High Noon on Jefferson (scifi story): Chapter Six

Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five

Chapter Six

I sat there for a few minutes and didn't know what to think. Dad's house. This thing had come from around Dad's house. At least the data started there. This worried me on many levels. Dad was noted to work on automated systems. He did this to make the farm work better. Dad was a noted tinkerer. He had even made me a Halloween costume of a dragon girl one year: robotic dragon wings and a tail, no less. It was plausible Dad could have made the repticulate. Or had found and revived it.

That made me worried and brought up the intensely uncomfortable thought that Dad might be the person were going to have to catch, much like Jaideep and Helmet had been back in our last adventure. That made me more worried. Dad might have been our bad guy. The very least he would have been breaking the law. And because we found the repticulate, it meant we were going to be the ones that busted him.

I must have been tense from where my thoughts were going because Rosa on one side and Jackie on the other placed their hands on my shoulders to squeeze them. I took a deep breath and then exhaled. Then Tom gave me a noogie. Of course, he did. He was already doomed and knew it, but this just added to the level of damnation coming his way after his doomnation. He was Tom and I wished at times he'd grow up some. Others, I wished he'd stay the same. Weird, huh?

We scrubbed the data from what we had and promptly cleaned our tracks and left the cybernetics lab. We needed to talk and we didn't want this on anyone's booster past what was already there. This was serious level stuff. Repticulates were a banned technology and someone was making them on Jefferson. That someone have been my Dad.

We all sat down at the place we found the repticulate. Or more properly, it had bitten me. I was about to speak and then...I realized something just as bad. I had been about to tell everyone to shut down their boosters, but I quickly lost focus and began to delve into the path the repticulate had taken. And I realized it had been in my bag for a while. I don't know when it had joined me, but it had. And...it had been in there for a while. It's movements matched my movements since at least the morning. Given that the repticulate seemed to come from my Dad's farm and then it matched my movements, that looked really bad. Not just for Dad, but for me.

I refocused my eyes and then shrugged. I told everyone not to worry about shutting down the boosters. Too much was already there and we could probably scrub the data, but...if and when it was found we were gonna be in even deeper trouble. We needed to decide whether we turned in the repticulate with everything we found, now, or if we were going to go see if my Dad was the cause. I didn't like either possibility, but the only other realistic one was going to be to dispose of the repticulate and pretend we never found it, erm, it never bit me.

However, that didn't sit well with any of us. There was a realistic threat to Jefferson. We needed to do the right thing. None of us wanted to bust my Dad. However, if we just turned the repticulate over to the adults, or more properly the sheriff, who would NOT be happy to see us coming, then at best it was going to seriously screw up Dad's life for a while when they tore apart the ranch. Before we accused or made any slightest hint of incriminating my Dad, I wanted to find proof myself.

My friends, my wonderful and loving friends, all agree. Tom even did his stupid happy dance again. I swear he was not any older than 13. 14 tops.

We all agreed. Veena even pointed out the problem with possibly implicating myself. Jackie had suggested we go and look ourselves. Rosa suggested we do so over the weekend. Tom declared he'd bring the snacks and a gun, to shoot my Dad if he was the bad guy. I looked at him in horror and he was clearly joking.

I didn't like that joke.

Tom still smirked his usual smirk.

There were times he was the most hilarious guy on the planet. There were times when his humor was flat. There were times when his humor was immature. There were times when it was simply appalling. And he didn't care. That was Tom. I didn't know at times whether to adore him or loathe him. He could really get under my skin and yet I couldn't imagine him not being part of the Pranksters.

We all hiked to our old fort, the one that the adults, Marines and Bureau of Interplanetary Investigations had torn down, inspected and rebuilt as a "responsible fort." We had promptly fixed that. Once we were out of site. We only met there for nostalgia these days, like high schools on swings and stuff. However, it was also used as a cache again and the repticulate needed caching. There was NO WAY I was taking it home.

Once we arrived, it was starting to get late. Mom was pinging my booster asking where I was: dinner was almost ready. The others were getting pinged also. We hurried back to town, past the Blasted Lands, and separated at the inner gates: each of us lived in different neighborhoods.

There was another reason I was not comfortable with going to Dad's had nothing to do with the repticulate. I didn't go out there as much for another reason and I've been avoiding talking about it during our little chronodoxing here. You see, Dad has a girlfriend. And she isn't my Mom. It makes me uncomfortable. My brother, twerp he is, isn't as bothered by it, but I am.

I remember more of when our parents were together. I remember how things were before they went bad between Mom and Dad. You might say I haven't quite accepting things have changed, even though it has been years, several years now. It's not Dad's fault. It's not Mom's fault. It's not even Khiara's fault: Dad's girlfriend. It was just something I was and am struggling with.

She's actually nice. They met online, of course, tsk. There's not a lot of single women in Shadwell. She was a recent immigrant in Monticello and was a little lost. She posted online and Dad, when he's not with my brother and I, in the evenings gets a bit lonely. He messaged her with some tips and suggestions. They hit it off from there.

She is really different from Mom and she's younger. Not many middle aged or old people move out to the colonies. She has dark hair like mom, dark eyes instead of light and darker complected: she's a American mutt, but Colombian and Swedish descent with the Heinz-57. Whatever that is. And she now lives with Dad. That was really the problem. She had first visited Shadwell a few times and then moved here. Then, last year, moved in with Dad. I was worried the M word was being muttered and then the inevitable K word. That made me really uncomfortable.

I sighed.

I knew I was going to have to go to Dad's and I was going to need to face the new life that was growing out there. And I was going to have to deal with it in front of my friends. There was no way they were going to let me run off after the source of the repticulate without them. Not even Tom. So, I was needed permission to go out and permission to bring the gang. Funny part, Dad was going to agree easily. He'd be happy I was there.

I shook my head and walked in Mom's airlock door.

I was already late and I smelled piroshki and imagined there was okroshka waiting. I wondered if she spiked the piroshki with green chile and shook my head. Mom's delicious cooking awaited.