Long Blonde Hair, Sky Blue Eyes Pt. 10

Dr. Alderson leaned back and began taking notes. "Not really. She was reading, a white rabbit came along, and she followed him into a hole that looked like a well, right?"

"So, did she fall down the well and go slat at the bottom?" he asked.

"She didn't splat because the story gets going while she's in Wonderland," Annika replied with a touch of consternation.

"You're right - she fell in slow motion, and even had time to take a jar off the shelves lining the hole and open it. It was empty, so she put it on another shelf further down the hole."

"Erik, I know you're smarter than I am and much better educated. I know you're making points you believe are important, but I'm only confused."

"Confusion is good. 'From chaos comes order' is a relevant axiom for a computer nerd like me. We encounter chaos daily, and try to bring order to it.

"When we learned you couldn't ride a bike or swim, what did we - your family and friends - do?"

"You rented me a bike, my brother taught me how to ride it, and then I practiced by riding with all of you."

"And you became proficient! How about swimming? Did we toss you in the deep water and tell you to swim, or did we provide tutoring, guidance, and feedback? Are you now a proficient swimmer?"

"You gave me lessons, and I became a pretty good swimmer," she replied. "But this is frustrating! What are you trying to make me see, or say?"

Doctor Alderson leaned forward. "Annika, calm down; he's not trying to frustrate you, he's trying to help you. Let me ask a question or two.

"What do the 'Wonderful City of Oz' and 'Wonderland' represent? You can answer generally, or make you answer germane to your recent troubles."

She sat, head bowed, brow furrowed in thought, for a long time. A much longer time than she typically took to answer any question. "Oz and Wonderland are symbols for Hollywood, or movie stardom, maybe. I'm Dorothy, skipping merrily down the yellow brick road someone laid to draw me to Oz, and I'm foolish Alice, chasing a rabbit into a deep well without a clue where I'm going to end up."

Erik exhaled a breath he didn't know he was holding, and Dr. Alderson beamed. Annika picked up steam. "And the reason Erik won't cut me any slack is that I eagerly rushed forward, ignoring the warnings, intent on gaining all that money and stardom! They didn't play me as much as I played me!

"Oh My God! I'm such a gullible idiot!"

"Are you? They've played many pretty young things like you over the years; you aren't the first," Erik interjected. "The thing is, Annika, you have relevant experiences you should have been drawing on from a similar field, and you have friends and advisors you can turn to.

"You didn't make a mistake, Hon: you made so many mistakes it boggles the mind. The agents watching you, the unholy three, and the 'sponsors' offering the money all concluded that you lack the discretionary powers necessary to even be around 'top secret' projects. They decided you were some brainless bimbo willing to do anything to earn fame and fortune, and they were willing to sacrifice you for the greater good, so to speak.

"Had Andi been by your side, had she been communicating with the select team that knew nothing about you but was doggedly pursuing Chinese efforts to acquire SEAM, your trials would have been avoided.

"Don't think I hold you entirely accountable. No, in my opinion, the government knew everything needed to avoid what became your debacle, and their mindless protocols, 'need to know' bullshit, and reckless pursuit an outcome regardless of cost, bear primary responsibility for the resulting debacle. None of the agents who decided to sacrifice you are still employed, and neither are their superiors, due to their bad decisions.

"But you aren't blameless for nearly dying! For the acts perpetrated against you! You went to Hollywood with eyes wide open, and managed to squint enough to miss all the signs that should have alerted you from the beginning!"

He sighed and calmed himself, knowing his words and tone of voice had slumped her shoulders and brought tears to her eyes.

"Annika, what would have happened had you not overdosed yourself? What would your life have become? What would have happened to us - you and I, our plans, our future?

"Do you really believe they were going to limit themselves to one gangbang orgy, or were you going to become the centerpiece of many? They filmed all this so they could force you to do their bidding, and I strongly doubt spying on me would have been sufficient!

"I don't like making you cry with such harsh words, but you have to face facts and take responsibility before you can fix whatever led you to skip merrily down the yellow brick road while blithely ignoring the caution and warning signs all around you, and your own experiences."

