Raptor

By Tony Pypka

This is a story of a young teen that makes an incredible discovery while trying to fine tune an earlier invention. Realizing the potential danger to the world if it got into the wrong hands, he dedicates most of his younger life protecting the secret till he is able to build something that not only can protect himself and two young ladies that came into his life, but the many secrets of his inventions. Secrets that over time will have far reaching consequences spanning hundreds of years and hundreds of worlds.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 19, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483676272

Tony Pypka

Tony Pypka Born in 1957 and grew up in south western Manitoba. His first job lasted 29 years before deciding that he didn't want to make a career of it. Most of his adult life, he had been having a series of seemingly unrelated dreams. After advice to write them down to stop the dreams, he decided to turn them into a complete story. It stopped the dreams but he ended up with two full and two partial stories. Although he liked the second story better, this is his first attempt at writing using Canadian English, eh.

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Copyright © 2013 by Tony Pypka.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,

without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in

this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people, equipment,

or incidents is purely coincidental.

Rev. date: 08/21/2013

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Contents

The End

The Beginning

This story is the result of a dream I had as a young teen. It was a reoccurring dream over a period of decades. I decided to write it down, in an attempt to stop the dreams. As I used elements from movies and television shows that where part of my early life at the time, this story was never meant for publication or distribution to the general public. The idea behind writing it down worked as the dreams ceased almost immediately. The names and physical descriptions of the people depicted are purely fictional. The situations, personal, political, technological, and legal are only figments of my imagination and do not in any way represent current methodology, reality, or even my current way of thinking. The situations portrayed in this story are only there to carry the story to it’s conclusion.

This story is dedicated to my wife and life partner Diane. It is only with her support and understanding that I am able to put my thoughts and memories to paper. It is also through her that I remain grounded and, at least in part, in touch with reality.

This story, in my mind, was much more detailed and technological in the beginning and had to edited down to expedite the story and make it readable but as the story progresses, it becomes more of a time-line with less and less detail allowing the reader to fill in the gaps with their own imagination.

This story, with it’s mixed up ending, really has no ending, allowing for possible future stories.

The End

To avoid detection from the planet below, we gated the city ship around to the backside of the moon. The ship is over three miles long and a little over a mile wide. At over seventy floors high, it is the single largest construct in the known universe. It houses almost six hundred thousand souls and is a fully self contained bio-sphere. Most of the people on board are full time residents but at any given time there are tens of thousands of super rich intergalactic tourists as well. Some use the ship simply to travel in style from one planet to another, others spend a few years on board as a retreat, but most simply use it as a luxurious retirement home. Although it resupplies at every planet that we visit, it contains it’s own agricultural, livestock, and orchard levels and is capable of sustaining flights of more than five solar years between resupplies.

We sent our probes out past the edge of the barren rock and listened. The signal that we where receiving was a repeating message. It was coming from an ancient solar powered satellite, still just barely functioning. There was only one lone signal and a whole lot of silence. Our sensors told us that there are only a few hundred thousand life forms present on the planet. The massive ship slips out from behind the moon and heads towards the blue and white planet below. Settling into a high orbit, we still detect no more signals. The planet is almost silent. Even as we pass over the dark side, there are no telltale city lights. The only signs of energy being detected are from wild fires and electrical storms. After sending down a series of remote sensors to check the air quality, we board a lander along with the usual first contact party.

As the lander approached the lower atmosphere, we still could not find any signs of human life. A flyby over an old base site was disappointing. Only overgrown and cracked runways and the remains of a few ancient building foundations. Even an old mansion was only a pile of rubble overgrown with trees. I look at the wives for a second and noticed a few tears.

City after city are deserted and in ruins. We passed a few small bands of humans but they only pointed small firearms at us and fired a few potshots. Hours later, we came upon a small settlement in the shadows of the mountains. It consisted of approximately fifty shacks and shanties surrounded by a twenty foot high adobe style barricade with a fortified entrance. The barricade was higher in places as if it was built in a hurry using only the local materials. It’s outer sides were slightly slanted inward to make it harder for someone to climb, even with a ladder. Close by the settlement where signs of agriculture on a small scale. The fields where only as large as a number of people could handle using hand tools only. A second walled enclosure, it’s walls only three quarters as high as the settlement’s nearby held a few pigs and goats. Everything, including the villagers, seemed to be of the same drab colours. The huts, walls, clothes, and exposed skin seemed to be brown or mud grey. With no large water source nearby, it seemed that washing of bodies and clothes where not considered important or even necessary to control the spread of disease.

