Chapter 7
The feds arrived just before lunch, accompanied by the two detectives that had visited them previously, and a few uniformed members of the local police department. The feds produced a warrant to search the premises as they tried to walk past Wally.
"Excuse me," he said, holding a hand up to stop the lead agent. "I believe you need to identify yourself when serving a warrant. I will only accept this if you show me some identification. I recognize the two detectives, but I've never seen you two before in my life."
"So, you want to be a troublemaker, Mr. Taylor? Very well." The agent pulled out a wallet and showed Wally his FBI credentials. "Now, I have to ask you to step aside so we can search your home. We have reason to believe you are harboring four suspects involved in the death of ten federal officers. Who, besides yourself, is in this house?"
"Agent Benito, you are rude and insulting. I've only recently learned of my daughter's involvement in this whole mess, and no one seems to know where the hell she is. I don't know if you have any children, but how would you feel if you had just learned of all this? Yes, I want answers as much as you do, so yes, I'm willing to assist you in your investigation. But have a fucking heart, will you!"
The agent seemed to pause a minute, then sighed. "I'm sorry, you're right, Mr. Taylor. When agents get killed, no one stops to think that others might be hurting as well. Please excuse the rudeness."
Wally nodded. "My housekeeper is away visiting her sister, but a few of my daughter's friends are here visiting and lending moral support. They arrived this morning and last night."
"Why didn't you mention these 'friends' when I interviewed you, Taylor?" the asshole detective asked. His partner rolled her eyes.
"You asked about old lovers, Detective. Perhaps if you weren't such an ass, I'd have been more helpful." Wally turned back to the agent; "I'll call them to the dining room for you."
Wanda and Bree were in the kitchen preparing lunch, Wanda put the large coffee pot on, and Bree made more tuna fish sandwiches while one of the agents talked to them.
"Mrs. Jones, when was the last time you saw Ms. Taylor?"
"Actually, it's been a couple of years, Agent McCarthy. We, uh, had a disagreement about something," Wanda said, hesitantly.
"Oh? What was the disagreement about?" The agent seemed more interested in watching her ass than her reactions or answers.
"Uh, it was about her daughters. They were asking me some questions that Wendy didn't want me to answer. I thought they should be answered. We had a big fight; I have spoken to her on the phone since then, but we haven't been as close. I'd like to think we were working on it, though; I really miss her." She tried to sound scared and hurt.
"What kind of questions, Mrs. Jones?"
"Agent McCarthy, they were of a very personal nature and I really don't see how they could be in any way relevant to your investigation," Wanda snapped at him.
Bree stepped over to the woman and put a comforting arm around her shoulders.
The agent narrowed his eyes at the two women. "What exactly was your relationship with Ms. Taylor?"
Wanda's shoulders fell and she started crying. "I love her."
"I see," said the agent. "And yet here you are, newly married to a man. Does he know about your feelings for this other person?"
"Of course he does. That was the original reason we came to see Wally. He's always been the mediator. It's like everyone considers him to be neutral ground and he never takes sides," Wanda replied.
"I see, and what is your relationship with all these other women here?" The agent asked.
"None of your fucking business. The relationships between the people here are in no way relevant to your investigation," Bree said. "I think we might need to get a lawyer here. This perv is getting off listening to us."
Wanda looked closer at the agent. "I think you're right Bree; I think we're done here, Agent McCarthy."
The agent snorted and looked both women up and down. "Right," he said as he turned to walk back out to the dining room.
As Agent McCarthy entered the kitchen to interview the women, Agent Benito asked Wally to send in the others one at a time. The first person to speak to Agent Benito was Carl.
The Agent rose and shook the young man's hand. "Thank you for speaking with me, Mr. Jones. Please have a seat."
Carl did his best to look slightly confused. "I'll do my best to help, Agent Benito. I feel like I know Wendy, because Wanda talks about her so much, but I've never actually met her."
"I understand, Mr. Jones. Really what we need is just to fill in the blanks on the background that your wife and Wendy Taylor had."
"Again, I'll do my best, but that was before my time. I can only tell you what Wanda's told me," Carl replied.
Benito just nodded his head in understanding. "To your knowledge, has your wife had any contact with Wendy Taylor in the past few months?"
"No sir. I'm sure she would have mentioned it too; she gets pretty animated when it comes to Wendy. Wanda still really loves her, which is the reason we're here."
"Excuse me?"
"Wanda and Wendy were lovers back before my time. Wanda is still in love with Wendy and considers her a loose end," Carl replied candidly.
"I see. So to the best of your knowledge, your wife hasn't had contact with Ms. Taylor in the last couple of years?" Benito asked, though it sounded like a statement.
"Sir, trust me; I know Wanda. If she would have had any contact with Wendy I would know about it."
