David chuckled. “Is it too late to trade him in for a
Chihuahua? At least they can’t jump higher than a few inches off
the ground.”
Red’s voice piped up from somewhere under the deck,
“I caught them fair and square.”
There was a thoughtful
pause.
“I think I should get a finder’s fee.”
When I repeated Red’s suggestion, David retorted,
“Finder’s fee? They wouldn’t be ‘lost’ in the first place if you
left them alone.”
Call it a moment of weakness, I took this opportunity
to defend my faithful canine companion. “You have to concede that
when the darned things are flying around the property, they look
like small balls. You know his favorite game is ‘fetch’; talk about
waving a cape in front of a bull. Red may be able to talk to me
like a person, but he is still a dog—of course, he’s going to chase
them.”
“I’ve been tempted to come out here a couple of times
with a tennis racket,” Ken admitted.
“Coffee?” I asked hopefully.
“Brewing,” Ken reassured.
“
I suppose I should confess, the cat next door
caught one of the metal ones last week when it flew close to the
fence line. When I chased her, she dropped it so I added it to the
pile I had already caught.”
“Red tells me the cat next door caught one of them.”
I grinned, “Obviously you forgot to review The Rules with all the
surrounding animal life.”
Bas started laughing. “David, you have to admit that
ten feet away from the deck is a great catch. Not to mention it was
going almost fifteen miles an hour. We’ll have to review the
cameras and watch.”
“Red,” I called. “Come on out. You’re not in
trouble.”
To my two warriors, I said, “What we have here, is a
failure to communicate. You guys renegotiate the rules. I don’t
want the dog hurt by leaping off the deck. A no-fly zone should
apply to the dog as well as the drones. Add power words and phrases
to your discussion like: no treats, no steak, and kennel. Those
seem to work for me.”
“We don’t want him hurt either, this was why we
explained Rules of Engagement to him in the first place,” Bas told
me. “We even set up a no-fly zone over the deck to reduce
temptation.”
“Maybe you guys should include me in on the
human-canine negotiations from now on? He may understand your
words, but you can’t hear Red’s replies to make sure he understands
the finer details of your instructions. You know that nuances
sometimes escape him, resulting in a loose, and often advantageous,
interpretation of the rules.” I grinned, “Such as him thinking, if
he can catch it from a leap off the deck, then he can go for it.
He’s very smart, but he’s a dog. If he wants something he takes it
and begs forgiveness afterwards.” I frowned in thought. Actually,
when I think about it, I can recall the “it’s better to ask
forgiveness, than seek permission” strategy has been in Bastian’s
repertoire for years. My smile widened; it seems like Sebastian
Declan is getting a little of his own back.
“I thought we made it clear to him,” David
complained.
“Yeah, we even used small words and visual aids,” Bas
added, with a laugh.
“
Bas-turd,”
Red contributed as I heard his
nails clicking up the stairs.
I smirked, and kept the dog’s last remark to myself.
“You neglected to clarify that if he has to fly to reach it, it’s
out of bounds. It’s pretty obvious to me that your idea of a red
zone and his idea of a Red Zone are at polar opposites.”
“We need to do something,” David grumbled. “These are
the basic prototypes, but they are still pretty pricy. Even more
importantly, we can’t afford to have the testing halted every time
Red wants to play fetch. We need to run the full program,
uninterrupted.”
“Actually, they don’t look too bad,” Bas said. “The
propellers are bent on all of them, but no broken tails. They
should be easy to fix. Depending on whether Red damaged the bodies,
we may be able to salvage most of these, or use them for parts. If
I can put them back into working order, we can add them to the
current twelve drone security pattern. We have five metal ones here
that we had written off as lost, carted off by wildlife, or
broken.”
“Do you mean ‘broken’ like the one that smashed into
the tree last week?” Ken asked, in all innocence. “It must have
been going ninety miles an hour when it hit that elm at the fence
line.”
My voice was low and threatening when I asked, “The
golden elm near the pond? I love that tree.”
“The top half is smashed to smithereens,” Ken said,
with all the glee of a destructive five-year-old.
David’s warm arms wrapped around me pinning my arms
against my body, I was not unaware of the comparison to a strait
jacket. Oh Man! I really,
really
like that tree. “Does it
make a difference if I say that it was an accident?” he asked. “The
tree guy we called seems to think he can save seventy percent of
it.” He placed a string of tiny kisses over the bridge of my nose,
ending with a warmer one on my lips. My head dropped forward on
David’s very wide, rock hard chest. Mmm, he smelled nice with the
hint of sandalwood cologne mixed with clean sweat.
Tree? What tree? “Very
almost
effective
distraction technique, Mr. Preston,” I said with a sigh. “Try and
save it if you can. I knew there might be accidents with the
testing.” Pause. “It was an accident, right? You’re not targeting
trees are you?”
“No, of course not,” he assured me. “I zigged when I
should have zagged. Operator error. Totally an accident.”
“I’m happy you don’t fly them that fast towards the
house. Be safe, okay?”
A tight hug was all the affirmation I needed.
Although that chocolate donut wouldn’t hurt right about now.
We had set up the twenty mile per hour maximum speed
limit over any area with a manicured lawn or structure; the average
was closer to ten miles per hour. In other parts of our acreage the
drones were allowed higher speeds as long as it was directed away
from the house, and the homes of the few neighbors around us. David
and Bas were currently buying up a total of twenty-two additional
acres to the west for range expansion—that was his story anyway. I
suspected their main motivation was to build an extra layer of
privacy.
