Chapter 20 Death by Numbers-Act 1 Scene 8HNY

Happy New Year

Chapter 20 Death by Numbers-Act 1 Scene 7

Within about an hour, Samuel began waking up. It was a process. First he opened his eyes, then he closed them again, hoping that the world he opened his eyes to was a dream. If it was, that would mean that the pain was also a dream. Neither was true. Samuel had noticed Gus in the room and had immediately summed him up as useless. He also decided to keep his mouth shut until he had time to get his bearings. Unfortunately, Gus had been in the process of investigating his own reflection to see if he had started growing nose hairs when Samuel awoke. As chance would have it, Gus caught site of Samuel's open eyes and decided that it was his job to get Samuel to do some talking.

"Hello there," Gus began," my name is Gus. Look, I know you probably don't feel much like talking but Sal said I was supposed to tell him anything that you say. If you don't say anything, then I can't tell him anything and I will probably get fired, even though Sal is my uncle. If you do say something then I have to record it so could you tell me first if you plan on saying anything? Oh, and I know your name is Samuel, so you don't have to tell me that if you don't wanna. Also, I know that you're one of the toughest guys so whoever got you must've been totally beezle. So, do you have anything to say?" Gus really just wanted Samuel to say anything so he could call Sal and go home.

Samuel opened his eyes again. He reached up his hand and motioned Gus over to himself with his index finger as if he needed Gus close enough to hear a whisper. Gus came in close, pulling the recorder from his pocket and holding it our toward Samuel's mouth. When Gus was close enough, Samuel grabbed him by the throat and squeezed, just hard enough to sink into the fat. He pulled Gus's ear to his mouth and said," Go Bast Yourself, and get the Varst out of here before I pop you."

Chapter 20 Death by Numbers Act 1-Scene 6

Opening one eye slowly, then the other, Leer began to look around the room he was in. He was in a hospital, there was no mistaking the tiny holes repeated over and over in the ceiling tiles. He'd been in dozens of hospitals across half as many galaxies and at least a third of them had the same ceiling tiles. Gus was over in the corner using some medical shears he had found to open a candy bar wrapper. Leer didn't know Gus. He looked in the other direction to see Samuel, equally beaten, still unconscious and reclined fully upon his hospital bed. He was having trouble remembering who Samuel was. He decided to close his eyes and think about things for a minute before letting anyone know he had awakened.

Slowly his memory returned. He had planned to be badly beaten, it was his own idea. The guy in the bed next to him was the one who did it because Leer had told him to. No one else could know any of that information. What everyone else was going to hear about the beating was part of a much larger plan. A plan that involved a bunch of rookie actors, an incredibly valuable shipment of JumpJuice and a natural disaster which Leer had barely survived, roughly thirty years ago, that was going to occur in less than seventy-two hours. Leer only hoped that Samuel would remember what he was supposed to say when he woke up, otherwise Leer might not live to see the natural disaster he survived thirty years before.

Chapter 20 Death by Numbers Act 1-Scene 5

Sal Lorenzo was not what one would call a compassionate man. He was concerned about Victor and Samuel's health, but only insofar as it pertained to his own interests, namely the JumpJuice shipment. While Sal did wonder what might have become of Max, his apprehension over the whereabouts of the shipment overshadowed his concern for her. The feelers he had put out for information about the shipment and any evidence of a violent struggle for the payload revealed a trail to nowhere and the headless corpse of Abe who he never really liked anyway.

He was a busy man, Sal had places to go, he couldn't hang around waiting for a couple of guys to wake up and tell him his JumpJuice was taken from them. He had to find who took it, get it back and kill everyone involved. "Let me know when either of these guys so much as blinks an eye," he said to Gus, his sister's kid who needed a job so he could pitch in a little rent money every now and then since he had turned his mother's basement into his apartment ever since he graduated from the Rat Town Community College with a MicroSalta IT certification. "If they say anything, Gus, anything at all, write it down," Sal added,"better yet, record it." He tossed Gus a small hand-held device about the size of a small iPod.

"Miss a word of it and I will personally pull your mother's black dress out of the closet for her, got it fat boy?" Gus nodded his head violently as Sal left the hospital room, littering an otherwise pristine hallway with freshly shucked peanut shells.

Chapter 20 Death by Numbers Act 1-Scene 4

As they lay there in the hospital, it became quite clear that it was going to be awhile before Victor or Samuel could talk. So Sal just waited.

Chapter 20 Death by Numbers-Act 1 Scene 3

Sal Lorenzo walked slowly toward the bank entrance, careful to take his time, letting everyone who cared to look, have the opportunity to recognize that it was he who had just emerged from the stretch limo, guarded by three large, hulking masses of muscle and fitted silk. Sal was especially well dressed because today he was going to dispose of a bank president on his way to the Opera. He didn't really like the Opera but he did enjoy removing high ranking executives from their lofty positions by virtue of his own power and wealth, the Opera was for Sophia, his sister, who had no real power or money of her own but lived for the nights that her baby brother Sal would treat her to the Opera. She was the kind of woman who could pull the goodness from a person and make it dance, making the world seem a slightly brighter place even if only for a short time. She never dwelled on the particulars of Sal's reality, it was a truth she could not let herself acknowledge, which is probably why she was capable of such optimism, such joy even when in the company of such evil. She continued to treat him like her little brother, cute, spunky and deserving of love. And Sal let her, and only her, call him Sally. Several of the bank employees who wouldn't even dare to call Mr. Lorenzo, Sal, saw him coming and began to talk amongst each other about the possible reason for his visit. He never came to the bank unless something bad was going to happen, so suddenly about fifteen bank employees needed to go to the bathroom.

When Sal was within a few yards of the entrance to the bank, a van screeched alongside the curb, directly in line with the entrance. Sal's bodyguards turned and drew their weapons with dazzling speed but did not unload into the van because Sal had raised his hand in a halting motion, curious to see what happened next. The side door to the van had already been flung open and a body was tumbling out, followed immediately by another body. Sal recognized the second body instantly, despite the badly beaten features of the face which seemed to slosh from one side of the head to the other as the body continued to roll toward Sal. The van sped off as quickly as it had arrived, leaving Victor and Samuel still rolling along the concrete, all eyes glued to them in an effort to determine whether or not they were even alive. Before the bodyguards had a chance to realize that they were being distracted a beautiful woman, dressed exactly like Max, except for the substitution of some very feminine stiletto heels in lieu of Max's customary jack boots, stood a foot from Sal. His eyes turned to her as she reached between her partially exposed breasts to pull out a small scroll, tied in a red ribbon. In the same motion her stiletto heel lifted from the ground and came to rest , dead smack in the middle of Victor's chest who's barely breathing body had stopped rolling just a foot shy of Sal and the young, beautiful woman. She held the scroll out to Sal, in just the right spot so his eyes would see the scroll and Victor's pummelled face at the same time. He took the scroll from the woman as she stepped through, walking directly across Victor's chest as if he were a minor, inconvenient little bump in her path.

"Take her", Sal shouted. As his bodyguards raised their guns they were all simultaneously eliminated. One by some sort of long-range tazer, leaving him twitching on the pavement. Another was just down, whatever happened to him had happened too quickly for anyone to see. A shorter person, dressed  in a very dark black suit from head to toe, was running away about twenty yards from the spot where his motionless body lay. The third was tumbling across the ground after having been hit by a speeding cycle which not only threw him head over heels but also managed to pick up the girl and speed away before Sal even had the thought to draw his own weapon.

He bent down to listen for Victor's breathing as he unrolled the scroll and read 'Thanks for the Juice-Keep it Coming-We Need More'.

Chapter 20 Death by Numbers-Act 1 Scene 2

Victor moved with unprecedented speed which stunned the members of the team who had assembled to witness the challenge, particularly those who were his crew, Manny and Franco Fiorelli, Gavin and Marv, even Max who had witnessed Victor's skillful fighting at Sal's clubhouse but thought she might have been a little biased since she had just spent the greater part of the morning making love to him. Now however, he was up against Samuel who was undeniably the mightiest as well as one of the swiftest fighters in the team and Max hadn't gotten so much as a lick of sexual attention from Victor since they reached the hideaway. They all marveled as Victor leaped to the side of Samuel who attempted to follow his crushing punch with another jab only to be thoroughly thrown off his feet by a flying clothesline headlock from Victor. Leer knew he had to allow himself to be pummeled, but the point was to mess up Samuel in the process. Besides, he didn't much like the idea of losing any of his share regardless of how long he ended up staying on Salta. The first fall went to Victor. Samuel, though not physically scarred from being dropped was sufficiently enraged by the fact that Victor had gotten the drop on him so quickly that he completely ignored Victors offer of a hand up. Sulking stormily, Samuel rounded on Victor with a relentless series of roundhouse kicks. The first two missed wildly but the third was truly unusual, coming twice as fast around as the first two, catching Victor off-guard, caving in the side of his face, nearly breaking his jaw. Leer went down hard.

