Double Team
Chapter 233
“You cannot buy the revolution. You cannot make the revolution. You can only be the revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.”
—Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed
“LET’S TAKE A LOOK at the sample script,” Donna said. It was our third meeting with the PSA crew and so far, we hadn’t accomplished anything. Walt Anderson was the public relations guy who had the mistaken opinion he was in charge. He had a writer and a cameraman with him. It didn’t take too long for Donna to establish herself as the producer and relegate Walt to distribution and messaging.
“Sure,” Cathy Thomas said. She’d been introduced as our writer but this was the first time we were getting around to seeing anything she’d written. “I looked at a lot of your video spiels, Jacob. I think I got your voice down. Why don’t you read it aloud for us?” I nodded and took the script from her. I glanced over it and raised an eyebrow. Well, if this was what they wanted…
“Hi, I’m Jacob Hopkins of Marvel and Hopkins,” I read. “My high school friends are all worried about entering National Service and if you are a senior in high school, I’d guess you are, too. We’ve all heard that at eighteen, the government strips away all our rights, and conscripts us for slave labor for two years. Who wouldn’t be worried? But before you get out the ‘Repeal 28’ signs and go out to stage a protest, hear me out. National Service isn’t as bad as all that. Corps members are matched to jobs according to their interests and aptitude. You’ll find exciting opportunities in the service, like Cindy and I have playing music. A wide range of occupations are available, preparing you for college or a technical career. You’ll even be able to take some classes to get a head start. Join forces with those of us already in the service to make America proud.”
I looked at Donna and she must have seen the pain on my face.
“Really?” she asked. “You want to lead with having rights stripped away and slave labor?”
“And can’t we have some examples of the kinds of career they could have besides music?” I asked. “And this is nowhere near a full minute long.”
“The invitation to join forces with those already in service makes it sound like they have a choice,” Donna continued.
“We’re supposed to paint a positive picture of what National Service is and means. I think they’ve done a better job on the website,” I finished.
“Fine! I suppose you can do better. Well go right ahead, Mr. Famous Guitarist. I’m sure you’re a journalism professional, too. I’m through here.” She stood to gather her papers and leave but Walt grabbed her arm.
“Sit down, Cathy. This is your job, not a high school writing assignment.” I had the feeling this was the first thing Cathy had been asked to do since joining the service. Might even have been recruited for this position.
“You’re saying I don’t have any choice? Maybe we should stick with the original premise and tell everyone they’re going to be slaves for the next two years!”
“Cathy, I’m sorry,” I said. “That must have sounded like Donna and I were personally attacking you. We didn’t mean to do that. You write well and I can see why you were chosen for this. It just sort of hit us wrong. I’d like to work with you on it if you can stand my insufferable ego.”
“They said this would be a perfect job for me and I’d get to hone my writing skills,” she said. “This is hack work. I wanted to go into the field and write articles about real people in the service.”
“What a good idea,” Donna said. “Why don’t we fold that into the concept for the spots?”
“They want me as a spokesperson, but I could act more like an interviewer with people in the field. Ask them how service has changed their lives.”
“I could follow it up with a full article about them and what they’ve learned,” Cathy said tentatively. “The spot would be like a promo for the article.”
“Walt, how can we make this work?” Donna asked. “You hold the budget and the directive from on high.” Walt looked like he was standing in the way of runaway horses. I knew Cathy and Lou, our cameraman, were service members. I wasn’t sure if Walt was on a long-term track or if he’d been hired in. He was a little older than us.
“I… I’m used to working with creative people,” he said at last. “You all surprised me by the way you launched into this. It won’t cost any more to have you write an article if that will get things started. All I can guarantee a place for at the moment is the PSA, but I’ll try to find a place to publish the article as well. Lou, I don’t think you and I are going to be needed in the meetings while they hash out the details, but it does change the look of the piece. We’ll need background shots of the jobsite the interviewee is at and it will be two people in the spot instead of a headshot.”
“I’d like to sit in on the brainstorming, if you guys don’t mind,” Lou said. It was the first thing I’d heard him say since we started meeting. “This sounds a whole lot more interesting than point and shoot.”
“Glad to have you,” Donna said.
“Fine. Donna, keep me apprised. I think my job is in the office.” Walt got up and left the room.
