Charlie Boone
by Geron Kees
Life Is Like A New Suit of Clothes, Charlie Boone! - Chapter 1
This is a work of fiction. All characters and situations are imaginary. No real people were harmed in the creation of this presentation.
Kippy Lawson was just coming back to the office with pizza for the guy's lunch when he received a mind-touch message from his boyfriend, Charlie Boone.
"Kip? Are you anywhere close to being back?"
Kip was, in fact, just getting out of the elevator, the two warm, large-size pizza boxes held protectively in his hands. "I just got off the elevator," he sent back. "Coming down the hallway now. Why? What's up?"
There was a moment's silence before Charlie replied, and when he did, Kip frowned at the sense of hesitation he detected there. "Oh...just something I think you ought to see. Come straight back to the bored room when you get here."
"Okay. Just take me a minute."
He quickened his pace down the carpeted hall, a germ of unease forming in the back of his mind. Charlie had sounded odd. It was as easy to sense such things in the mental conversations they now had as it was to sense them in normal spoken ones. Kip's boyfriend had sounded a little mystified, maybe, and even a little worried. And Charlie didn't worry without reason.
A man coming down the hallway from the other direction smiled as the two of them neared each other. Mr. Winderman, their neighbor across the hall. He sold insurance, and was a little bit of a pushy fellow, but Kippy had decided the man had a good heart, even if it was often overshadowed by the small streaks of ambition and avarice that had compelled him to be one of the best insurance people in town.
"Ho, Kip. Looks like it's lunchtime!"
Kippy grinned and nodded, but only just barely slowed down. "Yeah. And I shouldn't have had such a large soft drink walking back. I have to get to a bathroom fast! Talk later!"
The man laughed, and rolled his eyes a little, as if sharing a comment on young people and the pace at which they lived. He waved a hand Kip's way as he moved on down the hallway. "Good luck!"
Kippy hurried onward, and arrived at the door to their office. It was an impressive oak door, solid and reassuring, and adorned with a very businesslike bronze nameplate that said: Third Planet Inquiries. Beneath the company name was a little engraved representation of the sun and three orbits, with the orb in the third orbital position clearly being an eye staring back at the viewer. Kip juggled the boxes of pizza onto one arm for a moment and grabbed the brass knob and turned it.
Amy had redecorated the place twice now, always seeming to make it better. The door opened inward on a rather marvelously appointed waiting area, with two leather sofas set in an L-shape in one corner, and a large and beautifully-finished oak coffee table set before them - another fine piece created by their friend Dick Sternman over in Canandaigua. Another, smaller table was positioned in the corner between the ends of the two sofas, and held an ornate lamp with a stained glass shade. Four large and comfortable leather chairs with tables between them occupied the spaces before other walls, each table holding a lamp similar to the one by the sofas, and each one of which emitted a similar soft, many-colored light into the room. Above the sofas, and above each chair, hung large paintings on a variety of supernatural themes, from the melancholy to the startling to the outright eerie. The warm lamp-lighting gave the room the feeling of someone's den rather than the waiting area of a business, and the paintings suggested a bit of a mysterious air that Kippy loved. It looked like a place where anything might happen, and did.
In a setback at the rear of the room, before the door into the corridor beyond, stood Amy's desk, behind which she was seated. Horace Wingspanner sat on one corner of the desk, and both of them looked up at him as the door to the hallway swung shut behind Kippy.
"There you are," Horace said, absent his usual smile. "We've been waiting for you."
Both the ghost hunter and the office manager looked slightly ill at ease, and Kippy frowned at them as he set the pizza boxes on the desk. "What's going on? Charlie sounded worried when I talked to him."
Horace's eyes widened. "You talked to him on the phone?"
Kippy shook his head, and tapped one temple with a finger. "No. In here."
"Oh." Horace nodded. "I couldn't know that." He patted Amy's hand and stood, turning toward the door to the corridor beyond. "Maybe you should just come on back."
Kip picked up the pizzas and followed, giving Amy a brief glance as he passed the desk. She looked a little worried, too, he thought. What was going on?
