It Gets Complicated After That

I put my smart phone in the device that was now hooked to the computer. "Now I can remotely access my telephone, including having the thing call people. The software is on the server already."

"Why was it in the box?" asked Ashley.

"I gave the old one to a friend... Uhh... Can't remember who... Doesn't matter. What does matter is that we are going to change our appearance and leave. I have a safe house across the freeway. We need to move in and start blending in. First things first... You need to cut your hair until you look like boys. People looking for two girls and a boy will be thrown off by three boys." I looked both in the eye and said, "Binding your beautiful b.r.e.a.s.ts is a crime against nature, but it's either that or death."

"Yeah, we kind of figured that we were going to have to cut our hair, if we went into hiding. Do you have hair coloring?" asked Ashley.

I blinked. When had they had time to talk? Wait... They must have been talking nonstop, since we came down here, but I had been so focused that I had not 'heard' them. I mean, you can ignore background noise, when it is not important. Two scared girls going, 'I'm okay, maybe. Are you okay?', is not important in an emergency.

"Yeah, I got a kind that comes out easily... What I mean is that there are hair dyes for actors who have to change their hair color three or four times a day. I have a makeup box over there." The box wasn't there. I had to rummage through some cabinets to find it. "I got it at an actors supply place down close to the theater district. Scissors and everything you need are in there... While you are doing that I need to light a fire under the City."

I composed a description of what happened in the hour that we were fighting the home invaders. I sent a copy of that to my list of friends who had said that they would help if they could. I asked them to have their parents call the Mayor and express their wish that everyone involved in this fiasco be investigated by internal affairs... most particularly Detective Graham, because he arrived too quickly on the scene. I sent a copy to all my friends and a special version to Megan Hunt.

I hit 'Enter' and turned around. Brittany was now a brunette with almost an army crewcut. Ashley was black haired with spikes and a goth guy look. Their beautiful blond hair was all over the floor. From the tatters on the floor, they had used the sheet from my bed to make the bindings for their b.r.e.a.s.ts.

I said, "You look... You are always beautiful to me... Please remember that."

I sat down in front of the mirror in the makeup box and started in. I put in the cheek inserts and changed my hair to brown. I would have liked red hair, but two brunettes and a black haired kid kind of made sense. We went without bandages on the exposed cuts to avoid looking too strange... and because I was feeling the edges of a really good lie form. When I finished, I looked this way and that. I do not think my own mother would recognize me.

I got the briefcase, the gold bag and a regular olive drab duffle bag. When I opened the briefcase, Ashley said, "Taegan, what are you doing with that much cash?"

I transferred the prepaid card in the briefcase to my mad money pouch. "Accident... I won a bet two weeks ago at Laurie's party. Every once in a while I keep some backup cash in case I have to run." I transferred the cash from my mad money pouch and the briefcase to the duffle bag. I put the mad money pouch in the gold bag along with the ammunition pouch with the guns in it. I walked over to a hatch carrying the two bags. "This is where we lose track of what is happening for about twelve hours." I tapped the hatch that could have come from a submarine. "This hatch and the one on the other side were a bitch to install and test. I finally had to bring a mechanical tech and a computer tech to install the door and the server and other parts of this room. I never knew for sure whether Jenkins knew what I was doing." The wheel in the hatch cycled a few times, then I led them into the revealed chamber. I turned on the lights. Then I moved across the small room and opened the other door. I had Brittany

bring the makeup box.

