Family Values, Part Two
December 11th 2006 15:55
Family Values, Part Two
Sunday, November 22nd, 2054. 17.00
Space Elevator, Florida.
Charlie had not been terribly impressed with the idea of riding in the cargo hold, however, without the removal and serious re-arrangement of seats in the passenger compartments there was no other option. He relented, only after seeing his accommodations that included full wait service and not having to suit up in a space suit.
While Charlie had in fact been in space before, he hadn't since his growth spurt of about ten or so, which took him past the five-foot level. His growth seemed to have capped in the seven foot three range, and had been slowing. He thought about these things as he took the hour trip up.
At a certain point, he became weightless, and found, while it did make him slightly nauseous, he enjoyed it immensely. He had only brought his PDA, and some clothes, as he could access the rest of his personal files and media where he was going.
When the elevator docked at it's orbital station, there was a bit of confusion as a loader droid had not been notified of it's live cargo, and after a brief remonstration, Charlie found himself wandering the lower bowels of the station until he found a maintenance corridor that had a security person.
He was immediately recognized, and even the space station's administrator came down to apologize. He smiled, was cordial, and helped into an awaiting capsule. This shuttle held him in it's bay, in a cylindrical equipment pod.
With a minimum of fuss, the shuttle pulled beside AG6 and the bay doors opened. It's claw arm grabbed the equipment pod and gingerly deposited it into an outstretched import tube.
The tube pulled back, and Charlie felt gravity take hold as the station's rotation took hold. He felt his pod being moving along conveyers and wished whoever had designed this thing would have put in at least one window.
With a slam that tossed him out of his seat, and then a rude rotation that threw him toward what was the sidewall, and then another rotation that felt like Crone throwing a magic blast at him, he righted himself and waited for the next shock.
The top of the chamber began to unscrew, and then a voice called down.
“Well boy, you gonna get outta that thing, or camp there all week?”
Charlie smiled, and he literally leaped out of the cylinder.
“Dad!” He cried.
The elder McComber smiled broadly. He was not a small man at six foot four, but clearly not a mutant, of any way, shape, or form. The two men embraced each other, and then a woman's shriek lit the air.
Marie McComber, crying with tears of happiness wrapped her hands around the two of them, kissing at her only child. Charlie could not suppress tears of his own, and for a time, the three of them became one blubbering mass, their sounds echoing in the lower part of the agriculture station.
“Let's get outta the tubes, Charlie.” Finally, his father said.
Charlie retrieved his Pda, and clothes, and ducked through the maze of tubes. Only his mother could walk upright, being all of five-foot six. They walked along the outside rim and took a stairwell up.
Ag station six looked like something out of a science fiction film of the nineteen sixties. It was a huge, domed disc studded with rails and lights. Unlike it's nineteen sixties counterpart, the bottom was also a dome. These were engineered to be incredibly efficient providers of soy products and this particular one, Ralph McComber, Charlie's father kept at tip-top condition. It's nuclear power core was so very quiet, the entire series of vessels were dubbed, 'silent runners'.
There were fifteen silent runners encircling the Earth, with a new one going into production every year. They produced primarily soybeans. Like the sea-faring fisheries of old, it was a complete processing plant. Soybeans, grown in hydroponics tubes and were pollinated initially by mechanical insects, but now were pollinated by honeybees.
Each silent runner was manned by a crew of two on each side, a total of four. Being a member of a crew on a silent runner was a highly desirable position that many many people applied for, but none ever gotten. It was not well known, but most space faring positions in the government were actually parents of mutants who were believed to be extraordinarily valuable to the government. The McComber’s, were on one side, and the sister and brother of another government mutant, Violet, was on the other.
Charlie navigated through the maze of plants his mother leading them both easily. Roger McComber confessed to his son that he still got lost in all the mazes. As they came more toward the surface of the disk, Charlie spied some very familiar surroundings.
“The house? They moved the whole blamed house?” He asked.
Marie nodded. “They also rebuilt it a bit. You can fit in it now.” She smiled with a grin, and then Charlie caught sight of the barn. His barn. The barn he'd lived in since he was about eleven.
“They even brought the barn?” He gaped.
“Yeap.” Roger said flatly. “They brought up quite a bit. House has all been re-plumbed of course. And on top of that, they pay us.” He said.
Charlie nodded. They treated his folks right, he thought and said so aloud, “That's our government, working for it's people.” He'd been having a lot of second thoughts about Gteams, but after this, he knew it was going to be okay. Denise was walking some now, still with a walker, and swimming her heart out.