Horace led the way down the hallway to the action office the boys called the bored room. It was a room equipped with a tremendous variety of references in both book and electronic form, a small kitchen, exercise equipment to spur on good thinking, a wall equipped with several large monitors on which almost any available media could be displayed, an antique fortune-telling machine that had been a gift from Frit and Pip one Christmas, and a u-shaped setting of sofas, with another of Dick Sternman's wonderful coffee tables inside, so that they could be comfortable while watching the monitors, or just thinking out loud together. This was the room where they did some of their best brainstorming, as well as pizza-eating, relaxing, and discussing ongoing and approaching cases.
Horace closed the door behind them, but Kip didn't wait for the man. He made immediately for the seating area, where his boyfriend was sitting with Rick Travers, Adrian Whitaker, Robin Hood, and Chirka, the Kift scientist that lived on Engris, and who had made it her life's work to study the inhabitants of the lower layer. All of them were focused on a pearly-white ovoid about a foot long that was sitting in the middle of the table before them.
Kip set down the pizza boxes and then sat beside his boyfriend. "What's going on? What's that?"
Charlie turned to look at him. "Chirka thinks it some kind of chrysalis."
Kippy's eyes expanded at that. "What's it doing here?"
Rick sighed heavily. "Browbeat's inside."
Kippy stared at his friend.
Rick shrugged. "Well, at least I'm pretty sure he's inside." He turned to look at the iridescent ovoid again. "He and I were watching some old science fiction movie, and I got up to go to the bathroom. When I came back--" He extended his hand towards the ovoid.
Charlie nodded. "Adrian went to Engris and brought Chirka back. She has a lot of data on the lifeforms that she's seen in the lower layer. He thought she could help."
"Except, I cannot," the Kift said then. "While I am familiar with the Pintuckins and their homeworld, I have never seen anything like this in an adult of that species. Pintuckins are mammals, despite their appearance. They are born live, and their wings grow in later. This chrysalis, similar to the cocoon, is a characteristic of an insect species."
"It doesn't really matter," Charlie said then. "We just weren't thinking. The body Browbeat has now is not his original one. This is something the Madracorn made, and whatever is happening, they would have been the ones to ask."
Adrian shrugged. "I didn't think of that, either. And you know how hard it can be to find a Madracorn when you need one, anyway."
Kippy frowned. "He doesn't respond when you mind-touch with him?"
Charlie smiled tiredly. "Try it yourself."
Kippy did just that. He narrowed his eyes at the chrysalis. "Browbeat? Are you there?"
The response he got was strange. Almost as if he had called someone on a phone, and that someone had clearly answered it, but then said nothing in return. He sensed Browbeat, and he sensed some sort of activity in the little fellow's mind...but no words came back to him.
"That's...I feel he's there," Kip decided. "But it's almost like he's concentrating on something so fiercely he can't talk."
"That's what we all felt, too," Adrian said. He turned to Chirka then. "We appreciate you coming. I know you're busy. Shall I run you back to Engris?"
The Kift was in her own body now, the camouflage of a Drazilian she normally wore when interacting with visitors dispensed with. She frowned a particularly Kift frown, and Kip couldn't help smiling a little at how it reminded him immediately of Pacha'ka. The Kifta, as a race, seemed to share a lot of traits in common.
"If you don't mind, I'd like to wait a bit to see what happens with this." She laughed softly then, tchk, tchk, tchk. "As you know, my studies on Engris take place in no-time, so nothing I was doing there will be harmed by me being away in real-time for a while."
Kippy turned to Robin. "Have you any ideas?"
The man smiled at him. "Not a one. I just happened to drop by as the excitement was starting. I will say I am not worried, though." He pointed at the chrysalis. " Whatever is happening, that's Madracorn technology behind it. Those boys know their stuff."
"There is that," Charlie agreed. "Since this appears not to be something Browbeat's kind do normally, it's not a process that his Madracorn body is mimicking. This is something entirely new."
"But what?" Kip asked, shaking his head at the ovoid. "I hope he's okay in there."
As if in response, a thought crystallized within his mind. "I'm okay."
Everyone paused then. "Browbeat?" Charlie asked aloud, though the thought went along with his question.
Kippy smiled as the familiar titter of the Pintuckin's laughter filled his head. "Friends! I hope you're not worried!"
Kippy's smile dissolved into a frown then. He made his response aloud as well, for the benefit of those in the room that had yet to attain the mind-touch. "We are worried, actually. What are you doing?"
