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  Morgan said quietly, “As long as it’s not that she committed a murder or some other crime against humanity, yes I can.”

  Shan said, “Thanks, Morg’.” He turned to Lane, “Can you give us a little time alone to talk to Raquel?”

  A tear trickled down Lane’s suddenly ashen face, “Why don’t you trust me?”

  “I trust you kid, but I can’t trust you when you act like this isn’t serious business. You’re treating it like a game or frivolous request. Something you wouldn’t have to stick to. You aren’t committing to it like we all committed to Uncle Rob.”

  “OK,” Lane’s voice cracked, “I commit to it completely. I personally guarantee that no one but the four of you will ever hear me speak of it.”

  Shan fixed her with his eyes again for a minute, then nodded, “OK. Let me get Raquel.” He stood and left the room.

  A few minutes later he returned… with Ell Donsaii.

  Everyone’s eyes widened. Malcolm shot to his feet. “Ms. Donsaii, I – I – I didn’t even know you were in Florida…” His eyes darted to Shan, then back to the hallway where Raquel should have been coming from and Ell had come instead. He sat with a thump, staring at Shan with raised eyebrows, “Raquel, and Ms. Donsaii… are… the same person?” He glanced down to note that Shan and Ell were holding hands.

  Shan and Ell nodded slowly but simultaneously.

  “But… why?”

  Ell sat on the ottoman and ran her eyes seriously over the group. Quietly she began, “Because my life as Ell is a disaster. Paparazzi, kidnappers, constant requests for autographs… I actually have a security team following me everywhere… just to try to prevent another kidnapping!”

  Malcolm’s eyebrows rose as he realized who the large man that Ell had met on the beach must be.

  Ell went on to explain how impossible it was to live a normal life as Ell and what life could be like for any children she and Shan might have. She talked about snipers and kidnappings and expectations. “So,” she concluded, “I live most of my real life in disguise. I intend to live my life with Shan as I have been… as ‘Raquel Blandon,’ an ordinary, happy go lucky girl, with a nice job at D5R and an awesome husband who teaches math at UNC.

  Shan’s family stared at him, then at Ell, then at one another. “Even if you do, your kids won’t be able to keep a secret like that!” Fay said.

  “They’ll be able to keep the secret if they don’t know it.”

  “You’re going to raise your children so that they don’t even know who you really are?”

  Ell nodded, “Until they’re older, yes. I’m not sure what the right age will be. We’ll have to play that by ear.”

  Fay shook her head, “When you first said it, I thought you guys were crazy. But after that explanation about snipers,” she shrugged, “I’ll have to admit, I agree it’s the best solution.”

  Lane threw her head back and barked a laugh, “Oh my God! Not telling people about this is just going to kill me!”

  Shan grinned at her, “Now you can see why I had to get you Laney, of all people, to take the promise of secrecy seriously.”

  Morgan snorted, “In February I tried to teach the world’s greatest athlete how to ski!” She moaned, “I feel like such an idiot.”

  Shan chuckled, “Not as much of a fool as I did. I have to admit that I was excited to take her skiing just so I could prove to her that there was at least one sport that I’m better at than she is… That blew up in my face when she was skiing better than I can by the end of her first day!”

  Morgan tracked back to Ell, “No…! That was really your first day skiing?”

  Blushing, Ell shrugged a little, “I’m pretty good at sports stuff.”

  Morgan let out a peal of laughter, “‘Pretty good,’ now there’s an understatement!”

  Trying to change the topic Ell said, “So! On to planning the wedding. An issue for us is that my family isn’t very big and the members of my family who know who ‘Raquel’ is are even fewer. I have some friends I’d like to invite, but not that many. So the wedding party will be small on my side. But we can invite as many of your family as you want. How many were you thinking?” Ell raised her eyebrows at Fay.

  “Oh! I hadn’t given it much thought yet. But of course we’d be fine with a small wedding. Maybe we could have it at a destination? Then we could invite lots of people, they just wouldn’t show up.”

