HOPE RISING
PART TWO:
They spread the blanket under a tree. Cort had brought more than enough and they settled down, sharing the cider, some cheese and bread, slices of roast beef, oranges, and, yes, chocolate chip cookies. Hope was fascinated watching the two horses graze nearby. Cort had bought two horses himself, so she was used to seeing them.
"Hoar, DaDa!" she cried, pointing at the big black Maximus had been riding.
When everybody chuckled, she just thought they were expressing approval of her magnificence, which encouraged her to further comment. "DadDa wike hoar," she announced.
"No, no," Cort corrected, his mouth twitching in an amused smile. "Daddy like Mommy."
"Mama not hoar."
Cort lowered his lashes and cast a grin toward Rachel. "Very true," he agreed. Then it hit him Hope had been linking three words together. He gathered his daughter close in his arms. "Hope is Daddy's little girl," he whispered into her hair.
"Hope DadDa gurgle."
Maximus cupped his hand over Caroline's on the blanket. Without anyone saying his name, Sid was somehow present there with the cider and the cookies.
Discomfited by the sudden addition of a third word to the growing syntax, Rachel tried to smile back at her husband, her thoughts scattering to phone numbers and physicians she could call. Should call. But what to say? By all appearances, Hope was the size and shape she should be at her age; however, in a matter of hours, she was springing forth with unprecedented intelligence. They had been premature in laying aside their concerns of the nanobots affecting her. She caught the fleet shadow sparked between Maximus and Caroline, climbed to her feet. Phone calls.
"I'll be right back," she muttered to them all, and began to stride toward the house."
"Where...," Cort began, but Rachel was already beyond the edge of the meadow. He stood Hope beside him on the blanket, her fists wrapped around his forefingers. No matter what she was or wasn't doing, his heart delighted at the sight of her and he smiled broadly as she stood there, sunlight crowning herhair.
"DadDa mile," she laughed. "Ope mile, too."
"I like Hope's smile," he said.
"I like it, too," Maximus agreed. "You are a beautiful baby."
Her eyes narrowed. "Ope not baby. Ope big."
"I beg your pardon, my Lady," Maximus said, tipping his head in a bow. "Hope is a beautiful lady."
The thing about it, though, was that Hope simply WAS a baby. Caroline and Maximus exchanged another quick glance. Cort seemed to be thinking so deeply he didn't really notice Hope had let go of his fingers and was now clear across the blanket, standing right in front of the General. She was comfortable with him, having seen him a lot ever since she could remember. She reached out her tiny hand, touching his chin. "Mathy got fur." She laughed.
Maximus held out his hand and she latched onto his finger for a bit of support. "I do," he assented. "Face fur."
"No," Cort thought, "I won't think about Sid. I won't." Sid was safely trapped in The Quick and the Dead and Terry had broken the disk of that version. Besides the virus had taken him down even before the movie was over. Hope was safe. They were all safe. He watched Hope exploring Maximus' face and couldn't help smiling a little at the picture that made, the great General and the tiny baby so absorbed in one another. Then his gaze traveled to the woods. Henri was buried
not far beyond the rise on Caroline's land. Henri, Cort's father by choice. Henri, who had saved Cort's life, both Cort's and Rachel's, more than once.
Henri, killed by Sid. Damn! There was the nanotech again, barging into his thinking. No. He wouldn't have it! He let his eyes skim across the meadow in the direction Rachel had gone. The meadow. Their meadow. Not rented, not loaned, but...theirs. Bought with Henri's money, money no one knew he had until his will was read and everything was left to Cort and his family. All the long years he had worked for Mikol, he'd had no need to spend what he made and it just accumulated in a Swiss bank account. Invested wisely, it had multiplied and now had served to let Cort and Rachel buy this piece of land adjoining Caroline's. He hadn't owned anything, not really, not since the day he'd buried his grandmother and walked away from the farm he'd spent his first 14 years on. He reached out, laying his palm flat on the ground just off the blanket. It was good, that sense owning land gave one. He liked it. He'd just rather have had Henri still alive.
