Les Mousquetaires – Chapter 4 (A Den of Wolves) Part 2
 
 
 
 
     “The success of my journey depended on whether my heart walked forward—toward my people—instead of backward, away from them.”  Anasazi Foundation
 
 
 
 
 
“There’s a reason the Royal Dedenti aren’t allowed on planet, sir.”
 
“I understand your reasoning, soldier, but the decision has been made.  We are allowing the envoy to retrieve their missing Royal.”
 
“If there’s already a Royal on planet sir, we’re so far past fucked already I don’t really think it much matters what we do from here on out.”
 
“Well, good.  Then you won’t give me anymore grief about it.  Now, get those briefs over to the office, and tell everyone to sit on this until they hear from me again.”
 
“So, you’re going yourself, to retrieve them?”
 
“I am,” General David Ward said, with a bit of a wince.  Because he’d heard all of the rumors as well, about the alien creatures that could mimic a person so completely even a DNA test or MRI scan would be fooled.
 
“Besides, they have to eat you before they can mimic you,” the outwardly stoic man said, even though he was actually a nervous wreck on the inside.  But it was best not to let the troops catch on.  Especially now… with visitors landing every damn day.
 
“Shouldn’t we at least set up a secret code word for next time I see you, sir?  So that I know it’s really you, and not one of the aliens?” the nervous soldier asked without any sign of shame over his fear.  Because he was a very logical man when you got right down to it.  And it seemed perfectly logical to be afraid of aliens who ate people – at least in his opinion.
 
“I’m afraid that won’t do much good, soldier, as they can read minds, as well as take on the genetic memory of their victims.”
 
The General sighed, and then hopped into his large armored transport, and then rolled down the window and said, “We’ve had two harvesters go down in the Grey Wolf section.  Check on that while I’m gone, will ya?  And Brian, relax.  This will all be over before you know it.
 
 
 
  
© Raena Exe 2021
 
 
*Inspired by life.
*All characters, places, and events are completely fictional.
*All rights reserved.

Les Mousquetaires – Chapter 4 (A Den of Wolves) Part 1
 
 
 
     “The Holy Land is everywhere”  Black Elk
 
 
 
“If you want unity, the only way is Tiglath.”
 
“Tiglath?  Jesus Christ.”
 
“No, but he might as well be.”
 
“Tiglath, the old war hero?”
 
“Yes, the old war hero, and the leader and only remaining member of the Red Wolf Clan,” Benny told the woman, with a bit of hesitation, as he was suddenly regretting his original suggestion.  By quite a large margin.
 
“Tiglath still have that much pull with the other clans?” Bruce asked, as he slowly packed all but one of the green bottles of liquor back into his backpack.
 
“His clan was the only one that stood against the Catholics when they first got airborne.  And his clan was completely decimated in that power struggle.  But not before the Catholics had conceded ninety-percent of the territory back to Wolf Clan; essentially uniting all of the Indigenous Tribes under one banner.”
 
“But I thought you said they wouldn’t fight under a single banner,” the woman chimed in then, as she watched on as Benny began the process of punching in the new coordinates for his lightening harvester.
 
“That’s just it, ever since, there’s been so much backbiting and infighting most of the clans won’t even share the same airspace, let alone room.”
 
“So, you think Tiglath can get them to see reason?”
 
“Reason is a funny word, ma’am.  If you don’t mind me saying,” the tall, slender, yet well-built man said with more confidence than she ever recalled a Norton possessing.
 
“Oh, and how’s that?” the fiery redhead asked, curious to see the inner workings of this man’s mind.
 
“Because every perspective will see a different reason to the same problem.  Therefore no two people will ever have the same reasons for anything.”
 
Lynnette smiled up at the man she only ever recalled as a strange caricature of himself, always spewing about other people’s opinions and ideas – as if they were his own.
 
“You seem to have grown up a lot since the last time I saw you, Benny.”
 
The man, whose face would always seem young no matter what, smiled awkwardly at that, as if these days genuine compliments were hard to come by.
 
“Yes, I do believe I have.  So?  Are we gonna go and speak with Tiglath, or do you two have a better idea?”
 
Bruce looked over at the woman and shrugged, and so she nodded in agreement.
 
“Better hang onto something then.  Because the moment I power up the star drive it’s gonna get a bit dicey in here.”
 
Lynnette raised an eyebrow in concern, and then directed it towards Bruce.
 
“We drop for a moment, before the thrusters can catch us.  But don’t worry… it’s quite quick.”
 
