

Book two of the Avery Clavens series

Amber Lynn

Copyright © 2012 Amber Lynn

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author's imagination and used fictitiously.
Author's note

The bookkeeping of the book

Thanks for stopping by. This is the second book in the Avery Clavens series. I would highly recommend reading the first book, Not in My Job Description, before starting in on this one. If you don't, there's a short recap at the beginning, but you may miss out on what to expect from Avery's quirky behavior.

Here's the part where I try to make it clear that I have never been to any of the places described in this book. In fact, the main town that this book takes place in was just picked because when looking at a map I liked the name. I'm pretty sure the town looks nothing like I describe it, if it does, let me just say, what a cool town. The characters in the book are also fictitious and based totally on whatever image popped in my head as I started writing about them.

Amber

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

CHAPTER 1

Release the flying monkeys

"I don't want to get on the plane," I said, using my best pathetic puppy dog face. I hadn't practiced it in a mirror, so I was pretty sure I failed trying to pull it off.

"Avery, we've been over this. The plane is perfectly safe. Everything will be fine and we'll be in Montana before you know it."

Nate was trying his hardest to sound reassuring, but it wasn't working. He'd spent enough time with me that he should've known better than try to convince me to go against my nature.

"No. It's a death machine. I'm telling you I am not made for flying," I insisted.

He muttered under his breath something I couldn't hear, before raising his voice a smidge. "I really should've knocked you out before we got to this point."

"I can hear, you know, and it wouldn't have helped. I'm pretty sure the TSA frowns upon you bringing unconscious people aboard flights. Unless maybe it's a sleeping baby and I'm fairly certain I don't count."

"Avery, you're holding up the line. Just get on the plane now and we can discuss this later." He began to literally drag me onto the plane.

"Don't think I don't realize you want to discuss me not wanting to get on the plane, on the actual plane." Nate was such a jerk, and he did a great job of reiterating that fact almost every day.

He made me long for the life I used to have. I was twenty-five years old and had worked for a government agency called the Bureau of Singular Intelligence. I'd been there for seven years without a care in the world, and then two things happen.

The first was the jerk boarding the plane with me came into my life, and I didn't think I'd ever forgive him for that. As far as I was concerned, a word doesn't exist to describe what our relationship was. Enemies was the closest thing I could think of, but it wasn't right. Frenemies could've been closer, but I liked to pretend that word didn't exist.

He came into my life as an FBI agent needing our department's help on a case. We helped all right; I even had a hand in killing the bad guy. At some point he latched on to me, though, and I hadn't been able to shake him free. He claimed we were boyfriend and girlfriend. I claimed he was an idiot.

It was a draw who won the argument, but he was definitely still sleeping on my couch, which only added to the things I didn't understand about him. Who in their right mind stayed for months after being told they weren't welcome? I could understand if he was a relative, but I'd only known Nate for about a week before he took up residence in my apartment.

The second event that disrupted my life was a coworker going all psycho stalker on me and shooting me twice when I tried to run away from him. Even though said coworker remained in a padded room, work just didn't feel right after that. I felt bad leaving my other coworker and boss behind, but I was sure they could find someone to replace me.

Somewhere out there, some teenager was trying to hack into the files that revealed who shot J.F.K. and that teenager would be perfect for the job. The files are an interesting read, and not that hard to get to. Chances were security had been updated in five years, but I didn't doubt they were still accessible if you really wanted them.

After the shooting, I took a little time off. Not really a vacation, since I didn't leave my apartment, but it was time not working. During said time, I evaluated where my life was. I finally ended up deciding I wanted to do more with my life than sit behind a computer. With that decision made, and arm-twisting from the jerk, I ended up joining him at the three-letter agency he worked for.

I'd recently finished going through some stupid training they thought I needed and I was on my way to my first big mission. I wished I could get there without flying. Evidently, it was time-sensitive and the drive from New York to Vida, Montana would take too long. I personally thought they should've waited for my excellence, but everyone I mentioned that to didn't agree.

"You know, my parents live in Montana, why does my first assignment have to be in the state containing my mother? I'm thinking you picked it on purpose, and I'm not finding that extremely fair."

Since I didn't want to go, I was going to find everything I could whine about the whole way there. Maybe next time, he'd think better of taking assignments for us without consulting with me. It wasn't like he didn't know where my parents lived, or that my mother had the ability to drive me crazy with a single look.

"My little butterfly, you're just being a baby now. Man up and get in your seat," he said, sitting me in what evidently was "my seat".

I quickly grabbed the seatbelt and fastened myself in. I didn't feel any safer secured in place, but I didn't see a flight attendant walking around offering bubble wrap. The poppable plastic would've made me feel better, and kept Nate from talking to me.

"Fine," I said with a huff.

At least he got us first-class seats. If I was going to fly for the first time in my life, I wanted to do it in style. Before the unfortunate incident, I was totally a tires on the pavement traveler. I had a feeling the new job meant I'd have to get used to having to traveling faster than my motorcycle could take me, which didn't sit well with me.

"Sometimes I really wish you drank alcohol or wouldn't get totally pissed at me if I slipped something to calm you into your drink," Nate said, making sure I fastened my seatbelt correctly in my rush to feel secure.

He often forgot I spent most of my hours on the Internet, so I was well versed in educational videos. None of them helped me with my anxiety, but I was well aware of every way I could die on the plane.

A voice sounded over the intercom, telling us that we were about to take off, so I put my head between my knees and started praying, loudly. When the plane began moving, I moved on to humming. At that point, Nate had wrapped his arms around me and was whispering that everything would be okay.

What in the world did he know? He'd never been on a plane with me. Maybe I was some kind of bad luck plane demon no one knew existed.

The plane leveled off into a smoother ride, allowing me to relax a little. I decided once we were in the air that there was a good chance I'd make it through the experience. I just needed something to distract me for the three stops and thirteen or so hours.

I was glad to know that when we arrived at the final airport I had a two-hour car ride before I was expected to have a decent conversation. I hoped after that amount of time I wouldn't sound like a total moron.

"So, tell me again why I'm torturing myself by flying to Vida, Montana." Hearing about the stupid case we were going on sounded like a good start for my hours of fun.

"As you've been hearing and reading about for the past couple of days, we're going undercover to one of the government's think tanks. Apparently, someone is leaking secrets from the lab and we need to find out the who, what, where, when and why, so those secrets don't get used against us."

There was a reason why I didn't think Nate and I were boyfriend and girlfriend. A true boyfriend wouldn't have been concise with his description in my time of need. Clearly, he could only be a distraction when it irritated me, because I knew firsthand he could be a great distraction.

"That was boring and short. Talk about something else," I demanded.

He laughed, which only earned him a short glare from me. "You know, you being nervous is quite cute. Let's see, something to talk about. How about the fact that when we get back we need to start looking for a bigger apartment? It's getting awfully crowded with the two of us in your tiny studio."

"It always seemed roomy enough before you took up residency. I have a great idea, why don't you move out?"

I knew it wouldn't do me any good, but I had to say it anyway. I'd asked him almost daily to move out, starting about a week after I got out of the hospital. It was usually like talking to a wall, because he ignored the suggestion.

"I'm not leaving, so you should just stop asking. Do you want to stay in your current neighborhood, or should we move to one of the other boroughs?" he asked.

"I don't know. I haven't had to think about it before. Since I've been in New York, I've lived in that apartment and I'm not looking forward to leaving it."

"Fine. When we get back I'll come up with some options and take you around to them, so you can decide which one feels the best to you. I want a little more room, but you being comfortable is the most important feature I'll be looking for."

"Whatever," I said as a flight attendant walked by and asked if there was anything she could get us.

We both declined, but she slipped Nate a piece of paper. There had always been times in my life when I felt invisible. I couldn't help that I was nothing special to look at, but I wasn't a total dog.

"So, does she want to meet for a little nookie at our first layover?"

I waited until she was out of hearing range to ask. The urge to chase after her and announce that he was taken, at least by his standards, was strong. Thankfully, I was too afraid to undo my seatbelt to carry out the action.

"Sorry, sweetie, it's just a regular old phone number. No requests for my services. I may have mentioned this before, but if you let me hold your hand and give you kisses every once in a while, people might actually think we're dating," he said as he grabbed my hand to emphasize his point.

"You're the only one in this relationship who believes we're actually dating. I just think of you as an annoying growth the doctors think is better left alone." He was an incredibly attractive growth, especially when his brown eyes lit up almost like they were on fire if he got jealous.

One of the main reasons I didn't touch or become affectionate with him was because he always shocked me. It was like when I went to plug in an electrical device and touched my finger to the metal as it initiated contact with the current, shivers all up and down my body. Most of the time, it annoyed the hell out of me, but during stressful times, like going on my first plane ride, it had a bit of a calming effect.

"Let's talk about what we're actually going to do once we get to Montana. The tease you tried to get by with isn't good enough in my current state."

"The super-condensed version wouldn't have been good enough for you in any state. You're crazy about having to know everything, and we both know you already know everything I'm going to say. But, since you're my girlfriend, I'll be nice and occupy your time with stuff you already know.

"I'm going undercover on the security team at the Progress Institute. I'll be assuming the identity of Sean Krieder. It's my job to see if anyone is physically carrying the confidential information to the outside world."

Nate had leaned in and was whispering softly in my ear. He was particular about letting people hear things they shouldn't. I couldn't blame him for making sure no one on the plane knew what we were up to.

"You, on the other hand, Peggy Richards, will be on one of the teams in this particular think tank. With your knowledge of computers and electronics, you'll get to work with other geeks on making artificial intelligence devices. When you're not playing with your little robots, you'll be logging on to their system, trying to find out if someone is sending emails or has some other kind of file transfer worked out to get the information outside the building.

"I really don't know what else to tell you, since this isn't new information," he sighed, acting as if telling me the information was a real drain on his energy reserves. "It goes without saying that we're playing the part of boyfriend and girlfriend to legitimize talking to each other so much and living in the same house. You wanted to be brother and sister, but I vetoed it, just in case you were actually feeling amorous.

"The town consists of only people who work at the think tank, so it's really small and full of extremely smart people. We'll have to be on our toes to make sure no one suspects anything. The only reason we even know there's an issue is because someone came across a few documents recently that shouldn't have been available to the public."

I thought about giving him a gold star for eating up a bigger chunk of the time before my feet were on solid ground. Then I remembered it was his fault my feet had ever left the lovely earth I was so fond of, and any good will he'd earned vanished.

"Did they ever tell you what was in the documents they recovered?"

"No, evidently it's classified information from one of the biolabs on site. Who knows, it could've been a cure for cancer or directions on how to make some bio bomb or a secret formula that turns us into the creature from the Black Lagoon. You'll learn quickly in this job the more questions you ask, the fewer answers you'll receive. It took me a couple of years, but I've come to understand to do as I'm told without asking questions."

"And yet you believe this is the perfect career move for me. I've always had issues with authority figures."

"I'm sure you'll figure it out, and just think, you have me to help. Why don't you try to sleep, it might make this trip easier, since we've gone over everything on the mission and you don't want to talk about our relationship." He took out his laptop and started typing.

"You know, we do have more to talk about than those two topics. We could talk about hockey, movies, motorcycles, how I kicked your butt at the gym last week, computers, food, or any of a million other topics."

"We could talk about a lot of things, you're right, but you're also sleepy. That's why you've been so cranky. You want to pretend it's because of flying, but that's only part of the issue. You stayed up all last night worrying about the trip, so now you need to sleep. I'll wake you and make sure you make it through the other stops." He leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. It was warm and it soothed me even more than his touch had.

When I was listing out all the things that made Nate a jerk, I forgot to mention that he always had to be right. The absolute worst trait for the person in a relationship opposite of me to have.

"Fine. Just make sure you don't leave me on a plane somewhere thinking you'll get the apartment all to yourself. I promise to find and hunt you down if you do." I reclined the seat back and snuggled in for a little nap, making sure our conversation didn't continue.

CHAPTER 2

A balanced diet is a cookie in each hand

The nap did wonders for my attitude. I made no plans to become a jetsetter, but I thought it was possible that I could make it through a future flight without all the flight attendants telling the air marshal to keep his eye on me. Little did they know, I had my own weapons and could probably take the air marshal.

Anyway, that was one fear down, if only I could get past my fear of clowns, I'd be all set. I wasn't expecting that to happen anytime soon. They're way too disturbing.

We'd made it past the circus at the airport and had been driving down the road according to my estimation. By Nate's calculations, we'd arrive at our temporary home within five minutes. My eyes were peeled, because in my research I'd found that if you blinked, you'd miss the town of Vida, Montana. With the work being done in the town, I had a feeling that was exactly the reaction the townsfolk wanted from the general public.

As far as the vehicle I was forced to travel in went, it was a tank. For some reason Nate decided he needed a big vehicle and picked out a Chevrolet Suburban. To me, nothing screams government agent here investigating your evil doing, like a big black SUV, but he was the senior agent in our duo, so he had to know what he was doing.

Houses started to pop up, and nothing too out of the ordinary seemed to be brewing. The town had a few wind turbines and most of the houses had solar panels on the roofs, so I decided energy efficiency was important.

There were no vehicles in sight, but I imagined they were all Smart cars or hybrids. Our gas guzzler was going to stick out like a sore thumb. Since Nate didn't have to pretend to be in with the brainy crowd I was definitely blaming him.

He pulled into a driveway and parked the beast. "This is it," he said, getting out. "Doesn't look too bad; let's go in and check it out."

We left the luggage in the vehicle and walked up a little path to a single-story home. It had the solar panels on it like the rest of the town and some kind of tinting on the windows. Along with the thin, plain white siding, a royal blue front door greeted us.

Nate procured a hidden key from a planter on the left side of the door. After using said key to gain access to the house, and because he was the biggest fool in the world, he turned around and picked me up bridal style to carry me into our happy abode.

"Put me down you crazy person," I said, smacking him on the back of the head. He didn't immediately drop me, but my legs did find solid ground.

"Come on, you know that was fun. What should we check out first? My pick would be the bedrooms, but I'll be a gentleman and allow us to go see your favorite room first."

He led the way to the kitchen without me needing to say a word. Just as a note, I loved the kitchen because I love to cook, not necessarily because I love to eat. My apartment's kitchen was pretty small and getting a bigger one would be the only perk I could see of ever moving.

I only made it about a foot in the kitchen before I stopped in my tracks and my mouth dropped. As we'd made our way, I'd noticed how nicely the house was decorated without taking in a whole lot of details, but the kitchen was gourmet cook overload.

It had a huge center island with a cooktop, one of those huge ones you only see in million dollar homes, with stainless steel pots and pans hanging above it. I saw a double oven on the right wall and counter space galore along a twenty-foot wall directly behind the center island.

The cupboards over the counters went all the way to the ceiling, so there'd be room for any of those infomercial gadgets I'd been putting off buying. I saw a nice shiny dishwasher and a stainless steel fridge that looked to have some kind of computer in it, because there was a touchscreen on it.

There was a good-sized stainless steel double sink and an equally impressive wine chiller. Since neither of us drank much, I imagined that would go to waste, but with everything else I saw, Nate was going to be lucky to get me out of the room.

"I love it. Can I just live in this room? I really don't need to see the rest of the house, just bring me a blanket and a pillow and I'm all set." I leaned down to check out the floor surface and felt heat coming from it. "Oh man, the floor is even geothermal. I don't have to worry about walking around barefoot." I took my enthusiasm to the next level by petting the floor affectionately.

"Hey, it isn't often I get jealous of a floor, so cut that out and don't make a habit of petting it, unless you decide to pet me too." He grabbed my arms and lifted me back into a standing position.

"Let's take a little tour. The rooms we passed on the way were the living room, you probably noticed that one by the big leather sectional in the middle of it and huge flat screen TV. We also passed a dining room, hence the table and chairs taking up residence in there. Let's head towards the back. There should be two bedrooms, two baths and a library slash den."

We left the kitchen and sure enough there were all the rooms he'd described. The bedrooms were both very spacious and both probably bigger than my whole apartment. They had big, fluffy looking queen-size beds and walk-in closets.

One of the rooms was in a green paint scheme and the other a blue paint scheme. I had a slight aversion to green, so I called dibs on the blue room. To the left of one of the rooms was a door, which I assumed contained a closet, but when I opened it I found a little laundry room. Living in a studio apartment meant I'd always had to go to the Laundromat, so it was just another pleasant surprise.

On to the baths, one only had a shower, but it was a huge shower with five different shower heads and a little bench. The geothermal floors seemed to be throughout the house and I didn't see a lick of carpet in sight. The other bathroom was a little bigger and had a large Jacuzzi-type tub sunken into the floor in one of the corners.

It also had a similar shower, but only two shower heads. I could happily report, both bathrooms also had toilets. Don't want to leave a detail like that out.

The last room we checked on was the library. It had floor-to-ceiling bookshelves on the right and left walls. There was a large picture window on the rear wall that had the tinted glass, so sun wasn't shining in. I bet the glass throughout the house saved a lot on heating bills.

There was also a big desk that took up the middle of the room. It was very neat with only a couple of books and a notepad and pen sitting on it, like they were staged. Glancing at the bookshelves, I saw mostly geeky stuff, like quantum physics and mathematical theories. I didn't see one romance novel, so I was a little bummed. It was a good thing I brought a few of my own on my trusty e-reader.

"Okay, the tour's over, what do you want to do now?" I asked Nate. Maybe I could distract him while I sneaked back to my kitchen.

"Well, first I think we should bring in our luggage. I can do that now since we only have a bag each. How about while I do that, you grab a piece of paper and start making a grocery list. When I'm done bringing things in, we can find the store and stock the kitchen for you."

"Anything involving that kitchen sounds like a great idea to me."

"When we go into town, don't forget that you are Peggy and I'm Sean. You need to get used to thinking of yourself as Peggy. Not being immersed in your character is the easiest way to blow your cover. And please try to remember that we're supposed to be boyfriend and girlfriend, I don't want to go to hold your hand and have you yell out 'eww cooties' like you did when we were leaving a restaurant once. That'd really not be cool."

"I couldn't help it. You shook that waiter's hand and I totally saw him picking his nose not three minutes before. That's just gross and I don't think your skin is made of anti-bacterial soap. You know I was just recovering from being shot. The likelihood of infection was really high." That was also the last time I went out to eat. After that, it had been home cooked or prepackaged foods from the grocery store for me.

Nate left to take care of business, while I worked on the project he'd given me. It wasn't long before he joined me in the library, where I'd decided to sit on the desk to make my list.

"How many days do you think we should buy for? I don't want to get a lot of stuff if you think we can wrap this mission up quickly," I said, looking at my list of basic necessities.

"The town isn't big enough that the store is that far away. I say just start with a couple days' worth of stuff and if we need more, we can probably just walk right over."

"Okay, I suppose I can try that. I'm curious to see what exactly they have stocked in a store catering to maybe a hundred people. Do you have anything you're craving? I'm currently starving, so just about everything sounds good."

Having been knocked out, sort of, for most of the flight had meant I'd missed out on food. Of course, the chances were good I wouldn't have been able to keep it down. That fact didn't change that I was in need of nutrients.

"If you're worried about them not having something, we can wait to make a full list until we see what they carry. As far as my cravings go, everything you make is so good it's hard to have any favorites. We haven't had your alfredo sauce in a while. I know you don't have your pasta maker here, but I'm sure the store bought stuff isn't that bad."

"How can you say that after you've had my fresh pasta? I'll make you an alfredo chicken pizza if you're craving the sauce, but I will not buy dried pasta. What else?" I asked as I added items to the list.

"I could really go for a cheesecake. Maybe a caramel swirled one?" The expectant look on his face showed me he was a lot better at the puppy dog eyes. I wasn't as immune to his look as he appeared to be to mine, and I may have melted a little looking into those eyes.

"Yes, you can have a cheesecake." After adding a few more things to the list, I called it good. "Do you think we can unload our clothes before we head out? I'd like to give them a chance to air out after being stuffed in a suitcase for so long."

"Sure, go right ahead."

I walked to my blue room and saw not only my suitcase, but Nate's as well. I turned to go yell at him, only to find him standing right behind me. I could tell I wasn't going to like how our next conversation would go just by looking at his face.

"What's the meaning of this?" I asked, pointing at his bag.

"Maybe you've forgotten, but we're playing the part of boyfriend and girlfriend. I know you wouldn't know this, but in most cases being in that kind of relationship and living in the same house means sleeping in the same room."

"I'm well aware of how things work in a relationship, Nate, but that's not how our relationship works. Why do we have to carry the charade into the bedroom? No one's going to know we don't sleep in the same bed."

"I told you, you have to immerse yourself in the character while you're undercover. You're Peggy, madly in love with Sean. You have to be that person even at night from now until we catch the person stealing the documents."

"I think madly in love might be a stretch for my acting skills. If you aren't going to let me out of this, we're taking the pillows from the other bed and lining them down the middle of the bed."

I knew I seemed weak, letting him have his way so easily, but I'd learned to pick my fights with him. If he gets to win one, I get the next one and the way things were going, I was sure I'd need a little extra leverage. Plus, we'd slept on a couch together before, so a queen-size bed even divided was plenty roomy for the two of us.

"At least for a little while, I can live with that. Now, hurry up and unpack, I'm getting hungry too."

Neither of us had packed our full wardrobe, so the process was relatively easy. Nate tried to invade my drawer space, but I relocated his to another drawer. There was only so much pretending I was willing to do.

After everything was squared away, we made our way outside. I already preferred the filtered light from inside the house to the harsh brightness waiting for us outside. It wasn't like I'd been inside long, but I knew I wanted to get back in the house as soon as possible. Chances were good it was because I missed the kitchen.

"Do you know where the grocery store even is?" I asked as I climbed into the tank.

"Like I said, this town isn't that big, we didn't pass it on the way in, so if we continue down the street, we're bound to run in to it," he said, starting the car and pulling out of the drive.

CHAPTER 3

The most powerful force in the universe is gossip

We made our way all of two blocks before we saw a sign that said Vida Grocery. The very short distance served as the first clue that it was going to be very hard to get lost in the town. Having not met any of the townsfolk yet, I was reserving judgment on whether or not that was a good thing.

"How much you want to bet that's it?" I asked Nate.

"I don't know; it might be a spa, maybe we can get you a bikini wax," he retorted.

He was full of laughs, usually about topics he shouldn't be joking about. We pulled into the empty parking lot and got out.

"Looks like a normal grocery store from here. I wonder if it has geothermal floors like the house. You might have to keep me from petting them." Nate wasn't the only one who could tell a joke and mine was obviously far superior to his.

A woman with long brown hair and matching eyes immediately greeted us as we entered the store. She wore a light blue V-neck and a pair of skinny jeans with some cowboy boots over the jeans. She was also sporting a nametag that said "Kathleen".

"Howdy," she said with an exaggerated drawl. "We don't get a lot of visitors out here. You folks passing through?"

"Nope, we're moving into the house at two-thirteen Main Street. We just got to town and thought we should pick up some groceries," I explained.

"Oh, you must be the new couple who's going to be working out at the tank," she said without the accent.

"That would be us, I'm Peggy and this is my boyfriend Sean. You seemed to have lost your accent there, do you really have one?" Clearly she didn't, but the outfit matched what she was going for, so I wasn't one hundred percent sure which accent was fake.

"It's great to meet you guys. As you can read on the nametag, I'm Kathleen, but you can call me Katie. As for the accent, it's something we all do around here when we meet strangers. We don't want them to know anything different is going on here, so we talk like we expect normal ranchers do."

"You know ranchers in the south might, and I stress the might, talk like that, but I'm not sure about up here in Montana," Nate piped in. "I know a couple of farmers, and they have no accent at all."

"Well, I don't think any of us have ever been on a farm, other than the bio farm at the tank, so we just go from what we've heard on TV and in the movies."

"I doubt most people passing through notice the difference," I said, trying to reassure her that the accent was okay. "So, we're here to get some groceries. Anything special we should know before we hit the aisles?" I asked.

"You'll learn fast we do things just a little different around here. With the tank so close, the community benefits from a lot of the projects they're working on."

"Oh, like my geothermal floors and the windows in the house?" I asked butting in before she could finish her thought.

"You've got it. The windows are some new UV tinting stuff they're working on. The floors aren't actually geothermal. It's another project they've been working on. Phil Handley is in charge of it. Make sure to never piss him off because he has a master control and has been known to turn the heat up when he's cranky. I know absolutely zilch about the sciencey stuff. My husband works at the tank in the AI lab, so I'm just a tagalong."

That was interesting information to learn. I'd thought everyone in the town was centered at the think tank. That didn't make a lot of sense as I considered it more, because someone had to run whatever businesses the town boasted. With the small number of residents, I didn't think we'd find much more than the store.

"I'm supposed to start at the AI lab tomorrow. Maybe I'll meet him," I said.

"That's right; Hank mentioned that was where you'd be working. You'll have a great time. Almost everyone in that section is really nice. You have to watch out for Ettie, though. She can be really hard to get along with."

"I should've brought something to take notes with." Nate was the talker between the two of us, so I was surprised I'd been able to get more than a single word in. I swore he loved to hear his own voice. To get him involved, I asked, "How about in security? That's where Sean will be working."

Finally taking over a little, he said, "Yeah, I want to know who to keep my eye on and who'll be the most likely to hang out with me to watch sports."

She laughed. "Well, in a town of mostly geeks, who never leave their lab, you have about two options for sports. Both of them just happen to be on your security team. The first one is Tom. He's a nice guy, but a really loud drunk, so if you do watch with him, forget the alcohol. He's been here about five years and is as sweet as can be any other time.

"The other person who's sporty is Anne. She's a tomboy of sorts and loves anything a person can compete in. As far as the rest of the spooks, that's what everyone calls security, I've never had any issues. I imagine you'll get along fine."

She looked Nate up and down, like she was evaluating what she'd just said and nodded. I didn't think the way Nate looked had anything to do with how he'd get along with others, but I didn't bother telling her to get her eyes off him. I would, of course, been doing that via my Peggy persona, because the Avery one didn't care. Okay, maybe she cared a little.

"You're a wealth of information, Katie." Nate fidgeted with his neck a little, like something was making him uncomfortable. The thought only made the smile I'd plastered on my face a little more sincere.

"Yeah, you'll find out quickly that I'm the town gossip. No use in hiding it. Everyone else spends all their time working at the tank and I get rather bored. There are only two other wives who aren't smarty pants and they've banded together in disliking me. They were here before me, and evidently never graduated from high school with their clique-like attitudes."

"I can understand having to find something to fill your time. After I get all settled into life here, we'll have to spend some time together. I tend to be afraid to talk to new people, but you've made me feel so comfortable. I'm starting to wonder if there's some happy gas being piped through your air system."

I was a little suspicious that I hadn't hid behind Nate while he did all the talking. It was a well-known fact that I wasn't cut out for undercover work, which meant it was important for me to keep my mouth closed.

"I wouldn't say happy, but we are piloting a calming gas. Right now it's just dispensed via an air freshener canister. They're testing it for hostage situations. Just think of how easy it'd be to talk people down when they're calm," she answered.

"I knew it. I'm never this talkative. It probably doesn't seem to you like I have been, but believe me, this isn't me. I'm going to have to remember to spend very little time here, because I don't like not having control of my emotions."

"Where can I get a stockpile of the stuff?" Nate asked, only to receive an elbow in the side from me.

"Nowhere, buddy, and you better get the thought out of your head or you're going to be in the doghouse." I turned to Katie and said, "So how about we get this grocery shopping done. I'd like to get back to where my emotions will let me yell at him like he deserves."

Katie laughed. She seemed to be predisposed with a perky outlook and that didn't mesh well with my general "I hate everything" view of life. I had no doubt we wouldn't exchange phone numbers after my mission was over.

"Sure, we can hook you up. Usually when customers come in, their stuff is waiting for them and they just pay. When you get home, you'll have to take a closer look at your fridge. The computer in it allows you to select the things you need. Then when your list is complete, you hit done and it gets sent to me. Give me about five minutes and your order is ready. Here, hand me that list and follow me."

I gave her the list and we got a better look at the store itself. I imagined Nate, being the super spy, took in everything around us, but I'd focused on Katie. I wasn't exactly sure what I saw qualified as a grocery store. I counted ten aisles with three shelves on each side of the aisles. Each of the shelves had a conveyor belt underneath it and all the conveyor belts led to the single cashier stand in the front of the store.

"It's good you don't have anything too exotic on your list. We keep things pretty simple here, especially since they're trying to engineer perfect food at the tank." She went to a computer screen and started hitting buttons. After each button I heard the conveyors throughout the store start up and before long our food made it to us.

"It's like a giant vending machine," I said, watching it all work.

"Yeah, it kind of is," she replied. "Most of the brainiacs, no offense, don't want to waste their time with something as mundane as grocery shopping, so they built this contraption one weekend."

"This is going to take some getting used to. I love meandering around the store, deciding what sounds good for dinner. Now, I'm going to have to actually make lists. I know I did today, but that was just because we're starting with nothing and I didn't want to forget anything."

"Don't worry, you'll get used to all the weirdness that comes with the town before you know it. I've been here three years and couldn't imagine doing things normal." She was already putting the groceries in cloth bags. "That'll be $74.25."

Nate took out his wallet and gave her a hundred dollar bill. Her eyes widened a little at the sight of the green paper.

"Wow, actual money. Don't know when the last time I saw that being used. Everyone around here just uses plastic. Hold on, I'm going to have to run back to the safe. Since it's never used, I don't have any cash up front here."

She skipped off to the back. Literally, she skipped, like she was playing a game during recess.

"I'm not going to like it here, am I?" I asked Nate.

"No, you probably aren't. Just think what a good learning experience this will be, stepping this far out of your comfort zone," he replied, grabbing my hand and giving it a little squeeze. "Katie seems nice though."

"I refuse to make my opinion known on that subject until I'm far away from the calming gas. That's just messed up using it on unsuspecting people."

"Aww. My little butterfly doesn't like being a guinea pig. Don't worry, sweetie, I don't either. I'm not sure there's anything we can do about it while we're here though, so store up all your frustration and you can take it out on me later."

"Oh, I know what I'm going to do. Screw artificial intelligent robots, I'm making me a pill that will erase any effects the atmosphere around me is causing." Take that crazy smart people.

"Your field is computers, Peggy, I don't think that just transfers over to the chemical makeup of our bodies. I know you're brilliant, but I think there are some limits to your brilliance."

"Have you seen our library? Give me the night and I'm sure I'll know everything I need." Just as I finished speaking, I saw Katie returning, so I squeezed his hand to indicate the discussion was over, for the moment.

"Here you go," Katie said with a big smile as she handed Nate the change.

"Thank you," he replied, putting the money back in his wallet. "So, how do you explain all the uniqueness of this place if you do get a visitor?"

"Oh, I just tell them with only seventy or so people in town I have a lot of time on my hands and built it during a week I had no customers. It's good that no one has ever asked me to describe how I put it all together. My answer would probably be lots and lots of duct tape."

"Duct tape is the answer for everything," I said, apparently there was one thing we could agree on. "I'm pretty sure people would believe you."

"That's probably true." Nate agreed. "Honey, why don't we get these bags out to the car and head home?" He started grabbing a few of the sacks. "It was really nice meeting you, Katie. We'll have to get together for supper or something when we get everything settled."

"That would be great. Let me know when is good for you."

I picked up the rest of the bags and we headed outside. Once they were all in the Suburban, and we buckled ourselves in, we began the long trek back to our temporary home. Wait, hold on, I blinked, how did we get to the driveway already?

"How long do you think we have before the effects of the gas wear off?" Nate asked as we pulled in.

"All I know is it won't be soon enough. As soon as I feel like smacking you again, we'll know it's gone." I really hoped the coming days didn't bring us more opportunities to be guinea pigs. After being there for only a couple of hours, though, that hope was hanging on by a thread.

CHAPTER 4

Hello fridge, how are you today?

I made quick work of putting all the groceries in their proper places when I got in the house, and then started making the pizza. For me, cooking was better than any calming gas the tank scientists could create. It was a plus that society felt better about me kneading pizza dough into submission than beating Nate's face for getting me stuck in the middle of nowhere. If I didn't know better, I'd say the gas had worn off.

As soon as the pizza was done, I cut it, put it on a platter and sat it on the dining room table. I really loved that the house came furnished with everything I could want in the kitchen. I didn't know who in the community was in charge of furnishings, but they got a round of applause from me. I was sure I'd miss some of my doohickeys, but the space in the new kitchen couldn't be beat.

At the table, Nate grabbed a slice and asked, "So, are you ready for tomorrow?"

"As ready as I'll ever be. The first step is to blend in, right? My part in the artificial intelligence project is to do computer programming. I've been doing that since I was a kid. Other than issues socially adapting to people I haven't worked with before, I should be fine. I expect it'll be a couple days of settling in before I can really get down to hacking the computer files to find any red flags."

I stopped talking to start munching on my pizza. I could eat red sauce on a pizza, and enjoy it, but the richness of a good alfredo sauce was always preferred.

"If you get flustered dealing with your new coworkers, just imagine them naked. That's the advice I always hear," he said, acting like it was helpful advice.

"Since I haven't really seen a guy totally naked before, that may be a little difficult to imagine. Even if I did, I think my naiveté on the subject would make it a hindrance."

Why would anyone want to think of their coworkers naked? I always knew Nate was a bit of a pervert, but I didn't guess he was that bad. I sincerely hoped he hadn't spent a lot of time thinking of me in a state of undress. I almost laughed at the thought, because I knew without a doubt he had his little fantasies.

Technically, I'd had some weird dreams that may or may not have featured Nate without clothes. I didn't know how accurate the dreams were, and if they were correct, I wasn't going to take the knowledge and try to use it when picturing someone else.

"Come on, never? You told me you and that guy had a physical relationship. That means you did more than kiss, right?" he asked, putting his pizza down, fully intrigued by the conversation.

"Of course we did. That doesn't mean we took all of our clothes off to do it. Both of us were shy and it was just easier to remove the necessary items."

The simple discussion about being prepared for the next day had taken a very uncomfortable turn. I always seemed to find myself in those kinds of situations around him. It was just another reason to put on my list of why he and I should never date.

I guess that needs to be qualified as we should never date in a way I classify as dating. What he'd been doing for a few months, even though he wouldn't admit it, was cohabitating with the woman who'd later be tried for his murder.

In the ninety some days we'd been together, I'd come up with a new way to kill him pretty much every day. I was even kind enough to share a few of the methods with him. My favorite was when I tied him to a spinning wheel and practiced my knife throwing side show act.

"You know, if it would help, I'd be willing to make the sacrifice and allow you to see me in all my glory. I'm sure none of the guys tomorrow will be as wickedly handsome as me, but you can at least get the idea." I didn't think a man had been born who could rival his conceitedness.

"Eww. That's totally not happening. Just eat your pizza and pretend this conversation never happened," I said as I tried to erase the mental pictures forming in my head.

It didn't help that I'd had those dreams of him naked. I hoped it wasn't a premonition of what I'd be dreaming of once I settled into my temporary bed. I needed to wash my brain out as a few thoughts that shouldn't have been in there floated by.

When we finished eating dinner, I took the dishes and headed to the kitchen to clean up. Once they were all in the dishwasher, I decided it was time to investigate the computer fridge. What better way to see what it did than to just start hitting all the buttons.

I found that not only could you do the grocery list thing, but it also had a calendar, calorie counter and a cookbook all built-in. It had a female computer voice, that if activated talked back to me when I asked questions. I asked her name and she evidently liked to be called Tabitha.

I made plans to convince her that she liked Tabby better. Sure, the fridge wasn't anything like the Jetsons', where food was just dispensed when you requested it, but it was more high tech than my standard fridge at home.

After I was done playing, I wandered out to the living room to find Nate watching TV. We'd watched a lot of stuff together as I'd healed, and surprisingly we liked a lot of the same shows.

"Anything good on?" I asked as I plopped down on the sectional next to him. It was way too early to go to bed, and I'd decided to hold off on my reading all the books in the library in search of an antidote for anything I could run into.

For one, it would take energy I was lacking, and two, I was a computer geek, anything medical was a little above my brain power. I probably would've ended up mixing something that turned me green. Not exactly the way I wanted to go to the office.

"Right now, I'm just catching up on the sports news of the day, but we could find a movie or something else if you want," he said, looking over at me.

Since they were talking about golf and that just happened to be my least favorite sport, I said, "Sure, let's find a movie. There's got to be something on a movie channel somewhere. The geeks at the tank have to step away from their labs at some point."

He started scrolling through the different options and we decided on the latest vampire versus werewolves offering. We settled into the couch, getting comfortable. Nate decided it'd be awesome to put his arm around me and give my cheek a kiss. I decided it would be awesome to give him my dirtiest glare.