Suddenly he needed her close to him. Holding out his arms, he said, "Come!"
Immediately she turned and toddled to him, falling happily into his arms as they wrapped around her, pressing her close. "Daddy loves his Hope." Then he lay back with her atop his chest, his arms still around her. "Daddy loves his Hope," he said again, so softly it was barely
a whisper.
Caroline watched them for a little while, then turned to Maximus, saying very softly, "Will you stay with them? I want to go talk to Rachel alone."
Maximus nodded assent and pulled out a long grass stem to chew thoughtfully on. He'd come to regard Cort as a younger brother and was concerned about what was happening with his child. "Sid is gone," he said. "At least we have that much."
Cort sat up. "It may be too late, Maximus. Because of what Sid's done, it may already be too late."
Maximus sighed, afraid that was true.
Caroline rapped on the screen of the white farmhouse. "Rachel?" she called. "You in there? May I come in?" Not hearing an answer, she opened the door a walked softly through the living room, finding Rachel sitting dejectedly at the kitchen table. Silently, she pulled out another chair and sat close to her, laying her hand on Rachel's arm. "Talk to me, Rachel," she urged. "Tell me what you're thinking, what you want to do."
"I came in here to make a phone call, but...I seem to have lost the will," Rachel began, her own fingers tightening around Caroline's in gratitude. In more ways than one, Caroline's friendship had become a boon where Deidre, her former coworker, and Lisa, her older sister, were not able to provide more insight to a settled domestic life...much less life with a husband. Motherly and patient in listening, Caroline rarely reacted with judgment, even when Rachel vented some of her more feminine worries about her new family. With Hope's accelerated progress in babyhood, and Cort's differing viewpoint on the matter, she really appreciated having Caroline sit with her now. "Does this...?" She began again, stopped, knowing the answer already. "Hope is growing too fast! You saw her. Heard her. I mean, the doctors keep saying she's where she's supposed to be as far as physical growth, but this...it's like, all of a sudden, in the last couple of days, she's climbing out of her crib and speaking in sentences! What do we do?"
"I'm not sure anything can be done, Rachel," Caroline said with a long sigh. "I think...now...it
is what it is and will just have to be dealt with. I don't think anything medicine or doctors have to offer can change what Sid has done." She sighed again, looking over her shoulder toward the door. "I know none of this is easy. I just wish there were some way we could help." She held her hands out, palms up, in a gesture of helplessness.
"What if she gets hurt? She's beyond precocious now...she gets so frustrated when her body won’t do what she wants it to do, so she tries to do stuff that she's not ready for...what if I’m not there to help her? I love that she's such a fast learner, but...something's not right here, and it has to be because of the nanobots. Cort won't let me talk about it. He doesn’t want that to intrude into anything we do now, but...I was afraid there would be an effect...oh, maybe I'm just being stupid!" Rachel returned her head to her hands as she leaned on the table. "I should just enjoy her as she is, right?"
"She's mighty adorable, I must admit," Caroline smiled. "Perhaps it will just slow down of its own accord...this precociousness? I guess there's no real way of knowing. But anything Maximus and I can do to help you watch over her, keep her safe, you know you can count on. We both just adore her."
Rachel hugged Caroline. “I know it, and I love that you adore her. Thank you.”
There were sounds coming closer to the house and the two women looked out the door as Cort and Maximus approached side by side, Hope snuggled in her Daddy's arms, Maximus leading the two horses.
"I feel idiotic now, for freaking...but I'm thinking..." Rachel trailed off, watching as her husband showed Hope how to hitch a horse to a tree. "I’m thinking we're going to need to talk to Terry."
"That's probably a good idea. Terry seems more on top of what Sid does than anybody. Or did.
I guess I should say 'did' now, huh? From the way he looked there on the saloon floor when we left, I shouldn't think he'd ever be able to do much of anything again."
