Page 59 in the second edition.

My book won an honorable mention at the 2014 Midwest Book Review.

 

 

HALF JACK AND LEPRECHAUN

 

Corporal Phil Callaghan smoked an Opus X Petit Lancero cigar as he lay concealed beneath the hedge that surrounded camp commander Kensington’s three-story vintage plantation house. Lights out had passed, so except for the trilling of Louisiana bullfrogs and the grunting hack of alligators, the night was still.

Only a few weeks previously, Phil had rushed together a soirée he’d hoped to save for the Holiday 2000 Party later during the coming winter. He had arranged the party instead, as a wild retirement party, for the former CC. Unlike the old CC, the new Camp Commander, Kensington, did not like him. The old CC had chewed his chops and even demoted him once, but Phil was resourceful and people seemed to like him so well, that they were quick to overlook his errors. He mentally replayed his last shenanigan – secreting a remote audio/video link into the new CC’s head, and then programming the clip into the base’s computer network screen savers. Officially Corporal Callaghan was a Resource Requisition Specialist, but his hobbies were computers and high tech gadgetry.

Phil emerged and crouched in the liquid darkness that flitted between the stirring leaves of a Pecan tree, adjusted his infra-red goggles and listened. His rakish grin vanished. Marching boots that chopped like jack hammers on the sidewalk grew steadily louder. Just great, fumed Phil silently, through clenched teeth, sounds like that big berserker Megadeath, who just shipped in for some “monitored” R & R.

Muscles tense, heart racing, Phil eased back into the concealment of the hedge. He shivered as the coolness of nocturnal autumn seeped into his body. Fresh grass scent from a late season mowing competed with the fragrant tobacco plume that curled from his cigar as he alternately puff-sucked and then softly breathed in the night air. Still cupping the air around the red embers of his cigar, Phil breathed a sigh of relief as Megadeath’s footfalls seemed to start sounding farther away. He surveyed the courtyard through his goggles, listened briefly, ground out his cigar, and then scooted out from under the hedge. Several months earlier the sweet shrub Calycanthus floridus would have been clustered with maroon flowers. Phil’s quiet brush against it released a faint hint of the strawberry fragrance for which it was well known among professional landscapers. “Good!” he whispered to himself, “Megadeath didn’t spot me.”

Suddenly a hand with the circumference of a dinner plate clamped over his mouth, covering most of his face as well. Abruptly the goggles were removed from Phil’s face and dropped into the grass. “Not!” whispered Megadeath. Following a deep chuckle that sounded like the genesis of an earthquake, the colossal shadow whispered in a gravelly rumble, “Are ya’all the Req Man they call Leprechaun?”

Phil’s worst nightmare was confirmed. The brute strength, Texas drawl, and the muttered profanities that crafted each sentence into vulgarity parsed daisy chains, could mean only one thing: Megadeath.

“Yeah,” Phil sighed, when his face was released from the marine’s steely grip, “I’m Requisition Specialist Lt – I mean Corporal – Callaghan, also known as Leprechaun.” He added, “Let’s make a deal. You don’t turn me in. I’ll get you a special order of anything you want. On the house of course. Women. Belgian Glittersnort. Top shelf French Cognac—”

 

“I hear tell ya’all installed some experimental gadget from R & D Corps in the Old CC’s gambling den. One ‘at has girlie programs. I been lookin’ all over for ya’all tonight, Callaghan and my patience is worn mighty thin.”

“How about a souped up pre-market IBM clone, both an Office and Gaming Bundle, Virtual Reality glasses and a free 1 year subscription to www.hotgirls.com?”

Megadeath thumped Phil’s chest with two massive fingers. “Don’t jerk me around ‘at away, Cyberpuke! I haint negoti-aytun with ya’all!”

Phil cringed. He wasn’t afraid of a fight. He had been in plenty of brawls. Even with big guys he won some and he lost some. Megadeath was a different kettle of fish. Megadeath was MSOR – a covert ops man who could kill you twelve different ways in less than a minute. And rumor had it that Megadeath was a national asset – not a James Bond type of agent, but more the Rambo type, who was becoming more psychotic with each secret mission. Eventually his handlers would have to put him down or imprison him. But until that time, he was an extremely valuable commodity and allowances would be made, and his messes cleaned up. Phil did not want to be one of those messes that would be swept under the rug.

 

“What’s the problem? I paid over four grand to get my hands on that rig.”

“I don’t want ‘at there computer of yours!” sneered Megadeath. He added, “It won’t be real enough. And I don’t want ‘at there three-dee picture @#$%. I want to smell it, hear it, feel it, taste it and live it!”

“O.K. You made your point. It’s the only one. I’m related to a guy who rubs elbows with the ultra-top secret crowd. He made a remark once when he was a little too drunk and I fished a bit. It was developed at a secret R & D underground base in New York four years ago. After that it was shipped to their implementation facility at ASHAARK—”

“Whatta ya’all mean? Just one!” flared Megadeath. I got me two SHAARK combat knives! They didn’t make just one of those!” He thrust his lantern jaw forward and waved his massive finger in Phil’s face. “You cain’t tell me that they made only just one of those girly machines, Cyber Boy!”

“Just cool it! I can get it for you. The problem is I can’t get at the other ones. The original is warehoused and modified copies of it are being used for another project. I know the correct protocols and have the ability to “borrow” it temporarily.”

“How?” asked Megadeath.

“I’ll fabricate a message from New York R & D to send it for testing to this base or somewhere else where you can pick it up. I know the codes that when written into the request delivers a secret message: ‘Expedite Immediately. Ultra-top secret protocols. No questions asked.’ When it gets lost, they won’t go looking for it.”

 

“No wonder they call you Leprechaun! That’s a neat trick. Real neat.” Megadeath visibly relaxed. “What did they want with ‘at there girlie machine anyway?”

What a muscle-head thought Phil. “That is just one use of the program. ASHAARK is going to make combat simulators. It has a special Rambo program for guys like you. It’s so real that you can get lost in the program.”

Nodding, Megadeath whispered, “I could get into ‘at, too. How can ya’all get something ‘at special?”

“Now that they have the new model, and because it’s warehoused like the Ark in the first Indian Jones Movie, it has become a forgotten relic. It’s mothballed, has a major design flaw and not too important anymore. And of course, like I said, I know just where to send the request and just how to word it.”

Megadeath snapped, “What kind of design flaw?”

“The original designer had someone monitoring each use, so they didn’t have an inside escape hatch users could use to bail if something went wrong.”

“But I heard it had virtual reality girlie programs!” He snarled, “Are you scammin’ me Callaghan?”

“Keep your voice down! You sound like a cement mixer!” warned Phil. He pulled a disk holder that contained a silver compact disk from his pocket and pressed it into Megadeath’s hands. “I wrote in program data enabling the user to see real time or end the program. The one you heard about that I ran at the old CC’s retirement party was from a video, “Fun with the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders,” that I input into the VR machine.”

“So this is ‘at there disk?” asked Megadeath, in his customary gravelly, curse every other word, syntax. “I think I’ll just keep it.”

Phil shook his head and then replied, “You don’t want that one?”

“Why not?” snapped Megadeath belligerently, his chin jutting out again.

“I guess it’s a bit dark to read the label,” offered Phil. “And I disabled the escape hatch program on this one. You are stuck in this sim until it ends.” Megadeath bent over and picked up the goggles that had fallen near Callaghan. He tossed them back at Phil after he’d used them and spat, “What? Fun with the Neo Nazi Leather Boys.” Mega Death threw the jewel case disc holder at Phil and exclaimed, “Don’t touch me! I kill queers!”

“Ouch,” grunted Phil as he caught the disc holder that had thumped hard against his rib cage. “I’m not queer. The truth is I don’t have to send for the VR Machine. It’s still here. The new CC stole the machine from me and he still has it. I’m going to switch my Cheer Leaders program with this one.” Phil fumed, “Did you know that Commander Kensington had the gall to steal the VR machine and then demote me to Corporal for misusing company resources?”

“Not! I hear tell the real scuttlebutt is ‘at he has it in for ya’all because he caught ya’all twice with his daughter. Back home we take guys like ya’all and make steers out of ya’all.”

“I was just talking to her.”

“With a rep like ya’all have Callaghan, ‘at’s mighty hard to believe! Anyway, how are you going to get in Kensington’s house? And how long until I can get ‘at there girlie machine?”

Phil ignored the giant’s last question and grinned, “Another set of toys from the lost warehouse. Electro-molecular bondo-gloves and shoes.”

Megadeath nodded, “Spidey Gloves and Fly Shoes. I used a pair once on a mission. Come to think about it, a guy who looks a hell of a lot like you, named Agent Smith, trained me and a couple of Seals, on how to use’em.” He cleared his throat, “And one more thing Leprechaun. If ya’all get caught, don’t rat on me. I’ll kill ya’all.” Megadeath drew a Bowie from his belt. “This is one of my SHAARK toys. One was special issue. This one I got off an Arab Sheik. Made of some weird alloy. Cuts quarters and ‘gator hides like they was port wine cheese.” He posed dramatically, placed the blade in his teeth, and sprinted towards a nearby dock. Following a flawless dive, Megadeath was gone.

Phil wiped his sweaty palms on his pants. He checked for guards, raced to the house, removed his shoes and donned his Spider Gloves and Fly Shoes. He crawled up the wall until he reached the three story window. Phil licked his lips, pulled another gadget from his pocket and traced it along the window pane. When he heard a click from inside he pocketed his gadget and slid open the window and climbed inside.

Phil scanned the room. Infra-goggle images of luminescent green and gray revealed a gambling hall that had been painstakingly designed by the former CC. Several Tiffany lamps and a few knick-knacks were missing, but otherwise most of the furnishings, including a player piano, chuck-a-luck cage, and a roulette wheel greeted him like familiar friends. Oil portraits of long dead scantily clad sporting girls with Mona Lisa smiles and eyes that mocked and beckoned, and followed where ever you sat or stood, lined the walls. Phil traced his way passed and around the long mahogany bar, that had once been owned by Al Capone, and worked his way to the walk-in safe. He punched in the digital code. If it had been changed, he had glow spray and a miniature battery powered black light, which would assist in ascertaining the new code.

Licking his lips, Phil checked over his shoulder, and then opened the safe and stepped inside. Except for the VR module’s central processing units and its three sarcophagi shaped body containment devices, the room was empty. Phil chuckled sardonically as he removed the Dallas Cheerleaders disc and replaced it with the Neo Nazi Leather Boys program that he had downloaded from altlifestyles.com and altered for use with the VR Module. Phil selected the download data option. Less than a minute later the Dallas Cheerleaders game had been replaced by the Leather Boys, but the game title had remained the same. After putting the Dallas Cheerleader disc into the empty jewel case, he patted it like a favored puppy, and then put double-sided scotch tape on the back of the case before pressing it to the bottom shelf of the rolling cart that had come with the VR Module. After exiting the safe room, he ambled jauntily towards the exit window. He was so busy imagining Kensington’s reaction that he failed to hear the rasp of the key that had just unlocked the door into the private gambling den.

Phil threw a leg over the sill, leaned out the window, and started to exit.

“You sunzabitchin’ goat Callaghan!” yelled Commander Kensington, “I know it’s you!” Room lights switched on, “I !@#^*+’ told you to stay away from my daughter!”

---

Callaghan jerked spasmodically and fell from the open window. He felt a scream rise in his throat. Everything went black — blacker than the dark of the moonless night that had concealed his entry into the old CC’s social room.

Phil awoke briefly following surgery. His mind and body were numbed with drugs, but not enough to still the angry cries of his pain wracked body. Phil heard brief snatches of muffled conversation as if the people in his room were miles away.

“Hello Phil. . . nurse Susie . . .feeling today.” My name must be Phil, he thought.

“Hello Phil, I’m Dr. Johnston. Can you hear me?”

For just a few seconds Phil’s head cleared, but then it was touch and go again. He concentrated and then mumbled through his dry sticky mouth, “Yes. I can hear you.”

Dr. Johnston continued, “leg through surgery . . .well. . .always have a limp. . . more worried about . . .possibility. . . coma.”

Phil heard the voice he thought was the nurse. What was her name again? “You have a visitor!” he heard her say cheerily. His addled brain waves struggled, with a modicum of success, to find their focus.

“Hello Lt. Callaghan.”

Phil. Phil Callaghan. I thought it was Corporal Callaghan. I wish I could remember! Should I know you? His vision started clearing. He watched as a petite Latino with dark brown eyes and average attractiveness finished a salute. Sanchez wasn’t at all striking, but there was a light that danced in her dark brown eyes and ruby smile that lit up the room.

“I’m Legal Specialist Kari Sanchez. Somebody pulled some strings for you. Whoever they are must be quite the puppeteer. All charges of misappropriation of government property and illegal entry onto government property have been dropped and expunged from the records. You will be given an honorable discharge in exchange for a special agreement. All I need is your signature. Well a few of them actually.”

Phil signed the paperwork as Legal Corps Sanchez pointed them out to him. By the time he had finished his head was swimming once again and his eyes had lost their focus. He passed out as he listened to the pat-smack footfalls of her patent leathers when she exited his room.

How much time had passed Phil was unsure. Off and on he would regain consciousness. Phil gave up trying to remember his nurse’s name when he came to the conclusion that they changed at least three times a day.

Nurse: “I’m sorry Mr. Callaghan can’t . . . visitors. . .playing cards, swim trophy, cigars. . .I’ll tell him that Jon, Linda and Ed stopped . . .gifts.”

Nurse: “Bath time! I can . . . rubber ducky if . . . one!”

Nurse: “It’s a . . . sunny day outside Lt. Callaghan. After . . . your IV I’m . . . shades. Would you like that?”

Doctor: “Good . . .How are we today Phil?”

Nurse: “Hey! Who do you think you. . .Lt. Callaghan needs . . .I’m calling security!”

Doctor: “Excuse me. . .Nurse Jackie. . .Phil’s Uncle . . .security can’t touch. . .clearance . . .even Pres . . .iam Jeff. . .Clinton.”

Phil concentrated. He felt like he was deep under the water, out of breath, and struggling to make it to the surface before he drowned. Phil hated the feeling. He made it to the surface. Phil listened to the sounds of people and medical monitors. He opened his eyes. Phil began to become more focused and he started to gather more of each conversation in his environment.

Uncle? Phil wondered. Uncle Jack’s dead. My mother’s side or my father’s? What’s he look like? For an instant a shadowy image appeared in his mind. I can see myself self, sitting in the den of a ranch style house. Why can’t I see his face? Uncle Jack had said he needed a guy like me to help him with something. It’s a start, thought Phil, as the mental picture vanished like water down a sink drain.

Nurse: “. . .spittin’ image. Younger though. Brown hair, instead of black with a tinge of gray. . .”

Doctor. “Let me introduce you. This is Jack. . .And this is his assistant. . .Miss Keztopholus. . .”

Miss Keztopholus: “Please call me Irena.” Shy voice, Greek accent, thought Phil.

Uncle Jack: “So Doc, what’ll we need . . .to do?”

Doctor: “I’ll prescribe . . .pain killers. . . therapy. . .been coming in and out. . .you said you have a medical doctor on staff? Facility. . .any day now he’ll come out and stay out. . .expect. . . temporary amnesia. . .anxiety. . .possibly personality changes.”