Rick leaned forward quickly then. "I was only gone a couple of minutes. When I came back, you were gone and this big marble was in your place!"
Again, the little flyer laughed. "I'm making some changes."
Adrian took it upon himself to quickly vocalize the little flyer's responses so that Robin, Horace, and Chirka could follow the conversation.
"To what?" Charlie asked, watching the chrysalis intently.
"To me! I'm changing the way I look."
No one said anything for a moment.
"But...we like the way you look!" Kippy finally offered.
"I looked like a big bug," Browbeat returned. "Humans don't really like bugs."
It wasn't just Kip's jaw that dropped at that.
"You're cute!" Adrian said immediately. "No one thought you looked like a bug!"
"I did!" The tiny sigh that came with that was clear. "That movie that Rick and I were watching, the giant bugs were nasty!"
Rick's eyes widened at that. "Huh? They didn't look anything like you!"
"No, but it was clear to me that humans are afraid of bugs. I don't want anyone to be afraid of me!"
Charlie closed his eyes and sighed. "Browbeat, we love you as you were. There is no need to make a change. You looked fine."
Others joined in in quick agreement.
"I know I didn't have to change. I wanted to. I wanted to try something different."
Kippy shrugged, looking over at his boyfriend. "I had no idea he could change his appearance. I mean, other than his colors, which we've seen before."
Browbeat tittered in their minds. "I didn't really know it, either. But I've been looking at all the junk the Madracorn built into this body, and figuring out a few things. It was the movie that gave me the idea."
Rick looked surprised, and held up his hands. "What happened in the movie that made you think you could change your appearance?"
"Well, that one guy, Murphy, he complained and whined the whole first part of the movie about the giant bugs coming closer, until that woman, Vicky, turned to him and said, 'Why don't you grow a pair?'. That's what got me thinking maybe I could grow some new stuff!"
For a moment everyone looked stunned, and then the entire group dissolved into laughter.
"I don't think she meant he should really change his appearance," Rick offered. He grinned at Charlie and Kip, his eyes brimming with humor.
"Well, it got me thinking, anyway," Browbeat continued. "And I realized then that some of the systems in my body I've been looking at were for transformation."
"Just like that?" Charlie asked, shaking his head in disbelief.
"Call it a transformative moment," Browbeat returned, laughing.
Kip leaned forward then. "So...what are you changing yourself into?"
"Actually, I'm almost done. You'll see for yourself, in a moment."
Robin reached out and laid a fingertip against the chrysalis. "Is this thing going to crack open, like an egg?"
Adrian quickly put the question into thought for the flyer.
"Oh, no. It's not matter as we know it. It's an energy projection of some kind. It's supposed to contain the transformation processes I'm using, so that I don't turn the top of the table into something else by accident."
Charlie's eyes widened at that. "You could do that?"
"I don't think so. That's why the process is contained. It's a personal process, not designed to be used externally. I guess the Madracorn were just being careful."
Kippy briefly imagined the little flyer winging around the room, unintentionally turning the furniture into all manner of strange things, and nodded. "Probably a good idea."
Browbeat tittered happily. "I see now that my body was not originally created by the Madracorn in the image of my natural one. The Madracorn must have standardized biomachine models of various sizes that they can simply transform into anything they want. They took a small one, and copied my original body. But they didn't seal the process. I found that means I can change it whenever I want to."
Charlie nodded at that. "So, you can always go back to the original, if you want?"
"Uh huh."
Charlie put an arm around Kip and gave him a squeeze. "As long as it's not permanent, there's no harm in him experimenting."
Kippy's sighed. "I guess not."
Browbeat made a few more satisfied-seeming sounds within their minds, and then there was a pause in the flow of thoughts, before a contented-sounding sigh reached Kip's mind. "All done. You guys ready for the unveiling?"
Kip had a thought, and then asked Browbeat to wait a moment. "Big Irv?" Kip looked up at the ceiling by habit, even though the office AI's presence was everywhere.
"Yes, Kip?"
"Could you ask Amy to come in here? She'll want to see this." He smiled at Horace. "She was worried, like you."
The ghost hunter beamed at him. "Yes, she was. We all love Browbeat."
In a moment Amy had joined them, taking a place on the couch next to Horace. He picked up her hand, and gave it a fond squeeze. "Browbeat's about to come out of his shell. He's changed his appearance, it seems."