Maximus had already hitched his horse and stood quietly watching as Hope paid serious attention to what Cort was showing her with the reins. It just seemed very odd somehow that such a tiny little person would even be interested in such a thing, but he could tell Hope was. Her eyes followed each movement her father's fingers made and when he was done, she smiled and nodded. "Ope see."
Cort smiled back at her, ruffled her hair fondly, hefted her in his arms again and opened the screen door to the kitchen. Immediately, he was taken by Rachel's expression. "Somethin' up, darlin'?"
Just saying the unspoken thought out loud made Rachel feel like she was breaching an even more unspoken wall that she and Cort had been building since the harrowing escape from Sid's trap within Cort's movie: Sid was done for. Frozen. And they had everything they needed now to really build their life - a home to fix up as they please, a reasonable amount of financial security, and a very healthy and happy baby. Not to mention each other, without the strain of technology or modern interference. So to suggest revisiting something that they had purposefully eliminated was almost like suggesting that she go looking for fun in all the wrong places. And it must have showed on her face as Cort came through the door, because Caroline's words still hung about in her ears. Now that she had voiced it, Rachel realized it was the only thing left to do...and she wasn't sure how her dear, sweet, but decidedly stubborn, husband was going to take it.
"Oh, look, darling," she stood up and gently took Hope from her father's arms, deflecting the moment with a dismayed gasp. "Did a dust cloud chase you? Let's wash our face and hands." She gave Cort a reassuring smile as she turned to the kitchen sink and began running the water.
"It's probably just me," Cort laughed. "I seem to get covered with dust no matter what I do. Must've rubbed off on her." He watched Rachel scrubbing Hope's hands and arms. "She can have a bath later, can't she?" he asked softly, putting his hands on his wife's shoulders. "Tell
me what you were thinkin' about when we came in the door." When she didn't turn away from the sink, he added, "Please?"
She looked up at him, knowing he wasn’t going to let her blow it off...did her face always have
to be so damn expressive? "I think we should go see Terry," she blurted out. She never was one for a big build up or a careful phrasing of words.
"Terry?" he repeated. "What for?"
Maximus cast a quick look at Caroline, who had rather of a 'here it comes' expression on her face.
Rachel blinked a few times while Hope tried to use her arm to stand on her feet. Without thinking, she gathered up Hope and settled her on her hip while keeping eye contact with Cort. "To see what might be said about Hope," she replied, almost in a whisper. She pleaded with him with her eyes: don't get mad.
He inhaled a deep breath through his mouth. "Sid is dead," were the first words he said. "You saw him dead on the floor. He's not coming back, Rachel. He's not going to bother us ever again." He reached out, touching Hope's hair. "Hope is Hope. I don't know what Terry can say about that, what Terry needs to say about that."
She felt color rise to her cheeks, because she could sense a conflict coming and she didn't want
to make a scene in front of their friends...at the same time, they were all so familiar with the situation it was pointless to pretend that none of them were involved. "I'm not talking about Sid coming back, sweetheart. I’m talking about what’s going on with Hope. I know..." Rachel went on as Cort turned away, checking his response as she continued, "I know Hope is Hope. But Cort, she's...accelerating. Eight month old babies don’t do what she's doing..."
He looked back over his shoulder. "This baby does. Our baby does. I will not have her poked and prodded and examined like she's some alien thing. I won't, Rachel." His mouth was set in
a grim line. Turning his head away again, he rubbed his forehead. Damn! A headache was starting. He got so tensed up over this whole business with Hope. But no way were they sticking needles into her, sliding her into god-awful machines like he'd been put in while in Bozeman. Not his baby. Not his little Hope. He flopped hard into a wooden kitchen chair, put his elbows on the table and buried his face in his hands. "Can't we just leave it alone?"
His shoulders sagged. No one really knew because he'd never really said how worried he was about Hope.
Rachel didn’t answer. She knew intuitively what Cort was reliving, and she couldn't blame him for wanting to keep Hope from that. It had been...interesting when Hope was in the hospital for her first few days. And she kept forgetting the difference between them in the trust of science and medicine in the 21st century. Coming from where he did, Cort's solution was just like anyone else's at the time: sheer survival and cussedness. It didn’t matter that this reality had far better services and solutions. Cort had a certain horror of those things he could not control and Rachel felt his helplessness.
