Abe shuddered to think what might have happened to Johnny had he not shown up when they met that Dog Pack. Mastiff nearly took him apart even with KAGEDs full defenses running! It would have been all over for his family if his son had not then come to his rescue. Those men in the sedan he’d spotted just before blacking out had some serious hardware and were almost certainly FBI or worse. But Johnny had lifted him to safety and brought him home where the device was deactivated using some of his gear. It would take a lot more that that Mastiff could deliver to actually pierce the force field and do significant bodily harm, but once again the wiring had been cut up in places, preventing him from deactivating the device himself or using it in any way. It was a strange form of paralysis and endeared him to those stuck permanently in such a condition. It made him think about some disturbing what-ifs. Theoretically, he could have been stuck in a state of stasis for eternity, unaging, immobile, yet aware and paralyzed and probably growing more insane every second. He checked, double-checked, and triple-checked his repairs. That weird personality shift caused by the damage Carver did to the wiring made him paranoid. He decided he would need to provide a dead-mans switch, which would deactivate the device under special conditions. He’d rather be dead than immortal. In addition, he determined to find a way to route more of the devices power to an additional shell of protection. He was finding himself in dangerous situations far too regularly to ignore the lessons.

But that would have to wait until he paid the bills. So he gathered some text books and made his way to the bus stop. As he waited his thoughts turned to his son Johnny. As lucky as they were, some of the East-Enders did NOT escape the fight as unscathed as Johnny. A few had gun-shot wounds and knife cuts. The parents were rightfully outraged, particularly when they learned that Johnny had caused the confrontation and then walked away without a scratch due to his stasis armor. Feelings about metas erupted in ugly diatribes and many of the boys were pulled from the group. The Dog Pack may not have beaten the East Enders, but the East Enders were most certainly beat. And Johnny was not taking it well. The guilt was ever-present these days and he would have quit the group had the hard-core members that remained not convinced him to stay. He no longer harbored a longing to lead the group any more, leaving that over-rated job to Torch. And he was training with an obsession. No matter what he said or threatened or did, he no longer bothered with homework. Abe hoped it was a stage and that he would come to his senses, but he feared the worst.

The bus came to a stop in a wealthy neighborhood and Abe stepped out, walked up to one of the houses, and rang the bell. Liz, the mother of the 16 year old girl he was tutoring in Literature, answered the door.

"Hello Abe. Right on time as usual. Beth is waiting in the study room for you finishing up the reading you assigned. Come in."

"Thank-you Liz. " As he walked in a hearty "Hi Abe" boomed from the kitchen where the man of the family was busily cooking something. One of the things he liked about teaching Beth were her parents. Michael Taylor was a 5 star cook and loved to feed his visitors. Abe had no great talent for cooking and even if he had, he had no budget for the kinds of meals Michael whipped up.

"Hey, come in here and try my Cajun Shrimp. I made plenty."

Right on cue. Abe suspected Michael planned his cooking around his visits. His family knew he struggled and probably wanted to help. Abe didn’t like taking hand-outs but this was different. Besides, it was as much a pleasure to eat the food as to watch Michael’s face light up when he praised it.

"Wow, Michael. This is great. I have to admit that I was a bit leery since I have no taste for spicy foods, but this is just fantastic." Abe set to and finished his dish in a few minutes, giving Beth time to finish up her homework. Beth was a nice girl with her head on straight, but she had a habit of procrastinating. Unless she was in on the plot to feed him, he chuckled to himself silently. He wished he could introduce her to Johnny. Maybe an attractive, hard working, head-on-straight young lady would help him get through this hard period. Eleanor had always been the best medicine for Abe’s dark moods. Like a mind reader, Liz suggested, "Why don’t you bring your son Johnny over for dinner some time, we’d love to have you over for a real visit." There was a suspicious twinkle in her eye that suggested that she had similar match-making ideas, though he couldn’t be certain. With an answering twinkle, Abe responded, "Why that would be marvelous Liz, when would be a good time?" When the details were worked out, Abe went to the study, where he found Beth reading Huckleberry Finn. They had a lively discussion about slavery, racism, and clothing in the 18th and early 19th century (where he found himself the student). Mark Twain was excellent reading, both educational and entertaining.

