Johan Birch

I am officially old.

"Leigh also used to own the condos that Petra bought for me, there was a feud about those. The feud has been ongoing since then."

"So what did you tell them? Just now at the table?" Joseph asked.

"I told them to work it out. Petra knows that you need Leigh, so there won't be any actual fighting."

"Okay, I'd make you pay if I had to recast yet another part." I laughed. "So, what's a time slip?"

Good hearing.

"It's a small block of space where the normal rules of time don't apply."

Joseph smiled. "I believe you on that. There are so many weird things that have happened to me or around me, I've lost track."

Like that stunt Jaci pulled on Rowan.

"What's your best one?" I asked.

"I don't know if you know this one or not; it's a folk tale now, and I can't find a way to turn it into a movie."

"Go on."

"Years back, Jaci Stone was involved with actress Rowan McCreedy. They were on-again off-again, back-and-forth, and most people thought it was to boost Rowan's ratings because it was scandal and scandal sells."

Scandal.Good word.

"When they were off, Jaci was pursued by actress and supermodel alike. The last straw for Rowan was Jaci going out with Cassandra LeFort."

"Yeah, Gerry told me about that one," I chuckled.

"Gerry?" Joseph asked.

"Joe, Gerard LeFort is a good friend of mine. I bought out a lot of his...manufacturing capabilities...so he could create a new legacy for his daughters and grandchildren. I heard that Rowan has a wicked left cross."

"At another party, Rowan threatened to expose Jaci as trans to the world. While that fact was really an open secret in Hollywood, Jaci wanted to protect her people and put a forgetfulness spell on her."

"Those are interesting," I nodded. "Better than a non-disclosure agreement."

"Are you going to hit me with one of those now?" Joseph asked.

"Of course not," I scoffed. "For one thing, I can't cast spells. For another thing, you were not just a friend Jaci Stone, you were a very good friend to her, and that put a mark on you."

"A mark?"

"For the most part, you are protected from supernatural interference in mind and in body." I wasn't going to tell him that Stephanie was guarding him, she would have to do that herself. "But I wouldn't mess with your head, Joe. Never."

"But you would mess with Leigh's head, or have your wife do it."

"Leigh's adoptive mother, Morena Wasikowski; she and I have recently started doing business together. One of the things that was in the agreement was that Leigh stop this little vendetta going on between our families. We need the peace so that the business can be done without hard feelings going around. Nora?"

There was a light rapping on the booth door before Joe pulled it open. "Yes, Mister Birch?"

"Do you have your tablet handy?"

Nora passed her tablet to Joseph who passed it along to me. "The satellite chain is up, it only needed a few tweaks."

"Thank you. Gold Star."

Nora beamed before she pushed the door closed.

"Satellite chain?" Joe asked. "You've got a dedicated satellite connection way down here?"

"It is one of Birch Industries research satellites, we have an active expedition in the Antarctic." I toyed with the interface, connecting to whichever Birch facility was closest. "Akira, show me The Wasikowski Memo."

"Working," a computer voice came out of the tablet. "Ready."

"Joe, what I'm going to show you is extremely private. It is both business and personal, okay?"

"Okay," Joe nodded.

I played the memo for him which basically was Morena telling Leigh to stop fucking around and grow up. Joe was deep in thought a minute the video finished. "That's pretty intense."

"There's a lot of intense things going on here, Joe. Some of those things, especially between the families involved, that animosity goes back decades. I am hoping to unite both the companies and the families behind them for a more noble pursuit. Neither Morena nor I want some little, tiny, minute squabble to jeopardize that."

"Okay, I can understand that. Does the nobler pursuit involve that satellite your company launched last year? It made the news, but it looked like filler at the end of a newscast, then crickets."

"I bet you've just been dying to ask me that, Joe."

"You're right. It's one of the 'first' things that I tell scriptwriters to make into movies."

"Akira, pull up the feed from Maggie-1, give me a good picture of the approach if you can."

"Working."

"Is that a person or an AI?" Joseph asked.

"AI. As the big boss I have my personal AI, and it's better than Spock's computer."

"Of course," Joe chuckled.

A minute later a video feed started playing on the tablet. I held it out for Joseph to see, showing him the approach video that the probe was sending of Mars. "It wasn't a satellite, Joe. It's a probe, and it's starting the final approach to Mars orbit."

