S. Gorden - Eyes of an Eagle a Novel of Gravity Controlled

All the work I was doing didn't stop the worries about Tabitha. Would she be alright?

* * * *

It took all week but Tabitha finally got Sue alone. “Suzie, I noticed something strange when you ran into me. You did it on purpose. I want to know why."

“You're paranoid. I never meant to hurt you. Let me go!"

Tabitha walked Suzie into the corner of the dead end hallway. “Talk to me."

“Get away. You're crazy."

“Maybe, but you are going to tell me what happened."

“Please. Please let me go."

“Talk."

Tabitha pressed into Suzie holding her against the wall. Afer a few minutes something broke within and Suzie's shoulders dropped, tears came. “So much money. I needed the money. I didn't think. I didn't ... not until I felt your leg break. God, why did I do it?"

“Who gave you the money?"

“Some guy. I don't know. He seemed to know I was broke. He gave me five hundred dollars in cash. A week later he came with another five hundred and said he wanted you hurt, bad enough so you would be out for the season. A thousand dollars. More than enough money to finish the year. But then he said he wanted it done during a meet. I said no way. But he showed me another five hundred. He left. He said he would come back in a week.

“When he came back, he told me the plan. How you would be knocked down and I would fall on top. It didn't seem real. I didn't want it to be real. He was willing to give me a thousand dollars more. I wanted that money..."

Tabitha left Suzie standing at the end of the hall.

* * * *

Ever since Jones got back from New York, he felt peoples’ eyes on him. The older waitress at the dinner seemed to glare as she filled his coffee cup. Two sheriffs deputies came in and took a corner booth. Between sips of coffee, they would look across the dinner at him. Fred from the bank came in and sat at a table near the cops. Jones overheard the waitress say to Fred, “Leena would be proud of you standing up to them."

Jones had to protect himself. He had to do Blythe's bidding until he got as much of his money as he could out of Blythe's companies. But he had to also keep up the dirty tricks on Czeminski and Karpinen. How was he going to do both with everyone watching?

“Excuse me. Mr. Jones."

“What? Sorry, I was thinking about some work back at the office. What can I do for you officer?"

“Oh nothing, I saw you studying your coffee so intently. I thought that something might be bothering you. Something you might want to tell me. But if it is just office work, I will leave you to it. You can't believe how much paperwork we have to do every day."

The waitress came and topped off his coffee. “Tom. Say hi to Oggie for me."

“I will. Good coffee today Fran."

“Mr. Jones, do you want anything else?"

“No. Just coffee. Thanks."

* * * *

Late Friday afternoon, I put out the automatic feeder and water bowl for Move-over, made sure his litter

box was clean, and put the lights and radio on timers so anyone looking in would think someone was home. I got into my pickup and drove to Tabitha's college. It was already dark when I got there. She met me at the lounge next to the main entrance to her dorm.

I pulled her in and held her. The relief of seeing her okay was so great. I don't know how long we stood there in each others arms but everyone was staring by the time we moved apart.

“We need to talk. Private. Let's go up to my room."

She swung around. Using the single crutch she needed to walk and with her cast as a prod, she pushed through the students in the lobby to the elevators. She already had the doors closing on the elevator car when I got there.

“Slow poke."

“If I had a stick I could use for crowd control, I would have gotten here at the same time you did.” We just held hands until we got inside her room. I wanted to hold her again but she pushed me away and told me about what she found out from Suzie. She insisted on me telling her everything I had done during the week before she let me pull her to the bed.

I was struggling with her bra straps before I thought to ask, “Where is your roommate?"

“She went home for the weekend."

We stopped talking for the rest of the night. I woke up in the morning to the metallic sound of claws on a window screen. It was something I was very familiar with, after all my family always had cats. I have expected a cat hanging from the window even if we were four stories up but it turned out to be a little nuthatch hanging upside down and watching.

“Ever since I got back to school, those birds have been hanging on that screen. I don't know why. There is no food out there and the trees are on the other side of the dorm."

“Tabby, I need to tell you the story that my Uncle Ben told be about Vietnam...

“I don't know how it fits but I somehow feel that we are now point men. Ever since the day those punks tried to take you, I have felt the danger building. Every day I feel myself become more attuned to what is around me. I wish I knew what those, those ... Yosie are thinking..."

Testing

Spring was melting the snow. I wished I could be outside more but those pesky emails I sent to the colleges and labs had started a series of responses that took at least three hours every day to answer.

The rebuilding of the Contraption was finished and I was starting measurements. I had hung a sixteen-pound bowling ball from the rafters and was measuring the strength of the gravity field by marking the deflection of the ball from the perpendicular. I learned my lesson from the first experiment and set the transmitter strengths to their lowest settings. The ball still moved more than a half a meter to the focus from a point one and a half meters away. I had set the ball closer but the gravity field had pulled the ball into the focus and it reflected the lasers causing the field to collapse.

I was counting the days to when Tabitha would be home during Easter break with both anticipation and worry. I wanted to show her the Contraption and bring her to see Uncle Ben if the weather held. But I also noticed that the numbers of watchers had increased. I was hoping that it was just because the warmer temperatures had brought more animals out and not that they were waiting for something to see.

The Chameleon had just organized the take-over of a smaller publishing firm. She ripped the pieces of the company apart and fired most of the workers. It resulted in a net gain of two million dollars to the company. Most of the money came from the retirement accounts of the workers. The smaller company had banked most of the retirement accounts into its own coffers. With the company in pieces, the Chameleon had been able to liquidate the accounts and substitute the cheapest retirement plan she could find. This place was already boring her. It was just a pale imitation of the Users. The joy she felt when she first discovering the intricacies of this society had faded to contempt with the ease of her infiltration. She decided that she would collect all the information the Users needed in a few more months.

* * * *

“Wow! Have you been busy. Okay, no coaching. Let's see if I can figure out everything you have done."

Tabitha spent the next hour looking over the changes I made to the Contraption. It was three times larger than when she left for school. Most of the size was accounted for with the inch and a quarter pipe that I used as a frame for mounting the transmitters.

“Okay, I understand the harness around the dish. I can see how you used the pipes to mount the transmitters. Did I ask why so large pipes? Wait, I seem to remember you saying something about having them already. I understand the bowling ball pendulum for measuring the gravitational strength. Could you tell me again why you have the transmitters mounted away from the dish?"