No guns where drawn as we hovered overhead so we chanced a landing. Unlike the old Raptor, the lander used for this excursion had no exposed weapons and presented no threat to the settlement. By the time the ramp was fully extended, a group of them clad in rags and makeshift clothes where already slowly approaching. After the ramp is extended and the heralds are deployed, the council make their way down the ramp. The ship’s heralds form ranks down both sides of the ramp. Their movement is flawless. Their flowing capes and hoods are scarlet red. One of the humans walks up to the side of the ramp and tries to engage a herald in conversation. It was fortunate that he could not see past the dark, full face shield under the shade of the hood as he would be looking into the cold cyber eyes of a mechanical killer. Beneath it’s cape is an automatic high speed cannon attached to one arm and on the other, a miniature Gatling gun. Both of the barrels are shaped like a straight sword for close in combat.

Watching from inside the lander as the council makes it’s way down the ramp, I shudder as I remember how ruthless and efficient those heralds are. They are a highly improved version of my personal robot but only the combat properties where kept and improved upon. We once watched as a single one was unleashed on a group of lesser combat robots during a test of it’s systems. It tore through them like they where standing still. In seconds, there was only scrap metal and pools of hydraulic fluid. If it where up to me, those heralds would be shut down and locked into their lockers, but it was decided by the council that they be part of any meetings with an unknown.

The council, in their colourful flowing gowns and ornate headpieces, reach the bottom of the ramp as members of the settlement step cautiously forward. With all the people watching, a female with long scraggly hair steps up and engages the council. At first the language was a barrier but the same computers that had cracked a few other alien languages where brought in and in a few minutes was translating what turned out to be a form of Spanglish. A mix of English and Spanish introduced by the northern migration of thousands of Latinos. Once the translation computers are up to speed, she again asks who we are and why are we here.

We come in peace., replied one of the council members holding out empty hands. We, the council, are the representatives of a coalition of hundreds of worlds. We have known about your planet for hundreds of years. We recently learned of a fleet of alien ships that where on their way to this sector on a mission to turn this planet into a meat factory. You where to be the meat. It was a species that we had encountered before. After learning of their plan, we destroyed most of their technologies on their home planet and out-raced their ships to this sector of space. Just inside of the boundaries of this solar system, we encountered them and eliminated their entire fleet. Now, with no more spacecraft left to them and their industrial and technological capabilities destroyed, they should not be a problem for a very long time

We are grateful for your assistance but I have to wonder, if you knew of our planet for hundreds of years, why have you not visited us before?

Because we have been given an edict. It was implemented around three hundred years ago, your time. This planet was considered unsafe on many levels at that time and it was deemed necessary by the Founders to place this planet into isolation.

By now many of the council are assembled on the ground. A few where less than four feet high, others over nine feet. As no one was approaching them with weapons, I decide to join them. As I make my way down the ramp, my ever present wives are right behind me. The pungent smell at ground level was repulsive but we tried to ignore it for diplomacy’s sake.

This ‘coalition’, can you tell us about it?, she asks.

As I said, it contains hundreds of planets, some as close as a few hundred light years from here, others as far away as the outer edge of the galactic core, all the way up this galactic arm and spilling over into the neighbouring arm. It is a trade alliance between all of us. Between the alliance laws and the one bank that connects us all in a single monetary system, there has never been a war between the member planets. As well, our memory machines can trace everyone on every planet to just a few thousand people on three of the oldest planets. Even though, as you can see, we all look a little different, we are in fact, all related.

About those aliens that you stopped, why did you. If you considered us as unsafe? I mean, if you had let them come, that little problem would have been fixed, would it not?

We could not. Our founder is with us and ordered us to intervene on Earth’s behalf. If you have not guessed it by now, we are all children of Earth.

Children of Earth? But that means that you are the descendents of those people that went out into space hundreds of years ago. We where told that they where all dead. They never came back or even sent a message. And this founder that you speak of, is it someone that is a descendant of the original founder?

No, they are the original Founders and they are standing right beside you.

Huh, how is that possible? as she turns to face me. That would make you hundreds of years old. According to our history chronicles that we found in an old abandoned building, I think they once called it a library, the ‘Founders’ where already very old when they left Earth. The government at the time labelled them as traitors to Earth. They took thousands and thousands of people, billions in gold and the technology that could have allowed us to go into space ourselves. That government was themselves thrown out in a matter of days after the final departure of the ‘Founders’.