"Holy shit!" Joe exclaimed. "And I thought I was good at keeping secrets!"

"It is an open secret," I shrugged. "Once the probe has the insertion orbit complete, then we'll send it out to the world."

"Decent. Eventually I'd like to negotiate for some of this footage...I have had thoughts about another Mars movie."

"Joe, c'mon. Negotiate nothing, this'll be between friends. Besides, if you make a movie out of it and give my company the credit? I'll be waist-deep in new recruits."

"Deal," Joe nodded. "I'll see if I can get a few people who want to do some scut work to sift through your flight footage."

"Good. I'm gonna call it a day, Joe."

"Mmm-hmm. Gold Stars," he taunted.

***

Leigh was much more personable over the breakfast she shared with me and Petra. They had come to an agreement about the condos. Petra would close the corridor between the north and south condos, and we'd give the north one to Leigh as a sign of good faith.

We would stay out of each others' business, and that would be enforced with magic so there wouldn't be any 'accidents.' The final proviso was that if Leigh and Chastity moved out, they would give it back to Petra and me. The reverse would apply, to make everything even. I'd never move out of that condo, the air rights attached to the building made sure I would always have a good view.

After breakfast Petra, Nora, and I changed into some 'Outback Gear' so that we could take a proper safari. I was annoyed that we had a chase vehicle with security, as most of the time they were cloaked, but I found out why when we approached Aboriginal land.

Both vehicles died short of a glowing white line on the road we had been following. I got out of the truck and went to study the line in the road. "That's amazing," I said in awe. "This whole area is warded!"

"My magic is gone as well," Petra admitted.

A man appeared on the other side of the line. He looked perfectly normal, a black man in a white suit, not like the movies which showed half-naked natives running around in tribal dress.

He cocked his head and pointed at me, curling his finger in a beckoning motion. Petra grabbed ahold of my hand. "That's not a good idea. We cannot protect you with magic ."

Joshua appeared with a pop and a flash of light. "I can."

"Because we all know what happened the last time you were guarding my husband," Petra growled.

"Let me go, Petra," I said. "We are all here for a reason, gaia led us here. Let me go see what is going on."

Petra let go of my hand and started wagging her finger at Joshua. "If he gets killed over there, you better bring him back so I can kick his ass!"

I pulled her into a kiss. "Easy, darling. This isn't like Jaci taking a trip down to The Black Level of The Library. I'm just going for a walk."

"Jaci didn't fly down to The Black Level, she walked there."

Another quick kiss was planted on her lips before I let her go. I started walking toward the man, turning around when I heard the giggling behind me. Petra was signing to Joshua, pointing at her eyes and then pointing at him. It was the sign for: 'I got my eyes on you, Buster.'

I felt a tingling on my skin when I stepped across the line. Then I could hear...everything. The jungle sounds of insects, the rushing of a nearby river. "That's amazing."

The man stepped forward, offering me a friendly handshake. "I'm Ok'al'gah, most paleskins call me Okie."

Turning to wave at a scowling Petra, I blew her a kiss. "Lead on, Okie."

"So, they seem a little afraid of you," I said once we were out of sight to the trucks.

Okie turned to me. "And I'm afraid of you."

I looked over my shoulder. Joshua wasn't visible, but I knew he was there. "And the fear?"

"Our lands are protected. They cannot use their witchcraft here, but they don't know why."

Well, that's interesting.

I let him lead me into a valley, which wasn't really a valley. It was a crater. Whatever had caused the crater was long gone, but it seemed...

Okie took the first step into the crater. "Come. Come."

I followed him down to the bottom of the secondary crater and stopped when he did. He reached out with his hand, indicating that I should do the same. I started to reach out, when I heard Joshua's voice. "Ceres."

"What?" I turned to look up at him, withdrawing my hand.

"Please don't touch that," he said. "That object is what killed you the first time."

"It what? I've never been here before."

"The first time," Joshua stressed.

Oh.

"This will not harm him," Okie objected. "It is the source of his power."

"You weren't here then," Joshua said to Okie. "This was six thousand years ago, by the current calendar. I was. I mourned his death, and buried him right there." Joshua pointed behind him, someplace I couldn't see.

Aysun and Petra appeared between me and Okie. Aysun had obviously used my face as her destination. "You shouldn't have come," I told them.