There was a long pause while Annika sat slumped, head down, and sobbed. When she finally raised her eyes, he told her, "You and Dr. Alderson have the time and she has the expertise. I'm going to be gone for a while, and I won't be able to check in with you. That has nothing to do with you, my lack of concern for you, or anything else having to do with you. It's something I must do, and that possibly will make our lives better at a point in the future.

"Hopefully, I'll devise a way to check in, but that may be weeks from now. I haven't asked that you return the engagement ring, nor have I said I no longer love you. The summer wedding, however, is off. When I return, we will spend time together, see where we are, and go from there.

"Give me a good hug, pray for me, and I'll pray for you. Hopefully, this too shall pass, and we will enjoy the bright future we once envisioned. But, in reality, that's up to you."

****

In spite of the surveillance afoot, around, and above, Erik Swahn vanished that night. Government consternation at his withdrawal turned to fear that he had been taken, and his family, friends, and co-workers only had Annika and Dr. Alderson's recollection of his words to comfort them.

Days turned to weeks and weeks to months without a trace, and then Cassie got a coded message. She almost missed it, again, but something made her pause her finger above the delete button this time. After retrieving other messages from the same terminal, she cooly gathered Johnny "to go talk to Carl," and the three ended up in the most secure room in the building.

The cipher worked, and they were astonished at the message. They contrived a response, and then destroyed all traces of the other messages and of their own. They had grown confident in their own government contacts, but Erik considered everyone an enemy unless proven otherwise, and this was his game.

Two weeks later, Cassie and KJ took a ten-day vacation to Hawaii, which coincided with Karli's vacation to Peru. Three days later they rendezvoused in New South Wales, at a coastal city named Port Macquarie, locally called Port.

Erik, with assistance from the Commonwealth team assigned to him, had deployed a variety of measures to ensure his privacy and safety. His three visitors were under that umbrella from the moment they arrived in Australia, though they took their own measures to arrive without uninvited escorts.

"How was Peru?" Erik asked as soon as he released Karli from the bear hug.

"Lots of mountains, and I saw the strange landing site for aliens I've always heard about. Of course, I saw it from 10,000 feet, but someday I hope to return.

"You're tan and fit! Been lying on the beach catching some rays?"

"As a matter of fact," he replied, but then grabbed Cassie in a similar bear hug and spun her around.

"Okay, Asshole, that's enough manhandling of my wife!" KJ threatened.

He set the giggling Cassie down, and turned to KJ. They shook hands, engaged in a ferocious bro hug, and then Erik asked Cassie, "So, did you bring the waif outfit, chain, and whip like I asked? That's the memory that's kept me going all these months alone."

Cassie hit him on the arm and called him Asshole, but she had a mischievous smile when she did. She hadn't because KJ was with her, but she wanted to see that look on his face again. Maybe someday.

"Our fresh-caught meal is awaiting my call, so put your clothes in your room, freshen up, and let's go eat! Cassie can put on the waif costume when we return, after a few Aussie beers."

It took the two women twenty minutes to freshen up, but it didn't seem that long, with the two Victoria Bitters KJ and Erik downed. When he stood, Erik saw the tiny green light flash on his watch and heard their ride pull into the garage. They took seats in the Range Rover and Erik asked how their visit to Hawaii went. The Saunders scoffed, and Cassie sarcastically replied that they really enjoyed flying over the chain of islands on their way south; they looked beautiful from 20,000 feet!

She then let him know that he would be paying for their next trip to the Islands, and for her bikinis! He teased her about the nude beaches not allowing bikinis, and then they were walking onto the restaurant deck situated above the waters of the South Pacific.

The Bitters were a bit much for Karli, who gave her beer to KJ and ordered a local Pale Ale. They had two more with seafood appetizers, and then their meals arrived. Another beer after supper, one to go, and they were back in the living room of Erik's house.

"Can we talk freely?" Karli asked, and their host nodded.