“How about going out for a decent cup of coffee?” I asked. “I feel like I need to stretch after sitting here for so long. I’d like to get to know you two a little better since we’re going to be a team.” Everyone agreed. Lou and Cathy only looked a little discomforted when Lyle, who was my escort today, fell in behind us.
“You would not believe what happened!” Rachel squealed in laughter at dinner. “This is just too good. Jacob, we might have to call you into a training session.”
“What happened?” I asked. I was pretty sure I wasn’t in trouble. Everyone was happy with where my project was.
“Dark Smith had a concert last night in Portland, Oregon. They’re working their way down the Coast. It was a small venue and there were only about five hundred people present. Dark had just finished her spiel at the beginning of the second set and they launched into that fun piece about the couple that keeps getting delayed when they try to get together. You remember?”
“Yeah. I’m always impressed with Drake Long’s music writing. What a talent.”
“Well, they were halfway into the piece when all the power went out. The emergency exit lights came on and in a couple of minutes, they found out a major transformer had blown and repairs were estimated in hours. The ushers did a great job of directing people out of the theater,” Rachel said.
“That must have been devastating for the group,” Beca said. “Getting shut down in the middle of a performance.”
“Oh, no,” Rachel said. “They didn’t mind. In fact, they didn’t notice. They finished the concert even without power to their amps and guitars. They ended the program with the drive home safe song to an empty theater, left the stage, packed their instruments, and got on the bus.”
“What? They just played straight through?” Desi asked.
“When that group starts a performance, everything runs exactly by the clock from eight o’clock to ten-oh-eight. I’m not sure they are even aware they have an audience,” Donna said. “I’m glad I’m not their stage manager.”
“She just got flashlights together to lead them off stage when they were finished and get them on the bus. Her biggest problem was keeping the theater management from going ballistic when they’d evacuated the theater,” Rachel said. “She did a good job and then went out to get high with the lighting tech. She was on her way to Eugene when she called me this morning. Didn’t even consider the whole thing an emergency.”
“They should be called the Rockin’ Robots,” I laughed.
“But who?” Cathy asked. “Usually, you become aware of something significant that has happened and then go out to interview and get the story. You’re saying we have to find something interesting and significant.”
“Yes, but there are some that are known. Dana Drake of the SSR, for example.”
“She’s turned down interviews with some top publications,” Cathy said.
“She’ll do it for me, I’m sure,” I said. “And how about that whole successful operation cleaning up the water in Flint, Michigan. I know a corps member who is still up there monitoring the successful transition. Rosie Graham.”
“I’m sure once word gets out that we’re interested in people’s stories, we’ll get deluged with suggestions,” Donna said. “We just need a couple of pilot episodes to get it started.”
“Let’s put down Francie Redmond, too,” I said. “She’s doing great in the creche program and is getting her teaching certificate.”
“I don’t want to have focus on our pod,” Donna said, “but Lacie McPartland would be a good one to show the athletic program off.”
“And we could always get Dark Smith to do one, I suppose,” I said. “Or maybe Remas now that she’s in Seattle.”
“I’m sure that if we put feelers out, we can discover all sorts of people who are doing something unique in the service. Let’s set the first one up and see where it leads.”
“Hi. This is Jacob Hopkins of Marvel and Hopkins and that was the lovely flute music of my partner Cindy Marvel. One of the most frequent questions I’m asked when traveling to encourage people to make the most of their National Service is whether there is really an opportunity to influence your National Service occupation assignment. I’m going to be traveling around the country for the next few weeks, talking to corps members who are making a difference with their NSO. And my first stop is not far from Washington, DC and my good friend, Dana Drake.”
“Hello, Jacob,” Dana said. We stood outside on a helipad next to the SSR’s bright yellow and red Blackhawk.
“Dana, you’ve made a lot of news since the team first arrived in Galveston in the wake of Hurricane Brendan. How does this stack up with what your career objectives were when you first entered the service?”
“My grandfather gave his life twenty-two years ago, guiding people out of the Twin Towers before they collapsed. I was raised believing the noblest profession on earth was firefighting and I planned to be a firefighter as soon as I could get training. While Search and Rescue isn’t necessarily what our first responder teams are known for, it’s a core function of the Fire Department. I feel like the SSR is giving me critical training and experience so I can join a department as soon as I’m out of service.”
“And now, there are three teams of eight in the SSR, right?”