Irena: “Sounds like great deal of work. . .I not know. . .”

Phil thought he heard scratching. Ahh, signing paperwork.

Uncle Jack: “Doc, send med techs. . .transfer the gurney to our chopper. . .And could I have a moment . . .with my assistant, please?”

Phil heard the echo of footfalls as the doctor and nurse exited the room. He kept his eyes closed but tried to listen to his Uncle Jack converse with the assistant Irena.

Irena complained, “I not upset about you putting Phil under Deep Cover to . . .I not nurse! We need to hire nurse!”

Uncle Jack replied, “You work for me, Rena. This is what I want you to do. Besides, it is necessary for me to do the Trans Jordan Embassy Delivery.”

“I not nurse!” flared Rena.

“You’re not a damn secretary either. . . Your daddy gave you Dora’s job after the accident . . .then you deep-sixed my other couriers!”

“Not remind!” Phil heard several foreign phrases that he thought were cussing.

“Rena!” snapped Jack, “Keep it down! We’re in a military hospital!”

Rena lowered her voice, “I not say I won’t do. Just letting you know I don’t like!”

Jack replied, “I’m sorry Rena. After I get dropped off, I’m going to be gone from the base. I need you to keep an eye on Phil. I want him well cared for and I’m going to need his help! You’re not the Dra…n Lady any more – – -”

Enraged, she whispered heatedly, “Don’t remind! And don’t call me other name!”

“Rena, I’m just saying! And when have I called you that? I just use that other nickname that Dora calls you. Mouse Lady. I thought you liked that name?”

“I do,” said Rena. She stifled her tears and added, “That nickname O.K.”

Why is she crying? wondered Phil as med techs rushed into the room, opened his bed curtain, then injected sedative into his IV port, and rushed him away. Phil listened to snippets of short whispered conversations as the squeaky gurney wheels clacked above the pitter-patter background of multiple footfalls. He heard the whirring of the copter blades, but fell into a deep sleep before he could feel the anticipated lift of his gurney into the promised chopper.

---

“How long?” asked Phil.

Rena smiled and stopped sponging him. His words were slurred. “Your first real words. Everyone will be so happy!”

My first real words, slurred but understandable, thought Phil. Previously Phil had spoken in frustrated grunts and moans. He remembered hearing Rena speak. At times that may have been merely the result of his frequent delirium. Phil remembered her husky Grecian accent that had sounded divine. Rena had been arguing with his Uncle Jack when they had transferred him out of the military hospital. Whenever Uncle Jack had stopped by, she had left him and Uncle Jack alone. Lately the hard lines around her mouth had softened.

Phil knew she possessed better than average strength. He remembered too well the strong and supple hands that had massaged his body. First a therapist had worked with him and then also trained Rena. She was a vigilant task master and had seemed to expect more from him than the therapist. Rena had moved his dead weight with little effort.

Daily Phil watched her with silent amazement, soaking in every detail of her tall form, which was draped in layers of sweaters and sweats, under thick skirts. Dark colors like chocolate, navy blue, coal blacks and grays were her usual tints of choice. Usually solid in color, but occasionally she wore an outer skirt of Buffalo Check or Madras Plaid. Phil was certain they had spent a great deal of time somewhere where the sun didn’t shine, yet Rena’s skin was deeply tanned.

Rena glided through her actions with an economy of movement. Black plastic glasses, thick as Coke bottles and long dark brown hair that concealed her face, shrouded her in mystery. From time to time it seemed to Phil as if shimmers of silver danced around the left side of her face. Phil wondered why her left hand was never without a long silken glove of creamy white. At first he thought she was hiding a prosthesis, but her movements were too natural. Irena’s smile caught him by surprise, after she’d flipped back her hair with a supple twist of her neck. When she smiled, Rena literally took his breath away.

“How long you have been here? That is what you ask?”

Phil nodded.

“Two months,” she replied. “You came out of coma the day after you came to live here. But it was weeks before you could move your arms and legs or sit up by yourself. And today you spoke real words for first time.” Rena spoke fairly good, if heavily accented English, but occasionally articulated with choppy sentences. Personal pronouns such as I, you, he, she, it, we, and they were often skipped, but not nearly as regularly as when she had been younger. However, if stressed, Rena reverted to a substandard confabulation that marked her as one speaking English as a second language.

“Thank you, Rena,” said Phil slowly, then he added, mumbling, except for one word, “head.”

“You have headache?”

Phil replied, “Want gaaa head.”

scowled and turned away, “I not go for that!” Fingers waving as if she were speaking in sign, she added a few words of Greek imprecation.

Phil turned red and stuttered, “Buh buh bat bath – threwm. Bathroom!”

Rena sighed. She brought Phil’s wheel chair. He signaled that he wanted to try transferring himself. She continued as she wheeled him away from the therapy room, “Sorry. Not understand what you want. Think man thing.” She smiled again.

Following the bathroom break, Rena asked, “How you like go outside?”

“Yeah!” He added as they trans-versed a long hall. Like many halls and caverns Down Below, in this hallway there were miles and miles of tubular lights that emitted a soft bluish white glow that never grew warm. Ancients’ environmental machines – most of them still operating – kept tunnels and caverns cool and free of toxic gas pockets in their long abandoned warrens. Most of the gas pockets were invisible.  While the underground areas closer to the surface stayed around 50 degrees, the deeper tunnels and caverns might reach temperatures in excess of one hundred thirty degrees in areas not protected by the Ancient’s environmental systems.

Green fog mists formed in various places from time to time, that weren’t lethal, but caused extreme paranoia and mental fatigue.  According to legend, dark muttering voices emanated from the mysterious green fog.  Some versions claimed that you only heard the demented voices if you had been poisoned by the fog while other accounts claimed that sounds might be heard just because one was near to a green fog bank. If one followed the tunnels that were lighted they were supposed to be safe; such fog banks were soon cleared by the environmental monitoring systems created by the Ancients.  In hallways that did not contain the lights and monitoring systems, or where cave-ins had destroyed them, green fogs or the invisible lethal fogs, might linger for days or weeks before vanishing of their own volition.

Other tunnels that weren’t lighted did exist, either parallel to the main lighted tunnels or sloping downwards into the deep chasms.  Very few people ventured into the lighted tunnels and the unlighted tunnels were considered death traps, laced with poisonous pools, toxic fogs, deep pits, cave-ins and the almost blind cannibalistic crawlers, also called mole-men.  Crawlers, who looked similar to the Gollum of Lord of the Rings fame, had excellent olfactory and auditory senses, but did not like to venture into the light of the main tunnels and were known to crave human flesh. They also ate fish and eels from the pools as well as the bioluminescent fungi that grew on the dark tunnel walls and many of the snake-head’s caverns. Mostly the mole-men and mole-women would travel in packs and surround one or two lost humans. Male humans were almost always killed and quickly consumed.  Unless the crawlers were in the throes of hunger-lust, female prisoners were often captured and kept as slaves or confined in breeder rooms. Cornered crawlers preferred to attack from concealment, or with superior numbers, and not  “Mano-amano.”  Whether they were humanoid or just deformed humans genetically degraded and suffering from living away from fresh air and light was unknown.  Thankfully their numbers were few.

Snake-men or snake-heads were a different story.  Many of them lived in the warrens of the subterranean catacombs beneath the levels occupied by the humans. At times they were also called Naga, but that species was actually an entirely different race that lived in the caverns along Shamballa’s surface.    Snake-heads, the off-white reptilian humanoids lived in small tribes scattered throughout the deepest realms of the Agartha tunnels. Snake-men were very territorial by nature. The six to nine foot tall frog-skinned snake men were able to walk the lighted tunnels, without being blinded like the crawlers, as they possessed secondary glare lenses that automatically activated as necessary. Snake-heads rarely ventured there as they had others exits to Shamballa and other tunnel systems.

Once there had been a war with the snake-heads – a very short one – with the U.S. military which had not gone well for the human soldiers. That vital intel had been withheld as above top secret about the existence of and abilities of the snake-heads, and not provided to the planners of the soldier’s operation, had only added to the stinging defeat of the black ops Ranger teams that were killed and later devoured by the Snake-men.  Snake-heads, who stunk like rotting meat and sulfur, were formidable adversaries of great strength and speed with razor sharp teeth, claws and wicked barbed tails. They could be shot and killed even with small arms fire, but those wearing kevlaresque leather armor were resistant to all but armor piercing ammo. Snake-head warriors were even more dangerous than standard snake-men because they used a high tech range weapon, a box that was mounted on their leather chest armor, mentally activated, that shot a ray of cobalt lightening.  Even if you survived the intense burning blast, which would often melt and char fingers and toes, no matter where the beam hit, eventually it left one with a virulent form of cancer. Many black ops soldiers had died fighting the mottled white snake-heads. Humans had learned that if left undisturbed that most Snake-heads were not apt to leave their dens to attack human zones. Even during battle, if you were able to get outside of what they considered their territory,  they usually gave up the chase quickly. Not long after the first battle with the Snake-men, U.S. Black Ops Marines dropped a small mobile nuclear warhead into their warrens. Apparently it had been discovered and deactivated from a long  distance.  The second attempt met the same fate.

Snake-men didn’t mind if a few humans wandered into their camps, as they considered man-flesh a delicacy.  Where they would consider a few lost men as sport they would become enraged berserkers if attacked by human soldiers. Unlike the crawlers, who preferred a raw and bloody repast in the midst of a vicious multi-pack sneak attack, the snake-men preferred their humans roasted over huge open fires, following an in your face battle, and then consumed in a ritualistic ceremony. Where the snake-men acquired wood for their huge fires was always a question, but it was conjectured that they traded with others of their kind who lived in the Shamballa countries of an inner-core world like that of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Pellucidar novels.   Legend also stipulated that the snake-men processed both the flesh of rival clans, crawlers and humans into a raw liquid slush that was kept in vats, and then utilized to feed their young who would soak in the sanguineous pabulum through their skins.

There were no Ancients’ lights in the outlying tunnels or deepest catacombs, only in the main tunnel system as well as “hub” areas and those  lights were always cool to the touch. What was even stranger was that the light mechanisms seemed to draw from a zero point energy source and appeared to last indefinitely.

As Phil and Rena approached a section of tunnel with a niche and a retina scanner device, Rena gazed into it and the niche opened into another tunnel. As they entered the new tunnel and came to a place where two artificial cicada trees, potted in great ceramic urns, were stationed like sentinels on watch, Phil groused, “Mmy legs feel like wood. I don’t want to have to stay in this wheel chair fforever.”

Rena laughed and asked, “You not like wheel chair? You want anti-grav saucer from Q-storage? We have one. Very small. Not come with mythical little green men, though.”

Phil chuckled as Rena wheeled him through the invisible door between the two cicadas. Excited by the site of the out-of-doors, and reveling in the dry heat, he took over pushing his wheels and then dashed around the enclosed patio. Tiring quickly, Phil rolled to a stop under a clear circular table with an orange and green umbrella. He gazed apprehensively at the small pool in the center of the patio. Phil shivered and looked away quickly – it reminded him too much of fighting for consciousness the last few months.

“Welcome to ASHAARK, New Mexico,” said Rena. Grinning she added, “Roswell is actually the nearest town.”

Phil was puzzled. Not only by the familiarity but the not quite clarity of the names, Ashaark, Roswell and New Mexico, but by the feeling that something about his environment was off. Upon surveying the surrounding patio, he noticed that towering buttes that thrust into the pale blue sky outside of the patio seemed to vacillate into and out of focus. However, the verdant oasis within the patio seemed to remain steady under his curious scrutiny. Barely audible, he detected a low humming, followed by fade-outs or sizzling color fluctuations, which teased his senses and marred the verisimilitude of the exterior simulation. Only the patio, pool and latticed bowers were bereft of the enigmatic effect.

“If Topside holo-circuit gets any weaker,” grumbled Rena, “we’ll have security risk. Daddy should have fixed, long ago, but he never did. Inside sims easy to fix. Not so solid sims. Not backward engineered inside sims we make. Plenty drives for Ancient inside sims and inside sims we make. Ancient made solid sims rare. Delicate. Complex.”

“’lusion?” asked Phil. He tried to ask about her father, but the words came out garbled. He felt frustrated, but he also noted that his head was clearing. He was optimistic that his speech would clear as well.

“Yes,” replied Rena, “It is illusion. But mountains solid illusion. Patio wall sim fake illusion. Hand or body pass through fake illusion, but not solid illusion. If that make sense.” She paused when Phil mumbled a query, and then asked, “What?” Misinterpreting his garbled question, Rena added, “If you want to go inside, you can enter your room, through the bower behind you, or use the bower next to the pool to go to Jack’s penthouse. Has retina security room on other side, though, so only your eyes get you into your own personal suite of Penthouse.”

Phil nodded but had a clear as mud expression.

“Trust me,” grinned Rena, “it looks like a cedar patio wall all around us, but you just ignore it and wheel on through, where I showed you.” She added, “Look where we entered. Do you see door? No. It is there. Do you see Cicadas like ones in tunnel where we enter? Between the two cicadas, you just walk –or wheel—as case may be, and you enter main facility. No retina scan there. Just go through into hallway.”

Rena sat beside Phil. She reached behind him into the pouch behind his chair and asked, “Do you remember Jon, Linda and Ed?” Pulling out a canvas bag with a blue and orange Aldi’s logo, she handed it to him. I should have given this to you a long time ago, but I forgot. Sorry.”

Phil reached into the bag and pulled out a twelve inch trophy that was engraved with the message, “1^st place 400 meter swimming, Phil Callaghan.”

Rena said, “We have large inside pool. Real one. I’ll have to get the therapist to show us some water exercises.”

“Dddon’t llike water,” mumbled Phil. He sat the trophy on the table and reached into the bag again.

“What ddoes the magic hat have for me this time?” He smiled proudly as he spoke with only one slur. He pulled out a cigar box and a lighter. Phil read the box. Wolf Brother’s Rum Cigars. He cut the tip with a tool that came with the kit, lit it and took a few puffs, to get it started, careful not to inhale the acrid plumes. Phil started coughing, scowled and tossed the whole kit into a round gray can that was tucked neatly under the table. “Oh, sssorry,” said Phil, “I sssuppose I should have asked you if you wanted them.”

Rena laughed, “I not smoke. Uncle Jack quit long ago. Thanks anyway.”

Phil grinned, “Are you certain I’m Phil Callaghan and Jon, Linda and Ed were my best friends?”

“You like – what do they say – social butterfly I think. Jack said you had lots acquaintances – few close friends. Although, he said the old CC at your former base – what’s his name – liked you very much.”

Phil’s brow furrowed. The name was on the tip of his tongue, but it just wouldn’t come.

“Don’t worry. It will come. Takes time. By the way, I just have to say, getting rid of those cigars was definitely an improvement.”

Phil reached into the Aldi’s bag, fished around, and pulled out a deck of playing cards. The backs were a dark blue diamond print with the name Excalibur written in flowing cursive inside a white oval. He grinned and said, “I remember! Ho-hotel. Playing Buh-buh-Black Jack.” His face lit up as he shuffled and dealt two hands of seven card draw.”

