Chapter nine – Bikes and bikers
It was late spring and lovely weather as Sam set out on her Harley, a machine she loved not only for its impressive presence, but also for its practical advantages – the amounts of stuff you could carry. For as long as she could remember, Sam had harboured a secret daydream – to travel gypsy fashion, sleeping under the stars and seeing the country through the back roads and the little towns nobody noticed. Living the nomadic life had been a kind of minor but real fantasy of hers since she was a child, a strange secret side to her incredibly disciplined and laborious self. Now she would do it for real, as long as her money lasted, only using motels and other built hospitality sites in case of hard rain or worse. She could afford it; she had never spent more than she earned, and her savings had grown along with her accrued leave. She just never imagined that she would need them to escape the aftershocks of a very expensive sentimental education.
The first day was everything she could have hoped for. For long stretches of road, she let out the bike as fast as she could go, conscious of the danger of state troopers, but still needing to feel the power of the magical object under her. But she would also suddenly stop and just putter along some particularly pretty stretch of road. She had dinner from stores she had taken with her. In the afternoon she met a couple of other people on bikes, and was reminded rather brutally that Harleys are not the world's fastest machines; but it was fun, and they broke up laughing. They were nice people, but she never got their names.
When night fell, she turned her bike off the road and drove by the gravelly side of a minor river until she was sure that nobody was around. Then she had stripped, washed her overalls and underwear, and washed herself vigorously in the cold river stream. She did what she needed to do in terms of latrine requirements, washed again – she would have to rethink the sequence of her actions to avoid wasteful repetitions – and sat down for her evening meal. Her appetite surprised her; it had been days since she had actually felt hungry, or felt the pleasure of eating till she was satisfied. She was equally surprised to find that her eyelids felt suddenly as heavy as lead; she barely had time to crawl into her sleeping bag before she collapsed.
Bright sunlight woke her up in the morning. She had slept like a rock through the night and the dawn, and she felt fit – and hungry again. She also realized that she was stark naked. In the barracks, or at home with Father, she would not have dreamed of spending any time without clothes, but here, alone under the sky, and with the need to wash and dry what she had, it was simply practical. She had only three changes of clothing, and using nothing in the night – at least when she was alone – would reduce washing and wear and tear. She would, from time to time, have to wash the sleeping bag, but then she knew that already. She went through her morning gymnastics and a few katas; she checked that her washing had dried overnight; she ate; she got dressed; she started her bike, and was off.
She had had an idea that the roads and small towns in that part of the country all looked pretty much the same. (That had something to do with her anger at being transferred to Bird City, way back when. She had hated what was happening to her and certainly had not even tried to pay any attention to any part of the places she was sent to.) Now she began to find that small towns, and farms, and roadhouses and motels, could each have a lot more individuality than she had imagined. Some were bad; in one biker's bar, she had barely escaped being molested or worse by a gang of doped, disgusting, middle-aged thugs on bikes. But then, bikers turned out to come in all kinds; the very next day, she had a terrific long chat with an ethnographer, a Dr. Jackson, who, like her, had had his career stayed – associate professor without tenure – for having rubbed a superior the wrong way. But he still carried out his own studies in his own way, and he was heading south to research the Pueblos and associated tribes of New Mexico and Arizona. They exchanged addresses and details, and Sam was left with the hope that she might have made a friend.
She soon learned to tell the bad roadhouses by their look before she walked in. On the other hand, she found one dishevelled-looking bar, managed by a grumpy old hippy who brewed his own beer – the best she had ever had; and who made excellent sausages. And clearly the word had gone around, because as she sat there and ate, she watched the place slowly fill with quiet, well-behaved couples and families who seemed willing to come from quite a distance for the best beer and the best sausages in North Dakota. The more his place filled with happy customers, the grumpier the owner seemed; but the beer kept flowing, and the sausages kept sizzling, and Sam discovered the pleasure of just sitting back and watching people. She sent off a note to her CO and colleagues, recommending the Grumpy House if they ever were in that part of the state, and smiled at the thought that this might make the owner even grumpier.
She had not had any particular goal in mind, but as the days followed each other,she realized that she had been heading in a generally westward direction. She had crossed into Montana. The land was slowly rising, and the high hills of Montana and Idaho were growing visible ahead of her. On her sixth day out she found herself well on her way, with great fir-covered mountains before her that felt like the real primal wilderness. She started thinking that maybe she had better look for towns and motels; she had a vague idea that bears or mountain lions might wander these woods, and she did not feel like running chances.
