Music hath Charms
By
Dawnwind
Chapter 7
On the seventh day of the week we didn't get any rest. There were travel plans to go over, clothes for each interview to be packed and much discussion about what everyone else would be doing while Miles was on the publicity junket. He'd finally agreed to more than just Barbara Walters show and if he started with the talk shows taped early in the morning and took cabs between TV studios, he could be on several in a single day. That meant the 'Today' show, then 'Rosie', then 'The View'. After that there was time out for lunch and a nap before quick interviews with Oprah's magazine people, 'People' magazine's people and then onto the night time talk shows. David Letterman first and then that Kilborn guy I never watch. I was floored when I saw the schedule Mike Kim had laid out and said so.
"This will go a long way to easing people's minds about the whole Kharistan debacle. No mentioning the political problems in other countries, right, Miles?" Mike stressed the word 'right' and I could see Miles chafe under the scrutiny. That kind of hard-handed control always pushed my buttons and made me want to deliberately rebel. I had a feeling Miles was the same way.
"If Miles stays on topic, just promotes the 'Sandstorm' tour, which will be in New York at Madison Square Garden in one month, so the timing of this couldn't be better," Mike continued as if he hadn't noticed the mutiny on Mighty Miles' face. "Then we'll sell out that concert. With upcoming interviews in several magazines all at once his picture will be all over the news stands. We'll be minting CDs. Sales will sky rocket."
"Mike, I can't ignore the birthday dinner, or the concert next week, and especially my own charity!" Miles replied heatedly. "I can't understand your whole problem with Kharistan."
"Makes you too political, Miles, too topical. Doesn't make money over the long run. Farzimah won't be with you, so she won't be a topic of conversation…"
"I resent that." Farzimah crossed her arms. I inclined my head, pulling her away from the fray.
"The special edition of 'Sandstorm' doesn't hit stores until after the dinner, so stick with the tour and everything's copacetic."
"Yeah, you've just gagged me on every topic I'm interested in. What am I supposed to talk about--my childhood in Tarzana or maybe that old stand-by, my stint in the joint. Maybe I should bring Darien along to swap stories with, huh?" Miles stomped off stiff-legged just as one of the roadies came in to announce the airport limo had arrived. Miles stormed towards the back door, giving the sliding glass such a violent shove I was amazed it stayed on the runners.
Farzimah pursed her lips, a determined expression crossing her pretty features and whispered, "I'll go talk to him, stall Mike."
I nodded, trying frantically to think of something to say that wouldn't fan the flames any higher but Kim beat me, coming up with an opening phrase on his own. "Security went off without a hitch yesterday, Fawkes," Mike said. "I was against Miles hiring you and Hobbes, but I guess you've shown your worth. But I was wondering, usually there are lots of deliveries--flowers, candy, even girl's underpants before a concert. I only saw one or two bouquets…did you divert some of them?"
That was one of the hardest moments I've ever had to withstand. Mike just looked placidly at me, but I could feel the diabolical strength that made him one of the leaders of the Kharistan Freedom Fighters. He knew we knew about him. But how? Luckily for me, Hobbes walked in the front door dragging his wheeled suitcase behind him.
"The limo's here," he announced gaily. "Everybody ready?"
"Tell the driver it'll be a few minutes," Kim told Zooey who loped out with the message.
"Hobbes, Mike wants to know what happened to all the flowers that were delivered." I had to work to keep my voice on an even keel.
"Oh, yeah," Hobbes smiled brightly. "Miles asked us to send a bunch over to his fan club. Said they got the raw end of the deal th'other day. Two girls got arrested in the fracas and one had a concussion. Nasty bunch, those Kharistan Freedom Fighters."
"Very kind of him, I'm sure. The girls must have loved the flowers," Mike said stiffly. "Those protests are all the more reason why I want Miles to stay within boundaries on his conversational topics." He checked his watch and shook his head. "I need to wrap up a few last minute details."
When Mike had left Bobby smiled evilly, "Any wagers on who he's callin'? Jade Song, or whatever her real name is?"
"Hobbes, you're such a cynic."
"I'm going to be miserable without you until Tuesday," Farzimah was saying as she and Miles walked back inside the living room. His whole mood had lightened by whatever method she'd used to persuade him to calm down and he now looked shrewd and a bit crafty.
"What's on your mind, Mighty Mouse?" I asked.
"Oh, I see Amin revealed his favorite nickname," Miles rolled his eyes, brushing his blond bangs out of his eyes. "Got to get this cut before Friday."
