Kinetic

Melanie smiled playfully. "Yeah, who would have thought a pair of B-cup knockers could do that..."

I laughed. "I would have thought! But to answer your question, I think my nut sac is drained for the night."

Melanie nodded, and our cuddling evolved from sexy to pure affectionate, lots of kisses and pets and smiles. After a while Melanie glanced at the clock. "3:53 AM, ten minutes to go."

I sat up and stretched. "Yeah." There was a slip of paper on the nightstand by the clock. I picked it up and glanced at it. It was my monthly pay-stub.

Melanie noticed what I was doing. "Clever, industrious husband! Bringing home such a nice paycheck for us."

"Well, yeah. Three months and still feels a little funny, getting paid when I enjoy the work so much." I glanced at the amount. With all our deductions, it was over $4000 net.

"Well," Melanie smiled, "Ferengi Rule of Acquisition #13: Anything worth doing is worth doing for money."

I laughed, "Yes! And Ferengi Rule of Acquisition #41: Profit is its own reward!"

We laughed for a moment and then Melanie turned serious. "I heard a news report today, on the latest from the Emergency Oceanic Conference."

"Oh my gosh. What are they saying now?"

"It's so funny! The Japanese are still pushing their negative tsunami model, even though there's no evidence of seismic activity. A lot of the Europeans are sticking with their reverse convection-roll theory, even though the other scientists are screaming at them that it violates entropy constraints. And there are a couple of fruitcakes who are saying perhaps the western Gulf was hit by a diffuse comet made of super-cold methane. Duh! As if people wouldn't be able to detect something like that?!"

"What about the U.S. group?"

"Totally confused. They want the final report to read Noel died due to an unexplained resonance phenomenon."

I thought for a moment. "Actually, that's a pretty accurate statement."

"Yeah. The good news is the cold water dropping to the Gulf depths has really stirred up the nutrients. There's an explosion of wildlife throughout the region, and the Gulf Stream is more active than it's been in years. The latest predictions are for Europe to have a warm and wet winter."

I nodded and thought back over the last month. I had been so reckless in my actions; not just targeting the hurricane but ignoring the effect of pulling more than 1e21 Joules of energy out of the Gulf of Mexico. With the heat engine running in full reverse, the higher pressure air around Noel rushed inward, imploding the hurricane.

There was also a huge dome of water in the center of the dying hurricane. I let it down with my force as gently as I could, absorbing the potential energy and preventing a major tsunami in the Gulf and Caribbean. I cancelled the primary shock wave almost completely. What was left was just a bit of a tsunami, caused by the gravitational instability of my cold heavy water sitting on top of the lighter, warmer water below. The imbalance created massive convection rolls, but fortunately the water was so dense the rolls were slow moving. The resulting waves were very low frequency and seldom more than two feet high. The net effect was just very unusual tides for a week, as the Gulf adjusted to the cold plug of water.

Amazingly I killed surprisingly little wildlife with my stunt. The super warm water was deadly to marine life. I had chilled what was already an oceanic desert. But the huge plug of freezing water had chilled the western end of the Gulf tremendously, and also stimulated the eastern end to vigorously discharge its heat into the Gulf Stream.

End result? The Gulf and Caribbean were probably cooler now than it has been for centuries, and the cold water and stirred nutrients had caused an explosion of wildlife. There are numerous indications of fish and shrimp populations making dramatic comebacks.

Melanie smiled and nodded at me, guessing what I had been thinking about. "Rule of Acquisition #58 Eric: There is no substitute for success."

I nodded back and replied, "And don't forget Rule #44: Never confuse wisdom with luck." And then I blinked and gulped as I felt my body jarred by a pothole.

"Eric! You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm okay." I tested for a moment. "Everything's still here. I haven't lost anything."

"Well, that's good."

One minute later, Melanie and I had our first peek at how the fifth rotation was starting. In one minute, my sense sphere radius increased from 169791.5 meters to 169794.1 meters. It was expanding again, apparently at its old exponential growth rate. Everything else seemed static. Melanie and I stayed up an extra hour, just to be sure, and then sacked out shortly after 5 AM, an hour and a half before sunrise.

Chapter 29.

Three months later.

Time: Monday, December 24, 2007 11:20 PM

Melanie closed the door as she came into our bedroom. "Whacha reading?" she whispered as she climbed into bed.

"Greg and Lisa sent us a Christmas letter."

"Oh, really?! Great! How are they going?"