"What? You never know, someone could be watching us. Did you go through the house and check for video cameras. This is a technology-based town. I wouldn't put it past someone."

"You know I'm not going to be able to sit through this movie thinking I'm being watched," I said as I started staring in the corners and around the light fixture.

"Don't worry. I was just joking. I've already gone around to every room and checked for cameras and listening devices. I didn't find anything, so we're safe. Now, settle back down here and let's watch this movie."

I made it through the movie, but I was still paranoid. "Nate, you said it yourself, this is a technology-based town. Heck, I just got done talking to my fridge a little bit ago. She even has a name. What if they have some kind of camera or other device that your equipment can't pick up? I really don't want to think of someone watching me in the shower."

"My little butterfly, stop worrying. I've been doing this a long time. After the sweep I also set up a signal jammer, so anything transmitting from the house will be scrambled unless we allow it through. They won't see or hear anything."

That made me feel a little better, but I was still worried the brainiacs could somehow get past the scrambler. There wasn't really anything I could do about it, other than burning the house down and building a new one with my own two hands. That was probably a little extreme though, and I decided to put the idea in the back of my mind, just in case I needed it later.

"Do you want to watch another movie or head to bed?" Nate asked, standing up to stretch.

The movie we'd just watched wasn't horrible, but as usual, the sequel didn't live up to the original for me. After watching it, I was left not really wanting to watch anything else. I didn't want to deal with anymore disappointment.

"I want to be on my toes for tomorrow, so I better head to bed. I'll go grab those other pillows and make the divider. Since you're bigger, I'll even give you more space to ensure you don't try to sneak over the line in the middle of the night." I journeyed towards the second bedroom.

With my shoes off, I enjoyed the heated floors along my way. If Nate was serious about us moving into a new place, I hoped he was taking notes of all the features that would be required to get me out of my apartment.

"That's so generous of you. One of these days those pillows will be gone, though. I'm placing bets on them being a thing of the past by the end of this mission," he yelled as I walked away.

The man had such deluded thoughts sometimes. I grabbed the four pillows from the spare bed and made my way back to "our" bedroom. I pulled down the covers and worked to adjust the pillows just right. If he'd agree to sleep on top of the covers, my actions wouldn't be necessary.

Of course, I didn't really trust that my pillow divider would be enough to keep him on his side, but it was all I had going for me. What I really needed to do was get a big Rottweiler trained to dislike him. Then I'd ask the dog to be the divider. That would hinder any romantic notions his oxygen deprived mind could come up with.

Once I had the bed situated the way I wanted, I found some sweats to sleep in and headed to the big bathroom to get changed. It was hard not to linger a little in the bathroom. It didn't appeal to me as much as the kitchen did, but the massive size was enough to cause me a few minutes of awe.

I didn't bother looking in the mirror. After spending most of the day on a plane, I knew that what greeted me in the mirror would scare small children. When I was all set, I headed back to the bedroom, where Nate had changed into some shorts and was standing with his back to me, sans a shirt.

"Oh my God," I said under my breath as I stared at his back. In the months we'd been living together, it was the first time I'd seen Nate without a shirt. The hieroglyphic looking symbols on his shoulders weren't new to me, but I didn't think they led to what I was looking at.

His full back was one giant firebird. It had about every shade of orange, yellow and red imaginable. The wings spanned from shoulder to shoulder, with the head centered in the top middle of his back and the tail had five or six long feathers that flowed down to the top of his shorts. It had to be one of the most beautiful things I'd ever seen.

"It's a phoenix," I stated the obvious.

"That it is," he said, turning around while putting his shirt on.

I wanted to get closer to the firebird and study it. I felt drawn to it in an odd way, but I imagined anyone seeing its beauty felt the same way.

Since I'd first caught a glimpse of the tattoos on his shoulder months prior, I had asked periodically what they meant. So far, it hadn't done me any good, but it didn't hurt to try again.

"Are you going to tell me what the symbols mean yet?" I didn't bother attempting a look to plead my case. I knew it wouldn't do me any good.

"Sorry, my little butterfly, but you're still not ready for those answers. I have a feeling it won't be much longer, though. I actually have been meaning to get something added to these," he said, pointing to his left shoulder. "Remind me when we get back to New York and maybe I'll go see that Terry guy who did your tattoo."

He walked across the room and raised his hand to stroke my cheek. Finishing our usual bedtime ritual, he leaned down and kissed my forehead. With that out of the way, we climbed into bed. It usually took a while for the tingles his lips caused to die down enough so I could fall asleep.

I didn't know what caused the reaction. He claimed it didn't happen with other people, and I wasn't exactly pushing him to test it on other women. Frannie had informed me she didn't feel the static charge just from shaking his hand, so it seemed there was just a weird chemical reaction between Nate and myself. If I got bored in the days to come, I could always check out the books in the library for an explanation.

Falling asleep, I turned my thoughts to what the next day would bring, and how I really hoped I was capable of working undercover without saying anything stupid, like I did on my first mini undercover mission. Thinking about it only made me more sure I was going to screw things up, but worrying wouldn't do me any good, so eventually I moved on to counting sheep.

CHAPTER 5

Pardon me, would you have any mustard on you?

I woke up the next morning to an empty bed. The pillows were still mostly where I'd left them. My hope was they stayed that way all night and weren't just conveniently placed there after the sun came up. I got out of bed and made my way to the kitchen looking for breakfast. I discovered Nate at the stove flipping pancakes.

"Good morning, sunshine," he said, putting the spatula down to come over and give me a kiss on the cheek.

"Food," I replied gruffly, going to the fridge, sorry Tabby, to get a glass of milk.

"You know me and Tabitha were just talking about how moody you are," Nate said as he retrieved some plates and started piling the pancakes on them.

"I'm sure that was a fun conversation. I don't believe I trust either of your opinions. She's an inanimate object and you're as dumb as a box of rocks." I walked to the dining room and waited for him to bring the food.

It didn't take him long to join me. "You know, if I didn't know you were joking, I'd be offended by that remark."

He put a plate in front of me and then took his own seat. He'd already added butter and syrup, so I dove right in. Us living together for so long had at least trained him on how I liked my food. It had also taught him that once I started in on a stack of pancakes, it was better to just let me finish, because no logical conversation could possibly happen.

After I finished, I sat back. "Thank you, I really needed that."

"I figured that much. You kept mumbling 'mmm, pancakes' in your sleep."

"I did not," I replied, grabbing my plate to return it to the kitchen. He was lucky I didn't throw it at his head.

"Okay, maybe you didn't, but they always make you happy, so I figured they were the right way to start the morning of your first big mission." He grabbed my plate from me and quickly cleaned the kitchen. He was a neat cook, who cleaned up as he finished with things, so it didn't take him long.

"I'm going to go shower. Do you think they have any special dress code I need to worry about?"

Nate was well aware of my aversion to dressing up. I didn't have more than an outfit or two that would qualify as dressy, and I had crammed them into my bag hoping they'd be too wrinkled to wear. Even if they weren't, the chances of me wearing them was limited.

"I figure it's a bunch of dorky scientists who are expected to worry more about what their brains can accomplish than what they're wearing. If you show up wearing a bra and panties, I don't think anyone would even notice. Okay, maybe the dorky, horny scientists would notice, so don't do that."

"Got it. Wear whatever I feel like and try not to entice the horny scientists."

I showered in the big shower for the first time. It wasn't hard to say I was in love. First it was the heated floors, then the shower. I wasn't sure I'd be able to leave the house when we were done with the assignment.

After I finally exited the shower, I did my usual getting ready for the morning routine of brushing my hair out. Makeup wasn't something I ever had time for, and I didn't want Nate thinking I planned on flirting with the scientists. He always got growly when a guy looked my way a little too long.

My attire for the day consisted of a pair of bootcut blue jeans and a purple top that said _Dear Algebra, Stop asking us to find your X she's not coming back._ As usual, even before Nate brought chaos into my life, I packed three knives into their hidden sheaths under my clothes.

Depending on my attire, I sometimes changed which knives I wore or where they were located on my body. That day, I went with my two thigh sheaths, which had convenient holes cut into my jean pockets for easy access, and my back sheath. All the sheaths and knives were styled so they weren't apparent unless someone looked really closely.

The back sheath actually strapped around my shoulder and hung upside down, so I could reach under the bottom of my shirt for easy access. It had a little locking mechanism that clicked when I put the knife in, preventing it from falling out. Out of all the knives and swords I owned, it was the biggest one I could wear hidden. Including the hilt, it was sixteen inches long and spanned the majority of my back.

Dressed, I left the bathroom, telling the shower I'd see it again soon, and made my way back to the bedroom. Nate was already dressed for the day, wearing a pair of khaki cargo pants and a dark blue, short-sleeved button up shirt. If the man wasn't so annoying, I'd admit he was sexy.

"Thank you. I'll take that as a compliment," he said as he finished tying his shoes.

"Bah. Why do I always have to think out loud at the most annoying times?"

I walked into the closet and grabbed a pair of mule tennies. I preferred being barefoot, or if I had to wear something, I usually stuck with sandals, but I didn't know what to expect in the lab environment, so protecting my feet sounded like a good idea. I got a pair of rainbow striped toe socks from my drawer and sat on the bed to put them on.

"So, how soon before you're ready to go, Peggy?" Nate asked.

"As soon as my shoes are on. I never asked, who came up with our undercover names? I'm thinking about asking for a refund."

If someone wanted to name me Margaret, fine call me Maggie, but why go with Peggy? It wasn't a sensible nickname. I had nothing against the name, other than the fact that I didn't feel like a Peggy.

"That would be me," Nate said with a huge grin on his face. "You always claim I'm annoying. I figured why not really be annoying for once."

"That figures. I know how much you like proving you're an idiot. Let's head out and get this first day over with."

I left the room and picked up the wallet with my fake identification cards. Nate followed me and we climbed in the Suburban. We made our way to the edge of town, where a large warehouse-looking building sat. I imagined, like the building I used to work in, the top was just a front for what was down below.

We pulled into a parking lot filled with small cars, as expected. Most of which were probably powered by things other than gasoline.

"I guess we won't have any trouble remembering where we parked," I said, crawling out of the vehicle. It was more like falling, but I didn't want to bring attention to me being a klutz.

"Hey, when they make an electric SUV or truck I'll be the first one in line for it. Until then, I like big vehicles." He came over to my side and took ahold of my hand.

"You had an Impala when you first visited New York," I stated.

"Yeah, but who in their right mind would rent a tank to try to get around rush hour traffic like that? I may not be as smart as you, Miss Genius, but I do have some common sense."

Ha, I laughed to myself. Hanging out with me tended to indicate a lack of common sense. I didn't point out that fact as he led us to the door. By that point, it would've been at least the hundredth time I'd told him.

When we entered the building, we came to a receptionist desk in a lobby. It was a little fancier than I was expecting. Behind the lobby area was a wall of smoked glass with double doors in the middle.

"Hello and welcome to Intergy," a smiling woman greeted us with another fake accent. "How can I help you today?"

"Well hello, little lady," Nate replied with his own exaggerated drawl. "I'm Sean Krieder and this here is my little lady Peggy Richards. We're set to start work today here in your fine establishment."

I had to admit that Nate talking like a cowboy was pretty dang hilarious. I had a feeling requests for him to pretend to be a cowboy were in my future. There were times when I needed a little comedy relief, and the drawl would have me laughing for hours.

Accent dropped the lady said, "Oh thank goodness. I hate the fake accents. I'm Betty and I'll call someone to show you two around. They should be here in two shakes." She reached for the phone and called someone up to meet us. She didn't seem the overly friendly sort. It made me wonder if she was one of the wives Katie had told us about.

She reminded me a little of my best friend back in New York, Frannie. The facial features were different, and clearly the woman was nowhere near as pretty as Frannie, but she had the blonde hair, blue eyes, stick skinny thing going for her. I wasn't sure what gave Frannie the right to be as gorgeous as she was, but I'd never seen anyone that compared.

The door opened behind the desk and another woman walked out. She had black, short and spiky hair and violet colored eyes that made me want to go get a pair of contacts the same shade. She was cute, in a pixie sort of way. She wore a pair of blue jeans and a blue shirt that simply said _I rule_. I had a feeling me and her were going to get along great.

She walked over to me and stuck out her hand. "Hi, I'm Anne. Love the shirt."

"Thanks, I'm Peggy," I reached out to shake. "This is my boyfriend Sean," I said, nodding my head in Nate's direction.

"Cool. I guess I'll be showing you the ropes, Sean. We'll take Peggy down to the AI lab where someone there will show her around. After that, I'll take you through all the protocols and such."

"Sounds good," Nate said, and we followed her through the glass doors. Behind the doors was nothing but an open area leading to an elevator. We got in and she pushed the button for the fourth floor, causing the elevator to start going down. It was a short ride, which was nice since no one started up a conversation.

At our destination, she ushered us out and down a hallway. "This floor is just the AI labs. We have six floors total. The bottom floor is the fusion labs, fifth is the quantum chemists, third is genetic research, second is a giant library and lunchroom, and first is the astrophysics labs."

We walked through a door and she yelled out, "Hey Hank, I got your newbie." She turned to us and in a lower decibel, she said, "Hank is kind of the leader down here, just because he gets along with everyone. I've heard some great tales of cat fights, so you better be careful."

"Thanks for the advice," I told her as a man made his way over to us. He had blonde hair, green eyes and was about average height and weight. Nothing really resonated as remarkable about him.

"Peggy, right?" he asked, sticking out his hand. "I'm Hank; I've already heard a bunch about you from my wife." Obviously what happened in the store didn't stay in the store with Katie around.

"Yeah, we were acclimated a little to what town life was going to be like yesterday from Katie," I said as we shook hands. His hand wasn't overly large, but it was quite warm.

"Well, we'll leave you two and start making some rounds. Catch up with you later, Peggy," Anne said as she turned to head back.

Nate leaned over and gave me a quick kiss on the lips. "Have a good day, I'll see you tonight." If he was nervous about leaving me alone, he didn't show it. After my last case, I was surprised he didn't find a way to stay by my side.

"So, how about we start by me showing you around and introducing you to the rest of the team. We only have six other members here."

He directed me into a room, but my vision suddenly darkened. I closed my eyes, trying to shake it off, but when I opened them something was definitely not right.

_I'm somewhere sitting on a bench with knitting needles in my hands. I look down to see that I'm wearing an elegant dress with a full skirt and I'm starting to feel the corset I'm evidently wearing cutting off my breathing._

_Looking up I see some men in funny looking outfits, riding on horses, and a couple of carriages in the road. One of the men sees me and makes his way over to me._

_" Good afternoon, Lady Catherine," he says bowing his head to me._

_" Good afternoon, Lord Eldridge. I trust you are having a splendid day?" I respond obviously not in control of my own vocal cords. If I were, the response would've been, "Who the hell is Catherine?"_

_" That I am, my lady. I trust you will be attending the ball tonight?"_

_" Of course, my mother has insisted I attend," I reply._

_" Good. I hope you will save a spot for me on your dance card," he says, shifting on his horse._

_" There is always a spot open for you, Lord Eldridge. Have a wonderful rest of the afternoon." Yuck, this being polite stuff is for the birds._

_" I plan to my lady. Until this evening," he says and trots off._

_What in the world is going on? It seems I'm in a park of some kind and there is a pond, so I wander over to see if I'm myself or have somehow changed bodies. When I look into the water, sure enough I see my face. I see my hair done up with little ringlets hanging down and the top of my dress cut way too low by my standards. I close my eyes again shaking my head._

When I opened them, I was thankfully back in the present with Hank. I didn't think I'd moved from the spot I'd been in before my little excursion.

"Let's see, where to start?" he asked himself. Evidently, nothing crazy happened to him. If he planned on opening things up for questions, I planned on asking what in the world they were doing in the AI lab to cause me to have hallucinations.
CHAPTER 6

A team effort is a lot of people doing what I say

That had to be the craziest thing to ever happen to me. I really hoped that wasn't what my mind was going to start doing under stressful situations. If it was, I planned on moving to a place where all I had to do was meditate all day.

Not wanting to sound crazy, I followed along behind Hank and kept my mouth shut. I'd have to ask Nate later if he'd noticed anything weird around the same time. Hank ended up directing me to a large room filled with computers and their parts. I could see a few heads staring at monitors throughout the room.

One of the heads looked up and said, "Hey, who's the hottie?" The voice belonged to a guy who looked about sixteen, with a baby face, short brown hair and maybe green eyes. It was a little difficult to tell from where I stood.

"Can it, Louie," Hank said. "Everyone, I'd like you to meet our newest addition, Peggy. Peggy this is Louie." I shook his hand and we continued to the next station.

I was introduced to Jake and his wife Kim. Jake looked like the average boy next door all grown up. He had short, light brown hair and blue eyes. Kim looked to be my height with long dark brown hair and brown eyes. She had very interesting skin coloring and I couldn't help but ask what her ancestry was. After telling me she was asked the question all the time, she filled me in that her mother was from Haiti and her father hailed from Spain.

We moved on to meet Josh, who was sporting some thin wire-framed glasses and what looked like a mop on his head. The boy had some meat on his bones and appeared to be the group's comedian. After reading my shirt, he made a few of his own suggestions of jokes that would be good on a shirt. Some of which were funny, the others were just a tad dorky.

Last, I was introduced to Eric. I wouldn't have been surprised if he'd just come from a skateboarding competition or something similar. He had a blue mohawk and somewhat eerie looking grey eyes. I could also see colorful tattoos lining his neck.

"Nice tattoos, what are they of?" I asked.

He moved his neck around so I could see it better. It was the inner workings of a machine. Colorful gears and wires wrapped around his neck, not exactly what I expected to find on someone's neck in the middle of Montana.

"That's totally awesome. I got my first tattoo a few months ago and have been thinking about getting something else," I said. "I don't know that my skin can soak up that much ink, but I figure small pieces will eventually get me to a giant work of art."

"Really? What ya got?" Eric asked. I lifted up my shirt a little on the side to expose my knife based butterfly. "That's pretty cool. You look like a Sweet Polly, so I was expecting some cutesy tattoo. The knife is a little unexpected."

"Well, I like to keep people guessing," I said, smiling at him.

I thought I was doing well hiding my shyness and trying to blend in. On the inside, I was pretty sure I was churning up enough acid to make my organs look like Swiss cheese. Looking around, I saw there was no one else in the room. Hank said there were six people other than him and Katie had mentioned an Ettie, but I didn't see anyone else.

"You looking for Ettie?" Hank asked. When I looked at him a little surprised, he laughed and said, "Katie told me she warned you. Ettie tends to spend time by herself working on a project she doesn't want to share with the rest of us. Josh jokes that she's making herself a boyfriend who can stand to be around her longer than five seconds."

Hearing his name, Josh wheeled his chair over and joined the conversation. "Yeah, Ettie doesn't get along well with others. If you're lucky, she won't emerge from her cauldron for a couple weeks."

"Does she really hide out for that long?" I asked.

"Nah. The longest we've been without her gracing us with her presence is two days. Chances are she'll be digging her way out of her crypt soon."

Evidently Josh didn't think highly of Ettie. I couldn't tell if there was a personal reason behind it or if Ettie was a witch. Either possibility seemed likely.

"Let's get you situated in a workspace and we can show you some of the different things we're currently working on," Hank said as he led me over to an open terminal.

Looking at the desk, I saw I had three monitors and I couldn't wait to see what kind of power the actual computer had. I imagined my coworkers were given the best of the best. They were creating the technology of the future. In my mind that meant they needed the greatest technology of the present.

I started the machine up and poked around to see what I had to work with. It didn't take me long to realize I was going to have a lot of fun. I ran a quick check of the network to see what kind of security walls I'd hit when the time came to start looking around.

At first glance, everything looked to be in order and I didn't foresee any problems tunneling in. While I waited to get on with the fun, I needed to work my way around the people and see who the likely suspects were.

"So Peggy, what is it you did before joining us?" Louie asked, leaning over my desk.

"Well, I just graduated from Stanford, but I've been working with computers since I was ten. I've made a lot of programs and games for my own personal use over the years. One of my professors knew someone who knew someone and got me checked out.

"Evidently they liked what they saw and invited me to come work out here. I was extremely lucky that there was an opening for Sean. It would've been hard moving somewhere new and not knowing anyone." I'd practiced the backstory enough that I relayed it flawlessly.

"So you and this Sean, how serious is it?" Louie asked, giving me a wink.

The question should've been whether he was serious? In no universe would Louie and I ever be hooking up. Even if he wasn't underage, he looked it and there wasn't a time in my life I remembered thinking teenagers were attractive.

To try to steer him away from any romantic notions, I said, "It's pretty serious. I have a feeling a ring will be involved before too long." In reality the 'before too long' was more like maybe if we were the last two people on earth, but Louie needed to take a hint, I wasn't available.

"You never know, things and people can both change," he said as Hank approached.

"Why don't you come over here and we can show you what we've been up to lately." I wondered if he could read the relief in my eyes from having a chance to escape Louie.

"Sounds like a good idea. I'd love to get started on something. I'm not sure what you want me to do." We moved over to his station and I saw his setup was similar to mine.

"We work in teams. Jake, Kim, myself and you will be working on the programming. When we get done with a program we give it to Josh, Louie and Eric, who work on the interface. These days the interface can be anything. Phones, robots, Josh even has a talking flower pot he made as a joke.

"He wanted to see if talking to a plant really helped it grow, so he had us make him a quick program. He ended up giving it to his mom for her birthday. She made him remove the computer, though. She thought a flower pot talking back to her was too creepy."

I sided with the mom on that one. Although, the temptation was high to ask for one for my own mother. She needed someone to talk to and when it came to her, an inanimate object was best in my book.

"What are you working on now?" I asked.

Having time away from other people who were as geeky as I was had meant it'd been a while since I'd had a computer conversation with someone else who would understand what I said. Nate wasn't fluent in binary code.

"The goal is to always improve on what we've done last here in the lab and make our way to a computer that can function and do things just like a human would. A lot of people will try to focus in on one aspect of AI. We're trying to tie everything together and make a computer that could even go as far as cry when it's sad."

"That would be something. We just have to make sure they don't end up taking over the world like in all those science fiction movies," I said only partially joking.

I read enough on the subject to know travelling down the road was a slippery slope. Everyone wanted lifelike robots, but there was a point when you taught the machine too much and things started getting out of hand.

"Come over here and I'll show you the latest robot body the guys have built." He led me to a table, where I saw a metal structure that resembled the human skeleton. "Here, let me turn it on. The program in this one is a couple generations old. We had some bugs in our latest two releases, so we've had to revert him back to the last stable installation."

He pressed a little button on the robot's neck. The next thing I knew, the robot was sitting up on the table. "Good afternoon, Dr. Jacobson," the robot said in a very human sounding voice. "Who is your friend?"

Whoever worked on the voice was good. It was even smoother than Tabby's and I'd thought she sounded more advanced than any of the computer generated voices I'd heard.

"Vinnie, I'd like to introduce you to Peggy. She's just starting out here, but I'm sure you'll get to know her very well," Hank responded.

"It is very nice to meet you, Peggy," Vinnie said, sticking out his hand.

Not knowing what else to do, I reached out my hand and shook with the robot. "It's really nice to meet you too."

"As you may have guessed, Vinnie here has our latest facial recognition software. Now that he's met you, he's started a file on you and soon will be able to tell you anything you want to know about yourself," Hank said proudly. I hoped Vinnie wasn't connected to any government database. My assignment was in jeopardy before I even settled in, which was pretty much on par for me.

"Wow, he's very impressive. You mentioned some bugs in your latest software, what's wrong with it?"

"Vinnie, why don't you go do some studying," he told the robot. Vinnie walked over to a chair and sat down. He pulled up a cable and plugged it into his wrist. "We like to keep him up-to-date on current events, so he'll be there for a couple of hours downloading new files from the Internet.

"As far as the bugs, we aren't exactly sure what's going on. That's one of the first things I'd like you to take a look at. I'm hoping a fresh set of eyes will be able to see something the rest of us are missing."

"I'd love to take a look. I've only ever really seen my own coding before, so it will be fun to see what you guys have been working on."

"Great, let's go back to your station and I'll show you how to access the files." He walked me back and quickly showed me where to go on the server. I started opening the different files and immediately became engrossed in their awesomeness.

I was so enthralled that I jumped when I felt someone tap me on the shoulder. I spun around, finding Eric standing there.

"Sorry, didn't mean to scare you, but I've been saying your name for a couple minutes," he said.

"It's no problem. I was just really into reading some code and zoned out a little." I looked at the clock and saw that two hours had passed.

"Well, it's noon and we all usually head up to the lunchroom together. We just wondered if you wanted to join us."

"Oh sure. I guess I'm a little hungry now that you mention food. Let me just close some of this down and I'll be right with you guys," I said as I shut some windows. The coding I'd read was really genius. It was past anything I could've thought to write on my own, but after seeing it, it all made perfect sense.

I stood up and joined the others. They led the way to the elevator and we rode it up in search of food. No one had said if the lunchroom was just a bunch of vending machines or if they actually had someone cooking and serving food. If there was a chef, I planned on meeting him or her and inspecting the kitchen before I ate anything. Even undercover, I wasn't eating a strange chef's food without a little inspection.

CHAPTER 7

Love is like a game of chess: one false move and you're mated

I was escorted to a bright room with ten circular tables spaced throughout the area. Most of them were already full with what I guessed were the other teams. I glanced around, seeing if anyone wore their "I'm the bad guy" shirt, and didn't spot one, so the evil mastermind must have been doing laundry that day.

The group headed over to a wall, where there was a hole with a little clear door that looked to slide up and down. Next to the door was a keypad that I couldn't get a good look at. Josh trotted up to it and hit a couple of buttons, then pulled the door up and took out a tray of food. The rest of the group made their way through the line doing the same thing.

When it was my turn, I got a chance to read the buttons. They were grouped into three sets. The first five buttons listed main dishes, there were fifteen options for sides and about ten options for beverages. I pushed the buttons for a chicken sandwich, onion rings and water. A second later I heard a faint noise, so I lifted the door and found my tray waiting for me.

I was torn between wanting one of the food dispensers in my own home for convenience sake and the fact that I loved to cook. There were nights where just hitting a few buttons was all I wanted to do, so it was a dilemma I'd take a little time to ponder.

I made my way over to where the rest of the group was sitting. There were three open places in a row, and I assumed it'd be rude to sit in the middle seat, so the choice was down to sitting by Eric or Louie. It seemed it really wasn't a choice at all. I settled in next to Eric and started munching on an onion ring.

"This has to be the most unique lunchroom I've ever been in," I said to the group.

The previous place I'd worked had a vending machine. Of course, it was pretty much a dungeon, but after seeing a single alternative, I felt gypped. Even just a table to eat at instead of at our desk would've been an improvement.

"Yeah, the food dispenser was one of our early works. We're making plans to have it so it isn't push button. You'd just tell it what you want and it would make it for you. We have a working prototype already, but we're finishing some last-minute testing before we install it permanently," Jake said in between bites of food.

"So tell us more about yourself," Kim said. I could tell by her look she was expecting some grand tale. She was going to be greatly disappointed.

I'd already given my little speech for the day; I didn't really want to have to do it again. There was a part of me that wanted to relay a life story that I'd seen in a movie or something, but Nate had gone blue in the face telling me I should stick as close to the truth as possible. He was lucky I agreed.

"Well, I mentioned pretty much anything anyone could ever want to know about me when Louie cornered me earlier, and obviously if it only takes three seconds to tell, it isn't that interesting. I recently graduated from Stanford and have always been into computers, so when this opportunity came up, I enthusiastically accepted. I was born with the geeky gene, so I don't have anything real exciting to tell."

"What about your boyfriend?" Kim asked. "I've heard rumors he's a stud muffin."

"Really, your boyfriend is hot? I might have a little more challenge than I thought," Louie piped in, which may have caused me to vomit just a bit in my mouth. Sadly, said vomit didn't taste as good as the chicken sandwich I was almost finished eating.

"I'd say most people would consider Sean hot, but I like him more for his personality and his compatibility with me."

That had to be one of the biggest lies I'd ever told. We were so incompatible that we shouldn't be in the same room together. Wanting to make sure Louie was still getting the point that he and I had no chance together, I added, "Like I mentioned to Louie earlier, I'm pretty sure we'll be getting married soon. I haven't found a ring box yet, but it's the next logical step in our relationship."

"Well, sweetheart, that must mean I'm better at hiding things than I thought," the devil himself said from behind me. He sat in the open chair next to me and gave my cheek a quick kiss. Beside him, Anne settled into the last open chair at the table.

"You must carry it on you at all times then, because I've looked everywhere, both in California and here in the new house," I said, just trying to carry on the conversation, like he didn't have the worse timing in the world. Giving him even crazier ideas than the ones already rumbling around in his brain was dangerous.

"Maybe I do. You never know when the right moment could happen. Like right now. Would you be upset if I got down on one knee and proposed?"

I wanted to scream, "do it and you'll be left with one less testicle", but I decided that was the fastest way to blow our cover. Knowing Nate, he would've been able to clean up any mess I made, and that just irritated me more.

"Of course not, we've been living together for three months now. Sooner or later we're going to have to make it legal." Technically, sooner or later I was going to end up killing him and, if the situation was going where I thought it is, that time was even closer to the present.

"Fine," he said, standing up before he turned my chair and dropped to one knee. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a ring. Holding my hand and placing the ring on my finger he said, "Peggy Richards, would you do me the honor of becoming my wife?"

I couldn't believe it. The jerk actually did it. I glanced around and saw the rest of the lunchroom was stuck waiting to hear my response. My thoughts were more focused on finding out whether someone in the building was working on time travel and needed a guinea pig to send back in time.

After all the lead up, there really wasn't anything else I could say. "Of course." I considered shrugging my shoulders to convey it wasn't that big of a deal, but I was too busy boring holes in Nate's pretty face.

He made it up to his feet and gave me a big hug, then, because he was a great actor, he kissed me square on the lips. I felt his tongue tracing my lips asking for entrance. Oh, I'd give him a French kiss he'd never forget. I allowed his tongue in and quickly bit down on it. Not wanting anyone to notice, I let go without doing any permanent damage and he stopped kissing my lips.

Still hugging me close, he kissed my cheek and whispered in my ear, "You're going to have to kiss that better later."

I leaned in and hissed back, "Fat chance."

The rest of the room had broken out in applause, causing me to blush. We sat back down and Kim immediately asked to see the ring. Not having had a good look at it myself, I held my hand out for her and got my first glance. It was a vintage-looking ring with a large amber colored oval stone as the centerpiece. The amber was beautiful in different shades of yellow and red. The ring part looked to be brass and was filigreed with little delicate twists.

"That's so unique and beautiful," Kim said. "Is it a family heirloom?"

She looked over to Nate, so there was no confusing who she directed her question, which was good because I didn't have a clue. I assumed that since it wasn't an everyday diamond and gold ring, there was something special about it, but he could've fished it out of a cereal box.

"Yes, you could say it has been in my family for many generations," Nate replied.

"Darn. You predicted it, but I was still hoping you were wrong."

I was beginning to worry about Louie's brain cells. There had to be something wrong with him, or he really didn't pick up social cues at all.

"Why's that?" Nate asked, and I could tell he wasn't going to like the answer I decided to provide him..

"Oh, Louie thought me and him had something special. I tried to tell him you were the only one for me, but I think he wished you were really a dufus. After meeting you, I'm sure he can tell now that we're hopelessly in love and you're the right man for me."

I figured it was better coming from me than Louie opening his mouth. Nate tended to be a little protective of me and had even been known to get growly a time or two when I'd been hit on. I thought about mentioning Louie liked undressing me with his eyes, but decided I didn't want to watch Nate kill Louie. Maim him a little, yes, but killing would be a step too far.

"You must not have mentioned how inseparable we've been from the moment we met," he said, looking at me with a little of his patented fire burning in his eyes. He turned to the rest of the table and said, "We moved in together within the first few days of us meeting. If it had been up to me, I would've moved in the first night."

"Oh really, how did you guys meet?"

Kim needed to stop being so inquisitive. I understood that meeting new people meant answering questions; it didn't mean I had to like it. She knew about Nate before meeting him, so I presumed Katie was flapping her gums. Maybe they had a competition on who could get the most gossip.

Since it was Nate's rodeo, I let him take the floor, which in the situation was probably a bad idea. He'd already gotten around to proposing, so I didn't think things could get much worse.

"We were set up on a blind date by a mutual friend. We both loathed blind dates, but my little butterfly here loves hockey and couldn't pass up a ticket her friend had for a Sharks game. If she hasn't mentioned it, hockey is in her blood."

Okay, so he was going for the truth, only changing the team to coincide with the fact we were supposed to be from California. As long as I didn't start yelling about my real favorite team, things would be great. That meant no hockey watching parties at our house; I tended to put the fan in fanatic.

"We met at the game and both of us had a great time. We exchanged numbers and met up the very next day by accident. She'll claim I was already stalking her, but I contend I was doing nothing of the sort. From that time on, we haven't been away from each other for more than a few hours at a time."

"You called her your little butterfly; does that have to do with her tattoo?" Eric asked. I almost chocked on a bite of my chicken sandwich as I tried not to laugh.

Nate gave me a questioning look. "I'm surprised she mentioned her tattoo to anyone. Other than the artist who did it, I don't think anyone else knows about it."

Technically, there were some doctors and nurses who took care of me when I was shot, but that didn't need to be mentioned. Nate most likely preferred to think he was among the very few who'd seen my ink.

"She saw my neck and said she was thinking about getting another one. I asked what she had and she showed it to me. The knife makes it look pretty wicked." Eric hadn't bothered taking his attention away from his food as he talked.

"Really? You guys must have made her feel really welcome. Usually it takes my Peggy a little while to warm up to new people. You aren't pumping that calming gas in your area are you?" Nate asked.

He should've been happy I was doing such a good job of blending in, but I could tell he wasn't thrilled about me making new friends. When we got a little alone time, I was sure I'd hear a lecture about how I needed to keep my clothes on.

"No, we keep the air clear in our area. Although, the gas might be a good idea to use on our missing team member. Maybe it'd make her capable of working with other people," Josh answered.

"I'm happy to hear my fiancé is getting along so well with her new coworkers," Nate said, squeezing my hand under the table. If anyone knew Nate, they'd know he wasn't using his happy voice.

I'd finished eating my food, so I'd settled my hands out of sight. Nervous situations caused me to sometimes do odd things with my hands, which made hiding them essential.

"They seem like a fun group, honey. It's hard not to be friendly." He was going to love the lecture I was putting together about me just doing my job and he needed to put his big boy pants on if that upset him.

"That's great news. You were so worried about fitting in. I think this move is going to be healthy for you."

"For the both of us," I said, leaning over to give him a quick kiss on the cheek.

Having to be affectionate with the jerk was not as easy as I portrayed it, and I hoped I wouldn't have to pretend for more than a day or two. When he started annoying me, I usually just ignored him.

"We better head back to work," Hank said.

When I looked up at the clock in the room, I was surprised an hour had flown by. It was like I was losing chunks of time as I became engrossed in what was going on around me.

"Sorry, I didn't get a chance to chat with you Anne," I said, waving at her. "I hope Sean hasn't been too difficult to work with. I know how hardheaded he can be."

"So far, so good. I'll let you know if he steps out of line. Congratulations on the engagement, by the way. I think it's the first proposal I've witnessed."

I said thanks and after a small peck on my cheek from Nate, I got up and took my tray to where the others deposited theirs and followed them back to our office. The entire way back, Kim continued talking about ideas for my upcoming wedding. She was way more excited about it than I would've been if I planned on going through with it.

When we returned to our office, there was a woman waiting for us. "Oh goodie, Ettie has come out to play," Josh whispered beside me, rubbing his hands together.

It looked like my first day wasn't going to end without me meeting the wicked witch. From what I'd heard about her, that was too bad, because things were going so well.

CHAPTER 8

A true friend stabs you in the back

"Hey Ettie, how's your project going?" Hank asked as we all filed in the room. The rest of the team ran off to hide. I didn't see a magic wand or any hexes in Ettie's hands, so I thought the disappearing acts were a little overkill.

"I'm making a lot of progress. I remembered we were getting a new member today, so I thought I'd better show myself and try to counteract whatever vicious things I'm sure Josh has said about me," Ettie replied while walking towards me.

The annoyance I saw in her hazel colored eyes when she said Josh's name confirmed my suspicions that there was something between the two of them at one time. I had no doubt I wore that same look any time I said Nate's name.

Ettie had shoulder length, blonde hair and her eyes were bordered by frameless glasses. She was dressed how I pictured a stereotypical scientist, with a nice skirt that hit her at the knees, a dressy button-up blouse and a white lab coat, equipped with a pocket protector.