  Ell looked at Shan, “That’s something we’d discussed. My mother and I are thinking D5R’s island in the Caribbean. People who wanted to go would have to fly to Miami. Then we’d charter a little ‘island hopper’ plane to take folks the rest of the way.”

  “Really?” Fay asked, “D5R will just let you use their island like that? I know as ‘Ell’ you’re the what… CEO? But, as Raquel…?”

  “Yeah, D5R has a policy of letting employees vacation on the island if they want. If there are empty seats you can even ride out there on D5R’s jet. We wouldn’t even be the first wedding, though the other one only had four people in the ‘wedding party.’”

  Malcolm said, “My business has been doing pretty well recently… and might do even better in the near future,” he winked at Ell, “so we could charter the island hopper.”

  Later, as they got ready to get in bed, Shan asked, “I thought your ‘rich grandmother’ was going to charter a plane?”

  “Only if we were going to have a big wedding on the island.”

  ***

  “You have a call from Natya Kolmenya, head coach for Team USA women’s gymnastics.”

  Shirley Black blinked. She’d sat next to Kolmenya at a dinner for the Olympic coaches and spoken to her briefly at a couple of other meetings. Why the woman would call her out of the blue she couldn’t imagine. “Put her on. Hello Natya?”

  “Hey Shirley, how’s your team shaping up?”

  “We’ve got a lock on some medals and a bunch of athletes that might step up or might totally collapse. We’ll just have to wait and see like everyone else. What can I do for you?”

  “Believe it or not, I’ve got someone that wants to try out for the sprints and long jump.”

  Shirley snorted, “They’re months too late. Sorry, our roster is full up.”

  “Shirley… it’s Ell Donsaii,” Natya said quietly.

  For the first time in a long time the normally verbose Shirley found herself speechless. Prickles ran over her scalp. She and one of her assistant coaches had once tried to analyze the famous video of Donsaii running to her vault. By their best calculations it did seem like the girl had achieved a higher top speed than Fentis.

  But, it just seemed impossible. The men’s 100 meter world record held by Fentis was an entire second faster than Keelaw Fell’s record for women. That an untrained woman could achieve a higher top speed running barefoot in a gym seemed unlikely in the extreme.

  Shirley took a deep breath. “I’d have to see her run in a timed trial against another runner.”

  “She says she’ll be in San Diego next Tuesday and can drop by the Chula Vista training center.”

  Shirley let that big breath out, “I’ll be here. Give her my contact info.”

  “OK. And Shirley?”

  “Um hmm?”

  “She wants this kept a secret.”

  Shirley barked a laugh. “Fat chance of that. Just the fact that she showed up here will be all over the news.”

  “She said she’d wear a disguise.”

  “Oh, come on!”

  “Shirley, Donsaii says she can bring home the gold. If I were you, I wouldn’t bet against her.”

  Reflecting that Team USA’s chances at gold in the various women’s sprints weren’t that great this Olympics, Black took a deep breath and said, “OK, if there’s a leak, it won’t be from me.”

  Chapter Six

  Waiting for the bus at twilight, Viveka felt a mixture of trepidation and warm anticipation. Trepidation over making the long bus ride by herself. Before she’d always had someone she knew to ride with
. Anticipation that soon she would see her family for the first time in nearly a year.

  Members of the adivasi people, Viveka’s family lived far out in the Indian countryside. Though government sponsored schools did what they could, education seemed a luxury to most people in her region. However, bemused by Viveka’s inquisitiveness, her mother did send her to the local school, in large measure to get the girl out of her hair.

  The teachers at the school at first thought Viveka dull because she constantly seemed to be daydreaming. But, when they called on her, she knew the answers—every time. Recognizing a brilliant but bored child, the teachers rapidly advanced her through the primary and then upper primary curricula. She loved learning and set national records on the promotion exams, unheard of in that district. Very few students in that rural area progressed beyond upper primary so the school suggested that she be sent to a bigger city for further education. They felt her intelligence could take her far, but that as a girl, far ahead of her grade, her intelligence would generate antagonism in the few higher level schools in the rural area where Viveka’s family lived. One of the teachers even told Viveka’s mother that she didn’t think the local high schools or colleges would provide sufficient challenge to keep her interested.