Our property abutted forestry lands and a wildlife
conservation area on the south and east, so we didn’t worry about
people wandering into the area from those directions (the incline
off the Little Spokane River was too steep and marshy). There were
quite a few undeveloped lots on the third side that, theoretically,
could be developed, bringing neighbors closer to where we were
nestled in the terrain. Those vacant properties ran along the
sanctuary boundary also; the guys were looking at securing a strip
of land almost a quarter-mile long.
I grinned, not only did David lay siege to win my
heart, he was now building a fortress to protect his prize… well,
okay, his prize and maybe a couple hundred thousand dollars’ worth
of military-grade equipment. I was still amazed at the amount of
money the government threw his way to keep him supplied for all his
projects. He may have been Navy for twenty plus years, raking in a
respectable military salary, but he was making some serious money
now, and his budget seemed unlimited.
David was a combination computer programmer and
electronics wiz, with some seriously advanced hacking skills added
to the mix. With Bastian’s help, the two of them built and modified
drones to work with David’s programs. Many aspects of this work
were top secret, but he shared enough that I knew he and Bas were
concurrently working on two programs, one offensive and the other
defensive, which involved the use of mini-drones.
The defensive aspects were already in use as part of
our home security system. Miniature drones monitored activity on
the property. The guys were constantly refining data and upgrading
them to perform a combination of increasingly delicate movements
and more sophisticated target identification. The drones were
currently learning to distinguish between images that walked on two
feet versus four feet; something to do with height and the way the
head moved. I was impressed by the feature that allowed the drones
to override their own program momentarily to avoid an unknown
moving obstacle in their path, such as a deer, going around or over
it, before resuming its grid pattern. Bas and David needed to add
that feature to all of the drones if they insisted on testing close
to the house. If the drones can react fast enough with an avoidance
feature, it may help them circumvent leaping canines. Just
sayin’.
The offense programs seemed to have more solemn
applications, from what little David would say about them. Although
the majority of the offensive test drones are basic shells to test
maneuverability, a half-dozen of them have cameras or sensors
feeding back infra-red, sonic, still images, and streaming video
data to a main computer located somewhere in the depths of the
Cave. The guys were using the imagery to develop three dimensional
and holographic maps. They assured me that their prototypes would
not carry explosive payloads (Yeah, like that had really crossed my
mind before they said that, right?), which led me to wonder, how
much harm could a golf ball-sized drone cause anyway? It didn’t
seem like that much explosive material could be packed into one.
The guys had a secretive smugness to their tone, when I scoffed at
them. I’m sure the joke was on me, but some things I simply didn’t
need to know.
At last count, we had over thirty drones engaged in a
variety of tests or duties, buzzing around the house and grounds.
Add this to the security cameras, two vigilant military
strategists, and a super smart German shepherd—we were pretty much
impenetrable.
The doorbell rang.
And there it was folks! The security is only as good
as the person paying attention to the consoles and readouts. I
scoffed, “Gee, I wonder who managed to breach our perimeter,
Ken.”
“I’ll get it,” Ken said, his voice turned away toward
the door. He saw something he didn’t like in the security camera in
the entryway because his voice dropped, becoming hesitant. “Hey
guys? Are these G.I. Joe wannabes friends of yours?”
Coming Winter 2014
The Urban Fantasy Novel
I’ve lived through countless years and thousands of
ages. I’ve lead men to war, and been the cause of a few. I am a
warrior, politician, mother of kings, and Tiger shape-shifter. As
the last of my line, and one of the strongest amongst the
supernaturals, I lead a posse of paranormal warriors. We have
become the judge, jury, and executioners for our society. If you
turn rogue, mine will be the last face you see.
You know my names and have heard tales of my
bravery, ferocity, passion, and strength, but you don’t know the
real stories—after all, history has been written by men who paint
the accomplishments of women with a tainted brush. I have been
called by many names, one of the first was Boudicca.
Thank you for reading Blind Seduction, Team Red, Book
1. I appreciate you taking the bold step of picking up a book
about, of all things, a “talking” dog. I hope you enjoyed reading
it as much as I enjoyed writing it!
If you can take a few minutes to pop on to Amazon,
Barnes & Noble, and/or Goodreads to leave a review sharing what
you liked about the book that would be totally awesome! Your
reviews help Indie Authors, like me, get our books recognized,
bringing much needed traffic to our sites.
Happy Reading, T
For more information about books available by T.
Hammond, Stalker Pages:
T Hammond, Author Blogspot
** http://
www.thammondwrites.blogspot.com
Facebook
**
http://www.facebook.com/pages/T-Hammond-Author-Team-Red-Series/324413914346772
GoodReads Author Profile:
**
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6981922.T_Hammond
Amazon Author page:
** http://
www.amazon.com/author/thammond
My Twitter:
@hammond_tina
I love being an Independent (Indie) Author; it’s fun
and scary at the same time. I stumble through learning how to pick
the right title, how to select a cover, and how to market the book.
There are other considerations, such as who to ask to edit, and
finding beta readers to pre-read and critique my baby (“Is my Baby
ugly?” “Of course not, with the proper bonnet, we can hide that
unfortunate third eye.”) Did I mention some betas are not as
critical as they should be? The point being, many people are moving
around in the background to help a writer put together a novel, and
sometimes that adds to the craziness.
One drawback to being an Indie? The lack of a
publishing house that can provide a number of editors to review and
re-review drafts. Any writer can tell you it’s almost impossible to
edit your own work (and kudos to the ones who CAN do it). Many
writers, myself included, develop a tendency to see right over the
top of our own mistakes when we’ve read the same chapters a million
times… over, and over, and over again, during the writing and draft
process. I see what I intended, not necessarily what my fingers
produced.