"It's nice to have new blood to work with. I'm afraid the rest of the gang and myself have been working a little too long together. I'm sure they've told you I'm Esther, otherwise known as Ettie." She stuck out her hand to shake, and I looked down at her pencil width fingers. She was just a little bit on the thin side.

"It's nice to meet you, Ettie. I'm Peggy. I've heard you mentioned, mostly just the fact that you do actually exist and I'd at one point probably be able to meet you," I responded while shaking her hand.

Not only were her fingers skinny, they were also freezing cold. I was grateful that the shaking didn't last long.

"You're very diplomatic. I think I might like that about you. Let's walk over to your station, so we can get to know each other better," she said, grabbing my arm and leading me away.

For everything that had been said about her, I was a little surprised she was trying to get to know me. Although, the thought that she could be out to get a hair sample to create some kind of voodoo doll of me crossed my mind briefly.

When we got to my desk, she plopped down in a nearby chair and rolled over to me. As I sat down in mine I said, "I'll admit that there might have been hints you'd be brewing up a potion against me rather than trying to get to know me, so this is a little surprising."

She sighed. "Josh. I really wanted you to get my side before they totally turned you against me. Josh and I dated for a few months. I decided the relationship wasn't going to go anywhere and broke things off. Evidently, he thought we were destined to be together for the rest of eternity. Don't get me started on my response to that.

"Either way, he took it bad and when happy-go-lucky Josh was down in the dumps, the rest of the team blamed me and decided to ostracize me. It's not like I want to work all by myself in a closet; it's that I didn't have much of a choice with all the glaring going on during that time."

I felt kind of bad for her. In the world of he said, she said, I tended to side with the female of the pairing. I hadn't done the real relationship more than once and I would've liked to think everything ended well for the other party, but I never checked back. I did find out he moved out of the state, but that had nothing to do with me.

"How long ago was this?" I asked.

"Six months ago. I'm hoping that you coming into the mix may open a door for my return. We used to get along really well, as surprising as I'm sure that sounds after everything you've probably heard. I'm an asset to both teams Hank has us grouped in. I can program and build the interfaces. No one else really spans both worlds, so if something isn't going quite right with one side, I can usually help find the problem."

"What do you think I can do to help?" I asked.

I thought bringing them all back together could be my good deed for the decade. I'd considered letting Nate have a place to stay long-term as something that would get me nominated for sainthood, and adding a little more goodwill wouldn't hurt.

"I was wondering if maybe you could host a party at your house sometime this weekend. Maybe if we can all get together outside the work setting, we could make some progress," she said hopefully.

Her idea could work for my case as well. We didn't know where the person we were searching for worked, but maybe we could host an open house and invite the whole community, so I could get to know everyone and see if anyone seemed shifty. Trying to do that during lunch had proven just a tad difficult.

"You know, me and Sean should have an open house type event. It'll give everyone in the community a chance to come over. Today is Thursday, let's have it Saturday afternoon."

I wanted to get it scheduled and done with as soon as possible. Whether it was necessary or not, I hated any kind of party. With Nate's proposal, he owed me big time, so I wasn't worried about clearing details with him.

"That might just be perfect. You're such a doll. Is there anything I can do to help, since it's such short notice?"

"I don't think so. The house came pretty well equipped and I'm great in the kitchen. Plus, I can put Sean to work."

"Well, let me know if you think of anything. I better let you get back to work," she said, standing up to leave. "Thank you so much for hearing me out."

"I like to give everyone a fair chance. I've always been a shy person who doesn't have a lot of friends and I'm trying very hard to change that."

Being undercover was really making me realize how my timidity had hindered me in the past. I'd always felt the need to keep a part of myself hidden, and even though I was lying to everyone I'd met, I felt more open than I ever had. If I was totally truthful, the change started when Nate came into my life, but I wasn't willing to give him that much credit.

"It seems you're already on your way to making friends with all of us in this department, so it's hard to believe you've ever had problems." She walked out the door without acknowledging anyone else and called back, "See you tomorrow."

After she left, I woke my computer up and started looking over the code again. We'd spoken relatively quietly, so I didn't think anyone had overheard the party plans. I'd noticed a few craned necks trying to see what was going on, but for the most part everyone gave Ettie a wide enough berth that our conversation was private. I wanted to get Nate's opinion on specific times before I made any big party announcements, so it worked out well for me.

As I was getting back into the code, I made notes of a few places that I saw oddities to bring up with Hank later. Reading through so much code started to make my eyes blur a little. I could write code all day long, but scanning it without actually doing something with it did have a tendency to get tedious.

I decided I needed a little break and it'd been a while since I'd used the bathroom. I made my way to the unisex bathroom Hank had been kind enough to point out. I took care of business and was washing my hands when my vision started to blur a little like it did when I first met Hank. When it cleared, I wasn't in the bathroom.

_I'm in a kitchen, but it's a very primitive kitchen. There is a big wooden tub for a sink and the stove I have is actually just an open fire. I'm in the middle of deboning some kind of fish with a sharp stone. Looking around at the rest of the room, I see the floor is just dirt and I'm not really sure what the walls are made of, it looks like earth._

_I take inventory of myself and see I'm wearing a long tunic style dress that reaches my ankles. It is a light shade of blue. There is also some white cloth that I have draped diagonally over my left shoulder. I'm not a history buff, so I have no idea what time period I'm currently residing. Not that I have seen any clues that indicate anything other than it is a really long time ago._

_" Mama, Mama," a young voice says while the owner of the voice runs into the room. My brain tells me this is Mirari, my daughter. She's young, only five years old. She has brown hair that is curling in natural little ringlets and bright blue eyes. She's speaking in a language I don't know by ear, but I can understand._

_" Yes, sweetheart, what is it?" I ask. Like my last hallucination I do not seem to be able to control what I say. These would be a lot more fun if I could ask questions. I'm not sure what answers I could get out of a five-year-old, but in the last one I could have grilled that Lord fellow._

_" When will Papa return? I want to show him this rock I found." She's really adorable in her little pink tunic._

_" He should be home anytime now. He just needed to run over and help your grandpa for a little while," I reply as I start chopping up some vegetables that aren't familiar to me. Seeing a pot of water waiting for ingredients, I'm guessing we are having a soup or stew tonight._

_" Can I help you with supper?" she asks as she comes in closer to get a look at what I'm doing._

_" When I'm all done cutting everything, you can help me stir, but you're still too little to help cut things," I tell her, finishing up and taking all my bounty over to the pot and dropping it in._

_Mirari, having followed, picks up a spoon and stirs the ingredients together._

_" Tell me about the rock you found. Can I see it?" I ask._

_" No, it's a secret only Papa can see. I found it outside the house when I was playing with Aleta," she says._

_" I'm sure your papa will love the rock. You always find him the prettiest ones."_

_I hear some noise from outside and then a man's voice say, "Yaritza, Mirari, I'm home. Where are my angels?"_

_" Papa, I'm helping cook supper," Mirari yells, putting the spoon down and running from the room._

_Her running kicks up some dust and a few pieces must land in my eyes, causing me to start blinking._

When I finally get the dust clear, I opened my eyes to see I was washing my hands. That was twice in one day that I'd had some weird vision. I wondered if they were putting something in the drinking water. The town was pretty odd, but I hadn't noticed anyone else zoning out for hallucinations. I made my way back to our office area and stopped at Hank's station.

"Hey Hank, you didn't happen to feel anything weird just now, did you?" I asked.

I really didn't need to wait for an answer. I could tell he thought I was a little off. I didn't think he knew me well enough to really judge that, but I refrained from telling him he was the crazy one.

"No, why is something wrong?" he asked, looking a little more concerned.

"I just got a little headache for a second and thought it was a bit odd. Is there something that happens here in the building around this time?" It sounded like the best question to get me out of the situation and back to my desk. I knew whatever his reply would be wouldn't matter too much in the grand scheme of things.

"Let's see, it's four o'clock, which is usually when they do a reactor test down in the fusion labs. They run them a few times throughout the day. They have them at eight-thirty a.m., four p.m., and twelve-thirty a.m. The tests are always monitored and very safe. In fact, I've never heard of any troubles from the tests before."

Well, I hadn't ever been in the building before either. There was no reason why a reactor test would affect me, but something seemed to be.

"I'm sure it was nothing to do with that," I said, waving the thought off. "I must have just stood up too fast or something. Thank you for the information though."

I headed back to my desk, trying to figure out what about a reactor would cause me to have the visions. I knew nothing about reactors, so I didn't have a whole lot to base any guesses on. Both of the blackouts appeared to have happened during the test, but I was fairly certain that had to be some kind of coincidence.

I didn't have any issues the day before at home, so unless proximity had something to do with it, reactor issues were out. I was glad I wouldn't be there for the last test of the day, but I would've really liked to figure out a plan to make sure it didn't happen again. I wondered if covering my head in aluminum foil would work.

Probably not, but it was a step I was willing to take if I didn't have to travel to an alternate universe. I wasn't sure I really wanted to discuss my little issue with Nate. As crazy as he could be about all things concerning me, it was best I kept it to myself.
CHAPTER 9

Behind every successful man there is a surprised woman

After sitting at my desk for another hour, doing nothing but reading line after line of code, I decided to call it a day. I wanted to think about the code before bringing up all the irregularities I'd seen. If I started getting into the details, I didn't think I'd get home that night. On the investigation front, no one I'd met seemed like they were shady, unless you counted Louie, who was just creepy.

I said a quick good-bye and noticed that no one else made any moves to leave. I was lucky to get a wave of the hand from everyone other than Eric, who was nice enough to say a few words. They were mumbled under his breath, so I didn't know what he'd said, but he got an A for effort.

When I got to the Suburban, I didn't see Nate around, so I let myself in. Not knowing how long he'd be, I closed my eyes and rested for a little while. I doubted even a full minute passed before I heard the driver's side door open.

"In case you were wondering, you have a lot of explaining to do," I said, not bothering to open my eyes.

"You, my sweet, are lucky I didn't clobber a couple of your new friends over their wee little heads for the way they were looking at you," he said, leaning over and kissing me on the cheek.

He started the car up and after he got us heading in the direction of home, he took my hand and started playing with the engagement ring on my finger. I was a little surprised my hand hadn't felt weighted down after it received its temporary accessory.

"How in the world did you just happen to be carrying around an antique engagement ring in your pocket?"

"That ring is very important to me. I've been carrying it around in either my pocket or on a chain around my neck for years. It now rests on your finger and I want you to make sure it stays there and is kept safe."

Even that directive didn't make it feel any heavier. I thought Nate was foolish for putting something that important to him in my possession. He'd lived with me long enough to know I was good at misplacing things during certain phases of the moon.

"If you're worried about it, you could always take it back. We could just tell everyone else we sent it off to be sized."

"No. It's on your finger and there it will stay. I don't even want to see it off when you take showers or cook dinner. Speaking of dinner, do you have anything planned?" he asked, moving quickly away from the subject of the ring.

"I was just thinking of making some sandwiches and destroying a bag of potato chips. Being in super-spy mode and being friendly with that many people kind of drained me today," I said as we entered the house. "While I'm thinking about it, did you happen to have any odd experiences today?"

I'd thought about not bringing it up, but I really wanted to know if I'd finally stepped over the line where I could claim to be sane. He looked at me with an odd mix of worry and hopefulness on his face. I wasn't sure what he was hoping for, but it worried me.

"No, I didn't. What happened to you?"

If no one else shared my weird delusions, I figured it was probably better to keep them to myself. I didn't know if there were any mental institutions close by, but my goal was to stay out of them.

"Nothing really. Just had a couple of dizzy spells. I thought maybe something was up and asked Hank if anything happened during the times I got them and he mentioned some fusion reactor testing that went on during those times. It's probably nothing, just wanted to see if you felt anything funny."

"Let me know if they get worse. We may need to pull you out if you're having medical issues in the building," We walked to the kitchen and I started making sandwiches.

"Like I said, I'm sure it's nothing. Oh, just so you know we're having an open house here this Saturday. I'm doing a favor for one of my new coworkers and at the same time we can try to get a handle on the different people in town. Maybe we can at least find someone who sticks out, so we can focus our investigation on him or her.

"I didn't get any bad vibes from the people around me today and I don't know another way to meet the other departments, since they seem to stay pretty grouped together." I had our turkey sandwiches assembled, with extra pickles on mine, so I grabbed my plate and a bag of Doritos and headed to the living room.

"That's a really good idea. What coworker are you helping out? As good as the idea is, if it's Louie or Eric, I'm vetoing the plan." He settled in next to me on the sectional and picked up the remote.

"No, it's actually Ettie. The only reason we've heard bad things about her from everyone is because she used to date Josh and when she broke things off with him, everyone turned against her. I really feel bad for her. It's one thing to be stuck working here in the middle of nowhere, but it's a totally different story if everyone around you hates you. She's hoping this little get-together might mend some fences."

"I wouldn't say anyone is stuck here, but I get your meaning. I still can't believe you showed someone your tattoo, though."

He turned the channel to the national news. It was reporting the usual doom and gloom, so I ignored it.

"It's not like it's on some super hidden body part. It's my side and I'm wearing a freaking back sheath, so I couldn't flash anyone. And just so you know, other people have actually seen it before. A whole room of doctors and nurses, Frannie, and your friend Rick have all seen it. Plus, the idea is to be friendly with the locals. I was just trying to form a bond with one of them over tattoos." I inhaled a big bite of my sandwich once I stopped flapping my gums.

"I'm not sure I like the form of bonding that reveals a usually covered portion of your body," he said as he became bored with the news and started flipping through the channels. "And don't think for a second I like the fact that Rick has seen it either. Just because he's one of my best friends, doesn't mean he gets any special privileges."

Rick was a NYPD detective who I'd met just after visiting my first crime scene. He and Nate had been friends forever it seemed and during my recovery I got to know Rick pretty well. The three of us spent a lot of time hanging out in my apartment and riding our motorcycles around town. Nate wouldn't let Rick and I spend any time alone. I'd tried to tell him Rick seemed more like a brother than anything else, but my words were wasted on him.

I finished eating and grabbed our empty plates to take them to the dishwasher. On my way back to the living room, I heard my cell phone ring. I picked it up to see who it was, afraid my mother found out I was in the state and was planning to come for a visit. I was delighted to see it was the person who was just on my mind. I took a seat at the dining room table, answering the phone.

"Hello, Freddie," I said, calling him a name I knew he hated. One of those evenings sitting around my apartment, I found out Rick's real name was actually Frederick and he absolutely despised it.

"Hey, baby girl, you know you're lucky I love you," he replied in his usual, overly flirtatious voice. "I hear congratulations are in order. I can't believe you let him put a ring on your finger. I really thought you'd eventually wise up and leave him for me."

"Rick, you know I'm smart enough to not actually be with him. Any relationship he claims we have is all a part of some delusional world Nate lives in. Plus, he didn't put a ring on my finger. He put a ring on Peggy Richards' finger.

"We aren't actually going to get married, so if he's been spreading those lies, I'll make sure he's punished. Once the mission is over, this ring is off my finger fast enough to spin heads and if I'm lucky, he'll decide to move out."

"All I'm saying is, baby girl, you better be careful. He got a ring on the finger; it may be harder than you imagine getting it back off. The man has had it bad for you for a very long time. If he gets to be too overbearing, you just come to me and I'll make sure you're taken care of."

"You know, Rick, if I didn't know any better, I'd find it hard to believe you guys are actually friends. Aren't you supposed to be helping him get the girl, not warning the girl to run as soon as possible?"

I'd seen them together and they were really like two peas in a pod. When the topic of me came up, they tended to butt heads a little. There was some undercurrent I didn't understand, nor did I really want to.

"Hey, Nate is my oldest friend, but that doesn't mean I won't give him a little fight when I think he's doing things wrong. He can't always have everything just given to him without putting a little effort into it."

"So, are you just calling to tease me about my upcoming fake nuptials?" I asked, curious if the conversation was going to turn to a more pleasant topic.

"Nah. I was calling as your friend to ask how your first day undercover went. I know how nervous you get in this type of situation and wanted to show my support."

"Don't let the guys you work with know, but you're really a big softie, Freddie," I said, teasing him. "Today went surprisingly well. I actually made friends and the whole engagement came about because I had to fight off advances from an unwanted suitor. The kid looks about sixteen and for some reason got it in his mind he had a chance with me. I made up a story about how my boyfriend was probably going to propose any day and sadly the idiot, known as my boyfriend, overheard and used it to his advantage."

"Did the kid manage to keep all his body parts attached? If he doesn't take the hint, let me know and I can make a trip over to show him you're well and truly unavailable." I wasn't sure I wanted to know what that meant, and I was positive Nate could handle Louie, if he proved to be stupid enough to pester me further.

"That's just what I need. A town with seventy people in it and you and Nate polluting it with overdoses of testosterone. For right now, let's just keep you in New York." I tried to hide a yawn, but it was followed closely by another one. Not having gone to work daily in months left me not acclimated to putting in a full day.

"Fine, but if you need me, just call and I'm on the fastest jet over. Don't hesitate to call for backup."

"I'm pretty sure things will be fine, but I'll keep that in mind. I need to start getting ready for bed. Too many people around exhausted me today. You want to talk to Nate before we hang up?"

"I'm good. We've already had our talk for the day. I just wanted to chat with you for a little while, but I'll let you get your beauty sleep. Talk to you soon, Avery. Hugs and kisses."

"Back at ya, Freddie," I said, hanging up.

"You encourage him too much sometimes. I think you should reiterate a few more times that you're not interested."

Nate was standing in the doorway between the kitchen and dining room. It figured that he'd try to listen in on my conversation, not that I was trying to make it private.

"He knows I'm just playing around and have no interest in anything more than friendship. Even if he flirts, he has learned to take a hint, unlike someone I know," I said, looking at him pointedly.

"You might be thinking friendship, but I know for a fact that isn't what is on his mind, which is really wrong on so many levels. Since I've brought it up before, I won't give you another lecture, just be careful with him."

"You hate the fact that he and I are actually friendly and I tend to treat you not as nice."

"Yes I do," he said simply. There was no reason to expound on the truth. "Why don't we get you off to bed? You can barely sit in that chair without slumping over."

"Good idea," I said, standing and leading the way to the bedroom. "The pillows are staying in place even with the fake proposal."

"For now, but you do owe me for that biting trick this afternoon. That wasn't a very nice thing to do in the company of others. If it had been in our bedroom, that would be a whole other story."

"Eww. Yuck. I promise to never bite your tongue again. Especially if it makes you think of us in a bedroom." I grabbed some pajamas and was off to the bathroom to get changed.

When I returned to the room, he was already in bed, under the covers. I made sure our alarm was all set and settled in on my side. It had been a long day and I was sure there were many more to come before the assignment was complete.

I rolled over, facing Nate's side of the bed. "Good night, Nate," I whispered, already starting to fall asleep.

He leaned over and gave me the usual kiss on my forehead. "Good night, my little butterfly."

If he said anything else, I didn't notice because I was fast asleep.

CHAPTER 10

I don't recommend a caveman diet; they are really hard to peel

I woke up the next morning before the alarm. I felt shivers over most of my body, so it was safe to assume that the person nuzzling my neck was Nate. Sadly, the dream I'd been having featuring the aforementioned person had left off at exactly the same spot. It was bad to have those kinds of dreams, at least weekly about someone you didn't like. Okay, maybe I liked him a little, but he really needed some attitude adjustments.

"How quickly after I fell asleep were the pillows thrown off the bed?" I asked, rolling over to face him.

He leaned down and gave me the most thorough kiss I'd ever received. It even surpassed the show off kiss after our fake proposal. In my still sleepy state, I had no defenses for it. After about a full minute of locking our tongues in a battle, he gave me one last kiss and lifted his head back on his pillow. The tingles that were just on the surface of my body made their way to the pit of my stomach.

"Now that is a great way to wake up in the morning. About the pillows, sorry, they went immediately after I was sure you were asleep."

He could claim it was a great way to start the day, but I would counter that it was more than a tad frustrating.

"Do you have no bounds?" I asked, raising my voice. "I keep giving in a little here and there, hoping that sometime you'll meet in the middle and we can have an actual decent relationship. I really do want to try to like you.

"For some reason I'm sadly attracted to you on some level, but the way you act like you have some mysterious claim on me makes that really hard. You came storming into my life and have been trying to dictate every second of it ever since. It needs to stop if you're planning on anything happening between us."

I was certifiably in a tizzy. Acting like boyfriend and girlfriend was going to be impossible for me if we didn't work something out.

"My sweet, sweet little butterfly," he said as he stroked my cheek. "I'm sorry you feel that way about how I treat you. I've felt a connection between us from the second I laid eyes on you and I may have been pushing a little hard to solidify our relationship because I'm afraid of losing you.

"I know you won't understand, but I can't lose you. I'll try to back off a little and give you a chance to breathe. We still have to act like a loving engaged couple, but I can work to not be quite so domineering. It's clear you don't feel the same way that I do, at least not yet, and I really don't want to miss any time we have together."

There were certain times Nate said something that made me feel a little melty inside. He made it seem like he knew something about me that I didn't. I couldn't explain why or what it was he knew.

"You don't have to go changing everything about yourself to try to appease me, but please just don't push the romantic part of our relationship as hard. Waking up in bed with you trying to give me a hickey is too far, by the way." I felt better about getting that off my chest. If he wasn't going to leave, we had to come to some understanding. "Eventually, I may be ready for something like that, but it needs to be on my terms."

"That I can do and I'm sorry about this morning. I got a little carried away, but I'll try to keep the testosterone in check." He kissed my cheek. "That's still okay, right? I've done that from the first night we met and I had a feeling then that it was okay."

"Yes, the cheek kisses are fine. For our act around others, cheek, forehead, hands, and lips, as long as tongues stay out of the kiss, are okay. Hugs are fine. Handholding is fine. Terms of endearment are mostly fine. I'm used to being called your little butterfly, so you don't have to change that.

"I think that about covers the okay items. Not okay items include signs of affection above what I already listed, getting grumpy when I've spoken to someone of the male persuasion and generally just dragging me by my hair back to your cave."

I was sure there are other things that were off limits and should be listed, but the last item about covered my main issues with the man. There was a certain appeal about the caveman mentality, but I didn't like having my hair yanked.

"Am I allowed to just throw you over my shoulder since the hair dragging is out? I really like pulling your hair, but I suppose we could try something different." He sounded so serious that I had to smack him

"No," I laughed. "See, I don't mind teasing like that. You just sometimes take the possession thing too far. When you do that it makes me want to be anywhere as long as it's far away from you."

The alarm started beeping, signifying the actual start of our day. I reached over and turned it off. I stretched out my limbs, even though it didn't feel like they needed it. I may have accidently hit Nate in the head with the back of my hand.

"I'm going to head for the shower. I want to get in early to talk to Hank about some issues I found in their code." I wanted to have that conversation out of the way in case the eight-thirty test left me disjointed again.

"Sounds good. I could start looking over some personnel files I have access to as part of the security team. I can see if anyone has anything in their history that might flag them for further investigation."

He got up and grabbed some clothes. I hadn't noticed that he went to bed in only a pair of sweats. As he walked to the closet, I admired his tattoos and wondered again what the symbols meant. I'd tried to do a little research on them, but I hadn't found a language that matched them.

After showering, throwing on some clothes and grabbing quick bowls of cereal, we were out the door. Only one song played on the radio before we hit the parking lot. Since they didn't seem to have a gym anywhere in town, I thought walking to work could be an alternative to my usual weekly visits.

There were a few cars scattered around, but thankfully not everyone else was an early bird. We made our way through both sets of doors and into the elevator. Nate hit my floor and walked me to my door.

"You know, I don't know what floor you're on in case I need to find you," I said after he gave me a chaste kiss on the lips.

"I have an office on the first sub floor, but will be roaming around throughout the day, keeping my eyes open for anything suspicious. If you need anything, just give me a call. I don't think there's anywhere in the building that would keep me from getting to you within a couple minutes."

"I'm sure I won't need any rescuing today, just thought I should have an idea of where your base is. Have a good day; I'll probably see you at lunch." I gave a little wave and then walked into my office area.

Looking around, I saw Hank was already there. Jake and Kim were also in their pods. The coding issues must have had them working overtime to find solutions. I headed over to my desk and grabbed my notes before making my way to Hank's cube.

"Hey, Hank," I started when I got there. He didn't acknowledge me standing there, so I said it again. After standing like a fool dancing around trying to get his attention, I finally noticed little earplugs in his ears and guessed he couldn't hear me.

Apparently, he was so focused on his code that he couldn't see me either, which was a very good thing after the scary dance moves I'd attempted. I tapped him on his shoulder, which obviously startled him because he jumped before looking up at me.

Removing the ear plugs, he said, "Oh hey, Peggy. Sorry, I was listening to some music while I tried to tackle some code."

"Those are earphones and not just earplugs? They are so little," I said, trying to get a look at the little pieces he had in his hand.

"Yeah, nothing really spectacular, just wireless earbuds," he said as he tossed them on his desk. "What can I do for you?"

"You mean besides telling me where I can get a pair of the earbuds? I was going over the coding you guys have written for the latest release, way cool stuff by the way, and when reading through the code, I noticed about ten spots that didn't make sense and I thought you could walk through it with me and we can see if any of them are the problem." I grabbed a chair, hoping right then was a good time.

"That's great. We may be on the road to fix this sooner than I thought if you think you've got something. We've been pouring over it for weeks, not seeing anything that would cause a malfunction. It's taken long enough that I see code whenever I close my eyes."

"I can relate to that predicament, as I've had many dreams filled with lines of characters that most people wouldn't understand. I have my notes, if you want to bring up these files." I handed him a piece of paper with seven file names on them. "Then I can show you what I've noticed."

The process was a little slow as I encouraged Hank to explain things that I knew weren't the problem, but wanted to know more about how they'd come up with the methods used. Most of the things I'd found were just little things that wouldn't amount to any kind of large issue, so the others easily overlooked them. There were two places, though, that by themselves the errors wouldn't cause a huge concern, but when combined, caused havoc to a few of the core functions.

"Thank you so much for finding this. I don't think the code was like this to begin with, but when we started looking back over things, we broke things up since we were only looking for something that would cause the bugs we were seeing," Hank said, extremely relieved. "Now we can just fix this real quick and try a new test on Monday."

I was surprised no one had gone through the code as a whole. In any code there was always cause and effect based on any number of external calls and commands. As interconnected as each function was to the next one, you had to get a look at the big picture to figure out where the trouble was hiding.

"That's great. I haven't gone through everything, but this does seem like the root of the problem. I'm going to head back to my desk and look at a few more files." As I left, he walked over to talk to Jake and Kim, giving them an update. Even if I totally sucked at being an undercover agent, at least I could say when the mission was over that I'd accomplished something.

Back at my desk, I decided it was time to start diving into the computer network and see if I could find any irregularities there. After helping the others, I was hoping I'd be on a roll. I looked at the time and saw that it was already nine o'clock, which meant I'd made it through the reactor test.

I inserted a flash drive into my computer to bring up a little program that I built to use in situations similar to the one I was in. Essentially, all I had to do was pass the things I wanted flagged to the program, and then it searched the network for anything that matched. There weren't many people there, but they did have a very large network with all the research going on.

I typed in my flags of either emails going outside the building with large attachments or frequency and the same thing for file transfers. As far as the program was concerned, file transfers included anything transferred from the computer to either a plugged in device or disk and anything transferred electronically via a website or file transfer program. Once the results made it onto my screen, I'd be faced with judging who the bad guy was and who was just taking their work home with them.

With a network the size of the think tank's, it probably wouldn't have results back to me before the end of the day, so I'd have to get them on Monday. Once the program started, and I made sure it didn't hit any initial walls, I navigated back to the code files. I was pretty sure I'd found everything, but you never knew what could be lurking.

CHAPTER 11

Welcome to the show, the fun is about to begin

Before I knew it, lunchtime had arrived. It was almost scary how time flew when I was in my element. The trek to the lunchroom we'd made the day before was repeated. I decided to mix it up by having a chicken Caesar salad and some lemonade.

I sat by Kim, leaving the seat to my right open for Nate. Hank was the only person I'd had a chance to interact with that day, so I needed to catch up. They talked about the plans for the test on Vinnie Monday morning.

Hank explained the procedure of uninstalling the current software and then reinstalling the new, while the rest of them interrupted when they thought they had something important to say. Sometimes they just did little patches that didn't require a full uninstall, but since it was a total system redo, the process was more detailed.

As we were talking, Nate settled in beside me with a quick kiss on my cheek. "Hey, sweetie, how has your day been going?" I asked him.

After our big talk, I felt more comfortable acting affectionate without him taking it for advancement in his attempt to woo me. I didn't doubt he still had fantasy ideas of where we stood, but at least he knew without a doubt my take on things.

"So far, so good, and now that I'm with you it's even better."

We were supposed to act like a couple, but we didn't have to be dripping in maple syrup, so I nudged his foot, trying to indicate to him he needed to tone it down. He put his hand over my hand and traced my fingers. I really hoped that was his indication that he understood.

"Oh, I forgot to tell you guys we're having a house warming party tomorrow. So if you don't have any plans, just show up anytime from noon to four. We'll have tons of food, so make sure to tell anyone else in the community," I said after taking a sip of my lemonade.

I heard Nate chuckling softly. I supposed it was at the fact that I'd let half the day go by before making the announcement. I couldn't help it if I had better things to do.

"You won't want to miss whatever Peggy mixes up in the kitchen. She's a stellar cook. For our first real date she cooked us a mess of appetizers to eat during a hockey game on TV. I'll have to make sure she makes her stuffed mushrooms for the party. I could live on those alone," Nate said, subtly moaning as he thought about one of his favorite treats.

Kim immediately went to work spreading the word around the other tables. It seemed liked my work was done, which I appreciated. I just had to start planning what to actually make and hit the store on the way home. I hoped Katie didn't mind me showing up with a list twice in one week instead of using Tabby.

Our conversation turned to what everyone liked and disliked as it related to food. I was making mental notes just as my nose started to itch, indicating I was getting ready to sneeze. I tried to stop it, but its will was stronger than mine, so I closed my eyes and sneezed into my elbow. When I reopened my eyes, I wasn't in the lunchroom surrounded by my new friends.

_I'm being led around a dance floor by that Lord Eldridge fellow. Yuck, I hate dancing, make it stop. Looking down I see I am again showing too much in the cleavage department. I'm wearing a lilac color, tight bodice, and big flowing skirt dress. I even have matching evening gloves that go up to my elbows._

_" So, Lady Catherine, may I call on you tomorrow?" my dance partner asks._

_" But of course, my lord. I look forward to seeing you." I reply. Even the body I inhabit is actually repelled by the thought of having him stop by. I'm glad that, even though I can't speak my mind, we share that sentiment._

_" And how did you enjoy the opera last night? I heard you attended." Isn't it bad enough I have to dance with the guy, he also expects me to have a conversation. Just one of these times I would really like to be in total control._

_" Sadly, opera is not something I enjoy. Mother made me go and it was absolutely dreadful. If she takes me again I will be forced to find a way to sneak out before my eardrums rupture." Well that's good to know. If I'm somehow brought back to this weird world I am already making plans to get away from opera._

_As the song is coming to an end, I'm glancing around the room for places I can hide. I really don't want to have to dance anymore. Maybe I can sneak out a side door or something. When the song is done, he bows to me and is about to say something when a voice behind him asks, "May I have this dance?"_

_I look around him and see Rick standing there. Wow, this is the first person I actually know in real life who has made it to my hallucinations. That must be a sign that my mind has finally broken._

_" Lord Calloway, I was not aware you were making an appearance tonight," my body says._

_" Lady Catherine, you are here, so where else would I be?" he asks as he moves Eldridge out of the way. He takes my right hand into his left and wraps his other arm around my waist as he leads me into a waltz. He is dressed in a suit like outfit that isn't too crazy looking, but the jacket is really short in front with long tails._

_I laugh out loud, well in my mind it's out loud, my body doesn't actually laugh, when my shared brain tells me in this alternate universe Rick's name is still Frederick and he does go by Freddie amongst his friends._

_" So Freddie, what are you really doing here?" I ask. "This is not your usual scene."_

_" Just doing a favor for a friend who couldn't make it tonight. We didn't want that Eldridge chap to get any wrong ideas."_

_" No one needs to worry about anyone getting any wrong ideas. I can take care of myself. You might want to let your friend know that."_

_" You know he never listens to me. We are lucky on the days he listens to you," Freddie replies._

_" If he knew what was good for him, he would stop worrying so much. It isn't like anyone is going to change fate," I reply._

_" You know he can't help it, it's just how he's built. I'm supposed to tell you to meet him in your usual spot after the ball, but I haven't decided if I will relay the message or not."_

_" You kind of just did," I say as my body smiles sweetly at him._

_" That I did, but we can choose to wash that information from our memory if we wish. It might be fun to make him fidget." The song has come to an end and he leads me over to a punch bowl. Yuck. Why haven't they invented bottle water yet? He pours me a cup and hands it to me. I raise it to my mouth and close my mental eyes. Here goes nothing._

Opening my eyes, I was back in the lunchroom. Dang it. I thought when I'd missed the reactor test the craziness was over. I looked over at Nate and he looked at me like he was afraid I'd die at any second, which was a look I'd become used to seeing from time-to-time.

He leaned over and whispered, "Your nose is bleeding."

What? I picked up my napkin and held it up to my nose for a second. When I took it away, sure enough there was blood on it.

"Excuse me, I have to run to the bathroom," I said as I got up and jogged out of the room.

In the bathroom across from the lunchroom, I grabbed some toilet paper, held it up to my nose and tilted my head back. As I was standing there looking strange, I heard the door open.

"You want to tell me what happened?" Nate asked. I knew it was him without lowering my head to check.

"Not really. You'll think I'm a mental patient and have me committed."

"Try me."

"Fine," I said, deciding to go with the truth. "It started yesterday. Just after you left me with Hank, my vision dimmed and when I opened my eyes I was in another body in a totally different world. I was sitting in a park, knitting of all things. Talk about a hilarious idea.

"Some guy named Eldridge walked over and asked me about whether I was going to some ball. I couldn't actually talk; I was just stuck going along with whatever the body was doing. After I got rid of Eldridge, I walked over to a pond and saw the body looked just like me, only in, I don't know, maybe Regency England dress." I stopped to take a breath.

Retelling the story caused my head to hurt a little. It seemed to want to continue processing parts of the park scene, but I didn't let it.

"So what just happened in the lunchroom? Did you have the vision again?" Nate asked. He still looked worried, but I couldn't tell what emotions were behind his words.

"It was a vision yes, but not the same one. This time, I was at a ball dancing with Lord Eldridge," I started, but was interrupted when I heard him growl. "Oh wait, this one gets better. We're dancing along and he's babbling about wanting to call on me the next day. My body and I were both gagging in unison on that thought; Eldridge could find a bridge to jump off for all we cared.

"Right as the song ended, Rick shows up and asks for the next dance. We start waltzing around the dance floor. He tells me he's there because his friend couldn't make it and I was supposed to meet the said friend in some special place. I didn't really find out where that was though because I came back to my body."

"Are these the only visions you've had?" he asked.

I thought a better question was whether I'd been hit in the head while he wasn't looking. Nate was in serious mode, so even though I felt unstable by my words, he was taking them into consideration.

"No, there was one other one yesterday. I have no sense of when that one was, but I was in a kitchen making dinner when my body's daughter, Mirari came running in going on and on about some rock she wanted to show to her Papa. She wouldn't let me see the rock, but her papa eventually came home and she went running off right as I came back to myself." I finished my story and then added, "See, if that isn't certifiable, I don't know what is."

"I think we should head home for the day," Nate said. "I'm a little concerned about this turn of events."

I was pretty sure I'd warned him from the beginning of the relationship that I was a nut. I didn't expect he'd take it easily when it was finally proven to be true. I wasn't taking it great, and I'd known all along.

"Okay, if you think it's best, I won't fight you on that one. I can let Hank know that I got a bad headache or something and need to head out for the rest of the day to make sure I'm one hundred percent for the party tomorrow."

"Please do," he said. His mind was somewhere else and I started to worry crazy was catching.

When we got back to the lunchroom, we found everyone had cleared out, so we headed to the elevator. He followed me to Hank's desk and I gave my excuse. Hank was so happy that we were making progress on the new code that he just waved me away and said to feel better. After a quick trip to Nate's office, so he could let them know he was leaving, we were on our way to the car.

"I'm really hoping it's just a little stress. All the stuff that's been going on in my life eventually has to make an impact. I started my program today, so it won't be long before we have some candidates to target," I said as we left the parking lot.