I dropped the gold bag beyond the other hatch, closed the hatch, came back, turned off the monitor and the overheads in the bombshelter proper. I closed the two hatches and grabbed two beams at head height. I put my feet on the painted footprints on the floor. There were three more sets. "Do as I do. That way your body is shaped like an 'X' and everything is exposed as much as possible. Close your eyes." When they had done all that, I closed my eyes and pushed the button at my thumb. The lights went out, then a swirling stream of lights came on for a few seconds. Both Brittany and Ashley gasped with pain... The overhead lights came back on. I led them through the far door and turned on yet another set of overheads. "That strobing light destroyed bugs embedded in our flesh or in the money. The gold bag makes it impossible for electromagnetic waves from getting in or out of it. I put all the electronics gear in the gold bag to mask any bugs they may have picked up. I will have the prepaid cards and our guns tested for bugs later today." I pulled on a baseball cap. "These will hide your faces. Please keep your heads down until I say so. The next part assumes something that I may have no control over... Don't worry. I have some extensive Plan B's." They were both looking shellshocked. There was nothing I could say. They pulled on their hats numbly.

I looked at my watch. We were four maybe five hours into the incident. Where had the time gone?

There were about 50 baseball caps on the shelf. I shoveled them into yet another duffle bag which was already half-full. I handed each of them rechargeable flashlights. I kept one for myself. I put all the others in the duffle with the caps. I started walking down the tunnel with the girls following me. I'm tall. The overhead lights were so close I almost burned myself a few times. When we came to the end of the tunnel, we went through a hatch. I closed it behind us and dogged it. I pressed a button and the wall recessed inward, then opened upward like a gull-winged door. A ledge was revealed in the light from the overhead. There was a channel beyond the ledge that stretched for ten feet before another ledge. "Step carefully. Don't tread on the dirt in the middle of the channel." I motioned them to step down then up onto the ledge on the other side of the new channel. Without the flashlights, the tunnel would have been pitch black. I reached in and turned out the overheads and touched yet another button. The panel cycled downward. When it stopped, the wall where the hatch was looked like there was no door. I had made sure that the lines in the wall that showed the edges of the hatch blended into the design embedded in the wall.

I stepped down, careful not to leave any prints in the soil in the middle of the channel, then stepped up on the ledge across the way. I turned right and started walking. The girls fell in behind me. Soon there were sounds of the freeway. The black was oppressive. "We have about two miles to walk in the tunnels, then another mile in the light." We came to another intersection. I led them left for a bit then right into a tunnel going uphill. Every ten feet or so there was a small pipe at head high. I sure would have hated to be in there when it rained.

We came to a chamber with two beams of light coming down from holes in a manhole cover. After all that darkness, the light seemed blinding. I pulled a specialize piece of equipment from the duffle over my shoulder. I went up the built-in ladder and anchored myself. The pieces fitted into various parts of the manhole. When I cranked the winch, the lid started upward. I had gotten this thing because I always feared that the manhole would be rusted shut... When the bottom of the cover was above the ground I pushed hard and slid it to the right. I disassembled the equipment and put it back in the duffle.

I pulled myself out of the manhole and then helped Brittany and Ashley out of the hole. The three of us were able to push the manhole cover back into its hole. I carefully stamped on it, then turned to see if anyone had noticed.

No one was around. Dawn had not broken.

We were on top of a hill. We walked down to a sidewalk and started east. After about three blocks, we came upon a series of mobile home parks. I turned into the one of them. Just so you know, I had nothing to do with the naming a trailer park with pretensions, Fresh Air Estates. The sign said that the mobile homes had WiFi, cable TV, air conditioning and a swimming pool.

I led the way to a double-wide toward the back of the lot. What I saw did NOT make me happy. I pulled out my runaway kit and extracted a set of keys. I turned on the electricity, then used a specialized tool to turn on the water. Yet another tool connected the unit to the city sewage. I had been paying minimal bills every month for two years. Well, not really, the management company was paid automatically from an account that I had set up.

They were supposed to keep up the tiny yard and bring in a maid service every three months to get rid of the dust. I took out a key and opened the door to the double-wide... Dust was everywhere... Someone was sacked out on the floor. I flipped on the light switch... The sleeping bag stirred, then opened. The woman had a startled look on her face. I recognized her. I asked, "Is that you, Marsha?"

"Marsha Key? What are you doing here? The last I heard, you were with your mother in Beaumont," said Brittany. Seeing Marsha's confusion, she said, "It's me, Brittany Shrike. That's my brother, Taegan, and my sister, Ashley."

