Chapter Thirty-Six (Part One)

Right before Melody's class in the big lecture hall, the phone rang, and she was surprised to hear a cheery, high-pitched voice on the other end.
"Harmony?" she asked, somewhat in disbelief. She openly wondered what made her call.
But Harmony supplied the answer soon enough. "It -- it's mom."
Melody's heart dropped to her shoes. It hadn't even been a year since her father passed, and the thought of her mother being ill was just too much to even think about. "What's happened?"
"She's gone crazy, I swear. That Mr. Landgraab came by after school with a package, and mom darn near ran him down the sidewalk with a brush in her hands!"
Melody burst out into laughter. "Mom chased down Malcolm Landgraab with a broom?" she asked in disbelief.
Harmony continued to speak in a rushed, breathy voice. "I've never seen mom so upset. She even said she was calling the cops if he didn't leave."
"Is she there now?" Melody asked.
"Yeah, hold on. Mommmmmm!" Harmony's blood-curdling scream shook Melody a little bit. Melody heard another little girl's voice in the background. Their laughter temporarily took her mind off of her very serious request.
Melody waited until Wanda came to the phone. "Hello?" she asked.
"Hey, sweetie," Wanda's warm, candy-coated voice rang in Melody's ears.
"Harmony said Malcolm Landgraab was there. Was he?" Melody's voice turned deadly serious.
"He came with some big box he said was donated toys."
Melody shook her head. "Knowing Malcolm, it was probably a bomb." She took a deep breath. "Mom, I'm serious. You've got to get a restraining order against him. You and Harmony are in grave danger."
Wanda let out a resigned sigh. "Florence said that, but --"
"You didn't believe her."
"No, it's not that, it's just that --"
"You didn't believe Malcolm could stoop that low."
"Well -- no, I don't think."
"C'mon, mom, we're talking about Malcolm Landgraab here. Of course he'll stoop that low. It's me he's after, not you. He thinks he can get to me by harming you. Mom, listen to me. I want you to go to the police and tell them you're Stephen Tinker's widow and you and your young daughter are being threatened. They'll listen. You might want to lay low awhile, too."

The next day Melody, carrying algebra and calculus books and a basketball, went over to Lam Plaza Dormitory to see Chaz Whippler. Unlike most days, Chaz was eager to see her. He greeted her with a big wide grin. "Guess what?" he boasted. "Thanks to you, I got an A on my remedial math test."
"Wow, that's great!"
As Chaz led her into the dormitory, and then the dorm cafeteria where they usually met, Melody put down her books and took her seat opposite him.
A thought crossed Chaz's mind, and it had nothing to do with applied mathematics. Instead, he'd thought a lot about his math tutor herself. To him, something was amiss. And he didn't dare wait.
"Melody," Chaz uncharacteristically stammered, preparing himself for a thunderous response, "are you a lesbian?"
Frowning in disbelief, Melody asked, "What? What do you mean?"
"It -- it's just something I've been wondering about for awhile now."
"Chaz," Melody managed to chuckle through her shock, "I don't understand. What do you mean 'if I'm a lesbian?' Why are you asking me this?"
"I don't know, it's just -- I've never seen you out around campus, you never --"
"Don't be silly, Chaz. I'm just real busy. My studies are very important to me."
"I know, gotta keep up that perfect 4.0," teased Chaz. Then he suddenly became serious again. "That's just it, you're not like other girls."
"In what way?" asked Melody. "I get up, brush my teeth, do my hair -- I'm exactly like everyone else."
Chaz shook his head. "No, you don't get it. That's not what I mean. You don't wear makeup, you don't wear perfume, you like sports and science and fooling around with mechanical stuff--"
Melody shook her head. "C'mon, Chaz. Just because I like those things doesn't mean I'm a lesbian."
"Your hands are as bad as my dad's, girl," Chaz teased again, examining Melody's cuts and calluses. "Is that from your tinkering -- pardon the pun?"
"I paint too," Melody revealed. "Haven't touched the canvas in awhile though, been so busy with my studies."
"Heck, you're just a regular old renaissance girl." Melody was somewhat taken aback. "Hey, I wasn't slumbering in my literature classes, you know."
Melody needled him gently. "Very good, Charles Whippler."
Chaz then thought of something else. He leaned over and closed Melody's textbook. "It's time to initiate you into some nightlife."
"What do you mean?"