As he was leaving Michael handed him a container and said, "Take this to Johnny, I made extra for him too. And you better make sure he gets it too, I’ll be asking him how he liked it when you visit next week!" Abe smiled, he WAS tempted to eat it himself. "Thank-you Michael. "

Abe got on another bus and went to his next clients house. Ricki was an X member of the East-Enders. He was less entertaining to teach than Beth, and needed serious help in his math. Abe was able to help a little bit but Ricki just lacked motivation and didn’t "get" it. As usual his homework was sloppy and his parents were unhelpful. They figured it was his job to motivate the child. But without any authority he was helpless. If things didn’t change in a few weeks he would have to quit this one, something he could not afford to do but must to be fair. Ricki reminded him of the troubles he was having with Johnny. Before he left his stress level was way up.

When he finally got home he went to work tinkering with KAGED. It was relatively simple to allow some of the energy used to manipulate the environment to instead reinforce the force field. He figured it would also provide a tight enough seal that he would not have to worry about radiation if he went into space. After testing he confirmed it. Perhaps a little space voyage would interest Johnny in his homework again. When Johnny got home he gave him the Cajun Shrimp and broached the subject. "Johnny, have you ever wondered what the other side of the moon looks like? Or maybe if there is life on other planets?"

"Aw dad, not this again. ‘Someday this device could be used to travel through space faster than the speed of light’, right? You’re always talking about what your device ‘could’ do."

"Well, tonight I’m going to do it! I’ve tightened up the leakage through the force field and it should be able to withstand the rigors of space. So tonight I’m going to the moon and back!"

"Really! You’re not just talking this time?"

"That’s right. As soon as dinner is over I’m gearing up. Too bad you can’t come, but we can communicate via radio. Keep it tuned to our special channel and I’ll give you a blow-by-blow. Though I intend to keep this trip pretty simple."

"Hey dad, millions of Americans were glued to their sets watching the first man walk on the moon and that was hardly action-filled adventure. I’d love to be your link to terra-firma."

11:00 found "Anchorman" headed towards the stars. Somehow, some way, that moniker had stuck. When the police came and collected the Dog Packers that had not escaped in time they all called him Anchorman. Pretty hokey in Abe’s opinion, but then he never gave them a name himself so he was to blame. Let the media call him whatever they liked. Hopefully they wouldn’t be seeing much more of him.

"I’m headed up. Still in CGI and using normal flight mode. Speed approximately 3000 km/hour. Breakout in 3 seconds. 2. 1. Activating FTL...."

Abe found a gravitational link between the earth and a distant star and attached his mass signature to the line of force. He decided it would not be safe to attach to the link between the earth and moon in case he overshot his destination. He activated the FTL for a fraction of a second and found himself in the middle of nowhere. No planet or moon in sight! "Where the heck am I. Damn, I hope that is our sun or I’m in serious shit!" After the initial panic, Abe realized that he was still anchored to the same line of force and that a simple reversal would return him towards earth. He had no idea the FTL would be this effective. He returned to earth in even smaller fractions of a second bursts.

As the seconds ran into nearly a minute Johnny began to panic. The radio communication was 1-way only so Johnny could not talk to his father but he began to mutter anyway. "Dad, dad, please come back. Dad. Oh God. Oh God, don’t be dead...

"...That was a bit of a trip out of the way. I missed the moon by a light week or so by my estimations. I’m O.K. Johnny and I’m back near the moon. Remember that radio takes a while to travel at this distance too. Sorry I had to leave you hanging there. Hey, in a week or so you should be able to pick up my panic message! In any case, I’m between you and the moon right now. I’m going to try to travel in short bursts of FTL around the moon. I have to keep my distance or the CGI of the moon will interfere with the links I establish"

As Abe zipped in bursts around the moon, reaquiring new links whenever he needed to change directions, scanning the moon with his mass vision. There was little of interest and he allowed his perceptions to wander.

"The moon shows little density variance and I have not yet located the artifacts from the first lunar landing. I’m broadening my scan to the area around the moon. Hey, that’s odd. There’s a number of very large satellites clumped together on the other side of the moon, about a half dozen. Activating telescopic perceptions to maximum. Those are odd looking satellites. Going in for a better look in normal flight mode along surface of the moon. Should be rounding the corner in a few seconds...."

Once again the transmission was cut off as the radio passed around to the opposite side of the moon. Johnny waited with worry and excitement.

Abe came to an abrupt halt when he realized that the satellites were not satellites, but spaceships. Even at this distance he could tell by the relative densities that they were, for the most part, hollowed out and that their shells were made of something far more dense than anything he had ever encountered before. To his mass vision the hulls practically screamed at him. And they were HUGE. What were spaceships doing hanging around here? The answer was obvious, hiding. Which suggested that the vessels were not of this world. Abe wanted to get a better look but was not willing to risk it. Yet. He carefully reversed direction and returned to the other side of the moon."

