Chapter 47: Getting up to Speed — Part 1

Island Day 45 – Earth Day December 30/31, 1986

Darren James POV:

Ibera and I watched while Blaine, Max and George more or less ‘volunteered’ my buddy into being their leader. Then he gave everyone who lost their powers whatever they previously had, back. Tiny, who had one of Chen’s packages, unfortunately, only got TK instead of the upgraded ‘PK’ he had before.

Then, JB asked who else had one of Chen’s packages and Max gasped, “Whoa! I did! I wonder why I didn’t lose MY powers?”

He couldn’t hear Ibera giggle, “He’s still got his because he’s joined with Linda, and Zeus sensed that. Since Linda is on Zeus’ ‘favorite people’ list, he let Max keep his package!”

I ‘told’ JB what Ibera said and he just smiled at Max, “Darren just told me that since you’re joined so closely with Linda that Zeus let you keep yours!”

We watched as Max ‘joined’ with Linda to express his gratitude for her influence on Zeus and profess his undying love for her! She was touched and tried to minimize her ‘influence’ on Zeus, saying she just did what she was given her gifts to do. She then told Max how much she loved how he and JB had become so close and looked out for each other. When Max told her she really WAS an Angel and he missed her very much, I could tell she started crying, she was so touched. That made Max well up and Wanda, not knowing what was going on, asked him what was wrong?

JB put his arm around Mex’s shoulder, “Max is having a private ‘moment’ with a very special ‘Healing Wizard’’, named Linda. He met her a few times and now they have a very special connection! I have a special connection with her too.”

“Where is she? I’ve only heard of healing wizards in the legends I was told as a child, I would love to meet her sometime!?”

JB chuckled, “Well, that could be tricky, you see, she’s 80,000 light years away from here back on Earth ... the planet we all came from!”

Wanda’s eyes went wide, “And you guys can silent talk with her?”

JB nodded, “Yes, but, it’s only because of this very special connection that we have. Normally our ‘silent talking’ would never reach that far. Many of us have other special connections like that, too, with people we met a while ago. They all visited us here not long after we discovered the Gromoriks were also on this planet. It’s a long story that we’ll tell you about sometime.”

Wanda grinned, “Oh, like that ‘Monte’ guy that Chen griped about helping you sometimes!?”

“Yes! And there are a few others, too.” JB added.

Just then, the four Gromoriks showed up and were introduced to the three new guests. They were frightened at first, but, Tumrik and Juules’ friendly demeanors quickly had them relaxing and engaging in conversation.

It was at that point I ported home, since I’d been up at Ibera’s for a long couple of days.

Brad and Brenda said they would cover for me for a few days since they knew I wanted to be around Sarah and the Family for New Year’s Eve.

BACK AT HOME IN ARIZONA: New Year’s Eve morning.

When I ported, invisible, into the big kitchen of the Toy Hauler, Greg had his arm around Linda. He was concerned about what had just caused her to start crying. She tried to tell him he wouldn’t understand, that it was a long story. That’s when I announced my presence and dropped my invisibility.

“She’s right Buddy. I just came from Ibera’s and saw the whole thing. A lot has happened since you’ve been away.” I chuckled, “And Linda’s done more ‘Space Travelling’ than you could believe!”

“Aaargh, this is going to drive me crazy!” Greg bemoaned, “I wish there was some way I could get caught up on everything I’ve missed.”

Linda and Jamie started grinning at me, then Jamie said, “Hey Darren, do you think you could take him up to Ibera’s and use that ‘portal thingy’ to help Greg get caught up?”

“Sure”, I said, patting Greg on his shoulder, “How long can we be away?”

Sarah grinned, “Well, we’re planning on going to a bar in Tempe for their New Year’s Eve celebration tonight. Everyone is coming, including the East Coast clan and some of the parents volunteered to take all the kids back to Illinois for the weekend! Can you guys be sure to be back here by, say, 5:00?”

Greg looked at the clock and saw it was 1:30. “Will three and a half hours be enough time?”

I chuckled, “Absolutely! We may even get a nice nap so we’ll be fully rested when we get back!”

