King of All I Survey
Chapter 47: Mom Comes Home to Help Me Plan for Fourth Grade

Chapter 47: Mom Comes Home to Help Me Plan for Fourth Grade

Her thoughts seemed muddled somehow. The stray thought of Rafael proposing to her made her head swim. She was both excited and confused. Something inside her was very comfortable with the image, like a favorite memory of something long ago, and another part screamed WRONG! The idea of being married to such a man as Rafael was a scary prospect, but also a bit heady. She felt more powerful, more in control when she was around him, somehow more alive than she ever recalled feeling before. This line of thought was giving her a headache. She pushed it aside and focused on fleshing out plans for her next steps.

She had a day to figure out exactly how to deal with Rafael. Would he consider changing the path of his life at her impulsive promise? Could she make him President of Guatemala? She felt she could, she really did. It would be a very dangerous course. The odds of them both being killed would be pretty high. Maybe not as high as charging directly at two assassins in the dark as they repeatedly took aim and fired. Apparently, they had missed every shot. That was odd, she could have sworn she saw the flash of a bullet striking the protective vest Rafael wore. Would a bullet strike against the vest even cause such a flash? No, she thought, probably not. She must have imagined it, perhaps giving life to her fear that he might be struck. She had even thought she saw the same flash of a bullet striking him directly in the face. It had to be her imagination, there was no other explanation. Or...some part of her mind seemed to think there was another explanation... then it was gone.

She was exhausted, she realized. The adrenaline from the attack, the shock of seeing dead bodies, of seeing living men turned into dead bodies by Rafael. The gleeful, animalistic look on his face as he killed them... She shivered. Surely, he was beyond redemption. Could a man who reveled in death become the patron saint of the poor, leading a country to peaceful prosperity?

She shook her head, then smiled as she thought, perhaps with a strong woman to guide him... she dozed off to sleep. Her dreams were troubled and confused.

Luis was shaking her arm to wake her. Where was she? In a car, she realized. She remembered it all as she woke fully. She sat up, it was dark all around except for the beams of light from the headlights of the Toyota cutting into the night. It looked like they were pulled over to the side of the road in the middle of nowhere.

"Are you awake, Miss Flores?" Luis asked.

"Yes, what’s going on?"

Luis used one of the phrases he had been told would trigger a post-hypnotic suggestion in the undercover agent’s mind. "Your father has charged me with your protection, Miss Flores."

Her eyes focused at his words, "Yes," she replied.

"There is a safe area just here through this opening, please step through." He indicated an space outside the car. She stood up and walked toward it. There was an odd rectangular shape in the air as if a doorway opened from nothing to somewhere else. Inside it was blank. Luis stepped in beside her after shutting off the car and locking it. He closed the non-existent door. Then, a few seconds later opened it again. She squeezed her eyes shut against the bright light, turning her head away. She raised a hand to shield them, then opened her eyes again slowly. She was somewhere else. "Madre de Dios! Donde..." Then she felt a presence in her mind, something changed, like changing a channel on the television. She was Maria Isabel Flores, then she wasn’t.

She was Susan Bailey. Timothy, her little Timothy stood in front of her, looking into her eyes, trying to see if she was his mother again. She stepped forward and swept him up into her arms, hugging him tightly. His arms wrapped around her just as tightly and she could feel his joy matching hers as he realized she knew who he was. Her eyes welled up in tears.

Through those tears, she saw her husband standing there watching the two of them. Not wanting to intrude on their moment but anxiously waiting to embrace his wife again. A vision passed into her mind, a memory of Dan, her husband, kneeling with a ring outstretched before her, looking up at her full of love and fear that she might say no to his proposal... She gasped as she remembered the same image with Rafael’s face.

"Oh, Dan..." She said, reaching both arms out to him. He stepped into her arms and surrounded her with his. She wanted to melt into him, to stay like this forever. She wanted to forget everything that had happened while she was Maribel. She had watched men being killed. She had run at them with their murderer, intending somehow to do the same herself if she could. She had... thought about Rafael as if she were never married. "Oh, Dan..." She repeated as the tears flowed more freely from her eyes.

The LITV door opened in front of us. Mom stood there with Luis. She closed her eyes and turned away, then reached a hand up to cover her eyes and opened them. We had all become fluent in Spanish thanks to memory implant training, so I understood her when she said "Mother of God! Where..." Then, I saw her change as Joe reached into her thoughts and lifted the barriers he had installed around Mom’s real personality in order to transform her into Maribel.