The agents questioned everyone and the police searched the house and grounds. They didn't find anything, which only seemed to convince Detective Winters that they were hiding something. The angry detective had to be escorted by his partner out of the Taylor residence once again after making rude comments to Wally. Wally made it clear that any further investigation without new evidence would be considered harassment, which prompted Detective Donahue to begin dragging her irate partner out of the Taylor house.
What seemed curious to Carl was that at no time did he ever feel like he was being probed or scanned. He did feel a very light 'poking' at his mind once, but it was so light he thought he had imagined it. The two FBI agents seemed to act about like he expected two agents to act, and nothing about the whole episode felt out of place to him. Carl decided to just enjoy the pool with the girls.
A few hours later, he was surprised when Wally escorted Detective Donahue out to the pool. The detective stumbled when she saw the near naked girls sunbathing on lounges.
"Wanda, Carl, Mike asked Detective Donahue to meet him here. It seems she may have found something. She asked if there were someplace out of the house we could all talk," Wally said cryptically.
Donahue nodded, pulling her eyes away from Rose's hardening nipples. "I think they might have bugged the house when we were here last time, and I don't want anyone to overhear this."
"It doesn't surprise me, but we'll have to do something about it. I do a lot of business here, and don't want that information overhear by anybody," Wally said.
"I'll handle it," Mike said as he exited the house. He turned to Donahue; "You said you may have some information?" At her glance around the pool, he continued, "Its okay, we can speak in front of them. Maria is the only one that doesn't know everything that's going on, and I assume that won't be for long."
"Actually, she knows as well. She, uh, convinced me to fill her in," Wally admitted and blushed.
"Yeah, I'll just bet she did. When are you going to just marry the woman?" Wanda teased.
"We'll get into that later young lady. Now, Detective, please tell us what you've found," Wally said.
Rose ran into the house to get something for everyone to drink, as the three newcomers found places to sit.
"Well, I've started to do as Mr. Jackson asked, checking out the federal agents attempting to serve the warrant at Wendy's house. What I found was a paper history. Namely I found a record of each person, but they were almost identical. Stranger still was the fact that none of them apparently lived before becoming agents. I found no evidence of the normal background checks nor did they even have social security numbers prior to about a week ago. Out of curiosity I checked the two agents you met earlier today, and found pretty much the same thing. Simply put, they're all fake. Now, it takes some pretty heavy assed connections to create this kind of stuff, and I'm more than a little scared about what it all means. Someone is going to a hell of a lot of trouble to capture Ms. Taylor and her kids. This whole thing smells like NSA or something. Can any of you tell me what's really going on?"
Mike looked at Carl, then to Anne Marie. "It takes me more than one day to do the kind of background check I'd need to be able to tell you, Detective. However, I'll leave it up to the family to decide."
Anne Marie stood walked and over to the now very curious woman. Kneeling and taking her hands, Anne Marie looked her in the eyes and said, "Abby, you're right, there is a lot more going on here than you might think. However, all our lives - including your own - depend on your silence. We wouldn't bring you into this except we need people we can trust." Anne Marie switched to mental speech. "We need you, and I know that we can trust you now."
Abigail Donahue just stared at the girl as Anne Marie released her hands and returned to her seat. "How..."
Mike sighed, "Well, this is a long and very unbelievable story. I hope you can stay for all of it."
"No need for that, Mike. We'll just 'download' it to her," Carl said. "As Anne Marie said, we need friends, and it is a rather unbelievable story."
"I wish you could do that for me, too. It'd be nice to understand everything a little better," Mike said and Wally agreed with him.
"Hold it. You're going to do what?" Abby asked.
"Okay, all of you just sit back and relax. We'll share what we've learned from Father so far," Carl said. "Wanda, you take Wally. Anne Marie, you take Abby since you've already touched her mind. I'll do Mike. Everyone ready?"
"Hey! Who do I get to do?" Rose asked from the kitchen.
"Why don't we all just join and send to all of them at the same time?" Anne Marie suggested.
"Okay love, but you lead us, I don't want to push too hard and hurt one of them," Carl said.
Anne Marie took her lovers' minds into her own and isolated their three friends that were to get the memories. She had a hard time trying to call them data files since they were more than that. Very gently she placed the memories into the three minds and let them run.
"Wow, that was some show. So, this race called the Antioch are the ones behind all this?" Abby asked.
"Yep, it looks like the 'x-files' were closer to the truth than most people think," Carl said.
"Renee is going to love you," Abby chuckled then turned to the rest of the group. "So, now that I know what's going on, how do I sign up and get the magic decoder ring?"
"Sign up?" Carl asked.
