Caleb 55 - Stolen Baby

The waitress arrived and put our food on the table, still looking like a bulldog chewing a wasp. She went away. Melanie looked at me, and then reached for her burger.

I didn't answer. Mainly because I couldn't. Two things had hit me simultaneously. First, as I'd examined her mind to find out her information, I had seen something completely unexpected. She was a power user. A strong one too, but for some reason she was not using her powers.

That was explained by the second thing I saw. As she reached forward to pick up her food I saw the tell-tale scar on her wrist. She was wearing an amulet.

Suddenly I wasn't hungry, but I needed to keep up appearances. I picked up my burger and began to eat. I still had about an hour and a half before I was due at Vince's, but I couldn't leave this girl here. Persuading her to come with me could go in any direction so, with a mental apology to her and everyone else, I decided on my course of action.

I picked up my phone.

"Mr. Stott," said Maggie, obviously observing the previous professional relationship.

"Be at my house in twenty minutes." I said and hung up.

I had no idea what she'd make of that but was hoping that she could manage it.

Melanie had finished her burger and drink.

"I'm sorry," I said to her. She looked at me confused. Then I took control.

I Compelled her to follow me out of the restaurant and into my truck. She climbed in the passenger side woodenly.

It was fifteen minutes before I got to my house, and I saw that Maggie had not yet arrived. I let us both in and sent Melanie into the bathroom to get cleaned up. She'd need more than one shower to get all the grime off her. She left her clothes outside, on the floor, and I dropped them in the trash.

Marcia, who'd seen me take Melanie into the bathroom, cocked her eyebrow at me.

"Picking up strays?" she asked.

"It's a long story," I replied.

There was a rapping on the door. It sounded angry.

I grimaced. I'd not been particularly tactful but hey.

"I don't know who you think you are," said Maggie as she walked through the door.

"Hush," I said. "If, after what I show you, you're still mad, then I'll bend over and you can paddle my ass."

That completely threw her. She blinked at me.

I sent her the memory.

It took but a second for her to assimilate it, and then her eyes filled with tears.

"Melanie," she said. "After all these years? It can't be..."

Melanie, who'd finished in the bathroom, came out. Still under Compulsion she walked naked into the living room, not bothered about her state of undress.

She was in a terrible state.

About five foot six, she was skinny as a rake, every one of her ribs clearly visible. Her arms and legs sticks. She had no breasts and there were open sores all over her body. I knew then that I couldn't leave her to go to Vince's. I needed to heal her and that would take all my power.

I picked up my phone.

"Jeevan," I said. "I'm really sorry but I cannot make today. A family emergency has come up. I promise to be there tomorrow. Is there something you can do in the meantime?"

"Bhaiya," he said, "is there something I can do to help?"

"Not at the moment," I said. "I have it in hand, but it just means I'm not available today."

"Okay," he said. "There are things I can get underway. It might mean working into the weekend, but we should still be able to get Vince healed this week."

"Please send him my apologies," I said. "I will explain when I see him."

Maggie was staring at Melanie like she'd seen a ghost.

I went into our bedroom and grabbed some sweatpants and a T-shirt.

When I came back, I found Maggie clinging to the girl like a long-lost daughter, weeping softly and apologising over and over again.

I got Melanie to dress then sit on the sofa. I wanted to end the Compulsion but didn't want her to bolt for the door as soon as she had control again.

Gently I released control, talking to her all the time, while rolling comfort, safety, and security over her as I did. She took on the look of a terrified animal but didn't move.

"You're safe," I said. "I promise." More comfort, trust, and safety.

"I'm sorry I did what I did," I continued, "but I needed you to come with me, and it was the safest and quickest way to get you to do so. I promise we'll explain everything.

She looked from me to Maggie and then gave the tiniest of nods.

I looked at Maggie. I wanted to hear this explanation too.

Maggie looked back at me.

"Caleb," she said, "I want you to meet Melanie. Your sister."

My jaw, previously a veteran of basement exploration, had gone practically antipodean.

Melanie looked at me. "My brother?" she said wonderingly.

"Well," clarified Maggie, "half-brother. You share a father."

She then went on to tell the tale of how John had gotten Melanie's mother pregnant, but the baby had been snatched from the hospital never to be seen again.

"We thought we'd lost you," Maggie said fresh tears in her eyes. "We looked everywhere, combed every inch of that hospital and the surrounding area, but we were too late. You were gone."

