Dark as Daylight Ch. 16

"Well, Mr. Finch, in your hurry to be on time, Rebecca's finished thesis is going to be torn apart, and will be re-bound before we take off for Atwater Luck. The appropriate numbers will be put in place, and the erroneous numbers will be removed. The publisher will have the new numbers for the original publications, and Rebecca's work will be the steppingstones upon which others will work off for generations."

Rebecca pushed Richard away. "Hey, smart ass; how do you know I don't have the appropriate numbers in there already?"

"You asked me, quite vehemently, not to say this to you again, but you our forcing me to do it again. 'Rebecca, I am smarter than you are'."

He caught her foot before it contacted his chin, and did not release it.

"You bastard, let me go."

"I know my family lineage, back 14 generations. I am definitely not a bastard. Now apologize to me and my family lineage, before I put you on your ass for using foul language, and accusing me of being incorrect."

"Grandpa, hit him."

"Honey, I have not enjoyed myself this much in a very long time. Why would I hit him?"

"You are going to be in an enclosed bubble with me, and my sister for more than two years. Think about that, while you're enjoying yourself."

Joan said, "She does have a point Sam. I would hate to bury you at sea."

"You could put a tag on me, and name me a micro-meteorite."

Debbie shouted, "Grandpa, you actually learned something, while we went to college."

"I could read when I was three years old, Deborah. I was smart, but there was no money behind me to get an education like you received. I didn't manage to make the amount of money I did going through life by accident."

"Rebecca and I were sure grandma made it."

Joan said, "It was me."

"That is it! You three are grounded for life."

Rebecca yelled, "Me, I didn't say, or do, a thing. I am staying with Richard."

Her grandmother asked, "How much of your $100 million would you like to bet on that, Becky?"

"Oh crap! Nothing, zero, not one single penny, grandma. I'm sorry I opened my big mouth to grandpa and you."

"That was a very reasonable and correct answer. It must be something in the hospital air that is getting everyone so riled up. Let's get out of here before Laura decides to kill Joseph, just because it's past his feeding time."

Joe said, "I knew my palms were sweating for a reason. I haven't yelled at anyone for the past 45 minutes. Team 2 take the Finch's wherever they want to go for lunch and then to their hotel. Condition Orange, unless Hank receives a message from me, or he perceives a heightened threat.

Hank, you are Holden's body man. I know what a thrill that is for you, but that's your job for today. He is to be back at the facility at 4:59 PM. At 5 PM, the dogs are out the door, and the Air Force is on alert, and coming to find him. Is that understood?"

"Yes Mr. Constantine, we will be back at the facility at 4:30 PM. I will place his hand in yours at that time. I don't care where the remainder of his body is, but his hand will be in yours."

"That will be fine Hank."

Holden moaned, "Mr. Constantine, why aren't you going to be my body man?"

"I am going to be with your older brother. He is going to be in uncharted waters today, and I must make sure Miss Finch doesn't drown him; otherwise I will. He has given his word to Mr. Finch as to his behavior. I will make sure he keeps it."

Holden laughed, turned, and looked at his brother.

"Richard, you aren't even going to get to first base."

"Little brother, you are as dumb as anyone I've ever known. I've already been to first, second, and third base. I don't want to hit a homerun with anyone, until after I have said the words "I DO!"

He didn't react fast enough to avoid Rebecca's blows this time.

"You had to announce it to the entire world?"

"Can I help it if they were all watching, and didn't see what was happening?"

"Sometimes, Richard, ignorance is bliss."

"You have to make sure that Laura gives you that white outfit for our honeymoon."

"Who said you're getting that far?"

"Don't do that to me Becky! You are only going to wind up trying to hit me, and I will wind up putting you on your bottom. I really don't want to hurt it; I'd rather bite it."

"Asshole!"

"Yes, that too."

"I will get you for that."

"Oh, I certainly hope so."

**************

Hank yelled, "Come on everyone, let's go to the cars, and get this show on the road."

Everyone started filing out of the emergency room, with their agents close by their sides. Richard was holding Rebecca close to him, and Holden was trying to hold Rebecca close to him.

"Answer my question, Richard."

"You asked me 'How did I know I was getting that far?' Isn't the answer obvious; you can't keep your hands off me, and I am smarter than you are."

