The Ties That Bind (24 page)

We each dumbly shook his hand, and then stared at his wake as he walked out.

"What just happened," I asked the room in general.

"I would say I felt like we just got mugged, except the mugger rarely leaves your wallet behind, especially with a giant check in it," Ted says.

"Hell, who cares," Charles said, his face breaking into a grin. "'Take the money and run.'“

We all laughed as the idea of three quarters of a billion dollars started to sink in. Jonathan headed out with Charles in tow to start getting our ducks in a row for when the contract with MilTech showed up. Now we had to get Charles to agree and come on full time as our CFO. With that big a bankroll, we all agreed we needed someone to watch over it.

We also agreed that everyone, down to the janitor, would be seeing a nice payday once the deal closed. We all agreed that we wanted our employees to share in our windfall, in recognition of their hard work. Of course, I knew I would be seeing a nice check soon, and that meant all kinds of good things for my plans for the future.

I asked Marcus to give me a ride and if he could drop me at Emily's house, since I wanted to try once more to convince her to go on the cruise with us. I also wanted to share the news about the sale with her before I went home to tell everyone else. We hadn't brought her all the way into the mysteries of our lives yet, but she knew about this at least.

I was in a great mood, naturally, and chatted with Marcus on the drive. Sometimes he liked to bounce ideas off me, mostly because I was good at pushing his new ideas back at him, challenging him. He said he originally thought this was because I was a smart kid without any formal training. The revelation about my real abilities put things in a new light for him, and the others.

Each had seen an opportunity in this and assigned me all kinds of reading. Jonathan had me reading books on contract law, Ted had assigned reading covering a range of business and finance books, and Marcus had a large stack of engineering, physics and related materials for me to read. Even with the incredible speed I was now reading at, it was a daunting list. While the books Marcus had me reading were mostly so I could better identify and understand potential projects for the company in the future, they had the added benefit of making me a better sounding board.

We were just getting into a discussion on some of his new ideas when we rounded the corner onto Emily's street and the flashing blue strobes of police cars stopped the conversation cold. I could see the police cars parked in front of her house, and was out the car door the second Marcus pulled in front of her house.

"Emily!" I shouted, as one of the police officers outside grabbed me and kept me from entering the house.

I was about to knock him to the ground so I could get inside and check on her when she came through the front door. Another officer kept her from getting to close to me. The front of her shirt was covered in blood.

"What happened?" I asked. "Are you ok?”

She started to respond when the officer next to her stopped her from speaking.

"I'm sorry, but she can't speak to you right now. We are still sorting out the facts of what happened. If you could go over by the curb, and talk to my partner for a moment?" the officer said after waving her to silence.

I numbly followed the man holding me away from the house. He had a few rudimentary questions, mostly to insure I wasn't involved with whatever had happened inside. He wouldn't tell me anything, except that she was being taken to the police station shortly for questioning.

Marcus was standing by the car looking anxious.

"Take me home," I told him when the officer told me I could leave. "I need to call Jonathan.”

Marcus nodded and we hurried away from her house. As soon as I was through the door I called Jonathan and told him what happened. He said he would find out what was happening and would make sure she was represented.

"What's going on," a confused Zoe asked.

"Something happened at Emily's house. The police were there and her shirt was covered in blood. I don't think she was hurt, but they wouldn't let me talk to her. I just asked Jonathan to get her a lawyer and find out what happened," I told her.

Everyone just looked at me stunned, mirroring what I was feeling at the moment. We all sat down, waiting for a call to tell us what was happening. It struck me as odd that this was happening so much. Here I had these amazing abilities and yet I kept having to sit and wait for someone else to tell me what was happening. I guess there's a lesson there … no man's an island and all that … but still, it was insanely frustrating.

No one knew what to say. With so little to go on, we didn't even know what to be worried about. Had her dad done something? Had she done something? Had some third party done something? It was all a mystery. Marcus had headed home, seeing that this was a family thing.

"So, I think we made seven hundred and fifty million dollars today," I said breaking the silence.

Not that this was the time to be breaking this news, but I couldn't take the just waiting. I needed to do something to distract myself while I waited.

"What?" Mom said, more confused by the randomness of the statement than by it's contents.

"We made a deal with that guy from MilTech. He wants to pay us three-quarters of a
B
illion dollars for our drone patents.”

"Are they even worth that much?" Zoe asked.

"Maybe. Charles seems to think it’s possible, although he wanted us to sell the patents no matter what the price offered. That they were more of a liability to us than an asset. Aaron Baxter, their CEO, seemed to have an explanation on why they were going to pay that much.”

"And do you believe it?" Mom asked.

"Who cares. I am going to 'take the money and run.' Do you know what this means?" I asked.

"That you guys can fund other projects," Vicki said.