The Founder and his wives where never traitors. It was their intentions all along to save humanity. It started with just getting a few people off this world in case of a catastrophe here on Earth and as time went by, they built on that idea to make sure that even the backup plan had multiple backup plans. Now, for humanity to be extinguished from existence, it must be done on more than four hundred planets and literally thousands of generational ships including the city ship in which we came. Our civilization numbers in the multiple trillions now. The only reason they where named traitors was because your government at the time had spent all of the countries money and wanted to loot the Founder. They wanted to sell off his technology to the highest bidder, take his stock piles of gold that he had earned and his ability to make even more money. They lost it all in their greed but it was his technology, and his gold that saved us and kept us alive and prosperous. We left behind all of the violence, hatred, and greed that this planet was sinking in. There isn’t a person out there amongst the stars that doesn’t thank him everyday. We have no health problems, no poverty, no shortage of homes, food, and opportunities.

But this man that stands here before us, if you say that he is the one and the same person that once lived here, he would be hundreds of years old. Is he some kind of god or something?

No, I reply, It’s just more of my technology. The nanobots, microscopic little robots, too small for the eye to see, keep my wives and myself alive as long as we wish to live. I was born here of an poor immigrant father and a simple mother. My first job here paid me about two dollars an hour. A man once told me to work smarter, not harder, and soon I was making millions a day. Today, I make billions a week and now that we no longer need all that money, we, my wives and I, enjoy using it for the betterment of our fellow humans out there.

Slowly we get their version of what they remember. After we left for the stars, the government of Canada was in trouble. The people kicked them out and imprisoned most of them but they had left the country in such bad shape that the United States gradually took over financially and then, one day, drove in and took over the entire country by force. With no military left, due to continual downsizing by the government over the decades since the last World War, no real resistance was given. About the same time, the oceans started to rise and the land began drying up, famine and starvation wracked the world. At first it started out by gangs from the cities raiding stores and then going into the countryside to pillage the small towns and farmers. That turned into civil war and finally, global war as each country went looking for food. The people where already dying on their own but a few of the countries started to lob bombs filled with deadly viruses and gases. The cities and towns became battlegrounds for decades as the food wars raged on. By the time every bomb and every bullet was fired, they where fighting with sticks and stones.

When it was finally over and the ground once again started to produce food, there where no more factories or farms left and no one was left that knew how to build anything. This group had managed to survive here because they have erected walls to keep out the few bands of stragglers that still roamed the land, killing everyone they encountered. These survivors had found an old abandoned farm that had a sealed bin of wheat seeds. Together with some stray animals, they started farming in hidden areas around this encampment. They did not know about the beacon in space or anything else out past a few days walk from here.

As we traded stories, they learned that unlike what the governments of the time said, we did not perish in empty space. We flourished and the colonist started to colonize other planets till we got to where we are today. Four hundred plus colony planets containing trillions of people. Thousands of intergalactic ships of all varieties plying the trade routes and hundreds of huge space stations in between. With a manifesto forbidding conflict between colonies and a single central bank for all the colonies assuring an even playing field across the galaxy, monetarily, trade between the worlds has become essential to the prosperity of everyone.

They where amused at the diversity of shapes and colours of the council members so we had to explain about the long term effects of life on the different worlds. Different gravity combined with different types of food have led to what they see before them now.

We soon learned that there where a little more than two hundred people here but they know of a few other settlements hidden here and there. Their lifespan had been reduced from over eighty years to a little over forty years. Everyone in the group surrounding us was covered in open sores and the odour was offensive. They where just in the process of relearning how to work metal and are using some of the ancient artifacts that they have found as models for making their own tools. Things like ploughs are still useless as they have no means to pull them so farming is done with shovels and picks. Apparently all large animals such as horses and cattle had been killed off for food hundreds of years ago and the machines meant to toil having long since rusted away, they now had no other choice but to use their backs and hands.

After hearing stories about how things are done on other worlds, they asked us to stay and show them. A few vehicles and other tools are brought down from the city ship on another large shuttle along with technicians to train the settlers. They also asked us if we where going to stay and help them repopulate the Earth. After a long council session, it was agreed that the reason we left in the first place was to save humanity from itself, it was up to us to finish what we had started. It was agreed that we would re-colonize the Earth, but using the same rules we used everywhere. No small nations of people to start the arguing all over again. One planet, one council, one seat on the galactic council. No dictatorships, no religion involved, and no mega corporations controlling the councils. The same coin as the rest of the galaxy allowing for free trade with each other and with the stars. Once the council returned with our decision, they invited us to a celebration, but one look at their half cooked mutton and we declined. Instead the entire settlement was brought up to the city ship in shuttles, given baths, medical check-ups, new clothes, and a feast like they had never had before, in an environment unlike anything that they could have ever imagined. The cultural shock from mud brick shanties to the super sterile interior of the city ship was interesting to watch. Even as they where led through the shiny metal corridors of the ship, small rodent-like robots followed the survivors, sweeping, washing and polishing the spotless hallways and boulevards behind them.

