Funny how your perspective made you view everything differently. Honestly, though, until my kids were older, I wouldn’t feel bad about being able to check in on them.
“We already record him 24/7,” Fritz said, reminding us of the bodycams and surveillance cameras in the house.
The only saving grace with that was Fritz and his team would never ‘leak’ anything to my parents. Heck, they wouldn’t give me the video of when I found Jill. I’d been told they’d actually deleted it since she was underage.
“David, I’d like to talk to you about getting more drones. I want to install them here at the house, the farm, your Malibu home, and I’d like to get them for Rita James’ two properties.”
“We need to talk to Darius and find out if he wants to start making some money doing this,” I suggested.
That reminded me that I should call Brook’s grandmother and see about moving this drone project forward. I hadn’t shared with her what his latest iteration of the ‘flock of drones’ was capable of. I bet that Grace would want a flock at her place in Cincinnati, as would several of her relatives who had security concerns.
My flock was currently on chargers in my apartment because Paul and Cassidy had been ‘working’ with them. Those two were worse than Dare. They seemed to spend more time goofing off than actual security work when it came to the drones.
If Dare wasn’t game, we wanted a fallback plan for creating them. Actually, if Dare turned us down, I would have to check to make sure he wasn’t sick or something.
“I bet he has already figured more ways to improve them,” Fritz guessed.
“I’m sure it involves more bitcoins.”
“What are you talking about?” Mom asked, latching onto the bitcoin comment.
“Dare met this professor from State who put him in touch with some people that live overseas. It’s easier to pay them in bitcoins,” I explained.
“People really do that?” Dad asked. “I thought it was risky.”
“So far, we’ve been lucky. Megan has been overseeing it,” I said to assure my dad. “Besides, it hasn’t been more than I was willing to risk.”
Mom gave me a stern look. I would bet a beach house that the amount she was willing to risk was much smaller than mine.
“The professor disappeared,” Fritz said.
“Hunter?” I asked, suddenly concerned.
“Well, ‘disappeared’ might be too strong. Hunter suddenly turned in his resignation and left State. When I tried to check on him, I got a visit from the FBI. They made it clear that further inquiries weren’t a good idea,” Fritz shared.
“Back up and explain all this. You aren’t mixed up with the FBI again, are you?” Mom asked.
I spent the rest of breakfast explaining how Hunter had helped Dare with the drones. The main reason I didn’t freak out was that Hunter hadn’t given off any signs of being someone to worry about. Though it did bother me when he couldn’t give me straight answers.
I guessed that he was involved in something classified. The logical conclusion was that he was off working on some top-secret project. That made my inner geek do a little happy dance. It was why I looked forward to playing Ian Bond. That was the closest I would ever come to being a secret agent.
◊◊◊
Cassidy and I had finished with our secret-agent training for the movie, so she wanted to get me into the dojo. I’d been lax in my martial-arts exercises for the last several months, having cut back when I hurt the recruit’s father in Oklahoma. I’d heard through the grapevine that the kid had ended up going to Rice University in Houston. Oklahoma had pulled their offer after his father had acted up.
I knew it was going to be a long day when Cassidy got on me as soon as we started doing our forms.
“Bend your knees, straighten your back, and lift your elbow. You’ve gotten sloppy,” she observed.
I predicted that before we finished, I was in for a butt-kicking to remind me that I should train more often.
“We should do something Sunday night. You need to get out of the house,” I suggested to break the building tension.
“Concentrate,” Cassidy warned.
“How about bowling? We could get a group of people together …” I started and suddenly found myself on my back.
That would leave a mark.
“This is my time. I expect you to respect that,” Cassidy said, sounding tough.
From my position on the floor, I leg-swept her, and she landed on me. I proceeded to tickle her.
“David!” she barked as she squirmed to get away.
My little ninja didn’t try too hard because I didn’t end up in extreme pain or bleeding. She lost her bossy teacher cred when she giggled.
Then she realized what I’d done and jabbed me under the arm.
“Ow!”
Cassidy kissed my nose, and we got back to it. She lightened up, but as predicted, I got an ass-kicking. I really did need to practice more to maintain my edge.
◊◊◊
I’d decided I would make dinner for the grandmothers who were coming over to help watch the little ones. Since Mom and Dad were going out, I was able to make something with carbs. Lasagna with garlic bread sounded like a solid plan. That way, I would have leftovers to take to school for lunch.
