Solving the Latest Dilemma

[skybright]

The next morning found Jacob Hubert pacing somewhat nervously in front of the living room window in the house he shared with Doctor Ollivard. The lavender-skinned scientist kept checking his watch, then glancing out the windows, then once again checking his watch.

"You're fidgeting again, Hubert." Caddy remarked, without looking up from the newspaper which he was leafing through with his telekinesis. "I keep tellin' ya that a switch to decaf would take care of that problem for ya." The telekine abruptly folded the newspaper and drifted it off to one side, standing.

"You know, I really can handle this if y'don't wanna come along." He remarked. "Nothin' to it but blending in -- I can handle that, right?"

Hubert spared a glance at his housemate, who for once was not sporting his bright-green labcoat. "So long as you didn't say anything, I suppose." He remarked dryly. Then he shook his head and turned to glance out the window once again. "It's nothing, Cadeceus. I do want to assist Major Vance -- lord knows I owe him one. Just nervous about the crowd, I suppose."

Caddy was of the private opinion that Hubert was also dwelling on his own absent son, but he let the opinion go unvoiced and merely shrugged. "Don't worry about it. This'll be easy." The blonde doctor grinned. "And quit checking your watch, already. Handy said he'd be here in plenty of time."

With a small nod, Hubert buried his watch hand in the pocket of his suitcoat and turned back to glancing out the window.

[Jordanna]

The car that finally pulled up to the curb was an improbable-looking green Cadillac.

Handy McCarty tumbled out of the driver's seat and strolled up the front walk. His extra hands were tucked out of sight, in consideration for the old man watering his lawn across the street. Caddy's cracks about wanting to examine him gave him a niggling, perverse desire to wave all four hands at the old snoop and get the neighborhood talking; but it would have been no good idea to draw attention to the outfit's physician.

So he simply made his way up to the front door and knocked.

[skybright]

It was Hubert who answered the door, with Caddy only a few steps behind him. The older man nodded politely. "Good morning, Mister McCarty."

"Nice day, isn't it?" Caddy chirped from behind Hubert's shoulder. Then his gaze wandered to the curb, and he grinned. "Nice car, too."

[Jordanna]

"Just call me Handy," said Major Vance's sidekick to Hubert, then gave Caddy a half-suspicious, half-apologetic look. "Uh--the car was all I could get. I had to work fast... They musta changed the security guard's schedule at the City Hall parking garage."

[skybright]

Caddy grinned. "Hey, I'm serious -- brings back a lotta memories for me. The guy I roomed with in med school had one just like it. Same color and everything." He squinted at the vehicle for a minute, then said "'Course he wrapped his around a girder on the MacKinley bridge in our senior year. Walked away alright, but the car was a goner."

Hubert rolled his eyes. "Fascinating as tales of your wilder days are, Cadeceus, I believe we're on something of a schedule this morning."

"Right. Sorry." Caddy replied, although his grin did not seem particularly remorseful. He turned back to Handy. "Daws called earlier and said the Padre and a couple others from the parish'll be in the crowd, just in case."

[Jordanna]

Handy nodded largely. "Great. There's bad guys that'd recognize me, so I can't hang around with ya, but I've got a spot to watch from in case there's trouble."

He frowned. "So, uh, what's your plan? Walk up to the Major's kid an' say, 'Hi there, your dad sent us to get you'?"

[skybright]

"That's the first plan." Caddy nodded. "I've got my ID badge and passcard from work -- I figure if Vance's son isn't willing to take us at face value, we can tell him the Major's been hospitalized an' wants to see him at the Lef." The blonde doctor shrugged somewhat apologetically. "Kind of a rotten lie to tell a guy, but if that's what it takes to get him off the pier . . ."

"With any luck, that will prove unnecessary." Hubert interjected, "As will all the precautions."

[Jordanna]

Handy shook his head. "You tell him his dad's in the hospital, an' he'll probably bolt! We're pretty sure his mom told him Jerod's wanted by the bad guys, and has to lay low. Jerod says Nate's a smart kid. With a story like that, he'd probably think you're the bad guys tryin' to sucker him."

[skybright]

Hubert's face clouded momentarily. "In that case, I'll simply tell him the truth -- that I'm a friend of his father's, sent to meet him. If he doesn't believe me . . ." He hesitated for a moment, then spread his hands. "Then I confess I've no other idea of what to do."

[Jordanna]

Handy frowned, trying to think back on what he knew about Major Vance's pre-underground life. There wasn't much, because Vance spoke little of those days.

"Well... you can say somethin' about the red bicycle Nate had when he was a kid. He ran a paper route with it. That's about the only old family story of Jerod's I can think of right now."

[skybright]

Hubert nodded, relaxing slightly. "That should help."

Caddy frowned slightly. "That brings me to another question -- what's the guy look like, anyway? I mean, I guess he'll be in uniform, sure, but it'll still end up being tricky if there's a big group of Army guys getting off the boat. Little awkward to try readin' the name badge on every soldier in sight, know what I mean?"

