The break room at the Canyon house was a very different kind of room than had been provided in Pennsylvania. Instead of commercial quality tables and chairs, the furniture was more appropriate for a home. The tables were made of polished wood with chairs that had leather seats. There were a couple of comfortable sofas at the far end that faced a large screen television that was showing the broadcast of a news channel. There were a few massage chairs that were perfect for relieving stress.
The room was empty except for Juanita and Amanda. They were seated on the couch drinking coffee and eating pastries that Peter had made that morning. Juanita gently held Amanda's hand in hers. She stroked the palm with her other hand while she said, "It is just one night."
"I don't like blind dates," Amanda said. She never could understand how it was that Amanda could excite her just by holding her hand. She might not have understood it, but she had come to enjoy it a lot.
Juanita laughed and said, "You'll be the only one blind on this date."
Amanda laughed at the old joke. She said, "You know what I mean."
"Yes I do," Juanita replied.
Amanda said, "I don't know. I just don't feel comfortable dating."
"You'll like him. He's from my home town," Juanita said. Although she continued to hold Amanda's hand, she stopped stroking it.
"Don't stop," Amanda said licking her lips.
"Don't stop what?" Juanita asked in a sultry hot voice.
"Whatever it is you are doing to my hand," Amanda said. She had no idea why it felt so good.
Resuming her stroking of the blind woman's hand, Juanita said, "Les Rodriguez is a very nice young man. He really knows how to treat a woman right. You'll feel like a queen by the end of the evening."
"I don't know," Amanda said. She nearly jumped when Juanita started running a hand from her palm to inside her elbow with feather light caresses. It sent chills of pleasure running up and down her spine.
"He was my first young man," Juanita said. She slipped her mouth over one of Amanda's fingers.
Not wanting to interrupt what was obviously a private conversation, Lucy stood outside the door of the break room watching the two women talking. She couldn't hear what they were saying, but she could see the effect that Juanita's attention was having on Amanda. The blind woman actually shivered when Juanita sucked on her finger.
"Your first?" Amanda asked surprised by that little piece of information.
Juanita eased off the finger while returning to stroke the inside of the other woman's arm. Smiling, she said, "He is as good in bed as William."
Amanda shivered and, with a low moan, said, "Okay. I'll go."
"I thought you would," Juanita said with a smile. She looked down at Amanda's chest and saw the twin bullets tenting her shirt.
Amanda said, "I better get back to my office before I leave a wet spot here."
"Are you sure?" Juanita said.
"Yes," Amanda answered.
"Be ready for the date at six," Juanita said.
"Okay," Amanda said rising from the sofa. She unfolded her cane and maneuvered through the room with ease.
Seeing Amanda leaving, Lucy walked into the break room. Before she had a chance to say hello to Amanda, the blind woman said, "Hello, Lucy."
"Hello, Amanda," Lucy answered wondering how the other woman knew it was her.
As if reading her mind, Amanda said, "I like how you smell like the desert. You're the only one who uses an Aloe Vera shampoo."
"William likes how it makes my hair smell," Lucy said.
"It smells nice," Amanda said.
"Thank you," Lucy said watching the blind woman leave the room.
Lucy went over to Juanita. The young woman looked up at her and asked, "Do you need me to do something for you?"
"I'd just like to talk with you for a minute or two," Lucy answered. She had four hours of free time while Dan was out making arrangements for computers and the programmers were purchasing the development tools they would need to complete the program.
Relaxing a little, Juanita said, "Have a seat."
Looking around, Lucy licked her lips nervously before she said, "Maybe we could talk somewhere else?"
"Is there a problem?" Juanita asked with concern.
"It is kind of personal," Lucy said.
"Okay," Juanita said and followed Lucy from the break room. She was surprised when Lucy led her past the conference room and to the elevator. Getting in, she was surprised again when Lucy pushed the button for the lowest floor rather than the upper floor. While the elevator headed downwards, she said, "It must really be personal if we're going to your private floor."