She tried to pull away from him, but it was useless. He was holding onto her too tightly, and they were at the car before she could put up any real resistance.

Joseph looked at both of them and said in a menacing tone of voice, "How much pain is it going to take to keep you two apart?"

Rebecca replied first.

"As far as I am concerned, you can take a nap for the next five years, and not worry about bozo hitting a homerun with me."

Richard said, "I said it inside Mr. Constantine. I will not hit a homerun with her, or any other girl, until after both of us say the words, 'I DO!"

He received an elbow in the ribs.

"What the hell was that for?"

"You're cheating on me already?"

"I am doing no such thing. What gave you that idea?"

"Recall your last sentence to Mr. Constantine."

"I remember it, exactly. However, you were the one that said, 'How do I know I'm getting that far?' I was just protecting my own interests."

"That's bullshit, and you know it." She tried to move away from him, but he was much too strong. She would get him later, somehow.

Joe looked at both of them, and nothing but fire emanating from their souls. It was a gift Laura gave him, and he didn't like it one bit.

He said, "You are both lying to yourselves. Laura gives you, maybe, until your 18th birthday, Rebecca. You may ask your grandparents for permission to break that vow. You have no idea how potent falling in love is. Your sister found out earlier this afternoon, and it was at the palm of my hand."

"Yes, Mr. Constantine, I know; she told me."

Joe smiled. "Would you like to visit that room in the hospital, with Laura and I, to experience it for yourself?"

"I wouldn't want to hold everyone up."

"Do I hear a chicken in the car, Laura?"

"I have to go back inside anyhow, Joseph. It seems I left a weapon in there. We can't leave Rebecca alone with Richard. We don't know what would happen in the 10 short minutes we would be gone. She could be pregnant by the time we returned. You could lose your job, and I could lose mine. We can take both of them with us, and he can learn how it's done properly."

"I guess that settles it, Rebecca. You should escort my wife into the hospital, because it would be unseemly of us to leave you alone with Richard."

"Alone, I would have eight other guards around me! What would happen if I don't want to join you in the hospital?"

"I would have to say your alone time, with Richard, after you move down, would be very unsatisfactory. You would be at one end of a row, in the movie, and he would be at the other. You would always have long tables at dinner to be sure you would have to shout to one another to be heard. Little inconveniences like that would happen to the two of you, but you definitely would not become pregnant, on our watch."

"Okay, I'll go into the hospital with you to get spanked."

Joe spoke into his wrist, "Close up, and let's get moving."

The senior agents ducked into the right front seats, and the armored vehicles drove off.

Rebecca was totally confused at this point, and didn't mind saying so to Richard.

"What the fuck is going on?"

"I have no idea, and I'm not even going to venture a guess."

From the rear seat, Laura said, "Joseph was testing your breaking limits. For a 16-year-old girl, you did well. The more pressure he put on you, the more confused you became. The more confused you became, the more pliable you became. Then, you gave up, and gave in to his demands. You will become more resistant to this form of interrogation as you get older, or you will be on your back before you know it.

Your sister is more highly agitatable than you are. Using this same method, she would have told him to take her into the hospital much sooner than you, just to get the interrogation over with."

"I always thought she was calmer than I was."

"No, not really. She showed it all, while she was wrestling with Holden."

***********************

The SUVs pulled up in front of a ranch style home, separated from the street and its neighbors by a 4-foot tall, split-rail wooden fence, and came to a halt. It was a family neighborhood, with large one-story ranch type homes, and what looked like a 1 acre, manicured lawn. It was nice, but nothing overtly remarkable about it, but something kept nagging at Richard's photographic brain.

"That was it,' he thought, 'someone had sent them a picture of a house like this. Maybe the Laver's live here."

"Mr. Constantine, is this where Mr. and Mrs. Laver live?"

"Dammit Richard, I can't sneak anything by you. No, Mr. and Mrs. Laver live two houses down the road, in the red house. This house belongs to Charles Laver, the captain of the Good Luck 2. You two may use it for three hours' this afternoon, to get to know one another. There will be no one inside with you. There will be men patrolling the grounds, and drones keeping the air clear overhead. Just behave yourselves, do we understand one another?"

"Should we order food in now, or make it from what the captain has in the house?"