“What’s quite quick?”
 
“Either the flight to our next destination, or the explosion on the ground.  Either way, it’ll be over before you know it.”
 
Lynnette sighed loudly at that.  Because despite however much she’d intended to be living the quite life by now, out on some ranch, feeding goddamn chickens – here she was instead – flying off in a lightning ship to go and speak to some goddamn rebel leader who – last she’d heard – was nuttier than fucking Audie Murphy. 
 
Jesus fucking Christ.
 
 

 
© Raena Exe 2021
 
 
*Inspired by life.
*All characters, places, and events are completely fictional.
*All rights reserved.

Les Mousquetaires – Chapter 3 (Where Only Angels Dare Fly) Part 2
 
 
 
     “Frederick Douglass taught that literacy is the path from slavery to freedom. There are many kinds of slavery and many kinds of freedom, but reading is still the path.” Carl Sagan
 
 
 
 
“But you don’t realize what you’re asking.  There’s no way.  There’s no way in hell you can unite all of the lightning farmers under one banner.  It’s just not possible.  They knew what they was doin’ when they handed out these positions.  There’s no way ANYONE can get these people to stand in the same room as one another, let alone see eye-to-eye.”
 
The tall, middle-aged man with the ever-youthful face, was nearly panting in distress, as he tried, yet again, to make the maddening women see sense.
 
“You just don’t realize what you’re asking.  Wolf Clan alone won’t have it.  And they’re not you’re biggest hurdle.  Even if you could talk Wolf Clan into your crazy scheme, and it is a fucking crazy scheme -  I don't mind telling you - you'd still have to convert the Catholics.  And that’s not gonna happen.  No matter what, it’s just never gonna happen.  Cuz every single one of them tossers thinks they're on some sorta higher-mission, or something.  They won’t deviate for nobody.”
 
Lynnette Parker smiled at the man, but then again, Lynnette Parker knew quite a few things Benny Norton didn’t.
 
“Never you mind about the Catholics.  I’ve got someone else working on them.  You just tell me how we unite the rest of them.”
 
“Can’t be done,” Benny said, as he plopped himself down in his one-of-a-kind Montestro chair.  He’d nicked it off of another lightning farmer, for a dime-bag of chez, and two hours with his little misses.
 
Of course afterwards, the little misses had decided to stay with the suave bastard, but… oh well.  Ya win some, ya lose some.
 
“Benny, is it possible you have forgotten who you’re speaking to?” Bruce asked then, as he came to stand next to the taller, and yet quite a bit less imposing man.
 
Benny looked at the short redhead with the phenomenal rack and swallowed.  Because he did recall.  He recalled quite clearly how the woman who stood in front of him just then was both one of the most powerful people in the world, and also… one of the most elusive.
 
“I remember how she left me to twist in me knickers, up in Glasgow, back in twenty-six.  And I remember how it took all me savings to just get out of that retched country!”
 
Benny, who was a wee bit sauced at this point, ducked under Bruce’s arm and went to stand by the window.  The storm, had picked up significant force since they’d boarded the lightning ship known as ‘Poor Man’s Caviar’ and now what had before looked like a regular old window seemed more like a light-up display in Times Square, as every three or five seconds a lightning strike would hit the center of the ship.
 
“You set yourself up as the wrong cult leader.  Your cover had been blown.  What was I supposed to do?  Any special handling would have tipped off the real target.  Who we got, by the way, no thanks to you,” Lynnette told the man in as clear a way as she could, given that she knew he wasn’t exactly stellar in the ‘free-thinking’ department.
 
“Still, you could have reimbursed me the trip home,” Benny said, just before he downed a hefty sized glass of the verdant liquor the duo had brought with them.
 
“You spent three months floating home on a dozen different party barges.  Don’t think I didn’t have you tracked.  You were off the rails.  That’s why no one would hire you after that.  Because everyone knew you played for you first, and then the team.  Well, Benny… that’s just not gonna cut it this time.  Because this time, if we don’t unite the lightning farmers and bring them under one banner, we all become slaves.  Even you Benny.  Even you.”
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
© Raena Exe 2021
 
 
*Inspired by life.
*All characters, places, and events are completely fictional.
*All rights reserved.

Les Mousquetaires – Chapter 3 (Where Only Angels Dare Fly) Part 1
 
 
 
 
   “It is not Atlas who carries the world on his shoulders, but woman; and sometimes she plays with it as with a ball.”  Henryk Sienkjewicz
 
 
 
 
Just as soon as the airlock whooshed open there was a cacophony of noise, and then a lightning strike right at the center of the ship – just as the ship’s designer had intended. 
 
