Back at the Ranch....

Once they got back to James’ home, Cindy had recovered. Sort of.

“I think we should get started on planning the cloning.” Cindy said.

James blinked. “now?”

“Sure, we’ve pulled late nights before and it’s not a school day tomorrow, and your dad is here, not your mom.

“True.”

Ron was…willing. “For a while.” He said. “But none of that working through the night like Kim did.”

“She said it got things done.” James said.

“At the cost of leaving your mom with blood red eyes the next day.” His father assured him. “When you were little she was working in college and I caught her squeezing the left over grounds from some coffee to get “the real caffine.” “ He shuddered.

“Okay, we’ll work a little while.” James said.

“And Drew?” Ron continued. Cindy blinked and then paled. “Don’t worry, I called him.” Ron said. Cindy sighed. With that he went down to the kitchen to continue working on his project.

“You know, that’s right—your mom and dad had you right out of high school.”

“Duh.” James said, “It took you this long to count?”

“No…” Cindy said, punching him in the shoulder, “But I just realized—Monique and Ned’s kid, Zita and Felix…” She paused, “I mean mom and dad were older, but your parents…why then?” She paused, “Not that I’m complaining, since you can give me back up against the gremlins.”

James shrugged. “A bad guy.”

“A bad guy?”

“Yeah, I asked dad about it and he told me I’d have to wait until I was older.”

“And?”

“I got ‘older’, last year.”

“Okay, so give.”

”He was a bad guy who developed a depolymizer ray to destroy all rubber or latex products.”

“So?”

“So it shorted out after he fired it and there was a three day blackout.” James paused, “During the worst snowstorm of the year.”

“And?”

“And dad said that the settlement checks were always a nice gift every month, and he was never late on them, since they were the only thing keeping mom from killing him.”

“Wait that doesn’t make any sense—what does that ha…” Cindy stopped, thought about it, then… “Euggggghhhhh.”

“Wanna change the subject?”

“Right, about the DNA matrix, let’s pull it out and see if we have anything.”

James’ room had a computer, but it was a computer created by the combined efforts of “Uncle” Wade and Uncle Jim and Tim, Grandpa James, and of course with a number of little tweaks James had been adding since he’d been old enough.

It was, in short, the sort of computer that a number of major national governments would give their eye teeth for. The holo display rose up, illuminating the two kids faces as the material was fed into the computer. Complex readouts appeared showing the divine blueprint of the double helix. James looked at it and frowned. This was Cindy’s bailiwick.

“So?”

“Wait…” Cindy said, hitting the preconfigs on the virtual keyboard to her preferred settings typing on a “keyboard” formed out of holographs and forcefields.

“I still think I could install a VR neural induction system.” James said.

“So we get our brains burned out if there’s a power surge?”

“Cindy!” James said, offended. “There wouldn’t be a power surge.”

“that’s what dad says.” Cindy said, concentrating on her work. “No thanks.” She reached into the display, “grabbing” parts of the helix’s and moving them around as the computer continued digesting the material in the scanning zone.

“Good news.” She finally said. “We’ve got enough intact DNA to produce complete codes.”

“Great!” James said.

“But it’s going to take a little while to arrange them.” Cindy said, “And since it’s druge work, you can help me!” James shouldered into the seat next to her and nodded, as the two started fingers flying over the keyboard.

“You know,” James said, “I could automate this.”

“No.”

“But-“

“It’s already as automated as it can be, without the computer making too many extrapolations.”

“So it extrapolates, what’s the problem.”

“DNAmy. Mom. Dad. Their Wedding. Her Doves. Phorusrhacids. Need I say more?”

“Well they were white.”

“And in any case, the whole Earth Day thing is for natural animals. If the computer extrapolates too much, how much do you want to be that Mrs. Rockwaller will disallow it because it’s a genemod?”

“Mgh.” James said, bending down over his keyboard. There was a lot to do.

In fact, there was a great deal to do, and the two kids were already tired from their exertions and the horrifying experience they’d faced. The DNA helixes kept getting bigger, swimming in front of their eyes, the color coding so soft and comforting…

Ron came up the stairs quietly as only a ninja could be. The keyboards had stopped several minutes ago, and he had a feeling of what had happened.

