As I'm sure you have noticed gentle reader, other then thanking my Betas, I try to use a bare minimum of Authors Notes. This is because I didn't want to affect the flow of the story too much. I now want to acknowledge a few things.
First I want to thank both Cajunbear and Sentinel for bearing with me through this last month.
Second I want to let you know that this Chapter has turned out nothing like I expected. I had something else entirely in mind when I started it. I spent the last three weeks trying to beat it into submission to no avail. When I finally gave up and let the charaters have their way, it was 24 hours finishing. Never argue with the Muse.
Next, in Chapters 15 and 16, I had at least four "Underage Drinkers". Considering the fact that this was a military installation, there was probably more than just our protagonists.
First, as Ron stated, they WEREN'T in the U.S. The drinking age varies greatly throughout the world, from 21 here to 'If you're tall enough to reach the bar and have the cash' in other places.
Secondly, like Mao, I believe that if someone is old enough to swear the Oath, be sent to a foreign land, fight and possibly die, then they are old enough to have a few drinks. I was an NCO for a number of years and saw Soldiers killed before they reached that "Magic Age" of 21. I believe this is wrong. They should either lower the drinking age or raise the voting and enlistment age to match.
The 'Moment of Silence' in Chapter 15 was a ceremony that I observed at every formal gathering and more then a few informal ones. The toast was the same every time. "To Absent Companions." At the formal ones there was invariably a separate table and place setting set aside as a place of honor. At the informal parties, cookouts, barbeques and other gatherings, once most of the guests had arrived, a moment of silence and a toast was called.
Chapter 17 was devoted exclusively to Grace's journey. The formality of deceased transfers on 'Service/Military' bases should come as no surprise. But what might surprise you is the dignity and honor that civilian carriers treat Military deceased. Check out the HBO movie 'Taking Chance' starring Kevin Bacon to get an idea of how seriously these airport terminal workers take the job of moving our KIA's. One airport worker employed by NorthWest Airlines named Eric Besvold even went so far as to take donations and procure a transporter to be used exclusively for moving the Fallen throughout the terminal.
Police escorts? I can promise you that if a law enforcement officer sees a hearse transporting a Flag draped casket, they will have an escort in minutes. Often the driver will call the Sheriff and tell them where their going and have an escort from the time they leave the airport. I've seen it.
The small flags and yellow ribbons, the citizens lining the sidewalks, members of the VFW/AM-VETS watching over the deceased are also things I have seen before. Particularly in small towns. Bigger cities, not so much, which is sad.
Sousuke's relating Grace's final minutes is not common, but it has happened. I was on Rear Detachment and a wounded 22 y/o Sergeant asked me to go with him somewhere. Imagine my shock when it was the home of the Next of Kin of one of our KIA's. He wanted to apologize to the spouse of one of the Troops in his Charge in Iraq. This rough tough, 22 y/o NCO was in tears telling her he was sorry for failing to keep his Trooper safe. The poignant part? He was wounded before the Troop was killed and had been pulled from the line of fire before it happened. Even though he wasn't there, he still felt responsible.
Funeral Details and Honor Guards. Active, Guard and Reserve units keep at least a platoon of Soldiers ready to perform Funeral Detail duties. These Troops are on duty a rotating basis. From the time they are notified of the duty, they're usually given two weeks to train and prepare and they are on call generally four weeks. Training consists of learning to fold the Flag, how to lift, maneuver and carry the casket as a unit, hone the 'Manual of Arms' so that you perform the commands as one. Particularly the command to 'Fire'. It should sound as a single BANG, not a rolling babababang. It's not easy and they go through hundreds of blank rounds each until they are in sync. The other part of getting ready is the uniforms. The NCO's will go over each Soldiers Class A's at least once a day making sure they're perfect.
The 'joke' about a spent round landing in the collar of another Soldier was not a joke. It's happened and I can tell you from personal experience the suckers are HOT.
The only unit that has Soldiers on funeral detail full time is the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment, the 'Old Guard' based in Washington D.C. and these guys are the best in the nation at what they do. If you ever take a trip to D.C. you should visit both the Tomb of the Unknowns and Arlington National Cemetery and see the Old Guard in action. These Troops stand guard at the Tomb 24/7/52. They have even maintained the guard when Hurricane Isabel slammed into the city with winds gusting over 100 mph. That's Discipline to Duty.