[Jordanna]

Handy twitched, suddenly remembering something. "Oh, yeah--Jerod thought of that. Here."

He dug into his pocket, producing a photograph of a tall young man in a lieutenant's uniform, with brown hair and a pleasant face. The family resemblance to Major Vance was distinct.

"It's a few years old," Handy added. "Jerod doesn't have much left from the old days... Ya know how it is. But that's Nate."

[skybright]

"Well, that'll help for sure." Caddy examined the photograph for a long moment, then passed it on to Hubert.

"He takes after his father," Hubert noted with a somewhat wistful tone; then he nodded and handed the photograph back to Handy. "All right -- I suppose we're as prepared as we're capable of being on such short notice."

[Jordanna]

Handy nodded, and turned to lead the way out to the car.

"We're all just bein' cautious anyway. Jerod's had guys watching the pier ever since he got the news, but nobody we know as the bat's people have showed up. I bet we'll pick up the kid without any problems."

[skybright]

"From your mouth to God's ears, Handy." Caddy remarked as they climbed into the Cadillac and started off. "We ended up with most of the victims from all the post-election scuffles out at the Lef -- I've had my fill of patching up people who've been in fights for this month."

[Jordanna]

Handy steered the Cadillac down to a warehouse a block from the waterfront, where he pulled it into an alley.

"This is as far as I go with ya," he said. "If there is anybody watching--maybe to try to follow Nate insteada making a scene here--I can't get spotted. But me an' plenty of other guys'll be in the woodwork, so if there's trouble, ya won't even have time to yell before we jump out."

[skybright]

Hubert nodded and slid out of the passenger seat, looking somewhat nervous.

Caddy grinned broadly and clapped Handy lightly on the shoulder. "Wish us luck."

Without waiting for a response, he clambered out of the car and buried his hands in his pockets. "Well, then -- let's go play welcoming committee, huh?"

Hubert nodded, and the pair stepped out of the alley and made their way down the block to the pier where Nate's ship was scheduled to arrive.

[Jordanna]

Standing by the railing of the ocean liner that slid into port that day, Nathan Vance pulled up the sleeve of his uniform and glanced for the hundredth time at his watch. He barely heard the riotous noise around him as his fellow passengers--many of them also soldiers home from Iraq--cheered and waved to loved ones on the pier. His thoughts were preoccupied with a father who was not dead as he had believed, but who was evidently in trouble.

Nate's last letter from his mother, many weeks before, was a strangely cryptic message informing him that she had moved suddenly to England and changed her name. Concerned, Nate used his father's old connections to cut short his tour of duty for a "family emergency", and sought his mother out. She was resistant to telling him why she had gone into hiding, but he finally got the whole story out of her. Coming from her, it was full of resentment and accusation toward her ex-husband, but that didn't matter; all that mattered was that Nate's father was alive.

Now finding him was the only thing on Nate's mind.

Pulling himself out of his anxious thoughts, Nate pushed his way through the crowd on deck, and was one of the first people off the boat. He didn't know where to begin searching for his father--but the first order of business was to find himself a hotel room that would do at least for the night.

While his fellow voyagers lingered on the pier for joyful reunions with family, the lone young man purposefully set off to search for a taxi.

[skybright]

"Do you see him?" Caddy raised a hand to shield his eyes from the late-morning sun and scanned the crowd that had rapidly poured down the gangplank of the ocean liner. "I'm not seein' him. Wait, maybe . . . nah. His hair's not blonde, right?"

Hubert shook his head without bothering to answer as Caddy kept up his habitual stream of talk; he settled for half-leading, half-pulling the taller man through the crowd, grateful that the passengers and the people there to greet them were at least staying fairly spread-out.

Not that that entirely helped; even when he had been Doctor Franz Huber and had been capable of blending into them, he had hated crowds passionately.

"Too tall . . . not tall enough . . . not in uniform . . ." Caddy kept up his quiet litany as he scanned the crowd, but it was Hubert who finally raised his hand to point off to one side of the crowd.

"Over there." The lavender-skinned scientist remarked, already altering course to head for the lone young soldier who was making for the taxi stands along the street. "Come on, Cadeceus, keep up. " He spared a cautioning glance over his shoulder at his housemate, "And for heaven's sake don't shout. The last thing we want is to draw attention, remember?"

Caddy abruptly clapped his mouth shut and nodded, and the pair strode off to catch up with Vance's son.

[Jordanna]

Tucked away behind the base of a cargo crane, Handy had spotted Nate Vance a few seconds before Caddy and Hubert did, and had to restrain himself from moving or trying to wave the other two mutants down. As he had told them, if there were any black hats around, one glimpse of him would start trouble fast.

Nate moved briskly toward a line of taxis. One short, skull-faced driver hurriedly clambered out of his battered cab, and intercepted the soldier with an offer to take his suitcase--and Handy's hearts stopped as he recognized the man for an operative of Tiernan's.

Handy put his fingers between his teeth for a shrill whistle to Caddy and Hubert, then swung down from his perch and galloped toward the taxi.