SImp

The next three days were peaceful. Sorta… Serina had kept in contact with Caitlín and me. We both knew what had happened to the other three girls and had been on the ship with them several times.

Serina had invited all five of us to learn some self-defense moves, not that any of us could more than bumble around, but it was a start. Lance was more fun to train with while Jane took training deadly serious. It was funny to watch them demonstrate as they would be serious until they got in a clinch and then they just sort of forgot, and they were lost in each other. They had to be the most newlywed couple that I had ever seen.

'That Night', there is only one 'That Night' in my life so far, was the worst and the best that I have ever had. Although if it were not for Caitlín's strength, I would have not survived the opening rounds. I had a quick flashback of being pushed and pulled from man to man while they put their hands on me in places that no else had ever touched. I had never been more terrified nor more humiliated and embarrassed in my life. There really are no words that can express what I went through. If it had not been for Lance and Serina, I suspect that I would have entered some drastic state of depression and denial. But Serina had our bodies healed so fast and then the actual concern, caring and yes—love that Lance gave all of us that night. Not to mention the fear and exhilaration at seeing the earth from space on an actual real flying saucer. Well, it seems that one set of emotions were drowned out by the other.

We needed to head back to college tomorrow so that we would be ready for classes on Monday morning. Connecticut was only about a days drive in our brand new 1948 Hudson Commodore thanks to Dad not wanting us to get stranded because of cheap wheels. While it would take us a little less than a day to drive, Bit could make the same trip in a few minutes, faster if he broke the sound barrier. Sound barrier? Yeah, right. Chuck Yeager only hit the news last October when he broke the sound barrier in that Bell X-1 and to Bit that was creeping speed.

It is a wonder that I'm not insane but the past few days seem to have burned out all my fuzes, and now I just accept what happens. And after all that has occurred, Caitlín and I are going to nonchalantly pack up and drive back to the dorms. As if this past week was as normal as apple pie on the fourth of July.

Morning came as surely as the sun rises in the morning and Caitlín and I started out. Not only were Lance and Serina in the air hovering like a mother hen over her chicks, but Barb, Ashley, and Marjorie were with them. It felt good to know that in such a short time we had gained friends like this.

It was a typical boring drive until about halfway when I saw Motorcycles in my rearview mirror. Yes, I was expecting them. Still, the reality of actually seeing them is much more personal than Bit's voice. Bit asked me to make a turn, and then he guided us towards an agriculture area where there would be less innocent bystanders to get hurt. By this time we had a tail of bikes following us, there must have been over a hundred riders. As we reached an unusually deserted stretch of road, we encountered a roadblock of Harley's all idling while seeming to say "potato, potato, potato..." in the middle of the way, and we stopped well before we contacted them.

Showtime! I looked over to Caitlín and grabbed her hand as I said, "I trust them. Let's go face the music."

Caitlín smiled that grin of hers that lit up her face, as she said, "I'm not worried."

Picture this, one of those warm early winter days. Still some brown leaves on the trees, all the crops mown and harvested for the winter. A skiff of snow here and there on the ground. And our big black Hudson parked dead center in a country lane. If we looked ahead, we could see Biker types walking towards us. I suspect that these were all ex-military types that just could not fit back into society as Lance told us that in not many more years a Biker was a respected member of the community and often a CEO or business leader.

Before those Bikers got to us, their eyes opened wide, and their jaws dropped. Caitlín and I turned to look, and they had good reason to be drop-jawed. Picture that bucolic county lane setting but this time populate the lane with around a hundred riders with that signature Harley 'potato, potato, potato,...' exhaust sound filling the air as they closed in on us. Now think snow plow, and you will have an idea as to what was happening. Way back at the end of the line, bikes and bikers were being tossed into the air the way a snow plow flings aside snow.

Caitlín and I turned back towards the guys that were supposed to stop us and after a quick but silent, to them, briefing from Bit we stood tall and powerful and said, "Oh, Boys…" in a sing-song type rhythm, "look at your bicycles." Both of us pointed our index fingers behind them at their bikes. As if they were puppets controlled by strings they jerked back around to look behind them as a beam of ionization sprang from our fingertips past them towards their parked Bikes.

It was as if I was playing the wicked witch on stage. I'd point my index finger up and make a slight downwards gesture, and a beam of ionized light connected my finger to a bike, The bike did it's best to give us an excellent death rattle scene as is sort of exploded into dust as the molecular cohesion was removed. A mundane mining tool according to what Bit had told us, but talk about special effects.

In unison, Caitlín and I said, "Ok boys, now toss us your wallets and start walking. In fact, I'd keep walking. Even if you report this to your leaders, they won't believe you. I'd start walking and never come back to the east coast again. Because if we ever meet you again you will turn to dust just like your bikes."

Behind us was a graveyard of smoking and burning bikes all twisted up like a bunch of pretzels with moaning sobbing riders lying on and an alongside the lane. Lance and Serina, in their armor, were now directly behind us, looking like death's angels floating just above the road, trailing flames, as they hovered there. Those bikers didn't walk, they ran. Then we started the cleanup. Walking back down the lane we would demand their wallet from each biker and suggest they leave and never turn back as we flicked our index finger towards the closest bike and let them watch as it vanished into dust.

Back on board Bit, us girls hugged and squealed and laughed until we could hardly see for the tears of laughter. Which was a good thing, as when Lance got out of his armor I about lost it, if I could have seen clearly I probably would have lost it. How could any man have a build like that! And Serina? Oh My!

We figured that we found around three-hundred-thousand dollars in our haul. We kept the cash and vaporized the rest. That was enough money to start the next phase of project rescue Lance and Jane. Let me give you a comparison. Three hundred grand was enough to buy two hundred brand spanking new, fifteen-hundred dollar, Hudson Commodores, or fifteen-hundred dollars was enough to provide tuition, books, and room and board for a year at school.

Caitlín and I had been doing general studies without having a major picked, but we had talked about it and when we got back we going to declare our majors in finance and economics.