Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience.
 
 Sorcerer: Interesting Times by BJohn
   Chapters 1 to 5
   ------
   This is Book 3 of the Sorcerer series.  You've *gotta* read Book 1 (The
Inner Circle) and Book 2 (The Clann) or you'll be totally dazed and
confused -- the standard condition of a teenage male.
   The story Best Girl runs parallel to this, so I'd suggest you read up to
chapter 10 either before or after the first chapter of Sorcerer.
   "Chinese Curses" in order of severity: - May you live in interesting
times (More likely Scottish than Chinese).  - May you come to the attention
of those in authority.  - May you find what you are looking for.
   Acknowledgements: Thank you to the many readers on SOL who gave me
constructive feedback and caught a lot of my typos.  Thank you to my
several editors and proofreaders for their sharp eyes.  Thank you to L. 
Ron Hubbard, whose philosophy forms the basis for many of the ideas you
find here.
   ------
   Chapter 1
[Author: Last several paragraphs from Sorcerer: The Clann]
   BOB (Sunday 4/16)
   Kathleen wanted to pick up a few things for the new digs so we decided
to go out to the Sherman Oaks Fashion Square near the I-405 while Mario and
Sherry headed to the Northridge Galleria.
   I chauffeured Kat out in the Beemer (I knew my rightful place) and we
wandered around for about an hour while she shopped at the kitchen and
house stores and I appeared interested.
   Break time!  We sat out in the mall in a group of small benches and
relaxed while she checked over her goodies.
   A couple with a stroller came by and sat down across from us maybe five
feet away.  Of course, they deserved an _inspection_.  Nice; so much
Potential they're ready to pop any moment.  The baby was four months old
and they were delighted with him.
   _Inspecting_ the baby, I got pretty suspicious; he was too much of a
baby!  Even ones that young are deeper than he was.  Ho!  Betcha!
   I asked, _"Well, hello, George.  How they hangin'?"_
   Immediate answer, _"Not hangin' at all yet; gimme a few years.  How the
hell are you, Sorcerer?  Sunshine?  God dammit, girl, you've got a *hell*
of a good rack for being only four months old."_
   [Start of Interesting Times]
   Kat laughed a little.  _"Hey, George!  They start young where I came
from.  It's one hell of a story we've got for you.  First, we'd better get
introduced to the parents before they think we're gonna abduct you."_
   George chuckled, _"That would be close to an alien abduction, right? 
I'll make like a baby and you guys do your magic."_
   George chortled, kicked his legs, waved his arms and laughed; happy
baby. Kat promptly got up and went across to look at him.  She asked the
couple, "Such a happy young man you have!  He's what, four months or so?"
   One can never go wrong praising the child to the parents.  Yep, by
chance he was four months old and his name was...  George.  _"Of course,
*I* had nothing to do with that choice,"_ he told us.  Right.  And my
mother's Chinese.
   Kat showed off her ring and introduced me then we chatted a few minutes.
She got her hand close to George who promptly grabbed it and pulled the
ring into his mouth.  He said, _"Hmm.  Must be real; wouldn't be that big
if it were fake.  Congratulations, guys.  It's about time you made an
honest spirit out of her, Bob."_
   We steered the conversation around to what they did.  Andy and Patricia
Baxter were MBAs and department heads in a good-sized aerospace company in
North Hollywood.  Patricia had taken a five-month maternity leave of
absence when George was born.
   Only trouble was, the company had just been "mergered and
acquisitioned," and they were excess.  Andy said, "So, tomorrow, it's hit
the streets to keep the income going."
   Kat promptly fished out a JRD card and wrote Siobhan's name on it. 
Handing it to him, she said, "Give Siobhan a call about 9:00 tomorrow
morning.  Use my name, of course.  She'll be interested in talking with you
both."
   Yeh, you guessed it; they were quite interested.  They and Kat talked a
couple minutes more while I poked George's belly to make him laugh and
squirm around.  I told him, _"Hang yourself out a little tonight around
11:00 so we can find you; we'll get you caught up on a few things.  By the
way, your folks are dayum near ready to pop right now.  You been pumping
them up?"_
   He told me, _"Some.  That's one reason I picked this body; they were
pretty sensitive already.  I've held off a lot to keep this body going.  It
stopped breathing once the first week, and I had to kick-start it again. 
No further troubles, but that SIDS stuff is pretty risky the first four
months so I'm keeping really close tabs on it right now._
   _"I just let them know when I'm hungry or tired; they get it just fine
and don't seem to notice it.  I don't think they'll have any problems
getting outside._
   _"So, we live a couple miles east of here right off the Ventura Freeway.
I'll hang out a flag at 11:00."_
   Kat and I said our goodbyes and gave our George firm spirit-hugs before
we left.  Kathleen still had some more shopping to do.
   ------
   KATHLEEN
   Of course I'd known George's "new" name.  I'd figured if he was ready to
show up, he'd put in an appearance so I'd been keeping mum about it.  When
we'd stumbled on them and Bob had picked up on him so fast, it was out of
my hands.  Fine by me!
   I got a few more neat goodies for the house.  Elizabeth was meeting us
there later in the day to go over the decoration scheme some more so I
didn't want to do too much.
   Ooo!  Our own place!  Living with Mom or Elizabeth hadn't really been a
problem, but this was getting out on our own and being independent. 
Besides, it would leave room for the Cabo crew.
   When Elizabeth came over, Sherry and I spent several hours with her --
she had wonderful ideas!  Neither Sherry nor I wanted it too cluttered so
she designed an arrangement that was airy and light yet could handle a lot
of people for entertainment or meetings.  We foresaw a Pool Party and
housewarming in the near future!
   We didn't tell anyone about meeting George.  We figured if he wanted to
"come out" completely, that was up to him.  Anyway, Bob and I bopped over
and found him right at 11:00.
   They had a nice upper-middle-class place.  Neither Andy nor Patricia
were big spenders so while everything was nice, it wasn't expensive and
yuppie.
   The first thing we got George caught up on was the cellular-level
firewall and body defenses fed by a power VPN.  We had him share power with
us for right now.
   It took him about five seconds to realize he could jimmy the power VPN
to carry telemetry about his body.  He told us, _"I wasn't quite satisfied
with just a streamer; it seemed to limit my motion and attention a lot. 
This way, everything works, and I can keep an eye on it._
   _"Yeh, we know picking up another body is pretty straightforward, but
I've already got four months of 24/7 invested in this one.  That's totally
beside the fact it would really hurt Mom and Dad if it died._
   _"I can't see any problems with it now.  Mom and Dad come from a decent
genetic line and are healthy so I expect it to do just fine."_
   He told us that since they'd lost their positions he'd been looking at
going outside anyway with a streamer to help them out.  He hadn't really
been willing to make them completely ones of us yet.  He needed to stick so
close to the body he wouldn't be able to give the support he wanted.
   I told him, _"I'll tell Siobhan first thing in the morning who they are
-- and to bring you with them.  They're so close right now I'll ask her to
pop them out and get their training started if she thinks it's the right
time."_
   He said, _"Great!  Now, you've got a tale to tell.  How did you come up
with a body like that, Sunshine?"_
   _"Ya know all that body switching fun we had?  Well..."_ He got the
whole Kathleen, Donovans, and the gang story.  He almost split a spirit-gut
over the trick we'd played on the gang.
   He was very interested in the JRD operation.  _"Sounds like you've got a
real winner there.  I know you two could have done very well in expanding
your renovation business, but that shortcuts years of work.  Of course, I'd
bet having the extra shekels right now doesn't hurt either."_
   He told us it was time for a feeding so we headed back to his place and
hung around.  George woke up Patricia just enough she could stumble over
and sit down to feed him.  She dozed away while he ate and we chatted some
more.
   He told us, _"I learned to change diapers the first week.  From
inspecting Mom and Dad, the diaper changing and the middle-of-the-night
feedings, burpings and walkings were the things they 'dreaded' most from
talking with other parents.  I figured I could handle a lot of that and
keep the load off them.  Mom knows she fed me, and they both figure since
my diaper was clean in the morning, one of them must have done it." Grin._
   George switched sides and continued nursing.  He told us he figured
since Patricia was still dozing she was still resting.  _"It's worked out
fine so far.  She isn't tired during the day since both of them actually
get to sleep.  I guess the next thing is to figure out how to nurse the two
times or so in the middle of the night without even waking her at all."_
   Bob suggested once they were ones of us George could just _touch_ the
body over to the bed and latch on.  That way, he'd be the only one who had
to wake up -- and his body woke up from hunger anyway.
   George and I allowed as to the possibility it would work.  Sure would
take even more of the stress of infancy off the family.
   As Patricia burped him, he and Bob decided George could even take that
over.  A couple _touches_ would do just fine.  We decided we'd get with
several of the mothers in the Clann to see what other loads a one-of-us
baby could take off the parents.
   George asked, _"Clann?"_
   Ho boy!  I gave him the whole Clann story; Bob mainly kept his
spirit-mouth shut.  After I told him of the Clann honoring customs, George
laughed for a good five minutes.
   He said, _"Bob, what more could a guy ask for?  Obviously you were the
only choice for Ceann.  Now you've got what, 25 or 30 very willing women
wanting to jump your bones?  How do you and Kat find time to get it on
yourselves?"_
   We assured him we found plenty of time for that.  I told him, _"Of
course as the Ceann-Mate, I get the guys, too, so I'm never left high and
dry while he's out Ceanning around."_
   _"Great!  Having a horny, unsatisfied lady at home does put a strain on
the relationship.  Sherry and I found that out in a hurry.  Now, how's The
Sherry?  She found a man yet?"_
   I told him how she, Don and Ana then Bob and I had gotten together with
her for a while until she and Mario had hit it off.  He laughed and told
us, _"Good on her!  Good on ya all!  She's a right wonderful lady and
deserves all the love she can find.  I'll have to wait for a while myself;
I've obviously got a minimum, solid requirement she be one of us -- and
from what I've been hearing, there's a dearth of young females of that
persuasion."_
   Bob told him about Dermot at four years old.  _"On the other hand, Ana's
quite pregnant and I'm betting there'll be a couple other Clann ladies
looking to get the same way.  And that's apart from us graduating Seniors.
We've already talked about holding 'auditions.'"_
   We filled him in on the Vail adventure and some of the other people we'd
found, like PVC and the Cabo gang.  By the time we were done, he'd had
another feeding and it was about 6:00.
   Bob said, _"Okay.  We'll talk with Siobhan in an hour or so; your folks
will probably go see her today.  If you pop them out and get them trained
up a little so they can handle it and they're interested in becoming Clann,
let's plan on introducing y'all to the gang on Wednesday night.  If they're
not interested or something else goes different, we'll figure out something
else.  In the meantime, we'll just keep your being back a private matter."_
   ------
   BOB (Monday 4/17)
   The Baxters were more than happy to join JRD.  We figured they'd be
great Regional Managers; Siobhan had them all signed up and the paperwork
done before she, George and Mario popped them outside.
   They were good.  We got Henry and Mario to train them; George had a head
start already but still had plenty he was happy to learn.  We all kept his
secret from the rest of the Clann.
   Since Denise and Roger Gold had been enhanced, PVC took charge of
training them up on Monday and Tuesday.  PVC told me the other parents and
families they were working had shown some signs of enhancement, but none of
them were anywhere near ready to pop.
   Between school all day and "helping" Sherry and Kat with the house,
there wasn't much time to spare, so we were more than willing to delegate
the training.  They'd gotten the four (five with George) up onto the
teleportation training check-sheet, so I figured they were ready to be
tossed into the pool with the rest of the gang.
   Wednesday night, we introduced Denise and Roger first; we stashed the
Baxters in their car outside with their innocuous personae.
   Since the gang knew Rita and Cynthia so well, Denise and Roger got a
no-holds-barred welcoming with tons of physical and spiritual hugs and
kisses.  Yeh, Dermot checked out Denise's boobs and proclaimed them
delightful.
   Once that settled down, we brought in the Baxters, still wearing their
personae.  Of course someone could have tried to probe them but we'd
already decided it wasn't polite on the first appearance.
   After they got the name introduction, George popped fully outside and
dropped his firewall completely.  Jaysus!  Sherry beat the rest of the old
gang to him by less than a millisecond!
   They were all over him!  If a spirit could have been smothered by hugs
and kisses, it was George.  While that was going on, the rest of us updated
the newer people.  They'd all heard the earthquake story so knew who he
was.
   The new folk got their licks in on him too.  When George finally got let
up for air, he told us, _"Jeez, it's good to be back.  I hadn't realized
how much I missed all you guys.  Now, the main reason I'm here today is my
parents..."_
   He gave Andy and Patricia a rousing, uplifting introduction, and they
got swarmed all over too.
   George got passed around to at least all the women for hugs and kisses.
He laid the baby-lovin' on them like he'd been doing for years!  Hugs,
laughs, wobbly kisses, the whole bit.  He was just as bad as Dermot when it
came to boobs, too.  He'd pat around or root at them then ask, _"Got
milk?"_ Dirty young man!
   The women (young and old) didn't seem to mind at all; they'd just laugh
and rub their boobs on him.  From the adults, I caught a few stray thoughts
of making their own babies...
   ------
   Sensitives and security.  Between the Clann heads, we'd decided the
actual Clann was still reserved for ones of us.  If we could get a
Sensitive who could communicate well mentally, we would fill them in at
least that the Clann existed and the members had some other abilities in
addition to mental communications.
   We decided to keep our Sensitives hooked up with the cellular-level
firewalls and body defenses plus keep a level of power flowing to them. 
Who knows, they might enhance even more.
   I told everyone we'd have Clann meetings on Mondays and Wednesdays.  We
were fairly well settled out so didn't need a Friday meeting.  Probably
later we'd drop it down to once a week; a lot would depend on how fast
things were happening.
   The Guerreros were up to speed now on their teleportation; it had been a
bit of a struggle with the long runway of training, but the time the tutors
had invested in the basic "learning how to study" would be well-spent.
   They'd all popped in to the house and to Ana's for several personal
tours.  Not putting them down, but I don't think they really knew all they
were looking at the first couple times.
   I'd heard a vague rumor the Wild Bunch and PVC were planning a Universal
Studios trip with Alejandro and Linda.  Betcha that will cause some
commotion on the lot!  Of course, none of our sweet young teenagers would
*dream* of playing tricks -- much.
   JRD had started the book audit on Fillmore Sales Relations.  So far,
there hadn't been much show up.  Ana said she'd schedule in all the new
folk for the probe run.
   Kat invited Andy, Patricia and George over on Saturday for a
get-together with the four of us.  We figured we'd fill in the parents on
what a devil-child they had.
   ------
   KATHLEEN (Saturday 4/22)
   Sherry and I were busy.  Between getting back to school, Clann meetings
and all that house shopping we were routinely up until 10:00 at least every
night.  Our poor sweeties didn't get much lovin'.  I hope we'll survive; we
figured Bob could survive a couple weeks without honoring a lady.
   Siobhan had pumped up Sheila Farley, her admin assistant, and popped her
outside!  She got her basic training and we offered her the position of
Global Operations Manager.  She accepted.  We'd popped two other of the
staff out so promoted one to be Siobhan's new admin assistant.  Just
because she had some managers didn't mean she didn't have a lot of work to
do!
   ------
   Andy and Patricia brought George over Saturday morning around 10:00.  We
ensured they all knew about the sunglasses and sun block ability, and we
lay around the pool and chatted.
   Sherry told them what her and George's relationship had been.  She told
them, "You'd better keep an eye on him.  He's a tricky little devil."
   We told them tales of some of his adventures, especially the ones which
hadn't turned out too well.  When he worked on computer hardware, he'd say,
"Smoke test!" before he plugged it in.  Well, one time a computer did just
that.  It blew a breaker in the house circuit and fried everything inside
the computer case.
   It turned out to be a screw had dropped down inside and shorted stuff
out.  Anyway, it gave us a good excuse to warn them he had a screw loose!
   George and Mario got along just great.  They launched off into
computer-geek talk and were gone into their own little world, just like
that.  The rest of us rolled our eyes a little and pretended to suffer. 
Bob said idly, "Of course, *I* don't have any toys."
   Yeh, right.  I reminded him of his truck full of goodies at Reynolds
Construction.  He grinned and said, "Those aren't toys, they're
necessities." Uh-huh.
   George was moving his body around with his own _touches_.  He darted
around like a little bird and hovered.  When it got sleepy, he snuggled it
up to someone and let it drop off while he continued _chatting_.
   Andy made my stud sensors light up and Patricia looked really good in a
bikini.  I told Bob, _"Remember, she's on the honoring list now.  She's
been drooling over you ever since she got here."_
   She had.  While she and Andy hadn't had an open relationship before,
they were both well-experienced.  With their memories coming back, they'd
embraced the Clann customs.
   I told Bob, _"Maybe you can get her lost in one of the rooms for a
little snogging."_
   He just grinned and said, _"Might just do that.  On the other hand, I
might just drag you or Sherry or both off for a little more than some
snogging."_
   _"We've got guests, you horny wanker!"_
   _"That's me, Reginald Horny Reynolds."_
   Which was a Real Good Thing.
   We'd looked around the back yard thoroughly the past several days.  The
only way any of the neighbors could see in was if they climbed on their
roofs.  The nearest office building with line of sight was over a half mile
away, so unless they used some pretty powerful binoculars, they couldn't
see anything either.  If we closed a few blinds inside the house, no one
could see in there, either.
   After a quick _chat_ with the Baxters, we peeled everything off so we
had our own nude beach.  The guys and gals admired each other so we had six
hard nipples and three woodies for a few minutes.  George told us, _"I
don't get that response yet, but I do appreciate the view."_
   He left his diaper on when he wasn't in the pool.  _"I get about ten
seconds' warning right now.  It's been getting longer, and I'm getting a
lot better at holding stuff for a couple minutes.  When the body's asleep
there's a bit less control, but I'm training it to wake up or send a
telemetry signal."_
   Skinny-dipping!  George peeled off his diaper and dove in, too.  He told
us, _"Seems like the dog paddle is a natural reaction."_ He moved around in
the water easily and could stay under water about a minute with no problem.
We taught them the underwater breathing cylinder trick.
   George taught us a cute trick of using a _touch_ to create a small air
pocket over our eyes.  That way, we could see under water just as clearly
as if we were wearing a face mask.  Really cool!
   We girls ensured Andy got a thorough groping so he'd feel at home.  From
his response, he really appreciated it.  Bob and Mario ensured Patricia
felt at home, too.  From her wide smile and hard nipples, she liked it.
   After lunch, we snuggled up around the pool.  Patricia gave George his
lunch then he and Mario popped outside and went off.  Geek stuff again;
Mario was showing him the house, JRD and audit networks and how they did
remote transcriptions with direct circuitry access.
   Andy and Patricia shrugged and laughed.  She told us, "I understand how
he feels.  He's had four months being incommunicado.  It's great he's found
a 'kindred spirit' to play around with.
   "I had that problem too when I stayed home with him.  I'd talk with my
folks a couple times a week and with Andy in the evenings and night and
that's about it.  We didn't really have any close friends so JRD's been
wonderful.
   "Since I can bring George into the office all the time, he and Dermot
can pal around if they want or they can just go off exploring.  We've made
such wonderful friends there and with the Clann we can talk with someone
most anytime.  Between that, remembering our abilities and what we're doing
at JRD, I'd say we were really happy campers."
   Bob told them, "Well, you are wonderful people too.  George picked a
great set of parents."
   We kinda broke up into girls and guys for the next several hours; Sherry
and I showed Patricia around the house while we discussed decorating,
arrangements, facilities and those important things.  Andy and Bob probably
talked guy-stuff.
   We had dinner later then idled around the den for another couple hours
until the Baxters took off.  We were lazy some more until bedtime.
   Bob and I got in some long, slow loving while _merging_ and laughing in
the sky.  Dayum, having a baby around sure turned on the biological urges!
   We _talked_ about our wedding and babies.  We tentatively decided on
having our wedding the day after school let out for the summer so pretty
much everyone could attend before they took off.
   Babies?  Hell, we were both hot for them!  Looking at my ovulation
cycle, I'd be right on the money on June 17, just after school let out. 
Yowsah!  Get married and get pregnant the same day?  What could beat that?
   We decided to discuss it with Ana and Elizabeth; they'd probably have
some ideas too (like another Clann-wide broadcast?  Fuck, that turned us
both on even if we weren't connected to our bodies right then!).
   Intellectually, we had no issues with having babies while we were young.
Most young couples had the issues of getting established financially, being
free to go traveling and stuff and just knowing their relationship was
solid.  Bob and I didn't have those issues at all.
   We spent a solid six hours practicing making a baby (or twins? 
triplets?).  We went through four tsunamis and were willing to go for a
fifth, but our bodies said, "No way, Jose," and refused to wake up.  Oh,
well, maybe we could practice more Sunday morning.  And afternoon and
evening...
   ------
   ANA (Sunday 4/23)
   We got a lab!  JRD Properties found a good-sized location in an
industrial park by the Los Angeles River.  It was either an easy
fifteen-minute walk, a five-minute drive or a leisurely one-second
teleport.
   So much room!  David and Papa Sonora did the mods we needed (lots of
electrical outlets everywhere, sinks, tables, office, that sort of stuff)
then we ported everything over in fifteen minutes.  A moving truck?  We
didn't need no stinkin' truck!
   The hamster with the crooked leg was straightening it right out.  We
decided it was a successful experiment even before it was complete.
   Now that Don and I had those slugabouts Bob and Kat out of their room,
we fixed it up for Alejandro and Linda.  Since they were closest in age and
had spent the most social time with them, Elizabeth and I pulled in the
Wild Bunch and PVC for ideas.
   They came up with some nice ones based on what they knew.  Basically we
ended up decorating it half and half guy and girl.  We stuffed the bathroom
full of goodies and got them each a desk with a laptop hooked to the
Internet and house network; any of the Sweet Six could teach them how to
drive one.
   We got our den back, too.  Elizabeth and I made it into a combination
den/bedroom/nursery.  If Ramon and/or Elisa came up, they had a place to
stay if they wished.  With a new closet in it, they could put some of their
clothes in it.  Along with some rent receipts, they'd be able to "prove"
they lived there.  Good stuff.
   Our Babies Within were growing right on schedule.  Yeh, I'd had Natalie
but that had been eighteen years ago.  Karen Gold assured me everything was
perfectly fine and on schedule.
   I'd spent some time over the last couple weeks with each of the Clann
women ensuring they were expert in the Gold birth control method.  Whether
or not they decided to use it exclusively, they *could* use it.
   I could tell Megan Foster was very eager to get into it, so I really
ensured she had it cold.  Her parents, unfortunately, were pretty mundane.
She'd been pumping power to them for a couple weeks and all they'd had
happen was a bit of sensitivity.
   Oh, well.  Louise and I had a talk with them.  Since they'd been around
Burbank for the last six years, they'd at least heard of the Brain Trust at
McCambridge.  With Vera Stroh's input, they were quite happy to have Megan
spend lots of time with the Harvard Inner Circle and the Clann.
   Louise got Megan a cell phone like Cynthia's.  After a week of calling
every time she went somewhere, she started _telling_ them just like Cynthia
had her parents.  Worked out great for her!
   We'd worked through Fillmore Sales Relations and Rhapsody Public
Relations with no problems.  Since they were single offices, Evin, Siobhan,
Aaron and Barbara did a weekday oversight visit.  Apparently they hadn't
found much wrong because we just chugged along.
   Mary was doing great in school.  Rose had gotten her in a lot of Sam's
classes, and he'd coached her on a lot of the stuff she'd missed while
she'd "been out." I think he coached her on some other stuff, too. 
Hehehehe.
   She spent a lot of her free time with either or both Karen and Oscar at
the lab.  Sam helped out; seems he just couldn't stay away from her!
   Evin had set up a non-profit research company and the JRD Owners funded
the entire thing with $250,000 to start -- after the renos to the new lab.
Yowsah!  That really helped.  We were able to pay Mary and Sam a salary;
the Golds said they didn't need anything extra -- they were doing a couple
hours each of paid Probe Patrol a month so they weren't hurting.  The
Owners even insisted I get a $50K per year salary!
