Amos looked out the bullet proof window shield of the Garda truck and flipped the visor down to block the sun that was stabbing his brown eyes through the clouds overhead as his driver guided the behemoth into the red zone in front of a chain of stores that went by the name Vons in this area of the state. Why it was Safeway everywhere else in America was beyond the him and frankly it didn't matter, it wasn't his job to wonder why store's had the names they did, his task was to keep an eye on the new trainee and his mentor for the day while they refilled the cash boxes for the ATM's and Coin star machines. With so much money both in the truck and potentially grabbed until the machine was locked up properly it was necessary for a guy to sit shotgun and watch what was going on, literally. The clouds were moving in steadily and according to the news it was going to rain tonight all across the county, something that was desperately needed with the approaching fire season.
"So, uh, it's really alright for me to handle this one by myself? Nothing's going to happen right?"
Rick stuck his head through the small door that was the only way to get from the front to the back of the truck and looked nervously from Tom to Amos and back. The young man had reddish brown hair, blue-green eyes and a splash of freckles all over his boyish face that reminded the ex-733t of a cousin he'd had back before the Drives had been turned on by the Sheriff. The cousin was long dead now, flattened by a train that had flown across a canyon while he'd been vacationing with his parents somewhere in the Basin and Range area in northwest Nevada. There was no way they could have known what was going to happen to them on that day, back then it was hard enough just to live through a day without getting shot at. That unpredictability had ended thirteen years ago after the last of the Improbability Drives had been destroyed and everything restored to normal or mostly normal, the long term effects of the Drives were still being dealt with.
"Of course nothing's going to happen Ricky. I'm going be right beside you for support if you need it, I've done this hundreds of times and the worst that's ever happened is a little kid throwing up because he ate too much. Come on kid get the stand ready so I can just pop the back open and we can get this done."
Tom smiled broadly at the new recruit after his little statement and pulled the parking brake in front of the store and looked at his gunman before nodding at Amos and stepping outside There were a lot of people here at this time, most of them were just going around their business and gave the armored truck only a cursory look before hurrying past the brown truck without a second glance. Amos watched as Rick and Tom wheeled their cargo out of the truck and to the green machine just inside the store under Amos's watchful eye. The whole process took less eight minutes to change out the containers in both the ATM and the Coin star machines with the trainee looking both relieved and triumphant.
When both men got back in the truck Amos finally relaxed all the way and drummed his fingers on the shotgun stock as Thom flicked on the radio, only halfway through their day and the new guy was finally looking a lot less nervous. Tom coaxed the engine to life and the truck glided out of the fire lane and out of the parking lot on their way to their next assigned stop. Silence stretched like taffy in the truck until the driver shot a glance at Amos with a wry smile on his face.
"Heh. Hey Amos I know you're not the kind of guy to just let the cat out of the bag but when are you going to start dating that girl, Valerie was it? She's a bit young but man that's one fine ass you got living with you if you know what I mean and I think you do."
The driver wiggled his eyebrows at his passenger and took one hand off the wheel to outline a woman's figure in the air and pantomimed squeezing the key aspects of the figure the older man's mild disgust.
"Oh come on Tom It's not like that! She's half my age and going to school at that, besides who wants to get married to an old man like me. And it's Valarie not Valerie."
"Val-Er-ee, Val-AR-ee. Most people wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Beside fifty is the new thirty according to those magazines my wife reads all the time, Vogue or something like that. Top that off with the fact that you don't look a day over 31 and you could have any woman you wanted, you got all the qualities they look for."
Amos shook his head and frowned. He couldn't deny that he looked remarkably good for his age, six feet tall and built like a linebacker without any silver or gray hairs or the wrinkles that came with the passage of time. Not only that but he hadn't slowed down at all as far as his physical ability, he still went to a firing range every week to maintain his skills with firearms and held his own against guys half his age in the company wrestling matches.
"You're Intelligent, strong, got a stable income, you can cook, full head of near black hair. The gals at the office say you're smoking hot according to the ladies at work..."
Amos jumped in his seat and glared at Tom after that last comment, he did not want to hear another list of the women who wanted to land him! It was trying enough to deal with VAL's little fits of joy, irritation, and excitement; he did not want to have to handle two women at once if he could possibly avoid it.
"Hey hey, none of that in front of Rick. Besides even if I was interested, which I'm not, she's out of my league even if you ignored the obvious."