"Hey Victor," Samuel taunted as he towered over his fallen boss," you can spare yourself th'beatin' and just give up the quarter." He laughed a deep and gloating laugh which was suddenly cut short by an excruciating howl as Victor caved his knee backwards with a quick kick from the ground. As Samuel doubled over forward to clutch the knee in agony Victor bounded up directly into his face with an elbow pushed from below by the full force of his other arm and legs standing up directly into the blow sending Samuels head back fully. The big man tried to stay on his feet as he fell backward his nose gushing blood, both lips bleeding. Then Victor reached out and caught him, helping to steady him on his feet. Despite the assistance, Samuel lit into Victor with a series of punches. the two men stood toe to toe, bludgeoning one another with punches from the gut to the head, so quickly and forcibly that there was a shower of blood drenching the onlookers. Then everything stopped.

Both men stood teetering on their own feet, arms dropped to their sides from exhaustion. With one final jab of the base of his hand into the chin of Samuel, Victor put the big man down for the second and final fall. He had won the contest but collapsed directly upon his advesary.

Max leaned in close to check to see if he was breathing. Leer pointed to a pocket on his shirt. there, slightly sticking out of it was a bloody piece of paper. She removed the paper, unfolded it and began reading. The plan had begun.

Chapter 20 Death by Numbers-Act 1 Scene 1

"Hey Samuel,"Leer called out across the yard out behind the shed that had now become the " actors training studio", a mixture of picnic tables and assorted fitness stations, Samuel had just finished a couple hundred sit-ups on the incline bench and was still halfway upside down as he looked across at Victor,"I'll give you one quarter of my share of the profits if you can take me, two falls out of three," Leer wasn't about to count on acting or make-up to accomplish what he was after, a good, severe beating, something along the lines of that Victor had received at the hands of Tommy. In the process, he had to make damn sure to hang in there long enough to do the same to Samuel. Both men looking as though they were just barely clinging to life was tantamount to the success of the mission.

Samuel rolled all the way back so he was fully upside down and releasing his feet from the bars, flipped all the way back and was standing on his feet a second later. He turned toward Victor, smiling. he walked over slowly, wiping the sweat from his own face then flexing his arms forward and over his head as he leaned from side to side, stretching in preparation, still approaching Victor, his eyes glued to Victor who stood nearly a whole foot shorter than he. "When do we start?" Samuel asked.

"N..." Victor was unable to finish the word now because the moment he began to say it Samuel unloaded  a full-fisted bashing to the center of Victor's face, the nose of which was almost certainly broken on contact. Victor stumbled backward, nearly hitting the dirt but catching himself just inches away from suffering his first fall. He was obviously caught by surprise and noticeably hurt by the punch but he began to laugh. "A quarter of my share is twice your share Samuel, so you're going to have to try a little harder than that."

Chapter 20 Death by Numbers

His plan was to kill off at least half the people there. The other half would be so traumatized by the massacre that they would have little or no recollection of what had happened. Then he would return. He was going to need some back-up, someone to corroborate his account of the events which took the lives of so many, but he wasn't sure who he could trust. Or perhaps more to the point, who would give the best performance. Luckily for Leer, he had Dr. Case to help make that decision. With half of the team in hiding, pretending to be dead, including Max, and most of the other half useless to him, Victor would be alone with whoever he picked to join him as he faced a Sal whose reaction to the loss of another shipment, his star team and his daughter all at once could be downright murderous.

So Stan Case came up with a solution. He chose Samuel to be the remaining "sane" team member to return with Victor because Samuel had impeccable delivery. He could talk about anything in the same matter of fact way whether it be fact or fiction, joyful or depressing because that was what he did anyway. He is even-toned but not lifeless and that's just the type of guy they would need to convince Sal of everything that Victor was going to claim to have happened. Max had to stay behind because it was part of Victor's overall plan. The rest of them picked numbers out of a hat. Those who drew odd numbers would stay and die, those who drew even would go suddenly mad.

Chapter 19 - Leaving at the Speed of Light

It was true, Blue now seemed to possess an inner knowing which was so powerful and inexplicable given his usual M.O. which consisted of going along with the flow of just about everything with nearly everyone around him, with no definitive course of his own. Perhaps that is what made him most suited to be come Onjadiavaan. What he was feeling now was a strong sense of purpose with absolutely nothing for a plan. As a matter of fact, he seemed particularly confident that not having a plan at this particular moment was the best possible plan he could have. What he knew was that it was time to leave the Shadowlands. What he told everyone was nothing. He just left. He didn't pack. He didn't say goodbye. He didn't kiss or hug anybody. He didn't shake hands with or leave a note for anybody. He simply left the Shadowlands in the middle of the afternoon, on foot with only the clothes upon his back. He didn't even bring Shedavah along. He put the crystal in the center of a small shrine just outside the back door of Mojahdii's hut then walked down the narrow footpath which wound its way along the fields which filled the valley floor until he reached the slope of the mountain range that formed the edge of the valley on the far north side. Then he leaped up into the air and glided to the top of a large outcropping of rock at the summit where he sat and waited for sunset.

Chapter 19 - Learning at the Speed of Light 6

"One might think that in an enlightened community, important, possibly life-changing events and the news of those events might be handled with care, discussed only when appropriate and only with others who understood the more comprehensive picture of what such news meant and what it might affect. Nothing could be further from the truth. The reason for this is simple, the enlightened tend to behave as if everyone is enlightened or at least aware that what the enlightened are enlightened about is ultimately true. However, it is not true that everyone is even the least bit interested in enlightenment. So, people who may not be the right people to trust with important news such as the recovery of Shedavah by Onjadiavaan end up having that news shared with them by naive, enlightened folk who by their faith in others expose the innocent to the wiles of the wicked. Ultimately, it is this very irony that maintains the balance of good and evil within the universe. Still, good people end up dead all of the time because of things just like this." Mojahdii said as he walked back and forth slowly, smiling warmly at Blue so as not to discourage him. "So, Onjadiavaan, you are now here with us so that you can deliver that which has been promised, and all of us who have been waiting have great hopes in you. Nearly all who have waited think that since you have arrived, the stories that have been told of what has been and what is to come are certainly true. You have learned many of these stories already, nearly all in fact, while you prepared to reclaim Shedavah but I can imagine that it feels quite different now that you are actually Onjadiavaan." Mojahdii winked at Blue and continued pacing."What most of the believers don't understand, Blue, is that you are Onjadiavaan only as long as you fulfill that which it is to be Onjadiavaan."Mojahdii stopped pacing and turned to see Blue's reaction. Blue did not seem to be the least bit surprised by this information, in fact, he seemed to be relieved. "Perhaps you have already figured this out? or maybe you no longer wish to be Onjadiavaan," Mojahdii postulated with a half-smile, then waited for a response.

"I am Onjadiavaan," Blue responded," I do not know for how long any more than I know why, but I don't care. For some reason, my friend turned out to really be a character he made up in a comic book we were writing together, or was it the other way around." Blue paused, as if considering this question one more time might somehow, this time, wind up being answered, then he continued,"doesn't matter. We travelled through space and time, became a few different kinds of creatures, ended up in bodies that weren't even our own on a world that seems like the one I call home, though Farb knows why," he laughs at his own, internal joke about the nature of divinity,"then I find, lose and recover Shedavah. Now if that doesn't mean that I am meant to be Onjadiavaan as part of some greater plan, then I will just have to find out the hard way. There is only one thing that I know and that is that I know something. I can't explain it, hell, I don't even understand it, but I don't have to, so, please, Mojahdii, tell me what I need to know about being Onjadiavaan because I have a feeling that all Varst is gonna break loose any day now!"

