SImp

We counted around ten-million dollars worth of stuff in that safe we captured while rescuing Betty and Erin. This was the single biggest haul that we had ever made. Robinhood would have been proud. We always had dealt with small amounts spread over a large number of transactions. Even our investments were handled that way. Tons of little stuff that, when added up, amounted to a mountain of good investments.

Often people just think that a critical invention appears out of thin air, nothing could be further from the truth. For instance, Jane had been eating lunch with a girl from Bell Labs by the name of Mary. It was essential to make Mary's acquaintance because of her boyfriend Claude, who also worked at Bell Labs. Claude was kind of a recluse in a way. Yet at the same time, he was known for riding a unicycle in the halls of Bell labs after everyone else had gone home. He was the kind of guy that was not easy to strike up an acquaintance with if you were a total stranger. So Jane talked to Mary who convinced Claude to come to lunch, and I 'happened' to go to lunch with Jane that day. In the course of the conversation, I brought up the concept of the smallest of things and called it a "Bit." Bringing up its dual nature of being there or not. That is, is the signal on the wire on or off. Mary was somewhat irritated at Jane after that lunch because Claude holed up in his office for a while until he released his paper, 'A Mathematical Theory of Communication.' That paper was necessary, or the entire history of computing would no longer be the same.

In some cases, all we needed to do was bump the right person at the right time such as hinting to a George de Mestral on a Swiss mountainside that his dog was covered in tons of burrs. And wondering out loud why they clung to his dog like that. Then when the time was right, we bought low, and in a few decades, we could harvest a ton of profit when Velco started to be used everywhere.

Sometimes we had nothing to do with the preliminary processes as they happened before we arrived. Way back in 1900 Max Planck started the thinking that in 1918 lead to him receiving the Nobel Prize in physics for his discovery of elementary energy quanta. What we were interested in was published in 1917 by Albert Einstein, who needed Max's work to come up with a theory called stimulated emission, which is the process that makes lasers possible,. Yet it was not until the nineteen-sixties that lasers came into use as more than a laboratory curiosity. We had to slip in and assist things along here and there such as conversing with Charles Townes, of the Columbia University in New York, on a park bench. Seeds that we planted in 1948 would not take fruit until 1951 according to Bit's database. Would it have happened anyway even if we had not pushed here and there? Possibly, but why take chances, and besides can you say that if we had not pushed and pulled like we did would those inventions have been made?

If not for all the work done previously, much of it small and at the time of little significance, creations such as SImp and Bit would never have been born,—created, whatever…

It was little stuff like that that Jane and I were doing. Small bumps and hints. A push here, a shove there and maybe a pull now and then. Most of the time all we needed to do was prime the pump and get out of the way. Sometimes all that was needed was to find a way to provide capital. As in we invested in an investment firm so that we would have the ability to direct their investing. We tried to be very low key. Our spending was all done with many small accounts under multiple John Q. Public's name so that it could not be traced back to us. If we had to take bold steps, we did it under a shell corporations name. It would take a genius to track all of these transactions back to us. Not that anyone wanted to. After all, if someone is stupid enough to give you a great deal, why would you want to look that gift horse in the mouth?

Only occasionally did things become significant actions such as the battle to rescue Betty and Erin. Most of it was the little stuff. Such as, have you ever been the lone male in a household of eight women in a home that was not intended for that many people? I'll leave it to your imagination, but think of this. How many times did I find a stunningly beautiful and uninhibited young lady dashing from bathroom to bedroom? Forgot to get your laundry last night, that is ok, just streak down and grab it. Good old Lance is a good guy, he won't mind…

Maybe even more trying was that we were melding as a family. Good morning and goodnight kisses? Certainly, and with more intensity than I'd ever experienced with my sister. In fact, I was receiving kisses that were more in line with what Serina gave me, and it did not matter if Serina was present or not. Often Serina was the leader of the kiss Lance session. Not only night and morning ritual kisses, but leaving and coming back home kisses, and often just because we were passing in the hallway.

Now think 'Operation Petticoat' starring Cary Grant that would be released in 1959 according to my memory and Bit's database. (One of the problems with time travel is that my memory includes things that have not yet happened. I made a mental note to go talk to Stanley Shapiro and Maurice Richlin to make sure that they wrote that little masterpiece of comedy and suspense.) Anyway, remember the scene with Cary Grant as the Captain of the submarine and Joan O'Brien as Lt. Dolores Crandall RN, in the narrow passageway as they attempted to pass each other? Well—Serina, Betty, and Erin were all built like Lt. Crandall. Kissing any of those three was much more than just a kiss. Not that Barb and Ashley were much less well endowed, but they had to squeeze me to get the same effect that Serina, Betty, and Erin had just to get close enough to kiss me. Marjorie? Never ever think of a librarian as the old maid type. Marjorie was halfway in between the other two groups I've talked about. Not all the way to wow! But a long way from adequate.

Now I could tell you about some more of these incidents, I could, but I think your imagination is more than adequate to the task of imaging me being caught in the hallway with Betty coming towards me, and Erin behind me. I had no place to escape, it was one or the other. I thought that Erin was close to a door and turned around to go that way and tripped over my own big feet. Yes, you guessed it—I fell full against Erin, bam! Then to add insult to injury, I tried to stand back fully upright, and I'll give you just one guess as to where my hand lit. I pulled back hard, to bump into Betty who had come running to help and we both went down. I was, in a way, more stunned than if I was in combat. I slowly realized that the floor was not hard, more so that under my hands it was amazingly soft and warm. As I comprehended just where and how we had fallen my face turned a bright scarlet. And then! …I saw Serina, having come on the scene with a perfect sense of timing, slowly sliding down the wall unable to control herself she was laughing so hard. No, I won't tell you about that, you will just have to imagine it.

Or there was the time that Ashley had lost control of our two little devils right after their bath with Marjorie. The tile floor was now sprinkled with water from two very wet little toddlers. Marjorie was wrapped up in a towel. I thought it was safe to enter the bathroom to grab a dish towel from the linen closet. I slipped and went down. I grabbed for anything to keep me upright, but what I caught did not hold me. I found a towel in my hands as suddenly I was on the ground looking up at a very red and a very naked Marjorie. Ashley lost it… Of course, during dinner, Ashley had to regale the table with her story, and Marjorie and I turned red again under their laughter.

I had thought that 'our' girls would find spouses and move out. So much for my thinking, they all were still with us. That might be why Serina encouraged such closeness and kisses among us as she did. Knowing that those girls need physical intimacy as much as an emotional closeness that our family gave them, especially considering the physical and emotional trials that they endured before they came to join us. I could see the problem as in how did you tell your husband that you had to go catch a flying saucer for a quick trip overseas and you would be back in the morning? Or better yet, that you worked for aliens?

Still, we were bulging at the seams, and we had two little ones who would soon be bigger. I feared,—well I worried that our girls would take the precedence of Betty and Erin to add to the family group. It was time to find a new headquarters for my new family. Would that eliminate all these 'incidents'? Somehow I had my doubts.