One last thing. Everyone should see a military funeral at least once. Look in the phone book and I'm sure you can find a military cemetery close by. If you call, the director can tell you when the next one will be or you can ask to be placed on the call list. Go, you won't regret it.
Chapter 20
Once Carl led Faith to the car and everyone had paid their final respects, the rest of the National Guard detail started to collect the chairs and take down the pavilion. Before they left both of the Chambers asked the Team to come back to the house for the wake, but the Team deferred in order to catch the flight back home.
They parted there, on top of the hill overlooking the Chambers home. They climbed back in the Crown Vic and started the drive back to Butte. It was quiet in the car of the trip as was the flight on the hoverjet.
When they got back to the warehouse, they noticed a few changes. It seemed that Wade had been busy. Along the wall with the original lift, there was a long workbench and a couple of tool boxes. In front of the workbench, the parts for the Galaxie were laid out and the frame was on the lift
On the opposite side there was now three special lifts that were big enough to park a large car underneath. In the first bay in the corner, the Bonta-kuns were on the lift with the space underneath open. In the next two slots the lifts were clear and the Sloth and Eleanor were each parked under them. Wade explained that once they started to expand operations, they would need the additional storage space.
Early Saturday afternoon, Ron was working on the engine, getting it ready for assembly. He had been taping, priming and painting the engine parts. He had painted things like the water pump, pulleys, timing chain covers black. The valve covers had been replaced with chromed covers and the exhaust had been sent in for powder coating to a high temperature resistant black. The only thing he had, had a chance to do on the block was taping and covering the openings.
He was nearly ready to start reassembly of the engine, except for one small detail. The engine parts had been returned from the speed shop and he found out that the crank to the 428 had stress cracks and had to be replaced. Roger had put out some calls trying to find a replacement., but they wouldn't hear anything before Monday.
Roger had come over that evening checking on the progress of the old car when he mentioned something that set off some fireworks. He asked Ron when he was going to enroll for the fall semester. Ron said he wasn't. That didn't go over well with two people. Namely Kim and Roger. Not surprisingly, it was Wade that found a way to break the stalemate.
When Ron said he hadn't "Been accepted." Wade countered with you don't have to be accepted if you're not using student loans or scholarships. If you're paying your own way admission was much easier. With a quick conference call to Ron's dad, they found out that Ron had a trust set aside from the royalties to pay for any good four year school.
Ron just about blew his stack though. When he closed his eyes and carefully asked when his dad was going to mention this important news, he was gritting his teeth, knowing what the answer was going to be. "But this is our way of telling you, son."
He was snarling through clenched teeth, "Dad, I'm gonna ask Wade to enroll me for an Associates Degree in General Studies. That'll cover most of the basics for whatever Bachelor's I decide to go for later. Release whatever money he needs to get it done. I'm coming over to talk to you and Mom tomorrow after I've calmed down, Dad. Now if you'll all excuse me. I need to go to the Dojo." Ron's entrance into the Dojo could be clearly heard by the breaking of sparring and training dummies.
That night Ron had Sousuke run him to Smarty Mart for an important purchase. When they got back Ron dumped the bags out on his bed and spent several hours before he went to bed on assembly and setup.
**********
Sunday morning, Ron asked Kim and Kaname to "Take Hana out for a girl's day." Then descended on the house of his parents with Sousuke in tow and Roger meeting them there. Roger and Sousuke weren't there to save Ron from his parents, but the Stoppable's from Ron. He asked Roger to alert him if he started to let his temper get out of control. Sousuke was his failsafe.
Ron looked Sousuke dead in the eyes and asked, "Dude, you got your Tazer with you." When Sousuke nodded, he said, "If I start to lose it in there, I want you to use it." They hadn't even gotten inside and Ron already felt his teeth grinding.
He set down with his parents and let them know in no uncertain terms, that by their actions, they had personally caused him no end of grief worrying about whether or not he would be able to go to college. For months he had worried about trying to get financial aid and scholarships. His dad tried to say that they wanted him to "Make his own way."
Sousuke caught the quick flash of blue in Ron's eyes and nearly Tazered him before Ron regained his control. "That's not the point, Dad! The point is, that you let me agonize for months over something when I couldn't see any way out. All you had to do was tell me about the college trust. I would have still tried for the financial aid and scholarships. But I wouldn't have had to spend God knows how many nights laying awake worrying about it."