Mojahdii laughed very softly to himself then looked at Blue calmly but with a seriousness that said that everything that was going on right now, for all of the people whom Blue had come to know and love, was absolutely critical and dependent upon his actions. "Onjadiavaan delivers Shedavah to all. You are absolutely right Blue, you are Onjadiavaan and only you can know what is right, what must be done at any given time. I can only tell you that your path will be difficult, you will be challenged. If the stories are true, by someone of this world, Salta, who is very powerful, by someone who travels through space and time and by one who is very close to you. If you fail, our world and many others like it will be plunged into great darkness and despair. If that is the case, then it is meant to be and it is no more a reflection on you than on me or Sansaa or Vinny, Anna Marie or Targent, or any of the people of the Shadowlands, Salta or the worlds beyond. You must do your best and that is all that is required of you. If your best is to go outside and sit on a rock for the next ten years, then you must go sit on that rock." Mojahdii smiled warmly and rubbed Blue on the shoulder then added,"I do want to give you one little bit of advice though. If you sense something unusual, such as seeing into someone else's mind, or feeling the change of weather, long before there is any sign of it, if it seems as though the animals, plants and trees, or you feel as though Salta herself is speaking to you, do not disregard a single element. You are Onjadiavaan and you are connected with 'All that is', perhaps more directly than any one of us has ever been. And Blue, enjoy the rush and let your light bring happiness to those around you."

Chapter 19 - Learning at the Speed of Light 5

The walk back to the village didn't take very long especially with Targent running ahead every five minutes, scoping out who might be approaching them on the trail. As soon as he would see someone coming, he would run back to Blue and Anna Marie and throw his arm around them so whoever might see them would know that he was with them, he was a friend of Onjadiavaan. One of the people they passed was a photographer who had set up her tripod to capture a beautiful scene along the path. When the trio reached her spot, Targent hovered over her, peeked over her shoulder to see how her shot was framed within the viewfinder, then tapped her repeatedly on the shoulder, then the other shoulder, then the head until she finally acknowledged his presence with  a grumpy stare. He bounced up and down and ran over to Blue then pointed to him, then back to himself and repeated that motion a few times, his eyes sparkling with pride. "Can you take a picture of us together?" He asked the photographer who kindly explained that she was already taking a picture of the landscape which lay on the opposite side of the path in the distance. "It'll just take a second," Targent went on,"really, it's so nice out right now, and bright, so actually it'll take less time than that. Boyo, if you had a second long exposure in this light, Cripees, that would be a bad shot fer sure," he laughed then walked in real close to the photographer,"SO-o-o-o-o, it would actually be less than a second and then we would just leave you alone." Targent was relentless.

The photographer was really looking unhappy and turned her eyes toward Blue. She was about to explain why she didn't want to take the picture and was actually going to apologize to the entire trio even though it was really only Targent who seemed to think that the photo was a good idea, when she noticed that she was about to address Onjadiavaan. She nearly fell to her knees but caught herself, then straightening back up she scurried toward the camera saying,"I'm so sorry, I didn't know, I would be honored, may I please take your photo, Onjadiavaan?"

"You do not have to take the picture, please continue with your art," Blue quickly responded placing his arm around Anna Marie and turning toward the village by way of the path.

"Please Onjadiavaan," the woman called out, knowing that this would be the very first photo of Onjadiavaan since the recovery of Shedavah, "I would much rather have a photo of you." trying her best to not be so obviously fame smitten she motioned to the entire trio.

They agreed to stand for a portrait which actually turned out to be a beautiful shot with the trio framed by the flora which grew with such lushness all along the path.

The walk back to the village was quite brief from the photo spot and Targent wanted to run off and tell everyone where he had just been. Blue wanted to sit down in his tent and have a little something to eat and Anna Marie just wanted to be with him. When they arrived at the tent, it was difficult to find the entrance as it had been decorated lavishly with countless bouquets, handmade signs and other offerings all to honor Onjadiavaan.

"Tommy!" a booming voice burst from within the shrine of gifts. It was Vinny who was holding a cold beer out with one arm and knocking one back with the other. His head and eyes gestured toward his own beer,"Thought I'd help myself, since there's a big enough supply in there to last a lifetime," he said indicating the interior of the tent.

"Where's mine?" Anna Marie teased softly followed by the cutest little laugh which Vinny began to echo until...

"Hey!" Vinny nearly spit out the swig he took in mid-laugh, "you're talking!" Anna Marie just smiled at him. "Well Bastin' Farbunkle, by all means, one for the lady!"

Chapter 19 Learning at the Speed of Light 4

"Who me, well I, um, so anyway, you and she and, well, Mojahdii. I mean I was just, well, I was, like standing there and looking at you guys and then, 'PffffffTttt', you're like gone... Just gone." Targent spits out clumsily as he begins to hop up and down. "And Then, then, I, well I, then, y'know, then I, like, y'know, I  uh I,well I know it must all be true. Y'know the whole thing, Tommy, that you're Onjadiavaan and that you have brought Shedavah to me, uh, i mean us, yes, us, Shedavah, and you're like totally Onjadiavaan which means that you can do amazing things like disappear and fly and run super fast and hear things like a super-good-hearing animal and you can be here and there and heal people and grow things and stuff like that." Targent held himself in his own arms like he was holding in his bones for fear they might jump out and hug Tommy with enthusiasm and then he looked at his own feet and said," so I came out here to find you 'cause I know you like it out here... and here you are, and I got to see you fly and you were like going up and down and all over and like upside down and Anna, she was like hangin' on and like,'ahhhhh-ooohhhh-ahhhh', and you're like all shootin' through the sky and stuff, and I'm like, 'Ooh, I wanna fly, I wanna fly, I wanna fly', and then you're like back on the ground so i got scared and jumped in this tree. So you're probably done with flying now and totally all ti-i-i--i-i-rrrrrrr!"

Blue had taken Targent quickly by his shoulders and launched into the sky with him so fast it took his breath away.They rocketed straight up into the sky with ease then levelled out into a coast roughly half-a-mile up.

"Tired, hmm-mmn," Targent laughed sheepishly to himself in a tone that said 'I guess I was wrong as well as the next time I pull the poor me, I guess I missed out routine, I'd better be ready if they call my bluff!' He was dangling below Blue who had a firm hold of Targent from behind his back and around his chest. "Barfunkle, Tommy, this is awesome, I mean Onjadiavaan, totally Beezle".

Blue shot in low over the tree-line with him and landed smoothly on the path just meters away from where they started as a delighted Anna Marie laughed and clapped, applauding their return. Targent gave her a big hug then she reached out and took Blue's hand as the three of them walked together, back toward the village.

Chapter 19 Learning at the Speed of Light 3

Blue thought about flying many times before. After all, he was a comic book illustrator, or at least a wanna be comic book illustrator. The point is, he knew just what at least three dozen different superheroes were capable of and was in the middle of doing what only a handful of them could actually do. He was flying. He wasn't using any fancy machines, surfboards, glowing rings or flames to make him fly, he was just thinking about how he wanted to fly, where he wanted to fly, how fast and how high he wanted to fly and he was doing it all while holding on to the most wonderful girl he had ever been with so she could fly with him. In all the time that Blue had thought about flying, he never even considered what it would be like to land. he thought about mentioning that to Anna Marie as they neared the ground, but didn't. Instead, he thought about how smooth it would be to just step right down onto the ground and keep walking as if he was descending a staircase and had reached the bottom step, nice, easy and fluid. So that is exactly what he did. Remarkably, all went according to plan and he and Anna Marie continued their walk, Anna Marie giggling at the sheer thrill of it all, holding his hand and skipping along the path.

Suddenly, someone jumped down in front of them from the tree branch which hung just ahead of them along the path. "Hey, you two little lovebirds, and I DO MEAN BIRDS!" Targent laughed as he bounded toward them excitedly. "Amazing, absolutely amazing, you guys were just flying, whooeee! You have got to show me how you do that Tommy, I mean Onjadiavaan. Oh man, you are the real deal, you are Onjadiavaan, I knew it, it was just like I said, nobody believed me, but I knew it, Tommy, sorry, sorry, Onjadiavaan, Awesome!" Targent just blurted out every word, so fast he barely had any breath left.

"Hello Targent" Blue and Anna Marie responded.

"You, you,YOU," Targent stammered, pointing to Anna Marie,"You talked!"

"Yes, Targent," Anna Marie said sweetly,"I have found my voice," she added as she looked to Blue.

