H15C4

Hybrid 15
Chapter 4

Luke stuck his head out of the dugout and looked through the crowd of spectators absently. A couple hundred people that he had never seen before, plus a few that he had. There was Les sitting right in the middle of one of the bleachers and cheering louder than anyone else as the Cutters pulled off a sloppy, but effective, double play.

Who was there that he should be seeing? A face that showed up a little too often? Maybe someone that he knew a few years ago that was a little older and, perhaps, a little rounder? Why couldn't he shake the feeling that he was being watched twenty-four hours a day?

Luke stepped back into the shadow of the dugout and pulled his cap a little firmer over his eyes. He was getting paranoid. Why would anyone want to watch him anyway? He was just an athletic director at a little high school in a little town that most of the world hadn't even heard of. He should be counting his blessings instead of looking for trouble.

After losing the last weekend, it looked like Tommy Baskim was finally getting his stride and the team was starting to trust him. The game was already into the fifth inning and the Cutters were holding their own. Even with a patch over his right eye, Jeremy had turned into a fine assistant coach and was eager to help out at practices and support his team. And then there was Les.

Luke never knew that he could feel this way about one woman. He always thought that he would eventually settle for a life like Rick's, dropping by friend's houses whenever the in-laws came for a visit, hiding assorted trophies and mementos whenever the wife did her spring cleaning and pasting on a happy face whenever forced to endure family gatherings.

But it wasn't like that with Les. They had a dozen different topics to choose from for conversations. She liked to go to his softball games on Sunday afternoons to cheer him on. He even got along well with her dad and brother.

So what if she had the annoying habit of rooting for the underdog in every single baseball game that they watched? With a ten dollar bet on each game, it had given him enough money to buy a new gas grill. He should consider himself lucky for even that. Perhaps it was just these new feelings that Les aroused that had been putting him on edge lately, he mused. He had to admit that it was odd to feel so comfortable, yet so alive whenever she was near. There were times when he actually felt like he could hear her thoughts--as if they were one person.

That must be it, Luke decided, clapping his hands automatically to usher his team in from the field. His relationship with Les was reaching the point of commitment and he was feeling a little anxious.

"All right. Carter, you're up. Tommy, on deck and Peter, you're in the hole." Luke recited the lineup and gave each of the boys a clap on the shoulder. "Come on fellas. We're tied four to four. Let's see if we can take the lead."

Luke turned toward the field again with a little smile on his face. Yes, it was definitely time to have a little talk with Les.

<*>

"Hi babe." Luke greeted Les with a light kiss as she walked in the door and handed him a sack of groceries. "Where's Jeremy?"

"He decided to spend the night over at Peter's tonight," Les told him as she walked into his kitchen and set her bag of groceries onto the table with a relieved sigh.

"In that case..." Luke hurriedly dropped his sack next to hers and swept her up into his arms for a more satisfying kiss.

"Well!" Les licked at her lips as she curled her body into his. "If you were trying to get my attention, Coach Jenkins, you've certainly got it."

He looked down into her eyes. The azure blue that came alive at his touch sparkled. He brushed her hair off of her shoulders, then curled his fingers into its rich softness. Where were the words that he wanted to say? What happened to the little speech about sharing and commitment that he had practiced? When he looked at her, when he held her in his arms, all of those words seemed trite and insignificant in comparison to the feelings that were within him.

His mouth came down on hers once more and she responded to him with the same passion that he felt tormenting him. Her hands clutched at his back and she pressed her body hard against his in a dance so ancient that only their instincts could remember it. Luke's mouth trailed over her cheek, then down to her throat as his hand left the small of her back to drop lower, pressing her more firmly against him.

"What about the food?" she asked breathlessly as she tugged the tail of his shirt from his jeans. "Or the game?" It was only a small protest that quickly died when Luke nipped at her ear. "Oh, who cares," she answered for him, then turned her head to feel of his mouth on hers again.