However, for more than a second, both Bruce and Lynnette had to stand there and shake their heads. 
 
Both had on noise canceling headphones which also operated as a two-way radio – but noise canceling at this magnitude they certainly were not.
 
“Now!” Bruce yelled, seemingly out of nowhere, as he shoved his small traveling companion out of the door in front of him.
 
And with that, she was away; her jetpack fired, and she was rapidly hurtling towards the other ship that was less than a football field away.
 
“Dear lord, don’t make me a murderer, again,” she heard Bruce whisper, as he launched three-measly-seconds behind her.
 
“Poor Man’s Caviar you better get that hatch open, we’re coming in hot!”
 
“We’re?  You never said anything about we’re,” the nasally voiced man whined into his radio and for a long moment all Bruce could do was stare at the closed airlock, and listen as the storm raged all around them.
 
“Um… Bruce, it’s not opening,” Lynnette said into her radio, and then listened as it bounced back into her own earpiece – and then was followed by a large boom from an enormous strike not far enough away.
 
But before Bruce could answer, every single hair on her body stood on end, as if they were all suddenly up for inspection.
 
“Dear Lord,” Lynnette whispered to herself, as she pressed her jetpack for more speed – only to race that much faster towards the closed airlock that was her target.
 
“We’ll talk about it when we’re in there.  Now open that bloody hatch, or by-god I swear you’ll have all of Adelaide to reckon with!”
 
A moment later the hatch opened and both Bruce and Lynnette zipped inside just as an enormous strike of lightning passed through the space they’d just been occupying.
 
“Holy fucking cow!” Lynnette said, as she struggled to soften her wide eyes.
 
“Damn that was close!” Bruce bellowed, as only a large and powerful man can.
 
“What the fuck, Benny?  When did you suddenly become afraid of women?” Bruce asked, using the intercom on the airlock panel.
 
“It’s not that she’s a lady person, Bruce.  It’s the lady person she is, that’s the problem,” the whiny fifty-two-year-old answered back.
 
“How’s that?” Bruce asked, punching the panel less softly than he probably should.
 
“That lady you got with you is the reason I’m up here,” Benny told the man who was staring at Lynnette now like she had just sprouted a nose horn.
 
“How’s that?” Bruce asked, this time punching the panel with nearly the regular amount of force.
 
“She’s the one which hired me for that kilt job up in the Highlands, back eighteen years ago.”
 
“That fight club jiggy?  The one where you pontificated like an arse for three weeks before you realized you’d settled in as the wrong cult leader?  That Highlands job?”
 
Bruce was smiling now, in a way he hadn’t for a very long time – and so he turned away from the security camera.
 
“Yes.  That one.”
 
The man’s voice suddenly sounded defeated, and more than just a little bit scared.  But still, Lynnette tried real hard not to smile.
 
“Come on, let us in, and I promise she’ll apologize,” Bruce announced to the panel, once he finally regained control of his face.
 
“Oh, I will, will I?” Lynnette asked, with a single thin red eyebrow raised in a half-mast salute of curiosity.
 
“Fake it till you make it, Lynnette.  Cuz I really don’t care if you bend him over and take him up that tight arse of his, once he opens that bloody door.  So, if you don’t mind…”
 
Bruce bowed a bit, and then smiled another huge smile away from the camera.
 
However, Lynnette just punched the panel and simply said, “Open this fucking airlock right now or I’ll have every single one of your family members arrested for treason.”
 
 
 
 
 
 
© Raena Exe 2021
 
 
*Inspired by life.
*All characters, places, and events are completely fictional.
*All rights reserved.

Les Mousquetaires – Chapter 2 (Atlas Shrugged) Part 2
 
 
 
 
     “Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships.”  Michael Jordan
 
 
 
 
“Poor Man’s Caviar, this is Milk Toast, requesting permission to board.”
 
“You really are as insane as all those stories make you out to seem, aren’t you, you crazy mother fucker?” the tall fifty-two-year-old who looked like an overgrown ten-year-old said into his radio.
 
“Permission granted.”
 
“Yeah, easy enough for you to say,” Bruce Williams told the man he used to call ‘friend’.
 
“You better take another shot, this is probably gonna get insane,” the bald man with the raptor eyes said over his short hook-nose to the tiny woman standing next to him.
 