Linda came over and pinched my cheek, “Just don’t wear yourselves out fooling around with Ibera all day! We’re all going to want some of your special attention tonight after the party!” Then she gave me a hot kiss and a firm, loving hug.

Greg snickered, “Don’t worry, Jamie has me mostly worn out already! I just don’t want to be lost when everyone talks about things that I have no idea about! Like what made Linda cry earlier. I could tell she wasn’t hurt or upset, which made it even more befuddling!”

“Well, let’s get going. Do you want to take my hand, or can you get to Ibera’s by yourself?” I asked, not knowing for sure.

“This ain’t my first rodeo, Amigo!” Greg chuckled, “Let’s hit it!”

The second he disappeared, I left too.

The first ones he saw were Brad and Brenda who were watching a portal and having lunch in the ‘Command Kitchen’.

Greg looked confused, then looked at me before asking, “Who are you guys? And where is Ibera?”

I chuckled, “Greg, this is Professors Brad and Brenda Lowenstein. They are my co-workers and we’re chronicling the lives, trials and tribulations of the prisoners who were sent to Perdition Island! Brad and Brenda, this is Greg who has been trapped in a wormhole for the past 4 months. I’m going to try and show him most of what he missed during that time!”

Brenda stood up and came over to him, pulling him into a hug, “We heard about you. You were trapped just a few days before our project got started. Brad and I were just taking a break. Darren, we’ll earmark the spot where we left off, since some very interesting things have happened since you left! The damned Triloks showed up!”

“The Triloks!?” Both Greg and I yelled at the same time.

Brad squinted at Greg, “You know of the Triloks?”

Greg nodded, “Yeah, Bob, Linda and I had a confrontation with this one egg-headed alien named Sintar! The bastard was getting all uppity that we were somehow changing the natives ‘natural evolution’ by killing this huge predator that had just killed one of our native friends!”

Brad smiled, “Oh, yeah, we heard about that. These aren’t the same ones, but, their issue is the same. And with everything the former prisoners have done for, and with the natives of this planet, they’re going to be REALLY PISSED! Ibera is in there keeping an eye on everything.”

Greg looked at me, expectantly, “Is this something you need to see right away? I don’t mind. I’d like to see if these dudes look like Sintar? That is, if we have the time?”

I saw Brad shake his head, “You guys should get busy with the things Greg needs. If you go into a dimensional space, you most likely won’t miss anything!?”

I bit back a chuckle at Greg’s confused look, “What’s he talking about? Aren’t we in the 5^th dimension now?”

I nodded, “Yes, but, from here we can go into yet another dimension, relative to here, where we can spend hours and only minutes will pass here!” I chuckled.

“Ohhh, that’s cool! That’s how you planned on taking a nap if we need it?”

“Yep. There’s almost nothing we can’t do up here! One advantage of working up here for the past few months is learning everything about how to cheat time back on earth!”

“Nice! Well then, show me what I’ve missed, my friend!” Greg chuckled.

We went to another portal in my special area, which WAS in another dimension. We had a short discussion and decided to just start where the Family went back, following Greg’s being caught in his wormhole. I asked Zeus for special permission to locate Charlie, Bob and Mary. He said it was no problem, since it was all going to be in the past.

The next thing I asked Greg was if he was ready and really wanted to see what happened to Sally, since it was going to be one of the first things that was gonna happen.

He took a deep breath, “I think so. Can you pause it if I get too emotional?”

I patted his back, “No problem. Once we get going, I’ll let you take the lead and tell the portal what you want it to do. The other question I have is do you want to Spirit Walk right into the scenes? Or, just watch like a big TV screen?”

Greg looked confused, “I’ve only ‘Spirit Walked’ one time, and that was from home, sitting on the couch. Charlie showed us how because we needed to spy on this evil drug Lord and corrupt governor. What I most remember was that we could only do it for a short amount of time before we would get extremely thirsty.”

I nodded, “Believe it or not, I’ve never Spirit Walked that way. The good thing about doing it from up here, is that we can be in the scene for as long as we want and it won’t affect us at all. The only time we have to exit is if we try to move the portal in time. That includes fast forwarding. And the other thing is, we can watch for a while, sitting here, then, if you find a spot you want to check out closer, we can Spirit Walk right into the portal.”

