A Character (William Wordsworth)
BOOM! Claudia burst through the door, causing it to slam against the bookcase and bang. "Grab him Helena, he's going to implode! Or explode. Or some kind of plode!" she yelled, but Helena just stared at her. "Do it!" the young techie commanded. Naturally, she assumed Helena didn't realize what was going on. Claudia had poured her heart and soul into this project with Helena. She wasn't about to let it commit recklessness.
"Claud?" Myka asked.
"He's programmed himself to self-destruct in three minutes. She had feverishly spent the last several moments trying to override his programs.
"Are you, Mr. Generis?" Helena asked, turning sharply to look at him.
"I'm afraid so. When I feared that I could override my programs or that someone could tamper with me, I made a detailed mathematical equation and came to this conclusion. My processors will stop in two minutes and …..," Sui said calmly.
Myka grabbed Helena's arm. "Can he do that?" she worried.
"Of course not!" she replied. Helena Wells never walked into a situation unless she had all the information she needed to have the advantage. She certainly wasn't going to create something that – under any circumstances – she couldn't take control of. So she used the fail safe mechanism that was not even known to Claudia. It was embedded in the android's membrane and had to be struck with the right amount of force. Helena turned to pat Myka's hand to assure her it was okay as Claudia paced back and forth while holding her laptop, counting off the seconds in a loud tone.
"THIRTY SECONDS," Claudia said as if they hadn't hear her before.
"Mr. Generis, I am trying to understand how you can make brilliant conclusions about so many things, and yet not deduce that I would not allow this to happen," Helena said so calmly that it caused Claudia to yell –
"TEN, NINE, EIGHT, HEL-E-NA!" Claudia said.
Helena turned to the android, deftly raising her arm, her two fingers striking him directly in the neck. He fell down immediately as if rendered unconscious.
"Kempo. Don't leave home without it," Helena said, smiling at her young protégé.
"Is he?" Myka asked, bending over him, but unsure what to do.
"He's disarmed, completely shut down. Ms. Donovan, I suggest you check the programs that overloaded the poor thing with emotions and self-awareness. If I had to guess, I'd say it was because some of the parts were made…. in America," Helena mused on purpose.
"Hey!" Myka and Claudia said in unison.
Myka helped Helena lift the slackened android on the couch, while Claudia went to task at reading his program output. Eileen arrived with the antidote to Helena's morning thus far. "Thank you, Miss Sullivan," Helena said, taking the tea and walking into the hallway, Myka behind her.
"Is he okay?" Eileen asked Claudia, sitting near her with her hand on her thigh.
"Helena disarmed him," Claudia said with much relief. "I have to figure out …..," she trailed off, deep in thought.
"I'm sure you will," Eileen said, gently squeezing Claudia's leg. She sat there watching her girlfriend tap on keys and read scrolling screens of numbers and letters on it. "You're very smart."
It was the sweetness of those few words that made Claudia stop what she was doing. "Thanks," she said, blushing the slightest bit.
Myka stood with Helena in the front hallway, as she imbibed her reward for tolerating the entourage in her home.
"You know….," Myka started to say when the front door flew open and there stood her friend and Helena's private banker.
"Sorry, but your door was opened," the energetic woman greeted her friends.
"Oh good. I was afraid we'd run out of tickets for the circus and you wouldn't make it," Helena said dryly.
"Just got back from CNBC Squawk Box. Went very well," Bridget said, placing her over sized bag on the chair. "I handled their questions brilliantly, thanks to our talk yesterday." Bridget wore a Brooks Brothers Foulard Little Boy Jacket in forest green with geometric shapes and camel colored pants. Under the jacket she wore a button down white shirt and a tie that matched the jacket in design.
"How did you get in?" Helena asked, and only because there was still tea in the cup.
"Funny thing. You're alarm system is off. Door just opened," Bridget said. "Myka, you look amazingly glow-y this morning."
"It's been exciting morning so far," Myka said of the events.
"Oh do tell," Bridget said, because she could turn Myka's words faster than Leena was flipping the pancakes.
"And you're here…. why?" Helena asked, the tea now gone. Leena took the cup on cue knowing it was not good for Helena to have anything delicate in her hands.