"Miles has decided on a quiet revolt." Farzimah was twisting her fingers around one another since she didn't have any dangly jewelry or laces to abuse her fingers with, but she looked secretly delighted.
"Always ready to back the rebel forces, Luke Skywalker," I said. "What's your idea?"
"Where's Mike?" Miles asked cautiously.
"In the study. Wanna take it out by the pool?" Hobbes directed, pointing to the still open sliding glass door.
"I'm through with listening to Mike Kim," Miles vowed, starring down at the pristine aqua colored water in his Olympic length swimming pool. The whole time I'd been with Verbage I'd never actually seen anyone use it. "He's diametrically opposed to my ideals and if any of what you two are saying about him is true…"
"It's true," I said morosely.
"Then I can't have him as a manager. This is way beyond my comfort level, guys," Miles threw up his hands like he was tossing his whole career into the pool. Farzimah curled herself around him, resting her head on his shoulder. "He's dangerous, made threats against Far, and associates with that misnamed bunch of freaks. It's madness."
"Now slow down here," Hobbes cautioned. "Take Cheryl Crow's advice, soak up some sun and lighten up."
"I'm amazed hearing that come out of your mouth!" I took a step back to regard Bobby Hobbes in a whole new light.
"Why? I know how t'relax." He defended himself, stretching out on a chaise lounge to catch some rays.
"No, I'm amazed you listen to current top forty stuff."
"He has a point," Farzimah rubbed her hand down the silky sleeve of Miles' surfboard print Hawaiian shirt in a comforting manner. "We still have six days until the dinner and another day until the benefit. We can't go around all stressed out for nearly a week, especially if you have to be on the other side of the country with that…" the word she said sounded harsh, nasty and full of spit. I could only assume it was pure Kharistani and probably untranslatable.
"Don't hold back, Princess," Hobbes grinned at her. "Kim's already got suspicions about us. Verbage, you've got to act like nothin's different, except your political opinions. I'm all for you undermining his authority, but don't go overboard."
"Can't you arrest him since you know he's involved?" Miles pushed at his bushy hair again in frustration.
"All we've got at this point are suppositions," Hobbes continued. "Nothing concrete enough to stand up in court. It's not against the law in the U.S. of A. to gather in a group and voice your opinion against any other group."
"But he's associated with a murderer--you said so yourself," Farzimah sighed.
"Again, we can't really arrest him on that," Hobbes shaded his eyes; the noon sun was pretty fierce.
"So, go to New York and do the interviews," I said with encouragement. It didn't sound all that great even to my ears. "Maybe by Tuesday we'll have some more answers. Or even an idea of what's going down on Friday."
Miles nodded, hugging Farzimah to his body, "God, I hate these cookie cutter publicity things. Asked the same questions over and over again."
"So what's this little insurrection you have planned?" I grinned.
"I'll play the good rock star on the 'Today' show, maybe sneak just a mention of Farzimah in on 'Rosie'. By 'The View', I'll just be warming up. I can say whatever I want to in the magazine interviews, they won't come out for a month or two anyway. If Mike protests, that's too fuckin' bad. By the late night shows, I'll be in my element. They're interested in the political and fringe stuff."
"Too bad you didn't get booked on 'Politically Incorrect'. " Bobby said dryly, but with a glint of humor in his eyes. "We'd better get a move on if we're gonna make it to the airport on time."
"Yeah," Miles bussed Farzimah on the cheek. "You already checked on the CD's we're giving out on 'Rosie'?"
"Already Fed Exed, I promise," she nodded, "And I packed a 'Sandstorm' tee you signed for her to auction off on E-bay."
Damn, there went my idea.
"Then let's get this show on the road," Miles said without enthusiasm. He and Bobby grabbed up suitcases and carry-ons as they crossed the living room and headed out the front door. I never saw Mike Kim leave, so he must have gone outside before we finished talking and that unnerved me a little. Could he have overheard us? Nah. Hobbes notices things like that. He has eyes in the back of his head. He would have said something if Kim were eavesdropping. At least I wanted to believe that.
Farzimah dropped down onto the same chaise lounge Hobbes had vacated, crossing her ankles and leaning her head back to stare at the blue green pool. She looked tired.
"You don't like goin' to the airport to see him off?" I asked.
"No, because that makes it really seem like he's gone. If I say goodbye from here, then I can pretend he's just out, rehearsing or shopping and it's not so final."
