Georgie lingered in that wonderful place between being asleep and being awake. Things were lovely here. Warm, comfortable, and oh so pleasant. She sighed contentedly, turning onto her side. Hugging her pillow to her body, she hunkered down into the bed until the silky cotton sheets covered her head. This was nice. She could stay here forever. But then...the strange electrical tingle started in her lower back sending pulses up her spine to her brain. That odd and unmistakable feeling of being watched was urging her into wakefulness. Throwing back the sheet, the first thing she saw was the hawk like stare of a pair of storm cloud gray eyes under a thick mop of white hair. She screamed in surprise, pulling the sheet back over her head. The sheet would protect her. The eighth of an inch thick piece of material would protect her from anything. When she was a child, the impenetrable sheet shielded her from monsters under the bed. But this was no monster. This was an overgrown kid with an insatiable curiosity. Obviously this had to be part of the seriously lacking interpersonal skills Agent Rester had been referring to.
Georgie took a deep breath, gradually peeling the sheet down from her face. Near had not moved a muscle. He was still sitting in the chair in his weird way, staring her with unblinking eyes. He had dragged the chair he was sitting in into the her room at some point during the night. How had she had not heard that? A better question would be why was he in her room? Why was he sitting here gawking at her as if she were a scientific specimen to be studied? She realized that maybe she was a scientific experiment to him as he observed her every move with analytical eyes.
"Good morning," she said, sitting up in the bed. When he did not answer, she inquired, "How long have you been there?"
"A while," he replied vaguely. "Did you know that you snore? Probably due to the alcohol. You really shouldn't drink alcohol before bed. Most people mistakenly believe it helps them sleep better. In actuality, it disrupts your sleep cycle. But red wine does have health benefits such as - "
"Near!" she exclaimed to interrupt his ramble. Her bladder felt like it was about to burst, and she really wanted him to leave since he had already put her ill at ease. "Can you please leave? There are some things I need to attend to."
"Oh, like bladder evacuation. That is a physical necessity after not voiding your bladder for several consecutive hours. Considering you have been asleep for nine hours, you should be experiencing considerable discomfort," he informed her in a monotone voice like a bored physician.
"Nine hours?" she mumbled to herself. She had been more tired than she had thought. He definitely needs work on interpersonal skills. He was still babbling about the possible negative side effects if she continued to hold her urine. He was correct in that she was definitely feeling considerable discomfort and that was for two reasons: due to her bladder being full and from waking up with an audience of one in her room. She held up her hand in a stop gesture, and he immediately ceased speaking. At least her understood some basic nonverbal cues. "Near, get out. I have to pee. I'll be downstairs in a minute to cook breakfast."
"Okay," he said, unfolding from the chair to leave.
Once he was gone, Georgie hobbled to the bathroom to do her business. Nine hours? She guessed he did not have to go to work today since he was still here. Agent Rester had not told her what a regular day's schedule would be like. Maybe they were giving him a few days off to acclimate to his new live in, extremely personal, personal assistant. She washed her faced and changed clothes, slipping into a loose pair of faded, distressed jeans and body hugging red t-shirt. She found him downstairs in the kitchen, sitting at the table.
"Ready for another cooking lesson?" she asked, opening a cabinet door to pull out a bottle of pancake mix. It was the add water, shake, and pour kind. Breakfast didn't get much easier than that.
"Not really," he yawned without covering his mouth.
"You didn't sleep?" She ran water to the fill line of the bottle containing the mix then replaced the cap before handing it to him. "Shake this. You can do that at least."
"I don't sleep well. I barely sleep at all," he mumbled, shaking the bottle vigorously.
"Why? Can't shut off your mind? Can't stop thinking?" She turned on the burner under the square griddle pan and took the bottle from him before they had pancakes that were too light and fluffy from all of the shaking.
"Something like that."
