Working Through The Night

I couldn’t think clearly. Beth was doing well but had warned me to be careful. Surely she didn’t know anything about the power plant mission...? There was no way she could’ve connected any of it to me anyways. I was just being paranoid. Still, I need to get back to the Vault and work on more DarkR FOBs. Secrecy would continue to be paramount.
 
Jeremy was waiting outside the tavern and opened the door the car for me, so as I settled comfortably into car. Then he sat in the drivers seat and pressed the ignition, speaking the words, “Return to Sharpe Mansion”. And the modernized Rolls Royce moved away from the tavern automatically, heading back to the mansion seamlessly weaving between cars and intersections due to the city’s advanced architecture, returning to the front entryway just after 8PM.
 
I stopped by the kitchen to grab a sandwich and a bowl of soup from Regina — leftovers from the house chef’s last prepared meal.
 
Regina was in the kitchen when I arrived, so I quickly went by and kissed her on the cheek. “Thanks Regina. You’re a lifesaver.” I said sincerely. Regina was the first employee I brought on at the house, fifteen years ago. She almost felt like a mother and a sister to me, at the same time.
 
Regina smiled and watched as I weaved in and out of the spacious kitchen, until I paused, “Has Sarah already eaten?”, I asked. Sarah was home for the summer, but we both kept to ourselves these days — like father, like daughter.
 
“Yes.” Regina responded. “Lucky for you, she left some of that soup for you.”
 
Grabbing a mineral water from the drink refrigerator in one hand and holding the plate of food and soup in the other, I walked up to Sarah’s room precariously and knocked on the door lightly with my forehead.
 
“Sarah? I’m home now. You there?”
 
After a few seconds, Sarah opened the door and smiled. “You got the soup.”
 
“Yep. Thanks for leaving me some.” We chatted together for a few seconds and laughed about plans we had for a trip later in the month. After a minute I told her, “I’m going to work in the vault for a while tonight, OK? I have an idea and need to work out some of the bugs.”
 
“OK Dad. I love you. Goodnight.”
 
I made my way to the vault, closing the door and placing the food on the workbench. Then, I found my old Electronics book from the shelf — an old college textbook for a class I never attended — and turned to the page on Soldering. Reading it carefully, like a newbie, I reassured myself of the final steps of soldering the DarkR FOBs.
 
More scotch, and another cigar later, three more FOBs had been fabricated, only stopping when the materials became scare. It was 3AM in the morning.
 
“I’ll need Jamie to get me some more materials...” I said out loud to myself, knowing she’d figure out how to do it, but hoping she wouldn’t ask any questions. “Not at this point”, I said to myself. “I’m not ready to explain all of this to her yet.”
 
Opening a secret drawer in the workbench, I placed three new FOBs alongside the one created earlier in the day. Four FOBs were now ready for whenever Socrates identifies additional candidates for the New Champions Protocol.
 
Not realizing how early it was in the morning, I sent a secure text over the DarkR web, “Socrates, a total of four new FOBs are available now. I have them stored securely in my vault until they are needed.”
 
With that, I lifted the dusty old ink bottle from the back corner of my workbench. Immediately, a set of stairs appeared behind me as the bookshelf next to the cigar closet receded into the six-foot thick vault wall. Taking the dimly-lit stairs downward, I eventually arrived in the large cavernous shower room of the master bathroom suite — blue and silver square tiles folding backward to open as I approached and closing again as I passed through.
 
After a quick shower, I stumbled into bed. Surely there are more long days like this ahead of us.