Rena arose fluidly from her seat, “No thank you. I not play. You have fun Phil. I have work to do.” She added, “Remember, to go to your new rooms,” as she pointed, “wheel straight through bower and into wall. Remind me to have Threep play cards with you.”

Phil’s sad frown became a smile, when Rena promised him a card player. He asked, “Who is C. . .threepuhpuhpio?”

Rena frowned and then replied, “Do you remember the tall droid in the Star —”

Phil exclaimed, “St-star Wars! I watched that movie 31 times and then I lost count!”

Rena laughed, “I love Star Wars and I haven’t seen it that many times.” She added, “You remember! My father made me a C3PO unit for my birthday when I young girl. He  actually a bit taller than the android in movie. We call him C3 or Threep. Was designed to be butler –and of course Threep was programmed to speak and interpret several languages –and he has a few other tricks as well. I  reactivate him now. Threep be good company for you.” Irena waved and walked back towards the facility entrance.

Phil blurted out, “Gabasta!” Rena turned briefly to Phil, looked confused, and then said, “Yes, Phil. Very good. That was your old company commander before Kensington. And you didn’t slur. You’re improving all-ready!”

He watched as she walked through the wall between the two cicadas as if it wasn’t there. “O.Kkay tthen,” mumbled Phil as she disappeared.

He reshuffled his cards and was about to play Klondike, when Uncle Jack appeared, carrying a briefcase hand-cuffed to his wrist. Black hair, but tinged with gray, his resemblance to Phil was striking. He smiled warmly, unbuttoned his trench coat, and sat with Phil

“I hear you are talking today Philly. That’s fantastic!” Uncle Jack clapped him on the arm, “Heal fast boyo! I’ve got work for you to do. We’ve been using Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy on you. I wish we’d have put you in it when we got here. So if you’re wondering, we didn’t grow any new partially human parts in the bio lab or fill you full of cyber metal bone replacements or synthesized organs.”

“Thank you ffor taking me in.”

“Nonsense. What’s family for? Besides I have ulterior motives. I’ve wanted you working for me for years. When you hacked into Q Storage and started retrieving trinkets like the Spy Trainer module and figured out how to use them, I waited for my opportunity. And I wasn’t as drunk as you thought I was that one night. I was just casting bread on the waters.”

“We were having Rum and Cokes, I I I think,” said Phil.

“Right you are, boyo!” He added, “You have the knack. A sort of prescience about gadgetry. I’m hoping you can finish some of Victor Ketzopholus’ inventions.”

 

Jack slapped his head like Peter Falk in Columbo, “I almost forgot Philly. There are only two ways out of ASHAARK. And Doc says you can’t have a mem wipe because of your amnesia. You’d become a veg-head.” He checked his watch, “Damn. I’m late. Gotta do an EYES ONLY briefing with Clinton.” Jack turned as he was leaving. “Oh, just one more thing, we packed you out of your private hospital room. You have a wing of the penthouse now. Dora’s going to have steaks for supper. You and Rena are invited. Did Rena show you how to use the bower here to get to your room?” He pointed through the bower at the cedar patio wall. He laughed, did a little skip and dance number, and then added, “Gotta go, boyo; I’m late, I’m late, for a very important date!”

Phil watched his Uncle Jack double time it through the two Cicadas. I think I’m remembering him now, thought Phil. He’s always been a bit absent minded, but brilliant and a natural diplomat, when he doesn’t feel like being blunt. Yeah, I remember his ‘just one more thing and I gotta go’ routine.’ He did that quite often. And when he did it with a cigar in his hand he looked just like Peter Falk when he played Colombo on the Sunday Night Mystery Movie. And then not long after we had the rum and Cokes that night, next thing you know I’m at their funeral. If it would have been closed casket, maybe I’d have seen this coming, but. . . Uncle Jack and Auntie Dora always seemed to be running on over-drive and auto pilot. When Jack was younger, the family joke was that he’d put a big double pinch of coffee in his mouth, throw in a sugar cube, and then quaff a large cup of hot water. What a way to jump start your day! More vague memories of Uncle Jack and his hush-hush business trips surfaced. Talking about trips, one of the stories he told me, on the night of Rum and Cokes – actually I think it was Crown Royale whiskey and Pepsi — was about a concealed hole in the side of a mountain that opened up into a plane and copter hanger. Is that how they airlifted me here?

But I can’t complain thought Phil, I am improving and regaining my memories. And I think things are going to get better even faster now that I have incentive. I wonder, how much is Threep like the Star Wars character? Maybe it can tell me more about this place and Rena, he thought. I already know she’s the eighth wonder of the world, but that’s just not enough. Phil took his noon regimen of pain pills and sundry extras out of his long pill box, and choked them down. I’ll play a game of solitaire and go explore my new room. Maybe it’ll have tap water or even a fridge with snacks and beer or a bottle of Fuji water.

Phil, now officially known as Toymaker Leprechaun, or Agent Toymaker, to everyone but the “office” personnel, shifted his attention from memory lane – what little he could remember – to a CAD schematic program on his computer. Phil’s side of the office was roughly the western half of the room. Rena’s side of the office, which contained the concealed door into her father’s old office suite, was on the east side of the room. He gazed over his computer at a row of file cabinets and storage lockers, and back to a sim concealed doorway.

Ancient sim programs had an uncanny way of taking objects that were close to its walls and blending them into its presentation or masking them. In this sim, his workshop door was the entry of the Castle Abbey. Phil’s workshop, just through the doorway, was not as large or as well apportioned as the ones in K-lab or Shaark lab, but it was still a fine shop. He did not like the high pitched snorting whine of the grinders or the stench of stick weld splatter, but he was comfortable with the smaller tools, manual or energized. Nor did he like the silver gray dirt that seemed to cling to his face, arms and every bodily crevice and leave stains in his shower. But he did like the satisfaction of a job well done. Tools for working with small gadgetry were waiting for him on one of the work tables inside the shop. Neatly arranged with the necessary parts, for his project of the day, they called with a siren’s call, as they sat ready to go, on the main work shop table.

Two offices of equal size, one that was Jack’s, could be accessed through a door on the west wall, and one that was locked, could be accessed through a door on the east wall. The East Office Suite had belonged to Victor Ketzopholus. The walls of Phil and Rena’s office had landscape sims that concealed the other office doors, but not the elevator doors. The south wall contained the elevators to their personal suites. Jack’s elevator was on the west side of the south wall. There was also a second elevator next to Jack’s, but it was concealed by a sim barrier, like the entrance to K-lab had been, and opened with an audio sequencer device. Both Rena and Phil’s elevators were located on the eastern side of the room on the south wall. The Personal Suite Elevators were not actually elevators but teleports.

The north wall, in addition to his shop door, contained the elevator that led to the vast sprawling ASHAARK Hub and Ancients Tunnels. Not a transporter room, it operated as an elevator and depending on which floor one selected, opened on several levels of the ASHAARK complex. Floor one led to the main walkways. Higher floors that lead to areas in the main Hub opened into security checkpoints. While the door into the elevator did not have a retina scanner, to enter from the elevator back into K-branch office, did require a retina scan. Security was not required to get into the old tunnel networks, just into the hubs

Even though little of Phil’s memory of his pre-ASHAARK days had returned, his programming wizardry and gadgeteering skills had resurfaced quickly. When he was able to find the code that opened Victor’s “secret” workshop and storage area, he knew he’d found his niche. While his small office shop could work for many projects, some assignments needed the greater scope of tools and lab paraphernalia of Victor’s Secret workshop. Rena had taken some notes for a project he’d been working on for one of Victor’s inventions, an audio sequencer, which was back engineered from Ancients’ Technology. The entry to Victor’s secret lab and storage area was only accessible by using the audio sequencer. When the correct combinations of sounds were played in the proper area of one of the Ancients’ walk tunnels, a section of the wall disappeared to reveal another passageway. The tunnel was actually quite similar to the Topside solid sim wall of a butte that surrounded their outside patio. Of course there was also an energy shield canopy in place above the patio which, while allowing some sunlight in, kept everything else, from guano to rain drops, out.

Phil arose from his computer desk, shuffled through the shop door and to his work bench. On the bench in front of him was a partially dissembled shaving kit that was actually a multiple target Taser that used ZERO POINT ENERGY. Once he had it working, it would recharge itself after only a few minutes. It not only could tase more targets, but it had farther range and all of that without a passel of wires! That item had actually been a small project that Victor had started, but had never finished.

His new job consisted of analyzing, experimenting with, refining and cataloging inventory from Rena’s father’s secret warehouse and lab. Occasionally he would get short projects from the main Q-lab as well. Uncle Jack had wanted Phil to work in the K-branch “office” rather than the main manufacturing facility, Q-lab, that produced limited quantities of boomer doppelgangers and androids, as well as lasers, tracking devices, Kevlar clothing, communicator Shell phones, and a plethora of “spy toys.”

Glancing furtively at Rena, who sat at a desk, on the east side of the room, Phil retrieved a glass cube from a bank of storage lockers that lined a section of wall near the work bench. Warped reflections of the main office, finely apportioned in a Rococo-style, and the medieval wall sim, centered on Rena’s desk, danced like a desert mirage within its confines. At first Phil had thought it was a three dimensional camera of sorts, but it was actually designed for testing holo suites, like the patio he and Rena had sat in, on his first day out of his private hospital. It could be used to take three dimensional pictures, but that was not its raison d’être.

Walls in The Office and the Hub were actually stone walls that had been carved out of the native subterranean rock. Some had been carved unknown centuries past and other sections more recently. Although there were some naturally occurring caverns and tunnels beneath New Mexico, much of their facility had been drilled by the Iron Moles and larger sections carved out with other equipment. The tunnels were different in that they were tubular and smoothed like polished obsidian. Each cavern room was composed of whatever stone was innate to the area. Complex machine structures that supplied life support air, heat and water for the hydroponic rooms, as well as living areas, work areas, recreational and service areas, each in their appropriate zones, lay sprawled throughout the vast labyrinth of caverns and tunnels, like a gigantic underground rabbit warren.

In addition to the tubular walkways, there was also a network of small pneumatic delivery tubes that shot torpedoes, like the canisters at drive up bank machines in the World Above, throughout the network. These smaller tubes were a high speed document and item delivery system. Larger tunnels housed a subway train system that connected with various sites around North America. These subways trains could travel in excess of two hundred miles per hour and produced what had been termed the “Taos” hum which was part of New Mexican urban legend. While some tunnels or transit systems linked to as many as several hubs, there wasn’t a super-tunnel or super subway tunnel that linked all of the hubs. More and more tunnels were being made every year and eventually, or so the plan was, that the hubs would be linked. The farther away the hub, the more likely one would have to change stations, or even travel Topside, to complete the journey.

While not as vastly populated as the conspiracy theorists in the World Above claimed, none-the-less a sizable population of classified civilian and military personal lived in the various sites. Originally part of a mysterious chain of complexes, whose origins were shrouded in mystery, the American government (and other governments below their lands or waters), had continued building and of course searching for “Ancients” artifacts, just as Colonel O’Neil, Carter, Teal’c and Jackson on the television series “Star Gate.”

Initially a C.O.G and Ancients Technology Research project, the vast and expensive secret program expanded, creating sites to conduct ultra-top secret research. Later, following 2012 and other E.L.E (Extreme Life-threatening Event) fears, there had been a push to create an ultra-top secret series of underground ‘alpha site B” complexes, called “Arks” to house a greater population, of well-connected or extremely gifted people, in case an above ground disaster, such as a lethal sun flare, nuclear winter, or alien attack — the scenarios were numerous — compromised the populations of the World Above. Goal numero uno for the Ark project was to keep a reserve stock of humanity, “for seed” but in numbers that were easily manageable. Much the same goal that the New World Order puppet masters desired for the World Above.

Extremely compartmentalized security protocols kept even those who lived in these facilities almost as in the dark as the populations that walked the lands above. They had their own urban legends, much like the surface dwellers, of aliens, crawlers, snake people, Nephilim troglodytes, Star Gate Worm Hole Teleports, lost, wandering, green or blue children, Agartha entrances, and worries that the government was hiding something from them. And like most urban legends, much was myth, but also there existed many cases of truth blended with fiction. Jack Callaghan’s “Office,” also known as K-branch, was only a small section of the ASHAARK Hub. Many subterranean Hubs existed underneath the United States. Port Washington Hub was one on the East Coast. Cheyenne Mountain and Area 51 were two other American Hub sites.

Jack, Phil’s uncle, had some minor oversight functions concerning the general ASHAARK complex, but most of the supervision for the facility was delegated. He was also an unofficial ambassador between all of the hubs and whichever U.S. president was in office. While he had a special classification that made him top of the food chain, equal to the directors of each complex, his was a fairly independent position. Being at the top also guaranteed Jack and his crew more time in the World Above or Topside, as they usually called it. Many at the bottom of the chain literally lived and died in the World Below, having never left the base.

 

Phil perused the circumference of the sim walls of their “Office.” His area, both his office, and the adjacent room that was a small work station and lab, was part of “The Office” where he worked. Jack’s crew had a larger lab, K-lab, a long, long walk away, but that was only used for special projects. And K-lab had been lost for years after Rena’s father’s death until Phil had discovered an access point.

One wall of the “Office” over looked a castle with waving minarets that was bustling with activity. Each wall frequently overlapped into the scenes on other walls, and included acts of jousting knights, jester jugglers, and serfs harvesting corn and pumpkins. One scene eventually traversed all four walls; it was of two ladies with tall cone hats, replete with colorful gossamer streamers. Both medieval ladies, as they were poled around in a canal boat, which circumnavigated the holographic wall sim, when they docked at the castle, once per hour, functioned like a clock. Both he and Rena were in the “commons” area between the sims. Phil was on the castle and knights corner, (North and West). Rena was on the field and jester wall corner of the room (South and East). Although kept low in volume, so as not to disturb the occupants, if one listened carefully, from time to time the clash of the knights, the swish of the gliding canal boat, and the chatter of the serf’s provided “white background noise.”

Rena’s father’s expansive suite, the same size as the other two office suites had had been maintained after his death, but it was an amazingly filled to overflowing room of boxes and loose piles of documents, books and gadgets, heaped in unbelievable disarray that was usually kept locked. Strangely, his private K-lab and storage area, while not actually neat and well organized, was not nearly as disordered as his personal office. Unlike Jack’s office, or the one shared by Phil and Rena, the former Keztopholus office had a permanent sim that could not be changed.

Phil enjoyed his daily office routine at the K-branch of ADVANCED SURVEILLANCE HARDWARE AND ARMAMENTS RESEARCH COMPANY. Called SHAARK, it was a clandestine organization that supplied products to the American military establishment and Alphabet Soup Agencies, like the CIA as well as a few elite security agencies. ASHAARK had once specialized in providing field drops on hostile soil but their job description had changed over the decades, especially after Victor Ketzopholus ended his life. Where once the facility, at least Topside, had been a small garage with a roof made of fake desert sand that would raise, take vehicles in, and ascend to a parking garage, connected to a subterranean base, that exit, while operable, was rarely used. Several levels above Phil and Rena, was a Topside CIA proprietary facility, housed in an abandoned military base, which manufactured items such as mess kits and survival gear.