   ------
   KATHLEEN (Tuesday 4/25)
   Over Spring Break, the county had finished digging down in the Library
Archives rubble and had found the remains of the school trip.  There wasn't
really much left after four months, but they DNA'd them all and matched
them up by the 24th.
   We weren't too concerned.  Natalie's and George's remains we just
cremated; neither Charles (George's dad), Ana nor Don had much on it. 
Charles had moved to the Mid West somewhere in Illinois, but he kept in
touch every once in a while.  He had as much fun with George "coming back"
as we did, but since George was firmly established with the Baxters, they
didn't worry about getting together much.
   ------
   SIOBHAN (Sunday 4/30)
   Yow, things are happening fairly lively!  Once we settled out from Cabo
we got back into the swing of things.
   Within a week after we got back from Cabo, we had a Saturday-morning
family meeting with Madeleine and Dermot.  Evin asked her, "Mad, we've
loved having you and Dermot here.  Has it helped you?"
   "You betcha.  The travel-time savings alone have really helped.  That's
the intellectual side.  On the emotional side, having warm loving people
around has really perked me up over the last six weeks.  I'd been in a real
rut for a long time, and you guys pulled me right out."
   Dermot laughed, _"And it doesn't hurt for Mom to have some sexy people
to keep her, em, entertained, either."_
   Mad didn't bother to blush.  She'd been spending at least six nights a
week here the last couple weeks, and only one of them had been alone in her
bed.  If she wasn't with Evin and me, either the girls or one of the teen
couples had captured her (and Dermot several times).  She'd spent a couple
nights over at the O'Banains too, either with Aaron and Barbara or one of
the teen couples.  She wasn't hurting for "entertainment."
   Hell, since we'd gotten back from Cabo, Dermot had gone on two
"campouts." He'd come home with a shit-eating grin.
   Dermot continued, _"Being able to go into the office with Mom is totally
great.  Everyone treats me like real people, and hopefully I've carried my
weight so I don't have to be 'looked after' too much.  I love it here."_
   Pretty much what we thought, too.  Evin asked, "Then that apartment of
yours in Pasadena isn't seeing much use then, right?"
   They weren't dummies; they played the game with us.
   Mad told him, "Nope.  We're very seriously considering moving a lot
closer in.  That way we can be closer to both you folk and JRD."
   I said, "That does make sense.  Let's see, you'd probably want two
bedrooms, a nice kitchen and a pool, right?"
   "At least that."
   That was Riona's cue.  "Hmm.  I seem to recall seeing something like
that real close by.  Yeh!  Right here!  How about you two move in here with
us?  That'll solve everything."
   They took about a millisecond to accept.  We decided $750 a month room
and board with all house and grounds privileges would do just fine.
   Her apartment came furnished so there were no furniture issues.  It took
us maybe an hour to port all their personal stuff over and get it stowed
away.  Nether of them got much sleep Saturday night while we welcomed them
to our lives.
   Then the legendary George Tanner and his new parents popped up!  He fit
into the Clann perfectly.  Andy and Patricia were very qualified for the
Regional Manager positions even beyond being ones of us.
   They'd spent the last two weeks studying the books and operations.  We'd
decided to "split" the JRD companies into manufacturing and service/retail.
They started out with the five we'd audited and went to work.  They worked
closely with Sheila and with Madeleine since she handled the sales and
customer relations.  They were working out great!
   ------
   VALERIE (Saturday 5/6)
   Once Alejandro and Linda got their teleporting down, we had an even
better time with them.  A couple times a week on a weekday evening, they'd
port up and we'd entertain them with a walk through the stores in Burbank,
a short trip through the Media Center and a lot of English/North American
culture -- enhanced with the Sorcerer's language trick.
   They'd never seen a movie in any form, much less a TV program.  They'd
heard of both, but that was all.  We remedied that in a hurry!  Since we
were already _linked_ for the language, if there was a cultural joke or
slang they didn't get, it usually took maybe a half second to clue them in.
   If it was a lot of stuff, we'd just pause the DVD (usually what was
playing) and go over it as much as needed.  Interestingly enough, several
times PVC didn't quite get the allusion or depth ourselves so we'd have to
do some research.
   We worked up to an all-day-Sunday Harry Potter marathon.  Since there
wasn't a lot of current-culture background, just a bit of U.K.  stuff, we
could kick back and enjoy.  We watched and commented on Hermoine growing
boobs over the four years.
   We sponsored a season pass to Universal Studios for them.  We took them
the first time on Saturday morning (5/6).  Picking a quiet corner of the
parking garage, we ported in then walked up to the gate; didn't have to bug
one of the driving-age people.
   They loved it!  They had a pretty firm grasp by now of what was fantasy
(even for the States), what was real (the stores and food) and what we did
with our abilities.
   They loved the rides, the shows, just everything.  Of course we
introduced them to our particular hobbies of scampering, wildlife-chasing,
underwear-wetting and tit-warming.  They carried their share of the load
just fine.
   They got along just great with Megan, Dan and Art.  Although Art was
Hispanic, he didn't know much Spanish.  Once we taught the rest of our
Inner Circle the trick, they learned Spanish (and Irish and Italian) as
fast as Alejandro and Linda learned English.
   We spent a lot of study time with them, too.  Once they'd gotten the
basic study technology, they moved right along.  We worked with them on
building up their educational background; Vera had given us a curriculum to
work with.  Just from their progress up to now, we didn't think they'd have
any trouble with the placement testing for next year in Harvard MS.
   ------
   BOB (Friday 5/5)
   My two "social secretaries" decided the honoring so far had been on a
catch-as-catch-can basis and wanted to make it a bit more formal.  Kat told
me, "There'll still be a bit of ad-hoc, too.  If opportunity knocks, why
not?  It's not as if you're pussywhipped *all* the time."
   Since we had our own place and several spare bedrooms, Kat and Sherry
decided we'd invite the honoree's over for a dinner and an optional
overnight stay.  The honoring was to be implicit until we put The Question
to them.
   Since pretty much everyone had either a school or work schedule
constraint, they decided to do the scheduling on a Friday or Saturday
night. That way, unless there was something unusual going on the next day,
no one had to get up for their normal school or work.
   Sherry told me, "We'll mark the calendar when we schedule someone.  You
show up showered then you'll learn who they are.  Mario and I'll make
ourselves scarce right after dinner then you and Kat work your magic."
   Groan.  Complain.
   Frank and Thelma appeared on our doorstep Friday.  Very nice!  Mario and
Sherry dressed as high-class Spanish servants and fawned over us while they
served dinner.
   They sat down with us and ate, though.  Frank regaled us with war
stories of intelligence gone bad.  Once they'd had a ton of leads pointing
to a certain building as a Viet Cong weapons depot and intelligence hub. 
They'd observed from a long distance; yep, lots of comings and goings,
trucks and vehicles going in and out and several recognizable faces.
   When twenty Special Forces showed up to bust the place, it was a
day-care center, a nursery!  While heads didn't exactly roll, there were
some red faces for quite a while.
   Thelma had some wonderful stories too, like the suspected bomb they blew
up which turned out to be someone's lunch -- with Limburger cheese.  The
combination of the melted, burned cheese and the explosive had been, em,
odiferous.
   We moved into the den and spent a nice couple hours discussing JRD and
Clann stuff and what *they* wanted to do with their lives.  Turns out they
were very happy doing what they were doing.  Their children were all doing
well, they visited often (or at least as often as their kids and grandkids
could tolerate) and were making plenty of income from JRD and their
retirement plans so they weren't hurting at all.
   They enjoyed being productive and useful.  A lot of the retirees they'd
talked with were older, granted, but they often just sat around and
vegetated.  Not for them!  JRD and ramontheeye gave them plenty of
opportunity to use the experience and knowledge they'd built over their
lifetime -- not to mention all the previous memories they'd been getting
back.
   They'd moved in together at Frank's place.  They weren't getting married
-- some legal stuff with their pensions for whatever reason -- but were
committed to each other as mates.
   They enjoyed a bit of Irish whiskey from our stash (teleported from a
cache 10 feet below the basement; after all, we were still underage) and
had a late snack.
   Mario and Sherry vanished about 9:00.  I pulled Thelma aside and asked,
"May I have the extreme honor of sweet loving with you tonight?"
   She laughed and pushed her ears to the back of her head with her smile.
"I am yours tonight, Ceann.  My body may be older -- I'm 53 -- but I've got
a fire in my belly that won't quit.  Just take it a bit easy on me; I don't
think I could stand one of those Journeys I've heard about."
   I snuggled her up and nuzzled her neck.  "No long Journey.  Maybe a walk
on the beach and let the waves wash us gently with the love we share."
   She told me, "I'm for that.  Ya know, in the two months Frank and I've
been outside, both our bodies have improved tremendously, especially after
those injury energy bleeds.  We lost a lot of our spare tires and hell, my
tits have *risen* three inches and are firming and plumping back up!  If
this keeps going, in another couple months it'll be like it was when I was
twenty-five."
   I did a thorough check of her rising tits.  From her squirms, moans and
words, they'd become more sensitive than they'd ever been!  Well, the
Sorcerer's Grip found an excellent site for application.
   Thelma was a warm, loving lady.  Yeh, she wasn't a "hardbody" (yet), but
she was strong and more than eager to respond or take the lead.
   We made slow, sweet love while the warm waves of her releases rolled
through us.  Our sweet _merges_ outside and through us glowed warmly with
our shared admiration and love, and we found a couple nice little waves to
surf on the ocean of delight.
   We drifted off to sleep after midnight and explored.  We visited all her
kids' places; they were doing fine, and the grandkids were really cute as
they slept.
   We visited her parents in Kansas; even in their 80's they were spry!
   Around 4:00 she poked me awake.  "More!" Dayum, how do women always hit
that same poke spot?  I think it was getting calloused!
   We did more -- we found a good wave and pushed it just hard enough to
push us from our bodies.  Such a sweet lady she is!
   We all slept late.  Mario and Sherry had been at it along with the rest
of us.  Dayum good thing we could control the sound and leakage; there'd
been *lots* of orgasmic energy blasted off!
   After a long shower (Thelma wasn't at all adverse to a final quickie
which rattled the mirror and window) we shared a huge breakfast.  Everyone
glowed!
   After a last set of embraces and caresses around 11:00, Frank and Thelma
took off.  They were already planning a love-fest between them for the rest
of the weekend -- between visiting the kids.
   We spent a lot of the day planning the housewarming and pool party for
May 13.  We did a quick check on the date with the rest of the crew; they
were more than willing for whatever reason.
   Of course, that meant we had to start shopping right away.  The walk-in
freezer in the basement was gonna come in real handy.
   By the pool, there was only a small under-the-counter refrigerator so
one of the items was a *big* refrigerator.  Guess who got to set it up --
Mario did good work.
   ------
   (Sunday AM 5/7)
   Early Sunday morning, Kat and I were all snuggled up just lazing around.
Yowsah!  A *huge* wave of orgasmic energy!  Our firewalls flared up to full
opacity with a lot of power sharing throughout the Clann.
   Bellana told us, _"The Love Police are on it.  Stand by."_ It died down
only a little in the next several minutes.
   We waited; the flare cut off abruptly.  Kat said, _"That sure wasn't any
of the Clann.  a) they know better and b) none of it was familiar.  Bet
we've got someone entirely new -- and several of them."_
   Yep.  In a couple minutes, Bellana told us, _"We've got five newbies in
Altadena.  Tons of power, and they have unique shields.  They're friendly,
so we're gonna train them up enough so they don't leak.  Give us an hour or
so."_
   Mario and Sherry joined us, and we found something to do for an hour. 
Sherry told me, _"This does *not* count in my twice-a-month shagging!"_
Groan.  Complain.
   Janet came back.  _"Okay.  Apparently there was a bit of honoring going
on.  There's a total of seven of who're outside and aware.  I recommended
they meet with you, Bob.  Perhaps later today?"_
   Since the entire household was here, we agreed on noon here at the
house. Casual, we'd provide lunch.
   I told Janet, _"The Wild Bunch come, too.  You did the first meet with
them and that'll give us seven."_
   Janet laughed, _"Great!  We'll be there around 11:00 to help set up.  We
teenagers can always use a free lunch."_
   Chapter 2
[Author: Matches up with Best Girl Ch.  11]
   KATHLEEN (Sunday 5/7)
   Let's throw a party for some potential new friends!  We were up and at
it by 9:00.  Sherry and I sent the guys out to get food; we gave them a
specific list, otherwise they might have come back with only KFC wings.
   We didn't worry about the house; it was in pretty good shape anyway.  We
were having The Clean Place come in three times a week to do the major
cleaning and laundry, but we didn't let things go much in between.  After
all, when you've got two big dishwashers, how much effort is it to rinse
stuff off and dump it in with a _touch_ from anywhere?
   The trash we could "take out" with a teleport; there was a trash can
area in the alley behind the back fence.  We didn't bother taking turns or
anything.  If someone found a full wastebasket, it took maybe ten seconds
total to change it out.  No big deal.
   The guys got back with the goodies; they'd done fine.  We stashed it in
the kitchen under the warmers.
   The Wild Bunch popped in right on time.  They did a final dash-around to
ensure things were clean and arranged to their satisfaction.  Janet and
Bellana were even more picky about stuff than Sherry or me.
   Henry filled us in on what they knew.  "One engaged couple, Sean and
Eileen, is in their early twenties.  She's got the cutest four-month-old
baby from an earlier marriage; there's something there about the earlier
marriage, but we didn't get into it.
   "Bridget, the baby, is something else.  She's outside with the rest of
them and apparently has plenty of memories.  Maybe like George.
   "Maura and Teresa are maybe thirty and are Sean's sisters.  They've got
husbands who are outside with them plus five younger children who have
Potential but aren't outside yet.
   "From a quick discussion, Sean knew of his Potential for quite a while
and had been working alone on developing it.  None of the rest 'suspected'
anything.  Sean, Eileen and Bridget went outside under control maybe two
weeks ago; they haven't been developing or exploring much and were just
getting their own relationship developed.
   "None of them had any outgoing filters; that's why we got the flare. 
However, they have the toughest incoming shields I've ever experienced. 
They're not firewalls like we've developed but something unique. 
Especially after they learned about leakage, they're so damned tight I
couldn't get anything through or around.  Kinda like the difference between
wearing one of those little dust masks and being in an armored, full-body
biological isolation suit.
   "They've got power running out every orifice.  Maura and Teresa have a
little less than the other three but still are probably in at least the
same range as Janet.  Sean, Eileen and Bridget are at least as powerful as
PVC, if not more.  That flare covered L.A.  and San Bernardino Counties.
   "They're friendly, smarter than hell and powerful.  I'd recommend we do
everything we can to make an alliance with them."
   ------
   BOB
   This was gonna be interesting.  Since they were a group in Altadena, I
figured they'd form their own Clann, so I dug up a set of our
organizational customs and the sexual customs.  We'd play it by ear.
   The Wild Bunch did their final preps for lunch, and we waited.  They
showed up right at noon and the Wild Bunch dashed out to greet them.
   Be Jaysus!  If those Irish Inside tee shirts were right, they were all
Irish!  With the Wild Bunch already chatting away in Irish and seven
redheads, that kinda settled it.
   The groupings were pretty easy to spot.  A couple in their mid-twenties
must be Sean and Eileen while the other two couples must be the sisters
with their husbands.  The Wild Bunch was passing the baby around; she was
laying on the baby-loving even better than George!
   Yeh, the one man was Sean, all right.  He started right off in Irish so
I just kept it up.
   He was a *big* man.  Over six feet, wide shoulders, slender hips and
muscle all over.  Even as strong as I am, I'd be wary of meeting him in a
dark alley if he were upset with me!  I _felt_ his depth and power even if
his shield was up solid.
   Eileen was a tall girl; she could look me right in the eye -- in flat
shoes.  She didn't hesitate to give me a hug.  She smelled (and _felt_)
*good*.
   Bridget gave Kat and me a full baby-love show.  While it felt completely
natural, it had *all* the cute-baby buttons: hugs, smiles, laughs,
chortles, leg and arm kicks and wobbly kisses.  I told her, "You're a
little rascal, aren't you.  I bet you speak Irish, too, and are putting on
a wonderful show for us."
   She immediately popped back, _"Well, it's better to have someone
underestimate you to start with, right?  Anyway, I can't really speak yet
because the body can't.  In the meantime, you'll just have to put up with
this.  *And* I probably know more Irish than you, so don't try to slip
anything over on me, Mr.  Bob."_
   This wasn't just an infant with ancient memories; she had a level of
maturity and self-confidence I'd rarely seen even among our adults.  I
hoped she wouldn't set those two sharp teeth of hers in me!
   Kat gave them the two-bit tour.  Bridget floated and darted around and
just plain vanished a couple times.  We could _feel_ her _touches_ on her
body; when she vanished and reappeared, it _felt_ a bit like she'd
teleported!  This from a being who'd been outside less than two weeks with
none of our training?  We're gonna have a lotta fun today.
   We gathered 'round the dining room table.  Bridget appeared
(teleported?) and sat on the table in front of Eileen.  She told us,
_"Excellent place!  I think I'll let you keep it."_ Fun.
   The Wild Bunch did their synchronized dashing about, brought us lunch
then joined us.  We talked Irish and _talked_ while we ate.  Their Irish
had a tiny different accent and phrasing from ours which just made it more
fun.
   They could _talk_ just fine too.  Clear with a few sidebands of leakage
yet but with the undercurrent of immense power.
   Teresa asked Sherry how the non-Irish of us could speak Irish so well.
Of course, Sherry blamed me for it all.  She showed them the language trick
and they lapped it up.
   Eileen nursed Bridget; we treated it as normal action, and she seemed
happy about it.
   The Wild Bunch cleared the table while the rest sat back and relaxed.  I
took a good look at Sean's green bowler.  It was at an angle which was
slightly off-kilter and looked almost like a caricature.  Eileen and
Bridget both wore small green bowlers at the perfect angle for them.  Hmm.
   I asked him, "Sean, it seems you're more than willing to attract
attention to yourself in a nice way.  Then if anyone gives you any crap,
the Hat Squad over there tears them a new one.  That says to me you're
either gonna be wealthy or you already are.  So what do you folk do?"
   He admitted to having a few bucks stashed away.  Maura started bragging
on him.  He was a small-retail entrepreneur and had developed and sold
twenty of them in the past five years; different businesses with different
products and services.
   He still had around eleven additional ones he owned *plus* he'd designed
and developed Eire's Tavern in Pasadena for his sisters' families *plus* he
had a completely-developed system of policies they all used *plus* gave
seminars on the policies!
   He tried to brush it off, saying he just helped now and then at the
Tavern, but Teresa jumped in and bragged on him even more.  They were
*proud* of their "baby brother!"
   This we're gonna have to investigate.  While JRD had implemented some
common high-level policies for our companies, each company still had
different, often-contradictory, internal polices and procedures.  What if
we could get a common set in them all?
   Sean took his turn to brag on Eileen and Bridget; he was training them
on the policies and expected them to be really good.
   Sherry asked how they'd discovered their Potential.  Interesting; Sean,
Eileen and Bridget had a three-way controlled colpo di tuono, and it went
from there.  With the stimulation, they got really good with _touches_ and
_talking_ really fast -- one day.  Bridget had gone outside "accidentally"
on a decision the second day; Sean had spotted the mechanism immediately
then the three of them were outside.
   Even with the difference that Sean had already been aware of some of his
abilities and had been working on them for years, in something like two
days they'd gotten to where it had taken us almost four months.  Now that
is talent!
   They were enhancing others just by _snuggling_ up.  Yeh, that would do
it; it was pretty much the same as flowing power with a continuous
_inspection_.  More talented stuff.
   Of course, we had a turnabout.  I told them how Natalie and I had fallen
into each other and had developed it from there.  They'd all seen spirits
picking up infant bodies and had memories from before -- a long time
before.
   They didn't know about switching bodies, though.  Whazza matter with
these folk?  Two weeks and they don't have it all pegged?  Grin.
   They loved the George, Sunshine and Kathleen story.  We kept the fact
that George was back with us now under wraps; we had to have our own fun
surprises!
   Kathleen told them about the forming of Clann Reynolds and how they'd
railroaded -- I mean elected -- me Ceann.
   They had only themselves in their group outside right now.  Their Ceann
was hereditary!  The previous Ceann had died, and Sean hadn't known he was
"the one" for five years.  He'd found out about it Saturday, and they'd
been "catching up" on the honoring when they flared on us.
   Sean and I shared a laugh.  Don't I know how he felt; Clann Cullen
probably had well over a hundred women his social secretaries thought he
might have to honor.  I thought *I* had it bad with thirty or so!
   The Wild Bunch tried to give me a hard time about it, but I smacked them
down.
   Sean seemed very agreeable to sharing technologies but didn't think they
had anything really to offer.  Yeh, right!  Henry set him straight on that;
just their shields alone were worth trading for everything else we had.
   Now, I figured it was time to put Bridget to The Question; I knew she'd
been sandbagging us all along.  I asked her, "Now, Miss Bridget, how about
you 'fess up a bit.  There's one hell of a lot more to you than a cute
little girl with a few memories."
   She and Eileen looked at Sean, who nodded.  Eileen introduced her not
only as her four-month-old daughter but also as her grandmother of 93
years! Bridget sat there and "grew" a really sweet set of breasts beneath
her shirt.  She told us how her Margaret Sullivan body had died just before
Bridget was born.  Through sheer love and intention she'd found them and
had gotten into the baby body.  Only problem was, she'd forgotten who she'd
been.  When Sean had _merged_ with her the first time she started
remembering until she finally found all of Margaret Gallagher Sullivan.
   And this had been an unaware spirit!  Jaysus.  George had remembered,
but he'd been aware before and knew what he was doing when he'd picked up
his new body.
   No wonder she was so self-confident and mature.  At ninety-three, I'd
figure a person is either very wise or very senile.  In her case, I'd put
my money on wise.
   Of course it was the Wild Bunch who asked about her breasts.  They're
accessories?  Why the fuck not?  Maggie wobbled them a bit, offered to let
them check 'em out, and of course they accepted; I had to break up the
mini-orgy.
   A few minutes after that settled down, she vanished.  I saw her diaper
bag vanish a second later.  It *is* teleportation!
   Kat spotted it too.  When Maggie reappeared (teleported back in), Kat
asked her where she'd learned how to teleport.
   Hell, Maggie thought it was just part of the package and had started
doing it as a shortcut!  Henry asked her about the shock waves and air
displacement; she looked a little puzzled, like he'd asked her how she
peed.
   She used concentric layers of touches to buffer both ends and even said
the mass transferred at a natural logarithmic rate!  Henry (and the rest of
us) were flabbergasted, of course.
   Henry asked if she'd done any long distance ports such as to Northern
California.  She said, _"I'll be back in a couple seconds,"_ and vanished.
Holy fuck!  The angular momentum to the Bay Area was *not* insignificant!
   Several very long seconds later she popped back, hale and hearty.  She
said, _"I went to college in Palo Alto.  The campus is still there pretty
much the same as the last time I visited in '95.  The parking lots are
cleaner, though."_
   Henry asked about the angular momentum; she politely chopped him off at
the ankles.  She had a PhD in Applied Math and had taught college-level
hard sciences for forty years.  She seemed to think adding or bleeding off
vector energy during a port was as natural as breathing.
   We laughed so hard I thought I'd pee my pants!  Kinda like Henry and
Janet had been; Bridget/Margaret had waltzed in and demonstrated an order
of magnitude jump in abilities and thought nothing of it.
   I told her how long it had taken us to develop our teleportation and
that it took some ten to twenty hours to train someone.  Then I told her,
"And here you bop in and it's as simple as breathing to you.  How about you
come over here and I'll paddle your cute butt for showing us rank amateurs
up."
   She came right over and snuggled up.  Those cuties of hers were firm,
hot and tipped with fire!  I spanked her cute butt lightly through her
diapers and told her, "Over-sexed is right.  Now they just have to figure
out a way to feed you."
   Maggie told us, _"As soon as my nerves start responding, Sean's really
gonna have his hands and mouth full.  That'll do for starters.  He's my
best man!"_
   She dozed off on my shoulder, and we continued talking.  We compared our
organizations; the Wild Bunch passed around our public papers and they
looked them over.