"We were just on our way back. Anna Marie was just filling me in on a few things, Targent," Blue said evenly in an effort to calm Targent down,"what brings you out here?"

Chapter 19 - Learning at the Speed of Light 3

The walk was everything Blue had ever imagined true love to feel like, long stretches of simply walking hand in hand, feeling as though there was no reason to even consider what time of day it might be, interspersed with occasional stops along the way, to look at the beauty of nature or to stare into one anothers eyes and then, to kiss. Kissing now, kissing Anna Marie, was not like kissing in college (Blue didn't really have any memorable comparisons to make before that time), nor was it like any kissing he had engaged in since college. He enjoyed kissing but if his mother had actually survived his birth, he would not have bothered to write to her about it, until now. In fact, Blue rarely thought of his mother unless he felt particularly thrilled with life, which regrettably did not happen very often. When he did think of her, it was usually coming from a feeling that he would like to have someone he knew, someone who he could be absolutely certain loved him, to share in the joy of the moment. He could truly say that this moment qualified as one he would have liked to tell his mother about. That thought flashed through his mind so quickly it made his own head spin. Actually, after another moment of quick thinking he narrowed the spinning down to euphoria which is the feeling that this kissing was generating far differently than kissing that had happened in the past.

There were long stretches of simply walking with Anna Marie and long stretches of listening to Anna Marie, actually, because she did have quite a lot on her mind that she simply had to let Blue know about, all of which filled her with a nearly orgasmic sort of enthusiasm. To be Onjadiavaan meant that he had the power to do amazing things. He had already become aware of a couple of them rather recently but Blue was having a little trouble resolving what he considered to be a classic chicken and egg situation. The situation had to do with the cure of Mojahdii and the retrieval of Shedavah from deep within a lightless void inside of Mojahdii himself. The chicken was Mojahdii and his illness, the egg was Shedavah, and Blue couldn't answer the question of which came first, Mojahdii's illness or the existence of a large crystalline energy source deep inside him. He was hoping that Mojahdii might explain that to him later during his visit to the old man's hut. If he had been able to process all of the information that Anna Marie was so willingly and passionately bestowing upon him, he may have been able to answer that question for himself. However, he got stuck on the part where she said that Onjadiavaan can fly.

The moment she said that he reached both arms around her, looked up, and before he could even bend his knees as if preparing to jump he and Anna Marie were already lifting off the ground. For Onjadiavaan, many of the things that he could do were more a matter of learning how to control them than to make them happen. Anna Marie fully intended to make a point of telling Blue all about it but for the moment, flying through a beautiful sky with the love of her life was all she was able or wanted to think about.

Chapter 19 Learning at the Speed of Light 2

"I've been waiting to speak to you for as long as I can remember, Onjadiavaan," Anna Marie said to Blue in a voice full of love and adoration.

"I like it when you call me that, Anna Marie, but it may take some getting used to." Blue said quietly, knowing full well that she was one of less than a handful of people who knew who he truly was, so he whispered," I'd kinda like to hear you call me Blue."

"Okay Blue," she whispered back and he just about melted into the floor,"but I have to tell you something very important," Anna Marie continued to whisper,"No matter who you were before, you are Onjadiavaan, and that is more important than anything you could have imagined as Blue or Tommy. Nothing, not fame, not power, not wealth, not even the love of someone special," she paused and smiled, leaving no doubt that he had her love,"nothing can compare with what it is to be Onjadiavaan." Her eyes welled up as if the feelings inside of her were about to gush out and the only way that she could avoid bursting would be to tell him every exquisite detail of her vision of what it meant to be Onjadiavaan, as though the voiceless silence she had endured could only be fully cured by telling him everything she knew. She grabbed him by the arm and pulled him toward the door but they didn't make it more than a few feet before Mojahdii and his entourage of followers were standing before them, anxious to speak with Onjadiavaan.

Actually, Mojahdii could sense that Anna Marie was bursting and he would have gladly allowed them to leave were it not for the throng of high-level dignitaries crowding their way around him, committed to taking full advantage of the prospect of being one of the first to actually speak with Onjadiavaan, even though several of them had outright ignored Blue since he had arrived, judging him to be a fake or simply lucky. In light of his recent cure of Mojahdii and reclamation of Shedavah through the Glowburst, however, their scepticism regarding his validity was summarily abandoned. As they shoved forward in unison, Blue could see the discomfort in Mojahdii's eyes. That, coupled with his empathy for Anna Marie, filled him with a sudden desire to be far away from the crowd. He looked at Mojahdii who began to laugh and reached a hand toward Blue who reached his own hand toward Anna Marie who completed the circle with Mojahdii. Blue quickly concentrated on the hill at the top of the commons and just as quickly, they were there, far away from the crowd, walking toward Blue's favorite waterfall.

"I think I'll take the path back to my hut," Mojahdii smiled and continued,"I believe Anna Marie has a few things she would like to say to you Onjadiavaan." He began down the path toward his home then turned back toward the couple,"and Blue, thanks for getting me out of there, it was getting a bit crowded. Oh yes, also, nicely done with Shedavah, but just one more thing, that was the easy part. Come to my hut when things die down a bit." The old man walked away leaving the two younger lovers to walk, talk and enjoy the soothing sounds of the waterfall.

Chapter 19 Learning at the Speed of Light

Everyone was rejoicing, hugging one another, crying and laughing. Targent was bouncing up and down with so much energy it was as if he got a direct charge out of Shedavah. In fact, many of the people who had gathered were noticing so pretty dramatic effects from what they were calling the "glowburst" which, only moments earlier, Blue had released from the crystal. Many of the crowd had pushed in closer to tell Mojahdii how glad they were that he was alive. They tried desperately for an opportunity to shake Tommy's hand or even better, touch the crystal. Although it was of great value and power, Tommy held it out to each person who asked, freely and openly, Blue sensed that the crystal was now as much a part of him as his own beating heart. He did fear that someone would try to steal the crystal or try to destroy it, but not today. The people assembled here had come to pay their respects to Mojahdii. They were devoted and loyal followers who would not even consider attempting to take or damage Shedavah.

"Onjadiavaan", Blue heard a voice he thought he had heard before, pure, like song from a dream, coming from behind him. As he turned, before he could see who it was he realized who it must be. His heart soared with happiness even before he saw her because he knew that it would be Anna Marie.

"You're talking!" Blue said in a tone, not of surprise but of understanding,"I am so happy to hear your voice, absolutely beautiful and so gentle.

Chapter 19 - Planning at the Speed of Light and Dark

Blue was awakened earlier than he had planned to get up, not by an alarm clock, a rooster or the smell of fresh-made coffee, but by the gentle stroke of a hand upon his face. There above him stood Anna Marie. He was about to speak, to launch into a story about how he planned to wake her, but his vision cleared of sleep and he recognized that she had been crying. "What is it," he said as she gently pulled on him, clearly in a hurry to leave the tent. "Okay, Anna Marie, I'll follow you," Blue said softly as he stepped into his pants and shoes and slipped on a shirt with the speed of a fire fighter answering an alarm. He had trouble keeping up with her as she bounded down the path and made her way to the hut of Mojahdii. As they neared the hut, a crowd that had assembled around the outside parted to allow Anna Marie and Tommy access to the narrow doorway, made smaller by those assembled, all showing signs of fear, dread or grief. Whether Mojahdii was dead or dying, Blue could not yet determine but he knew it must be either. All eyes were upon him as he slid his way closer to the center of everyone's attention, to the very spot where he had first met Anna Marie. There, directly on the ground, lay Mojahdii, eyes closed in what the yogis might call rest or corpse pose, his feet several inches apart, legs outstretched, arms by his side, hands a few inches out from his waist, palms upward. Blue could tell that he was not dead but only by the subtle heat, slowly passing from his nostrils. No one said a word. Seconds later, the hulking form of Vinny was standing just behind Blue, his hand gently but firmly grasping Blue's shoulder in support. Sansaa raised her eyes to Vinny, through her tears a peaceful acceptance shone.