Amy looked surprised. "Whatever for? He was cute as a bug already!"
Horace winced, and then smiled at Charlie and Kip. "I think that was part of the problem. Shh. Let's watch."
Kippy nodded. "Okay, sweetheart. We're all waiting."
Browbeat tittered happily. "Here goes nothing!"
The chrysalis simply faded away, right before their eyes, leaving the new Browbeat gazing up at them expectantly. "Well, what do you guys think?" This time the little flyer spoke aloud, in the same voice that was small and squeaky he'd always had, but which was as undeniably cute as Browbeat himself was now.
Kippy simply stared in silence along with the others.
Gone was any resemblance to a butterfly or bumblebee. The creature before them looked entirely mammalian, perhaps the size of a squirrel, and was covered in soft-looking black fur, with a gold and white patch on its brisket. It was sitting on back legs that resembled a squirrel's, though there seemed to be no front legs at all. Browbeat's head resembled that of a loris or tarsis, with a tiny button nose and large, golden eyes. He face was masked, with an area of fur that surrounded his eyes with gold, his mouth with white, and bridged his button nose in a stunning shade of blue!
Browbeat's ears stood upright and attentive, with tiny accents of gold and white fur adorning them, and between which were two tall, black, furred antennae with little nubs at the end of them. On his back were displayed two furry little pods, black in color, with accents of blue and gold visible, that suggested wings perhaps folded incredibly small while not in use.
Browbeat's golden eyes moved among them. "Well? How did I do? I was trying for cute and cuddly."
Kippy let loose the sigh he had been holding in. "You are definitely there!"
Charlie just bobbed his head up and down in admiration. "I'm impressed!"
Amy rolled her eyes and sighed. "Men." She leaned toward the table, a smile covering her face. "Honey, you're beautiful!"
Browbeat tittered happily at that. "Friends! I'm so happy you like it!"
Adrian shook his head in wonder. "Can you still fly?"
Browbeat's little face grinned. "Just watch me!"
At his back, the furry pods suddenly expanded with a rustling sound, unfurling into large wings that still had some butterfly in them. The ribs were black and brown and furred, but the material between them had an ethereal, rice paper look, light and airy, and presented rather stunningly in colors of blue and black, with orange dots running the length of the black areas.
These wings whirred into action, and Browbeat lifted smoothly from the table and moved to hover over Kippy's shoulder. "Do you mind?"
Kip laughed, and leaned his head to one side. "Be my guest!"
Browbeat settled onto his shoulder and the wings stilled, but remained extended behind him.
Kippy turned his head to look into the little flyer's eyes, and just beamed his happiness. "No one could ever fear you now, sweetie!"
The answer was a contented sigh. "I can always change things if I want, but I picked features I thought would appeal to humans."
Charlie frowned at that. "You should never feel you need to change yourself to suit us. Or anyone else, for that matter."
Browbeat tittered at him. "It's just like you guys changing your clothing to fit the situation. I felt I wanted to be more like an Earth creature."
Kip sighed. "We're honored, sweetheart." He frowned then. "I'm kind of surprised you didn't make yourself some arms, though. You were always lamenting the fact that you couldn't pick up stuff."
"I could have done that. But the actuators for arms in the front and wings in the back were complicated, and would have taken more time. And the analytics module that helped me do all this said I would be sacrificing some wing power to get the arm power. This body is only so big, you know? So I did something else instead."
Kippy blinked. "What?"
Browbeat leaned closer, and in a flash the two antennae atop his head darted forward and deftly pinched Kippy's nose between them!
Kippy blinked in surprise and jerked his head back, and Browbeat buzzed a happy little laugh. "They're strong, too, Kip. I can manipulate stuff with them easily. They aren't as dexterous as hands, but I won't be doing any knitting anytime soon, either!"
Browbeat's wings whirred into motion again, and he lifted briefly from Kip's shoulder, pulling up the seam of Kip's shirt with him. "And I can grab stuff with my feet, too. See?"
Kippy raised his shoulder along with the flyer's tug, and nodded quickly. "Yes! Now land again before you stretch my nice shirt out of shape!"