   Clann Cullen was automatically hereditary and by marriage, but they also
invited outsiders to join.  Teresa noted, "I see us evolving a core group
of our aware Talented people within Clann Cullen.  That group would be
extremely similar to the Clann Reynolds then.  It would work pretty much
the same, too."
   Seemed right to us.  We passed around our confidential green papers with
the sexual customs.  They loved it!  While theirs had some complexity here
and there, both our customs boiled down to almost the same.  If it was
consensual, it was okay.
   For them, the Ceann had the distinct right to every level of sex with
any of the Clann; it wasn't enforced though; it was still very consensual.
Their custom had evolved so it was almost a duty for the Ceann to lay with
the Clann women and for the women to expect and anticipate it.  Poor Sean!
   However, they also thought that "honoring" was the best way to go.  Yeh,
we'll get Teresa together with the Customs Committee to hammer out stuff.
   Eileen eyed me and said, "I'm quite sure we would all benefit greatly
from some Clann, em, cross-cultural exchanges."
   Kat gave Sean a very nice stud-sensor shot and told us, "I know it would
be very, em, educational."
   Sean and I groaned and complained about our lot in life.  It didn't
bother our social secretaries in the least.  Sean and I exchanged grins
again.  Sorry indeed is the lot of the Ceann!
   Janet smarted off a little to me about how she was "still waiting for
the Midnight Ride of Robert Ravisher." I allowed how she was getting pretty
cheeky and that she might get moved up the list for major chastisement.
   She begged Sherry, "Please please please?  I'll be really bad the next
several days if it'll help.  Maybe if I'm bad enough, I can get all four of
you to chastise me."
   Everyone had fun with it.  She wasn't joking much at all, really.  I'll
leave that all up to the social secretaries.
   ------
   KATHLEEN
   Eileen's nursing bra appeared to be uncomfortable.  Apparently she felt
fine with us because she stripped it off underneath her tee shirt and
tossed it in the diaper bag.  Bridget latched on and had her late lunch.
   We went over the Gold birth control method.  The Nolans and Bardons were
extremely interested; they had three young girls who were very interested
(in the Ceann at least) and would need protection.  They learned *very*
fast.
   After Bridget was done nursing, Eileen wiped off her nipples and pulled
down her tee shirt.  Be Jaysus!  Her boobs moved up and in and wobbled
around until they were presented perfectly!  Mouth-watering!
   Sherry noticed too.  She called for a break and a powder-room
conference.
   We cycled through our pee calls then cornered the new girls.  Sherry
asked, "Eileen, how do you make your boobs perk up like that?  It's gotta
be some sort of _touch_, but they move so nice."
   They laughed and giggled a little.  Eileen said, "It's my clever Nana."
   She, Maura and Teresa pulled off their tee shirts; Maura and Teresa took
off their bras.  Yes!  Nice mature breasts with the normal expected
teardrop shape and a little sagging.  With kids and breast feeding it was
to be expected.
   Then all their boobs perked up perfectly and wobbled when they shook
their shoulders!
   Maggie told us, _"Yeh, it's a touch all right.  In this case it's
completely internal.  Make the touch flexible, move the tits where you want
them and they wobble naturally.  From the reaction we got from the guys,
they like it.  Now combine that with a dress that looks like it'll fall off
any moment or a boob's gonna pop out -- all with a light touches of course
-- and you get lots of, em, sex appeal."_
   We stripped off our shirts and bras.  Gotta learn about this!  My custom
bras were comfortable, gave lots of support but didn't allow much movement.
   Maggie coached us and we set up our "Inner Touch" bras.  Worked great
for us "older" women.  Sherry looked luscious.
   Janet and Bellana, on the other hand, didn't even need bras.  Maggie
told them, _"Bend over so your backs are parallel to the floor and they
hang down."_ She pointed out even as firm as their boobs were, gravity
pulled the nipples down at least three-quarters of an inch while they were
standing.
   She said, _"For you two, push 'em up and try some positive feedback. 
Bounce a little; when the mass tries to move from inertia, make the touch
push it the same direction."_
   Yum.  Make that *four* yums!  Maggie said, _"Mine have no mass of
course. Just by adjusting the feed back and response, I can make them
rigid."_ She demonstrated; they didn't move a bit.  _"Or I can make them
wobble all over the place."_ They now flopped around.
   Janet and Bellana got the trick.  Even more yummy now!
   Maggie had a last comment, _"Sometimes you want them a little smaller or
a little bigger; depends on the clothes and such.  You can control it all
from inside.  I'd be wary of stretching or pulling too much, though, skin
stretches only so far before it gets uncomfortable."_
   By the time we got done checking things out and making adjustments under
our shirts we were all drooling a little.  Eileen, Maura and Teresa were at
least as bi as we were -- and Maggie was right there with them.
   Sherry _told_ the guys it was time to get back to work.  When they were
back at the table, we filed in, making sure to walk "heavily" and with a
touch of model-walk.  Boobs wobbled and swayed, and there was a lot of male
eye-strain.
   We sat and scooted; more wobbles and several crossed male eyes.  Maggie
said, _"Hooter heaven, hey?"_
   We laughed, boobs wobbled, and all their eyes crossed!  Loved it!
   Bob told Sean, "Sean, Clann Cullen has brought us some wonderful,
intellectually-stimulating technologies with your shields and
teleportation. However, I'd personally be willing to trade them all for
this esthetic process."
   Mario and Henry agreed immediately.  Sean told him he didn't know how we
did it and wasn't gonna ask; he'd just enjoy the results.  Yeh, we enjoyed
the results ourselves.
   We paired up in cross-clann teams to do some drilling on our
technologies.  I worked with Patrick on the middle basics; firewalls,
cellular-level firewalls and body defenses, the two types of VPNs and how
we enhanced Sensitives.
   He liked it all and got it down quickly.  When I pointed out the
sunglasses and sun block, he said, "Now we can go swimming!  We've been
stuck indoors all our lives because of it.  This is *great* stuff."
   Bob called us together again.  He told us, "I'd recommend we meet again
as needed; not all together necessarily.  That'll let us exchange
technologies.  If you're interested, I'd like you to meet the rest of our
Clann tomorrow evening."
   They were interested.  We traded hugs and kisses with them all then let
them go.
   We polished off the rest of the food for dinner.  We discussed our new
colleagues and decided both Clanns were in for some exciting stuff.
   This was different from bringing in someone new.  There, we admired them
as excellent students and loved how they grew and matured as spirits.
   With Clann Cullen, they were equals to start with.  Sure, they had
things to learn from us as we from them, but they brought one hell of a lot
of stuff to the table.
   The policy technology alone might be priceless!  If we could get
something like that in on the JRD companies we'd have a common operating
basis.  That would mean a quantum leap in being able to understand exactly
what they were doing, and we'd be able to do any corrective action or
changes on a common basis.
   Then there was the Inner Touch bra.  Hehehehe.
   ------
   BOB (Monday 5/8)
   We were coming down to the last six weeks or so of school.  Mother and
Ana were doing the planning for the wedding; I guess my job would be to
show up.  I had no doubt, though, they'd find plenty of last-minute things
for me to do like wax and buff all the floors.  Where those floors would
be, I dunno.
   Clann Meeting time.  I figured the ladies had spread the word about what
they'd learned yesterday, because there wasn't a bra to be _seen_.  We guys
had learned by now when up against a Real Good Thing to grin and bear it.
Me, I just admired.
   Anyway, Clann Cullen showed up right on time.  No bras there, either;
must be a conspiracy!
   Clann Reynolds did right well by them.  We swarmed all over them, hugged
and welcomed them all.  George and Maggie hit it off immediately; after
Maggie did her baby-lovin' with everyone, they hung out in a corner and
snogged.  Hmm.
   The younger girls paid lots of attention to Sean.  Somehow I think the
idea of cross-cultural exchanges had spread around a little.  Janet and
Bellana wouldn't do that, would they?
   The youngsters assigned themselves to one of the Clann Cullen people to
catch them up on things they might not understand during the meeting. 
Well, that's what they said.  It sure was peculiar though how they were
snuggled up so close.
   We went over the usual stuff.  Ana told us the stem-cell research was
giving us some interesting information, mainly confirming most of their
theories.  She gave some broad hints about human clinical trials Real Soon
Now.
   I asked Sean to give us a quick rundown on the Clanns' similarities and
differences.  He gave us a three-minute summary which fit exactly what we'd
discussed yesterday.  He flirted with all the ladies; they reciprocated by
pointing their guns at him.
   He was an excellent speaker with just the right speed and timing.  I
figured with a different audience he'd perhaps go a bit slower; he knew all
the people here were pretty dayum bright.
   Kathleen announced our housewarming and Pool Party for the next
Saturday. Kat specifically invited Clann Cullen to come, too.  We got a lot
of cheers and applause; seems some people like free food.
   When she told them it would be clothing-optional, she got even louder
and more enthusiastic cheers, and not just from the youngsters, either. 
Hell, I was looking forward to admiring all that beauty myself.
   After the meeting, I got Ana and the Drs.  Gold aside for a few minutes.
I told them, "I've been thinking..."
   Ana immediately groaned and rolled her eyes.  She told the Golds, "Every
time he's said that, it means someone's gonna work.  *We*'re gonna work our
fingers to the bone and slave over hot somethings while *he* sits back,
ogles the girls and waves the Sorcerer's Wand."
   I didn't want her to think I was derelict in my duties, so I ogled the
two wobbly bosoms pointed at me.  I told them, "Yep.  There's two right
here *really* worth ogling."
   She smacked me anyway.  She asked, "Okay, whatcha got?"
   "Well, I've noticed something.  From last September through November, I
remember Natalie having a bit of PMS and cramps during her period.  Also
she had a couple small headaches and the sniffles for a couple days.
   "However, in December there was nothing.  No PMS, no cramps, nada. 
Actually the same with Sherry, too.  She'd always get that 'don't fuck with
me' look for at least part of the day before her period.  After November,
though, she's been her usual ornery self all the time.
   "None of the Clann women to my knowledge have had the slightest bit of
illness or physical problems.  The only issue I've seen with Kathleen these
last five months was in getting her strength back or some soreness from
working out.  Nary a headache or anything else.
   "When I was with Thelma last week, she told me both she and Frank had
lost a lot of weight, and her breasts had actually risen and filled out. 
I've noticed Mother looking even more fit than ever.
   "Ana, you've either lost weight or trimmed up yourself; you're looking
wonderful.  And that's no blarney.
   "If we had the stem-cell stuff in us, these might be the kinds of things
I'd expect to see.  So my question is, what's going on?  I don't quite
believe we're all so pure of heart the gods have blessed us."
   They looked at each other; apparently they didn't have an answer right
off.  The Golds had been here only a month so they probably had no history
to look at.  Ana, however, had been here since the start.
   Ana told me, "I don't know right off.  I agree with your observations,
though.  I haven't seen or heard of anything from anyone.  Karen, Oscar,
you interested in an additional project?"
   Karen said, "Oh, yeh.  Just from listening, the change is
date-coincident with your going outside as free spirits in December.  Now,
we'll probably give everyone at least a quick interview and try to come up
with something.  It may be useful or as ordinary as our hair growing every
day."
   That was good enough for me.  They had something to get their teeth into
at least.
   Wednesday after school, Sean _asked_ if he could talk with us for a
little bit.  We had plenty of time before the meeting so he _talked_ with
us about 5:00.
   He was concerned he would fall in love with the women he honored.  He
didn't want a harem!  They'd honored Kate Hanlon last night, and all three
felt they'd found a tremendous amount of love with and for her.
   Oh, yeh.  I knew exactly what he was going through.  Turned out while
they knew all about _blending_ or _merging_, they didn't know about the
compatibility checking.  Well, that was easily remedied by example.
   Mario went over the idea of Quality, Quantity and Viability in a
relationship.  He and Sean looked over his and Maura's relationship.  Yeh,
he loved her a lot but was now able to quantify it much better.
   He was clever and fast.  Within a half-hour he had a plan together which
would enable the four of them to get a firm grasp on predicting a
relationship both intellectually and emotionally.  Good on him!
   He invited the four of us to Eire's Tavern on Friday night -- their
treat.  Sounded good to us; the singing was okay, but the dancing sounded
even better.
   He left a much happier camper.
   That night after Clann Meeting, we popped over to Eire's Tavern for a
quick look-see.  It was a very nice middle-class family Irish restaurant.
It had a nice pub with lots of Irish decorations and Irish "stuff" going
on. There was a small raised stage at one end of the main dining room.  A
quick count showed there might be a hundred and fifty or so people seated.
   Kat and I did some plotting and planning.  We'd been working on an act
for the Prom, and this might be a good dress rehearsal for part of it --
even if it was six weeks away.
   ------
   KATHLEEN (Thursday 5/11)
   Right after school, Evin met Ana, Bob and me at the bank to check out
Jarlath and Ronnad's safe deposit boxes.  They (or Evin) had been pretty
clever; Kathleen was already a signatory on all of them.  I just let the
muscle memory go to work.
   The first one was a big one; probably at least twelve cubic feet.  It
was totally stuffed.  There were several photograph albums; Evin pointed
out pictures of J and R along with their parents and grandparents.  There
were a lot of older pictures, too.  The writing on the back of them gave
dates and names running back to the early 1800s.
   There was a big pack of papers with lineage, family tree data, old deeds
and wills, old contracts and that sorta stuff.  Evin glommed on to it. 
"Might be some current stuff here.  Not everything they owned was in JRD."
   There was a stack of around thirty comic books in individual
transparent, sealed envelopes.  Evin recognized one name but that was about
it.  There were also individually-sealed cards; Bob said they were early
trading cards.  He told us, "Probably collectibles.  If they kept them
here, they're probably rare and valuable.  Just like you, sweetheart."
   Prrrr!
   Bob said, "Sunday, Maura mentioned one of Sean's businesses was a
collectibles shop.  How about we get these to them and get an appraisal."
We carefully stacked them aside and ported them home.
   There were two bottles of Irish whiskey.  Evin identified them as
already being two hundred years old and guessed the value at around $10,000
each.  "Not because they're so old or good as a brand, but they're probably
collectibles, too.  Leave them; the environment's fine for storage."
   We made a note of the descriptions; might as well check them out, too.
There were a couple other interesting things like a small wooden chest;
probably a collectible.  Its description went on the list.
   The next box was a big one too.  On top was a white dress, folded and
sealed in heavy plastic.  Evin teared up and said, "Ronnad's wedding gown.
She said it was over 150 years old and that was 20 years ago."
   We carefully _touched_ it out and set it aside.  The rest of the box was
filled with wrapped and sealed wedding accessories.  Shoes with diamonds, a
veil, a garter belt and garters with emeralds.  Dayum!
   There was a large jewelry box.  Opening it, it had a diamond necklace,
bracelets, garters and earrings; it obviously belonged with the wedding
dress.  The necklace had to be six inches wide at the front; the bracelets
were three inches wide.  Everything was packed with diamonds, all perfectly
sized.  The diamond at the bottom of the necklace had to be a good half
inch across.
   Ana said quietly, "Betcha it'll all fit you, Sunshine."
   Okay.  The next box was smaller than the first two, probably a medium
size.
   Papers.  On top was a heavy card which said, "Passwords." Hmm.  Bob
said, "Probably to their computers at JRD."
   We shot a quick question to Mario.  He told us, _"They had a lot of
personal stuff on the server; it's still there.  I know it's all encrypted
so those are probably the passwords._
   _"Also, the day after they died, I took the hard disks out of their
personal machines at the office and put them in our IT safe.  There's
probably a lot of stuff there you'll want to look at."_
   That we'll want to do.  There was a stack of CDs labeled as backups. 
Bob ported them to JRD for Mario.
   Evin looked over the rest of the papers.  He said, "Be Jaysus!  These
are probably current deeds.  I remember talking with them about some of
these places.
   "The day after Kathleen turned eighteen, we had her do a hell of a lot
of signing.  Most of this stuff here looks as if they had her added as
co-pretty-much-anything so a transfer would go as smooth as possible."
   There was a stack of fancy-looking certificates.  Evin said, "Bearer
bonds." He looked through them quickly and told us, "Twenty at $10,000
each. Ya know, Kathleen, $200K might barely finance a small wedding!"
   Oh, God.  By now it was just numbers to me.
   There were several other envelopes.  Evin looked in a couple of them. 
"Looks like some other checking accounts, Certificates of Deposit and a
couple mutual funds.  Aaron gets these to check out."
   Okay, add the stuff to the pile.  The last two boxes were medium-sized
too.  They were packed with jewelry and precious stones!  Diamonds,
emeralds, rubies, jade, ivory either mounted or loose; you name it.  Even
to our inexperienced eyes, they were all top quality.  Beautiful stuff.
   Bob said, "Maura also said Sean had a jewelry shop.  Let's get some
pictures at least to start checking this out." He ported our digital camera
down.  We found a black velvet cloth and spread it out.
   Bob and Ana spread out each piece, including the items from the wedding
box, and Bob took several pictures.  That alone took an hour because there
were so many.  He took pictures of the whiskey bottles and the other
articles we thought were collectibles.
   We left all the jewelry there; it was pretty overwhelming.
   ------
   BOB
   Friday, I picked up the stuff we'd ordered for the Tavern party.  It was
gonna be fun!
   At study, I talked with the rest of the group and with Ana.  She told
us, "Go ahead and keep your group here until school's done; there's no
reason to change it right now just because none of you live here any more."
Sounded okay to us; Sherry, Kat and I could just port back and forth.
   Kat and I got out of study early to get dressed for the Tavern.  I
ensured all our goodies were ready for the show and took off.
   The Tavern was a very good-looking place; exciting without being garish.
Did I detect a Sean Cullen hand in it?
   The ladies were in full glory with wonderful wobblies trying to escape
their dresses!  Sean and Eileen introduced us to Kate Hanlon as a possible
addition to their relationship.  Of course we gave her a good
(publicly-acceptable) hug and kiss.  She was deep and rich as well as being
a lovely Red Irish coleen!
   The place was almost full, and the food and service were excellent.  The
patrons were obviously enjoying themselves, and the Tavern staff was quite
happy with what they were doing.  I'd say they had a winner here!
   Show time!  The Clan Cullen had obviously been practicing a lot because
they sang and danced extremely well together.  Kat and I don't sing really
well, but we could dance a little.  Grin.
   Our dress rehearsal for the disappearing partner worked great.  It was
the trickiest bit we'd ever tried, with a teleport out during a really fast
spin.
   I borrowed Sean's bowler for the next sequence; any hat would do but
that gave me an additional foil for jokes.
   The water-glass juggling did okay.  I had a few tricky seconds when one
of the glasses tried to tip when it was five feet up, but a quick _touch_
helped it out.  The audience loved the lady peeing part; a bit risque for a
General audience, but no one seemed to mind.
   The Irish stuffed animals went over great.  Once we'd all gotten
coordinated on the catching, throwing and distribution it just streamed!  I
don't think the Tavern owners minded a bit that the tee shirts had "Eire's
Tavern" on them.  We'd calculated pretty close; I'd ordered 125 and we
"distributed" 100.  The rest I dropped into Patrick's office to be used as
he wished.
   The Irishman's drunken hat routine went perfect.  Maggie performed
flawlessly!  Probably one of the reasons she's Sean's best girl.
   Mona Nolan (Aah!  Almost-eleven!) tried to put the moves on me.  She was
a really delightful sexy young lady, but I was able to redirect her
attention to Sean.  He'll probably have his hands full with her -- pun
intended.  She was "out and about," and the rest of the young folk were
almost ready to pop too.  Great!  That'll give a great Core for Clan
Cullen.
   I invited the nieces and nephews to the pool party the next day but
ensured they knew it was clothing-optional.  Apparently there was no
problem with it -- they'd be more than happy to strip down.
   Alas, good times must end and we had a tight schedule tomorrow.  We
thanked our hosts and headed home.
   ------
   KATHLEEN (Saturday 5/13)
   The Tavern had been wonderful!  The guys probably got eyestrain from
keeping up with the wobblies, but that's not *our* problem.  Grin.
   Our act had gone off without a hitch; didn't have to do any major saves
anywhere.  Sean and Maggie worked with us perfectly.
   Food was great, company was great.  No one hung around too long after
the show, though; we had a major party of our own the next day!
   We were up relatively early.  Bob and I did a quick bed-check to ensure
it hadn't developed any squeaks overnight; it was fine and helped take the
edge off.  I had a suspicion we'd be pretty horny all day.  Just because
we'd gotten used to the nude beach in Cabo didn't mean a whole lot; these
were really lovely people.
   As people came in we put them to work arranging the lounges and chairs
outside and setting up the food.  Not a lot of work, actually, most of it
just needed set out.
   At Mario's suggestion, we tried something new.  We could set up
cellular-level firewalls and body shields because the individual cells had
life "specks." We took a look at the bushes surrounding the back yard; of
course they had cells with life, too.
   Mario set up power VPNs into the cells in the bushes and grass then
fired up a "body shield." He programmed a sound barrier surrounding the
entire back yard and house then let it rip.  With the four of us supplying
power, it was a really simple task to keep it there.  That way, it wasn't
dependant on any one of us being there or putting attention on it.  Totally
neat!
   Maggie, Eileen, Kate and Sean ported in -- Maggie did the work.  I
caught a hint this was the others' maiden voyage; maybe that's why Eileen
and Kate insisted Sean ensure their boobs and butts had come across okay. I
_felt_ Maggie store something away on her own To Do List.  Betcha she'll
come up with something unique sometime -- Clann Cullen seemed to do that
quite a bit.
   They ensconced themselves by Patricia and Andy; Maggie and George had
already started bouncing around together.  They peeled everything right
off; yum!  Sean was a *big* guy!  I could already feel myself tracing
muscles.  Gotta check out Eileen's breast milk and taste Kate's lovely
puffy nipples!  Shit, things were just getting started, and I was already
horny even after our quicky this morning.  Down, girls!
   Sean had the same attitude of complete self-confidence and competence
Bob had.  Between that and his body, my stud sensors were pegged out high!
   Pretty much everyone showed.  Clann Way was having its own party that
day so Susan and I just _chatted_ back and forth a couple times.
   The Guerreros showed up.  They were lookin' good!  Ramon and Elisa had
really come into their own.  With their business going really well and
their educations improved, their self-confidence was out the top.
   Alejandro and Linda fit right in.  They'd been spending lots of time
with the Wild Bunch and PVC and had gotten at least somewhat acclimated to
the Norte Americano culture.  Linda's boobs had gone up a full cup since
we'd first met her, and they'd all put on needed weight.  Totally awesome!
   When the Bardons and Nolans came in, the Wild Bunch and PVC dragged the
young-uns away.  Mona Nolan (almost eleven!  Here, Unka Robert!) was
already outside and had gotten enough prior memory back she had a lot of
maturity.  Gorgeous!  So many lovely people, so little time...  No, there
actually was plenty of time!
   The two younger girls and the two nephews were ready to pop; betcha PVC
and the Wild bunch would have them outside and trained up a bit in less
than an hour.
   George showed everyone his underwater _touch_ eye mask so now we could
stay underwater as long as we wished -- all completely portable.  Clever
George!  He was more assertive, I guess you'd call it, now.  Before, in the
Inner Circle, he'd tended to stay in the background a bit.
   Probably four months alone in a new body had given him a real
self-confidence boost.  He was still the punny guy and computer wizard but
now didn't shy back from anything.  Good on him!
   We hadn't warned Clann Cullen about the groping in the pool, but they
caught on real quick.  I made sure to check them all out personally; after
all I had a duty as the hostess, right?  I probably added a half pint of
pussy water to the pool all by myself.  And yes, Linda's boobs were as firm
as ever, and Kate's puffies got nicely puckered.
   The Jacuzzi was popular too.  Kate and Eileen showed the ladies
something to do with the jets and a lot of them did a bunch of moaning and
groaning.
   Maggie had visible boobs now!  We gathered around as she demonstrated.
We girls got her off for some quality control checking; with some minor
revisions, she was lovely.  Not quite five months old with bow legs but
still sexy as hell.
   Fuck!  She could feed back the sensations of our mouths and hands
directly to our own tits!  Dayum near re-defined the term, "mental
masturbation!" First time I'd felt my entire breast in a mouth; it was
wonderful!