As they approached the house, a sentry droid waved at them. He reminded Charlie vaguely of BD14, which caused him to miss BD14 a bit. He'd grown to fit right in, and Denise had invited him over to the military thanksgiving holiday. He'd cornered her and Gears and told them to keep their eyes on him.
The door opened, and true to Marie McComber's form, the house was immaculate. The doorway, enlarged to eight and a half feet wide and the ceilings to nine. Hallways enlarged from four to five feet. All of this in proportion, keeping the house looking normal. The house layout had not changed. Charlie was staggered. He'd once thought about building a house like this, but this, this was beyond his wildest imagination.
The living area was much larger, with several overstuffed couches and chairs. They were all big enough for him. One of the walls played with the evening news. Roger called for the television to go mute and the image jumped to a closed-captioned tagline.
“They rebuilt your old room, too. Second door on the right, down the hall. Just like before.” He said, smiling.
Charlie, with the curiosity of a four year old trotted down. There was a big bed, a wall based workstation with a docking bay for his Pda. He smiled, as opposite the bed was an old calendar from 2050. It was a mechanic's paper tool calendar with a husky, grease stained wrestler type of guy looking up into an engine chassis. Charlie bit his lips when he saw it. He dad seemed to not notice this reaction, and pulled open the closet.
In the closet, nearly organized were Charlie's civilian clothes. His mom had made everything by hand. Around the base, he didn't wear much more than shorts and sweats, but here was real clothing. Good denim jeans, button up shirts, and real underwear. Socks, too. He espied a stack of old musty magazines at the bottom.
“You saved these?” He said. They were the last printed issues of Muscle and Fitness before they went to exclusive digital distribution.
“I figured they might be worth something. Thought maybe you could sell 'm some day, maybe get a couple of quarters of college out of it or a car, or something.” Roger said.
“Oh I'd never sell these. I used to read these when you worked out.” Charlie's eyes lit up in a nostalgic manner. “When you got sick, I'd read 'm and remember about you lifting weights and stuff.”
Charlie got an idea and flipped through a particular issue. He found a letter in the column with an old-fashioned digital photograph in it. The letter was written in a big font and simply read, 'this is my daddy. He taught me how to read with your book.’ It showed a picture of a young Roger McComber doing curls, pouring down sweat. Charlie, 6, sat at his feet.
“I'd forgotten all about that.” He grinned and reached up to ruffle his son's hair. “Welcome home, boy.”
“Thanks, dad.” Charlie said.
Charlie dropped his Pda into the slot on the wall, and the white plain wall vanished into the current status of the Gteams mission monitor board. Then it flashed red and faded out, with the word, 'classified' only in display. Charlie spoke to the computer.
“Override terminal with Gteams access code four three three seven nine four two, McComber, Charles D. Code name, Über.”
The computer connected to the Gteams mainframe, and Lieutenant Harker appeared. “Über?” He addressed Charlie.
“Yeap. Just keeping up on stuff. Can you give me MMB access on this terminal?”
“You bet. Just that terminal or the house?”
“Make it the house.” He replied.
He watched Harker tap at the touch screen and then nod toward Über.
“All done. Have a good vacation.”
“Thanks, Harker. Happy Thanksgiving.” He said.
“To you too.” Harker replied, and his image vanished.
Charlie gave the computer his access code and a duplicate of his home setup appeared. In the top right corner was a button marked, 'begin' and there were a few folders marked with labels such as, 'mp7's and 'exercise routines'. One was marked 'homework'. The background was the current cover photo of, 'mutant muscle building' ezine. It was a semi-underground publication and Roger asked him about it.
“Well it's put together by a bunch of guys who are mutes too. They all have my mutation, stongaria. I vmail with a couple of them. I'm supposed to write an article for 'm but I need help with some of the stuff I'm trying to get into it. I've never written an article for anybody before.”
“Ma says you got a 'b' in English composition.” Roger said.
“Yeah, but I get help. This gal I work with, Denise? She wanted to be an English teacher.” They had relocated back to the dining room. Marie had made Charlie a pitcher of his favorite beverage, lemonade.
They began to talk a lot, and Roger told Charlie about his heart transplant. Marie knitted a bit, interjecting the odd piece of trivia, here and there, or correcting Roger, which happened a fair amount.
This inevitably lead to this or that squabble, all in good fun. Charlie realized that for the first time, in close to three years, they were finally a family again. A real family, a father, a mother, and a child. This made him smile, at least until the smoke alarm in the kitchen went off.
