Chapter 1 Back From Outer Space
It had been several months since Helena formally established her estate's HG Wells Foundation. It seemed that the royalties from her stories had been accumulating in her absence. Once she was reinstated back into the Warehouse, these accounts became activated. One of the foundations charities had been set up for monthly donations and now HG found herself juggling finding prospective recipients along with her work as an agent. She was falling behind in getting rid of the money that came to her on a monthly basis and finally came up with an idea to have it distributed to schools through a reading program. Helena wanted nothing to interfere with her work at the Warehouse so she appointed a young man to oversee the distribution of proceeds through the program.
Michael Dumont was a natural at helping the philanthropist and within a year's time, the program had expanded to several schools. Helena was especially pleased with his idea to fund college scholarships and in doing so; the Christina Wells Scholarship Program was established. It was the only event Helena herself attended and she left all of the other work up to the man she felt was more than capable. He was diligent and meticulous in his work and would run things past HG at her convenience. He was a man of patience working with a woman who was often short of them. And yet harmony reigned because Mike Dumont was nothing short of a saint.
One of the reasons Helena did not want to deal with the minutia of the Foundation was because she knew Mrs. Frederic and Artie would be concerned that the work would take away from her job at the Warehouse. She never handled personal business when she was on duty unless of course that personal business was Myka. In fact, in all of those months Helena never asked Artie once to leave early or to take vacation time for her foundation work. For the most part, he forgot she even had it. Helena owed that all to the man whom she left in charge. She knew he only brought the most important details to her to discuss or decide on.
This left plenty of time for Helena to deal with other important projects, which at the moment meant she was in the living room of the B&B fiddling around with the computer. When she was finished typing several lines of code onto the screen, she pressed enter and saw the product of her hard work.
"Myka, turn on the television," she instructed as her partner sat on the couch that sunny afternoon. Myka did as HG requested and pressed the buttons on the remote to the station HG said. She could tell that Helena was excited about something but had no idea what it was. Slowly the screen came to life and Myka watched in wonder as it showed what looked like the beautiful colors of deep space.
"Is this NOVA?" Myka asked as she stared at what looked like a plume of cloud surrounded by stars and a purplish sky. It was magnificent. She had just been reading about deep space exploration and shared with Helena how beautiful the pictures were. It would be just like HG to follow up on something Myka said she was interested in even in passing.
"No, the picture is live," HG said proudly.
"But what show is this?" Myka wondered out loud.
"It's not a show actually. It's the live feed from the Hubble telescope," Helena explained staring at the picture.
"What is this that I'm looking at exactly?" Myka asked because there was no narrative with the image. HG was so pleased that Myka was so taken with the display.
"It is the Eagle Nebula. You said it was your favorite," HG said recalling that from a recent conversation. Indeed she was correct.
The nebula was discovered in 1745 by Jean-Philippe de Cheseaux. Back in 1995, the Hubble telescope transmitted images that were turned into a stunning photograph called "The Pillars of Creation". To this day, it remains as one of Myka's favorite pictures of space.
"They're showing a live feed from the Hubble?" Myka asked amazed.
"Not 'they', darling. Just I," Helena replied. Myka stared at the screen and thanked Leena that she had opted for the large screen television.
"I thought there was an issue with one of the Hubble's lenses?" Myka said wondering how this vision was on her TV set. "In fact, I just read that with the end of NASA's shuttle program, all repairs would have to be done remotely," Myka added.
"Yes, I had to tweak that lens first but it seems to be working fine now," Helena said very nonchalantly. In fact, so calmly that Myka almost didn't catch it.
"How can this be live with all that color?" Myka wondered out loud and was still mesmerized by the image in front of her.
"Well, I have the image filtering through one of those coloration programs," HG explained.
"What are you doing?" Myka asked her partner but she couldn't take her eyes off the screen.
"We're going to lose the feed soon, darling. I'm afraid I could not get a longer window," Helena said and suddenly the TV screen became snowy. She jumped up to the computer and pressed many keys but the image never returned.
"Well, I dare say that is all the time we can get today," Helena said with regret in her voice.
"Wow that was magnificent. How did you ever get time on the telescope? I mean, how long were you waiting?" Myka asked with great interest because she knew that although the general public could apply for time, it was extremely competitive and was done only once a year.
"Well darling, I don't think I accessed the feed quite the way you might imagine," HG said with no detection of concern.
"What does that mean? Wait, what did you mean you - 'tweaked the lens'?" Myka asked now, her attention drawn back to her friend.
Helena was busy pressing all kinds of key combinations on the computer at lightning speed and Myka watched as window after window was closed.
"Best not to leave a trail," Helena said out loud and gave Myka pause.
"Hel-e-na?" Myka said slowly and feared what this all meant. The image of HG huddled over the desk at the Warehouse yesterday, sitting ever so closely to Claudia at the computer flashed back in her mind.
"Oh no, did Claudia teach you how to hack?" Myka said and HG didn't turn around but continued to work at the computer, erasing the history, cookies and anything else she could find to delete.
Myka finally swung the chair around so that Helena was facing her. "Helena, please tell me you did not just hack into the Hubble telescope's database."
"OK," HG replied but her answer confused her friend.
"OK you didn't or OK you're not going to tell me that you did?" Myka asked.