Recognition trickled onto her face, then she squealed, "Tigger, oh, God, Tigger." She rolled to her feet and ran to me and kissed me HARD, hugged me, then said in my ear, "I have missed you so." She kissed me with some ardor... Very arousing except... she stank. As in she needed a bath BAD.

Marsha was about 5'6" with long, stringy brown hair. She was overweight with big b.r.e.a.s.ts. She was wearing clothes that were from some unknowable origin. When the three of us were all 15, we had volunteered at a shelter for disadvantaged kids. Marsha was a strange case in that she could read at a level that she should not have. She was three years older than we were, but had an IQ between 55 and 65. All three of us worked with her, trying to help her pass her drivers test. Our effort paid off and she did pass it... Trouble started when she decided that she wanted to have s.e.x with me... Or there would have been trouble, but her mother moved away.

I asked, "Marsha, what happened to your mother? Why are you here?"

"My mother died. I got thrown out on the streets. It's been awful. I found an opening in the back and crawled in here one day... I've felt safe here."

A plan exploded in my mind. I said, "Marsha, we need to get this place cleaned up. We need your help. Help us now and you can stay with us."

"Taegan..." said Ashley dubiously.

"Trust me on this one... Now come on, we need to get the furniture outside, then we need to clean this place up."

Now you have to recognize that this was a special built double-wide. The slab was covered with patterned ceramic tile. The frame of the house was set directly onto the slab. All the furniture was covered in heavy duty plastic bags. The double-wide had three bedrooms, two bathrooms. One bathroom for the master bedroom and one bathroom for the two other bedrooms.

I walked through the house to see how bad things were. With no water, Marsha had been using the bathtubs as commodes. Well, she had filled the commodes then filled the bathtubs with fecal matter and urine. The smell was unbelievable.

"First things first. Let's open the windows and move the furniture outside," I said.

All right. I admit that if I was trying to stay hidden, moving the furniture outside was a quick way to drawing attention. I had attended all these leadership camps growing up. The number one thing they stressed was that sitting around brooding was a BAD thing. 'Knock the E off Emotion and get in motion.' I needed the twins to sweat out their fear. I had been prepared for the bad guys showing up... Kind of. I mean, I didn't expect anyone to shoot up my bedroom. I was mentally prepared for something awful to happen. The twins were not. Having them mess around this way kept them from THINKING.

As the sun came up, we finished moving all the furniture outside. Then the hard part began. We got down all the cobwebs. Getting the blinds clean was not as easy as it should have been. Then we swept the place out.

I had bought buckets and solid cleaner two years before. I crossed my fingers and turned on the water in the kitchen sink. The water not being hot reminded me that I had to make sure the water heater was on. I filled the buckets, got out the mops, poured in the cleaner and we went to work on cleaning up the floors, the sinks, the walls and the ceiling. The refrigerator and the freezer were relatively clean, but Brittany washed them anyway.

I left the bathrooms for last. I got Marsha a trowel, a mask, gloves and had her scoop out all her fecal matter from the commode into the bathtub, then flushed the commode, then fill it again with fecal matter and flush. I stood over her forcing her to stay focused on the task. When we got all the fecal matter in the bathtubs disposed of in the first bathroom, we did the same in the other bathroom.

While I was standing over Marsha making sure she finished the task, the girls were stripping away the plastic coverings and moving the furniture back in. Or rather they took off the plastic protectors, beat the piece of furniture if it had upholstery and then put it in its place. For a reason I am not sure of, I had bought a king sized bed for the master bedroom and single beds for the other two. Each bedroom had a night stand, a study desk and a chair. The master bedroom had two nightstands, a study desk, two chairs and a makeup table. The living room had two couches and two comfy chairs. The kitchen had a table with four chairs.