Georgie now understood why he appeared to be wearing heavily smudged black eyeliner under his eyes not to mention the bags he carried on his face that looked heavier than her luggage. It must be terrible having a constant stream of thought running through your brain, not giving you one moment's peace. She understood what a heavy burden it can be to endure a steady flow of consciousness, never ceasing thoughts, questions, ideas, all piling on top of another. Perhaps that was why he chose to shut down emotionally. If he attempted to feel, to cipher through his emotions and his thoughts simultaneously, it would all be too much to handle. Besides, life was much easier when emotions were not involved. Thinking logically and coherently was easier in the absence of feelings. Making decisions by taking into account only the facts and figures would prevent many mistakes and disasters that can ruin one's life. She could have prevented a mess in her own life had she bypassed her emotions and gone with the evidence. She had the sneaking suspicion for months that her fiancee was a cheating sleaze bag but had agreed to marry him anyway because she loved him. The warm, fuzzy feelings he elicited in her told her that he loved her. She believed his lies and his flattering words because he made her feel special. Her feelings misled her. If she had considered the facts - the furtive phone calls, the constant texts, his lame excuses for constantly working extra hours without bringing home a bigger paycheck - she would have gotten rid of him long before she garnered a prison record.
"Georgie? Are you all right?" Near asked her, breaking through her out of control thoughts.
"Yeah, why?" she shot back defensively.
"You're burning the pancakes," he informed her flatly.
"Oh, shit!" she exclaimed, picking up the smoking pancakes, pan and all, to toss them into the sink. She flipped on the water to cool off the hot mess before it went up in flames. Hot messes seemed to be a mainstay in her life. Flicking the switch to turn on the exhaust fan over the stove, she waved a dish towel to send the acrid smoke from the burned food toward the pipe. "Dammit," she grumbled, turning to look at him. "How do you feel about going out to eat?"
"I don't go out to eat," he told her with resolution in his voice. His eyebrows had drawn together and sneer of disgust curled his lip showing his over all distaste for the concept of 'going out.'
"You do now if you want to eat. Get dressed and let's go," she ordered him, running upstairs to get a pair of shoes and her purse.
"We can order take out," he suggested, following her into her bedroom.
"Nope. We're going out," she insisted, opening one of her unpacked suitcases. She pulled out a pair of plain black thong sandals.
"But I don't want to," he argued with the whiny petulance of a child.
"Fine. Stay here and be hungry," she shot back, picking up her purse that was almost the same size as her backpack.
"Georgie, I can't!" he yelled, his voice loud enough that it shocked her into instantly freezing. "I've never been out to a restaurant...except to pick food up and come straight back home. Please, I just...can't"
Georgie turned around, looking into his eyes that had darkened with fear. She patted his cheek as if he were a frightened child. "How about this? We'll go through a drive through at a fast food restaurant then go eat at the park. Is that a fair compromise?"
"I suppose," he mumbled, staring at his bare toes.
"Okay. Let's go. Get dressed." She passed him and walked out of the room.
Near was wearing a loose white tunic shirt and soft fleecy gray pants. "But I am dressed!"
"Get your shoes, and let's go then!"
Twenty minutes later they were sitting in the same park where Georgie had enjoyed a lunch of Chinese take out the day before. They were feasting on biscuits with sausage, tater tots, and miniature cinnamon rolls. Georgie was choking down an awful cup of fast food coffee while Near enjoyed his orange juice. She wished she had gotten orange juice too. It would have been healthier for her. Near had even listed why it would have been a healthier beverage choice despite the high sugar content. She observed him carefully as he studied the people around them. Although he seemed skittish around other humans, he appeared fascinated by them as well. They were sitting in a grassy area on a blanket under the shade of a big oak tree.
A college student wearing a sweatshirt with a university logo emblazoned on the front and a backpack strapped to her back rode by on the sidewalk that skirted the edge of their little picnic area. A couple were playing fetch with their dog nearby in another partition created by interconnecting sidewalks. Squirrels ran up and down the trees around them, their tiny claws scratching the bark while the fat little fuzzies anticipated crumbs to eat. The fountain a few yards away created a water dance as it shot up from the cement pad while children squealed with glee and hopped through the jets of water.
"What do you think?" Georgie asked, nudging his knee with the toe of her bare foot.
"About what?" he questioned her, stuffing so much food in his mouth he looked like one of the greedy squirrels who were growing brave, or hungry, and edging closer to their blanket.
"About being here. The park, the people, everything," she said, throwing a piece of her cinnamon roll to one courageous furry soul who had perched on the edge of their blanket.
"You know they can carry rabies and all sort of other diseases," he proclaimed.
"Humans? They can be pretty nasty, but I doubt the rabies thing," she returned, knowing full well that he was referring to the squirrel.
"No, I meant the - "
"Near, I know. It was a joke."