Later, we learned that a few of those robots did not answer their signals when prompted by the computer to continue cleaning the next day and subsequently could not be found by the technicians when they went looking for them. We all got a laugh a few days later when someone pointed out to us, bits and pieces of the little robots scattered around the survivor’s encampment.

As we where about to leave, with promises to return with equipment and colonists, the settlement was attacked by a gang of marauders bent on killing everyone and stealing their food and our ships. The heralds made short work of them. Even as the last of the marauders tried to escape the slaughter, he too was sliced to pieces. It was later agreed that a team of them was going to stay here to defend the settlement and later, after the colonists got here, would scour the land in rovers to eliminate any further attacks from ever happening. A small contingent also stayed behind to help the survivors locate the other settlements and convey the messages of what was about to happen to the planet. As expected, a few would resist change, never having known anything but hardship and despair, but for the most part, the idea that every part of their lives was about to change was too good to be true. Within weeks, small groups started to arrive at the settlement in anticipation of the coming events and to see for themselves the technologies we had left behind already. At first, they came in groups of ten or more having heard the rumours or seen the flying machines overhead but by the time the first colonists arrived in their massive transports, they where arriving in the hundreds every day, swelling the settlement into the thousands and threatening the villages food supply.

Shortly after the initial contact with the village, my wives and I revisited the old base and the mansion site in our personal shuttle, we where shocked to find a few pieces of skulls and larger bones still sticking out of the ground around what was left of the old perimeter stone fence around the rubble pile that we used to call home. I guess with all the chaos of the day, no one bothered to collect the bodies to bury them.

Walking around for a while only seemed to upset the girls more. We talked about what they remembered of those last days we spent here and what it was like when we first found each other, all those centuries ago.

That night I asked the captain of the ship to position it so that the windows in our estate rooms faced the planet below. Later, as I watched, each girl took a different room, wanting to be alone with their thoughts, sitting there for hours looking out of the windows, screaming and crying at the planet below. Finally around four in the morning, ship’s time, I call the Captain again to reposition the ship for the early morning memorial service to be held in a large open section of the ship set aside as a relaxing park with the Raptor sitting in a place of honour near the middle. Along one entire wall was a glass-steel window over a hundred and eighty feet high by four hundred feet long. Even at this early hour, hundreds of shipmates where already gathering in the park to assure their seats for the historic memorial service to the planet Earth. In just a few more hours, this place will be packed with thousands and thousands of mourners.

While the Earth was coming into view back at the park, I picked up first one, then the other wife and carried them to the bedroom. They had been crying for so many hours that they where all cramped up and I ended up carrying them rolled up like a ball. As Terry Lynn and Brie Ann slept fitfully in my arms, on board the massive city ship, I lay there thinking about my life back then. I summoned up the memories using my brain link with master computer still inside the old Raptor, now one of the few remaining relics from old Earth… .

The Beginning

2003

It is mid-summer in southern Manitoba. The heat and humidity was sucking the life out of me. It was overwhelming and inescapable. After a day of window shopping in the mall just to cool off in their air-conditioning, I was on my way home when I decided to stop at a local ice-cream shop. After ordering my selection and digging through my pocket for some change to pay the girl, I heard familiar voices behind me. Turning around, I spotted an older couple I knew from a few years back. They where the parents of a young lady I once worked with. They saw me and asked me to come and sit with them. I had only talked to them a few times in the past but their daughter had introduced us so I guess they thought we where all close friends. I tried to remember their names, Gwen was her’s but I couldn’t remember his which was strange for me. I have not forgotten anything in the last twenty years. I realized that I had probably never heard anyone tell me his name.