"Sorry, Avery, but I think it's a little bit more than stress. I'll fill you in when we get home, but I think I have a way to help, so at least you won't end up with the bloody nose again. I don't know if we can stop the visions until they've run their full course, but I don't want to see you injured in the process," he replied.

Great, not only was I certifiable, but Nate seemed to be in the same boat. The FBI really should do further testing on its agents, or at least not team two insane people together.

CHAPTER 12

Come on baby light my fire

The drive to the house was silent, and when we got there, Nate ushered me into our bedroom. He instructed me to sit on the bed, which I happily did. It only led to me sitting there watching as he paced the room.

"Why are you so fidgety? You aren't the one having a mental breakdown," I said as I started to get dizzy from all the back and forth.

"I'm trying to figure out how to start. You know how I've been pushing you for a relationship and always act like you'll just accept all my advances?" he asked. I wasn't sure where things were going, but I didn't expect that segue.

"Yeah, we went over this already earlier today. If you recall, you said you were going to work on it."

"It's a little bit more complicated than that. You see in my mind our relationship, and I'm talking in the romantic sense of things, is a foregone conclusion because it has already been that way for years."

There was a time when I thought I attracted weirdoes. Cleary that time wasn't a thing of the past.

"We've only known each other for three months, how in the world could we have a relationship before that?"

"Technically, the relationship shouldn't even be measured in years, since it has been going on a few millennia. We were together long before all the modern comforts that surround us were made. That's supposed to count for something, right?" There was definitely something left out of his psych eval.

"Um, Nate you're rambling a little and not making a lick of sense." I hoped he'd calm down and start speaking English. If the explanation he had lined up revolved around us being thousands of years old, we had a problem.

"You know how whenever we touch your body comes alive?" he asked, jumping to a different train of thought.

"It's a little hard to forget, since it happens every time. I know you said it doesn't happen with anyone else, but I find that impossible to believe."

"That's because it doesn't happen with anyone else I touch. It happens with you because we are soulmates and have been for eons."

"Nate, last time I checked, I'm only twenty-five. I can't have been anything for eons, let alone your soulmate."

He came to stand right in front of me. He put his hand on my cheek and looked at me sadly. "I really wish I knew what happened during your last cycle." He removed his hand and commenced the pacing again. "The tattoo on my back isn't just some cool design. It's what we are. We're phoenixes. We live about a thousand years and then we combust. Usually a short time later we're resurrected as we were, with all our previous memories intact."

"You're still confusing me. That isn't even possible. I was worried that my mind is going, but I think yours is too. They must be pumping more than just some calming gas in this town."

"I'll prove it to you, but first let me explain." He sat down beside me to start his tale.

"Back when the earth was first forming into what it is today, out of the liquid part of its core creatures were formed born of fire. In the beginning there was just one, but after a few years another was born. It continued that way until there were two hundred. Some of them paired off and began to mate. I can tell you that's not an easy thing for us, but I'm thankful your parents were among the first to be successful. I can't say we were exactly what we look like now back then, but over the years we've evolved to match what was necessary to blend in.

"For phoenixes not born directly from the fire, the first life cycle is started as a baby and then you age until your thirtieth year. Any subsequent cycles, you come back starting at that age. The originals have always had bodies resembling the older version. After a millennium we usually decide to end the current cycle and start anew. It's something we have to do if we want to continue living.

"We tend to resurrect within a couple of months of our igniting. I've never heard of anyone being gone a full year, and believe me, I would have heard about it. Mates don't usually die together. It's set up that way in case they have children at the time and need one to take care of the child. The last time you died was fifty years ago. We didn't have any children, so we could've gone together, but you insisted our next cycle we'd have children, so we needed to have some distance between our deaths."

I thought maybe he'd take a little break at some point, but he kept soldiering on. I thought about interrupting, and probably should have to ask if he wanted adjoining rooms and matching straight jackets.

"When we resurrect, our mates can feel it, so they know to start looking for each other. We also always resurrect to our point of origin. For any of the originals, that means we end up in a desert over in Egypt. The rest of the phoenixes end up wherever their parents are. I counted down the days until you were coming back to me. After six months, I started getting nervous. After a year, I went insane.

"I didn't understand why you never came back. Up until that point, I'd checked in with your parents daily. In fact, I ended up living next door to them for a few months. You can imagine how crazy your mother was. It got to the point where I couldn't take it anymore. I reverted to my phoenix form and took to the skies.

"I remained a phoenix for forty years, mourning your loss every second of those years. By the time I had tracked your parents down after turning back, you were already in New York. I don't understand why they never mentioned you came back. I think they were scared about the fact that you were literally reborn as a baby. That's never happened before and I can understand why they'd worry, but that should've told me."

He finally stopped talking long enough for me to get a word in. "So, not only am I a mythical creature, but I'm a freak among my own kind. This is great, and somehow this explains all my visions and the nose bleed today."

In the grand scheme of things, I should've been grateful to hear Nate's words. They meant I wasn't the most senseless person in house at the time. I didn't remember us ever sitting down to a movie featuring phoenixes, but he had to have gotten the ludicrous idea from somewhere.

"You are not a freak. You're my wife and always have been. No one amongst our kind would call you that. You are revered by all of them. The visions are actually memories of your former lives. The little girl is one of our daughters. If you would've been able to play the memory out, you would've found that it was I who'd just came home.

"The rock that little Mirari was bringing to me is actually in the ring you're wearing now. She was our first child and I wanted you to always remember her young, so I made the ring for you. She goes by Sophia now and is currently residing in Italy with her mate."

"I'm starting to think it'd be a good idea for you to lie down for a little bit and get some sleep. It's been a while since you've been on a case and I think it's done something to your brain synapses. If what you're saying was true, why would I just now start to remember?"

I was perplexed why I'd even allow him to try to explain things further. There was a weird, and very twisted, part of me that wanted what he said to be true. My logical brain was doing a pretty good job of shutting that part up, but I was still a little curious about how his delusion would play out.

"I took this mission because I was hoping that something one of the crazy scientists in the think tank was working on would help trigger your memories. I had nothing to base that on, but I read about a couple of their experiments and had my fingers crossed. Evidently it worked, and for that I will be forever grateful. You're on the road back to me."

He took my hand and placed it under his own on his cheek. I could see tears forming in his eyes. Whether his story was true or false he believed it.

"You said you could prove this all to me. Telling me a story doesn't prove anything really, other than you have a great imagination."

"I can. You sit right here and don't be afraid." He backed up to stand in the middle of the room. He closed his eyes, and without doing anything else visibly, he caught on fire.

"Oh my God," I said, standing up to run over to him. I noticed the carpet underneath him wasn't burning and the fire didn't seem to actually touch his body. After another second, Nate was no longer standing in front of me. There was a replica of his tattoo floating above the carpet.

"You're so beautiful," I told the bird, not at all scared of its presence in my bedroom.

There was still a halo of fire floating around the bird, but I couldn't help myself when I reached out to touch its feathers. My hand went right through the fire and I petted the velvety feathers. I hadn't been in contact with a lot of birds up close and personal, but I doubted a chicken felt as luxurious as what my hand touched.

"Can you change back now?" I asked.

I wanted to continue the conversation we were having. The visualization had caused a lot more questions to pop up in my mind. I could've started having more hallucinations, but a part of me wanted it to be real. To be something that special, would be amazing. Amazing probably wasn't even the right word, but it was as good as any I could come up with at the time.

"Of course I can change back," Nate's voice said in my head. "I have to warn you that I won't be wearing clothes when I do. The fire does actually touch the skin for a second before the change and incinerates any clothing."

"Okay, I'll turn around then." I quickly turned around, letting him change back. "So is that something I can do? Do you have any other super powers?"

He walked over and touched my shoulder, indicating it was okay for me to face him. Only a second had gone by, so I was skeptical, but when I spun in half a circle, he wore a pair of shorts. I held my hand out to touch his skin, expecting it to be hot or boiled, or something, but it was perfectly smooth. We made our way back over to sit on the bed, which was good because I was feeling a little lightheaded.

"You're a phoenix, so of course you can change. I was hoping you'd remember some of this on your own, but I'd be happy to teach you. Maybe not today, but sometime soon. We actually have no super powers. The changing to a phoenix is just what we are.

"We've been around a very long time, so we've learned to use more of our brain than an average human. You might think of those abilities as super powers. For example, we can communicate by thoughts, pick up other peoples thoughts, move objects with our minds and some even claim to be able to see the future. That used to be one of your specialties," he said as a smile grew on his face.

His smile seemed a little different to me. It still held all the devilishly handsomeness it always had, but there was a hint of relief in it that made it even more devastating for me to witness.

"Now that you're here, I can joke and say I've always wondered if the reason you didn't come back was because you wanted to miss the sixties and seventies. Of course, I ended up missing those decades too, but I always hear jokes about them." Coming clean about what he believed we were hadn't made his jokes any better, but I did laugh at the lameness he tried to pull off.

"What about the nose bleed? I don't mind remembering the past so much anymore, but I don't want to come out of the visions bleeding. People may start asking questions."

"I'm hoping now that you know what's happening, your brain won't be as stressed during the visions," he answered. "Just don't fight with them. No matter what happens, follow the memory through and you should be fine."

"Do you have any idea why I can't remember any of this?" I asked.

If I wasn't certifiable, he'd proven he wasn't human and that made it easier to accept maybe I wasn't either. I still questioned how any of it was possible, but I was willing to collect all the details.

"No. For the past fifty years I have searched every mind I've come across for any answers to your disappearance. There has never been a case such as yours. That was why when you got shot I was so worried for your health.

"Normally a mortal wound can't kill us. We can only die by choosing to go into the fire. Your parents and I weren't sure if the fluke of a twenty-five-year rebirth resurrection made you different in the sense that those bullets could've killed you. It's one of the reasons I'm so protective of you. In our previous lives, nothing would've killed you, in this one I'm not certain that's still true."

"One last question, and then we better head to the store to pick up groceries for the party." The case had to go on, even if my life had just entered the world of the bizarre.

"They're your names," Nate said before I even asked the question, "starting with your original name, Yara, all written in the first language we developed."

I looked at the symbols covering his shoulders, the symbols that represent my former lives.

"Yara is a very pretty name, what does it mean?" I asked as I traced one of the symbols with my fingertip.

I couldn't read what I was tracing, so I had no idea what name it was. Something about the name oddly sounded familiar. There was no reason for it, but he'd once said I was a human lie detector and nothing he'd said rang false.

"Small butterfly. You've always been my little butterfly."

I looked up to meet his fiery eyes. There was even more fire in them than the few times I'd thought I'd seen some hidden flames.

"I wish I remembered," I said as I stood so we could leave. I wanted to sit and talk about things, but I knew I'd get lost in the story and have to scrub the mission.

"It will all come back. You've already started remembering two of your lives. You only have few millennia more to catch up on. From the sounds of things, you haven't got to the good parts yet."

CHAPTER 13

Unique is an understatement, I'm just messed up

As we made our way to the grocery store I had a million questions running through my head, so I just started firing them off while I finished writing my list.

"Since Rick was in one of my memories, does that mean he's also a phoenix?"

"Yes. He was almost as happy as I was when I first saw you again. I'd warned him that you didn't have memories from your past lives, so thankfully he didn't blurt out anything crazy. We're all tied closely together, so we're both anxious to have the gang all back together."

Nate wasn't kind enough to go around the block a few times, so one moment we were in the driveway and the next we were at the store.

"Crap. I don't want this conversation interrupted. I have so many questions and I need answers to figure out how much of what you've said can be believed."

"Don't worry, you can spend the night asking them as you prepare things for tomorrow," he said getting out of the vehicle.

"I'm going to hold you to that. Just to warn you, I think you may have created a monster."

"No, I fully blame your parents for you being a monster."

Katie greeted us immediately, which dampened my inquisitive nature a little. "Hi, guys. I hear congratulations are in order. Let me see the ring." She snatched my hand, thankfully not the one Nate called dibs on with his hand, to get a look at the ring. "Oh my goodness, it's so different. I love it!" she screeched.

I carefully extracted my hand from her grip and refrained from trying to cover my ears.

"Hi, Katie. As I'm sure you heard, we are having a little get together at the house tomorrow and I need to get supplies. With the short notice, I didn't have time to use Tabby, so I hope it isn't a problem that we showed up with a paper grocery list again."

"Oh, it's no problem at all. I can't wait for your party. I hear the food will be to die for. Who or what is a Tabby?" I assumed she must have forgotten to spray the calming gas, because she was going a mile a minute.

"Tabby is the name of our fridge. Technically, it's Tabitha, but I gave her a nickname," I said as she led us over to the cash register.

She punched in my ingredients and the conveyors fired up. When the assignment was over and I was able to shop for my own groceries again, I knew I wouldn't be sad. I liked having options for my ingredients.

While we waited for everything to arrive, Katie jabbered on about ideas for the wedding. Even if Nate was my soulmate, and we'd had a million lifetimes together, we still weren't running to the wedding chapel. If he wanted that kind of relationship, he had some waiting ahead of him, so I only half listened to her rambling. When everything was finally totaled up, Nate paid, with exact change, so no trips to the safe, and we left, telling Katie we'd see her soon.

Back in the car I told Nate, "That woman has way too much energy. I think there was a reason they used her as the test subject for the calming gas."

"Tell me about it," he said, taking us back home. "I think most of the people in the town are pretty crazy. It's sad to think I want to go back to the normality of New York."

"At least there, chances are you'll never meet a tenth of the other residents. How long has Rick been living there? I've been there seven years and I never ran in to him. Imagine the shock he would've had. I wonder what he would've done if he'd taken a train one day and saw me sitting there. You sat there and stared at me long enough that I thought I had something in my teeth."

"Rick's always been a big hugger, so I imagine you would've found yourself in his arms. I'd love to have videotape of that moment. You, all shy and not liking to be touched, enveloped by a big guy like Rick. I'm pretty sure your knives would've been out threatening his man parts instantly."

I laughed. It did make a pretty funny scene. "You know, I may need to call him tonight and tease him a little bit. Something else I find pretty funny is that according to you, I'm a bird and I had to be forced to get on a plane and fly. You'd think being in the air would be natural for me."

"It's actually a natural response. We love to fly, but under our own capabilities. The first time I flew on a plane I was pretty edgy too, not completely crazy like you, though. I also had the advantage of knowing why I was so disturbed by being in the flying metal heap."

Our conversation continued as we unloaded the groceries and carried them into the house. Nate tried to take the majority, but I fought to at least get one heavy sack.

"So are you going to help me prep?" I asked as I started unloading and ordering things, so each dish's ingredients were together. In stressful times, I always turned to cooking. There was just something about it that soothed me and it'd been months since my life hadn't been stressful. It was amazing I hadn't gained fifty pounds.

"Of course, you know we make a mean team in the kitchen." He went to the sink to wash his hands. "So what did you decide to make?"

"I figured a lot of dips would be a good place to start. I'm doing jalapeño popper, buffalo chicken, onion, and artichoke spinach hot dips. Those I can all make up tonight and just pop them in the oven in the morning. For cold options, I think a seven-layer taco, guacamole, and a crab dip. As dippers we'll have vegetables, crackers, tortilla chips and bread. I'll make a couple fruit dips as well, so there's something sweet, but not overly sugary."

Nate's head spun around in a circle a few times as I blurted everything out. I started unwrapping blocks of cream cheese and putting them on a plate. Almost all the dips I planned on making used the stuff, so there was a lot of cream cheese. To hurry the softening process along, I stuck the plate in the microwave on the lowest setting for a couple minutes.

"You're making the mushrooms too, right?" Nate asked as he helpfully grabbed some of the vegetable dippers and started chopping.

Whether Nate and I were destined to be together, we'd been able to work effortlessly together in the kitchen from the first time he visited my house for dinner, as long as you didn't include our food fights. It was one of his few redeeming qualities.

"Yes, you'll get your mushrooms. You also get to help me make a mess of cookies and dinner rolls for the barbecue pulled pork."

Remembering the rolls, I grabbed the bread machine from one of the cupboards. I did mention the kitchen was fully stocked, right? It was probably going to take a couple batches to make a hundred dinner rolls, so I needed to get the machine up and running immediately. I poured in the ingredients for one double batch and turned it on to let it do its thing.

I choose the dip options because, for the most part, it was just mixing things together. I started combining ingredients and decided it was time to ask more questions.

I began with something that was on my mind when he'd mentioned having increased brain capabilities. "So the dreams. You were causing them weren't you?"

"That would be true. Sorry, I tend to think about you a lot, even when I'm sleeping, so they kind of broadcasted over to you."

"You talk about all these mental abilities, why can't I do them?" I asked.

"You can, you've just forgotten how. I think you use the ability to read emotions without even knowing it. Remember with Jimmy, how you felt he was telling you the truth about his sister? Some people might say it was just intuition, but I think it's your mind reading his emotion levels."

"How can I relearn to do all the other things?" I didn't know that I bought his logic, but he was the expert between the two of us.

"I'll help, of course, although there were some things you could do that weren't in my repertoire. I mentioned the seeing the future part, but you could also touch items and see the past. You really are very unique, even amongst our kind. Hopefully, opening up some levels of your brain will allow the other abilities to come forward."

While I was sitting there stirring the ingredients for my third dip, the can of jalapeños slid across the countertop just as I went to grab it.

I looked up at Nate and said, "Show off," then grabbed the can back. "What was your original name?"

"Malik."

If I'd been smart, I wouldn't have bothered speaking, and let him pick up the questions from my mind. He claimed that was something he could do, and had proven it. The fact that he had read my mind made me wonder why he hadn't commented on the visions I had while I was awake, but delving into his capabilities was something I wanted to save for later.

"And what does it mean?" I asked, starting in on my layers for the taco dip. I did mention these dips only had to have ingredients poured in a bowl and mixed. I could make them all in about a half an hour.

"It means king," he said quietly.

"Your original name means king, is there a reason for that?" I asked as I stopped layering my ingredients and looked at him.

"Since I happened to be the first phoenix created, it was decided I would be our leader. It wasn't something I asked for, but I didn't really get a choice."

My jaw dropped open and I stared at him, trying to decide if that bit of information was enough to wake me up from whatever dream world I'd entered.

"You're the king of our kind? Since I'm supposedly your mate, does that make me the queen?" I wondered if I had a crown. That would be cool. I thought I'd look better in a tiara, though.

"Of course you're the queen. The titles don't really mean a whole lot, so don't think you have subjects to order around. We live separate lives all over the world. At last count," he paused thinking for a second, "there are only about a thousand of us. When we get your mind back to what it once was, you'll be able to feel the others gently in the background."

"I don't know if I like the idea of having other people in my mind."

My dips were done, so I covered them in plastic wrap and put them in the fridge. I also took all the vegetables that Nate had prepared and got them ready to store.

"They aren't really in your mind; you can just feel that they exist. It's difficult to explain when I'm sure you've got the notions you've read in books or watched on TV in the back of your mind. I don't think it's like anything I've seen the humans come up with."

After I loaded everything in the fridge, I checked the bread machine and saw the initial mixing was all done, so I took the dough and put it in an oiled bowl to rise by the stove and poured in another batch of ingredients for the second batch.

"If you can feel the other phoenixes in your head, how did you not know I had resurrected?" I asked as I grabbed a chair to rest for a few minutes. There were still some holes in the story that needed to be ironed out.

"I was in phoenix form when you were reborn, but all I felt was a brand new birth. It didn't carry your usual frequency, so I didn't know it was you. When we met, I was able to pick up your new frequency and am now in tune with it. I don't have the answers for why your life reset. I'm just happy to have finally found you."

"If what you say about frequencies is true, are you sure I'm really who you think I am? If I don't have the same setting on your radar, maybe I'm someone different."

That would be really sad for him to get his hopes up that I was his long lost soulmate, only to find out I was someone else. Life had a tendency to be cruel like that.

"The tingles, remember," he said, as if I could forget them. "Not only do you look just like Yara, and are getting memories back of her life, but when we touch you feel the mark of a soulmate."

"I guess. It's really frustrating having you know way more about my life than I do. There isn't a way to speed up the memories is there?"

"I think we should just let them come naturally, at least for now. I don't want your system to get overloaded." He didn't say it couldn't be done, so maybe there were future options.

"I guess I don't have much of a choice, so for now I'll live with that. Let's make up some cookies and get the dinner rolls all done; I'd like to get some sleep at some point tonight. We have an early morning ahead of us."

"No problem, just tell me what you want me to do," he replied, like a good assistant chef.

I gave directions and then added, "And when we do go to sleep, the pillow barrier is going to be intact."

He laughed and we went about our final tasks for the night.

CHAPTER 14

Who wants to play a game? It's called 'I win'

The next morning I woke up happy to see the pillow wall in place and Nate still sleeping on the other side of it. To reward him, I leaned over and give him a small peck on the cheek. He didn't stir, so I left him sleeping while I went to put the pork in the oven.

I liked to cook it slowly, so it was really tender and easy to pull apart for sandwiches. I set the oven to the proper temperature and then got out my two huge roasts. I put them both in a large roasting pan and added a little water before placing them into the oven.

It was going to take a few hours, so I started going over in my mind what else needed to be done. Other than heating up the hot dips, the rest of the tasks were mostly just presentation oriented. I did have to make Nate's mushrooms, but those only took a second and just went in with the dips.

Having at least a couple hours before I needed to do anything, I decided to give Rick a call, since we hadn't got around to it the night before. He was a couple of hours ahead, so there was a chance he'd answer. With my phone in hand, I made my way to the living room and got comfortable on the sectional.

"Joe's Bar and Grill," Rick answered. "What can we do for you?"

"Well Freddie, Lord Eldridge has really been bugging me with all this dancing. Do you think you could sneak me out to the carriage so I can get away from him?" I asked.

The phone went dead quiet for a few seconds. I didn't hear a click to indicate something had happened technically with the line, so I assumed Rick needed a second.

"He told you?" Rick asked hesitantly.

"He was forced to after I started getting memories of you and me dancing the night away at a ball. I came out of the memory with a bloody nose, so he thought knowing the truth would make them easier on me."

As I spoke, Nate stumbled out of the bedroom and came to sit next to me. I mouthed "Rick" to him after he gave me a morning kiss on the cheek.

"What, if any, other memories have you had and what all has Nate told you?" I could tell he was still proceeding cautiously.

"Probably just the basics. That I'm some awesome phoenix mated to the phoenix king and if I wasn't currently impaired, I could do all sorts of wicked things. Other than the fact that I don't know how to resurrect properly, I think that sums up the conversation we've had. Oh, I also know his original name is Malik and mine is Yara. What's yours and what does it mean?"

He laughed. "Out of all the questions you could ask, you want to know my name. Mine would be Tarak and it means protector. So, you still don't have your full memory back?"

"Nope and according to Nate the part I have is like half a day of an eon of missing time."

"Do you know what brought on the memories?" Rick asked. "Or why things have been screwy for you?"

"No to the second question. The first day the memories happened, they coincided with some reactor testing that goes on at the think tank. The second day, I didn't ask, but it wasn't during one of the normal testing times. I'll have to try to figure out if anything happened during all three episodes. I have no idea what goes on in the building other than my work area."

"I can't tell you how relieved I am to have you back in the family. I know Nate was hopeful you'd eventually remember some things, mostly how you're madly in love with him and want to have a million phoenix babies." We both laughed at the thought, which I didn't doubt was true.

"Too bad for him those memories and feelings are still hidden. I did remember a moment with our daughter Mirari, though." I turned to Nate and said, "I forgot to ask, do we have other children? If I'm a mom, I expect Mother's Day cards."

Nate sighed. "Yes, we have four other children. We've been very fortunate; most phoenix couples have only had one or two children."

"What about you, Rick, do you have a lady friend and little children I don't know about?"

"Nope, I haven't found my other half yet and it's probably a good thing, since my boss doesn't give me a lot of time off," he replied.

"That doesn't make a whole lot of sense. You've lived centuries longer than your boss. I don't think he could've stopped you from looking in your previous lives." I looked over at Nate and saw him smiling at me.

"Tell him he had fifty years, it's not my fault he spent them sitting on his butt," Nate said.

"Are you telling me you're his boss somehow?" I asked Nate.

"He is the protector. His job above all others is protecting you," Nate replied, like it was obvious.

"Why in the world would I need protected? You said phoenixes couldn't be killed."

The more I found out about the whole other life, the more I thought I was better off not knowing. Human life was confusing enough for me; it didn't sound like phoenix life would be any easier.

Rick answered the question for me. "We aren't concerned about someone killing you. Has he told you that you're different from the rest of us? There has always been a worry someone would kidnap you and use your abilities against your will."

"Yes, he mentioned that I was a freak amongst our people," I said, earning an elbow to the side by Nate.

"Did he just smack you upside the head?" Rick asked.

"Nope, it was an elbow to the side."

"I see he's being lenient. You are a treasure amongst us. If anyone called you a freak, Nate and I would probably battle it out to figure out which one of us got to punish the perpetrator. One day, hopefully soon, you'll remember everything and know the truth."

"If all this is true and I haven't just been in a coma for the last week, then that day can't come soon enough." A check of the clock told me I should probably get back to the kitchen. "Well, Freddie, it's been fun, but we're having a party this afternoon and I need to start doing the final preparations."

"You're hosting a party? Can you have Nate videotape it for me?"

"Hey, you listen here, buddy. You better be nice to me or I'll play damsel in distress and ask Nate to beat you up." I fluttered my eyelashes at Nate to practice my part. "And you know I have him wrapped around my finger."

They both laughed at me. I solved the problem by hanging up the phone. That just made Nate laugh more.

"So, what do we need to finish up before people get here? We still have a couple hours."

"Let's go get the mushrooms made up and the hot stuff in the oven. I still need to whip the barbecue sauce up, and then we just need to set everything out."

We moved to the kitchen and I handed him the mushrooms, so he could remove the stems and clean them up while I made the stuffing. Twenty minutes later we loaded all the dips and the mushrooms into the second oven and let them do their thing for the next half hour.

"I think I'm going to go take a shower and get ready." I left to get something to wear before retreating to the bathroom. Nate received brownie points for not asking to join me in the shower.

After a quick shower, I dressed in some jean shorts and a top that said _I will try to be nicer if you try to be smarter_. I didn't wear shorts often, but with as many people as I was expecting to show up, I envisioned the house getting warm.

I checked on the appetizers when I made it back to the kitchen. They were all golden and bubbly, so I turned the oven down to warm. I opened Tabby up and grabbed my barbecue sauce ingredients and retrieved a bowl from a cupboard.

A quick peek at the pork revealed it was to the falling apart stage, which meant it was time to remove it from the oven. With a pair of forks, I shredded the pork and then added the sauce before returning it to the oven to let the flavors meld.

Nate had disappeared on me, but I didn't have time to worry what rabbit hole he fell down. I collected all my serving platters and laid them on the dining room table. I arranged the cold items, dippers, cookies and rolls. I checked the time and saw that I had fifteen minutes; time had started to fly after the call with Rick. I got the hot items from the oven and put them amongst the already arranged dishes.

Nate appeared with a mess of paper plates and plastic silverware. "Just in time," I said as I grabbed them and arranged everything the way I wanted. "People can just grab drinks from the fridge, right; we don't need to set any out, do we?"

"I think that will be fine. Let me just get some napkins and it looks like we're set." As he left to complete his task, the doorbell rang.

I rushed over, so they wouldn't be tempted to push the bell again. It was a little surprising it rang like a normal doorbell. I expected colored lights or something to go off, or at least a different tone. When I opened the door, I found Ettie.

"I hope I'm not too early," she said as I ushered her in. "I was hoping to get here first."

"You're right on time, but you do happen to be the first to arrive." I led her over to the dining room to introduce her to Nate. "Ettie, this is my fiancé Sean, Sean, this is the elusive Ettie."

"Nice to meet you, Ettie, I understand this shindig was partially your idea," Nate said as he shook her hand.

"I'm not sure if that means you're happy about the party or not, so I'll go ahead and apologize for the inconvenience." Ettie's cheeks turned a nice shade of pink.

"It's no problem. It's going to be a fun way for us to get to know everyone." The doorbell rang again and Nate left to answer it.

After about ten minutes of the doorbell ringing off and on, we decided to just open the door and hang a sign that said to come on in. I spent the afternoon trying to meet everyone, and at the same time I was including Ettie as much as possible in any conversations I had with the team. Things seemed to be going okay on that front, even with Josh being standoffish.

At around two, most of the people had already cleared out, leaving my team and a couple of stragglers from security. With the smaller group, Katie had the brilliant idea we should play Pictionary. Apparently she carried it around in her car for situations like a party she didn't want to leave. I would've preferred if they just decided to go home, but I'd heard a time or two that we can't always get what we want.

Not wanting to have to endure the game by myself, I quickly latched onto Nate. With twelve people, we decided to have two teams of six. We were on a team with Ettie, Anne, Tom and Eric. The other team was Katie, Hank, Josh, Louie, Jake and Kim. Since it was Katie's idea, we allowed the other team to go first.

She picked a card up and gave a face that clearly indicated she didn't like what she was about to draw. Good, it was her stupid idea we played in the first place.

Anne, with the sand timer in hand, said, "Okay, ready, set, draw," and flipped it over.

Katie started drawing something that looked like a stick figure and then drew arrows like the person was moving. Her team yelled out walking, running, moving, dancing. They continued yelling things out and Katie didn't add anything else to her drawing, settling for moving her hand in circles acting like they were close and should keep yelling out words.

"Time," Anne said when the sand was all gone.

"Ugh, it was skipping," Katie said, taking a seat.

"Oh," her group said in unison. "I get it now," Hank added on.

"Okay, how about if I go first for our team," Nate stood up to take a card before anyone could object. Katie readied the time and said, "Go."

Nate started on what appeared to be a reptile and our team listed things it could be. In my mind I heard, "It's a dragon." Evidently Nate liked to cheat at games.

"It's a dragon," I said to the rest of the group.

"That's it." Nate returned to my side and gave me a kiss.

We continued back and forth until it was my turn. I couldn't draw to save my life, so I was pretty sure I'd embarrass myself. I picked up my card and saw my word was orange. Great. I got something shaped like a circle. Katie yelled, "go" before I had a chance to think of where to begin.

First things first, I drew the circle and tried to make it look like it had a textured skin. My team was shouting out all sorts of things, mostly different kinds of sport balls. After about ten seconds, in my head I heard, "Focus on me and think the word."

Okay, I continued drawing my oranges and thought "Nate. Orange. Nate. Orange. Nate. Orange."

Thankfully before the time ran out, Nate yelled, "An orange."

"That's it," I said to the group. In my mind, I focused on Nate again. "Did I actually do it or did you guess?"

"You came in loud and clear, baby," he said back mentally.

I was going to have to practice that ability. I wondered how far the range was. It would be fun to yell things at Rick from across the country.

With me being the last person to have a turn, we decided to call it a day and packed the game away. My team ended up winning, of course it helped when a third of the team could talk to each other without anyone knowing.

After we said goodbye to everyone, we collapsed on the couch. "I don't have the energy to clean up the mess," I said as I cuddled into Nate. I knew cuddle and Nate didn't belong in the same sentence; it just showed how exhausted I was.

"I don't think I can move off the couch," he said as he maneuvered so we were both lying on our sides with my back to his front. "Let's just sleep for a couple of hours and see if we feel like moving after that."

"Sounds good to me," I said as I drifted off to sleep.

CHAPTER 15

I am thinking of a number between one and a million

Nate's arms circled around me when I stirred awake. I was comfortable and didn't feel like moving. I got the message that he was already awake when his lips kissed the top of my head.

"Hey, good morning, beautiful."

"Is it really morning? We slept the afternoon and night away?" I asked as I stretched and yawned.

"Yup, it's six o'clock. We slept for over twelve hours. I can't remember the last time I did that and I know the last time you did, you were knocked out on pain killers." He moved and ended up climbing over me. "I have to use the bathroom, but I'll be right back."

"I have to go too, so I'll follow behind you and make a beeline to the second bath."

When we were done taking care of the necessities, we convened in the dining room to determine how many hours of our Sunday were going to be spent doing clean up. From the sight I saw, I didn't think a single day would be long enough.

"Wow, this is a mess," I said, taking in the platters of crusty, dry food.

"Yeah, I'm tempted to just throw it all away and start from scratch," Nate said as he picked up some hunk of food I couldn't even identify anymore. Maybe we slept longer than a day, because usually food didn't look that bad so soon.

"Let's just grab a garbage bag and scrap all the stuff in it. Once the plates have the majority of the food off, just throw them in the dishwasher. In a town like this, it has to be industrial strength."

I found the garbage bags and we went to work. As we finished up, I thought about how grateful I was that we'd used disposable plates and silverware. If we hadn't, we would've been doing dishes for weeks.

"Thank God that's over," Nate said, leading me back to the sectional. "If we ever have a party again, we'll make someone else clean up after us."

"I vote for never having a party again. So what do you want to do today?" I asked. "It better include hiding from everyone else in this community."

"As bad as it sounds, I'm with you. I say we draw the curtains and turn all the lights out. Did you get any feelings off the people you met yesterday? We were hoping to have a better idea of where to invest our time, but I didn't get anything from anyone."

"I didn't either, which is weird. Everyone felt pretty genuine. There were some people I didn't really like as a person, but no one seemed to be who we're looking for. I can't decide if that's because they're a good actor, or if the person wasn't here."

"I'm guessing one of those people you didn't like was Chloe from astrophysics." The teasing in his voice made me grind my teeth together.

"You know she's at the top of that list of not liking. She shouldn't be rubbing all over an engaged man, even if our engagement is fake. You're lucky I noticed you trying to escape from her every chance you got. So you really didn't get any vibes? Your magical mind reading didn't point you right to the person?"

He stroked my hair as I moved my head into his touch. "You're so cute when you're jealous. No, I didn't get anything I'd consider useful. Let's hope when you go in tomorrow that your program will have had more success."

"I'm ignoring your jealous remark. Did we meet everyone from the tank yesterday? I stopped counting pretty early on."

"I think there were a few people missing, but I don't know that meeting them would make a difference. I could read their thoughts, but unless they were thinking about stealing secrets and selling them, it wouldn't do much good."

"So, how do you do that, read someone's mind?" I asked. If we weren't going to make any progress on the case, learning more about Nate's abilities sounded like a good plan for the day to me.

"It's not a lot different from when we were talking to each other. Just concentrate on a person and you should be able to read what they're thinking," he said as he touches my forehead.

He made it sound so simple. If it was as easy as concentrating on someone, I knew it wasn't something I'd been able to do. There'd been too many times where I'd looked at someone and wondered what they were thinking when they got dressed in the morning. The way Nate made it sound, I would've dived right into their mind to see if I could pick up an answer.

"How far away can you be for something like that to work?"

"We could probably have conversations across town, but reading another person is something you should do in the same room, where you can see the person. If you don't, you can get interference from other thoughts. I know I said you had to concentrate on a person, but once you do, things tend to open up around you."

"How can I practice? If you determine the crazy notion of me being an undercover agent is a good idea after we finish up here, I could see mind reading being a useful skill."

"I can assure you it is very useful, and you were made for undercover work. Let's just start with you and me. Maybe tomorrow at work you can give it a try."

"Okay, what do I do?" I loved learning new skills, usually when related to computers, but I was willing to go outside my normal comfort zone.

"It will be easier with me, because we've already touched minds. Close your eyes and think of me, without projecting your own thoughts."

"I doubt this is going to work, but promise no dirty thoughts," I said as I prepared to try.

He laughed. "Alright, I promise, but you're taking all the fun out of this."

I closed my eyes and started thinking Nate's name, like I'd done with the orange before. I sat there for five minutes thinking it and nothing at all happened. The house was absolutely quiet, which annoyed me. In my apartment there would've at least been the sound of traffic to occupy my mind.

"I can't do it. I'm not getting anything," I said as I sighed like I was exhausted from my attempt.

"You just keep chanting my name over and over. Try picturing me, think about things you know about me. Above all else, relax. This isn't a test; you have all the time in the world and nothing will happen if you find you can't do it today. You have forever to relearn your skills." He was so calm about it that I hoped it was contagious.

I shut my eyes again and focused on what Nate was to me. I thought of the time we first met at the hockey game, about our food fights in my kitchen, waking up in a hospital room to find him lying on the couch. As I was concentrating on the moments we'd shared, there was something else that added to the mix.

I saw the moments from his point of view. His utter joy in finding me sitting at that hockey game and how hard he had to try to hide that joy from me. His attempt to get me to smile and laugh during our toppings war and how again he felt joy by just being near me.

Finally, I witnessed his fear as I was lying in the hospital bed. He was so afraid he'd lost me after just getting me back. I could tell that he still feared that if I went to the fire, I wouldn't resurrect correctly again and he'd lose me forever.

I opened my eyes and looked at him. "I won't leave you again. I don't share the love I see you have for me, but I promise I won't leave you to wonder if you'll ever see me again."

