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  Simon gave a small nod, “Yeah, it’s just mind boggling. If she putted as well as she hit those unbelievable long shots…” he shrugged his shoulders helplessly.

  Stockton’s eyes glanced back up at her HUD, then back to Simon, “One or two putts per green! That’s not bad putting.”

  “No, but compared to what she’s doing on her long shots…”

  Chapter One

  Pinehurst, North Carolina—The US Open Golf Tournament results have gained the attention of the world. Ell Donsaii, accepted by many to be the world’s greatest athlete but not known to be a golfer, stunned everyone merely by qualifying to play in the Open. Now, however, she has carded a twenty-one under score of forty-nine! This on a course set up, as is usual for the US Open, to make it very difficult to even break par. In fact, the lowest score achieved by any of the professional golfers playing in the Open today was a two under par sixty-eight. As the world record low score for eighteen holes, until now, was fifty-five, this has certainly set the golf world on its ear. In achieving this score, she made six eagles, three pars, and the rest were birdies…

  Holding his mother’s hand, Zage walked across the parking lot at D5R. He looked up at his mother, “What if Dr. Donsaii doesn’t get here before you have to leave?” He didn’t want to sound like a whiny little kid, but he really wanted to meet Donsaii.

  Raquel shrugged, “She probably won’t. I can’t stay very long.”

  His dad looked down at him, “You really want to meet her, don’t you?”

  Zage looked back and forth between his two parents. “Of course,” he said, feeling a little exasperated, “I like science, and she’s the world’s most famous scientist!”

  “Kind of like a rock star, to you, huh?” His dad said.

  His mother interrupted, sounding irritated, “She’s just an ordinary person! Nothing to get excited about.”

  Zage frowned, ignoring his mother’s ridiculous comment. “What’s a rock star?”

  “Never mind,” his dad said, glancing at his mother. Zage thought he saw his dad wink at her, then he looked back down at Zage. “If she hasn’t gotten here by the time your mom has to leave, shall you and I stay so you can meet her?”

  Zage’s mother exasperatedly said, “Shan!” but before she could say anything else, Zage immediately and enthusiastically overrode her, hugging his dad, “Yes! Yes!” He looked up at Shan curiously, “Don’t you want to meet her too?”

  His dad chuckled a little, “I’ve already met her, and she’s much cooler than your mother will admit.”

  “Oh, yeah, you’ve probably been to this kind of party before, huh?” Zage said, looking up at his dad. His dad was looking at his mother, eyes twinkling as if he’d carried off one of his little jokes. Zage looked at his mother. Her expression combined both irritation and amusement. He decided that his dad thought it was funny that they would get to stay and meet Ell Donsaii when Mom had to go to… whatever thing she was going to. He shifted his gaze to his mother, “Don’t be mad Mom. You get to see Dr. Donsaii all the time at work. This is our only chance.”

  D5R’s summer picnic was pretty nice. It being late June, it was a little bit too warm, but hadn’t gotten really hot yet. To Zage’s delight, they’d set up an area where kids could play with some of the cool things they had there at D5R. They had two stations where you could put on special waldo HUDs with the gloves and foot pedals and walk a waldo around on the moon. It took the “trainer” a few minutes to adjust the stirrups short enough to reach Zage’s feet. While he was waiting, a pretty blonde teenage girl got on the saddle of the waldo controller right next to him. To his surprise, in his HUD, when he looked around there was another waldo right next to him. It jerked to life before he had his gloves on and took a step. Then it turned to look back at his waldo.

  Their trainer said, “Why don’t you try to walk your waldoes over to that little table? Don’t be surprised if it’s a lot more difficult than you expect it to be. Real waldoes are often much more difficult to control than simulated ones like you might have used at home. In addition, your waldo’s in one sixth lunar gravity and the moon’s surface isn’t exactly smooth.”