   I bet Bob they'd come up with at least one more "miracle" today.  He
grinned at me and said, "Sucker bet.  At *least* one."
   We showed Sean the comics and cards from the safe deposit box.  He
pretended to drool and come over the table and floor.  Between the cards
and the comics, he had a ball-park estimate of five million bucks!  Yeh,
for sure we'll get them checked out.
   We decided I'd ask Riona and Alyssa if they were interested in doing
genealogy research on both the Reynolds and the Donovans.  Sean had pointed
out the value of a collectible tended to increase if the history was
well-documented.  Some of that stuff was *old*.
   He loved the jewelry, too.  He didn't even bother to estimate a value;
we all knew it was extremely high.
   Same with J&R's furniture.  Get it appraised, trace the history, and
we'd see what we had.  Maybe Dermot might be interested in doing all that.
   Chapter 3
   [Intersects with Best Girl Ch 16]
   BOB (Saturday 5/13 Pool Party)
   The techie bunch had at least two meetings in the den.  If they'd been
academia, there would have been screaming, shouting, posturing,
hair-pulling and neat shit like that.  At least these guys were somewhat
civilized.
   Maggie didn't take shit from anyone about anything!  Sure, she had her
opinions on things, but she was willing to look at different viewpoints.  I
guess with forty-odd years of teaching, she'd encountered pretty much any
questions one could imagine about normal math and physics.
   I eavesdropped a few times.  While there was a lot of discussion about
known physics and math, probably half was hammering out applications.  They
used the math and physics to get a prediction, not just to fart around with
equations.
   George was right in there slugging it out with the rest of them.  He'd
come a hell of along way in the last four months.
   Anyway, I figured they would let us know if they came up with any neat
stuff.  I guessed we'd get at least two and probably several quantum jumps
-- they hadn't even talked much about Maggie's teleportation!
   Sean had come up with a method of very rapidly getting to know someone.
It was a rapid _merge_ or _blend_; not as intimate as our relationship
blendings; kinda like doing a high-five.  Both or all parties got a gestalt
of the others which bypassed all the social chit-chat and enabled them to
get right to the interesting, worthwhile discussions.
   Kat and I circulated.  We ensured each of us talked (with a nice
gestalt) with every one of the Clann Cullen.  Dayum nice and competent
folk!
   Sean's nieces and nephews were physically in the first flush of puberty
and were handling it very well.  A lot of that was the parents' influence,
of course, but with their memories coming back, they'd be really in
control.
   Mona Nolan (almost eleven!) had been outside about a week, had a nice
set of memories and was quite mature, both mentally and physically.  She
was very enthusiast about laying some flesh on Sean!  Hmm, they were "set
up" for next Tuesday night.
   By the time we'd gotten with each of the Clann Cullen people, they were
firmly part of our one of us group, just like family.
   I'd thought we'd burned out most of our buttons on nudity down in Cabo,
but I'd thought wrong.  Yeh, it was a lot easier than at the last pool
party at Evin's, but the Wand still managed to pop up at a few interesting
moments.  It didn't help that every female who looked at me seemed to be
hungry.
   The food, drinks and all the logistics worked out just fine.  People had
plenty to eat and drink, complemented the chefs and stuffed themselves --
including me.
   People started drifting off around 6:00.  Most of them left behind
trails of pheromones and sex-smell along with overt thoughts of how they
were gonna spend the rest of the evening.  By 7:30, everyone was gone.
   There was very little cleanup left to do.  No trash left around
anywhere, the chairs outside and inside neatly arranged and the beds inside
dry and neat.  Plenty of scent left in the bedrooms and in the rec room
down below, though!
   We put the last of the food away, took a final shower to wash off the
pool chlorine then kicked back, relaxed and talked over the day.
   Mario had the first comment, "Those Clann Cullen folk are good.  Every
one of them was very social without being fake; even the young ones with
few or no memories were very mature."
   Sherry, who could always see through bull shit, said, "Yep.  They got
that from their parents -- all four of them -- and Sean.  The entire crew
is bright and the perfect age in many ways.
   "The adults have been in the Real World long enough to have plenty of
business and life experience, especially Sean and his sisters' families. 
With their small to medium business experience, they'll fit right in with
JRD.  Damn, thirty companies with no failures."
   I noted, "There was one, sorta.  One he was financing had a truck run
into the shop, and it burned down along with several stores nearby -- even
with a to-code sprinkler system.  Sean worked with them to get it going
again.  Since there was plenty of insurance for the inventory and fixtures
-- one of Sean's policy points -- it only took them a month to get another
place up and running under the same name.  They even had their computer
system backups up to date and offsite.  Now that's planning.
   "They promoted to their customer base and were off and running.  Total
elapsed time: six weeks.  How many of our JRD companies could even come
close to that?"
   Kat said, "Maybe The Clean Place, Clean Pools and places which have
little or no specialized capital equipment.  Now, since Bob mentioned
backups, so far as I recall our audit team has only looked at the financial
books, and our probes only covered possible illegalities, criminal acts and
so on.  During our oversight visits, I don't think we even touched IT
systems, backups, Valuable Documents or record retention."
   Sherry said, "Don't think so.  Mario, I know you do JRD server backups;
do you have enough background experience to check out record retention and
the like?"
   "Not really.  How about we get our documentation and process consultants
to take a look -- starting at JRD?  Maybe we'll need to get them to take a
look at each company?"
   Sherry asked, "Do we need a global IT manager?  Even regional managers?"
   I said, "Suddenly I feel we've been barely scratching the surface. 
Without a full Executive Council meeting, any thoughts on what we do about
it?  Boss Lady?"
   Kathleen laughed.  "Gee, thanks, buddy.  Hmm.  One thing which intrigued
me last Sunday was Sean's thirty companies all running under one set of
policies and apparently doing very well.  Some of that might be
proud-sister bragging, but we probably need to take a hard look at what
he's got before we try any major changes in what we're doing now."
   I said, "I agree.  Sean's gonna be at the Monday Clann Meeting so I'll
ask him.  Probably a seminar for us."
   We got total agreement on it.  Continue doing what we were doing on the
audits then after we looked at Sean's stuff, see what other things need to
be followed up.
   Fortunately, our discussion hadn't taken long 'cause we were all hornier
than three-peckered billy goats.  We summarily adjourned, surfed several
wonderful waves and managed to survive the hormone storm.
   ------
   KATHLEEN
   Yeh, everyone was horny after the pool party.  After we'd surfed a few
wonderful waves and had replaced a lot of the horny-hormones with the
endorphin afterglows, a quick look around showed us everyone was enjoying
the fruits of their labors.  Glad we had firewalls and sound shields or the
cops would have been investigating lots of reports about screaming women!
   ------
   Sunday was Mother's Day.  Fortunately, all our guys had picked up on it
so they kept their hair.  Most of us did the "family" thing.  Bob and David
treated Don, Ana, David, Elizabeth and me to a nice dinner with lots of
praise and complements.  Bob whispered, _"You'll be a real mother pretty
quick, Sunshine."_
   That perked everything up; maybe we'd practice when we got home.  I'd
dropped my diaphragm and birth control pills a couple weeks ago; I still
had the Gold method at work, though.  Only a month to go until wedding
bells!
   Right after school Monday, Bob and I took the comics and cards to
Collectible Arts in Pasadena.  The three staff gathered around, ooed, ahhed
and, in general, drooled.
   They identified pretty much the same things Sean had done (wonder why?).
They had a quick discussion on where to research the unknowns; at least
they had a place to start.
   Francis (the owner) showed us the safe where they'd keep the stuff for a
while.  Francine (his SO) said, "We'll photograph everything.  Simon here
is gonna get a collectibles web site going pretty soon plus we have a lot
of contacts.  We should be able to get some action.
   "We'll have this back to you within a week.  I don't think you want
something this valuable out of your hands too long."
   We agreed.  They discussed having an exhibition or show with some or all
of the items.  I told them, "Check it out.  If the security's decent, we'll
talk about loaning some of them.  I've got enough other stuff going on I'm
not really interested in doing more than that."
   ------
   At our Monday Clann Meeting, Karen Gold went over doing an on-the-fly
STD check.  "Actually it's pretty simple for anyone who's done DNA tracing;
it's the same principle."
   Run down a list of diseases, use a standard from various labs and check
for a match.  Some diseases or viruses which mutate fairly fast had a
looser match.
   How to do a white-blood-cell count.  "If it's higher than normal, it may
mean they have an infection.  Lower than normal might be a leukemia
indicator.  Check it out immediately."
   How to check for high or low blood sugar; it might mean diabetes.  Check
it out.  She ran through quite a few different tests we could do to ensure
a person was healthy.
   Drilling was the fun part.  We hit several "specimens" from Skid Row in
downtown Los Angeles.  Some were, some weren't.  We found out right away
the external appearance didn't mean a lot.  A person could look healthy and
have disease everywhere.  Another could look like the dregs of the Earth
but actually be pretty fine -- maybe some mineral or vitamin deficiencies.
   Karen told us, "Note the real baddies are at the top of the list.  Do it
in sequence and you're all set.  We'll update the list weekly; that's our
responsibility.  Remember; when in doubt, have us check it out."
   All Real Good Things.
   Bob announced, "The Clann projects seem to be going well.  While there's
still lots of stuff going on, there doesn't seem to be any reason to have
more than one meeting a week.  Any objections on having only a Monday-night
meeting?"
   No one had any objections.  There was still word-of-spirit to spread
anything interesting.
   Seemed like the Skunk Works had come up with a winner on Sunday.  Our
communication and power-sharing VPNs had originally been designed as
physical-universe connections with lots of encryption.  Kate had asked a
"dumb question" which sent it back to square one.  The Skunk Works had
developed a completely-spiritual method to do the same things with
connection nodes.
   Between dropping the encryption overhead and the physical-universe
aspects, our interlocking communication and power sharing could now be
something like a hundred times as fast, take less power and were as secure
as our firewalls since the nodes were inside them.  Besides, we didn't have
that tangle of VPNs dragging along.
   Mario went over the technology.  Pretty straightforward after a couple
minutes.  At the end of a half hour, the entire Clann had reprogrammed
their connections, and we were running smooth as glass.  Good stuff!  Gotta
talk with Kate more -- maybe a long one-on-one some evening or an
overnighter?  Hehehehe.  Guess Maggie's rubbing off on us.
   We talked with Sean a bit after the meeting.  I told him, "You were
right.  When we took the comics and cards to Collectible Arts, they drooled
over everything.  We talked a bit about a show; I figured if they could set
it up, I wouldn't have a problem with loaning anything.  Betcha we can set
up better physical security than they can."
   He told us, "Right.  There was probably a righteous saliva flood on the
floor.  When they really start tracking things down, there'll probably be
more."
   I changed the subject and asked, "Sean, JRD's pretty interested in
learning more about your management policies.  How's the best way to do
that?"
   He had his standard seminar; he offered a freebie for us.  I turned him
down flat on the freebie.  "This is part of your living.  JRD has
absolutely no issue with money."
   Anyway, Bob and I did a quick Executive Council schedule check and set
it up for next Sunday.  There'd be about a dozen of us, and our JRD
conference room would work just fine.
   The next day, I sent Eileen contact information on our process and
documentation company.  Sean had some questions on keeping manuals and such
up to date; they could probably handle that.
   JRD Recording was pretty much done with their renovations.  With
Madeleine pushing sales, it had already increased its booking up 25%. 
Lookin' good!
   I talked with the Executive Officer and set up a Family and Friends
account for Leone and Mark.  Since the facilities were ready now, we wanted
them in there ASAP.  Now, how's the best way to let them know?  Hmm, I
think the social secretaries had some ideas.
   Wednesday, the Inner Circle study group really started hitting the
reviews for the upcoming finals.  We Seniors were really interested in
going out with a bang!  We were already planning on some bangs being less
public than others.
   ------
   BOB
   I had a talk with Ana, Mary and the Drs.  Gold.  They said they were
ready for human clinical trials with the stem-cell research.  I looked over
the animal test results they'd done so far; one hamster with a crooked
broken leg had regenerated it to pristine condition.
   Their peer review group had done their final write up, too.  Even at
their most cynical, they couldn't really see any reason not to go with the
human testing.  They made the usual caveats about all this probably being
unlawful at least somewhere and gave a list of possible issues a human
subject might encounter.
   The issue list ranged from possible social consequences (gray hair might
be restored to its original color) to immediate death with the attendant
probabilities.  Okay, I could see all that.
   Ana told me, "Frank and Thelma have volunteered.  Pretty much everyone
else has, too, but we think they're the most optimum set to start with. 
That'll give us a male and female with known prior injuries, they're
trained observers and, by their terms, more 'expendable' than anyone else."
   Yeh, all true.  I specifically asked Frank and Thelma, "You guys wanna
do this?  You've read the peer-group review report and are aware of the
possible harmful consequences?"
   They told me they were well aware of the possible consequences and were
very willing to continue.  Okay on their end.
   Now, another question.  I asked, "Ana, have you come up with anything on
the question I asked you guys earlier about all these people being so dayum
healthy and changing their bodies?  How would you filter out effects from
stem-cell regeneration from that?"
   Oscar took this one.  "We interviewed every 'one of us.' What we've come
up with is both very simple and very interesting.
   "What's been going on is people would simply decide their body was going
to be a certain way, and it would change.  Might take a while, depending
what decision they made, but it would change.
   "You mentioned Thelma specifically.  She told us she'd decided her body
would be at such a weight, with approximate measurements, and her breasts
would be up and tight.  She gave it a month to get there.
   "By watching what she ate and getting plenty of exercise, it simply
changed.  The decision was the same type we make when we pop outside or
move -- no doubts or reservations it wouldn't happen.  That tells us the
spirit definitely controls the mind which controls the body.
   "Now, as to seeing what changes are from the stem-cell regeneration as
compared to these types of decision, we'll use Aileen and Donal Brady. 
While they're a bit older, they also decided their bodies would be
healthier and younger in much the same ways as Frank and Thelma.
   "Now I *know* you've eyeballed Aileen pretty good so you've seen the
changes in her.  We'll just compare the two couples and attribute the
differences to the stem-cell regeneration.
   "In the case of sweet Mary, here, she hasn't made a decision her scars
would vanish, etc., or do anything so they haven't really changed."
   Mary told me, "All I've decided for now is my body would be healthy and
at the proper weight and muscle tone for my type.  Sam ensures I get plenty
of exercise!" Grin.  "If the regeneration works they way we expect for
Frank and Thelma, we'll take another look at doing me; I'm the next most
obvious candidate."
   Okay, then.  I told them, "Do the deed.  I expect the same peer-review
group inspection as before on every step.  I don't have to tell you to keep
good notes; if you screw it up, I'll sic Maggie McLennan's teeth on you."
   ------
   (Thursday 5/18)
   Early Thursday morning, we _felt_ Sean and his three ladies riding the
tsunami!  They'd done a fabulous Journey and were sharing their love with
us.
   Kat, Sherry, Mario and I joined them briefly with the Nolans and Bardons
to congratulate them on their happiness.  Eileen told us, _"Kate's part of
us now; our QQV is fabulous and we're deliriously happy."_
   I told them, _"Now, when you can do four of those Journeys in a night,
you're up with the rest of us." Grin._
   Kat whispered to them, _"He's slagging you.  Four is the most *any* of
us have done, and that was once with Bob and me -- I think Bob, David,
Elizabeth and I are the only ones who could physically survive it."_
   Spoilsport!
   ------
   (Friday 5/19)
   Sherry and Kat had marked an honoring on the calendar for the night, so
I dutifully showered and showed up before dinner.  Jaysus!  Mark and Leone
came in!  Dayum they were lookin' good.
   We greeted them with hugs and kisses; I didn't hesitate to snuggle up
Leone really good.  She was trembling a little and felt warm.  She told me,
"I can't believe we're here."
   I kissed her firmly and said, "Believe it.  You two deserve every
moment. May I have the extreme honor of sweet loving with you tonight?"
   She flushed, squeezed me hard and whispered, "Oh yes!  A dream coming
true."
   Of course dinner was great; Sherry had talked with their parents and
found out their favorite dishes.  Nothing fancy, but really good.
   We chatted a little about Clann stuff but got down to their business
pretty quickly.  Mark said, "We've got fifty-four songs set up.  As we
discussed last Christmas break, there's some from several genres so we
should be able to cover a wide range."
   Leone picked up, "We figured to record several with only piano, Mark and
me and get some analysis on how it sounds.  All the band folk are more than
willing to back us up later.  Now that JRD Recording has most of its renos
done, we figured to start out there."
   That was Kathleen's cue.  She slid an envelope across to them and said,
"Maybe this'll help out."
   Sherry, Kat and I had made up gift certificates to JRD Recording. 
Twenty-five hours studio time, twenty-five hours mixing time and ten hours
analysis.
   They loved it!  Leone said, "You don't have to do this, you know.  Just
because we're Clann doesn't mean we should get special treatment."
   Sherry told her, "If you were mundanes without the slightest hint of
Potential, we'd have done the same.  It's your talent and abilities we
think will bring you through.  This way, you'll get a good shot at finding
out your marketability in the real world from some of the pros without
investing your own money."
   Kat said, "We think it's a win-win deal.  You win by finding out your
potential in the market, we win by helping you display your talent to pros
who've seen both hits and misses, and the music public wins by enjoying
what you can bring to them."
   I said, "We can take it step by step; it'll be your decision each time.
We've got JRD Recording to do the first step.  If you decide to continue,
there's JRD Media Repro and Fillmore Sales Relations.  I'd say among those,
we can do completely independent productions without the normal industry
contracts which end up with the artists getting pretty much nothing.  Each
company can make money, JRD can make money -- which means Kat, Sherry and I
make money -- and you make money."
   Kat said, "And if those companies aren't enough, we can make our own
production company.  Betcha we can find plenty of talent who simply need
the proper promotion."
   They laughed, agreed and we exchanged another round of hugs and kisses.
   ------
   Leone was a wonderful lover, a moaner and talker.  Her sweet body was
eclipsed by her eagerness and joy.
   Her breasts were even more fantastic "in the flesh." Without any lady
tricks they were firm and hot with hard, sensitive nipples sucking up her
areolae.  She tasted rich and sweet; we enjoyed everything we tried.
   We rode waves of love, enjoyed wonderful _merges_ in the starlight above
the planetary plane and explored ancient ruins in Israel and the Holy Land.
   We took plenty of time to talk while we rested between lovings.  She
told me, "I am a bit nervous about the music.  Yeh, McCambridge people seem
to like us but I dunno about the outside."
   I told her, "Well, I think it's pretty good timing; it's about four
weeks until graduation.  By then, you can probably get a good variety of
songs pretty much in the bag at JRD Recording.  We can take them to
Fillmore, see what they think and go from there.
   "If it's a go, you and Mark are completely free to do whatever you need
full-time.  More recordings, tours, whatever.  Each step is conditional on
the previous.
   "Yeh, there's monetary risk to some degree, but as Steven's said, if you
don't try it now, you'll always wonder if you could have made it.  *We*
want you to make it no matter how big; even if it ends up a vanity
publication, you'll have attempted the task."
   She laughed and told me, "We're gonna let it all hang out, then."
   I told her, "You don't have to let it *all* hang out.  Sex sells,
granted, but you're wonderfully sexy without hanging these out." I stroked
her breasts up with the Sorcerer's Grip until she moaned and thrashed for a
half hour.
   ------
   KATHLEEN
   Mark was good; very good.  It was either natural talent or Leone had
done taught him good!
   We talked a lot, too, about Leone and his possible music career.  He
told me, "Yeh, I'm biased, but I think she's got the charisma and talent to
carry this through.  She's definitely the Decision Maker, but we're
well-matched in musical abilities, and she doesn't try to walk all over me.
She's a wonderful lady."
   I agreed with him.  "Also, I think your voices and styles match
extremely well together.  You might even try some solo work and see how
that turns out."
   "Maybe.  For now, though, I think it's better we stick together."
   "Fine by me.  You and the pros can discuss it.  Anyway, as far as I'm
concerned, you've got pretty much unlimited financial backing to go as far
and as fast as you can and want."
   We made wonderful love, explored Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, made
delightful _merges_ and rainbows then dashed around the plains of Africa
for a while as our bodies rested and slept.
   Around 4:00 I poked everyone awake.  "Time for a Journey!"
   The six of us _linked_ lightly together then made a three-hour Journey
surfing higher and higher waves until we let the final tsunami push us out
to Saturn.
   We explored the rings, dived into the planet itself (many, many times
the volume of Earth) and rode the currents for a while. 
Wonderfully-interesting place!
   We slept in until 10:00.  Since we had nowhere to go and all day to get
there, we had a leisurely breakfast then lay nude around the pool.
   Leone, Sherry and I eyed each other's boobs and bushes for a few minutes
then went inside and did our own private tactile explorations.  Leone told
us "I'm not much interested in girls, but this is too good to pass up,
especially since it's you two."
   Yeh, while she might have no experience with girls, she found her way
around our bodies just fine, thank you!  Her boobs were simply magnificent,
she was wonderfully sweet, and we had a great hour's romp.
   After a last dip in the pool and a final shower, she and Mark took off
to do some detailed planning.
   ------
   Mario, Evin, Siobhan, Barbara, Aaron and I met at JRD to look at J&R's
server files and hard disks.  Mario had mounted the hard disks in external
enclosures and had made copies to separate hard disks.  Same with their
server files; he'd copied them off to yet another external hard disk. 
Don't mess with the originals!
   While Mario was plugging in the copies, Evin told us some of the stuff
he'd found out about the papers from the safe deposit boxes, "There's deeds
to properties scattered around the U.S.  and Europe.  A thousand acres in
Montana -- looks to be cattle-grazing territory.  Several places in
Ireland, Scotland and Wales -- looks as if we've got a lot of Celtic
connections.
   "So far as I can tell, the titles are clear and any taxes are up to
date. I've hired a Sensitive paralegal -- she's enhancing rapidly -- who's
checking it out.  Most of the properties were inheritances from our
parents.
   "Our parents' wills split pretty much everything between Jarlath and me
so we ended up with joint ownership.  Jarlath and Ronnad's wills left
everything to you, Kathleen, so it's mostly you and me, babe."
   I asked him, "So, Uncail Evin, what do we do next?"
   "We'll get the titles and all that stuff in our names so we have the
legal control we need.  Then we should go look them over and decide what we
want to do with them.  Just as we're doing with JRD, we should decide to
let them be as they are, develop or dispose.  With the European ones, it'll
probably be a couple months before we get clear titles, but we can start
planning any time.
   "There's also three more storage areas.  I took a quick _look_; they're
really good-sized.  One has lots of furniture and several sealed-up
automobiles on blocks.  One's a Cord which looks in prime condition. 
Betcha they're all collectibles.  Dunno yet if they're direct acquisitions
or inheritances yet so the ownership isn't entirely clear.  I'd bet it's
either all yours or we split.
   "There's a climate-controlled storage area, too.  It seems chock full of
art work like paintings, sculptures and the like.  Betcha it's all
collectibles or heirlooms.
   Aaron put in, "I've checked over several of the accounts we found.  One
is a big mutual fund which puts the dividends into a checking account. 
There's a bill-paying service in Hollywood which pays taxes, fees, etc.  on
a lot of things and has been doing so for about ten years.
   "While I haven't checked it out completely, it appears to handle all the
properties, the storage area fees and that kind of stuff.  There's safe
deposit boxes in two other banks, too, one in Arizona and one in New York;
probably just for decentralization in case California slides into the sea.
I'd say we have a major project just to sort through all this stuff."
   I thought for a bit then said, "Okay.  Evin, I think this is now beyond
the usual duties of an executor.  It looks like we've got grandparents'
stuff mixed in with J&R's stuff.  Aaron, you're under salary to JRD and
this is definitely beyond your usual scope of work.
   "What I'd like to do is get your paralegal under my pay and your
direction.  Aaron, can you and Barbara hire an accountant or whoever to
follow up on what you've found?  It's not right to have all this under your
JRD duties, and even if you're willing to do a lot as a family friend, I
want to keep in a good exchange with you."
   Evin told me, "Not a problem.  Your paying the paralegal will keep some
controls in since she'll be working directly in your interests not mine. 
