friend who needs some assistance. Your medical care is regular checkups and fast help if you need it. I don't expect you to, unless I do something stupid and get you hurt. Hey, I have fallen with a person in my arms before. I made sure I ended up on the bottom, but we both knew how stupid not wiping my shoes well had been. Wet shoes and tile floors do not a safe carry make."

He was stunned. The man had found the name he wanted to be called and his approval in his eyes. He had hope? 'Kelly' wanted to tell him how nice it felt when he rested his head on his shoulder while he cleaned him. He didn't like being wet and hated being "dirty." Had he 'held it' and relaxed on the toilet, or had gravity just been all that was needed? He liked sitting on the toilet. It was the first time he ever had. He was very surprised when the man just put him over his shoulder to carry him. He knew it.

"This is called a fireman's carry. It's not usually used to carry patients because it's a 'sack of potatoes' carry, but I used it to carry a very heavy woman for about three months. She didn't mind at all and she got lighter as time passed. You're getting carried this way because hurting your back to pick you up in the usual way is silly. I'm going to turn on cartoons for you while I sleep some more. I'm not alert enough to drive. I don't take chances with other people's lives. I'm taking one with yours, Kelly. I'm doing it for you because I'm sure you would want it. It's why I didn't yell for a stop of the surgeries. I would have if the surgeon who did your jaw hadn't yelled 'not without anesthesia.' Fate smiled on us, Kelly. I found exactly the vehicle we needed in the weekly paper that's full of buy, sell and trade ads. It said, 'good body and tires, two hundred dollars.' I yelled yes over the phone. I had the right engine and transmission for it in the garage. It had the name of a market on the side. It was the perfect 'getaway' vehicle."

Kelly was working on his awe at the moment. The man was naked and looked like the ones on the TV commercials for bodybuilding equipment, except he was a great deal bigger. He began to be sure there was something very unusual about him when he talked to him again.

"I lift weights so I can lift people. You can't get this kind of muscle because it takes working against resistance. That thing was too strong. My guess is it didn't start that way, but I don't know. I couldn't figure out what the tiny filaments attached to it were made of. I'm sure they were sure the material was non-toxic, Kelly. It was intended to be permanent with easy access to the control unit when necessary. That might have been the only question Mr. Amunson knew to ask, but I'm sure he asked it. I don't know where the filaments lead. You'll like this. I cut them loose with a soldering iron. I had a nice new tip and I'm good with one. Sst and loose. I'd probably have been working hours if I'd tried to cut them. I thought of the iron because they reminded me of synthetic material thread and I've used that iron to keep a pulled thread on a sweater from becoming a hole. Uh, oh, phone. I've got a number tracer on it in case someone needs me, but expects me to recognize a voice and I don't. Gizmo! Hang on. I'm putting you on speaker so Kelly can hear."

"What the hell do you mean you're coming here?!"

"Now who else would I go to when I really need gizmos? How much brief did you get?"

"Dr. Hoskins briefed my dad. I figured it would be faster to get it from you than wait for him to stop laughing."

"He was laughing?"

"Maybe giggling."

"She did it! She got them off our backs! I won't spend the next several years in jail!"

"Say what?!"

"Oh, I kidnapped an eighteen-year-old rich kid I was sure wanted to be rescued. You'll like Kelly. He's gorgeous and will have a great sense of humor about it, now that it's not just a record of how many times he had surgery. He's the triumphant work of several of the best cosmetic surgeons in practice. You're the one person I'm sure will look for it and see it in his eyes, Gizmo. I'm counting on you to help me give him a life worth the seventeen years of Hell he survived. He needs gizmos, Gizmo."

"For him, not you."

"I already told him you hated my guts with good reason. I need sleep bad, at least four hours. We'll be in sometime late tonight."

"I'll leave the workshop door open and the back door unlocked. You know the alarm code. Kelly, I'm looking forward to finding out why my dad's laughing and to meeting you. Sounds interesting."

"Gizmo, you might get a patent or two out of it. Kelly isn't the only one who needs some gizmos to improve his quality of life."

"You can't patent friends. That's what everyone needs most. You're a damn good one. Later."

"Told you she still loves me. I kept hoping she'd fall in love with someone else. She deserves to. What the hell?!"

Jim got him off the couch and on the floor fast. It looked like every muscle in his body had suddenly contracted, even his eyes were clamped shut and his face was a horrible grimace. He checked his heart and started working to get the muscles loosened. He decided massage wasn't enough and ran for the bath with him. He held him in his lap under the shower while the tub filled and worked on him while it did. He got out and laid Kelly back in the tub as soon as the water got about two inches deep. He switched from shower to faucet and worked on knotted muscles. He was nearly ready to call an ambulance when Kelly's muscles began to relax. He lifted the warm cloth off his face and gently lifted his eyelids. He was suddenly hanging onto him and crying.

"Bad scare. I was about to yell for help real loud. Should I, Kelly? I don't want to. Ow. I've had a cramp in one muscle. Now I'm scared to take you on the road for nine hours. I don't have a tub with hot water in the van. Hell, I'm afraid to sleep too. Hmm... I'm going to tie a string to our toes. If your legs suddenly knot, mine will get jerked. I usually sleep on my right side. I've used a string on my toe to keep me from turning onto a sore shoulder. I much preferred waking because my toe was tugged to waking because my shoulder screamed. Oh, I played football from the time I was eleven until I was twenty. My parents could afford to pay for community college. They're both gone now. They were in their fifties when they adopted me. Yes, I was adopted. Mom told me she'd tried to find out who my natural mother was and couldn't. I never bothered to try. If she couldn't learn, I knew no one except my natural mother knew who she was and she didn't want it known. There. Two dry and dental floss for a toe string. Kelly, if it happens more than once more, we're going to a hospital. I won't let you hurt like that and twice more means I need help preventing it, not just easing it."

Kelly liked the string. He didn't like the idea of going to a hospital. He didn't know how to 'relax,' but he worked at thinking about it. It wasn't enough. Suddenly he was in knots and the man was running for the bathtub with him again. He kept working at thinking of relaxing though. He wondered if it had helped when the spasm passed much more quickly. He got his first shower after it had. He'd 'relaxed' a bit much and both he and the tub needed a rinse.

Jim laid Kelly down, got the phone and put it right beside the couch and tied the string back on. He entered the number of the nearest hospital and hung up before anyone answered. He now had it on redial. He explained what he was doing to Kelly.

Kelly worked harder at thinking of relaxing. A hospital was one of two places he didn't want to go. He'd been to too many. The other one was the room where he'd spent the rest of his life. This time the thinking worked. He fell asleep too. He woke when his toe was tugged.

"Whoops. Sorry. Yes! We slept five hours, Kelly. At least I did. I know I woke you, but I went down like I'd been slugged and don't know how long you watched cartoons before you fell asleep. Oh, this channel just has cartoons. One of the reasons we're short cash is a bunch of boxes in the van. That's a borrowed TV. I sold mine and bought one for the van. Since I bought a satellite dish to mount on the van to go with it, I spent more than I got. There's a nice stereo, a CB radio and a cell phone too. I paid a year's satellite subscription and a guestimate of a year for the cell phone. Kelly, I got you some blue jeans and T-shirts. Blue jeans are wonderful after they've been well broken-in. There are places that buy broken-in jeans and sell them to people who hate breaking in new ones. They do make money at it. Jeans that are nice and soft, but don't have holes worn in them, are perfect. I found you four perfect and some great concert T-shirts. I plan on taking you to one, but not til we both learn who you'd like to see play live. They call the kind of stuff they played in your room 'elevator music.'"

Kelly was delighted with the jeans and T-shirt and the explanation of "elevator music." The man showed him himself in a mirror and his eyes were suddenly wet. The man noticed.

"You're crying! Oh, damn, Kelly, you're welcome. No one was ever more thanked."

Kelly realized he really was crying and the man was right about the reason. He couldn't tell him it had never happened before. His eyes had teared, of course, just as they'd blinked, but he'd never cried. He'd never experienced happiness before. The man had understood again and he still didn't know his damn name!

Jim fed Kelly. Swallow was a reflex. He began to wonder if that was all it was while he fed him. He was sure he liked the taste because it seemed like the 'reflex' was a bit slow. Was he holding it in his mouth to taste just a bit longer? Or did he just want it so badly he thought he was? He fought to get a surge of hope under control and got them ready to leave. He explained the arrangement while he strapped Kelly into the front seat of the van.

"The best I could think of to support your head so you could look out the window was a cervical collar, Kelly. I figure Gizmo will take one look at it and go to work on your seat. Of course, she may build a whole new vehicle around the engine and transmission and tell me to paint it again when she's done. See, I expected people to be hunting us. We were here because I decided they wouldn't expect me to take you home and they'd be looking for the van on the road. You decided to prove you do know what's going on around you a lot faster than I expected, Kelly, or I'd have gotten us to a motel as soon as I got it painted. It's titled and registered in your name, but I left off Nathan and the Fourth. I have a commercial license and your vehicle is insured for a driver who has one. Planning all this kept me from just buying an airplane ticket and coming after you. I did realize it would be next to impossible to convince a customs officer you were a shoulder bag, but I thought about it anyway. You're smiling! Kelly, what's going on? First tears and now a smile. Was your life so terrible you just never felt like smiling? The answer is probably yes. A smile can be consciously controlled, but it comes without volition. It's a great deal more difficult to keep from smiling when something is funny, but you're sure it wouldn't be appreciated under the circumstances. Hang on. I'm going to use the phone for the first time and I need the directions."

Kelly listened to him call the doctor he'd said he wouldn't call again and leave another message. He told her he thought she might need a bit more "ammo" and told her about both the tears and the smile. It took him a bit to identify what he felt when the man backed the van out of the big garage attached to the small house. He'd never felt excitement before either.

Terry listened to the notice the 'all points' had been cancelled and whooped. Doctor Hoskins and Judge Hernendez had done it. He came out of his office and grinned at her. She offered him half of her sandwich.

"Amunson yelled leave them alone and asked for a recommendation for a good therapist for himself. You were right about him. He does care."

"Did Dr. Hoskins find out why they suddenly shipped him home, Mike?"

"All three others with the implant suddenly died. Two died while having convulsions and the other died while they were trying to remove the implant. They want to know why Keller Holland didn't die when his was removed. Elaine said she told them it was probably because Jim was determined to give him a life and God was helping."

"Oh, brother. She was upset."

"She told Amunson she recommended herself and it was too bad she was retired because he could have afforded her. I need you to carry some papers to him. Take your notary seal. He's putting Keller in Jim's care legally before the board of trustees meets and decides to have sixty lawyers make recommendations after several months of tests to try to prove they were right all along. Oh, this you have to hear. The proof Keller is aware was... "

Terry giggled all the way to Amunson's office, but stopped fast when she saw him. He was in rough shape. She could see he hadn't slept the night before.

"I'm taking a lunch break. I'm officially off for a half-hour. Let's get out of here. You need to talk."

"Do you do this often?"

"No, I'm usually the do the job and keep my opinion to myself type, but the judge knows me well enough to ask for me when he thinks a bit of off the record talk might be in order. I meant it about getting out of here. There's a place right around the corner with terrific coffee."

"Merrie, I'm taking a coffee break. Don't tell anyone I'm taking it at your favorite coffee shop. Let's go."

"You had a rough night. Did you tell Dr. Hoskins how rough?"

"No, but I told my wife I was planning on a long talk with her."

"There's no one better. I've talked to her about a couple I had since this thing started. Mr. Amunson, you do care about that young man. You always have. Every medical professional told you that you were caring for a body with no one in it until Jim Waters came along. He worked with him quite awhile before he was sure enough to ask for tests. Feeling guilty is a sign we're civilized. It would be nice if we could just pitch guilt we don't deserve, but guilt is a very hard thing to get rid of. You don't deserve the load I can see you've got. There are going to be a lot of other people carrying a load they don't deserve when they find out they were wrong, but doctors know it can happen. Their colleagues help them with the load, until they get it reasoned down to manageable levels. I've got help for your load from my colleagues in this document case. Since neither of us expect you to get much from yours, we'll spend about twenty figuring out if there's anything more we can do to help with it."

"You already have. I needed someone besides my wife and a psychiatrist to say I didn't deserve it. I argued with a surgeon, who did insist on anesthesia, that it was an unnecessary expense."

"Feels odd to be glad you lost, doesn't it? Mr. Amunson, did you ever meet Jim Waters?"

"Briefly. I primarily remember thinking he was not going to have difficulty carrying Keller."

"You know, I've met a number of men as big and a few bigger. I only met one other who just made me feel safe when he was close. He runs a shelter for runaways. I met him when the court said a woman should get her son back, so she could get him professional help, and he refused to even allow her to talk to him. The judge yelled wait and the next morning we had two hours of testimony from the boy that got her professional help. No one else knew that boy was sexually abused, no teacher, no counselor, no neighbor and no friend, but he was sure of it and going to protect him whether he told him he had been or not. Jim Waters would have known too, Mr. Amunson. You and I wouldn't have. Dr. Hoskins might have if she talked to the boy or the mother, but he'd have known he needed to be protected instantly. I've never been more sure of anything in my life. He doesn't think you deserve the load you've got and he knew just how big it would be. So, how do we arrange for them to have lots of Keller's money to use, so they have a real good time?"

"What?"

"Well, don't you want to? Not to salve your conscience, but just because he deserves a good time and it is his money."

"I have to get board approval for that."

"Does he?"  
"I beg your pardon?"

"He's eighteen. Does he still have to get board approval to use any of his money?"

"I don't know."

"Let's proceed on the assumption he doesn't and threaten to tell Twenty-Twenty if anybody argues."

"That probably would work if they believed me."

"You feel terribly guilty and Twenty-Twenty would definitely get the word out that ten-year-old tests that didn't include a CAT scan can be wrong."

"They might believe me at that."

"How about you put the regular budget for his care in a bank account and I see the bank card and pin number get to them?"

"You know where they are?"

"No, but we're about to make it so they don't have to hide out and learning where someone is who's just being discreet is lots easier. Ready?"

"Show me where to sign."

Mike Hernendez was still laughing when he called George. Amunson had asked if there was another terrific psychologist he could pay marshal's wages for really good advice and help. Terry had turned him down when he'd offered her the jobs of personnel manager, vice president and head of security. Since he hadn't been able to think of anything else but secretary he talked to often enough, and his had him thoroughly trained, he was still looking for one. George called Elaine. She was laughing too.

"Merrie, Mr. Amunson's secretary, called me and said thank you. I knew exactly who she meant by my 'young associate.' Tell Terry I have a large Christmas package I must get mailed very early. She's drafted to help gift wrap. Next year she helps shop. I'm pooped."

"Order pizza. I'll call her and tell her she's the excuse I'm sending you for not cooking."

Martin Fuller rather timidly asked to see Mr. Amunson. He needed to apologize. Merrie smiled and opened the door for him.

"Martin wishes to talk to you, Walter."

"Oh, of course. I'm sorry, Martin. I've been an absolute morass of guilt this morning and too self-involved to think about the fact others were too. You don't even know what's happened! Merrie, hold all calls for another ten, please, please, please."

"I love it when you beg. It's the only thing worth putting up with a lot of unhappy people explaining why they're unhappy. I'll stall awhile, Boss. See if that kid's outlook helps him too."

"You are indeed a gem, Merrie."

"I get a rose on my desk every day you're in the office as a reminder."

"Uh, I forgot today."

"It was on your calendar. I took care of it."

"Merrie, you're smug. It's appropriate. Martin, a psychiatrist told a judge God was helping the young man who 'rescued' Keller Nathan Holland the Fourth. Keller got a hard-on watching a porno movie on his TV and forever proved he was aware of his surroundings. Jim Waters now has full personal responsibility for his care. He's 'putting him in the front seat of a van and showing him America,' a quote. Keller is now eighteen. I placed the yearly budget for his care in a bank account for Jim Waters to draw on. A judge told me he thought it was a great idea because Keller deserved to have a 'fucking good time,' also a quote. Jim Waters removed the implant that killed three people. They want to know how he did it. That's why Keller was suddenly discharged. They knew they couldn't solve the problem fast enough. They sent him home to die. Additional cost to keep him there was unreasonable under the circumstances and a group of heartbroken researchers really didn't want to monitor the end of another life, caused by what they'd been sure would prolong it and many others."

"Mr. Amunson, I... have never felt such an emotional turmoil."

"You're a very nice young man. I was confident you'd understand. Want to come watch me threaten the board of trustees into giving fast approval of everything I did?"

"What?"

"I figure you'll know where to laugh, when I threaten to tell the story on Twenty-Twenty and they realize I really would. I didn't do anything wrong, Martin, but that's far less important than that I tried to do everything right."

"If the data banks had all knowledge in them, we could ask a computer anything and never make mistakes. Since no one with any sense believes we'll ever find it profitable to spend that much on input cost, we'll have to just stumble along doing our best, Mr. Amunson."

"Call me 'Walter.' How long have you been married, Martin?"

"Two years. Long enough to be sure we'll be married in twenty. We always were."

"I'm promoting you. Tell Merrie you get a piece of my party schedule. We need a personnel manager. I want to move Alicia to Hawaii."

"Hawaii?"