"How was that funny?" He cocked his head like a confused puppy.
"Ugh," she groaned, flopping back onto the blanket. "Never mind."
Can you teach someone to have a sense of humor?, she wondered. Maybe. She was going to try anyway. She stared at the puffy white clouds floating across the gorgeous blue sky. "Hey, Near. Come here. Lay down beside me."
Near folded his other leg under him and stretched out onto his belly before rolling onto his back. He scooted close to her until his shoulder touched hers.
"The sky is such a pretty blue today. It reminds me of the clear blue water in the Caribbean," she commented, recalling snorkeling in that beautiful water.
"Did you know that the sky isn't actually blue? Sunlight is made up of the full spectrum of colors but we see the light as white. The color blue has the shortest wavelength and is scattered more profusely than the other colors therefore - " It was like flipping a switch. She never knew when she was going to be treated to an impromptu scientific lecture.
"Shhhh!" she hissed, poking him lightly in the side with her elbow.
"What? Why do I need to be quiet? It's a scientific fact," he said although he had already made her abundantly aware of that information.
"Be quiet. Close your eyes," she prompted him, propping up her elbow to look at him so she could verify that he had closed his eyes.
"Why?" he questioned her with suspicion in his voice, his eyes wide open and fixed on her face.
"Close your eyes," she ordered him. She waited until his long black eyelashes drifted downward to lie against his flawless porcelain white cheeks. The heat from the sun had given his cheeks a little bit of color in the form of a blush. She decided they better leave soon before his delicate skin burned. "Listen to the sounds around you. Concentrate on the sensation of the breeze blowing across your skin. Did you hear that squirrel chatter angrily at another squirrel?"
"I hear a voice. A nice voice, but a voice that keeps talking so I can't hear all of the other sounds," he retorted smartly, opening one eye to look at her. He had a sideways smirk on his face that made her want to slap him.
"Oh, you do have a sense of humor. A sarcastic sense of humor, but a sense of humor nonetheless. You were hiding that weren't you?" She giggled when he nodded, his lopsided grin broadening until the white of his teeth peeked through his rose red lips. "We better get you back home before you get a sunburn. I also didn't get this field trip approved by Agent Rester."
"He's not my father you know," Near muttered irritably.
"I know," she returned, gathering their trash and stuffing it in the bag that had contained their food. "He does care an awful lot about you...like a father would."
Near stayed silent, picking up the blanket to fold it neatly into a square. He picked up her purse and held it out to her at an arm's length. His arm began to drop when she did not immediately take it from him.
"What have you got in here?" he asked, breathing a sigh of relief when she grabbed it before it hit the ground.
"My whole life and few things to help me along the way," she answered, slinging the bag over her shoulder. "Come on, let's go."
~...~
Anthony Rester shut off the monitor when the duo returned to Near's condo. He had not been a happy camper when she took Near out in public without receiving permission from him first. Then he reminded himself that in the outside world, Near was just another person; one of the numerous faces of humanity flowing along the streets that no one really paid any attention to at all. No one knew the things he had done, what he had accomplished. Also, venturing into the 'real' world with Near was part of what he had hired her for. Near had been kept hidden for long enough - too long really. The boy had grown into a man in seclusion, kept apart from the rest of the world. Sometimes it was easy to forget that there were good things about the world and the people in it, that danger and death did not lurk around every corner or reside in every person's heart. Dealing with the dregs of humanity, the clinically insane and veritable evil geniuses, the ones who wanted to take over the world or kill everyone in it, made it all too easy to forget the good things in life. It was time that Near discovered a few of those good things.
Georgina Felicity Mae Lathrop seemed to be one of those good things. She could play the part of the tragic victim because her life had not been the greatest. Her father, an army colonel, had moved the small family all over the world before finally settling in Washington DC when he was given a job at the Pentagon. He knew from the beginning that Georgie had an indirect tie with a government agency, but she had not worked for one herself.