She was afraid of dying? She stopped, stunned, realizing that her grief no longer seemed to be inspiring suicidal thoughts; and she felt almost guilty, as though she had failed in a duty to her love. She realized, with something like fear, that one day the grief would pass, and that that made her feel... not happy... the very opposite of happy. Love had been the greatest thing she had ever experienced, and she did not want it to die. And yet...
She had stopped to read a sign, and had stayed there, standing still by the side of the road, contemplating the strange state of her feelings, trying to make sense of herself. And suddenly she felt something like the earth trembling beneath her feet. She looked up and saw... a man... or a thing... maybe three, four hundred feet away from her. He.. or it... seemed to be flying, but somehow Sam knew that he was jumping – jumping an insane jump, that propelled him/it hundreds of feet across the landscape. And even from a distance she could see that he was ragged... misshapen... HUGE... and the wrong colour. Sam did not want to get any closer, or to draw the creature's attention to herself, but she had no doubt that she had seen the Hulk – the monster whose creation her father was investigating.
It occurred to her that she would do well to inform the authorities of this sighting. When she had originally set out, she had placed in her bike an experimental apparatus for wireless broadcasting for her laptop, so as to be quickly in touch if anything required it. She had last used it in the morning, to record some ideas she had had about electromagnetism and gravity, and 's address. Now, as she tried to boot it up, she found it was dead.
For a second, she was horrified. Being left without a computer was, to her, something of a nightmare, and one thing she had not thought about – not, at least, in the middle of a wilderness. Then she pulled herself together. She only had ordinary mechanical gear, but she could run a simple diagnostic, and she was soon convinced that the problem was with the feed – not some irreparable software or hardware collapse, but a simple matter of electrical engineering that any shop should be able to correct. Heck, she was no engineer, but even she should be able to – if she had no other choice. Still, she'd rather... She looked at the road sign again, and consulted her maps. There was a small mining and logging town about six miles down the road. They might have a computer repairs shop, or they might be able to tell her where to find one.
The town was over a ridge, sprawling along the bottom of a heavily wooded valley. Sam could see the large patches of felled forest at irregular intervals, some older than others, a few half regrown, and what looked like a rail terminal, probably intended to take timber and ore away. Except for the rail and the road which she had taken to get there – and on which she had passed only a very small number of vehicles – the place looked really quite isolated. As she came in, she noticed a couple of sports fields, a church, and what looked like a small, slightly dingy town hall. The first business she passed on her way in was a gas station with a bike and car mechanic workshop and a small used car retail; she decided to fill up and ask for advice.
She came in and lined her Harley with one of the gas pumps and... iwhat on Earth was uthat/u/i?
She certainly didn't think she'd find a god working in a dirty gas station in a lonely mountain settlement. Six foot five at a minimum, with shoulders and arms in proportion, and the stride – Sam the soldier and martial artist could tell – of a panther. A lined, strong-featured face, with a lot of living – most of it outdoors – and a good bit of pain carved in; yet not old, maybe in his thirties, with a sun-bleached shock of blonde hair and, to crown it all, a pair of light, dazzling blue eyes. He wore a worn pair of jeans and a nondescript t-shirt, and somehow managed to make it look like a knight's armour. Sam had never seen a man so handsome in all her life, and that included Jack O'Neill; in fact, he was so good-looking she found him forbidding. To live with someone like him would be like having to wear haute couture and jewellery all the time – too much for a normal person.
"What can I get you, Miss?"
She looked for his name tag, but he had none. "Fill her up, please. And I need a little information."
"Sure, if I can."
"Is there anywhere in town where I can get a laptop computer repaired? I think it's quite a simple repair, but I'd rather not try myself."
"I don't think so. For that sort of thing, I'd go down to Boise myself."
His accent wasn't local. In fact, it had a slight New York tone, educated, but present.
"Boise isn't all that close, though, is it?"
"Well, it's about forty miles, thataway," he smiled and pointed to the road leaving town in the other direction. "People round here don't think so much of it if they have important shopping to do."
"I guess I have to start thinking like them, then," she smiled. And then her smile faded, as she saw the young god's face turn away from her, and grow stormy. "Maybe, Miss," he said in a soft, dangerous voice, "it's better not to think too much like some locals." Then she heard it too: the voice of a young woman, pleading, on the verge of panic, while several male voices said things that sounded vulgar or mocking. The god set off, and she did not even stop to think before she strode off with him.