"It would be like the two of you losing you jobs and spending six months trying to find the money to pay the mortgage. Then two days before the bank foreclosed, I suddenly popped up and said 'Oh here ya go. I've had this money set aside for the last year, just in case, ya know!' But if I'd have told ya before it happened 'Mom, Dad, God forbid that something that something happens to your job. But just in case, I've set enough money aside to take care of your mortgage.' It's that six months of aggravation you didn't have to deal with."
"I thought you'd learned better when you found out about Hana's abilities, but I guess not. So I'm asking you right here, right now: Do you have any other major life changing information, decisions or events that could affect you, me or the family, coming up in the next six months? I don't want to come over for Temple one morning to find a 'Sold' sign in the yard and no forwarding address. I'd hate to have to try and track you down in Norway or something."
When he received two wide-eyed shakes of the head, he handed over the results of his purchase last night. "Now, 8-track tapes are a fad, pet rocks are a fad and so are lava lamps, although those are cool to watch. But these, they're not a fad! It's time for the two of you to join the 21st century. There's one for each of you." They were cell phones. Very simple, basic cell phones.
"Now, all these things will do is make and receive calls. No text, no music, no web browsing, no downloads, no pictures, no nothing. They're pre-paid, so there's no long distance fees, you've got four hundred minutes good for the next year. You hit any key and you can see you what YOUR number is. You get a call, hit the green key. You wanna make a call, dial the number, hit the green key. Your done with a call, hit the red key. Too easy! The point here is, I have a cell, now you have a cell. You have no excuses."
"You get a promotion at work sending you to Istanbul or something, call me. You find out a meteor getting ready to crash into Mt. Middleton, call me. If it's important, call me!"
Ron now looked at both of his parents, HARD. "Because I swear before God himself, if you ever drop something on me at the last minute and say the words, 'This is our way of telling you.' again….. I'll disown you!" Ron stood up and stormed out the door heading for the car with Sousuke following closely on his heels. Roger watched the retreating Ron, shaking his head.
Barbara looked at her brother, "Roger?"
"Barbara, you're my sister and I love you. But I gotta agree with the boy on this one. He told me that he found about your adopting Hana was coming home and finding his room changed into a nursery. Hell I knew about Hana before he did, I helped you move the rooms around." In a falsetto voice he added "This is our way of telling you. I've tried to tell the two of you for years that's a crock of shit. I'm surprised it took this long before he blew up. Half the neuroses that boy has came right from you two."
Roger looked at Dean Stoppable. "Just to make sure of something, don't try threatening the boy's college money to make him bend. Because if you do, I'll give him his cousin Aarons'. It's still sitting in the bank." He looked back at his sister. "I'll try to calm him down, gimme a couple a days. I'll call ya this weekend, Barb." He kissed her on the cheek and headed out to his truck.
**********
That Monday saw the start of another temper fest on Ron's part. The calls Roger had made had met with some success. There was a parts house that had another engine that had come from a wrecked pickup truck. But they wouldn't part the engine out, only sell it whole.
Roger and Ron talked about it and decided it might be handy to have a 'parts block'. Roger picked it up and had come over to help Ron with the Galaxie. Ron was now in the garage with the engine on the stand and he was trying to take the motor apart enough to get the crank out of the block. It wasn't cooperating and Ron's temper was rising in frustration.
The first thing he had done was turn the motor upside down and remove the oil pan. Once the pan was off, he locked the crank in place with several wooden wedges. Now he had to remove the harmonic balancer from the front of the crank. He had started off with a standard half inch drive breaker bar and socket. No Go, it was stuck. He went up to a three/quarter drive set. ANNNNNNGG. Then Ron got mad, he found a cheater pipe and slipped it over the 3/4 breaker bar and proceeded to pull. The stand fell over knocking Ron on his butt.
That was when Ron got upset. The rest of the watched from the sidelines as he chained the block to the hoist and left it hooked to the stand. Then he weighed the stand so it wouldn't move. Cussing the whole time.
"OH HELL NO! YOU DIDN'T JUST…Think you got game you piece of racking smacking muther *^%$%#? Fall over on me will ya? Well it's time for a smack down in my town! I'll show you, you (^%$$###$%^&!!!!!!"