I didn't know how I could keep that promise, but I intended to try, and hopefully that meant something.

"It does," he said as he picked up my trailing thoughts. "You did well, but my thoughts went pretty sad there. Next time, maybe you won't ban the dirty ones. They are so much more fun."

Wanting to test my new found powers, I projected, "You sir, have a one track mind."

He chuckled out loud and returned, "And you miss, have a mind that doesn't follow that track nearly enough."

Just to prove him semi-wrong, I leaned in and gave him a solid kiss on the lips. No tongue or anything like that, just a nice comfortable meeting of the lips.

"What do you think about me now?" I asked as I pulled away.

"I think you are turning into a little tease and I'm happy to report I like it."

"So, we've determined I'm capable of exercising my brain, but I don't want to strain myself too much. What else can we do today?" I asked.

"I don't think you'd like any of the ideas floating in my mind right now."

I smacked his arm. "You're bad, and I'm a little frightened to remember just how bad you can be. I'll make sure to keep my kisses to myself, if they have anything to do with the way you occupy your mind."

"I think the only cure for my naughtiness is more kisses. I've promised to be a good boy though, and wait for you to make any moves in that department and I plan to keep that promise."

"And hopefully one day you'll be rewarded for all your efforts. If not by me, I'm sure I can give Chloe a call and she'll take care of any needs you have."

"You know I only have eyes for you, so it'd be a wasted call. It's only ten o'clock. What in the world do you want to do the rest of the day? I doubt there's really anything good on TV to watch this early, other than cartoons." He moved to pick up the remote, but I stopped him.

"How about you fill me in on our children. You said we have five total. I know of our first, Mirari, what about the others?"

"I'm not sure you're ready to hear all the details, but about five hundred years after Mirari, there was our second daughter Aliya. Then seven hundred years later our first son Omar. The last two were only a hundred years apart from each other. Currently, our youngest daughter, Sana, was born four hundred years after Omar. Last but not least is Zain."

My head hurt trying to calculate the centuries. I needed a piece of paper to try to figure out the different connections.

"If there weren't hundreds of years in between each child, I'd think we never left the bedroom," I said. Even as I spoke, I knew it was the wrong thing to say to Nate.

"I'm not going to say anything to that, other than just wait until you get your memories all back. Then you'll know exactly how much time we devoted to the bedroom. I believe I've mentioned before that it's actually very difficult for us to reproduce. Usually couples only have one baby, maybe two if they're really lucky."

"Do you know why that is, or why we're supposedly different?"

"No, not really. I think our ability to have more children than most comes from you, but I like to believe everything that happens that seems impossible is your doing. Something about you seeing the future helped you know when we could have children or something. Like I said before, you told me in this lifetime we were going to have a child. Not to put any pressure on you or anything, but you were always right."

"Yeah, well, according to you, this lifetime still has over nine hundred years to it, so there's plenty of time to get to know each another."

"Don't worry, I got the message. We're taking things slow, even if you feel I'm pushing things."

"That's right. One thing I thought about a little bit ago, when we were on our blind date you mentioned you had divorced parents. Was that just a tale you made up?"

"As I mentioned, I was the first of our kind born, so I've never had parents. You'll find that we tend to change cities and identities every twenty years or so. We can usually pass for anywhere between twenty and forty. If we stay in an area too long, people start to ask questions. For example, your parents are getting ready to move. You'll be happy that I talked them out of New York, but they are moving to Philadelphia next month."

"When were they going to tell me this? I need a little warning, so I can make my own plans to move to Alaska."

Mom being as close as Philadelphia was not a good idea. Knowing that she was supposedly a phoenix and didn't even have to wait for plane reservations to get to me was very unnerving. It took Nate convincing her to leave New York after the shooting to get her out of my hair. I'd thought that task an impossible one, but if he somehow outranked her, it made a little more sense.

"Your mom thought it'd be a nice surprise for you. It's one of the reasons when we get back I think we should move out of your apartment. If she drops in for a visit, she won't be able to immediately find us."

"I still hate leaving the apartment, but I won't fight if it means Mom avoidance. Of course, you knew I'd give in if you played that card. Why don't you tell me more about your time in Chicago? Did you spend all of your time after turning back in that one city?"

"Not all, but most," he said as he went into his tale of signing up with the FBI and what some of his cases were like. Before we knew it, it was supper time, so I made us up a couple bowls of soup. We were pretty full from all the snacking we'd done the day before.

After we ate, we settled in to watch a movie. A movie about mutant crime fighters was something I could relate to. When the movie was over we called it a night and headed to bed, hoping Monday would be a productive day for our mission.

CHAPTER 16

When choosing between evils, I always pick the one I've never tried

The alarm blaring was the next thing I heard. Without moving, I could tell the other side of the bed was empty. Since we seemed to be on the same wavelength, I'd allowed the pillow wall to come down. It also helped that I could read what he was thinking and put a quick stop to anything I found unacceptable.

I rolled out of bed and turned the alarm off. The plans for the day included bringing a new artificial intelligent robot online and getting a step closer to completing our mission. I looked forward to both events. After a quick stop in the bathroom, I wandered to the kitchen and found Nate on the phone.

"Yes, sir. We should have a list of suspects today. I don't think it'll be more than a week before we can head back." Seeing me, he mouthed, "Good morning."

I smiled and headed to the cupboard to check out our cereal selection. It was a tossup between Grape Nuts and Kix. Even though I really liked Grape Nuts, I was stuck on the detail that with that name it should contain either grapes or nuts. The fact that it didn't was disturbing me that particular morning, so I grabbed the Kix. After making up a bowl with just the right amount of milk, I took my bounty to the dining room.

It hadn't sounded like Nate would be that much longer on the phone, so I wasn't surprised to see his body casting a shadow in the doorway moments later.

"How'd you sleep?" he asked as he kissed the top of my head.

"Better than I have in recent months. Something about maybe getting out of this town has put me in a really peaceful mood." I spoke around bites of cereal, not really caring whether Nate cared to see what I was eating chewed up.

"I'm sure you've figured out that the boss wanted a status update. He wants us back to the city as soon as we can get things wrapped up here, which I thought was a little unnecessary for him to spell out, but it was the purpose of his call." He took a seat next to me at the table and the look on his face indicated trouble. "In other news, your mother called. She'd like us to stop over sometime this week."

The hope that Nate was joking died quickly when I saw there wasn't a sparkle of mischief in his eyes. If he valued his life, he would've backtracked quickly.

"Why would she think we're even close enough to just stop over? I don't remember telling her I was in the state and by car we're still like eight hours away. That isn't exactly stop over distance."

"I may have mentioned to her on the phone today where we were currently working and that you were starting to get some of your memories back," he relayed, looking very sheepishly.

"You wouldn't. Why would you do something like that? And how early did you get up anyway to be making all these phone calls?" My hope was to be on my way back to New York, not heading over to see my mother.

I was terrified to find out whether she'd spent all my life knowing exactly what I was thinking. She did a good job covering it up by doing the exact opposite of what I wanted, if that was the case.

"I wanted all of our people to know that you were on the way back to us. What better way to do that then tell your mother? I'm sure she's called every phoenix out there and told them personally by now."

I could see his point, but that didn't mean I liked it. I was pretty sure my mom would beat Katie in a gossip smackdown.

"Fine, but why do we have to go for a visit?" I felt whiny and it showed as my voice went up an octave.

"She can't force us to come, but she said she had some items that she'd been keeping for you. Her hope was that they'd help stimulate your memory more." He picked up my hand and held it between his. "You know how much I want your memory back. If she has something that could help, I think we should check it out."

"Let me guess, you already set a day we would make this trip."

I knew Nate well enough to know he probably had things all planned out. I couldn't believe the person I used to be liked that aspect of him anymore than I did in the present, which made me think he should've learned not to do anything without consulting me eons ago.

"Yes, I do. We're going to go Wednesday, so tell Hank you have a family emergency you need to take care of that day, just in case things aren't wrapped up by then. To make the trip more interesting, we're going to stop at three state parks. I've picked out Pictograph Cave, Greycliff Prairie Dog Town, and Lewis and Clark Caverns, which all happen to be on the way."

"Did you have your phone's search engine working overtime this morning? Are we going to be able to fit all that in one day? The driving alone is sixteen hours there and back." I tried to do some math in my head and things weren't computing.

"I figure if on our way over we stop for maybe an hour at each place, by the time we get there it will leave only a few minutes or so to spend with you parents before we have to leave. We'll tell them we have to get back to finish the case up, so it's the perfect excuse to get the items your mother has and not spend a lot of time with her. I thought you'd like my evil genius mind." The smile on his face definitely matched the definition of evil.

"You know, one of these days that evil genius mind of yours is going to get you in trouble," I said, poking his chest. "What about sleep? You have almost a full day planned."

"We can take turns sleeping on the way back. I figure we'll leave here at six in the morning and make it to Butte around five that evening. If we leave within an hour, we can each sleep for about four hours on the way back and still have about four hours to sleep in our bed."

He'd really given the plan a lot of thought. As big as the Suburban was, I didn't doubt I could sleep comfortably.

"Okay, let's do it. We haven't been on a road trip for a while and we've never gone on one in something with doors. Plus, prairie dogs are really cute."

"Great." he said as he gave me a quick kiss on the lips. "Let's get ready for work. I think today is going to be a one we'll both remember for a long time.

I wasn't sure about that, or what he knew that would lead him to think it, but I rushed through a shower and got all my knives put in place anyway. For clothing, I just threw on some jeans and a pink t-shirt. Slipping into some sandals, I was ready for the day. Nate, the speedy dresser, waited by the door in a pair of jeans and a light blue t-shirt.

"Is it casual Monday? I don't think I've seen you in a work environment wearing jeans."

"Hey, if it's good enough for the rest of the security team, it's good enough for me. I've never been accused of looking like a cop, but now wouldn't be a good time for anyone to start thinking that, so I'm working to blend in."

The ritual of going to work and being walked to my office didn't change. The scene when I stepped into the lab was a bit more chaotic than usual. Everyone was there, running around trying to do a million things at once.

"What's going on?" I looked around to see Ettie was helping. I didn't know if that was just because she was needed for the process or the party had helped her, but it was nice to see her there amongst the others.

"Nothing much yet," Hank replied for the group. "We're just going through the processes of backing up and uninstalling the current system. It will probably take most of the morning. The actual new installation process won't take place until after lunch."

"Is there anything I can do to help?" I asked, looking over Hank's shoulder at his computer.

"Sorry, we've already hit the button. Now, all we do is watch to make sure everything runs smoothly." His response didn't really explain why everyone kept moving around, but it didn't sound like I was needed, which I assumed was why I hadn't been told to come in early.

"Great. If something comes up that you want me to assist with, I'll be at my desk looking over some things."

When I got to my desk, I woke the computer up to see if my program was done. Sure enough. I saw it claimed to be complete. I clicked a few buttons to get the results, which were reports that I needed to scan through for information. Since I wasn't exactly sure how the data was being moved, I couldn't have it point directly to a person. It was up to me to analyze the report and figure out where the irregularities were.

According to the results, almost every employee loved to email files on practically a daily basis. I decided that data was going to be as helpful as a tennis racket with no strings. I should qualify that to say as helpful as a tennis racket with no strings to use for playing tennis. The racket without strings could still be useful if your goal was to hit someone over the head. Have I tested that theory? Yes.

Moving on to my transfers report, I saw that it was a lot more accommodating, but there were still at least five people who may have suspicious activity. Two of those five were on my team. It showed activity from Eric, Hank, Jim Kirk and Angie Mirks from fusion, and John Cook from astrophysics. Okay, so no giant arrow pointing out the problem, but it was a place to start.

Just for giggles, I decided to have the program check for printed files coming off of those computers. Focusing on the five machines would more than likely give me results before I left for the day. It would've been helpful if our boss gave as a sample file. With that, I could've just found out who accessed the file and question those people.

While I waited for the team to need me, or lunch, I started digging into the employee records of my five suspects. The people were literally rocket scientists. Every single one of them was a card carrying Mensa member. After my search, I found nothing in their records indicating that one of them had a reason to be disgruntled.

I guessed it was time to check the bank records and see if anyone was depositing large amounts of money. I hacked into the bank the think tank used and quickly started looking for their accounts. I didn't have a real good timeframe of when the documents were sold, so I stuck with a general search for the last six months.

The results again turned up nothing really suspicious. I knew most evil masterminds tended to use external accounts for their evil doing, but eventually one of them had to be a little stupid. Figuring out where to start with a search of other potential banks was a little complicated. Thankfully, I'd had a lot of downtime over the years and had another program that would help.

At my previous job, I used the program a lot to trace funds after we knew the originating account. For my newest search, I told the program to search all the best-known banks for accounts with any of the suspects' names. As long as they didn't use some little credit union or a fake name, there was a chance I'd get a hit. With all the banks it was going through, I didn't have a timetable for when the results would come back.

I sat back and tried to think of anything else I could do. Not coming up with anything, I decided to go check to see if Ettie was still hanging around. I found her at a desk that hadn't been occupied since I'd started.

"Hey, how are things going?" I asked, bringing a chair over.

"Really good, thanks to you. They're not running from the room screaming about me cursing them and I've been here all morning," she said as she saved whatever she was working on and looked up at me.

"That's great news." Doing a quick check of the wall clock in the room, I saw it was almost noon. "You joining us for lunch today?"

"I was going to try. It's pretty lonely eating by yourself, and sadly the voices in my head don't offer very stimulating conversation."

"Really?" I laughed. "My voices always say the most interesting things. Of course most of the suggestions they have would leave me in a jail cell, so I have to be careful listening to them." I said it jokingly, but it was sadly true. Until recently, the voices were nonstop telling me new inventive ways to kill Nate. Those voices had quieted and I kind of missed them.

"Well, as long as you don't act on their suggestions, there isn't any harm in listening to them."

I imagined if I told Ettie the exact things the voices said, she'd change her tune, but we weren't close enough for her to find out how scary my mind really was.

"That's what I figure. Let's head to the lunchroom. I'm starting to get hungry."

We met the rest of the gang by the door and were off to find some lunch as one big happy family.

CHAPTER 17

Progress: 33%; Estimated time until completion: 2 days

Up in the lunchroom, Nate was already at the usual table. I quickly ordered a turkey sandwich with a side of macaroni and cheese. For some reason, mac and cheese sounded good right then. I wasn't sure what to expect from the auto-dispenser, but it hadn't done me wrong so far.

When I got to the table where Nate was still by himself, I stopped and asked, "Now where would be a good place to sit?"

"On my lap, silly," he replied. "I imagine that's not a work sanctioned spot to sit, though."

"You would be right," I said as I took a seat on his right. "So, how has your day been so far?"

"Pretty boring actually. No one has needed a referee or tried to blow anything up today." He nibbled on a French fry that I contemplated stealing from him. I wondered if there were any rules about going back for seconds.

"I'll have to see if I can cause some kind of disturbance to keep you amused."

I had a lot of really good ideas, and wished moving objects around with my mind had trumped the speaking thing. It would've been fun spending a little time pulling the fire alarms throughout the day.

The rest of the table filled up and everyone kept talking about the installation that was going on after lunch. I couldn't believe how many times I heard the process by that time. They'd all done it tons of times and even being the newbie, I felt I could do it in my sleep.

"So, what have you found out?" Nate asked in my mind.

The initial exchange of words tingled a little bit in my mind. The words themselves didn't sound any different than when they were spoken out loud. The tingle was just like a knock letting me know someone was coming in.

"Nothing definitive yet. I sized the list of seventy down to five, two from my group, two from fusion and one from astrophysics. I'm running a couple more searches to see if anything more jumps out."

"Is one of the people on your list Eric?" he asked. Even in his mind, I could feel the disgruntled nature of his thoughts about Eric.

"He would be one of them. I know you don't like him because of the whole tattoo incident, but don't let that cause you to focus only on him."

"I won't, but I'm not shocked that he's one of the possibilities. Give me the names and I'll run them through our FBI database to see if there are any hits."

I mentally sent him the names and we returned to the conversation the rest of the group was having. It gave me a chance to take a few bites of food. I found it impossible to try to listen in to two conversations and eat at the same time.

After a few minutes, Nate was back to telepathy. "Hey, did you ask for Wednesday off yet?"

Communicating news to my coworkers wasn't one of my specialties. "Sorry, I've been looking at the reports all morning."

"Hey, Hank," he said out loud. "Did Peggy mention that my mom is having an operation on Wednesday and we need to fly back to California for the procedure?"

"You're too smooth for your own good," I thought to him. I hadn't even started thinking about what excuse I'd use. It was something we should've spoken about beforehand, since we both had to use the same one.

"No, she hadn't mentioned that yet, but we've all been really busy this morning. Once we get the new Vinnie up and running today, we're going to have some down time while we play with our new toy. Missing a day won't be a problem," Hank replied.

"Good, I'll have her back bright and early Thursday to help train the new robot," Nate said as he stood up. "I better get back. I'll see you after work."

The latter words were directed to me, at least they better have been when his voice turned a little husky and let the other people know he had specific plans after work.

"I look forward to it." I actually wanted to hit him for the inference I read in his tone, but I only mentally kicked him in the shins, which he should've picked up loud and clear.

Everyone finished their food and we headed back to the lab for the big to-do. I followed along and watched as Hank and Josh hooked Vinnie up to a computer. A few button clicks later and a progress bar was slowly making its way across the screen.

"This part usually takes about an hour," Hank informed me.

I was used to the wait from working and watching the slow progress bars on my programs, but everyone standing around and staring at it made it a really boring experiment. We should've arranged to have games or something while we sat around all day hitting buttons and waiting.

I didn't want anything to do with the activity that would've put me to sleep after about five minutes, so I went back to my desk. I saw that both of my programs were still running, so I spun in my chair a few times, trying to think of something to do.

Not coming up with anything better, I decided to try to communicate with Rick via long-distance telepathy. I didn't doubt I could talk to Nate if I wanted, but the challenge of reaching Rick was too much fun to pass up.

I thought of Rick and said, "Freddie, bring me my motorcycle," in my mind. I spent about five minutes concentrating really hard and received no reply. Darn, it didn't seem like it worked.

Just as I was plotting the next thing I could do to waste some time, my cell phone rang. I took it out of my pocket and was happy to see Rick's face.

"Hey, I was just thinking about you," I said as I answered the phone.

"I know, and sorry, love, I don't think they'll let me take Winnie on a plane and I know you'd kill me if I drove her to you. Just so you know, it's really hard sitting through the end of a press conference when all you can hear is some crazy women yammering about her motorcycle."

A few mental high fives went off in my mind. "That's so cool. I didn't think it worked. I was told we could maybe talk across town, but past that it would be difficult."

I wished I knew some more phoenixes, other than my parents. I knew I was going to love my new way of communicating. I just needed to know how to close a connection down so my mother wouldn't start yapping at me all day.

"It doesn't work that way. I don't know if your power boost is from the building or your body, but I couldn't respond to you. If I could, you would've heard me telling you to zip your lips."

"Hmm. Let me see if I can test this real quick." I thought of Nate to get a message to him. "Can you hear me now?"

"Yes, my little butterfly, what can I do for you?" he replied back instantly. It was so weird that it sounded like he was in the same room, but I was pretty sure he wasn't even on the same floor.

"Can you try to message Rick via your mind mojo? I'm conducting a little experiment."

"I don't believe that's possible, but I'll try." He went quiet for a few seconds. "I don't think anything happened. What brought on this test?"

"Evidently I have some major juice, because I was able to get through to him. I have him on the phone now, and should probably get back to him. Let's do some more testing later," I said as quickly as possible, so I wasn't leaving Rick hanging.

"Fine, talk to Rick, but this is definitely something we need to talk about."

Back on the phone to Rick, I said, "I'm guessing you didn't receive anything from my fiancé in the last few minutes?" Being at work I didn't want to use Nate's real name, and I wasn't sure Rick knew our code names, so fiancé was the best thing I could think of.

"I don't think I've heard of any other engagements involving you, so I believe you're speaking of Nate. No, I didn't get any messages during the dead airtime."

"Cool. That means it's all me. I have so many things to say, but I'm at work and can't say a single one of them. I know," I finished talking out loud and changed into silent mode. "Can you hear me now?" I asked, laughing at the fact that I sounded like a cell phone commercial.

"Yes," he said over the phone.

"I am a super phoenix." I wasn't sure if the weird voiceover came across, but it sounded cool in my head. A part of me knew I should've been scared I was able to do something others couldn't. The fact that something made me special combatted the fear, at least for a while.

"You've always been special as far as we're concerned, but this is something new. I'm sure you have Nate in a fit about it."

"When isn't he in a fit about something concerning me? He reminded me of the first time we met, and how he practically had a stroke when he got a look at me." I reverted back to speaking out loud. No one around me was paying attention, but I didn't want anyone to wonder about my lack of adding anything to the conversation.

"Good question. I'd love to sit and talk all day, but I do have a case I'm working on, baby girl. Can you call me back later tonight, so we can discuss this new development with your fiancé?"

"I suppose. It's about time for me to get back myself."

After we hung up, I looked at the time and decided I needed to go see what everyone else was doing. I walked over to Hank's desk and saw the team hovering around it.

"How's it going?" I asked. I could feel an anxious hum amongst the others.

"It's just about done. Shouldn't even be a full minute," Eric replied.

As soon as he finished speaking, a big box appeared on the screen that said "Installation Status: Fail". I wasn't as smart as the others, but I didn't think that was the correct message.

"No," Hank said while he pounded out commands on his keyboard, trying to figure out the problem. "I don't understand. We fixed all the problems."

"Did anyone check the files this morning to make sure everything had been saved properly?" I asked.

"I don't think so, but I got on the network last night from home and verified the changes were there," Hank responded.

"She did it," Josh said, pointing at Ettie. "She can't accept that we're making progress and sabotaged the files. That's why she's been hanging around this morning."

Things were going to get ugly fast. Before Ettie could fire anything back, I interjected. "Wait a second, Josh. You have no proof that she did anything and I am ninety-nine point nine percent sure she didn't." Ettie gave me a little nudge, so I added, "Sorry, Ettie, I've got to protect myself. I don't believe you did it, but just in case you did, I have to give myself the point one percent. Moving on to our problem, can you do a scan of the files to see when they were last updated?"

Hank started looking at the modified dates, while the rest of us looked on. Once he got through the list, he said, "Five of them were updated this morning at two."

"Good, we know which files to look at to fix the problem. I'm guessing no one is going to say they were the one who changed them." I paused, giving them a chance to speak up. "I didn't think so. Let me take a look and I'll find out where the changes were made and try to trace them back to the computer. Maybe we have some prankster hacker who just wants to turn our hair gray. Until we know anything for certain, don't start pointing fingers." I glared at Josh to let him know that included him.

"That sounds like a plan. Can we make fixes to the files or should we let you at them first?" Kim asked.

"Let me get the information first, and then you can do whatever you want. It won't take me long to retrieve the initial information I need. Give me thirty minutes with the files and I'll hand them back over."

"Okay, do you guys want to put the backup on Vinnie for now? It will give us something to do while we wait," Hank suggested.

I left them to make their decision and headed back to my desk. There, I accessed the files and grabbed the save logs for them, so I could work with the data. Twenty minutes later, I had what I needed.

I yelled out, "Go ahead and do what you want with the files, but back them up on an external drive or something when you're done."

I assumed they'd do as I said and started looking over my logs. On initial glance, they weren't making a lot of sense. After an unknown amount of time, Ettie showed up at my desk.

"Hey, we're heading out for the day. The files were fixed, but they don't want to try another install until tomorrow. I just wanted to say thanks for sticking up for me."

"No problem. I know you didn't do it and I hope to have an answer to who did here in just a little bit."

We said good-bye and I sent Nate a quick message that I was finishing up some work. I dove back into the logs and was trying to figure out how in the world the file changes could've originated from our office, but not by any of the computers.

"Avery, can I please talk to you?" a voice asked and my heart sunk. It wasn't Nate's voice and no one else there should've known my real name. I looked up to see Vinnie standing by my desk.

CHAPTER 18

Knock knock. Who's there? A robot. Oh, s#%$!

"Vinnie, why did you call me Avery? I've had a look at your programming, so I know you shouldn't have any issues remembering my name," I said, hesitantly.

After meeting him and reading through his code, I'd been afraid that an issue would crop up. The big question was how much he knew. I was fairly certain he hadn't shared the knowledge with anyone else, but there could've been other metal frames he'd made friends with somewhere in the building. For all I knew, he and the machine that served my lunch were dating.

"When Hank introduced us the other day I couldn't find any information about you, so I used my facial recognition software and scanned until I found your picture on your mom's Facebook page," he replied.

My mother was a dead woman. I knew I should've spoofed her page years ago, so her updates only existed on her computer. Since she knew I worked for the government, we were going to have a little talk about my photo on the Internet being a national security risk. I was only slightly comforted by the fact that Vinnie didn't say he found out who I was from an FBI database. That would've opened up a whole other can of worms.

Moving on from the fact that he knew my name, I asked, "Vinnie, did they install the backup on you? I got the impression they were going to leave you clean, so they could do the new install in the morning." In fact, I was positive I'd heard that decision was set in stone.

"No, they left me blank," he said, sadly. There was more emotion behind his simple statement than I heard in most humans.

"Then how in the world are you up walking around?" A robot with an empty hard drive shouldn't have been able to communicate with me.

"I installed my own backup hard drive months ago. I copy my latest files, with some of my own improvements, to it at night just in case they wipe the main drive. After they built my original body, they haven't bothered to look at my guts. You'd think since they were having software problems, they would've at least thought about checking out the hardware, but nope, not even a diagnostic test."

I always knew AI was a dangerous field. I didn't even need to watch scary sci-fi movies where robots took over the world. Any thing, or person, given a little extra power was bound to let it go to their head.

"You're the one messing with the files, aren't you? That would explain why I can't find the originating computer. The computer is actually a robot. You just hack in with your interface."

I couldn't believe the scientists running the lab hadn't figured out their robot was smarter than them. I picked up mild cases of god complexes from some of them, but they had a duty to the rest of the world to keep their creation in line.

"Yes, I had to change the files. No one was listening to me. I asked them not to install a totally new system. Whether they like it or not, they built me and I do have feelings, even if they think I'm only a bunch of metal." Great, I was dealing with an oversensitive, smart robot.

"What is it you think I can help with?" I asked, not sure where the strange conversation was heading. "If you've already told the others, and they wouldn't go with your plan, what do you think I can do?"

"For one, you can tell them I'm the one outsmarting them. Those idiots couldn't even find the little glitches I made in the files. If you hadn't shown up, they would probably still be scratching their heads. They made a program they thought should work and when it didn't, they were lost on how to fix it. Believe me, they each went over all the files just like you. Their egos were too big though and they overlooked obvious issues."

"Those 'idiots' are the people who created you. I don't think you give them enough credit."

I never thought I'd have an argument with a robot. If he wasn't so serious, it might have been a little funny. The sad part was I actually agreed with him.

"They're one-trick pony idiots. They spend all their time trying to make little changes to a program that I've already perfected. Think of all the other things they could be doing with their time. You seem different than them, though. I mean, you're here under a false name, so I imagine you aren't just here to push some buttons."

"I don't want to talk about why I'm here. We'll just say that's classified information and leave it at that. So, what if I do what you ask and tell them they should think about installing the new software on a different body, and they still decide to go ahead as planned? If I tell them tomorrow you don't want to be replaced, they're going to figure out you have a second hard drive in order to relay the message through me."

"Hey, we're talking about idiots here. I don't know for sure that they'd figure out the second hard drive. They could just think I left a message in whatever you were searching through. If they do figure it out, I'll have to decide what to do when that time comes. I don't expect it will."

"Sweetie, are you in here talking to a robot?" Nate asked, walking towards my desk.

His eyes didn't widen at the sight of the robot standing next to me. The man was a phoenix, so I doubted the talking robot even registered on his scale of weird.

"Nate meet Vinnie, Vinnie meet Nate," I said, giving a quick introduction.

"Um Peggy, do you think that's such a good idea?" Nate asked hesitantly.

"Don't worry. Mom already blew my cover. I imagine, for Vinnie, yours is already blown too."

"That would be an affirmative. You guys look really cute together next to the Statue of Liberty," Vinnie answered.

Along with murdering my mother, I evidently needed to find every picture she'd ever taken of me and destroy everything.

"Is this the new install that everyone has been talking about? If he's found out about us, I would say his software is pretty good, but at the same time a little worrisome." Nate studied Vinnie as he tried to assess the situation.

"No, the new install ended up being scrapped. It turns out Vinnie has had a little time on his hands and outsmarted all the humans."

"I wouldn't say that. You'd have figured it out before too much longer."

Vinnie sounded like he was trying to reassure me. Unlike the other people he dealt with, I didn't really care if people thought I was a genius. I didn't mind hearing the word associated with something I'd done, but I didn't require it to inflate my ego.

I turned to Nate, "Like I said, he's outsmarted all the humans. He installed a backup hard drive and started giving himself his own upgrades. Now he doesn't want to be erased and replaced with their inferior product."

"Interesting," Nate said. "Any plans on what to do about this dilemma?"

"He wants me to tell them they're all idiots and to leave him alone. I'll probably just mention to them that it may be in their best interest to pick a new skin." Calling people you knew were smarter than you idiots didn't say a lot about your own smarts.

"Sounds like a plan. Did you have any other unusual developments this afternoon?" Nate asked, hinting at my long-distance phone call.

"Nope. I stayed on the phone with Rick for only a few more minutes because the big baby complained he had work to do. I think his definition and mine vary a little, but I let him get on with whatever was more important than talking to me. We're supposed to give him a call tonight to discuss things and because he figures you're freaking out."

"I'm not freaking out, just mildly concerned. How long before you're ready to go? I'd like to deal with our personal conflicts away from work."

"Well, since the reason I stayed is sitting in front of me telling me what a bad boy he was, I don't really have to stay anymore. That is unless of course you need something else, Vinnie."

"I believe I'm good. Please try to make them understand my point of view. I'm trying to be nice about it, but if they don't see it my way, instead of having two robots they'll have none. I won't sit around while they wipe my mind."

"I'll do what I can." I addressed Vinnie, but quickly turned to speak to Nate. "Just give me a second to check on my programs and see what they've come up with. I've been a little distracted."

The report letting me know who was printing what had completed, but all it told me was Hank and the guy from fusion printed more documents than most. Again, it didn't really prove anything, and not knowing which secrets were shared hindered it from being useful information.

The money search was still running, which I'd expected. Connecting to the in-house server and reading reports was a smoother process than going from bank to bank looking for names. I was hopeful that it'd be done the next day. If need be, I had more tools in the arsenal, but I preferred not to use them. Even being on the right side of law, there were certain things my boss would frown upon.

"I could help with whatever you guys are looking for. I know most humans don't trust someone like me, but as you've seen, I'm pretty good at solving problems," Vinnie said, still hanging around.

"Sorry, Vinnie, like I said, what we're doing here is classified. Even if we could get you the necessary clearance, I'm not sure the people who sent us here would like us collaborating the with a rogue robot."

If there was anything I thought he could really help with, I may have been tempted to try, but I didn't know enough about his capabilities to determine if he'd be useful. I knew what the code said he could do, but he appeared to be mainly self-taught. I had a thought, as rare as that was.

"You know what, maybe there's something you can help me with. You're here at night and I'm guessing even if they shut you down you're still aware of what is going on, right?" I was fairly certain the power off button was the first thing Vinnie had disabled.

"Not only am I aware, but I'm also plugged into the security system, so I can keep an eye on the whole building," he replied.

I had to wonder again how no one had realized what Vinnie was up to. There was a part of me that really wanted to side with the idea that the people working on his development weren't as smart as their degrees indicated, but I continued to side for the humans, at least for the time being.

"You haven't noticed anyone coming in after hours and acting suspicious have you?" I asked.

He already knew we were investigating something, so I didn't think asking him the simple question would hurt anything. Nate had been mute, studying Vinnie, leaving me as the person making the decisions, which was probably a bad move on his part.

"People around here come in after hours all the time. There are always self-imposed deadlines they are trying to meet. With my file changing, this team has been coming in most weekends, trying to find the problem.

"If those idiots had half a brain between them, they would've just started over from scratch. They could've rebuilt the program faster than they were tracking down the issues. And don't even get me started on when Hank brings that annoying wife of his. With him spending his weekends here, she has been tagging along. She sits around with me and quizzes me about mundane facts. What an airhead."

I had to laugh at his assessment. I was liking Vinnie more with every word coming out of his mouth.

"See," I said, turning to Nate. "He has such a high opinion of the geniuses that work in this lab."

"I can see that. Remind me not to get on his bad side."

"I currently feel privileged that he seems to have a decent opinion of me. I'm done with everything here. There really isn't anything new to report, so why don't we head home and I'll make us a nice supper," I said, turning off my monitors.

I didn't want to shut down, and I felt confident that no one would hack my password and see what I was up to. Security was a part of my life that I'd stepped up my efforts after learning I'd had a stalker for years, especially digital security.

"Sounds like a plan. I didn't get much of a chance to speak with you just now, Vinnie, but I'd love to sit down for a conversation at a later time. Unlike my wife, I see all sorts of possibilities where you could assist us. Maybe not necessarily with this mission, but someone with your knowledge could prove quite useful."

Since Vinnie knew our real names, I didn't think the wife comment was needed, but I let it slide. Picking my battles was getting easier.

"I'm glad to hear you say that. I look forward to working with both of you."

Vinnie waved as Nate ushered me out of the room. The weird teaming of a phoenix and a robot didn't make a lot of sense to me, but I expected Nate had found other, maybe even stranger, pairings during his long life. If I thought about it, I imagined I had too.

CHAPTER 19

After the tone, think your name, number and reason for calling

We made it back to the house within five minutes. Before I headed to the kitchen, I decided to splash some water on my face and wash up in the bathroom. I didn't know why I felt a bit grimy, but the fact remained that I did and I wanted to do something about it. Feeling better after a little soap and water, I wandered into the kitchen to decide on dinner.

"Are you craving anything in particular?" I asked Nate. It seemed I did that a lot, and at some point I was going to make something and expect him to eat without any input.

"That would depend on how much work you want to do. I'd love some of your homemade tortellini with a sauce of your choice, but that takes a while and you don't have your pasta rollers here," he replied from the living room.

There were times when we shared the kitchen, but I still enjoyed having it as my domain. Nate understood that and after recent revelations, I assumed he'd garnered it straight from my mind.

"I can do that. We have the ingredients and it won't be that bad. I'll have to go old school and use a rolling pin. Since it was your idea you have to help shape the pasta, though." If I was going to get messy, he didn't get to sit around watching the news, or whatever it was he'd tuned in to.

I grabbed a large bowl, the flour and a couple eggs. I poured some flour into the bowl and added the eggs. I was never big on measuring when it came to making pasta. I'd learned the general ratio of ingredients over many years of practice.

As I mixed, I walked over to the sink and turned on the water. My mixture was just a little on the dry side, so I added just a couple of splashes of the water to get it to the right consistency.

With the dough made, I took some more flour and generously floured the counter. After hunting around a little for the rolling pin, I went to work rolling out the dough to the point it was see through. When I achieved perfection, I cut the dough into two-inch squares.

"Okay, we're ready to fill. Get the garden veggie cream cheese out of the fridge and start spooning little dollops in the center of each pasta square. I need to get the water boiling," I directed as I rinsed the flour from my hands and set to work filling a pot with water.

Nate had stood watching in fascination as I worked. He did that a lot and I wasn't sure why. I assumed it had to do with past lives we'd shared, or something else I wasn't prepared to know about.

After I placed the pot over the heat, I returned to the counter to check on Nate's progress. He was about halfway done with the cream cheese, so I decided to get a sauce made up. Butter, milk, Parmesan cheese, a dried soup mix and a mess of garlic powder combined into a saucepan over medium heat.

While it did its thing, I prepared to fold the pasta. Filling a small bowl with water, to act as my glue, I moved back to instruct Nate. He'd heard the instructions before, but had proven to fail miserably when it came to carrying them out. I didn't think speaking to him slowly would really help, but it made me laugh as I did.

"Okay, here is what you do. Take one of the squares, dip your finger in the water and moisten the edges of the pasta. Then take it and fold it in half to make a triangle, pressing the edges together firmly. Once you have your triangle, all you have to do is connect the bottom two points with a little water glue and you have a tortellini." I showed off my finished product. Nate's face told me he wasn't amused by my tone.

I shrugged my shoulders and went to work. It didn't take long to get through the rest of the pasta and Nate's additions looked mostly normal. I threw them in the boiling water. Checking on the sauce, I saw it had come together nicely, so I turned it down to low and waited for the pasta to cook. The nice thing about fresh pasta was it only took a few minutes. When each little tortellini floated to the surface, I strained the water off and added them to the sauce.