"Farzimah, ask him to marry you."
She stared at me open mouthed. I think I was as surprised as she was to hear that come out of my mouth, but now that it was said there was no turning back.
"I can't." she said simply, back to abusing her fingers.
"Why not?
"Good girls--in my country, girls don't. And I know that's being hypocritical because Allah knows I'm nothing like what a good girl from Kharistan should be, but…I want to be, y'know?" She had tears in her obsidian eyes. "It gets so hard to straddle the line. To be one thing for my relatives and another thing entirely for Miles. So I stopped being the princess so long ago…and all this is bringing it back--not just the threats and all--but the coronation dinner, my brother being crowned king--I'll have to be a princess again. I want…"
"You just want to live in that fairy tale world where only you and Miles exist," I finished, knowing exactly what she meant. When I was dating Casey O'Claire I used to pretend that I really was somebody else, not a two time convicted thief living a lie just to be with such a desirable woman. Sometimes the fantasy was so strong I'd start to forget prison and everything else, so that when reality slammed me in the face, it was a shock.
"Yes." She pulled her knees up; wrapping her arms around her folded legs, resting her chin on her blue jean clad knees. "Kharistan is beautiful. I went there a few years ago to a funeral for a relative I'd never even met. It's not desert like some Westerners think all that area is. Lots of hills, cypress trees and cedars…and they have market places full of old women, bent in two from life, what you can see of their faces wizened like apple dolls."
"Women wear veils there?"
"Not really, not anymore. We're a progressive country, so the young women dress half--jeans and a covering gown like a chador--only worn open like a duster coat. It's kind of a farce, really. But the older women still wear veils." She stood, gesturing that I should follow her. "C'mon. I want to show you something so you'll understand…I guess we're stuck together for a few days, hmm? Since it's spring vacation and no school for a week, you'll have to endure all those errands I've been saddled with."
"Like what?" I asked, following her up the stairs to the second floor of the house.
"I have a lot of things to do related to the dinner--and a few royal functions I'll have to attend. Kharib and Avraham--Mountain Man--will be with me then, you won't have to suffer through that kind of boredom. I know how you felt about Chemistry class."
"And I thought I was being subtle," I laughed.
'Subtlety is not your strong point," She laughed as well, her mood lighter than it had been by the pool.
The stairs flowed into a wide landing that was big enough to be a comfortable room. Furnished with lots of low leather sofas and chairs it featured a huge entertainment center complete with a mini kitchen for those times when you wanted some popcorn to go with a movie and were too lazy to walk one flight down to the main kitchen.
"Stay here and I'll show some things from Kharistan," Farzimah commanded and disappeared into her bedroom. She came back shortly bearing a large box and began to unpack it onto the coffee table. First out was a photo album. "I took these pictures when I was in high school."
There was the market place she'd described, small booths over flowing with fascinating foodstuffs and hand woven baskets interspersed with blankets spread on the ground selling American style watches and electrical equipment. An old woman sat on one blanket wearing a flowing black veil that covered her hair and reached to her shoulders. Attached to that was a small square of fabric across her mouth and nose, but not the eyes. Instead, elaborate red embroidery crawled all around the edges of the opening spiraling down a narrow bridge that separated the eyes and ended just over the bridge of the nose, so she appeared to be wearing a beautiful mask for some exotic ball. The chador type garment she wore was also black with red embroidery around the hem. Her hands, holding out some piece of fruit that looked like a large green apple, were covered with intricate curving lines drawn with henna. I'd seen American teen-age girls with their hands and arms decorated like that, but this was the real thing. Other pictures showed dark eyed men in knee length pale blue gowns over cotton pants, like comfortable pajamas, kneeling on mats facing East for their prayers. Each picture pulled me into the mystique of the country, even ones of modern buildings in the capital with Farzimah's family in front, all lined up from oldest to youngest. Then there were photos of the countryside, low rolling hills covered with poppies and the plant saffron comes from. The landscape was varied; large, lush trees overshadowing small dwellings with wide windows and low ceilings. Other places showed the arid, high desert similar to the area around San Diego with scrub oak and low brush. I was struck by the beauty of the country and really wanted to go there to see more of Kharistan for myself.
