A Twist of Destiny Bk. 02

"So the other stuff like fast healing, increased strength... those are enhanced reflections of any human being's natural functions?"

"Exactly," I said with a nod. "When we get hurt, we are prone to heal. People who believe in their capacity to heal tend to do so faster and more reliably than people who expect that they won't recover from it. That's mind over matter at its purest form. Since the alien DNA gives a human brain a chance to be what nature truly intended it to be, all of its natural tendencies are exaggerated."

My wife looked thoughtful for a minute and then gave a few nods of acceptance. "Then, in that case, I don't want you doing all the heavy lifting when it comes to making our new home. You can do the excavating and building, but I want to do the landscaping. And the farming."

"And the harvesting, too, I hope," I said with a wry grin.

Kathy frowned. "I keep forgetting about that part. Between taking care of the house, the new baby and looking after our son, I'm going to have my hands full already. Maybe I shouldn't go hog-wild after all."

"I was wondering when you'd come to that realization, my love. Yes, you're gonna be busy enough as it is. If you build a garden that you can manage, that'd be fine, but a full farm is a lot more work than you can commit to. And I'm gonna be pretty busy myself."

"At least you'll have a sanctuary to relax at after a hard day of crime fighting," my wife put in whimsically.

I rolled my eyes. "I wish it was just crime fighting that I'll be doing, honey. Unfortunately, I'll be doing a lot more than that. And it's not a permanent thing, either. Once we get Hanson under control I'll be back with the team."

"What if he doesn't take the bait?" Kathy asked. "What if he doesn't want to join the team?"

"Leviathan asked the same questions. The only alternative, at that point, will be direct confrontation. We all want to avoid that. It's the very last possible choice we can make and we'll do everything we can to not find ourselves facing it."

"I hope it works, honey," my wife said honestly. "And I hope he's still got all his marbles."

"So do I, honey. So do I."

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"I can't believe you told the reporter that!" my wife said between fits of laughter as we got into our car.

I started the engine and pulled us out onto the main street. I didn't have a particular destination in mind just yet, but was familiar enough with Nashville to drive around aimlessly until one came to mind. In the meantime, Kathy and I needed to chat and come up with a clearer game plan, now that we had collected our winnings from the Lottery Commission. "I'm sorry, honey, but I couldn't help it. It was a nosey question and he deserved what he got. We made it clear, when we claimed the prize, that we didn't want a press interview."

"Yeah," my wife agreed, "but you didn't have to be rude about it."

"Who was being rude?" I asked rhetorically. "I thought my answer was perfectly reasoned and I didn't throw in a single cuss word."

"Telling a man that you intend to spend your fortune on figuring out how he can be so intrusive- is it a learned trait or a response to past indignities- is rude, honey! He was just asking what every other journalist would ask!"

I wagged my finger, "Ah, but there we are with the whole lemming question. That asshole was jumping off the bridge, my love, and I felt it was my civic duty to remind everyone that it makes no fucking sense to do that anymore. And that it's rude to ask people invasive questions about their personal plans, like it's something that the public has a right to know- which they don't. It's no one's business what we intend to do with our winnings." I shrugged. "Besides which, the whole point of getting this money is to get off the grid. If I made it known that we intend to build a home and retreat from society that would be like an open invitation for society to follow us. If, however, I come off as being the world's biggest, uncooperative asshole, journalists will most likely ignore us."

"Most likely," Kathy repeated guardedly. "On the other hand, they tend to find people like you to be newsworthy. I you might just have created an enemy in the press."

"Big deal," I scoffed. "'Lottery winner puts journalist in his place.' Not a very salacious headline. Now... we've had the money wired to our account and it'll clear the bank in a few days. The next step is...?"

"Normally we'd need a CPA who can manage the money for us but I've been doing research on tax laws for the last eight months- I can do it all by myself. We'll need to get an attorney on retainer, though. Not immediately, but soon."

"I'd like to get as much of that money off American soil as I can, as soon as I can," I said.