Her father was a cruel and violent man, controlling and paranoid. Georgie had left home at the first opportunity after her graduation from high school at a local high school here in DC. She tried to do the right thing, the normal thing, in an attempt to make her father proud and free her mother from that terrible situation. She had majored in psychology in an attempt to understand her father's penchant for violence, to comprehend her mother's willingness to stay with that man, and to work through her own torn emotions of simultaneously loving and hating her parents. At the beginning of her senior year, she found herself pregnant with a cheating fiancee. Her father came to bail her out after discovering that she was in jail on an assault charge after breaking the nose of the philandering father of her unborn child. Her father had always had a knack for uncovering everything that she had tried to hide from him. She had never been able to hide anything from him. Therefore, she had never smoked or drank or sneaked out of the house to meet a boy or did any of those things teens are known for doing as typical acts of rebellion. His punishments were too fast and brutal for her to risk receiving them over such dumb things that he would perceive as a personal attack on his reputation. To find his daughter pregnant, without a husband, and toting a rap sheet was more than he could bear. He beat her within an inch of her life, requiring that she be transported to the hospital before she died in her bedroom at home. The baby could not be saved. She narrowly escaped death herself. Against doctor's orders and despite barely being able to walk, she had left the hospital soon after regaining consciousness. Wearing the torn bloodstained clothes that she had been brought in with and having only a hundred dollars in her purse, she took a cab home where got into her car to take a short drive.
Two days later, Georgie woke up in her car on the strip in Las Vegas, Nevada because a police officer was tapping on her window. She stayed in the cheapest hotel she could find to recover from her injuries. Once the bruises were healed, she went to a thrift shop to buy clothes with her last ten dollars. Wearing a tight top and a short skirt, she was able to find work as a Las Vegas showgirl. After making a little money, she moved on to the next city. She took jobs as a waitress, dishwasher, short order cook, maid, fruit picker, doing whatever that would enable her to make enough money to travel to the next place and see her through to the next job. She even did a few stints as a stripper but never resorted to selling her body for sex as a means to make money. As soon as she saved enough for a plane ticket, she went to Europe. Details of her life become a little sketchy there since it was quite a bit more difficult to keep up with her. She thought that she had escaped her father, but he had never, not once, let her go.
Georgie had no idea how her parents had really died other than that they were in a vehicle accident. Her parents died in a one car wreck because they were arguing about her. They were driving home from going out to dinner with friends when the confrontation took place. Her mother started by begging her father to stop stalking their only daughter; she had just discovered his sick obsession after logging on to their home computer to pay bills. Rather than deny that he had been tracking their daughter, he plainly refused to desist his actions. He yelled at his wife that he would never stop, that his daughter needed his protection even if she did not know it or appreciate it. He punched his wife in the face to reinforce that he was in charge and that her opinion did not matter. At that moment, something broke inside of the woman, the years of abuse had taken their toll and that punch was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. Her mother, determined to release herself and her daughter from this man's reign of terror, grabbed the wheel to force the car off of the road. The car plowed into a tree at seventy miles an hour. Georgie's father died instantly. Karma, with a little help from her mother, had finally caught up with him. Her mother was thrown through the windshield and lay dying on the hood of the car. When a police officer arrived on the scene, she told him the whole story of what had happened. The policeman included every detail in his report. The original report disappeared from the city record in a hacking incident. A revised traffic accident report was written by the Chief of Police himself. The original report had been seized by the Pentagon and locked away in the archives of a government computer system so no one would ever know the truth about the Colonel. Georgie's father received a military funeral, buried with honors and given a twenty one gun salute. His daughter had been left with a flag and a mountain of debt he had made by following her every move. It had been expensive to hire private investigators and computer hackers with criminal records to hunt her down. By using his own money and getting loans to finance his relentless pursuit of her, he had hidden his shameful secret. Unable to employ the extensive, and free, government resources available to him, he had ruined himself financially.
Anthony Rester laced his fingers behind his neck, leaning back in his desk chair. He would continue the cover up the government had started of what kind of man Colonel Lathrop had really been. The Pentagon was concerned about covering their asses. It would cause an embarrassing scandal for the people to learn that the government had employed a terrifying control freak who physically abused and emotionally tortured his own family. How could such a man be an integral part of the safety and security of a nation? On a more personal level, the truth would devastate Georgie. Rester was more concerned about her well being. He believed it would be too much for her to handle if she knew what her father had done and how her parents really died. He would do his best to keep the truth buried with her father. What she did not know would not hurt her. For over a decade, he had spent his life protecting those he viewed as innocent souls. Near, the genius detective, was the one he had shielded from the serial murderer Kira. Georgie would be the one he protected from an equally deadly family secret.