Clothes were shed hastily as they made their way to the bedroom. Neither had planned for that moment that night, but both were eager to take advantage of it. Down to lace underwear and boxers, Luke lifted her off of her feet and she wrapped her legs around his waist as he walked the rest of the way into the bedroom. She could feel the muscles in his back ripple as he gently eased her down to the bed, then she moaned as the weight of his body pressed into hers.

Her hands anxiously explored his sculptured body as he deftly disposed of what little remained between them. His lips taunted her further as brushed them against her shoulder, then arm. She sucked in a sharp when she felt his warm mouth surround a single fingertip. He was awakening desires that she never knew existed and she writhed beneath his lavish attention. Then, as he took her, she cried out in ecstasy. He held her close as one wave of pure pleasure was quickly followed by another, then he joined, her name on his lips.

<*>

Les raised her head from the crook of Luke's shoulder to better hear the sound of the television in the next room. "It sounds like the Mariners are winning."

Luke started to chuckle as he stroked his hand lightly across her bare back. "Any other woman would be talking about moving in together or getting married at this point, but not you."

Les looked down at him with a satisfied smile. "Disappointed?"

"Not in the least," he assured her. "It's one of the things that I...like most about you."

She hadn't missed that slight pause as he spoke. Maybe she wasn't so different from other women. They had taken their physical relationship on to the next level, but was there anything more?

"I knew I was right about you," she teased, afraid to follow up on her thoughts. "I barely got inside the door before you started to ravage me." She listened to the rumble of his laughter as she pressed her ear against his chest. "You know, if we hurry up and get dressed, we can still catch the end of the game," she suggested.

"I'm starting to feel unappreciated here," Luke complained as he flipped over to pin Les beneath him. "Was it some other woman that was crying out in my arms only a few minutes ago?" he asked as he nuzzled at her neck. "Did I imagine the earth moving and the stars falling from the sky?" He paused from kissing the valley between her breasts when a loud rumble a little lower called out for satisfaction.

Les giggled at the telltale sound. "No, I'm just hungry."

"Never let it be said that I stood between a woman and her kitchen," he said, giving her a gentle peck on her nose before rolling out of bed.

"That can be considered a sexist remark, Coach Jenkins."

Dressed once again and a haphazardly thrown together submarine sandwich in their hands, Luke and Leslie settled down on the couch to watch the remainder of the baseball game.

"It looks like I may actually win some of my money back," Les commented about the game, then took a swallow of her soda.

"I don't remember making a bet on this game," Luke hedged.

Les fixed him with a hard look. "You welsher! You know that I picked the Mariners to win."

He lifted his eyebrows innocently. "I'm just saying that I don't remember actually making a bet."

Putting her thumb over the top of her soda bottle, Les began to shake it vigorously. "I'll bet you that this soda will make it from me to you."

Luke made a quick grab for her hand, but not quick enough to stop the spray of soda from drenching his face and shirt. Leslie laughed as she tried to jump out of his reach, but they ended up tumbling from the couch to the floor.

After several minutes of a merciless tickling, Les finally voiced her surrender and was granted a reprieve. As Luke got up to go in search of a towel and a dry shirt, Les noticed Hy staring back at her from his cage, gently bobbing his head up and down.

"Look at that," she motioned toward the cage when Luke came back into the room. "What is he doing?"

"He's trying to get your attention. He can't make any noise so he bobs his head. Go ahead and get him out. He wants to play too."

After Les rescued the silent Hy from his cage, she sat down next to Luke again with the colorful snake on her lap. After a couple more innings past without much preamble, Les started thinking back on her relationship with Luke. "Do you remember a couple of weeks ago when we...kissed for the first time at my apartment?" she asked.

Luke drew his eyes away from the television to look down at her nestled under his arm. She sounded almost shy. That was new. "Of course I do." He smiled encouragingly at her as he tightened his hold around her shoulders. "Why do you ask?"

"I was just thinking about what you said after that. You said that you were wrong about a great number of things, but I wasn't sure what you meant."