"Harriet said that you were in danger and going to die," Aysun protested.

"So where's Harriet?"

Okie hadn't moved since Joshua had spoken to me. Was he afraid of Joshua? Harriet appeared on the other side of me with a popping noise and Okie took off running up the crater wall. Harriet put her hand on the side of the whatever object that Okie was trying to get me to touch, and a bolt of lightning shot out and turned him into dust.

"Harriet?" I asked.

"Johan?" Harriet retorted.

"A little late to the party?"

"Sue me. I was in a conference when I felt your presence here. I sent out a message to stop you."

"Conference, for a temporal mechanic?" I asked.

"Give me a second, will ya?" Harriet turned and put her other hand on the object. "What's your number? What's your designation you fucking machine!"

Machine?

"I've got an order for you. I need you to take a ride into the asteroid field in this system for a few orbits. Control Seventeen will issue your recall. Go, now."

Harriet dropped her hands and turned to us. "Let's go, it won't take off until we're at a safe distance."

I held my questions until we got out of the crater. "Are you an alien, Harriet?"

Harriet let out a very unladylike snort. "Thats rich, coming from you."

"Well, I wasn't just talking to an invisible alien machine," I retorted.

"Okay, there are invisible alien machines around," Harriet admitted. "Yes, it blew a very bad man into atoms because I know how to talk to them."

Before I could ask my next question, a humming sound came from the direction of the crater. I could tell the object was moving by the hum, but I couldn't see it. Then the noise was gone.

"Why did you save me?" I asked Harriet.

"I saved you for your wife and children," Harriet said.

Aysun rushed Harriet and pulled her into a hug. "Thank you!" Then she pulled back. "What?"

"You're nosy, aren't you?" Harriet scolded. You must get that from your dad." She gave me a wink, then vanished.

"What?" Petra asked.

"When I hugged her, she was thinking that 'The world needs Johan more than it needs Jaci.'"

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"Do tell," Petra added

Aysun giggled. "I pulled the rest of it out of her head before she pushed me away. She knew if dad had touched the sphere, it would have changed him back into Jaci."

"Then we should thank Joshua then, he's the one who really stopped me." I took a look around. "Gone again."

"Not quite," Aysun said. "Let's go back to the trucks, I'd like to see the other sights now that I'm here."

"Aysun?" I probed. "What's going in?"

"That machine, whatever it was, was shielding this area to keep evil from leaking out."

"And?"

"A lot of evil has occurred in these woods by the inhabitants," Aysun explained. "I didn't feel it until that object left."

"What else?" I demanded.

"I'm thinking that Joshua didn't feel it, either. Remember, he didn't know about that torture chamber until Jaci, Grace, mom and me broke into it."

"So what did you mean by, 'not quite?'" I demanded.

Petra cast a wary look around us. "Joshua and company are eating bad people, and thank the goddess they are being quiet about it."

We quickly made our way back to the trucks, seeing that the guards were on alert. I knew they were all magicians, so they were probably keyed on whatever Aysun and Petra were sensing.

Everybody relaxed once we hit the main highway. Aysun asked who had thought of going out there, and Petra admitted that it was one of the clerks at the hotel who had told her about it.

I didn't have to be a mind reader to know that whomever that clerk was; he or she was going to get quietly scooped up, their brains picked, and I would have a full report by the time we returned.

Fifteen kilometers on the road Petra's phone rang. She listened for a moment, then handed it to me. "Sir?" It was Chelsey, one of my special-detail guards.

"Go ahead, Chelsey."

"Sir, we apprehended the clerk and were getting ready to question her when Hera appeared," Chelsey said. She didn't know if she was in trouble or not. She wasn't. I knew why Hera had shown up.

"Walk away, Chelsey," I ordered.

"Sir?"

"If that woman hasn't said anything to you regarding a crime, walk away. She probably hasn't yet because Hera wouldn't have shown up. Once anything is heard, the Laws of Man apply, do you understand?"

"Perfectly."

"Unbind her if she is bound and walk away."

"Walking away." The call closed, and I knew she had understood.

"What was that all about?" Aysun asked.

"Hera showed up while the team was setting up to interrogate the clerk. I told them to walk away."

"Why? If we caught her..."

"Technically we would have to turn her over to law enforcement. Once that occurred, the law would have to be followed. Charges, trial, etcetera."