Kathy nodded. "That's the plan. We can set up a Swiss bank account in a matter of minutes," she gave me a significant look, "if we can do it in person. All we need are our passports, a recent bill with our address and that's about it. Most of the time will be spent signing the documents. Once the account is open, they'll give us a temporary debit card which can be used around the world just like any other bank, and they'll send us permanent cards about a week later."

"How much do you think we should put in there?"

Kathy's head see-sawed as she thought about it. "Well, the jackpot was one-hundred-and-sixty million dollars. After the cash option and taxes, we're taking home about seventy million. I'd say putting seventy-five percent of that into the Swiss account would suffice. The rest we can keep here, stateside, for immediate access or let it grow with interest. We'd have to split that remainder up into a lot of different domestic accounts, though."

I let out a low whistle. "Wow, honey. You did do some research on this, didn't you?"

"I had time, didn't I? When I quit work because of this monstrosity," she indicated her swollen belly, "I had oodles of it. After our talk last year I decided to start planning. I'm sorry I didn't tell you about it."

"Nothing to be sorry for, honey," I said honestly. "By and large I like it when we're on the same page with most things, but a few pleasant surprises never hurt a marriage."

"So... we have a few days before we can even think about buying some land and start building our house-"

I interrupted. "Speaking of pleasant surprises, I have one of my own. Oh, don't look at me like that, honey. You'll be pleased. I promise."

"I'm waiting."

"Well... sometimes, when a Special Ops team goes on a mission, there are certain... spoils of war, as it were, which are often unaccounted for."

"Hm. And what kind of 'spoils of war' are we talking about?" she asked cautiously. "Dollar amounts would be a welcome footnote, by the way."

"In the ballpark of around two million dollars," I answered as we pulled to a stop at a traffic light. "All of it untraceable, non-taxable and liquid. We each have our own secret stash."

Kathy's eyes widened in surprise. "Seriously?!"

"Very seriously, my love. I thought about telling you sooner, but I didn't see a need to mention it yet. We've been doing just fine financially with my pay alone."

"So you're telling me that we have two million dollars at our immediate disposal?"

"Give or take, yes."

Kathy was quiet for a moment. The light turned green and I started driving again. "You've already got a bit of land picked out, don't you?" she asked.

"I wouldn't say 'picked out,' but I'd definitely like to show it to you."

"How far away is it?"

"From here?" I glanced around us to get my bearings. "We could be there in about twenty minutes."

"Description?"

"Roughly twenty miles from urbanized civilization, about forty acres of land, a stream that runs through it, lots of trees and grass, a few rolling hills and secluded enough that no one would bother us," I answered. "I think that fits all of our criteria, doesn't it?"

Kathy, thin-lipped, looked forward. "Drive."

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We had the deed to the land in our possession by the end of the business day. The part that took the most amount of time was tracking down the seller. But when I produced cash on hand for the purchase, the transaction was quick and painless. It was a simple procedure to begin with, made simpler with cash to grease the wheels and dodge snoopy questions. Kathy and I decided to hold off on building the new house until the next day so that we could get a post office box in the morning. We'd still keep the house up in Clarksville as a sort of decoy while all of our mail would go to the P.O. box, so that snoops and busybodies could be held at bay. Ownership of the land we'd just purchased was put in Kathy's name, to further confound anyone who might go poking around into our lives.

The next day we went to our newly-acquired land, picked out a good place to build and I immediately set myself to the task, using the model we'd decided on as reference. Most of the new house was to be buried under ground with bits of it exposed- a few windows, the front door, the entrance to the garage in back and other odds and ends. The way we'd planned it, the house would blend so well into the natural terrain that someone would have to be almost literally a few dozen feet away from the house before they'd even know it was there.