"Tell Fred what you want to eat. He will order it for you, and have the store delivery it. One of our agents will hand it to you. If you don't recognize the agent at the door, do not open it, and call me."

"Yes Mr. Constantine."

"Go ahead, go inside, and get acquainted."

As they were walking down the hill towards the front door, Rebecca said, "I can't believe they trust us that much. I know I am not going to do anything, but if something were to come around, say, in the heat of passion, who knows what might happen?"

"Rebecca, Joseph is pulling our chain. He would never give any of us this much latitude. He has known me since the day I was born, and would never give me that much rope to hang myself with. Something is going on in that house, and we will find out as soon as we walk in. Don't say a word, don't act surprised, just act naturally, and if we can find a place to talk about what he did, we will do it privately."

Unsure of what to do, Richard knocked on the front door three times before he opened it, and walked in in front of Rebecca, protecting her from whatever might be their first surprise. He heard it instantly, but did not react to it. It was the wrrr of a camera servoing in on their position. He wasn't sure if there were microphones attached to the cameras that were watching their every move, but there was a good chance there were, or they were planted all around the house.

He decided to have a little fun with his minders.

He knelt down, and pulled Rebecca with him, pointing to an area their bodies blocked the cameras visibility from.

He said in a normal conversational voice, "Look at this, Rebecca. I have never seen termites active during the day. This house must be infested with them. When we leave in six or seven months, and Capt. Laver returns to earth in 7 to 10 years, this house is going to be a pile of dust. I will show this to Mr. Constantine when he comes to pick us up."

Rebecca put her head on Richard's shoulder and said in a whisper, "Who's chain are you pulling this time?"

"The people who are watching us, sweetheart, who else?"

"Don't you think you're a little ahead of yourself?"

"That's totally up to you, isn't it? Am I ahead of myself, or are my words making you uncomfortable?"

"Your words are definitely making me feel uncomfortable. I didn't know you a few hours ago. I knew of you and your phenomenal achievements, but I did not know the person behind them. Now all of this is being shoved at me, at a rate much faster than I ever expected. I don't know if I can make decisions this quickly, and I'm not sure if you can either."

"Rebecca, what are my rules?"

"I'm not sure if this is a rule or not, but you're only looking for a relationship that will last a lifetime."

"That's not the way I put it, but it will do. What was the second point I made?"

"There will be no sex until we are sure we are compatible with one another."

"Are we at that point yet?"

"No."

"Then what are you worrying about. All we are doing is getting to know one another like any two people on the first day of college. Right now, we are entomologists looking at invisible Asian termites eating up captain Laver's home. I'm amazed they are showing themselves in the daytime."

Rebecca continued Richard's thought. "If this place has a basement, I wouldn't want to go down there without being completely covered from head to toe, including an oxygen canister. These things can fly, and if they get into your mouth and lungs, your dead in a moment."

"I'm sure the captain must've taken preventative measures by now. No one would let it get this far. Let's walk around and test the floorboards. Hold my hand, I don't want you to fall through the floor, and I don't want to fall through the floor either. Let's check the bathroom, termites love moisture."

As they walked in Rebecca said, "This is a very lovely bathroom."

Richard motioned to her to get into the tub while saying, "I'm not sure I like these colors, but that is more a woman's thing, then a man's. Look here by the vanity, there are termites all over the place. He must not have been home for a very long time."

He handed her a few metal canisters, from underneath the vanity. He picked up the decorative metal bathroom chair, and joined her in the tub.

He said to her, "On the count of three, throw these into the air and scream as if you were falling through the floor."

"Are you sure you want to get in that much trouble with Mr. Constantine?"

"I don't want him to think I'm that much of a fool, and he is giving me carte blanche with you in a house for three hours. No normal boy could keep his hands off you for that long."

"Are you saying your abnormal?"

"I'm abnormal in that I'm looking for something, and someone very special. I'm hoping it's you."

"Let's find out."

"Ready?"

"Ready."

"One, two, three..."

The cans and the chair flew into the air, and the teenagers yelled at the top of their lungs.

The agents viewing the monitors heard the ruckus and scanned for the teenagers in every room of the house, but they were not there. They called a code red to the agents patrolling the grounds by the fence line. They reacted immediately, and charged the house.