“And more. What people don’t know is that launching a service like this requires a lot of coordination. For example, we have two pilots assigned to our Blackhawk helicopter. There are twenty-four people in the SSR office tracking everything from projected weather patterns and potential natural disasters to the logistics of whether our van is properly supplied with everything we might need. We even have a person who coordinates our activities with local law enforcement and emergency first responders.”
“That’s a lot of potential positions for service corps members.”
“If you have the aptitude for helping others, daring to enter dangerous situations, and are physically capable of the work, we’re expanding the SSR so we can have better coverage of the whole country.”
A beeper sounded on her lapel and she pressed a headset to her ear. Behind us, the blades of the helicopter began to turn.
“Sorry, gotta go,” she said. She pulled off her interview mic and handed it to me then spun to join the rest of the team as they ran from the building to the helicopter. The door was up and they lifted off.
“You, too, could make a difference,” I said to the camera.
“Wow! I didn’t know you were going to arrange such a dramatic conclusion,” Cathy said when we reviewed the tape the next day. Lou was beaming.
“We didn’t arrange it,” I said. “The team actually got an emergency call and took off for West Virginia where a four-year-old was reported missing from a campsite. The team was on location within thirty minutes of the report. They found the toddler had fallen into one of the many abandoned mineshafts that pepper the region. That was a genuine emergency call.”
“No kidding. I think they are my new heroes,” Walt said. “Well done.”
“And Dana has agreed to a more extensive interview, subject, of course, to interruptions like that one,” Cathy said.
“Joan has a website just for this material ready to launch when you have enough interviews,” Donna said.
“How many is enough?” Cathy asked.
“I think two is all we’ll need to get started.”
“Who’s next?”
“Amanda, who is next on our list of National Service members for an interview?” I said. I’d introduced the little computer to the group earlier, but she hadn’t spoken yet.
“Simon Alexander matches the search criteria you requested and is only one hundred ten miles from here in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.”
“And what does Simon do?”
“He has recently reenlisted as a construction foreman on Habitat for Humanity housing projects. During his first two years of service, he participated in over one hundred builds.”
“Send a full profile to each of us. Thank you, Amanda.”
“Yes, Jacob.”
“That’s an amazing little device,” Walt said. “Where are they available?”
“She’s a prototype,” I said. “We’re testing her for the manufacturer. What impresses people is her voice. I fed the search parameters to her yesterday, so all the data was ready when I just asked.” I didn’t mention that dialing 911, sounding a siren, and video recording the assault in Texas had all been done on her own initiative.
“Well, let’s take a look at Simon Alexander’s profile and put things together,” Walt said. “Cathy, you’ve really got your work cut out for you now.”
I was pleased with the way our first interview turned out. Donna had directed Lou on the camera work and captured the whole rush to the helicopter from a good angle. We’d decided to use a short flute intro and exit music from Cindy, just to make sure our names were still associated with the spots.
Between the new assignment, the physical and occupational therapy, and my two school classes, I was as busy as any other corps member. And in the evening, I still managed to get in an hour or more of guitar practice. I was gaining range of motion in my shoulder and the pain in my fingers when I played, referred from the injured biceps, was lessening steadily. As soon as I could lift my arm sufficiently, Cindy gave me finger exercises on the piano, too. It felt strange to sit at a keyboard but I kind of liked it. Nanette monitored my progress and massaged my hands like she’d done when I got back from my SSR training.
And at night, there was always one or more beautiful naked wives in my bed. For the first time in a long time, I was really getting to know each of them intimately again. Each had her own way, her own unique sexuality, her own fragrance, and her own path to fulfillment.
“Jacob, will you help me for a while?” Beca whined as she caught my hand and led me to a bedroom.
“Sure, Kitten, what do you need?” She opened the door. Joan was lying naked on the bed.
“I need someone’s big hard cock to plunge in and out of my girlfriend’s twat while I chew on her nipples and ride her face. She just needs it.”
“Beca!” Joan squealed and covered her face. She didn’t change the position of her spread legs, though.
“I might be able to help,” I said. “You go ahead and get started while I check to make sure she’s ready.” My right arm wasn’t so sore or crippled now that I couldn’t support my weight as I crawled between Joan’s legs and touched her wet pussy with my tongue. She started shuddering immediately as Beca sucked on her nipples. It wasn’t long before she’d had a nice orgasm. I moved up her body and easily slid into the swampy mess between her legs as Beca straddled Joan’s face.