Kim was truly surprised at Ron's range of invective. Some of it she didn't understand, but from the looks Sousuke and Kaname were wearing, it appeared to be Japanese.
Kim had started to approach the workbench to when Roger stopped her. "I wouldn't if I was you."
"But why, aren't you going to help him."
"OH HELL NO! Ron's in vendetta mode. It's personal now."
He was standing in front of the engine in a pair of jeans and tank top, grimy to the elbows with sweat pouring off of him, beating the crap out of the recalcitrant bolt. He had the radio blaring while he was working and Roger's influence was definitely seen, or rather heard now. Kim had no idea who the group was, but the song had a powerful drum and guitar rhythm and the chorus was some woman screaming something about "Take another little piece of my heart now baby!"
Once Ron had everything set to his satisfaction, he reset the socket and breaker bar with the cheater pipe. Then from nowhere he pulled out a glowing blue eight pound maul and proceeded to wail away at the cheater pipe.
Ron was swinging in time with the woman wailing 'I want you to come on, come on, come on, come on' "I'll" WHAM, "SHOW" WHAM, "YOU" WHAM!!" 'Yeah take it! Take another little piece o' my heart now Baby!'
Sousuke was looking at the scene before him when something clicked in his head. He looked at Roger and asked, "Sir, would it not be easier to use the impact wrench?"
Roger gave then a sly grin, "I convinced Ron the best way to work on these old hot rods would be to use hand tools. Gets ya use to having to do it the hard way. That way if something happens on the road, you gotta chance of fixin' it. It's also a workout! In the past two months his arms have grown at least an inch around the biceps and I know for a fact he's put on some upper body mass. Swinging a hammer and spinning wrenches 'ill do that to you.!" In the corner of his eye, Roger saw Kim gently nodding. He really wasn't one to hold a grudge, especially since Ron and Kim had made up, "I see that you've noticed that as well, Miss Possible."
She instantly blushed and about that time the sledgehammer shaped Lotus Blade rang against the cheater pipe and finally broke the bolt loose. "That's Right! I Win! That'll Learn Ya!"
Luckily the rest of the disassembly wasn't nearly as frustrating.
**********
The following few days Sousuke had to go to GJ to inspect, test and certify the new A.S. simulators. There was going to be a total of nine simulators to train the new G.J. Arm Slave troops with one of the Sims reserved for the instructor. The Sims were configurable to a variety of different machines, everything from former Soviet RK92's and Japanese Type 96's to current American M6's and, although no-one besides Sousuke knew it, Mithril's M9's.
Dr. Director thought it strange when he had requested she send him younger personnel as much as possible. He told her that the younger personnel would have fewer bad habits to unlearn and less reluctance for learning from a nineteen year old Staff Sergeant. Dr. Director acceded to his request, except that she insisted that there be at least one experienced Agent in each group as a Team Leader.
She had introduced the eight members of the first G.J. Arm Slave Team to its new instructor with the understanding of the Team's LT, that while she might outrank the instructor, the instructor out-authority-ed her. Dr. Director let it be known that not even she could overrule the instructor. When it came to A.S. training, the Sergeant's word was law. The word of this got around quickly.
Sousuke spent several hours talking to Dr. Director about the curriculum, trying to find out what she wanted. Did she want the personnel to specialize in a single type of machine, like the Mithril SRT and American Special forces, or have a broad overview and ability to use different types of machines in an emergency?
Betty asked for a compromise of a general overview with emphasis on regional majorities. American GJ personnel would therefore get more time with the M6, Japanese based Agents would be given more time in the Type 96's and European Agents would see either German, French, British or Italian machines.
That was before she saw the Bonta-Kun in action
With a bit of programming, the simulators could mimic the BK's. A machine that seemed to fascinate Betty Director. She had asked Sagara for a demonstration with several Agents trying to "Take the suspect into custody."
Sousuke tried to defer the demonstration. When Betty asked him why, he said, "The contest is unfair." When Betty offered to use fewer Agents, Sousuke confusedly replied, "Commander, that would make the odds even worse."
It was then obvious to Betty they were not on the same page. "Alright Sergeant, what would you suggest?"