"Fine. Greg's getting married in the spring."

Melanie's eyes lit up in a big smile. She gently tugged the letter from my hands. I let her read while I curled up by her side, just thinking about life.

The fifth rotation has been pleasant so far. My sense sphere radius keeps doubling every 31 days, 19 hours, and 56 minutes. As I lay by my wife's side, I felt the radius pass the 1100 kilometer mark.

It's an enormous difference, working with such a large sphere of influence. I can sense large regions of the intense vacuum of space to the hot plastic semi-liquid rocks deep in Earth's interior. I was just starting to get the feel of the curvature of the Earth with my sphere. By sensing directly through the planet, I could reach out an extra 1.4 km along the surface. It was a very small positive difference, but that would change as the sphere kept growing.

So far all the evidence supported steady growth within the nineteen periods of the major rotations. My third period would end in another ten days, January 3, 2008, at 3:52 PM. My sense sphere should be 1358 km by then, and I was assuming I had at least that much in the bag. My real hope is that the sphere doubles at least twice more. If it does, by the time the next hurricane season arrives, I should be able to protect the Caribbean and the Atlantic from hurricanes from the comfort of my home in Massachusetts or even from the Allagash in Maine. Gently starve them of heat over periods of days; no more emergency conferences puzzling over my handiwork.

Melanie was petting my head as she read. She finally put down the letter and looked at me. I nodded and pushed off the lights. Melanie curled up by my side a moment later.

"Have a nice chat with Patricia?" I whispered. Her sister was in our other bedroom, starting her second week of a two week visit.

"Oh yes, a wonderful talk. She even gave me a backrub!"

"Wow!"

Melanie laughed. "Patricia says she bought a massage book. She's very good at it." Melanie kissed me. "You know, it's as if I found a sister I never knew I had. I really enjoyed being with her, maybe for the first time in my life."

"Did you mention the job opening to her?"

"I did. I told her the people were good friends of ours; that we could vouch that they'd be good employers. Patricia spent a long time reading the ad. It really does cover her areas of expertise. If I had to guess, I think she'll do the interview, and then talk it over with the parents once she gets back to Illinois."

"Well, she'll have a lot of time to decide. The position doesn't open up till May."

"Which in this case is a good thing. It'll be such a change for her Eric! She'll be truly free of the parents' direct control for the first time in her life."

I nodded, and then Melanie and I turned quiet for a while, cuddling and watching the fierce snowstorm through our bedroom window. Melanie shivered at the howl of the wind and the blowing snow. "Eric?"

"Yeah?"

"Are we manipulating Patricia?"

"Well, we're not laying all our cards on the table. That's for sure."

"Yeah. The parents will probably be thrilled to have Patricia be so close to us. I think they'll still hoping that Patricia beds you."

"They're certainly acting as if they are. Melanie, why do they hate you so much?"

"I don't know! It's all games and mirrors when I talk to them. I spent so much time with them in Paris. They were social, talkative, very generous. We toured where I wanted to tour, chatted about medical school and my financial needs and all my likes and dislikes, all the things we never got around to talking about when I was a child. The trip could have been a great reconciliation, except for the fact they were so eager to keep me with them and give Patricia one-on-one time with you."

I nodded, holding Melanie close to me and idly caressing the side of her hip. "I've talked with Patricia a little about this yesterday. Even she's a little bewildered by their actions. But she asked my advice, and I advised her not to mention her concerns to her parents. She seemed relieved. She still loves her parents pumpkin."

Melanie gave a deep yawn before replying. "I know. But the love is not the problem. She still looks to them for guidance. That's the problem! And my question Eric! Are we manipulating Patricia, the way we're trying to get her out of Illinois?"

I thought for a long while. "No, not with Patricia. We have no agenda, other than to love her. Maybe we're manipulating her parents though. But isn't that what you do in warfare, try to get the enemy to do what you want them to do?"

I gazed down at Melanie. She was almost asleep. "Oh, enemies Eric... Why fight such a cruel and senseless war? Why?"

There really was no answer I could give her. I stroked her hair in the light of the falling snow, watching in silence as my Christmas angel fell asleep.

Time: Tuesday April 15, 2008 7:20 PM

"Come on Eric! You promised!"

"Well, there's still a little atmosphere I can't lock."

"Ha! Sweetie! Quit futzing around!"

"No, there really is. Besides, wouldn't you like some dessert first?"

"Eric!"