"So, what the fuck, Boss? You scared the hell out of all of us by disappearing! Then Johnny disbanded the SEAM unit and reassigned everyone to his project. Talk about overstaffed! Although I guess I should mention that, while the logistics program was good when we all arrived, you should see it now! In fact, stuff is flying off the shelves, and your friends in D.C. are expanding their use weekly! If we had the SEAMM to go with it, there's no telling how much good we could do the environment!"

Cassie was sitting back watching Erik while Karli talked. She wasn't lying; they had gone from a little better than break even to quite a lucrative shop in only a few months, with one production facility online and the second close. Even without SEAM they were a force, thanks to Johnny's foresight and leadership, and the advances by the people Erik had handpicked for his project.

However, Karli was right; with it, the sky is the limit, and it would be a MUCH clearer sky!

Erik looked at KJ and said, "You've all come a long way; should we rest tonight and hit it over coffee?"

"Nah, Buddy - you're not getting off that easy! You three can go over the heavy stuff tomorrow while I lie on the nude beach here and watch the Australian version of Hawaiian wahinis, but you owe us an explanation."

Erik looked from face to face; his hardened, and he began. "It became a matter of trust. I had come around to their way of thinking, and turned the building project over to them. They had convinced me that SEAM was a national security priority and that we would work together to develop, produce, and distribute it to all levels of our economy, with the military and certain government functions having first priority.

"I bought the property, and they moved Annika across and down the road a bit, so they could build a 'hardened site' that would be unassailable. That made sense.

"What didn't make sense was the recording devices implanted in the new buildings and in the network of subterranean rooms and tunnels underlying the buildings. That only happens when you don't trust or have bad intentions toward your partner, just as hiring experts like I did to examine the site for such devices during construction indicates you don't trust your partners.

"Then Aila learns, from impeccable sources, that my partners claim proprietary interest in a product developed under their auspices if such product is deemed 'vital to national security interests,' and the developers are considered employees for determination of intellectual property rights. Cute, huh?

"And then the Annika debacle. I'm sure you've heard their version and all the actions they took in response, but did you notice that the heads that rolled were well down the chain of command? Did any cabinet level or policy level hotshots lose their positions? Hah! Were any of them involved? I have proof, in their own words, that they were.

"I didn't confront them about the listening devices, but I let them know I knew, right before I went out the door. So, I'm here because I don't trust them and they don't trust me, making us really shitty partners."

"I'm leaving the big question for last," Cassie said, "but why Australia?"

"Because they want me enough to make deals and live up to them. They aren't playing intellectual property rights games, and they've seen what pissed-off me is capable of! They'd prefer to be my partners and benefit directly from SEAM rather than 'get bent over' by their allies before getting a sniff.

"I like these Aussies, and they have some very talented developers and programmers. Not that I've used them all that much, but when I have, I've been impressed."

"Okay, and what have you been using them for?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.

He got up, waved for them to follow, and opened the door to another large room that was filled with technology, whiteboards, and paper products of all sizes laying and hanging about. Karli walked into the middle of it all, studied charts, graphs, and highlighted notes for a few minutes while they watched her, looked at the monitor for a monster computer, and then exclaimed, "Oh My God! You did it!"

Erik basked in her excitement for a few seconds, and then replied. "Maybe, at least as of this moment. However, Aila and Aini are hard at work, so things will continue to change. However, we can develop a working model from what I have, and it will be improved as we learn."

"And where are we going to do that?" Karlie asked. "As devoted as your team is, moving to New South Wales will be a hard sell."

"We'll talk about it over the fresh seafood I promised."

****

As he expected, over coffee and breakfast Cassie and Karlie turned the conversation to Annika. "She's a changed person, Erik. Her career and business interests are on hold, she's enrolled in three online courses, and she sees both a psychiatrist and a licensed professional counselor, and she talks to Milly Hammer every other day. She's still gorgeous, but her looks are no longer the top priority. Heck, she's probably gained twenty pounds!"

"And every ounce went to the right places!" KJ added with a big-eyed chuckle. Cassie gave him a dirty look, then giggled and said she'd have to agree.

"What courses is she taking?" Erik queried, surprising the others.

"Courses she and Doctor Alderson decided on. Nothing you would expect, like design or business. One is Philosophy, another is Child Development, and the third is a sociology course in Deviant Human Behavior. She says that 'expanding her understanding and knowledge' is her focus."

