Spoonerville Page 17

Rodney walked into his grandmothers house and literally felt the fear and dread practically fall off his  body as he passed through the front door. He closed the door behind him and realized he could barely remember why he'd been so afraid in the first place.

He dropped his backpack at the foot of the stairs and kicked his shoes off into the pile. The kitchen smelled very much like childhood memories he had been trying to forget. He found his grandmother sitting next to the oven reading Blood Night: Lust. His entrance caused her to look up from her book. "Well how was your first day? I want to hear all about it." She said with a smile as she set her book down and moved her chair over to the small dining room table. Rodney sat across from her and told her everything. It all came out like water freed from a dam.

He told her about his meeting with the vice principal, his history teacher, the T.A. assignment, the fact that he had a crush on his only friend's sister. He wanted to continue but his stomach tightened, like it was fighting revealing the experience by the woods, but, why would he not share that? His grandmother might be able to explain it away, make him feel better about it.

Or she might not believe him. Most people didn't believe in 'intuition', or a 'sixth sense'.

But she had asked, and he had already told her everything else.

His grandmother tried to catch his gaze which had drifted in his silence. "Is there something else?" She asked with genuine concern.

It took all his will power and then some, but he nodded.

Her concern became significantly more intense. :"Do you want to tell me about it?" She asked very seriously.

"I -" He could feel the room closing in on him. He was torn between sharing and running out of the house screaming.

She reached for his hand, and he let her hold it in both of hers. He could feel something gritty on the table, she must has spilled some salt before he had come home.  She stared at him with such intensity he felt exposed. "You can tell me, anything." she emphasized the last word, and he felt more now than ever that he wanted to tell her. He could feel her fingers wiggling slightly as she held his hand. "I will never judge you, or punish you, for talking to me." She rubbed the top of his hand counter clockwise and the pressure in his stomach slowly released. He told her about the parking lot, the walk home, the forest, the rage, the darkness, the cold, and the feeling in his stomach until just now.

By the time he ran out of words she had severed both of their plates and sat down again. Before they started eating she complimented his decision to avoid the tree line and the woods all together.

The rest of dinner was wonderful, afterward he did the dishes and cleaned the table, wiping the salt she had spilled earlier into the kitchen trashcan. He put the hand towel back on the oven handle and went back out to the stairs to grab his back pack and head up stairs to start his homework. The closer he got to the front door the more tension he felt return. He approached his back pack carefully, feeling the darkness and tension creep further and further with each step.

He grabbed his bag and decided that for tonight at least he would do his homework in the kitchen.

Shades of Justice Page 49

It took some convincing but Dante was able to get Sonya into a hover chair and take her into the kitchen area.

Kelly had made tea, coffee, and cocoa. Warren was working on eggs and toast when Dante moved Sonya into the room.

Gordon pulled a soda from the fridge and opened it. "Warren what were you saying about drones earlier?" he asked.

Warren swapped toast for bread in the toaster and pressed the lever down. "Ever since Kyle cut that doorway into the command center storage, I've been going through it to see what all there is." He flipped the eggs in the pan. "And there's a lot. I asked Technarious about it all and apparently while Blinding Light is rebuilt every few years, there is a huge arsenal of weapons and technology that just sit in storage until they are needed again." he plated the first two eggs next to his toast and cracked two more eggs into the pan. "The drones look like they're at least a decade old but if there are any issues the system can repair them just like the system repairs Blinding Light." Warren finished.

Sonya nodded. "We understand that the drones exist, what did you want to do with them?" She asked.

Warren handed the spatula to Kelly grabbed the plate of eggs and toast and brought it over to Sonya. "I think we could use them to scout the mood base. We can map the entire place out including population movement before we ever step foot on the moon." He smiled proudly.

Sonya was halfway into a slice of toast. "When can they be ready to go? What happens if they are detected or destroyed? How long will it take to get the information we need, assuming they aren't detected or destroyed?" She asked each question between bites of toast.

Warren walked back to the toaster and pulled fresh toast from it. "The drones have cloaking technology. It should keep them almost completely invisible." he said putting the fresh toast in front of Sonya.

"Almost completely?"Gordon asked.

Warren nodded. "Nothing is ever 100% guaranteed. There are thirty two of the drones. So we can lose a few before we're in real trouble." Kelly waved him away from the stove, so he sat down at the table.

"How many is 'a few'?" Dante asked.

Warren shrugged. "Ten? Maybe half? The fewer we have the longer it will take to complete the survey." He explained.

Sonya nodded. "And we can't go and defend them because the reason we're sending them in the first place is so we know what were walking into down there." Warren nodded. "Well then." Sonya sighed. "Only one question remains." Everyone looked at her. "Do we have any sriracha for the eggs?" She asked with a smile.