Hope's finger wobbled into view as she reached up to touch a tear that had slid down her cheek. "Mama..." the child said. "Mama cwy?"
Cort lifted his head at his daughter's words and turned to look at his wife. His jaw muscles working, he got to his feet. "Rachel, darlin'," he said. "It'll be all right. Somehow I'll make it all right." His own chin was trembling a bit with emotion.
Caroline took Maximus by the hand and they disappeared into the living room. "Should we depart?" he asked.
"I'm not sure," she sighed. "Maybe they might need us. I just don't know."
"I think perhaps this is a private thing right now, my love. Let us go back to our horses. They can call should they need something. Agreed?" He raised his eyebrows a bit.
She couldn't help but chuckle. "Yes, the catapults can stay where they are."
"Catapults?"
"Despite posing a possible danger to the cavalry," she added.
"Ah!" he said, realizing a bit late her reference to Gladiator dialog. "Come then."
"Don't leave," Rachel said, following after, having watched their friends step out of the room. Hope shook her head in agreement. "I'm so sorry...I didn't mean to chase y'all away. Maybe...well, y'all are here. Stay and visit for a bit. Please?"
Maximus looked at Cort, seeing his struggle to control his emotions. He hated to intrude upon such a time and was torn about staying, but Caroline, feeling Rachel's need for support, headed back to the kitchen, so he followed. How well he himself knew what Cort meant, that somehow he would try to make it all right. How well, also, he'd learned that such things were not always possible. No matter how much a man wanted it, he could not always protect his family from harm.
Cort went to the sink, slowly drinking a large glass of water, then turned to face his friends. "Maximus," he said, "what do you think about contacting Terry regarding...this?" He nodded slightly toward Hope.
Maximus licked his lips thoughtfully. "I think that if there is anything, anything at all, that may be done to assure the most normal future possible for Hope, then it should be done. I understand about the scientific testing and agree she should not be subjected to such things without great cause. But Terry may have some suggestions about what to expect. I do not truly know, Cort, but talking with him about the matter cannot hurt Hope in any way, can it?"
Cort digested the General's words. Maximus always had a wise take on the situation. He turned his eyes toward Rachel. "All right," he sighed. "But no tests."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Eight months. Amazing what could be accomplished in eight months.
Terry broke from his reverie as his eye caught sight of the elevator doors across the courtyard atrium slide open, as he walked across its wide expanse in the middle of the glass-encased company known as NanoCorp Subsidiaries, Inc.; saw one man enter, turn and catch sight of him, motioning his hand to beckon Terry to hurry. Giving a short wave in return, Terry grinned as the doors closed on the waggling eyebrows of the man, now accompanied by a young woman completely oblivious to everything around her, nose buried in a file. Thank God some things didn't change. He continued his meandering stroll through the atrium, nodding to others, chatting, past the couches and the foliage, stopping momentarily to enjoy the mid-afternoon sunbeams shining through the glass roof at the fourth story, hands in pocket. Whistled a small tune even, a favorite from his country of origin. He felt good.
A right bloody difference from the chaos of months ago, he mused, when he and the others had essentially torn the building apart, looking for ways to outsmart the very one whose technological brilliance had instigated the chaos, SID 6.7. All a manner of futility, it turned out, as Sid demonstrated by pulling his favorite playthings, Cort and Maximus, right back into a film, all from a base they had yet to find. But since help came in all manner of interesting forms, Sid had finally been nullified; and not long after, the lot of them finished celebrating the arrival of the newest member of the small 'family' - Terry could not help but think of them in anything but those terms - they had gone about the business of restoring what they could of the building, the business, their reputations, and their lives.