Yep. Two AM, and James and Cindy, dead asleep, leaning against each other. Cindy had reached out and pulled herself into James in the traditional I-Don’t-Have-My-Pandaroo-but-you’ll-do maneuver Kim had used so many times, her head up against his shoulder.

Hmm… best let them wake up ‘on their own.’ Ron thought, and then ghosted back down the stairs.

The sound of clattering plates woke up James, and then Cindy, as they realized they’d fallen asleep. They both moved apart like they’d been scalded, looking frantically at the door to the room, to insure that James’ dad was sitting there glaring (or worse laughing), but no, they heard him moving up the stairs.

“Sorry about that.” He said, “Dropped some plates.” He paused, “wow, looks like you two let time get away from you—it’s 2:30.” He waggled a finger at them. “Like I said, No all nighters.”

“Omigod!” Cindy gasped, “I’m dead!”

“Not in this house.” Ron said. “I called Drew and he said you could stay over tonight if you want to. I think he was afraid you’d wake the gremlins…or interfere in his plan to raise the ghosts of an Indian burial ground.”

“But there are no Indian burial grounds here.” James said.

“It’s a dry run.” Ron pointed out. “I’ve got the guest bedroom ready for you Cindy.” He paused, I really shouldn’t but I can’t resist, “Are you two okay—you’re a bit red in the face. Not coming down with something, are you?”

“No!” Cindy and James said in one voice.

“Okay—Cindy, your clothes are in the normal drawer. Best get to bed kids, breakfast is at the crack of 10:00 AM.”

“Can we work on this tomorrow?” James asked.

“A bit but weren’t you two thinking of meeting up with some of the gang?”

James blinked, he’d forgotten about that. “I don’t know if we have time, since Mrs. Rockwaller-Flagg hit us with Earth Day.”

“Sure you do, it’s not until Friday and this is the weekend.” Ron said, “And you can come back when you’re finished and energized.”

“I-“

“Okay!” Cindy said, “Thanks Mr. Possible-Stoppable.“

Ron shook his head. “I told Kim, it should just be Possible, but she wanted the whole thing. Just you wait, one day I’ll be eaten by aliens because someone had to shout out: ‘look out Mr. Possible-stop-oh, too late.” He paused, “So say your good nights, and turn the computer off.” He turned to leave, then turned back, “And no 'just one more thing,' James. You do that, and you’ll be up until the sun rises and you’re not going to do that.” James nodded. Dad was easier going then mom, but he had a way of making his point. He saved and turned off the computer.

“Do you think he knows anything about what we did today?”

“Dad? Nah.”

“Good.” Cindy said. “Um…you don’t think he saw-“ She colored along with James.

“The way we were sleeping?” James asked, the red tinge suffusing his cheeks as well. “No—you heard him with the plates. He’s clueless…besides it wasn’t as if anything was happening, we were just more tired than we thought.”

“Yeah. Right.” Cindy said in relief. “I mean if he’d seen us, it’d be…. humiliating!”

“Or he’d tell our moms.” James said. Cindy shivered at that.

“Yeah.”

“It’s a good thing he didn’t notice anything.” James said. Thank God that Dad can be clueless at times.

“Yeah, Well, night!” Cindy said, heading for the guest room.

“Night Cin—once we get back from the mall, can we?”

“I think we can have it ready for the cloning process—“ She said, “in fact if we could just do a few more things right now and-“ Someone passing downstairs made a soft cough and Cindy stopped. “But we can do that later. Night!”

Cindy headed to the guest room, and yep, there was the dresser with her stuff in it, second drawer down. After all, there had been times when some disaster or another had forced the evacuation of their house, or Dad and mom had had to go do something for GJ or one of dads conferences, so she and the gremlins had spent nearly as much time here as James had spent over at their house. Cindy pulled on the oversized T-shirt and dove under the covers, considering how to set up the matrix-

And not twenty seconds later soft snores permeated the room, echoed by the ones coming from James’ room.

“Knew they were more tired than they thought,” Ron said as he turned off the lights in the living room and headed to his own room.

TBC.