"It's the only place I can think of where everyone is happy to be transferred. It's also where we need a really good public relations person. She's the right one for the job and knows it. Neither of us expect you to be as good at most of this one as she is, yet. People our age remind people your age experience is important often. We both have twenty years more of it. Ask questions."

"Mr. Amunson, Walter, the personnel staff is good. They'll help me with the procedures and a great deal more. I know when to ask questions. I can do the job. It's almost embarrassing to say that."

"You are a very civilized man. I trust you to choose the people for the jobs and the jobs for the people. Help me. Alicia doesn't understand the economics of mergers well enough to build a plan to keep from putting people out of work. She knows it. She knows you do. Tell her she's leaving in a month and I recommended force-feeding you to get as much of what she knows into you as possible. The job changed, Martin. It happens. I have the right job waiting for her. Your job is help me do that for more people."

"Sell it to the employees for six percent interest and a cost-plus-two-percent price on the product you buy from the co-op. They'll trim it down, improve the quality of the product line and find more customers. It's a small town with a trained work force about to lose their second major employer. Move Shearson Bearing into the defunct Marsky Hutchins Gear facility there. The price is low and both the people who live there and the people who move there will be very happy to work hard to make it a profitable idea."

"Martin, have you done an actual workup on this?"

"One hundred twenty-six jobs lost in a very large job market versus eight hundred thirty-nine additional jobs lost in a small one. It would be about thirty percent cheaper to buy and rework the gear works to make bearings and move sixty-nine families, than it would be to lease a facility to remodel near the current location."

"We could assemble the whole part there."

"They do have four hundred skilled people out of work. It's a beautiful area, Walter, and both those facilities are examples of how one can operate a large manufacturing plant and not pollute the environment."

"Tell me."

"The same firm designed both structures. It's a local firm and the owner likes to fish. They're as clean and safe as he could make them. He did a damn good job."

"Merrie! Staff meeting now! Our new personnel manager has got a plan that's going to put us in the headlines of every business section! He's found a way to get the Frazier stockholders on our side! He's found a way to get everybody on our side! Oh, good trade, good trade, is profit all around, around. Martin, you've made me very happy."

"Thank you. I just finished the workup. I was going to bring it to you today. I'd still like to watch you threaten the trustees."

"You're still the only one who won't be able to keep from laughing when you see their expressions."

"Can we offer the one hundred twenty-six assistance in job hunting? Call an employment agency and offer them a flat fee for it?"

"Put three Shearson people to work finding jobs for their friends instead. They know where they live and how far some commute. Finding the right three is your job. Ask Charla Hayes for recommendations. It's a good way to keep her from yelling at you. She's shop steward. That building is a danger to people who work there. She knows it. Get your proposal. We'll both need whoopees from this bunch to keep us from wanting to strangle someone in the next."

Walter sat and smiled when Martin 'lost it' and told the board of trustees off. He'd 'saved' exactly what "proof" they had for him to tell. He used it very effectively. Chernitsky, of course, didn't have sense enough to shut up. Walter asked him if he thought convincing someone, who would probably be interviewed by a dozen business journals the next day, he was an asshole was wise. Martin burst into laughter. He really did like his boss.

Walter Amunson told Dr. Hoskins the story and said he was planning champagne with dinner and a sincere thank-You in church on Sunday. She told him she'd been borrowing Terry's help since she was six and champagne was the appropriate response twice. He told her Martin's plan had been like a pat on the head and a reminder he really was happy to feel guilty. She pronounced him healthy and told him to call if he needed another reminder. He asked for Terry's number. She told Terry about the call as soon as she got there. She knew he wanted her to.

"Yes! He was in bad shape, Aunt Elaine."

"Which is why Mike sent you. Speaking of sending, this mess is a Christmas package."

"That's three months away."

"No, nine months late. That way they don't have to wait three. Don't you have a present you want to send?"

"Got a box to fit this card?"

"Right over there between the notebook computer and the CDs."

"Oh, they are going to love these."

Jim explained the "alarm code" was yell very loud for Bitsy and hope she heard, as they pulled in the drive. She was holding the back door open when Jim carried Kelly out of the workshop.

"I'm to tell you the number is yesterday's date and let you wonder what it means for awhile."

"Kelly, this is Elizabeth, called Bitsy, against protest, since she was three and Gizmo with awe since she was nine. Hiya, kid."

"Kelly, you are welcome. Him, I'll put up with. Nice smile."

"It's his second, Gizmo."

"What?"

"I don't know if he could smile before. He had major work on his jaw about three months ago and he didn't have much to smile about before, but... "

"You have a feeling?"

"I have a man I love who doesn't feel as flaccid in my arms as he did nine hours ago. Now tell us both not to be scared and help me find out what's going on and how to help keep it going on."

### Chapter Three

Kelly was very happy. He was watching the news channel and suddenly Mr. Amunson was on it and he looked happy. He told the interviewer he'd told a young man he was making him personnel manager and he'd handed him a plan that would keep eight hundred people working and revitalize the small town that had appeared to be doomed.

He explained truly environmentally safe physical structures intended for heavy industry were rare and there were two in the town. The other, which was not in use, had been purchased because it was and the current Shearson Bearing facilities were not. The deal with Frazier had been made and he was delighted to point out the very young man who'd found a way to make it a good one for all concerned. He noted he'd also suggested the corporation aid those, who wouldn't be relocating with Shearson, find new employment.

Jim heard the news on TV and hurried in to catch the rest of the story. He squatted down beside Kelly and smiled back. No one who saw that smile would have doubted he was aware.

"You were upset about the proposed plant closure. I was upset about it and I usually don't pay much attention to business news. Sounds like this young fellow, Mr. Amunson is happily bragging about, will figure out a way to save any jobs he can save and do his best to help the people whose jobs he can't. Gizmo is dismantling the van. I have a suspicion I'll be painting it again, but I don't mind at all. The current paint job isn't bad, but I know how much of a rush job it was and that I could do better if I had a bit more time. Gizmo called me 'Hulk' this morning. She's forgiving me. I knew she would eventually, but I expected it to take awhile longer. Kelly, your back isn't healing as fast as it should. It still looks like I just did it. I'm worried, but not badly yet. Gizmo told her dad to work on getting more antibiotics, just in case. I gave you a good broad spectrum injection when I removed the implant, but I got rather specific when she said she'd call her dad. I don't know if you figured out I met Dr. Hoskins because I was going to be part of the family. Gizmo is her grandniece. Met the other one she talks about the day I was fired. She's gorgeous too. She got in on this when a judge had questions he couldn't get answered. She flashes a badge, then says she's off work and does what he really sent her to do, talk to people and help them make good decisions. Yeah, I was impressed with the marshal."

"Hulk," Kelly didn't want Hulk. He wanted his name. No one seemed to use it. The nurses had called him "Hunk," "Muscles," "Big Boy," "Gorgeous" and a half-dozen others of like nature. The trustees had called him "Aide." No one had used his name in his hearing in almost three years and he was getting very frustrated. That too was a rather new emotion. It seemed to be moving in as "the man" moved hopelessness out. Then he did 'it' again.

"You're aggravated about something, aren't you? Frustrated? Yes, frustrated. Are you trying to do something or do you want to know something? You're not worried about your back, are you? No, I don't think that's it. I'll work on it. I've got a feeling it's not a new frustration, but it's definitely becoming more intense. Or maybe you just... didn't have room to notice minor frustrations before."

Suddenly he was in knots and the man was running with him and yelling for Bitsy. He was surprised when he felt hot water all around him. The man was stripping off his wet clothes in it.

"Bitsy, get a cloth to lay on his face! Damn! I don't know what to do! I don't want to take him to a hospital, but this is the third time and it scares me."

"Hulk, it's reasonable."

"What?"

"He spent a couple months with a device making his muscles contract every few seconds. You told me it was too strong. He's got leftovers. Remember the calf muscle you had knots in at intervals for days? We up the amount of potassium, or phosphorus, or whatever it was that helped you, in his diet and see if it helps. Oh, that has got to hurt. So, you ready to talk?"

"You ready to listen?"

"Yes. I found out I missed your company more in the workshop than in my bed."

"I love Kelly, Bitsy. That's why I was sure they were wrong."

"I don't think you mean in general or as in buddies. I'm working on why it doesn't shock me, or even surprise me much. I've got an arm instead of an iron bar."

"It was easier this time than last."

"So, what are you going to do about it?"

"About... "

"Being in love with him."

"Nothing."

"What?"

"It's the one thing I can't... just think he wouldn't mind, Bitsy. I'd happily talk a woman into having sex with him, but I won't. It's not the same."

"No, it's not. All right, I completely believe you. Kelly, I believe him because it took me five years to get him into my bed. He'll hop into one for a romp with someone he just plain likes once in awhile, but he is not casual about love. He's also very heterosexual, but that's not particularly important to him except you might have hangups about it."

"I've missed you, Bitsy."

"Missed you too, Hulk. Got mad at myself every time I did. I looked for someone to fill the hole you left, but gave up when I realized no one could. I had six years of best friend I was trying to replace. I finally realized I was really looking for a pair of very strong hands just where I needed them every time I needed them and not a lover. That made me madder. I'm working on not getting used to having them there again. Kelly, you got the best best-friend there is. I'd like him back, but he deserves the best friend he wants and that's you. I'm headed back to the shop. I've got an idea I want to work on."

Kelly was stunned. He'd gotten excited when he'd watched the movies, but having sex with someone hadn't even occurred to him. He smiled at the man he did want to make love to him. It scared him because he suddenly realized it had been deliberate. The fear was he was wrong.

Jim was puzzled. He was sure Bitsy 'ought' to be right about the muscle spasms, but about sure she wasn't. He qualified it because he was too emotionally involved to really trust his judgment. That had been obvious. He carefully dried Kelly's back and put fresh ointment and bandage on it. Grabbing him and dumping him in hot water wasn't helping it a great deal. Neither were the muscle contractions that pulled his careful stitches badly.

"I wish I'd brought that implant with us, Kelly. I'd like Gizmo to take it apart and find out what those fibers, wires, or whatever, I left in you were made of. I'd like a nice batch of x-rays to see where they all go and... a reason why you aren't healing as fast as I think you should be. You know exactly how far I am toward being a doctor, but I've learned quite a bit just working with them to help patients too. One of the things I learned is how fast good surgery heals on a healthy patient. I thought I did good, but I'm getting worried. I want to ask you if it's more painful than it should be, but I'm not sure you'd know, if you could answer. Now I'm scared to leave you to help Gizmo. You can't yell across the intercom if you need help."

"Hulk! There's a delivery truck coming up the drive! I'm into this thing to my hips! I'll crawl out if you need to stay with Kelly!"

"I'll get it! I'll be right back to get you dressed, Kelly. Sorry."

Jim accepted four large boxes and carried them to the workshop, then ran for the house. Gizmo walked in carrying one of the boxes just as he finished dressing Kelly. She was giggling.

"They're for you guys."

"Us?"

"Merry Christmas last year from Aunt Elaine. That's what the note said. They're wrapped in Christmas paper, except for this little one. It says Happy eighteenth birthday,' from cousin Terry and Walter Amunson and open last. The tag is in cousin Terry's handwriting."

"Uh... "

"Go get the other boxes. I'll stay with Kelly until you get back."

"Thanks."

"Never thought I'd get over being mad at him. It wasn't so much because he broke our engagement as he got stubborn. He could have accepted one of the scholarships he was offered and gotten a degree in biology or something, then gone into pre-med. He changed his plans for our life because he wouldn't change the one for his. I didn't want to look at the fact that I knew love was the most important thing to him and... he wouldn't have if he really did love me in the same way. You're the proof. I'll help you get through that needed reserve. I just don't have any doubts you want him to make love to you. I'm jealous as hell. He's an incredible lover and I know it's him and not what someone taught because I know I was his first. He had girls chasing him since was the cutest boy in his kindergarten class. I told him what I wanted for my eighteenth birthday when I was fourteen. He made me wait until I was nineteen and still sure. He's the most stubborn man in existence and I'll always love him."

Jim carried in the boxes and sat down in the floor, where Kelly could watch, to open them. He laughed when Gizmo said she was Kelly's "stand in" and started ripping open packages because he was excited.

"Wow! A notebook! Oh, look at the games! Ooh, I want to play this one. I've read about it, but I was sure if I got it I'd end up playing when I should be working. Oh, it's gorgeous!"

"Silk. There are three silk shirts in this box. They'll look great on you, Kelly. Pants, nice pants."

"I've got shoes, shoes and more shoes. This shirt is for you, Jim."

Kelly made the first sound he ever had and he didn't notice. He was too delighted to notice. He had finally gotten a name! He was surprised when Jim was suddenly right in front of him, obviously checking his back.

"Hey! Relax. That wasn't pain, Hulk. Something pleased him."

"I... He... "

"Whoa, easy. You're scared. Tell me why."

"He's never made a sound before, Bitsy. None. Not even when he was hurt."

"Uh, huh. All right. I'm still sure it wasn't a pain sound. Look at that grin. He's real pleased about something. Maybe because he made a sound?"

"Hnh. Hnh. Hnh."

"Uh, Jim. That's not involuntary."

"No. No, it's not. Shit! What's going on? Something... changed, Bitsy. I know he couldn't do that before. I... I want it too much not to be scared."

"Makes sense to me. I think he decided he has to find a way to say yes or just wish you'd make love to him forever. I'm sure people will do about anything to let you know forever is a damn long wait. I told him five years was a bitch and he decided he's not going to wait that long. I don't know, Jim. I know miracles happen. I also know there's usually a physical component helping them along."

"I wish I'd brought you the implant."

"I already figured it out. I'm still working on why it didn't work right. Physiology isn't my strong subject, but I come up with no answer and that is unusual."

"The filaments I left in his body?"

"Or the paths they made."

"What?"

"OK. I'm in physiology and I think in circuits and mechanical things they operate, but your filaments sound like my wires. They're connected to his muscles, right?"

"I don't know."

"So they could be connected to nerves?"

"I don't know if they are connected. I don't know what they're made of, but I'm sure they won't poison him. Or I was."

"How far is the gap between the ends and what's the conductivity of the tissue that's trying to heal around them? The human body is an electrically operated system. The electricity he generated was used to keep the battery in the implant charged. You 'couldn't' have disconnected that implant and got it out of him, Jim. Kelly, they sent you home because they couldn't get it out without killing you."

"I used a soldering iron. You figure how fast I can cut or melt a thread with one."

"That was a short surgery."

"I wanted it out."

"I want to connect the filaments."

"What?!"

"I think he's using them. I think he may be able to learn to use them consciously. I think this miracle needs a little more physical help. I think he's not healing because he's using the system and bridging the gap and needs it to be a bloody mess in there to do it. The spasms may be to keep it that way. I don't think he knows it. I think you're helping. I'm sure you don't know it. Kelly knows exactly what I mean. I talk to him. You carry on a conversation with him. You have no doubt he participates and neither does he. You are impossible, James Arthur Waters. This is mildly surprising by comparison. Get me that level of conductivity, Jim. I'll get you anesthetic. It won't work for anyone else, but I don't leave a penny in the fuse box in other people's houses. I feel like that's what this is. Now, say yes or no. First answer. Your feeling is the most important predictor of probable success on this one, Hulk."

"Kelly wants us to try it. I don't want to do it."

"I'm pretty damn reluctant too. How about a local anesthetic?"

"Local?"

"I know what all those gadgets anesthetists use do. I also know a great dentist with a lot of novocaine and some nice topical to start."

"Why are you so sure?"

"Because I think I might know what the filaments are and you made them anodes and diodes, every one with a little knob on the end just perfect for emitting a spark and that's why he's alive. You didn't short-circuit his electrical system when you yanked it out. Kelly, I take credit for how fast and good he is with a soldering iron. He yelled 'Shit!' and got something soldered fast in my workshop, often. Let's finish opening the packages. I've got something to build before we decide exactly how we're going to do this. I won't know how big it will be until I do build it. I need information before I do that."

"I want to open this one."

"The one that says last?"

"The one that says, 'Happy birthday.' Dr. Hoskins knows I didn't have time to pack. She sent us clothes we need and toys. This is Kelly's present."

"Open it. You cheat for nice reasons. Papers?"

"Yes! He did it! Kelly, this is from the superior court! Walter Amunson gave me full legal and personal responsibility for your care! That's exactly what he wrote at the bottom of the document he signed! Here. Read it."

"He can read?"

"We watched a year of Sesame Street. I figure he's lots better at remembering the televised lectures for college credit and probably has a better grade in microbiology."

"Hey, Hulk, you missed something in the box."

"Let him finish reading. Some of the words will be unfamiliar looking. He needs time to sound them out."

Kelly wanted to giggle. Bitsy had stuck a card in front of what he'd been reading. It had his name on it. She'd jumped on Jim's back to do it and yelped when he tipped over. He'd yelped when he twisted to keep from landing on her and knocked the lamp off the table. Bitsy had caught it, but ended up under Jim anyway. He'd been diving for it. Slowly it came to him he'd watched it all. He'd had to move his eyes to do it, and he'd learned all the name of the man who loved him so much he was making miracles happen.

"Oaf."

"Nuisance."

