Chapter Sixteen
Max waited until they were upstairs, back in the room where he had woken before he turned to face his family.
Curly fries, curly fries everywhere. Max felt guilty that he had brought half his family to this place.
Technically, Rick had driven, but Max hadn’t vetoed bringing him along to chase after their kids.
He should have. Einstein wanted Rick, so Max should have kept Rick as far away as possible.
“What are we going to do?” James asked when the door closed. He kept his largest eye focused firmly on Max.
“We all calm down and take this one step at a time,” Max said.
“First, can we get out of this house?” Maybe he shouldn’t ask about this where Einstein could have surveillance, but they had to plan.
Hopefully Einstein was too arrogant to watch them every minute of the day.
If he had more situational awareness and operational security good sense than Rick, they were all screwed.
When Max looked at Rick, Rick sank down on his walking tentacle until even his smallest tentacles brushed the floor. Max walked over and sat on a weird fluffy cushion so he could hold tentacles with his husband.
“I assume that means we can’t get out,” Max said. “That’s okay. We’ve faced worse odds than this.”
Rick’s voice was rough like rocks tumbling downhill. “He is brilliant with the invention of new locks. I do not recognize design or function.” No one did guilt like Max’s husband.
“You can’t know everything,” Max said. “If you have enough time, can you figure out the locks?”
“Unknown.” Rick shrank even more so that his head was now resting on the ground.
He even tried to pull his tentacle free from Max’s grip, but Max held on tighter.
Rick had taken one too many emotional hits having to face his abusive father.
Therefore, Max assumed Rick would be out for the count during this rescue.
Even if he had the technical skills to hack Einstein’s locks, he didn’t have his head in the right place.
“Okay, so we need to stop and think about what resources we have available.”
“Anger,” Kohei bellowed. “We have much, much anger.” Kohei’s walking tentacle was so stiff that he was almost as tall as Max.
James trumpeted his agreement and moved to his older brother’s side.
It was possible that Max had raised more than one child with anger management issues.
He was starting to think that his parenting skills were not as good as he'd assumed.
“Anger is fine,” Max said, “but remember that we have to play along with Einstein until we can figure out a way out of this mess.”
“Query. Define go along,” Xander asked.
“Go along,” Max said. “We cooperate. We pretend that we don't hate his guts and don’t think that he's a complete moron. That’s what it means to go along. We don't do anything to make him angry and whatever he says, we agree or at least we don’t disagree.”
“Bad plan,” James yelled. “Available resource: me. I excel at weapons design. I will design a weapon. I will create prototype. I will shoot Einstein through many, many eyes.”
That was one vote for a psychopathic child. “Maybe we can avoid killing your grandfather,” Max suggested.
Rick lifted himself from the floor and stiffened his tentacles. “I reject designation of Einstein as parent. He is not my parent; therefore, he is not the grandparent of my offspring. He is of no relation.” Some of the guilt gave way to stiff-tentacled anger, which was good.
“I am one hundred percent in favor of going no contact. A thousand percent. A million percent, even. I have never been so in favor of cutting someone off and taking away the title of parent. However, until we can get out of Einstein’s house, cutting him off may be problematic.”
“Much with the problems,” Xander muttered.
“I will multiply problems and return them to the nonparent of my parents,” Kohei offered.
Max had always thought of Hidden ones as being rather nonviolent.
He admired their position that running away from a problem was often the best way to avoid escalating it.
However, he suspected he had corrupted his children a little bit.
Either that or being attacked by pirates when they were so young had created a few glitches in their nonviolent worldview.
Or Hidden ones were hunters by nature and he had underestimated their prey drive. Or all three.
“We know Einstein is unlikely to let Rick leave because he sees Rick as his... um... legacy.” Max had struggled to find the right word to end that sentence.
How did you describe a delusion so intense that a person had sex with themselves to create their own cloned offspring because they thought that they were God's gift to the universe? That was a level of arrogance that went beyond anything Max had ever seen, even in bad television villains from the 70s and 80s. “So, let's work on getting the kids out of here. Once they are out, they can go to Dee for help and identify some officials that might intervene.” Max didn’t suggest police because he still didn’t understand the law enforcement structure on the planet.
“Not possible,” Kohei said. “Einstein discussed requirement of contract.” All three kids got curlier and Rick’s anger made him stiffen even more.
That phrase had some significance beyond a simple contract.
Max had broken plenty of contracts. If people were stupid enough to make contract with an 18-year-old kid whose brain hadn’t fully developed, they deserved to have that kid default on the payments.
“Okay, and what does that mean? Exactly?” Max asked.
Unsurprisingly, it was Xander who answered. “Contract is agreement with another party to certain behaviors in response to compensation.”
“So like a human contract?” Again, we were back to Max being happy to break a contract or tell his children to break one. And he wouldn’t feel the niggle of guilt like when he’d had his first car repoed for non-payment.
“Except for penalties,” Xander said. “I will take contract, and I will break it to inform Dee.”
“No!” Rick screamed with such volume that Max's head seemed to vibrate.
Rick surged forward and caught Xander in his tentacles, wrapping them around their youngest child so that Xander couldn't do more than wiggle his tentacle tips. Rick had never been an overly demonstrative parent, and watching him cling to Xander with such desperation made bile rise in Max’s throat.
“What is the penalty for breaking a contract?” Max asked.
“Exile,” Kohei said, his voice soft and flat.
“If Xander breaks contract, then no Hidden one may speak with him or contact him or do business with him or look on him. And if any does, then those Hidden ones are exiled. If large enough group chooses to contact one in exile, then group is driven away into the dangerous sea where islands exist for exiles.”
Shit. This was more serious than Max had feared. Funny, Max had thought Hidden ones were awesome. Better than humans. Enlightened even. It turned out they were the same sort of shitty as humans, and he couldn’t even hire a lawyer to wade through the shit for him.
“I like Unbalanced ones best,” Kohei said. “I should take exile and leave for world of Max Father.”
Rick trumpeted his displeasure and two tentacles darted out to grab Kohei and pull him in so that Kohei and Xander were smushed together in their father’s tentacles.
It looked a little like an earth octopus trying to strangle prey.
Max turned away, and James was drifting toward the far corner of the room.
“We will not act without thinking this through. We have days or weeks to poke the security and find weaknesses before we should discuss anything that would have permanent consequences.”
“Yes, listen Max Father,” Xander said, his voice muffled because Rick was hugging him so tightly that his mouth, which was on the underside of his head, was probably getting squeezed.
Max wrapped his arms as far around the tangled mass of tentacles as he could reach and rested his head against Rick’s. “We’ll figure it out,” he promised softly. “We will.” He had no idea how they would, but he would never give up on his family.
“And I can build weapon from discarded plastics and shoot evil not-grandfather,” James insisted.
Max wasn’t sure that was the best solution, but Max was impressed with his son’s tenacity.