"But," asked Melanie, "how do you know that I'm that girl?"

I took a deep breath. "It's complicated," I said, "but the mark on your wrist is what told us."

She looked at the raised ridge around her wrist. "This?" she asked.

"Yes," I replied.

"It's a birthmark," said Maggie. "I saw it when you were born. We can do DNA tests to confirm, but I'm certain that you are Melanie Stott, Caleb's half-sister."

"What does that mean?" she asked.

"It means," I said, "that you're home. Until you want to be somewhere else, you are staying here with me and my family."

"Caleb," began Maggie, "I'm not sure that's a good idea. We need to at least tell John."

"We will," I said. "But what kind of a father has he been to his other children?" I asked. "I want to make sure that Melanie is cared for and I'm not convinced he's the man for the job. What about her mother?"

"She moved away," said Maggie. "We kind of lost touch. I could track her down, but it won't be quick."

"It's up to you Melanie," I said.

"What did you do to me?" she asked. "It was like I was being controlled."

I winced.

"I'm sorry," I said. "It was an emergency. Normally I wouldn't do that, but I needed to get you somewhere safe, and I wasn't sure that I could explain everything to you effectively in the time we had. I'm certain that you've had many people try and take advantage of you."

"You could have given me twenty bucks," she said with a small smile, "and I'd have come with you."

"Well, that part of your life is over," I said grimly. "From here on in, you'll only go anywhere with someone if you want to. You'll have enough to eat, and somewhere warm and safe to sleep."

She looked at Maggie.

All the time we'd been talking I'd been working on her body, healing the sores, killing the infections, making her whole again. Now all she needed was feeding. If I was honest, so did I.

"It's up to you," Maggie said. She pulled out her credentials. "I work for the FBI. I promise that you are safe here, and that Caleb, and his girls, will look after you.

"His girls?" she asked.

"That's complicated too," I said. "You'll meet them soon."

I looked at my watch. "They should be here any time. And I have to go out soon too. I'll introduce you when they arrive. They are lovely and will be more than welcoming."

"There's another agent I want you to meet and talk to," said Maggie. "Her name is Dianna. She'll be here in about an hour."

Melanie looked a little worried and looked at me.

"Dianna's nice," I said. "You'll like her."

The front door opened and Josh and Louise entered. They came in and looked at Melanie. Josh smiled. "Hi," he said "I'm Josh."

"Josh, Louise," I said. "This is Melanie. My sister."

"GET THE FUCK OUT!!!!" shrieked Louise. "I thought that..."

"Long story," I said. "She's going to be staying with us for a while."

Josh's smile widened. "Nice," he said. "I'm happy to meet you," he held out his hand. She shook it.

"Fuck handshakes," said Louise and enveloped Melanie in a hug. Melanie looked stunned, but after a moment returned the hug.

"We have so much to talk about," said Louise grinning. "What..."

"Lou," I said, and she looked at me. I gave her, and Josh, the memory of everything up to date,

I saw her assimilate and then turn her now sad eyes to Melanie. "Oh, you poor thing." She said enveloping her in a hug once more. "Caleb, the girls, Josh, and I will look after you now. You're safe."

Melanie still looking a bit stunned once more returned the hug.

Then the door opened and everyone else piled in. The twins, Jules, Ness, and Dana. Gracie was still at work.

Melanie's eyes widened.

To save time I simply sent the memories to everyone. They paused for a moment.

Mary approached Melanie.

"Hi," she said. "I'm Mary, this is Amanda, Jules, Ness, and Dana. We're happy to meet you."

Melanie looked from girl to girl, overwhelmed.

Jules, ever the practical one, went over to her and held out her hand. Melanie took it and Jules led her out of the living room and into her workshop. The door closed.

I looked at my watch.

"I have to go," I said. "I have a lesson in forty minutes. Ness, are you ok doing dinner?"

"Of course," she said. "Quick question though, where is Melanie going to sleep?"

I hadn't thought of that. Since we were remodelling the only bedrooms were ours, Josh and Louise's, and Gracie and Dana's

"We'll figure that out when I get back," I said.

"Don't worry," said Mary. "We'll look after her."

"Dianna is coming to speak to her," said Maggie.

"You guys staying for dinner?" asked Ness, Maggie's eyes lit up.

"I thought you'd never ask."