"It is," Lucy answered. When the elevator stopped, Lucy led Juanita to the open living room where they would have the full view of the canyon. She went to an area where a handful of chairs were isolated from the rest of the room by living plants. There was a real sense of privacy while having a fantastic view.
Awestruck by her surroundings, Juanita said, "This is beautiful."
"It is my favorite spot in the house. I come here when I need to relax or think," Lucy said.
Juanita said, "I can see why."
"Have a seat," Lucy said gesturing to one of the chairs. She took the chair next to it.
"Thank you," Juanita said taking a seat.
Lucy sat down in the chair next to Juanita's. Deciding to get straight to the matter, she said, "The other night I watched William make love to Barbara and Sandra."
"Ah," Juanita said having already known that. It was impossible to keep something like that a secret in that household. She leaned forward and patted Lucy's hand. She said, "There's no need to be jealous of them. Everyone knows that William loves you and would never do anything to hurt you."
"That's not the problem," Lucy said.
"Oh?" Juanita said.
"I watched how he was able to make all of us feel like we were the center of his universe," Lucy said.
"He's good at that," Juanita said from experience.
"Yes, he is," Lucy agreed. She sighed and said, "The only one I can make feel that way is William."
"Is that a problem?" Juanita asked.
"I felt like I should have joined in, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it," Lucy said looking out the window.
"I can understand that, you aren't interested in women," Juanita said.
"It wasn't that. I could have joined in without ever touching either woman," Lucy said. She had this sense that the dynamics of the session would have really changed if she had entered the action. It would have become two sets of people with William, Sandra and Barbara forming one set and her and William forming the other set.
"True," Juanita said.
"I don't know how to explain it," Lucy said feeling frustrated.
Juanita said, "You still have a lot to learn about love."
"That's what Ed said," Lucy replied.
"I noticed you watching Amanda and me earlier."
Lucy said, "I didn't want to interrupt."
Juanita held out her hand and said, "Take my hand and try to give me a little pleasure."
Lucy took the other woman's hand and just held it. Looking at the young Hispanic woman, she wondered what she was feeling. She was also worried about how it would look if someone were to see them.
"What are you thinking about?" Juanita asked.
"Nothing," Lucy answered.
Juanita smiled and asked, "You are thinking about what others would think if they were watching us."
"Yes," Lucy replied licking her lips nervously. She wondered how Juanita knew that.
"If you were holding William's hand, your thoughts would be completely different," Juanita said.
"Yes," Lucy said.
Juanita turned the hand holding around so that she was holding Lucy's hand. She caressed it softly. In a soft voice, she said, "I've seen you and William reading books together on the sofa at your house in Pennsylvania. You would hold hands while reading. Although you were reading, it was easy to see that each of you were totally aware of the other. Neither one of you were worried that you looked foolish."
"True," Lucy answered staring at her hand. It was amazing, but Juanita had the same touch as William.
"That's part of love. Enjoying the moment with the person without fear of looking foolish and fully aware of what the other person feels," Juanita said. She ran a hand over Lucy's wrist.
"Oh," Lucy said thinking that she should be doing something for Juanita in return.
Juanita said, "It is also about being able to accept the pleasure without feeling like some sort of debt has been acquired."
"Oh," Lucy said realizing that Juanita had read her mind once again.
Juanita said, "You are a Carter woman in every way, but one. You have an infinite capacity for love, but you still hold back from giving yourself physically to others who love you. The one exception is William. You need to learn to love others with total abandon."
"You're right," Lucy said.
"I find it one of the more fascinating aspects of your character. You give others your emotional love. We all feel how you feel about us. You give us your love, but you fail to follow up with the physical gestures that confirm it. There is always just that little barrier there," Juanita said.
"You're right," Lucy said.
Juanita smiled and said, "Take my hand."
It was during the hottest part of the day. The heat produced mirages that made the desert floor look like it was in constant motion. The pair of men sat on the side of the butte looking out across the desert. Others might have found the view dead and lifeless, but to William and Dale it was spell binding. Dale said, "You have been quiet this trip."