Luke thought back to that first moment when he had held her in his arms. The images were still so fresh that they could have happened only yesterday. Had it really been weeks ago? Dropping his head to kiss the crown of her hair, he inhaled the light, flowery fragrance, then lifted an ebony lock from her shoulder. "I was wrong about the feel of your hair," he told her. "I always imagined it to be like silk, not satin." He brushed the back of his finger across her cheek. "It's your skin that feels like silk." Hooking his fingers under her chin, he raised her eyes to his. "I was wrong about the color of your eyes. I thought that they reminded me of corn flowers, but when I kiss you," he dropped his mouth lightly to hers. "They become the brightest azure." He lightly cupped her face in his hand. "As you can see, I was wrong about a number of things, but most of all...I was wrong about the way it would feel to...fall in love with you."

Leslie's eyes began to fill with tears as her heart overflowed at his words. She reached up quickly to grasp his hand at her cheek, then turned her lips into his palm. "Oh, Luke. You don't know how much...I just thought I..." She turned to him as the first shining tears rolled from her eyes. "I kept telling myself...but we had just met...I just couldn't help..."

Luke pressed his lips hard against hers to stop her rambling, then gave her a couple more gentle kisses before looking into her eyes once more. "I love you," he whispered softly.

"I love you, too," she returned, a little hoarse, but no longer flustered. She dipped her head when she felt him tickle her ear, then again a second time before she realized that his hands were holding hers. Turning her head slightly, her eyes met with two tiny golden ones and a long, forked tongue flicked out to touch her nose.

"Aaahhh!" she screamed, jerking away out of reflex only to stop herself a second later with her hand over her heart when she recognized Hy.

"You sure have a way of killing a moment," Luke admonished his pet as he reached over to take him off the back of the couch. Les looked at Hy once more and could swear that he was grinning back at her.

<*>

Luke leaned back, putting his elbows on the bleacher behind him as he watched the high school varsity baseball team play a scrimmage game with the junior varsity. Even though he was the athletic director of the high school, the jobs of the baseball coach and track coach had been left to the two teachers that had been training the teams for the last fifteen years.

He wouldn't have had the heart to take the baseball team away from Mr. Langdon anyway. Even though the man couldn't join in with the players during practice because of a mild stroke that he had suffered a few years earlier, Mr. Langdon was still an aggressive coach and quite good at what he did. Besides, Coach Langdon was the same man that taught Luke the finer points of the game when he had played baseball at Crammer High.

The team had never made it all of the way through the state finals, but they always had a winning season and that was enough for Luke and the school board to keep Mr. Langdon on as coach.

Luke raised his hand to shade his eyes from the sun when a familiar flash of blue caught his eye. There was a four-door Chevy Cavalier in the parking lot that he had seen before. In fact, he had seen it too many times before. It was there at school, at the baseball games that he coached, he had seen it at the supermarket and even passing by his own house, but he had never been able to see who the driver was.

Luke still hadn't actually convinced himself that he was being followed, but the gnawing feeling of being watched was persistent, causing him to glance over his shoulder from time to time. Even the Chevy wouldn't be much proof since there was at least half a dozen of the exact same cars in town, but that particular Chevy had a dent in the front bumper that caused the right side of the bumper to curl up slightly.

"What do you think of the team this year Luke?" Coach Langdon asked as he walked up into the stands to sit down next to his old pupil.

"They look pretty good," he answered honestly as he leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. "Do you think that we will make it all the way through State competition this year?"

"That depends," he answered evasively as he looked up at Luke from his position on a lower bench, closing one eye against the glare of the sun. "Am I talking to the Athletic Director or my old second baseman?"

Luke chuckled softly. Mr. Langdon was always one to make sure of the people that he talked to before he opened his mouth. He was politically correct before there even was such a term. "I've never known you to be anything but honest with me, Coach."