I was so immersed in the photos I hadn't noticed that Farzimah had left, but when she came out of her room again, I was stunned. She'd transformed into an Arabian enchantress, Scharazad or Princess Jasmine without the implied sexiness of the Disney creation with her bared midriff. Farzimah's outfit was far more elaborate than the woman's in the market, but along the same lines. Her chador was a delicate white, trimmed with elaborate gold embroidery not just around the hem but festooned all over the floor length garment so that she shimmered in the light like a piece of jewelry. Her veil, if that is what it could be called, was made entirely of gold, like the chain mail of some ancient knight, only on her it wasn't in the least warrior-like. The gold links were threaded with semi-precious stones and my larcenous heart priced the head gear at many thousands of dollars. Her face was partially obscured by a veil of even more finely made gold mesh and the tiny chain that hung from the forehead part to link the veil over the bridge of her nose was embedded with diamonds. The whole thing must have weighed a ton and jingled like tiny chimes when Farzimah walked towards me. She'd rimmed her eyes with some thick black substance and had gold rings on both hands linked by chains to heavy gold cuff bracelets.
"Wow, that's incredible."
"You can probably see why I don't wear this very often," she held out her arms and turned around slowly like a runway model. "It's just for ceremony, I have slightly less flashy ones for every day."
"Thank you for sharing all this with me," I said honestly, enthralled by the allure of the place. "I can see why you love it."
"Do I really love it? Cause, I think if I did, I'd want to go back," Farzimah carefully unhooked the veil covering her mouth and took the whole chain mail helmet off. "I want the best for my people, I really do. It hurts that girls can barely read and in some small villages, really do have to wear a veil all the time. But I was five when I left, it's not me anymore."
"You feel American."
"I am an American, and I'm afraid of being sucked back into the whole mind set. My mother, bless her heart, wants the best for me and thinks I should marry some Kharistan boy. But I love Miles…"
"So?"
"Ask him to marry me, just like that," she puffed out her cheeks, playing with the edges of the headdress before shoving it away. "That's so hard. I've come a long way from the timid little thing I used to be, but…"
"When I first met you I thought you were shy, but it's really elegant reserve," I complimented.
"Why, thank you, sir," she laughed, using a Southern belle accent.
"Farzimah, Hobbes was wondering…" yeah, lob it onto Hobbes' shoulders so if she's in anyway offended, it's his fault.
"Hmm?" she repacking the box, handling small pieces of jewelry and ornate carved figures with reverence.
"Since we pretty much know that Mike Kim is with the KFF, and Amin's friend Tayeb most likely is, too, that means they've got two members of your family under surveillance at all times. Do you have any reason to suspect any of Amahl's friends? And I'm beginning to think we should lay this whole thing out for him, since he's the ultimate target."
"Oh, my…" Farzimah sighed. "I'll have to think about it. But you're right, we have to talk to him, which may be difficult this week. He's going to be in counsel with advisors all week, since there aren't any classes. And Friday will be a mad house."
"He needs to know."
"I agree, I'll call him now. Let me go change out of this costume."
Monday Farzimah and I played couch potatoes all morning watching Miles make his way from one talk show to another. Armed with an impressive array of breakfast pastries, and a thermos of coffee for me, we had particular fun checking out which clothes he'd changed for each interview. On 'Today', with Katie Couric, he went for sexy rock star, wearing leather pants and a purple silk shirt, and they showed a clip of him singing 'Sandstorm' from a recent concert. He was chatty and poised on 'The View' which in New York is filmed around the same time as 'Rosie', so he must have changed clothes in the cab cuz he now wearing a blue suede shirt with the leather pants. On the West Coast 'Rosie' is shown mid afternoon, but he still had the on the same purple silk shirt from 'Today' plus had added a leather vest. He flirted outrageously with O'Donnell and sang 'Empty Rooms' live to a swooning crowd. The coup de gras was when he had copies of the special 'Sandstorm' CD for the entire audience. He then went on to discuss his charity, with the phone number printed on a crawl across the screen.
"I didn't know you were sending the new CD with him!" I grinned, "Mike must be starting to blow a gasket."
"I packed them myself so that he wouldn't find out," Farzimah sparkled with joy at the underhanded trick.
"How'd you get enough copies? It's not even out in the stores yet."
Farzimah put a finger on the side of her nose like Paul Newman in 'The Sting', and winked. "I've got connections in the biz."
Between chat shows and watching an old episode of 'The Donna Reed Show' on a local station, Farzimah tried to get through to her brother for the umpteenth time. He finally called back to coordinate a time to talk to us, but I didn't want to tell him anything dangerous over the phone. Thus, I'd have to wait until Wednesday to meet the future king of Kharistan.