The trainee stuck his head into the cab at that moment and looked at Amos. He'd heard of Valarie from Tom and even saw a picture of the girl the gunman's' locker while they'd waited for Amos to get his gear on. She had purple hair and a red dress on and the bluest eyes he'd ever seen on a girl.
"Is something wrong with her? She looked really cute in that dress with her hair dyed."
Tom chuckled as he pulled out into an intersection and aimed the truck at the on ramp, just one look at Amos and he knew the guy was about to tell the kid off. Amos really treated the girl like his kid sister more than a love interest which often meant that he scared off most of the men her age. She was a really nice girl who needed a man in her life closer to her age and Amos's other roommate, Salvatore, seemed more interested in his work than in women even if he was only in his mid thirties.
"Valerie is with Kenitel, one of the telepathi that popped up since the Drives were shut down and a pretty strong one too."
Amos flipped his visor down and looked at Rick in the back with the little mirror pinned there to see how the young man reacted. Most people who found out that someone was a part of Kenitel backed away both emotionally and physically under a false belief that their minds would be read and controlled by that person in question which was really stupid since on ten percent of the population had enough ability to qualify as telepathi.
In general all the psi ability on the planet was attributed to weak empathy, clairvoyance, and the ability to sense the spirits of the dead which over half of the world's population had, according to the reports he'd heard from VAL. For that ten percent that COULD dabble in thought control strict regulations had been put in place to protect the masses from just such an invasion of privacy and yet another set to reign in the even smaller percent of telekinetics.
"Really? Can't tell by looking at her, she looks so normal. Hope I get to meet her."
The truck pulled onto the highway and Amos flicked the radio on as they merged into the right lane with a small smile on his face. He considered himself a pretty good judge of character and this kid seemed pretty honest not to mention nice. The clouds had gotten a bit thicker and darker since they'd left Vons and to the north it looked like it was about to rain, both VAL and Salvatore loved the rain.
"Then you probably will meet her, she somehow manages to be everywhere at once. Just don't say anything about dying her hair, it's her natural color if you can believe it."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Residential Neighborhood, Southern California 5PM
"I can't believe I gotta wait till the second week in November to get them! Why can't they just start selling the tickets the day after it closes for next year, it would be a lot easier for me than all this waiting. Augh and I still have to make everything for it too."
VALKYRIE pushed herself away from her desktop computer and leaned back in her chair to help it roll a little closer to her bed where a small dog had curled up after wadding her jacket up into a neat little nest. Sensing the girls' approach the terrier lifted his head and flicked his ears back at the unexpected outburst and blinked at her with intelligent brown eyes. The dog wasn't hers but she did help take care of him cus that was the right thing to do, he had no thumbs to do things like get more food when he emptied his bowl or open doors so he could go outside and do his business.
"Sorry Deeoh, I didn't mean to wake you up. Go back to sleep, I'm just gonna get my school stuff ready for tomorrow then I'll start making dinner, okay?"
As if he understood the fox terrier put his chin on his paws and sighed deeply before closing his eyes to get back to his nap. If it weren't for the tan and black markings on his head he'd blend in perfectly with the white jacket he had claimed as his temporary bed.
The violet haired woman scratched the dog behind his exactly ears the way he liked and flicked her monitor off before getting up to unload her backpack and replace the books from her chemistry classes with her history ones and dropped the bag near her bedroom door where her yoga mat was neatly rolled up for tomorrow.
She was only a part time student at the nearby college and when she wasn't doing her class work or doing chores around the house she was either working as a bartender, tinkering on something, training, or sleeping herself out from being so busy. Not that she minded it much if she wanted to get her dream job she needed all this useless crap now so she could do what she wanted later which was to work with Pixar as a CG artist.
It was a general rule that whoever was home at five would be responsible for making dinner since Amos, Sal and herself had such varied schedules; hers was the most flexible if chaotic, Amos had steady work but did get off early on occasion, and Sal often had Friday off in addition to the weekends if his boss didn't send him home early. Now if only she could cook well enough to have her meals considered more than just fodder.
As she made her way to the kitchen the petite woman passed the living room and took a deep appreciative sniff, when it was humid Salvatore's mango-wood vase really got good and smelly like BBQ potato chips and she just couldn't get enough of that smoky smell. The petite woman smirked as the vase jumped from its place and into her hands and made her way to the small kitchen with her smelly prize.