"He got a bank card for his birthday. The note wrapped around it says, 'The judge said you deserve to have a fucking good time, Keller, and we're all sure Jim is the one to see you get it. Spend this. It's the yearly budget for your care, so make it last a year. Let me know if it doesn't. Yachts are almost as expensive as medical care. Buy one if you want one. Let me know if you'll let the company lease it to take super-performers on a nice cruise. It's your money, but it's basically all invested but this. If you need more, we'll sell a couple stocks. I won't have any trouble convincing the trustees to go along with this. It's a great piece for Twenty-Twenty and you, me and 'the hunk,' as most of the female employees called him, all have great profiles. I know you've forgiven me. It helps me be sure I should forgive myself. Happy birthday. Visit home some time. It too is yours. Walter.' Nice man. Kelly, can I use your card? I know the pin number. You need pieces. You don't need a dozen very interested women knowing 'the hunk' is in town. Yoo, hoo, Hunk? Hey, are you all right?"

"Being angry is silly under the circumstances, isn't it? I'm working on it. I haven't figured out why yet."

"Kelly, he's the only one who doesn't know he's going to be protective at first glance. I figure it doesn't show in the mirror. You were going to do it, Jim. I know you. You'd figured out how to support both of you. Kelly's contributing to your fun. You're not being paid to take care of him. You've got his power of attorney because you're the one who will take care of him. You're trusted with his annual income from his business. This is nice. It makes him a full partner. You do the physical for two and he pays for the good time for two. It won't change if he needs less because you're not an employee. You're his best friend. No one will have ever been more sure that's the reason someone is always beside them. He needs that. He's wealthy. It can really get in the way. I'm not nearly as wealthy and I know it for a hard fact. I'm borrowing the card. He's investing his share in the van. Novocaine?"

"A doctor?"

"Oh, hell. Hand me the phone."

"Your dad?"

"Who else? Daddy, we've got a miracle I'm building a part for. We need a doctor who understands miracles, helping them out and not mentioning it to a damn soul. Kelly can even pay for it. You're on speaker, Daddy. Hulk's right here and so's Kelly. We'll know what he thinks about things."

"Uh... I see. Talk to me, Jim."

"I don't want to do it. She suggests a local from a local dentist. I want a doctor, but local anesthesia if possible. Kelly hates hospitals. I was scared when I took the implant out. I had to do it myself. He was in pain and I had to get it out before someone found us."

"You have to do it again. I'm sorry, Jim. I know several people who would do it because it's the right thing to do, but I wouldn't ask them to do something contrary to their oath. The surgery isn't. Not telling the research community about things that contribute to improvements in Kelly's condition is. Bitsy, a device which aids those struck most helpless is the dream of a great many people."

"It wouldn't aid anyone else, Daddy. I'm sure of it. It will aid one because of everything else that was done to him. It will aid Kelly because Jim has a surgeon's touch with a soldering iron and I know that touch extremely well. It will aid him because I read a lot of articles about new materials. I think he's got a new trunk line running to his muscles and he's wiring the house. It's got one problem. There's a gap in the line. So far it's jumping that gap, but it's not easy and eventually something is going to get between the ends and insulate it. Jim says Kelly's not healing like he should. I think he's fighting it because muscle doesn't conduct as well as blood."

"That's pretty wild."

"Where does it not fit what we do know, including about Hulk? Daddy, I want to work real fast on this. I'm just sure I should have circles around my eyes and Mom yelling at me for forgetting to eat. Kelly's the one in a hurry. He wants it done. I've got no doubt of it. I just think he'd prefer Hulk do it because he completely trusts his judgment and he has doubts he should. All right. I'll get the pieces of this mixed in with a bunch of other stuff and the novocaine. Daddy, what about Leonard? He wouldn't do the surgery, but he could administer the novocaine."

"Yes, he could."

"Leonard Yalosky?"

"Is there another Leonard, Hulk? He's the best vet in the county and he isn't one, Kelly. He's still taking in injured wild animals, fixing them up and setting them loose. He's just gotten a lot better at it than when we were kids."

"Call him. Kelly will really like him."

Kelly was nervous and Bitsy had been absolutely right about his impatience. He'd seen Jim's smile when a very unusual male voice said hello on the phone. He knew he had a sense of humor. He was nervous about meeting Jim's friend. He wanted him to like him. Jim said he'd know when he got there and went to "make lunch for six for three." Bitsy had headed for the city sixty miles away to pick up the large order she'd placed by phone. There was a roar outside and he understood what Jim had meant.

"Jimmy Boy! Where are you, you bastard?! Come out here so I can give you a hug and then slug you for not calling me for four years!"

"Try it and I'll mop the floor with you! Kelly's in the living room! Introduce yourself!"

"I'm Leonard. You're looking at my knees because I'm looking at your back. You'll notice they're lower than most. I'm a dwarf. I'm sure Hulk didn't mention it. He didn't mention you look like Michelangelo's model either. I'm going to poke around. I poke gentle enough wild creatures let me do it. He's right. It's not healing as fast as it should. I think the whole thing's nuts, but I'll help them do it. I wouldn't want to be the one to tell Jim he's an alien telepath. Bitsy knows she's building a physical focus for his power and she doesn't. Hi. You have surprising muscle tone and gorgeous blue-green eyes. Someone gave you the rest of you, but those are yours. It'll work. I got more brief than you know about. I swung my scooter in front of Bitsy on the road and got a rundown. Want to contribute to a wildlife care center? I have three raptors and they don't eat chicken feed. Hi, Hulk. I'm making a pitch for a donation. I'm sure I saw a yes in those gorgeous eyes. Trapped eyes, why the hell did it take you so long to see it?"

"I saw it, Leonard. All I could do was be there long enough for my opinion to have some weight."

"That makes more sense. So, donation?"

"You said you saw a yes."

"True, but I didn't see an amount."

"How much do you need?"

"Oh, several hundred thousand dollars and regular paychecks for a staff of ten, but a freezer full of fish to feed raptors and raccoons would be great."

"Do you have a freezer to fill?"  
"Not at the moment."

"You have to watch him, Kelly. He's good at slipping things in on people. They say yes before they find out 'freezer full' includes freezer. If he didn't do exactly what people want him to do with what they give him, they'd complain instead of laugh about it. Ow, it hurts me to turn you over for lunch."

"Let's get him up on his feet."

"What?"

"Bitsy thinks he's building a connection to his voluntary muscles. Let's begin encouraging it. His legs have been exercised, but they've never borne his weight. The muscle is there, but it's never been used for the purpose of its existence. When wild animals are hit by cars and survive, it's often in their asses that I set bones. I build frames to keep them from tipping over and get them on their feet as soon as they're healed enough. Supporting their weight is the first step in rebuilding muscle they must have to run to catch prey or escape predators. We'll support his knees too. I'll build it and tell Bitsy it goes in the van."

"Why haven't you asked her to marry you?"

"Neither one of you realize you're Greek gods wandering among mortals, but it's extremely clear to me. I love her too much to marry her, too, Jim. I'm not extremely healthy. I may live five more years."

"What?!"

"It's a fact. I've known I had a short life expectancy since I was a kid. All my life is still all my life, so I'm getting the same share as everyone else. It's just crammed into a shorter time period. Besides, she doesn't love me that way and she might not know how to turn me down. It would be the only time she'd think about the fact I'm a dwarf and plug ugly. Since I know she should turn me down, I won't ask. Let's get him up for a minute. I need to see what kind of support you need for your knees, Kelly. I've been building them for mine for three years. Jim, I can almost feel you aching. I didn't tell you before because I knew you would and reducing the time you ache was my choice. It's also my choice not to tell the woman I have loved since I was nine."

"All right. Leonard, his lunch is getting cold. I made him mashed potatoes and sausage gravy. He's never had them before."

"I'll build while he eats. You'd better have food for me when I finish."

"I have food for you now."

"I'm sure you've noticed he's a bit thick, Kelly. I'm working hard at giving him time to talk to you and he's not getting it. I was his best friend as a little kid. You're his best friend now. We both recognize when he needs to talk to his best friend. Jim, hold his knee as lightly as possible to keep it from bending. We could about do that much with a wrap. Kelly, I'm going to poke you again. I want to know how hard your muscles are working and how much of your weight Hulk's supporting so I'll be poking him too."

"That's why you didn't study veterinary medicine."

"See, Kelly, not dumb, just thick. I've got his knees. See how much of his weight you can get on his legs. Good. I'm glad he's got you, Kelly. You're going to have a good time together a long time. You both deserve it. Lord, just look at those beautiful long legs. Run beside him in long strides. I always wished I could. You will. Do it for both of us. Oh, I have a perfect record on that. Every damaged creature I've been sure I would one day set free to run or fly has raced into the forest or leapt into the sky. Leap for me. You're the only one I've ever said that to who'll understand you do. See you in about twenty. He needs to cry. Think back pats at him. He'll feel them. We both know it. Prepare yourself for ambrosia. He makes great gravy. Maybe I'll be back in fifteen."

"Leonard, what's wrong, specifically?"

"I think making you a list is a waste of time. I don't do that intentionally. I'll take you for a ride on my scooter, Kelly. Gizmo built it for me. We'll wait 'til she's here, in case Hulk has a heart attack watching."

"No."

"See? He does not trust my driving."

"That's because you're a maniac on that thing."

"True, but I'm less maniacal with a passenger, except you. I just love your cute little yelp."

"Kelly, he's... very special to me and a lot of other people. We lived next door to his family, and I didn't even call him for four years. I thought of him a lot, but I didn't call. I kept hoping Bitsy would come to love him in the way he loves her. I trust his judgment she doesn't. It hurts, but I do. It... all hurts."

Kelly thought back pats. It hurt him that Jim hurt, but it felt very good to have him sit on the floor and lean against the couch beside him to cry. He was the most caring, gentle, strong, all the way through beautiful person in existence. It 'dawned' on him he was in love with him too. He had rather good evidence it was a common phenomena. He understood that completely. He wasn't sure being smug he was in love with him was appropriate, but quite sure both Bitsy and Leonard would understand it.

Leonard arranged to be in the workshop when Bitsy got back. She took one look at what he was doing and whooped. It was what she'd been feeling was missing.

"I was working on things to make it easier for them now. They needed this as a statement what I'm building them is for now."

"It is impossible, you know."

"Of course. As long as Jim doesn't know it, that's not a problem. I'm building our birdies a sky hook so they believe they can fly. Since I'm the practical sort, I'm building one that will work just in case there is something to hook onto. He needed an explanation badly. He needed you here to help badly. Kelly just needs him."

"I told him what you carefully pretend not to know. He wanted specifics. I told him I didn't have time to make a list. I need a chair."

"I wondered why I was suddenly getting told."

"Three trips a day to feed and water are beginning to be at least two too many. I need you to build it because getting down beside a small animal and back up is beginning to be too much to do once. It also needs to be very quiet."

"It's built."

"Staying away gave me away?"

"Yes. Leonard, you're about to get a patent."

"What?"

"Hulk! Call Daddy and tell him to get Brad Carter here! Leonard has something that will help a lot of people!"

"Brad is not a friend, Gizmo!"

"Brad has changed a lot! He married Carey Jurgensen! He's plump and very happy! They have three kids! A girl and twin baby boys! He shows up at his office wearing baby food!"

"That's a lot, but... "

"You are not hiding, Hulk! You have a friend who was in an accident! He's recovering! Leonard and I are building things to help! The one Leonard is building will help a lot of others too! It will definitely bring him enough to feed a lot of damaged birdies!"

"I'll call him myself!"

"Good boy!"

Brad had 'run into' Jim five years before in the city. He'd greeted him with a fist to the jaw. He'd told several people Hulk obviously felt like he deserved it or he'd have been in the hospital reminding himself slugging someone Hulk's size is not a wise course of action. It had taken Bitsy and Carey another half-year to convince him he was courting the wrong girl. He hadn't known he belonged plump and wearing baby food, but they both did.

### Chapter Four

Brad hit the button on his message machine and ran out of the door of his office with his jacket in his hand. He didn't plan on apologizing, but he was really pleased with the chance to show Jim it had been one good shot to the jaw for the way he hurt Bitsy. He was even more pleased that Leonard had something Bitsy was sure was worth patenting. He was ignoring being intensely curious about why Jim had seemed a bit nervous on the phone. He knew he wasn't worried he'd slug him again. When he got to the old farmhouse that Bitsy had made a beautiful modern home, he headed for the big barn she'd made a workshop. He was sure that's where he was needed and where she and Leonard would be.

"Bitsy?!"

"Back here, Brad! Hi."

"What is it?"

"A support structure that will help get people, who have to learn to walk again, on their feet. This is the piece that makes it so different. It adjusts the frame to give more or less support as it's needed."

"Where does Jim come in?"

"With Kelly. He's the one Leonard built this one for. I'm building that van, but this shouldn't wait until the gizmos I'm designing for comfort are done."

"Show me how it works before I start trying to turn Leonard's scribbled diagrams on newspaper margins into something acceptable to the patent office. Where is he?"

"Sitting down. I gave him a good excuse. We're in a hurry, Brad. We need to make that wildlife care center permanent. He deserves to see it. He deserves to get to pay for some of it. Kelly will help see that the rest gets paid for. You've got a client. It's not Jim. You also have a lot of really good help, starting with a superior court judge and a CEO. Remember, all this is for Kelly and Jim is going to be very protective. Kelly needs it. Jim's been doing the job three years. They fired him and he went back and got him. He's the one who was sure Kelly existed. We are now all sure Kelly can recover. We are all sure Hulk is why, but carefully say words like 'therapy' and 'appropriate stimulation.' I'm trying to convince him that includes making love to him. I figure the fact he won't, until Kelly can say yes, is really going to keep Kelly working. He's taking him out to see America in a big van. Kelly is still going to need him just as much. They built him beautiful and he's very, very, very and several-more-very, rich. He needs a lawyer that's just his and knows money is not more important than a smile of pride from people who love him. Tell me about the kids. You're wearing green on your tie today."

"I give up. I was wearing a bib. Strained peas are not appreciated by either Joseph or Jason. Who is Kelly? I do need to know. I don't know if I'm the right lawyer, but I will find him the right one."

"Keller Nathan Holland the Fourth."

"Uh... I need a chair. A stiff drink would be nice too. 'Vegetative' was the term I heard. I was about ten at the time and I've heard the same since."

"Jim fell in love with him and that made him rather sure they were all wrong."

"Um, is this person the same Jim?"

"He's finally figured out what he wants to be when he grows up, a very best friend for someone who needs the best at it and really deserves it. Kelly thinks Walter Amunson is doing a great job and he really likes Martin Fuller. He doubts it will ever be necessary to actually run the business. The amount budgeted yearly for his care is now his annual... draw or something. There was a nurse and a physical aide on twenty-four hours a day and a couple extras for specific jobs, plus people to take care of the mansion, where he saw one room. Now, this is from my cousin Terry. The CEO is the executor of the estate, but he's got a board of trustees who still look at Keller as a business expense. They are not unhappy he is aware, but that's a big budget and they would have liked to cut it a long time ago. Walter took care of that. Kelly will need someone who says, 'He's not really involved with the business by his choice. Present your proposal to Mr. Amunson. He's the one he trusts to run it.' It's no longer an estate, Brad. Kelly is eighteen and Amunson gave Jim the pin number for the bank card and said have fun. The court stamped approved."

"He's 'just' a CEO now, but he's still one of the best, and he's unusual because he thinks of the people his decisions affect as people. Some calls will be from people who know how good he is and think Kelly might be manipulated more easily. I'm not the right one, but I know who is. I imagine she'd be very happy to help keep Walter Amunson and Martin Fuller employed. They just kept several hundred people employed in the town named for her great-great-grandfather. She doesn't live close. Tell me about talking to Kelly."

"Squat down and look in his eyes. Jim will tell you what you're seeing if you need it, but you probably won't. Don't ask me. Hulk's involved. I don't expect nice reasonable explanations."

"Destiny does take a hand now and then, doesn't it? You feel better, Bitsy. He really wasn't the right one."

"The right one requires two people be the right one for each other. If he had been, we'd have one child. I've been at your house a few hours on a day no one was happy."

"Thank you. I was in court and Carey was exhausted. The story you read Tanya really helped."

"Three babies with flu is too many for one person. My dad sent the book and Louise sent frozen fruit juice on a stick of peppermint."

"She felt special even though little brothers were getting most of Mommy's attention. I didn't know about the juice bars."

"That's because I put a tarp over the big chair where we ate them while Carey got a nap. If I hadn't, you'd have known they were on peppermint sticks for years. If they'd been grape or berry juice, you'd have seen them on Tanya for days. You're stalling."

"Of course. I'm about to recommend a wild woman as an attorney to a very rich young man and I slugged the person whose judgment he trusts most the last time I saw him. I've decided I'm not going to come up with something appropriate to say except I'm sorry and I'm not, so that's out. Are you going to look around now?"

"No, I like being single, but I think I'll have Kelly's baby. Just because I decided I'm not looking for hubby doesn't mean I'm tossing out the whole plan, Brad. Oh, of course Kelly's. Go look in his eyes. Hulk knows who you're seeing. He'll see you do. Hulk! I did a lot of brief! Some of it was from Terry! I'm sending Brad up, but I want him back soon! He's such a good lawyer he knows he's not the one you need, Kelly! He knows the right one to tell people you like Amunson and Fuller and buzz off!"

"Bitsy, do you know Sonata Rojinsky?"

"No, Brad."

