CHAPTER 13

Byron

A couple of cars hovered over a dirt road leading into a dark forest, just like we were expecting.One man stood outside one of the cars, watching with hands on his hips as our own car glided down the road towards them.Our sharp dragon eyes immediately picked out Neal Callaway.Jenna recognized him just because she knew the figure of her father’s brother so well.

”There he is!” Jenna called, pointing from the front seat of the car that I’d rented for us because no one who might be looking for us—namely, Nidaag’s followers—would recognize it as mine.“Uncle Neal!”

From the car where Neal was standing, another man got out, and a man and a woman got out from the other car, as I put our vehicle into a hover near them and shut it off.The car settled onto the road and Jenna quickly jumped out and ran to her uncle.Neal and Jenna embraced as Elliot, Cade, and I got out.

Jenna’s uncle was the only one of these people we recognized, but since the others were with Neal, they all had to belong to the Intercross, the “fringe” organization that knew about Earth but kept it mostly quiet.The idea that there was a parallel world where civilization was only human and dragons were either myths or beasts was very threatening to a certain element of people on Tellus—Nidaag’s people—who could make things very difficult, even dangerous, for a group like the Intercross.So it was to the Intercross’s benefit, at least until the Gorgonites became less of a presence in society, to stay on the “fringe” and let themselves not be taken completely seriously. Of course if they had their way, Jenna, her father, and her Uncle could change all that.

The guys and I joined Jenna and Neal.We were all introduced to Neal’s associates—the two men, Ayers and Phillips, and the woman, Adrienne, who was a Scaler.Jenna had not mentioned to her uncle that she had taken us back to Earth and that we’d been guests in their home.Neal, who knew how it was with Jenna and the three of us, would have known what kind of guests we had been there, which was a conversation we didn’t care to have with everything else that was going on.When we came face to face with Jenna’s father, we would have to deal with whether or not he approved of her being with three older Scaler guys, so we preferred not to have the subject come up with her uncle before we were introduced to Mr. Callaway.

Neal informed us that this road led deep into the forest, to a well-secluded area where we’d find Marshall Callaway and the experiment that he’d been working on, away from all prying eyes, including and especially the eyes of the Gorgonites.“My brother has been traveling with the Intercross to different places,” Neal explained, “collecting materials, conferring with experts, designing his devices.Where we’re going is the site of the final testing of his work.What happens there will determine how he proceeds next, whether he’ll present the ultimate results of his project to the scientific community here on Tellus.What Marshall is doing could affect the future for both our worlds.”

”I just want to see Daddy, Uncle Neal—now, please,” said Jenna insistently.

”We’ll go to your father right now,” Neal said, rubbing her arm reassuringly.“It may not seem that way, but he’s been anxious to see you too.As engrossed as he’s been in his work, he’s thought of you constantly and been very concerned about you.”He looked over at us.“He will of course be wanting to talk with you lads as well.”

”Yes,” I said, “after everything we’ve heard about Jenna’s father, we’re all very interested in meeting the genius who invented the domain ring.”Unspoken, I added, The ring that took us across realities to get a look at your world.But again, I took care not to bring that to his attention.I reasoned that just a note of praise for Jenna’s father, who after all actually was a genius, couldn’t hurt matters.Genius likes to be acknowledged, no matter what world it comes from.Just that much respect for him in advance, even before we came face to face with Marshall Callaway, might make a difference when we finally met him.

Neal seemed to understand my intentions.“My brother isn’t easily impressed.It goes with being a ‘genius,’ as you put it.He’ll be wanting to discuss a few things at some length when you get there, and not only about his work.”There was a meaningful beat then, into which we could insert the words that he wasn’t saying.He might have been too much of a gentleman to put it this way, but in that beat of silence were the words, He’s anxious to have the three dragon guys who’ve been having it off with his daughter make some accounting for themselves.Jenna’s father wants to know what you three mean by deflowering and bedding her, and whether you’re in the habit of doing that with innocent human girls.

But all that went unspoken—for the time being—as Jenna got back into our car with the guys and me, and Neal and his friends all climbed back into their vehicles, and with Neal’s car in the lead we all went skimming away down that road into the depths of the forest.

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It was a long, twisting ride down that path enclosed by trees and thickets, where fingers and shafts of sunlight penetrated through the canopy of limbs and leaves on either side and above us.Eventually our journey brought us to one of the most interesting looking places I’d ever seen.

The forest undergrowth gave way to a wide place with only tall, mighty trees and scattered bushes, with a canopy so thick that on the ground there was only a constant green twilight and up above us, in the massive limbs of the trees, was an elaborate network of tree houses connected by bridges, with ladders and stairways extending from those structures to the ground.A kind of arboreal community had been built here, whether it was created by the Intercross or by people who’d come out to the forest to live before them.In some of the windows I could see a violet glow that was the telltale sign of machinery and power sources drawing energy from the Ambience.We found people going about the business of their lives or their work, some of them in dragon form, some leaning out the windows of the tree dwellings.As our cars skimmed up and hovered to a stop, all eyes went to us, acknowledging our arrival.

A circular section of the bottom of one tree house detached itself from the rest of the structure, its edges glowing violet and began to lower itself to the forest floor.Standing on it was a figure who made Jenna gasp.“DADDY!”With my extra-sharp Scaler vision, I could make out a middle-aged human male, thick-bodied but not overweight, with subtle creases of age on his face and wisps of grey threaded through his dark hair.He reminded me of Jenna and Neal, which was only natural, given who he obviously was.