She dropped the vase on the counter next to the stove and cracked the freezer open to see what there was to fix quickly and that she wouldn't burn but the pickings were kind of slim at the moment. There were bags of frozen vegetables, nuts, cheese, and a small array of meats that would take a day to thaw before they could be used. VAL abandoned the freezer and opened the fridge which didn't offer that much more as far as a menu but something did smell like it had gone bad in there.
Deeoh up behind VAL and yawned as she picked leftovers and sat to watch what his third favorite human was doing. She systematically picked through bags of salad mix and a few containers from the past couple of nights before she found the rotten item, whatever it had been it was covered in hairy white mold now and it positively reeked! What was worse whatever it was hadn't even been used; the little strip of red tape that held the container closed was intact.
With the offending item in hand VAL stood up and kicked the refrigerator closed as she walked through the house to the trashcans in the back; looking at the container maybe the stuff had been a fruit once by the shape, maybe strawberries? the trashcan opened before VAL was anywhere near it and the lid dropped back into place after she threw the furry fruit inside it, sometimes being a Kinetic had its perks especially when she was handling some really unsavory things like bad food, Deeoh's presents, and the guys underpants on laundry day.
Inside the house the terrier started barking up a storm at the phones and with a casual thought VAL held her hand out to catch the phone she'd called to her. No need to run to a phone if you could bring a cordless one to you on command~! One look at the caller id and VAL picked up the call before the third ring, it was Jacob.
"Hello. Valarie speaking."
"Hey Valarie are you doing anything right now?"
Valarie was the name she'd chosen for herself after she and Amos had been liberated from one of the Auditor's facilities over 13 years ago by the Anti AAHW. She'd been a curiosity to them, something they'd only heard about in info leaks from terminated Deserters and she'd been more than happy to stay with them as long as they didn't try to experiment on or kill her as Audy had tried to do at the very end of her time in that facility. The higher ups really didn't trust her much but that was alright now that Kenitel was around with its community of telepathi who knew exactly the trouble she'd gone through to get where she was today more or less.
"Not really, what's up?"
"Oh the usual only worse. You know Diana who runs the bars on your days off? She just called and said she was stuck at the DMV, something about her tags being stolen. She's already been there for two hours and they still haven't gotten to her, I've been calling a few people but they're either busy or hammered out of their minds because of the weekend celebration. Is it at all possible for you to come in today and cover her shift?"
"Well of course I can! How soon do you want me cus I could drive and be there in ten to fifteen minutes or I can ditch the car completely and be there in seconds once I get my stuff together."
Jacob sounded relieved as Val quickly shed her house clothes and shimmied into her work uniform one handed. Her roommates had just been saved by fate from her cooking and she'd escaped the horror of trying not to melt a pan to the stove by accident. As far as being the classic lady of the house she fell terribly short of the mark by preferring to dress in over sized clothes that were usually white, fixing and taking things apart at her workbench, and not being able to cook more than a few things to save her life and even then she could only really make desserts perfectly.
"Ten to fifteen is fine, wouldn't want you getting into trouble on your way here by doing something you're not allowed to do. Thanks Val you're a lifesaver."
"I try. See ya in a bit~!"
Val waited to hear her boss kill the call before she hung up and frantically wrestled into her way into her work shoes while picking up the keys to her lime green Beetle and walking. All the while Deeoh trailed miserably after the only person in the house with his tail down and his head hanging as the terrier realized that he was going to be left alone again. The dog even went so far as to sit on VAL's purse to make her stay while she scribbled a quick note for his owner to read when he got home, then he'd had to get off the purse at the violet haired woman's urgings.
"Oh I'm sorry Dee but I really gotta go now. No worries though, your daddy's gonna be home in an hour or less then you get to run around all you want and play with him. Bah-bye~!"
VALKYRIE rushed out the front door and locked it as quickly as she could on her way to her little car. Unlike Amos and Sal she didn't need all that much room to park since she drove a new Beetle but that also meant she couldn't drive if they all wanted to go somewhere which was fine with her. The little woman got a little car and whenever Sal was forced to ride with her she got to watch him cram himself into it like some kind of lanky monkey or circus clown.