"Oh, I thought perhaps it was a quote. See you shortly. You do make things nicer for people."

"Hulk teaches being a friend is the best investment there is better than anyone else. You get paid dividends in friends. Much more valuable than dollars and the rate of return is incredible. Ooh, I'll use that one again."

"Can I quote?"

"Yes, that one's good enough and you know I'll yell at you if I don't like where you use it. I don't like that proposition. Don't use it to help get it passed. Don't try to convince me it should be. That's up to the people who live around here to do. The only way they're going to do that is by proving it over the ten years of the ten-year plan. Kelly! Brad and I disagree on a political issue! He's not there yet because I was browbeating him! It forestalls months of having people attempt to change my opinion with reasoned debate! He waved and is headed your way! You'll like the green spot on his tie! He wears a bib when he feeds his twin boys strained peas!"

He was basking in the feeling of being a person. The people he'd met all saw him that way. Jim did know him that well. In a way, he'd created him. He'd given him Sesame Street, the news channel, sitcoms, cartoons, movies and college classes. He'd taught, and gently touched, the person he was into existence. He was smiling when Brad sat on the floor in front of him.

"Hello, Kelly. I know a great deal about who you were supposed to be. I can see who you are. Bitsy told me I would, just before she browbeat me. She's quite right about you needing a lawyer primarily to keep you out of an office, and to help keep people from trying to get you to put Walter Amunson and Martin Fuller out of theirs. I know the right one for you. I stutter when I say buhbillions. She has enough money of her own she just takes clients she likes. She's going to be delighted to have you as one of them and with the real job. That town your corporation just saved was named after her great-great-grandfather. I want to call her and get her moving. She probably has a ways to travel to get here to meet you. She was somewhere in Europe the last I heard, but she may be in Fosterville, considering what's been happening there. Her name is Sonata Rojinsky. I went to law school with her. We called her Sonata Rose and she hated it. She was also barely eighteen when she started. She's twenty-three now and even more beautiful. Did Hulk tell you I slugged him last time I saw him?"

"I did mention it."

"I rather thought you would. He deserved it, Kelly, and knew it, or he'd have pounded me into the walk, but he only deserved one. I need your permission to call her and I may be putting very long distance on Bitsy's phone bill. Hulk, I'm pretty sure the answer was yes, but I'm an attorney and like concurring opinions. I got a smile."

"You got two. I'm jealous."

"I'll circle the date on my calendar. It took thirteen years, but I finally turned the tables."

"Kelly didn't care much for strained peas either, but I'm not wearing them."

"Come over and feed my boys, Hulk. I wouldn't even be jealous if you did manage not to be wearing baby food afterward. I'd be too awed. Kelly, the hand comes up like this just as the spoon gets to here. The peas go that way in a lovely arc. I'd look for ties with green spots already on them, but Jason and Joseph would probably decorate them with carrots. You should be warned Bitsy has decided she's about ready to go on with the piece of her life plan she didn't change six years ago. You have been picked as daddy."

"What?!"

"Brad, you shouldn't have warned him."

"I wouldn't have if he didn't have so much money his child will need to be protected, Leonard. Bitsy thinks you'll have enough to start building the wildlife care center you've had planned since you were a kid. Please say you didn't design that piece of equipment on a newspaper margin."

"I did it on a paper towel. It's in the workshop."

"Yipe!"

Kelly giggled. Brad had run for the door and Jim was laughing. He was also on his knees in front of him fast. Kelly giggled. He just couldn't help it. It felt wonderful. He was suddenly in knots.

"Bitsy! Get that thing done! I'm running for the spa with Kelly! The cramping may follow when he does something new! This time he laughed!"

"Ow and yippee! Brad just came in and is cleaning the workshop!"

"Leonard said the design is on a paper towel!"

"Yipe!"

"Leonard, get in here."

"You need my help?"

"As an excuse to look you over. He's already starting to relax. They're getting shorter or I'd... "

"Follow your instincts on this all the way, Jimmy Boy. They're your best guide."

"Damn, Leonard!"

"I love you too. Kelly, I'll never be immobile. Gizmo won't let that happen. Don't cry for me."

"He's crying for him, Leonard, just like I did for me. You bring a lot of love into the world. It'll be missed."

"Hnh."

"Thank you, Kelly. You will help him give Bitsy a child, James. I want his child to spoil and adore. You have two children. He should have one."

"I have what?!"

"Leonard! I know what you told him!"

"Oh, that's nothing compared to what Brad told Kelly! It was a great lead-in! He's in shock and Kelly's giggling! Work fast!"

"I've got it figured out! You're keeping Kelly company! I need Hulk's miraculous hands on a soldering iron! Kelly, have Hulk call Mersia and pay her to take care of the center a couple days! It will be a unique experience for her and his daughter needs shoes!"

"Oh, shit! It only happened once! You, uh... "

"Kelly, he was drunk."

"I was looking for anybody who was interested, Leonard."

"Mersia considers deciding to 'fuck your brains out' her best decision ever. We all agree. Gem is a delight. So is Kris."

"Kris?"

"Your other daughter."

"Heather."

"Mersia did recommend she look you up when she went to the city and told her what you drink. I believe she planned your casual meeting for a specific time of month. Her mother probably helped plan it. Her dad definitely funded. Your genes are not leaving this town. We came after them. I actually needed this."

"Kelly needs it too, but it's really not that good for his back. Sorry, Kelly. Risk of infection comes a lot higher on the priority list than sore muscles."

"It's a connector, but it doesn't touch and it doesn't amplify. That's what was wrong with the implant. It won't be simple to put in, Jim. It has to be placed exactly and it's not the same shape as the implant was. It's a great deal smaller, but it isn't going to go in exactly the same place. She thinks you'll be able to see where it goes. I'll be watching to help you look. The healing blade must be in your hands. This time it is Kelly's choice. You'll do fine. Everything right is on your side. You earn it."

"My parents taught me it pays best."

"They earned you and you set about making it mutual immediately. Let Heather give your daughter the name Waters to carry in this town. She'll have more children. She's decided to get married. Casey knows struggle is useless. Kris already has him trained as a horsy. He tells her about her grandparents."

"He's about sixty-five?"

"Six and runs two miles a day."

"I... need a lawyer."

"Hnh."

"Kelly's right. My lawyer, not his."

"Brad."

"Of course."

"Kelly, I really like it when you express an opinion, but it seems like it's always in support of something I'm going to find difficult. He slugged me."

"I'd have needed a stool to do it, but I would have. You felt a lot better afterward. You deserved a solid punch and somebody from this town deserved to deliver it. You were a hero to your classmates and you broke the heart of our high school sweetheart. It was not a gentle letdown, nor an attempt at one."

"Yeah, I deserved it. You stay in there another five minutes, then I work on those legs for a few. I'll be back to get you. It's what I do, Leonard. You will accept my skill given in friendship. Right, Kelly?"

"Hnh."

"Kelly, I don't understand any of this. I believe in miracles, but I don't believe in destiny. My parents waited as long as they did to adopt for the same reason they didn't have children, Alzheimer in Mom's family. At fifty-five she was sure she had another twenty years. She had twenty-five. Dad had twenty-six. Heather is legally a second cousin on my dad's side. That's why her... our daughter... I am not ready for this."

"Hnh!"

"Yeah, makes two of us."

Twice more Kelly did something new and Jim ran for the spa with him. The second time, he was bleeding. Leonard went after the antibiotics Bitsy's dad had gotten. Brad was fed dinner, literally. Bitsy held a sandwich for him to take bites. He was carefully not noticing what she was working on and she appreciated how fast he was working to not need to not notice. He left right after Leonard got back. He'd needed his signature.

Leonard liked the string on the toe idea, but was worried it would take a very strong jerk or Kelly landing on him to wake him. Jim grinned and told him he obviously hadn't had his toe pulled before and headed for the workshop. Neither Leonard or Kelly was ready to sleep yet. Leonard had an evening of TV planned, including hot fudge sundaes. Bitsy pointed to a corner of the workshop when Jim walked in the door.

"There's a chair under that tarp. Tell him he's testing it before I deliver it."

"His knees are bad."

"I know. His back's getting that way. We sort of got inbred around here."

"That's not why you decided Kelly."

"You know me better than that. I decided Kelly because I like being first and I'm the only one, besides a pro, who won't be bothered that you help. I understand you should be there, and should be even if he didn't need your assistance. It's also the right reason for all of us. A child will protect him and this town can protect his child."

"True. This is good. It's what he needs, Gizmo."

"I'd have said yes if he asked me, Hulk."

"He knows. That's why he didn't. He's Kelly's reason for wanting this."

"He's mine for wanting it now. I have made love to him. I finally took him by surprise. It didn't take quite as long as it did with you, but he was quite a bit more surprised. It made me mad. I told him off for it. It worked well as foreplay for both of us."

Jim was still laughing when he walked into the house with the chair. He told Leonard Bitsy wanted it thoroughly tested and he wanted him off his legs. Kelly said, "Hnh!"

Bitsy worked fast and used four hands. Jim didn't know what they were assembling, but he knew Bitsy was sure it would work. He was scared and incredibly happy. He knew what was happening was 'impossible.' Bitsy knew what he was thinking.

"We just accept it. You'd been there three years. You suspected, but he had to improve for you to be sure. He's continued to do so and it just is the rate at which it happened once he began to learn to control his body. Yes, it's a miracle. They happen quite often. Every doctor knows of several. This gizmo is going to show up very clearly on an x-ray. Tell them it's a skyhook, a placebo. That's the only explanation of it they'll understand. It's true. We just know there's something in the sky to hook onto if we do it just right. We know because Kelly already found it. He's been watching your televised classes. He knows it's a skyhook. He also knows they work. He thinks of it as making a path for motor control. It is, but the path isn't in the filaments. It's in the system he's using it to stimulate and soon he won't need it."

"He won't?"

"No. His body will carry electro-chemical messages properly. That's an engineer's view of the nervous system, Hulk. You both need to know he'll keep on improving even if all the wires and this thing come out. He's using the system now, but it's to direct his and he really won't need it long."

"You're absolutely sure of that too."

"Of course I am. All the filaments can do is conduct electricity. The control has to be his electrical system. He's getting the DC system on-line, but he's running AC to the house so he can check the wiring and see what he's doing. The AC lines and transformer can come out when he's done. That what you needed to know?"

"It must have been. I feel relieved."

"He's been dependent on physical aid too long for either of you to really want him to need that wiring harness. You would also be worried about a short circuit if he went skiing. I just told you, by the time he can, you won't need to worry about it. Every bit of control he exhibits shows he's using the start-up system a bit less. So, when doctors ask, tell them it's a skyhook and there's no reason to examine it. You saw improvement before it was there. Obviously."

"Obviously. Thanks. For too many things to ever finish saying thanks for."

"I love you, but I love this town and my life here more. Kelly should buy the Mearson place and donate it to Leonard's wildlife center before someone grabs it and plows those meadows and young woods. I checked his account balance. He could buy it for cash, but Larry would love to carry the note at no interest as his family's contribution. His grandmother needs an income from the place or they'd donate it. He's been trying not to sell it, but they've got a baby on the way and even the taxes on it will pinch."

"Leonard just pitched for a freezer full of fish."

"He knows the rest of us pitch for more. I wouldn't except I'm sure Kelly will like the idea."

"So am I. Bitsy, I was not planning on getting... involved in this town again."

"Silly boy, you never got uninvolved. You are ours and we're delighted you brought Kelly home too."

"How close are we?"

"We'll fall on our faces for six hours, in about seven. We don't want to wait longer, but you'll need that much rest first. All right, let's see if I got that built right. Hand me the meter. This is the third try. It has to be exactly right. Our skyhook does more than most, but we won't tell. He needed a lawyer."

"We're both convinced Brad found him the right one. She laughed and asked where she could land her plane. Brad said she built it."

### Chapter Five

Kelly jerked Jim's toe and the surgery began after four hours sleep. This time the muscle spasm had come following a twitch of a finger. Kelly knew it. No one else had seen it, but they knew something had happened. The spasm pulled out two stitches. Leonard got him 'topically' numbed before Jim got him all the way dry. Bitsy knelt down in front of him while Leonard gave him the novocaine and Jim scrubbed.

Bitsy told him he might still have a muscle spasm or two, but there wouldn't be more. She explained the healing process itself would make the "connector" the right path and he'd heal fast once it was in place. She grinned and told him she was trying to figure out something else for which she could use what she'd come up with, because she knew she ought to get a patent out of it. He smiled and said, "Hnh!" when Jim asked him if he was ready.

Jim was pouring sweat and worried about the novocaine lasting long enough when Bitsy shouted, "There! That's it! Now figure out how to keep it there until he heals around it." He was really worried about the novocaine wearing off by the time he had. He closed and Bitsy steadied him when he swayed. Kelly would never tell him the novocaine hadn't been enough. Leonard wouldn't either. He'd looked in his eyes and they'd agreed on it. Leonard had nodded for both of them.

Bitsy put them both in her king-size bed. Leonard handed her a cup of tea when she sank into a chair in the kitchen, which had been an operating room a few minutes before. The sound of a car coming up the drive surprised them, so did the woman who was driving it. Sonata Rojinsky had arrived.

"They're asleep and too pooped to talk. You don't really want to know why."

"Of course I do, but that's because I'm curious as hell. I've gotten my nose poked often enough I listen to people who warn me to not stick it in, then decide if I'm going to ignore them. What have I got?"

"Oh, a living work of art worth several billion who people are going to think is naive and his child."

"Child?"

"I picked him for daddy for the right reason."

"You love him?"

"There isn't another right one, is there? I don't need his financial help, which is why I can accept it. I do need him to visit. I'm making him a hometown boy. You know what that means."

"My last court case was defending a seventy-nine-year-old man who took offense at something someone said about my grandmother. I didn't win it. He was not remorseful and the judge struggled not to laugh when he said it was the most satisfying two hundred dollars he'd ever spent. Find me a place to stay in town. I need to see the documents Brad told me about. I'll probably need an introduction to Walter Amunson and Judge Hernendez."

"Mrs. Horsch could use a roomer, Bitsy."

"Do you think I should warn Sonata she can put ten pounds on a person in a week?"

"Nah, she'll smell apple pie or cookies two blocks away and won't need it. Sonata, Mrs. Horsch loves to cook. Every great cook needs an audience. She has a big house with lots of empty rooms. Filling a couple of them gives her a nice budget to buy things to cook and an appreciative audience. Currently, she has only one boarder. He has three rooms, though. His computer lives in two of them. He's the math and science teacher at the elementary school. It's a small town, but it's a prosperous one. We're actually a rural community. Most of us have been 'surfing the net' since before they called it 'the net.' A computer has been a farm implement for thirty years in this area. Hog farms and vineyards both pay nicely, so do flowers and bulbs. They're dependent on everything that happens everywhere in the world. A hail storm in Amsterdam affects them nearly as much as one here and they know it. This was never a company town. It has always been a co-op. Look around. Farm co-ops are extremely successful in general."

"Get those people moving to cash in on what they suddenly have going for them. Plan a golf course and look for an investor. Plan a nice redo on the public swimming pool. The people will be able to pay their taxes. Push your tourism and get a couple of those old houses made into nice bed and breakfasts."

"I'm not worried about your kid. What do you want from my client?"

"Buy a farm at no interest and donate it to the community for Leonard's work. The payments would be what an elderly woman needs to live on and the college education her husband wanted to give their grandchildren. The work is a wildlife care center. He won't let us name it for him, so we haven't named it."

"I don't like memorials. Brad's my lawyer. In this town, you choose one of three attorneys or you choose one sixty miles away and probably not real familiar with your kind of legal work. You need to know about Hulk."

"Hulk?"

"Jim Waters, adopted child of one of the founding families. Alzheimer was something they would not allow to spread into the common gene pool of this community. I have no children and neither does my brother. Jim has two. It was quite deliberate and I told him today. He's Brad's client. The children are all our children. Kelly's will be. We have a rather realistic attitude for a little town with eleven churches. The ladies decided independently and individually, but we're all delighted we'll have their kids for our kids to marry. Bitsy's father owns the radio station and fifteen percent of six hundred acres of flowers."

"A hundred twelve of that is greenhouse. Daddy really hates hail. I'm Gizmo. I've got three patents. I'll get a couple for what I build for Kelly to use before he learns to ski."

"Ski?"

"Run, leap, jump, bungi jump if he wants, swim, surf and play football. It is a miracle. He's doing it, but Hulk is why he can. It takes both."

"Can that be explained?"

"Hulk's an alien telepath. We don't tell him."

"Leonard!"

"Gizmo builds focuses for his power. You'll know he can't actually be human as soon as you see him. Humans don't come that good-looking. Kelly's face was built by artists. He never felt it was his body, until Hulk touched it differently."

"He's got a gizmo in him right now. It's a very complex piece of technology that does absolutely nothing, and it took me fifteen hours to assure it did nothing after I designed it. He knows it and that he can use it to help him gain control over his body. Hulk absolutely believes he will and no one else can doubt it. See why the girls went after him? Besides that, I had kept him close for six years and they'd have had to be nuts to pass up the opportunity. I hated his guts, but I thoroughly agreed we wanted his kids."

"Mersia and Heather both complain it only took one try. Mersia will be after an encore. Most women in the town would like to know exactly why. All the single women under forty will actively try to learn for themselves. He won't have any more children here, though."