Phil limped towards Rena’s desk, holding the glass cube. Neat and tidy, her L-shaped hutch desk, carved in a Rococo style, had a computer monitor and printer and an empty desk where she stacked paperwork. Her father had chosen to have the main office suite furniture designed according to an early 1720 French motif, and while alive, had frequently pointed at the office furniture, twiddled with his waxed pointy mustache and joked, “If it is not Baroque, don’t fix it.”

Besides taking calls, one of Rena’s jobs was to design training manuals. When she wasn’t busy, she usually had her nose in a book. While many people assumed she was not very intellectually gifted, because of her propensity to speak in broken English, she was actually well educated and a good writer. Phil handed Rena the relic and said, “I can’t figure out what this object is. Any ideas?” Rena stopped typing, swiveled and scooted her chair to her second desk. She hefted the cube, felt around its exterior and then peeked inside.

“Surprise One!” exclaimed Phil.

“Phil! What are you doing now?” giggled Rena. Her video cell phone beeped, and then vocalized a message, “Incoming call for Agent Mouse Lady from Ground Below Security.” She looked at the phone’s video screen. The security guard was holding a vase of flowers. The guard said, “Ground Above Security checked them for bugs n’ bombs. They were clean. Do you want us to send it through the pneumatic tube to your office?” Rena responded to the affirmative, thanked him, and deactivated her cell phone.

“Who send me flowers?” she teased. “Maybe Uncle Jack?” Three minutes later the torpedo nicknamed Big Donkey, came to a clunky halt, hissed air, and then ejected the office delivery receptacle.

“Surprise Two!” exclaimed Phil as Rena opened the pneuma tube hatch and extricated a bundle of red, yellow and white roses. She read the card, “Thank you for nursing me back to health, teaching me the ropes of working in K-branch, being my friend, AND POSING FOR THIS 3-D HOLOGRAPHIC PICTURE. A.F.A. LEPRECHAUN TOYMAKER, FORMERLY KNOWN AS REQ SPECIALIST CALLAGHAN.

Rena squealed with delight, as she hugged Phil, and then said, “You trickster!” She added smiling, “Thank you for flowers. Thank you for friendship. I should have known you were up to something. It has been so lonely since. . .”

Phil was deeply crushed by the sudden horror that flooded Rena’s countenance. Her dazzling smile of moments before had wilted like dying water starved flowers. “Rena! Want to see the instant replay?”

“No. Yes. I not know.” She flicked her long brunette hair so that it covered her face and she scrunched down inside of her layers of ankle length skirts and sweaters. After a few seconds she tenderly held the cube and peered into its mystical depths. She laughed as she watched Phil bring the relic and then watched herself look into the cube. The scene continued with her receiving the flowers, walking them back to the desk and reading the card. Finally the display concluded as she ran around the desk and hugged him exuberantly. Rena stood straighter again, after she’d reviewed the three dimensional video cube and then said, “I forgot to read the post script. It says, ‘Dearest Rena, how about a date. Make that lots of dates. And not the fig kind.’” She motioned for Phil to sit in her spare office chair.

Irena smiled, “It’s about time you asked! Threep said you were crazy about me. I just about give up hope.” Then her smile wavered. She hid beneath her hair and scrunched her body again, and sat back down in her office chair. She continued, “Phil. . .I not sure this good idea. You find better woman. I have temper! I am monster! And relationship not good for me. Not like to be hurt when fun all over.”

Heart breaking for her, Phil said, “You’re not dangerous. You’re not a monster. That’s silly! And I’m not going to hurt you. What happened? I love you!” He held her hand. Rena started to weep. “When I was young woman, just out of teens, I work as courier. I fall in love with other courier named Billy. He promised to marry, but…”

Irena sobbed and abruptly ended her story.

“What happened?” asked Phil. “Did he hurt you?”

Rena sat upright again and said, “I continue story. I make drop of Daddy’s gear to Rambo guys in Guatemala. Run into small group of Guat guerillas. It was small group. Natives and Mercs. Not think they be problem.”

Phil continued to hold her hands, soaking in the warm tears, both his and hers that mixed and fell softly on their clasped hands, intermingling and bonding their hearts. Rena continued to cry. Phil didn’t question her further. He decided to wait and if she wanted to talk about it she’d talk about it and if not, then not.

One zapped me with stun gun. I came out of shock. They abuse me wickedly. Man thing. I almost escape. Kick captain in gonads. Drop him like black-jacked ox. Merc shoot me with Greek Fire gun. He laugh at me and say, ‘If you live, secret agent girl, you look like Kim Phuc.’ She famous Vietnamese lady who almost die from napalm burns.”

“But you are alive!” exclaimed Phil. His anguish for her was so intense that it felt like a mental chicken pox that was all the more excruciating because it couldn’t be itched. “I’m so glad you survived, Rena! But how?”

“I almost make it to drop. Contacts took out rest of bandits. I wake up in hospital.” Rena paused, and then continued, “I have no arm. No leg. And pain. So much pain! And my face. Look like Joker character with half face from comic book! One eye gone; see dimly out of other.” Irene doubled up and groaned a long keening wail. She continued, “When Daddy, Billy and Uncle Jack come to visit me . . .Billy take one look. Then he turn around. He say he not marry a . . . he walk out door.”

“What a reject!” snapped Phil. “Does he still work here?”

“That not end of story,” continued Rena, snuffling occasionally, “I demand Daddy fix! Do something! When he leave hospital Daddy prepare project in big lab. I know he make things. Not know he make androids. Spy stuff yes. Androids no. C3PO yes. Big toy. Different. Nobody make droids like Daddy. Especially. . .cyborg, human machine mix. He fix me in big lab. He grow some parts in bio. He fashion other parts out of. . .not-on-charts. . . quick-silver meteor rock – like Roswell space craft metal. Not same, but like.”

“No wonder you are so beautiful!”

Rena clutched Phil to her and kissed him long and hard, trembling as suppressed longing loosed itself like waters from a broken floodgate, but then she pushed him away. “Then I went to see Billy. I knew he had new girl. I say I forgive. I say I love him more than new girl. He cursed me. Call me damn. . . a damn. . .”

“He called you a what? He did what to you? Does he still work here?” demanded Phil. “If he does I want to talk to him!”

Rena sobbed convulsively and then continued, “He called me . . . Billy say I not human now. He say it against his religion to make out with half animals and robots! He call me damn half jack. His friends all laugh at joke.”

“Does Billy still work here? I can’t fight an agent with my bare hands. But I have the technology—”

Rena softly put her hands over his lips, stopped his challenge, kissed him on the cheek, and said, “No Phil, he doesn’t work here. I slapped him. He hit me. And I. And I . . .”

Phil kissed her hand. He said, “It’s O.K. now. You don’t have to tell me anymore. You are alive and beautiful. And I love you. That’s all that matters.”

Phil was so happy when Rena hugged him again.

Once more, she gently held his shoulders and pushed him back. Giving him that direct look that chilled him to the core of his being, her mouth gaped. She inhaled sharply. Her eyes, hidden behind the thick non-corrective plastic lenses, pierced into his very soul. Pupils large, like those of felis domesticus hunting mice under a waning moon, covered most of her irises.

“Phil?” asked Rena pointedly, clasping both his wrists, gently but firmly, “Did you follow security protocol when you purchase flowers?”

Phil nodded. Not in the affirmative, but in the negative.

Rena scowled and shook her head, “Why you not use new ident package? Did you use old credit card?”

Phil looked away and stammered, “I forgot. I am Ssorry.”

“How could you? You compromised our facility!”

Uncle Jack walked in and asked, “What’s all the hullabaloo?” Not letting Rena explain he said, “The sim in my office just died. Yours is on the blink, too. I can’t believe you didn’t notice. I can’t stand looking at bare stone walls all day long,” huffed Jack. “Well now that I’m finished venting, if you can unwind yourself from Philly, Rena, replace those sims! It’s been almost thirty days, so deep six the castle scene, and insert the Caribbean cruise one! Make mine the same.”

“Not push it, Uncle Jack; I not in the mood!” exclaimed Rena as she fluidly exited her chair. Rena let rip with a series of hand gestures and Greek obscenities. Stalking crisply to a series of small levers on the wall that had been obscured by a pumpkin, she flicked a lever.

Phil scowled at the bare stone and then bristled at the cessation of events, feeling a mixture of anger and embarrassment wash over him like a bucket of cold, soapy water. Following a stone over stone grating sound, his eyes tracked to a concealed door that now stood open. He watched as Rena entered the room. She hugged the path along the wall, gingerly stepped over boxes, spare parts and long plastic and cardboard tubes as she made her way to the main desk near the back sim wall.

The room’s sim looked like a scene out of the movie “Pirates of The Caribbean.” Piles of blood splashed papers avalanched from the desk onto a floor mosaic of circling sharks. Rena avoided the floor mosaic and leaned over her father’s old desk, and then fished through the scattered debris of the desk top until she found a remote control. She punched a numeric code that beeped each time. Finally a bookshelf along a side wall slid sideways to reveal a dial type walk-in wall safe.

Phil suddenly remembered more about his old friend Commander Gabasta and the room full of sporting girl pictures that surrounded the inner walls of the painstakingly recreated Al Capone gambling den. Not many networks of memories attached themselves to the mental picture of Gabasta’s personal rec room, but Phil was happy that one or two shards, from the shattered stained glass window of his past, had been reattached and repaired.

Phil arose and walked over to get a better view of the room. The room on the inside was surrounded with bookshelves, laded with upright books and piled stacks of books and loose manuscripts. Tables sat end to end in front of the book shelves. Each table was stacked to overflowing with boxes and odd curiosities. More boxes and odd tools and assorted bric-a-brac were also packed beneath the tables. Just ahead of the tables a row of boxes and piles of miscellaneous items formed a topsy-turvy trail. Like all of the office rooms the vaulted ceilings were about twenty to thirty feet high. The storage area of the room was blended into the wall sim and formed a coral reef that ranged from bright pink to powder blue. Said reef was rife with a colorful array of tropical fish. Tiny olive green hammerheads with white bottoms as well as blue gray sharks with black-tipped fins patrolled the reef in hunting packs.

Along the east wall, above the coral ridge, a war galleon bobbed like a dragon-headed cork in the gently undulating waves. Two long boats, manned by a roguish group of seamen, were oaring across the southern wall, away from the unconventionally designed watercraft.

The western wall displayed a marvelously picturesque vista: a creamy rose mesa that eased into a central band of blood red, and climaxed into a black crowned top. Tides lapped along the sea shore onto a white sand beach. Central in that wall sim was an entry to a cave. Back around a bend in the crags and to the west, cliff dwellings peeked from the mesa tops like rows of sightless skulls. The outer walls at the base of the mesa had been cut and fitted into high, castle-like parapets, using layers of rectangular creamy red sandstone. Eccentrically dressed Anasazi were engaged in simple activities like gardening, various types of crafting, from pottery to jewelry, and sorting baskets of maize, tubers and both edible and medicinal herbs. Clumps of tall Rocky Mountain Penstemon, blazing torches of lavender, grew in aggressive clumps around the village. Bristly broad-leafed yucca, like spiky Chia-headed hedge hogs, grew in the settlement and along the rolling hills. Phil, after mentally saving the images of the wall sim and the collected debris, watched Rena again.

Rena entered the safe and retrieved a handful of flat metallic and crystal devices about the size of a USB thumb drive. One side had glyphs embossed on the metal. The other side of each device had a small adhesive label, typed in English that identified the sim drive. Rena kicked the safe door shut. She then retraced her steps to the lever block near her desk.

Rena removed the two sim drives that were labeled Caribbean Cruise and threw the others into her desk drawer. She stepped up to the metal plate in the wall and injected a sim drive into two out of three orifices. The last orifice, under the lever she’d toggled that had opened the door to her father’s office, was already filled but with a different type of driver that was permanently fused into the receptacle. She toggled the switch and closed the door to her father’s room and keyed in a numeric sequence on the key pad that was built into the wall to the right side of the metal plate that contained the sim receptacles and levers.

Following a few flashes of light, and a mechanical hum that reverberated, and then died away, the bare walls around the room became an ocean vista of a cruise ship that meandered through a series of picturesque tropical islands. Sounds of tropical birds, droning insects and the pummeling of surf against sandy beaches and rocky bluffs, provided a dim aural ambiance. Azure blue seascapes and misty water falls along with islanders dressed like Polynesians, who tended vividly colored floral gardens, potato fields and rice patties, and spear hunted miniature white-spotted deer and zebra-striped wild boar, presented an exotic ever changing panorama.

Both of the other office doors disappeared, although Jack’s office door was still visible, if you looked for it, behind the wall sim. Victor’s door, however, was totally concealed. Moments before, it had rumbled shut, closing the cluttered mystery room with a stark finality. Three more doors remained, not counting the three transportal elevators that contained private ingress to their personal penthouse suites. Like the personal suite doors, the northern access to the tunnels also remained visible. Phil’s workshop, no longer the door to an abbey, had become a doorway into a grass thatched jungle hut.

“By the way, my breath-taking and gorgeously beautiful cyber model, what happened to your father? Why is that room kept locked?” He looked confused as Uncle Jack mouthed, “Shut up!”

Rena thrust out her arm as if she were flowing into an expert karate move, and exclaimed, “Not remind! Not remind!” After crying out a streak of Greek expletives she added, “Never. And I mean never, call me that again.”

“I’m sssorry!” stuttered Phil. “I won’t say it again, ever,” he promised. He thought to himself, what did I say? I said she was breathtakingly beautiful. Was it the cyber model thing? I didn’t say half jack.”

Rena, aquiline nose in the air, quivered with rage, and then stormed to her personal elevator box transportal.

“Uncle Jack, what’s with the Mouse Lady that roared routine?” asked Phil. “What did I do wrong? What did I say?”

Jack threw his arms into the air and said, “Where do I start, boyo? First you called her a name which is another name like half jack and then you asked how her father died.”

“I did. I mean I asked what happened, not how he died.”

Jack replied, “It was the circumstances. Did you see the bloody papers?”

“Well, it was a bit far away. I thought I saw papers with dark stains on them fall off the desk, but I wasn’t sure.”

Jack’s eyes clouded over and he had a faraway look. Then he continued, “Philly, I should have told you this before. That blood was Victor’s. I heard some of your conversation with Rena. The sim wall screens out some sound between office suites, but not everything. What she didn’t tell you is that after she killed the other couriers, she told Victor that he’d made her into a monster. Rena also told him that she wished she was dead. Victor sat at the desk, wrote a note asking me to fix the situation, by saying he’d killed the couriers, using an experimental bio-weapon, because he’d heard them talking rudely about her. And yadda, yadda, yadda, whatever else needed done. And to have Rena take over Dora’s job doing secretarial and manual writing. He wrote out a few other requests and then sucked lead. I pulled some strings concerning the investigation and reconstructed our department. End of story.”

Phil arrived at the office the next morning with more flowers. He walked up to Rena’s desk, and said, “I’m sorry about yesterday. I brought you more flowers. I used the new and safe credit card.”

Rena appraised him dispassionately, “They are very nice. You made good decision by following protocols. However, I have reconsidered my weaknesses yesterday. I sorry I lost cool, but like I say, relationships not good for me. When fun is over, pain is just too much.”

