Chapter 87

Victor arrived in his car about ten minutes after we did. Misty was with him, but she didn't look her best, and my girls noticed it, too, immediately surrounding her with their attention.

"Well, hey..."

Victor walked over to me and unloaded the drink bags next to me and extended his hand for a handshake.

"Hey, Vic..."

I shook the big guy's hand, and even though I looked much bigger than before, I was still smaller than he was. So calling him a big guy, even mentally, made sense.

"How are you, have you been tested lately?"

I grinned with the corner of my lips.

"Who's about what, but the riper is primarily about health?"

Victor shrugged.

"Well, you're my best customer, so it would be weird if I didn't ask how long ago you got checked?"

"Uh, not long ago. just half a week ago. Clan riper can't be happy that in some century they come to him for regular checks without reminders, instead of waiting for problems with chrome after the appearance of which and comes with complaints."

"Huh, that's good..."

"Yeah, but I was planning to visit you at the end of the month anyway. The clan ripper is not bad, but I use his services only because I don't want to distract you from your work too often for the sake of a trivial inspection."

"I don't mind in general..."

Vic shrugged again.

"...although the number of patients has increased a bit lately, so I have quite a lot of work to do now... compared to the way things used to be."

"Good for you..."

During a leisurely conversation Vic and I prepared meat and a brazier with coals, on which we put skewers, and then started to prepare cocktails.

"So how's Misty?"

"It's bad..."

Vic sighed as he looked toward the girls who were busy trying to get Misty out of her decadent mood.

"Maybe if Mrs. Wells had let Mrs. Wells offend her, she'd be better off, but-- You know where I found her?

I raised an eyebrow questioningly.

"Outside Jackie's garage. She sat next to him and just cried... I tried to talk to Mrs. Wells, but she was adamant she didn't want Misty at the ceremony. I couldn't just leave, after all, Jackie was a good friend of mine..."

He sighed.

"I persuaded her for about twenty minutes to just get up and come with me, and then I spit and threw her on my shoulder and just carried her to my apartment, where I steamed her with hot tea."

"Why didn't you call me right away?"

"..."

"Vic, I may not be in touch with Misty as much as you, but I consider you my friends and in a situation like this I could definitely try to help! And the girls, even though they knew about the situation, didn't realize it was so bad..."

"The jelly is actually tolerable..."

She eats, runs her own store, reads cards for visitors, and has no suicidal thoughts, but still any reminder of Jackie causes her mood to drop.

He sighed.

"Uh..."

I looked up at Misty, as if to ask, "What's wrong now? I mean, you're not such an idiot as to talk to her about Jackie while you were getting to this place...

"Yeah, V called. I apologized to her for not being able to attend the offrenda. so, uh."

"I see..."

"I hear you're helping her out a lot?"

"Not that much..."

"Well, Vee bragged to me that you made mega-cool guns that she had no problem using to take down Kang Tao's avi... that obviously qualifies as a pretty big help.

"For starters, I simply fulfilled the order I received from the fixer. The fact that I had first agreed on this order with V herself is a tenth matter. So I can't be held responsible. I simply created the weapon, and what it was used for..."

"Uh-huh...

"No googling..."

I turned the skewers a bit and went back to making drinks.

"There's a second reason..."

"Which is what?"

Victor paused for a moment and sipped a little from the cocktail he was making for himself and looked at me questioningly.

"She wanted to use EMP too, but to create it she wanted to rip up a microwave station outside of town."

"Is she fucked up?"

"I had the same reaction when she called me and said she wanted to hire me and then described her plan... I had a very strong desire to agree, and after the meeting I just wanted to kill her."

"That's, uh. radical."

"And how do I respond to the suggestion that I become a terrorist who is responsible for the deaths of thousands, if not tens of thousands, of civilians?"

"There's nothing to argue about... I didn't expect her to do that."

"By the way, remind me at the end of our picnic to send you the files on her chip, maybe you'll think of something, because my brains are flowing out of my ears just trying to figure out what the chip creator screwed up there."

I shook my head.

"Nah... I'd understand if they explained to me exactly what the creator of this chip was smoking..."

Vic grinned.

"Well, give it to me, see if I can work something out."

"That's good."

Victor came to the brazier and quickly checked the kebab and said that it was already ready, then collected the skewers, and I went to the brazier with new skewers and placed them over the smoldering coals.

"Well, looks like it's time for a little nibble, doesn't it?"

Vic came to the table and put the skewers on the center plate, from which they immediately disappeared. The girls quickly took away two portions each, leaving only two skewers in the center of the table, one for me and one for Vic.