I'll help, of course, but she can do ninety percent of the work.  If we
need more help, we've got Van Nuys Temps to supply us with both legal and
accounting help."
   Barbara said, "I'd recommend we get another paralegal and two accountant
types.  Put them together in a bull pen at the office, dump most of this
stuff on them and let them run with it.  Since Evin, Aaron and I are at the
office almost all the time, we'll be right there if we're needed.  We'll
just bill you for our time."
   Aaron said, "We don't really know how big this is yet, either.  Evin
mentioned there was a copy of Ronnad's parents' will so there could be an
entire other estate to check through.
   "All the grandparents died over a two-year span about two years ago.  As
Sherry said before, J&R along with Evin, Siobhan and us were in the throes
of getting our kids raised so weren't really doing much with either JRD or
anything else.  Evin and I do remember looking over quite a few papers;
everything was already pretty much set up to run automagically so we just
left it.
   "We're in a whole new ball game now.  While we've got a ton of stuff
going with JRD, we've got no current family situations to worry about so
it's time we got everything cleaned up and up to date.  I'd recommend Evin
and Kathleen split the temp fees since they're researching and handling for
both of you; you can rent the office space from JRD.  That way it's all
deductible for both of you under personal Professional and Legal Fees."
   Evin and I glanced at each other and said, "Agreed." Evin, Siobhan and
Aaron agreed to get the ball rolling Monday morning.
   We took a quick glance at the personal and server files Mario'd gotten
into.  Looked like lots of spreadsheets and documents.  Okay.  I told Mario
to break them out and route copies either to Evin, Aaron or me.  If they
appeared specific enough, flag them for our new bullpen.  I made a note to
get him a nice bonus for acting on the archival so thoroughly and promptly.
   ------
   ANA
   Saturday afternoon, the Drs.  Gold, Mary, Sam and I did a final check of
all the stem-cell research and peer-group recommendations.  As predicted,
our crooked-leg hamster had regenerated to a perfectly-straight limb so the
final experiment was a complete success.
   Frank and Thelma were more than ready.  Frank told us, "No matter what
happens, we've had a wonderful ride.  Our affairs are completely in order;
*we*'re ready and can see no reason to wait any longer."
   We did a final _look_ at their bodies and made our notes.  Their current
stem-cell concentration was around 1 in 100 million; right on the button
for their age range.
   We made up fresh batches for them.  In for a penny, in for a pound; I
gave the injections.  We did 20 cc as a general injection into the
bloodstream.  Then it was wait and see.
   We sat around for two hours, drinking coffee, soda or whatever while we
talked and waited.  Neither Frank nor Thelma reported any unusual
sensations or feelings.
   Okay, time for the next _look_.  Their concentration had already gone to
4 in 100 million in the bloodstream and stem cells had concentrated around
Frank's femur break.  Thelma had several concentrations in some very small
areas which we discovered to be old scars.
   Interestingly, they both showed increased concentration in all their
joints, especially in the legs, hips and spinal column.  In hindsight, it
made sense.  Years of walking and standing had worn down and compressed the
cartilage as well as some of the bone in the hip joints.
   Hell, lookin' great so far!  Both had several tooth extractions and a
couple root canals.  They had dental bridges for most of the extractions
except for the wisdom teeth.  Thelma still had her wisdoms while Frank had
all his out.  So far, there was a minor concentration increase around a
couple of the roots which seemed to be restoring the jawbones.
   Both had touches of arthritis in a couple joints (depository illness).
Each site had stem cells swarming and removing the deposits.  Yes!
   Frank was circumcised; no increase in concentration around there. 
Thelma said she'd had a good-sized hymen some forty years before; she'd had
it and her inner labia trimmed up twenty years ago.  The scar tissue was
still there with the expected higher concentration of stem cells around it.
   Damn, this was working fast!  Every scar they had showed a high
concentration.  So far our theories had panned out.
   So far, so good.  We ensured they understood to eat and drink a lot and
to take the massive vitamin and mineral supplements we'd prescribed.  After
a final injunction to report immediately any unusual symptoms we turned
them loose until tomorrow.
   ------
   KATHLEEN (Sunday 5/21)
   The entire JRD Executive Council plus all the ones of us and our lone
Sensitive gathered in the JRD conference room at 10:00 for Sean's seminar.
Mario set up his laptop to tap into our server if we needed it.
   Dayum!  Sean turned us upside down within a half hour!  We got an
agreement to write up our study technology and develop a check-sheet --
royalty proceeds go to the Clann.
   We got into organization.  Shit, what did JRD produce?  Why would our
companies bother to work with us?  Ownership wasn't really a basic reason
for them to cooperate; they could just quit if they didn't like what we
were doing.  How does ownership confer any privileges beyond the legal
ones? It was a great examination of the basics of being an entrepreneur.
   As examples, Sean worked on JRD and a couple of our companies.  Who or
what were the publics?  Beware of what you promise, deliver what you
promise and ensure you can deliver even more before you promise it.
   Advertising and promotion.  Treasury/financial activities -- does a
company pay a vendor's bill immediately after it comes in?  What payment
terms do you set up?  Is it worth your while financially to pay after 30
days or whenever?  What would you do with the money in the meantime?
   We ended up questioning almost every aspect of JRD's organization and
operation.  Then, those same questions started overflowing into Vail, JRD
Recording and the other companies we'd audited -- plus the rest as we got
to them.
   He told us, "Feelling uncomfortable now?  You'd better be feeling really
antsy.  There's tons of businesses run by MBAs from Harvard Business School
which fail every year.  Truth is what works.
   "That's not to say there's no truth in Harvard Business School
teachings. I'd say there's a fifty-fifty split between having a workable
business technology and applying it.  There's thousands of ways to do
anything wrong but only a few ways to do it right.  What's right for you?
Right or truth is what works consistently.
   "If it doesn't work consistently, your policies are probably too
detailed and run over into processes and procedures.  What we've gone over
are policies; they're the rules of the game, and you've gotta *think* with
them.  Get your policies right for your basic organization and operations
then the processes and procedures -- the application -- have a fighting
chance of working.
   "If your people see the policies, processes and procedures *working*,
they're much more agreeable to follow them.  If they're willing to follow
them, you or the company can spend it's time tweaking in the operations
rather than getting compliance.
   "Especially in manufacturing organizations, there's lots of very
valuable methodologies such as Lean Engineering, Just in Time, Six Sigma,
Supply Chain Management and the like which enable you to develop the
efficiencies.  You can pick and choose what works the best for each
particular company.
   "Now, as JRD Executives, you can get the correct policies, processes and
procedures into JRD.  Once you have them implemented and can see they're
working there, you'll have the confidence and knowledge the policies work,
and you can spread them to your sub-companies.
   "The way I've been working in my companies is to get the policies known
and understood then develop or modify the processes and procedures to
implement them.  Since part of that is providing metrics or measurements,
once it's running fairly decently, all I have to do is let Kate, Eileen or
Margie look at the statistics several times a week while I sit back with my
bowler and enjoy watching them.
   "When JRD can do that with a company, you've got it whipped.  Let it run
fast flow.  If something isn't broke, don't fix it from above; the
company's internal processes and procedures should be able to do the
correction as part of the normal feedback.  If they don't, have them modify
the process or procedure so they *are* self-correcting.
   "The Donovans and O'Banains have worked for over fifteen years to get
JRD where it is today.  Work a little longer getting things consistently
right, and you'll all pretty much be able to have an all-day office party
several times a week.  You can sit back, inspect the statistics, let it rip
and have a high level of confidence it's operating properly -- which
usually means profitably."
   ------
   BOB
   Em, uncomfortable is a mild term.  Yeh, we'd thought we were in pretty
good shape overall, but this really will make us take hard looks both at
what we and our companies have been measuring and reporting.  We're gonna
have some discussions about this, you betcha!
   Anyway, as Sean's gang was packing things up, he asked me if we'd found
or developed any training, exercise routines or katas mainly to groove in
and help speed up the body controls either during childhood and adolescence
or as adults.
   Well, no.  I hadn't heard anything.  Sounded like a great "I've been
thinking" question for the gang at the Monday meeting.  I'd been doing
stretching and practicing during physical work but didn't really have a
formal routine to optimize the interaction between me as a spirit and my
body.
   Several of us (the Hat Ladies, Sean, Madeleine and Dermot, the Baxters
-- including George -- along with Kat, Mario, Sherry and me) ended up at
the Altadena Arms for an on-Sean dinner.  The Altadena Arms was the first
major business Sean (and his sisters) had developed and apparently was
running really well.
   We talked quite a bit during dinner about the seminar and repercussions
on an organization.  Sean told us, "You've got at least some control now
over your companies.  They probably aren't rejecting or ignoring you
completely right now, so you're doing at least some things on the right
track.
   "It should be fairly straightforward to get JRD itself onto these
policies since you've got everyone right there, and there's relatively few
of you.  As for the rest, I'd do what you're doing now.  Get a preliminary
assessment, clean up the dangerous current operations if needed and let
them run.
   "If they're profitable to pretty much any degree, don't try to go in and
change everything all at once; gradients and step-by-step are the key. 
Each company will be different.  You'll have to pick the policies to
implement starting probably with either the most important financially or
the ones which would have a reasonable impact on their efficiency with a
reasonably small impact on the people.
   "It's not that people resist change itself; if you were going to pay a
person a third more after taxes, it's a change.  Would they resist it? 
Probably not.  It's the uncertainty about a change which makes them resist.
   "Proper implementation or changes in policies, processes and procedures
include training people and getting their acceptance that it'll be
beneficial to them.  You might run into serfdoms, turf wars and the like
where a guy didn't want to change because he has a vested interest in
having things the way they are no matter how destructive, inefficient or
non-profitable.  After you work with someone a bit, you'll have a pretty
good idea if they're willing; of course, a quick _inspection_ will also
give you their buttons.
   "Use 'my way or the highway' as the final handling.  While we cultivate,
train and work with our people because they're valuable resources, the
company isn't run for their benefit; it's run for your benefit because you
own it.  Yes, you'll run into people who are knowingly working to undermine
the system to their benefit or because they're hiding stuff they've done.
Your audits and probes can ferret it out in pretty short order."
   After dinner, Sean gave us a quick tour of the hotel.  Eileen pointed
out a lot of The Book points which might not be obvious.  It was an
excellent practical example.
   Sean told us about promoting the restaurant to get general public in. 
The food and service had been good; the prices were actually quite
reasonable even if Sean had paid for everything.  He pointed out we might
find areas in our companies we could offer to the public beyond the entire
company's products.
   "Your JRD Recording does that, actually, with its Family and Friends
policies and equipment rentals.  Profitability may or may not have much to
do with it."
   Back home, we got quick showers and chatted a few minutes.  We passed
down the study technology check-sheet project to PVC and their crew since
they'd taught it the most recently.  An offer of a $500 bonus to each of
them didn't hurt either.
   ------
   ANA (Sunday 5/21)
   We checked out Frank and Thelma in the early afternoon.  Their stem-cell
concentration was up to 100 in a 100 million, just like we'd hoped and
expected.  Bone, cartilage and scar tissue replacement was progressing at
the expected speed.  The arthritic deposits were being swept away and the
joints repaired.  Even the plaque in their heart veins was being removed.
   No unusual sensations or pains except for a couple small bouts of
diarrhea from dumping waste materials and toxins.  We increased their fiber
intake to help purge the gut.
   Frank had an appendectomy 20 years ago; it was being regenerated right
along with everything else.
   Thelma told us, "We've been 'careful' not to make decisions about where
this was taking us.  Hopefully it will keep that little factor a
non-issue."
   Yeh.  We did a really thorough check on their teeth.  Frank had an old
root canal which was a little iffy; the roots were loose.  The stem cells
were filling in and strengthening the joint.
   Thelma had two side-by-side extractions she had covered with a bridge.
It was 20 years old and the jawbone underneath was getting a few touch-ups.
   Since neither Frank's foreskin nor Thelma's trimmed hymen were being
regenerated, we concluded regeneration probably was on a body-age basis. 
Foreskins and hymens were young-body items which led us to believe teeth
were the same.  Once the adult teeth came in -- body-age based -- they were
on their own.
   Her inner labia, though, were regrowing.  Guess that's genetics and they
were "supposed" to be that way no matter what her age.  Okay, as an
experiment, we had her make a decision they wouldn't grow back.
   Now, could we replace extracted teeth?  The seven of us took some hard
_looks_ at several dozen people who were starting teeth (infants) or were
getting in their adult teeth.  Each started with a "bud" of some sort.
   Okay.  Let's get a couple buds started with Thelma.  Karen ported
several tooth nerve cells from her existing teeth onto the surface of one
site and nerve and bone cells onto the other site.
   Yes!  Within ten minutes, the stem cells were flocking around doing
"their thing!" Now let's see what happened.
   Sam pointed out, "If a tooth is too far gone or we need to get rid of
some wisdom teeth, we could probably get a pretty painless and stress-free
extraction by numbing the nerves with a _touch_ then porting out the tooth
and roots.  No pulling or tearing stress.
   "On the other hand, if it's an adult tooth we'd like to keep, instead of
a root canal, the stem cells might regenerate and repair it.  A broken
crown or upper tooth probably won't be touched since there's no way for the
stem cells to get to the upper part without blood circulation."
   Sounded good to us.  We kept our copious notes and scheduled a quick
progress meeting for Monday afternoon.
   Chapter 4
   ANA (Monday 5/22)
   We had a progress meeting right after Mary and Sam got home from school.
Frank and Thelma still reported no unexpected ill effects.  A Real Good
Thing.
   Thelma's tooth buds were being regenerated at the expected speed.  She
told us there was a bit of stress or pressure in the areas but no pain or
other discomfort.
   The site with only the nerve cells was getting bone regrown.  The other
with both nerve and bone cell seeding was already ahead since there were
bone cells already there.  Good.  That meant we could port nerve and bone
cells to the proper place and let it rip.  Now, we'd see if the proper
size, shape and type of tooth would grow.
   We figured it would be a week or so before we could tell if the tooth
replacements were effective.  Since everything else was going as expected,
we decided to do quick daily checks and let the clinical trial run.
   Thelma's inner labia had ceased being regenerated; only the scar tissue
had been replaced.  Looks as if the mind and spirit can override the
stem-cell regeneration.  That told us we could maintain cosmetic surgery
results if they were desirable.
   Now, since we had "nothing to do," we started planning the toxin purging
and disease-removal experiments.  Part of the experiment would include
pre-built defenses.
   We spent the rest of the afternoon until Clann Meeting time discussing
and planning the experiments.  For the purging and removal, we set up
experiments for both search and destroy missions and filtering both with
and without stem cells.  We decided to start tomorrow; I'd order a few more
supplies and animals in the morning.
   ------
   KATHLEEN (Monday 5/22)
   Right after school Monday, I got with Sherry, Ana and Elizabeth.  We had
a wedding to plan!  While money was no object, actually, I didn't want
something so godawful fancy it would take forever to put together and so
formal it would make the guests feel uncomfortable.
   First thing was who to invite.  The first couple lists were pretty
simple: the entire Clann Reynolds (and families), Clanns Way and Fuerte,
and the Cullen Core, the McCambridge staff, Bob's brother Bill (from
northern California), his grandparents from Ohio and all the Reynolds
Construction people and families.  That was about 300 so far.  Then we
added onesies and twosies like the Reynolds' family lawyer, several people
they used as subcontractors and people like that.  We ended up with 350
names.
All righty, then!  We decided on pretty standard wedding invitation
wording; since we had a fair amount of Irish, it was to be an Irish
wedding. We added a couple phrases in Irish to the effect we wouldn't be
going totally overboard; the ceremony would be in English.  Grin.
   What the hell, we'd order 600 invitations.  I could toss the extras in
my memorabilia drawer.
   The next things to settle were where to have the ceremony and the
reception/party.  The Reynolds' house was too small; the best it could do
was 75.  Sherry suggested, "JRD Properties found us the house pretty quick.
Maybe they can do this, too."
   Brilliant idea.  Why should we do all that work when we've got
professionals to do it?  Right onto my To Do List.
   ------
   BOB
   At Clann Meeting, Frank and Thelma were walking around in excellent
spirits (wall-to-wall grins) so it probably meant the initial stem-cell
trial hadn't been immediately fatal.  Good.
   Blake announced his and Louise's wedding was scheduled for June 10. 
"Right in the middle between Sean and Eileen's and Bob and Kat's. 
Invitations are going out ASAP -- by the way, you are *all* invited.  No
rest for anyone for three weeks." They got a long round of cheers and
applause.
   Ana gave us an update on the clinical trial.  Results so far were both
as-expected and remarkable.  "We started a trial on regrowing extracted
teeth.  So far, it's progressing just like something being regenerated;
time will tell, but it looks really good.  We've got some ideas on fairly
painless dentistry if it comes to it, so that's another area we'll research
as needed."
   She went into another subject.  She talked about my last "I've been
thinking" about the apparent physical health and body optimization I'd
noticed.  "These are the results of decisions the individuals made.  In my
case, I decided my boobs would be higher and tight like I was twenty-five
again.  The body changed.  We girls know about _touching_ our tits for
support and presentation; these changes are in addition to our decisions.
   "We could probably get our bodies to grow or change our breasts to do
that 'naturally.' It's a possibility.  Megan, do you mind standing up and
showing us your chest?"
   She didn't mind at all.  In fact, she stood on a chair, pulled off her
shirt and displayed her boobs to everyone; we'd seen them at the pool party
but didn't mind admiring them again.  "I could wear a training bra but
screw it.  They're maybe triple-As, but I'm happy with them."
   There was an unidentifiable comment (probably from Cynthia), _"Several
of us are *very* happy with them -- and other body parts."_
   Got a laugh.  It took five people to persuade Megan to sit back down.
   Ana continued, "So, that's a viable technology to control our bodies. 
Megan could probably grow a set of triple-Ds if she wished.  Now, is it
desirable?  That's an entirely different question.  Cynthia used _touches_
to 'grow' big boobs for St.  Patrick's Day.  Even though they were very
realistic, the entire school knew they were fake.
   "What would happen if several of our school-aged girls grew tremongous
tits that stood up to inspection during the PE showers?  Not
Maggie-McLennan-type boobs but real flesh?  Pretty much the entire school
knows the girls well, and they'd attract a lot of attention.  Might be okay
for a while, but someone's gonna make the connection between that, the
Inner Circle then the Clann.
   "That'd be a great story for the rag mags; right up their alley.  It
would be *unwelcome* attention of the wrong kind.  So, if you don't want
Ceann Bob to beat your bare butts, be very wary of growing big dicks or
humongous boobs.
   "Think before you decide.  We do live in a social environment of
mundanes whose major 'joy' is to attack, ridicule, investigate or stop
anything they don't understand."
   Yeh.  I told them I'd been doing some exercises to toughen up my hands
just so I could be more effective at beating butts.  Somehow I didn't think
they really believed me even though they appeared to take Ana's advice to
heart.
   I got the usual response to Sean's "I've been thinking..." even though I
told them it was Sean who'd been thinking.  Aileen said, "It's probably a
Ceann thing.  They think; we work." Lots of laughs, so I don't think anyone
was serious.
   Anyway, I told them, "Y'all know George and Maggie.  You've all been
exposed to their 'issues' with developing controls over their bodies;
apparently quite a lot of the nerves, muscles, bone and other structures
still aren't developed enough to operate as we expect them to do as older
children or adults.
   "We've all either suffered through or are in or are going to be in
puberty.  That's another time we tend to loose some control over our bodies
since they're growing and changing so fast.
   "Maggie's been doing some fairly formal exercises every couple days to
enable her to take control of her body as fast as possible.  I'll let her
talk about what's going on."
   Maggie sat on Sean's head while she _talked_.  _"As Bob said, infants
like George and me go through years of learning to control the body as it
develops.  Most of you can probably remember some of the trials you went
through both as an infant then later during puberty.  A mundane probably
wouldn't even be aware of the capabilities; they wouldn't know about the
spirit, the mind as a spirit-body interface which we talk about as
'controls' then the body as a separate 'thing.'_
   _"We infant returnees are a different breed, so to speak, as well as
prepubescent returnees such as Dermot.  We're aware of ourselves as spirits
as distinct from the body and have an expectation of being able to control
the body.  Since I'm so eager to become a rug rat, a curtain climber then a
standard kid-terror, I've been working on my controls every couple days._
   _"Sean told us he's been the Clan Cullen Ceann many times over the last
several thousand years and remembers many exercises they used to do, mainly
to prepare for battle.  We probably don't have to prepare for all-out war,
but they might well have a use._
   _"We can all probably think of several scenarios where we could use our
spiritual abilities with touches to paralyze someone temporarily or have
our body shields protect us.  On the other hand, in public with mundane
observers, we'd be pretty hard-pressed to explain why an attacker had a
sudden attack of the clumsies or a paralyzed arm._
   _"Once or twice we could get away with it before someone started
correlating these 'incidents' with one of the Clanns.  Unwelcome attention.
We need an explainable way of defending ourselves in public.  It could be a
martial art such as Karate or Judo._
   _"I'd say something like the Israeli Krav Maga would be even better. 
It's not an 'art,' it's a practical methodology of fighting which
emphasizes neutralizing an opponent as fast and efficiently as possible. 
Even kick 'em while they're down so they don't get up and attack again._
   _"It's a lot easier to explain and show you've learned some Krav Maga
than to attract the unwelcome attention.  Megan's got at least six years of
public school left.  Dermot, George and I might have 13 years ahead of us;
all very public._
   _"So, the question to you folk is quite simple.  Do you know of,
remember or have access to any physical training routines, katas or other
methodologies that would help each of us to a) control our bodies as fast
and easy as possible during all body ages and/or b) defend ourselves
physically in public?"_
   I took it from there.  "Thanks, Maggie.  That's the question.  Now, an
additional question to go along with it.  How do we learn something like
the Krav Maga?  Do we go to an established school three nights a week for
the next year or so?  Import a specialist to train us?
   "Since we've got our own Skunk Works between Clann Cullen and Clann
Reynolds, can they develop a way of recording and playing back these
routines or skills?  Sort of a spiritual multi-media?  If we have that,
we're all excellent at duplicating and understanding pretty much anything.
   "Possibly, if we could record and play back body perceptics such as
joint and limb position and movement, muscle movement and things like that,
we could actually do this as a self-study like our teleportation
check-lists -- by the way, Maggie and others will have her final
check-sheet out in the next couple days.
   "So, it's a multi-part exercise.  Find useable methodologies to gain the
best control possible over our bodies, one or more methodologies for
physical self-defense and a way to implement them.  Go for it, guys."
   That might keep several of them out of mischief for a couple days.
   After the meeting, at least five Clann women descended on Louise with
offers to help with the wedding.  The hen clucking almost drowned out
everything else; I stayed out of it, for sure!
   Cynthia showed me the study tech checklist and material they'd
developed. "Val had most of this written up already for our Brain Trust. 
We looked it over and tweaked it a bit.  How about you, George, Kat and
Sherry eyeball it and add what you want then it should be ready to go. 
I've emailed you each a copy."
   Now that's response.  We looked it over that evening, made a tweak or so
and decided it was fine.  After emailing it to Sean, we decided some sort
of celebration was in order, so we screwed ourselves slightly silly for an
hour or so.
   ------
   KATHLEEN (Tuesday 5/23)
   We had a quick JRD Executive Council meeting early Tuesday evening.  We
found we had only ones of us and a couple Sensitives on staff in the office
so we were in really good shape, spirit-wise.  The Sensitives were aware of
the Clann and that there were other "things" beyond the abilities they
currently had.
   We were careful not to say it was forever.  For quite a while we'd
though it took a certain level of Potential to become one of us.  PVC
showed us it ain't necessarily so.
   One thing we decided to do was everyone in the office would go through
the study check-sheet.  Since it was a public document, those with families
could take it home to them if they wished.  However, we did ask they not
distribute it further right now.
   For Riona and Alyssa, we wanted to spread the check-list through their
Inner Circle and Brain Trust.  The Harvard MS Inner Circle was already
doing it through their Brain Trust.