The lift from the bottom of that tree house settled to the ground, and Jenna leapt from the car faster than the car could touch down.I got out after her, along with Cade and Elliot, and watched her run to the man who had emerged.“Daddy!” she called excitedly as the man held out his arms to her and wore a smile of warmth and longing that I could only describe as “paternal.”The two of them locked in a long, hard embrace as my friends and I walked over to them.Jenna and the man seemed to radiate the excitement that comes only from being reunited with someone you love and haven’t seen in too long.

Quietly, respectfully, we stood by, as Neal and the other people that we’d come with all came over and joined us, while Jenna and this man hugged and rocked each other fiercely.The man chuckled deeply and lovingly.Jenna sobbed in his arms.For the moment they were oblivious to everyone and everything around them.

When Neal finally said, “This was worth waiting for,” the two of them drew apart and faced us.The way the man looked us over felt very much like the careful scrutiny of a scientist.

“Guys,” said Jenna with a trace of a sob lingering in her voice, “this is my father, Marshall Callaway.Daddy, this is…”

Her father pointed to each of us in turn.“Elliot Ladon, Byron Ledger, Cade Taisce.I know.I’ve been looking at all the media reports about you and my daughter.I almost feel as if I know you already.”

Perhaps it was only my imagination when I heard under his words, Not as well as my daughter knows you.There was no judgement or hostility in his tone, but I could only guess that a father meeting the three guys who were screwing his daughter might think exactly that—for starters.

“Daddy,” said Jenna, “there are about a thousand things I want to ask you right now.Can we…?”

”Go up ‘topside’ and have a talk?” Marshall finished for her.“Yes, we do have a great deal to talk about, don’t we?”And he glanced over at us from the corners of his eyes.“Come along, you and your friends.We’ll go up into my cabin.We have a lot of questions, I know.Quite a lot, indeed.”And he hugged Jenna once again, as if in hugging they could reclaim the time they had lost.

Neal excused us and let my friends and me go up into the tree boughs to Marshall Callaway’s cabin—“topside,” as he called it.His living space was comfortably furnished and had a central area with a table and chairs.He got drinks for everyone from a cooler unit and we all sat at his table and started talking, asking things that had long needed to be asked and saying things that had long needed to be said.

Jenna very pointedly began, “Daddy, Uncle Neal told me you’ve been moving around a lot.Where have you been?What have you been doing?Why couldn’t you get in touch with me?I moved my whole life here, even started school here, with Uncle Neal’s help.But I wanted to see you.I wanted to talk to you.I’ve hardly even known what to think all this time.I need you to explain this to me.Tell me what’s been going on.”

In my best tone of respect, not wanting to touch off anything too emotional at what was already an emotional time, I said, “We’ve all been wondering about you, Sir.My friends and I have been looking out for Jenna the last few months, but you’ve never been far from her mind.”

Marshall repeated my words.“ ‘Looking out’ for my daughter, yes, I know all about that.”There was a definite meaning underlying what he was saying.Looking out for her, as a euphemism for any number of things you’ve been doing.“You, Byron—you’re the young man with the sensor gem, correct?”

A quietly nervous look passed between Elliot, Cade, and me.Jenna’s father had just brought up something that I’d given her in relation to those things that were going unmentioned.The sensor gem was an Ambience-powered device which people used in intimate situations, its changing colors reflecting the different physical sensations and intensities of foreplay and fucking.It was a way of letting us see how we were pleasing Jenna, and showing Jenna physically how she was responding to us.We also used emissions from the sensor gem to help us find Jenna when the Gorgonites kidnapped her.It was a thing of pleasure that proved to serve another important purpose, one that had probably saved Jenna’s life, because we all assumed that Nidaag and his people couldn’t be trusted to give her back to us safely once they had the plans for the weapon they wanted, which Cade had stolen for them.

”The sensor gem, yes,” I replied calmly.“That was my idea.”

”And one that turned out to be very useful,” said Marshall.“It was clever of you.My daughter and I might not be having this reunion without that.”

”You must know Jenna is very important to us,” I said.

”I’m very well aware of how close you’ve become,” Marshall said, and his knowing look passed from me to the other guys.At this moment it was definitely a father and not a scientist speaking to us.

Strongly feeling the need to steer this subject elsewhere, I said, “It’s not just Jenna who’d like some answers about what you’ve been doing, Sir.Since we’ve been looking out for her, we’d all like to know more about that.”

Jenna’s father took a deep breath, and I guessed he was considering the import of my words and the need for clarity about more than just our relationship with his daughter.He tapped his fingers on the table.“Yes, of course you do, young man.You’ll understand, I’m sure, that the recent increase in Gorgonite agitation and the work I’ve been doing since arriving on Tellus are related things.One has everything to do with the other.What I’ve been doing…,” and he stopped there and gave another meaningful look around the table—a very different meaning than what we’d been indirectly talking about.Then he went on again.“What I’ve been doing may be a flashpoint for great danger, which is the reason—and the only reason—I’ve found it necessary to keep this distance from my daughter.It’s a distance that has cost me as much as it has her.Jenna’s use of my invention, my dimension-crossing ring, to come here looking for me has been a source of concern and worry for me ever since my brother informed me of it.I’d rather she hadn’t come here, but I seriously underestimated just how much a daughter worries for her father.”And he reached over and touched Jenna on one arm, giving it a loving squeeze.Jenna squeezed his hand in return.

“What I’ve been doing,” Marshall continued, “is potentially a flashpoint for great danger.Now that you’re all here, there’s no reason not to show you.”

A little hush fell over the room.This trip out to the forest was about moments of truth.We were about to come to a big one.