Joe Constantine was in bed, cuddling with his pregnant wife, who was getting ready to ride him. When they heard the emergency tone on his phone, she saw red, and he saw blood. He threw on his jockeys, charged out of the guest house, crossed the street, cleared the top of the fence, without touching the wooden barrier, and ran down the slope, into the house.

The AIC held up his hands to stop him.

"We have them Joe; he was testing us. Should I kill him, or both, now. By the looks of you, maybe you want to do it?"

Joseph looked at the two of them, sitting back to front, in the bathtub smiling up at him.

Richard said, "Mr. Constantine does not have a six pack, Rebecca. He has a 10 pack because of Mrs. Constantine's height deficiency."

"Richard if Laura was standing anywhere within hearing distance at this moment, there would be nothing I could do to save you. Don't you ever say that those words again."

"Yes Mr. Constantine, however, did you really expect me to believe you were going to give me three unobserved hours with Rebecca? Did you expect me to believe you were going to give me three unobserved hours on this planet? That was the reason for this little exercise. I'm sorry I got you out of bed, I hope I didn't disturb the little woman."

"Richard, watch your words."

"What did I say that was offensive, Mr. Constantine?"

"You know what it was, and I am going to stand aside as she starts breaking your bones from the smallest to the longest. I only promised your parents you would be alive when you reach them. I didn't tell them the condition of your body upon arrival."

"Thank you Mr. Constantine, I, and my mouth have been warned. Please return to your wife and go back to sleep. Rebecca and I are going to get to know one another, but not in the biblical sense."

"Good luck Rebecca, I think he had a dictionary, and a thesaurus for breakfast."

"I think so to Mr. Constantine. He has been using both of them on me all day."

"You can always bite his tongue if he gets too over anxious, or over amorous."

"I had not thought about that, but that would be a wonderful defense mechanism."

"Thank you Mr. Constantine, as you've noticed, no doubt, she has absolutely perfect teeth."

"Keep thinking about that and the damage they could do to your tongue, Richard!"

"I will, if I get that far. We haven't started talking about it yet. We've been talking about termites; this house is infested with them."

"Are you sure? I wasn't advised of that."

"If you turn around, and look at the base of the vanity, you will see them walking along the edge. They are by the front door, and the hallway all the way here."

Joe looked, and sure enough Richard was correct. Richard was always correct. Since they owned every home within a four-block radius of this one, for security purposes, each one would have to be checked, and taken care of immediately. He would have Teddy make a phone call.

"You two can get out of the tub now. If I were you, when you see my wife, I would be extremely nice to her; extremely nice."

In tandem they replied, "Yes Mr. Constantine, we will be extremely nice to Mrs. Constantine."

"The food's here Joe."

"Laura would tell you to choke on it. You better not, or she will wait until you're dead to take you to the hospital."

"Close up guys, the next time we walk into the house it will be 4 PM, not one minute before. Turn off the tapes and the cameras. If they can't behave themselves, they will learn a life lesson that will stay with them forever."

"Yes sir."

"Have fun kiddies."

Rebecca said, "Thank you Mr. Constantine, after lunch, I am taking a nap...with him."

"That is your choice Rebecca. Enjoy your day.

62. Thinking Ahead by Leaps And Bounds

"We have to build a furnace."

"Would you please tell me something I don't know."

"Gordon if you are not nice to me I'm going to take you apart piece by piece and use you as kindling for a fire."

"Do you want me to embarrass you again, Laura? I will if that is what you want."

"I had you, you bastard, and you know it."

"If you had me, why did you wind up begging for your life?"

"Because I couldn't breathe."

"Who won the match?"

"You did."

"Did I cheat, or do anything illegal?"

"No."

"How long ago was that?"

"Three days ago."

"Have we practiced since then?"

"No, I still can't use my left arm properly."

"Then stop complaining, and let's start working on our science again."

"We have to build a furnace. We can use the nuclear engine as the source of electricity to get it hot, but we don't have the raw material to make the steel for the furnace."

"Let's think outside the box. Who said you need steel to make a furnace? We did on earth, but we found 16 new elements here on this planet, most of which we can't categorize. Let's start small and see if we can make a pot out of one of them. If we can, we can begin to test its parameters."