"Didn't you enjoy the view?" HG asked and Myka immediately responded, "Yes, of course." That settled it for Helena.
"Then it was worth it," HG concluded and reached out to Myka to pull her in closer. They had the house alone to themselves and HG thought this would be an ideal time for them. Nothing said foreplay like showing your lover live shots of deep space, Helena thought.
"Helena, did you hack into the Hubble telescope?" Myka asked and closed her eyes because she already knew the answer.
"Yes," HG said truthfully.
"And you know it's illegal, yes?" Myka asked but could tell from the tilt of her head that it was a detail she had not considered.
"They should be grateful I was in there at all considering that I fixed the lens for them, " Helena said matter-of-factly.
"I'm sure they'll take that into consideration at your hearing," Myka said out loud.
"Don't be silly, darling," HG responded because in her mind she had done no harm and in fact, had helped them. Myka wasn't so sure everyone else would agree but until they arrived at the front door, she would hope for the best. Which is why when the doorbell rang, Myka's heart began to race.
"Well, that didn't take them long," she said but Helena had no idea what she was talking about.
Myka walked slowly to the door trying to decide which line she would try. 'You see, she's British' worked on a multitude of sins but she doubted the government would buy that one. 'You see, she's new to our culture' was another one but that rarely worked because HG's accent was a dead giveaway. 'She has a disorder' was only to be used in dire emergencies and Myka had only used it once when they were teaching her about baseball and she disagreed with a call made by the referee. It hadn't really worked either and they were escorted to their car by security. But if she saw someone with handcuffs standing on the front steps, she might just go with that first. She was pleasantly surprised to find Mike Dumont instead. In fact, she looked right past him to see if there were any cars with flashing lights in the distance but there were none.
"It is good to see you, Mr. Dumont," Myka said practically grabbing him through the doorway and taking one last look out at the road. All was quiet.
"Thank you, Agent Bering. I do hope I am not disturbing you. I am here to see Ms. Wells," he said pleasantly. Myka liked this man. He said everything pleasantly and he was one of the most easygoing people Myka had ever met. No matter what Helena wanted or didn't want, which often changed moment to moment depending on her mood, this man took it all in stride.
Myka brought him in to see Helena who had forgotten all about their appointment. Now she was torn between keeping the time with her associate and having time alone with Myka. But she knew Michael did not come up too often so she would spend some time with him going over things.
Helena and Michael retired to the office to discuss the items of business. The most outstanding issue for Michael was that he needed to hire more people to oversee the various programs Helena's foundation had established. An hour into their time together, Helena was starting to worry that everyone would be coming back soon and intruding on her time alone with Myka. She was looking to make the most of her gesture of showing Myka space.
Mere mortals might show Myka the moon to impress her but only HG Wells would show her nebulas 7000 light years away.
"Now, if you could just look at this resume of someone for the job, I think she's our best candidate," Michael was saying. Helena took the paper from him and looked at the resume. The candidate seemed very qualified. She had worked at other charitable foundations and had served on the boards of The Red Cross and Wounded Warriors. She even liked her first name.
"She's very anxious to meet with me. So if you think you like her, I could set something up for next week?" Michael asked and Helena agreed. The woman looked more than qualified on paper. She would trust Michael's recommendation once he met with her.
She opened the door to the office just as Pete and Claudia were returning home. She had missed her opportunity alone with Myka – for now. She thanked Michael for stopping by and he told her he would keep her abreast of his interview.
Helena walked into the living room and joined her fellow agents as the major discussion of what to eat for dinner took place.
"I don't think we have to choose our food based on our movie choices," Claudia was complaining to Pete.
"It sets the ambiance," he retorted.
"Yes, but you picked Apocalypse Now and Friday the 13th so I don't want Chinese food or anything with red sauce," Claudia said.
"OK then chicken it is," he concluded and everyone moaned.
Out in his car, Michael dialed the number on the resume. Helena Campbell had been quite pushy about Michael calling her back to set up an interview. He had explained to her that he had to speak to the Foundation's CEO first but would contact her as soon as he could.
"Ms. Campbell? This is Mike Dumont. I have just come from a meeting with my boss and she agrees we should meet next week to go over your application for the job," Michael said pleased that HG had agreed that this woman looked qualified. The candidate thanked him and they agreed to meet on Monday.
Miles away, the woman closed the cell that she had purchased solely for the purpose of getting this job. It had taken months of planning to put this together, but she was pleased to see that her first steps were already in place. It had been some time since she last saw Helena Wells and their last visit resulted in her being physically subdued by Myka Bering and being escorted to a mental health facility where she spent several weeks in a program. At the end of those weeks, she had managed to convince the staff and her bosses that she was ready to return to work and comply with weekly therapy sessions. A piece of cake for someone who had an innate talent for acting. But her bosses disagreed and she was placed on indefinite leave. That left her a great deal of time to make plans. And she had only one plan in mind; she was going to get back at Helena Wells for refusing her advances.
She put the phone down on the copy of the resume she fabricated. She wondered if the brilliant agent would catch onto her name when she read it. Helena Campbell was a character in a Jules Verne story called 'The Green Ray'. She purposely took the name of a character created by a rival of Helena's ancestor.
It would be the first of many shots Karen Carson would try to take at her lost but not forgotten obsession.
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