It was just as she had imagined: one girl being molested by half-a-dozen rough-looking men. The girl was no more than a schoolgirl, seventeen or so, small, with pretty features, and a bad blonde dye job on hair that should have been rich and graceful if only it was treated better. The men seemed like the inbred cousins of the bikers she had escaped five days earlier.
"Micky, Donnell, Schwartzy. I thought I told you to lay off her."
"Oh, look, it's Prince Valiant," said "Micky," who seemed to be the leader. "And we told you what would happen to iyou/i, didn't we, kids?" And suddenly a long knife was in his hand.
Sam stepped forth in turn. "Lieutenant Samantha Carter, USAF, attached to SHIELD for law enforcement. Stand down and go home, or you'll be guests of Uncle Sam for a while."
Mickey's reaction was a sneer. "Hey, look, another blonde. Maybe she can help Jennie there," he said, pointing at the terrified schoolgirl. His friends laughed – some rather uncertainly – as Samantha's eyes narrowed dangerously, and the young god glanced at her with interest. "Oh yes," snarled Samantha, "you bet I can help her."
Sam had learned from her father to think like a soldier. If that guy was so deliberately drawing her attention, and what is more the attention of the young god, on himself, there was a reason. Who did he not want him to see? And sure enough, the last man to the left, on the young god's blind side, was packing. Sam took three long strides and was upon him before he could point his automatic at her, and struck him hard in the side of the abdomen, smashing the breath from him. She then stomped on his foot with all her weight behind it – lucky, she thought, he didn't wear boots – and hit the side of his neck with both hands. But before she could recover her enemy's gun, another man was on her.
Meanwhile, "Prince Valiant" was suddenly charged by a man with a bike chain. He lifted his left forearm, held stiff, and let the chain wrap around it as if it were a strip of cloth, then he jerked, and the man lost hold of his end and fell gracelessly over, hitting the ground face first. Even before he had hit, the big man's foot had kicked hard and with no forewarning at Micky, grazing his hand, from which the knife clattered, but above all hitting him well below the belt. Micky howled, and Sam realized that her companion's fighting skills were the equal of his size and looks.
Sam had disposed of her second attacker – whose guard was pitiful – with a ruthless strike below the chin. The two still standing looked at their fallen friends with bewilderment, and suddenly decided it would be healthier to be elsewhere. Only then did they hear the distant siren of a police car. Samantha turned to the schoolgirl, only to find, to her surprise, that she was angry.
"I told you to stay out of it, Joe!"
"And I told you that as long as I'm around I'm not going to stand for some things."
"As long as you're around, yes! Then what? People like you come and go, but I gotta live here, don't you understand that?" She repeated the phrase, almost as a sob. "I igotta/i live here..."
The girl looked up, and Sam realized that the cops had arrived. And that they did not seem too sympathetic.
"Another assault, eh? This time you're going to be a guest of the state of Idaho, with no ifs and no buts."
"Try that." The face of "Joe", as the girl had called him, had gone as hard as marble. "How about assault, conspiracy to rape, and attempted rape?"
"These persons," broke in Sam, "were assaulting the girl. Six men against one small high school junior... no, senior" she corrected herself as the girl signalled. "I doubt you could convince any jury that she was coming along of her own free will."
"So, another white knight? White knightess, I mean? Find yourself a better princess to protect, miss. This girl was turning tricks by the time she was fourteen."
Samantha's face went pale with rage. She instinctively adopted the voice her father used when he was ticking off a lazy NCO or a careless pilot. "First, my name is not Miss or White Knightess, whatever that means. Lieutenant Samantha Carter, USAF, attached to SHIELD. And are you telling me that you know that this girl was being subjected to statutory rape at fourteen, and you did nothing? And you just admitted it in front of me and another witness?" Joe grimly nodded. "All right, deputy, let's have your name and number."
"You can read it off this," snarled the deputy, pointing a shotgun at her. One of his colleagues drew his weapon.