His daughter’s name was Terry-Lynn. She was short, unlike her parents, very cute, full of energy, and single minded. I only worked with her for about a year before she had left with a boyfriend to go live on his farm and to eventually get married. She was young, right out of school when she came to work with me at the bus depot. Although she was cute, smart as a whip, and friendly without any trace of attitude, at the time, I was using the bus depot like a happy hunting ground for girls. Most of them where skanks but that was fine with me as I had no intention of staying with them for more then a few weeks or even days as all I was interested in was sex. Looking at her, I deduced that as she was fresh out of school without the typical attitude that most preppy girls have, she must have been either unpopular or was still a virgin waiting for the right boy. Having gone all the way through school and now into the workplace with her virginity still in place, I decided that I did not want to seduce her and take the one thing that she can only give once, only to drop her in a week or less. Not only would it break her heart, I would probably have to train another person next week to replace her after she quits like those that I had deflowered before her had. Besides, when she first started, she still had an annoying high pitched little girl voice which thankfully over the months that she was there, slowly matured into a more normal but very sweet voice. She made a number of attempts to talk with me over the time she worked there but I tried my best to keep my distance even though I was clearly interested in her naive charms. Eventually she gave up and ran into a young man at a local community college and fell in love. She had been gone a little over two years now since I last saw her. Last I heard, she had left with him to live on his father’s farm anticipating their upcoming wedding.

As I’m not really a very social person with the gift of gab, after the usual Hello’s and How are you’s, I realized I was quickly running out of stuff to talk about, so I asked about Terry and how was the wedding that I wasn’t invited to. They looked at each other and after he rolled his eyes back and raised his left eyebrow, Gwen started to explain to me that after Terry had moved in with the boyfriend, he started to treat her differently. At first there was a few uncalled for comments, then the drinking started and things just got worse after that. His dad had also been a drunk which probably explains why he also had no wife anymore. Gwen said that they had told her to get out of that relationship as fast as she could but she was stubborn and had wanted a husband and family so badly that she was sure she could change him given a little more time. But things only got worse. He refused to talk about weddings and told her that babies only got on his nerves and cramped his style.

Then one day, about two months ago, he decided to have a party at the farm. Another excuse to get drunk. He invited all his drinking buddies and their girlfriends out to the farm. Terry was trying to keep it together in front of his friends but his verbal abuse was getting worse by the minute. Some of the other girlfriends where also getting turned off by his language and one even asked her boyfriend to take her home but he refused saying that the guys where all friends from way back in grade school and that he was only blowing off some steam and it would pass.

After a couple of hours, he gets a new idea about how to humiliate her. (Terry was about twenty one years old and unlike her mother, she has a flat chest. I mean there is nothing there, just a large pair of nipples. I saw them one day when we where working together. She had bent over to pick something up in front of me and her shirt had opened up enough for me to accidentally see down her chest. As she didn’t need even a training bra, she hardly if ever wore one and she hadn’t that day. They where the largest nipples I had ever seen on a person and I had seen lots.) Anyway, her boyfriend wants to show off her nipples to all of his friends and starts prodding her to take off her blouse and give a little show. She refuses and this only makes him madder. He starts yelling at her to strip in front of everyone and show then what he has to look at every time he wants to have sex. No wonder I drink, sex with her is like having sex with a little girl he shouts and with that he grabs her and attempts to rip off her cloths. A couple of the other girls get up to help Terry but he just pushes them away. One of the guys, having just seen his girlfriend get pushed away by his friend, realizes that if he doesn’t do something, he’ll never have sex again with his girlfriend. He gets up, grabs his friend, and throws him across the room into a wall. He must have hit a stud in the wall because he dropped to the floor out cold. The party broke up real quick after that. Apparently the guy and his girlfriend that had helped her then asked her if she needed any help. Terry said that all she wanted to do was go home so they helped her pack everything into the back of his old truck and drove her back to Brandon and to their house.

Terry is fiercely independent so after a couple of days at home, she went out looking for an apartment to call her own, her dad says, but all she could find is a run down fire trap over some shops in the old down town area. Adding to that, she is unable to find a job because school is out for the summer and the job market is flooded with students. Without a university education, there is little hope for her of finding a job that pays better than minimum wage and she is quickly going though the little money she had been saving for her wedding. She still has no job after two months of looking, her rent is due in a week and she does not have anywhere near enough to cover that. We can’t give anymore because we’re not that well off ourselves. We’re nearing retirement but with all of our loans and such from raising three kids, we’re already eating into our retirement funds just to stay afloat so we can’t help her anymore. Even if she moves out and back in with us, she still has to come up with one months rent.

I thought for a second or so before responding. You know I said, I might have a solution for her. Could you guys bring her over to my place tonight about 7:00 P.M. I’ll be in the back yard for a couple of hours getting some sun and I really would like to see her again if you don’t mind.