  The waldo the girl was controlling lurched off clumsily toward the table. At least Zage thought it looked clumsy until he tried to walk his waldo over there. He nearly fell on his first step, barely catching himself. Then he found himself staggering just like the girl’s waldo. He arrived at the table a few steps behind her. Zage was normally so much more coordinated than the kids his age that he pretended to be clumsy so they wouldn’t be embarrassed. Therefore he was astonished to be walking his waldo worse than she was. He realized with surprise that this time he was the one who felt embarrassed!

  The trainer tried to make them both feel better by saying, “That was really good! Most people’s waldoes fall down the first few times they try to use them. For quite a few we have to have the AIs walk the waldoes over to the table for them.”

  Even though he’d nearly fallen on his first step, Zage doubted that that was true. Probably a few people fell and the trainer was just trying to keep them from feeling embarrassed.

  At the table, they used a wrench to unscrew a nut off of a bolt and move it to another bolt where they tightened it back on. The trainer encouraged them to pick up some of the moon rocks sitting on the table and toss them back and forth from hand to hand. Eventually, they were asked to walk their waldoes back to where they’d first found themselves when they’d “strapped in.”

  Once they’d taken off their waldo gear, Zage found the blonde girl looking at him. He wasn’t interested in girls, but this one was pretty. He thought she was about ten years older than he was, so he was surprised that she was even noticing him. What he’d read had led him to expect teenage girls to be pretty self-centered, or at least focused on their own age group. She said, “You’re pretty good with a waldo.”

  Zage shrugged, “Not as good as you are by a long shot.”

  She frowned, “But I’ve used a waldo controller before.” She blinked, “Oh, maybe you have too?”

  Zage shook his head. “My first time. I nearly fell down on my first step, so I can’t be all that great.”

  She gave him a curious look, “Most people fall down a lot the first time they try to walk a waldo. If that was really your first time, you’re actually pretty amazing at it, especially for your age.” She stuck out her hand, “I’m Jenny DeWitt.”

  Zage felt like he should be insulted by the backhanded compliment, that he was good— for his age. Still, a compliment from a pretty teenage girl gave him a warm feeling. Even if he’d wanted to sulk, his mother had always told him to accept compliments graciously. “Thanks,” he said, “does your mom work here too?”

  They’d started walking outside to where the picnic had been set up. Jenny said, “My dad. He’s a waldo driver…”

  Zage interrupted, “Your dad’s Carter DeWitt?!”

  Jenny nodded.

  In an awed tone, Zage said, “He’s not just a waldo driver, he’s the head waldo driver. Everyone says he’s the best!”

  Jenny shrugged as if a little embarrassed, “What’s your mother do?”

  Zage was struck suddenly by the fact that he didn’t really know what his mother did. That seemed a little embarrassing, but he just hadn’t wondered about it until Jenny asked him. “Um, I don’t really know. She seems to go a lot of places for D5R. Sometimes she’s gone for days at a time, sometimes she works from home.” He shrugged, “I get the feeling that she just does whatever Dr. Donsaii needs her to do.”

  “Oh, that must be cool. She probably gets to see Dr. Donsaii quite a bit.”

  “Yeah,” Zage said, thinking about how his mom always said Donsaii wasn’t as amazing as everyone thought she was. “Doesn’t your dad see her sometimes?”

  “He’s seen her a few times and he worked with her one time when one of the space planes got hit by a meteorite. She actually drove a waldo while they were all trying to save some of the passengers
. My dad says she’s the best waldo driver he’s ever seen, even though she hardly ever drives one.” She paused a moment, then said wistfully, “He says she’s way better than he is and a lot of people say he’s the best.”

  Zage didn’t miss the awed tone in Jenny’s voice. He wondered why it was that everyone in the world thought Ell Donsaii was amazing, but his mother didn’t. His mom actually worked with Donsaii fairly often; maybe she was the only one who got close enough to see the woman’s flaws? Whatever those flaws might be…

  Zage was standing in line to get his food when a stir in the people around him made him aware that something had happened. He turned to look the direction that he’d seen other people’s eyes swinging. He saw a slender woman about the same height as his mother walking in from the parking lot. Her skin was lighter and she had longer reddish blonde hair. From a distance, watching the way she walked, he’d thought for a second it was his mother. But as she got closer he saw that not just her complexion and her hair were different. Her face was shaped quite a bit differently as well.