Browbeat complied, and then leaned his furry face against Kip's cheek and made a tiny, happy sound. Kippy melted instantly, and sighed happily as he turned to Charlie. "We make a cute couple, don't we?"
Charlie grinned as the others laughed. "You already know how I feel, Kip."
Kip's eyes shone brightly. "Yes, I do." He turned to look at Browbeat. "You're a hit, sweetie!"
Browbeat whirred into the air, and circled the room tittering, a happy smile on his face. "Friends! You guys are so much fun!"
Chirka, seated beside Adrian, sighed in satisfaction, and patted Adrian's hand. "Now, you can take me back to Engris!"
The general conference room at Third Planet Inquiries had a more corporate look to it than did the bored room, with paneled walls, a long conference table in the center of the room beneath twin overhead lights, and the audio and video equipment needed for just about any sort of presentation. A counter along the outer wall ran beneath two large, eight-paned windows, which looked out on the streets of the city some stories below. The counter incorporated within its design two small refrigerators, a sink, a dishwasher, and two microwave ovens on their own inset shelves. A large coffeemaker sat on the counter above the microwaves, with provisions for offering hot water to make tea. The room was intended to make visitors comfortable, and to provide them with amenities that might make them more at ease when detailing their reasons for being there at all.
That it was somewhat showy was something Kippy derided, but which Charlie said was necessary. They did need to project as a real business, and not just a bunch of kids playing at chasing ghosts and goblins.
"Looks like the boardroom at General Motors," the small, bearded, elderly gentleman said, as Amy showed him to a seat at one end of the table. "I hope that's not a reflection on the cost of your services." He winced at her. "Your website doesn't provide any notion of what this might cost me."
Amy nodded. "It does say that consultations are at no charge, though. I think you'll find that the guys tend to be very fair in what they charge for their services. That's why none are posted on the site. Each case they take has its own considerations." She smiled. "Coffee, or tea?"
The man blinked in surprise. "Uh...tea would be nice."
"Green, Black, Oolong, White, Pu-erh, or herbal?"
The man blinked again, and then smiled. "Green will do me. A small sprinkle of sugar, just the tip of the spoon, but nothing else."
"Coming right up." Amy moved to the counter, opened a cabinet, and withdrew a tea cup. She fished out a green tea bag from a container within, put it in the cup, and then put it under the tap and filled the cup with steaming hot water. This she set on the countertop to steep, and turned back to their visitor. "Would you like anything with it, Mr. Grampet? I have tea cakes, crackers, cookies, and doughnuts."
The old gentleman rubbed at his waistline a little self-consciously, and shook his head. "No. Just the tea is fine."
The door to the hallway opened then, and Charlie, Kip, Adrian, Rick, Robin, and Horace came in. Horace closed the door behind them, and they all took seats at the end of the table around their guest.
"This is Elias Grampet," Amy introduced, bringing the cup of tea to the table and setting it before the man. She introduced Charlie and the others, and Grampet nodded to each in turn, smiling.
The man had intelligent green eyes and a very open air about him, which Charlie liked immediately. He sensed that whatever Elias planned to tell them, it was going to be the truth as he knew it. Charlie leaned forward on the tabletop, getting right down to business. "Amy says you found us by our online presence. Would you like to tell us why you're here, Mr. Grampet?"
"Oh, call me Elias, please," the man said, stroking his gray beard thoughtfully as his eyes moved among them. A brief look of amazement stole over his features, and was gone. "You're all so young!"
Rick, sitting to one side of Robin, elbowed him gently in the ribs, and Robin laughed. "Yes, but our experience is deep, Elias."
The bearded man smiled. "Somehow, I sense that."
Kippy beamed. "Then you can begin by telling us what we can do for you."
Elias took a sip of his tea, his eyes watching them over the rim of his cup. Charlie took the measure of that move as the man organizing his thoughts - or trying to, anyway.
"Sometimes, it's hard to know where to begin," Charlie prompted, sitting back, not wanting to seem to be applying pressure.
Elias set his cup down and sighed. "Sometimes it's hard to know where to begin without sounding like some sort of a nut," he corrected.
"We've dealt with a lot of unusual things in our time, already," Horace explained. "You need not fear that we will judge anything you say as unbelievable."
Charlie looked up at Amy, still standing beside their visitor, and canted his head at an empty seat. She smiled, patted Elias' shoulder comfortingly, and moved to sit down.