“Ah!” His mother cried loosing stitches off her knitting while tearing into the kitchen as fast as she could go.
Roger looked at Charlie wryly and said, “Dinner’s done.”
The three of them talked into the night, and played Scrabble, a favorite family game. Charlie's dad was allowed to use the dictionary as much as he liked, for while he enjoyed the game, he was poor at it. To make it interesting, Marie only allowed herself a minute to play, relying instead only on the time that her opponents took to figure out their plays. Nonetheless, she trounced them five games straight.
They watched the news reports at eleven, and then Charlie yawned. He usually turned in about nineish, depending upon what food he could mooch from the lab. He took another slice of his mother's corn pone pie with him to bed.
In his room, he checked the mission monitor board again. Denise was on some sort of special attachment and Gears and Red Eye were taking up the slack. He opened up the current issue of 'mutant muscle building' and started to watch a video about a naturalist lifter who worked out on the beaches in the San Juans. His eyes drooped a bit, as he watched the buff man pour down sweat in the hot sun, and nodded off to sleep as the video showed him running into the surf.
* * *
At oh-four-thirty, Charlie's eyes snapped open. It took him a moment or two to warm up to his surroundings and then he realized he was on the station with his parents. The vid of the nude bodybuilder was still playing and he gasped at his stupidity. He couldn't leave this sort of thing laying around for his dad to find.
He accessed his personal calendar and put into it a skin his father had sent him. It was of fairly scantily clad women playing volleyball. He studied their musculature for a moment, until he realized it was a computer generation and then frowned. Charlie didn't mind looking at scantily clad women, but wanted to see the musculature, their body mechanics, and their development.
He listened for stirrings inside the house, and heard none. Not wishing to wake anyone up, his body craved to exercise, as he'd trained it to be.
He padded out of the house, and a sentry droid greeted him. He asked it where his father's weight room was, and it replied in the barn. Charlie smiled; dad was predictable, if nothing else. In fact, he thought to himself, he should be up in an hour or so. Charlie warmed up between now and then.
He strode into the barn, and was amazed; it was clean, well organized. In a corner were stacks of weights and plates, and pictures of Charlie everywhere. The wall was nothing but a huge mural, of all of the different times Charlie had been in action.
The press had caught his working name, 'Über' and his face shown in most every video paper, and a few of the remaining print papers. His father has actually obtained these and had them framed.
Charlie felt utterly embarrassed and backed out of the barn. He began to walk toward the outside of the rim, and when he reached it, he stared out into space, at the earth. He could see, in the far distance, the space elevator that brought him up, and could make out the Florida panhandle. He began to circle the dome, and went from a walk, to a jog, along a path, he surmised his father would use.
He poured down sweat kicking into high gear, his legs moving and an incredible rate. There were bumps and minor turns along the path, these kept him nimble, and on the third pass around, Charlie had pretty much memorized the course. This was the point he was after, where his mind could just zone out. Just relax. That's what he liked about working out, was that sensation of not being, just his body and muscles working. His mind began to softly relax some and he allowed his problems to escape.
Roger McComber peeked into his son's room.
He saw the calendar and smiled. 'That's my boy.' He thought to himself. 'Gonna be a real lady-killer.' He grinned. He was a member of his son's fan club, and monitored all of the various people on the forums. There were several young lovelies that he just knew Charlie would jump at, when he got a little older. He was proud of his son, as proud as a father could be.
He surmised that Charlie had gone to work out, and stepped out where the droid was.
“AGD12, where is my son?” He asked.
Agd12 replied, “He was directed toward the barn, but is now running around the complex. Calculations indicated, at his present rate of speed of 19.2 miles per hour, he should come near the barn in two minutes.”
Roger nodded and began his run. He could clear a 4-minute mile easily enough, but couldn't maintain it more than two minutes. Charlie caught up with him within a few moments. He slowed to Roger's speed.
“Hey dad, didn't think you'd be up this early.” He asked.
“Oh yeah. Morning workout and all that. I've got the barn all set up.” His eyes glittered.
Charlie nodded, and replied, “Yeah, I saw. Quite a collection you've got there.” He smiled. Charlie knew he'd been patrolling at best twenty or thirty times, and each time the press caught wind of him, dad had something there.
“Well I'm proud of ya, boy.” He smiled, as they ran together.
Charlie felt very uncomfortable, and changed the topic.
“How's ma been doing?” He asked. He always asked one parent about the other, in an attempt to gain confidence, knowing they rarely talked with each other.