"What about our kidnapping crime?" Aysun probed. "You did specify that the guards release the woman."

"Good question, I don't know the answer to it. I would like to think of it as a false or mistaken detainment, but you've got me. Whoever that woman is, she probably won't be around much longer if her aura is black."

"That's rather cold," Petra snipped.

"No colder that what they have done to all the other souls they lured out there," Aysun said. "The group, your group, wasn't the first safari seekers that their people have led out there and killed. But this time? This time they wanted dad, thinking he was this great man who had come to lead them."

"But why did Okie say that the... whatever was there was the source of my power?" I asked.

"There's got to be more than one of those devices," Aysun offered. "There may be a lot more."

A flash from my childhood, the purple lightning out in the water. "I know where one of them is at," I said. "Or at least where one used to be."

"And it can stay there," Petra grumbled.

"If Harriet hasn't already launched it into orbit, it needs to be found and studied," I countered. "You know that now, Petra. Hell, Miranda Olsen's evil laboratory could be near that object for all we know!"

Petra activated her phone and started barking orders into it. When she ended the last call, she turned toward me and took my face in her hands. "If we recover a mysterious alien object, I ask you to please, please not get close to it. I'd say a hundred kilometers, but ten meters should be fine."

"Okay."

"My heart will break into a million pieces if I lose you."

I put my hands on her wrists. "Let's keep it in one piece."

"Aww, so sweet!" Aysun squeaked.

"Shut up!" Petra and I said together.

***

Despite my concerns, Petra and Aysun wanted to ride back to America with me in the plane. I was joking when I told Aysun that she could fold out of the cabin and zap any sorcerer that tried messing with us.

Aysun shared a little tidbit with me once we were airborne: You exited a linear fold at the same velocity at which you entered it.

She explained that she and Grace had been out 'fold-stacking,' the exercise they called performing linear folds on top of each others' folds.

When she saw my confusion, she broke it down even further: When they had been moving the torture equipment out of the warehouse, one of had them always ended up too close to the point they were using as their target. They were practicing together, to see if they could synchronize their movements.

Recently they had taken to holding hands and alternating their choice of destination between them. I was envious, because that sounded like fun. The problem was, you shouldn't get distracted performing folds while running. Grace's turn had taken them off a cliff, and Aysun had panicked and pictured an abandoned parking lot. They had been falling off a cliff, and their velocity had been increasing, and Aysun completed their fold one meter above the pavement. Needless to say they got hurt.

My advice was half-joking when I told her that immortality didn't survive stupidity.

My daughter, now almost two hundred years older than me because she spent time on alternate planes, said: "Duh!"

The question popped into my head and was out of my mouth before I could filter it: Had they ever tried folding a vehicle while they were traveling in it. Aysun said yes. Then I asked her if she could fold the plane while we were inside of it.

The look on her face broke my heart. She wanted to, but she was afraid of hurting me. Petra broke Aysun's line of thought by telling her to not even consider it.

I asked Aysun to call her half-brother and see if it was possible. After Aysun grabbed the on-board sat-phone and retreated into the rear cabin, Petra punched me in the arm. Hard.

Aysun came out of the cabin a half-hour later. She said that Kenneth, one of Jaci's sons who was also a physicist, would 'run the numbers.' I indicated the countdown clock to landing in Los Angeles and said we had lots of time for him to run the numbers.

Ten hours into the 17-hour flight, the sat-phone rang. I had been dozing in Petra's lap and felt her tense. Aysun chatted for a few minutes and closed it up. She didn't say anything, just going back to the galley to get a snack.

Petra nudged me off her lap and went to talk to her. I didn't try to eavesdrop on them, I would know about the conversation soon enough. As Petra returned, I sat up so I could resume my spot in her lap. She started stroking my hair, so as to put me back into my twilight sleep.

A shudder running through the fuselage snapped me awake again. Aysun, who had been kicked back reading a physical book shot to her feet. Petra pushed my head off her lap and went for the cockpit. "I knew we shouldn't have come along," Aysun said. "That was sorcerer's lightning."

"Aysun, the frame and fuselage are made of carbon fiber, we won't absorb anything."

Petra announced her reappearance with a snicker. "The system was working, and it was a brilliant idea."

"Was working?" I asked.

"Gregory said that a sorcerer has been taking potshots at us for the last hour, and not a problem."