Chapter 55
Diving into the stands after a basketball tended to be painful. In this case, thirteen stitches worth of pain.
Mark stared in the bathroom mirror, looking at the swelling just above his left eyebrow. The doctor said he would have a small scar, but that was about it. As Mark stared at it, he thought it might actually come out looking rather cool.
The audience reaction had been great. He grinned as he thought about it. The game was winding down through the last thirty seconds before halftime, and Jerry Clark had thrown him a long breakaway pass that missed. Still, Mark had managed to get a hand on it and deflect it back to his teammates before crashing headlong into the bleachers. He immediately clawed his way back to his feet and was headed for the court when several hands grabbed him. That was when Mark noticed the blood. Even shallow wounds to the forehead tended to bleed like a stuck pig, and this one was no exception. The coach told him to lie down on the court, and by the time someone rushed over with a towel to put some direct pressure on the cut, his eye sockets had filled with blood.
Jerry, bending over his prostrate form, practically yelled, “Oh my God. It looks like he has twin pools of blood instead of eyes. Hey! Someone get a camera.”
His buddies were a little short on sympathy, but the cheerleaders made up for it.
That little stunt had cost the team its first loss of the season. Even though Mark had felt fine to go back in if they would only butterfly bandage the cut, the coach sent him to the hospital to get stitches and to be checked for a concussion. By the time the intern finished sewing his head and shining a little flashlight in his eyes, the game was over.
Roswell Goddard High School 83. Los Alamos High School 78.
So much for the perfect season.
Mark finished dressing, brushed his teeth and hair, and then headed down to breakfast. Unfortunately, the McFarlands had departed early that morning for an appointment in Santa Fe, which meant he and Jennifer would be eating their mom's cooking.
Jennifer caught Mark’s eye as he strolled into the kitchen, giving him a small shake of the head, which meant something like, “Abandon all hope, ye who enter this room.” The smell of burning toast had not quite reached a thickness that would set off the smoke alarm, but that didn’t reassure him.
How a woman as talented as his mother could produce such inedible meals was one of the deep underlying mysteries of the universe. You would expect a bad cook to deliver bland-tasting dishes that left little to look forward to. But Linda Smythe went beyond the normally bad, settling in at spectacularly, amazingly bad. Mark didn’t think she could do worse if she tried. Cutting into her eggs either produced hard bits of a yellowish, rubbery substance or, worse yet, slimy little worms of liquid white that crawled toward the edges of your plate.
Oh well. Mark would gut it out and do his best to avoid hurting his mom’s feelings. After all, she had made the effort to feed them, so he would make the effort to eat it.
This morning's meal proved to be surprisingly edible, despite the look he had received from Jennifer. A quick scraping of the toast removed most of the charred bits. Adding the firmly cooked eggs, a slice of cheese, and some salt and pepper created an Egg McSmythe that wasn’t half bad.
“Thanks, Mom. That was great,” he said, rising from the table with his orange juice in hand.
Linda Smythe smiled at him. “You’re a terrible liar, but I appreciate the compliment anyway.”
Mark laughed and kissed her on the cheek. “Jen and I will be working in the garage for a bit, and then I’m going for a long run.”
“Not too fast. Mind those stitches.”
“Don’t worry, Mom. I promise not to pop a vessel.”
Mark led the way to their workshop, Jennifer close on his heels.
“So where are we at?” he asked as they reached the workbench.
Jennifer pulled up the stool in front of her laptop. A new USB cable ran from the back of the computer to an electronic circuit board mounted atop the tank.
“I still have about six hours of work on the program that will manage the subspace tuning algorithm Heather developed. After that, I’ll have to write some test driver software to simulate the responses. With my homework load, I don’t think I can finish before next weekend.”
“Then you better get to it, Sis. Don’t let me hold you up.”
“So you’re still planning on jogging out to the ship to retrieve the laptop and QT device?”
“Yep. I called Heather last night and told her we needed them here. It’s just not practical to monitor what’s happening with Stephenson otherwise. Besides, you can run your little encryption virus on it and scramble the data.”
“I guess it’s no more dangerous than everything else we’re doing. Kind of a long jog, though. Why not take the bike?”
“I feel like running. It’s only about eighteen miles round-trip. Not even marathon distance.”
“Yes, but coming back you’re going to have that laptop and stuff in your backpack.”
Mark grinned. “I think I can handle it.”
“Well, get going, then. You'll want to be back for dinner. Mom's cooking lasagna.”
“Gee, I’d hate to miss that,” Mark said as he headed back inside.
Mark quickly changed into his shorts, sweat suit, and running shoes, threw his backpack over his shoulders, and set off at a steady jog. As he disappeared around the bend onto the trail that led cross-country to the ship, far behind him, staying well out of sight, another jogger mirrored his path.