"So," said Mary grinning, "does Caleb get his ass paddled? I'd quite like to see that."

"It was a close call," Maggie said, "but I think on this occasion, I'll let it slide."

I grinned at her, "Shame," I said darting past her in case she changed her mind. "I'll be back around seven thirty - save me some dinner?"

"We can eat then," said Ness. "That's not too late."

"I'm hungry," I said. "I had to heal Melanie. And can you feed Melanie before then please, she needs fattening up."

"Okay,"

"She had burger for lunch," I said. "So, something a little more sensible?"

"Yes, boss," said Ness rolling her eyes.

I drove to the airport, arriving just five minutes before my allotted time.

Arnie was in the office along with an older man whom I assumed was his father.

They both looked up as I entered. The older man looked at Arnie and Arnie nodded.

"Mr. Stott," he said, "I'm Danny Jarrett. I own the school and am the principal instructor. Arnie here is a student instructor but can't take anyone up until he's eighteen in a few months."

I grinned. "That soon?" I said, "I though five or six years at least."

Danny looked at me, and then at Arnie who was grinning also.

He shook his head, deciding not to ask.

"Arnie says that you're looking to get your license."

I nodded.

"I've already had my medical," I said showing him the medical certificate.

"Mind if we take a copy?" he asked, and I handed it to him. He handed it off to Arnie.

"Make yourself useful," he said to the youngster.

"First things first," he continued. "Do you have a headset?"

I shook my head.

"Okay," he said. "We can use one of ours, but I advise you buy one. There are many available online or I can sell you one. We carry a small selection. I personally use the ones we carry but they are not the cheapest on the market. We currently have three models." He indicated three headsets in a display case. "The Sennheiser HMD-300 is three hundred. The David Clark H10-60 is four hundred. Finally, the Bose A20 is twelve hundred. All are good, but obviously you get what you pay for."

"Which one do you use?" I asked.

"I use the Bose," he said. "It has superior noise cancelling as well as Bluetooth connectivity.

"You have one of those in?" I asked.

"Yes," he replied.

"Cool, I'll take the Bose then."

He gave me a very surprised look.

"They're twelve hundred," he reminded me. I handed him my card.

Shrugging he looked at Arnie, who sighed theatrically and went through the door at the back of the office.

He emerged a few minutes later with a headset in a box.

It comes with a carrying case so you don't have to worry about that. Also, they include batteries, and decent ones for a change not the cheap Chinese things that last ten seconds.

I unwrapped the headset and took a look. I realized it was like the one that Gerry had, although he had the next model up.

"Okay," he said. "Shall we?"

We walked out of the office and onto the apron where a small single engine plane was sitting. I recognised it as a Cirrus SR20. Gerry had never flown one of these.

"What we'll do today," he said, "is go through the preflight checks you need to run every time before you fly. Then I'll take us up, give you some stick time to see how it feels, and then I'll bring us down. After that we'll have a chat about how you felt and we'll go from there. Sound okay?"

"Perfect."

We spent the next twenty minutes walking around the aircraft checking everything that needed to be checked: tires, that control surfaces all moved smoothly, fuel, and a myriad of other things. I had to curtail myself as I found I was automatically heading for the next thing, before Danny told me what the next thing was. It was instinctive.

"Right then," he said. "That's all the external checks done. Let's get onboard."

I waited for him to indicate which seat I was to take.

"You take the left seat," he said. "You need to get used to flying from that position."

"Why?" I asked. "Surely if I'm right-handed, it's better to sit on the right if we're using a joystick?"

"Tradition mostly," he said, "but you need to get used to using either hand. You could be flying in any position in the future so getting used to flying left-handed is essential. All the main controls are on the left seat - with the backups on the right. There are some aircraft too where there are not a full set of backups on the right - for instance some commercial jets can only be taxied from the left seat, there is no steering control on the right."

I climbed onto the wing and into the cockpit. It felt a little cramped in comparison to the G500.

"Have you ever been in a cockpit before?" he asked.

"Couple of times," I said. "Not one of these though."

"Ok," he said, "what aircraft was that?"

"Gulfstream G500," I said. He whistled.

"Someone knows someone with a lot of money," he said.

I grinned at him.

We continued through the prefight checklist, I plugged my headset in, and put it on when told to do so.

Eventually he started the engine. I listened to him as he spoke to the tower, got clearance for us to taxi, and eventually take off. We were finally in the air.