"You and I are going to Romara Coffee House." He took Melody's hand, dragging her like a rag doll. "I haven't got much money, but I'm sure I can afford to buy you a coffee. Their specials are outstanding, especially the cinnamon flavored coffee with a danish pastry."
When they arrived at the coffee house, there was a fairly healthy crowd in line to sample the delicacies. Melody spied a cool, well-dressed flaxen blond girl with a newly roller-set bob, accompanied by an equally well-dressed, bespectacled blond gentleman. She recognized the girl but not the guy.
"Hey, who's the chick Phin's with?" Chaz asked.
"Phin?"
"Phineaus Furley. He lives in my dorm."
Melody nodded. "Oh. The girl, she's Tracy Glick, she went to my high school."
"They seem to be getting very cozy. I didn't even know he had a girlfriend."
Chaz and Melody continued to sit opposite each other in companionable silence. Their personalities were opposite in a lot of ways. Chaz was a slob, Melody a neat freak. Chaz was extraverted, Melody was introverted. Chaz was playful, Melody was serious. Chaz was paunchy, Melody was thin and trim. Still, though, he felt a comfort with her that he didn't really feel with anyone else.
And that's why he worried about her. He was concerned she was becoming 'all work and no play.' What he failed to understand was, her work WAS her play. She genuinely enjoyed her long hours at the laboratory and the observatory. She got her fun from performing experiments and studying the stars. With all the commotion at Aldrich over the cowplant, life at his dorm had gone on as usual.
"Hey, when did you figure out you wanted to be a scientist?" Chaz asked in an attempt to make conversation.
This question elicited a grin out of Melody and Chaz could see her eyes light up. "When I was about fourteen," she told him, careful not to mention her secret. "All of a sudden it became crystal clear what I wanted to do with my life."
"See, that's what I mean. Most girls, when they're fourteen, don't talk about wanting to be scientists."
Melody scoffed. "How do you know about most girls, Chaz?"
"Hey, I had sisters. Three of them to be exact. I know a lot about women."
"Really?" Melody raised an eyebrow and folded her arms.
"You know, Melody, you're not the total space cadet everyone thinks you are."
"Space cadet?" Melody laughed. "Now where would you get an idea like that?"
"I just wish -- I just wish you'd open yourself up a little more. Let people get to know the real you. Not the one that's hiding behind books. Like the one you show me."
"What do you mean?"
"Let's face it, Melody. I loosen you up in a way that no one else does."
"How so? How do you know that? You don't know how I am."
"C'mon, Melody. You're smart, attractive, witty -- there's really no reason why you should hide yourself behind your studies. There's a warm, playful person in there just waiting to come out."
Melody rubbed her hand along her arm, a somewhat familiar habit of hers, especially when she was in deep pensive thought.
"Hmm, I... don't ... know," she said slowly, nervously scanning the crowded coffee house.
The last thing she wanted to do, was to make an utter fool of herself. Especially in front of Tracy. "What about a game of darts?" Chaz offered, grasping at straws, "that's not too difficult is it?"
Melody pursed her lips in deep thought. "Mmm... I guess not."
Chaz took her hand, helping her up from her seat, and led her to the dart board, where a couple of other students had congregated. Watching them intently, Melody studied the angles they were throwing and tried to silently predict who would hit the center of the dartboard and who would miss badly. She couldn't help herself.
Then the other two students left, leaving Melody and Chaz at the dart board. "You first," Chaz said, ushering her to it.
"You'll regret it," laughed Melody. "I swear, you'll regret it." With the three darts she was given, she managed to hit the bullseye twice and just missed it fractionally, when the third dart veered slightly to the left.
Chaz was amazed. "How did you do that?"
Melody grinned. "Easy. You have to throw the dart at a ninety degree angle toward the center of the dart board. If it's not precisely at that ninety degree angle, it'll veer off course."
"Do you always think in angles and shapes?"
"Maybe. Depends on what I'm doing." Then she took the darts off the board and handed them to Chaz. "Your turn."
She watched as Chaz flailed wildly, his darts ending up all over the board and even on the adjacent wall.
After Chaz handed Melody the darts, she again tossed two darts in the red bullseye marker. But her third miss, this time, was high instead of left.
They went back to the table. Suddenly Melody got hungry, so Chaz stood in the long line and ordered her a coffee and a danish pastry.