“I was in Tuscan for the Pimp Trials – I’m pretty fucking sure I can handle anything, at this point,” the spicy redhead with the bad attitude told the man she would trust with her life, just not her heart.
 
“Well, a single bolt of lightning contains upwards of three-hundred-million volts.  AND we’ve got ‘em striking every six-to-ten seconds.  So that doesn’t give us long to move from this ship to his.”
 
“You mean we have to go outside to get in his ship?” the woman asked, suddenly frozen where she stood.
 
“Yeah, that’s exactly what I mean.  Cuz we can’t connect the ships.  For one thing, that would interrupt the wind flow keeping them both aloft, so they’d probably just drop out of the sky the second we linked ‘em together.”
 
“And secondly?” the woman asked, as she scrunched up her face and then pulled her long red hair back into a severe looking bun.
 
“And secondly, we’d probably all get electrocuted the second we connected, as it’s highly unlikely our ship’s polarity would match his.  Which, if we’re lucky, would cause a friction spark that would send us all up in smoke a second later.”
 
“And if we weren’t lucky?” Lynnette asked, strictly out of morbid curiosity.
 
“We’d all cook from the inside out.  Organs first.”
 
“Well, that’s certainly a compelling enough reason to make me consider going outside.  But you at least have suits?”
 
“I have a suit.  A biomedical suit that’s programmed to my specifications.  It won’t work for you.  And all lightning harvesters are outfitted the same way - with just the one suit for the pilot, so they can’t be easily taken over by pirates.”
 
Lynnette remembered that to be true enough, as at first she’d considered that very thing.  I mean, she had enough volunteers to run the lighting ships – she just didn’t have the right ones.  Yet.
 
“Come on.  No sense in putting it off,” the six-foot-one man said, as he grabbed up a case of the highly prized green liquor the lightning farmers were known for.
 
“What’s that for?” Lynnette asked, as together they stepped into the airlock.
 
“Persuasion.”
 
A few minutes later and they were both strapping on two ion-charged jet-packs.
 
“Strictly speaking, aren’t these incredibly dangerous to use around lightning strikes?” the woman asked in an incredibly shaky voice.
 
“Hence the need to hurry once we’re out there.  No dawdling.  Just point yerself at his airlock and go.  Even if you think you feel or see a strike coming don’t move off course – don’t budge an inch either way – you’ll only get there slower.  If something’s gonna hit you – it’s gonna hit you.  That’s it.  Lights out.  The fat lady has sung.”
 
The slight woman with the robust chest looked up at the man and smiled, “Why aren’t you wearing your suit?  At least one of us would be protected.”
 
“If you don’t make it then I don’t want to either,” the man told her, has he transferred the potent and often mildly hallucinogenic liquor into a backpack he then strapped to his chest.
 
“That’s insane.  I haven’t seen you in twenty years,” Lynnette narrowed her eyes on the man she’d only ever known as a friend.
 
“Oh, it’s not you, love,” the man told her, as he bent down and kissed the top of her head.
 
“It’s just… this is it,” he said right into her eyes.
 
“I’m pretty sure this is my last chance to make things right.  If I miss it there ain’t gonna be another.”
 
Lynnette knew that was true enough for her as well.  Time, at least for their kind, was finite – and only existed in the here and now – and if they didn’t do this now there probably wouldn’t even be much of a tomorrow anyhow.
 
And so, she smiled up at him, and then hugged him the best she could around the bulging backpack on his front.
 
“Thank you.  Thank you for believing in me,” she told him with a small tear in her eye. 
 
“And thank you - for believing in you.”
 
 
 
 
 
 
© Raena Exe 2021
 
 
*Inspired by life.
*All characters, places, and events are completely fictional.
*All rights reserved.

Les Mousquetaires – Chapter 2 (Atlas Shrugged) Part 1
 
 
 
     “Banqueting with Gods on the ambrosia and nectar of the mind.”  William R. Alger
 
 
 
 
“I don’t think there’s anything I can do to help,” the man told his friend of more than twenty years.
 
“There’s no one else,” she told him.
 
“That can’t be true,” he replied, though he knew it probably was.
 
“Your skills are unmatched,” she reminded him, “And I need you – as pathetic as you are.  I need you.  Because there’s just no one else that can do it.”
 
The man had once been a famed military leader and hero.  And then he had been assigned to the Secret Service.
 
“How can you even look at me?  God knows I myself have a hard enough time with it these days,” he confessed rather stoically, as a loud crack of thunder almost shattered their eardrums.
 