"There is a lot on my mind," William said. They had been riding for three days and only now was the desert having a calming effect on William.
"You are too serious," Dale said glancing over at William.
"You are not serious enough," William said with a grin.
Dale chuckled and said, "I'm being serious. You are too serious."
"I know," William said. He looked out across the desert feeling the life that was just out of sight.
"The desert will be here long after we are gone. Some things have a sense of permanence about them while others are fleeting. The rocks will erode, the sand will move, but the desert will remain. Individual animals will be born, grow, and die. We care for the land so that it will be there for our children," Dale said.
"That is the way of our people," William said with a nod of his head.
"You are trying to take care of something more difficult to leave to your children. Like the desert, some things in a culture have a sense of permanence while others are fleeting," Dale said watching William for his reaction.
"That's true," William said.
"You job isn't to sculpt the culture, just to care for it so that it will be there for our children," Dale said.
"A culture is a lot more fragile than a desert," William said.
"Then it will require a bit more work on your part," Dale said. He looked out across the desert and added, "The caretaker of the desert lives in the desert. Shouldn't the caretaker of a culture live within the culture?"
"I would, but I wouldn't survive," William answered.
Nodding his head, Dale said, "The desert is dangerous too. We have had to acquire the skills and tools necessary to survive the desert so that we can care for it. I think you haven't developed the skills and the tools to survive the culture you are trying to care for."
William spotted a hawk floating on the currents of the wind. It suddenly dove towards the ground. There was a screech and the hawk disappeared into the sage brush.
William thought about his childhood and how removed from the rest of the world he had been. Nodding his head, he said, "You're right."
The pair of men watched the desert for a while without speaking. After twenty minutes, the hawk took wing again. William watched as it flew out of view. There were lessons to be learned in the desert; it was just a matter of being open to them.
Dale said, "I was thinking that we might want to head north for a couple of days."
"That would put us in the area of my dad's mine," William said. He picked up his canteen and took a sip of water from it. The tepid water satisfied the body, but not the spirit.
"Yes, it would," Dale said.
"Are you suggesting that I give him a call?" William asked.
"You could always ask him to bring some steaks," Dale said with a grin.
William squatted across the morning campfire while Dale fixed the coffee. The sun was just barely peaking over the horizon. Watching it reminded William of his father. His eyes glazed over and he was suddenly seeing something else.
Carl Yaeger stepped out of the limousine and looked around at the crowded street in the center of Budapest. Everything about his appearance announced that he was a wealthy man. His suit, made of the finest material, was made in England by the same tailor who served the crown. He was a very wealthy man and expected to become a whole lot wealthier by the end of the day. He paused for a moment to watch people going about their business.
An attractive young woman walked past. Her hips swayed as she walked. He eyed her with disdain. By the end of the day, he would be able to buy and sell people like her. In ten minutes he would be signing the papers that would make him worth half a trillion dollars. He smiled at the idea of buying a hundred women just like her and what he would do to them.
He took a step toward the bank where his business was to be concluded. A young man stepped in front of him. Glaring at the man who was his body guard, Carl said, "Get him out of my way."
Before the bodyguard had a chance to react, the young man pulled out a pistol and fired three times. The last two shots were totally unnecessary. Carl was dead before he hit the ground. The young man was wrestled to the ground by the body guard and held until the police arrived. In what had to be one of the greatest ironies of the event, Carl was responsible for the fact that his body guard had been too slow to save his life. He had hooked the man on drugs as a way to assure his loyalty.
The investigation into the murder never revealed the vast network of shady dealings that would have made Carl Yaeger the wealthiest man in the world. While the lattice of interconnected business deals fell through, stock markets around the world dropped five percent. A lot of people lost money over the course of the week. To everyone, it was just one of those unexplainable burps that occasionally shook the marketplace.
