find it.'
Michaels nodded. Mind control. A scary thought.
'What about Morrison? Are we checking him out?'
'Oh, yeah. I'm paying his files a visit this afternoon.
I'll get anything anybody knows about Dr. Morrison or my name's not
Lightnin' Jay Gridley.'
Michaels just shook his head again.
Saturday, June 11th Portland, Oregon
John Howard watched his son watch the boomerang throwers. The contest
was going full steam, several events at once, and the air was full of
bright plastic bits spinning in all kinds of flight patterns. Outside
of computers, this was the first thing that had ever seemed to really
attract Tyrone. Well, not counting that little girl who had broken the
boy's heart a few months back. What was her name?
Belladonna? It had to happen eventually, of course, and maybe sooner
was better than later, but it had been a wrenching experience. And
your first heartbreak never went away, not altogether. Howard could
remember his own with a clarity he wouldn't have thought possible more
than twenty-five years after it had happened. He'd even told Tyrone
about it, trying to ease his son's heart
sickness. Maybe it had helped. He liked to think that it had, a
little.
Ah, yes, beautiful Lizbeth Toland, who had betrayed him at sixteen with
his best friend, costing him both of them. It was a lifetime ago, and
in the grand scheme of life, it didn't mean much, a tiny bump in the
road, but not something that ever quite went away. Even after all the
years, he could still summon up the sadness he'd felt, though it had
lost the painful sting it had once had.
Ah, well, it was the path not taken, and he didn't have any regrets
about the one he had gone down instead. If he'd wound up with Lizbeth,
then he'd never have met Nadine, never fathered Tyrone, and he would
have missed entirely the life he enjoyed. It was possible that other
life could have been better, but he couldn't see how. He wouldn't
trade Nadine and their son for all the money, fame, and power in the
world.
He smiled at Tyrone and his new girlfriend, and their enthusiasm for
this whirly-twirly sport. Fortunately, Little Nadine didn't seem to be
evoking the same sexual response in Tyrone that Bella had; they were
more like pals, and Howard was happy to see that. Plenty of time to
play that game later.
After a career in the service, first the military, then taking over the
military arm of Net Force, finally rising even in this bastard service
to general, he now felt a need to spend more time with his family.
It seemed like yesterday that he'd gotten married, a few hours ago that
Tyrone had been born, and here he was already a teenager. It would be
but a blink of an eye before the boy was off to college, getting
married himself, maybe having children. One day, Howard would look
down, and there would be this little version of Tyrone standing
knee-high to him, saying 'Grampa! Grampa!'
It made a man stop and consider his life, such thoughts.