That made Greg smile, “That’s perfect. Let’s get started right from when everyone else exited the portal that fateful day, if that’s okay?”

That’s exactly what we did.

At this point, I knew this was going to take a very long time.

I discovered that Greg is very detail oriented, almost to the point of being OCD. He watched intently everything that was said while still up at Ibera’s, especially when Lenny came up to inform them they should be very leery about going home.

That’s when Greg did something very interesting. He looked at me then said, “Oh no, somebody named Normistronzo wired Charlie’s house to explode!”

I was flabbergasted, “How could you possibly know that?”

“I don’t know; it just came into my head. I don’t know if Charlie ever told you, but ever since we first started developing telepathy and things, I’ve had this strange ability to sometimes see the future. Most of the time, I’ve been fairly accurate.”

“Holy crap! You have precognition? When I first became a catalyst, that was one of the abilities that was available but Zeus told us that only a very few ever get any good at it. Did Charlie give you this ability?”

He shook his head, “No, I don’t think so. I first started developing it long before Charlie ever had a meeting with Zeus. Then, when Charlie gave us all his packages I don’t even remember if it was one of the ones I asked for? I guess, somehow or another I’ve always had it within me.”

Now I was learning nearly as much as I was trying to show Greg. That he had this level of precognition was incredible. I asked him if he had the ability to predict like football scores and he started laughing, shaking his head, “I tried it once, and failed miserably. For some reason or another, it doesn’t seem like it works for monetary gain, only in cases where someone may be in danger or needs our help.”

That was most interesting and would bear further exploration, however, now wasn’t the time since we had a very long way to go and only a short time to get there!

I told Greg that most of what was going to happen next I hadn’t seen before, so it was going to be up to him to guide the portal.

We watched as Bob teleported into the house and Greg was all but screaming for him not to. Then, he relaxed, seeing him only go into the basement and immediately port back out to his van.

Then we watched Bob turn invisible and start to pull away, only to stop and backup back into Rex’s driveway. It looked funny, seeing a ‘driverless’ van driving itself!

Then, Greg told me, “Bob just called out to Charlie, saying he felt something weird and wished I was there! Damn, whatever happens could be my fault!”

I was shocked, “How could you hear that? I didn’t hear a thing?”

Greg chuckled, “That’s because he called on our ‘semi-private’ mode and I just happen to be in on those. We use it when we don’t want the ladies to know what we’re talking about! He just asked if Mary could join with him to possibly figure out what this strange feeling was that he felt.”

We kept watching but Greg had to tell me what was going on as it was obvious Mary popped into Bob’s van, invisible. I was extremely surprised when right after she popped in, she and Bob almost immediately started fooling around with each other!

When I told Greg that, he chuckled, “That doesn’t really surprise me, Darren. I know this is a dire situation, in some respects, but this is just what often happens between the six of us. Mary just told Bob, who was nearly as surprised as you were, that she missed him terribly since she hadn’t seen him for three and half days. It’s actually quite funny, since Bob just asked if this was how she usually joined with Charlie when Charlie wanted her to get into his head. She admitted that it wasn’t, but, she didn’t feel it would slow down their endeavors all that much.

I have to admit; I was getting somewhat turned on by Greg’s ‘play-by-play’ description of what he determined they were currently doing to each other. Even when Bob picked her up, carried into the back of the van and engaged in a mutual ‘69’ to clean each other up! Of course, we couldn’t ‘see’ a thing, but, I was even more surprised to discover that Charlie knew exactly what the two of them were doing.

I had to ask, “It seemed like Charlie wasn’t phased in the least that his Mary would engage in lovemaking with Bob in a circumstance like this? Wouldn’t Charlie be at least a little jealous that his wife was so openly making love to his brother that way?”

Greg looked shocked, “Are you kidding!? I’m surprised for as long as you’ve been around the family, that you don’t know just how totally ‘non-jealous’ the six of us are. The original six of us, Charlie, Mary, Jamie, me, Bob and Linda are nearly 100 percent as much in love with each other as we are with our spouses. In many ways we are probably more of a perfect ‘sextet’, pardon the pun. Obviously, Charlie, Bob and I aren’t sexually in love with each other, but we’re closer than any three brothers you could ever think of. And even though Linda isn’t sexually in love with Jamie or Mary, the three of them are closer than any three sisters.”