Coach Langdon nodded with a smile as he looked back out onto the field. He could always depend on Luke to be just as evasive as himself. Yes, he had taught the boy--the man--well. "I don't think we're going this year," he told him. "We have some good players, but they're just not working together as a team."

"What about that shortstop on the junior varsity?" He gestured to the boy crouched and ready for the next ball to come near him. "He's pretty good. Why didn't he make the cut this year?"

Langdon nodded again at Luke's perceptiveness. "That kid will either be my biggest headache or my biggest star next year, but he's too much of a showboat. He thinks that he can cover all three bases and pitch at the same time." He shook his head. "I've been working with him...and hoping, but he's just too raw to trust his other teammates and gets angry easily when they miss play. If he would just bring that temper down a bit, then the other players might not resent him so much and maybe even rally around him, but we'll just have to wait and see."

Luke knew exactly what the coach was talking about. A star player could usually make or break a team. "I had a boy like that on my junior baseball team last year so I decided to give the kid some coaching lessons and put about half a dozen of the kids that didn't play well under him to coach. As it turned out, the kids he taught became better players and he started taking pride in their accomplishments. It made the whole team work together more.

"It was your first baseman." Coach Langdon pointed a finger at him. "What was that kid's name? Chambers?"

"Chammers," he corrected him.

"Yeah, I remember him. I was wondering what you did to work that kid into shape. Maybe I'll have to give it a try."

Luke and Coach Langdon fell silent as they watched a couple of plays, then Luke's eyes drifted back out to the parking lot where the car with the dented fender caught his attention again. "Hey Coach, do you happen to know who owns that blue Chevy out in the parking lot?"

Coach Langdon turned his head and pointed to the car in question. "You mean the one with the twisted fender?" He waited for Luke's nod, then gave a loud sigh. "That's mine. The son borrowed it one time. One! And came back with the fender all messed up. Why do you ask?" He looked up at Luke and straightened. "Don't tell me that you're the one he hit?"

"No, it wasn't me." Luke laughed softly at his own paranoia. "I had just noticed it around and I was curious." So much for his idea that he was being followed. Coach Langdon was at every game in town, a true sports fan, and he also happened to live about a block away from Luke. That explained why he saw the car so much.

<*>

Les rubbed at her forehead to ward off a headache as she searched through the tiny print in the baseball card price guide. One of her young customers had sold her a large portion of his collection so that he could buy and autographed baseball and that left her with the responsibility of sorting through each individual card with the price guide.

Jeremy was quite a help to her in that department. He had sat with her for two solid hours going through the cards, slipping the ones of value into protective sheets and putting a price tag on the outside, but the work still wasn't finished.

Les looked over her shoulder to see the clock at the back of the workroom, then out the door into the store. Luke would be there any second to pick them up. He had gotten tickets to a Louisville River Bats game, but she was feeling less like going by the minute. Her head was beginning to pound and her stomach was twisted up in knots. She knew that she shouldn't have eaten that Polish sausage with sauerkraut, but when Jeremy had suggested it, even offering to run down to the vendor that always sat up at the end of the block, she couldn't resist. She loved Polish sausage. Unfortunately, it didn't love her.

"Are you ready to go?" Luke asked as he stepped into the workroom at the back of her store decked out in a Cincinnati Reds jacket and cap.

"Well, you've got the right color if not the right team." Les told him with a smile. "Are you sure it's legal to go to a Red Birds' game dressed like that?"

"They haven't thrown me out yet," he grinned.

Les gave a hard sigh as she looked back to the hundreds of cards that still needed to be sorted through on the table. "I'm afraid that I'm going to have to bow out on you," she told him regretfully. "I need to get through all of these cards so we can put them out and I'd like to get it done before the weekend so I don't have to come back in here." The cards were only an excuse, but she was too embarrassed to tell him that her stomach was in an uproar because there were certain foods that she just couldn't resist.

"Do you want me to stay?" Jeremy asked pitifully as he looked down at the cards in his hands.