"Some ice-cream perhaps? Pick your favorite nut."

Melanie grinned at me. "Eric, what's your current sense sphere?"

"Right now? 12,837 kilometers."

"Right! Now go to the farthest surface point of the planet from here..."

I sighed. "Okay, I'm there. It's in the ocean, southwest of Australia."

"Fine. Now how much farther can you go?"

"Fifty miles."

"Exactly! And you don't think you have the whole planet covered yet?!"

"Well, the atmosphere is part of the planet."

"Eric!"

"I really could think up some tasty ice cream first, any flavor you want."

Melanie burst out laughing, and pushed me down on the couch. "You're never going to earn your Doctorate of God-dom if you don't test Eric!"

She settled down and lay by my side. I held her in my arm and lightly petted her ear with my fingertips. "I know." I sighed deeply. "And gods are supposed to keep their promises too, aren't they?"

"Oh yes! Being a god means never having to say you're sorry. Gods should always keep their promises."

I nodded. "Okay. I will honor my promise. I'll do it."

"Right now?"

"Yes. Right now." I scanned for a moment, focusing on Melanie's description of the lab where the cancer experiment was running.. "Got it. I think. The number on the cage is NC3498-D."

"Yep, that's it! You want to sit up for this?"

"It makes no difference. Actually, I think I prefer lying and cuddling with you while I try this."

Melanie was silent for a moment, then leaned over and kissed me. "Sweet husband! I know how hesitant you are. I guess I would be too. Can you pick a mouse?"

A few seconds passed. "Have one. There's a distinctive white blaze on his nose. No, wait, her nose."

"Okay. Do what you do Eric."

"Scanning. I see them, the cancer cells. My gosh, they've spread throughout her body."

"Yes. These are the controls. Without treatment, that's the expectation. Eric, can you make them disappear?"

"Yeah, I guess. Oh Melanie, I have the animal's life in the palm of my hand."

"I know Eric. I wouldn't want the responsibility either. But the power is there, the influence is there. You were right. Our perspectives have changed."

I gulped and nodded and thought. "I don't want to try to pull the cancer cells into oblivion. That would fill the mouse with tiny vacuoles. There. Done."

"What did you do?"

"Billions of nano-bursts of energy. I ruptured the DNA chains inside the cancer cells, all of them."

Melanie nodded and then was still. We lay on the couch in silence for a long time, and then she started showering me with kisses. "My darling husband. I know how difficult this was."

"It's so strange Melanie. Curing a sick animal? It's nothing that any vet wouldn't be proud to do. But the responsibility! Oh, the responsibility!"

Melanie held me and brushed my hair with her fingers. Eventually we started smiling at each other. Melanie gave me a quick playful lick on my nose. "Still up for making me some ice cream?"

Chapter 30.

Three weeks later.

Time: Sunday, May 4, 2008 6:20 PM

Melanie and I had been spending the weekend helping Patricia move into new apartment in Back Bay. Her new job starts tomorrow. She was currently taking a shower after a hard afternoon of work with me unpacking boxes and moving furniture around. It's a one-bedroom apartment, small but in a great location for her, less than a mile from her work.

I "tuned" her apartment while we worked, quietly think-cleaning the stove and refrigerator and rugs, oiling the hinges on the doors, repairing some minor cracks in the tiles and grout in the bathroom, making a bunch of nicks and scratches disappear before Patricia could see them. The apartment looks great now.

Unfortunately Patricia found that the apartment AC was not working before I could get to it. While she was showering, I gave it my world-class treatment. I not only repaired the broken compressor, I improved it, upgrading the alloy of the steel, machining the tolerances of the rings. Then I strengthened the hoses and cleaned the condenser grill, recharged the depleted coolant, and made all the dirt in the air ducts disappear. Finally I turned it on. It was unusually hot outside for so early in the year, 91F and very muggy. I zapped the humidity and took a few degrees C off the temperature to give the AC a head start.

And while I was working, my sense sphere radius passed the 19,400 kilometer mark. It was now greater than three Earth radii and still growing.

"Oh, wow!" said Patricia, as she stepped out of the shower. "How in the world did you get that working?"

She was dressed in a bathrobe and drying her hair with a large towel. I turned and smiled at her. "It was nothing, just needed a little cleaning."

"Really? I was sure the compressor was shot. But you're right, it sounds fine now. Did Melanie leave?"

"Yep. She left us something for dinner. She had to go back home to study for finals."