   We mainly discussed The Book from Cullen Enterprises.  For now, we
decided to do the study check-sheet (even those who'd been in a Brain Trust
before) then each of us would do a formal study of The Book.
   Just from the seminar Sunday, we had enough issues raised to know we
needed to change our operating basis.  We didn't want just to dive in. 
After the entire Exec Council had completed the formal study, we'd look at
implementing it at JRD.
   Oh, well; we McCambridge Seniors didn't have enough to do anyway to keep
ourselves out of trouble before our finals.  We set a target completion
date for everyone to finish the formal study in two weeks -- around June 6.
   After the meeting, Barbara told Evin and me the accounting and legal
temps would be in tomorrow morning.  Mario had set up a good-sized
conference room with networked systems, a couple printers, admin supplies
and several filing cabinets.  He'd slipped in a coffee service setup;
apparently some people like that stuff!
   ------
   BOB (Wednesday 5/24)
   Brenda Quinn, our (Reynolds') family lawyer gave me a call; she'd been
our lawyer since before Mother and Father were married.  She told me, "Bob,
Evin Donovan called me to work on a prenuptial agreement for you and
Kathleen.  Do you want me to represent you?"
   I told her, "Sure.  We've got no adversarial positions or vested
interests.  Since she's JRD's majority owner, we need to have everything
crystal clear."
   "Good.  One thing we'll need is a net worth analysis for you.  Is it
okay to have the Reynolds Construction accountant work with me to get
that?"
   "Fine by me; check with Mother for a final approval.  Make sure all of
you bill your time to me; this sure isn't Reynolds Construction business."
   She laughed and said, "Maybe, maybe not.  You and Bill are your parents'
beneficiaries so we'll have to factor in a future net worth.  If they die
before any time periods in the prenuptial expire, it's probably going to be
yours.  So, we need to cover that, too.  In any case, the accountant has
the balance sheet along with projections, so that's a done deal already."
   Shit.  Wheels within wheels, legs and branches all over.  Here I thought
graduating from McCambridge and getting married were the most things I had
to deal with.  Oh, well.
   ------
   KATHLEEN (Thursday 5/25)
   In the evening, a bunch of us girls got together at Louise's to help her
with her wedding.  Eileen ported in, too.  She had "extra" wedding dresses,
but they were all too large for Louise.  Darn, guess we gotta do some
shopping.
   Eileen had an emerald set for her wedding, and I had Ronnad's bridal
diamonds so we weren't gonna loan them out.  I had lots of jewelry left,
though, so I dug through the safe deposit box and ported out anything which
was already set.
   We had a grand time looking them over.  We finally agreed on a
medium-size necklace, earrings, bracelets and garters -- all diamonds. 
Eileen and I agreed privately both the emeralds and my diamond set would
have been too large for her so it all worked out.
   JRD Properties had come through.  They'd found a couple places in
Burbank, Glendale and North Hollywood.  We girls took a quick look-see at
them; the one in Glendale looked the best.  It was an old Masonic Temple
they'd sold to move into bigger quarters.  JRD Properties had bought it
outright a couple weeks ago.
   It had plenty of parking, a few large meeting rooms, an actual ballroom
and a large kitchen.  I offered it to Louise for the 10th; I'd use it the
next weekend.  I lied a lot to her about how much it would cost for the
day. No one thought having two weddings a week apart at the same place was
any issue.
   I was having the caterer JRD usually used do mine.  They were a decent
price and were available on the 10th too, so that was one more issue
handled for Louise.
   Since Eileen and I had just done our wedding invitations, we trotted out
our samples.  Using them as models, we made up one for Louise which made
everyone happy.  No Irish on hers, she wasn't Irish even by injection --
that we knew of.
   When Louise had been married the first time, they'd just gone before the
County Clerk.  One of the Clann Cullen members was a Justice of the Peace.
We called her; she was more than happy to accommodate all three weddings!
   That mainly left a wedding dress for Louise.  While it was short notice,
there were plenty of bridal stores around; a couple thousand bucks under
the table would give us quick service.
   ------
   BOB (Friday 5/26)
   We got our wedding invitations from the printer.  They looked fine to
me; the girls looked them over real hard.  For some reason, they seemed to
be important.  Me, I would have sent out emails.  Grin
   Sean had emailed me his handwriting font; it looked great on Eileen's
invitations.  We did the same thing.  As a pre-wedding gift, George had
built up a database of all the names and addresses for the invitations;
we'd use them for both weddings.
   It took about an hour to hand-feed the invitations through the printer.
As the first ones rolled out, we started an all-hands stuffing into
envelopes.  The ladies loved it; Mario and I just kept our mouths shut and
our hands busy.
   Put on the stamps then stack them up.  We ended up with 354.  Should be
an interesting party.  I ported them to the post office outgoing mail box.
I was *not* gonna hand carry them down.
   While the girls did more wedding planning -- something about the exact
shade of the lace under the centerpieces -- Mario and I quietly slipped
outside by the pool.  He was grinning so I told him, "Just you wait, Mr. 
Castillo.  Your turn is coming soon."
   He groaned a little and said, "Yeh.  I know.  I'm sure Sherry and I are
gonna do the deed; I'm just holding off a bit until there's not so much
happening."
   It was my turn to grin.  "And when will that be?  From the looks of it,
even after we're out of school, Kat and I'll probably be gone most of the
summer.  That'll leave you with the rest of the Exec Council to develop
plans for the Cullen policy implementations and any company upgrades
needed. I don't think you'll escape much."
   "Oops.  Guess it'll be a while yet, then.  Somehow I think Sherry's not
gonna wait for the couple years it'll take to get things settled in
everywhere.  She hasn't started dropping any hints yet, but I'd better get
my act together or we're gonna have to build a good-sized dog house over by
the pool pump."
   "You got it, Toyota!  I'm sure Ana or my mother will help you choose a
ring and plot with you how to ask."
   "Maybe I'll propose before you guys leave after your wedding.  Kat would
skin me alive if she wasn't there to help trap her.  Besides, Ana and
Elizabeth will still be warmed up from doing your and Louise's weddings and
could get their hands right into ours.  Sherry's mom is somewhat shy so I
know she would appreciate the help."
   ------
   KATHLEEN
   The Skunk Works had done a final polish on the teleportation
check-sheet. Apparently Maggie's pilot with Sean and his ladies had been a
complete success.
   Mario made up copies for the office and ported copies to the entire
Clanns Reynolds, Way and Fuerte.  Checking them over, they seemed
wonderful! With a direct comparison of any angular momentum vector and the
required force to add or subtract, the entire thing was a bit like a
sneeze. A breath in to set up the touches and scope out the volume then a
sharp sneeze to push the object across.
   Just like a slippery watermelon seed between your fingers, it was done.
Jaysus, our original technique took about a second to complete; this was
pretty much a done deal in 250 milliseconds or less.
   We all started running through the check-sheet.  Maggie told us she
expected us experienced folk could run through it in maybe four hours.
   The legal and accounting temps were going great guns on the stuff we'd
found.  Siobhan said they worked hard and weren't causing any disruption in
the office.
   Dermot remarked to me he and George had to hold things down because they
were there, "Playing tag under the ceiling wouldn't be a good idea."
   Mario'd gotten almost all the server and private J&R files distributed
to various people.  Apparently there were a lot of notes on the various
companies as well as some ideas on how to improve operations.
   There were several lists of properties, lots of account statements from
the various funds and other interesting stuff.  Well, that's why the temps
were here.
   I gave Mario a $20K check as a bonus for doing all that.  I waved my
ring at him and said, "Might have enough now for a little goody for the
little lady, right?"
   He grinned.  "Bob already nailed me on that.  I'm gonna get with Ana and
Elizabeth to help me out."
   Good on him!
   Friday evening, I talked with Ben Talbert.  He was with our process and
documentation team which was doing several JRD companies; he'd spent a day
with Cullen Enterprises doing a work-up on their documentation.
   He was a rare one.  He was fully outside and aware but hadn't had a
partner or anyone else to stimulate him directly.  From the short talk I
had with him, P&V's little joy-blast had been enough to get him over the
excitation-energy hump.
   Anyway, he lived in Sylmar and the team had their office in Toluca Lake
so Clann Reynolds was a better fit than Clann Cullen in Altadena.  Monday
was Memorial Day with no formal Clann meeting, but we were having a party
at our place.  Let's just throw him in and see how it works out.
   He laughed when I told him it was clothing-optional.  He said, "I might
be able to handle it.  Worst anyone can do is laugh at me, and I don't
worry about that."
   I gave him directions; he should have an interesting time.
   ------
   ANA
   Frank and Thelma were doing great.  Friday morning's checkup showed one
hell of a change since it started.  Frank's bone break was almost
completely regenerated and the muscles had regained their original (or at
least equivalent) mass.
   Both had lots of new/replaced growth in their joints.  Thelma laughed
and told us, "I can damn near get my ankles by my ears.  That's quite
useful."
   Her new teeth were probably halfway up to the gum surface.  We told her
to go ahead and numb up the gum as needed and showed her which nerves
carried the pain.
   Lots of their small scars were completely gone; Thelma's stretch marks
had completely vanished.  Their skin hadn't regenerated as such to "baby"
skin but was smoothing out; they both lost blemishes caused by years of sun
exposure.  Frank's appendix was almost completely rebuilt.  Lookin' good!
   Each had developed some hemorrhoids in the past; they're an occupational
hazard for cops and for women during childbirth.  Swarms of stem cells were
repairing them all.  Pretty soon they'll both be perfect arseholes!  Grin.
   The toxin and disease purging was a different story.  There was plenty
of literature on detoxification, especially on the laymen's market. 
Disease, of course, was usually handled with specifics drugs or
antibiotics. We did a lot of speed reading in the Golds' library and
ordered several thousand dollars worth of books and other literature on
various "guaranteed" systems we'd found on the Internet.
   Guess it broke down into two parts; detection and removal.  Prevention
was one thing, that's what vaccinations, antibodies, diet, supplements and
lifestyles do; cures were what we were looking for.
   General toxins from environmental poisons -- smog and the like -- were
fairly straightforward.  Both the Golds and I had been using lemonade with
cayenne pepper and maple syrup to release and purge general toxins for
years.  We pretty much knew it worked and why.
   We were looking to remove more specific toxins such as heavy metal
deposits like mercury, lead, arsenic and the like, including bad
cholesterol.  Most were pretty tenacious and the lemonade purge didn't
handle it all.
   The detection could be fairly easy, but we had to be careful.  We could
detect a normal, desired antibody and call it a toxin or disease!  Not what
we wanted.
   The CDC and other mainstream labs could detect and identify viral or
bacterial diseases very efficiently.  Some, like the flu, had well-known
symptoms pointing right to them.  To start with, we added another list to
our STD health check to detect the heavy metals, high cholesterol and
"standard" bacterial and viral infections.
   We added a list of "expect to find" items, too, such as minerals,
vitamins and the like.  If they were too low, we could go from there and
use supplements or diet to bring them up.
   Okay.  Once we identified a problem we could a) use a known specific
drug or treatment, b) do a search and destroy mission with _touches_ and
the like or c) filter the bloodstream to remove the undesired elements.
   The liver is designed to do drug metabolism (break down and remove
toxins and medical drugs), immunological effects and other functions.  The
hepatic artery is the major input to the liver; we could set up an
additional filtration for specific chemicals, bacteria and viruses there
and perhaps in the superior and inferior vena cavae just before the heart.
   For bloodstream-spread stuff, that should work fine and was the majority
of the issues we were looking at.  However, something already in place in
the cells like genital herpes wasn't really filterable.
   We needed a search and destroy to handle those.  Once detected, one
could either port it out or kill it with a _touch_ and let the body flush
out the remains.  We needed to take care with it; doing major ports might
leave undesirable voids in the body and killing too much at once might well
overload the body's waste-removal functions.
   Since the search and destroy was very similar to the DNA replacement
we'd become familiar with, it probably wouldn't be an issue.  We could do
several passes over several days or weeks to allow the body to heal itself
between times.
   The filtration was a new technique, though.  We figured it would
probably be a variation of the body shield's capability to filter
ultraviolet.  At Karen's suggestion, we turned the idea over to the Skunk
Works to develop a general-purpose filter (both air and fluid like blood or
water) capable of being fine-tuned to any specific match.  For things such
as flu variants, it would could be more loosely tuned.
   Okay, that was the theory.  For general detoxification, use the lemonade
purge along with other things we might find, and let the body's natural
functions handle stuff.  That would be for long-term threats or conditions.
For short-term or life-threatening conditions (biological warfare, etc.)
use a filter, search and destroy or a combination.
   We decided some things were beyond our control right now.  Virulent
poisons like mustard gas or neurotoxins simply acted too fast to remove
before they damaged the body, usually fatally.  We'd have to prevent rather
than cure -- if feasible or possible.
   Okay.  We did more experiment designing and waited for more of our
literature to come in.
   ------
   BOB (Saturday 5/27)
   We were spending the late morning and afternoon at Olive Tree Lane with
Sean and harem.  Mario was setting up an email Exchange server for Cullen
Enterprises so he'd already be there.
   We ported over right at 11:00; Maggie had already programmed us into the
house shields.  Sean, Eileen and Kate were ready for us; she introduced us
to Sheila Llanos who was handling Eileen's investments.  Turned out Mario
was already one of her clients.
   Sheila was getting ready to pop; Eileen told us, _"Probably tomorrow."_
Anyway, we rattled back and forth in Spanish.  She barely raised an eyebrow
at our Irish/Spanish accents.
   Anyway, she had other appointments that afternoon so she took off.  Kat,
Sherry and I looked around the back yard then peeled everything off. 
Sherry mentioned pumping in infrared energy if the air got too chilly.
   Sean, Eileen and Kate peeled down too.  Sean and I waved at the girls
while they pointed at us with their nipples.  Things settled down after a
bit.
   We talked a bit about the Clann Cullen young-uns setting up a Brain
Trust in their elementary school.  PVC and the Harvard crew were with them
today along with George and Dermot to get some training on how we'd done
ours.
   I remarked about hoping our crew didn't corrupt theirs too much.  Kate
laughed and told us, "Dermot does have some interesting, em, things to show
them.  Val and Mona are probably big enough; I don't know about the rest.
Besides, if you want to talk about corrupting influences, I'll put Margie
up against the best of them.  She's got a *dirty* mind.  Fun but dirty."
   Anyway, a quick _peek_ showed us they were well into their Butterfly
Game.  What the heck, none of them was reluctant, and they did seem to be
having a really good time.  I knew Maggie was inside with Mario so my
people were somewhat safe from real corruption.  Grin.
   ------
   We had a pretty long talk about The Book and subsequent possible
actions. The JRD crew still had over a week to go before we all finished
studying it.  The McCambridge folk were pretty fast since we had the study
tech down already but several of the rest had needed to spend an extra day
doing the study check-list.
   Despite that, everyone was on target.  We were tentatively planning on
doing the Administrative Scale and Organizing Board Workshops after the
initial study was over.
   Sean thought it was a decent idea.  He suggested we skim the detail
manuals mainly to ensure we had a good idea what was in them.  He'd have a
revised and reformatted set up on his web site Real Soon Now.
   If we spotted something we thought had to get in really fast, we could
do a formal study of that part, plan it out and implement it.  He cautioned
us again about trying to get everything in all at once.
   As for getting The Book etc.  into the sub-companies, he suggested we
take a look at finding and training several JRD people to deliver the
training and do the implementations.  He told us, "Cullen Enterprises will
have plenty to do delivering seminars to the general public."
   Made sense.  We could simply pay Cullen Enterprises royalties on the
actual The Book distribution.  There were several Seniors in the
McCambridge Brain Trust who were graduating; maybe they'd be interested. 
That went on the immediate To Do List for Tuesday when we got back to
school.
   Apparently Mario and Maggie were done with their magic because they came
outside.  Maggie was riding his shoulders like a horse and steering with
his ears.
   They took one look at our "condition" and their clothes flew off, too.
Mario sat down and Maggie dropped in his lap with her cuties in full bloom
(looked yummy!).  She said, _"Goody.  Now I've got an airplane to fly."_
Grabbing Mario's control stick between her legs, she practiced takeoffs,
landings and various acrobatics while Mario groaned.  Dirty old lady is
right.
   She took pity on him before he took off, though.  She put her body to
sleep (her cuties stayed "alive") and joined our conversation.
   She complained how Mario had made her work so hard that morning.  We
sympathized with her for a little bit but not much.
   Mario assured us she did just fine.  They'd set up Exchange like they'd
planned.  The entire Clann Cullen Core had email addresses and passwords to
get in through the Internet.  He told us he had the addresses so the JRD
people could forward joke emails to them.  Grin.
   Lunch was ready.  Sean had a brand-new-that-morning grill which worked
perfectly.  Great steak, salad and the rest of the fixings.  We didn't want
them to have to make room in their refrigerator for leftovers so we stuffed
ourselves.  Yum.
   We talked while we ate of course; we never let eating slow us down.  I
told them most of the Clann Reynolds were running through the new
teleportation check-list; we four were planning on starting it tonight.
   Sean told us he figured the old hands like us could get through it in 4
or 5 hours.  Experience does count.
   We talked about the physical training routines, self-defence and
record/playback.  I told them, "Our part of the Skunk Works are working on
it.  I've heard some rumors things are going fine.  The physical routines
appear to be 'best practices' of a lot of areas so Ana and the Golds are
pretty heavily involved with it."
   They appeared to be talking Krav Maga for the self-defense end.  No need
to re-invent the wheel.  Apparently there was some progress on the
record/playback end.
   I suggest Maggie get involved pretty quick.  Kat suggested, "Maybe Kate
should hang around them a little, too.  She always seems to ask some
interesting questions."
   Kate pinked up a little and protested, "I don't know enough about a lot
of it to ask smart questions so I stick with the dumb ones."
   Eileen told us she'd asked the right dumb questions and had gotten
several "Soo Laids" on her account.  A Soo Laid was very interesting; my
social secretaries made mental notes -- apparently they thought it was
something I would be involved with.
   Sean told us how Kate had set up firewalls and body shields in their
cars with cactus plants.  Oh, yeh.  Made total sense, after the fact.
   Mario offered, "Well, since all we need is some bit of life, how about
your safe deposit boxes and storage areas?  Drop several packets of garden
seeds of some sort in each one and hook in.  They're alive but dormant and
don't need fresh air, water or light."
   Sherry and Kat immediately voted him a Soo Laid!
   The ladies chatted about wedding stuff, finding men for some single
ladies and stuff like that.  Mario, Sean and I semi-tuned them out and
talked other stuff.
   We'd been eyeballing their Jacuzzi so Kate suggested we hop in.  Maggie
showed us the water-warming technique (Kate had asked a dumb question) and
we hopped in.
   Nice.  Sean hit a switch somewhere and turned on the pulsating water
jets.  Two "just happened" to be right under Kat and Sherry who promptly
shot themselves right out of the water with their shields flaring up.
   Maggie cackled, _"We've gotten pretty much everyone with that one. 
They're a *lot* stronger than the ones at your place.  We have to drag our
young-uns out they spend so much time perched on them."_
   We settled down and let the bubbles and jets work.  Sean cooked up some
hamburgers and hot dogs which we promptly devoured.  Ceann-talk is hard
work!
   Later, Eileen and Kate brought out cherry cheesecake and ice cream.  I
just knew their refrigerator would be overcrowded so I did my share to
ensure there were no leftovers.
   This kind of stuff Maggie could eat.  She had half a dozen or so teeth
but they were all in front so she couldn't actually chew.  Cheesecake and
ice cream don't need chewing.  She made a credible mess over her high
chair, face and titties; somehow it all went away after a while without
anyone lifting a finger.
   We finally got out of the Jacuzzi and rinsed off with their
Pappa-Sonora-built outside shower.  After dressing, Kate and Eileen gave us
the quick tour.  "This was Maggie's place for a good 50 years.  She and her
late husband bought it new, kept it up then Sean, Pappa Sonora and his gang
renoed it a little."
   We ended up in the den where Maggie showed off the office.  The Clann's
web site was neat; Sean looked like he'd just gotten laid.  With a title
of, "Do you know this man?" I'd bet he'd get lots of attention.
   We took a quick virtual tour of Waystation 1 in Mesa.  We'd been hearing
some rumors, but this was the first we'd found out anything concrete.  Hmm,
very interesting and very worthwhile.
   Kat asked him if he was planning on something similar around here.  He
countered with, "When you finish The Book, you'll know what we'll be doing
to check it out."
   He told us they'd be selling off the last 10 small businesses Cullen
Enterprises owned so they could concentrate on larger projects.  Shit, he'd
developed more businesses than JRD had bought outright!  There's gotta be
viability in those policies.
   We relaxed and yakked a lot more until 9:30 or so then we bailed out
back home.
   ------
   KATHLEEN
   Didn't have much cleanup to do after we got home, not even a shower.  We
talked a little more then hit the beds early.
   Sherry and I _talked_ a few minutes then _talked_ with several other
Clann ladies.  Mario was well-fed and well-rested so we figured it was time
to work off his Soo Laid.  Don't want to build up that nasty interest on an
account!
   Riona, Alyssa, Janet and Bellana ported into our living room where
Sherry and I plotted with them a few minutes.  Bob _peeked_ at us, decided
we weren't after him and went off somewhere.
   We snuck into Mario's room; the coward was hiding in the bathroom!  We
summarily dragged him out, threw him on the bed and had our way with him
for a couple hours.
   He still got in some good licks though.  While he didn't wear us all
out, he gave a good accounting of himself.  No one counted how many times
we girls came but he managed four decent ones himself before he passed out
for the night.
   Ha!  We were just getting warmed up good.  We snuck into Bob's room; his
body was fast asleep and he was out somewhere.  We all piled on top of him
to hold him down.
   We all had entry through his body shield and knew he'd get the telemetry
to tell him someone was there.  He appeared near the ceiling a minute
later. _"Yeess?"_
   Riona said, _"Mario's worn out and we're still horny.  You're elected."_
   He tried, _"You should go see Sean Cullen.  He's the expert on doing
lots of women."_
   We didn't buy it.  We used mouths, boobs, pussies and everything else we
could think of to get a rise out of him.  Stubborn Irishman!
   He must have been waiting until we were arranged just right because he
suddenly gave a big heave, flipped up and ended up pinning all six of us
down.  "Buwahhahahaha!  Now, me proud beauties, you're under *my* power! 
Prepare to be ravished!"
   We were already prepared and the Sorcerer's Wand ravished us.  Every one
of us.  Dayum, he hit six grand slams; our bodies were so wound up we
couldn't get back inside.
   He asked plaintively, _"Now can I get some sleep?"_
   He got some sleep and so did we.  We chased Mario and him around the
solar system for a couple hours and sometimes caught up with them for some
marvelous _mergings_, kisses and _hugs_.  I think they wanted to get
caught.
   ------
   (Sunday 5/28)
   Bob and I slept in until 8:30.  Sherry, Mario and the four wimpy girls
didn't even stir for another hour.  Guess they need some training and
practicing with their SOs!
   We ran everyone through the showers; plenty of room for exploration of
lovely boobs, butts and wet pussies.  Guess they weren't entirely worn out.
   After a huge breakfast, Riona, Alyssa, Janet and Bellana ported off to
wherever.  We relaxed a few minutes then hit the teleportation check-list.
We'd planned on starting last night but something had come up.  Hehehehe.
   We didn't "breeze" through it; it was tough to get it exactly right as
the check-list called for.  But by the time we were done around 2:00 we
could *do* it.  Definitely slick and actually a lot easier than before --
plus being at least four times as fast overall.  Wonder if we could give
Maggie a Soo Laid?  At least we could put it on her account for her to
collect in a couple years.  We decided everyone in the Skunk Works would
get one.
   Birthday party in the afternoon!  Steven, Lucia and Mary all had
birthdays within a week of each other so Elizabeth hosted a joint party.
   Fifty kids from Redmond, Cabo, Burbank, North Hollywood and Altadena can
make a lot of racket -- or be very quiet when necessary.  This was Mary's
first big birthday party.  Her parents had never celebrated, just bowed to
her a couple times.
   She and Lucia had one very small party a couple years ago just with the
Sonoras.  This was pretty different!