"Please," she said, as she pulled her chair to the table. "You're among friends here."
Elias took another sip of his tea, set the cup down, and sighed. "I'm being stalked."
Charlie squinted at that, the obvious first response to such a situation popping right into his head. "Have you been to the police?"
Elias looked alarmed. "Oh, no, I can't do that! For one thing, I doubt they'd believe me. And for another..." he squeezed his eyes shut a moment, as if building up his courage, and then opened them again. "For another reason, I'd have to tell them who the stalker is."
Kippy looked surprised. "You know the person who is stalking you?"
Elias nodded slowly. "Yes. It's...me."
Charlie leaned back at that admission, and the others looked equally wide-eyed with astonishment.
"You're being stalked by yourself?" Amy repeated, her eyes moving for a moment to find Charlie's before returning to cover Elias.
The bearded man gave a faint laugh. "I know, it sounds crazy."
"You've seen this person, and it's you?" Rick asked. "You're certain?"
Elias sat forward then, and gave his beard another brief tug. "It's me, no question. But it's not me as I am now. Old, I mean. It's me as I was many years ago. It's me when I was young, maybe thirty years old."
Adrian shook his head at that. "Do you have any memory from when you were that age, of visiting your older self?"
"No.This has come as a complete surprise to me."
"Have you spoken with your other self?" Horace asked. "What does he say about all this?"
Elias looked unsettled. "I haven't been close enough to him to speak, save for one time. I just catch glimpses of him throughout my day, following me about. The one time we were really close, I had gotten off an elevator, and was still standing before it trying to decide which chore on my list to tackle next, when the elevator beside mine opened and he stepped out." Elias shook his head at the memory. "Believe me, the shock was considerable!. Yet as I stood gaping at him, he simply stepped back onto his elevator, and the doors closed and he was gone. But since that meeting I have become acutely aware of him following me, always dressed the same way, always with his attention solely on me. It's become, well...unnerving."
"It doesn't sound like he's trying too hard to hide from you," Amy suggested. "Maybe like he wants you to see him?"
"I have no idea, Ms. Brandt."
"It does sound like it could be a time travel incident," Rick said slowly. "That can be really hard to deal with, we already know."
Charlie frowned at the idea. They were familiar with time travel, having experienced it with Max and Keerby more than once. But only one of the humans with skwish they knew could do it -- Rip Shannon, the Time Ranger. And while Shannon had admitted that there were certainly other humans out there that had the ability, Charlie didn't know any of them personally. But it clearly indicated that there could be many other humans out there that could perform such a feat.
Other than that particular group, time travel was a talent that was solely something the elves had mastered, as far as Charlie was aware. And the elves had learned the talent from the hernacki. But, if time travel was involved, Shannon, or Max or Keerby, would be the ones to go to for advice.
But was it time travel that was really happening here?
"Could be an Elias from another reality, too," Adrian suggested, obviously thinking along the same lines as Charlie. "We know that's possible from our own experiences."
"Or, maybe it's not really a younger Elias at all," Kippy offered.."Could be someone masquerading as Elias, for some reason."
Charlie smiled. "A shape-changer, even?" he asked, making subtle reference to his own ability to change his appearance.
Kippy grinned. "Exactly."
Elias was following these suggestions with ever-widening eyes. "Is all that stuff real?" He gave his head a little shake. "You people really have been into some weird things!"
Amy gave the men a mildly annoyed look, and then smiled reassuringly at Elias. "Did your younger self follow you here, do you know?"
"What? Oh...yes. I saw him across the street as I entered your building."
Kippy popped up from his chair and went to the windows before turning back to the table. "Do you see him out there now?"
Elias climbed to his feet and joined Kip at the window, leaning on the countertop so that he could scan the sidewalk below. "I think we're too high up to tell."
They returned to the table, and regained their seats.
"What would you like us to do about your stalker?" Charlie asked now. "Providing we can corner him and have a chat, that is."
Elias looked startled at the question, and then frowned. "I just want him to stop following me. And...I'd like to know why he's doing it, too."
"It will depend on what he's up to, of course," Charlie decided. He smiled. "But we'll do the best that we can."
