Back in the dojo, Karla and Kumiko were meditating. I hate to say it, but Kumiko was having better luck. Karla kept worrying about things, though she did finally manage to quiet herself. No, there were no sudden revelations, but she did feel much more calm and centered afterwards. Then she headed to her room to grab some towels before taking her bath.

  She was one step inside her room when she spun on her heel and went to Jane's workshop. The door was open so she walked right in. Jane was huddled over some sort of circuit board and had a soldering iron in her hand.

  Karla marched in, grabbed Jane's arm, and started towing her out of the room. By the time they had reached the door, Jane had managed to turn and get her feet properly under her.

  "Mama, what the heck?"

  Karla didn't say a word, she just kept dragging. She pulled Jane down the hall and into her room and just pointed at the tapestry.

  "Oh dear. Did you just now notice this Mama?"

  Karla nodded. She still didn't feel that speaking was a good idea as she strongly suspected that she'd be yelling if she ever opened her mouth.

  "Well, I guess that tomorrow will be an interesting day. Ian and I had best get back to work if we want them to be operational by then. Good thing that I have all the parts."

  She waved at Karla as she went back down the hall. "I'll explain in the morning Mama. Or rather, I'll show you, IF a certain someone lets me get back to work. See you then."

  -----------------------

  Morning came, as it almost always did, as soon as I scented the coffee on the breeze. No matter how much a fuss Jane makes about me being an early bird, she's usually up before me.

  <>

  I moseyed down the hall to the kitchen. I'd look ridiculous with bruises on my face if I tripped on something because I was hurrying.

  <>

  I grabbed my coffee mug and took several gulps. Thus fortified I turned to the rest of the family who were, surprisingly, all in the living room.

  The twins were oohing and ahing over something that Jane and Ian were showing them. I hurried over to see what was going on and almost tripped, again....

  Ian and Jane were each holding a rather odd looking, heart shaped pendant up to the twins' necks. Blue for Kumiko of course, and rose colored for Kimi. I had no idea what they were or where they came from so I decided to be subtle. "What the heck are those weird things?"

  Wow! Four people glaring at you at once is almost physically palpable. I'd have to try to remember that.

  "Ah. Let me rephrase that. Jane honey, I don't remember you ordering any jewelry for the girls, and there weren't any deliveries. So, what are the pendants?"

  Jane relented, a little. The glare dropped to a level 1 or 2, just enough to make sure that I'd notice that she was still displeased with my foot-in-mouth, opening sally for the morning. "These my dear mother are protection. Somewhat like our shields, I think, maybe. Instead of having to be activated, they're on all the time. The batteries can't go dead because I've incorporated a reciprocating mechanism in each of them that will generate electricity from any movement, such as the girls walking."

  "Janie, please use simpler words. I get the idea that they're self-charging, but what's a reciprocating mechanism?"

  "Oh Mama." The glare changed to a look of long-suffering. I'm getting more and more sure that the acting classes she took in high school were a mistake.

  "When the girls move, the pendants will sway back and forth. Just a little bit, but that's all the device needs. It's sort of like a self-winding watch. The innards move and run a tiny battery charger."

  "Ah, OK. That I understand, thanks."

  "Ian helped me design the circuits. It was pretty hard to do with what we had on hand, but salvage girl came to the rescue with some of that 'electronic garbage' you're always nagging me to throw away." Then she stuck her tongue out at me and gave me her best "I told you so" look.

  The twins covered their mouths and shook a little. Their latest version of giggling.

  Ian just gave Jane a lofty, but understanding look.

  "All right. So they're battery powered, heart shaped pendants that offer some sort of protection. What kind?"

  Jane was entirely serious now. "That thing that attacked them back in September wasn't human. What it was I still haven't been able to find out. We do know that it wasn't the first one of whatever it is that the FBI has seen.

  "So, Ian and I cobbled up something that should scramble its circuits if another shows up. The pendants emit a variable electric field that should interfere with the nervous impulses of anything that isn't native to this world or plane. Fortunately it doesn't seem to affect humans. I don't know if it will just be irritating or if it will knock them out, or worse than that. I have no sample to calibrate against."