   The Seniors and the Wild Bunch let the rest party while we kept the
buffet full and the wastebaskets empty.  Elizabeth and David, the
"chaperones," kept discretely in the background and let us handle it all.
   In just the couple weeks Mary had been at McCambridge, she'd become very
well-known.  Besides having Bob's Major Seal of Approval she was a Really
Nice Girl.  With Sam around, she hadn't been hit on too much.  Lots of the
guys hinted pleasantly at it just to flirt a little bit, but she hadn't
been tempted at all.
   I don't know if she or Sam were having any outside consensual fun and
games or Butterfly Games, but it wasn't any of our business anyway.  The
main thing was, she was happy.  One hell of a difference from just a couple
months ago.
   Lucia was having a blast, too.  While she and Bellana had had parties
before, none had this many real friends.  Last year at this time, they'd
felt lucky just to be alive and have a meal a day in their bellies.
   Steven?  He was more interested in Lucia and Mary having a good time. 
He did enjoy his gifts (tons of guy-stuff), but his attention was mainly on
his sweetie and her good friend.
   Yep, lots of dancing.  This time Steven didn't hesitate to snuggle me
right up.  We traded fun innuendos for a little while before he succumbed
to hordes of young girls (both Clann and not) more than willing to push
their boobies and mounds against him.  Caballero!
   Since there were quite a few mundanes (Brain Trust tutors and other
classmates) we held things down to a quiet roar.  No Butterfly Games!
   Things wrapped up fairly early even though tomorrow was a holiday.  Most
everyone had a party planned, including us!
   Chapter 5
   BOB (Monday 5/29)
   [Intersects with Best Girl Ch.  22]
   Party time!  Over the last couple days, we'd stocked up the pantry,
kitchen and outside refrigerator with all sorts of party stuff.  We'd
pretty much invited everyone; Clann Cullen was having their own whoop-de-do
so they wouldn't be here, but the Clanns Way and Fuerte would be here full
force along with some McCambridge and Harvard staff, lots of the Reynolds
Construction crews and several assorted family friends.
   Everyone got fair warning of the clothing-optional feature so if someone
became offended...  tough darts!
   Mario put up the UV screen to full opacity and heated up the pool to a
nice temperature (free, of course, thanks to Kate).  Since it was a bit
cool, he upped the air temperature in the back yard a couple degrees too.
   The ladies had planned so well neither Mario nor I had to make any store
runs.  Father and Donal had made a run for booze and beer so it was well
in-stock.
   Kat had bought fifty small cactus plants and lots of seed packets from
various garden stores.  We figured to give them away along with Kate's and
Mario's advice on vehicle and lockbox security.
   People started arriving right on time.  For a good half hour, the atrium
at the front was constantly full of groups porting in.  With the Skunk
Works' new teleportation check-list in pretty much full use, there was
never an issue with groups or people "colliding" with each other.
   While not everyone there was one of us (a couple of construction crew
folk and a couple teachers), not one noticed anything unusual about there
being so few cars out front or an occasional body floating around.  After
all, this was the Sorcerer's home; one could expect unusual things.
   Sherry made her now-usual speech about no copulation outside, Kate told
them about the cactus plants and seeds, and we were off to a good start.
   Most everyone lazed around and chatted, sharing news and other good
gossip.  We'd worn the edge off nudity -- mostly -- so we guys at least
were able to sit back and admire all the lovely female bodies around.
   Dayum, Megan's developed a nice chest on her -- just perfect for her
size.  Guess her decisions were cutting in hard.  We admired, pretended to
leer, and she'd bounce them for us.  Probably Kat had shown her a few
tricks.  Then again, all the girls seemed to be able to bounce boobs
because I saw quite a few quivers.  Yummy stuff.
   We had several staff both from McCambridge and Harvard.  Only two
weren't ones of us, but they all looked around and peeled down.  They
definitely weren't wearing their "school staff" hats.
   In the pelt, Rose Baer was lookin' *really* good!  She bounced her (very
nice) breasts at me, licked her lips and told me, "I've reminded your
social secretaries that in a couple weeks we won't have a student-staff
relationship any more."
   Em, yeh.  I admired the confectionary decorations on the end of those
sleek hills and said, "Four years it's been, right?  I've always had my eye
on you, sweet lady." The Sorcerer's Wand saluted her -- thought I'd gotten
it under control.
   Frank and Thelma were doing great and looking really good.  Ana told us,
"Thelma's teeth are coming in exactly as we'd hoped and her inner labia
have stopped regrowing -- in fact they 'shrunk' back where she wanted them.
That seems to handle the dental aspect and appears to tell us we can handle
desired cosmetic surgery.  All Real Good Things."
   The Skunk Works folk reported they were in the throes on Ana's
filtration system.  Henry told us, "We want to make it general-purpose to
start with.  That way, we can apply it to pretty much any media, be it gas,
liquid or solid.  We pull in Ana and the Golds every once in a while for
some questions and feedback, especially in organic chemistry.
   "Once Maggie and Kate get freed up a little more, we'll get them in to
thrash things out.  Maggie'll come up with some underneath math work
which'll unify the whole thing.  Kate'll punch holes, point out obvious
stuff we've overlooked and in general create some more break-through ideas.
We gotta get some of that cross-clann cultural exchange going!"
   Kat asked him, "How about that mind shield they all have?  They still
using it?"
   "Ho boy!  What they use is our two outer firewalls then their shield as
the third one.  Remember when we were concerned about someone getting
through the third?  Well, with their shield being completely different,
it's like it wasn't there at all -- nothing.  And, of course, nothing
inside.
   "Since it doesn't react as such, there's no counter or opposition and
the opposing or attacking thought or power simply slides around it.  Since
it neither absorbs nor reflects, an attacker doesn't even know it's there
much less there's anyone inside.
   "A radio transmitter doesn't 'know' if it's being received; there's no
interaction.  Same there.  We love it and a -- hopefully -- complete
analysis of it is on our list.  I've got a feeling it's a Maggie-type issue
more than a technical issue.  We shall see.  Maybe after their wedding,
they'll be able to break some time free."
   ----
   KATHEEN
   Mark told us, "Leone and I got our songs together Sunday -- we were too
blown out to do much on Saturday.  First chance we get tomorrow, we'll book
some time at JRD Recording and go for it.  We've only got a couple weeks
until summer so we want to get some time in."
   I pointed out they didn't *have* to get the preliminary work done before
summer.  "No particular reason except then you'll have all the time you
need.  Do each step to the best of your ability, even if it takes longer
than you expect.
   Bob said, "If you run into any stops or slows, let us know so we can
help.  Kat seems to have a little pull with some of these folk."
   Rank has its privileges.  So does being the majority owner of the parent
company.
   Ben Talbert showed up around 9:30.  He took a look around, grinned and
peeled off his clothes.  The girls promptly bounced their boobs and waved
their bushes at him.  He obligingly popped a good one.  He looked at them
then looked down at his crotch curiously.
   He smiled widely, threw up his hands and shouted, "It's alive!  It's
alive!"
   Good for a nice round of applause.  I introduced him around.  He "knew"
several of the folk "from afar" as he'd been out roaming around.  The Sweet
Six took him aside to put him through the mill.
   Mom told us Alejandro and Linda were scheduled to "move in" the Monday
after school was out (and our wedding!).  The Wild Bunch, PVC and their
crew will all be out of school then too, so they'll be available 24/7 for
them.
   "It isn't gonna be a summer of only fun and games, either.  They've
already whipped up a staggering catch-up curriculum so they can slip right
in to Harvard.  Yeh, I've no doubt they'll find plenty of time for the fun
and games, but they'll be working their butts off, too."
   Yep.  PVC could work some butts, for sure.  They'd been whipping their
Brain Trust and Inner Circle into great shape.  Since they'd be gone from
HMS the next school year, it looked like Dan and Art would be leading the
Inner Circle at Harvard.  They and Megan had found two other potential
Inner Circle candidates and were working them up, too.
   They'd spent some time around the elementary school and had picked out
several potentials.  They figured they'd work on them over the summer so
Harvard would have a full grade range in the Inner Circle -- and maybe get
something going in the elementary school then, too.
   Steven was solidly in charge in the McCambridge Inner Circle.  With PVC
showing up as Freshmen next year, it would be in great shape.  Neither Bob,
Sherry nor I had any concern any more about it fading away.
   The couple getting trained as mechanics for Guerrero Construction would
be up as soon as their visas were approved.  Neither they nor the Guerreros
had any problems getting their Mexican passports; the Americans were taking
their own sweet bureaucratic time getting the visas through the mill.
   In the meantime, we'd just run Alejandro and Linda in under the radar.
With two Hispanic kids speaking reasonably-fluent English running around
with obviously-American kids (another Hispanic, an Afro-American and those
white guys) it wouldn't attract a bit of attention.
   Anyway, back to the party.  We (and everyone else) ate until we were
ready to burst, spent plenty of time in the pool (lots of fooling around),
riding the (wimpy) water jets in the Jacuzzi and just lazing around
absorbing the non-toxic sunshine.  We'd be ready for one last push to
finish school -- and handle three major weddings!
   Ben finally escaped from the Sweet Six.  From what Pat told me later,
he'd done excellently -- but had asked some embarrassing questions like,
"Do you have this process written down?  If Megan over there trains
someone, does she do it any differently?  How do you decide someone is
'fully trained?' What happens if you leave something out in the training;
does someone get stuck inside Uranus?"
   Looks like we've still got some work to do.  Put it on the Honey Do
List.
   People started slipping off around 7:00.  Guess we were getting used to
running around nekkid; there weren't anywhere near the amount of pheromones
and sex smell floating around as we'd had before.
   By 8:00 they were gone -- except for Henry and Janet; they were our
honorees for the evening!  Sherry and I'd decided we'd do Bellana
separately.  While she's part of their threesome, we wanted to honor her as
herself.
   Poor Henry, though, would have to endure the Cauldron of Fire twice!  We
hoped he'd survive.
   We had a long, quiet chat with them.  We had a special place in our
hearts for them; they'd been our first "converts." George, Sherry, Don and
Ana had already been part of the study group and had grown right along with
us.
   Henry was the first "outsider" we'd influenced.  He'd sparked off Janet
who'd touched off the cascade of Steven, Lucia, Blake, Louise, Bellana as
well as Mamma and Pappa Sonora.  Besides, he was our Warrior Heart!
   Bob was a bit mean, though.  He kept slapping his hand against his leg
and pretending to glare a little at Janet.  He let _leak_ he had a real
chastisement waiting for her.
   She'd gulp and look worried.  She should be; she'd been harassing the
Ceann a lot lately and was due to be pulled into line.
   After Henry and I were along in our room, I hugged him firmly and said,
"Remember, Cajones del Toro, underneath I'm the same girl you protected
last December.  The boobs and hair are a bit different and I hope you can
overlook them."
   He had no trouble at all "overlooking" them.  He was exactly the right
height compared to me to get a solid lock on a nipple while working his
staff perfectly along my clit.  Yowsah!  What a combination!
   ------
   BOB
   Yeh, I'd led Janet to believe she'd be getting a major ass-whoopin'. 
Shame on me.  When I asked her, "May I have the extreme honor of sweet
loving with you tonight?" she gulped and said, "I may regret it later, but
I'm sure not gonna pass it up."
   From some _peeks_ at some Butterfly Games and a couple inadvertent
_looks_ while she'd been at it with Henry and Bellana, she was used to lots
of physical action (translation: bunnies on speed).  I switched on her
completely and took her on a slow, sweet Journey on the ocean of love.
   We surfed delightful small waves for three hours before the final
tsunami drove us out of our bodies to join Kat and Henry bouncing around in
the Sun's corona.  I hadn't spanked her sweet butt even once!
   We _merged_ and wound through each other and created our own loving
rainbows of happiness.  The Sun was interesting; huge storms, long waves of
gases and sub-atomic particles along with tremendous physical pressures.
   We played games of kamikaze-diving from thousands of miles outside to
several thousand miles down below the surface then riding the currents
around and up and finally "erupting" from the surface.  Kinda like the jet
engines; we pretended to let it affect us just a bit.
   We got back and cleaned up the bodies.  We all piled on Kat and my bed
and talked a while longer while the bodies rested.
   They and Bellana were solidly together.  For all their jokes and
comments, they'd only been with themselves; we were the first "others."
Janet told us, "That may change.  We've got the freedom but not the
inclination -- yet.  I've definitely got an eye on Big Brother."
   They were really happy with the way PVC and their gang were turning out.
Janet told us, "Between Cynthia and Megan, they've kept us guessing what'll
happen next.  With Pat and Val coaching them, they've nailed us good
several times.  Experience counts; Pat and Val have it in spades."
   From their observations and a couple talks with PVC, Megan, Art and Dan
weren't really "items." Henry said, "Megan will probably nail either Art or
Dan -- or both -- one of these romantic spring or summer nights.  I dunno
what's gonna happen.  So far, they're all extremely good friends and are
probably planning on some extremely good benefits.
   "That might change tonight, tomorrow or the next day.  Like most of us,
they've got rich memories but none very recent, so their life experience in
this culture isn't any better than ours.  We're taking it easy and so are
they.
   "Maggie's the only one I know with memories recent enough to count as
this-lifetime experience.  You Seniors and George at four years older than
us are a different story all together.
   "George is starting all over and is having a great time; he fits right
in with everyone because he knew a lot of them before -- and because he's
really competent.  You two, Sherry and now Mario have literally been thrust
into positions of great responsibility and have matured to meet them.
   "Us younger kids and to some degree Steven and Lucia don't really have a
care in the world.  We go to school, get lotsa learnin', hang around with
Real Nice Guys, probe bad guys and kick ass when needed.  We've got it
made."
   Janet put in her two-cents worth, "You two especially have turned JRD
inside out.  Lots of change, lots of things falling out -- like Sean coming
along.  The rest of us are along for the ride to some extent and are really
reaping the benefits.
   "I'm not talking just the financial benefits, either.  On our own, even
as free spirits, we wouldn't have progressed any where near as far.  Yeh,
we were all at Unpleasantville but that was a pure bad-guy handling.
   "With JRD, we've already been exposed to a ton of real life. 
Notwithstanding Ralph Long and his cronies in Vail, we've learned a ton of
stuff just doing the audits and probes."
   We cuddled and snuggled the rest of the night while our bodies slept. 
We checked out that alien base Elisa, Linda and I had discovered on the
Moon.  Kinda neat.
   Henry suggested the Skunk Works check it out pretty good; they might
find some interesting technology we could use.  _"They must have had some
reasonable space flight since it's a pretty good-sized volume with lots of
equipment.  Even if that matter transmitter/receiver is huge, it appears
mechanical.  So far, we haven't found any way of reproducing any of the
spiritual abilities with physical-universe matter._
   _"The E.E.  Doc Smith stories talk about mechanical mind shields.  Maybe
we can find something that remotely resembles that or something which we
could use for the spiritual multimedia we've been working on."_
   Janet put in, _"Besides, Maggie and Henry can go ape-shit
reverse-engineering the math.  Maybe it'll keep them out of trouble."_
   ------
   (Tuesday 5/30)
   Tuesday during school, Sherry, Kat and I made the rounds of the Brain
Trust tutors looking for people who'd be interested in being JRD policy
trainers.  Very neat; I ran into Janine Baer and Todd, her SO.  Mrs.  Baer
had enhanced them both so they were ones of us now!
   They'd be Seniors next year.  More good people to keep the home fires
burning.  Janine's younger sister, Samantha, would be in the seventh grade
at Harvard.  I dropped a _note_ to PVC to check her out.
   I gave Janine a good _snuggle_ and gave a spirit-hug to Todd.  I told
them, _"You guys should show up at the Clann meeting; I think you'd both
fit in just fine."_
   They agreed promptly.  Janine had that familiar predator's look.
   Hmm.  How about the councilors as instructors?  Rose Baer would have the
summer off.  Vera Stroh and her husband at Harvard, Phillip Armstrong and
Violet Shane at NHH might be interested.
   Didn't PVC mention a couple single teachers with Potential at Harvard?
Weren't they the ones getting it on in the teachers lounge?  Sounds like
our type of people.  Hehehehe.
   Oops!  Maggie's corrupting me.  Besides, they'd been at the pool party,
were ones of us and had joined in the fun and games.
   We located four interested Brain Trust Seniors and sent their contact
information off to Siobhan.  Maybe talk with Sean later; he might have
teachers or trainers in his Clann.
   ------
   KATHLEEN
   Immediately after school, Elizabeth, Ana, Louise and I took off to a
couple of the bridal shops they'd checked out over the weekend.  While we
girls love to shop, it's a lot more efficient to pre-shop on the Spirit
Shopping Channel.
   We ported around to four of them before we found a place which suited us
-- actually it was the same lady who'd done the wedding dresses for
Eileen's wedding!  Nora did really nice work and had a couple extremely
nice designs which we thought would suit Louise just right.  We bore in
mind it could possibly be an heirloom dress for Janet and told the
dressmaker that.
   While cost wasn't really an object, we kept it down below $5K.  We
wanted quality, longevity and future alterability (that's a word?).  Nora
designed, we approved the preliminary and Louise coughed up two grand as a
down payment.
   I don't think she saw it but I slipped Nora three grand in crisp $100
bills.  I told her, "Make it happen; make her happy."
   It was a quite simple style without tons of lace or other stuff.  She
told us to come back Thursday and she'd have a preliminary for us to look
at.
   Janet and Bellana were to be the bridesmaids and needed dresses too.  No
problem.  Nora told us she'd do something special so they could use the
dresses in various configurations and could wear them probably half a dozen
times without them looking the same.
   ------
   (Wednesday 6/1)
   Siobhan was right on top of all the instructor leads.  She'd talked with
each one for a bit and had further interviews set up over the next week or
so.  A lot of the teachers were interested for over the summer.  Good
progress.
   Sherry and I figured we'd step up the honoring.  Henry and Janet had
only been a touch groggy at school Tuesday (it hadn't stopped their
ear-to-ear grins) so we decided the day of the week didn't really matter
for now.  We hadn't heard Bob complain!
   Thursday afternoon we went back to the dressmaker's.  Louise's dress
looked wonderful even in the very rough stages.  We spent another hour
going over accessories, showing her the jewelry and discussing the entire
thing.  We decided Nora could handle it so we didn't try to micro-manage
her.
   We tentatively scheduled the first actual fitting for next Monday. 
Louise was a happy camper!
   I don't think Bob was at all surprised to see Henry and Bellana for
dinner.  When I put The Question to Henry, he told me, "Well, maybe I can
tolerate another night of bliss so my sweet Bellana can have hers." We
grinned at each other then laughed our butts off.
   After several immersions in the Cauldron of Fire, Henry and I bopped
around the pyramids in Egypt for a while.  Still plenty of unfound tunnels
and chambers that'll make some archeologists really happy.
   After Bob had given Bellana "The Works," and she'd rested up a bit, we
tried out a Soo Laid on her.  Worked perfectly!  Gloriously-hard boobs, a
delicious twat and delightful squirming, moaning and shrieking.  Three of
us working her over without mercy for an hour gave a whole new meaning to
"wet rag." Yeh!
   ------
   BOB
   Janet and Bellana were both simply delicious.  Poor Henry had to endure
two nights with a red-headed devil, though.  He did look a little worse for
wear Friday morning.  Oh, well.  He put on his warrior hat and endured. 
Big grin.
   ------
   (Saturday 6/3)
   We started early and got the pantry and fridge stocked up for Louise's
bachelorette party tomorrow.  While she wasn't exactly a bachelorette, we'd
decided getting married was a good enough excuse for a party.
   Off to the Cullen wedding!  We'd quietly wondered how they'd be publicly
handling the combination of people getting hitched.  We hadn't run into
that situation yet; the Wild Bunch had several years to go.
   Taking our turn, Mario, Sherry, Kat and I ported over to OTL.  We
scurried our heels outta there, you betcha!  We could _feel_ someone right
behind us waiting to port in.
   Anyway, it was a lot easier to walk less than a block to a wedding than
to drive over, find a place to park and walk half a mile -- then repeat in
the other direction.
   We got to the park right around 10:00.  Sean put in his appearance with
Patrick escorting him -- probably so he wouldn't get lost.  Bet I'll be a
bit nervous myself in a couple of weeks.
   Sean definitely had his Ceann's political hat on.  I could _feel_ him do
a rapid gestalt then glad-hand the person with personal questions and
observations.  It wasn't superficial, either.
   He gave a hug to every woman no matter their age.  Most of them snuggled
right up against his middle leg with no backoff at all.  Probably Clann
women getting a preview.  Hehehehe.  Maggie's corrupting us all!
   On the other hand, he snuggled Kat and Sherry the same way.  They had
some quiet comments about cross-clann cultural exchanges.  Sean just
grinned and told them, _"See the social secretaries.  If I arranged
something on my own, they'd snatch me baldheaded.  Remember the old saying
about the best-laid mice and men have a plan to go along with the rye."_
   Groan.  It was a George-worthy one.
   They started right at 11:00 when Sean got our attention with a loud,
penetrating call.  There was no missing it.
   After people got seated (he didn't move an inch while waiting -- it
really got people moving), he _linked_ lightly with everyone.  Jaysus!  We
could _feel_ his certainty in his lineage.  He wasn't just a man in a kilt
with lots of charisma anymore, he was *the* Ceann who'd fought, bled and
had many times died to protect the Clann -- for thousands of years.  In
about three seconds, the entire assembly _knew_ it.
   No shit, Sherlock!  Impressive was the least we thought about it.
   There was a small a cappella choir who sang in ancient Gaelic.  Sure
wasn't the rock and roll we knew nowadays.  Most of us Irish could catch
lots of the words, but with Sean's link, the entire assembly _knew_ the
concepts.
   They sang about bonding and the joining of life and love.  We _felt_ the
emotion all the way through our bones.
   ------
   KATHLEEN
   Sherry and I started tearing up right away.  Eileen, Kate and Margaret
looked totally gorgeous.  They weren't wearing the fanciest, most elaborate
dresses and jewelry like I'd seen in photographs of celebrity weddings;
they didn't need to be.  They were totally awesome.  Margaret looked like a
Little Person with her attitude of confidence.  Magnificent!
   Someone had put up a sound shield against the city noises.  All we heard
were some birds.  Probably like Irish weddings had been for thousands of
years -- in a forest clearing.
   The JP did a fantastic job -- probably didn't hurt she had lots of
Potential.  She talked about the bonding, not a marriage as such.  After
explaining the Clann had practiced the bonding customs for thousands of
years she invited anyone who didn't care for it to quietly haul their asses
outta there.
   Yeh.  A marriage or bonding is the spiritual association for the optimum
survival of the people.  Totally fit what we now knew about spirits.  And
this was from a custom thousands of years old?  Or at least developed over
that?
   Oh.  My.  God.  For a woman, the JP sure had balls.  She bonded the four
of them in a way which gave no possibility of anyone misunderstanding.  I
could _feel_ Margaret almost pee her pants -- looks as if she hadn't known,
either!  Betcha Maura and Teresa had something to do with it.
   They transferred each other's claddagh rings to the left hands and
exchanged luck money among the four of them.  We could hear it clinking
away.  Fun -- Ana and Elizabeth had already made arrangements for ours.
   Another short a cappella song and the ceremony was over.  There were
crying women all over, including Sherry and me.  Shivered us all over, it
did!
   The new bond-mates left with a final "party time!" from Sean.  Yes! 
Wonderful!  Guess Louise and I had a standard to meet for our ceremonies;
not to "top" it but to make them as meaningful and emotional.
   We mixed around for a while longer; we copied Sean's
gestalt-and-glad-hand and met a lot of the Clann Cullen.  All in all, they
were a good lot.  Out of the two hundred-odd people there, we spotted
around 20 with Potential.  Some had a lot, some only a little.  Didn't
matter any more; Talent was Talent.
   Bob and I stuck together as did most of the Reynolds folk with their
SOs. It was easier to mingle as a couple than as a gang.
   Buses came, picked up elderly people and left to the reception.  Nice
touch.  Eileen had mentioned a lot of elderly people at Margaret Sullivan's
wake.  While we didn't have any older people, we stuck the idea away for a
just in case.