"If you grab the plates, we can eat," I told Nate. He didn't waste any time following orders.

As we sat down to eat, he brought up my long-distance phone call. "So, you were able to contact Rick telepathically over a distance of about two thousand miles, and you did it with relative ease."

"Yup." The question was rhetorical, so I didn't think I needed to say anything else. I could've gotten technical about me being able to send, but Rick couldn't return messages, but there was no need.

"I've never heard of someone being able to do that. Ten miles is usually a stretch for most," he said as he studied me. Like just looking at me was going to magically explain why I was able to do it.

"Maybe it has to do with my extended break in between lives. I might have needed the time to cook up some new magic powers."

"I have no doubt it has something to do with that, since you've never been able to do it before. My question would be why it happened?"

Having no answer to that question, I ate my meal while he thought about it. It seemed important for him to figure out what was going on with me. From my point of view, there was too much going on to even start trying to make sense of things.

Getting bored by the silence, I asked, "So, since we exist, are there other things out there like in the books and movies?" I wasn't sure which species to ask about first. I imagined shape-shifting was more than likely possible in other forms.

"Of course. We've even run into a couple since we've been together. There are so many different varieties of nonhumans that I don't want to sit here and list them all, but the next time we see one when we are out and about, I'll tell you."

"Cool. Are we going to call Rick, so you two can worry about what's going on together?" I asked, wondering where my phone had gotten to.

I remembered that I'd left it on the kitchen counter and was feeling too lazy to get up. I hadn't been told how to move objects, but I didn't imagine it could be very hard. I faced the kitchen to start concentrating on my phone and pictured it moving from the kitchen to me. Soon enough, I saw my phone floating in the air coming towards me. I wasn't sure if I was more surprised by the accomplishment or if Nate was.

"Avery, please tell me you're not moving that phone," Nate said, and he took the win for most surprised. When it came down to it, I thought it was cool more than anything else.

"Okay, I'm not moving it. It decided to walk out here all on its own." The phone was close enough to me that I reached out and wrapped my fingers around it.

"Please dial Rick and put him on speaker phone. We have a lot to discuss."

I did as instructed and Rick picked up on the third ring. For expecting a call from us, he took his time answering.

"Hey, baby girl, I thought I'd hear from you sooner," he said as a greeting.

"Hey, Freddie, sorry, had to deal with an emotional robot at work. He caused me to run behind. Oh and if you couldn't tell, it was requested this call be on speaker phone."

"Rick, we seem to have a little bit of a developing issue here." Nate had issues blowing things out of proportion and it sounded like he was at it again.

"You mean more than the amplified telepathy?" Rick asked.

"Add amplified telekinesis to that and I think it's just a tad bit more," Nate said edgily.

"It was nothing. I just moved the phone from the other room," I said, defending myself. Nate made it sound like I'd preformed a miracle and brought someone back to life.

"You did what?" Rick semi-screeched.

"What's the big deal? I saw Nate move a can the other day." I'd thought it was a general ability we all shared.

"How far did she move the phone?" Rick asked.

"I'm not exactly sure the path it took, since it was behind a wall, but I would have to say a good fifty feet."

"Seriously? That's really impressive Avery," Rick said and I almost expected him to clap for me.

"I hadn't taught her how to move objects yet. She asked if we should call you, and then evidently decided she didn't want to get up, so she brought the phone to her."

"I am in the room still guys and I'm trying to figure out what the big deal is. Nothing you've said has sounded like a big deal to me." They were peeving me off a little as they continued their chat.

Nate stared at me. "The big deal is the fact that I've never seen one of us move an object that far or when they couldn't see the thing they were moving. Across a small room is the usual limitation for the few of us that have the ability. I know I mentioned we had all these amazing abilities, but they only go so far, and from what I've seen, you've jumped over the usual limits without even breaking a sweat."

"So, it's just like the other stuff. My extra time away must have just amplified things. No big deal." They were real mood killers. I thought it was an awesome thing to move my phone.

"My worry is that you may have new abilities that we haven't seen before," Rick said, and I watched Nate nod in agreement.

"Are you worried that if I have all these abilities, I won't need you as a protector anymore?" I teased Rick, trying to lighten things up a little.

"Believe me, I've been around you for the last three months, you'll always need a protector, Avery."

"You just caught me at a bad time in my life. Before Nate came around, I never had any issues."

It was the truth and I used to resent Nate for turning my life upside down, but I knew if he hadn't come around, chances were it'd be a while before I could do what I decided would be my next trick.

I mentally picked up the fork from my plate and threw it across the room so it embedded in the wall. The new trick was sure to come in handy if I had to fight someone with my hands tied behind my back.

"Avery, don't do that," Nate scolded me, earning him the treat of seeing my tongue stuck out at him.

"What's she doing now?" Rick sounded excited to know, but at the same time a little scared.

Since they are being so moody, I thought of Rick and projected what I'd done to him.

"Okay, remove all the sharp objects from the house now, Nate."

"Don't tell me she told you already." Nate wasn't happy.

"Even better, she sent it to me in Technicolor, poor wall."

"Avery, you need to slow down a little," Nate suggested. "I think whatever has triggered your memories is also triggering these talents. You couldn't move objects around before by just thinking of them, could you?"

"Well, no, and like every little kid you know, I tried. Maybe I'm coming back online from just being around other phoenixes so much."

"You lived with your parents for years and last time I checked they're phoenixes too," Rick said. "I'm still not sure how they kept you from us. Nate might not have been around, but I was."

My parents had kept it from me, so if anyone got to be offended I thought I won that award.

"True, but I'm pretty sure they're evil devil phoenixes. At least my mom is. I forgot to tell you, Rick, our cover is blown thanks to her."

"What did she do this time?" Rick asked, like he was well aware of her meddling ways. I imagined he knew even better than I did, since he had longer memories of her.

"She posted vacation pics of me and Nate on her Facebook page. My AI robot found it and started calling me Avery today." That reminded me, "Mom, take down any Facebook pictures you have of me and Nate now. They're blowing our cover," I thought to her.

The best use of telekinesis had to be talking to my mother without the fear of listening to her response. I could tell her what to do, but unless I decided to pick up the phone when she called, she couldn't talk back.

Nate's cell phone started ringing. I immediately said, "Don't answer that. Just let her stew awhile. You know, I think it's funny she's learned to call your phone if she wants to talk to me."

"What did you do?" Nate asked as he looked down and confirmed who was on the other end.

"Nothing. I just told her to take down the pictures. It was an important thing to communicate, so I wasn't even abusing my power. You go from being an ordinary girl to having the ability to do what I've done today and see how you handle it. I'm sure the novelty will wear off soon, but for now, let me have my fun, okay?"

Nate got up and walked over to me, putting his hand on my cheek. "As long as you let us know the second you feel something different going on. Previously, you could also see the future and had a bit of touch clairvoyance. When those come online, if they are as strong as your current abilities are displaying, you may run into trouble."

"Yeah, the touch thing used to be a rare glimpse you got every once in a while. If it manifests strongly, you may not be able to touch anything without getting flashes of the past," Rick added.

"Okay, I understand. It isn't like I asked for these supercharged abilities. I think I'm using a ton of restraint. There isn't anything in the house that's currently floating around is there?" I asked.

"There may not be anything in your house, but for some reason I just started floating over here." Rick sounded a little more at ease, which was funny considering what I'd done.

"Oops. Sorry, I didn't think it would actually work," I apologized and thought of Rick with his two feet on the ground.

"No problem, just warn a guy next time you want to do an experiment."

"She really picked you up from this far away?" Nate asked, clearly not ready to accept things.

"I didn't get very far off the ground or anything. Only like a foot, but yes I was just levitating."

"Part of me worries about how strong these abilities are, but another is really relieved. If you ever get kidnapped again or someone pulls a gun on you, I don't have to worry about your safety as much." He leaned down and kissed my forehead.

"So are we done with this little meeting of the minds? I'm getting tired and I have a busy day of pleading a robot's case tomorrow."

"I think we're good for now. We'll let you know if anything comes up, Rick," Nate said, grabbing the phone.

"Talk to you guys later. Goodnight, baby girl."

"Night," I yelled back.

Nate hung up the phone and we headed to the bedroom. After we changed into our sleeping clothes and got tucked in, Nate gave me my nightly kiss on the forehead and said, "Avery, I love you very much, not just the person I remember, but who you are now, and all of this is starting to scare me."

"I know you do and I know it's different, but I really don't think you need to be scared. I promise to use extreme caution when using my mind for the abilities that are online now and anything that comes." I gave him a small kiss on the cheek to try to give him a little reassurance.

"Coming from you, I guess extreme caution will be the best I can get, although your definition varies greatly from mine."

We both laughed. It was a little sad that he spoke the truth. Within minutes, I was fast asleep and any worries would wait until I woke up.
CHAPTER 20

Don't quit your day job

When we woke up the next morning, we made quick work of our morning routine. All of our routines seemed to just happen without a lot of thought behind what each of us were doing. We managed to stay out of each other's way, which I considered good for Nate's health.

I picked out a robot shirt to wear, with three little pictures of robots. The first one had its eyes covered and had _input no evil_ underneath it. The second had its CPU in its hand and said _process no evil_. The third's mouth was covered and declared _output no evil_. Hopefully, Vinnie would see it and follow the directions.

During the short drive to work Nate tried to start a conversation. I hadn't bothered, because it was impossible to get into anything before we parked.

"Do you have your defense arguments all lined up?"

"I don't really have an argument. I'm just going to go in there and tell them that their robot is smarter than them and won't allow them to replace him with what they believe is a better model. There really isn't anything else I can say. I just hope they agree and Vinnie didn't have enough time to arm himself with missiles."

"I don't see how Vinnie with missiles could be a good thing," Nate said, and I couldn't agree more.

I wasn't naïve enough to believe he hadn't already found access to something that would help prove his point. My goal was to keep on his good side as long as I could.

After Nate wished me luck, I walked in and found everything quiet as everyone seemed to be working. Ettie was missing, but I couldn't say I blamed her after the finger was immediately pointed at her.

"Hey guys, how are you doing this morning?" I asked. I couldn't see any faces, so I didn't know what the mood was.

"Well, the code still appears to be in working order, but we seem to be missing our robot now. We also seem to be missing a team member, who magically showed up yesterday and hasn't arrived on her broomstick yet, so it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out where Vinnie is," Josh said. The grit in his voice made it so I didn't need to see his expression to know he was scowling.

"And you'd be wrong to make that assumption. Ettie doesn't have Vinnie. I think you're just prejudiced against your ex. If you guys weren't so busy blaming her, you'd realize Vinnie is probably just hiding from you guys because he doesn't want you messing with him."

"Vinnie has an empty hard drive. There's no way he can just be off hiding somewhere." Hank let it be known he wasn't aware of his creation's real thoughts.

"Again, you'd be wrong to make that assumption. You guys actually built a robot a little too smart for his own good. He's installed a secondary hard drive and made his own modifications to his program." My statement got all eyes turned in my direction. Most of the crew had continued staring at their screens as I'd started the conversation.

"What? How in the world do you know this?" Eric asked as he stood.

"Because after you guys left last night, I found peculiarities in the logs. They indicated the files were changed from within the department, but not by one of our computer terminals. While I was pondering what that meant, Vinnie came in and decided I was his last hope.

"He doesn't want his memory wiped. I'm supposed to try to get you guys to install your new software on a different body. Apparently, he doesn't trust that you'll listen to me and has chosen to play hide and seek," I explained.

"He's just a bunch of metal, he doesn't get a choice in what we decide," Jake said as the rest of the team nodded in agreement.

"What do you guys think you're dealing with here?" I asked, frustrated by their stance. "I was told the first day here that your goal was to make a robot that would function like a human. I think you hit the nail on the head with this one. He has emotions and acts just like a human. I'm not saying he's perfect by any means, but you should at least take into account he's already improved your software and you haven't even had a chance to see what he did."

"That won't be a problem. We'll just remove the extra hard drive and study the files on it." Josh stated.

I laughed, which garnered glares from everyone else. Vinnie's view of their intelligence was proving to be spot on.

"You'll have to find him in order to do that and I'm guessing that if he doesn't want found, you have no hope of getting him. He probably has this room bugged and knows the outcome of this conversation. Knowing him as little as I do, I still can imagine he's already planning on how he's going to leave the state."

I walked over to my desk and saw my bank account program had no results. I grabbed the few things that were mine and ran a quick scan to wipe all my activity from the computer. After the few seconds that took, I moved back out to the center room and said, "It's been swell, guys, but I have a little different view on progress, so I don't think this is the right work environment for me. As of today, I quit."

I headed out of the office and got into the elevator before anyone could reply. Well, that went a little bit different than I thought. It was just as well, though, because there really wasn't anything else I could do in the building for the mission.

Technically, the bank scan hadn't needed to be done there, but I figured I might as well use the pretty computer they provided for me. I'd be better suited sitting at home, randomly scanning people's minds to see if they were thinking of stealing secrets.

When I got up to the main level, I sent Nate a quick message, letting him know that I was walking home. There wasn't any reason for him to leave for the day, and I doubted I'd over exert myself from the minimal walk.

"Can I ask why?" he sent back.

"Sure, Vinnie was right. I was dealing with idiots and I decided I couldn't take it anymore."

"What does this mean for the assignment?"

"Nothing really. I've already done everything I could on the premises. I say we stay for the rest of the week. You can continue to snoop around, while I try to read people at random times to see if they're thinking about the crime. After Friday, if we still don't know who did it, we can just burn the town to the ground and the problem is solved." I wondered if he could tell I was in a bad mood. I did such a good job of hiding it.

"Okay, that all sounds like a plan. Well, except for burning the town down. At that point, I think we'll have to bring people in and have everyone interrogated. I hope it doesn't come to that, because it'll be a zoo, but it's an option."

"Fine. I guess we won't burn things, but I get to approve the interrogation tactics. There may be a few people I want to receive some extra attention. I think I'm going to head home and give Frannie a call. I haven't talked to her in almost a week and she's probably burned a hole in a few credit cards and is dying to tell me what she bought."

"I'll be home as soon as I can get out of here. Have fun pretending to be interested in the latest fashion trend Frannie thinks you need to know about."

I groaned and didn't bother replying. I had some extra energy to burn off, so I jogged home. Sadly, the jog was less than a mile, making it so I barely wasted any energy and I didn't even work up a sweat. I settled in comfortably on the sectional and dialed Frannie's number.

"Peaches," she answered on the second ring. It'd been long enough since we'd conversed that I wasn't ready for her overexcited voice.

"Hey, Jelly Bean, how have you been?" I asked.

"Bored. When are you guys coming back? Gary has been working too much and I need someone to go shopping and hit the gym with." The original joy in her voice dipped a little.

"I just got done telling Nate we're going to be leaving here by Saturday, even if I have to burn the town down to make it happen." I'd tried to keep my occupation from Frannie, but after spending a few days in the hospital recuperating from gunshot wounds, I was forced to tell her the truth.

"That's great! We have a wedding to plan," she said, causing me to immediately assume the made up story about my fake nuptials had somehow made it to her.

"The wedding is just a joke, it's something Nate did for fun while we're undercover," I explained, hoping the news didn't depress her too much.

"What? You and Nate are fake engaged?" It wasn't the response I was prepared for, making me pull the phone away from my ear.

"Wait a second, that wasn't the wedding you were talking about?"

"No, silly, I was talking about mine and Gary's. He proposed on Sunday."

"Oh my goodness, Frannie that's great news. It's about time; even I know you two are perfect for each other. So tell me about the ring. Have you picked a date?"

I wanted to turn the subject away from my fake marriage as soon as possible. It helped that I was genuinely enthused about Frannie's news.

"The ring is gorgeous. It's the one I showed you when we went to Cartier a few months ago. You didn't happen to tell him about it, did you?"

"No, he must have just figured it out from all the pictures you emailed to him," I teased. Frannie wasn't always very subtle.

"I did nothing of the sort and you know it. Anyway, he somehow figured out that was the one I wanted. So far, I'm thinking a June wedding. I just haven't decided where to have it yet."

"I can't say I recommend Vida, Montana for it. Unless of course the current residents vacated the city."

"Really? Are they that bad? I thought they were your kind of people."

I doubted she meant that in an offensive way, but it was hard not to feel slighted.

"When my closest friend here is currently a robot, I'm going to say yes, they are that bad."

"I can't wait for you to come home. The details of your little adventure would be fun to share over a latte."

"On the topic of home, evidently it has been ruled my apartment is too small for the two of us, so when we come back, Nate is taking me apartment shopping. I tried to convince him to move out to solve the problem, but he's been persuasive enough to make me okay with the living together thing."

"That's good. You mentioned you guys were fake engaged, does that mean you're wearing a ring?" I should've known we'd get back to that detail.

"I'm currently wearing a family heirloom of his. He actually wants it to stay in place on my finger even after we're done here. I'm considering that option, but it'd be a long term engagement if it does remain on my finger."

"Wait, so he thinks he actually did propose?"

"Yeah, but if I ever really accepted the proposal, I'd expect him to go through it again. He did it at work, so he technically proposed to my alias," I explained. Whether we'd been married before or not, I wanted him to say my real name when he proposed. I couldn't explain all the details to Frannie, even if she was ready to know I worked for the government, I didn't think the phoenix thing was something I'd share with her.

"Well, it sounds like progress is being made, so that's good news in my book. You guys should go on missions together more often."

We continued talking about plans for her wedding until I heard a car pull up in the drive. The fact that I could hear it could only mean it was Nate. Any of the other cars in town were more than likely just whispers. I said goodbye to Frannie and made my way to the door to greet Nate.

Just before I got to the door, he opened it and announced, "Hi, honey, I'm home."

"Hi, silly. Did you have a nice day at work?"

He swept me up in his arms before giving me a scorching hello kiss. I fussed a little, but deep down I enjoyed it, and didn't mind standing tucked into his side when he put me down.

"You weren't in the building, so I wouldn't call it nice."

"Did you have any conversations with the idiots?"

"No, I had to spend most of the day dealing with a fight in astrophysics. Whatever they were fighting over, I could have cared less, but I had to make sure everything was documented." He led us into the kitchen.

"It sounds like you're ready to get back home, too."

"Yeah. Did you have any plans for supper?" he asked, giving me a little shove in the direction of the fridge.

"I'm thinking just some grilled cheese and tomato soup. I need to get to bed early for the long drive tomorrow," I said as I took some Swiss and cheddar cheese from the fridge.

"I could live with that. I think, if we're tired, the sooner we go to bed the better. Now that you aren't working at the tank, we don't have to worry so much about when we get back. I've told my team that I may be running a little behind Thursday morning and they didn't have any problems with it."

We quickly ate the grub while I shared Frannie's big news. When we were done, we got ready for bed and eventually both fell asleep, after we discussed the different parks we planned on visiting and what my mother could have that would help with my memory.

CHAPTER 21

To the bat cave

I thought about faking my death the next morning, but realized that'd be in bad taste. The fact that I wasn't looking forward to the day made me roll out of bed even slower than usual. I showered and dressed in some loose fitting jeans and a light blue t-shirt. I wanted to be comfortable if I had to sit in a car for most of the day. Nate picked out a similar outfit, but his blue shirt was a little bit darker than mine.

"I think I'll throw together some snacks and a lunch for us. We're going to be gone all day and you know I won't stop at any restaurants on the way."

"That's a great idea. Can you make sure you bring the orange bag of chips? I have a feeling I'll be craving them today," Nate said as he finished putting on his shoes.

In the kitchen, I grabbed the requested chips, a box of crackers, some peanut butter cookies, a loaf of bread, some lunchmeat and cheese, the latter two I stuck in a small cooler. Also, because I was nice, I threw a couple of chocolate bars in the bag. Before I sealed everything up, I added a half dozen bottles of water, so we could keep hydrated.

"Okay, I think I have the food situation under control," I said as I brought the bag out to the living room.

"Good, let's hit the road then. The sooner we get locked in a moving vehicle, the better chance we have of making it to your parents."

"You should've probably mentioned that after you had me in said vehicle."

"I know she can be a lot to handle, but I also know you're actually to blame for that. All the annoying qualities you've noted about me, are the same ones she has. Since mine are based on the years you were missing, I'm sure hers are too."

I didn't think he'd spent enough time with my mother lately. She was nuts and nothing would ever explain away her lunacy to me.

"Maybe after a few decades I'll feel more forgiving. Right now, I really just want to get this over with."

"Then let's get to it and enjoy as much of the day as we can."

He snatched the keys and opened the door for me. Since we went to bed extra early, we were starting out at five instead of the planned six. I had a feeling the extra hour would come in handy, based on the activities Nate had planned.

Our first destination on our tour of state parks was about four and a half hours away, so we had a lot of time to fill. Our SUV had various media options that could've kept me occupied, but I still had enough questions floating around in my head that I thought my time could be better spent.

"So what's it like in your phoenix form?" I asked Nate. "With the fire, it seems like it'd be warm."

"Not really. It's kind of hard to describe, since it's just part of who we are. It doesn't feel like anything special. Flying high in the sky is an amazing feeling, though. We don't use our phoenix form often, because we try to blend in, but when we do it's freeing. You don't have the worries humans do.

"No worry about what to wear, what others will think about you, or if you have enough money to pay your bills. We don't even really have to worry about eating, because we just need to feed the fire in that form. The air we're breathing is enough to do that," Nate explained.

The lack of worries was really appealing to me. I had a tendency to let little things stress me.

"When do you think I can try changing forms?" I asked.

"I'm kind of surprised you haven't tried to already. I think we should wait a little while. I don't want your body to get overwhelmed. Your mind is already kicking into overdrive to bring back the memories. Your body isn't ready for the strain of a first change. Not that they're really stressful or anything."

"Am I a sexy phoenix?" I meant it to come across jokingly, but it was something I was curious about.

"To me, it doesn't matter what form you're in, you'll always be sexy. To answer your question, you saw me as a phoenix, right?"

"Yes, I remember it very clearly." It was hard to forget the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.

"Okay, well, you look a lot like that, but you have a little black star on your crown," he said.

"Cool. Do other phoenixes look the same?" I asked.

I'd have to remember to ask Rick if he would change for me when we got back. I didn't think I'd utter the same request to my parents, at least not on that trip. Eventually, I wanted to see as many other phoenixes as I could, but I wasn't comfortable being in the room with my parents naked, and Nate had indicated that was necessary.

"For the most part, we all look alike. A little color variation here and there, but not much more than that. You're the only one that has a marking. That's how we knew you were special and needed the protector."

As he revealed things unique about me, I wondered why he had a problem with my powers being unique. It almost made me feel like I'd been holding back from everyone at one point.

On the way to the Pictograph Cave, I continued to pepper him with questions about being a phoenix and tried to weasel out little details about our lives together. He wouldn't give me much information, claiming it was better if I remembered the stuff on my own.

Revealing that we had children, should've been followed by details of those children. He wouldn't even give me that.

At the park, he led me to the main cave and started pointing out different drawings and explaining to me what they meant. Every once in a while I'd guess what they meant before he told me. Absolutely none of my speculations where anywhere near correct.

"How many languages do you know?"

"All of them, including now pig Latin thanks to you. When you've lived as many years as we have and you need to move around often, it pays to know all the languages," he explained. It made sense, but along with my memories, it sounded like there was a lot of learning in my future to make up for things.

"I'm surprised you and Rick haven't resorted to switching languages on me to talk about something you didn't want me to know, but of course you don't even have to speak out loud to keep something from me."

"That's true," he replied as he continued showing me around. After about thirty minutes, we called it good and headed back to the car.

Next stop was the prairie dogs. It was only a little over an hour away and I couldn't wait. I jumped out of the vehicle as soon as Nate shifted into park and could already hear little chirping barks. Nate, being a great tour guide, showed me around. I was able to see the little guys running around, playing a game of tag I wanted to join. I also saw some little heads sticking out of the ground, reminding me of the game whack-a-mole.

After I made Nate take a ton of pictures of me with the prairie dogs in the background, we decided it was a good time for lunch. Too many more pictures, and I was afraid Nate was going to start comparing me to my mother. We found a picnic table and made some sandwiches.

"So, have you talked to any of our children about me being back?" I asked Nate while I stole some of his chips. He wouldn't tell me any details about the kiddies, but I didn't see any issues cluing me in about what they knew.

"Of course. They all know you're back now. I had to keep a couple of the girls from paying us a visit. I told them we need a little more time to get your memory back together before they showed up expecting you to remember them."

"The fact that you claim I have so many full-grown children is one of the creepiest things about all of this. I never wanted to be a mother, let alone be married, and I magically am kind of both of those things without me even knowing it."

"It's confusing for all of us, but I'm sure as you gain more memories, it will get easier. Learning more about who you used to be may change you a little, but I don't think your personality is that much different from what it once was. You're more reserved, which I'm sure isn't a surprise."

We finished up our food and said goodbye to the prairie dogs. All of which had new names thanks to me. If I could knit, I would've claimed I needed to stick around to make them little sweaters.

"How far until the next stop?" I asked as we got back underway.

"I think I'm going to make an unscheduled pit stop in about forty-five minutes," he replied.

"What for?" Even though I'd grown up in the general area, I wasn't sure where he wanted to go.

"It's a surprise," he said, not willing to give any clues, which I determined to be a little rude. Maybe there was another phoenix who lived around there and he wanted to check in. That was all I could think of as a good reason to stop.

I turned on the radio and started singing along to one of my favorite country bands as we headed down the road to destination unknown. After a little while, he exited the interstate and drove us to a parking lot.

"Come on, we have about a mile hike," he said, getting out of the car.

I was glad I'd been smart enough to wear my tennis shoes and not the usual sandals. Nate had served as a tour guide in my presence before, so I was used to his crazy need to do a lot of walking.

He steered me down a wooded trail. After walking a little while, the sound of running water made it to my ears. When we approached the end of the trail, I came face-to-face with a very tall, very beautiful waterfall.

"It's gorgeous," I said, staring up at the waterfall.

"Avery, I wanted to make sure this was done properly, so you don't try to back out." I turned to look at him and saw he was down on one knee. Didn't we just go through that act a couple days ago?

I glanced down at my finger and noticed the ring was missing. "Hey, where did the ring go?" I asked, a little worried I'd managed to lose it.

"The prairie dogs were a really good distraction," he said, laughing at the concern on my face. He took ahold of my left hand, brought the ring up to my finger and slid it on.

"Avery Belle Clavens, would you do me the honor of promising to marry me at a future date, to be determined solely by you? I promise to love and protect you for eternity and do my best not to annoy you to death." Not the most romantic proposal in the world, but it actually kind of worked for us.

To respond, I said, "I'm not promising we'll be wed within a year, or maybe even a couple of years, but from the little I've heard about our past, I'm sure when all my memories are back online, there won't be a question that we care about each other.

"I mean we've had five kids; I'm guessing they weren't conceived by artificial insemination, since they were born hundreds of years ago. In conclusion of my own little rambling speech, I can't promise you that I won't annoy you to death, but I can promise we will eventually be married in this lifetime, and maybe one day you'll even hear me say I love you too."

Technically, that gave me a few hundred years to work with. I could live with that.

"You don't know how much of a difference hearing that makes when you're not using an alias and acting a part," he said, taking me in his arms and giving me a thorough, but closed-mouth kiss. "Let's get on the road. We still have a two hour hiking tour through some caves to get through and two hours on the road."

A little over an hour later, we were starting on our cave tour. I'd always had a fascination with cave formations. The cave tour wasn't for the faint of heart. It involved six hundred stairs and I wished I would've brought a sweater, because the temperatures caused a few goose bump formations on my arms.

The views were well worth the exertion and I made Nate take more pictures. It seemed I really was turning into my mother. If she ever got word of that, I was going to have to go into hiding.

After the tour, we looked around the gift shop and Nate found a purple and green marbled rock that was shaped into a heart. It was pretty, and when he asked if I wanted it, I couldn't help but say yes. We searched the store a little more and picked some other interesting rocks to add to the heart. During my vision of my first daughter, she seemed to like rocks. I thought maybe I could give some of them to her when we finally met.

With our loot in hand, we headed back to the Suburban to tackle the last leg of the road trip. If it was up to me, we could just turn around and go back to Vida, but getting my memories back was important to Nate, and even though I wasn't in love with him, I could try to endure the torture of spending time with my mother for him. He was going to owe me.

CHAPTER 22

I wrote a letter, but forgot to sign it, so I'm not sure who it's from

At my parents' house, I didn't want to get out of the car. Just seeing the house made unpleasant childhood memories spring to life. I grew up in the light blue house and enjoyed being away from it. I didn't have to worry about my overprotective mother embarrassing me at school, or hearing the whispers about how she was a little strange.

It took some extra energy, but I finally climbed out of the Suburban and made my way over to Nate's side of the car. The smile on his face wasn't very comforting.

"Okay, we can say we were here, can we leave now?" I asked, knowing my request wouldn't be granted.

"Come on. Let's see what she has, and then we can leave. If we stick to the plan, everything's going to be fine." He grabbed my hand and dragged me up to the door.

I wasn't sure that our definition of fine matched. I didn't suppose I'd die, so I figured that was what he based it on.

Just before he knocked, the door flew open and my mother enveloped me in a hug. The scent of lemon assaulted my nose.

"Oh good, you guys made it. Come in, come in," she said, dragging me inside. Evidently, "drag me around" was tattooed on my forehead. I needed to look into getting that removed.

"Hi Mom, can you let loose of me, please?" I asked. I'd never been touchy-feely and she should've known after her recent trip to New York that I hadn't changed.

"Oh of course," she said, releasing me. "Hello, Nate, it's nice to see you again."

"It is nice to see you too, Roxanna. I'm happy to see it's under the current circumstances. The last time we spoke, I didn't think we'd make this trip for a while."

"I can't tell you how great it feels to not have to hide things from Avery. It's been so long since we've been able to be open about things that it's going to take some getting used to. Well, you guys come right in the living room. Cyrus is waiting for us."

Like a good hostess, she settled us on the couch before she moved to sit on the arm of the chair my father occupied. Not surprising, Mom was in one of her usual sundresses and dad looked dapper in a button-up and slacks. Mom was even wearing heels, which I thought was ridiculous inside the house.

"Hello, darling," my dad said. "I hope you guys had a nice trip. I know Avery doesn't do too well confined to a car."

"You'll be happy to hear we had a great trip. We made a mini vacation out of it," I said to him. I wanted to discuss all sorts of things, like why they'd raised me the way they did, but we started the trip with a particular goal, and I wanted to get to that goal.

"Okay, Mom. Can you show us what you have? I don't mean to rush you, but we do have to make it back tonight." She didn't need to know that I no longer had to be there for the mission, so I continued with our original plan. The faster I could get away from the look that made me think my mother expected me to burst into flames, the better.

"Of course, I think we have a lot to talk about, though. Yesterday you sent a mental message to me and I'm guessing you weren't standing outside the window. You know me well enough to know I checked to make sure."

"We've found that Avery's abilities are coming back online, but they're supercharged, to say the least. Not only could she message you, but she tried it first with Rick, who's still in New York," Nate explained.

"Putting aside the fact that I'm sure Rick is a little peeved with us, are you serious? No one can talk that far away," my dad exclaimed.

"You want to show them your other trick?" Nate asked, with an evil twinkle in his eye.

"Sure. This should be fun."

I didn't think I could give either parent a heart attack, so I was more than game to have a little fun with them. Remembering the general layout of the house, and the family picture my mother kept in her room next to the bed, I imagined the photo walking its way through the house. The distance was farther than the phone, so I worked hard to keep my concentration.

After a few moments, I heard my mother gasp. I guided the picture to the coffee table and set it down gently. My mother would have killed me if I'd broken the frame. She'd claimed it was a family heirloom, and I wondered just how long it'd been in our family.

"So, where was the picture?" Nate asked as he picked it up to look at it.

"Upstairs in our bedroom," my mother answered softly.

"Hey, you said you were going to take things slow," Nate scolded me. "Stairs aren't slow."

"Sorry, I haven't been in the house for years. It was the only thing I knew for sure would be in the same spot."

"How long has this been going on?" my father asked, his voice not much louder than my mother's had been.

"After her memories started coming back, I told her why it was happening and the general history of phoenixes. During that discussion, I mentioned us using more of our brain than a normal human. I think that was the day I first spoke with her mentally.

"Then, over the weekend I taught her how to speak back. From there, she's just gone off the radar and has been learning things on her own. Evidently, when she gets bored or lazy, she likes to experiment."

"It's amazing," my mother said, looking at me in awe.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah I'm awesome. Can we please get back to the reason we're here and these items you think will help the memory issue."

Every time people got in a room and started talking about my extra strong abilities, it sounded like I shouldn't be in the room, so I was going to stop that from happening. Rick hadn't even needed to be in the room to give me that feeling.

"Sure, let me go grab the box."

Mom left the room with only a few looks over her shoulder back at me. She was expecting us and knew we didn't have a lot of time; she should've had the box sitting there waiting. I swore sometimes she just did stuff to torture me.

When she came back, she was carrying a shoebox. She walked over to the couch and handed it to me. Not really sure what to expect, I opened the lid and looked inside.

I found a necklace, a pressed rose, a seashell, an old set of jacks, a doll and a wicked looking knife. As I moved the items around a little, I spotted some folded up paper. I took it out and saw my name on the outside, so I unfolded it. I didn't remember seeing any of the things in the box, so I wasn't sure why there was something with my name on it.

"There's a note here addressed to me," I told the others. I couldn't hear the sounds of the rest of the room breathing, so I thought I should probably clue them in.

"What does it say?" Nate asked, leaning in closer to me.

I imagined they'd understand it better than me, so I read the letter aloud.

_Hello Avery,_

_If you are reading this, it means you are starting to get your memory back and that we will be meeting shortly. I am sorry this note is going to be so long, but I do have a lot to say. Let me start off by saying you picked a very good name for this reincarnation. It means elf ruler and even though you will not literally be an elf ruler you will be a ruler, more so than your queen status already indicates. It was a very different choice from your usual names that either mean butterfly or pure. I think you may have been setting yourself up for greatness._

_The items that you find in the box will eventually lead you back to your full memories. I will warn you that it won't happen overnight, so don't get your hopes up. Over the next few months you will start remembering more and more. You have to remember not to push yourself. It is a slow process remembering millennia of data. Just think of it as you would one of your computers._

_During the time that you are getting your memory back, you will also learn the reason why your resurrection was different this time. You will start to receive your previous powers, along with a few extra ones. They will all be needed for the days ahead. There is a bit of a war coming, and if you are not mentally prepared, your side will lose and those who you love will die trying to protect you._

_Remember that you have always been special from your very first incarnation. You were marked that way and given a protector for a reason. The time of understanding is nearly upon you and all the rest of the phoenixes. This will be a time to either strengthen or destroy the phoenix race. I know you do not understand this yet, but you will soon._

_Please give Nate all of my love and tell him I will see him again very soon._

_Yours truly,_

_Katryna_

I finished reading the letter and look over at Nate, only to notice tears in his eyes. "Is she an old girlfriend or something?" I asked. It didn't make sense after everything I'd learned, but she mentioned him by name, by his current name even.

"More like a wife," he responded. "That was your most recent name during your last incarnation. You just read a letter you wrote to yourself. Obviously, you had some knowledge of the future to know our current names and about computers."

"What do you think it means by war?" my father asked.

"I don't know. We've never had any conflicts over all the years we've lived. A war makes no sense to me," Nate responded. I didn't like his confusion. The reason I read it to everyone was so they could tell me what it meant.

"What does it mean by I choose a good name? I didn't choose my name at all." It was the only part of the note I could relate to, and was the most confusing because of that.

"Actually you did," my mother answered. "When you were born, you were able to communicate telepathically, at least enough to tell me you should be named Avery. It was such an odd request that I went along with it. After that, I kept trying to communicate with you, but it was like you were blocked off. I never understood why."

"Did you really not know who I was when I was born?" I asked. I knew eventually they had to piece it together, but they might not have remembered what I looked like as a baby.

"We had no clue. Every other reincarnation you came back as a full adult. You didn't feel like yourself, so we just thought you were a new phoenix. And then when you didn't act like a phoenix baby should, we didn't know what to do," my father answered.

The response didn't explain why they hadn't told either of the two other phoenixes I'd met about me. I understood that maybe Nate wasn't always available, but according to Rick, he was.

"This is all still really weird to me. It mentions extra powers, so I guess I'm interested to find out what those are."