I was very curious at this point about why he neglected to say anything about my Sarah. I wasn’t even going to bring it up, but I discovered that Greg is very perceptive and must have noticed the look on my face.

He asked, “I can see you are troubled by the fact that I didn’t include Sarah in our sextet. You have to understand, by the time Sarah came into our lives the six of us were already nearly as close as we are today.” His face clouded then he added, “or were?”

I nodded, “You’re right, I was wondering about that. Maybe we can get into that later because I know we still have a lot to go through to get you up to speed.” I chuckled, “I guess in a lot of ways, you’re getting me up to speed too. When it comes down to it, I don’t know all that much about the intricacies of the family’s relationships. Just one thing I’d like to know. Do you think Charlie or Bob would have a problem with how close Sarah and I are becoming?”

Greg smiled and patted me on the back, “Absolutely not! Since we’re both here learning about things, let me try to explain something to you because I think you need to know how I think you’re going to fit into this family. First off, we all love Sarah nearly as much as we do each other. The difference is, we knew from the start that at some point in time Sarah was going to meet her true soulmate. She didn’t believe it at the time when Charlie first told her, only professing to how much she loved him. I almost feel foolish now for not saying something earlier, but I foresaw you, Darren, as the one she would eventually fall head over heels in love with. I only saw your face, and had no idea exactly who you were. That’s how my premonitions tend to work. Especially when something is quite a ways off in the future. Understand, we had this conversation with her about a month before she became pregnant with little Abby. Or Sissy. At that time, Mary was several months pregnant with little CJ and the rest of the girls all wanted to get pregnant. Charlie may have tried to discourage her, but he also knew how desperately she wanted to have a baby. I need you to understand that, Darren, so you’ll believe that as far as we’re concerned, you are part of the family now.”

When Greg embraced me in a hug, the amount of love that I felt between the two of us made me emotional. Even though I’d only known him for a few days I felt closer to him now than I did to even JB. I had to admit to him, that I had quite a bit of trepidation about how I would be received by the rest of the family. He just continued to smile and assured me that I was a long-awaited addition and that he hoped eventually their sextet would become a true octet.

Now I was really fighting back tears. I felt that I no longer had to worry about what Bob and Charlie would eventually think when and if they ever make it home. Even if Sarah and I decide to have a baby of our own.

Greg went on to tell me that at some point the six of them had already decided to have babies with someone other than their wives. Bob wanted to have a baby with Jamie, Charlie wanted to have a baby with Linda and Greg wanted to have one with Mary.

I chuckled, “So that would make all six kids, or should I say seven, like half-brothers and half-sisters to each other?”

Greg grinned, “Something like that, just like Linda is Charlie and Bob’s half-sister!”

I gasped, “Did you just say that Linda is Charlie and Bob’s half-sister? Did they know that before Bob and Linda decided to have kids?”

He nodded, “Oh yes, you see, Lenny is Linda’s father, and ... Iris, Linda’s mother, is also Lenny’s half-sister!”

Now I was stunned. Holy incestuous family!

Greg saw my stunned look and chuckled, “The fact that Charlie and Linda are half-brother, half-sister, is why the ‘Healing Spirits’ chose to give them the power to heal! We discovered, from a Native American historian, that legend had it that ancient Indian healers were all half-brother / half-sisters. Charlie and Linda were actually told that by the Spirits when they were called to meet them on our first trip to Arizona.”

“I thought their powers came from ... err, someone else?”

I thought about telling him that I thought their powers came from a Chaemarian healer, but when I felt the pain in my gut I realized that Greg possibly didn’t know that Ibera was a Chaemarian. Since I vowed to keep that a secret, I knew at some point I was gonna to have to ask Ibera if she could let Greg in on her secret. If I was going to show him everything that he had missed, this was undoubtedly going to come up again.

Just then Ibera came into our area, smiling, “Darren, if you two wouldn’t mind my sitting in with you, there might be some things I could add to help clarify things that neither of the two of you might fully understand yet?”