"More than that, this will allow us to fund the charitable works I talked about. This big of a sale, we are going to be on the hook for a huge tax bill. I bet I can talk Charles into funding my non-profit ideas. We won't get the money until near the end of summer, at the earliest, since these kind of deals take time to work out, but it is something for us to discuss when we do.”

"That's great. I know we only touched on it a little bit, but I have some ideas," Mom said.

"Me too," Zoe added.

"Good, because I am going to put you guys in charge of it," I told them.

Everyone simultaneously started protesting my statement until I cut them off.

"I can't run it, at least not directly. I mean, I am CEO of the company putting up the money, and I will have stuff with the company to focus on. Plus, all of you have the ability to do this. You have been enhanced or whatever, so you sure as hell are smart enough. And you've all got good hearts. You won't be on it alone. I will make sure we have some good professional help to keep us from stepping in it, too bad.”

Everyone got silent again, probably thinking of what that future would be like, but I went back to worrying about Emily. Thankfully, the phone finally rang not much later.

"How bad is it?" I asked as soon as I picked up the handset, assuming it was Jonathan.

Thankfully, it was.

"Bad, but I think your friend will be ok, legally speaking. I contacted a friend of mine and hired him for her on your behalf. He of course can't tell me anything because of attorney client privilege, but I also talked to some friends at the station, and the DA's office.”

"It seems her father fell off the wagon tonight, hard, following an argument with his wife. We don't know specifics, since he isn't talking. The evidence seems pretty clear that he attacked her and savagely beat her. Emily called the police, and then intervened.”

"Really?" I asked. Stepping up to her father was the one thing she had never done before.

"Yes. She tried to stop him, and when he turned on her, she defended herself with a kitchen knife. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Her mother's injuries were quite severe. They took her into surgery right away, but the trauma to her head was too bad, and she died a little while ago.”

"Was Emily hurt?" I asked.

"No, and it seems almost certain the District Attorney is going to classify this as self-defense. Legally, I think she should be fine. However, there is now the issue of guardianship for her. Her mother had no siblings and her parents are deceased. Her father also had no siblings, but his parents are still alive. I do not know if they have been in contact with them yet, but it seems likely that they will be given guardianship of Emily.”

"When will we know?" I asked.

"Probably not until tomorrow," he answered.

"OK, thanks, Jonathan," I said and hung up.

Jonathan called the next day, just to let us know he still didn't know anything. It was nice of him to call, but it didn't keep me from feeling like we were in limbo, waiting to find out what happened.

For a full week Emily went 'radio silent', with no real news coming from anywhere, not even from Jonathan. It seemed likely the DA would decline to prosecute her for the death of her father, citing self-defense; but he was still considering the investigation, and hadn't made a decision yet.

It seemed likely that her grandparents were going to get custody of her, but since they were the parents of her father, whom she had killed, Child Protective Services were still considering the option and had yet to make a decision.

While I knew what decision I wanted the DA to go with, thinking about her custody arrangement only upset me. If her grandparents did get custody she would be moving to Florida where they lived. Beyond that I had specific concerns with them. There was not only the fact that they had to harbor some kind of resentment towards Emily for the death of their son, these were people who raised a man who was capable of beating his wife to death.

Of course, the alternative was going into the foster system as a teenager. While my time in the system wasn't terrible, it wasn't a life I would wish on anyone. Plus, she would most likely end up moving around a lot.

But my real issue was that, regardless of what happened, it was clear she would be going away. The foster system would probably have her in one of the bigger cities, her grandparents lived in Florida, and then there was jail. Any way this would go, it meant I would be losing her.

I know many people would wonder what I was so upset about. I had my Zoe, Vicki and Tami in my life already and nothing had happened with Emily yet. It was something I had been thinking about. For some reason the girls were pushing hard to add people to our little group, and I was falling hard for those same people.

I had no way of proving it but my guess was it was somehow a byproduct of my genetics. Not that I had mentioned it to anyone yet, because how do you test for impulses? What I did know is my genetics were aggressive in trying to propagate themselves. Putting that together with the girls feeling a strong impulse to add new girls and me falling quickly for the same girls, it couldn't be a coincidence.

Thursday rolled around. It was my birthday, or at least the day we had picked after the Greys had adopted me. I knew a party was planned, but wasn't sure of the details. It wasn't a surprise party, but it had been made clear that I was to stay out of the way until it was time for the party to start.

I was up early, and just home from my morning run when Emily finally called.

"Hey, Cas," she said when I picked up.

"Emily! How are you? I've been worried.”

"I know. I'm ok, I guess. We got the news today that they aren't going to try and throw me in jail, so that's good. They also decided I am going to live with my grandparents.”

"At least the decision is made now. Moving to Florida isn't as bad as being in limbo.”