“Oh she's good. She gets a little worried about you, especially that last time when those droids hauled you off. When you were gone those three days, you had us scared shitless.” He said.
Charlie nodded. “Yeah, I got beat up pretty bad. Don't tell her that, though. I'm still off-duty from it; I suspect I'll get back on the clock in December. Crone's still only letting me go two days a month, though.”
Roger nodded. Charlie had inadvertently sped up, and his father was having a hard time keeping up. Roger was pushing the upper edge for running for a non-mutant, and while his heart was now in excellent condition, there were limits. Finally, he slowed down.
Charlie felt like a moron, and slowed considerably, trying to follow his father's pace. As they closed on the umpteenth lap near the barn, Charlie said, “I'm up for some water, how about you?”
Roger nodded, for his circulatory system was working so hard, he could not speak. He panted, and gasped as Charlie brought him a liter of water.
“Damn, when did you get so fast?” Roger said.
Charlie smiled. “You can thank Dr. Wallway for that. He did the training for Zerion, and while I'll never be that fast, I've hit twenty five miles an hour on flat terrain.”
“Whoa.” Roger said. Charlie had drunk three liters of water and was working on his fourth. He opened up the fridge in the barn and wrinkled his nose. No Soya bars or choc nut. Some of mom's home made oat carob bars, though, and he brought the pan out, after cutting himself a huge chunk.
“Save some room for breakfast, now.” His father chided.
“Breakfast? This is a workout snack.” Charlie said, seriously.
They talked weights for a while, as Roger warmed up with dumbbells. Charlie was attempting to figure out how he should best warm up with the limited equipment available, when he espied some older engine blocks in the back. He figured they were in the two to three hundred range.
His dad was warming up with a healthy fifty-pound dumbbell, the largest he had, and when he was done, Charlie took both of them in one hand, and began doing his curls. Roger was awestruck.
“Things have changed, dad.” He said.
“Ah guess so. What are you pressing?” He asked.
“A lot.” Charlie said.
“Com'on.” Roger said. “Eight hundred?”
“Dad, some of this is classified.” He said.
Roger looked dumbfounded.
“I know you have clearance, I asked before I left.” Charlie said. “What we say here stays here.”
Roger nodded. General Kinomoto had had a very serious discussion with Charlie before he left about talking to civilians, even if they were family.
Charlie looked at him.
“What's your best clench?” He asked.
“Four-fifty.” He said proudly. “I don't ever thing I'll be able to lift much more. It's a strain, on my muscles. I have to work up to it.”
Charlie said simply, “show me, if you can.”
Roger started with two hundred pound lifts, slowly and steady. Charlie spotted him. Gradually, ten pounds at a time, he worked to three hundred, three fifty, and four hundred. He was sweating profusely.
“I don't know if I can hit it today.” He said. “That run really kind of killed me.” Charlie nodded.
Roger's weight bench was far too small for Charlie, it not designed for someone of his breadth, and he knew better than to do something stupid. Charlie was a smart lifter, and knew that it was far easier to grow into the weights than to push yourself to stupid lengths.
“Let's see you have at it, boy.” Roger said.
Charlie stepped over to the bench, and sat on it, breadth wise.
Roger tilted his head, understanding his son wouldn't be able to fit underneath the bench.
Charlie put his hand lovingly on the barbell. This was the very first barbell he'd ever lifted. It had a certain familiarity to him, a sort of homey feel.
He looked his father in the eye.
Charlie was right handed, and he took his left hand, grasped the bar perfectly in the middle and curled it.
Roger's face went pale.
“My god.” He said.
“I usually warm up with one-fifties, and end up curling four and a half. We're not sure where my upper limit will be. I just broke four hundred this month after a nasty little plateau.” He set the barbell down.
Roger brought him plates, Olympic sized, and put them beside him.
“I don't think you quite get it, dad.” Charlie said.
He strode back into the barn, and walked back with an engine block in each hand.
“Not only do I have strength, I have balance, and the support muscles to work with the strength. That's how I can run so fast. If I weighed less, I could run faster, they suspect. Right now, at four-and-a-quarter, I'm about ten percent of body fat. Crone's been working with me for coordination, and dexterity. My reflexes are about normal, they won't be able to push them that much farther.”
Roger was not only taken aback with the information, but the way that Charlie delivered it. When he first got sick, Charlie was eleven, and just nearing six-foot. Where once may have grown a man, was now a mountain. His son spoke not like a teenager, but like an officer, like a gentleman. Like the hero he was.