The scene might have turned really ugly, but the third deputy stepped in. "All right, everybody, stop actin' crazy. Steve, Bud, put down those shooters. Lieutenant, you want to protect Jen Hailey? Fine, you do that, but don't try to bring it to a jury. This is not a threat or anythin' – it's just that no jury in this county will believe her. She's the town trash and she will remain trash." And Samantha heard a sob coming from the girl. In her General's voice, she answered: "If you will do nothing about what happened here, you'd better stop wasting our time and go. And take your ifriends/i with you... I see they are waking up. Just in case they wanted to do something else stupid. We will take care of... Jennifer, is it?" And the girl nodded.
The two groups instinctively moved in opposite directions, as the cops helped the beaten thugs up and towards their cars, while Sam and "Joe" and Jen walked towards Jen's bike.
"Well, what do we do now?"asked "Joe".
"For a start, I pay for the gas. And then I intend to take Jennifer home and go to Boise to find a computer repairman."
"I don't want to go home," said Jennifer suddenly. Her face held an extraordinary mixture of shame and anger.
"You don't... Jennifer, why? Is it that bad?"
"It's iworse/i."
Sam looked at the big man, and he looked back at her. Sam had not bargained for this, and it seemed that neither had he. Even when she was taking on the molesting gang, she did not imagine that it amounted to more than getting another young woman out of trouble. But now it seemed that she and "Joe" had become involved in something that was permanently bad, permanently difficult.
"What do you want to do, then?"
"You said you were going to Boise? Take me there. Then I'll find something to do."
Samantha was silent and troubled. She had no idea what was really going on here, and on the other hand she did not feel that she could just take this small, angry, lonely creature to another place and just dump her there and forget her.
"As a matter of fact, I was going to go to Boise myself," came "Joe'"s voice, unexpectedly. "I had to buy some paints and drawing materials." Sam turned and looked at him. "He's an artist, didn't you know?" – that was Jen, from behind her.
"I just don't know," she said to the young god. "So we take her to Boise and dump her there. What happens then?" Turning to Jen: "Do you have friends or family there? Or savings?"
Jen's face grew angry: "No family, no friends, no nothin', AND THANK GOD FOR THAT! Look, I don't think you get it. Come with me." She seized Samantha by her left wrist and literally dragged her away. "Joe" followed quietly.
They walked around the edge of the town and reached a large house. Jen abruptly let go of Samantha and whispered: "Try not to get seen, and try to listen and see what happens now." She walked in with a jerk, as if forcing herself.
Damn it, thought Samantha. What does the girl think I am, a Navy Seal? I am an Air Force officer, and a woman to boot. I'm not expected to do ground fighting. My training in infiltration and concealment is pretty basic.
Then she saw "Joe" making hand signals. She followed him, and found that he seemed able to find the perfect way to move around the house without being seen or heard. She imitated his every motion, praying to God not to mess up by being clumsy or incompetent, increasingly conscious of his excellence. Soon they were behind the house. "Joe" put her behind a large garbage can, and hid his own considerable bulk behind a gutted old Oldsmobile. They both were able to see through the kitchen window.
The first thing they heard was Jennifer yelping with pain.
As their vision focused, they saw five people. Two women, one older and one in her early twenties, both so like Jennifer that it was easy to surmise that they might be her mother and an older sister. The mother wore only a Victoria's Secret type bra and thong; the daughter a tight training bra and bikini bottom. Samantha surmised that the sports bra was worn for effect, like her mother's underwear, because, while both mother and daughter had decent figures, neither showed any sign of training. Their bodies, to her expert eye, were flabby, untoned, and the mother looked like she was beginning to age rather badly. In a few years her looks would be gone. In the centre of the kitchen stood two men: a youngish, fit, brown-skinned type whose features made her think of India, with thin streaks of beard carefully shaved and shaped on his chin and jawline, and hair elaborately cut on his head; and an older, forty-ish, large man with a crewcut and a wealth of tattoos. Jennifer was between them, with a mark on one of her cheeks, looking like she was trying hard not to cry.
"You iare/i going to work," said the Indian. "D'you think you are going on living at our expense? You are going to pay your share. And don't think we're going to let you go either. You owe the family. You owe us." The big man just grunted. The women looked both scared and angry – the mother more like scared, the daughter more like angry.
Jennifer was the smallest person there, and the youngest. Her attempt to keep from crying and to hold her voice together and answer in connected words had something terribly pathetic about it. "I am inot/i going on dates again. You can kill me, but you can't make me."