"Yep, small town. I liked going to Grandma's a whole lot. I'm moving here. That means Mrs. Horsch has a full-time boarder who shows up now and then. I hope she's got room to store a lot of stuff. I hate my condo and it's been broken into twice while I was traveling. You have a nice private airport and I love arguing politics with Brad. We don't agree on anything that isn't pure ethics. He's about to get a handball partner."

"Handball?! Brad?"

"He'll be glad I'm not around much and he'll learn to play a real good game of tennis, to offer instead of being slaughtered in handball."

"Um, perhaps golf?"

"This whole handball thing is designed to get him to pay the greens fees, Gizmo. Brad needs to be established as my connection to Kelly. This is Jim's hometown in the real sense of the term. I need this town as a filter for me. Brad needs me as a backup. We work well together. I hate my condo in the suburbs. I like old houses and good home cooking and I travel a lot. I also like elementary teachers and computer nerds who live close. We had servants when I was a kid. I had a cook and a nanny who spoiled me rotten. They were wonderful friends. I have them lots of places. My mommy owns twenty-two travel agencies. I have clients in fourteen countries who I represent in this one. Most of my job is explain my job to their attorneys in that one. That's why I'm the right attorney. I'm not personally wealthy, though quite well off. I don't pay for hotels. I stay with my clients, who are all family friends. They can't afford to pay for hotel rooms either, even if they own a hotel. Most of them have big houses and I can afford to rent a car. Three months in a villa in Spain, while a small company 'expands onto the world market,' is worth just charging for the work I do here and they're all glad to see me when I just show up for a visit. I'm invited to bring friends. You may wind up on the front page."

"I've made the front page here regularly since I was nine. This is the only paper I clip articles from for my scrapbook. If they get nosy, I'll tell them Kelly is the third man I've made love to. Everybody in town knows the other two are Hulk and Leonard. If you don't want it known here, you don't do it. I'll also tell them I like being first, and always have been."

"You'll do. Oh, I like high school football games, but I'm disappointed if there's no cotton candy."

"The machine gets full maintenance after the county fair every year."

"This area is dotted with small towns. They're primarily built around a farm co-op. Even if they were started long before there was officially a co-op. Get her the papers, Gizmo. I'll lead her to Mrs. Harsco's. From the way she came up the drive, I'm not real worried about losing her. I need to go by my place for a change of clothes."

"Bring some back, Leonard. Kelly's excited. Hulk and I will be working hard to get the van ready so they can get on the road and start their adventures. We need you here about four days."

"That's what I figured. Nice ideas, but I didn't see anything really new."

"There isn't until they're all put together. I'm going to build more things like the van and your scoot and chair. It feels good."

"The best reason for doing anything."

Bitsy went to her room as soon as they left. She smiled and knelt beside the bed. Kelly's eyes were closed, but she was sure he was awake. She touched him and he looked right at her.

"Your lawyer decided to move into town and Brad's evidently going to have a partner, no matter what he says. This is the best time for me, Kelly. According to everything I've read, about the next three days. If we wait for your back to heal, it's more likely I'll ask you to come back in a month. Jim doesn't have any say on this one, as far as coming back so we can try again if we need to. He does have a say about your back. This won't happen until we're both sure it won't hurt you. He'll know the difference between discomfort you're not noticing and damage, won't you, Hulk?"

"I'm sure you're talking about what I think you're talking about because 'Uh, oh,' was the thought that woke me up."

"I need to be carrying our child before people realize it might be our child. Born would be wonderful, but I'm not expecting it. Kelly, I want to make love to you because I love you, which is, of course, also why I want your child. I'm not in love with you. I did that once. Everyone should. I may fall in love again someday, but not with either of you. You're stuck in the friend category. I think I'm much safer with you firmly planted there to start with. Hulk, his answer's pretty obvious."

"Yeah, hung like a horse. You can't see I've got a hard on if I'm laying on it. I can hold him so his back isn't stressed or rubbed and he's sure he's not too tired."

"We have about two hours before Leonard gets back, then I'll need him and not you for about one. After that, I'll need you about three, then I'm going to sleep four."

"I'm obviously going to lose track of days and nights. My body really doesn't like it, you know."

"This time you won't be trying to get it back on a schedule around school in a few days, Hulk. You two will never be attached to a clock again, unless you choose to be. Kelly's probably very tired of being on a strict schedule. Mm, so warm and alive. This pillow is for you, Kelly. It goes right under here. I'll lift his hips, Hulk. Can you hold him and still push it under?"

"Let me get ready. OK, lift."

He was very surprised when she bent down and took his penis in her mouth. The feeling was incredible. Jim got 'under' him a bit more and lifted him so he could see what she was doing. It hurt a bit, but very little, and he did not mind at all.

"You'll probably come fast the first time, Kelly. Bitsy knows it."

"I know you're a mouthful. Nice and wet. Kelly, if Hulk doesn't get excited, he's working too hard at ignoring us. I don't expect him to participate, but it ought to really turn him on and we'll worry about him if it doesn't. Frankly, I'd love to end up in bed with you between us, but I know he's not ready for that. Yet. No, we won't make love to each other. We both know it. Oh, I told your lawyer you're the third man I've made love to and who else. Leonard looked very smug. Her name fits. You could find her in an airport just looking for the woman it does. She may end up being Leonard's lady. They grin in the same language and he's never met anyone else who did. Yes, I really like the idea too. She's just who we need to get that wildlife center done. Your job is help her give him a raspberry and name it for him for us. Oh, you are so big! Long lovemaking sessions with you need to be well-spaced. A girl could get tender and just say the hell with it and get lots more tender. Don't try to help this time. Let me and Jim do it for you. Running for the spa is not part of the plan. Stick with it."

"Oh, no problem. He likes it real well so far. I like it real well. She turns every man on, Kelly."

"That may be why we ended up with each other. He turns every woman on. The kids at school got along better after we started going together. I was fourteen and he was sixteen. He's two years older than I am two months of the year. The truth is, I rushed you because Sonata is going to want to play with you too and I'm first."

"Uh... "

"Oh, I'm sure that was a duet I heard. You're cute, Kelly, and the cute is all you. Beautiful is all they could do for you, or so they thought. They did good. Your face and body are almost as beautiful as you are. Hulk's are almost as beautiful as he is too. Leonard would be too beautiful to be mortal, even if they were just almost. You've been adopted. I decided. Your lawyer is moving in. You are now a hometown boy. Hulk needs help. Half of the girls chasing you is a lot of help. You can probably both get away most of the time if you don't visit extremely often. Do visit though. I plan to keep you occupied while you're here for awhile. He deserves to run hard. He won't always get away. Sometimes one should work at not noticing the foot stuck out to trip one. You and I are going to have him nicely warmed up for Mersia."

"Uh... "

Kelly giggled. He was having a lot of fun. The dialog was a lot more interesting than 'Ooh, ooh, yeah, Baby, like that.' So was everything else.

"You're rich and this little town is going to take advantage of it. We do every time one of our children brings someone home. We make sure it's a very nice home so none of them mind. Do go home to the place Terry said ached for you to live in it once in awhile. Put a balcony and French doors you can leave open in that room you were in and really change it. You don't need it as a momento of how you two met. He's your love, Kelly. Everyone in this town will understand why because we know him so very well. He picked you and we all know anyone who didn't whoop and shout yes would be too crazy for him to pick. Ooh, I'm not sure I'm paying enough attention to what I'm saying to keep talking."

"Don't lift! Bitsy, this could end in the spa fast. That was a big step."

"Oh, that's not a compliment I want right now, Kelly. I'm going to rush you, Baby. Hulk, stroke his nipples. Come on, Jim. It takes all three of us to do this. You're not a prop. You're his loved friend. He deserves to come, especially if it's going to tie him in knots anyway."

"You're absolutely right. I'll do what you tell me, to a point."

"We know exactly the 'point.' He's made it too clear, hasn't he, Kelly? It's just the way he is. He has to be seduced the first several times. Your touch is the one he will always love most, Hulk, and it will always be exciting. Let's finish here and take him to the spa before we're running for it. Let's see if we can reduce or divert the sequence this time."

"Huh?"

"How nice, another duet."

He was so relaxed he was sure he couldn't have a muscle spasm. His back burned a bit, but it actually felt better. Jim had told him feeling smug was appropriate. Bitsy had told him she would always remember he had made love to her too. He felt a sharp twinge, but the spasm that had followed it, been part of it, every time did not come. The twinge was in his head, not his back. He decided Bitsy had it all figured out. He smiled up at Jim.

"Bitsy, it worked. I'm sure of it. Kelly's sure of it."

"Then I'm going back to work. Stay in the water a little longer, then hold him on your lap awhile, Hulk. It's the most relaxing place there is. I know you can sleep holding him in the big brown lounge chair."

"I might hurt his back if I move."

"A cramp would hurt it more, wouldn't it, Kelly? It's a plot, Hulk. Women enjoy sharing their wisdom and experience with younger men. I'm going to use mine to help Kelly seduce you. He's an absolute teddy bear in that chair, Kelly. He's big and warm and snuggly. It's a great place for a two-hour nap. I'll light a fire for you. It's starting to get cool and Leonard will keep a fire going without thinking about the fact the house is warmer than I usually keep it. He'd definitely notice if I raised the thermostat."

"The chair you built him is going to make it fun for him to cook in your kitchen."

"I built it so he could reach things from it better than with a step ladder. I started working on that part of the idea the day he borrowed a torch to add rungs to three of them. See you later, Cutie. I plan on lots more fun."

Kelly smiled at Jim and he laughed. He told him he might have seen a more smug smile sometime, but he couldn't remember one. Kelly thought Bitsy's had been rather smug too. He was sure hers was appropriate.

Jim fell asleep with Kelly in his lap in the big brown chair. Leonard checked on them when he arrived. He walked back into the workshop grinning.

"My scooter didn't even wake them."

"I knew he wasn't resting well and had a suspicion he would if he had both arms around Kelly."

"Mrs. Horsch is a very happy woman. Brad may looked pained for days."

"You like Sonata."

"I certainly do. She stopped by the bookstore and the market. She handed Mrs. Horsch three cookbooks by a friend of hers, four bags of groceries and the phone number of a spice company that will ship all the 'un-ordinary' spices called for, in some of the recipes her friend picked up all over the world. She hunted a place for her samovar in the dining room first, then decided she wanted the two connecting bedrooms in the back and started rearranging furniture. When I left, Carter was happily disassembling a bed to be stored. Sonata was explaining he was just who she needed to keep in touch with home and that she'd pay the bill for him to contact her on the international internet at least weekly and bring home interesting things for his classes in return for the favor. Mrs. Horsch was making a 'hole' in the basement for her to store things. The Graham boys were helping. Sonata yelled across the alley she needed their 'gorgeous muscles.' She knows small towns and is going to make sure we're real pleased she picked this one. Brad did need her, Bitsy."

"He's a patent attorney because that's what we needed, but now we need that and everything else most attorneys don't do, along with everything most usually do, and the job of doing all those things he was already doing got bigger."

"Uh, I followed that. I don't follow what you're doing right now."

"I'm getting ready to take out a big chunk of this side of the van and put in a huge oval mirror."

"Mirror?!"

"Mm, hm. See, I know just how good Hulk is as an artist and how fast he did this. That wrought iron is going to become vegetation around a view of a lake. Our mirror came out of the front door of the Carmody place."

"The window that blinded everyone turning the corner for about three hours on a sunny day."

"June yelled for help when Alan almost hit Greg with the car. It was a great idea until the tree in the front yard died. It is also a very sturdy piece of glass with a lot more features than just being a mirror one way and window the other. It would take more than a rock to damage it. Going through the windshield would be easier and I plan on doing something about it and the side windows. I'm putting electronic locks on the doors and designing ID bracelets that people won't know are keys."

"That's a patent in the works."

"No. There are some things that I'm going to do to this van only the four of us will know about. There are some things only I will know about. I'm going to make this thing as safe a shelter as possible. Amunson won't be able to keep the fact Kelly is recovering and 'seeing the world' quiet much longer. At that point, people will begin to look for him. Most will just be looking because it's a story with a happy ending and we all like them. Some will be looking for much less pleasant reasons and an opportunity. I need Fowler and Alexis."

"Those two kids do not keep what they do quiet, Gizmo. They drive their parents crazy talking about the tricks they teach their computers."

"None of those 'tricks' are for the purpose of keeping someone safe and tricks are all they talk about. I need programming skill I don't have to go with the very sophisticated computer-operated system I'm building into the van. They have a computer to play games and such. This one will just operate the van systems and weapons."

"What?!"

"Kelly owns Holland Corporation, Leonard. That makes him a target for crazies who have everything from kidnapping for money to changing a government somewhere in mind. The good news is, all of those crazies want him alive. I'm going to build this to make it as difficult as possible for them to get him, then put in as much as I can to help Hulk get him back if someone manages it anyway."

"You're more scared for Hulk than Kelly."

"I'm thinking of a suit of armor and a helmet for him to wear full time, but I can't figure out how to make them invisible. I can make the armor in this van invisible. It's got the frame to handle the weight and the power plant to move it fast already. Hmm... "

"Hmm?"

"I don't really want to keep them here as long as it would take, but... "

"As long as what would take?"

"Putting an entirely new body on it. It doesn't make sense not to, Leonard. Just adding an inner lining will stop a high caliber bullet, but I want something that will stand up to anything less than an armor-piercing shell."

"You really do expect them to need it."

"Leonard, what is Hulk?"

"Too many things to list and some there aren't names for. What specifically do you mean?"

"He's a hero. Kelly may be more so. They are going to get in trouble. Sooner or later, they're going to see something, yell, 'Wrong!' and wade in."

"Your childhood penchant for super-hero comic books is showing."

"Always liked Ironman and wanted to build the Batmobile. I need things I can't get. I'm going to try to get hold of Walter Amunson, Leonard. He can get them for me, I think."

Walter Amunson checked with Dr. Hoskins and got to work. She said, if "Gizmo" wanted something, it was for Keller's safety and she knew exactly what she was doing. By the time he'd made three calls, he was sure of it. Some of the materials she wanted were still in the testing stages. She'd promised "a couple ideas" to offset the dent he was probably going to put in the budget. He decided the "dent" should be in Calvert-Gorshin Scientific's R and D budget. Dr. Falaskis stopped yelling when he gave him the list of materials Gizmo wanted and asked him if he didn't want the "couple ideas" she planned to trade. Four hours later, six panels of a material that 'couldn't' be purchased were on the way from the west coast by jet. Three items were headed west in a military aircraft. The Air Force was interested in the "couple ideas." They knew who Gizmo was too.

Jim groaned and helped Gizmo take the body off the van. She'd told him she was building one out of "safer" materials and grinned. He groaned again when she told him they'd be lengthening the frame, but got to work. She gave him a pat and told him the engine and transmission he'd rebuilt were why the van was just getting a new body. He wondered why it made him feel better. When she showed him the design for the body, he grinned and told her to show it to Kelly, then laughed when she headed for the house with it immediately.

The van wasn't done in four days, but Leonard was needed at his wildlife center. Kelly had enjoyed his company immensely, but he was more than delighted to be put in the seat that was going in the van, to watch what was being done in the workshop. He was also delighted with Fowler and Alexis. Gizmo had told them they could explain everything they did to him, but only him. They explained so well that Kelly actually understood what the van was becoming. Jim had figured it out when it took a surgical laser, borrowed from the county hospital, to cut the thin, flexible, panels and 'windows' for the body of the van.

The day they finished building the van body, Sonata called with bad news. The only nurse Jim hadn't liked was 'writing a book' about Keller's "struggle" and her part in the beginning of his recovery. Sonata read Kelly the statement she was about to release to the press. He nodded and Jim yelled "Shit!" and ran for the spa with him.

The nod had been a bit much, but it was only the second time he'd had to do it since they'd implanted what Gizmo had built. Kelly grinned when he stopped grimacing. He was going to be ready for "steak that isn't a puddle" very soon. He was working on learning to chew. That had been what sent them to the spa the last time. He was sure being able to open and close his mouth was worth the cramps. He was sure being able to nod yes was worth it this time. Jim told him he was not sure he agreed. Kelly just grinned. It no longer surprised him Jim knew what he was thinking.

Sonata took a deep breath and called Bitsy's father. An hour and twenty minutes later, she was in the city park, surrounded by equipment and students from the audio-visual classes at the Community College, sixteen miles away. They were excited and a bit nervous. They looked it. Sonata didn't. She got her 'cue' and read the statement.