As the week went on, the holidays, came, and went, and while Charlie felt more comfortable, he realized, as he was being lowered in the elevator, that he was going home, and he was glad to be going there.
Sunday, November 22nd, 2054. 17.00
Space Elevator, Florida.
Charlie had not been terribly impressed with the idea of riding in the cargo hold, however, without the removal and serious re-arrangement of seats in the passenger compartments there was no other option. He relented, only after seeing his accommodations that included full wait service and not having to suit up in a space suit.
While Charlie had in fact been in space before, he hadn't since his growth spurt of about ten or so, which took him past the five-foot level. His growth seemed to have capped in the seven foot three range, and had been slowing. He thought about these things as he took the hour trip up.
When the elevator docked at it's orbital station, there was a bit of confusion as a loader droid had not been notified of it's live cargo, and after a brief remonstration, Charlie found himself wandering the lower bowels of the station until he found a maintenance corridor that had a security person.
He was immediately recognized, and even the space station's administrator came down to apologize. He smiled, was cordial, and helped into an awaiting capsule. This shuttle held him in it's bay, in a cylindrical equipment pod.
With a minimum of fuss, the shuttle pulled beside AG6 and the bay doors opened. It's claw arm grabbed the equipment pod and gingerly deposited it into an outstretched import tube.
The tube pulled back, and Charlie felt gravity take hold as the station's rotation took hold. He felt his pod being moving along conveyers and wished whoever had designed this thing would have put in at least one window.
The top of the chamber began to unscrew, and then a voice called down.
“Well boy, you gonna get outta that thing, or camp there all week?”
Charlie smiled, and he literally leaped out of the cylinder.
“Dad!” He cried.
The elder McComber smiled broadly. He was not a small man at six foot four, but clearly not a mutant, of any way, shape, or form. The two men embraced each other, and then a woman's shriek lit the air.
Marie McComber, crying with tears of happiness wrapped her hands around the two of them, kissing at her only child. Charlie could not suppress tears of his own, and for a time, the three of them became one blubbering mass, their sounds echoing in the lower part of the agriculture station.
“Let's get outta the tubes, Charlie.” Finally, his father said.
Charlie retrieved his Pda, and clothes, and ducked through the maze of tubes. Only his mother could walk upright, being all of five-foot six. They walked along the outside rim and took a stairwell up.
Ag station six looked like something out of a science fiction film of the nineteen sixties. It was a huge, domed disc studded with rails and lights. Unlike it's nineteen sixties counterpart, the bottom was also a dome. These were engineered to be incredibly efficient providers of soy products and this particular one, Ralph McComber, Charlie's father kept at tip-top condition. It's nuclear power core was so very quiet, the entire series of vessels were dubbed, 'silent runners'.
There were fifteen silent runners encircling the Earth, with a new one going into production every year. They produced primarily soybeans. Like the sea-faring fisheries of old, it was a complete processing plant. Soybeans, grown in hydroponics tubes and were pollinated initially by mechanical insects, but now were pollinated by honeybees.
Each silent runner was manned by a crew of two on each side, a total of four. Being a member of a crew on a silent runner was a highly desirable position that many many people applied for, but none ever gotten. It was not well known, but most space faring positions in the government were actually parents of mutants who were believed to be extraordinarily valuable to the government. The McComber’s, were on one side, and the sister and brother of another government mutant, Violet, was on the other.
Charlie navigated through the maze of plants his mother leading them both easily. Roger McComber confessed to his son that he still got lost in all the mazes. As they came more toward the surface of the disk, Charlie spied some very familiar surroundings.
“The house? They moved the whole blamed house?” He asked.
Marie nodded. “They also rebuilt it a bit. You can fit in it now.” She smiled with a grin, and then Charlie caught sight of the barn. His barn. The barn he'd lived in since he was about eleven.
“They even brought the barn?” He gaped.
“Yeap.” Roger said flatly. “They brought up quite a bit. House has all been re-plumbed of course. And on top of that, they pay us.” He said.
Charlie nodded. They treated his folks right, he thought and said so aloud, “That's our government, working for it's people.” He'd been having a lot of second thoughts about Gteams, but after this, he knew it was going to be okay. Denise was walking some now, still with a walker, and swimming her heart out.
As they approached the house, a sentry droid waved at them. He reminded Charlie vaguely of BD14, which caused him to miss BD14 a bit. He'd grown to fit right in, and Denise had invited him over to the military thanksgiving holiday. He'd cornered her and Gears and told them to keep their eyes on him.