"You love me, Helena. We're past that point in our relationship where you have to hide your affections," the woman said.
"Oh yes, love doesn't begin to describe it," Helena said, winking at Myka as she turned to go upstairs.
"I love…your outfit," Myka said, changing the subject.
"You do?" both Bridget and Helena asked at the same time, only one of the incredulously.
"I work with real conservative dressers at work," Bridget admitted. "I like to offend their senses once in a while."
"Mission accomplished," Helena quipped and Myka stifled the laugh in response to how fresh she was. She knew Bridget never took offense to anything Helena said.
"Oh for heaven's sake, Mr. Lattimer," Irene was saying as she walked out of the living room, holding Pete's wrist, pain evident on his face.
"I didn't know it was going to explode into fire! I tried to put it out," Pete explained. Bored and waiting for breakfast, he wandered into the living room to find Claudia and Irene. He opened the briefcase to be nosy and found Helena's new inventions. Placing the middle one on his hand, he opened it up and a small ball of fire ignited. Panicking, he clapped his hands – and singed the unprotected one.
"And what were you doing snooping around in there?" Irene asked Pete, dragging him to the kitchen.
"What did he do?" Bridget asked, curious as ever.
"Helena?" Myka said, putting the picture together.
"Play with fire, you will get burned. Isn't that right Ms. Cummings?" Helena said, walking up the stairs and hoping they would all be gone when she returned.
Myka didn't share Helena's nonchalance about anyone discovering the gloves. Helena finally realized what that look on Myka's face was about. "Darling, would you make sure both gloves are secured in the case?" she asked from the staircase. She was letting Myka know that the third glove was securely in another place. In fact, it was up in Helena's night table. "Show Ms. Cummings."
"Gloves? She's designing her own apparel? Oh please don't tell Sarah," Bridget said, protecting the sensitive nature of her girlfriend.
"Oh these won't be at Macy's, I promise you," Myka said, taking her friend into the living room.
Once inside, Myka picked up the glove that Pete had dropped on the floor after putting out the fire. "It's flame resistance," Myka said, putting it on and repeating the process.
"That's amazing!" Bridget said, sitting on the arm of the couch, her long slender legs wrapped around each other.
"What does that one do?" the banker asked of the one in the first slot.
"Oh this is really amazing. She's brilliant," Myka said of her fiancée and Bridget had to smile at how spontaneously and sincerely Myka said that.
Myka donned the glove and Bridget watched as her hand disappeared. She reached out and touched Myka's hand. "Oh my God, that's amazing!"
"Isn't it? All of this while I was away," Myka said, taking it off and placing it in the box. Bridget immediately noticed that there were three compartments.
"What was the third one?" she asked as Myka closed the case.
"The what?" Myka said, now clicking the locks shut.
"There is a third slot. One could assume that your genius fiancée who found she had a ton of time on her hands, created invisibility glove, a flame retardant glove….," Bridget said, watching her friend's body language closely.
"Proof, it's really fire proof ….(cough) I think," Myka said.
"Oh Myka, you are adorable. You're trying so hard to keep this from me, which of course only encourages me more," Bridget teased. "Now let me see…."
"I have to get ready," Myka tried, but the telltale sign of grabbing the back of her neck already told her friend she was on the right track.
"Helena invents something for the government or espionage, then something for the fire department or chemical industry, all the same week you're away. But I'm thinking these are by-products, casual failures of the missing third glove. Now who would Helena have in mind?" Bridget asked, pointing a finger to her chin as she walked around in a small circle. "I think she would have been missing you so much, she would have had nothing else on her mind."
Myka laughed nervously as if the flames of Bridget's questions were lapping at her feet. "I really have to get ready."
"Inconspicuousness and heat," Bridget said of the other two inventions. "What would she have been working on that needed to be lightweight yet could withstand fire?"
"I would love to stay and help you…..but I have to get ready," Myka said, knowing how much her friend was enjoying this.
"And then there's that glow. As if you're radiating… from within, Myka," Bridget said, blocking her friend.
"You are incorrigible and …..a real pain in the …," Myka was about to say when Bridget shouted out –
"Oh my God, Myka. She….," Bridget said, raising her hand and making a 'zzzzzzzzzzzzzz' sound to indicate electricity.