   Bob and I drifted back to OTL and went inside.  We were greeted by a
young cat demanding petting before she let us pass.  Neat, we could tell
they called her, "Geeser." What a name for a cat!  Grin.  We paid the toll,
and she finally let us pass when she fell asleep.  Must be hard work
greeting people.
   We popped right over to the Tavern for the reception.  Aile Bardon met
us as we arrived and showed us where the actual feast was being held.  She
filled us in on what Sean desired us to do; piece of cake, we'd just been
doing it.  He is a leader.
   Good food and lots of it.  There were some traditional Irish dishes (I
only got a little bit of cabbage; I had plans for the night), plenty of
"American" food and enough booze of various sorts to float a battleship or
two.  Bob and I stuck with soda -- the other doesn't sit well with us. 
Must be an acquired taste.
   Patrick Bardon asked us politely if we'd do a show dance (actually, he
_projected_ groveling at our feet and licking our shoes).  Being the shy,
retiring folk we were, we agreed.
   It went great.  While there were no stringed instruments in the band,
they still got out a decent-sounding waltz.  At least they kept really good
time.
   Bob and I did our shtick; gotta pay for our supper somehow!  We got lots
of admiration and a long applause.  Okay.  Back to being "just another
couple of guests."
   We spotted lots of young girls flocking around the two nephews.  Not a
wonder, they were smooth, respectful and admiring -- with tongues which
would put Casanova to shame.  I'd still put my money on Henry, though.  I'm
a bit biased.
   The three nieces flocked around one young man; we picked up enough to
learn he was a major pick for their school's new Brain Trust and Inner
Circle.  After Sean spoke with them for a minute, they radiated heat like
Siamese cats.  Wonder what they'll be doing tonight?  Maybe the same thing
we were planning.
   Pretty much everyone got blitzed.  Even the "oldies," as Maggie called
them affectionately, were pretty much under the weather.  The Tavern (bet
Sean had planned it) had several extra wheelchairs for when they couldn't
stand reliably.
   Several nice (short!) speeches and toasts.  Guess we'll have to quiz
Sean about that leprechaun outfit Patrick mentioned; he looked as if he'd
made a good one.
   ------
   BOB
   The new bond-mates quietly faded away around 8:00.  They weren't feeling
any pain, for sure.  We got to talking with Mona a bit -- we managed to pry
her away from Ted Maloney for a couple minutes.  Not to worry, he had Aile
and Deidre to keep him occupied.
   Mona told us, "Good party, right?  We were hoping to nail Ted tonight.
Only trouble is, one of our Moms or Dads has to call his folks and they're
a bit, em, incapacitated."
   Understatement.  They were definitely keeping up the Irish reputation.
Kat volunteered me to call.  Why not?  I'd spoken with Sean enough to have
a handle on how he sounded.
   Went fine.  The "Passion Posse" was delighted -- and gave off an
immediate pheromone flood.  Hope Ted was well-rested.  If he wasn't
well-fed with all this food around, that was his tough luck.
   We did gestalt-and-glad-hand most of the evening as well as dancing a
lot.  Very nice people; almost like kinfolk.  Grin.
   Okay, we bagged it back home around 9:00.  Kat hinted about some plans
there about that time.
   Yowsah!  Sam and Mary popped in!  This was gonna be a *good* night.
   Of course we talked a lot.  They were having a great time in school;
Mary'd had no trouble in catching up with the curriculum.  Besides, she had
a personal tutor (vertical and horizontal).
   The stem-cell trial was going great guns.  Frank's and Thelma's bodies
were now in excellent shape.  Mary said, "With a combination of the
decisions to restrict or enhance the stem-cell workings, I'd say we can do
most anything.  So far, so good.
   "They've pretty much settled out.  We're gonna wait a couple more weeks
until we're into summer before we look at doing someone else.
   "We've decided I'm probably next.  With the amount of regeneration which
can be done and the fact I'm still in puberty, it's another good test.  We
haven't actually tried too many regens in still-maturing bodies."
   Yeh.  We'll check things over pretty thoroughly before we start on her.
   Later, I popped The Question to her.  She grinned and puckered up
(several places).  "You betcha!  We'll have to see how good a condition
Sam's got us into; we've been working a lot on it." Big smile.
   Her missing nipple merely lost a couple nerve concentrations; the nerves
were still there, only buried and spread out a bit.  Phantom fingers found
them easily and we got along just fine.
   Yeh, she was in condition.  She used me unmercifully and got my
poke-spot a bit sore.  She must have done some extra-curricular studying
because she knew some tricks I never would have thought of.
   On the other hand, the Kama Sutra originated in India and Japan isn't
that far away.  Seems technology isn't the only thing the Japanese do
extremely well!
   We _joined_ with Sam and Kate then took a long quiet Journey.  Not too
intense -- neither was quite in shape yet for a major tsunami.  No matter;
Mary was sweet, willing and wonderful.
   ------
   KATHLEEN
   Sam was quite a find.  His Hawaiian and Samoan genetics gave him a
good-sized, powerful body capable of withstanding repeated immersions in
the Caldron of Fire -- or maybe Mary had put him into training.
   He was another warrior like Henry.  He'd been raised in a mostly-Samoan
culture and those Islanders can be fierce!  Yeh, he and Henry had gotten
together several times and had swapped war stories while Janet and Bellana
had ensured Mary's skin was kept in excellent condition.  Seems if you
massage scar tissue with saliva often enough, it softens up and is more
pliable.  Right.
   After some nice _blendings_ and wonderful rainbows, we went exploring.
They showed us around the research lab.  Sam told us, _"We're the lab
assistants.  Feed the animals, clean the cages, mop the floor, that sort of
stuff.  Fine by us; we don't have the technical expertise to do much more.
And we're still involved with the research.  Mary's doing a lot of the
actual 'hands-on' stuff; she's got a knack for it."_
   They'd taken a good-sized room at the lab and had made it into the Skunk
Works' headquarters.  Mary told us, _"They could use your den or perhaps
the JRD audit room, but with this they can leave everything up and not
interfere with anyone else.  Usually when they meet, in about two minutes
everything's way over our heads."_
   They were planning a lot of day trips over the summer -- while
accommodating the stem-cell research.  Sam's parents were delighted with
Mary and had no objections at all with them spending lots of time together,
including overnighters.  Obviously, silver-tongued Ana had talked with
them.
   ------
   (Sunday 6/4)
   While we had a chance, we Seniors hit the books hard.  Finals were a
little over a week away.  Mario grinned and laid back on a lounge by the
pool.  Stinker!
   We had Blake and Louise bachelor parties in the afternoon.  Since the
girls needed more room to expand, we were over here while the guys would
have to make do at the Reynolds.
   For whatever reason, the weather didn't cooperate; it was cool and
drizzly.  Didn't matter, we had really good outdoor heaters and a
programmable rain shield.
   We lay around the pool, ate our heads off, and teased Louise about
having another baby.  She laughed and told us, "Why not?  The first two of
mine seem to be adequate.  Between Blake and me, maybe we can do even
better."
   We shuddered to think of a girl wilder than Janet.  Then again, Cynthia
and Megan were giving her a run for her money.
   Janet pretended to be offended but laughed a lot.  "It's all Toro's
fault anyway.  He dug me out and chased me around." Cynthia and Megan just
grinned and did fair approximations of innocent little girls.  Right.
   We discussed the Cullen wedding quite a while.  The Irish among us
looked back at our memories; several had some solid ones of similar
ceremonies.  When we had some time, maybe we'd check them out.  Could be we
were even related to the Cullens a long ways back.
   Louise wasn't worried at all about trying to top the Cullen ceremony. 
"We're not Irish, just plain folk.  You ladies have it all set up anyway so
it's on your heads!"
   Argh.  She was right, though, we'd sorta taken over everything.  I had
no concerns about the logistics, reception or anything like that.  Betcha
we'll get together with the JP and have a talk.
   ------
   BOB
   Blake's party was fun.  We guy-talked, idly wondered what the girls were
doing (_peeking_ was cheating!), played some cards (they wouldn't let me
deal or touch the deck for some reason) and stuffed our faces.
   Siobhan had offered him and Louise positions at JRD as Regional
Managers. We were still short a couple; by the time we'd get the initial
audits and probes completed, we'd need four.
   They were going to take the positions.  Blake said, "We've given notice
at work.  We're waiting until after the wedding to make the move.  From the
rumors we've been hearing about Sean's seminars and policies, you've got a
solid basis for operations."
   Yeh.  Then with Blake and Louise, we'd be able to give each one (with
Patricia and Andy) about seven companies to handle.  Guess I was getting a
bit impatient; I wanted it done, now!
   We decided to get Blake stinkin' drunk.  What the hell, he just had a J
O B to go to in the morning.  Didn't work very well; even Father and Donal
couldn't outdo him!
   We bull-shitted and told tall tales; some of the more improbable ones
were probably true.  Pat Derman managed to top us all with a long one about
two sisters, their mother and aunt.
   We were pretty dubious until Frank told us, "Yeh.  I lived in the next
town during that time.  It was an 'everyone knew' how they 'abused' him."
   That led to an hour's "You ever been around Austria?" and other
locations and times.  Interesting.  A couple of us even knew each of other
or had worked together or something over several tens of millions of years.
Cool.  Probably be a lot of guys searching their memories for tall tales
for the next go-around.
   ------
   (Monday 6/5)
   After we got home from school, Kat and Sherry took off for a Louise,
Janet and Bellana dress fitting.  Girls seem to like that sort of stuff.
   Mario took off to a Skunk Works meeting at the research lab; I tagged
along for a look-see.  Hmm.  They'd shanghaied Kate and Ben Talbert. 
Maggie was there too so we had a full house.
   After hearing his profession, they immediately elected/appointed Ben to
be the facilitator or leader.  Henry told him, "So far, we've kept
everything we've done like the whiteboard captures.  Can't guarantee it's
organized."
   Ben laughed and said, "Actually, you can always claim it's in inverse
chronological order -- newest stuff on top of the pile.  Anyway, I'll have
a look at it.  We'll probably want to end up with a content management
system for all this stuff.
   "I understand from stuff I heard at the party last week you're also
doing genealogies, check-lists, audit and probe schedules and lots of
policy upgrades.  From about 70 man-years of experience, the company I work
with has found if all that knowledge isn't managed right, you either loose
it entirely or can rarely find the latest and greatest whatever when you
need it most."
   He introduced us to the Warroom concept.  It was somewhat like
brainstorming and consisted mainly of keeping large diagrams and lists up
on the walls so everyone could see and add to them while the facilitator
kept things from straying too far.  Sounded good to me.
   The first thing he had us do was make a list of our known technologies
in any state of use.  We were able to classify them into several general
categories like spirit, body and material world.  We started tossing
abilities, phenomena, check-lists (like the study and teleportation
check-lists) and the like into the categories.
   We made a companion list of desired technologies and parked the
self-defense training, spiritual multi-media, filtration, Cullen mind
shields, investigation of the Moon Base, new-spirit training check-list and
the like under the same categories -- with current status.
   Then we did another list of documents and information we already had and
where/how it was stored.  Interesting.  We had only a general idea who had
the lists of Clann members (all the Clanns).  Where are the meeting minutes
kept?  How do we (the several organizations) get something formally
reviewed and approved?
   Mario got tasked with finding a mid-level Content Management system.  We
got a list of needs and wants together so he'd know what to look for.  Ben
rattled off several vendors who had CM software plus their web site
addresses.
   Mario pointed out JRD had its internal servers behind a heavy-duty
corporate firewall with a high-speed line to the Internet.  I got appointed
to be the delegation to JRD to rent space on a server -- and to pay the
administrators.
   Well, JRD had tons of documents itself; mostly electronic.  Ben pointed
out the advantage of scanning paper documents and putting them in the CM
system, "You've always got them for research.  Your lawyers and accountants
can determine what actual paper they need to keep and archive as originals,
but with an image and text on line, no one has to dig through the files
just to reference them."
   Henry noted all this was one hell of a lot of work.  Ben laughed.  He
said, "You ain't seen nothin' yet.  You'll scramble, dig, wonder if there's
more and keep finding stuff tucked in some dusty closet, an attic or
storeroom or the only copy on someone's five-year-old laptop that's never
been backed up.
   "You'll find the same thing when you start implementing the Cullen
Enterprises policies anywhere.  The fact is, you'll be putting in order. 
Now, anyone been involved in spring cleaning at home?"
   We all had in one way or another.  Ben pointed out, "Just cleaning out
the garage is the same thing.  You usually move everything out to the drive
or yard, sort through for keep, discard or donate then clean and put
everything back.  It's a real circus for a while.
   "The real-universe law seems to be, 'Confusion blows off as you put in
order.' While you're actually putting order in, all the confusion rises to
the surface.  Just handle it one thing at a time.  When it's done, you've
got an ordered system without confusion.
   "Yeh, it costs time and money.  If you see it through, though, you've
got enough order your resources are usable at much less ongoing expense in
time and other resources.  Lots of companies never see it through and abort
projects when they see it costing so much.  They usually end up in more
confusion than when they started -- and they know it's confused, then."
   Sounded good to us.  I'd talk with the various Clann Ceanns about
keeping their information on the proposed CM system.  It would be secure
and get backed up and archived on a strict schedule.  JRD could rent the
space and system to the Clanns.
   ------
   (Tuesday 6/6)
   By the end of Tuesday evening, the JRD staff all reported they'd
completed the study check-list and a formal study of The Book.  Based on
this, the Exec Council decided to have Cullen Enterprises do us workshops
on the Admin Scale and Organizing Board.
   I made a _talk_ with Sean later about it.  He told me, _"Marge is ready
to go.  Pretty much any time; just schedule it."_ We looked over the
calendar and agreed next Sunday morning would do just fine.
   I also asked about instructors or trainers he might have floating
around. He said, _"Well, Eileen's ex-sister-in-law was a teacher for years
but isn't really up to full-time work.  We're getting a J O B section on
our web site and I ran into a couple trained people at the wedding.  I'll
get the word out."_
   ------
   KATHLEEN (Wednesday, 6/7)
   Bob and I got together with Evin and Brenda Quinn, the Reynolds' family
lawyer, to go over the prenuptial and our wills.  Neat, Brenda was one of
us; David and Elizabeth had enhanced her a couple weeks ago.  Another Clann
member soon?
   Bob and I had already gone back and forth a few times both on the
prenuptial and our wills.  Seems once there's property or significant money
involved, things get legally sticky in a hurry.
   Brenda told us, "This is necessary legal stuff.  Since neither of you
really had much awareness of the other's assets before you started your
relationship, there's not the faintest hint either of you are gold-diggers
or are marrying for money -- that's not necessarily unlawful, by the way.
   "What we need is a clear definition of the transfer of ownership under
several circumstances.  Since California is a community property state,
assets are usually split fifty-fifty in the event of an annulment or
dissolution of a marriage.  A prenuptial makes legal modifications to that
usual provision.
   "Between the prenuptial and your wills, we need to cover annulment,
divorce, death of a spouse and other inheritance of any children you may
have."
   Yep.  Sounded just like Evin had told me.  Bob and I read over
everything.  Basically, my JRD shares, Guerrero Construction shares and any
personal inheritances were separate from any community property.
   If I disposed or altered either shares ownership in within the first
five years of our marriage, it was still separate property and in either
case would be disposed of in my will.  If I died before the five years, my
ownership interests and separate assets would become subject to my will. 
Of course, if I sold some shares to someone, they were no longer mine.
   After five years, any non-ownership assets became community property;
we'd retain any proportional ownership rights for the rest of our marriage.
With the wills, any children Bob and I had would share and share alike.
   Same with Bob.  With the prospect of inheriting Reynolds Construction
along with Bill, the same five-year provision applied to any ownerships,
assets and inheritances.
   Basically, if we lasted five years, we split assets equally on a divorce
and retained our separate company ownerships.  Before five years, if either
died, company ownerships and assets were disposed of by the wills.  After
five years, other assets were community property.
   Yeh, neither Bob nor I had any hint of splitting up.  Then again, so do
most couples who got married.  It didn't hurt either of us and sure covered
the JRD, Reynolds Construction and Guerrero Construction asses.
   Our wills were contingent on our marriage ten days away.  Before that,
if I died everything went to Evin, Barbara and Sherry with contingencies to
Alyssa and Riona.  For Bob, everything went to his parents, Sherry and
George Baxter with a contingency to Bill.
   One could say Evin, Barbara, George, Sherry or his parents had a vested
interest in either of us dying before the wedding.  Fat chance!  We'd haunt
them for a long time if they did either of us in!
   We signed the prenuptial (and copies) and both wills then Barbara
notarized them and passed out copies.  Done deal and everyone was happy.
   ------
   BOB
   I'd say it wrapped things up.  Everyone had been both swinishly
suspicious and eager to grant things to others.  No problemo.
   Before we left, Brenda pulled me aside for a few minutes.  "Bob, I've
already talked with your parents and Bill.  I need to meet with them,
Kathleen and you as soon as possible after your wedding.  All I can say
right now is it has to do with a very long-standing matter that might
affect all of you.  Can do?"
   Hmm.  Kathleen and I had planned to head out the next Wednesday.  I did
a quick check with her and told Brenda, "How about Monday morning of the
19th?"
   "That'll be great.  You and Kathleen bring birth certificates and ID
plus your marriage certificate; your folks and Bill will be bringing the
same things."
   Okay.  Interesting mystery but apparently not life-threatening.
   ------
   (Thursday, 6/8)
   We're cruising along.  We Seniors have done our reviews for our finals
so that's a wrap.  We might glance over a few things during the weekend but
were satisfied we're ready.  Gotta find a way to get Mario; he kept
lounging around grinning while we were studying.  Maybe I can get Maggie to
nip him a few times?
   Thursday evening, Steven and Lucia showed up for dinner.  Oh, yes! 
Sounded great to me!
   They were moving along really well.  They'd finished up their studying
like the rest of us.  The entire Mickey C Inner Circle was ready.  Better
be; we're the example for the rest of the students.
   They didn't really have many concrete plans for the summer.  They were
considering working with Pappa Sonora in construction, mainly to get the
experience.  Lucia said, "And it won't hurt to toughen our bodies up,
either.  Steven wimps out on me after four times; gotta get him in shape to
really stay in the saddle.  Caballero!"
   Steven shrugged, grinned and confessed, "We manage.  Our parents and
siblings pretend to complain about the noise all the time.  Maybe I make up
in quality what I lack in quantity."
   Always a Real Good Thing.  Lucia flushed a bit and said, "Sure I've got
no complaints about the quality."
   Lucia, Kat and Sherry gabbed about their clothes for the wedding. 
Mario, Steven and I just shrugged and went around looking at the house and
pool for an hour until they ran down.
   Lucia and I took several long, wonderful walks on the beach.  She was
passionate and sweeter than the flowers in spring.  We rested several times
and talked.
   She told me, "I've kept a close ear out on the stem cell stuff.  A month
ago, I decided my scars would shrink up and disappear; several are gone
completely.  Neither Steven nor I can find any evidence of them.  Ana was
interested in that; maybe we all don't need the stem cells."
   I gave her a thorough inspection.  Yep, quite a few were gone.  Of
course, I hadn't really checked them out before, but I'd seen them at the
pool party at the Donovans at the end of January.
   The scars in her vagina and rectum were still there.  She said, "I can
tell they're there; especially in my vagina, I can tell there's some 'dead
spots' when Steven gets to work.  I'm more concerned about their effect
during child birth than any other time.  However, they've *all* shrunk up
considerably."
   Well, I thoroughly inspected her innards with my tongue and fingers. 
Her G-spot sure didn't have any scar tissue; she washed my face thoroughly
three times.  Hmm, maybe she and Linda should compare notes.
   I tried several more times.  We couldn't get her to squirt more than a
couple feet.  Guess that's something she and Steven can practice.  Grin.
   Steven and Kat joined us after several hours.  Kat got Lucia squirting
and kept her going for fifteen times in a row before Lucia gave up.  Steven
assured us he'd get her in condition to do at least thirty by mid-summer!
   Hmm.  Lucia and Linda were both Hispanic or Spanish (mostly). 
Coincidence?  In our spare time, I figured we'd check out Sherry -- and
Kat. Another Skunk Works project?  I'm sure Maggie at least would be
interested.  Hehehehe.
   We _linked_ and took a sweet Journey together.  We discovered Lucia's
ankles *did* fit behind her neck quite comfortably and the three of us took
great advantage of it.
   Good thing we had plenty of towels; Lucia definitely didn't lack for
lubricant.
   We rode a very nice tsunami and let it kick us out to Jupiter.  We
explored the Red Spot -- lots of winds and hurricanes; definitely a storm.
Found some interesting life forms literally floating around.  Not sentient;
more on the order of a mouse, only a million times larger.
   ------
   KATHLEEN
   Steven was wonderful.  He *was* a quality man.  I "forced" him to check
out every freckle on my body at least three times before I let him rest.
   He had no qualms about running the Inner Circle.  "I've got all the
training from you, Sherry and Bob so there's no question I've got the
technology.  So far, Lucia and I haven't run into anything we couldn't
handle from what you've taught us.
   "It does help we know we can call on the 'originals' for help if we
really need it.  With PVC coming next year, we'll really kick some student
butt."
   Lucia felt and tasted wonderful.  I could feel some of the scars
remaining inside her vagina and back door and gave them a thorough
massaging.
   Hmm, another squirter?  I've really gotta check out Linda some time.  I
thought Sherry would like to try it, too; all in the interest of science,
of course.  Since we were the social secretaries, perhaps we could arrange
a Ceann-Mate and assistant cross-cultural inquiry into the matter?
   We managed to get to sleep finally by 4:00.  We'd rested the bodies in
between, so we shouldn't fall asleep in school
   ------
   (Friday 6/9)
   Yeh, they were fine in school.  Lucia especially had an ear-to-ear grin
which wouldn't quit all day.  The Wild Bunch teased her about "air tankers"
dumping "water" on forest fires.  She just grinned, wobbled her boobs and
pumped out pheromones and sex-smell -- like the rest of us girls.
   In the evening, Bob and I _chatted_ with Susan Way and Raymond.  They
were expanding rapidly and had ones of us all over the Redmond and Seattle
area.  They were finding lots of people with Potential and were training up
five that very evening.
   Bob asked if a training check-list would be beneficial.  Raymond said,
_"Sure would.  We trust our folk to train newbies correctly but we (and
they) don't really have a routine or process.  It's more like, 'Oh, then
there's this...' type of stuff.  No one's gotten into trouble, but having a
check-list would make things really standard."_
   Hmm.  Eileen had mentioned she kept a training file on each new person.
Maybe if we had a check-list, we could just track progress as percent done
rather than item by item.  Like the training or teleportation check-lists,
they could just go down the line to the next step.
   Not quite a hand the list to the newbie and walk away.  The trainer
would follow the check-list one-on-one (or many on many, whatever) then
maybe along towards the end, the trainee could do part of the list solo.
   Well, no time like the present.  The four of us collected Sean and harem
(grin) along with Rodrigo Fuerte and Alona from Cabo and had a five-minute
virtual conference.
   Clann Fuerte was having the same issues.  Alejandro and Linda were doing
most of the training; like us, the younger people had a more flexible
schedule.
   We decided to get the young people together and have them whip up a
preliminary check-list just to get the points listed so nothing dropped
out. During the summer, they could enhance it and fill in all the details.
   Security.  That's getting to be an issue.  The study check-list wasn't
an issue at all, but with the newbie and teleportation check-lists as well
as the confidential Clann customs, they could lead someone to us.  Sure
didn't need government looking at us!
   Bob suggested, _"Just do it in plain language for now.  Patrick Derman
could probably dig up a very dead language, but it wouldn't have the
vocabulary.  Maybe a ciphered language?  Let's turn the Skunk Works loose
on it; they just sit around, drink soda and shoot the shit anyway."_
   We agreed that would be a Real Good Idea.  We decided to attempt a
young-people meeting together on Sunday sometime.  Let them work out the
first list.
   Alona laughed and said, _"Now all they have to do is work on the
check-list instead of playing Butterfly Games.  Seems to be an occupational
hazard down here."_
   Right.
   We ended off and ensured the bodies got plenty of rest.  There was a
wedding tomorrow, and we knew we'd all be inspired on Saturday night.
   
  
Sorcerer Interesting Times Ch 01-05