The door opened, and true to Marie McComber's form, the house was immaculate. The doorway, enlarged to eight and a half feet wide and the ceilings to nine. Hallways enlarged from four to five feet. All of this in proportion, keeping the house looking normal. The house layout had not changed. Charlie was staggered. He'd once thought about building a house like this, but this, this was beyond his wildest imagination.
The living area was much larger, with several overstuffed couches and chairs. They were all big enough for him. One of the walls played with the evening news. Roger called for the television to go mute and the image jumped to a closed-captioned tagline.
“They rebuilt your old room, too. Second door on the right, down the hall. Just like before.” He said, smiling.
Charlie, with the curiosity of a four year old trotted down. There was a big bed, a wall based workstation with a docking bay for his Pda. He smiled, as opposite the bed was an old calendar from 2050. It was a mechanic's paper tool calendar with a husky, grease stained wrestler type of guy looking up into an engine chassis. Charlie bit his lips when he saw it. He dad seemed to not notice this reaction, and pulled open the closet.
In the closet, nearly organized were Charlie's civilian clothes. His mom had made everything by hand. Around the base, he didn't wear much more than shorts and sweats, but here was real clothing. Good denim jeans, button up shirts, and real underwear. Socks, too. He espied a stack of old musty magazines at the bottom.
“You saved these?” He said. They were the last printed issues of Muscle and Fitness before they went to exclusive digital distribution.
“I figured they might be worth something. Thought maybe you could sell 'm some day, maybe get a couple of quarters of college out of it or a car, or something.” Roger said.
“Oh I'd never sell these. I used to read these when you worked out.” Charlie's eyes lit up in a nostalgic manner. “When you got sick, I'd read 'm and remember about you lifting weights and stuff.”
Charlie got an idea and flipped through a particular issue. He found a letter in the column with an old-fashioned digital photograph in it. The letter was written in a big font and simply read, 'this is my daddy. He taught me how to read with your book.’ It showed a picture of a young Roger McComber doing curls, pouring down sweat. Charlie, 6, sat at his feet.
“I'd forgotten all about that.” He grinned and reached up to ruffle his son's hair. “Welcome home, boy.”
“Thanks, dad.” Charlie said.
Charlie dropped his Pda into the slot on the wall, and the white plain wall vanished into the current status of the Gteams mission monitor board. Then it flashed red and faded out, with the word, 'classified' only in display. Charlie spoke to the computer.
“Override terminal with Gteams access code four three three seven nine four two, McComber, Charles D. Code name, Über.”
The computer connected to the Gteams mainframe, and Lieutenant Harker appeared. “Über?” He addressed Charlie.
“Yeap. Just keeping up on stuff. Can you give me MMB access on this terminal?”
“You bet. Just that terminal or the house?”
“Make it the house.” He replied.
He watched Harker tap at the touch screen and then nod toward Über.
“All done. Have a good vacation.”
“Thanks, Harker. Happy Thanksgiving.” He said.
“To you too.” Harker replied, and his image vanished.
Charlie gave the computer his access code and a duplicate of his home setup appeared. In the top right corner was a button marked, 'begin' and there were a few folders marked with labels such as, 'mp7's and 'exercise routines'. One was marked 'homework'. The background was the current cover photo of, 'mutant muscle building' ezine. It was a semi-underground publication and Roger asked him about it.
“Well it's put together by a bunch of guys who are mutes too. They all have my mutation, stongaria. I vmail with a couple of them. I'm supposed to write an article for 'm but I need help with some of the stuff I'm trying to get into it. I've never written an article for anybody before.”
“Ma says you got a 'b' in English composition.” Roger said.
“Yeah, but I get help. This gal I work with, Denise? She wanted to be an English teacher.” They had relocated back to the dining room. Marie had made Charlie a pitcher of his favorite beverage, lemonade.
They began to talk a lot, and Roger told Charlie about his heart transplant. Marie knitted a bit, interjecting the odd piece of trivia, here and there, or correcting Roger, which happened a fair amount.
This inevitably lead to this or that squabble, all in good fun. Charlie realized that for the first time, in close to three years, they were finally a family again. A real family, a father, a mother, and a child. This made him smile, at least until the smoke alarm in the kitchen went off.
“Ah!” His mother cried loosing stitches off her knitting while tearing into the kitchen as fast as she could go.
Roger looked at Charlie wryly and said, “Dinner’s done.”