First was the excavation which, true to my word, was done in a matter of minutes. A few energy pulses made very quick work of that. By the time I was done, we had a very large, smooth pit to work in which provided me with plenty of room for mistakes and last-minute changes. I laid my hand on the exposed dirt "floor" which served as our foundation and made it into a solid concrete slab. Using telekinesis (or "psycho-kinesis", as Doctor Lamb prefers to call it), I brought raw mounds of dirt into specific places. Each mound, with a touch, was quickly turned into its own section of the house. Once I had created the living room, kitchen, bedrooms, offices, gymnasium (for Kathy and the kids), bathrooms, indoor pool, media room, library, dining room and other expected sections, I took Kathy on a quick tour within. The place was utterly empty and none of the rooms had been joined yet because I wanted her approval of the layout. If she decided she wanted a particular room elsewhere, I could telekinetically move it to another location. Fortunately, however, she seemed pleased (and considerably awed) with the results of my work. About thirty minutes later I had all the rooms joined together and started working on their internals- electrical, plumbing, network, ventilation and whatnot. The whole place was built to sustain several tons of weight, which was the last part of the building process. With the whole house finally built in just under three hours, I shifted mounds of soil around until the house was covered just the way we wanted it. With that complete, Kathy then laid her hands on the ground and, in moments, grass began to overtake the brown earth.

We stood outside our new home, side by side, and just looked at it in wonder. It seemed as though it had always been there or, perhaps, had just grown up out of the ground on its own. Every aspect of it was perfect and fit in so well with the natural terrain.

"I can't believe we built this so fast!" Kathy exclaimed. "I mean, I knew it would happen quickly, but I didn't expect it to go that quickly. Aren't you even a little bit tired after all that?"

I shook my head. "Not in the slightest bit," I answered. "And, believe me, I'm just as surprised as you are. I thought, for sure, that this would be an all-day affair."

My wife chuckled. "We just did, in a few hours, what would take most construction companies months to do. Absolutely amazing!"

At that I smiled and looked at her. "You brought reference material for the furniture, right?"

"It's all on my laptop, in the car."

"Well what're you waiting for? Let's fill the place up!"

Two hours later we had done just that. Furniture, appliances, TV's, computers... it was like Kathy had "shopped" for all of the coolest and nicest items she could find and ensured that all of it fit together aesthetically. If not for the fact that the whole house was spic-and-span clean, anyone could walk into that house and would have every reason to believe that we'd been living there for years. I helped Kathy situate where each piece of furniture was supposed to go and then set up my personal office. With those two personal touches done, though, we were able to call it a day and enjoy the fruits of our labors.

Where did the water come from? I mentioned that there was a stream nearby. I had created a working pump that drew water from that stream, filtered the water and stored it in tanks beneath our house. I also created a very large septic tank which would last us at least a hundred years before it needed to be serviced. Waste water fed back through extremely efficient filters, which were tied in with the septic system, and was made 100% clean before it got pumped back into the stream.

Electrical energy came from a variety of different sources. I had created a turbine generator right next to the water pump at the stream. There were also a good number of solar panels which were connected to storage batteries. Lastly, we had wind turbines working for us at the far edge of our property where hardly anyone would see them from any road. Every last joule of electrical power that came into our house originated from a natural resource, meaning that we were entirely off the electrical grid and beholden to no one. The fantastic thing was that the energy produced by our natural resources was so efficient and plentiful that we'd actually end up with more electricity than we could possibly use on any given day, even if we had every electrical device in the house running twenty-four hours per day.

The only real snag was communications. I easily created a trunk line that led to the roadside. When the house was completed, we put in a service call to the phone and cable company to set us up with access from that line. The crew which was sent out to us never even saw the house, despite their insistence that they needed to terminate the connections inside the house proper. When I explained that I had a private company seeing to that project and that all I needed were the initial connections, they relented and did the job. By dark-fall, every piece of the puzzle that was our house had been solved.

We moved in and brought the kids to our new home that night. Even for a small family of four, it was a hell of a celebration. After Darren decided that he needed to get some sleep (in his own, sound-proofed room!) you can imagine how much more celebrating went on between Kathy, Holly and myself.