Halfway to the restaurant Valarie realized she'd forgotten her phone on the kitchen counter and swore a blue streak at the next intersection that turned red. She needed that phone just in case there was an emergency and it was too late to go back and get it! But then she didn't HAVE to turn around to get her phone now did she?
With a wry smile VAL calmed her thoughts and visualized what she wanted before calling the cell phone to her and about a foot to the right so she wouldn't be startled while driving by having it fall into her lap. She looked in the passenger seat and smiled as her phone popped into existence right where she wanted it and fell onto the seat. Damn she loved being a Telekinetic.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Southern California, Downtown business. 5:58PM
Salvatore stretched with his arms over his head as the clocked slowly ticked away the seconds until six. He'd been working since nine and he'd just finished Mrs. Garza's letter that she'd be sending to one of her client's tomorrow. The lawyer had left an hour ago and Sal being who and what he was had stayed at his desk typing until his shift ended. It had been tempting to just leave after her though, he felt strange in his own Skin today.
When the wall clock finally clicked its way to six o'clock he packed up all his things and locked the office on his way out to the elevator. Because he was usually one of the last to leave he got an elevator all to himself until he got to his car in the parking garage connected to the building which suited him perfectly on days like this when the clouds hung heavily in the sky and the air was pushing on his skin with the promise of rain. He really dint want to stop and talk with everyone while it felt like his Skin was trying to peel away from his body. Sal looked up at the cloud shrouded sky and smiled at the rain filled masses he saw, it would start raining soon and if the weathermen were right there would be thunderstorms too.
At this time of day it was easy to find his 2008 Toyota Camery even it it was black like half the other cars here, his car was the only one with a sprite sitting on the hood who's sole job was to keep the brakes from sticking and forcing the car to accelerate at an alarming and often deadly rate. The hand sized thing was indebted to him after a small incident with Tricky over thirteen years ago and as long as he gave the little faerie a better home than she didn't mind being stuck in a car for eight hours a day.
Sal smiled at the little creature and took part of a muffin he'd been saving on the hood, the sprite could feed itself of course but it was best to keep her happy by making sure she didn't have to fend for herself on a regular basis. Thank god the secretary that brought muffins and bagels in every morning from a bakery that was strictly organic or he'd have to use his lunch break to get something for little K'mar.
"They only had the muffins with nuts in them left Kammy, but at least there's nothing artificial in it."
The little mute nodded at her protector and finished the offering quickly before flitting to the bottom of the car which is how she got in position to keep things working as they should. It took all her ability to keep the car form doing something it shouldn't but when she got them to their home she had a little corner of his room to herself with a bed, warmth, and good food.
The only reason he had K'mar under his wing was because Tricky was actually able to do the beings of the Nevernever some serious damage once he implanted the PID in his skull. The dewdrop sprite had been bleeding and near death after the clown had killed Hank by shoving him off a cliff no thanks to a careless swipe of the demonic clowns claws. Until released the sprite had to do his bidding until her life debit was repaid or he released her from his service, likely he'd release her form service eventually because such a small creature couldn't do much to save him from death.
The trip home was blessedly uneventful even if his palms itched as he was forced to slow down on the highway because of rush hour traffic. Every day it was the same thing, everyone got off work at the same time and rushed home as fast as they could only to get caught in traffic on the way, some of the drivers, like himself, were lucky to only live twenty minutes from work so even with the rush he back on residential streets after only forty five minutes. Two minutes after that he was pulling into the driveway of a beat up looking green house that he rented with two other people who had contact with him during the commonly acknowledged Nevada Incident.
Sal smiled as he pushed the button to open the garage and chuckled at the symphony of frantic howls and yips that greeted the squealing protests of the old garage opener. It sounded like it was going to die any week now but since he and the others only rented this house the only way it was going to get fixed or replaced was if the owner got off her fat ass and approved of the Property managers suggestions. Not that it was likely to happen; the woman was more interested in stuffing her face and filling her gut than to improve the properties she owned.
This house for example still had the original oven, made by General Motors, from when the place had been built in the 1960's, there were painfully obvious signs of termite damage on the exterior and in the fence that surrounded the back yard and to top it all off the house looked like it should have been repainted well over twenty years ago. Those were just the problems you could see if you walked past the poorly maintained property.