There was no TV. I had determined that I did not want to risk a breakin. We now stank as bad as Marsha. We disinfected the bathrooms to such an extent that they smelled like a hospital. Somewhere in there, the girls had started washing Marsha's clothes, the linens for the beds and the towels for the bathrooms in the washer. By the time we were done, everything in the drier was dry, a minor miracle.

I showered in one bathroom and the girls in the other. The water was at best lukewarm by then. Better than nothing I suppose. I gave them clean jumpsuits and u.n.d.e.r.w.e.a.r. They rebound their b.r.e.a.s.ts. We all reapplied our makeup. We sat down at the kitchen table and determined what we needed to buy. The list went on forever.

I went into the master bedroom, inserted a key into a hidden lock and a panel came away revealing a safe. In it were my identity papers and the lease on the house, plus some cash. I doublechecked that my face matched the drivers license. I took out the papers and filled the safe with the money from the duffle. I put the gold bag in the false ceiling. Before I left, I emptied out one of the duffle bags that contained about 50 cellphones which had had their GPS disabled. They were all second hand. I set ten of them in rechargers in various parts of the house.

I had kept out about a $1000 in $100's with some $20's for breakfast. We walked to the Super WalMart three blocks away. On the way, I stacked together twelve shopping carts from WalMart that were just setting around. We pushed them into the collection center in the parking lot and went inside. We had breakfast at the McDonalds inside the WalMart. I gave each of them a portion of the $1000 after paying the bill with some $20's. Over breakfast we decided who would get what. We decided to buy clothes for ourselves and kitchen staples. We would get the spices and such the next time. I stressed that they should buy clothes that were inexpensive. We did NOT want to advertise wealth.

I had too much to eat... Things were looking up.

I took Marsha with me. She babbled about how glad she was to see the three of us.

No one seemed to question any of us, when we paid cash for our purchases. We separately pushed our carts through the huge Super WalMart parking lot and on to the Fresh Air Estates. I left last and arrived first. We unloaded everything. We quickly filled the refrigerator and freezer with food. The shelves were not quite filled, but we made a start... Then each of us went back to our rooms to put up our new clothes. For appearances, I had the master bedroom, Brittany and Ashley in the guise of boys had the two bedrooms and Marsha was supposedly sharing my bed.

I was hanging up the last of my new clothes when there was a knock at the front door. I was tempted to pull a gun from the gold bag, but knew that was a bad idea until it was checked. I took a chance and just went to the front door. The other three met me in the living room. I opened the door and a woman said, "I'm Elsey Dewhurst. I'm the manager for Fresh Air Estates. Who are you folks? You can't just move into a unit without first checking with me. Particularly this unit. No one's supposed to be in this one." She was surprisingly civil for someone who had been called to work unexpectedly... and on a Sunday.

I said, "Hi! I'm Sergai Brzezinski. I have the papers that prove that we should be here. Why don't you come on in? Would you care for a drink? I think we have a Coke or Pepsi or Dr Pepper... As you said we just moved in." She and I sat at the kitchen table.

"Coke would be okay."

Brittany opened the refrigerator and poured some Coca Cola into one of the new glasses we had just bought and set it before her. I laid out the lease in front of her and my ID. "As you can see, my name is on the lease which is for five years. We are two years into the lease... Just so you know, I own Fresh Air Estates. Or rather my mother bought this trailer park and put it in my name. She will get here in about a month, when she gets out of the hospital. We're from San Antonio. Our father beat our mother badly enough over the weekend that she asked us to come down here and hide from him. We would appreciate it if you told any private investigator that shows up that Sergai Brzezinski has had a lease here for two years. He moved in his honey and her two brothers over the weekend... That's Marsha Key. The guy with black hair is Kirk Brzezinski. The guy in the brown hair is Lane Brzezinski."

Ms. Dewhurst said, "Hey! I know nothing about who owns this place. Let me go back to the office and look this up." She made to leave with the lease.

I said, "I do not feel comfortable letting that lease out of my hands. Let me walk with you to the office." I turned to the others. "Let me deal with this and I will be right back." Ms. Dewhurst was a bit bemused by my attitude.