But Blue looked around at everyone within the hut; and for an instant could see right through its walls, outside to the multitudes already gathered and still on their way, and he did not feel acceptance. In that moment he saw both the living and the dead, those who had come before and those yet to be born. He saw great ribbons of light in varying intensities and sizes stretching for an eternity away from him while passing through him. As he turned his eyes toward Mojahdii he noticed equally strong bands of absolute lightlessness, beyond blackness, so dense yet so vacant that the weight of them was visible, palpable and at the same time forbidding, as if touching them would swallow the very life of the soul. The most ominous of these lightless bands passed directly through Mojahdii and precisely where it did all of the ribbons of light ceased. Though the light filled the hut and every soul assembled within, without and beyond, these same ribbons died at the very heart of Mojahdii. And then he saw it. Floating in the middle of what appeared to be miles of lightlessness, seemingly stretching deep into the very earth upon which Mojahdii lay, was the faintest of sparks, like a single fleck of glitter floating in an endless night. Without a word or a moment of hesitation Blue plunged both of his hands into the blackness, into the breast of Mojahdii.

A shriek of horror rose up from those assembled within the hut, confusion and fear gripped the crowd as Onjadiavaan vanished and Vinny's arm, still reaching forward as if clutching his brother for his very life turned black as pitch. The blackness crawled its way up his arm toward his shoulder then began to take over his chest and neck and for the first time in as long as anyone who had ever known him could remember, fear crept across Vinny's face.

Suddenly, light, the equal of which no living being had ever encountered filled the entire hut. It blazed its way through the very walls of the hut and drenched the valley with its glow. Then, just as suddenly, it was gone and Onjadiavaan stood before the crowd holding Shedavah in his hands. "Tommy!" cried Vinny, restored to his normal self but weeping as he reached out to hug his brother.

Mojahdii sat straight up into what the yogis would call the lotus position, looking as healthy as ever if not more so and said, smiling form ear to ear,"Onjadiavaan, thank you for delivering Shedavah to us all," and then he bowed his head in respect.

Blue smiled then held the crystal high for all to see and this time it did not vanish.

Chapter 19 Planning at the Speed of Light

Planning was never really anything that he considered himself to be particularly good at, and following a plan imposed upon him by another person was always a challenge, to put it mildly, even if his life depended on it. So, faced with the choice whether to plan or be planned upon, Blue decided it was time to devise a plan of his own. Until now he was happy to go along with whatever Anna Marie, Mojahdii or Vinny might come up with on any given day, but that was before Sal made it patently obvious that Tommy was deep into some kind of arrangement with Sal which was not sustainable if Blue intended to peacefully fulfill his new role as Onjadiavaan.
Most of what was happening to Blue was just that; happening to Blue. He was not the master of his own destiny. He felt powerless to control the course of his own actions because he was in a foreign place, time and body. However, he felt fully at ease with his own feelings. Essentially, Blue was still himself, living in the corporeal form of Tommy on a planet which he discovered only recently was called Salta, he possessed all of his former talents and had acquired a few rather remarkable new ones. He decided to start with what he felt, rather than what he knew and that meant that he was going to have to get up very early in the morning, which he knew he hated whether he was Tommy or Blue, because he had to speak with Anna Marie as soon as possible. She had been teaching him, patiently helping him to develop a deeper understanding of Salta, Shedavah and that which binds all things together throughout space and time. Anna Marie was giving him the opportunity to discover his own abilities to explore, investigate and experience this new world in order to realize his place within it so that he might then be able to recognize his place outside of it. Blue was beginning to sense only a fraction of what that truly meant but he knew that he must learn. He knew that he had to be ready. There is only one Onjadiavaan and if Blue knew anything for sure it was that he was the one. What he didn't know was how to take a million flashes of a thousand different moments happening in a hundred-thousand different places at once, pull the energy from those moments into a neat little ball, small enough to fit into his hands and crystallize it. He had already done that but it was beginners luck and he had since lost the ball, the OmegaLux Crystal, Shedavah.

So the plan was simple. Wake up Anna Marie, nice and early in the morning and tell her that he needed to get Shedavah that day, and that he also needed to be able to unleash all of its power in order to get the worlds across space, time and anything else that was critical, to resonate, align, harmonize or otherwise blend smoothly, so he could avoid having to run JumpJuice for Sal, or end up in some crazy battle with Victor or Leer who was actually a very skilled fighter and would surely dominate him were it to come to that. He determined that he was going to need to be fairly well rested if he was to try to accomplish this over the next couple of days or so. He brushed his teeth, climbed into bed and asked All That Is for whatever help was available to a guy like him.

Chapter18 Acting Lessons - Lesson 1 - That's a Wrap

"Don't worry about it, nearly everyone fails the first time," Dr. Case said sympathetically. The members of the team continued to look around at one another because they really didn't know that they were being tested in the first place. They all seemed to be searching the faces of one another for some sign of understanding or lack thereof signifying that there had been no clear indication that they were being tested in any way. Again, their eyes turned to Victor. Sensing their unrest, Leer stood up and did what Victor would normally do if he had called a meeting. He took control.

"We only have a couple of days to get this shipment where it needs to go. I have asked Dr. Case to help us get that done. Pay attention to what he has to say because it is very important." He looked toward Stan and nodded then sat back down.

"Okay everyone," Stan began,"as Victor has mentioned, I am here to help you. These people sitting before you," he gestures toward the beautiful people,"are also here to help you, and sadly for you, no, none of them will be spending any special one on one time with you." The beautiful people smiled toward the team, but the team just frowned and looked disappointed and bewildered."These lovely people are my team. They help me to test and to instruct. The test we ran was a combination of role playing games and interactive personality assessments. The reason you failed is that each one of you divulged information about this mission to a member of my team which would certainly put the mission into jeopardy." Victor's team stopped looking around and looked to Dr. Case then to Victor, then back to Dr. Case, waiting to see what he would say next, judging whether Victor was upset or not."This is all perfectly normal behavior," Stan Case continued,"we are here to teach you how to keep those normal tendencies in check as well as to develop the ability to role play convincingly. In order to perform the tasks necessary to complete this mission, several of you are going to have to become actors, and we," he gestures once again to the beautiful people,"are going to show you how." He paused for a moment, then held his hand out toward Leer who stood up and began to walk toward the front of the room again,"Victor has a very interesting plan which he would like to share with you all now, so I will let him tell you. It is a good plan and should work. If it doesn't, it means that we have failed him, my team and your team, and I for one have a very hard time accepting failure, particularly from myself!" Dr. Case looked at the group with sincerity and intensity. He had made a very strong impression on them from the time he had arrived and as he took his seat he transferred all of that energy to Leer who now stood before the team, no longer just a boss, Victor had become a leader with a plan.

Chapter18 Acting Lessons - Lesson 1 - Fail

The team assembled, Victor and Dr. Case walked to the front of the room carrying a small stack of papers. The team looked at them with an almost annoyed sense of waiting. Following close behind, the beautiful people also walked to the front of the room and the team seemed truly interested, almost eager to see what happened next. The beautiful people spread smiles around like clowns throwing candy at a big parade. Each member of the team blindly imagined that the smiles were solely theirs to see, as if the beautiful people were sending reassurance that the surprise was soon to come. Even Max seemed to be entranced by the beautiful men who spent only five minutes alone in the room with her but asked her questions, smiled, flirted and showered her with individual attention. In her heart she knew that she shouldn't be feeling anything for them but she couldn't keep her eyes off of them while her mind told her that it was all okay because Victor brought them there in the first place. Surely he was aware of what they were doing, what they were saying, how they were making her feel. Suddenly she felt guilty, as if she had betrayed a trust. She quickly asked Farb to forgive her, to make sure that Victor never found out what she had been feeling.

Farb must have been busy. The whole time she had been thinking about it, she had been staring at the beautiful men. During that time, Victor had left the front of the room and maneuvered himself into the seat directly next to Max. "They are truly beautiful, aren't they Max" Victor's voice spoke softly into her ear. She gasped and looked at him with a mixture of guilt and anger. He simply smiled saying,"Stan is about to go over the lesson, we should all listen to what he has to tell us." Somehow, his relaxed tone and his willingness to include himself as one who was about to learn something, made everything alright. He placed his hand upon her thigh and she reached down to hold it.

"Thank you all very much for your time today," Dr. Case began,"we have a lot of information here to evaluate but I'm not going to bore you all with that right now. What I will tell you is that we were testing you." The team began to look around at one another. Most of them were looking to see how the others were reacting. Were they just as mystified by what was happening or did they know something. A few of them thought they knew something and sat smugly. In fact, the only one who knew anything about what was really going on was Leer, and he was sitting with his eyes glued to Dr. Case. Following his example, the team turned their attention to Stan Case. When he sees that they have stopped looking around, that he now has their full attention he tells them,"You ALL failed!