"I'm Sonata Rojinsky, Keller Nathan Holland the Fourth's personal attorney. He has asked this statement be read. For fourteen years, no one realized Mr. Holland was aware of his surroundings. Over a three-year period, one of the men employed as an aide in Mr. Holland's care began to suspect he was not only aware, but recovering. Ten days ago, Mr. Holland began to improve very rapidly, under the personal care of that highly-trained aide. Ms. Jostrin, who proposes to write a book about Mr. Holland's recovery, was a nurse for a very short period of time and did not give any indication she believed Mr. Holland was aware during her employment. He will not attempt to prevent her writing her proposed book. He likes works of fiction with happy endings. Walter Amunson, CEO of Holland Corporation for the last eight years and, as such, executor of the Holland estate, has moved very quickly to aid Mr. Holland and the skilled young man who was sure he was aware. Mr. Holland is expected to decide skiing looks like it would be fun to try in a few months. He's sure running Holland Corporation would not be. He is extremely pleased with the solution Walter Amunson and Martin Fuller found for the people affected by the Frazier acquisition. This statement is to register his full support for their continued efforts to make Holland Corporation a leader, in both consideration of the impact of corporate policy on people's lives and in care for the environment. He says, 'Well done, Gentlemen.' There is no medical explanation for miracle recoveries. There is also no way to trace the course of Mr. Holland's recovery because it wasn't known he was recovering. He is not available for 'poking, prodding, testing, or questioning.' He's seen too many hospitals. He and the young man, who traded the job of aide for that of best friend, are about to start on a trip to 'see America.' Have a good time, boys."

"Cut! No wonder Mr. Hoskins didn't say what this was about. Sonata, you look incredible on camera."

"Thank you, Barry. In this day and age, that's almost as much a prerequisite in areas of my profession as yours. I'm very glad my debut as a television personality was here with you guys. I figured you'd get us all shaking in synch and nobody else would see it."

"I think you need to talk to somebody who doesn't talk to anybody. JODY! He's from here and has been not talking for days."

"Yeah, Barry?"

"She needs to talk, I think."

"Nah, but she needs to not talk with somebody who has an idea what she's not talking about."

"You do?"

"My little brother's name is Fowler."

"Let's not-talk over there."

"Fowler wasn't sleeping well and Mom asked me to find out why. I swore an oath of secrecy before he told me, then did something about what was keeping him awake. I called Gizmo. She built him a physical solution to his programming problem and Mom quit worrying about him. What's worrying you?"

"Oh, kidnappers, ambitious business people, medical researchers who are sure individual rights are of secondary importance... "

"And you carefully didn't say who the aide was or where we were taping. Sonata, don't worry about this town or them. We can take care of us and Gizmo is making sure Hulk can take care of them."

"Why is he referred to by his name at times and 'Hulk' others?"

"Jim's a nice guy. Hulk is impossible. Bitsy's a nice lady. Gizmo is impossible. Fowler and Alexis are called 'Nerds Incorporated' by their friends. They're Nerdo and Nerdette, individually."

"Oh, that's terrible!"

"They worked to find something that would make them wince and are watching to see if they beat the record of getting winces for four years, set by Gizmo's friends. Hulk's been Hulk since before he started school."

"Leonard?"

"Makes sense that's who dubbed him. Anyone else would have bragged. The first time I saw them, Hulk was running with Leonard on his back and laughing. I was almost five. They were thirteen or fourteen. We'd just moved back to my dad's home town. I told my mother I'd just seen the prince and the dwarf from the story she'd been reading me. Two days later she apologized for not believing me. The librarian had explained who I'd seen. I never did find out how the librarian got involved. It tore this whole town up when Hulk went away. He came back to see his folks pretty often, but he came and went without us seeing him. He came to say good-by, but he didn't come to their funerals. He needed that long to get over what he'd done to all of us. We never doubted it was the right decision."

"I thought I knew what a small town was like. This is... a lot closer community than I thought."

"Probably a lot more liberal than most, as well. Some of our grandparents were responsible for attracting an enclave of hippies that became the core of the school board by the time I started. This town isn't shrinking, but it has always grown slowly. The county population is down a bit. Hulk was a hero. Jim was the guy who was pointed out as the role model for us all. He told Leonard and Bitsy it was going to take him about fifteen years to begin to become a doctor on his own and left. We all know Brad slugged him. We all know Mersia took advantage of a situation and Heather planned one. We never stopped loving him."

"He didn't change. Why would you? But you were all real pissed."

"I'd have taken a swing at him. I was twelve. My grandmother would have and she was sixty-nine. She was taking karate at the college at the time."

"You're eighteen?"

"Yes."

"Go talk to Kelly. He's never met anyone his own age. He's discovering everything about himself. Jim is incredible, but he can only remember eighteen."

"He's also Hulk and his adolescence was not typical. That's typical of impossible people."

"Kelly is going to be a father."

"Oh, shit. Gizmo."

"I'm sure it's not intended as a secret."

"Hell, no. It's notification to man the defenses. So was this thing. That's why you're here. Barry! I am done for the day. It doesn't need editing. My car's here, gas isn't cheap, nothing is going to disappear from it and I'll be in at six anyway."

"We'll lock it when it's full. Make sure you've got your keys."

"Keys. Please leave me room to shift into fourth."

"Ha! Better leave home early. See you at six."

"I'm obviously being escorted somewhere."

"To meet my grandmother. She's conducting a yoga class for senior citizens in the lobby of the bank. My father's name of record is Universal Harmony. He had it changed to Harmon. She was a beatnik before she was a hippie. Now she's a Gray Panther, but she's never met anyone who was one, so she never actually joined. She's sort of head of the joint chiefs of staff. I have dreams of working with Gizmo."

"Do tell."

"I like optics. They're fun."

"I'd work on that, but I don't think I really want to. This community has an inordinate amount of genius, Jody."

"Gizmo's dad bought the radio station and moved here. My dad brought us back. You moved in with our elementary science teacher and his computer. Taxes are high here. Property values are high."

"Your schools attract those who can afford to live here and you had a rather nice influx of intelligentsia about forty years ago."

"It was ongoing. Grandmother was always ahead of her time. She was born here. My grandmother is Andrea Stanley. The Stanley farm was a self-discovery commune from nineteen fifty-two to nineteen seventy. At that point, other people started opening them and Grandmother built thirty condos and turned the house into a museum. It was a very successful commune and the reason we have a nice income from flowers. Those were corn fields at one time."

"They were also fallow often. This area received a lot of 'we'll pay you not to plant it' crop price support."

"You saw the airport. It's very busy one hour a day. Flowers are moved fast. We ship to six city flower markets daily."

"I'm sorry. I want to go back to optics and community college in audio-visual editing."

"It's traditional. Optics are a very large subject. I don't know which part of it interests me most because I don't know enough about some parts of it to decide. I'm learning about the parts I know least about close to home and with a lot fewer people trying to use equipment."

"Oh, she's terrific! Go visit Kelly. I'll introduce myself."

"Tell her why I borrowed her car when you do."

Jody grinned and winked at Jack Collins, the bank manager. Sonata had whipped off the beautiful long skirt and tailored jacket and was seated in the floor among his grandmother's elderly students, dressed as they were. The jade green leotard and dark green tights did not look the same on her.

Jack nodded and grinned back. He knew exactly who she was. He was working on the deal for the Mearson farm. He was delighted to be audience to her meeting with Andrea Stanley. He quietly called Brad and told him he had banking to do. He should see it too. He was the one who had brought her home.

### Chapter Six

Jim was pretty surprised when he walked in the house and somebody was doing something to Kelly. Since Leonard was sitting right beside the fellow, he didn't yell.

"Hello?"

"Hi, Hulk. I was even shorter last time you saw me. Jody Stanley. I'm testing his eyes and ears. He tells me when he sees a dot or hears something with a tap on my leg. I agree on other kinds of tests, but this is just to make sure he sees and hears all the things you're going to show him clearly. His eye muscles are weak. Focusing is not currently easy to do. He's working on it though. Incredible peripheral vision. Don't rush down the highway. Take back roads and drive about thirty a lot of the time. His eye muscles will work to focus if it's not just a blur. It won't take long for you to strengthen them, Kelly. I've got nice pictures of healthy eyes and your hearing is exceptional. We both know that's because it's extremely well-trained. Wear earplugs if you go to concerts. The volume level will cross your eyes. You know, so loud you go like this."

"Sonata sent him, Jim. He's the same age as Kelly. I think he invented the equipment he's using."

"I wish. I just put several things together to make it portable. Fowler and Alexis programmed the computer to overcome a lot of the limitations caused by the several things I didn't include. I can't do a glaucoma test, but optical sensors don't get that often and Kelly said he had one of those recently anyway."

"That's a device to test optical sensors?"

"It's a device to test sensors period, but human optical is why it about takes a steamer trunk to carry it. I'm going to make you something. I'll need Gizmo to build some of it and Nerds Incorporated to program some of it."

"Andrea decided his grandfather was the physics professor with the bongos, three years ago."

"I heard, Leonard. Dad told me she gave up trying to remember his name after awhile."

"My dad was never worried she'd come up with one. Sonata has figured out our town is rather different. I gave her a brief synopsis of recent history. Kelly gets more in depth and from a different viewpoint. I'm starting with girls our age to dodge and not to dodge as fast. I know exactly who's husband-hunting and how to tell."

"At eighteen?"

"I'm currently a prime candidate for the sixteen to twenty-four-year-old group. You dodged it. He won't. Gizmo made sure of it."

"Word is out."

"The yell to man the defenses is out. I edited a statement to be released. I said it didn't need any and took Sonata to meet Grandmother. Right after she dropped Daddy Kelly on me. Been to see Heather and Mersia?"

"No."

"Take Kelly to meet your girls, Hulk. He'll love them. Oh, tap, tap, tap of agreement on that one. What? Oh, sure I'll teach you to cross your eyes. Hulk, you leave without seeing those little girls and you'll get slugged again."

"I'd deserve it again."

"Since it's Kelly's dinner time, I'll go see if I can keep my mind on what I'm saying long enough to tell Gizmo what I want to do. The last time I talked to her I trailed off into 'uh, uh, uh' when I looked in her eyes. Of course, I was barely sixteen at the time and it was just polite conversation. Took me two-and-a-half years to come up with something to talk to her about. See you in a few, Kelly, lucky dog."

"Leonard?"

"They call him 'Eyes,' Jim. He couldn't decide which scholarship to take so he's going to community college. I think he's been working to be Gizmo's shop buddy since you left. That's when he started lifting weights. Sonata kept him from having to go through Fowler to get here. That unit does human eyes because he built that part of it for Kelly. We both noticed."

"I noticed he was about five-nine with shoulders that belong on someone seven-three."

"Yeah, they're not quite as wide as yours, but pretty close. He doesn't have to turn sideways to go through doors. Kelly, everyone knows who Jody's grandfather was. Alfred Leiderman was sixty-eight, brilliant, single and the primary school principle. Andrea Stanley decided his genes weren't leaving this town either. We're all still helping her keep her promise not to tell they were lovers for six years, before he died."

"My parents said she put too much work into her reputation for anyone to spoil it. Are you ready?"

"Huh?"

"Tonight I'm fixing you a steak and slicing it thin."

"Huh, huh! Huh, huh! Sert. Cirls. Huh, huh!"

"Oh, you were told."

"Yes, I was. Kelly, Jody came to talk to you."

"Huh, huh. Cirls."

"Leonard, tell Gizmo that Kelly wants to meet my daughters and Jody I'm going to strangle him. I'm not ready for this situation. I wasn't ready when I got into this situation. Which is why I got into this situation."

"Cirls. Sert!"

"Meet them for dessert?"

"Huh, huh. Soy. Soy. Ice."

"Eyes. Jody. Sorry. Oh, Jody thinks I should meet them... Kelly, I'm too nervous to think."  
"Ess himm."

"Yeah. OK. Leonard, where should I meet them?"

"Cratchett Park. Let Kelly watch the boats from a picnic table bench and see how sticky Gem and Kris can get him feeding him toasted marshmallows. Mersia won't trip you until after you're crazy about your girls. Gem and Kris know they're sisters. Take my scooter. It's all set up for Kelly to ride."

"Um... "  
"Phone. I'll give you the numbers."

"Huh, huh!"

Casey was with Heather and Kris and that helped Jim a bit, at first. At-first was all the help he needed. His girls were "dolls" and he was "smugly awed in about forty seconds." Kelly giggled every time he looked up at his grin while he got marshmallow out of his hair. Kris had been pretty good with the marshmallow "burned perfect gooey," but she'd needed to assist her aim by holding on with the other hand. Gem had explained she was still too little to keep one hand clean. Kelly had giggled for nearly a solid hour and actually ached a bit from it. He'd certainly had enough marshmallows to last a very long time. Jim's hair needed washing too. He'd helped him eat a lot of marshmallows.

"Yeah, I'm smug and I didn't do anything but get too drunk to say goodnight twice. Gizmo is sure or Sonata wouldn't have called out the troops. I don't know how they know, but I don't think any woman really needs a pregnancy test. I never saw one who looked surprised, when she picked up a test result at the county hospital. I worked there as an orderly-slash-clerk for a year and handed a lot of them out. My parents had several foster children, all of them for a fairly short period of time. When they became sure Mom had twenty years to raise a child, they adopted one. I was about sixteen months old, big, and working on climbing up on a fire engine at the county fair. Nobody was looking for me. No one ever did."

"Humm."

"Yes, I loved my home. I've always thought my mother tried to do well by me. I'm not from around here. I was brought here, where there's plenty for all and great schools, scrubbed clean with my hair combed, and left among a dozen volunteer firefighters from this town. Dad was one of them. They'd been approved to adopt. I was the first one on the county list and Dad had taken me home with him."

"Hmm."

"Exactly. I've wondered if my mother brought me here because they'd been approved to adopt. Mom was pretty sure of it. She tried to find my mother. Dad was pretty sure Mom had earned me. The 'alien telepath' stuff started when my dad pointed out the transporter on the Enterprise as a possible way I'd been delivered to Mom. Leonard loved it."

"Rnn. Hi."

"Oh, yes, I definitely ran away and hid. I only had sex with Mersia and Heather for the first three years. Mersia caught me right afterward when I was... a total wreck. Heather caught me when I was still avoiding women out of habit. I left three ladies this time, but I did let them know I'd be leaving quite some time in advance."

"Neh mrr ree."

"No, none of them had wedding plans. Kelly, you're still having muscle spasms. I can see they hurt."

"Hir heh."  
"They hurt your head?"

"Fir."

"Your head hurts first."

"Fss."

"Fast? A sharp pain in your head just before the muscle spasm?"

"Huh, huh. Neh."

"When you do something new. Kelly, this isn't progressing like any recovery of muscular control I've heard of. It's sudden big steps, then fill in a very little bit and another big step. I'm afraid to take you on the road yet. I want this spa close."

"Hlls. Benker."

"Hotels on the bankcard isn't that discreet, Kelly, and it's still not close to a spa except when we're in one."

"Ko."

"Yeah, I'm ready to go too. Scooter was fun, huh?"

"Whee."

"Oh, that was clear. Leonard's driving is a bit too much whee. He can't ride a motorcycle. One could be modified for him, but it would never be comfortable. Bitsy built him something the size of a big motorcycle with all the roar and whee. Notice his chair zips around. That baby is stable zipping around with the seat fully lifted. It weighs a lot more than it looks like. All right, I'll work out a way I can get hot wraps on you, or something, and we'll do soaks in a spa evening and morning. The pain in your head scares me, Kelly. So do the spasms. It confuses me because I don't know if I want them to stop."

"Nuh."

"I know you don't want them to stop. All right, but I've got a feeling I'm going to be running up to someone's door with you and telling them I'm borrowing the bathtub."

"Lff ick. Hir guh."

"Now you know exactly what people mean by laugh til your sides ache, and it does hurt good."

"Hulk! You'll be needed in six hours!"

"Gizmo, why are you sure a night is six hours?!"

"They're three! I'm giving you two in a row! Jody, Leonard and I are getting one each! Your estimated time of departure is morning two days from now! You get a day to paint while we build the last pieces for the inside and finish the comp programming! Then we're going to paint your paint job with something! Your departure time is because of its delivery time!"

"I wish I could take you out there when I'm painting, Kelly. I'd like you to watch, but they'll be working in the clean room or I'd be waiting to paint. No, the fumes are toxic period. I wear a mask and Gizmo only has one really good one."

"Benker."

"Should have known one of your first words would be bankcard. All right, I'll get you a mask so you can watch me paint."

"Sss."

"Six?! One for everyone including the kids?"

"Huh, huh."

"I don't want that big an audience."

"See. Seff."

"You're right. They'll all come to watch for awhile or just look in to see how it's going. Safe is masks. I'll hang them on the door."

"Shir."

"Oh, yeah, definitely a chair. It would take hours to clean the workbench off so you could lay on it. I'll just throw a tarp over it."

Kelly started working on what Jim had said before. His recovery was 'odd' to start with, but even he knew it wasn't progressing in the fashion most did. He did something without knowing he was even attempting it and he could do it again after that, but it was still the same movement. His mouth and tongue worked, but he could open and close and push air through. He could make some small changes with his tongue, but he couldn't shape words with his lips. He was still saying things like a very bad ventriloquist. He could lift his hips, but he couldn't bend at them. He could tap a finger, but just one and he couldn't move his wrist. Why? He wasn't going about it right? He wasn't thinking about it right?

That 'struck a chord.' Was he just feeding current to the circuit? Did he have anything switched on to use it when it got there? He began to review what he'd learned of the human body 'studying' with Jim. It was time to see if he could apply it. He didn't have long to learn what he really needed, to make it so he had some control over the breakthroughs themselves. If it was just those that tied him in a knot, he could work on others while they traveled and those when they were in a spa.

He envisioned a connection being made in his head. There was sudden pain and his legs jumped. Jim pulled him from the tub and ran for the spa. Kelly went from grimace to grin in seconds this time.