"Sure, the twins 'activated' your powers as well as your mother's. According to what you just showed me, we all have a natural metasynth strength; how do we activate mine?" Abby asked, looking around at the stunned faces. "You did say you needed help, it seems to me the more people with active powers you have the better off you'll be."
"That never even occurred to me. But there is the problem of detection. If we start activating a bunch of people, the Antioch will be able to track and kill them. Not to mention, if the Antioch figure out we're up to something, they'll bring their fleet in and destroy the planet," Carl replied.
"I don't suppose you were planning on living the rest of your now very long lives in this house. We are going to have to figure out something or some way to get the Antioch off our planet and leave us alone. Personally, I would very much like to know why they're so intent on killing off anyone that has any active metasynth powers anyway." Abby sat on one of the chairs. "I could understand our government doing it, but not these aliens."
"Well, it's not like we can just walk up to the next one we see and ask them. Our only other source of information is as restricted as we are. Father can't do very much without being detected, and even contacting his main shell would take over four years without metasynth-enhanced communications. What we need is enough activated people to defend the planet, but if we activate more than a handful, the Antioch will detect them. Even if we tried to build the large shield generators like the Illuminati had, the Antioch can still bring enough firepower against them to wear them down. One planet isn't capable of regenerating power fast enough to stand up against constant bombardment," Carl said in resignation. "We need a different plan, a strategy that will not only overwhelm the Antioch already here, but give us at least a chance of survival against an attack fleet."
"Either way, you're still going to need as many metasynth-activated people as you can get. I'd like to get Renee over here to meet you guys. She is young, but not as young as Rose and Anne Marie. She's been studying physics at the university and may have some suggestions. She's a major geek, but I love her anyway. She'd never forgive me if I left her out of this," Abby said.
"As long as you don't mind her going through the same screening that you went through. I should mention that only one of us will scan her, and whatever we see in there will never be told to anyone," Anne Marie said. "For example, if she were considering breaking up with you, I wouldn't tell you. Do you understand?"
Abby smiled; "Yes, I understand, and thank you for it. Being able to read another person's thoughts doesn't always mean you should. Though in this situation I could understand that a certain... uh, paranoid caution might be a healthy thing."
"Too much of that would bring its own form of distrust and paranoia which would ultimately be self-destructive. That's a line I don't think we should ever cross," Carl said.
"Regardless, it is something we might have to risk, Carl. Scanning those of us close to you once to see if we are trustworthy is all well and good, but random scans have to be done. Any of us could be a plant, turned after we have gained access to you four," Mike said.
"What the fuck is so special about us? Any of us could make you just like us in about twenty minutes. The only thing that is different is we are active, and you are not. So why do we have to be the center of this?" Carl asked.
"Because you are the first to make it this far; you are more than just an isolated individual that has randomly activated on their own. You have control over your powers, you can teach or pass on your knowledge, and for the life of me, I can't explain it, but you just feel right for the job," Mike said.
"I thought you didn't want us to scan you for security reasons?" Wanda asked.
"You're right, I don't, but the only real way to keep you all safe is to scan those of us close to you. This needs to be done. Also, we need to start thinking about how to either get rid of, or neutralize, the Antioch. The things Abby is saying will have to be addressed — unless you really do plan on staying in this house the rest of your lives?" Mike replied.
"Excuse me? Mr. Taylor, may I speak to you for a moment?" Father asked from the gate to the side yard.
"It's okay Father, she's on our side now," Wally said, nodding toward Abby.
Father entered the gate and walked toward them. "I've completed my task, and the wreck was discovered a couple of hours ago. They should have no trouble getting a positive ID from any of the occupants of the vehicle."
"They'll use fingerprints or dental records for identification. With the four of you dead, that should kill any investigation," Abby offered.
"Father, I'd like to see all the cultural data you have on the Antioch. Not things like music and arts, but societal and political structure," Rose said.
"Certainly, but I don't have all that much and what I do have is quite out of date. All you need to do is request the information from my mind."
Carl smiled at Abby. "You're welcome to stay for dinner, unless that would raise too many questions for you. I think we need to discuss activating others, and what the consequences will be."
"Thanks for the offer, but I think I better get home. Renee will wonder where I've been, and she worries about me. Let me know what you guys figure out; I know we would both really like to help," Abby answered.
For the first time that evening, Bree spoke. "Abby? Please be sure you don't mention any of this to Renee yet. From the sound of it, she'd really like this as a surprise."
After agreeing, Abby left. Anne Marie turned to Bree. "Okay, spill it. You haven't said a word all evening, and then all of a sudden you make sure Abby won't tell her wife? What gives?"
"I'm not sure of what it'll be, but there will be a problem with
Renee. Nothing major, but something that could hurt us," Bree said.
"Damn clairvoyance! I can never get details!"