Her mother tried to pull her to herself, but Jennifer resisted. "Why d'you do this, Jen?" she asked, and to Sam's surprise, there seemed to be tears in her voice. "We don't want to hurt you. We ain't your enemies.."
"OH YES YOU ARE! I've had it with your good cop bad cop act, Mom. First Rashid softens me up, then you pick me up in your arms and make me cry and make me feel that you care for me, and I give up. NOT GONNA HAPPEN AGAIN, get it?"
Her sister stood up and glared. "Who the Hell do you think you are, Jennifer Hailey? What's got into you, to treat yer own mother like that? Lemme tell you, we've all had it up to ihere/i" – and she raised her hand well over the top of her own head – "with yer my-shit-don't-stink act. You ain't no big time scientist and you're not goin' to be. Nobody wants you for that, geddit? You made all the school laugh with yer la-di-da airs and yer figures. You're iher/i daughter, and imy/i sister, and you'll do what we do." Sam caught a look of "Joe" behind the car, and he looked strangely pale.
"Then kill me," sobbed Jennifer, no longer able to keep control. "Kill me, 'cause you're not going to make me do jobs again. Kill me!"
Rashid, the Indian, sighed and signalled to the large man, who had not yet said anything. "You'd like that, wouldn't you?" he said with a sneer. "Get us in trouble, having a body to dispose of, and the deputies after a while asking what happened to you. Not as easy as all that, little miss! Here, G.I., take her outside and give her some practice. That'll calm her down – and maybe remind her what she is and what she was born to do."
"G.I.", the large man, got up and reached for something; and Sam could see that it was a large, heavy horsewhip. From where she stood, she could not be sure, but she thought he had a vicious grin on his face. With one sweep, he seized both of Jennifer's wrists in with his right hand – as if it was a move he was used to – holding the whip in his left hand. The door from the kitchen to the back yard opened, and she could see that he had kicked it open; he walked into the back yard, dragging Jennifer by her wrists like a sack of potatoes. Behind him, Jennifer's mother was in tears, and even her sister was looking unhappy and unwilling.
Samantha Carter had seen far more than enough. With two strides of her long legs she was upon G.I. She ripped the whip from his hand and swung it across his face with all the strength she could muster; and she was satisfied to hear a screech like a woman's, as the bulky man stumbled back, and thin skin wounds formed where the leather had struck. Jennifer, released, fell all in a heap; but she raised her head, and her eyes open in wonder and disbelief as she saw her avenger standing there like a Valkyrie – and Joe behind her like an avenging god – as her torturer reeled.
Then G.I. pulled himself together and looked his enemy over. He sneered.
"Girl soldier, eh? I'll give you a lesson in unarmed combat, honey."
"I doubt it. Ex-military, are you? Probably infantry, if G.I. means anything..." she answered calmly, as she blocked a left jab. "If you were fit and in training, I wouldn't stand a chance..." He drew back and raised his defence. "... but you clearly haven't sparred in years," she said, dodging a fierce but imprecise lunge, "you got by on brute strength and on what you remembered of military training." A venomous blow snaked through his defence to hit the side of his throat. "You made a big fuss of being ex-Army, got yourself nicknamed like that, but you aren't anything like a good soldier..."
Meanwhile Rashid was stepping into the back yard with a gun in his hand. Sam should have been worried, but she knew that "Joe" was there. Before Rashid knew what was happening, a large hand, as hard as iron, closed upon his gun hand and started squeezing...
"...my guess is that you were dishonourably discharged, did not finish your term of enlistment..." and a violent kick struck G.I.'s large gut "...and that you settled here because you could play the pimp without any competition." She hammered down with both fists and all her strength on the side of his head, and he made a gasping noise and came crashing down. Meanwhile the inexorable pressure of Joe's right hand had crushed Rashid's around the hand till Sam heard the bones snap. "You," said a low, lethal voice "will not threaten women or pimp them again. Lieutenant Carter and I are going to Boise. I'll be back tonight, and I assure you I will be checking on you." "And I will be with him," added Sam.
The two women were standing in the kitchen door, looking scared and bewildered. Joe and Sam looked back at them. Neither could find anything to say. They turned away and walked off, Sam holding Jen's hand like a child's.
...