  Viveka’s mother, taking great pride in her brilliant child, pressed Viveka on her cousin Moman who lived in Delhi, sending money the family could ill afford to spare so that the cousin would board her.

  Her grades and scores resulted in free admission to a nice private school as a “special case.” Completing the two years of high school Viveka found herself invited to attend the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi with a full tuition scholarship from the Bikram Foundation. She’d been working on a degree in chemical engineering and truly enjoyed her classes.

  Life seemed good, Viveka’s mother was ecstatic and even her father seemed vaguely proud. Viveka knew her father’s pride would have been boundless for a son who had achieved anything similar to Viveka, but she gladly accepted what praise she received from her beloved Papa. Even her mother’s cousin Moman bragged of Viveka’s accomplishments to her neighbors—when she thought Viveka couldn’t hear. That didn’t keep Moman from complaining to Viveka about the difficulty of keeping her and demanding that Viveka take on more and more of the cleaning and cooking. Nonetheless, Viveka took pride in Moman’s boasting.

  A bus finally arrived and Viveka checked the destination display twice. Concluding that she had the right bus she hefted her small bag and got on. Dismayed but already in the aisle, she realized that almost all of the passengers were men. Many stared openly at her, some wolfishly.

  Many Indian men still felt that any woman traveling alone must have loose morals, or at least be easy prey. Viveka always wore western style baggy pants and loose shapeless tops in hopes of diminishing the interest of the men she met. Rising to her toes she saw with relief that a seat near a family in the back stood empty.

  Shuffling down the aisle, she gritted her teeth as several of the men surreptitiously rubbed their arms or shoulders against the outsides of her thighs as she squeezed past. She knew that if she complained, they would protest that crowding on the bus had forced them into contact. And everyone would shake their heads and say it was a shame—but Viveka knew those men could easily have given her the room to get by without contact if they tried. A man going down that aisle wouldn’t have been touched at all.

  To her horror, as she neared the empty seat, she saw the man in the adjoining seat openly leering at her. She glanced around but there were no other empty seats this far back in the bus. With a sigh, she slipped into the seat, huddling as far from him as her arm rest would allow.

  The man immediately turned toward her, letting his knee rest against hers. “Hello Sweetie,” he bobbed his eyebrows, “where are you going?”

  In a forlorn hope that reminding the man she had a family might dissuade him from making advances, Viveka said, “Home to see my family. I haven’t seen my Mama or Papa for nearly a year.”

  “I’ll bet you have a lot of boyfriends!”

  As the man’s sour breath washed over her, Viveka realized the man had been drinking. “No,” she said, looking around for escape in the dimly lit interior of the bus.

  “Would you like one?”

  When Viveka glanced at the man she realized he’d maneuvered his right arm up behind her. His hand dropped onto her shoulder. Sweaty, she could tell even through the cloth of her top. He tugged her towards him. “No!” she said, pulling away.

  Undeterred, the man pulled harder with his right hand as his left hand crept toward her.

  Horrified, Viveka pulled her shoulders forward and dropped her chin as if curling inward on herself. She turned in her seat to face out toward the aisle. For a moment she considered getting up and trying to make the long ride standing out in the aisle. A picture rolled bleakly over her of this man, or others, pinching her bottom as she stood beside their seats. She’d been pinched often enough in the past. How could I have thought it would be OK to take this bus by myself? she wondered in dismay. She would never have ridden a cross country bus alone in the past, but after the time she’d spent around her modern minded university schoolmates she’d begun to feel somehow that the world had changed.

  The man’s powerful right hand held her in her seat and his left crept over her stomach toward her breasts. “Come on Sweetie,” the man said in a wash of garlicky boozy breath, “if you’re going to be my girl, you must be friendly.”