She looked at him silently for a few seconds, wickedly drawing out his agony at possibly missing the game before finally relieving him. "No. I think you've helped out enough." She dug into the pocket of her jeans and pulled out a couple of bills to hand to him. "Get yourself a ball cap or something. At least one of you should look like you support the River Bats."

"Thanks." Jeremy accepted the money happily. "I'll go wait in the car," he said as he hurried out of the room.

Les laughed at his quick departure. "I think he was afraid that I would change my mind or something."

"Are you feeling all right?" Luke ignored her comment as he stepped up to her. He could tell from the moment that he walked in the room that something wasn't right with her.

She looked up at him with a startled expression on her face. "I'm fine. Why?"

"Well, for one thing, you're sweating and it's barely even seventy degrees in here," he told her as he raised a hand to brush her moist cheek. "We don't have to go if you're not feeling well. We can always catch the game next week."

"I'm all right," she assured him again. "Just a little headache from looking at these tiny numbers all day. Besides, I wouldn't want to disappoint Jeremy. He's been looking forward to the game all week."

Luke leaned over to give her a light kiss on the brow, seeing for himself that she didn't have a fever, but he knew that there was something that she wasn't telling him. "Are you sure?"

"I'm sure," she told him as she took his hand. "Why don't you give Rick a call and see if he wants to go?" she suggested since Rick had stopped by Luke's house no fewer than four times that week while she and Jeremy were there to get away from his mother-in-law who was visiting again.

Luke had agreed, albeit reluctantly, and left Les to her stack of cards. She hadn't managed more than another hour's work before she was forced to admit defeat and headed for home with her stomach revolting on her before she had even made the three mile drive.

What she had thought was just her stomach's rejection of the spicy sausage, ended up lasting for several days and Mrs. Smithers from downstairs hung over her constantly with a variety of watery broths that she forced down Leslie's throat. Jeremy had deserted after the second day of Mrs. Smithers unending attention and opted to stay with Peter until she was feeling better.

Luke had argued with her repeatedly to go to the doctor, but Les had been stubborn. She had an aversion to anyone in a medical uniform and had suffered silently through several days of the stomach flu, staying on the couch to be closer to the bathroom and sleeping whenever Mrs. Smithers wasn't pouring something into her.

She tried valiantly to beat the flu by the weekend so that she wouldn't miss the last game of the Crammer Cutters in the championship, but a sudden summer storm saved her from venturing out while still sick by flooding the field so the game had to be cancelled.

By the end of the following week, the storm clouds still loomed over Crammer, dumping gallons of water at a moments notice, but Les was feeling better. She managed to put in a few hours each day at her store before retreating home to sleep the rest of the day, leaving the store in the capable hands of John Wright.

When the baseball game was cancelled again, Luke started talking with the other team's coach to see if they could find an alternative ball field to play on. The rains hadn't let up and the field that they were using looked less like a baseball diamond and more like a swimming pool. The high school had agreed to let them use their practice field, weather permitting, and the two teams agreed to alternate practice days so that their players could become accustom to the new field.

"It looks like we may finally get a break from all this rain," Luke commented as he picked up his plate after he had finished his lunch and transferred it to the sink.

"It would be nice if you could get that last game in this weekend," Les agreed as she covered up the last of the leftovers to put back into the refrigerator. "Are you planning on practicing today?"

"No. We have the field tomorrow from ten to eleven-thirty so I'm free for the rest of the afternoon. I thought that I would go over to the store with you and Jeremy and pick up a few hard plastic covers for my rookie cards."

"Oh, that reminds me. I wanted to take those rookie cards back in before I forget them again." Les looked down at her sticky fingers and the meat loaf that she still had to wrap, then glanced into the living room where her brother sat playing one of his video games. "Jeremy? Would you get that box of cards off of my dresser for me?"

"I'll get it for you," Luke offered and, at her thanks, headed down the short hallway to her room.