What you didn't see was that the roof in the back leaked when it rained for more than two days and the bougainvillea the owner had planted right next to the front door had grown over roof so much that it made a little lake up there instead of allowing the water to drain into the rusty gutters, the flimsy covering on the back porch flapped and threatened to blow away when the wind gusted over 15MPH and thanks to the age of the place the foundation had settled to the point that it was imposable to use the sink disposal without clogging the pipes because the grade was close to level.
The southern Italians thoughts were interrupted when the car bumped gently into the brick thoughtfully placed to keep him from getting closer to the workbench in the back of the garage than entirely necessary. Valarie liked to tinker with things and she'd taken over the back of the garage with her tools, materials and wires, what she did exactly was a mystery but he had no desire to tell her off, she rarely listened anyway.
The man pulled the parking brake and killed the engine to the melody of the constants shrieks from the dog inside the house wanting to be let told the Italian all he needed to know, if someone had been home Deeoh would only be shoving his nose in the crack of the door instead of making a fuss like he'd been left alone for hours. The olive skinned man smiled and closed the large wooden door before getting out of the car and positioning himself between the door to the house and the water heater, Deeoh's record was two minutes maybe this time the four year old terrier would find him faster.
With a yank he opened the door and watched as the white tan and black Fox terrier tore out of the kitchen and leaped into the car to find his owner while Sal bit his cheek to keep from laughing as the upright white tail disappeared between the front seats. Without a moment to waste Sam ran around the interior door and ran into the house to hide, one of these days Deeohgee would find him standing behind the door but until then their little game of Hide and Seek would continue this way.
He got down the hall to the bedrooms and into Amos's room before he heard the telltale scratching of the fox terriers nails on the linoleum of the kitchen he had only moments left to get out of sight! The black haired man vaulted over the full sized bed and landed on the farthest side of it away from the door and hunched down between the bed and the wall while his pet tore through the living room on his mission to find his chosen owner. Sal could just hear the dogs' antics as he searched every room at a breakneck pace, even going so far as to stick his nose into the ex-733t's room for a moment before scrambling to search the bathrooms.
Salvatore suppressed a chuckle as the fox terrier whined during his search and called the dogs name to get him focused on the search again and this time the dog tore through the master bedroom and crawled under the ex-733t's bed to get to his owner faster. The dogs' short tail wagged furiously as he leaped into his owners' arms and licked every bare patch of skin he could reach while the man stood up and tossed the dog onto the bead and rolled him over playfully.
"Deeoh you nut it took you almost three minutes to find me this time. Sometimes I wonder if you use your nose at all or maybe I really don't have enough of a smell compared to the others. Or maybe you were too excited to track me, I bet that was it. You can track a rat no problem but you can't track me if I'm the first person home."
Their play graduated from roughhousing to chasing as heavy drops of rain splattered against the windows when Deeoh ran off into the living room and back to Sal with a ball in his mouth while the dark skinned man took his tie and jacket off. For the next ten minutes the rubber ball bounced off the walls and furniture to the dogs' frantic joy and Sal's amusement. At last Deeoh dropped the blue racquetball and panted heavily as he walked over to his masters' bed and threw himself to the floor by Salvatore's feet. Now that the excess energy had been burned off Sal could finally get out of his confining clothes and get into something much more comfortable before he shed his Skin completely.
It had been months since he'd walked around without it on and he was dying to feel the rain on his true form. By now he could hear thunder rumbling in the distance and the sounds of the cars and birds was a muted buzz under the constant noise of rain striking the roof.
The phones in the house rang obnoxiously loud and brought Sal out of his trance forcefully enough that he nudged the sleeping terrier in surprise ad the dog responded by nipping his masters toes in warning before realizing who had disturbed him and immediately dropped his head and tail. Deeoh knew better than to bite people especially his owner and trembled against Sal's legs for either rejection or reassurance. While the phones kept ringing Salvatore picked his pet up and reassured the little dog, the number calling in was private and he was not going to answer it before the message machine picked up. Realizing that he wasn't in trouble Deeoh's shaking subsided as the message machine finally took the call and the VALKYRIE's bubbly voice filled the room.
"Hey~! Sorry no one's home right now but if ya leave us a message Amos, Sal, or me will get back to you~! Oh, and do tell us who you are and your number and who you want to talk to so we don't have to guess. Leave your message after the beep~!" The machine paused for a moment before beeping and a new and entirely unwelcome voice filled the room.
"Hey, Auditor. I know you're there so pick up the phone before I get to where I have to leave you my number..."