I could see her face change, her expression went from shock and surprise to recognition and... well, just Mom-ness. She reached out to me and pulled me in to hug me. It was great. Some part of me was afraid that one day, she wouldn’t come back. That she would be stuck as Maribel forever, never recognizing me again, never being my mother again... It was just too scary to even think about.

I could have stayed there forever, just being loved by my mom. Loving her back... I guess she noticed Dad standing there, because her grip on me slipped away and she reached out to him. Somehow, watching her and Dad hug was almost as good as having her hug me.

"Shall we all sit down to a nice family dinner?" Dad asked when they finally parted.

Mom frowned, "I just had a seven-course dinner."

Dad’s face fell. I think Mom noticed his disappointment. "I would be happy to sit with you boys while you eat," she added. Dad brightened just a little. I think he was looking for some kind of normalcy that would remind Mom of how much we both loved spending time with her, just being a family.

We moved into the Dining Room area, Dad and I placed mental orders through Joe, our food appearing on floating trays beside us moments later. It seemed odd, somehow. Mom usually starts conversations and keeps them going when Dad and I fall silent. Sometimes I think we both just don’t know the exact right thing to say, and instead say nothing. In this situation, that was worse, because it seemed like there were so many wrong things to day about what Mom had been through as Maribel.

Mom also seemed more distant than usual, as if she had caught the introvert bug from Dad and me. After a few minutes she suddenly glanced up, as if realizing she was letting the silence linger too long and was aware of how uncomfortable we both felt with that.

"So, Timothy, are you ready to start the fourth-grade next week?" She sasked lightly.

I panicked. I had completely forgotten about school starting. I could not be spending my days sitting around with eight- year-olds, learning how do divide numbers with decimal points. With memory implant training from our advanced AI, I had learned advanced interdimensional quantum physics, and all the advanced math required for that. Beyond anything even known on Earth. I was just beginning my campaign to conquer the world and bring about a lasting world peace, for goodness’ sake.

"Mom, I can’t..."

She cut me off, pretty quickly, "You need to finish your education, Timothy Aaron Bailey."

I looked at Dad and saw that although he might agree with me, he was staying out of this one. It made sense, I suppose. If I was too smart to go to school, I ought to be able to handle a simple debate when all the facts were on my side.

"Mom, please hear me out," I implored, giving her the pleading look I usually reserved for when I asked for a second helping of ice cream after finishing all my vegetables at dinner.

She nodded, but her expression said, I’ll listen and then you’ll do what I said.

"OK, I’ve already learned math and science beyond anything I could learn in any college, never mind the fourth grade. Joe can pull the information for all the other subjects, and I can learn them faster and more deeply than any amount of time in classroom. I could get a GED so the school doesn’t send a truant officer. Then, maybe I could take some tests or something, and get my college degree. I mean, I really need to be in a top university research program to start introducing alien technical innovations to Earth anyway. I don’t think the people of Earth can wait for me to finish grade school first..." I paused and looked down at the table, "And I need to be on hand to help organize your support for Guatemala. I couldn’t really concentrate on four-square in gym class knowing you’re facing bullets and assassins in Guatemala... I mean, sure, Dad will make sure you’re safe, but believe me, he’d have lasered a bunch of people already just for carrying weapons around you. I have to keep reminding him that you can take care of yourself, and you wouldn’t want him to take away your chance to succeed in the mission on your own."

I ran out of things to say. Mom’s eyes were welling up as if she was going to cry. She set her jaw, wiped the beginnings of the tears away, and looked back at me resolutely. "You’re right, Tim. What we’re all trying to accomplish is more important than four-square skills. Do you know that since I left high school, I have never once needed to use my long-practiced ability to aim a ball to bounce in a particular chalk quadrant?" She grinned at me.

"That sounds like something Dad would say!" I rebuked her.

My parents both laughed. It sounded beautiful.

"I want you to make sure you get a full high school education covering all the subjects you’d study in regular school. Get your GED before school starts next Friday, and we’ll fill out the paperwork to get you out of fourth grade. Deal?" Mom asked.

"Deal!" I agreed quickly.

Mom reached out with her right hand and took my hand in hers. Her left hand found Dad’s hand. "After all, we’ve got a world to save!"