I played dutiful agent and logged in with The Official and Eberts, but there wasn't much new to report. We were kind of in limbo, since we didn't know what was going to happen at the dinner concert and that limited how much we could prepare. Without any actual evidence of a threat from the KFF we couldn't arrest them, but The Official was posting tails on a few of the members, even though we still didn't have a legitimate list of their real names. Eberts rang off with a reminder that Claire wanted me to come by for a check up. I swear that women has nothing better to do but think up ways to torture me and draw blood. She's part vampire.
Since we had most of the afternoon and evening before Miles was back on the small screen, I decided now was as good a time as any to put Claire and Farzimah together to discuss the gland. Maybe I could make a run over to Starbucks while they chatted and they'd get so involved, Claire would forget the blood letting for one day.
Luckily the Soledad dreams had tapered off more quickly than usual, or at least that's what I wanted to believe, and I'd slept better the previous night. So, I looked damn good, if I don't say so myself, striding into the Keep in a mustard yellow t-shirt and orange pants. My hair had even co-operated and stood up majestically just the way I liked.
"Darien, and Farzimah!" Claire crowed, turning away from the computer program we'd interrupted. "Lovely to see you, and I just watched Miles on 'Rosie'. He was being rather naughty, if I don't say so."
"You don't know the half of it," I said, and Farzimah and I filled Claire in on Kim's Machiavellian managerial style.
"Well, I must say, you'll all be glad to be rid of him, but it'll be hell for the rest of the week, unless I miss my guess," Claire harrumphed.
"Are you coming to the birthday concert?" Farzimah asked sweetly.
"Am I invited?" Claire flushed with excitement, her eyes sparkling, and I wished Hobbes were here to see how pretty she looked.
"Since Darien and Hobbes will be there, of course. I don't think Bobby would have a very good time, otherwise," Farzimah grinned. "I saw you two together at the zoo."
"That was a smashing concert and it'd been a long time since I'd seen the orangutans," Claire confessed.
"Hobbes took you to see orangutans?" I asked in disbelief. Not exactly a romantic setting in my book.
"During the interval when Miles changed costumes. I just love primates." Claire nodded with a devilish look in her blue-green eyes. She gave herself a little shake, focusing on Farzimah, "So you're interested in the Quicksilver gland?"
"Yes, very."
"Well, much of the molecular structure, origins and construct of the gland are highly classified, I'm afraid."
"Oh, while that's all fascinating, I'm sure, I really want to know about the stressors on Darien's body. How does his liver handle such a toxic load? And is there an impact on the heart due to the extra fluid carried in his veins? Is there a danger of congestive heart failure if fluid built up and how does he flush it out of his system? Is his urine silver colored?" Farzimah's questions were tumbling out so quickly I was having a hard time keeping up but the last one finished me off.
"Ladies, I'm just going out for coffee now…" I started for the door at all speed.
"Get back in here, Mr. Fawkes," Claire used her Queen Mum voice and I froze. "You're not getting out of a physical that easily."
"But Claire, you took blood on Friday."
"Bully for remembering. No blood today, just a check up. You were shot a few weeks ago." She held out her hand for my wrist. When I relented, she pressed her fingers delicately into the radial artery, taking my pulse.
"And the wound is all healed up," I added sulkily.
"See what I have to put up with?" Claire asked rhetorically. Farzimah was laughing silently but knew me better than to comment. "In answer to your excellent questions, I keep a detailed log of Darien's vitals and other statistics, and do a physical about once a month. It used to be even more often, but things are a bit more stable now and he's had the gland for over two years without obvious strain on his body but there are more subtle signs."
"There are?" I whined. She took my open mouth as the opportunity to poke a tongue depressor inside and peered around with a tiny flashlight.
"His blood pressure is often higher than I'd like," Claire continued, sounding a lot like one of Farzimah's premed professors, and wrapped a blood pressure cuff around my arm, pumping the little bulb until my fingers were tingling. She made a slight tsk at the reading but just wrote it down in her notes. Poking an errant blond hair behind her ear, Claire picked up her lecture, "he succumbs to respiratory infections far more easily than I'd expected. I gave him the flu shot and pneumonia vaccine, but he has frequent colds and yes, there is more than the usual fluid build up when he has upper airway infections."
"Very interesting," Farzimah breathed, hanging on to Dr. Claire's every word.
"Not to me!" I groaned. I really didn't want to know what Kevin had done to me in the same of science.