“We can take it slow- – -”

Rena gave him that direct look that he hated and snapped, “Let me be blunt. There is no we. Have you looked at Agent Toymaker workstation?”

Phil’s jaw dropped and then he hung his head. His corner of the office was empty and the door to his workshop was gone.

“I think flowers look nice on your desk. You see when you go there. It is now located in big lab by K-storage.” She looked away, and then added, “3-D paperweight nice. However, it is company property. As such it and cube camera back in safe. Please remember that our relationship is business only. That is all it will ever be.”

Phil sighed, “If that is the way it has to be. I’m sorry. I’ll miss you, but I’ll try to respect your wishes.”

Phil’s body quivered and acidic bile erupted from his stomach into his mouth, as he walked the tunnels to his new office. There had been a moped parked in a niche, but he ignored it. He tried to concentrate on his work but he felt lonely and miserable. During lunch, while she was away, he put the flowers back on her desk. They were prominently displayed in her trash receptacle when he came back through the office on his way back to his penthouse suite. When he would come through the office on his way to K-lab, she either wasn’t there or ignored him. Even Threep, her mechanical butler stopped visiting him. Time passed heavily for the next several weeks.

One night Uncle Jack invited him over to his and Dora’s penthouse for a surprise birthday party for Rena. When Phil arrived, carrying a large gift wrapped in red foil, she blushed and looked away, but C3, his chrome gleaming a fine golden sheen, exclaimed, “Why, Master Phil, it is so very good to see you. I have missed you terribly, but Lady I—”

“Quit babbling, Threep!” snapped Rena. She added, “You embarrass me!”

Dora, Jack’s wife, was dressed in a fine violet and lavender Burberry Check evening gown, purchased during a recent visit to London. Dora said, “It is time C3 to prepare the dining area. We’ll be in shortly.”

“Yes Lady Dora,” said C3. He bowed and then ambled off to the dining room.

Dora scowled at Rena and said, “Philly dear, why don’t we get you something from the bar.” Dora guided his elbow to the lounge area.

“I see you are using the Louis the 14^th Sim, Auntie Dora. That’s one of ours, not one of the Ancients devices that were found in the original caverns.” One end of the room contained a wall size blazing sun attended by cherubs. Unlike the real sun, one could gaze at this sun without ill effects. Dora and Jack’s suite was shaped as if it were cut of the same mold as Phil’s personal suite. Except that rather than being roughly circular, Phil’s suite was half circle in shape, cut down the middle like half a wheel of cheese.

Phil and Dora stepped through a holo-sim of leaping dolphins. He could almost feel the splash of imaginary water, even though neither the dolphins nor the water droplets that splashed from them were real. Water plops and dolphin chitters were not imaginary sounds, but seemed even more real than the momentary touch of water droplets. Phil realized that the water drops weren’t real, but his body reacted to them as if they were real. Actually he felt that the water plop sensations were real, but he had only felt them dimly.

Dora said, “I can’t wait to see your gift for Rena. We gave her a box of books. She loves books. Mystery, Fantasy, SF and poetry are her favorites.” Dora’s voice dropped into whisper mode as she leaned into Phil’s ear, “If Rena’s not strapped into to that VR module, in her suite, doing combat sims or fantasy role playing adventures, she’s got that beak of hers in a book!” She paused and continued, “Rena speaks broken English, but don’t let that fool you, she can read and write quite well.”

He and Auntie Dora stepped through the leaping dolphins into a tropical paradise. Fountains that gurgled before them in the center of the room were real, not illusions. Mists from the splashing font tickled his face and arms like a thousand icy fingertips. Walls of sandy beach and island landscape that surrounded the lushly accoutered room were sim crafted. A roofed, open-sided bamboo cantina, complete with a central wet bar and exterior umbrella topped patio seating, in the center of the large room, was genuine.

Phil pushed aside a palm frond that had snagged the sparkly metallic red foil that wrapped his gift. Vibrantly tinted lilies and irises painted splashes of brilliant reds, purples, and blues across the greenery nestled around the perimeter of the polished granite font. Mostly emerald with dashes of black and gold and streaks of white and milky gray, the fountain tickled ones auditory and visual senses. Phil was not captivated by the beautiful scenery, only the vision of Rena. She was dressed much the same as usual, layers of dark sweaters and an ankle length skirt over sweats, but today she also wore a cashmere scarf of royal blue with a sea shell clasp.

Jack, dressed in a Sir Paul Smith of London creation, known for formal menswear with a dash of audacity, loosened his blood red tie – plain except for a small stylized tiger next to a palm tree and under a rainbow. After unbuttoning the collar of the baby blue oxford shirt, he unbuttoned the over-sized tiger-eye ruby fasteners and squirreled out of the smoky gray sport jacket. Jack tossed it across a bar stool, which revealed a unique button down shirt with a rainbow emblazoned from his right shoulder to his left hip and the print from the tie on the pocket. “What did you expect, boyo?” he added, with his best Sean Connery imitation, “Your Auntie Dora thought it was stylishly cheeky.” Dropping the British accent, Jack continued, “I’m mixing the usual, a pitcher of Royal Crown and Pepsi. Double stiff on the royal. There’s beer on tap, too. Leinenkugels, Killian’s Red, and MGD.”

As Dora let go of his elbow, he joined Rena at the patio. She smiled warmly for a few seconds as he handed her the gift and card. Phil was elated as she invited him to sit beside her. Dora took the other chair on the patio table as Jack brought a serving tray, four glasses and the iced pitcher of Whiskey Colas. She opened the card and grinned as she read, “May your year be MERRY. Only the best, Phil.” Rena then delicately removed the foil wrap of the gift.

Phil was rewarded by a sudden intake of breath and happy glow that suffused her face as she opened the box and removed a large merry go round. Prancing white and black unicorns paraded around a glitter dusted, misty blue castle, complete with navy blue minarets and gemstone windows, as musical strains of “In The Hall Of The Mountain King,” a nineteenth century piece by Edvard Grieg, played. Rena’s chin quivered and it looked as if one lone tear ran a snaky trail down her cheek. “It very nice, Philly. Know that I always treasure. From bottom of my heart.” She put it down, smiled a wan smile at Phil, and reached for her glass. She ran her fingertip through the beads of condensation on the glass, before clutching it in her hand. Rena mumbled, “EfkharistO,” and then drained the glass in the first gulp.

Following the clink of ice filled glasses and small talk, Jack said, “We are here to celebrate Rena’s birthday—”

“Here, here!” chimed Dora, as she added, “Three cheers for Rena!” They all clinked glasses with Rena and cheered her thrice.

“May you have many great birthdays!” exclaimed Jack. Following a pause he said, “Like I was saying we are here to celebrate Rena’s birthday, but as long as we are together, we need to talk shop for a few minutes. Philly’s been with us a few months now, and I think he’s breaking in. I think we’ll give it a few more months before we go into phase two. Right now boyo you are doing well, working with and cataloging the gadgets. Both Victor’s inventions and the Ancients items that we find in caches throughout the subterranean tunnel system. We don’t do drops of special high tech toys or messages to hostile locations now. I wrote that out of our job description…years ago. We do such drops in safe zones or sometimes small groups are sent here and we train them. Mostly we go to them.”

“We do training?” asked Phil as he twirled the dark contents of his tumbler.

“I’ve done a few of those since you have been here Philly, but after a few months you and Rena will be taking that over. My point being, you’ll have to learn to work together!

Because of compartmentalization we don’t have contact with many people. Just in this hub, below and on top at the gear factory, between the Main ASHAARK Hub and the ARK Project, we have a thousand people, but the “Office” where we work is kept separated from them for the most part. We’re lucky to have our suites. Although the hub penthouses, at the top of the apartment complex, are pretty ritzy. Everyone over in the hub lives in a high rise building carved out of rock. There is a central park area adjacent to the hub apartment complex and the first floor of the unit has several businesses, like Down Below Deli. There is a shopping center in the center level. Very sustainable development. No urban sprawl there.”

Dora added, “ASHAARK Hub is big, but we only mingle with a limited number of people personally. We do call security or buzz the cleaning staff or Down Below Deli, but for the most part we have little connection to most of the hub. And most of the hub doesn’t wander in the Old Ones’ Tunnels that are part of K-branch territory. We can get passes – only Jack doesn’t need a pass – to visit the main hub. Sometime I want us to have a picnic at the central park there. You won’t believe your eyes, there’s actually a sun like orb at the top of the room’s vault that shines over a tropical water park with sim dinosaurs. And the sun becomes a moon at night! Unbelievable.”

Jack cleared his throat, “Yeah that would be nice. It is amazing! But back to business. Like Dora said, there’s a cleaning crew that comes over from ASHAARK main. K-branch has its own security team, just like President Clinton. We have a medical team as well, but for the most part they stay over in the main ASHAARK area, too. Whenever we leave Below World, they travel with us. You didn’t see them, Philly, when we brought you here. Once the chopper dropped us into the concealed Hole-In-The-Wall of the mesa, onto the flight hanger, they went to their assigned personal and work areas. No one’s ever been able to find us down here, so they beef up regular security, Down Below and Up Top, when we aren’t on a mission. And if you stay in the lighted sections of the main tunnel you’re safe from the crawlers.  We don’t bother the snake-men in their catacombs and they don’t bother us up here. Since they seem to have little problem with our best special ops teams and have proven resistant to biological and nuclear weapons we ended our military strikes against them very quickly!  If they were more aggressive towards us up here, even though the casualties would be unimaginable, we’d have to exterminate them, but as long as we stay out of their dens, they don’t bother us.”

Phil poured himself another drink and refilled the other glasses. He then asked, after putting the pitcher down, “I’ve been wondering about the Hole-In-The-Wall and if that was how I was brought in. You told me about it back at your ranch house before you moved here permanently.”

Jack nodded and continued, “They even have a requisition specialist like you were Phil, but we figured that was one person we didn’t want you to get to know. And don’t look for him. He’s off limits. Anyway, my point is this: except when we are with the Away Team, %99 percent of the time, it’s us four and no more. We have to depend on each other. From time to time we also do joint projects with our counterpart team in what they call The Catacombs at the Port Washington Hub. ASHAARK Hub has its own director, Von Haden. Port Washington has a director, a Miss Zee, and they have a team like us. They are a husband and wife team, by the name of Kray. A neat couple boyo! Kray’s usually visit here a couple of times a year. Terry likes to play cards. By the way, if you’re ever up against a dead wall and you’re having insurmountable problems getting a cyborg or droid fixed, don’t be afraid to give Terry a call. Tell him I said it was O.K.”

Jack pulled a pen out of his pocket, scribbled down a phone number on a bar napkin labeled, Jack and Dora’s Beach Side Cantina, and pushed it across the table at Phil. He added, “No socializing unless he visits here and don’t call unless you are desperate! If he doesn’t know the answer, his partner, the oh-so-spooky, Dr. Lo will. Wun Hung Lo is an oriental dude that specializes in AI and android/cyborg repair.”

Rena, having said very little, knocked back her tumbler, shoved it out to be refilled, and then chimed in, “ASHAARK builds droids, but Kray and Lo engineers. Q-lab just assembly lines. Follow instructions. Cut this. Drill that. Weld here. Weld there. Insert and connect. Inspect and polish. Kray and Lo Grand Masters in field. Q-lab high IQ grunt workers.”

Jack continued, “I’ll wind down the shop talk. All that to say, Philly, I know you get kind of lonely down here. We do get some visitors and you will be able to go Topside from time to time. Occasionally we visit other Hubs, but we almost never go to Area 51 or Salt Lake City. And stay away from Dulce Base. It’s practically next door. It’s bigger than our hub and goes deeper. Fortunately not many of our tunnels connect despite its proximity.

Genetic experimentation is its specialty. Horrendous stuff boyo. Things go on there I won’t share with Dora and don’t ask, Philly. And security there is a nightmare. They even have armed teams wandering the Ancient’s Tunnels. No crawlers. They were killed off long ago. They have  lion, jackal and pumpkin heads, Dero, pan fauns, gator-men and horned giant human hybrids over there. Worse, the stuff they make at Dulce wander the tunnels! Everything from super-models with bat-wings to squid people! Don’t get me going! The native lizard men of the tunnel system are easier to get along with than the snake-heads. No the lizard-men aren’t so bad if you can put up with their racist comments. Most of them are technical geniuses, and work in their own area Z-LAB. Standoffish and arrogant, they don’t mingle well. Like I said a few of them actually work for us—“

Zonkkk’s a nice guy-raptor-uhh-lizard man!” quipped Dora.

“Oh, yeah,” said Jack, “He came over with our cleaning crew a time or two when subbing. Not the brightest bulb in the box, but quite sociable, if there aren’t any other lizard-men around. Very friendly for a lizard man.  He has the disposition of a good collie dog.   But don’t go near his mate.  She’s sharp-tongued, fat as a toad and Gawwd she’s so ugly that your eyes hurt just looking at her. She smells worse than a Komodo dragon cage.”

“Jack!” growled Dora.

“Well am I right or am I right?” exclaimed Jack.  “Are you saying Dora, that I am lying or exaggerating?”

When Dora did not answer Jack continued, “We’ve heard the Shamballa giants are a peaceful race, but the horned giants, like most of the Agartha tunnels races are a belligerent, demonized, and demented lot! And the snake-men clans below Dulce seem to molt most of the year, are seen in the main tunnels from time to time, and are much more territorial and aggressive than ours. And you have to strip naked and get weighed at each security check point whenever you exit or enter the base. I hate that place! I only have to go there once per year. Thank God for that!  I go there and my security team. You, Dora and Rena don’t! Anyway, I digress. Sorry.”

Dora interjected, “Jack has clearance to go anywhere in the hub system, at least as far as the front door or Hub Director’s office. We need passes. For most places our clearance is almost as high as Jack’s, and it’s only a matter of a background check and confirmation to visit level one or the directors.”

Jack slapped his head like Peter Falk in “Columbo” and said, “And one more thing.” He looked firmly at Phil and Rena, and then continued, “You can visit K-lab as necessary, boyo, but that is not your office! Dora and I decided to give it a little time and let things cool off, but as we speak I have maintenance and our personal security team moving your office and workshop back into “The Office.” And your office stays there unless I say otherwise. We’ll, enough said. We are a team. We may need to work at it, but all we have is each other.”

Fifteen minutes later C3 entered and said, “Masters Jack and Phil and Ladies Dora and Irena, the evening meal is ready to be served.”

Rena gave a pointy finger, swirling wrist signal and then said, “Threep, please take my gift to my room. Be very careful. It is treasure.” Five minutes later C3 returned and they all exited the island cantina room and entered the dining room.

When Phil had first entered the kitchen dining room of Uncle Jack and Auntie Dora, he thought that the room was a real ranch style kitchen, except that the out-side wall was convex, rather than straight. After testing it out, he found that the walls were actually a sim, but the island sink and prep area, as well as the appliances, furniture and cabinets were all genuine. Each had windows that simulated out-of-doors views. Each of their penthouses, although having the illusion of being above ground, were deep underground. Hidden machines, many of them left by the Ancients, attended to environmental concerns such as heat, light, air creation and purification, and dehumidified or humidified the caverns and tunnel systems. Many of the rooms even had strange toilets and waste disposal systems that disintegrated waste, rather than flushing them into a water system.