Greg and I looked at each other, but were both nodding our heads. I chuckled, “That might be a good idea, my dear. There are obviously some things, many things actually, that I’m not up to speed on either.”

Greg added, “Besides that, you know that you’re always invited! I know that for me, it hasn’t been that long since the two of us got together, but for you it must be like an eternity?”

Ibera pulled Greg into a hug and start kissing him affectionately, “I wouldn’t mind doing it right now, but I know that there are a lot of things you still need to learn, the both of you, so let’s save it for when you’re finished? Then maybe you guys can both have a nice nap before your soirée this evening?”

I have to bet it was nearly as hard for Greg as it was for me to not let her drag us off to her bedroom.

At that point, I un-paused the portal so we could see what happened after Bob and Mary’s sexual encounter.

We watched Bob teleport back into the house, by himself, at Charlie’s urging. They’d had a quick discussion where Bob made sure that if he was in his bubble he wouldn’t accidentally trip any motion sensors. We all gasped when we saw the huge number of explosives all around the perimeter of the living room. There were flashing LEDs everywhere and Greg saw that there were even Claymore mines incorporated with brick after brick of C-4. Charlie and Lenny must’ve been looking through Bob’s eyes and both told him to get the hell out of there ASAP.

Shortly after Bob got back into his van and started it up, we watched the entire house explode! Then we heard Bob exclaim that he needed to check on Sally and the kids. With the exception of the garage, which had a collapsed roof on top of it, the entire house was blown to smithereens. Ed’s house and Bill’s house also sustained extreme damage, especially where Bill and Sally’s bedroom was.

That’s when Greg began to get anxious, feeling that, had he been there, he may have been able to prevent Bob from even going into the house. At this point, we all felt like Bob did, that somehow or another his going into the house is what set off the explosion.

We watched him teleport into the house, to Sally, while Mary had teleported in to check on the kids.

Bob screamed that Sally was unconscious and wasn’t even breathing! He was begging for Charlie and Linda to get there as fast as they could.

Bob started giving Sally CPR and chest compressions until Charlie and Linda showed up. Charlie and Linda immediately attempted to heal her while Bob kept begging her to wake up. A few minutes elapsed and nothing happened. All three of them had tears in their eyes when suddenly three Spirits showed up.

One of them said, solemnly, “I’m sorry my young healers, one thing you can’t heal is death. I’m afraid this lady was dead long before you got here. By the looks of her head wound I would say she was probably killed instantly. Please do not despair, you did everything you could. Even we can’t bring her back from this condition.”

All three of them began weeping, with Charlie now holding Sally’s lifeless hand. When I looked over, Greg was also weeping and now blaming himself for not being there. That’s when Ibera intervened, “This was not your fault, Greg. Didn’t you hear the Spirits? They said she had been dead for some time. Let’s backup the portal to see if we can’t figure out exactly what happened, okay?”

Ibera had the portal focus in on Sally’s bedroom and put it on fast reverse until we saw Mario and Enrico carrying her body in and putting it on the bed. Ibera told us to look at the time on the portal. She said, emphatically, “This happened nearly half an hour before anyone got back from your island, Greg. Even if you had been here, there would have been nothing you could’ve done to prevent this.”

Greg nodded in between sobs, “Thank you for showing me that, but that doesn’t lessen the sadness that I’m feeling. All of us really loved Sally. I can’t even imagine how Bill and Emmy are taking it.”

We went back to the portal to discover that Mary had taken the kids to Lenny’s cabin. Shortly after that, Bill and Emmy teleported in after having heard their kid’s distressing cries. It was heart wrenching watching both of them becoming overcome with grief. All of Charlie’s extended family started showing up one by one.

When Lenny showed up, he said something that sent Charlie right off the deep end.

He wanted both Charlie and Bob to go into chameleon mode and assume another person’s looks. That made Charlie scream, “What the FUCK?” Lenny tried to calm him down, “I know you’re still in shock but if you and Bob are going to be here, you need to look like someone else! Whoever set this up probably has somebody around watching. We want whoever did this to report that you and Bob are dead! If not, this will never end.”