"I am concerned about the long term effects and have considered putting him on short term doses of diuretics to reduce the fluid load to his heart, but so far it hasn't been necessary. Bearing in mind other observations, a biopsy of his liver would be something for the immediate future, if his levels elevate above normal, but again, so far, his body is handling the toxin better than I'd ever believed."
"Toxin?" I echoed.
"Quicksilver is not a natural substance to your molecular make-up, Darien," Claire explained while doing the usual reflex checks with a small rubber hammer. My knee flew up so abruptly it nearly hit her in the chin and she backed away with a smirk. After writing more notes on her clipboard, she glanced up at me. "Even though your brother used bio-synthetic substances to manufacture the gland and other things…" she was alluding to the damned female Bigfoot hormones, "this isn't something a normal liver is used to dealing with. Your body chemistry is not and never will be normal. Certainly you knew that. I've said it before."
"Yeah, I just never paid a whole lot of attention," I admitted. It was bad enough having to deal with premature invisibility whenever I had a rush of adrenaline, even without the whole problem of the madness. Now that the madness had been dealt with, I'd wanted to believe that I was out of danger, but I guess Kevin's gift was the kind that just kept on giving. "Could the gland kill me?"
"Sweetheart," Claire sighed and Farzimah suddenly found the piranha tank fascinating. "I don't know, truly."
"But I probably won't make it to my dotage?"
Claire let out a pent up breath, her face sympathetic, and the last thing I wanted was sympathy, "No, Darien, I don't think so. That's why I want to keep such a close watch on you. Not to pester you unmercifully, but to keep you healthy."
"Crap," I whispered, my belly twisting into abstract art. "Are we done here?"
"Darien," Claire started but I held up a hand to prevent any more unpleasant news. Her words had pared me to the core. I'd always known I lived on the edge and wouldn't live long--having been raped on my 21st birthday, plus various prison sentences leads to the occasional thoughts of suicide and death. But somewhere in the back of my mind I'd started to think maybe I'd beaten the odds after all this time. That maybe working for the Agency and having a real job mitigated what had come before. Why I had harbored any hope at all was a curious thing, after all, being an 'agent' probably didn't rate high on any job safety lists, but at least it had represented a kind of security. Now I didn't even have that. I kind of missed the madness, after all. That had been the ultimate edge, a sword of Damocles hanging over my head at all times, just waiting for the most inopportune moment to strike. And every time I'd escaped, an invisible Harry Houdini, just wriggling free of the danger at the very last second. I wondered idly when my last seconds would hit and would I realize ahead of time, or would the world just end, in one big bang? Isn't that how it had begun? The big bang theory, with the end of Darien Fawkes, as we know him.
"Farzimah? You can talk to Claire all you want, but I need to get outta here for a while."
"Darien, I didn't mean to start anything," she said, looking stricken.
"You didn't start anything, Princess, my brother did all this," I said and headed blindly for the huge metal sliding door. Good thing Claire wasn't monitoring my vitals right at that moment, because even I could tell my heart was racing and my blood pressure was through the roof.
Eberts cornered me when I came out of the restroom, his face grimly satisfied. "The Doctor told me you were in the building," he held up a sheet of paper. "I've confirmed Mike Kim's identity. He's related to people very high in the North Korean government. Is this the man you saw with him the other night?"
"Yeah, I think so." I studied the grainy picture printed off some computer web site. "Looks like him, or Mike Kim."
"Joseph Kim, a member of North Korean's version of the CIA." Eberts puffed up with pride, "It took a long night of breaking through encryptions and firewalls, but I found it. I also found the names of many of the KFF."
Crap, just what I needed right now. But at least it gave me something else to focus on.
I raised my fist, touching it to his, then raised my thumb in a salute, "You the man, Ebes. Thanks."
"The Doctor said she was concerned with your well being. Is there any way I can be of service while Robert is out of state?"
"No, man, but thanks. I'll keep you in the loop if I learn anything else. We have a meeting with the future King of Kharistan on Wednesday, so if you dig up anything else, get it to me pronto." I hunched my shoulders, "And don't worry about me, it's just the usual monumental pile of crap I'm climbing over. Like Icarus, I persevere."
"I think Icarus flew into the sun," Eberts frowned.
"Is he the one?" I asked remotely, "I meant the guy with the great big ball."
"Indiana Jones?"
This was beginning to take the shape of some of the more bizarre conversations I'd had with Hobbes. "That's the one," I sketched a wave, making for the door. Maybe Eberts was right after all, the big ball was rolling fast and about to crush me flat.