While there were hydroponic areas for growing food, some that had been in place for centuries, and newly built systems, as well, and a few food replicators, provisions were often hauled in by fleets of over-the-road trucks in the World Above and secretly delivered to the World Below. So much food was ordered at certain times, especially if all the hubs were filling inventory, that prices Topside could be sent skyrocketing or quantities of certain items could become temporarily scarce.

“Looks like you’ve outdone yourself, C3,” exclaimed Dora. In the center of the room, under a crystal chandelier, the golden android was deftly carving a maple-glazed Virginia ham. Behind him waited a food serving dolly. Freshly baked croissants, roast pork medallions with dried fruit over rice, creamy chicken wrapped in angel hair kataifi, Greek fried-in-olive-oil potatoes and Mediterranean salad, all reserved in exquisite steam or chill trays, ready to be served by Threep onto gold rimmed china, completed the fine culinary display. GAIA ESTATE, ROSÉ PELOPONNES was also sitting chilled and ready next to four fluted wine glasses. Phil watched as Jack whispered to Rena. He was elated, but not exactly surprised, when Rena invited him to sit by her again.

Phil was so jubilant that he slept little that evening. He hurried to the office, hoping that he wouldn’t see the expensive Merry Go Round that he’d built, sitting in her trash receptacle. When he arrived in the “Office,” not only was the garbage can empty, but C3 was helping her redecorate her side of the room.

C3 ambled quickly over to Phil, and capered around him like an excited child, “I do hope Master Phil that we shall go on being friends again.” He glanced over at Rena, who raised an eyebrow at Threep’s comment, but said nothing.

“I hope so too. Maybe we can party in your suite.”

“Why Master Phil, that is a splendid idea,” exclaimed C3. “You must observe what a prominent place in our suite that Lady Irena has given to your Merry Go Round. Lady Irena could barely contain herself. She talked about it all morning before we left.”

Once again Rena raised an eyebrow, but this time she responded, “I all for team integration practice. However, I not entertainer like Jack and Dora. Why not have C3 visit you in your suite?” Rena quickly perambulated to the place where Phil and Threep were talking. She tugged the golden droid’s arm and said, “I tell you not talk about treasure! Since you finish here, go back to suite! Phil has work to do. He not get it done if listen to babbling gold robot! Maybe after work Phil play cards with you. Now go home.” Rena, pointed at Threep, clapped her hands together and snapped, “AntYo!”

Phil often wondered what Rena’s apartment looked like. I wish, he thought, that Rena would have let me come see the musical castle in her suite. Their suites were separate from the ASAARK Hub. Jack had mentioned that the main area of the base was kind of like a tubular ziggaraut, with the maze of tunnels and caverns being small below Topside, but growing larger with each lower level. And the catacombs that belonged to the Snake-men were a gargantuan maze way below the underground base. Phil, Jack, Dora and Rena in addition to their underground base private apartment complex, also shared a small patio on the surface that was shielded by a sim.

From the outside the simulator presented an illusion that not only simulated the sight of a mesa, around their patio, but tricked one’s other senses as well. The main hub of Down Below also had several tunnels that branched away to other hub sites around North and South America. The walk tunnels stretched on endlessly, were unknown, and rarely used. Only the lighted tunnels were safe.  Although Dulce and a few other DUMBS had areas of the main tunnel that were almost as dangerous as the unlighted side tunnels and snake-men warrens, generally the main tunnels, were safe although rarely used. While there were underground pools of potable water, in the lighted walk tunnels between hubs, the exits were far and few between, and even if a person managed not to get lost, they would most likely starve before arriving at another hub. There were also areas of the main tunnel that had collapsed making the crossing very difficult or impossible.  If the side tunnels or undershafts were navigable they were often just too dangerous to use. To safely travel to another hub, one had to go through security, and then take the subway. Very few individuals who lived in Down Below had the clearance necessary to ride the underground trains or exit the hub.

Phil glanced at Rena and then at C3 who had slowly ambled towards the elevator room to Rena’s suite. He was glad that he didn’t have to take the long walk to K-lab. Even with the moped the ride was prolonged. Phil noticed when staring at the suite elevator doors that Jack and Dora’s elevator was on the opposite side of the room. His transporter elevator door and Rena’s were almost side by side. Phil looked again at the way the Suite elevators were spaced. His mind toyed with the riddle, but it was as if he had tip of the tongue syndrome. The answer was there, but just not obvious at the moment.

Alarms clanged as the intercom blared, “Intruder Alert! Intruder Alert!” Phil and Rena stared at each other; both shock and surprise were prominently displayed in their expressions.

Phil said, “Uncle Jack said that we never have intruders down here!”

Irena replied, “Maybe someone from hub? Never from Topside. Impossible.”

“Has this ever happened before?”

“Never,” replied Irena. “Once long ago child from Ark Project get lost in tunnels. He wander near here. Half starved. Dehydrated. Sick. Beta security find him before he get close enough for make emergency systems go off.” She added, “I never hear alarm in life. Only once per year test. This not test!”

“Oh dear! Oh dear!” exclaimed Threep as he wrung his metallic golden hands together and huddled near the elevator door to Rena’s suite. He ran back to stand beside Rena, and continued to wring his hands, clickety clack, clickety clack, and exclaimed over and over, “Oh dear! Oh dear!”

Abruptly the door into the northern elevator that led to ASHAARK HUB and K-lab and K-storage, opened up. A bedraggled giant of man wearing disheveled and bloody desert fatigues leaped into the room.  Not just a small amount of blood.  Most of his ragged uniform was literally bathed in gore. When Phil saw him, the man seemed familiar, but he couldn’t place him. Phil thought, he looks mad. Not just angry mad, but demented mad. And dangerous. I get the impression, that he’s hungry. Hungry enough to eat the south end of a cow going north, as some of the Topside New Mexican ranchers, were wont to say. Small and round, about the size of a super ball, an object bounced up and down in the palm of the marine’s massive dirty hand, before he popped it into his mouth. Following quick mastication, he swallowed it, and strode, larger than life, through the double doors of the elevator into K-branch office.

“I call security!” warned Rena.

“Not!” exclaimed the big marine, with his customary coprolalia laden syntax. “Be thankful that I didn’t kill all of ‘em.” He glared at C3 and yelled, “Ya’all better shut off that friggin’ overgrown Star Wars toy, or I’ll deactivate it permanently.” Threep clamped his hand over his mouth and started to shake so violently that his parts rattled.

“Who are you?” asked Phil.

“I’m your worst nightmare!” He chuckled manically and added, “I am Megadeath. I heard ya’all was brained from that fall, Callaghan. Then I heard conflictin’ stories, that you was dead and that you was whisked off to some top secret government base.”

“Do we know each other?” asked Phil.

“Yes, Leprechaun, and we got some mighty important business to settle.”

“Enough reunion!” snapped Rena. She added, in a quavering voice, “I doubt you have security clearance necessary for be here! So get out!” She cursed in Greek.

Megadeath sneered, “I’ll leave when I’m damn good and ready, Missy.” He stepped forward, grabbed C3 by an arm and leg, and slammed it across a filing cabinet. Then he brutally drop kicked Threep across the room. One arm flew off, the legs were skewed and the chest and midriff of the droid cracked and shattered as it bounced off the floor.

“I’ve been huntin’ you down for a long time Callaghan. You screwed me over. I didn’t get the Girlie Machine Whatchamacallit. Besides that, I’m here on a secret mission from Commander Kensington. Until you bought flowers with your credit card, we didn’t have a clue. And then pooling our resources, Kensington and I had to trade favors and search from Hell to Breakfast, but we finally figured out where you were holed up.”

Rena scowled at the pieces of her spastic droid and then stepped between Phil and Megadeath.

“Why Kensington want Phil?”

Megadeath yelled, “Ya’all get outta my face overdressed bag lady!” He paused and then said, after a mock bow, “Ya’all have to forgive my manners, Ma’am. The reason I’m here is to take Phil. . .

Phil turned white and Rena snarled like a feral cat.

Megadeath continued, “By the way Callaghan, I found your compact disk under the unit. The CC let me try it out as partial payment for my mission. “Do It With The Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders” was awesome. I was so happy with ya’all Leprechaun, that I wanted to forgive you, and I did get to try it out before the Men in Black came and took it away. I probably would have just slapped ya’all up a bit, but like I said, Kensington wants revenge.”

Rena spun and pointed at Callahan, “It was you. You steal Spy and Combat Trainer from Q-storage!” Hands flying and sputtering a string of hot Greek, “Not believe! You turn VR Mod into electronic brothel. Not believe! ”

“I don’t remember,” mumbled Phil.

“Wait ‘till ya’all hear tell the rest of the story!” exclaimed Megadeath.

Rena turned her dreaded direct look away from Phil and back to Megadeath. “What is rest of story?”

Megadeath guffawed, “Pimp Leprechaun here, before he fell outta the winda, switched copies on the CC. When Kensington strapped into a coffin and jacked into ‘at there Neo Nazi Leather Boys program,” the giant marine slapped his knee and roared with gales of laughter, “he went plumb loco. Hair all fell outta his head, right then and there, before ‘at there machine let go o’ his brain! Kensington must blink sixty times a minute and his muscles twitch ever’ where ya’all can see and prob’ly places ya’all caint! I hear tell he wouldn’t step foot in that den until long after your people stole it back.”

“What Kensington command you do to Phil?” demanded Rena.

Megadeath’s countenance took on an even more demented look than normal and his head and hands shook with every syllable as he perfectly imitated Kensington’s mannerisms and the old man’s rough, phlegmy voice, “You want that girlie machine soldier? I think those men in black who took it back have him now. Find him and I betcha dollars to donuts he’ll have that dang machine. Kill that sonzabitchin’, Callaghan, and—”

“No!” screamed Rena.

Megadeath slapped her, knocking her to the ground. Leprechaun growled and leaped toward Megadeath. Phil tripped over his own gimpy leg and stumbled. Then a size fifteen military issue kicked like a mule into Callahan’s solar plexus. The blow had left him on his back, curled into a fetal position, gasping for air.

Rena rolled quickly into a crouch. Her black wig and Coke bottle glasses had fallen to the floor, revealing a hawk-nosed, but angelic face and short, spiky, blue-black pixie cut hair. Her irises, depending on the light, fluctuated between three shades of blue and gold-green hazel.

C3 had pulled tools from a pouch on its belt and had started reassembling. The golden droid mouthed the phrase, “Oh dear,” twice and then its voice cracked. Mechanical lips continued to silently mouth the words as it frenziedly attempted to self-repair.

“You poor, crippled, scatter-brained wimp, Callaghan,” mocked Megadeath. “I’m going to have a little fun with ya’all before I put you out of your misery.”

Rena leaped between Phil and the mad marine.

“What a beaut!” Megadeath wolf-whistled and said, “A bag lady Ya’all haint!” He smirked, “Yo’ Leprechaun, you want me to have fun with her while you can watch or after I decapitate ya’all boy?”

“Leave her alone,” grunted Phil.

Rena blocked Megadeath’s path when he stepped towards Phil, and spat, “I not let you do man thing to me. And I not let you kill Philly.”

“I’m gettin’ plumb tuckered of ya’all gettin’ in my way woman!” cursed Megadeath. “Ya’all’s gonna get a taste of what ya’all’s dumb droid got!”

Rena spun on her right leg and snap kicked a fast left into the giant marine’s kneecap.

Shock and pain were immediately apparent in his features and his voice. His knee-cap was crushed, but what would have disabled a normal man, hardly slowed the juggernaut Rambo agent from the World Above. Megadeath whipped out his Shaark combat Bowies. “I don’t know how ya’all did that woman, but I’m gonna cut ya’all good for that!” He charged in quickly and tapped two double slashes.

Rena side-stepped the SOF marine’s attack.

Megadeath laughed, “Ya’all knows what these little babies can do. They were made here at ASHAARK.” His tolerance for pain kicked in. Megadeath’s voice changed into a falsetto, “Please Mr. Megadeath, don’t hurt me. OOPS there goes an arm. Drat I lost a leg. Oh please, please don’t cut off my two—”

Rena let rip a keening wail that resounded throughout “The Office.” Everyone in the room, Phil, C3 and Megadeath paused, riveted by the primal fury of the sound that echoed in the room’s high vaulted ceiling.

Phil tried once again to get up and go after the demented soldier. The Special Forces Marine stepped back and kicked him again.

When Rena leaped at him, Megadeath moved defensively, slowed but not stopped by his injured leg.

What probably would have resulted in broken ribs for Phil, ended up leaving only a bruise. Yet Phil fell backwards, spent, and didn’t get up

Megadeath feinted left, and then spun right. Handicapped by his injury, he was still a dangerous and resilient fighter. Rena fast as quicksilver was almost a blur. It was as if she had morphed into the mythical goddess of death. Her left arm snaked out with blinding speed and knocked one of the Shaark knives from his ham-hock hands, and sent it flying across the room. Megadeath slashed with his remaining Bowie; she blocked the blade with her forearm.

Megadeath cursed and said, “No way,” as Rena charged in under his outstretched arm. He grunted as Rena slammed her left shoulder into his chest and shot a fist into his Adam’s apple. Megadeath gagged, back-peddled and continued to circle, waiting an opening. He chopped savagely at her neck. Once more Rena blocked the blow with her left arm, but the deflected blade danced a jagged jig across her breast and shoulder. She winced as a blood red line seeped through her layers of ripped clothing.

Suddenly Megadeath’s bravado drained along with the ruddy color from his hard brutal face. Fear replaced the normal smugness of his exsanguinated features. “That’s twice ya’all blocked my blade with your left arm. Not even a scratch.” His eyes bulged. “You’re a damn half jack!”

Rena screamed like a Valkyrie and charged the massive special ops soldier.

Phil, who had come to, grabbed a desk leg and pulled himself into a sitting position. He was stunned as he watched Rena’s spin combo move. She attacked Megadeath like an animated buzz saw. Following a confused blur of images, Phil heard Megadeath gurgle and watched the giant marine topple. Sanguineous fluid, speckled with bone splinters, ran from the giant’s mouth and sprayed a crimson geyser from two crater-like wounds in his massive chest.

Rena stared in horror at the gore that oozed along her once white gloved left arm and soiled clothing. Then crying that same keening wail, she dashed for her suite elevator. Phil hobbled after her. She glared into the retina scanner and the door to the transportal elevator opened. When Phil approached her, she cried, “Get away from me. I not want you near me. Just leave be!”

Phil said, “I’m worried about you!”

Rena carefully, but urgently pushed him away and said, “Why you not understand? Just leave be!” As she stepped into the elevator box she cried, “If you really care, Philly, go help Threep!”

Phil walked over to C3, but stopped and called security. When there was no answer he called the emergency number he had been given. An unknown voice answered, then handed off the phone.

“Philly, are you all right?” asked a frantic Uncle Jack. “Security team Alpha Jack whisked us away to Hanger Site Beta. Dora and I are on Jack One being flown to a safe location until the brouhaha down there is secured. All of the security personnel at the nearest check point from K-branch are dead. Except one guy. He said a giant man in camo fatigues came up from the tunnels and went through their whole squad like a white tornado. The only guy alive is missing an eye. That big Rambo agent must have needed it to get passed the retina scanner outside of the north office door. That’s the intel I have so far. Can you confirm any of that? Is he still a threat or has he been contained?”