Elias blinked at the sudden acceptance of the job, but then smiled in plain relief. "Oh, that's fine." He leaned forward and fished a wallet out of his back pocket, opened it, and pulled a business card from within. This he pushed down the table towards Amy. "You can reach me here when you have some news."
Charlie nodded, and stood up. That was the signal for everyone to get to their feet, and they walked Elias Grampet back to the waiting room.
But the group's pace faltered to a stop as they arrived by Amy's desk. There was a man there in the waiting area, seated in one of the chairs. He looked up at them and smiled.
Elias froze at the sight, mumbled something under his breath, and then his arm leapt out and a finger pointed accusingly. "It's him!"
Charlie could plainly see the resemblance between this new arrival and their client. But while Elias the elder was gray in both the receding hair on his head and the beard on his face, this younger version of Elias had thick, reddish blond hair and a reddish blond beard to match, which added a look of vast strength somehow to the intelligent green eyes he shared with his elder version. He looked like a smaller version of Thor, or some other Nordic spirit let loose upon the earth.
Horace briefly touched Charlie's arm, and whispered urgently to him. "This guy registers with me like Gretchen does!"
Elias the younger stood, and his gaze went right to Charlie. "At last, I have found you."
Charlie stared at the man in return, his thoughts racing, trying to see where this new wrinkle could possibly lead. Kip put a hand on Charlie's arm then, and a single thought appeared among Charlie's own. "Skwish!"
But Charlie could feel it now, too, something subtle, something low-key, something used to flying under the radar. There was power here, but power artfully restrained, controlled, kept away from the light.
"You've been following me all over the place for a week," the elder Elias accused, obviously feeling none of the invisible energies residing within his younger self.
"Yes." The new arrival frowned at that. "I apologize for disturbing you, but I was certain that if I continued to follow you, you would lead me" --he smiled, and indicated the waiting room-- "to this place. And this place is where I needed to be."
"How could you know that?" Kip asked, finding his voice.
"The probability that Elias would lead me to someone who could assist me was too high to ignore," the newcomer said, with assurance. "Of the millions of humans that I scanned, his profile stood out at the top of the ratings. He was actually aware of someone who, shall we say, dabbled in stranger things.
The older Elias looked surprised at that, turning to Charlie then. "I found your site online after reading a story about ghostly possession," he admitted. "I was looking into how possible such things were, and chanced across your website. I like to know more on the things I read about." He pointed at the older version of himself. "So, when this guy appeared and started following me, I knew right where to go. Fortunately, you were right in the next state!"
That brought more silence, as the group digested that idea.
The older Elias turned back to his other self then. "But...you're not really me at all, are you?" he blurted.
His younger version shook his head. "No."
"Then who are you?" Robin asked casually, smiling, but Charlie could feel an underlying current of readiness in the man's voice.
The young Elias seemed to sense that, too, and held up his hands in a placating gesture. "Please. What I have to say is for you only," he said, looking at Charlie.
Charlie shook his head, and used a hand to indicate the group. "We work together. It's either all, or none."
Young Elias frowned at that. "Then...it must be all." He turned to Elias the elder then. "But not you, I'm afraid."
The older man blinked at that, but then gave a surprisingly amiable laugh. "If you're done following me around, I don't care about anything else."
"I am done following you around."
The older Elias sighed happily, and smiled at Amy, pointing to the business card she still held in her hand. "You can send your bill there."
Charlie shook his head. "We didn't do anything for you, Elias. There won't be any charge."
The look of delight that appeared on the elderly man's face made Charlie smile.
"Then I will be off," Elias said, nodding in turn at everyone before turning to his younger self. "I hope I never see you again, if you don't mind me saying."
The younger man smiled. "I'm sorry you were bothered. It was...necessary. But it's over now."
"Then I'll leave you people to your time travel, shape changers, strange spirits, and whatever other amazing things amuse you. Good day, everyone."
The joy at being finished with this odd interlude in his life was apparent. Elias went to the door into the hallway, opened it, smiled back at them one more time, and then was gone.
All eyes returned to the younger version of their former client.
Charlie indicated the door to the back offices with a hand. "Care to come back and tell us your story?"
Elias the younger smiled, got to his feet, and offered a polite bow. "Shall we?"
Kippy Lawson with the 'new' Browbeat
[Image and text @copy 2025 Geron Kees all rights reserved]
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