"I guess. I don't really want to go. I just got friends. And you're here," she said, sounding sad.

"I know, and just because you're in Florida, doesn't mean we can't all still be friends. Three years and we're off to college. I'm sure the girls are already plotting to get us all back together.”

"That's a long time, but you're right. I guess I also kind of don't want to go with them. The way they look at me …" she said, leaving the sentence hanging.

"I was worried about that. How bad is it with them?”

"Pretty bad. I get the feeling they aren't really getting much of a choice in taking me, since they are my only living relatives, but I can tell they don't want to. They haven't said anything, yet, but I can tell.”

"Were you close with them before all this?" I asked.

"Not really. I had only met them once or twice. They moved to Florida and gave Dad the farm when I was still a baby. Dad never wanted to go see them and they were never invited for family stuff. At least not that I can remember.”

I paused for a long time, trying to think of how to best say what else was on my mind.

"Emily, I'm sorry things ended up the way that they did. I …”

"No," she said, interrupting me, "I know what you're thinking. I know you threatened him to get him to stop hitting me and my mom. I'm glad you did it. These last months have been the happiest I can ever remember. Even my mom was starting to seem like a person again. You don't know what it was like living in this house … before. We were always scared. Scared we would set him off. We tip-toed through life. It isn't a way to live.”

"Look how it turned out," I countered.

"We were always headed for this Cas. Every year it was getting a little worse. You only changed one thing. You gave me confidence. You gave me some time away from the constant fear. You taught me to stand up for myself. The only thing you changed was I didn't end up in the morgue with my mom. Because before you, that was where this was really headed. It would have been me instead of him.”

I had a small internal battle with myself. I had a tendency towards self-pity, and I still felt bad about my actions in how things ended. But, she was right, I could see that. Her father had a lot of rage in him, and the drinking made it worse.

"I'm glad it didn't end that way. I'm still sorry for your mother.”

"Yeah," she said softly, "I miss her already. She tried hard to protect me. I know she really loved me.”

I heard speaking in the background. Emily's voice became muffled as she covered the handset so she could talk to them.

"I gotta go, soon," she said after finishing her conversation. "I don't know when we will be able to talk again. My grandparents know about you, and I've heard them talking. They place a lot of blame on you for everything.”

I thought for a second and said, "Then it's best if they don't catch us talking on the phone. Let's stick to email for now, until we can figure out something else.”

"Ok. I'll miss you," she said, sounding a bit teary.

"Yeah, I'll miss you, too. Can you talk to the others?”

I went and got the girls, and they each took a few minutes to talk to Emily. They had all gotten close over the last six months, and I knew her leaving hurt them as bad as it hurt me.

They were still on the phone when people started showing up. I think they had originally planned a big group, but with everything that was happening with Emily, I asked them to tone it down. It was mostly just those I had labeled as
The Family.
Mostly that was the people who were in the know about my abilities, and nearly all had been altered themselves. The girls, Tina and Mom of course, as well as Alex, Megan and Sarah, who was being included in the group more and more now that she knew what was happening.

While Marcus, Ted and Jonathan all knew about me, and were counselors to be sure, they all seemed to prefer we kept things on a more professional footing. This tended to beg off invites to social gatherings. Part of that was probably the vast age difference between my group of friends and theirs.

Josh and Amanda were also in the know, and while I wouldn't have minded Amanda, Josh was getting on my nerves, more and more each day.

It was a subdued affair. We ate cake and presents were given out. Although I was now sixteen and would be hitting the DMV the next day for my license, there wasn't the more traditional present of a car. Considering my new financial state, we had agreed I would go get my own car, although the girls had made it clear that they were going with me to pick out something 'appropriate'. I, of course, agreed; having already come to the realization that I was only allowed decisions on the big things, like what to eat for breakfast and what socks I could wear. This was fine by me, since I knew they quite literally had my best interests in mind. I would put my foot down if it was anything I really disagreed with, but that was a card best held until needed.

I looked at my amazing family and thought back over the previous year. So much had happened, some of it great, other parts less so. Emily was going to be a hole in my world for a while, I knew. But, I also knew we would find a way for her to come back to us. Unlike other kids our age, our plans were long term. I already knew she would somehow figure into our future.

I also would regret how the situation with Margret had ended, for the rest of my life. I didn't blame myself for it, since there was no way to know that was going to happen, but all the same I felt bad that it had happened.

It wasn't all bad. I mean, I was now ridiculously rich, and able to move forward with my plans. The company was focused on humanitarian projects, now, such as the charity organization I wanted to start. It was going to be a real thing, and we had a path for how to make the world a place we would want our kids to live in.

There was still a lot to be done. But I was convinced we would make this work. One day, Humanity would be ready to take it's next step.

END