“Our turn,” Beca said. She sawed her pussy back and forth on Joan’s mouth while she leaned forward to kiss me and I palmed her little tits. It was Joan’s pussy surrounding my cock and Joan’s tongue lapping Beca’s clit, but it was Beca and I who were making love to each other. We had a long release, joined by Joan, and the three of us cuddled up in bed for a round of kisses and sleep.
“I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed,” Simon said after we started the interview. “I’m not dumb. I just couldn’t get my head around school books. I wanted to be a social worker, but college just seemed to be beyond my reach. When I joined the National Service, that aptitude and interests test zeroed right in on where I should be. It matched my desire to help people, my skill with a hammer, and some management abilities I didn’t even know I had and planted me in a housing project to build homes for low-income families. It couldn’t be better.”
“Simon, what’s been the toughest part of your service?” I asked.
“Well, Jennifer and me were childhood sweethearts. We were ready to get married and start a family right out of high school. But the service made us wait until we’d completed our two years. And since I moved around a lot on my construction jobs, we weren’t always near each other. We learned how to time our schedules so that we could visit each other regularly and our love grew stronger as a result of having to work at it a little. We got married the day after our two years were up and I re-enlisted. Our first is due in four months.”
“Congratulations.”
“If you’ll excuse me now, my crew is here and I don’t like to keep people standing around when they come to work,” Simon said, shaking my hand. We turned and Lou followed him with the camera as he greeted the morning crew and gave out the day’s assignments.
“Jacob! You did it!” Cindy screamed at the top of her inside voice. “We made it all the way through the first movement. I love you!”
It wasn’t perfect by a long shot. There’s one bit in “Francesco en Paraiso” that has some tricky fingering that I slid around on a bit, but it was the first time we’d made it all the way through the five-minute movement playing together. I wondered if I’d ever have the same dexterity with my fingers on the guitar as I had before the shoulder damage. My arm was tired by the time we finished.
“We should work on the center section some more,” I said, watching her put away her flute and run a soft cloth through the tubes. I guessed we were done with practice for the day, so I put my guitar in its case.
“I have my music partner back,” she said as she perched her bare bottom on my lap. “Now I want my lover. Take me to bed and love me, Jacob.” I didn’t have a problem with that. Though, I couldn’t just pick her up and carry her like I once would have. Still, we skipped upstairs to the big bed where I could not only appreciate her front side as she mounted me, but watch her backside in the ceiling mirrors. Every angle was exquisite.
Cindy had been just a little off, ever since Remas left for Seattle in February. I was seeing her in her moments of wild abandon now. She was happy. I filled my hands with her tits and filled her pussy with my cock. She bounced away with her voice rising from the typical soft indoor tones to her sexual ecstasy volume. Watching Cindy posting on my cock was almost as good as having my cock buried deep within her. She was like a kid on a carnival ride, waving her arms in the air and shaking her head side to side, her black hair whipping around her face.
I pinched and pulled at her sensitive nipples and she skyrocketed, letting the entire household know she was coming. Then she slowly collapsed forward, her weight supported by my hands on her breasts, until we could reach to kiss each other. She’d been so intent on fucking when we reached the bed that we had ignored all foreplay as she mounted me. Now we caught up with kissing and petting each other, even as my cock continued to push into her incredible pussy. I could see it over her shoulder in the overhead mirrors.
“You haven’t come yet,” she whispered.
“No. Not yet.”
“Do you want anything specific? You can always have my butt, you know.”
“Yes, I know, but I just want to feel your weight on me as I slide in and out of you. You are such a miracle to me. I really thought I was only ever going to be your accompanist. I scarcely imagined what it would be like to make love to you.”
“Yet here we are,” she said. “I knew we’d be lovers the night of the cast party when you stepped between Tom and me. I saw it all like a vision as Desi led me to the piano where they were singing showtunes. I saw right to this moment when I’d lie on you with my legs spread open to give you as much access to me as I could. As I welcomed you to fill me. Fill me, Jacob. Think what it will be like to put a baby in my tummy. How you’ll have to use the back door just because you can’t hump around my big belly.”
“Do all my wives want babies?” I asked as my cock pulsed with the impact of her statement.
“Not all. But we’ve already started planning an expansion of the house in Indiana so we have room for children.” That was news to me and I jerked up into her pussy and let go with my load as she whined a mini orgasm that I could feel fluttering in her vagina.
I need to seriously consider how I’m going to provide for a houseful of babies!
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