He was talking all the time he was flying, pointing out instruments that I already recognised and controls that I already knew.

"You want to take control?" he asked.

"Sure," I said.

"Nice and gently," he said. "You don't have to move the stick much. For now, I'll control the rudder, you concentrate on the stick."

I nodded, having almost automatically put my feet on the rudder pedals. I pulled them back.

"Ready?" he asked, and I nodded.

"Your plane" he said smiling.

"My plane," I repeated automatically taking hold of the joystick and keeping the aircraft in straight and level flight.

He seemed surprised.

"Nice" he said. "Most people take a few minutes to get the feel and usually wobble a bit when they take over.

"I've played a lot of flight sims," I said, grinning.

He laughed.

"If only it were that easy," he said, "I'd be out of business. Let's try a turn. We're currently on this heading," he pointed to the indicator. He gave me a new heading.

"Nice and gently," he said. "I'll control the rudder, you just concentrate on keeping the altitude as it is. We don't want too steep of a bank angle either. We're not doing aerobatics.

We completed the turn with a minimum of fuss. A half a minute later were on our new heading. Our altitude having not wavered in the slightest.

He frowned.

"You never had lessons before?" he asked. I shook my head.

"Okay," he said. Let's try another turn, only this time you take the rudder pedals. Now, it's not like in a car, moving the left pedal will make the aircraft yaw to the left. Moving the right, the opposite.

"You understand pitch roll and yaw?" he asked and I nodded.

He gave me the new heading, and soon we were on that, again no drama.

His tongue poked out a little and he bit it as if in thought.

We flew around for a little while longer and then we turned back toward the airport. He took control again and we came in for a landing.

As we were approaching the landing, he said "Flaps 50%."

I pulled the lever to set the flaps.

"Flaps 50%" I confirmed.

That, I realized immediately was a mistake.

He landed the plane and taxied to the flight school parking. Then he shut it down.

"Okay," he said to me, looking at me angrily. "What game are you playing?"

"Game?" I asked.

"You're a qualified and experienced pilot," he said. "Nobody flies like that on their first time up. So, what is it."

I bit my lip.

"Since nine eleven," he went on, "we have been instructed to report anyone suspicious taking flying lessons. So, Mr. Stott, are you going to tell me what's going on, or am I calling the FBI?"

I reached into my pocked and pulled out my ID.

"We're already here," I said.

He looked at my ID.

"It says you're a consultant?"

"I am. But if you want to check my bona-fides, feel free to call the local district office."

"The fact is," I said, "I do know, technically how to fly. I have an eidetic memory, and I've read just about everything there is to read about flying. I've also been in some simulators," I continued. "Not home PC setups, but real flight simulators. And I've actually had some stick time on the G500 I mentioned before, but don't tell anyone."

"I can fly," I said. "But I need the paperwork that says I can fly. I'm sorry if you thought something more sinister was going on, but really I'm just here to get signed off."

"Okay," he said. "Let's see. Take us up and fly a pattern. Let's see how good your memory is."

Since we'd only just shut down, we didn't need to do a full pre-flight but there were still a couple of checks we needed to do, and I ran through those swiftly.

I started the engine, and contacted the tower to request taxi and take off, telling them that I was a student pilot intending to fly a pattern. They gave me clearance.

Half an hour later we were sitting on the parking stand once more. The engine of the plane ticking as it cooled.

"You have some bad habits," he said. "The kind of bad habits that creep in after decades of flying. We need to work on those. Other than that, I think we can get you signed off in minimum time. Another thirty-eight hours flight time and you'll be licensed.

"Since you have such a great memory, you want to book your radio and nav assessment?"

"Yes, please," I said.

We shut the plane down and went into the office.

"Arnie," he said, "go secure the aircraft."

The boy nodded and left through the door we just entered. Danny then signed off on the first entry in my log book.

The lessons that the twins had bought for me didn't include the assessments, but that was no problem. I booked them for later on that week, both on the same morning. I handed him my card.

"I suggest," he said, "that if you are in a hurry, we do four-hour lessons. That will give you three hours in the air per lesson, so you'll be done with your instructor hours much quicker. Then you can go onto the other aspects, like your solo flights. Since you already logged an hour in the air, another six weeks will get your instruction out of the way, we'll stretch a bit to make up the extra hour."