014 - Opening Moves Completed, On To Round 2

Tuesday morning, Rox dropped the kids off at school. She had her flatbed trailer hooked to the truck, and was going shopping. First, she was heading to Reno. She had the axles and some engine components on order. She had also found a transfer case. It was being shipped to her. She would have to pick up the axles from a military depot outside of Los Angeles. That meant a trip with Josh the week after getting back from vacation.

Rox respected the Ford trucks, but preferred the GM’s to work on. Don’t ask about any Dodge truck that was not a Power Wagon. Right now she had Josh’s ’72 GM Long-bed in the yard ready to go onto the lift for him to start tearing apart, once school got out, and he got off work from his summer job. He would be tearing it apart to the frame, and then rebuilding it.

A second frame, an ’86 GM 1-Ton Club Cab Long Bed was also sitting in the yard. Once his frame was stripped, she would take both to be sandblasted clean and inspected for flaws. Any repairs would be done, and then they would start to work. The Club Cab would be shortened to Short Bed length. Rox would have the two trucks juggling around as they were worked on. She had thought about keeping the ’86 when done, and finally selling the one she had now. But that decision could wait. Josh had helped her strip the truck, pull the bed, cab, and front clip off, and then put the pieces aside until needed. After the body, they had disassembled the rest of the chassis and carried the bare frame to the blocks that had been set up for it.

They would repeat the process in the next three weeks with his truck.

Now she drove to Carson, and the GM dealer there. Here she picked up some of the parts she had ordered from them. These were put in the bed of the truck. Then she drove on to Reno and the GM dealer there for more parts. After that, she went to Summit Racing for more parts. The big stuff was tied down to the front end of the trailer; the small stuff went into the bed. Lastly, she drove to Pick-n-Pull.

*          *          *

Caspian sat in his motel with his minimal equipment set out on the bed. He had the map opened, and oriented to the compass. Then he had a glass upside down, with the stone on it. Three swirls were near the top of it south of it, with one each to the relative east and west. Then one of the swirls began moving to the north, and in time swung around the center and went to the north side of the stone. With this, Caspian decided it was time to move, to do some preemptive setting of alarms.

*          *          *

Rox pushed a wheelbarrow with her toolbox in to the trucks, and began looking things over in earnest. She cannibalized a ’91 Suburban, taking the front fenders, the fuel tank, some of the lights, and some internal stuff. Another Suburban yielded a fuel tank, a windshield, all four doors, and a nearly complete wiring harness. Another truck gave up a repairable tilt column. Last, she scrounged little parts from 2 other trucks. Then she hit gold; a ’92 Blazer with an untouched front end. Its back end was mangled beyond repair. She dropped the fenders she had and some of the other odds and ends, and pulled the entire front clip from this Blazer. She left the pristine hood behind. She was going to use a non-stock style hood. She got all of her treasures paid for and secured onto her flatbed trailer, being especially careful of the undamaged windshield.

*          *          *

Caspian did not want to risk the constable’s attention. So he pulled the bits of stuff he needed from his bag, and risked teleporting to near the Caplan’s house. He walked quickly along the road that he had learned was on the back side of the houses among which was the Caplan’s. He stopped at the gravel driveway and picked up a few rocks then he walked back to the corners of the yard and cast a brief spell on the rocks, and dropped a rock at the two corners. Then he walked around the area, and back to the road that fronted the houses, and dropped a stone at each corner of the yard that he had deduced belonged to the Caplan’s. This done, he walked a ways and looking around to see if anyone was watching, he teleported back to the motel, and went out to get lunch.

*          *          *

Instead of going straight home, Rox picked up Alex and Diana from school, and went to the gym. She cleaned herself up, and taught her class. Alex and Diana went to the children’s Swim Class. She told her class how proud she was of their performance at the tournament. Then began to drill them on the things she had noted from their matches.