In time it would be revealed that the young man had killed Carl Yaeger because Carl had destroyed the life of his sister. After one month with him, the young woman had returned home physically, emotionally, and spiritually battered. The only thing that kept her from feeling all of the pain was the fact that she had become addicted to heroin. Her mind had been destroyed. Her days were now spent looking for the next heroin high.
In the grand scheme of things, the death of Carl Yaeger was a minor event which made for interesting news. People went about their business. Companies produced goods that were then purchased by consumers. Dinners were served in restaurants. Lovers strolled down lanes holding hands and planning futures together.
Carl Yaeger was a sociopath who would have destroyed the lives of a billion people if he had lived. He had visions of creating his own country which he would rule from behind a desk. Grand shows of decadence and death would have been his nightly entertainment.
With the exception of one person, no one knew that they owed the young man a debt of gratitude. Only William knew that the world had been saved from rule by a new breed of rulers. Men worth half a trillion dollars would have used their wealth to make the world's population their entertainment. Some would be magnanimous, but most would have been cruel. He had nothing to do with the incident, but he felt relief none the less. It was a fight that William was more than happy to avoid.
Out in the desert, William had seen a potential future disappear when the bullet had done its job. William gave a sigh of relief. Dale looked over the morning campfire at William and asked, "What happened?"
"The world just became a better place," William answered.
Dan rubbed his chin thinking that he hadn't shaved in three days. He knew that he was going to have to get a full night's sleep soon or he was going to collapse. It had been a long time since he had put in twenty hour days with short naps. He looked down the length of the table and saw that Beth had just fallen asleep. He glanced over at Lucy and shook his head.
Lucy was still looking fresh as ever. She was talking with the two programmers about some details of the program they were developing. She pointed to one of the equations and said, "Danny, when this value gets close to zero you are going to have to change the algorithm you are using. I'd suggest using a predictor-corrector. The equations get very unstable."
"We could use a symbolic algorithm," Dawn said. It would be a beast to program, but they could carry as many significant digits as necessary.
"That would be too slow," Lucy said shaking her head.
"You keep saying that," Dawn said. Every time they made a suggestion, she asked how long it would take to compute a point. After each estimate, she answered that it was too long.
"That's because it is," Lucy said.
Shaking his head, Danny said, "You've got sixteen coupled equations here. Can't you simplify them some more?"
Lucy pointed to the white board and said, "These are the simplified versions of those equations on the board."
"That ugly mess is this?" Danny asked.
"That's right," Lucy said.
Dawn studied the equations and said, "I'm sure that we can do it. It'll take a week or so."
"Dan Biggerstaff is delivering another ninety computers in a week," Lucy said. She noticed that Dan had straightened up upon hearing his name.
"You've already got ten of the VIPER-50s," Danny said.
"I know," Lucy said.
"Just how many points are you expecting to calculate during a single run?" Dawn asked with a frown.
"About twenty billion. We want to make a run about once every hour," Lucy answered.
"Twenty billion?" Danny asked.
"That's about right. A million data points projected 365 days a year for 50 years," Lucy answered.
"How many runs total?" Danny asked.
"We'll be running this program continuously for at least the next fifty years," Lucy answered.
Danny laughed and said, "Even a hundred VIPER-50s aren't enough to do that."
Dawn scribbled down some numbers and said, "You said that you wanted to have a hundred instances of the program running on each machine. Each instance of the program would have to calculate over five hundred points per second. Even with a VIPER-50, we'd be pushing it to get it to an instance able to calculate five points per second."
"I've got an order in for another ten thousand VIPER-50s," Lucy answered.
The two programmers stared at her incredulously. Danny wasn't sure, but he estimated that ten thousand VIPER-50s would represent about 5% of the computing power of the entire world. He shook his head and said, "That might do it."
Still worried about the size of the order, Dan said, "I'm not sure that we're going to be able to build that many computers."
"Sure you will," Lucy said waving a hand in a dismissive gesture.
"Why do you say that?" Dan asked.
"William will arrange things," Lucy said.