Chapter18 Acting Lessons - Lesson 1

Leer had already begun to show signs that Victor was, in fact, becoming just the sort of leader to inspire loyalty. The way he handled the meeting at Sal's club house made an impression on Sal's goons which was quietly spreading below Sal's own radar. Victor's response to the discovery of the shoe bomb and his quick and decisive reaction to Abe's disruption illustrated his ability to handle the unexpected, while everything that followed right up to the present indicated that he had a plan to move in a new direction. For most of the team, any time they weren't being shot at and were being well fed was luxurious, so compared to some of the other guys they had worked for, Victor seemed pretty alright. Dr. Case had made a good initial impression and was about to assist in the process of establishing Victor as the sort of leader one could believe in, beginning with lesson one.

The team was split into four groups and each of those groups had a leader, chosen at random by drawing lots. Victor was not permitted to be in any of the groups because he had other assignments to perform as part of the group's education. Each person in each group was paired with one of the beautiful people. They were allowed to choose which beautiful person they wanted to be with as long as they had not already been chosen. It actually worked out quite well with the exception of the Fiorelli twins who couldn't make up their minds and Marv's inability to decide between the two beautiful men. Since they had already agreed to go with Max on her turn, they agreed to do the same with Marv. Samuel also chose to go with a male partner, he chose Vladimir and Nick went with Carlo. While one group was going into these "meetings" the others were playing games. One group was playing the "I am the Leader" game, another the "I'll tell you with my body game" and the third the "very first person I would kill" game. While all of the games were enlightening for players and instructors alike the one that was most critical to the success of the mission was the "meeting game".

The build-up to the meeting game was overtly sexual. Each couple or threesome would enter a room together and close the door. The room was dimly lit and soothing music played inside. As the team members were brought into the room, the beautiful person would ask the team member to take a seat, offer a drink and then sit directly across from the team member and begin a conversation. Each conversation started with a few getting to know you type questions such as "What do you like to do with your spare time?" - "Do you like animals?" - "What is your favorite color?"; and all of these questions were asked by the beautiful people while flirtatiously fondling certain items in the room or sprawling gorgeously across some innocent piece of furniture. In the course of less than five minutes each the beautiful people had found out everything they could ever hope to want to know about the shipment and dismissed each team member with a dazzling smile and the promise of a special surprise as long as the team member kept their conversation secret and private.

Several hours later the team assembled in the shed, each member confident that he or she would be receiving the surprise. That fact of the matter is that they all did.

Chapter18 Acting Lessons - Leer's Plan

Stan Case had been called to help the team nearly fifteen years before he actually arrived. Leer's plan had been devised long before that but it took him all of thirty years to prepare for what he was going to try to accomplish over the next week. If you try to understand how he could have already done it all thirty years before, the whole thing becomes far too difficult to process unless you are a Quanji or a Wuoshigah, which you probably aren't or you would be far too busy to read this book given the current state of things. Simply put, Leer knew that in order to pull off what he was about to attempt he would need to embody the qualities of both fearless and numinous leadership.

Chapter18 Acting Lessons 6

Stan Case was one of those rare educators who could instruct so engagingly that the student was seldom even aware that a valuable lesson was taking place. Humorously, unexpectedly, he prepared the team for a learning experience that would not only help them to carry out their mission, despite the fact that it had been altered, but also would give them insight into basic human behavior. Later, he would lead the team through a series of exercises which would illustrate the need for the lessons in the first place. Stan spoke for about an hour and a half and in that time not a single one of the team wanted to leave the room. Normally, this level of attentiveness could be traced to the feeling that Victor would kill, or worse, torture them if they even thought of leaving, but in this Case things were different. A transformation seemed to be happening within the room, even to the Fiorelli twins who spent the first five minutes drooling over the women who had arrived but  since were glued to Stan's every word and gesture. If he had stood up and marched them all out of the room and over a cliff the team would certainly be dead. But he didn't. What Dr. Case did do was inspire them to learn and being inspired to learn is half the task.

Chapter18 Acting Lessons 5

Needless to say, the shipment was checked, the tracks were hidden and everything was locked down tight in no time. The entire team found their bedrolls rather quickly and settled in for the night. Not a single one of them asked what Victor had meant about acting lessons even though the Victor they were all working with today was clearly not the same Victor who buried Ozzie Warburton alive.

Leer shocked the Varst out of everyone in the morning when six of the most beautiful people they had ever seen showed up for breakfast, four women and two men. There was a gentleman who was in his mid-fifties who arrived with them but no one seemed to pay much attention to him. he was the person Victor would tell them all to pay the most attention to, but for now they sat with their mouths open, the only sound a communal humming of open-mouthed breathing with occasional low-level groaning as if they had all spend the last week trudging through the desert without water then suddenly saw a fountain spouting the stuff freely just beyond their collective reach.

"You've come just in time," Franco started,"I was just about to go for a walk to a most splendid spot I discovered only just last night, the view is quite fabulous..." he was cut short.

Manny stepped in front of him and continued,"Though not quite so fabulous as the one I am surveying right now," he swaggered his way toward the women, careful to keep his eyes moving to each of them equally.

"Manny, Franco." Victor needed only to speak their names in a certain tone and they immediately stopped talking. Neither could resist the urge to pucker and wink with hideously nauseating self-love which filled the room with the odor of smarm, the stench of which lingers and makes all things that come near to it, wither. However, the women smiled, one even giggled and Franco was certain that the last girl his eyes fell upon blushed at his gaze. "We are joined today, gentlemen," Victor continued, his eyes falling directly upon the Fiorelli twins, by Dr. Stanislas Case. He and his team are going to help us. I want you to give Dr. Case your undivided attention as it is he who will most likely be responsible for saving each of your lives."

Chapter18 Acting Lessons 4

Someone being buried alive in wet cement is the sort of thing that just sticks in a persons mind, and news of that type of activity tends to travel quickly. It would be hard to prove who did it and it was not going to be proven by anyone within the Rat Town Police Department. So it became the stuff of legend. Victor had no problem with being the name attached to the legend even it it was followed with adjectives like brutal, unfeeling and maniacal, then capped off with the all too easily added monster, tyrant or asshole. In fact, he quite enjoyed it and it made him laugh as he relived the moment, the helplessness of Ozzie and his own complete disregard for the man's suffering which only served to further distance him from Victor as Victor was clearly the alpha male, not just the one who would survive but most certainly the one who would dominate.

The incident worked well for Victor as a message to all who worked for him, that he would not tolerate anyone who did not strictly follow his orders. It also sent a message to those who did not work for him that he was just plain scary. For several months following the live burial of Ozzie there was not a single missed payment or botched deal. People who had dealings with the Alonso organization were considerate, responsible and respectful of the organization as a whole and particularly of Victor himself.

Ironically, less than two weeks after the demise of Ozzie, Victor began forging agreements with a variety of businesses in various trades, widening his reach and generating some purely legal income. With frighteningly bad taste Victor would refer to the process of selection regarding new partner or acquisition decisions as "Ozzilating" and the establishment of an arrangement leading to a final contract as "Ozzification" as if in doing so he bolstered his own stature. Most everyone else found it disgusting, repulsive and horrible, except Sal who really seemed to admire the way Victor handled every aspect of the incident with Ozzie. In fact, Sal invited Victor over for dinner, without Max, shortly after the incident so they could sit around afterwards, get blasted on Juice and shots of liquor and discuss the various ways they had made the weaker people in the world suffer.

Chapter18 Acting Lessons 3

In an ironic turn of events the team wound up dropping the Juice shipment in a location directly across a narrow road from a new condominium expansion site, under construction by none other than the Carrullo Brothers. The site was empty except for a small team of men who appeared to be working to pour some concrete support columns. Victor was aware of the proximity of the Levito-partnered site, in fact, he enjoyed  setting up shipments in unexpected places and in general this strategy worked well to ensure the safety of the shipment. Everything went off without a hitch. The buyers all received their Juice and the team members were getting back into the vehicles when Ozzie stopped and turned toward the work site across the street, pointing. "See Victor," he said, interrupting him as he was filling in Marv on a few revisions to the route back to base. "that site over there is a Carullo site. The Levito organization is pulling in about half of the profits on that job because of the terms they have in place with the Carullos."


Victor looked over at him and said,"Not right now Ozzie, let's keep it moving."