“Yes, I am able to confirm,” answered Phil. He continued, “Megadeath has not only been contained, but eliminated with extreme prejudice. Rena killed him. Right here in our office. Most efficiently I might add.”

“That she would. Was she hurt?”

“Physically, I don’t think so Uncle Jack. Yes, she deflected a blow that glanced off her synthetic left arm and scratched her. My guess is that if examined it would prove to be a superficial wound. Some blood loss, but nothing serious. Mentally she’s taking it pretty hard. She went banzai when he called her a half jack. She raced off to her suite after the battle and demanded to be left alone. She asked me to see to C3. Megadeath left him in pieces and C3 is trying to McGyver himself together again.”

“Well Megadeath had it coming. He would have been put down. He left a trail of bodies this time. No great loss if he took out a few snake-heads, crawlers or other monsters, but he killed several of our security officers and we think he got a few officers at another base before he came here. His handlers wouldn’t have wanted to clean up this mess for him. From what I’ve heard, not many could have done it, but our Rena is a force to be reckoned with. I’ll send Delta security from the hub and a maintenance crew. You may help Threep and then go to your suite. Later we’ll have to have a debriefing and file some reports. After this we’ll have to set up a security checkpoint room down here. Been stalling on that for years. Remember, boyo, if something happens and you absolutely can’t put C3 back together again, use that number I gave you, and consult with Dr. Kray over at the Port Washington marine base.”

Jack hung up. Phil limped over to C3. When he dropped beside the ailing android, its mouth moved but no sound came out. Threep touched a button under his armpit and a ticker tape slid out of a slot in his chest. “It’s no use Master Phil. My control board has short circuited. If you are ever able to get me working again, my memory will be #2^^97_^*)&( gone(#@&#Lady*@^#Ir(^%$8%(^)($&%@#(ves you@*@&. Go-9775634-ew=w-92=233od bye. Ma23)(*&*&45ster Phi86%$^*$*6446*8846.” Slowly the droid fell on its side. One reassembled leg flopped like a dead fish, and then stopped. Several exposed wires shot arcs of sparks and the smell of burned plastic and metal filled the room as smoke leaked from under the former Threep’s golden cranium. Phil stared at the hard copy message. He folded it neatly, put it in his pocket and carried C3 to a work table in his shop. He found a tarp in one of the cabinets and gently placed it over the golden form. “I’m sorry C3, this is going to be a long job and I’m getting the shakes something fierce. I promise I’ll come back and work on you as soon as possible.”

Phil walked sadly to his suite elevator, peered into the retina scanner, waited for the doors to open and went home.

When Phil returned to The Office the next morning, Rena had donned a new wig and another pair of thick plastic black spectacles. Phil dropped one red rose on the desk before her. He said, “Thank you Rena. You saved my life. I’ll fix C3. It’ll be a lot of work, but I can repair him. Except, I don’t know if I can fix the control board. It’s really fried.”

Rena sighed. “Q-storage had spare. I had it pneuma-tubed over this morning. It’s on your desk. They left note. It say not worry if odd or no serial number.” She paused and added, “Thank you Phil,” she stifled a sob, “Now please. Leave be!”

“Irena?”

“What?” moaned Rena. She had glanced up at him when he had spoken her given name, and then quickly returned to her paperwork.

“Why do you hide behind that wig and glasses and those layers of clothes? You are so beautiful! The way you talk and the way you look simply takes my breath away. I love you!”

“Don’t remind! Don’t remind! Leave be! I not want to hear it!” Rena burst into tears, stormed from her desk, glared into the retina scanner of her elevator and exited the office.

Phil looked crestfallen as he watched her step inside the transportal box. He felt as if a part of him had died inside when the doors clanged shut.

Phil pulled three classified manuals from the office files about droids and read them. One important fact that he had discovered was that the original control board had a remote data logger, which had survived and backed up Threep’s memories. He found it in Threep’s left metal foot in the second toe. He tested the memory device after connecting an adapter, and then inserting the adapter’s USB plug into his computer. He clicked the option that checked unit viability. Fifteen seconds later the test result was positive; it could be used to recall Threep’s memories. Phil spent the rest of the day repairing the C3 unit. That evening, Phil started having anxiety attacks.

 

---

 

Phil stared out the holo windows of his suite into a brooding forest decorated in vibrant brush strokes of reds, golds and yellows. Behind and above the flaming canopy of deciduous trees there was a snow-capped backdrop of blue gray mountains. Overcast and ashen, the sky was painted in melancholy tones that complemented his mood. One wall of windows featured a woodland cottage, smoke coiling upwards, reminiscent of a Thomas Kinkade oil painting. Brightly colored leaves tumbled slowly in the winds, like clothes in a dryer, as they blanketed the lawn and nearby pond. Teals, like tiny feathered Cessna planes, coasted onto the rippled pond. They swam in flowing, ever widening circles, and dived into its depths, before popping out like surfacing subs. Squirrels dashed passed the cottage, mouths filled with acorns, and clawed their way up the rough umber bark of towering moss and fungi speckled oaks into leafy nests and dark bole holes.

Despite the beauty of the scenery, Phil could not long be calmed by its phenomenal artistic vistas. He vacillated between fits of hoarse sobbing and ranting oratories that bounced furiously, like verbal winter squalls, off the sim walls of his half circle suite.

It was then that he remembered a Lionel Ritchie song, “Hello.” Digging through an unpacked box of cassette tapes, Phil also rummaged through a stack of boxes stored in a closet, until he found a cassette player radio. He popped the tape in and fast forwarded to “Hello.” Phil turned up the volume, not at its highest setting, but loud. He tried to sing the words, but he gave up, as his throat constricted and a well of tears he hadn’t known he possessed overwhelmed him. Phil wouldn’t want to cry in front of anyone, or be told that men don’t cry. Here in the privacy of his personal fortress of solitude, Phil was free to surf the high breaker waves of his emotions. Phil listened to Lionel Ritchie sing words that echoed the caged yearnings of his aching heart.

(To read what Phil was singing go to http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/lionelrichie/hello.html)

Phil listened and sobbed through three renditions, until he could no longer stand the mental anguish. He mumbled hoarsely, “I know I’m not going to be able to sleep. Maybe I should go work on Threep again.”

Phil left his suite and went back to his workshop. I promised her that I’d get Threep working, he thought, and no matter how badly she treats me, I’m going to keep my promise. Almost three hours, and a pot of coffee into the project, his eyes hurt and his wrists, back and fingers were sore. His bad leg throbbed, enhancing an already wicked limp. Fatigue, mental and physical, made him shaky. But he smiled as he finished the last of the golden android’s external repairs. Maybe I can get some sleep now, he thought as he retraced his steps to his suite. I’ll replace the fried control board under that golden dome of his later today and he’ll be good as new. Maybe then Rena will come around.

When he arrived in the office the next morning, after a three hour nap, he looked over at Rena, prepared to wish her a good day. The glare that greeted him, as she sipped a large cup of coffee, was more frightening than her direct look. Phil was puzzled. He had never seen her drink coffee. And the glazed gray and blue ceramic cup was half the size of his pot!

Not much for coffee himself, he had ordered a pot, like last night. Today, though, he ordered it bundled with plenty of packets of sugar and non-dairy creamer. The Down Below Deli in the Hub delivered take out, and it looked like they were going to get some business again from K-branch. Dora had once told him that when she’d worked Rena’s desk, early on as Jack’s assistant, that she had ordered coffee almost daily. After his package was announced by a security message on his cell phone, it came zooming through the pnuema tube. Glancing back at Rena, who still refused to look at him, he picked up his take out bag, and limped off to his office shop.

Phil spent most of the morning taking the control board apart and replaced the burned out parts and connective wiring. After lunch, he prepped Threep and activated his systems. He cursed — something he was not prone to do — and quickly shut the droid down as a few sparks and a curl of smoke lifted from the recently repaired board. He decided to just use a new control board and wiring. Long after his normal supper hour, exhausted, and tempted to gobble some of his pain killers, he decided to go back to his apartment. Phil had finally stopped taking the meds a month or so before, afraid that he would become addicted.

The next morning Phil replaced the control board, repaired the wiring, and powered up the droid. He grimaced as the C3 unit thrashed uncontrollably. Phil shut the droid down. He was very afraid that Threep’s prediction that he would not be able to bring him back would come true. Frustration failed to adequately describe the level of his dejection. Now, in addition to not having a trump card that could be used to aid his relationship with Rena, he was feeling again as if C3, his new best buddy poker player, had died all over again. No more animated stories about Rena’s childhood in Greece, where she had lived with her mother and step-father. No more stories about summers spent with Victor, here in New Mexico, Topside, and later, helping her father with K-branch Down Below. No more Star Wars impressions. No more Master Phil greetings. He had one more trick up his sleeve or game over!

The second night was much the same as the first, except that the scenic wall sim of choice was a Swiss ski chalet. Laughter, the swoosh of snow under skies, and an occasional low rumbling alp horn or high pitched yodel, erupted from the surround sound speakers. Phil decided that he needed to vent in a more creative way. He decided to write a poem to his beloved Rena. Perhaps that will soften her stubborn resistance, he thought.

Dearest Rena, I can’t stop thinking about you. Maybe I can write the words I cannot seem to say. Here goes:

 

HAVE YOU SEEN MY LOVE?

 

Have you seen my love?

Have you gazed into her eyes?

I’ve read that eyes

Cannot change color.

 

Not once, but several times

I have observed those magic portals.

As through fog from a distance

And also from a sweet breath away.

I feel like a man prone on desert sands,

Soaking in the healing wetness

Of a cool oasis pool.

 

At times those luscious orbs

Appear grey like the sea

On a gloomy turbulent day.

 

Other times they are dark smoldering blue,

Flecked with silver

Like majestic granite mountains

At dusk.

 

My favorite colors

 

Are when they are either bright

Like glowing turquoise

Or darkly scintillating sapphires.

 

More dazzling

Than her mystical smile

It seems that she is happiest then.

 

Whatever the color-

Green, gold, teal or sapphire-

My Love’s eyes sparkle

Like burnished gold and silver.

 

Large, pretty,

swallowing the earth and the sea,

As they scry the world.

 

They are gems

That mirror a soul

That has traveled through great fires.

 

One in a million,

She is more beautiful

Than Venus on the half shell.

 

While I am lost in the fantastic dreamscape

Of those marvelous eyes

I can barely fathom

The rest of her bounty.

 

Gifted and possessing a quick mind,

Kindness and mercy flow

From the font of her innermost being.

 

She is a kindred spirit,

A lost princess

And the 8th wonder of the world.

 

Phil read it over and over silently and out loud, hacking, adding and clearing typos, for hours. Finally, in the wee hours of the morning he printed a copy on fine ivory parchment and transported down to the office. He placed it carefully on her desk and tiptoed back to his room.

When he came into work later, she wouldn’t look up from her desk. The ivory paper was wadded in a ball next to her coffee cup. Phil entered his shop and tried to work on C3, but was so despondent and jittery from lack of sleep that he thought he might go home early for lunch. He decided to replace the new control board with a second new board. Once again, after turning on the droid, it thrashed around out of control. Again he shut it down. He decided he had better use his trump card. He called the number and heard a voice recording, “This is R & D Senior Computer Tech, Dr. Terrance Kray at Port Washington Marine Base, please leave your name, number and a short message and I will get back to you.”

“That was less than encouraging,” grumbled Phil, as he exited the workshop into the main office. He wondered if he should order a meal from Down Below Deli, but nixed the notion, and decided to go find sustenance in his suite. Rena wasn’t in the office. When he walked passed her desk, the paper ball that had been his poem, was on top of an overflowing heap of trash in her garbage receptacle. Phil supposed, knowing that Rena wasn’t particularly messy, that she wanted the wadded up poem to be clearly visible. She’d used that technique before.

Phil decided that he couldn’t face her again that day and decided that it might be best if he stayed in his suite. He scrounged together a few leftovers and microwaved them. Phil sat in the kitchen with his back to the wall sim, and sipped a few bottles of Miller beer. Staring at the lady sitting on the crescent moon, he thought of Rena. “Everything reminds me of Rena!” he grumbled to himself.

Phil retired into the living room and thought about taking a nap. After the warm meal and beer he was finding it hard to stay awake. Both the living room and bedroom were along the long wall of his half circle shaped suite. He thought about going into his bed room to get away from the sim.

Phil’s landscape sims, which changed every day, refreshed him. Other times, even though enjoying their beauty, he became sad as he felt that such beauty should not be enjoyed alone. Finally he walked over to the controls and adjusted them onto night mode, sat in his recliner, and then flipped on the Lionel Richie tape. When he listened to the song, he found that he was too spent to weep uncontrollably as he had before, but a few bitter tears slipped down his cheeks. Alone in the dark Phil fell asleep. Two hours later midi music tones of a simulated dial tone announced to the night that his phone was ringing. The Below World cells were required to be very basic. Phil wished he had a Topside cell where he could select Moonlight Haze as a ring tone. He awoke almost too late and after he’d finally fumbled the phone open, he said, “Hello.” Part of him hoped it was from Kray answering his distress call, but part of him hoped it was Rena. He had called her a few times, in the past, but she had never answered. Either Rena ignored the call or sent Threep.

“Kray here. You called earlier and said you work with Jack. Your message was a bit garbled. Something about your droid continuing to malfunction.”

“Yes.” Phil answered a few technical questions.

Terry asked, “Which model of droid did you say you were working on?”

Phil replied, “I didn’t. It’s a C3PO replica droid that Victor made for his daughter years ago.”

“That’s the problem,” postulated Dr. Kray. “I thought we were dealing with a standard ASHAARK bot. That’s a REV 2. They changed the programming from a back engineered Ancients Device. Victor used a non-standard Ancients processor. We’ll call it a Rev 1. The part number isn’t labeled. He sent us one of those to tinker with before he died. I think Dr. Lo has it in his personal storage area now. One of those projects that I gave to him when he first partnered up with me. He looked into it, but decided not to run with it. I’ll talk to him about it and get back to you. Convey my greetings to Jack. Nice to meet you Phil. Looking forward to meeting you in person.”

Humming madly the tape had played itself out; the auto stop was broken. Phil turned the player off. He thought of another set of musical lyrics, “I haven’t got time for the pain.” He mumbled, “Kudos to you Carly Simon, I don’t have time for the pain either.” It was lights out mentally not long after the back of his head hit the plush headrest of the recliner.

Phil woke once again, but quickly caught the call. His mouth was dry and tasted like a latrine. He yawned, stretched and shook out the cobwebs. Also, as usual, he had to tell himself that as nice as it might be, odds were that the voice he heard wouldn’t have Rena’s dulcet tones. As expected, it was Dr. Kray.

“Hi. Phil?”

“Yes?”