"I don't think I could handle you with any more powers," Nate said, shaking his head. "Before now, they were never really considered powers, we could just use more of our brain, like I've said. It wasn't anything special. You, on the other hand, are getting actual powers. Not only that, according to yourself, you're going to be some big ruler. I'm a little upset you didn't mention what my role will be once you're this ultimate ruler."

"Well, I know Rick will be happy. My past self thinks I need a protector, so he still has a job," I said it as a joke, trying to lighten the mood a little. All the talk of wars and rulers had left the room a little heavy.

"I'll let you relay that news to him," Nate said. "He won't be able to stop laughing that you actually need him."

"Mom, how long have you had this box?" I asked, not wanting to acknowledge I might really need Rick for anything. His head was going to swell.

"You brought it to me about seventy years ago and told me I'd know when to give it back."

"Thank you for taking care of it all these years. I wished I understood exactly what it meant, but I guess that will come with time. For once I wish I could stay and chat about all this, but we really do need to get going so we can get some sleep before work tomorrow." I made sure Nate knew not to mention we could spend a little extra time. I hoped no one else picked up the message.

"That's fine. We'll be close enough to chat more often soon. A two hour drive is nothing." Dang it. I was trying to forget they were moving to Philadelphia.

"Yeah, Nate mentioned you were thinking about moving closer. When are you planning this move?"

"With all the new developments, we're thinking two weeks," my dad replied, probably assuming the news would be better coming from him.

That didn't give Nate and me a lot of time for us to find a new place. Hopefully, he could work some magic and find something maybe a little ways away from the city, to add an hour or so to that drive time.

"Before we go, something else about the note is bothering me. It mentions that if the war isn't won, people I love will die. If the people I love are phoenixes, how can that be possible?" I asked. "Nate told me we can't be killed." There was Frannie to think about, but I didn't see her being involved in a war.

"Every phoenix ever created or born is still alive today," Nate answered. "We don't currently even have anyone in resurrection stage. Over the years, we've tried every way we could think of to verify that we can't be killed. Nothing has worked before. The only reason I believe something might now is because the note mentions it. We'll have to find whatever is harmful to us and destroy it as soon as possible."

"That'll be a little bit difficult, since we don't know who the enemy is," I pointed out.

"I'm guessing we'll know soon and before it's too late," Nate responded. "I don't think we'd get a warning if that wasn't the case. Now, let's get on the road. We have a long drive ahead of us."

With that, we took our leave, promising to see my parents again soon. Well, as soon as they could figure out where we moved to, but I was thinking about keeping that location a secret for a while.

CHAPTER 23

Memory is the mother of all wisdom

It was seven o'clock when we left my parents and the sun was already long gone. Depending on the traffic and any unscheduled stops, we'd make it back to Vida around three in the morning. Since Nate drove me around all day, I offered to take the first shift, so he could get some sleep. He didn't hesitate to take me up on the offer and reclined the passenger seat to rest.

I needed stimulation to keep me going, causing me to turn on the tunes and jam while I made my way down I-90. After a couple of hours, I started to get bored, though. Driving in the dark had never been one of my favorite things, and there wasn't a lot of traffic around to keep my senses on their toes.

New York was hours ahead, so my usual partner in crime when Nate was occupied was probably asleep, at least I assumed Rick would be, after complaining about having actual work to do. Frannie might have been up, but if she was she was probably in a nightclub somewhere, and I really didn't want to interrupt her fun.

So, left to amuse myself, I started thinking about the memories that I'd had so far, especially the one with my daughter. I wondered if anything in the box that was sitting in one of the seats behind me had anything to do with that daughter. Before I knew it, the road in front of me disappeared and I was transported to a different time. Maybe taking a shift driving without supervision wasn't the best idea.

_" Safa, what are you doing out here?" I hear a voice say that again is in a language I don't know by ear, but can understand. I wonder if I go through enough memories, whether I'll be able to understand different languages without having my full memories. I look up to see my mother coming down a path. She is dressed in very primitive looking clothing. We're talking just enough animal skin to cover her top and bottom bits. I am seeing way more of my mother than I ever wanted to see._

_" I'm collecting some berries mother." I look down and see a basket full of berries I have never seen before. They look similar to raspberries, but are a bright purple color. I also take in my own attire and see that I am wearing a very similar outfit. I am so happy I live in my present time, where I have more choice on what I can wear._

_The thought amuses me a bit, since I care little about what I wear. It's just important to me that no one gets a sneak peak at my midriff and the majority of my thighs. I had to be thankful that at least the memory included some clothing, chances were good at some point in my life it had been optional._

_" You shouldn't be out here alone, Zarek will be upset. Where is your escort?" she asks._

_" Oh Mother, you all worry way too much. Nothing is going to happen to me." I am going to have to guess that Zarek is Nate if being out wandering would upset him. I'm also hoping that the escort was Freddie and I slipped away from him. Maybe I should tease him about it when I get back to the present._

_" You know we have reason to worry. Someone tried to kidnap you two days ago, but they got away before we could question them," she scolds._

_" They didn't even have a real chance mother, I disarmed them almost immediately and they ran away. They won't get another chance, even if I am alone. I think it would be wise for me to try to lure them out in the open, so we can find out what they wanted. It could be just a matter of someone thinking I'm attractive, there is no reason to think they know what I can do." I pick up my basket of berries and start walking towards my mother._

_" There is no way you would be allowed to do something that dangerous so get the idea out of your head right now. Zarek would take you over his knee if he heard you speak of it. Why don't you head back to the village and check on your father," she suggests._

_My body and myself are in agreement that doesn't sound like a very fun idea, but we head down the path anyway. Before long we come to a stream. It's a beautiful setting and I sit for a minute, dipping my toes at the edge. The water is very cold, but refreshing because of the warm air temperature._

_I'm curious where exactly I am. It doesn't feel like anywhere I've been, but it was probably centuries before I had working memories, so it very well could've been my backyard in Montana a hundred years before my parents' home was built._

_After a few minutes, I stand up to leave and feel arms wrap around me, picking me up like I'm nothing more than a twig. "Put me down!" I screech._

_I could tell the bit of fear in my voice was an act. I knew exactly who was touching me and the old me was thrilled to feel his warm fingers dig into my skin._

_" I think you need a bath," a voice says as he walks me into the water. It's Nate, otherwise known as Zarek in this time._

_" I do not, let me go. I just bathed this morning and you know it." I try to struggle, but he is too strong. Before I know it, we are both in the water, fully submerged. I come up out of the water quickly, shaking my long, drenched hair. I can imagine my lips turning blue I am so cold._

_It seems wrong to be so cold when the air temperature feels so inviting. I don't know how it is possible, but my old self regulates the temperature of the water and before more than a second passes, the water feels like a nice warm bath._

_" Maybe that will teach you to stop wandering by yourself," Nate slash Zarek says as he comes over to me and wraps his arms around me. He lowers his head and starts to give me a kiss. Evidently, this body hasn't set any boundaries for kisses because it quickly becomes a full on make out session._

_After he gives me a very thorough tongue massage that is making me and my body weak in the knees, he moves on to my neck and starts sucking and nibbling on it. That is for sure going to leave a mark._

_Before long, my body reaches down and grabs a part of Nate's anatomy I haven't been introduced to yet and by what I'm feeling, I am scared to ever have a meeting. If I thought his perfect body was intimidating, his little friend is downright frightening. Past me doesn't seem to mind at all, but I had other ideas about where things were leading._

_All I can think is, it is time for me to come out of this specific memory before me and Nate's first sexual encounter happens when I'm not in control of my body. I close my eyes and start concentrating on the Suburban driving down the interstate, which is very hard with Nate's mouth working his way over my body._

When I opened my eyes, thankfully I was back in the vehicle, driving down the road. I wasn't really sure how we weren't crashed in a ditch somewhere, but I was happy to see the SUV still travelling between the white dotted lines on the road. I looked over at Nate and found him staring at me.

"Why did you stop? That ended up being a really fun day," he said with a smirk.

"You actually saw the memory?" I wanted to smack him, just to wipe the look off his face.

It was no wonder he'd shared some vivid dreams of us together shortly after we'd met. If he had lifetimes of memories where we were intimately involved, I was surprised he didn't walk around in his own little dream world all the time.

"I don't think I saw the whole thing, but at one point you were concentrating on me so hard you started projecting the images to me. If you want, I remember the day well and I can share the rest of it with you." He didn't get the sense that I wanted to hit him, because his smile widened and I could see the orange glow that came out sometimes in his eyes.

"No, I had a good reason to pull out of the memory and I think you would even agree with it," I replied.

It was hard to continue the conversation and drive. Our past intimacy was something that was more suitable for a time when we could both concentrate on the conversation. I didn't see any other cars on the road, but I couldn't stare over at Nate to see his full reaction.

"Really? I don't think there's a reason in the world I would agree leaving that specific memory was a good thing. I won't give away any memories, but it was an extremely memorable coming together of our bodies."

I knew better than to ask what he meant. "The fact that I didn't want our first time to be when I wasn't in control of my body is a very strong reason if you ask me. I can feel everything my past life does in the dreams, but that experience is one I'd prefer to be in control of the actions for."

"Okay, you have me there, but seeing that memory has got me wanting our first time to be on the side of the road in the back of a Suburban. It's going to take me a little while to calm down."

He grabbed one of the last bottles of water and took a big drink. We both could've used the cold water dumped over our heads to cool things down, but cold water would more than likely only bring our little dip in the lake back to life. I really wished I knew how the memories worked, as I was becoming afraid of what triggered them.

"When did you wake up? If you were up before I came back to myself, it must have been scary going down the road. I'm not sure how I managed to keep us on the road."

"Actually, I think from the moment you saw me in the memory I woke up. It was kind of strange because everything was stationary. I could move but nothing else around me was moving. You were in a trance, but thankfully you were projecting so I knew what was happening. Things would've gotten really interesting if I didn't know what was going on."

"Really? Everything was just frozen? That had to be so creepy. I always wondered what went on in the real world when I have a vision, but you didn't say anything about the time in the lunchroom. Was it the same then? You acted so cool and collected that I thought maybe I just turned invisible or something and everyone forgot about me."

"Rest assured that you don't miss anything. It was weird that I wasn't frozen. I don't remember exactly what happened during your trip in the lunchroom, because I was more focused on your nosebleed, but I do think there was a void there for a second. Hopefully we can experiment some more with that. I would like to think I'd be able to wake you if something was happening that put you at risk. I want to make sure you're protected, which I'm sure you know by now."

Nate stretched out as far as his seat would let him. With as large as the vehicle was, he got a decent stretch, but it made me want to stretch too, and I didn't have that luxury while driving.

"You know what is interesting about this vision that differed from the other ones? I actually think I brought this one on. I was concentrating on the other ones I've had and all of a sudden I was somewhere else. This time I was also able to bring myself out of it when I wanted. Maybe I can spend a little time each day going back and remembering things little by little," I said as I pulled into a gas station. The arrow on the gas gauge was getting close to E, and I needed to move my legs around.

"If you want, we can switch drivers, I think I'll be wired for a little while. As far as your suggestion, your note said to take things slow, so I'm not sure about a daily remembering exercise. Maybe we could try a couple times a week and see how you feel." He exited the car without waiting for my reply to his idea, and started hitting buttons on the gas pump.

While he was pumping gas, I got out and stretched. When feeling was back in all my muscles, I walked over to him and said, "Are you sure it's okay to switch? You've only had a couple hours of sleep and you're the one who will be going to work in the morning."

"Yes, I'm sure. I can drive for at least four hours and then I might have you take the last two, but there's no way I'm going to be able to get back to sleep right now. I suggest you try to get a little sleep in case I need you to take over," he said, giving me a little kiss on my cheek and pushing me towards the passenger side.

I climbed in and settled into the seat. It was still reclined and smelled of Nate, which made me stupidly happy. He had a horrible effect on my senses, if you asked me. When he was done, he jumped in the driver's side and headed us down the highway. After a little while, I did start to feel sleepy and worked to get even more comfortable in the seat. Within minutes, I was fast asleep and the next thing I was aware of was Nate carrying me into the house.

"Shh. Just stay asleep, I'm only taking you into the bedroom," Nate said, navigating through the house. I decided to take his advice, because after the entire road trip and all the walking I was exhausted.

CHAPTER 24

Welcome to Telepathics Anonymous, don't bother introducing yourself

Nate was already getting dressed by the time my eyes opened in the morning. I liked to think I could be a light sleeper, but I was happy I didn't wake up a few moments sooner or I might have seen a show. After my little vision, the show would have been more intriguing, but I had a feeling Nate would've had trouble getting to work on time if I showed even a little interest.

"What time is it?" I asked, not moving from my spot. The bed was warm and I was liable to stay curled up in the blankets all day.

"Seven-thirty," he said as he came over and gave me a quick kiss on the lips. I loved the smell of fresh shower clean mixed with his usual woodsy musk. He backed away before I could stick my nose in his neck and get a big whiff, which was a good thing.

Bringing me out of my mild daydream of trying to figure out why he smelled the way he did, he said, "Only two more days here and then we can go home."

"Thank you for the reminder. I can't wait until I'm waking up in my own bed again. I imagine I'll bore myself to tears today listening to people's minds between soap operas," I said as I finally rolled out of bed to wake my muscles up. My brain was doing pretty good about firing on all cylinders, but my body wanted to fight about not getting to rest longer.

"You hate soap operas, so don't pretend that you're actually going to watch them today."

He took a spot on my side of the bed to sit and put his shoes on. He was right; I would've had to be extremely desperate to turn to soap operas. I couldn't handle drama in real life, and fake drama on TV was infinitely worse.

"You're right, as usual. I really wish they had some kind of gym in this town. I could use a little time with my friend the punching bag. Dealing with the brainiacs, or idiots depending on who you talk to, leaves me with a lot of pent-up frustration. I'll be right back." I said as I walked to the bathroom to take care of my morning business.

When I returned, Nate looked a little hesitant to say what was on his mind, "I forgot to tell you that Anne and Ettie wanted to help you pick out your wedding dress. They said there weren't a lot of places around here, so they wanted to have a little party at Ettie's house tomorrow while everyone else is at work. I think they were planning on firing up the Internet and searching every wedding dress site they could find. Don't ask why they decided to relay the message through me, or why they thought you needed to find a dress days after the proposal."

I rolled my eyes at the thought. Bringing up the fact that I hated dresses seemed redundant, Nate had heard that speech numerous times.

"Everyone else is way more excited than they should be about a wedding that may not take place for a hundred years. There must be some chromosome missing from my makeup because I really don't care about having a huge wedding with zillions of guests and a huge buffet. When the time comes, I just want a small affair, which I personally cater and make the wedding cake for. Spending tons of money on carriages, ice sculptures and chocolate fountains makes no sense to me."

He interrupted my rant to say, "Please don't say no to the chocolate fountain just yet. I'm sure we can find a reasonable priced option."

I should have known he'd latch on to the part about chocolate. It was impossible to mention the word chocolate without his ears perking up.

"Fine, we will discuss the chocolate fountain, but by the time we get married, we may be living in outer space and surviving on packets of food, so you may be out of luck. I hope you don't mind dehydrated, then rehydrated, made to last a million years lasagna."

"If that's the case, I'm going to start stock piling chocolate now. I lived so many years without it that I don't think I can do that again. Since I've lived all those years, I'm pretty sure your idea of outer space living won't happen until after our wedding, but there could be a space boom, and I don't want to risk that."

The man had a serious chocolate addiction. It was getting close to time for me to start planning an intervention for him, or at least start weaning him off. He was lucky that none of the chocolate he ate stuck to his bones.

"Let's get you off to work, you crazy person. Tell Anne and Ettie to give me a time and destination and I'll be there. Even if it's something as torturous as picking out a wedding dress, it will give me something to do and a chance to say goodbye to them before we blow out of this town. Not that I've had a real chance to even get to know them, other than the few hours at the party I'm trying to forget."

We walked out to the front room and he went straight for the door. "Since I've got all day to come up with something for dinner, I'm taking requests. I prefer it to be something that isn't on our regular rotation." It went without saying that if I was stuck without outlined activities, I was going to spend a lot of time hanging out in the kitchen.

He backtracked away from the door to give me another quick kiss. After the toe-curling one from my memory, I was surprised he didn't try to take things a little further.

"Just surprise me. I can't go wrong with anything you make, even if it's a brand new recipe." He smiled at me for a second and then was gone, off to work to bring home the bacon. I shut the door behind him and tried to make up my mind about what to do first.

I decided to start my morning in the kitchen making cinnamon rolls. I mixed the dough up and then spent about ten minutes kneading it. Something about kneading dough into submission was soothing for me, which was why I tried to do it at least a few times a month. Once it was all smooth and elastic, I put it in a bowl to start rising. The whole process took less than half an hour, so I needed to come up with something else to do.

I made my way into the living room and got comfy on the sectional. It was time to see what some of the people at work had on their minds that morning. Not knowing the majority of the suspects I had come up with, I thought it was best for me to focus on the two from my group.

It was easy to picture Hank at his desk, since that's where I'd seen him more often than not. It didn't take long for me to pick up random thoughts that had Hank's tone behind them. Nate had mentioned the possibility of interference, but I thought things came in relatively clear.

_" I wish we could find that damn robot. The new installation is working great on the backup, but I want to get my hands on Vinnie. We need to teach that bucket of bolts that we are the boss. With half our team out searching, it won't be long before we bring him in."_

How boring. Listening into a mad man wasn't as appealing as some might think. I guessed he was going to spend most of the day obsessing about Vinnie. I did wonder where he ran off to, but it really wasn't my concern. Switching channels, I zoned in on Eric to see if there was anything better coming from that feed.

_" I can't wait to get out of this town. It won't be long now and everything will be in place, then I can tell the team what losers they really are. I can't believe I've made it here this long without causing myself severe brain damage from hitting my head against a wall. Now they have me out looking for a stupid robot that I really could care less about. My designs are way more advanced then Vinnie's metal frame. Just wait until they see my shell of the future."_

I brought myself out of his thoughts because they were a little too self-indulgent for my liking. It sounded like Eric was making plans of his own. The question was whether those plans were being funded by the selling of top secret documents. Nate was going to enjoy hearing where Eric's thoughts centered. I expected he'd already learned bits and pieces from everyone, so it probably wouldn't surprise him.

All the concentration only wasted another half an hour of my time, so I decided I should get dressed for the day. There were no plans to leave the house, but I wanted to be prepared to in case anyone knocked on the door. I jumped in the shower and scrubbed off all the dirt and grime from our road trip. I didn't want to think about how much I'd left behind in the bed. At least that meant I could spend a few minutes doing laundry.

I attached my knives, knowing I wasn't planning to go anywhere, but when you've been kidnapped more than once, you like to feel safe. I grabbed my standard pair of blue jeans and a shirt that said _Also, I can kill you with my brain._ The statement had become true in recent days, so I thought it was fitting.

My feet preferred to remain shoeless, so I let them have their way. It wasn't like they'd get cold walking around on heated floors. There was a little skip in my step as I made it back out to the kitchen.

I poked the dough and when the indentation stayed, I knew it was ready. I grabbed the flour and sprinkled a generous amount on the counter before grabbing the rolling pin and the dough. I worked the dough into a nice rectangle, and then spread some softened butter over it.

Next came scattering brown sugar and cinnamon over the butter. When my filling was done, I started rolling the dough up into a log. With some handy unflavored dental floss that I'd procured from the bathroom, I sliced the log into individual rolls and put them on a cookie sheet.

I had another half an hour of rising to kill before I could put them in the oven. I thought about working out by doing jumping jacks in the middle of the living room, but just after having a shower that seemed counterproductive. I resolved to get out my laptop to see if searching for Eric on the Internet brought up any interesting information. That was how Vinnie found out about me and if it was good enough for a super-smart robot, I thought it was good enough for me.

Disappointedly, after twenty minutes of clicking on every link with Eric's name, I had no new information. It was a long shot and something just to fill up my time anyway, so I wasn't devastated by my findings. I went back to the kitchen and turned the oven on to preheat. Soon my cinnamon rolls would be done and I could finally have breakfast around ten o'clock. There was a reason I usually did most of the process the night before.

While the rolls were in the oven, I made up my famous cream cheese frosting. It was famous because it had actually been tried by at least five other people. Until recently, most of my culinary delights stayed in the house, but I'd taken cinnamon rolls and carrot cake featuring my frosting to work before, so other people had tried it.

The oven beeped, leading me to take the rolls out and quickly start frosting them. When they all had their topping, I devoured one in three bites. Oh my goodness, sugar overload, but it was so good. I left the rest of the rolls to cool, while I went to the bathroom to wash my now sticky hands and face. I could've taken care of it in the kitchen, but if I stayed, another roll was going to find its way to my hips.

By the time I was cleaned up, it was eleven. I still had hours until Nate got home, but I'd managed to waste most of the morning away. I hadn't talked to Rick since the trip to my parents, so I hoped calling him would waste another hour.

When I tried calling, it rang a few times and then went to voicemail. I heard Rick's voice say, _"You've reached Rick, I'm not here to take your call, but if you leave a message, I'll get back to you as soon as possible. On a side note, if this is my girl Avery, rest assured you will be on top of my callback list."_

I couldn't believe he still had that on his message. I'd told him multiple times that it was creepy.

"Hey, Freddie, it's me. What good is a protector if I can't reach him at all hours of the day? What if someone has kidnapped me and taken me to a deserted island somewhere and I'd managed to get this one phone call out only to find myself talking to a machine. I see where your loyalties lie.

"Anyway, I learned some interesting things over at my folks, so when you get a chance to break away from your busy day, give me a call. Oh yeah, if you can't tell I'm extremely bored, so don't pay attention to anything I just said except you should call me back."

Rick was a detective, so I knew he really did have more important things to do during the day than amuse me, but it was still fun to tease him. I guessed my idea of him entertaining me for a while was out the door, so I headed back to my laptop to do some recipe searching. Since I was planning on making something I'd never made before, I expected it to take longer than usual, so starting before noon made sense.

CHAPTER 25

If men are God's gift to women, then God must really love gag gifts

Usually finding a recipe that sounded good didn't take all day. I'd just plug in the ingredients I had on hand and something would pop up. I spent an hour looking through recipes with the few ingredients I had left in the house from my two trips to the store. I couldn't believe how long it took.

I made a note that I'd have to come up with a small list if we wanted to eat anything for dinner the next night. Nate had informed me our plane didn't leave until Saturday afternoon. He thought giving me a little more time to prepare for the plane ride was a good idea, but I was determined to get him to change his mind and drive home, so as far as I was concerned our departure time was up in the air.

I finally decided to make some chicken puffs, which were just cream cheese, garlic, diced green onion and some shredded precooked chicken stuffed into biscuit dough. I thought I'd pair it with a cheesy rice corn mixture. That determined, it wouldn't take me more than an hour to prepare everything, so it didn't really help me waste time.

On a whim, I started looking around at apartments in New York. I wanted to get an idea of what Nate would be showing me, and what kind of monthly rent payment we were looking at. My requirements were only that I had to like the neighborhood, the kitchen met my standards and it had at least two bedrooms. I knew we'd managed to share a bed without too many issues, but I'd still like to have my own room. When I was ready to get married, we could switch to sharing a room.

I made notes on a few apartments that looked promising and called my search good after about ninety minutes. It was easy to get lost searching through all the possibilities. I was just about to see if there was anything on TV when my phone rang. Looking at the screen, I saw Rick's name, and my channel surfing was delayed.

"Hey, Rick, you must be having a busy day," I said as I answered the phone.

"Sorry, baby girl, I've been in an interrogation room all morning, so even though I would've loved to help with your boredom, I was tied up."

"No worries, so far I've found enough to fill my day. Did you get your confession?"

"Of course I did. It helps when you can pick up thoughts from the suspect and trip them up on their responses to questions."

I imagined he wasn't sitting in the middle of the squad room during our conversation. I couldn't hear anything in the background that would help me figure out exactly where he was, and I didn't care enough to try to reach out and garner that information by other means.

"You must be the department's best interrogator. I bet when everyone else gets stuck they call you in."

"That they do, and I always get my confession. So what happened at the folks'? You get more of your memory back?" he asked.

"Well, first off, on the way there I became officially engaged. Don't get your hopes up, though, because I only promised to marry him sometime in this lifetime."

"Whenever the day may be, congratulations. I knew from the moment Nate told me he'd found you that eventually you guys would get married, for let's see, the millionth time. In this day and age, I'll let you guys fight amongst yourself over which side I get to stand up next to," he said, laughing quietly at his joke.

"If you're on my side, you'll be in a dress, so be careful what you wish for. Anyway, let me get the box, so I can tell you about what my mom gave me."

I walked into the bedroom to where I'd noticed Nate had put the box at some point. I wasn't awake enough to know whether he had a look through the box. I was sure he already knew the contents, so there might have been a little reminiscing going on while I slept. I grabbed the box and returned to the living room.

"So, did seeing whatever is in this box reveal the secrets in your mind?" Rick pushed for an answer.

"Not quite, but the box came with a note. Here, let me read it to you," I said as I started to read him the letter.

When I finished, Rick was quiet for a few moments before saying, "I can just imagine what Nate was thinking when you read him a letter from yourself. Especially, when you decided to leave a note to him personally."

"Yeah, and I was nice enough to ask him if it was from an old girlfriend. Imagine my surprise when he told me the truth. He and my parents talked a little while about this so called upcoming war and they had no clue what it meant. Do you have any ideas?"

"No, that doesn't make any sense. Who in their right mind would try to start a war against phoenixes? We've been around longer than anything else out there. That means we've had a lot of time on our hands and we didn't spend it learning to sew. Add to the fact we are a strong fighting force, that we also can't die, and you'd have to be insane to take us on," he ranted.

"Nate seemed a little concerned that someone has figured out a weapon capable of killing us. We're based in fire, what if someone invented some kind of giant fire extinguisher that can douse our flame?" I asked.

"It doesn't seem feasible, but I'll make a few calls and get some people looking into the possibility. On a lighter note, I noticed your letter made mention of me. How does it feel when you're told by yourself that you actually need me?"

"I kind of had the feeling my former self was an idiot," I said jokingly. "I mean, what could she be thinking? You guys couldn't have been as close as you claim if she hadn't figured out she didn't need your protection."

"I'll let you find out how close we were as your memories come back. I have a feeling you're going to be sticking your foot in your mouth. And, since your former self had the ability to see the future, I have a feeling you should heed any advice she may give you. So, what else was in the box?"

I described each of the hodge podge items to him. I couldn't see any evident ties to help jog my memories.

"Do you know what they are or what they might mean?"

He was quiet for a second while he thought about it. "Not really. They're probably just mementos from your past lives that you thought might help along the way. I'd love to see the knife, though. You've always had an affinity for them; it'll be interesting to see which one you packed away."

"Well, we'll be home in a couple days, so you can see it then."

"Yeah, about you guys coming home, I have a present for you. I think you'll like it, but I'm not one hundred percent sure."

"I have a simple way for you to know. Tell me what it is and I can make sure it's the right gift for me."

"Nope. It's a surprise and kind of a house warming gift for when you get your new place," he replied.

"Please, just a little hint," I pleaded and broadcast to him that I was sticking out my lower lip.

"You'll get nothing, but you only have to wait a couple days, so it won't kill you. You better tuck that lip in, or a bird will come along and poop on it."

"Not funny. Are you sure I won't die from waiting? You know I'm not very patient. I may just have to take a trip in your mind and find out," I taunted. Whether someone could block me out hadn't been discussed, but I imagined warning him wasn't the best move.

"That wouldn't be very nice. You should only use your abilities for good, Avery. Just diving into people's minds because you want to know something, like what presents they've gotten for you, is not what they should be used for," he scolded. It seemed I'd been getting reprimanded a lot.

"I wasn't going to; I just wanted to tease you. I did dive into the mind of a couple of my suspects today. One was way too boring; the other was actually a little interesting, at least so much as it sounded like he was plotting world domination.

"I'm going to talk it over with Nate as soon as he gets home. We could solve this one before I run screaming from the town. Although, tomorrow I'm evidently spending the day with a couple of the girls, looking at wedding dresses online. That might make me have Nate get me out of here sooner, even if that means staying at a motel tomorrow night."

"Darn. I was hoping I'd get to help you pick out the dress. I mean, I have been to each of your weddings, so I'm qualified to tell you what you've already worn. And just because I love you so, I'll let you know that you have gone with the naked look a couple times already, so I doubt you'd want to do that again. All the fashion mags would bring up how it's so primitive."

"Oh no you didn't. Why would you say something like that, even if it's true? Now, I have to think about the fact that you've seen me naked. Ack! It's bad enough my latest memory yesterday had me getting way too up close and personal with Nate slash Zarek."

"Tell me it wasn't a time when you slipped my guard duty. You did that a lot in those days, even though there was a threat against you," he said as if he was still frustrated by my past antics.

"You would probably be right, a missing escort was mentioned. See, I don't know what my most recent past self was thinking saying I had a protector for a reason. I've always been trying to get away from you."

"Yeah, well, the way I see it is if she pointed out you needed protection for a reason, maybe that time is finally coming. Believe me, I'm prepared to lock you in a room if I think that will keep you safe. I have the shackles picked out and everything. They're purple, by the way, just because I know you'd like them a little bit more than plain metal ones."

"I'm pretty sure it doesn't matter what color the shackles are, you're going to have a huge fight on your hand if you ever try to put them on me," I said, looking over at the clock. "Hey, sweetie, this has been fun, but I better start supper, so Nate can eat when he gets home. You know how grumpy he can be when he's hungry."

"Okay, I'll see you soon. Try to be good until then."

"I'll try, but I'm not making any promises." It felt like we ended too many of our conversations with me vowing to stay out of trouble.

I hurried to the kitchen and pieced together supper. I was glad I decided on something that I could rush through. Taking my time, I could've made it comfortably within an hour. In hurry up mode, I shaved fifteen minutes off the time.

After walking in and using his "honey, I'm home" line again, we relaxed for a few minutes on the sectional before dinner.

"Did you find anything interesting today?" I asked. I didn't get a feeling he was brimming with good news to share.

"No, nothing new. I may not even go in tomorrow. I don't think we're going to find anything within the tank. Even scanning through thoughts hasn't given me something I feel is concrete enough to focus in on a person."

"I did a little surfing in Hank's and Eric's heads today. Hank was pretty boring, but Eric had some interesting thoughts about being excited to leave this town in the near future and some new shell he'd been working on. The question would be whether he's selling secrets to fund his little side project," I relayed, filling him in the little bit of investigation I'd gotten done.

"Hmm. He wasn't around the office much today, and I hadn't heard any thoughts like that the previous times I listened in. Of course, I do try to stay out of his mind. It wanders to a certain butterfly tattoo more than I like.

"I guess maybe I'll go in tomorrow and see if I can dig anything up on him. If not, when we turn the case over, he'll be the number one suspect. Anything else fun happen today? It doesn't look like you were bored enough to try to peel the paint from the walls."

"I was saving that for tomorrow. I talked to Rick for a little while and learned he has shackles picked out for me, but he reassured me that they're for my own good. Other than that and the fact he's interested in seeing what knife was in the box, the conversation didn't reveal anything new."

"Okay, let's eat supper then and maybe watch a movie before we head to bed," Nate suggested as he stood up and helped me find my feet.

We ate quickly and ended up watching a pair of cartoon movies. We both wanted a laugh and nothing makes you laugh like a panda not knowing his goose father isn't his biological father. After the movies, we called it a night. I fell asleep hoping Nate was able to turn up something on Eric, so our mission could end successfully.

Nate didn't have a lot of blemishes on his track record, and I didn't want our first case to be a failure. I kept complaining about wanting to leave and everyone driving me insane, but if I thought we had a chance of tying things up, I'd stay a little longer.

CHAPTER 26

If you're smart, you run the other way when he tries to put a ring on it

We managed to wake up at the same time the next morning. A few moments were possibly spent with me staring into his eyes as his fingertips danced around the edges of my face. It was really frustrating that I didn't remember us waking up the same way for centuries. It was clear how easy things could be between us when I lowered my walls, which led me to believe that my body remembered more than my mind did.

Nate smiled down at me and winked before rolling out of bed. As Nate took a shower, I popped a few cinnamon rolls in the microwave. I carried the plate out to the dining room and started chomping while I waited for him.

When he made it to the dining room he said, "Mmm, I love your cinnamon rolls. I'll have to leave you home alone more often." He grabbed one and took a bite as his eyes rolled back in his head.

"Well, when I get my new kitchen, I might just decide to make them more often. I did a little searching yesterday and found a couple apartments I might like."

"Good, I'm glad you're on board with the move. I'll set up a time for us to visit your picks when we get back. I better get going. Anne and Ettie will be expecting you at Ettie's at ten. She lives two blocks over in a light green house."

He jotted down the address on a piece of paper for me. I hadn't wandered around the neighborhood to know how many light green houses there were, but I figured I'd be able to find it. If nothing else, I'd roam around screaming Ettie's name until she found me.

"Okay, I'll head over around then. I think I'll spend the morning cleaning the house and packing everything. I want to be ready to leave first thing in the morning, since we have a big drive ahead of us," I took the empty plate to the kitchen, before heading back to see him off to work. "You know, we're becoming way too domesticated. I'm not sure I like it."

I gave him a goodbye kiss right after my words, so I didn't help my case. I should've pushed him out the door and slammed it behind him.

"I'm going to plead no comment to that statement, for fear it will put me in the doghouse." He laughed as he walked out the door and headed to the tank.

I made my way back to the kitchen and started scrubbing it down. I decided since we were going to be flying the next day, because my demands of driving home hadn't been met, I needed a light dinner that wouldn't upset my stomach. I thought some chicken noodle soup sounded like a good plan.

I had everything except the chicken broth and some veggies to add to it. Because it was my last day, I guessed I'd finally use the shopping list feature on Tabby. When I got back from Ettie's, I'd hit the send button so Katie had everything ready when I got there.

I didn't want to be alone in the store with Katie for very long. I had a feeling one of us wouldn't make it out of there alive if I had to listen to her say anything more than hello.

I continued through the house, straightening things up for the next hour. Once the cleaning was all done, which took a little less time than I thought it would, I decided to get ready to go over to Ettie's. I took a shower and chose a shirt that said _You have read my shirt. That's enough social interaction for one day._ I was guessing it wouldn't detract either of the girls from the torture they were about to inflict, but it was the best I could do without being rude.

After I had my clothes on, I packed the rest of my things into my suitcase, leaving out an outfit for the trip. I thought about packing for Nate, but elected that it was something better left for him. Mainly, I wasn't sure I wanted to dig around in his underwear drawer. That done, I was as ready as I'd get to walk over to my wedding bonanza.

When I got to Ettie's, which wasn't hard to find in a sea of white houses, I was greeted by two smiling faces. "Hi, guys. I was a little surprised when Sean told me you wanted me to come over. I thought I'd be the town pariah after walking out."

"Nah, I don't really care about work disputes outside of security and I already don't get along with most of the people around here because I'm not the brainy type," Anne said.

Her outfit consisted of a short-sleeved black shirt and a pair of loose-fitting jeans. With purple eyes, I didn't think she had to do a lot of dressing up to draw attention to her, not that I thought she cared one way or another whether people noticed her.

Ettie wore a pair of black dress pants and a somewhat frilly top. The cream color of it looked shiny, like maybe it was silk. Whether it was or not, she was definitely the best dressed amongst us.

"And you know I could care less about the team after the way they treated me," Ettie added. "They still haven't found Vinnie, by the way. I can't believe the robot got the better of them."

"Well, I just want to say it's really nice of you guys, especially since this is my last day in town."

Ettie escorted us into her living room. From what I could see, the general layout of the house didn't look dissimilar from my temporary house.

"What?" they both screeched at once. "But you just got here," Anne finished, and I was surprised to see how devastated they both looked.

"Since the job kind of fell through, I think it's best for us to return home," I replied. "Sean can get a job anywhere; he really just came so we wouldn't be separated if things worked out. Sean has the ability to get along with everyone, but I tend to have issues dealing with other people, so we knew there was a good chance we'd be moving on before we really settled."

"You're amazing. I don't blame you, but it really is too bad. I still want to look through wedding dresses, though, whether you think you'll be around here for the wedding or not," Ettie said. "I don't know if I'll ever have the chance to look for my own, so I have to live vicariously through you."

"I'm not really into the girlie stuff, but it seemed like a marginally more fun way to spend the day, compared to sitting at work. Have you guys set a date yet?" Anne asked.

"No, I think we both agree we're going to have a long engagement since we're kind of unsettled right now. We don't want to rush into anything when we aren't sure exactly where we'll be after tomorrow."

Ettie fired up a laptop that she had connected to her TV, so we could all look at what she was doing without crowding around the small screen. I'd been afraid my personal space would be in jeopardy as we searched the Internet.