"But Victor," Ozzie returned,"it's not that big of a deal and we could set the whole thing up with some standard cookie cutter terms, easy as pie."


"Ozzie, get in the vehicle, now is not the time,"Victor said, his voice turned up that one little notch higher, indicating that he had reached his limit and that it would be best for Ozzie to save his idea for later.


"Look," Ozzie continued,"everything they work on, every bit of snark that rolls in on a job gets split up with the Levito organization."


Victor looked at the men standing on either side of Ozzie and with his eyes and a subtle clenching of his fists, indicated that he wanted Ozzie held. He turned away from the vehicle so that Ozzie was behind his back, held by the men. Victor made a sweeping motion with his arm, indicating with his hand that he wanted them to follow him in the direction of the work site. He crossed the street and entered the work site through a break in the chain link fence. The men followed him, Ozzie practically being dragged at this point.

"Hey, Victor, it's okay, we can talk later, I-I just w-wanted to help, really," Ozzie flailed for pity.

At this point the workers caught site of Victor. Even though they were affiliated with the Levito organization, the Carullo Brothers staff were not Juice-runners or fighters, they were workers, craftsmen, engineers and carpenters. The appearance of Victor and the other two men dragging Ozzie along, crying for mercy was not only unsettling, it was a little intimidating. One of the men, feeling tough, strong and capable actually had the audacity to yell out, "Hey, what's going on down there," standing on a raised platform, guiding the wet cement into the mold for the support column he continued, "this is a closed site."

Victor pulled a rather large weapon out from the inside of the left side of his vest. He aimed it directly at the shouting man's head then gave it a little wave, instructing the man to get down from the platform by means of the adjacent ladder. The man felt a little less strong, a little less tough but on one level he was far more intelligent than Ozzie, he did not need to be told more than once. He quickly, without argument, descended the ladder and left the site, closely following his workmates who had already determined that they had done enough work for the day.

Victor surveyed the site quickly as if looking for something he knew he would find. He was not disappointed. he walked over to a large spool of electrical wire and started to unwind it as he walked toward Ozzie. First, he bound Ozzie's hands together, who was crying pitifully, though he would receive none. Next, Victor, pulled the wire up and wrapped it around Ozzie's head, winding it around below his ears and across his face, pulling it firmly through his crying mouth capturing his tongue as he pulled the wire tight in several revolutions around Ozzie's head until he could barely breathe let alone sob. "That's better," Victor said as he looked into Ozzie's face," now, maybe you'll listen to what I am telling you. When I say that I don't want to talk about something, I really don't want to talk about something, whether you think it's a good idea or not. Now, you have wasted my time and taken me off of my schedule."  Finally, Victor bound his feet together as he continued walking toward the freshly poured column. He raised his voice so Ozzie could hear him as he walked away, "I prefer to be listened to the first time, I do not like being taken off of my schedule and I will ask for ideas when I want to hear them. By now he was on top of the ladder. He threw the wire over a pipe which connected the platform to some scaffolding which ran up the side of a completed wall to the structure.  He then grabbed the rest of the wire leading toward Ozzie and began to pull, dragging his body, still kicking in an effort to break free, until it rested below him on the ground. Victor wrapped the wire which was slung on the opposite side of the pole and jumped over the side of the platform. As he descended toward the ground, Ozzie's body rose toward the platform. The two men began to laugh but quickly stopped as Victor glared at them and held the wire out toward them. They quickly rushed over to take the wire from him. As one of the men held on he was nearly pulled off his feet and almost lost grip of the wire, Victor quickly grabbed the wire with one hand, steadying it to allow the other man to help. "When I tell you to let go, let go," Victor said, "and not a moment sooner." Victor climbed back up the ladder to find himself looking down at the tearful, bloody face of Ozzie.

Victor reached over the side of the platform and maneuvered Ozzie's hanging body over the freshly poured but incomplete column. Ozzie looked up from eyes that knew they were going to die only to hear Victor say,"You know, Oz, I don't even think your idea is such a bad idea, but I just can't stomach someone who doesn't understand that there is a right and a wrong time for conversation. Sadly, once again, I don't have time to hear your side of the story but I will take the matter you have raised under consideration, in fact, the idea is firmly cemented in my brain!" Victor looked over the side of the platform to see the two men looking up at him, he turned on the cement loader which started gushing fresh cement out over the shoulders of the hanging Ozzie, filling up the mold around him. Victor held his arm outwith a thumb in the air and with a large, emphatic, sweeping gesture turned the thumb down. The men released the wire, dropping Ozzie's writhing form completely into the fresh cement.

Chapter 18 Acting Lessons 2

Nobody moved. Leer stood looking at his entire team, each one of them, including Max looking as though they were doubting Victor's sanity. "What are you waiting for?" Victor said with his usual forcefulness and then some, snapping the team out of their frozen state. They were still confused but there was no doubt that Victor meant business. Most of them had learned that when Victor raised his voice above his usual clear and undeniably audible level, to a notch just slightly higher, it was best to do what he had instructed. Possibly the most concrete example of this was an incident involving a guy named Ozzie Warburton.

It happened less than a year before the fight with Tommy Levito, the very man responsible for the incident, sort of. Ozzie was an all around hand. He did alright with manual labor, packing and unpacking the Juice, helping to maintain the grounds and the equipment, but he also helped with the books. He was good enough with numbers to be useful when it came time for accounting. He just saw everything as work and as long as he had it and got paid, fine. However, he did seem to have an appreciation for how the numbers worked that went beyond a system of checks and balances. He paid attention to what the various operations around Rat Town were into, how they made their money, who they chose to work with, and who they did not. So, one day , Ozzie was going through some books and he pulled out a newspaper during a short break. In the paper was a story about the Carrullo Brothers Construction Company, who everybody knew was linked to the Levito family. As he read the story he started writing down a few numbers, some from the article, some from his brain and others from Victor's business. He discovered what he thought was a really useful bit of information which illustrated that Tommy was actually improving his control over Rat Town by developing partnerships with these other businesses like the Carrullo's. Ozzie approached Victor one afternoon as they were packing up a shipment,"Mr. Alonso, I beg your pardon, but I have been looking through our books and comparing them to what I know of the Levito operation and I think I have an important suggestion." Ozzie waited but there was no response, Victor kept talking to the  men as they prepared the shipment but did not acknowledge Ozzie's presence."Mr. Alonso, I'm afraid you didn't hear me, I said I think..." he paused in mid-sentence as Victor turned, facing him directly,"I think we ought to establish some relationships with other businesses, not associated with JumpJuice." Victor continued to look at Ozzie as he added,"It seems as though the Levito organization nets an additional twenty percent from investments into other business." Ozzie stood in expectant silence as he watched the expression change on Victor's face.

"I don't want to talk about other options, Warburton." Victor said in his usual tone.

"But we  might be able to increase our revenue and expand our influence all at once," Ozzie tried again.

"I said, I am not interested in discussing this at the moment, " Victor said, his tone slightly louder indicating that he was, in fact, unwilling to listen to any suggestion no matter how good. Ozzie seemed prepared to go on but his friend Harvey Tweed, who was standing right next to him, grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him away from Victor, telling him that Victor didn't like continuing conversation past the point when he has called to end it. Both Ozzie and Harvey got back to packing, leaving Victor to continue with the process of instructing the team and addressing the security of the shipment.

Chapter 18 Acting Lessons

"You can't be serious, how can this be?" Max asked, just trying to understand how Victor could have managed to find a place like this, let alone buy it without her ever knowing. She tried to rewind through the footage of her years with Victor, hoping to see a moment that he could have been gone from her, or more like it, a moment that she wasn't by his side, doing his bidding, a time when he could have driven out here, met with a realtor or the people who lived here and actually purchased this place. "We have been together every day for as long as I can remember," she concentrated, "wait a minute, no, it couldn't be. Victor, did you come here when you visited my mother? That's it, isn't it." Leer said nothing. The truth was that he had purchased the house fifteen years earlier but it is a very complicated story and he had no intention of telling it to her at the moment. "She really got to you. But that was ages ago. This is just too weird, good, but weird." Max was having a hard time understand all of the changes in Victor, even though they were very positive changes, they were all too sudden.