Anything to help her Gwen says, but she has a friend that’s been staying with her during the week that’s also looking for work. I think she’s from Minnedosa or Neepawa but her mom drives her into Brandon every week to help her. She stays with Terry but I don’t think she is any better off than Terry is.

Okay, bring her along as well, shouldn’t be a problem. I better get going though, my ice cream is melting and this heat is getting to me. It was sure nice seeing you guys again. Hope to see you’s later today, I said as I got up, wrote down my address for them and made my way home.

My home is an large, old, two and a half story brick house located in the very centre of Brandon, a small city in the heart of Canada. It is in an old part of the city and surrounded by similar dwellings. It is a quiet neighbourhood with one exception. There is a major crosstown road going right past the house in front. It is four lanes and quite busy at times. Because of this, the property has a eight foot high fence around the entire back yard. The back yard has a medium sized pool, hot tub, large elevated deck complete with sauna and b.b.q. The high privacy fence is unusual for that part of town but because of the pool, the city allowed the variance.

I was laying down on a deck chair when I heard some voices. It was a little after seven so I assumed it was Terry and company. Sure enough, Gwen poked her head out from the tunnel formed by the house, the semi-attached garage and the overpass from the second story of the house to a sun room over the garage. Soon the four of them came though, all rubber-necking trying to take it all in. Terry spotted me as I got up, and she came running over to me. She flashed me a big toothy smile and gave me a hug. I was taken back a little by this affection but she started excitedly saying that after she got back to Brandon, she tried to get her old job back at the bus depot but was told that the new management had no openings for her. She was also told that even Tony, who had been with the company since dirt was new, had left the job. She had asked where I had gone but they had no idea.

While Terry was telling me how much she had missed me and all that, I lead her back to the deck where I had placed a cooler with drinks earlier and as I offered one to everyone, I finally noticed her little friend standing there. She was a carbon copy of Terry. Short, same height as Terry, flat, big eyes, flat, cute as hell, and did I mention, flat. Outside of hair colour and style, and a few facial features, these two where twins. Terry noticed my attention to her friend and quickly came forward to introduce me to her. Tony, I’d like you to meet Brie-Ann. We meet at Brandon University. I was up there one day taking a break from job hunting to check out what was available to me but I was shocked when I saw what they where charging. It literally took my breath away. Anyway, while I was checking the courses out, and trying to decide if I wanted to end up with a mortgage for a student loan with the possibility of still no job, I noticed Brie standing beside me doing the exact same thing I was doing.

The next day, I was in a coffee shop and I saw Brie sitting at the table next to me. She said Hi again so we started talking about the university, their lack of courses, and their prices. It turns out that she was also looking for a job in Brandon as there isn’t anything except hard labour jobs in Neepawa. She was borrowing her mom’s car every day to come to Brandon in search of work but it was costing her mom about twenty dollars in gas every day and she wasn’t having any luck in the job market either. The more we talked, the more we realized that we where alike. Even our love lives where close. She also has had only one boyfriend but she realized she was only with him because she was trying to get close to his brother but his brother already had a girlfriend. She ended that lie in a hurry. Anyway, I asked her if she would like to stay with me to save her mom some money and we could share our remaining resources. Brie agreed and ever since we go everywhere together, which is mainly looking for jobs but we’ve only got another week before we get thrown out on the street and will still end up owing a months rent.

Well, like I told your parents, that’s where I might be able to help if you’ll allow me… . I started to say but was interrupted by Terry.

Tony, who do you know that lives here? The last time I saw you, you where not much better off than I was. said Terry.

This is where I live now, Terry, been here well over a year now

But how, this place must cost a fortune to rent?

It does, Terry and if you’ll let me explain, I’ll tell you what happened. Do you remember back at the bus depot, I was always fooling around with cameras? Well, shortly after you left, I was talking to a young lady that worked in the cafeteria and she told me that she wanted to go to Winnipeg to get a job modelling but she couldn’t afford to put a portfolio together. I mentioned that I enjoyed photography and had just purchased a new digital camera and photo printer. Maybe we could put something together. She laughed at me but a couple of days later she asked if I had been serious. She must have been doing a lot of thinking about it. I told her I’d give it a try so she took me to her place and we started taking shots. After she went though her entire wardrobe of clothes, she asked me if I had a problem doing some with only her underwear. Well, you remember me back in those days, girls only came in three flavors, those that I have already done, those that I was currently doing, and those that I haven’t done, YET. The only rules I had was no P’s, no Pension, Puberty, Penicillin, Pimples, or Papooses (babies) although I did fudge on a few of the rules more than once. I remember a few that hadn’t turned eighteen before we did it" and there was a few that I never even bothered to learn their names or ages until after we had already gone our separate ways.