  Of course, he’d known that from pictures he’d seen of Dr. Donsaii.

  He thought a moment about how his mother’s friend Amy had a lot of characteristics in common with his mom. Because Amy’d been babysitting for Zage forever, he was fully aware that Amy was about the same height and had the same color hair, but had lighter skin than Raquel. Amy wasn’t as slender as Raquel either. Not that Amy was fat by any means, but Zage’s mom was really slim, yet surprisingly muscular.

  Though he wasn’t quite sure how it had happened, during his excitement about seeing Ell Donsaii, Zage realized that he’d filled his plate. He grimaced, thinking, That’s more than I should eat. He looked up at his dad and saw his dad watching Donsaii as well. “Let’s go find a place to sit,” Shan said.

  As they walked out amongst the picnic tables, Zage saw that people had gathered around Dr. Donsaii. He wondered if there would be so many people crowded around her that he wouldn’t get to meet her. It must be kind of difficult having all these people wanting to talk to you all the time, he thought with a little sympathy. And this is where she works, with people who see her pretty often. It must be even worse when she goes other places.

  “There’re some seats here if you’d like to join us?”

  Zage looked around and saw it was the blonde girl, Jenny. The one he’d driven waldoes with. She was sitting next to a man with dirty blonde hair and across from a redheaded woman who looked quite a bit like her. Zage looked questioningly up at his dad who said, “Sure, thanks.” He leaned forward to shake hands with Jenny’s dad, “I’m Shan and this is Zage.”

  “Carter,” the man said, “and this is Abby and Jenny.” He looked interested, “Are you Shan Kinrais?”

  Shan nodded.

  The man grinned, “Where’s Raquel?”

  Shan said, “She had to go, but Zage here really wanted to meet Donsaii. I told him I’d hang around with him so we could see if he could shake her hand.” He shrugged, “We really don’t know anybody, so we appreciate the invitation to sit with you guys.”

  Carter glanced at Jenny, “Apparently Jenny met Zage earlier.” He lifted an eyebrow, “She says he’s a pretty good waldo driver.”

  Zage felt his dad looked questioningly at him. He shrugged, “Jenny and I drove waldoes together. She’s a lot better than I am.”

  Jenny said, “I’m not really much better, and I’ve done it before.” She looked up at Shan, “He’s really very good.”

  Carter said with a smile, “She should know, she’s pretty good herself.”

  Jenny looked a little embarrassed. As if to displace the conversation away from that topic, she turned wistfully towards the people around Donsaii, “What do you think our chances are of getting to talk to Dr. Donsaii?”

  Carter looked a little regretful himself, “I don’t think they’re too good. The poor woman isn’t even getting to eat!” He winked at Shan, “I imagine Dr. Kinrais here has a pretty good shot though, since he wrote that paper with her.”

  Zage’s head spun to look up at his dad, Dad wrote a paper with Ell Donsaii?! Why didn’t I know about this? Despite the electricity running up and down his spine, he resisted the impulse to immediately ask his AI to bring up information about it. His mother constantly harped on how rude it was to do that in the middle of the conversation.

  After they’d finished eating, Zage’s dad said, “Shall we go get some dessert?”

  The DeWitt’s got up, looking with anticipation at the huge table of desserts. Unhappily, Zage shook his head and said, “I’d better not.”

  The DeWitt’s looked at him curiously, and Zage could tell that they were surprised a kid who wasn’t even five yet was on a diet, even if he was fat. They didn’t say anything though, just headed on to get themselves some dessert.

  Zage’s dad looked at him sympathetically, “Sticking to your diet, even tonight?”

  Disconsolately, he said, “If I go off it tonight, I’ll find another excuse to go off it tomorrow.”

  His dad looked over towards Donsaii, “You still want to try to see if we can talk to Dr. Donsaii?”