“Hold on!” he yelled, as he quickly punched some buttons on a lit-up panel on the wall.
 
A moment later another lightning strike sounded from nearby, but this time the noise was much more manageable, though it was still rather difficult to ignore.
 
“Bruce, no one will ever forget what you did.  How you let all those women down.  But you have a chance to make up for that now, if you’ll agree to help me.”
 
“Make up for the death of a million women and girls by saving your daughter?”
 
He said the words without meaning to imply the woman’s daughter wasn’t worth everything in the entire world – and then some – at least to the distraught woman staring him in the face just then.  But he’d wounded her just the same.
 
He could tell it by the way her face remained an expressionless mask when she spoke again.
 
“It’s bigger than Hadley, and you know it.  You know what the white daisies are, and what they represent.”
 
“If it’s true,” the man replied, now with some hurt leaking into his own voice, as it was a tender subject no matter how much time had gone by.
 
“I was only following orders.”
 
He said the words he’d been saying since the choice had been made, and an entire evac-ship full of people and research had been abandoned when the fuel reserves for the President’s plane had been blown up.
 
“And now Hadley is trying to clean up this mess you made.  And you’re just going to let her do it all by herself.  Just going to sit here on your self-imposed prison-island and continue to sulk over what you couldn’t do.  Well, big-shot, here’s something you can do now, to make a huge fucking difference.  And if you don’t take it – then you really are nothing more than that decision you made – to follow orders – and nothing more.”
 
The woman’s verdant eyes were sharp and held no warmth.  Though the man knew that to be an outward lie she used to protect an incredibly vulnerable woman underneath.
 
With a sigh he hung his head in shame.
 
“What do you need from me?” he asked, worried nothing he had to give could ever be enough to make up for what he’d done.
 
Lynnette Parker looked up at the man, that could possibly save everyone on the planet, and smiled a small smile of hope.  And then she said, “I need you, and all of your lightning farmer friends, to take over the world.”
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
© Raena Exe 2021
 
 
*Inspired by life.
*All characters, places, and events are completely fictional.
*All rights reserved.

Les Mousquetaires – Chapter 1 (Bruce Almighty)
 
 
     “The best lightning rod for your protection is your own spine.”  Ralph Waldo Emerson
 
 
 
Few things are as memorable as embarking on a Lightning Ship; a vessel that’s sole purpose is to collect lightning strikes from storm clouds.
 
Especially just prior to an electrical storm.
 
“Lightning is essentially a bidirectional channel of ionized air, moving from one extreme to another,” the sixty-six-year-old man with the ice-white beard said, as he mindlessly scratched at it.
 
“It moves from the top of the cloud – the positively charged portion of the cloud – to the negatively charged portion of the cloud,” he explained, as the seventy-two-year-old redhead that looked about forty-five followed him through a narrow doorway.
 
“But it only works if the two halves are kept separate.  In a storm – that’s the roiling mass of movement at the center of the cloud.  There, the cloud is essentially neutral in its charge.”
 
He was speaking loudly, over the rushing sound of the gathering storm, as well as the large plasma coil that throbbed and pulsed beneath them.
 
“Most of the leaders we capture here are about forty-five meters in length.  And we take ‘em apart, pretty much how mother nature put 'em together.  By passing them through an ion-well that sheers off first the negative and then the positive charge.”
 
The man strode out onto a narrow catwalk that spanned the center of his large ship, and then he turned and motioned for her to follow.
 
Lynnette looked down at the roiling dark mass of clouds below them – and then at the ones above them – and took about a half-second to think about the consequences should her plan fail – and then she strode out behind him.
 
“We ride the storm out here – hovering at roughly 3.5 kilometers above the ground – where the storm is the thickest,” the pale man with the slight paunch to his belly shouted at her, from a couple feet away.
 
“We average somewhere between seventy-five to two-hundred strikes per hour.”
 
Lynette Parker stared up at the clouds overhead and wondered what was stopping one from striking just then, and killing them both.
 
“Nothing,” the man said, with a small smile that did nothing to support her confidence.
 
“I’m sorry.”
 
“There’s nothing stopping one from hitting now.  Don’t worry tho – I’m not a psychic – it’s just what everyone thinks when I bring 'em out here.  And, in fact, we should probably be going in now.  As the little hairs on the back of my neck are tellin’ me we’re getting close.”
 
“We’re… getting close…” the spry woman with enough energy for ten wild horses replied, rather lamely, and under her breath, as she quickly retreated off the catwalk and back inside the safety of the hovering vessel.
 