"A danish pastry?" asked Melody. "I swear, those are murder on my diet. They are loaded with calories and sugar and saturated fat --"
"Goodness, do you eat anything that doesn't grow in the ground?" Chaz wondered.
"Not really," laughed Melody. "I've been a vegetarian since I was seven. Gave my parents no end of grief."
I bet, Chaz said to himself. "Can't you just this once, forget about your stinkin' diet?"
Melody shook her head and let out a deep sigh. "Oh, all right. But I'm going to have to work twice as hard to burn this off."
"You've got plenty of room for a few more danish pastries in there." In response, Melody playfully threw a piece right at Chaz's nose.

Chapter Thirty-Five

The annual Sim City Collegiate Mathematics competition had just gotten underway at Sim State University. Chester, Melody, and Edwin got out of the taxicab that pulled up at the Sim State University gymnasium. They'd heard the host school, Sim State, was considering not fielding a team this year, till at the last minute they got someone to commit. They looked around at the other teams competing. The home team, the Llamas from Sim State, featured Martin Ruben, Daryl Deppiesse, and Ashley Pitts, who said he was only there to check out any available females. The La Fiesta Tech team consisted of William Williamson, Guy Wrightley, and Klara Vonderstein. Two other schools sent teams.
The host sent them to their assigned table as the individual competition was going to begin. The individual contest consisted of a test that had thirty math problems and questions, ranging from basic algebraic calculations to complex quadratic equations. Chester and Edwin stole a few loose glances at Melody, who was zipping through her test. "Dang," Edwin thought to himself, "she's gonna win medalist."
A medalist prize would be awarded for the individual student with the top score in that section of the competition. The medalist would receive a $500 simolean cash award.
After the individual tests ended came the team competitions. Teams were pitted against each other in a round robin quiz show format, answering problems. The first team to score three hundred points would win.
Several hours of competition and the final two schools came to face each other in a live televised event. The Academie Le Tour team would face the squad from La Fiesta Tech. Before they took their seats, Chester gathered the group together. "We have a chance to do something special," he told them. "We have a chance to make something happen."
Chester looked at Melody with a twinkle in his eye. Edwin nodded his approval.
"We can beat these guys," Melody added. "They don't scare me in the least."
"Here's something for you," piped Edwin. "We've been together for months. And we're all friends. These other teams, they probably have been together a few weeks at the most and barely know each other."
As they took their seats, they looked over at the other team. A tight contest came down to the last question. A student from each school would have to face each other in sudden death. Chester and Edwin didn't think twice. They chose Melody.
"Me?" she asked in disbelief, pointing at herself.
"Why not you?" Chester asked.
"But you're the captain!"
"And I've made my choice."
Reluctantly Melody walked up to the podium and looked into the eyes of a girl she didn't know and had never seen before. The task before her was simple. Solve one mathematical problem before she did, and the team prize was theirs.
Melody watched the contest proctor, listening for his every syllable. And he looked at both competitors. "And now for the final question. If x and y are real numbers such that x squared and y squared equals one, find the maximum value of y and x."
Melody observed the other girl, furiously scrambling on her sheet of paper, to figure out the solution to this word equation. Is this the final question? she thought to herself. Before the girl could finish scratching out numbers, Melody pressed her lever so that the proctor could recognize her.
"The maximum value of y and x is the square root of 2."
The proctor alternated glances at Melody and the other girl and announced, "That is correct! The Academie Le Tour team has won the competition."
Dr. Young, Chester, and Edwin flanked Melody with congratulatory hugs and high fives. "We did it!" exclaimed Dr. Young. "Let's do this again next year."
A shudder shot down Melody's spine. The thought of doing this again never crossed her mind.

There was a knock on Chester's front door. He was having a study session with his girlfriend, Jessica McClellan, and Jessica was, to put it mildly, a little peeved. "Who is that?" she asked, looking up from her book.
Shuffling toward the door, Chester realized that it was Melody. "Doesn't she tell you when she's coming?" Jessica asked.
Chester glared at her. "She's my best friend, I can't say no to her." Ushering Melody inside, Chester returned to fixing hamburgers.
Melody walked right to the bookcase next to Chester's door and grabbed a volume from it. She remained as quiet as a mouse while Chester fixed the hamburgers.
Melody gave Jessica a sharp glance. The only sounds that could be heard in the entire room was the turning of the book pages and the frying of the hamburgers in the frying pan.