Then we watched Charlie’s FBI friend, TJ, tell the first responders and police that were pulling up that Greg, Charlie and Bob were all in the house when it exploded. When we looked, Charlie and Bob had already transformed into who Greg said were their cousins. Lenny set Charlie off again by telling them to teleport Sally’s body back into her house!

Charlie yelled at him about what that would do to Bill and Emmy? Then Bill said, dejectedly, “Do what he asked, Charlie ... This was all my fault!”

Charlie huffed, “How in the world could this be your fault, Bill?”

With tears streaming down his face he said, “Yesterday I had a client that had a long list of things he wanted me to set up for him. This morning, he came in to finalize all the paperwork but I had second thoughts about it. I really wanted to talk to you, and I tried, but then I remembered you guys were up at Ibera’s waiting on Ed, Bob, Linda and Greg.

“I knew this guy must’ve been some kind of a mobster because when he came to my office he had three bodyguards and an accountant in a $2000 suit. He wanted me to set up 10 shell companies and five offshore bank accounts. It wasn’t until his accountant wanted me to set up five of the shell companies as savings and loans that I realized that he was going to be using these for laundering money. Charlie, I promised you I would never do anything like that without telling you but, when I began stalling he gave me an ultimatum. He said he was going to kill my entire family if I didn’t do this or if I tried to tell anyone! I tried to stall until after I knew the banks were closed but he saw through that and said he was going to have to teach me a lesson. I tried flashing and calling home to warn Sally but the call wouldn’t go through for some reason and she wasn’t answering telepathically. I was nearly home when I felt the kids’ distress. I don’t understand why Sally wasn’t answering my telepathic call to her. I just don’t understand...”

Bill then began sobbing uncontrollably.

A minute later, William Monte and Rex came up to them and said quietly, “Charlie, from what we could tell, Bill may be right. We found evidence that there was a bomb of some kind, probably a pipe bomb, on the outside of Bill’s house just outside the master bedroom. We both agree that the concussion from that is probably what caused your house to explode. From what I saw through Bob’s eyes, the explosives in your house were probably motion activated on a timed fuse. The explosive on Bill’s house was certainly close enough to have triggered everything in your house to go off, all at once.”

There were some other miscellaneous conversations where Lenny and TJ were attempting to calm both Charlie and Bob down. Charlie immediately wanted to tear somebody’s head off. Greg and I both listened intently to all the conversations. We both heard how some of the St. Charles police guys had earlier stopped a speeding vehicle leaving the scene. The vehicle had bomb making paraphernalia in it and they had arrested four people whose last names were Normistronzo. Suddenly Lenny and TJ both knew who this gangster was. TJ told everyone how E Normistronzo or E Norm had been evading capture for the last couple years.

That’s when Bill suddenly got a very determined look on his face and told them that he was supposed to call E Norm as soon as he finished getting the papers ready.

They started dividing up into groups, with Jeremy, Maggie and Monte going to the jail to interview the suspects. Meanwhile, Rex, TJ and Lenny were going to go with Bill to set up a trap to get E Norm.

We could tell that Charlie really wanted to go, but Lenny and TJ wanted no part of him being there, probably afraid of what he might do. When Bob chimed in and asked if he was chopped liver, they made him promise to keep Charlie out of trouble and that yes they could both go with them.

This was interesting for me. It was just like knowing the score of a football game before you watched it. I already knew who all the characters were but decided to just keep my mouth shut and see what really happened, as it happened.

Since it appeared it would be a short time until E Norm showed up at Bill’s office, we decided to pop in to Monte to see what went down with their interrogation.

We heard Monte and Maggie having a telepathic conversation because at this point, Monte still didn’t have teleportation as one of his abilities. There were some humorous exchanges before Jeremy went ahead and gave it to him. He had been waiting for Charlie to give it to him and was afraid Charlie would be upset that someone else gave it to him first.

I also got to see for myself Charlie and Bob’s friend Tom Gregory, the Assistant Chief of the St. Charles Police Department. They got to the station and Tom was wondering why they wanted all four suspects brought in at once, saying how he never did that for fear they would corroborate/collaborate on their stories.

Both of us were laughing, knowing exactly what was probably going to happen. Maggie announced she had some kind of a plan up her sleeve and that she might inadvertently cut in on them.