The three of them talked into the night, and played Scrabble, a favorite family game. Charlie's dad was allowed to use the dictionary as much as he liked, for while he enjoyed the game, he was poor at it. To make it interesting, Marie only allowed herself a minute to play, relying instead only on the time that her opponents took to figure out their plays. Nonetheless, she trounced them five games straight.
They watched the news reports at eleven, and then Charlie yawned. He usually turned in about nineish, depending upon what food he could mooch from the lab. He took another slice of his mother's corn pone pie with him to bed.
In his room, he checked the mission monitor board again. Denise was on some sort of special attachment and Gears and Red Eye were taking up the slack. He opened up the current issue of 'mutant muscle building' and started to watch a video about a naturalist lifter who worked out on the beaches in the San Juans. His eyes drooped a bit, as he watched the buff man pour down sweat in the hot sun, and nodded off to sleep as the video showed him running into the surf.
* * *
At oh-four-thirty, Charlie's eyes snapped open. It took him a moment or two to warm up to his surroundings and then he realized he was on the station with his parents. The vid of the nude bodybuilder was still playing and he gasped at his stupidity. He couldn't leave this sort of thing laying around for his dad to find.
He accessed his personal calendar and put into it a skin his father had sent him. It was of fairly scantily clad women playing volleyball. He studied their musculature for a moment, until he realized it was a computer generation and then frowned. Charlie didn't mind looking at scantily clad women, but wanted to see the musculature, their body mechanics, and their development.
He listened for stirrings inside the house, and heard none. Not wishing to wake anyone up, his body craved to exercise, as he'd trained it to be.
He padded out of the house, and a sentry droid greeted him. He asked it where his father's weight room was, and it replied in the barn. Charlie smiled; dad was predictable, if nothing else. In fact, he thought to himself, he should be up in an hour or so. Charlie warmed up between now and then.
He strode into the barn, and was amazed; it was clean, well organized. In a corner were stacks of weights and plates, and pictures of Charlie everywhere. The wall was nothing but a huge mural, of all of the different times Charlie had been in action.
The press had caught his working name, 'Über' and his face shown in most every video paper, and a few of the remaining print papers. His father has actually obtained these and had them framed.
Charlie felt utterly embarrassed and backed out of the barn. He began to walk toward the outside of the rim, and when he reached it, he stared out into space, at the earth. He could see, in the far distance, the space elevator that brought him up, and could make out the Florida panhandle. He began to circle the dome, and went from a walk, to a jog, along a path, he surmised his father would use.
He poured down sweat kicking into high gear, his legs moving and an incredible rate. There were bumps and minor turns along the path, these kept him nimble, and on the third pass around, Charlie had pretty much memorized the course. This was the point he was after, where his mind could just zone out. Just relax. That's what he liked about working out, was that sensation of not being, just his body and muscles working. His mind began to softly relax some and he allowed his problems to escape.
Roger McComber peeked into his son's room.
He saw the calendar and smiled. 'That's my boy.' He thought to himself. 'Gonna be a real lady-killer.' He grinned. He was a member of his son's fan club, and monitored all of the various people on the forums. There were several young lovelies that he just knew Charlie would jump at, when he got a little older. He was proud of his son, as proud as a father could be.
He surmised that Charlie had gone to work out, and stepped out where the droid was.
“AGD12, where is my son?” He asked.
Agd12 replied, “He was directed toward the barn, but is now running around the complex. Calculations indicated, at his present rate of speed of 19.2 miles per hour, he should come near the barn in two minutes.”
Roger nodded and began his run. He could clear a 4-minute mile easily enough, but couldn't maintain it more than two minutes. Charlie caught up with him within a few moments. He slowed to Roger's speed.
“Hey dad, didn't think you'd be up this early.” He asked.
“Oh yeah. Morning workout and all that. I've got the barn all set up.” His eyes glittered.
Charlie nodded, and replied, “Yeah, I saw. Quite a collection you've got there.” He smiled. Charlie knew he'd been patrolling at best twenty or thirty times, and each time the press caught wind of him, dad had something there.
“Well I'm proud of ya, boy.” He smiled, as they ran together.
Charlie felt very uncomfortable, and changed the topic.
“How's ma been doing?” He asked. He always asked one parent about the other, in an attempt to gain confidence, knowing they rarely talked with each other.
“Oh she's good. She gets a little worried about you, especially that last time when those droids hauled you off. When you were gone those three days, you had us scared shitless.” He said.