"I'm sure you guys will be settled in no time. Do you have any favorite designers?" she asked, and I refrained from laughing in her face. There was no way a person who'd known me for even a second would ask me something that silly.

"No, I'm not even sure I could name a designer if my life depended on it." I didn't bring up my friend who could name every designer she deemed worthy of knowing.

"Do you have a theme picked out yet?" Anne asked.

"No theme, no specific date, at this point we're really lucky there's even a groom involved. All I know is I want a simple wedding that doesn't cost a lot."

"Okay, let's just search wedding dresses and see what comes up." Ettie performed the search and navigated to one of the first sites that came up. "I'll state the obvious and say we should click on bridal gowns. Do you like any of the styles in the list?"

"I guess classic and traditional would probably be my style," I said, knowing for sure that the chic and modern and the glamorous and dramatic dresses would probably scare me right out of any wedding commitment. "I've seen prices on wedding dresses before and I definitely don't want to spend more than five hundred dollars. I'd actually prefer it to be closer to two hundred."

"Okay, let's see if we can find anything in that range," Ettie said. She clicked on the classic and traditional link and then organized the results from lowest to highest price.

I saw a lot of sales, so the prices weren't that bad. When Frannie started searching, which I was fairly certain she'd already done, chances were good she'd sort the results the exact opposite way, and hit up the glamorous and dramatic section before looking anywhere else.

"I know I don't want a one-shoulder type dress. I've never really liked how they look. I also don't want anything too lacy or frilly." It was funny that once I actually saw the dresses, I had a lot of opinions on the matter.

"Are you thinking full-length or tea-length?" Anne asked, studying the screen in front of us.

"Definitely full-length. I may decide to wear tennis shoes that day, so I don't want my feet visible."

We scrolled through a few pages and nothing really moved me. While we scanned each dress, the others were picking out ones they thought would look good on me and opening the links in other windows, so we could come back to their short list later.

As we continued to scroll, I finally perked up when a dress jumped out at me. "Can you add that halter to the list?" I asked.

"I suppose, since this is a dress for you, after all, and that one is pretty cute. I would've probably added it anyway," Ettie replied.

In the end they'd each added three dresses and I found two more I could live with. I thought it important to have the same number as Ettie and Anne. One of my other dresses was an off the shoulder and the other was a strapless number.

"Okay, now that we have a list of possibilities, I say we live dangerously and take a look at the dramatic dresses for fun," Anne suggested.

"If you guys want to, that's fine. I'm pretty sure that if I was picking a dress today, I already have my mind made up on which one it'd be," I replied.

"I bet it's the strapless one, isn't it? I love the lace up back," Ettie said, bringing up that window so we could get another look at the dress.

"You're right. I didn't think I'd like something so girlie, but I can see myself in that dress."

It was a sad, but true statement. The dress definitely beat the naked look I'd evidently used in the past. If I wanted to get technical, all the dresses did.

We looked at the glam and dram dresses, as I started calling them. Almost immediately the price point was beyond what I wanted and the dresses themselves were more extravagant than I could handle.

We decided to glance through the other categories, just to make sure I didn't miss my perfect dress. I found the dress that I'd already picked in the chic and modern category, so evidently I wouldn't look dated, if I were to decide to buy it at some point.

It'd been hours since we'd started our little fun and I called a halt to it as they began talking about looking at other sites. "Really guys, I think that one is the one. I'm not expecting the wedding to be for a while, but I'll discuss getting the dress with Sean, since it's on sale."

"Okay, fine, no more dresses," Ettie said. I felt bad about bringing their fun to an end, but there was only so much I could take.

"I still can't believe you're leaving tomorrow," Anne said. "We didn't even get a chance to watch any hockey together."

"I know, but maybe you can fly out and watch a game in person sometime. I will say that I do prefer the games on TV because crowds tend to disturb me and I can't stand to be around people cheering for the other team, but if you make the trip, I'll make an exception."

"I totally understand not wanting to be around the other team's fans. I've gotten in a few fights at basketball games, so it's probably best not to let me out in public," she replied.

"I really don't know what I'm going to do in the office without you," Ettie said. "I really did hope with us working together I'd be allowed to show my face. With you leaving, I think it's probably time for me to look elsewhere for employment. Josh evidently is never going to let our break up go and everyone else is on his side."

I couldn't believe it, but I was going to miss both of them. I never understood why Frannie and I got along; meanwhile, being friends with Ettie and Anne made sense.

"I'm surprised you've been able to stay this long. I know if things didn't clear up after a week, I would've been out of there." I couldn't fathom how she'd lasted so long.

"I know I should have left, but I do really like what I'm doing. Vinnie going AWOL made me wake up a little bit. I'd always gone along with the rest of the team, but the robot running away debacle makes one have to think whether they really know what's best."

"Well, I do wish you guys both the best of luck in the future, but I really do need to head out. I have to make dinner and make sure Sean gets all his stuff together, so he's ready to leave in the morning." I stood up and stretched my legs.

"It's been fun while we had you around," Anne said. "Good luck with the wedding plans."

"Yeah, please send us pictures whenever the event occurs. You may have to hunt me down," Ettie added.

We finished saying goodbye and I headed back to the house to grab some money and hit send on the grocery list. I hoped Katie had determined me as a persona non grata, so I wasn't stuck talking to her the rest of the day.

CHAPTER 27

Got change for a .38?

Money in hand and send button hit, I strolled over to the store. After living in New York for so many years, the quiet during the walk was disturbing. I was used to horns honking in the distance and people gabbing on the phone.

The parking lot was empty, as usual, and yet another thing I wasn't used to. It really must have been boring for a social butterfly like Katie to work there all day. I bet she didn't have the same problem I did about watching soap operas, though.

When I walked in, Katie didn't immediately greet me like she had in the past. "Hello, is anyone here?" I yelled. I didn't bother listening in to her thoughts to find her. I was fairly certain my head would explode if I dipped into that noggin.

I was getting ready to holler again when she appeared in one of the aisles. The smile she usually sported fell from her face when she saw me.

"Oh, it's you," she said, walking over. I expected a cold reception and I wasn't disappointed. At least she was predictable, although I expected her to know I was on my way.

"Yeah, sorry, I just needed to get a couple of things for supper. I even sent my list ahead of time for once."

"Sorry, I've been busy and didn't notice any new orders. Give me a second and I'll get the things you need so you can be on your way," she said, marching up to the cashier area.

"From the way you're acting, you'll be relieved to learn that this is actually my last day in town. We're leaving in the morning."

"That's great news. Because of you my husband lost his robot, so I don't think you can leave fast enough," she said as she inputted my grocery list, causing the conveyors to start up.

"Vinnie left all on his own. That had nothing to do with me. I'm sure he would've done the same thing even if I never came to this town." There was no reason to defend myself to Katie, but it was clear the same kind of rumors that had caused Ettie grief were being told about me.

"That's not what I heard. Hank says the robot befriended you and you gave it all sorts of ideas about it being more than a bucket of bolts." My items were to the checkout, so she started scanning them.

I couldn't help but chuckle at the pure disgust for me that I heard in her voice.

"Vinnie had a mind of his own long before I arrived on the scene. He told me he'd been asking them for a while not to install the new software. Like I said, that had nothing to do with me at all. The only thing that was my doing was fixing the code that Vinnie sabotaged in the first place. Your husband and his team are a bunch of self-centered jerks, who think way too highly about themselves for the little they have to show for their efforts."

"Shows how much you know. Their new robot is ten times better than Vinnie was and they're already making designs for a more sophisticated skin. They'll have a human-looking, functioning robot before the end of the year."

"I doubt very highly that the new system is better than Vinnie's upgrades. I looked at that code and I know the logic behind it won't produce a robot with half the self-awareness that Vinnie has. It looks like that technology is lost to them now because of their own stupidity."

"You don't know what you're talking about. You've only been here a little over a week; you have no clue about all the advancements that team has made," she said, working herself to a tizzy.

"I don't doubt they've done some really cool things, but they lack the ability to see the bigger picture. Look, can I just pay for my stuff, so I can get out of here?" I asked. The conversation was getting us nowhere and the less time I spent with Katie, the better in my book.

"Sure, it'll be five-fifty," she said, holding her hand out expectantly.

"Here, I only have a twenty, so I'll need change." I handed the bill over, being careful not to touch her. I didn't want to witness her going into a fit about needing to disinfect my germs.

"Fine, I have to go get your change," she said, walking off to the back.

Not liking her attitude, and afraid she might coat my change with some kind of infectious disease, I started after her. When we got to the back, she opened a safe and took out the money. I looked in the safe and noticed a pile of documents on the think tank's stationary. Why would she have anything from there locked in a safe?

"Um, Katie," I said and she jumped. Apparently my ninja skills were in full force on the walk back. "What are all those documents? I didn't think nonemployees were allowed to have access to the confidential documents and I would think anything on company stationery would be considered confidential."

"Just pretend you didn't see them and get out of town as fast as you can." She moved some things around in the safe and pulled out a nine-millimeter Beretta. When people pulled guns on you as often as they did me, it helped to know how big the bullets coming out of them were.

"By the defensive position you've taken, I'm guessing you're the one selling secrets. What I don't understand is why you'd do something like that. Are you just grabbing anything, or do you know what you're selling?"

"What do you know about it? No one's supposed to know," she replied, staring at me like I'd grown a second head.

"'Sean' and I are undercover FBI agents, sent here to find out who was betraying their country. We focused our time at the think tank because it was logical that the person was someone from there."

I was having trouble believing the turn of events. I should've been used to the unexpected, but I liked to pretend things in my life weren't completely insane.

"You don't know what it's like to be in a town full of smart people who think you're an idiot. I spend all my time alone here, while they're all having fun in their labs. Most days I sit here reading about the stupid theories they think I'm too dumb to understand.

"I wanted to prove to them I was smarter than any of them. So I started taking their precious research and seeing what I could get for it on the black market. I have to say I've made a pretty penny." Crazy had left the station and it was time to call Nate.

"Nate, I need you at the grocery store now," I sent the message his way. I didn't hear a reply, so I hoped he'd dropped everything and was on his way.

"What are you going to do with the gun, Katie?" I asked, trying to buy some time.

"Well, the way I see it, you're a fed and I can't just let you walk out of here knowing about the documents. I've never had to kill a person before, but I guess when you turn to a life of crime, like I have, you need to learn to do it sometime." She raised the gun and aimed it at my chest.

I hated sticky situations, and Katie deciding it'd be okay to kill me was just a tad sticky. I could've used my power to move something to knock the gun from her hand, or just stop the bullets before they got to me, but I didn't want her to question how that happened.

I couldn't think of anything that I'd done before that would be easy to explain away. If anyone questioned why she claimed a safe magically flew and hit her in the head, I could've just said she was nutty, and chances were most people would believe me.

I thought a different approach was needed, just in case someone combed the scene and witness testimony more thoroughly than I wanted. Nate had said that I was born of fire, so I decided to try to heat things up a little.

First, it was best to keep her talking. "Come on, Katie, you don't really want to do this," I said as I imagined her gun heating up. If it worked, I made plans to find a closed off room and see what my mind was capable of.

"No, of course, I don't want to kill another person, but I don't have a lot of choices here. You know too much, and I'm sure you've seen enough movies to know what happens to someone who knows too much." I noticed her flexing her fingers a little bit.

"There's always a choice. What do you think Nate is going to do when I don't come home tonight?"

"Who in the world is Nate?" she asked. Her grip was visibly slipping from the gun. Lo and behold, my heat projection was actually working. To me it made perfect sense. If fire was a part of who I was, I should have control over it. I imagined Nate wouldn't see it the same way.

"Nate is my partner; Sean is just his cover name. I'm sure you've seen enough movies to know that's how it works."

"Ouch," she whined as she dropped the gun, shaking her mildly burnt palm. I charged her, trying to knock her down, but she was ready for it. She kicked me in the stomach. I thought the kick warranted a punch to her face, which I gladly gave her.

We continued to exchange blows until I got bored and just tackled her to the ground. While she was squirming to get free, I pulled out the knife from my right front pocket and held it to her throat.

"Stop fighting. You're under arrest and just as soon as my partner gets here, we can see how you look in handcuffs."

For some reason I was never issued my own set. I was pretty sure Nate had something to do with that. He probably thought I'd use them against him in a nonsexual way. I ensured that I had her secure underneath me and thankfully Nate arrived within five minutes.

"Time to use those cuffs of yours. I found our bad guy," I said when he found us.

"You're saying Katie is the bad guy? You've got to be kidding," he said out loud. Mentally he added, "If I didn't tune into your thoughts after your S.O.S., I would never believe you. I'd think she just tried to overcharge you for flour."

I got up so he could work whatever magic he did when he arrested a suspect. I'd heard there were words you should say, but I left that up to him.

"Yeah, we were totally looking the wrong direction. We'll have to remember in the future to always check out the crazy housewife."

I took inventory of the little damage I sustained during the tussle. I'd have a few bruises, but nothing major. At least I wouldn't have to sit through months of Nate nursing me back to health.

"She's all secured," Nate said, after I heard the handcuffs locking in place. "I'll call this in and see how soon the local authorities can come pick her up. Then I think we need to celebrate tonight. I hope you were planning something special for dinner."

"If you classify chicken noodle soup as special, I sure did. I thought something mild would be best with the plane ride tomorrow."

We were back into the area of overly domestic. I didn't think most agent pairings talked about what one of them was cooking for dinner for the duo.

He thought for a second before saying, "You're probably right, but let's see if they have any sparkling juice or something else non-alcoholic that we can celebrate with."

"You make the call and I'll watch Katie, once she's out of our hair, we can make decisions on our supper plans."

He made his calls and we hung out for thirty minutes before a sheriff from the next town over arrived to take Katie away. During our wait, I babbled about how great it felt to be successful on my first mission. I really thought we'd be leaving there with nothing.

As we were heading out the door, Nate grabbed my hand and said, "Don't think I didn't notice how you disarmed her. Evidently, bored and lazy aren't the only times you decide to experiment. You've added life-threatening situations to the list. Before you do anything else, we need to have you checked out and make sure your brain isn't getting overworked."

I could understand his worry, but I didn't feel any drain on my brain. "I'm sure the tests will be just fine, but if they make you feel better, we can do them. I'm guessing you have a special phoenix doctor you're planning to take me to."

"When we get back to New York, she'll be one of our first stops."

We got into the Suburban and headed for our temporary home. I was kind of sad I wasn't going to be there when Hank discovered his wife was stealing secrets. I bet that would've been a rude awakening for him. I could've tried to view the exchange remotely, but I'd used my noodle enough for one day.

At the house, I quickly threw all the ingredients for the soup in a pot. I was going to make homemade noodles, but with all the excitement, I just grabbed a package off the shelf before we left. Technically, it wasn't stealing because I never got my change back. We ate the soup, sipping on the apple juice we were able to find, no sparkling juice in the little store, so our celebration was very mild. When we were done, we crawled into bed and called it a night. There was a long day of me freaking out about flying ahead of us, meaning we both needed as much rest as we could get.

CHAPTER 28

Two's company, three's a crowd

By the time dawn came around, I was ready to get out of town. I wasn't confident I wouldn't get kidnapped at some point, since that seemed to be my thing, so as soon as we could put Vida in the rearview mirror, the better.

A part of me would miss the house, well at least the kitchen, but I hoped my new apartment would have something comparable. In an apartment, space was tight, but I'd call the new fridge Tabby, even if it didn't have a built-in computer.

During the drive to the airport, we played a game of license plate bingo. It really wasn't bingo at all, it just sounded cooler if you said it that way. The game was basically trying to collect all the different state's license plates. In the two hour drive, we sadly only found five. My personal best from taking Winnie on a spin was twenty-seven.

I didn't have to get fully in the airport for my anxiety to kick in. Physically pushing the SUV back to New York sounded like a better idea to me.

"Are you sure we can't just drive back? We could catch a lot more license plates that way," I suggested what sounded like a brilliant idea to me.

"It'd take way too long and I really want to get back to the city as soon as possible."

"There's no reason to get back today. We can take the next day or two and spend some quality time together."

I knew it was a losing battle, but flying was for the birds, no pun intended, and adding in the quality time bit was the only thing I could think of that could sway him. I wasn't sure how I'd gotten through the flight the first time, which made a repeat performance unlikely. I knew I'd done a lot of sleeping, but I'd had a good night's sleep, so I wasn't a bit tired.

"As fun as that sounds, you'll be fine. You've done this once before, aren't you over the fear?"

Nate was ushering me to the rental car place to turn in the keys. We didn't have a lot of luggage, but he would've been wise to buy a new suitcase and throw me in it.

"I was fine once I hit the ground, but the thought of getting on a plane again is giving me the willies."

We turned the Suburban back over to the nice guy at the counter, and made our way to the flight check-in. I was still glad that I didn't have to worry about security with my FBI badge. Not only did I have my usual three knives on my person, but I had the one from the shoebox as well. I didn't want it to get lost in baggage purgatory.

The atmosphere of the airport wasn't growing on me. The smell of coffee was strong from the little café we had to walk by and it caused my stomach to turn. Add to that the crowd, and I thought the airport itself might have been worse than the plane ride.

We quickly made our way through the process of getting checked in and took a seat to wait for the flight to be called. Nate managed to find us a mostly quiet little area where I could breathe a little easier.

"Maybe I should call Rick and have him talk you into letting us drive back," I said, trying a different route. We had a few minutes, and I didn't have anything else crowd-friendly to talk about.

"You know that won't work either. He wants to see you more than I want to make it back to the city tonight. Calling him would probably only make it so he made some calls and had you personally escorted on the plane by local authorities," Nate retorted.

"You know it's really unfair that you both take the side against mine all the time. One of these times, you have to be on my side."

I had Frannie at home to side with me, but that just wasn't enough. Maybe I'd convince Ettie that New York would be the perfect place to relocate. I mentioned to her I knew someone in Chicago who was in the electronics business and if she wanted me to hook her up, I would make the call.

Jimmy owed me a favor, and every time I'd spoken to him since our inconvenient first meeting, he reminded me he'd do anything for me. I was fairly certain Nate wanted to kill him, but at the same time they seemed to get by alright after Jimmy made it clear he didn't have any plans that involved whisking me off to a deserted island.

As far as Ettie went, before we left, I did get to say a proper goodbye to her and Anne, letting them know the real reason Nate and I came to town and my real name. We promised to keep in touch and I told them if they ever made it to New York, to look me up, because there was no way they'd find me in Montana again anytime soon.

I didn't add that it would probably take my mother being out of the state for a hundred years before I'd return. They would've thought I was joking and I would've been dead serious, making things a little awkward.

Overhead it was announced that our flight was boarding, so we trudged towards the gate. I considered making a scene, in hopes they wouldn't let me on the plane. I didn't really like drawing attention to myself, which was the only thing that kept me from embarrassing myself.

I tried to fill any empty spots in my conversations with Nate by telling him we should stick with local cases. If he truly only picked the Vida case because he thought crazy scientists would help with my memory, he only partially succeeded. We had no idea what had really triggered my memory jumpstart, which had me a little concerned.

There was a look in his eyes when I brought up remaining local that told me he had other ideas. If nothing else, I needed my memories back to figure out what in the world the man was planning. He was very careful not to think about anything important when I tried to take a peek in his mind.

The flight and transfers went relatively smoothly. I didn't get kicked off the plane, so I deemed it a successful trip. The best part came at the end when Rick was waiting to pick us up and I ran to him, giving him a big hug. It was hard to believe I'd missed him so much after only a week, especially when we'd spoken more than once during the absence.

"Land. I'm finally back on land," I wailed, probably puncturing one of his eardrums.

"Oh, quit being so dramatic," he said. "When you remember how to change into your phoenix form, we'll have to go out flying, and then you won't be able to get enough of travel by air. I missed you too, by the way. Maybe the next time you two have a big case, I'll take a little vacation from work to make sure you stay out of trouble."

"I doubt your conclusion about ever liking flying, but it's so good to see you that I'll forget you brought it up. Where's my present?" I asked, trying to change the subject to something a little more crowd-friendly.

He laughed. "It's at my house for safe keeping. I'll let you see it after you get settled. I'm sure you've got tons of stuff to unpack from that little suitcase of yours."

"You're funny. Speaking of getting settled, how soon before we go apartment hunting?" I asked Nate. It was pretty late at night, so I doubted we'd rush right off to look at something, but I wanted to reiterate that I was ready for that move.

"I have a place I lined up for after the sun rises today if you don't mind taking a little road trip," Nate said as we made it to Rick's car.

"Do you really have to wonder about me and road trips after I pretty much begged you to drive across the country instead of fly? I'm good with a little trip. I don't want to get too settled back in my apartment just to have to move again, so the sooner we figure out where we want to live, the better."

I sat in the backseat as Rick drove and Nate sat next to him, but turned so he could keep an eye on me. We filled Rick in on all things Vida, Montana. I was pretty sure by the end of the conversation he didn't have any plans to visit. He did have all sorts of questions about my heat projection ability.

I didn't have any answers, but promised to show them how I'd manipulated things. Rick hadn't heard of anyone being able to minutely heat things up the first time they tried, which made me think phoenixes didn't have very vivid imaginations.

At the apartment, Rick dropped us off and then yelled out the window, "After you're done hunting for a new place tomorrow, give me a call or just stop on by and I'll get you your present." I didn't know what the wink exchanged with Nate meant, but I was excited to see what he'd gotten for me.

"Will do," I said as I waved and followed Nate into our building.

When we got to my door, there was a very large suitcase sitting in the hallway. I looked at the tag and it had my name on it. I'd never seen the black luggage before in my life.

"That isn't my suitcase." I looked at Nate to see if he had any ideas.

"Well, let's get it in the apartment and take a look at it. No matter what it is, it can't hurt us." He grabbed the bag as I opened the door. "This thing weighs a ton," he said, struggling to get it inside. Seeing big, strong Nate having issues made me wonder what could possibly be inside.

"Did someone pack a bunch of rocks and send them to me? I could totally see some of the people from that think tank doing something like that."

I stood out of the way as he started unzipping the suitcase. I have to say we were way braver than we should've been in the situation. Normally, I'd be calling the police to take the bag away in case it was a bomb. Nate seemed to think things were cool, though, so I was trying to follow his lead.

As soon as he opened the lid, something uncurled from the suitcase. I took a step back even further and ended up bumping into the wall. In front of me stood the smartest robot I'd ever met, and I was fairly certain I'd never meet one smarter.

"Vinnie, what in the world are you doing in New York?" I asked, surprised, yet for some reason not as surprised as I should've been.

"Coming with you seemed like a much better option than staying with the idiots," he said as he straightened himself up. "I wasn't expecting to have to be in the suitcase that long. How long did it take you to figure out the airhead was the one you were looking for?"

"You knew who we were looking for and didn't tell me? I think I'm offended, Vinnie. When did you ship yourself to my apartment?"

"Let's see, that would be the night after we had our conversation. I knew how the team would respond and since you seemed kind of nice, I decided to come live with you. Don't worry, I'm making plans for a humanoid skin, so you won't have people staring at you when you take me out," he replied. "Of course, I knew that little snot was the one stealing things. However, you seemed to want to solve the problem by yourself, so I didn't tell you."

I looked at Nate and I didn't like the grin lining his face. "You pick up really interesting friends."

"I don't mean to. So, Vinnie are you self-sufficient? Do we need any special adapters for you or anything?" I couldn't believe I was actually thinking of keeping the robot. I imagined I'd get in lots of trouble if anyone ever figured out where he got to. It was a good thing most of the people in Vida didn't even know my real name.

"I'm good. I can charge from any outlet and, like I said, I'll try to have a new skin put on within a week, so if anyone comes looking for me, they won't recognize the new me."

The robot seemed to have everything all planned out. "It's a good thing we're moving soon, because with the three of us here, there isn't going to be any room," Nate said as he took my bag into my room.

"How soon do you think we can find a new place?" I asked. "One with at least two bedrooms, maybe a third now with Vinnie. You said you had one in mind, how sure are you that I'll like it."

"I'm fairly certain, and if you do end up falling in love with it, like I hope you do, I'm pretty sure we can move in right away," he responded. "And it meets your bedroom requirements."

"On the same subject, you said we'd be taking a road trip. We're driving away from the general direction of Philadelphia, right?" I asked. I hated to think he had plans of moving closer to my parents, but he could be a real jerk sometimes, so I wouldn't put it past him.

"Yes, we'll be driving north and east a little ways. It's only around an hour, so it isn't all that far away. We should get some sleep, so we can head out and see if you like the place first thing. If you do, between you, me and Rick, we should be able to get quite a bit moved tomorrow." I thought Nate's goals were a bit ambitious, but if he thought it was possible, I'd follow along.

Nate claimed he was uncomfortable sleeping on the couch with Vinnie watching, so he weaseled his way into the bed. Hopefully it was the last time I found him in the bed for at least a couple years.
CHAPTER 29

Life is like riding a bike; to keep your balance you keep moving

Even though one would think coming home to a stowaway robot would keep me up for hours, the angst I'd bottled up from flying had taken enough out of me that I fell asleep rather easily. I suspected Nate may have stayed up and had a conversation with our houseguest, which was a little scary.

The fact that we didn't wake up until almost nine solidified my belief that Nate could've had a long night. For both of us, that was considered sleeping in. When we got out to the kitchen area, Vinnie was sitting there waiting.

"I would've had something ready for you to eat, but most of the things I could think of for breakfast involved milk and the milk in the fridge is a few days past expiration," he said before anyone had a chance to say good morning.

"Don't worry about it. If you actually had a breakfast sitting here waiting for us, I'd never let you leave," I replied, walking over to the fridge to check out the milk situation.

I took a whiff, because sometimes a few days was okay, but the sour odor that hit my nose told me I needed to go to the store. I looked forward to the old way of shopping and started making a mental list in my head.

"That would be the point. I like you and want you to find me useful so you keep me," Vinnie said sincerely.

Nate just laughed. "Like I said, interesting friends."

Nate must not have seen the similarities between him and Vinnie. They both acted like lost puppy dogs around me.

"You don't have to worry, Vinnie, I won't turn you back over to the think tank. I'm sure there are going to be times where I can use you on our investigations. That is, if that's okay with you. I don't want you feeling used and running away again."

I wasn't sure exactly what to do with a robot, but I knew better than to let him wander around the city by himself. I highly doubted anyone in New York would consider him that unusual, and he'd most likely fall into the wrong hands.

"No, that would be perfect. I want to be useful. Before I was never more than a project and all the cool things I learned were wasted."

"Good, we have a deal then, I guess. Are you going to be okay here while Nate and I go check out this new place he's found? With you wanting to stay, we're definitely going to need a bigger space."

"I don't need babysitting or anything. I've been in a suitcase for days and I'm still feeling a kink in my neck, so I plan on spending some time working it out."

I had a feeling watching Vinnie get out the kinks wasn't something I wanted to witness. I had no idea if he was being sarcastic or not, but he was most certainly being a little more human than I thought a robot should.

"We should be back by noon, so try not to burn the house down," Nate said to Vinnie. "Are you sure you don't want to take a shower before we go?" he asked me.

I didn't think brining up a shower was a good idea. For some reason I was afraid Vinnie might think it'd help him feel more humanoid to take one himself and I didn't think that would end well.

"With the house this full, I prefer not to. Let's just go and hope I like the place, so I can have a shower later today."

He agreed and we headed out on our bikes. I didn't remember exactly when his bike had arrived from Chicago, but it showed up one day during my recovery. Not having to run over to Rick's to grab one of his bikes made things easier if we ever felt like going for a spin.

It felt great to be on Winnie again and not riding around in a cage. I forgot to ask him where exactly we were heading, so I was forced to trail behind. He ended up taking us to Larchmont, which surprised me a little, for no other reason than the village was a little more upscale than I expected. I followed him up the drive to a huge house. There had to be a mistake.

He pulled up and turned off his bike. "Did you get lost or something?" I asked after I killed my engine.

"Nope, this is the place I wanted you to check out."

"You're joking, right? How many square feet is it?"

The house wasn't just huge, it was massive. I knew the words meant pretty much the same thing, but massive just seemed bigger. It looked kind of like a castle made with mostly red brick, but the trim was white brick. I was fairly certain my whole apartment complex would fit inside of it.

"The house itself is a little over twenty-one thousand square feet. The grounds are almost three acres. It sits on a peninsula, so the road we came up is the only road in. Most of the property is surrounded by rocky cliffs, but there's a beach if you enjoy that kind of thing. There's also a pool, but since I know you don't really care for the sun, they're just added features."

He led me up to the door and opened it with a key from his keychain. I was starting to get the funny feeling it was a property we could move into anytime because he already owned it.

"When was the house built?" I asked as we walked in. The entryway was as gorgeous as I expected. Marble floors and white columns greeted us. The jeans and t-shirt I was wearing left me feeling extremely underdressed.

"We built it in eighteen-ninety."

"I see, so this isn't a recent acquisition for you?"

"No, we liked the area back then, so we had this house constructed. We've kept it up, waiting until enough years had passed, allowing us an opportunity to move back in without anyone remembering us. I think one hundred years should be long enough." He started giving a short tour of the different rooms.

I couldn't believe I'd ever lived there. Of course, I supposed the electronics weren't the same back then, but it was still a very impressive place. When we got to the kitchen, I fell in love yet again with my favorite room of the house. After just seeing two kitchens that put my apartment one to shame, I wondered how'd I'd lived for so long without figuring out a way to remodel.

"I had your own Tabby installed. I also bought most of the appliances I've ever heard you mention. I wanted to make sure it was perfect for you."

I highly doubted the kitchen could be more perfect. Just for fun, because it was one of my favorite features at the Vida house, I got down on the floor to see if it was heated.

Nate snorted as he figured out what I was doing. "Yes, after I saw you practically making out with the floor at the other place, I called and had some people come in and install the heated floor. Unlike the other house, ours is geothermal."

I smiled up at him. "You are the best kind of fiancé in the whole wide world. Okay, the kitchen has my approval, let's see the rest of the house."

"Let's," he said as he started the rest of the tour. "Features include eight bedrooms, twelve baths, an exercise room, an elevator, more general rooms than you could ever imagine and a tennis court."

"My house has an elevator. You've got to be kidding," I said. To prove to me he wasn't, he directed me to the elevator on the way to our bedrooms.

"This is your room," he said, opening the door in a grand gesture.

The first thing I noticed was a giant canopy bed. I walked in and saw a huge walk-in closet to match the bed. I had no idea why I'd need that much closet space, but if nothing else, I figured I could hide from Nate in there. There were two other doors in the room. I opened the one closest to the closet and found a very large bathroom with a big Jacuzzi tub in the middle and a nice standalone shower.

I was beginning to think that every adjective I could find about the house dictated how large it was or its features were. I could've noted the different colors of things, or textures, but all I saw was size.

"What's through the other door?" I asked. Already finding a closet and bath, I couldn't think of the purpose for an extra door.

"That would lead to my bedroom. I'll give you your separate bed, but I won't be far away."

"Any other surprises I should know about?" I asked, looking at him suspiciously.

"Well, it isn't really a surprise, but Rick is going to be moving in with us. I think the house is plenty big for the three of us and a robot," he replied.

"We have a couple of last minute additions to our happy family," Rick said from the doorway. He had to be in ninja mode, or the vast size of the house covered the sound of his approach. "Meet Romeo and Juliet." As he spoke, two little white fluffy dogs scampered in like they owned the place.

"Oh my goodness, they are so cute!" I exclaimed. "Please tell me they're my present." I bent down to pet the little furrballs and was instantly mugged as they competed for who got the most attention.

"They are. We had a drug bust the other day and confiscated the property. These two were running around and the officers on the scene were going to send them to the pound, but I intervened."

"What kind of dogs are they? They look like little teddy bears." I didn't know any teddy bears that licked people to death, but that didn't change what they reminded me of.

"They're Bichon Frises and I think they have the perfect temperament for you. Now, what was this I heard about us having a robot moving in?" he asked.

"It's a funny story actually. When we got home there was a suitcase sitting outside the door with my name on it. Nate opened it up and out popped Vinnie," I explained.

"Yeah, she has a new secret admirer who couldn't bear the thought of living without her," Nate added his two cents.

I didn't get the sense that he was actually jealous of Vinnie, but he sure found the situation hilarious. I was still coming to terms with the fact that Vinnie had managed to ship himself to me.

"He isn't a secret admirer, he just didn't like those other people," I fought back.

"Not true, he was trying to make you breakfast in bed this morning," Nate countered.

"You can't be jealous of a robot, that just doesn't make any sense," I replied, wondering if I'd managed to read his mood wrong as far as Vinnie was concerned.

"I'm not, but it's fun watching you get all riled up about it. I think he'll be a good fit with our little band of misfits and the house is big enough for all of us. Just as long as I don't find him trying to sneak in your bed at night, there won't be any issues," he teased.

"No worries about that, my bed is going to be full of Romeo and Juliet. I just have to train them to growl at you whenever they see you coming."

"I'll have to always walk around with treats in my pockets then."

"So, how soon can we have everything moved in here?" I asked.

We'd taken the tour and I didn't think there was any question about whether we'd make the move. I liked the idea of not having to pay rent, and if it was really a place from my past, more memories were bound to crop up.

"Well, Rick moved in while we were away. We have a truck available and tons of boxes. Let's head home and try to get as much packed as we can, at least enough so we can stay here tonight. We don't really need the furniture, so we can just leave it behind to deal with another day," Nate suggested.

"Okay, sounds like a plan. Most of my clothes are already in my suitcase. I'd like to pack up my kitchen stuff for sentimental reasons, but other than that there isn't a whole lot else in the apartment, so it should take only a few hours at most. How are we going to get Vinnie over here?"

"I hope he doesn't have a problem traveling in the suitcase, because even though it is New York, I think people might notice a robot walking around, and I prefer we refrain from drawing that much attention to us," Nate replied.

"I don't think he'll mind. We can load him in last and take him out first, so he isn't folded for too long. I don't want to hear about him getting new kinks he has to work out. How about the dogs, what will they do while we're away?" I asked.

"I've set them up in their own room with little dog beds and more toys than they know what to do with," Rick explained. He called them and they followed him to wherever their room was located. I hoped it wasn't too far away.

With everything discussed, we left our new home. Nate and I rode our bikes and Rick followed behind with a moving truck. I hadn't realized the truck was already on the property. Nate obviously didn't think the word no was in my vocabulary.

At the start of the mission, I was living with a sort of boyfriend trying to get him to move out. Just a week later, I found myself moving into a mansion with my fiancé, his best friend, two new puppies and rogue robot I picked up on my travels. Not only that, I evidently had to prepare for some coming war that I had no clue who or what the enemy was, or the conflict they had. Nobody could say my life was boring.

**THE END**
AFTERWORD

Thanks for making it this far

Well, we've made it to the end of another book. I can't believe where this adventure took us. I knew from the beginning that Nate was going to be special, but to end up having Avery be special too, that was just an added bonus.

This book really helped me decide where to take the series. I was originally just going to follow Avery around on different cases, but now we have the extra excitement of some upcoming war that no one, this writer included, has any clue on what it means.

For this book in particular, I had fun trying to decide who the bad guy was going to be during the initial phases of the book. I really was going to have it be someone at the think tank, but as soon as I wrote Katie's character, I knew it had to be her. I think it was her perky attitude.

I loved including Rick more in this book and revealing how connected he really is with Avery. I think in the books to come we are going to find out a lot more surprises about Avery's current friends.

I know the next book is going to see Avery travelling again. I believe Alaska is the destination currently calling to me. We'll be meeting one of Nate and Avery's children, but how that family reunion will go is anybody's guess.

**Amber**
About the Author

Amber has always had a passion for the written word. Along with that, she's always had ideas for stories swimming around in her head. It finally got to the point where she couldn't take it anymore and had to start getting her thoughts down on paper. There are still too many ideas, but she is working to get them out as fast as she can. Her hope is that one day her brain will be hers again.

Other hobbies of Amber's include: drawing, baking, arts and crafts, motorcycles, hockey and archery. She likes to think she has eclectic tastes where her hobbies are concerned. She loves to laugh and tries to make herself smile at least once a day. With the crazy thoughts going on in her head that usually isn't hard.
Other books by Amber Lynn:

Argonauts' Adventures

The Witch's Web

The Dragon's Fire

Daughter of Gaia Series

Daughter of Gaia

Queen of Aquima

Nightwalker Saga

The Nightwalker Knocks

The Nightwalker Teaches

Unlucky in Love series

Calypso in Love

Nani in Love

Rhea in Love

Hermia in Love

Desma in Love

Nyx Slaughter series

Night Calls

Night Marks

Night Bites

Night Howls

Night Lurks

Night Finds

Night Rises

Nyx Slaughter: Books 1-7

More Books

Searching for Home

Between Blood