  I was losing it again, and she took sympathy on me this time.

  "It should make them safer if any really weird beings show up Mama."

  "Ah. Good. I can live with that."

  "I made one for Ian too, just in case. Not a heart though. I stuck it in a miniature robot model I had lying around. Just the thing for a guy geek."

  He punched her in the arm, not very hard. We never hit very hard. We could easily break something or someone. Yeah, we're all that kind of strong.

  Then he grinned at Jane. "That's right oh font of girl geekiness. I bow down to your geekdom."

  He ducked her punch, then they both got back to business. Ian had to catch the bus to school, and the rest of us had to leave for the Parent-Teacher conference in about an hour. Yes I know that kids often don't go along for those, but would you want me to leave the girls home alone after what happened? Even with all our protections, something could get in if it tried hard enough.

  The rest of us made a show of having a leisurely breakfast and waved cheerily at Ian as he stomped out of the house. He didn't like being mocked. Bear in mind that if we hadn't done so, he'd have been upset anyway because he'd have thought that we were ignoring him.

  This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

  Remember that. When you're dealing with kids, especially teens, sometimes your best option is still the lesser of two evils. No it's not fair, but that's the way it is.

  --------------------------

  At 08:30, Jane called the school. "This is Jane Knight. I hear that you've been having some problems with intermittent signal loss on the video feeds. " She grimaced. "Yes, I understand. You're having problems with the picture too. All right.

  "Fortunately I'll be in for a Parent-Teacher conference in about half an hour, so I'll come take a look at things right after that. It's probably just a connection that wiggled loose when someone bumped into the rack or something like that."

  Obviously dead silence at the other end. Jane gave me a thumbs-up and a big grin.

  "Not to worry, these things happen now and then. I'm absolutely positive that things will be up and running just fine again after I do a bit of a tune-up. Right. You bet. You're welcome. See you then."

  She hung up and turned with a smile. "No matter where I install a bigger system, there's always someone who has an irresistible urge to peep behind the rack and look at all the cables. About half the time they cause a glitch because a wire or three gets loosened. From the receptionist's reaction, it seems pretty likely that they've been naughty.

  "It's homeowners who almost never mess with their installation. They know that if they break it, they have to pay for the repairs personally . It's in the contract. Public employees tend not to think about the costs of their screw-ups. I wish that they did.

  "Oh well. Now they'll never suspect that it was me who bollixed up the system."

  I decided that it was time to be motherly. "OK everyone. You'd better hurry up and get the dishes washed. You'll need time to finish getting dressed."

  Mother's first rule when there are multiple children. Get them to wash the dishes whenever possible. After all, they're the ones that get them dirty, right?

  The twins were obviously too excited about their day to do more than offer a token "Ah Mom, do I have to?" look. They got the dishes done in a flash and disappeared down the hallway.

  Ten minutes later we all met back in the living room. I have to admit that Jane and Ian did a great job with the pendants for the twins. They were pretty without being overly flashy. Not terribly atypical for something a 9 year old might wear. In other words, nothing that the other girls at school would get jealous over, and too girly for the guys to want to have a closer look.

  Then it was hugs all around and everyone headed out to the car.

  <>

  Got to school, went to the front door, and pushed the buzzer. Staff were following the new protocol. Checked us on camera first and only then came to the door to let us in. The door cameras were all functioning perfectly for some reason. It was just some of the internal ones that were offline. I wonder why?

  <>

  The secretary/receptionist paged Mr. Hafiz. We only had about a one minute wait because we were the first family on the schedule for the day. After we did the usual "good morning" ritual, we headed down the hall toward one of the rooms used for conferences. Kimiko ran ahead. Well, she started to.

  Mr. Hafiz was all over that right away, "Kimiko. How many times do I have to tell you? Do NOT run in the hall, ever!"

  She stopped and spun on her heel and bowed slightly to him then started to bounce backwards down the hallway. Just a little bit. Not enough to get another reprimand.

  Then everything went crazy. I don't know if you've been in explosive situations before, but...