Anyway, back to the girl, she started to show more and more skin till the only thing she had on was the lights in the room. Near the end of the shoot, I was positioning her for her next shot when I happened to see her reflection in a mirror that captured her in a totally unique angle. The photos that I got from that angle hid her goodies but displayed her in a way that I had never seen before.

A little later, when I left her place with a full camera and a smile on my face, I printed out a few of the best shots and gave them to her the next day at work. She left a month later but she was sent to Toronto within a week and I have never heard from her since.

It wasn’t long after she left that I got a call from her agency in Toronto about her portfolio. With those photos she was getting every job they sent her to. They ask me if I would be interested in doing more shoots. I didn’t think they where serious. I said sure but told them I had no studio at the time and that I would still be charging $5000.00 per model. I was sure that would put them off but they agreed on the spot and two weeks later, two pretty young ladies show up at the depot and each hands me a cheque for the full amount. I was taken back a little but after a week, I was able to catch that exact essence that I was looking for. It cost me almost a thousand dollars in short term rents though. This old house was on the market so I rented it and paid for six months in advance. The rest I spent on furniture and background settings for future shots. As the weeks went on, I received on average two to three girls a week. Within two weeks, I made as much money as I would have in an entire year at the depot and as my job there was interfering with my new endeavour, I quit the depot after all the years I spent there. After only a year and a half looking at beautiful naked ladies, I realized that no matter how much money I was raking in, I knew it was not going to be anywhere near enough for my ultimate plans so I quit that as well. At last count, after taxes, I have a little over three hundred thousand in the bank. Besides it was getting quite wearisome trying to coax those spoiled rotten prima-donnas into doing what I wanted them to and to constantly try to find new variants for the money shots that their bosses wanted. In addition to that, Toronto was asking for more and more unique shots and the girls where getting out of control while they where here, always wanting to party and bar hop like they where on holidays while they where out here. More than once they would disappear for most of the week and I would have to do two days shots in one day, dealing with a bitch with a hangover and coming down from drugs or whatever. I’d had enough so I called their bosses and told them to go fuck themselves and not to send anymore sluts to me because I quit.

Anyways, the spare time has allowed me to spend more time on a project that I’ve been working on since I was a teenager. I’ve since paid my rent on this property for the next five years as that’s all the time I’ll need it for."

So now you know my story for the last two years. The problem I have now is three fold. First, I am spending about five hundred dollars a month on the yard. I have to pay a gardener to come here every week for about four or five hours to cut grass, pick weeds, plant flowers, clean the pool and hot tub,and clean sidewalks and driveways, and such. The next problem I have is inside the house. A maid comes in every week to clean, polish, mop, and wax. She is also near five hundred a month. I do my own laundry and dishes and shopping only because I haven’t found anyone to do those things for me. Ha-Ha. And the third problem is that when I come home in the evening, the place is dark, very quiet and sterile. No lights, no sounds of laughter and talking, no smells of cooking or baking to meet me at the door. Quite often I just eat out so I don’t have to eat alone but you can’t do that everyday.

"So that’s my story, Terry. When your parents told me some of your problems, I thought that we might be able to come to an agreement of some sort. I have empty bedrooms upstairs if you wanted to move in, and simple, easy jobs for you to do. You could earn a thousand dollars a month doing that alone. I would give you full access to the house and yard, the vehicles in the garage would be yours to use as I have no real need for them. Your parents and siblings would be welcome here in the yard, pool or house any time, any day. Oh, and I would also pay for all bills, food, and anything else that might come up.

All I would ask of you is to clean the house, do the yard work, help with the cooking, laundry, and bring a woman’s touch to this old house. The work would only take about eight to ten hours a week from you in return for free room and board and a thousand dollar paycheck. So what do you say. It would be great to come home to a home and not a house."

Finally after patiently listening to me ramble, Terry thinks for a second before responding Why me and not someone else. You have your pick of girls. I saw that for myself at the depot. There was a different one every week and sometimes more so why me?