There was a small amount of trouble at the gas station, where the owner could not believe that the temporary hire, Joe, had, one, left the workplace, two, got into a quarrel with both deputies and thugs, and, three, done it on behalf of Jen Hailey of all people. "Don't worry," said Joe nastily, "you won't be seeing her again. I might be coming back, but you won't have to put up with me either way. I'm not going to be working here." The owner just stood there. He may have liked to whine, but he knew that Joe's strength and patience had been worth gold to him, not to mention that every woman in town found excuses to have work done there. He went away grumbling.
...
"That's a beauty!" said Sam in admiration as she watched Joe wheel out his own bike. "So is yours," he smiled.
"It's a Harley too, but I don't recognize your model."
"It's an antique. I'm fond of vintage motors."
"And you're an artist? I guess it sort of fits... But isn't it an expensive hobby?"
"It depends. And that reminds me... Jen, there is one thing I have to say. To apologize, sort of."
"You? Apologize?" said the girl in bewilderment.
"In the last few weeks, as I noticed you around, I've been getting ideas for pictures featuring you... The long and the short of it is, I've drawn you without permission."
"Really?" said Jennifer with round, wonder-filled eyes. "Can I see them?"
"Well, I really should show them to you. Because I should have asked permission first, but you never were around long enough. It's a few sketches and a couple of paintings. Come along and if you hate them I'll just destroy them."
"May I see them too?"
"Sure, if Jennifer has no objection." The smaller woman just shook her head.
...
"Oh, WOOOOOOOWW..."
"Don't you dare touch them, Joe. DON'T YOU DARE! Destroy them? I'll never be as beautiful as this..." Jen had tears in her eyes. One of the paintings showed her curled up, half asleep, in the shadow of a huge pine tree, looking for all the world like something out of fairyland strayed into the real world. Another was a head and shoulders portrait, slightly from below, the head carried with vulnerable pride and heartbreaking courage on a neck like the stalk of a flower. The sketches were dynamic and exciting, showing a young woman in motion, expressing energy and enthusiasm.
Sam just shook her head. "I had no idea... I have no words. Joe, you're a great artist." She was so dazzled and bewildered by the beauty she had just seen, that she had not noticed the signature – which did not say "joe".
...
They drove to Boise at a quiet pace, chatting as they went, with Jennifer sitting behind Sam on her huge machine.
"So you're from SHIELD?" asked "Joe" with an elaborately unconcerned air. Sam noted and filed away the fact that he obviously knew the little-known agency.
"That was pushing it... a lot. I've done a small amount of work with them. But they're a law enforcement agency, and the only way I could claim any kind of jurisdiction at all. Can you imagine the reaction of those deputies if I'd said 'lieutenant Samantha Carter, USAF astrophysics?'"
"Joe" sniggered, but the strongest reaction came, unexpectedly, from behind her. Jennifer squeaked "You do iastrophysics/i?!" - and for the first time, her voice held no defensiveness, anger, or shame. "Yes," said Samantha, "my unit studies outer space, and my speciality is astrophysics. I am working on a PhD at present."
"Oh my God... OH MY GOD... I'm getting all my years of bad luck paid back in a lump. I get to be drawn by a real live genius, and then I meet a real astrophysicist. I've been dreaming about getting into college... can you get me some advice?"
"Is that what you had been meaning to do?"
"Well, dreaming is the word, Lieutenant Sam... I wanted to, so much, but nobody would help me. My teachers were like 'You're better off where you are, you'd never make it there,' and my family... you've seen them... I don't even know how I would go about joining a college."
...
"I did think about joining the army. That was probably the thing I was clearest on... I wanted to get out, and I figured at least I'd get a little time to study."
"So you wanted to join the army, eh? Have you ever thought about the Air Force?"
...
"Look, as soon as we get off our bikes, you have to show me your work."
...
"Dad? This is Sam. How are you? I'm actually having a great time, believe it or not... Look, the reason I'm calling is that I'm sort of wondering whether you might perform a miracle...
"I found a girl in a small town in Idaho who would be perfect for the Zoo. The thing is, she hasn't even started to go through all the guff...
"Yeah, she's bright. Bright like you wouldn't believe. And even though she has the family background from Hell, she has spent years studying and doing her best in class, with no reward at all. And she is the only one in her family who trained and kept in shape. I think she fits the Air Force like a key fits a lock...
"All right. I'll take her over there and you can see her for yourself. Dad, that's wonderful...
"Yes. No, I hadn't. No, is anything the matter?
"Buffy bWHAAAT?/b
"My God, Dad. My God... My God..."