“I consulted with Dr. Lo. He did do some tweeking on it. We have a model Rev 1S that is even better than it was before. The only thing is, if this works, he won’t be the same tractable little droid. He’ll be the same droid Victor programmed, but he’ll be more adventurous and make more bold leaps of intuition. It’s still Victor’s C3 backup, but the AI has been enhanced. He’ll probably be as loyal as ever, but he’ll be able to think himself around corners and will be more independent. I’ll pneuma it to you, but it will have to switch over at a couple of hubs, so it probably won’t get there until late this evening. I’ll even send a long a tester kit. Put that in first. If it flashes green you are good to go. If it flashes red retest your wiring.”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it. Kasandra and I usually visit Jack and Dora and Rena during the holidays. Maybe we can tip a few beers, play cards and swap stories in that gorgeous little beach cantina.”

“I’d like that,” said Phil. He sat the phone down on the lamp stand, and once again, drifted off, alone in the dark. Phil woke up about supper time, fried a steak, boiled some hydroponic potatoes and carrots, ate a hearty meal and went to work.

Good to his word, Dr. Kray had sent the Ancients REV 1S type control board. The test was successful, so Phil inserted the new enhanced control board. When the droid didn’t begin to thrash, Phil grinned. Then followed a series of hums and clicks that presaged that the new control board had revived the golden robot. He heard the new C3 speak for the first time.

“Greetings and salutations. My name is C3PO. Who are you?”

“I’m Phil. I promised Rena that I’d put you together again. You were ripped up by a demented Special Forces Marine.”

“Oh dear. Oh dear,” said Threep. He wrung his hands, “How did I ever get into such a fix as to get into a fight with a Special Forces Commando?”

Phil replied, “It’ a long story. But I have time if you have time.”

“I would really like to get back to my duties, but I believe it is very important that you get me up to speed. Tell me everything. I don’t like the thought of not remembering things.”

Phil replied, “I know the feeling, Threep.” He said, “I have a USB Drive with your memories before the attack. I’ll get it from my computer desk drawer. Unscrew the second toe on your left foot and we’ll get started.” Then Phil continued, “I’ll fill you in with the rest of what happened afterward.” Following the upload, Phil briefed the golden droid, and filled him in with as much information as he could think of, or C3 could ask, and sent him back to Rena.

Day three was quiet. Rena had stayed home. When Phil went home later that night, he felt drained, but better. He’d hoped Rena would call him and thank him. He had told C3 about his falling out with Rena and asked him not to tell her that he’d told him. Threep had promised to lie if necessary to protect him. So much for Asimov’s three rules for robots, thought Phil. For some reason, his venting to 3C had accomplished more than venting angrily at the walls of his suite.

Phil turned on his sim, but turned down the volume. Tonight’s sim was an Alaskan whale sight-seeing cruise. He toyed with a plate of cold stir fry as he watched. In addition to the whale that sported near the cruise ship, slapping its gargantuan flukes, bears fished or moose bellowed along the shore line. Whale calls from the deeps seemed to intensify his longing and loneliness. Phil tossed his meal into the dis-integrator and turned down the scenic sounds. He played some Yanni and Arkenstone contemporary instrumentals. But that too lasted only so long. Earlier calm from venting dissipated once more as his longing and grief stormed the breaches. Just as he had the previous night, again he alternated between intense sobbing and long winded speeches about his unrequited love for Rena. At three o’clock in the morning his video phone rang. When Phil looked into the phone video screen his jaw dropped. It was Rena! Maybe she’s going to finally thank me for fixing Threep, he thought.

Phil’s surprised joy turned to sorrow as Rena screamed, “SHUT UP!”

Rena flailed her hands, screamed in Greek, and then the screen went black, terminating her curses.

Phil paced back and forth, as he tried to solve the puzzle. “So much for a grateful Rena,” he groaned. “Why did she yell ‘SHUT UP’? Can she hear me? Does she have my room bugged?” he whispered heatedly.

When 4 A.M. rolled around he went into his kitchenette, groaned at the nasty slugs of anxiety that chewed at his stomach, and started coffee. Phil had come to like the java that he had previously called horrid black sludge, especially when mixed liberally with sugar and cream. His first cup chased the salty taste of tears from his mouth. He added honey to the coffee to deaden the hoarseness in his throat. While not quite as good as the coffee that was sent over from the Down Below Deli, his coffee was quick and convenient.

Phil sipped his second cup and walked it over to the kitchen table where he had a lap top computer. Opening up to Word 2000 he typed,

“Dearest Rena:

I can’t stand this anymore. I hardly know you and yet we’ve been through so much together. You’ll probably just wrinkle this up, like my poem, but I think I know you enough to know that you’ll read it first.

Yes, Rena dearest, you may throw away the paper, but the words will be etched into the priceless fabric of your heart.

I can’t stand this anymore. If the pain you are feeling is as poignant as mine, I don’t know how your mind and body sustain the breath of life. I love you. If we can’t reconcile, I’m going to leave ASHAARK. I don’t want to get Uncle Jack and Aunt Dora in trouble. And since my mind has not healed to the point where it is safe to get a Mem Wipe, he’ll have to have me killed, if I go Topside, so I won’t. I won’t go where there’s a chance that I might slip the classified information I know.

If you do not respond by 0400 hours tomorrow morning, I will travel down the abandoned tunnels, and I will exit your life forever.

Remember, I love you forever, no matter what, Phil.”

He rewrote the letter several times. Finally satisfied, Phil sealed the letter with a kiss and walked it to The Office. He paced around Irena’s desk. Phil noticed that the garbage can was still full, but the wadded up paper that had been on top of the pile was gone. He double checked her desk, then walked over to his side of the room and checked his desk and garbage. With some hope that she may have secretly decided to keep the poem, Phil started a new day. He trundled through the options for a new project, but came up blank. He didn’t want to start something unless he knew he’d have time to finish it.

Not long afterward, he heard the ding of the elevator door as it opened. Phil listened to the tap of her steps echo on the tiles. He wanted to look over and see if she was reading the letter yet, but fear, like a molten knot, kept him staring at his desk. Suddenly Rena was standing over him. Eyes flashing, lips drawn tightly, and the muscles taunt around her chin, Rena spat, “This your letter Phil. You can just take back!”

“But you didn’t even open it. You don’t even know what it says. It is most important that you read it.”

“I not have to do anything!” She spouted Greek and wind-milled her hands. Next she threw the envelope like a throwing star at his computer monitor. It bounced off and landed on the desk.

Phil hung his head, sighed, and watched her stride fiercely to her desk.

Rena, choked back tears, and then snapped, “If you have even little respect for me, Phil, you would stop give me letters!” Rena furiously pecked at her keyboard, and then printed off her own letter. She stalked over to Phil and icily handed him the letter. Nose in the air, chin elevated, she walked to her private elevator and vacated The Office.

Phil picked up both his unopened letter and the letter she had just handed him, and then tossed them back on his desk. Despondent, he rubbed his eyes, circled his chair and watched the sim walls. Finally he turned back to his desk and picked up Rena’s nasty-gram and read it.

Written in size 20 Roman Font, in bold type, the missive said:

 

To Agent Toymaker:

I can’t make you leave this office again. And I’m not going to work in another area either. So let it be known that from this time on this office will be reserved for you from 8 A.M. until Noon and from 5 P.M. until 8 P.M. You may work here during the evening, but I want you out before 7 A.M.

If I find you here – unless Jack is here of course –during hours that are mine, I’ll try not to hurt you, very much anyway, but I will personally escort you to your suite, and toss you in it. Don’t think I’m bluffing. My eyes can open either your elevator or mine!

And no more caterwauling all day and all night. You are as loud as an elephant and I can hear you! I am absolutely fed up with it. And I will not tolerate it any longer.

Signed, THE MOUSE LADY THAT ROARED!

Phil took another letter out of his pocket; it was addressed to Uncle Jack and Auntie Dora. He dug through the desk drawer and found a sticky note. Grabbing a pen he scrawled a message on the bright yellow sticky note: Please hand deliver to Jack Callaghan – EYES ONLY -when he returns. He sighed and fastened the note to Jack’s envelope and sat it on his desk. He sat the one he’d written to Rena beside it.

Phil reread Rena’s ultimatum. I’ll be gone at four A.M. tomorrow morning anyway, so the new office schedule is a moot point. He decided not to start a new project in his workshop. Phil felt that it would be better to just do a general cleanup. To his surprise, about an hour into his tidying, he heard Threep calling his name from the office.

When Phil entered the room he watched the golden droid standing by his desk, mechanical eyes taking in the two addressed unopened envelopes and Rena’s ultimatum.

Threep said, “Greetings Master Phil. I am terribly distressed at the news that you and Lady Irena have been unable to resolve your issues. She did however send me to you with a message that may ameliorate the situation. Lady Irena said to tell you that the new office arrangement will stay the same, and that she is sorry for hurting your feelings. She also asked me to thank you for your great dedication and the sacrifices you have made in the process of restoring me. I am thankful, too, for your great service and I hope to spend many eventful years serving you.”

Phil replied, “Thank you Threep. And when you return to Rena be sure to thank her for sending you so I could . . . hear your message.”

“Would you like me to help you in your shop?”

“Are you willing to use a broom or a dust pan?”

“Most certainly Master Phil.”

When he closed his shop at 11:30 and sent C3 back home, he put the ultimatum letter from Rena in his desk and put the two closed envelopes side by side on her desk.

 

Phil spent the night trying his best to be quiet. He no longer raved like a lunatic, but he did cry, until, for a little while, the font of tears would run dry. As the hours ticked away and Rena didn’t call – not that he really expected her to contact him – his despair reached its nadir. When 0400 arrived, Phil entered the elevator, grabbed a book pack and tossed in a pocket knife, a plastic beer cup and a few other tools necessary for the morning’s adventure and descended to The Office.

One good thing about Megadeath’s arrival was that another set of memories had returned. He now remembered how good he had been and what tools he needed to open mechanical and digital locking mechanisms.

He had an ultra violet spray can and duster kit in his personal effects from Camp Kensington that had been transferred by His Uncle Jack at the time of his transfer to Down Below. Phil stretched, worked some kinks out of his back, and then became distracted by the Caribbean Cruise sim. Shaking the cobwebs from his brain, he pulled out the small battery powered black light, sprayed down the keys, shut off the room lights, and as he suspected, there were thick layers of finger prints on four numbers. He had his back up digital decoder along as well, but hoped he wouldn’t have to use it. Opening the alpha lock that guarded the sim and portal device on the wall of The Office had proved rather easy.

Phil flicked the lever that opened the portal into Rena’s father’s office. Following the stone against stone rumbling, he gazed into Victor’s old office. I can’t believe, mused Phil, that Victor could be such an unorganized pack rat. He stepped into the room, did a visual sweep of its cluttered interior, the ever changing Pirate Sim Walls, the book shelves and heaped to over flowing desks, the shark mosaic, and last, the real reason for his entry, Victor’s walk-in safe. He stepped inside, then took his knife and beer cup out of the pack. Cutting out the bottom of the beer cup, he would make a simple acoustic amplifier and use it to open the safe. If that didn’t work he would zip over to K-storage on the moped and pick up the safe cracker. He was confident that he wouldn’t need it. He had opened up more than one manual safe in his life time using such a simple method.

Except that he wished to take the 3-D cube that contained one of the happiest moments of his life, when Rena had joyfully accepted his flowers, he would have long been gone on his death walk into the oblivion of the long departed Ancients’ tunnel system. Rena had her treasure of the Merry Go Round. He would have his treasure. He would sit at last in some forgotten corridor, watching Rena’s beauty, over and over, until life, and his ability to watch the image, vanished like sand out of a broken ant farm. Limping towards the wall safe, Phil heard a muttered Greek curse, followed by, “Phil? Where are you? Threep told me about letter from you. I throw away. He finally wait 2 A.M. call Uncle Jack!”

Phil froze, and then crept towards the desk. She sounds mad! Not Miss Goddess of Death angry, though Phil, but . . . Maybe I can hide behind the desk and she’ll think I’ve left. I can’t let her stop me, not if we are going to go on living apart!

“If you hiding, hear me. Uncle Jack just call from Morroco. He say I spoiled brat. He say you going to sneak off base. I have to stop you or you be killed!”

He held his breath and waited, not long afterward, Phil heard her enter the elevator to the Hub. Phil thought, Now that she’s stepped out, I can get that cube and escape. She’s too stubborn to give in. A part of me is dying inside and I have to leave. I just can’t stand the pain.

As his foot stepped onto the shark mosaic he heard a click. The floor gave way beneath him. Water and circling sharks! He thought, those may be sim sharks, but the water may be real. Icy water clawed at his body. The intense fear-of-drowning feeling, that had haunted his constant battle to regain consciousness, gripped him with Megadeath strength. He began to thrash. Phil screamed as the trio of sharks converged on him, toothy mouths cocked for the kill. He was certain, that the sharks were illusory, but his body was reacting just as if they were real. Frigid claws of water, as he sank like lead, were just as deadly, merely less tearing and bloody. Either way, he was history. Hot wet salty tears dripped from his eyes into the cold dark waters, vanishing forever. Phil’s one regret was not having had the opportunity to view the cube – his treasure – one last time. At least this would be quicker than starving. He began to thrash.

Rena rushed into the room. She had stopped at the newly installed Alpha Security office, just outside “The Office” exit into the old tunnels corridor, and they had not seen him exit in that direction.

“Phil! Why you scream? Why you hide? Why you in shark pool?”

“Help!” screamed Phil as he thrust his head out of the water and reached a hand towards Rena.

“Enough joking me! You are champion swimmer! Come out now!”

When Phil’s hand slipped below the surface and his body became limp, Rena’s eyes widened in horror. She gasped, “You drowning for real?” Rena jumped into the pool, losing her wig and glasses in the process. Her layers of clothes, undulating in the chill waters, hampered her movements and made her look like an underwater banshee. Rena struggled against her hindrances and Phil’s dead weight, but her strength and determination prevailed. She heaved him out of the water, and rolled out of the pool herself. “You no die on me now! I love you!”

Rena threw herself onto Phil, pumped his chest and alternately breathed the breath of life into his lungs. Every time she exhaled, to take in air to share, she sobbed, “I love you, Philly.”

Phil started coughing and spitting up water. Between coughs he asked, “Did. . . you. . . say. . . you. . . love me?”

Rena ran her fingers through Phil’s hair as she lay atop his wet chilled body. “Yes. Like you say. Forever. No matter what.” She sobbed brokenly, uncontrollably into his shoulder, as he stroked her back.

Finally when Rena had stopped crying Phil said, “Thanks again for saving my life. Let’s go home.”

Rena helped Phil up. Both of them leaned on each other and walked slowly, haltingly, out of Victor’s office suite, into the main Office, and towards their elevators.

“Which one is home?” asked Phil.

“Both,” replied Rena. “Long wall of half circle is solid sim wall. Your suite and my suite one circle. I deactivate wall between half circles before I come get you.”

Just before they hobbled, arms around each other’s waists, into Phil’s transportal elevator, Phil beamed at Rena and asked, “Together forever, my dearest Rena, ‘Till Death Do Us Part?’”

Rena gave him her direct look. It did not seem as threatening as it once had. Rena smiled that ravishing smile that had so long ago attached his heart to hers and then echoed back, “Together forever, my dearest Philly, ‘Till Death Do Us Part!’”

Phil remembered a line from Browning as they stepped into the transportal box, kissed Rena’s cheek and warmly, but seriously quipped, “Come, grow old with me, the best in life, is yet to be!”

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