Which also meant all manner of changes, perhaps more bittersweet than not, Terry went on to consider as he made his way into the network of hallways, choosing a scenic-route return to his office suite on the fourth floor. The warp room was definitively sealed off once more, although everything was kept as it had been reconnected. Just in case, warned Bud, cynically. Against his better judgment, Terry acquiesced, but only because the disk that held Sid imprisoned, frozen, incapacitated - nothing could take away the feeling of glee for Terry in this fact! - was broken, shattered, destroyed. Nothing would ever release Sid again and NanoCorp was free from the cybernetic being's control. That had been the plan, and it was working.
Still, it seemed that a particular era had come to an end. Cort received a whopping inheritance from Henri and departed with every blessing the rest of them could give, removing himself, his wife, Rachel, and their newborn, Hope, out as far away from NanoCorp as he and Rachel could wish, settling near Maximus' new home with Caroline. Terry was all too happy for them, all too appreciative of Cort's simple desire for autonomy, but he also missed them. The erstwhile gunslinger turned preacher was a younger brother he had come to regard with a great deal of fondness, and Rachel as a kid sister; and despite the craziness of their line of work, he missed having them around. Missed having that nearby bond, especially since their communications with each other had grown further and further apart in these past eight months. The rest of the team had disintegrated as well. Bud explored new possibilities away from NanoCorp, while John retained his usual position as security, but liked keeping to himself, so the reserved distance that had always been there had not changed. Terry wasn't sure if that was comforting or not. And then, there was Deidre...well, the Retrieval Team was no more.
Terry had to stop his whistling once he entered the stairwell, puffing slightly as he took his time climbing upward; briefly reminded himself that he spent too much time on his duff and not enough at the gym, slowing as thoughts of Deidre curled through his mind, a constant thing that felt like it had been a part of him forever. Deidre was a constant, the one who had remained through it all, the rebuild, the trips, the nerve-wracking legalities. Even she had taken a position away from NanoCorp when a plummy curatorial position at the city's Museum of Natural Science opened up; but she held her homestead in that blatantly 70s house of hers and he had moved in with her three months hence, having relinquished his apartment and dismantled the one next to his office. Out of all of it, he had kept the best of them all, kept it closest. Deidre Montgomery, his Alabama magnolia.
But still, the fourth floor, and NanoCorp, would never be the same.
"Lori, what do you have for me today, luv?" He asked his new secretary as he swung into the lobby of his office. With a pang, he was reminded for the umpteenth time how young she looked, and how much she reminded him of Rachel when she had first started.
"Three phone calls from the legal firm of Dwyer, Dwyer & Call wanting your signature," she announced in a deep tone, and laughed when he groaned, "one from the human resources department, two more from bioengineering, one from Deidre...and one from a Rachel Wells. Said to tell you she's coming for a visit."
Well, speak of the devil, Terry grinned.
"That isn't the Rachel...is it?" Lori leaned forward, in a mock stage whisper.
"What do you mean?" Terry grimaced, wondering just how much gossip made the rounds and why, after eight months, the rumors still flew.
"Well...wasn't she your secretary at one time?" Lori's gaze flickered away, realizing she had stumbled onto a subject not entirely approachable from her position.
"For a blip, and made a damn good technician, too," he replied, a bit gruffly. It had been no secret that he and his employees had been engaged in 'experimental' technology, but there was no telling what else was said by those on the periphery and he instantly felt protective. "If you play your cards right, they may be asking the same question about you someday...although I doubt Rachel would advise taking the same career path. I'll be in my office for the next couple of hours. Hold any further calls."
First things first, he thought, plopping down in the leather chair at his desk.
"Nolia, guess who called," he quipped once Deidre's voice registered across the line.
"Your fairy godmother to tell you she found a rich dead uncle who left you all his money?" Deidre replied gamely.
"A Yank would say 'close, but no cigar' but I'm not a Yank, so no, luv," Terry grinned at the phone receiver. He was glad the door to his office was closed. He was quite sure he would sound like a lovesick lad to anyone who was listening.
"Well, then, I won't hold it against you that you're not a Yank. You should know what that means to a Southerner like me," Deidre replied, her voice equally sun-shiny. "Who called, dear heart? I am a-quiver with anticipation."