Two skewers were also on the plate in front of Misty, although she herself did not take part in the looting of the center plate.

"So, let's raise these glasses to getting together like this as often as possible!"

I raised my glass defiantly and everyone at the table did the same, though Misty was a little behind, but Panam, sitting next to her, quickly put the glass in her hand and helped her join in the toast.

Drinks...

"So..."

Misty joined the conversation slowly and reluctantly at first. But there's a word. there were two. the subject of mysticism came up. and now she's a full-fledged participant in the conversation. Vic only shook his head in surprise and nodded at me gratefully. All in all, we had a good time...

Another couple hours went by like that.

"Okay, we should probably get started on a little experiment..."

Judy got up from her seat and quickly fetched a couple sets of wetsuits.

"David, let's go change, let's dive into that reservoir."

I grinned.

"You know, if this were a date, I might comment on your choice of location... Poison puddle."

I shook my head.

"Come on, you're going to visit the town I spent my childhood in!"

"That's the only thing that fixes the situation."

I took the wetsuit, and then Judy and I went into the cabin, where we started to change, admiring the figure of my girl, who was not at all shy of me. I wasn't shy, either, so Judy gave me some telling glances.

"You know, if it wasn't for Vic and Misty."

"I know."

I nodded interrupting Judy.

"...I wouldn't mind taking that wetsuit off of you slowly myself and..."

"All right, that's enough!"

Judy shook her head and quickly left the cabin, after which I also left the house under the stares of everyone present.

"So, are you gonna put the scuba gear on yourself?"

"Nope..."

I shook my head.

"It's my first time. so I expect my more experienced partner to be gentle with me..."

Laughs were heard from all sides and even Misty chuckled softly into her fist.

"Okay..."

Judy tugged sharply on one of the straps and it squeezed very hard.

"Tz..."

"Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

"It's nothing."

I shook my head, but I didn't reprimand her for such a prank, and she quickly corrected herself, then kissed me lightly on the lips.

"I'm sorry. I'm just a little nervous. brian's first side-by-side recording...

I shrugged.

"It's okay, let's just do it..."

"Uh-huh...

Judy got out of the car a couple of slicks and extra gear, which she put on herself and helped me put on properly, and then finally the helmets and gloves were put on. We walked fully clothed to the pier where we jumped into the water.

A couple seconds and I got a call from Judy.

"David, can you hear me?"

"Yeah. (chuckles)"

"Okay, I won't connect the others, and Becca should be getting dressed by agreement, but we're not going to swim into deep water yet, we're going to do a little synchronization of our devices."

"Let's just get away from this wooden dock a little bit, or Becca's going to jump down and..."

"Okay..."

We swam about twenty meters, after which Judy hovered in the water.

"Hmm. you're pretty funny in the water."

"Well, you're the one with diving experience, and I have no such experience at all, so I'm still getting the hang of it."

"Okay, let's start with something simple with a deeper connection test. I'll sing a tune, and you try to figure out what song I mean..."

"Come on, purr."

And Judy did start humming a tune, except I've never been a music lover, so figuring out what kind of tune she meant...

"I don't know what the song is, but I can sing it..."

Which I did.

"Yeah, that's right, now let's you..."

I thought about it for a while, and then I started humming a song by a rock band that David knew, and Judy started humming it a dozen seconds later, and then she sang the chorus. It was pretty good.

"Elf Wanderer, if I'm not mistaken, is the band CusBos?"

"Well, I don't know the band, but the song title and chorus are right."

"Well, you're not much of a musician. Now, let's do some moves, swim around me clockwise..."

I complied with Judy's request and, to her light chuckles and comments on my efforts to swim evenly, swam a couple laps around her in a clockwise direction.

"Okay, all right, now counterclockwise..."

And this request of hers I honored.

"All right, uh. that's enough."

She stopped me.

"Now look, to stay on the same level you have to act like this..."

And Judy just hung in one place for a couple of minutes commenting on her movements, and then I started to do well, of course not as naturally as she did, but much better than before.

"Okay, that'll do it. Where do I go?"

"To me first..."

Judy swam up to me so close we could touch.

"Now from me..."

Again she complied with my request, meanwhile Becca was in the water, but she kept some distance from us and didn't interfere with setting up the equipment.

"Clockwise..."

Again Judy unquestioningly fulfills my request, and afterward similarly whips me counterclockwise.

"So..."

As soon as I stopped her, she checked the data she was getting from the equipment.

"...well I can tell you that we're at sixty percent synchronization, which is more than I expected, so we can start the dive."

"Well, then go ahead..."

I nodded to Judy and swam after her, and Becca swam some distance behind us...