"The hamburgers smell good," Jessica finally said, "but I'm leaving! I can't take this anymore. I'll call you tomorrow."
A shudder ran through Chester's spine as he heard the door slam shut. How had he gotten himself in this position in the first place?
Trying to push what had happened out of his mind, Chester placed a freshly cooked plate of hamburgers in front of him, and then took a plate for himself. "What do you want out of life?" he asked Melody as he stole a glance at her, tongue slightly askew, concentrating on what she was reading. He couldn't help himself. His heart skipped more than a few beats.
Melody, for her part, was staggered and surprised by the question. She'd known since at least her teens that she wanted to become a scientist, and her interest in the subject crystallized after her abduction. But she hadn't really thought beyond that. Marriage, children, none of that had ever crossed her mind. She had been single-minded in the pursuit of her eventual goal of becoming a scientist.
Chester's question really forced Melody to think hard. Why was she doing this? Why was she pushing herself to exhaustion, with everything she did in her life? Finally she looked up at him and said wistfully, "I want to know everything."
Chester's jaw dropped to the floor. He had to quit eating his hamburger when he heard her say that. "Everything, Melody?"
"Everything there is to know." Melody took a deep breath. Looking over at her, Chester saw an almost dreamlike, childlike glint in her eyes. "I want to know everything that's possible in the entire realm of knowledge."
"You understand that that's an impossible task you've set yourself, Mel?"
Melody shook her head. "Nothing's impossible," she replied simply, "just look at us and what we've achieved."
By now, there was a manic gleam in her eyes and Chester broke out in a cold sweat. He'd seen that look before, and felt the presence of the man behind it.
Melody leaned forward. "Didn't you EVER want to know everything?"
"I did.... once."
"And how did you feel? Honestly?"
"It felt..... wonderful.....but..."
"Aha!" Melody felt triumphant, she'd finally cracked the code that was Chester Gieke. "What happened? Didn't you feel that rush of power you felt when you first unlocked a mystery?"
"Um --" Chester stammered a moment.
"Don't tell me you didn't feel it."
Chester shook his head. "You don't get it, do you, Mel?"
"Get what?"
"This life, Mel, it's dangerous!"
"You lock yourself in labs."
"Yes, but I'm trying to get myself out of it." Chester decided to change the subject. "While you were gone, Mel, I got more messages. They looked like gobbledygook."
"It looks as though a child's been playing with their dad's computer," Melody sighed bitterly as she perused Chester's saved screens, "pay them no heed."
Chester looked down at her.
"You sound disappointed Mel," he said casually, "what's on your mind? Is there something else I should know about?"
"I thought..... I thought......" She shook her head and raised herself from the seat. "Never mind. I'll go get us some coffee."
She'd barely reached the kitchen when Chester gasped out loud.
"It's here again!" he said, his eyes wider than saucers, "and I've just checked out it's source."
"I don't believe it..."
"Don't believe what?"
"It's coming from that last place I ever expected to see...."
"Which is.....?"
"1 Tesla Court..... dammit!"
"Chester, you're not making any sense. Can you please enlighten me here?"
Chester turned to look at her, his face pale and drawn. Within minutes, he'd visibly aged before her.
"Strangetown....." he barely choked the words out "......the Beakers."
"What have they got to do with anything?"
"Actually, quite a lot. They were in cahoots with the military, watching our every move. What I can't understand is, how did they find me? And more to the point, what's with all this stupid coding?"
"Perhaps it isn't them?"
"Oh, but it is." Chester took the steaming mug of coffee from Melody with trembling hands and gulped it down quickly. This was the last thing he wanted to see.
"But why would they do this? I mean, it's been years since you've even set foot in Strangetown."
"Who knows." Chester decided to change the subject. "Anyway, what were you up to? I hear you caused quite a splash at the shareholders meeting."
"How'd you hear about that?"
"Bad news travels fast -- especially when it happens to Malcolm Landgraab."
Melody shook her head. "I hate him!" she shouted in-between sips of coffee.
"I know well you do."
"You should've seen the looks he gave me, Chester. It was like he could see right through me. I had to do my best to fight them off."
"You know, Mel, I wish you'd have told me you were going to that meeting. I should've been there."
"Chester, I know. I'm sorry. I know I said I was going home to my little sister's party. But -- I needed to lay low awhile and take care of this little business. I needed to do this on my own. I hope you understand."