Sousuke was armed with low velocity bean-bag/chalk rounds for the 30mm shotgun and paintball rounds for the various handguns along with stun and smoke grenades and he offered to take on at least fifty Agents as long as they didn't use RPG's or anti-armor weapons. Sousuke even offered them the choice of battle ground. They chose to fight in a simulated office building.
The Agents were armed with everything from shock-watches and stun-staves, grenades ranging from stun and smoke to full up fragmentation grenades and M-4 and AK-74 assault rifles firing .556 rounds and 7.62mm ammunition respectively. They had failed. Miserably. And between the beanbag and paintball rounds, they had suffering a large assortment of bumps, bruises and contusions.
The bullets fired by the Agents bounced off. They couldn't over power the mini-mecha with either brute force or numbers. It was either too strong to overpower or too fast to overwhelm. And Sousuke had learned his lesson with the crazed Officer Wakana. He wasn't about to suffer through another Tazer attack inside the machine and had thoroughly insulated it from electrical shocks. Sousuke's greatest problem was making sure that when he used hand to hand techniques, he throttled the power back to what a human could withstand.
After seeing it in action, Betty could easily see the uses of the small machine. With a little bit of work they could be air droppable from a standard hover-jet in squads of three or four. She was practically wringing her hands in gleeful anticipation of dropping a force of 20 or 30 of them, with Team Possible and Sergeant Sagara on point, into Sheldon's latest hideout. "Let's see his Alphabet soup thugs deal with these! Not even his cyborg finger missiles will stop one. Just walk right up to him and punch him in the beak!"
She wanted to place an emergency procurement order with the company that made the Bonta-Kuns. That would take some doing though, because with Sergeant Sagara, the primary developer of the machines, being currently employed by G.J. made for a possible conflict of interest.
She took a day to go to New York and speak directly to the Security Council about it. She informed them that the Sergeant had no clue what she was there for. She brought with her the specs of the machines and videos of the "takedown attempt". The footage of the machine taking both point blank machinegun fire and hits from the visibly crackling stun staves, yet still advancing to non-lethally subdue the weaponeer was shocking to the members to say the least.
She reasoned that since Sagara not tried to influence her, other than acceding to her request to a demonstration, then "Conflict of Interest" was a moot point. When the French member tried to force her to find possible alternate bidders, she informed them that NO ONE in the world had a machine of comparable abilities even on the drawing boards, let alone readily deployable. They were also less then fifteen percent of the price of a full up American M6 and a tenth of Mithril's M9.
As far as they could see the worst aspect of the machine was its' goofy, amusement park mascot appearance. That was when Elizabeth Director looked around the table with a truly feral grin. "Gentleman, a tank looks like a tank, riot police look like riot police, but this thing looks like a huge stuffed toy. Which is more intimidating, one of these or a tank? And which would have more shock effect when it's turned loose on a bunch of criminals? You would expect a tank to take point blank fire, but how about this?" She brought up a picture of a huge yellow hamster standing on two legs wearing green vest and a Bowler hat.
Betty Director had made her point. She had to give up the purchase the five M6's she had originally planned, but she walked away with authorization to purchase twenty-five of the machines immediately and fifty more over the next two years.
Besides, for G.J. operations, the Bonta-kuns were a better option anyways. The full sized Arm Slaves would be more like using a sledge hammer to kill a fly. Betty was almost ecstatic when she got back and found out that there were twenty of the mini Arm Slaves, all of them with less then fifteen hours on the clocks, sitting in a warehouse in the Sengawa district of Tokyo, Japan. They would be on a plane in three days.
"Six months, brother mine! All I need is six months and the location of your lair. Then you're mine!"
**********
Betty Director wasn't the only one that seemed to have a fascination for the BK's. There was also a thirteen year old pre-pubescent genius who had taken to scribbling notes on every flat surface in his lab/living quarters using everything from pens and markers to burning them with a soldering iron. It was the soldering iron that got their attention when Kaname felt him 'Resonate' his frustration.
Once they found him trying to scorch plans into a tabletop, Kaname instantly took charge and for once Kim's 'Kimness' took a back seat. Kaname immediately sent Kim upstairs to grab all the paper and pens from the printers in the office. She sent Sousuke to Maximum Office for a case of paper and a gross of pens. Nobody argued.