"It's going to get weirder," Victor said,"I'm sorry Max but there really is no other way. And don't let these guys know that this is our place. As far as they're concerned, it's a rental. I'll explain later, just go with me on this for now." Leer said with a smile, hoping that Max could trust the new Victor enough to be patient with the changes. Leer threw the headset on and gave the order to lock down both trucks inside the barn."Let's make sure the Juice is safe. Get all of the bikes inside. Samuel, Nick, Marv and Gavin, get outside and hide any evidence of our arrival, clear all of the tracks from the barn to the main road and do it quickly. There's all the equipment you'll need on the other side of the shed, just past the well." Victor climbed out of the cab of the dump truck and hoisted himslef onto its hood. He looked back toward the other truck and motioned toward the payload of each truck,"I want the rest of you to make sure that none of this Juice is leaking. Check every container even if you have to take them out and move them around a bit, I want every ounce accounted for." Leer jumped down from the truck and started toward the far door and Max followed close behind. He stopped and turned back and said enthusiastically,"Outside, there's a long narrow shed, mostly blue with a tin roof. When you're all finished inspecting the product, head over to the shed. We've got food and drink for everybody. After that, I want you all to get some rest. We've got a busy day tomorrow, breakfast at the break of dawn followed immediately by your acting lessons.

Chapter 17 Home is where you decide it is - Family Ties 6

"What was that all about," Vinny said as he and Tommy left Sal's place.

"It's complicated and I need to ask you something, but I don't want to have this conversation on your bike." Blue said hoping it would be enough to hold off Vinny's curiosity.

"That's cool, bro, nothing's ever simple when Sal's involved." Vinny said understandingly.

The ride back from Sal's wasn't long enough for Blue, mostly because he couldn't figure out what he would say to Vinny when they got back. He had to tell him some of it but he wanted to tell him all of it. Telling him all of it would mean that he would have to tell him everything and he just wasn't ready to do that. The VinnCycle was a lot faster when it wasn't surrounded by a fleet of limos and they were back at the tent in no time. "Pull up a beer, sit down and tell me all about it," Vinny said as he tossed a beer from the cooler, still chilled, over to Tommy  and grabbed another one for himself. It was late, but not late enough to seek refuge in bed. Blue was going to have to tell Vinny something, but he could not determine what to tell or where to begin."Don't tell me you forgot already." Vinny teased, but that was just the inspiration Blue needed.

"Well, Vinny, that's just it, I have forgotten quite a bit." Vinny looked a little stunned and disappointed,"Not about my conversation with Sal," Tommy continued, "before that. Ever since I woke up in that ambulance, I've been trying to piece together my past." Blue was doing his best to be perfectly honest with Vinny without giving away the farm. "I'm not sure how much of this mess I've actually told you about already."

"Oh, that, no problem, nothing." Vinny laughed. "You never tell me anything little bro." Vinny leaned back and flexed his arms behind his head, settling right back into the state he was in before Sal's goons arrived. "Why should today be any different, we'll play it just like we always do, I go first. Well, I didn't hear anything breaking, so he didn't try to attack you, no shooting, no yelling and some laughing. I don't even have to guess to know that it's about JumpJuice. Those guys came here looking for something, didn't see it but found you. So they were looking for a lost shipment of Juice and thought you had something to do with it." Blue said nothing, which to Vinny was as close as he could get to saying yes,"Oh, I knew it, I'm on to something here, well paint my toenails and call me Madam Chandrala 'cause my third eye just opened and it's staring right at you little bro!" Both men started laughing as Vinny continued. "I am seeing Victor Alonso and Max Lorenzo, I am unclear how they fit in but my guess is that it's one of their shipments that has gone missing." Still, Blue said nothing. "I am on a roll!" Vinny applauded himself as he went for more, "So Sal called you in for a friendly reminder that he owns Rat Town and even though he doesn't know what to make of your resurrection, it doesn't change the fact that he will eliminate anyone who stands in his way."

Blue felt instantly relieved. Vinny's guesses were close enough to right to count as truth and he wouldn't have to divulge any secrets about his identity. "Did I say we had to talk?" Tommy laughed as he held his beer aloft in a salute to Vinny's skill.

"Actually, Tommy, you said you needed to ask me something." Vinny reminded him.

Blue did have a real question for Vinny, "Did Sansaa tell you how long my training is supposed to last?"

"Yeah, Tommy, she did, but it was one of those Sansaa answers, she said, 'for as long as it takes'.

Chapter 17 Home is where you decide it is - Family Ties 5

"Bobby was a natural to run the operation, as a matter of fact, he would have been my first choice to take over for Victor if you actually had beaten him to death, or more correctly, if he hadn't gotten back up after you did. So, Bobby was every bit as good at getting the boys to hustle, load and arm the shipment efficiently as Victor and everything was in place. The convoy was set and the drones were loaded just in case anything went wrong, which was the plan, so the drones had to be disabled. Well, the only way to disable the drones is to disable Aldo because Aldo is fiercely loyal to Victor, as loyal as that bastin' collie on the TV, you know the one that barks for a minute and then the guy says,'what did you say girl, Timmy fell into the well, but everything's okay, just a few scrapes, minor cuts and bruises', bark, bark,bark,'what's that girl, he's hungry and we'd better get him some food or he'll pass out?' Dammit Tommy what's that Bastin' dog's name?!" Sal seemed genuinely distressed by the name of the TV dog escaping him and Blue started to laugh. There was no way in hell or varst for that matter that it could be the same damn dog.

"Lassie?" he said, almost inaudibly.

"LASSIE! Bastin' Farbunkle that's it, LASSIE, you see Tommy, that's why you're number one in my book. I could have recited the whole bastin' show and none of these mollywumps would even know what I was talking about. Could you believe that dog? Farb! She was amazing, and loyal. Loyal, that's my point, Aldo is, was and always will be loyal to Victor. He may seem like he's always complaining and making fun of everybody for being dumber than him but he loves that Victor. I think it had something to do with Victor kickin' the crap outta anybody who messed with Aldo when they were kids, leastwise anybody but you and Vinny, but you boys never seemed to go in for that bully shit. Not back then at least. Anyways, Aldo; so we had to deal with Aldo. You remember Theresa Sedgewig, right?" Tommy nods. "Turns out she's a chemist and Bobby just happened to be on her periodic table of elements to use the vernacular. So he pays her a little visit and gets a custom mixture that he slips into Aldo's coffee the night before the shipment. Tasteless, odorless, but absolutely debilitating for a period of about twenty-four hours. Theresa seems to enjoy mixing up little concoctions and her next one was the key to the whole plan, that and the fact that these days nobody seems capable of taking even the shortest drive in the summer without turning on the air conditioner. By introducing just the smallest amount of Theresa's magic potion into the system, Bobby was able to knock out everyone in the convoy, including the drivers. Aldo's replacement at base camp simply turned off the system and no drones were activated. Bobby, who pretended to be out, hid himself in a corner of the main transport vehicle where he steered the entire convoy with a remote Victor had Aldo dream up about a year ago in case a driver got taken out during an attack." Sal managed to inform Tommy through a mouthful of peanuts.

"Several key players, including Abe, who we just found dead at the scene of the other missing shipment, had also faked collapse thanks to nifty little pocket-size respirators from your friend and mine Sven Midderhaussen. The shipment was unloaded and transferred to helicopters then moved to a location not too terribly far from here. The truly ironic thing about this story is that less than a couple of minutes after the "sleepers" woke up they were attacked. They didn't even know what had happened, had no chance to check the drones and fought to protect a shipment that had already been taken. They lost three men in the fight but kicked the tar out of the MacKenzies who went away, seven down and empty-handed. After the battle, they checked the drones, Bobby acting just as surprised as anyone to find the shipment gone." Sal stood smirking with self-satisfaction.

"You leaked the route to the MacKenzies, didn't you," Tommy said dryly.

"And THAT is the other reason I love you Tommy! Sal laughed as he stepped in a freshly dropped pile of peanut shells. Looking around the room, he realized he had left a substantial trail. He pulled a small electronic device from his robe pocket. It looked like a golf ball but one half seemed to be mesh, like a microphone grille. He lifted a peanut to it, then cracked its shell. The moment he did so, the door to the room opened and the smartly dressed attendant entered with the broom and the golden dustpan. As the attendant swept up the shells, Sal threw his arm around Tommy and said, "Always good to have you over Tommy," he released Blue and headed toward a slightly darkened room across a large hallway," you'll be hearing from me shortly, be sure to tell Vincent to drive safely, so many people just don't see the motorcycles, such little regard for the lives of others, goodnight."