Chapter Twenty-Five: Masquerade

One complication to "winning" the lottery that none of us had counted on was that the Army has a weird regulation regarding it. To wit, a soldier who inherits or lays claim to a significantly large financial windfall is "excused" from service. Naturally, it's an honorable discharge and comes with full benefits, but it still boils down to losing the job. In principle the regulation is a good one and prevents sticky issues such as extortion ("Tell you what, Private. I won't report you for sexual harassment if you line my pockets with, say, twenty thousand dollars."), bribery ("Say, buddy, I've got this staff duty shift assignment and I'd really rather not do it. So here's ten grand for you to take my place.") and kidnapping ("We'll give you your son back, Sergeant, if you'll give us two million dollars."). In my case, however, it caused all kinds of hell. Our plan for me to "quit" The Guardians became moot once word of my lottery win became public. According to the official record Staff Sergeant David Shayles, who had a low-level tech job in the U.S. Army, had to be ejected from government service. When General Hannis saw the paperwork he had the closest thing to a temper tantrum that I'd ever seen.

"What in the fucking hell are we supposed to do now, David?!" he growled at me in his office, shaking the folder which contained my walking papers. "If I don't sign these goddamned papers I'll have to answer some pretty difficult fucking questions that I won't have answers to. On the other hand, if I do sign these papers you effectively become a private citizen again and aren't bound to The Guardians. I swear to God, you are, without a doubt, the most infuriatingly luckiest son of a bitch on the face of this planet!"

I grimaced at that. Stiff and irascible as the general is, I still liked the man and thought well of him both as a leader and as a soldier. I definitely didn't like the situation any more than he did. "Maybe I could become... I don't know... an employee of the project, sir."

The general paused a moment to consider the idea and then shook his head. "No good," he grumbled. "Even as an employee, you wouldn't be bound to engage in combat."

I scoffed at that. "Sir, engaging in combat is the last thing that concerns me. If there's a weapon made by man that can hurt me, I haven't faced it yet."

General Hannis fixed me with an odd glare. "Not yet you haven't, but you might one day. As a soldier that would come part and parcel with the job. As a civilian, however, I can't put you in that position even in theory. Fucking regulations have my hands tied. I have to let you go, David."

I sat down heavily in the chair in front of the general's desk and sulked. With a deep frown, I thought about the situation for a few moments while General Hannis appeared to be doing the same thing on his side of the desk. Slowly, however, an idea began to emerge within my mind. "What if..." I started cautiously, "the President rescinded the order? As the Commander in Chief, he has that privilege."

Hannis sighed. "Fine. Good. Okay. But here's a stumper, David: why would he rescind the order? Why in the world would POTUS allow a multi-millionaire to continue serving in the Army when the regulations and common sense advise against it?"

Suddenly, though, I had it. A smile burst onto my face and I said, "It's perfect! The answer, sir, is simple: because I'm NightShade."

General Hannis blinked at me a few times and then looked peevish. "Son, you are bordering on a certain level of immodesty that I didn't know existed in you. Explain yourself."

My smile grew wider. "Sir, tell the President that David Shayles is NightShade. Go ahead and sign those papers, sir, and then call the President and tell him what you just had to do and why it's a bad thing. Then tell him that, if he wants me to stay in service, all he has to do is either countermand those documents or hire me on as a private contractor to work with The Guardians. While he figures out what to do and starts the process of making me a legal fighting force of one with his lawyers, we can continue with the Hanson mission exactly as planned with the added bonus of our cover story being absolutely true. Hell, go ahead and tell the press while we're at it!"

General Hannis' eyes widened in shock. "Are you out of your fucking mind?! There is no way that I will let your identity be known! Absolutely not!"

"Why not, sir?"

"Because you have a family, that's why not! Jesus, David, for a genius you're damned obtuse sometimes!"

I smiled wolfishly at that one. "Sir, I believe that protecting my family will be as easy as a few phone calls. We've moved, sir." I went on to explain about our new house and how secluded it was. "All that needs to be done is for a few names to be changed and no one will ever know where to find me and my family. We can pull my son out of school, Holly's already done with school and is perfectly happy where she is right now and my wife isn't working. We've got a Swiss bank account, which is kept confidential. The few domestic financial holdings can be moved around under different names. Just make me disappear like the FBI does with its Witness Protection program. If the President wants me to continue working with The Guardians and obey Army regulations, that's the only safe bet. Turn me into a public icon, sir."