“What keeps it in the air?” Lynnette asked, as she liked to make a point of familiarizing herself with all types of tech.
 
But the man just smiled, and then he moved quickly over to a small liquor cabinet he had in the corner of the tiny living quarters at the heart of the tall, but narrow, vessel.
 
Then he said, “It’s the standard fumion reactor, as most star-drives.”
 
Coming to stand next to her, Bruce handed her a rather full glass of the strong green liquor the lightning farmers were known for.
 
“But that’s only used to get the ship into place, and to land – if we land.”
 
“And the rest of the time?  What keeps you aloft?”
 
The redhead had been a lot of things during her long life, and most of them had to do with things most other people didn’t have a mind for, and so the man knew if anyone could cut to the marrow – it was Lynnette.
 
And so, the man smiled, and then snorted a bit, cuz suddenly it felt just like old times.
 
“You always knew how to cut to the chase,” he told her, as he took a seat on the small sofa and then invited her to sit next to him.
 
“We use the cloud’s energy itself.  You see, the ship is designed to redirect the wind into a flow that naturally keeps us aloft.”
 
“And if the wind speed suddenly drops?” Lynnette asked, as the little hairs on the back of her neck suddenly stood on end.
 
“Then we drop out of the air like a lead weight,” he told her, as he stood to go and refill her glass.
 
“Sounds peachy,” the woman told him, as she took the refilled glass, which she quickly downed in one go.
 
“Happen often?” she asked, as she dropped rather ungracefully onto the sofa.

Technically the tiny woman wasn’t used to drinking, and already she was feeling a wee-bit wobbly.
 
“Not too,” the man replied with a small sigh.
 
“So, how do you do it?  How do you harness the energy from the lightning?”  Lynnette asked, even though she’d already done her homework on this part of the process.
 
“When the lightning strikes, it proceeds down this channel – through the middle of the ship.  See those?” he asked, as he pointed to the thousands upon thousands of black dots that lined the inside of the interior of the column.
 
Lynnette nodded.
 
“Those are short-wave lasers that rapid fire the charged ions onto those plasma sheets, there,” he said, pointing again, this time at the long strips of a grey material that lined the length of the column in four-inch increments.
 
“The plasma sheets collect and then condense the charged ions, and then sends all of it into the plasma coil beneath us - for storage.  The on-board-coil will short-term store upwards of a terawatt of energy.”
 
Lynnette once again thought about the ‘falling out of the sky like a lead weight’ part of the equation, and then added a terawatt of energy to it.
 
“I don’t know,” she said, her voice a bit wobblier than she’d heard it in a very long time.
 
“Seems awfully dangerous.”
 
“We’ve had two pandemics, two massive floods, and an invasion of aliens in the past twenty-three years.  Tell me what part of life isn’t dangerous anymore?”
 
Lynnette smiled at that.  Her first real one of the evening.
 
“Look, you told me you needed to talk to me.  Not the other way around.  And so far, it’s me that’s done all the talking.  So, speak.  What’s up?  What has brought the great rebel army leader into my humble abode?”
 
“My daughter.  She’s in trouble, and I don’t know who else to turn to.  You were the only one I could think of,” she told him truthfully, as she got up and went to the bar to refill her drink once more.
 
“You have an entire army of humans and visitors at your disposal.  Why could you possibly need my help?” the man asked.
 
Though, to be fair, he left out the part about him being a national hero who had saved millions of lives during the great upheaval.
 
“She’s joined the Ides.”
 
The man blinked twice, and then nodded when Lynnette motioned a refill inquiry.
 
“You’re kidding.”
 
“Not in the slightest,” she told him, as she handed him his drink.
 
And then she went to the observation window and peered out onto the large channel built for harnessing pure energy.
 
“Why?  Did she have a choice?  Did they recruit her?” he asked, once again mindlessly scratching at his white whiskers.
 
“You ever hear about the daisies?” the woman asked, without turning to look at the man.
 
“Sure, everyone who’s anyone has,” the man who had once been in the secret service told her.
 
“She’s looking to join them.”
 
“To what end?” he asked, though he’d met Hadley Parker, and he knew her mother well enough – so the guessing hadn’t been too hard.
 
Still, he let her mother explain.
 
“To save the world – why else?”
 
 
 
 
 
 
© Raena Exe 2021
 
 
*Inspired by life.
*All characters, places, and events are completely fictional.
*All rights reserved.