"Meh."

"You did it intentionally?"

"Huh, huh. Hlls. Benker. Dih. Benker dih. Benker dih! Hmph!"

"Hey, don't get frustrated. You got the sound. You'll get it stuck to the end of the word. You know, a couple vids showing hearing impaired people how to shape words might be an idea worth chasing down. You moved your legs, Kelly. Both of them and all the way to the toes. You didn't realize that? When your legs jumped, you flexed your knees and ankles and curled your toes. Oh, that pleased you."

"Sitz dih en."

"Uh... "

"Sek lies."

"Check lights? Oh, Gizmo's analogy. You... turned everything on before you added current. Uh, huh. And you picked where and knew we'd be running."

"Yeah."

"Yeah?! You figured it out!"

"Meh gays guh."

"Your grades were better in physiology too?"

"Yeah."

"Ow. I think I expected it. I never forget the name of the muscle I have my hand on, but it just doesn't translate to 'name the muscles of' on a test."

"Heh dih. Neh wir en."

"You decided it gets switched on in your head and not where the filaments attach?"

"Yeah."

"And you figured out how."

"Ussy."

"Obviously. You're trying to make it predictable so I stop worrying about you having muscle spasms in the van. Kelly, it will always bother me when something hurts you."

"Yeah. Luf. Nie en nie sert."

"I liked the come back on that one too and 'two' nights is still short sleep."

"Shir. Meh."

"You want me to put you in the chair, but just you this time."

"Yeah. Nuh tir."

"Kelly, if you're going to keep working on this, I'm afraid to sleep."

"Stisses guh nuh. Guh nuh. Gunuh!"

"Getting frustrated right after you get a hold on it doesn't make sense, Kelly. It wasn't just the stitches that worried me."

"Yis! Ser ser! Tuf!"

"Sore is sore is not reasonable, Kelly. Contraction that extreme can actually cause damage."

"Jeh mih en finnehs."

"All right, but please stick with mouth and fingers and I'm still tying a string to our toes."

"Nih seet."

"Yeah, no cheating and how disgusted you sound is just why I'm making sure you stick with your mouth and fingers. Kelly, it's still real fast. You've never had control of your body. You hadn't learned it yet as a baby."

"Yeah."

"That's exactly what you figured out!"

"Sinkif kih mif."

"I guess they all were instinctive kinds of moves. Damn, Kelly, I've just been too busy to work with you like I should. I know Leonard has been, but I'm the one trained to help and... I'll like having you watch while I paint the van. I feel like I don't see you much. I don't... I feel like I don't touch you as much as when I worked for you. I always thought of it like that. I didn't work for any of those people who came in and... discussed you like expensive coffee for the break room. Nobody could really tell the difference, but the package was good public relations."

"Ooh. Fihs."

"Fits is why I didn't like several of them."

"Tess?"

"Yes, test. We work on words and finger wiggles a little in the spa and I might sleep some of the next six hours. You can make all the sounds. See if you can... run them together. You can. You do say bankcard. You don't have the d stuck on the end, but the k in the middle is real clear. You can stick an s in the middle. Maybe you should think of those ending sounds as middle sounds."

"Huh?"

"They precede a pause and the next sound."

"Hmm. Sair."

"Oh, that's lots closer to chair. A! You made an A sound! All right, let's work through the sounds of the alphabet just like they do on Sesame Street, then I'll move your fingers and you can try."

"Nie nie. Meh."

"Gizmo! Since Kelly's going to be in the chair working on motor control, I will probably not be well-rested in six hours!"

"It's not delicate work, but I need your fast hands and touch with a wrench!"

"I think I was hoping you'd tell Kelly to put it off!"

"Kelly, if you were a patient, he'd be pushing! Five-and-a-half hours, Hulk! Sleep!"

Kelly was asleep when Leonard gently woke Jim and told him he was taking over his toe ring. He was grinning very widely. Jim looked to see why and grinned wider. Kelly's hands were palm up in his lap. "Fingers" had gotten a bit far, but he hadn't had severe muscle spasms or he would have awakened him.

"He's probably pooped, Jimmy Boy."

"Has to be. He's got a handle on it. The key might be he isn't relearning the control. The gross movements, but not the refined ones."

"Babies can't hold things in their fingertips and don't know how they grasp things with their hands. That took every muscle group in his upper body to some extent, but primarily his arms."

"He was working on fingers."

"He got a handle on it."

"Even if he didn't get the fingers to move. He will not be pleasant if that is the case."

"Thanks for the warning and tip."

"He's getting really frustrated, Leonard. This kind of thing can, usually does, take years. It takes years in a baby. We need to get on the road, so there are other things for him to think about. This evening was wonderful. Heather's mom planned it?"

"I was sure you'd recognize the artist. Gizmo is the one about to drop, but I'm getting a 'night.' Go to work with Eyes and pitch her on a flat spot as needed more later."

"You're impressed."

"We've got a 'girl' called 'Boom' coming. He told her he wanted something to... No, he gets to tell what he wanted. She rattled off four chemical formulas and said she could make what he wanted without 'biting' patents but it wouldn't be cheap and it would take two days to get some 'stuff' and get here with it. She's Fowler and Alexis' internet buddy and she's moving here. She's in her early fifties and retired from the Marine Corps, as of tomorrow. Evidently, the move is just being rescheduled at an earlier time. You're getting something right out of a comic book, Hulk."

"That name is taken and so is Kelly's Heroes. I just wanted things to make Kelly more comfortable, Leonard. It would be silly not to accept something that will make him safer, but... "

"He couldn't use his body because he despised it. You changed that with your magic touch. In the fairy tales, the sleeping princess awakens and they dance off into happy ever after. In the fantasies, the cursed and crippled prince is suddenly wielding the sword of justice and vanquishing the demons. Watch a lot of Saturday morning cartoons with him, Hulk? It's all in his mind. It's quite possible it almost always has been. They encased him in a pretty body and convinced him he couldn't do anything because it was their body, and they were building it with his family's money, so they could keep using his family's money. It began in pain and it never ended. You know that's why Gizmo decided now."

"It's the one place he never had surgery. His diaper and car seat protected him just long enough. There's something physical to it."

"Oh, I agree, but I don't think they could find enough damage to account for his condition except what they didn't know about the brain at the time of the accident. 'Too bad. Brain damage. No change ever.' From that point on, no one touched him as a person until you did. They touched him as a body and spoke of him as a paycheck or a business expense that could only be justified as public relations. He wouldn't have tried to move if every move brought pain when others moved him. They were careful not to injure the surgeries, but they weren't worried about discomfort. As magic a touch as in the fairy tales, Hulk. You felt he was alive and made the world worth seeking with a gentle touch, on the prince turned to stone. I know what you watch when you're not watching classes on TV. I've seen you watch a movie every time it's run on a network seven days in a row."

"I couldn't afford a VCR and I'd been waiting for that one to hit TV."

"You're waiting for every one with a magic spell or a spaceship in it. You worked days, so you watched sitcoms and movies."

"He got real excited when Star Trek came on the other night. He'd never seen any of them before."

"I know people who would consider that the supreme outrage of all that happened to him. Hmm, how about Tank?"

"Tank?"

"Well, you pointed out Hulk has been used and it's a natural with Waters."

"Sleep, Leonard. You obviously need it badly."

"Hey, that was the best wince I've gotten out of you in years."

"Leonard, there's a gleam in your eye."

"One of the TV channels is running all of the Batman series starting in about six hours and repeat til Monday. I've got the movies."

"He'll love them."

"Wha' whill I luvuh?"

"Kelly!"

"I werkedih hardih. See?"

Kelly unclasped his hands and lifted them from his lap. He moved them over the arms of the chair, turned them over, laid them down and then drummed his fingers. All the movements were slow and quite deliberate, but none were shaky or tentative. He giggled. Both Jim and Leonard were staring at him with their mouths open.

"Sef... Sev ven teen yee ears be ying moo ved. Didih it in re ver sih. In sti tink tive saidih couldih movuh. You saidih vi de oh to see. I havuh feltih all movuh. Makuh thatih fee luh andih getuh thatih movuh."

"You didn't practice talking like that or I'd have heard, Kelly."

"Staruh tin guh nowuh oh er I dih bih ee bih et ter. Workedih on movuh oh en ull ee."

"Hulk, he's just starting."

"Oh, I did notice he said that, Leonard. I'm not going to tell him any of it's impossible."

"Yeah, it's working so well, would seem silly to stop just because of that. The what is an old TV show, Kelly. Every episode is being shown and they're all on your schedule."

Suddenly Jim started singing with "Do-do do-do do-do... " and Leonard joined in on "Batman." They did it loud enough Gizmo and Eyes heard it over the intercom and joined in for the next "Batman." Kelly had seen ads for a movie on TV, but the 'chorus' and Jim and Leonard's grins told him this was quite something else. Leonard got to sleep after he set his alarm watch and strapped it on Kelly. Kelly smiled and worked on talking. Jim was a light sleeper. Leonard was definitely not.

### Chapter Seven

Gizmo watched Jim and Jody work together a few moments and all Jim had to do was threaten to "pitch her somewhere flat." Jody applauded when he threatened, but didn't look away from the scope he was watching. He said they could put things together around what she was doing and she'd do it faster if she got some sleep first. She headed for the bathroom and was nearly sleepwalking by the time she came out of it and dropped on the old couch just outside the door. Jody grinned and put on another pot of coffee.

"I have to leave at four-thirty, take Andrea's car back and drive mine to school in third gear, with my right arm on top of equipment in the front seat."

"You need some sleep too."

"I'll get it. I don't have class until ten, but the equipment in my car needs to be set up before seven. I don't have to do that either. I'll drop on the floor somewhere in the student center and someone will shove a cup of coffee in my hand at ten til ten."

"You have someone called 'Boom' coming. Leonard wouldn't tell me exactly why."

"Oh, so you can change the color and apparent shape of the van with the push of a button."

"Say what?"

"Remember, I said color and apparent shape. The color change is electrochemical, change a clear coating to an opaque color with an electrical current. We're working on the apparent shape change now. That piece you're about to build is going play a trick on eyes. Human eyes are easy. It takes a lot more work to play tricks on electronic ones. Won't do a lot when you're sitting still, but at any speed over forty... two-point two six-repeating miles per hour, every eye will see it as the length and height of a standard-size van."

"Radar?"  
"Is even easier than human eyes. Solder those three points carefully, but well. Ooh, you are so good."

"I didn't have much choice about getting good. It was do it right or do it over until I got good. Fast was work faster because Gizmo worked faster. I was the wrong man, Jody. I didn't want a football scholarship. It was one reason my grades weren't good enough to get a scholarship for pre-med. Gizmo's shop was another, but I knew I had my priorities straight. I also knew I'd never really be her shop buddy again, when I finished two years at the community college. My goal was become a doctor. I, basically, wouldn't have come home, except to visit, until I retired."

"You had something more than just MD in mind."

"Several somethings. I hadn't actually picked one of them, but all of them dealt with problems experienced by a small percentage of the general population. People hunt for those kind of specialists in big cities near big hospitals."

"You still deserved to be slugged."

"I felt lots better afterwards. Some of what you're talking about doing isn't done, Jody."

"Wasn't done. There's a lot of that happening right now. The Nerds did some things I know are new because Gizmo did new and my little brother ran into things."

"Ran into things?"

"He sees a monitor in his mind, not what's in front of him. I know he's really working hard if he doesn't notice he's being steered. I know it's new if he suddenly yells 'Yes!' and looks around in surprise because he can't remember how he got there. Want to fuck?"  
"What?!"

"You are not open-minded. I've never had sex with a man either, but I've always considered that as merely a current statement. You are weird, Hulk. Your attitudes about sex for other people are very liberal in general. You need to look at them in specific too. What are you going to do if Kelly meets an interesting man?"

"Uh... "

"You'll do fine, Hulk, but you needed a thump as warning. He doesn't have a lifelong cultural framework of sexual attitudes into which healthy attraction was brutally stuffed. His first loving touch was given by a male. Don't mess him up. Explain your feelings are different when he notices men than women, or ignore them as silly. I recommend you explain, then ignore."

"Why are you so sure I'm going to have to deal with this... situation?"

"Because you almost said 'problem' and Kelly noticed I'm more than just nice by a stretch. So is he, but he's just aesthetically pleasant until you look in his eyes and he smiles. When he really takes over the rest of that body, he's going to be irresistible. I'm sure you can teach him how not to be. You're too good at it. You flat put people off."

"I do?"

"Hulk, you suddenly become 'Greek god among mortals' and other people see to it nobody attempts to put grimy hands on you from then on. It's a great defense and one Kelly can learn easily. Just don't expect him to use it nearly as much. Currently, he's working on being an open invitation, probably in hopes you'll at least notice he's not adverse to the idea in general. I was looking in his eyes when you said hello. Talk about a warm rush. I reminded myself it was your voice that got him hot about four times before my developing erection paid attention. Hulk, do something about that invitation he's trying so hard to give you before someone neither of us likes decides he doesn't care if it's not for him."

"Neither of us likes?"

"If he doesn't care it's not for him, I'm sure I wouldn't like him."

"Point definitely accepted."

"One more connection on this and one more point. Don't make him wish he was still immobile. Don't stop touching him. Your gentle touch and strong arms are the center of the change in his existence and his shelter against the wonderful, but sometimes still frightening, newness of it. My little brother brings things that worry him to me. Since Alexis is an only child, he brings the things that worry her to me too."

"They're an interesting pair."

"That's an understatement, which only I can truly appreciate completely. At regular intervals, I swear oaths not to give examples, so don't ask for elucidation by such. We're a lot alike in some ways, Jim, but most guys from around here about my age are a lot like you. We worked hard at it. I'd lay better than even money over two-thirds of my graduating class are still virgins. I am."

"It's a good thing my hands know what they're doing. My mind sort of sputters to a stop every so often."

"Remind yourself Andrea is my grandmother every so often. I do that to most people and Dad has decided it's an inherited characteristic. Oh, I will take Kelly up on an invitation if he makes one to me. I'm working on getting Gizmo to make one by being an open one to her. I wouldn't have said no to Sonata, but we established our relationship in the first four minutes we talked. Basically, she decided I'm too young for her. Am I too young for you?"  
"Sputter, sputter."

"Haven't you ever gotten a polite statement of interest from a man before? I have. I told him my wet dreams were still about girls, but I'd look him up after I got farther than that if I was disappointed."

"I can see it. He said?"

"Ice cream isn't disappointing, but remember cake for dessert is also nice and they're terrific together. You're getting the workout machine I built myself. The idea is shamelessly copied, but I had even less room than the compact commercial product needed. It's not meant to replace free weights on a full time basis like that one either. I like free weights."

"Lifting well is a skill."

"That's why it's a sport. I'm not a bodybuilder. It gives me fifteen minutes of strength-building workout before I leave home the four days a week I don't have time to lift. You're getting it for that characteristic and the fact Kelly can't push himself too hard on it. It adjusts the percentage of your body weight you're lifting, pushing or pulling. As he tires, the computer will reduce the percentage. He'll suddenly find himself with the resistance of a pull toy if he gets shakes, overheated or his pulse gets too fast. It yells loud if it's the latter. I set it for recommended pulse rates for people who are not active til they become very active for him. I just told it not bother monitoring you."

"All this is fitting in the van?"

"Well, we had a lot of space to work with after we decided against the ballroom and swimming pool. It's not really a van. It's a land yacht. Your satellite dish is getting some additions. It's a very convenient disguise for them and no one is going to get it off the van. Don't knock it off. It'll take the body of the van with it. It's a real obstacle in the middle of the van, but lower it into it if you're on a road which might have sudden underpasses truckers avoid. Making that dish reasonably aerodynamic was a chore. I looked at how Gizmo did it and know how difficult it was. Stay in fancy campgrounds a lot. It's a custom RV and will be right at home among the luxury condos on wheels."

"I keep building things and reminding myself Gizmo knows I need a long bed."

"Almost the whole back is a bed when it's a bed. Kelly's seat is nice to nap in, but moves out of the way for it. Gizmo and Leonard designed it to support you two and six bouncing guests."

"Oh, that's what I was welding. It's stored?"

"It's your ceiling. It'll be more like sleeping on a futon than an innerspring. It doesn't store with sheets on it, but those and pillows store in one of the table seats. The liner comes out and makes a nice laundry bag. The whole design is incredible. Am I blabbing surprises?"

"Gizmo forgets she hasn't told me things and Leonard thinks it's hilarious I have no idea what she has me working on."

"He thinks it's hilarious you don't ask her."

"He always has."

Jody turned and looked at him a few seconds then slowly nodded. That had taken care of Fowler's last worry. Gizmo had never 'chatted' while she worked like he did. She wasn't "not talking to him."

"You were starting to not know what she was doing before you left."

"Quite some time before, but I usually figured out what something did before it was finished. It seemed like it was taking longer every time though. By the time I'd spent two years at community college and on a different schedule, I wasn't."

"I always understood you were sure you did the right thing for both of you. We all were, but you still deserved the punch Brad gave you for the way you did it."

"I liked being here with Bitsy and being her extra pair of hands. I loved her and I always will, but I wasn't going to be here. It was going to take years just to get into pre-med around working full-time and more years to save the money for at least six years when I couldn't. It hurt when I realized I wasn't the right one."