"Rachel."
Deidre's cry of glee made him laugh.
"Well, what did she say? How's the baby? Oh, Lord I bet that child has grown...is she coming? Are she and Cort coming?"
"I don't know, haven't talked to her yet."
"What? Terry, you just said..."
"She called. I need to call her back. You have any messages you wish to impart?"
"Just that I demand to see that little girl of hers in all her glory. And that I hope she and Cort are enjoying the country life...even though its so far away from you and me and we can't have our forays to the mall or University Row or our long tea parties like we used to have. Well, get off, you big Aussie lug, call her back!"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It wasn't too long before Hope exhibited signs of needing a nap, something she began protesting the minute they started making moves to get her ready for one. Cort took her out to the large porch swing and managed to get her to sit still while Rachel wrangled with the words to explain her reason for calling. She left a short message with the new secretary (it was just a small pang of regret when Rachel thought of the old days sitting in the office...but one that didn’t last very long) and tried his home phone as well as his cell: no result. Life must either be really good or really busy, she thought, marking the time for when she would try again. Before she knew it, Hope was down for a nap and the four of them sat around the table and talked.
"Deidre wants to know when you'll be coming up," was practically the first statement out of Terry's mouth when Rachel answered the phone.
"To...morrow?" Rachel asked, sheepishly, glancing at Cort who nodded his approval. She could see the corners of his mouth were still firm with reluctance. "Well, it's more than a social visit. Yes. No, no...! Hope's fine...at least we think she's fine...well, that has to do with why we want to come up. Can we wait till we get up there to explain?"
"Of course," Terry replied, and his tone indicated he had picked up on Rachel's reluctance to go into detail. "You know where to go when you get here. Lori's the new secretary."
There were several moments of silence as Rachel hung up and sat, head bowed in deep thought. Cort slid his hand across the table, and without a word, Rachel put her hand in his, both of them interlocking their fingers.
"I know," Cort said, his voice low, almost sighing, "I know that Terry should know what's going on with Hope. Terry's a good man and I trust him completely. He needs to understand, though, right from the start...no machines, no poking." He locked his eyes on hers.
She tightened her grip on his hand...she meant it as a 'thank you'...but his request was going to be a little hard to follow. So she just nodded.
"I would like to go with you, if that is all right, "Maximus said, then looked to his side to see Caroline's response to that.
"Yes, definitely," she nodded. "We're all family here, all connected. I think all four of us should go to be there for Hope."
Cort's lips curved slightly in a fond suggestion of a smile. From the very beginning of going into Gladiator, he'd thought of Maximus like an elder brother, a soul kindred in many ways. And, now, since they lived on adjacent land, they'd grown even closer. There was no man he'd rather have at his back than the General. "I'd appreciate that, Maximus," he nodded, then looked at his wife. "Ok by you, darlin'?"
"Wouldn't have it any other way," Rachel smiled at them. "Have dinner with us?"
"Yes, please stay," Cort added. Somehow, faced now with going back to NanoCorp where so many unpleasant things had happened to them all, he found he really wanted them to stay.
"I...I like you here." His eyes met Maximus' and no further words were necessary between the two men.
"Of course," Maximus replied. "It is always most pleasurable to share a meal with you."
Caroline looked from one to the other of the men, their faces so very similar, Cort's a bit younger, but with that gloriously-shaped mass of thick hair that swung so fetchingly about his cheeks as he moved. Maximus' hair hugged his head in a shiny black cap. How strange, she thought for the umpteenth time, that both could be here at once, each such individuals, yet, well, cut entirely from the same cloth, so to speak. Something in her was still amazed that it could be so. She liked the brotherly affection that existed between them. Her mind roamed for a moment back to the streets of Redemption when Maximus lay on his back in the dust, a bullet from Sid's gun having sent his pocket watch slamming into his ribs. That was how much he cared for Cort. He would have died for him that day. He almost did.
She reached out a hand, laying it gently atop Rachel's arm. "I'll come into the kitchen with you so we can get a good start while Hope's still napping."
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