He had spent the last two days in his Whispered trance with the rest of the Team standing watch over their youngest human member. Kaname was almost ready to have Sousuke call Tessa when he had finally dropped into a deep sleep. Kaname, as the closest they had to a Whispered expert, declared the worst was past.
Neither Kim, Ron or Sousuke had any idea what the notes, diagrams and schematics meant. Even Kaname, another Whispered, could only tell they applied to the BK's and some kind of micro Lambda Driver. When Sousuke heard about the possibility of a Bonta-Kun with a Lambda Driver, he didn't know how feel. Mithril had only one Lambda Driver and A.I. to operate it. The ARX 7 Arbalest!
If Wade could design and oversee production of others, it would take a huge load off of the young NCO. The problem was, no one knew better than Sousuke how temperamental a Lambda Driver could be. The blasted thing had failed him more than once. The problems of interfacing with the device was something he had only just started to overcome. And it had taken him two years to complete the bonding.
But maybe he could make the interfacing a lot easier for the next LD pilots. Because he had finally figured out the most important factor in the bonding process. No doubts! NONE! You had to have complete faith in your self, your abilities, your symbiotic partner and the device itself.
And it was also one of the reasons he almost despaired of Ron ever being able to make the Lambda Driver function. Ron had a deep seated, almost instinctive, self doubt. No matter what the appearances he might project. Everything he did or thought, he was second-guessing himself. You couldn't do that with the LD. You had to KNOW, not just in your head, but deep in your gut, that you could do it. And the slightest doubt would cause the Lambda Drive to flicker and fail.
**********
While Sagara was setting up the A.S. training that week, Kim found Ron with greasy hands as he worked on 428. Not that she had any idea what he was doing, only that he seemed to have grease to the elbows. The speed shop had put the crankshaft on a high priority and had returned it within 48 hours. When he saw her approaching, "Kim, you're just in time to give me a hand. Could you take the other end of the crank and help me set it in the block?"
She pointed at him saying, "I'd like to avoid getting that dirty if I can, Ron."
He held up a finger and sagely said, "Well first, I might be greasy, but I'm not dirty. I can tell you for a fact, there's not a speck of dirt near here. There's white lithium grease, oil, 'Break-Free' and a bunch a other lubes, but there ain't no dirt. Engines don't like dirt."
"Second, I have you a set of coveralls and some old sneaks in the locker. I could use the help. Last thing I wanna do is mess up this crank."
"Alright Ron, just tell me what you need." Ron had her put on a set of coveralls that reminded her of the time she and Ron had tried to rebuild the Sloth the first time. The difference this time was Ron seemed to know what he was doing. And for the times he didn't he had a manual that he followed closely.
At every stage he referred back to the manual. Set the crankshaft in place, making sure not to mar or damage the main bearings. Check! Carefully torque the mains in sequence. Check! Turning the block over to carefully slide the pistons into the cylinders, using a ring compressor to seat the rings inside the cylinder walls. Check! And so it went.
About two hours later, Ron called a break. He showed Kim that wonderful stuff known as 'GoJo' w/pumice to clean their hands.
She told him, "I wish we would have had this stuff when we were working on the Sloth."
"That would have made it too easy Kim. Besides, I think you got the better of the deal anyway when the Tweebs rebuilt the Sloth into the 2.0."
"Yeah, I guess you're right there. Still, I'm surprised at you Ron! Please don't take this wrong, but you really seem to know what you doing. I don't think I've ever seen you this focused unless you were blue." When she said the word 'blue' it was with a slight look of confusion.
Ron tried to give her the hairy eyeball, he really did. When that didn't work, he got a pained look on his face and said, "You sure you wanna know?"
Kim had a feeling she wouldn't like this. Not because of anger or jealousy or anything like that. But because it would hurt. "I think I need to Ron."
Ron didn't look at Kim, but over the scattered part of the old car. "I started working on Elma Lee when I was hurting. Inside. Between Uncle Roger and Elma Lee, they were a ladder helped me climb up out of a really dark hole." Cocoa brown met emerald green. "When I started working on her, I kinda made a promise to finish her. And we both know how I am about my promises." He turned and started polishing the ratchet, sockets and wrenches as he set them back into the tool box.
She knew only too well what caused the hurt he was telling her about. Part of it was the Invasion. But a larger part had been caused by her and her inability to help either him or herself. To herself, she silently reaffirmed her vow. 'I will never let him down again.'
**********