"You…..are….not….funny," Myka stuttered, trying to keep the smile on her face.
"And you can't complete a sentence. Oh my, Myka. What a gift. When your fiancée misses you, she really misses you," Bridget said, admiringly. She just had to ask. "Myka, was it …..?"
Myka knew there was no denying what they were dancing around. Bridget wouldn't let go until she had the answer and Myka knew it. Myka curled her lower lip, bit on it and finally said, "A-maz-ing!"
"She should know better than to leave things like that out where there are children," Irene murmured coming back into the room to collect her pocketbook. "Oh, I'm sorry," she said upon seeing the two women who were giggling like high school girls.
"It's okay, Irene. I have to get dressed," Myka said, swallowing hard.
"I want to see the puppy," Bridget said, determined to make the most of her visit. Then Myka saw a gleam in the banker's eye.
"There he is!" Bridget said, not paying her friend any attention. Her voice squealed and she dropped to her knees as the puppy raced at her. "You are so adorable. Yes, you are," she repeated over and over, picking him up and hugging him.
"He's not supposed to ….," the intern slash trainer was trying to say, but Bridget dismissed her.
"Nonsense, he's too cute not to hug," the investment banker said, not caring about dog hair in the least.
Myka retreated upstairs to find Helena already dressed. The sight of Helena in a Talbot Runhof cap-sleeve satin dress in magenta made her stop mid step as she entered the bedroom. The scrunching on the bodice made the dress form fitting, accentuating Helena's shape. "Oh …..wow," Myka said, her eyes glued to how sexy Helena looked.
"Why Ms. Bering, are you looking me up and down in a scandalous manner? My Director of HR is right….," Helena tried to tease, but Myka was already kissing her and cutting off her sentence. Myka's hands slid along the silk material on Helena's hips until she cupped her rear gently. "God, I missed you," Myka said, pressing her forehead on Helena's.
"I've been here the whole time," Helena reminded her.
Myka realized that dream was still stirring inside her and was the reason for acting this way. "Yeah," Myka smiled and stood back to take one last drink of Helena before she went to get dressed.
"You know the owners have to spend time with him, right?" Bridget said to the trainer as Leena was bringing in the food.
"You want Helena to warm up to him? She just found out he sheds," Leena said.
Bridget carried the dog into the dining room where breakfast was served against the protests of the trainer. "Could you get him a doggie treat, I'm going to teach him a trick," she asked the young woman - who immediately went to the kitchen.
"And that, my little Bandit buddy, is how you get rid of annoying humans," Bridget said to the puppy who took an immediate liking to the banker.
Myka rushed to get dressed in her Andrew Gn's two tone sheath dress in white with black piping. The contrasting trim is what Helena liked most about the dress because of how it visually shaped Myka's curves.
"I think I'll have to schedule a meeting with you today, just so I can enjoy how lovely you look," the Brit said, when she stopped on the landing and faced Myka. She reached up to straighten Myka's collar and then slowly let her index fingers trace the lines that ran from the shoulders, down over Myka's hips.
"Can we have dinner tonight, somewhere special?" Myka said, thinking she wanted to be out with Helena.
"Anywhere you want," Helena said, smiling at the expression on Myka's face. She reached over and gently kissed Myka's waiting lips. "Now, let's see if any of our visitors had the common sense to leave."
Myka could hear them in the dining room as they approached. Bridget was still holding the dog as he chewed the well-earned biscuit. She put him down and kissed Myka goodbye. When she tried to do the same to Helena, the Brit retreated and presented her index finger instead.
"Thank you, Ms. Cummings. All the same," Helena said, waving for the closet intern to bring her coat.
"Helena, say the word and I will have investors lined up outside your door for those gloves," Bridget said, getting her bag.
"Yes, yes," Helena said, not impressed by that statement.
"Show them the third one, and the line will extend to Europe," Bridget said, making sure the door was opened.
Helena's head shot around, looking at the banker and then at Myka. "She guessed," Myka said sheepishly.
"You're more clever than I gave you credit for," Helena said unfazed to Bridget.
"You're more mischievous than I gave you credit for, Helena," Bridget quipped, taking her leave.
"She has no idea," Helena said proudly.