  “No, she hasn’t even gotten to eat yet.” Zage sighed, “Having everyone in the world wanting to talk to you must be pretty hard. I’d still love to be like her, but I guess some things about it wouldn’t be so great.”

  Shan shook his head, “No… you’re right about that.”

  ***

  Lying in bed, Zage stared bemusedly at one of several reports his AI’d found about the “K-D paper.” It appeared to be a pretty big deal in the worlds of physics and mathematics. He’d even heard of it before, he just hadn’t known that it stood for Kinrais-Donsaii. He looked briefly at the paper itself, but never having been very interested in mathematics, he hadn’t really been able to follow much of it.

  Apparently his own father had recognized that, by Donsaii’s equations, gravitational forces should drop off slightly over immense distances. This made it possible to explain the galactic rotation paradox without positing dark matter. Since they’d published the paper, experimental evidence supporting their theory had been mounting.

  Since it was an area of science that Zage wasn’t interested in, he didn’t feel surprised that he wasn’t aware of it. But, since he’d expressed his immense admiration for Donsaii on multiple occasions, he wondered why in the world his parents hadn’t mentioned that his own father had written a paper with her! Surely they didn’t really have to “try to run into her at a company picnic.” If his mom worked with her and his dad knew her, they could just invite her over for dinner or something, couldn’t they?

  Then he thought about how life must be for Ell Donsaii. Probably everyone who ever knew her “invited her over to dinner.” Maybe his parents just didn’t want to impose. Especially just because their kid wanted to meet her.

  If I were her I’d probably go into hiding somewhere, he decided.

  ***

  Jamieson admitted to himself that Steve Jacobs and the little security team that watched over Donsaii were more effective than he’d expected. It’d been ten or eleven years now since Jacobs and Donsaii had interviewed him back in Boston and Jamieson had never really gotten the sour taste of rejection out of his mouth. After all, it had been obvious to him that he could easily kick the asses of any two members of that security team. However, Donsaii hadn’t wanted to hire him because she thought he was “too aggressive.”

  Jamieson had tried to explain to the idiot girl that if you wanted real protection, you needed someone like him. Someone who could break a few heads. It was stupid to hire a bunch of softies like she had on her team. Somehow, the girl herself had wound up challenging him to a fight with pugil sticks. When he’d gone into it, afraid he might hurt her, she’d gotten in a few lucky blows; then she’d said she didn’t want him on her team—as if he wasn’t good enough!

  After that Jamieson had tried to attack Jacobs. He didn’t want to break the girl in half fighting her, but he j
ust couldn’t stand being humiliated that way and wanted to show her what he could really do. The next thing Jamieson had known he’d been in the emergency room getting his head scanned. One of Donsaii’s team had been with him there and said that Donsaii had put Jamieson in the ED, which had to be bullshit. He didn’t know what had actually happened but suspected that Jacobs’ entire security team had jumped him. Donsaii’d actually paid all his medical bills. Probably afraid he’d sue her.

  He’d hated the bitch ever since.

  Despite his dislike, Jamieson had never done anything more than just think about how sweet it would be to show her how much she actually needed someone who could really provide security like he could. But now… now someone was going to pay him to show her how she needed better security! Talk about a win-win-win situation: one, he could embarrass Steve Jacobs; two, he could show Donsaii why she should’ve hired someone like Jamieson in the first place; three, the little Asian guy, Wang, was going to provide Jamieson with a huge payday.

  However, he’d just gone out to her little farm in Chapel Hill to scout things out. Wearing night vision goggles and black clothing, he’d walked onto Donsaii’s farm from the little neighborhood to the west. He really hadn’t expected her security team to be on top of things at all. He’d thought he’d be able to wander around the farm, scouting things out, then exit the same way. Unfortunately, he’d only gotten about half way to the farmhouse when one of the guards he’d seen walking a circuit turned and started coming his way. Then two more came out of the little outbuilding behind the main house. Realizing that they must be using infrared detection technology, or perhaps some kind of sophisticated sonic tracking equipment, he’d turned to leave. By then he’d realized he’d have to use more sophisticated technology to carry off his scouting mission.