Rox got home and backed in as Josh rode up on his bicycle. Alex and Diana went to do their homework as Steven started dinner. Rox and Josh used an overhead crane in the garage to unload the trailer, carefully setting things down on blocks from her large pile of 4x4 lumber scraps. That finished they commenced putting together the few things they could. This did not take long. Steven then called dinner, and Josh went home, as Rox went in.

*          *          *

Early the next morning (Wednesday) Caspian sat in the car in a church parking lot and watched the three signals move from the house. He followed them to the school where two stayed. The other went on and then stopped. Caspian caught up to it at a gym. Later he saw a woman go from the gym to her car, as the tracker signaled, and tracked her back home. He checked his list from Judge Kevan, and figured that she was Roxanne Caplan.

Caspian then drove to the other two signals, at the school. These two signals must be Roxanne’s daughter Diana, and son Alex. Caspian decided it best not to loiter, remembering the paranoid nature of the culture. He left and drove around the area more, to familiarize himself with it.

At mid-afternoon the children started moving. Caspian quickly went to where he could watch the house, and saw the bus drop off the kids down the street from the house. Caspian got his first look at the kids, and now knew about what Diana and Alex looked like. After they got home, he drove off again.

Caspian came back one more time to watch Steven come home. He saw a car pull in, and a man get out, and go into the house. Realizing he had seen this man at the gym with Roxanne, he figured that this must be Steven, as he was the only one missing from his list. As he drove out, he passed Rox walking two medium sized dogs.

*          *          *

Roxanne had spent the rest of the day at home. First, she showered using up all the hot water. This felt very relaxing, as the last of the bruises from the tournament faded. She spent the morning in her garage, and the afternoon cleaning the house. She then took the dogs out for a walk, and stopped to talk to Mrs. Winchel, the closest neighbor. As Rox took Tyrell and Dru father and finally came back on her own side of the road, she noticed the rental car cruse though the neighborhood. She thought it strange that a low cost rental car with California plates was cruising the neighborhood. But it did not reappear so she dismissed it.

Steven spent the evening getting ready for his trip, packing his bag, and otherwise getting ready to fly out the next morning. His business had already sent his presentation kits by freight, and he would pick them up when he got to Salt Lake late Thursday morning, and Denver on Friday morning. Once done with the presentation in Salt Lake, he would send that kit to Boise for his Monday morning presentation. Once done in Denver he was taking that kit and driving to Colorado Springs to present on Saturday, then shipping that kit home and flying to Boise for a Monday morning presentation.

Diana and Alex were anxious for him to come home Monday evening. Tuesday they were all scheduled to drive up to Seattle, then catch a ship up the British Columbia coast to Alaska, and spend a week camping in Denali before flying home.

*          *          *

Thursday afternoon found Caspian sitting in a café eating a late lunch. He hated waiting. He had done all he could to track the family short of putting his own trackers on them. If he had to wait longer than a few more days, he would see what he could do to accomplish just that. Caspian’s main anxiety now was where the kidnappers from Krogg were. He had not seen them since landing on Terra, and was operating on a reduced capacity right now, so he could not just magically cast about for them.

Caspian’s main anxiety and frustration was that the elves had constrained him from moving against the kidnappers. In thinking it out, Caspian had come to the conclusion that in their disdain for other societies, these elves wanted to bring Roxanne and her children home to them. Caspian decided that this made these elves little better than the royals of Krogg in their desire. Rather than kidnapping the Caplan’s directly, they would have him stand by and then take them back once they were where the elves could get their own hooks into them. Caspian would see about that, if he could help it.

So now Caspian waited. Then the alarm stone connected to those he had set at the corners of the Caplan’s property went off vibrating across the table, saying that someone from Tywacomb had crossed the lines formed by the stones.

Caspian got up, left enough money, and went out to the car. He headed south, wishing there was enough mana on this world for him to sense what if any magic was being used. As he traveled, some of the swirls on the stone in his pocket dissipated, briefly reappeared, and then disappeared again.

*          *          *

The spy and the warrior rematerialized at the circle of stones, bodies on the ground between them. The spy pulled out the instructions that the wizard had given him, and followed them. In moments, they were riding the ley line back toward their native world.