  Huddling in on herself, feeling appalled, Viveka saw the glinting of a wedding band on the man’s finger. “No!” she hissed twisting away and wondering why she didn’t scream. Taught her whole life not to make a fuss. “Respect your elders” – she’d heard it a thousand times, but how, said her inner voice, can you give respect to this man? How can you worry about disturbing the other passengers? Why can’t you stand up for yourself?

  The man’s arm turned her inexorably back toward him and a finger came to lift her chin.

  Viveka glanced up to see his excited eyes, his face descending towards hers. He’s going to try to kiss me! She squirmed and slithered lower in her chair. She felt powerless, like in an early morning dream with horror approaching and her limbs twitching weakly, unable to move her.

  “Hold still!” the man said, grasping her breast and pulling her upward in her seat.

  “No!” Viveka shrieked, twisting from his grasp and out into the aisle. She stood, gasping, tears pouring down her cheeks. “Leave me alone, you animal!” she said, with as much loathing as she possibly could.

  Another, man rose from the seat across the aisle and back one from where Viveka had been. He rose and rose. The man was huge! He stepped out into the aisle.

  The man Viveka had just escaped from slid to her side of their two seats and reached out to her, saying, “Come back my little randi (prostitute).”

  Viveka’s inner thoughts screaming, am I about to be raped by these men?! No one will go against that big man if he attacks me! She backed away from them. She steeled herself for anticipated groping touches of the men in the seats she was passing.

  But then the large man who’d just stood into the aisle said gently, “You may sit with my wife if you like.” He waved a hand at the seat he had stood from. His wife sat there with her daughter on her lap. The woman smiled at Viveka and patted the seat next to her.

  With a thump, the large man sat down next to the man who’d been tormenting Viveka, grinned at him and said, “You seem very friendly. Do you have many boyfriends?”

  That man found himself shrinking against the window.

  Shaking Viveka crept back to sit beside the man’s wife. The woman patted her on the arm and said, “There are good men in this world, though…” she glanced around, “not as many as one would hope.”

  An hour passed before Viveka’s heart calmed enough for her to drift off to sleep.

  ***

  “Boss?”

  Malcolm Kinrais looked up and raised his e
yebrows.

  “Uh, we have a package here, addressed to you.”

  “Well, open it up.”

  “Uh, sir, it says ‘confidential.’ To be opened by Malcolm Kinrais only.”

  “Really? Who’s it from?”

  “D5R.”

  Malcolm sat up excitedly. “Let me see.”

  Inside the box he found two coils of copper tubing with a pump built onto one end. A smaller box inside contained twenty pairs of small ports.

  As he stood bemusedly staring at the contents of the box his AI said, “You have a call from Raquel Blandon.”

  “Put her on… Hi Raquel, I just got a package from D5R.”

  “Yeah, my AI told me you’d opened it, that’s why I’m calling. I thought I should explain what you have there?”

  He chuckled and said, “That’d help.”

  “OK, you have two copper tubes. One’s filled with a heat transfer fluid and ported to a tube in near solar orbit. The other has a cold transfer fluid and is ported to deep space. Switch on the pumps. One will get hot, the other will get cold. My thoughts are that you don’t want to pump 600oF fluid anywhere, it might burn someone. Same for minus 148oF. So I think you should use those tubes to heat or cool some water here on earth. Heat it to a temp that’s safe, then pump that water through the smaller port pairs in the box. Those are all the little ports that you have there. That water could go to one of your ‘space heaters’ or to a ‘space cooler.’ Personally, I think with the way the price of electricity’s been dropping, people will probably take the easy way out and heat with electricity. Clothing heated with electricity delivered through ports will be pretty neat for people up north. But personal cooling; that would be awesome. I think a lightweight shirt with cooling tubes in it for ‘personal cooling’ could be a huge seller.”

  “And if we can make a viable product out of these, you think we could get a supply of ports to put in a commercial version? I know there’s a backlog…”