Luke glanced around at the lace curtains on the windows and a matching ruffled spread on the full-size bed. He hadn�t noticed the frilly bits of bric-a-brac cluttered the night stand and shelves before, or the embroidered pillows accented the head of the bed. A typical woman's room, he mused, except for the life-size poster of Johnny Bench tacked up on her closet door. He smiled as he looked over at the poster of Les� all-time favorite player. "That's my girl."

Turning toward he dresser, he easily spotted the small stack of cards that Les wanted, but it was the object behind them that caught his eye. It was an old plastic snow-globe with a tiny house surrounded by pine trees inside.

Absently, he slipped the stack of cards into his hand, his eyes never wavering from the small globe. It looked so familiar, but it couldn't be the same one that Rick had brought over for him to see, he decided. Or could it?

�No. There was no way that it could be the same one,� he told himself with a chuckle. Rick and Les hadn't even met before he introduced them. It sure does look like the same one though, he thought, then hesitated. It even had the little scratches around the base that made it look like it had been handled frequently.

"There's only one way to know for sure," Luke mumbled to himself and reached out to wrap his fingers around the globe. He was immediately jolted with the same energy that he had felt once before, nearly dropping the cards that he held in his other hand. His first instincts had been to pull away, but he pressed his fingers more firmly against the globe until the images began to sort themselves out.

It was Les as a little girl and a woman with ebony hair and heavy with child, which he deduced, could only be her mother. The image disappeared abruptly and conflicting emotions of love and happiness coupled with fear and distraught tears filled and tore at him until he was forced to let go of the globe.

He breathed heavily for several moments, attempting to slow the pounding of his heart as he looked down at the globe. Something wasn't right. Why would Rick have a snow-globe that belonged to Les? How many other things had he brought to him that had obscure origins? And what were his real reasons behind testing him with inanimate objects? Suddenly, his friend's little game had a sinister edge to it.

Walking quickly from the room, Luke joined Leslie again in the kitchen where she was washing the last of the lunch dishes in the sink. "I was just noticing that little snow-globe that you have on your dresser," he said nonchalantly as possible as he leaned against the door jam watching her.

Les smiled down at the plate she was scrubbing. "Kind of silly, isn't it? But, it was the last thing that Mom gave to me before she went into the hospital and I just can't bear to part with it." She paused at rinsing the plate under a trickle of water as she looked up at him. "It was the strangest thing, though. It disappeared a couple of weeks back and I searched everywhere for it, but couldn't find it. I asked Jeremy if he had moved it, but he acted like he didn't even know what I was talking about. Then, one day it just showed up again exactly where I had left it." She turned back to finish rinsing the plate. "I guess I must have just overlooked it somehow."

"Yeah, probably," Luke mumbled as his mind raced with other ideas. There was only one person that could answer his questions. "Listen, Les. There's something that I need to take care of. I won't..." He had started to hand her the stack of rookie cards, then searched about for a place to set them when he saw that her hands were wet. "I won't be going down to the shop with you after all." He dropped the cards onto the table and started to walk from the room, then quickly turned back to give her a rushed kiss.

"Luke, are you all right?" Her brow furrowed at his abrupt change of plans. "Is something wrong?"

"No, I'm fine," he said as he headed for the front door and tossed her a brief wave. "I'll call you later."

<*>

By the time that Luke stood pounding on Rick's front door, he had worked himself up into a state of fury. He had gone past the Pascal Institute where Rick worked as an administrator only to find that he had taken the afternoon off to do a case study at home. And, with all of the time that he spent driving from one place to another, a dozen different scenarios had taken up space in his mind to explain the actions of his friend, none of which he liked.

"Luke!" Rick exclaimed as he opened the door. "What are you doing here in the middle of the afternoon?"

Luke pushed past him without answering as he walked from room to room through the house. "Where's Carol?" he asked angrily.

Rick followed along behind him as he pushed open doors, then slammed them shut. "She's out shopping with a friend of hers," he answered distractedly. "What's all this about?"

"Why don't you tell me where you're getting those little 'bobbles' for me to see and why you're giving them to me in the first place?" Luke returned.