"Oh, okay," said Patricia, sitting on her bed. She finished drying her hair and put it up in a ponytail, and then gave me a playful smile. "I owe both of you so much. Eric, do you have to rush back?"

"Uh, no. My evening is free. Something you need?"

"Well, kind of." Patricia surprised me by blushing. "I was wondering, if I could return... if I could show my appreciation." She hesitated, and then gave me a burst of a smile. "Could I give you a backrub?"

"Oh wow. Really?"

"Yeah. Just a simple backrub, I promise."

We looked in each other's eyes. All I saw was love and affection. There was no lust at all. "Uh, sure, that sounds nice. What do you want me to do?"

She patted the bed. "Thanks! Just take off your shirt and tee-shirt and lie down."

I zapped my sweat before I did, got rid of my shoes and socks too. No sense dirtying a newly made bed. I was soon lying down, and felt Patricia's cool, clean hands begin to work the muscles in my shoulders and neck.

"Wow Eric. Nice job. You've been working out?"

I closed my eyes and sighed. "Just a little I guess." After that I simply relaxed and didn't feel like saying anything.

And neither did Patricia. Her massage techniques were masterful. The time passed quietly, Patricia occasionally humming songs as she worked. I felt her hands slowly work their magic, kneading and relaxing the muscles in my back and upper arms. It felt absolutely delightful. I began to drift, acutely aware of how wonderful her hands felt and of nothing else. My thoughts turned to Melanie. And the time passed.

"Here Eric. Lift up for me a bit."

Patricia's hands were at both sides of my waist. I rose up without thinking, and felt her hands slide under me around my waist. She unbuckled my belt and unzipped my shorts. I felt her startle a bit, and then her fingers went to my waistband and she pulled down a bit. "I need to get to your tailbone," she whispered, pushing me lightly on my rump as a signal for me to lie back down.

"Sure," I mumbled, still deeply relaxed. I had never even opened my eyes.

I felt her fingers and palms working the base of my spine and massaging the top muscles of my butt. I was in heaven. It felt so nice and soothing. I felt Patricia's fingers hold me below my waist as her fingers worked my end vertebrae. I sighed and got back to drifting. Melanie, my beautiful wife...

"Eric?"

"Hmm?"

"I didn't realize... you'd find this so sexy. Are you erect for me?"

My eyes blinked open. "Huh?" I looked at the clock, and was amazed to see more than an hour had passed. My body was in an extremely relaxed state. I reached down and felt my groin. It was a rather unique feeling. I was fully erect, but I was also relaxed and floating and had no desire for sexual stimulation. Patricia's hands must have brushed against my stiff penis when she unzipped me.

"My gosh, you're right. This feels super nice Patricia, but I'm as surprised as you are. I was just drifting and thinking of Melanie."

"Ah, that explains it. That's good. Go back to your dream Eric."

But the short conversation, and the reality of having an erection with Patricia massaging my bare back woke me up. I lay quietly and sighed, enjoying the feel of her delightful hands. I wiggled my rump at her in appreciation.

Patricia laughed and gave me a light spank. "Don't move!"

I nodded obediently. Her fingers soon returned to my middle and upper back, light kneading, very pleasant. I knew my wonderful massage was almost finished.

"Eric?"

"Yah?"

"Thank you, for letting me do this. Now, be still and close your eyes. Keep them closed."

I felt a rustle, and then felt Patricia lie down near me on the bed. Then she got up, and then another rustle. Her fingers returned to massaging me.

"Hmm?", I muttered. "What was that all about?"

"A stupid promise," said Patricia. "A stupid promise I made years ago, before I developed my conscience. But I'm a person who likes to keep my promises."

"Oh? What sort of promise?"

"I promised my mom I'd lie naked with you in my bed, if I had the opportunity."

"Huh? WHAT?!"

"I know! It was just after our yacht trip. I look back now, it was so bizarre! I didn't have my head screwed on straight back then. But my mom was very interested in turning you into an object of competition between Melanie and me, and at the time, I fully agreed with her."

"My gosh Patricia."

"Oh, I know." Her fingers turned super light, caressing my back. "You don't know how much your and Melanie's forgiveness means to me now. But at the time, I was a bitch. And my parents! My mom in particular! I think my dad was just along for the ride. But my mom! She was so eager to turn you into an object of competition. It's what I've been trained to do Eric, trained since childhood, to obey my parents and compete with Melanie."