  <>

  When the fecal matter hits the rotary impeller, it seems that everything happens simultaneously. Probably because so many things are going on that they really do overlap. But the human mind isn't built that way, so, afterwards, we always describe what happened as if it had been sequential.

  That's why different witnesses describe things differently. Each one puts together the things that happened in an order that fits with their mindset.

  So, I'll have to describe this as if things happened in a particular order. Who knows, maybe they really did.

  All of a sudden, Kimiko stopped smiling and got an extremely angry look on her face. Then she screamed, "NOOOOOOOOO! Mr. Baird!!!"

  Jane dropped to the floor with her hands over her ears, then let go with one and slapped at her shield. It was probably a good thing she was down there as that was when Kimiko flew through the space where Jane's head had been a fraction of a second earlier.

  Right when Kimiko screamed, my dragon pendant got really hot, and I was momentarily dizzy.

  Mr. Hafiz was turning, apparently in slow motion, with his mouth wide open and a grimace of what was probably pain on his face.

  From behind us there was another scream, this one from a normal vocal apparatus that was an eerie echo of Kimiko's."

  "NOOOOO! KIMIKO!"

  Then their were two loud thuds, one after the other. I didn't see what had caused the first, but I did see the second. I'd managed to turn almost all the way around by then.

  I saw a man in some sort of green uniform behind Kumiko. He had his left arm extended almost all the way and he was half turned to his left. There was an older man - maybe in his early 60s - starting to slide down the lockers behind him. There was a dent in the metal where his back had hit the locker.

  Then I noticed the Bowie knife in the right hand of the man in uniform. He started to turn back toward us and to raise the knife so as to stab Kumiko in the back. No baseballs around this time, but we didn't need one. We had Kimiko.

  She'd landed feet first on one of the lockers to the side of our group and had pushed off....rather strongly I'd say as there was a dent in the metal where her feet had landed, about 4 feet off the ground.

  One of the laws of physics has to do with the conservation of momentum.

  <>

  It says that a body in motion tends to stay in motion.

  Kimiko and the man in uniform met in the middle of the hall. She put one hand on either side of his head and used his head as a pivot to help her change direction so she didn't hit the opposite wall with her head.

  She kept moving all right but her actual motion was in a half circle, just like any kid will make when they run and grab a pole in the ground and swing around it. However her pole was a human, and she had only grabbed his head.

  As she swung around him, his neck tried to turn with her. It failed rather dramatically. There was a loud CRACK. Then Kimiko landed on her feet on the other side of the hall from where she started.

  Our new assassin wannabe was collapsed in the middle of the hall. He wasn't going to get up again.

  At the same time, the older man, who must be the Mr. Baird that Kimiko screamed about, landed on his butt on the floor. Then he slowly slide sideways.

  Before his head could hit the floor, Kimiko was there to catch him. She sat down and laid his head in her lap. She was crying like crazy and shouting at the same time.

  "Mr. Baird. Mr. Baird! Are you OK? Please be OK. Mr. Baird!!!!"

  Kumiko and I ignored the body and rushed over to Kimiko and Mr. Baird. He had a pulse and was breathing regularly. There weren't any scary soft spots on the back of his head and his pupils were equal. Beyond that I couldn't tell anything much. I may be a jack-of-all-trades, but a paramedic I'm not.

  "Kimiko, don't move him any more. You just sit there till the paramedics get here, OK?"

  "He's going to be OK, isn't he Mama? He'll be all right, won't he?"

  <>

  "I didn't find anything terribly wrong with him Kimi. It looks like he just got knocked out. But we don't want to move him until the paramedics say that it's OK. All right honey?"

  "OK. Mama. I won't move."

  Then she went back to stroking his head and staring intently at his face. There had to be some sort of VERY interesting history there, but it could wait as long as it had to. We had a story to put together, and we had to do it fast.

  I turned to see Kumiko hugging Jane, who looked to be coming around adequately. I noticed that there was a painful spot on my chest, probably courtesy of my pendant.

  We knew from previous experience that Kimiko could be more than a bit loud when she was upset, and that was when we were 50 miles away. This time it had been more like six feet.

  Then I remembered Mr. Hafiz. Uh-oh.