Charlie nodded. “Yeah, I got beat up pretty bad. Don't tell her that, though. I'm still off-duty from it; I suspect I'll get back on the clock in December. Crone's still only letting me go two days a month, though.”
Roger nodded. Charlie had inadvertently sped up, and his father was having a hard time keeping up. Roger was pushing the upper edge for running for a non-mutant, and while his heart was now in excellent condition, there were limits. Finally, he slowed down.
Charlie felt like a moron, and slowed considerably, trying to follow his father's pace. As they closed on the umpteenth lap near the barn, Charlie said, “I'm up for some water, how about you?”
Roger nodded, for his circulatory system was working so hard, he could not speak. He panted, and gasped as Charlie brought him a liter of water.
“Damn, when did you get so fast?” Roger said.
Charlie smiled. “You can thank Dr. Wallway for that. He did the training for Zerion, and while I'll never be that fast, I've hit twenty five miles an hour on flat terrain.”
“Whoa.” Roger said. Charlie had drunk three liters of water and was working on his fourth. He opened up the fridge in the barn and wrinkled his nose. No Soya bars or choc nut. Some of mom's home made oat carob bars, though, and he brought the pan out, after cutting himself a huge chunk.
“Save some room for breakfast, now.” His father chided.
“Breakfast? This is a workout snack.” Charlie said, seriously.
They talked weights for a while, as Roger warmed up with dumbbells. Charlie was attempting to figure out how he should best warm up with the limited equipment available, when he espied some older engine blocks in the back. He figured they were in the two to three hundred range.
His dad was warming up with a healthy fifty-pound dumbbell, the largest he had, and when he was done, Charlie took both of them in one hand, and began doing his curls. Roger was awestruck.
“Things have changed, dad.” He said.
“Ah guess so. What are you pressing?” He asked.
“A lot.” Charlie said.
“Com'on.” Roger said. “Eight hundred?”
“Dad, some of this is classified.” He said.
Roger looked dumbfounded.
“I know you have clearance, I asked before I left.” Charlie said. “What we say here stays here.”
Roger nodded. General Kinomoto had had a very serious discussion with Charlie before he left about talking to civilians, even if they were family.
Charlie looked at him.
“What's your best clench?” He asked.
“Four-fifty.” He said proudly. “I don't ever thing I'll be able to lift much more. It's a strain, on my muscles. I have to work up to it.”
Charlie said simply, “show me, if you can.”
Roger started with two hundred pound lifts, slowly and steady. Charlie spotted him. Gradually, ten pounds at a time, he worked to three hundred, three fifty, and four hundred. He was sweating profusely.
“I don't know if I can hit it today.” He said. “That run really kind of killed me.” Charlie nodded.
Roger's weight bench was far too small for Charlie, it not designed for someone of his breadth, and he knew better than to do something stupid. Charlie was a smart lifter, and knew that it was far easier to grow into the weights than to push yourself to stupid lengths.
“Let's see you have at it, boy.” Roger said.
Charlie stepped over to the bench, and sat on it, breadth wise.
Roger tilted his head, understanding his son wouldn't be able to fit underneath the bench.
Charlie put his hand lovingly on the barbell. This was the very first barbell he'd ever lifted. It had a certain familiarity to him, a sort of homey feel.
He looked his father in the eye.
Charlie was right handed, and he took his left hand, grasped the bar perfectly in the middle and curled it.
Roger's face went pale.
“My god.” He said.
“I usually warm up with one-fifties, and end up curling four and a half. We're not sure where my upper limit will be. I just broke four hundred this month after a nasty little plateau.” He set the barbell down.
Roger brought him plates, Olympic sized, and put them beside him.
“I don't think you quite get it, dad.” Charlie said.
He strode back into the barn, and walked back with an engine block in each hand.
“Not only do I have strength, I have balance, and the support muscles to work with the strength. That's how I can run so fast. If I weighed less, I could run faster, they suspect. Right now, at four-and-a-quarter, I'm about ten percent of body fat. Crone's been working with me for coordination, and dexterity. My reflexes are about normal, they won't be able to push them that much farther.”
Roger was not only taken aback with the information, but the way that Charlie delivered it. When he first got sick, Charlie was eleven, and just nearing six-foot. Where once may have grown a man, was now a mountain. His son spoke not like a teenager, but like an officer, like a gentleman. Like the hero he was.
As the week went on, the holidays, came, and went, and while Charlie felt more comfortable, he realized, as he was being lowered in the elevator, that he was going home, and he was glad to be going there.
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