Terry, you where one of those few girls that I really liked at the time. You where young, fresh, innocent, intelligent, a virgin and I was targeting the skanks and sluts because I didn’t want to wast time on the chase. I took one look at you and decided that I was not going to ruin you. In those days I didn’t care about a girls feelings after I got what I wanted from them. I’m sure I broke a few hearts along the way but I didn’t care. You where different, I liked you, I trusted you and I hope I still can. Sure the depot was a happy hunting ground but after fucking my way though most of the staff and customers, I needed a break. Besides, I don’t want to get involved with anyone now because in five years I am leaving and if I was in love with someone at that time, I would have to break off the relationship only to get married to someone else only because she has the proper qualifications that I will be looking for at that time. Could you imagine how devastating it would be for a woman to be told that her five year relationship with a man is coming to an end so he can marry a stranger and leave with her for about a decade or more. Not pretty. But, like I said, I have always liked you, considered you a friend and if there was anyone I would feel at ease having in my home, it would be someone like you.

Okay said Terry, but I told you that Brie and I are friends and come as a pair. Could she stay here with me as well?

Of course she can if you vouch for her that she won’t trash the place or steal from me. I have two empty bedrooms and you guys can split the work and the money if you want. I’m just a little curious though, are you two just real close friends or does it go a little deeper if you know what I’m getting at.

Terry No. We’re just close friends. We have no choice but to sleep in the same bed for now but we don’t touch or anything like that.

Well with that out of the way, who wants to see the joint? I said as I lead the way into the house through the back door.

What’s that for? asks Gwen as we get to the door. I turn to see what see what she is pointing to.

That’s the milkman’s access panel. When he came to deliver your milk everyday, he would just open that little door, find the milk money left in there and place the bottles inside the opening. As we enter the house I point out the antique wooden refrigerator with all the large brass fittings and open it’s door. See, the milkman just placed your milk directly into the fridge.

Although the house was built almost a hundred years ago for a wealthy family, the group marvelled at the newly rebuilt kitchen. I gave them a tour of the small breakfast room, dining room, living room, hallway with a washroom and butler’s pantry under the stairs, up the main staircase, the office space at the front of the second floor, the master bedroom with en-suite on one side of the floor, the two huge second and third bedrooms and the second floor bathroom on the other side, the spiral staircase leading both up to the third floor and back down to the main floor kitchen. On the third floor, there is another small bathroom, bar, huge entertainment room and an extra room at the front for storage or another office.

After returning back down to the second floor, and opening a small door that looked more like a closet door, I lead them down a narrow passage and out into the sun-room located over the garage. The room is completely surrounded by glass panels and was equipped with padded recliners and end tables for cold drinks and books. The atmosphere in there was so inviting that you just wanted to lay down and catch a few winks. From there you could see everything in the back yard. When we finally did get down to the main floor, I took them out to the garage. "Here’s the vehicles I told you about earlier. The Mustang is for things like grocery shopping and the half ton truck is for moving here or any other larger jobs. Both vehicles have less than one kilo-meter on them. As I said I do not have any need for them at this time so their yours to use when you are out looking for a job.

Well, that’s about it for the grand tour. If you girls need some time to think about it, talk it over with your parents, whatever, go ahead. I’ll be gone for a few days so give me a call on Friday after 4:00 P.M. and let me know one way or another." I said as I handed Terry a piece of paper that I had written my name and number. As they left, I stood there wondering if I would ever hear from them again. I was sure that either the girls or the parents would assume that I had less than proper intentions and I would never hear from them again. I resigned myself to the realization that I would be giving that tour over and over again till I found the right person.

FRIDAY

I arrived home about quarter to four in the afternoon in case there was a call only to find the two little ladies sitting on the front steps. Terry was leaning on a very large old suitcase. Both girls where smiling as I approached them. Terry jumps up saying I hope you weren’t bull-shitting us. This thing is heavy, pointing at the case.

No I wasn’t I said, but to tell the truth, I really didn’t think I would ever see you two again. I was sure you guys where thinking that I was only looking a live-in piece of sex. I just want you to know that that’s not true. This will be a purely platonic relationship as I told you earlier. At this time, I’m only looking for friendship and companionship. I just need someone to hang with when I’m here. You know, like to go out for coffee, supper, ice cream, a movie, or shopping, if you’s like that sort of thing. Just remember what I told you about no permanent relationships at this time. So, one suitcase, only one moving in?

No, we’re both here but I had no way to move my stuff here from Neepawa. says Brie, I’ll have to wait till mom comes in with some of my stuff on Monday.

"Girls, I told you about the truck. Why don’t you both take it out to Neepawa, load it up and bring in your own stuff. Don’t add any more stress to your mom then you have already. I don’t care if it takes a couple of trips. And when your done with that, go to