High Noon on Jefferson: Chapter Nine

Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

A problematic politician from a long time ago once said there are the things you know; the things you know you don't know; and the things you don't know you don't know. The knowns, the known unknowns and the unknown unknowns. It was a pretty astute comment. However, he was not exactly a loved politico and was mocked mercilessly for his characterizations. The reason they were mocking him had nothing to do with the concept, but rather they were angry for other reasons. Some of those reasons were, in fact, good.

That particular insight though was actually really good.

Right then, as we all rushed together and tinked as fast as we could to one another.

We knew Maven knew about the repticulates. It appears there was more than one. And she had at least one example.

We didn't know if she had extracted anything from it. If she had, we didn't know what she had found. Was that information like what we found? Or was it different? We didn't know.

What we also realized was there was almost assuredly things Maven may have known that we had no idea we needed to know or even had enough information to ask the questions to know. We didn't know what we didn't know. That was the worst. Especially for me. This was my Dad we were talking about. And if were innocent? Then he could have been in real trouble without a good reason. If were guilty, then I wanted to confront him first, convince him to stop and then convince him to turn himself in.

I did not want to try to cover up any his possible production of repticulates. The truth will out. Even for family members. Especially for family members. It would have been better for him to come clean before the law than to attempt to hide what he had done. IF he had done it.

If Maven thought he did it, she would have spitefully accused him or would eventually accuse him just to get back at me. It was low, petty and evil, but that was Maven. Maven the Raven.

I finally huffed and puffed when I met all the Merry Pranksters at our agreed on location. We tinked as fast as we could and talked between tinks. Sometimes it work better to say some things and tink others. For those we were worried about someone overhearing, tinking was far, far better. And we had a lot to tink about.

We all agreed we had to prevent Maven from finding out where the repticulate came from. We also agreed we had to find out if my Dad was responsible and to find that out before Maven did, if she even suspected my Dad at all. We all agreed we had to make sure the right thing was done, any which way and that this was an act of justice rather than revenge. No vengeance, period. Maven didn't see it that way, we all knew, quite the opposite, so we were going to have to have a show down with her.

We rapidly debated how best to stop her. Should we hack her booster? That left us potentially vulnerable, both to counterhacking (and the thought that Maven might have gotten into our boosters was enough to give us the willies) and for traces to be left that, should Dad turn out to be guilty, that we could have been considered been considered accomplices for attempting to cover up information related to what he had done. That ruled out that.

That meant we had to either waylay her or we had to get to my Dad first. Preventing her from getting to my Dad or stopping her from looking into the repticulate seemed like a good way to get the BII and our local sheriff on our back in a big, bad criminal way. That left getting to Dad first.

However, there was no way to get us all out to Dad's place before the weekend. In fact, just up and running off to Dad's house before the end of the week was just plain out. Mom would have thrown a fit. Dad would have been suspicious and we were going to be investigating him. And then there was school. Skipping school had serious consequences on Jefferson. Last time we had an adventure, we had gotten away with it because of the vast blackhole of everything less than played out. Now...it would have probably ended badly.

Yeah, yeah, it's like saying you have homework when the hero of a story asks you to help save the world, but...the adults had nearly banned the Merry Pranksters last time. This time they definitely would have if we were not careful.

We were dejected.

We were stuck with our original plan and with the knowledge Maven knew about the repticulate and might have been headed off to prove my Dad was the culprit behind them. Whether or not he was.

We couldn't find any way around our obstacles, so we headed into school.

We were silent.

We felt doomed.

Even Tom, amazingly, didn't have a bad, off color or inappropriate joke.

I guess he knew how anxiety had become a living, breathing thing for me that had reached out to grab my chest and was crushing me. I hoped he couldn't actually tink to get that information, as we were all blocking right then, but he sure acted like it. That made me nervous in another way. When Tom drops the obnoxious act, it was really bad because the situation was really, really that bad.

We got to school and split off to our separate classes.

The classes themselves were a hazy daze. I could not focus.

Lunch finally came and we all rendezvoused.

Tom looked down at his pulled pork sandwich and coleslaw. He looked like he might want to vomit. He clearly had something he had to get off his chest. When it looked like he might vomit in the worst possible way, he spit out what he had been holding in:

Maven wasn't even in school. She had never even come to school.