With an arched eyebrow, Cassie opined, "I have no idea where she got such an idea. Do you?"

Erik didn't bite. Instead, he changed the subject, "I've got a few of the guys I've been working with coming over at ten to talk with Karlie. These guys come out of different training around different coding methods, and with a mindset that differs from ours. My favorite Aussie came from a tiny town and school, and he is self-taught. He sees problems and solutions differently, which is very helpful.

"Another is an Irishman who was taught by his genius but erratic neighbor - his words - and he has still another perspective. I find it refreshing and stimulating to work with them.

"We'll leave you with them for a while, and I'll show Cassie and KJ around. The guys will bring you down for lunch, and we'll loll around all afternoon on the beach. The highs are only around 80, but the sun is fierce, so don't forget to pick up sunscreen when we buy your bikinis."

Cassie wasn't 'submissive waif' appealing, but she rocked a bikini as well as he remembered, and Karli the Nerd hid a curvaceous body under the comfortable clothes she always wore. They had sunshine, a nice onshore breeze, a cooler of beer and ale, good conversationalists, a driver to get them back, and a green dot on Erik's watch. All was well.

Karli was as impressed with the Aussies as her boss; they were refreshingly different to work with, as was the lone immigrant Irishman. Maybe New South Wales wouldn't be all that bad.

They partied into the night and slept late. Erik let their hangovers mitigate, and then called a 'war council' for two pm, after a lunch catered by a local eatery. KJ had the Range Rover and driver, and he was off to an Australia-rules football (Rugby) match.

Cassie, Karli, Roddie Reardon, and Sean Finn faced one another across one of the tables in Erik's war room. "After I kicked my erstwhile partners offsite, I hired an elite team they don't control to find and destroy all their devices. Fortunately, the builders didn't implant the devices at the time of construction. Being added, they were easier to find and get rid of.

"When done, I worked with the team to make the buildings and below-ground structures safe from any form of eavesdropping or sonic attack. Without going into detail, there's an EM curtain and other precautions in place. Our cyber connection was then structured to be extraordinarily difficult to attack, though we know that's a second-to-second effort.

"Given the recent wakeup calls, privacy was sacrificed for security, which anyone coming to work there needs to know up front. If you work there, you will be screened coming and going and scrutinized while you're there, and the new contracts make that clear. They also make it clear that dire consequences await anyone who violates their contract, including the possibility of prosecution under the Espionage Act.

"Roddie and Sean have already agreed to a contract and are anxious to see the new site, and the state of Texas, right guys?"

The very different accents coming back-to-back made Karli smile and Cassie shake her head. She warned Sean she would need a few days to get used to his accent and cadence, and told Robbie she would trade a book of Texas colloquialisms for a book of Australian colloquialisms, and he still might be required to stop and explain some terms.

"Ready to see a test version in action?" Erik asked teasingly, and all eyes turned to the big screen. "We're reading the Range Rover. Darwin is driving it on the highway for a few more minutes, and then he will be back in town. You're seeing selected data above, below, and on both sides, but the driver will see what's on the small screen in the middle. If it looks familiar, that's because it's meant to mock the logistics module.

"Notice the audio when he stopped at the light? That only happens in safe circumstances, with the user's approval, but there are obviously warning sounds, lights, and notifications related to safety. Generally speaking, if your vehicle is in good condition, you drive carefully, efficiently, and effectively, you won't see or hear much, if anything. But the data are being accumulated and analyzed in real time in the control room, and recommendations are being developed on at least nine levels: driver, vehicle, fuel, TBA, road surface, weather conditions, traffic conditions, and upcoming hazards/ decision points.

"The Range Rover is only a year old, but there are multiple recommendations for improved efficiency and safety; those are targeted to the manufacturer, assuming they become clients. If not, they inform the buyer."

Karli had been an active watcher, commenting from time to time and squealing with delight over some readings; Cassie had been silent. Now she spoke. "Ready to admit I was right? You didn't need the designers or project managers you wanted; you needed time without distractions!"