Rick laughed nervously. He was fairly certain where these questions were leading and he didn't want to be the one to tell him. "What do you mean? I get them from friends of mine. You know that. Now, do you want to tell me what you're looking for?"
Luke turned on him in a flash, pinning Rick up against the wall by pressing his forearm into his throat. "I just wanted to make sure that there are no witnesses around when I break your scrawny neck," he hissed. "Why are you lying about where you get those things?"

"I don't...know...what you're talking...about," Rick managed to choke out, putting one hand against Luke's shoulder and the other against the arm at his throat, trying to break his hold.

"I'm talking about the snow-globe. I just saw it at Les's apartment, but I know that you weren't friends with her because I'm the one that introduced you to her." He pressed his arm sharply against Rick's throat, making him gag. "Unless you already knew Les and the two of you were just acting like you never met, but the question would still remain. Why?"

"I don't know...why...exactly." When Luke pushed in on his throat again, Rick croaked, "It's the truth!"

Luke hesitated for a moment, then abruptly took his arm away. Rick nearly crumpled to the floor, but braced himself by placing one hand on his weakened knee as he rubbed his at his throat with the other, coughing roughly.

Rick stumbled into his study where he had a small bar set up in one corner. Reaching behind the counter, he pulled out a flask of brandy along with a glass before sitting down on one of the bar stools to pour himself a stiff drink.

"Start talking," Luke ordered after following him into the study, growing impatient with Rick's stalling as he downed most of the glass of brandy, then refilled it.

Rick closed his eyes as he tried to find the best way to tell his friend everything, but knowing that there was no good way. "Have you ever wondered why you've never been sick a day in your life?" he asked as he focused in on the amber liquid in his glass. "Or why you always went to the institute to get you annual physicals for school sports instead of going to the doctor's office like the rest of us? Or even why your dad never had any pictures of your mother around the house?" He took another healthy swig of his brandy to brace himself. "It's because you didn't have one," he whispered.

"Has that brandy gone straight to your head man?" Luke roared from across the room. "Of course I had a mother!"

Rick pursed his lips as he thought. "Technically, I suppose that's true."

"Technically hell! Dad told me that she had died in childbirth and that it was too painful for him to talk about!"

"That's just what the institute wanted you to think so you wouldn't ask too many questions," Rick said softly, his eyes watchful as he looked over at his friend. He knew that his words would be as painful for Luke to hear as they were for him to say. "Your whole life has been carefully engineered by Pascal Institute, Incorporated. Everything in it has been hand picked from the house that you live in to the schools that you went to and even the job that you have as Crammer High Athletic Director. All of it was provided for by the institute."

Luke stepped up in front of him. "Are you trying to tell me that my friendship with you was provided for? Or with Les? Or a dozen other people that I can name off?"

Rick smiled up at him weakly. "I was the ideal friend for you because my dad was an administrator at the institute. Of course, I didn't know that until much later."

"This is insane!" Luke stormed away from him. "No one controls my life. No one! I choose the people I associate with. I chose the college that I went to. I chose the field that I would enter."

"All contingencies were either planned for or worked into the mixture. They didn't know how you would turn out and they made sure that all of their bases were covered. They wanted you here, in Crammer, and that's exactly where you are. Nicely tucked in with your little job and your little house and your cute little girlfriend," he remarked sarcastically.

"Are you trying to tell me that Les is a part of this?" Luke hissed.

Rick nodded. "An unwitting participant just like yourself," he told him. "Just like I was until a couple of months ago."

"A couple of months ago?" He centered in on that one phrase. "What happened a couple of months ago?"

"I stumbled across the information by accident," he told him. "I had punched the wrong code into the computer at work and pulled up all of the old files. I was about to cancel it out when I saw your name. I was able to piece together the rest of it later." Rick looked over at him and saw the bemused expression on his face. "You still don't get it, do you?" he asked. "You're Hybrid Fifteen!"

Chapter 5