"Thank you. I am, but I wouldn't have been. I don't want to marry anyone, even Bitsy. This is the part of her life I want to share most. I do know what everything we're building will do. I'm awed by her genius and couldn't do it, but I'll whoop and get to work to help as soon as she starts building what she's come up with."

"You're in her league. I'm not and I wasn't going to be around to be water boy any longer."

"Ow. Yes! Very carefully solder the piece I'm holding. If my fingers get too warm, it is."

"A heat sink is in order."

"If I could think of a way to put one on it without wiggling it at all, I'd put one on it."

"I'll do a quick attach, then we'll get one on it and I'll make it a solid connection."

"Sounds good. We'll hope we don't do it six or seven times, then have to start over with a new circuit. Oh, you are so good."

"This is the skill that saved Kelly's life. The filaments attached to the experimental implant he had would have taken a lot of time to cut and I just wanted it done. I grabbed my soldering iron and a new tip and they were loose in about two seconds total. The physicians who had put it in had sent him home because trying to take it out had killed another patient. Gizmo said it would have 'short-circuited his system' if I'd done it any other way."

"Explain filaments."

"I have no idea. The implant was to cause muscle contraction to prevent atrophy. Kelly had three hours of therapy twice a week and a half-hour every day and it worked very well, but the price tag was way beyond what most could afford. They were trying to find a way to aid in the care of patients, improve their health and reduce cost, but the contractions began to increase in severity about two months after implantation. I don't even know where the filaments go."

"That I can find out. I'll do a series of x-rays. We've got a solid connection. Our circuit is happily at home and ready to go to work."

"What does it do?"

"Notices if something is following you and really looks it over. The computer tells you if it's more than just the car behind you on the road. You'll get a buzz if it's a pickup with a couple hunting rifles in it, but only if they're in the cab or someone is holding one. You'll also get a buzz if you make a couple turns and the vehicle is still behind you. I told Fowler that a screen image would let you decide if the pickup was harmless. He was going crazy trying to figure out a way to program the computer to do it. Kelly's recovering too fast for you?"

"Do you read minds?"

"No, but Grandmother taught me to 'put myself in other people's places' real well and I know I'd be caught between excitement he is, worry it's so fast and wanting him to still need me in the same way if I was in yours."

"Right on all three counts. He's now using his hands and arms and talking."

"Oh, boy. That's so fast it worries me too. That's it. I don't need tomorrow's classes. I'll be back with a portable x-ray as soon as I unload the equipment currently stuffed in my car."

"You still need sleep."

"I'll fall on my face when my body gets adamant. I've done this enough to know I'll still be alert enough not to endanger anyone on the road until about noon. Though I may yell for someone else to take the x-ray unit back to Dr. Shand's office and drop after I hand the x-rays to you. When did you decide she should marry Leonard instead?"

"The day I left. You sure you don't read minds?"

"If I did, I wouldn't have to ask questions."

"He never asked."

"She wants a child and he wasn't the right one to give her one. Marriage means fidelity to both of them. It does to me too. Which is, of course, why I won't get married. I don't have any illusions about my ability to be faithful to one person. I could be, but I would come to resent it."

"It's about too easy for me."

"And just as wrong. It hurt when I realized I'd never share what my parents have, but I have Grandma Andrea as an example of how to lead a very full and rich life as a single person. You still haven't looked for one."

"Mom and Dad were so deeply friends and... "

"Good, you finally realized that's what you were looking for. You found it, Hulk. That's when becoming a doctor suddenly became unimportant to you. Kelly needs all you are. He always will. It doesn't really have anything to do with his physical condition, even if that is how it began. Being a doctor was the way you saw to give the most of what you are, but just most. You'd have been very good and it would have been very fulfilling, but you'd have still longed to share all of your life with someone. You'd have struggled not to become deeply attached to every patient, Jim. You'd have grieved for every one you couldn't give hope. I think all doctors do, but you'd have needed more than just your colleagues' understanding. You'd have always been lonely. You'd have just filled your life with work so you didn't have time to notice it often. I know a doctor like that."

"You do?"

"Dr. Celeste Haroldson, but she won't be much longer. A former classmate of mine is about to hit twenty-one and has plans for his birthday that include marriage. He does expect it to take awhile to convince her. She's still sure sixteen years difference in age is too much, but she agreed to go out with him on his birthday. Everyone who works in her office, at the university hospital and the clinic, where she puts in a lot of volunteer hours, is going to see to it she doesn't have any reason to cancel their evening out and the very private party he plans afterward. He has a bit of assistance he doesn't know about. Grandmother plans on telling her she can afford to pay for the rest of his education and she has another candidate for his scholarship."

"He's studying?"

"Physical therapy. Her patients need a good physical therapist and she's currently sending them to two who already have all the patients they have time for."

"That's where I've heard the name. She's a pediatric orthopedic surgeon."

"That's the one. She put him back together after he was hit by a car when he was twelve. He's been working on being the right one to share her work since then. Sharing her whole life has only been his goal four years. That's this one. The next piece will make it just about impossible to steal your van, or even impound it for illegal parking. No one's going to break into it and drive off. This will take care of it if it's towed off. Gizmo had figured out a way to stop it, but she was extremely easy to convince to let me do it this way. This unit will track where it's taken and the van will return to where it was taken from, but it will do more with the program the Nerds are writing for it. It will follow if someone takes you, as long as you don't lose your ID bracelet. It'll track Kelly by his, but it will keep tracking him even if he does lose it."

"The implant Gizmo built."

"Yes, and I should be able to get it to track the network of fibers if that gets 'lost' too. Don't get more than ten miles from it or it will come after you. If you decide on an airplane ride, it will follow you on the ground. If you decide on an ocean crossing, it may look for a ship going the same direction. Call one of us to come get it if the trip is intentional. It will call us if you don't, probably to pay its passage. Alexis and Fowler were giggling when they wrote the program."

"I haven't really had time to get to know them."

"Fowler said about the same thing. That's it for this piece for now. I won't know if it needs more until I get those x-rays and find out if I can borrow a satellite or ten to track the filaments."

"Borrow a satellite?"

"Well, you're actually paying for it. We'll just use it for a bit more than your cellular phone."

"Thank you."

"You need to be the only bodyguard Kelly needs, Hulk. We're just doing our best to make sure you are."

Kelly watched Jim paint the van and was amazed. He had real talent and didn't seem to even realize it. He was still thinking about it when Jim carried him to the house. He waited until he'd headed back to the shop, then talked to Leonard about it.

"He's too good at too many things, Kelly. I have a collection of proof. I have poems he wrote and sketches and sculptures he did that he doesn't know I have. His mother gave me her collection before she died to add to it. He nearly struggled to be just another kid."

"Hiss guhrades were not that good."

"He'd have been furious if his teachers didn't dock him for not turning in homework everyone else needed, for the practice it gave them using what they were learning. He does I'm-only-as-bright-as-the-other-guy better than anyone else. He's really the only one who doesn't know he's doing it. Which is, of course, why no one really minds. He can keep up with you."

"Me?"

"Kelly, we've all watched you learn and worked not to giggle. You fit right in with this batch of geniuses. There's nothing wrong with average intelligence. If there was, it wouldn't be average."

"Aver age would be hiyur if it was needed for survival. G still gives me trouble when it comes in the middle of a word."

"Like I said, giggle. Kelly, you speak a bit slowly but it's a choice you made and you know it. You choose the words you use deliberately and are aggravated when the appropriate one is difficult for you to say precisely, but use it. Your vocabulary is vast. Your ability to define words from context is extremely good."

"I had a lot of time to practice."

"And used it well. All of it."

"I do not understand."

"Kelly, you understand what Fowler and Alexis did. You understand what I did. You understand everything anyone showed you and explained. Jim can, but some things aren't explained and some are unexplainable. Gizmo expects you to be back regularly to have the van checked and have changes made as your needs change. Jody is helping. They aren't explaining everything. Gizmo never did."

"Boom explains so fast, you're too odd... aw wed to follow the explanation. So they tell us what it does and we have to come back for re... guhler maintenance on the how it does it."

"My scoot has a regular maintenance schedule, but I don't know it. Gizmo tells me to bring it over on a regular basis. That's the kind of regular service you'll get too. She'll know where you are. If you're a half-continent away and she says she'll see you tomorrow, you know there's a very good reason. She called me at three AM once and said it was time to bring my scoot in. I was not fully awake when I got on it to come over. I'm very glad. I might have said wait til morning."

"What do I do about Jim?"

"Oh, that's fixed."

"What?"

"Gizmo is going to get a patent for the way those four pieces lock together. Amunson is going to be very happy she decided to make you one big bed. If you can't get him excited when you're all by yourselves in one big bed, night after night, you haven't said yes."

"I have to tell him."

"Kelly, you have to make love to him. He has to say yes to you. He's told you he wants to. He told Bitsy that too. She finally body-slammed him and ripped his clothes off to prove she was ready to add it to their relationship."

"Is this literal?"

"She knocked him off a stool by the workbench and landed on him. He said he was laughing so hard he wasn't sure he was going to get it up, but he did tell her she'd convinced him."

"I want to touch him. I have not been in vited."

"He'll tell you if he wants you to stop. He'll also tell you if you're going too fast for him. You have been invited. Kelly, you changed it since he didn't know what to do about wanting to make love to you. He would be irresistible if he wasn't... difficult to approach. He'd be a virgin if he didn't tell a few people he hoped they found overcoming the difficulty worthwhile. Loosen him up a bit. Get him in over his head. You can protect him and let him just protect you."

"A very mu chual... I don't like chual either and it's on a lot of words! Gizmo fixes everything well. You have a great staff."

"Thank you."

"You will give me a copy of your medical records."

"No."

"I'll name your wildlife center for you if you don't. Jim does not need to see them if I have. I will know when those who love you will need him among them. I will know your physician. I will have Sonata find out for me anyway. I'll tell her to ask Andrea. I'm sure she knows... everything."

"She's the only one who insists she doesn't. She likes you. She has perfect taste in people."

"So does Sonata. If you don't notice her soon, she will bash you over the head. Give me your medical records. I'd prefer to be ethical and come up with a catchy name."

"I don't want to name it."

"Why?"

"It's a pair of farms given back to the small creatures we injure because they can't get out of our way fast enough. I've hit a rabbit on the road. I don't let animals that won't live suffer. It's privately funded and I don't ask for donations outside the county."

"It's the wildlife care center in your home town."

"Exactly. Want to help me build a place for Mersia and their daughter with a nice office and surgery for a vet to use in exchange for being there when a vet is needed? Don't try veterinarian. It trips up people who are veterinarians."

"I'll work my way up to it. Do you know one who would be interested?"

"No, but I know a kid who'll be one in a few more years. I don't have any official standing, so I don't have to have licenses, inspections and so forth. The county humane society brings me wild animals, so no one is complaining about what I do there."

"Hand me the phone."

"The phone?"

"Yes. It is time I called Walter."

"He's not going to be ready, Kelly."

"I know, but he should hear from me that I am doing very well and why my bank account is getting slim. He trusts Jim completely, but he should know I am spending my money for this."

Walter Amunson was getting ready to leave the office when Merrie told him he had a call he wanted to take, walked in and turned on his speaker phone. She had a rather strange smile.

"Hello, this is Walter Amunson."

"This is Keller Nathan Holland the Fourth. Call me Kelly, Walter. My friends do."

"Uh... Hello, Kelly."

"Hello, Walter. I thought you should know I bought a yacht, even if it doesn't go in water. I would loan it, but we'll be using it most of the time. I am about to commit to aiding in the building of a home for those who aid the wild animals hurt by our technolo gee. G is hard to say in the middle of a word."

"Uh, yes, I imagine it might be. Kelly, I'm astounded."

"Jim stands and stares at me with his mouth open fairly often, Walter. I can hold a spoon or fork and feed myself, but I don't cut my own steak yet. I also do not walk yet, but I can move my legs. Leonard has designed a support frame to aid me in learning to stand. Buy the patent and get it produced and in hospitals. Donate one hundred in my name. Leonard is the person who cares for the wildlife and I will spend less of my money if he has more to spend. You should appreciate this. The first word I learned to say clearly was bankcard."

Kelly smiled when Walter burst into laughter. He heard his secretary laughing too. It was very nice. He was glad he'd called. Walter hadn't been ready, but he would feel more secure about everything he had done.

"Walter, it is probable I was slowly recovering. We spec ulate the implant stimulated that in some fashion, but it was not the a gent of my recovery. Jim was. If you said that to anyone in this town, they would say, 'Of course.' It is still his plan to show me America. We're doing it in a land yacht his, and now my, friends built for us. We will be leaving day after tomorrow. My attorney will aid in this and she took over part of the office of Leonard's attorney. He told me he knew protest was futile and just bowed to the inevitable. I reminded him he recommended her. Make sure Martin is ready when you decide to retire, Walter. He is my choice after you, but he needs to know much only you can teach. Don't let anyone hire him away from us. Make sure Holland makes a generous offer for the patent for the lock assembly Gizmo invented for my bed."

"For your bed?"

"It drops from above in sections and locks together. She and Leonard designed it to, quote, 'hold you two and six bouncing.' Holland wants the lock mechanism for the Balltine contract. I listened, Walter. It was all I could do."

"Hi, Walter. This is Leonard. This is also about to be a conference call. Gizmo wants in on it."

"Hi, Walter, I push Kelly around a lot. Cousin Terry just plain likes you. She's got great taste. I like daddy healthy. Hulk will keep him that way if we keep Hulk healthy. Kelly is now a hometown boy. We unilaterally annexed him. You're meeting people."

"They call me Eyes. I see to it they see what they want to see and spotlights have trouble hitting them."

"We're Nerds Incorporated. I'm Nerdette."

"I'm Nerdo and I'm still going to strangle my next-door neighbor for sticking me with it one of these days. Want to chat on the internet? I know a van that writes great poetry. My big brother asks for interesting programs, but Gizmo asks for impossible."

"We had fun doing it. Boom, your turn."

"Impossible just hasn't been done yet. I think you're cute, Walter. I think those boys are adorable. I just retired. I skipped two months vacation in Europe to meet them. Like the old farmhouse I bought in my new hometown. It's got one of the nicest little labs I ever saw. The Nerds told me it was just what I wanted when the vet started building a place closer to town. Big brother said get moving. Orwell used the concept well, but Toffler doesn't write fantasy. Big brothers love those they watch over. This one is flat good at both parts."

"Thank you, Boom. I've never been more complimented."

"Course not. Takes fifty years of experience to give one like that."

"Talk, Jim."  
"I told him what I want to do before, Kelly."  
"You told him what we wanted to do. You knew me so well. Walter, I don't understand how he did either. These are the ones he brought me to. I have loved friends. I consider you one of them."

"Crash a holiday party at his house, Kelly. I know all the dates."

"Merrie!"

"He has several small ones instead of one big one."

"I'd love it if you both 'crashed' one, but be where you'd like to be Christmas. That's what I'd most like."

"That's my boss."

"She has me well-trained, Jim. I think that group has you about the same. The appropriate emotion is to feel mutually smug about it. Every person with a really good staff knows it. I needed to know you would both be safe when anonymity became difficult."

"Discretion may be difficult with Kelly, Walter. He is going to get us into trouble."

"I will get us into mischief, Jim. I do know the difference. If we get into trouble, it will be because you decide something is wrong and needs fixing. My own experience tells me it will be the right thing to do if you decide to fix it. Since those others, who have known you for many more years, immediately started working to make sure we get back out of trouble, I have supporting opinion."

"I'd be less worried if I thought you'd ask if I want to fix something before you start helping me do it. Walter, Kelly's recovery isn't possible, but recoveries that aren't fill the medical histories and doctors' hearts with hope. You made much of it possible. He has a healthy adolescent body. It's currently underdeveloped, but not a great deal. That's amazing. Kelly said he had felt all of the movements and he learned to do them by 'making the feel.' It scares me because I do know how long it should take. Reminding myself how much more was done to keep Kelly healthy calms my nerves a bit. We don't know exactly why he had no motor control. We never will. Whatever the cause, he is finally recovering fully and it's happening fast."

"I have the muscle to move myself, Walter. You insured I do. I was a personal responsibility to you. You did not see it as a part of running Holland, even though it was associated with the position you hold. That position did not include your prayers you were doing the right thing for me. I have heard those you said as you stood beside my bed. I am your proof I am not the only one who heard. Jim gave me proof mine were also heard. We will say thank You by aiding Leonard in caring for the small creatures of woods and meadows. We will say thank You by sharing what he has created to care for people, with those who need it. It will allow him to fund most of his dream of a place of caring. He deserves to do so, but his reason may be he doesn't have to name it if he pays for it."

"He's real perceptive. He's also getting tired. He speaks very softly so he's holding the receiver and I'm about to take it away from him. He's had a very long day."  
"Goodnight, Kelly. I think mine's going to be."

"It should be. I'm sure of it. All right, Leonard, you can have it."

Merrie smiled at her boss and switched off the speaker on the phone. He grinned, picked up his coat and walked out of his office behind her. His grin broadened when she stopped to add a check on the patent to his calendar for the next day. She put on her coat and lifted the rose out of it's vase. She always took them home. This one she would preserve. It was a reminder of a very special day. She had a nice collection. She had a nice boss.

47