"...Those were no satellites Johnny, they were spaceships. And by my reasoning they are hiding from earth. I do not know if they mean good or harm, but I intend to find out once I have made some adjustments. I don’t think they saw me, thank God."

Abe kept up a reassuring stream of words as he quickly returned home. Once he was within range of the less powerful radio Johnny held they started to discus what needed to be done.

"Dad, we got to tell someone, but who? And what are we going to do if they turn hostile?"

"The only one I trust at this point with my secret is Kevin. I’m not sure what he can do but at least he has a few connections. I’m also going to make some modifications to KAGED so that I will become undetectable by active sensing devices. I should still be detectable by passive sensing devices, but my signature should be slight enough to evade detection. Then I can get a better look and see what is inside those things. Did you see how fast I went! My initial guess is about a light year per second. I had to use the computer interface to reliably move in short enough bursts to control the flight around the moon."

"Before you get too excited, remember the fleet. If those ARE hostile aliens there may be no more civilization by the time your device sees use."

"I’ll tell Kline right away and see if he can get some other meta working on it."

About a week later a reluctant Johnny and his father arrived at the Taylor residence. They arrived a bit early to be social and were greeted by an enthusiastic Liz.

"Welcome Abe. And hello Johnny, it’s nice to finally meet you. Come in. Michael is in the kitchen and Beth is watching TV in the family room. " Liz led them to the kitchen with a welcoming deluge of chatter. Johnny looked like he was looking for an escape until he saw Beth. Beth joined them in the kitchen and Abe was amused by the sudden transition from impatient teen to suave, mature teen. He had a good feeling about this.

Though the talk centered mostly around family, jobs, politics, and the like, the two teens got in a few words here and there, particularly when they started teasing Abe about his teaching. Liz mercifully rescued Abe.

"Beth, why don’t you go turn off the TV if you are not going to use it anymore."

"Sure mom."

Johnny watched as she left. "Wait, Beth. What was that the news man just said?"

"Huh. Oh, my God, that’s Terry."

The news footage showed a young girl sprawled on the ground, her face contorted by an unnatural grin. The whole house grew quiet save the monologue from the TV The five faces would have been comical in any other situation, each a mask of surprise and horror. The scene panned to other victims of the terrorist attack, another by the notorious Apocalypse Now. The details the newsman related radiated from the set like a palpable blow sending all but Johnny reeling to seats. The phone rang and Michael answered.

"No, Jenny, were all right... The gas seems to have hit near the Central Mall... It sure is... We already know of one friend that was killed and I’m terribly afraid there are more... I’ll let you know."

He hung up. Liz was crying and Michael moved to comfort her as the extent of the disaster became known. Abe looked at Johnny and saw rage on his face. The phone rang again and Beth answered it. Again, it was obvious that a concerned friend or relative was calling.

"Mom, can I call Grandma and let her know we’re all right?"

"Please, Beth"

"The phone company is having trouble connecting us."

"That sometimes happens in a disaster. We had it happen to us when the big earthquake hit in California," Johnny said.

The news got worse with stories of looting and violence. Johnny immediately spoke up, some of his rage crystallizing into determination. "Dad, we better go. Some of that looting is in our neighborhood."

"I’m sorry about dinner Liz, Michael, but under the circumstances I thing we’d better take a rain-check. We need to get back to our home and protect it and let people know we are all right." The last part was a small fib as there really was no one Abe needed to contact. But he knew that Johnny would go one way or another.

"I understand, Abe. We’ll schedule for another day"

It was a busy and long day for everyone. There were many heroes and many villains. Abe and Johnny worked as a team for the first time, clearing away a number of mobs before Johnny joined the East Enders. New metas appeared in the streets in response to the call for help and others in response to greed. Everyone knew at least one person who was killed and often knew a number of people that were robbed or injured. Because of the sustained effort required to combat the mobs, Abe had to take frequent and long breaks to recharge KAGED. He faced the most violent mobs as their blows helped recharge the device. His mass-vision rooted out more crimes than he could possibly have prevented, once leaving him with a choice to prevent a rape or robbery. He rescued the rape victim just to see the robber shoot his victim before fleeing. His biggest problem was what to do with the criminals he caught. The most violent he delivered to the police stations, but mostly he just sent them on their ways with a warning that probably would be ignored.

The worst part was that he would have to testify in order to keep the offenders behind bars. Could he risk it? Could he in good conscience not?