Chapter One - Part One

The Three Mouse-keteers

Life is better than death, I believe, if only because it is less boring and because it has fresh peaches in it - Thomas Walker

Nanon’s eyes opened wide and she sucked in a breath. She was drowning. She tried to grasp the lapel of the man squatted next to her.

"Its all right! I called for an ambulance. You’re going to be okay!" Victor heard the rattle and gurgle as she tried to breath. Tears came down his face.

"I’m sorry. I called for an ambulance! I hear them. Just hold on." He picked up her right hand and she moaned so he laid he back down. She was trying to move her other hand around her neck. He saw a string. The kind that company ID’s are on. He pulled it out for her.

Grenada Science and Technology Center was spelled across the top in large bold letters. Underneath was a photograph and her name, Nanon Peche, Physicist.

"Dear God. Okay, okay, okay." Victor was near panic.

Nanon began fighting to breath yet every movement brought excruciating pain. A face loomed over hers.

"Do you know her name?" She heard him say.

"Uh, uh, her ID says , uh, Nan On Pech EE." Victor pointed out her ID card.

"Nanon, you’re going to be okay. We’re going to take care of you." Roger Temperson tore open a package as her eyes rolled back.

Michael Kakis rolled over as the ringing of the telephone interrupted the last of his REM sleep. He tried to hold on to the image but it dissipated with each insistent ring.

"Oh, fuck!" He sat up and threw a pillow at the phone, knocking it off its base. Laying back down, he flung his arm over his eyes. He heard his cellphone ring from the living room.

"Jeezzzus Kee-CHRIST!" He rolled over, pulling the pillow over his ear about the time an insistent knocking began at his door.

"Fucking goddamn idiots," he mumbled as he flung the covers back and traipsed to the door. He pulled it open and found one of his partners, James Plomme, on the doorstep.

"What is it?" He barked. James blinked several times, his cellphone still in his hand.

"The boss said we need to get to the Center."

"I don’t work on Saturdays," Michael began to shut the door.

"Mike," James put his foot in the closing doorway, "here." He handed him the phone. Mike stared at it for a moment then put it to his ear.

"Hello?"

"Mike, its John. I need you to come to the Center."

"Sure thing," Mike mumbled. He handed the phone back to James.

"What the fuck is going on?" James blinked several times and stepped over the threshold.

"We’re needed in surgery. One of the physicists was in an accident."

Mike picked up yesterday’s pants, khakis as usual, and pulled them on.

"Who?"

"Nanon."

"Nanon Peche?" James nodded as his eyelids fluttered.

"Do you know any other physicists named ‘Nanon’?" He paused blinking, "She was riding her bike and was hit by a car."

Mike gave up tucking his shirt in.

"How bad is it?"

James pulled a small slip of paper from his shirt pocket. It was covered in a personal shorthand only he understood. James Plomme was a "round" man. He was short and rotund with large, round wire-rim glasses. His head though, was egg-shaped, with a horrible comb-over which started just above his left ear. He always looked rumpled, his shirt unbuttoned right above his highwater pants, giving a peek of his rather deep, hair bellybutton. Today he had forgone his usual grey fedora.

"Its very bad, very bad," he shook his head, "umm, to start with she has multiple internal injuries caused by several broken ribs. At least a ruptured spleen, she may lose a kidney and her liver is lacerated. They say she spewed like volcano when they pricked her chest."

"They had to punch her?"

"Yes, yes, yes. She was coding as she came into the trauma center. Collapsed lungs, bleeding out, you know what its like. Paramedic got an IV started, kept her blood volume up as much as possible. Probably saved her life. Well, not that she’s out of the woods yet."

"What else?" Mike sat on the arm of the couch.

"Naturally, several fractures. Uh, um," James peered at the paper, "right arm broken in five places, right pelvis and femur, several vertebral cracks, possibly from hitting the windshield but no spinal cord impingement. They said the worst is a comminuted fracture of the left tib-fib, possibly a pilon fracture. She’s in surgery right now. If she makes it through the first phase you and the good Doctor Farben get to put her back together again. John insisted on it," he ended in a rush.

Mike’s vision shifted and he felt as though he was no longer sitting in his living room. He heard James as though from a distance.

"Yes. He’s concerned, I think, about the possibilities of nerve damage too because he asked Jamie and I to be there. Perhaps he’s thinking in the future, you know, with the bionics." That’s what it was to James. A clinical matter. An opportunity to experiment.

Mike heard himself ask, "Is there any brain damage?"

"They didn’t say and she is in surgery so I’m assuming not and I’m sure she had a top-of-the-line helmet on. Although its quite a surprise the impact didn’t break her neck."

The blast of a car horn made them jump.

"That’s Jamie. You know how impatient he is." Mike walked over and parted the curtain. There was no mistaking the mop of wiry, curly red hair protruding from the car window.

Mike stuffed his wallet in his pocket and picked up his keys.

"Well, let’s get going."

Before they could walk down the flight of stairs leading to his townhouse, the horn blasted again. James waddled across the parking lot.

"Shut up you fool! Quit that!" He turned to Mike and blinked several times, "are you riding with us?"

"Might as well." James waved Jamie to the backseat.

"What?" He stuck his head out the window again.

"Get in the back."

"Let him get in the back."

"Just get in the back."

"One day I’m going to be taller than you," Jamie grumbled. He unfolded himself like a scarecrow from the front seat. He petted his beard and Mike wondered if a mouse would fall out of it. One could live from the crumbs in it and be obese. Jamie raked his long fingernails through it gaining a severe look from Mike before he dipped his head and sat down. Jamie rested his long forearms on either side of the seats and leaned between them.

"I just can’t believe it. Oh, our poor Nanon. Do you think she’s going to be okay? I mean, do you think she’ll live?" He continued without waiting for an answer, giving away the incredible crush he had harbored since she came to Grenada six years before.

"You know, one day in the cafeteria she said ‘Hi’ to me? I dropped my tray on her foot. She was so nice about it. She even helped me pick up what we could and she blushed such a nice peachy color. Who would have thought she would say hi to me?"

He shook his head, "Was she like that in college man?" He tapped Mike on the arm. James looked over at Mike too.

Mike averted their looks and watched the scenery. The same scenery he had seen for six years but now everything seemed much more vivid. Every green, red, orange, rust, yellow and blue, even the very blue of the sky, was more vivid.

"Yeah," he answered, "she’s always been like that."

"Didn’t John go to school with you guys too? He did, didn’t he?" Jamie stroked his beard again.

Glancing back Mike answered, "Yes, we all went to school together. You should know that by now."

"Well, its not really my field of speciality to know all the tiny details of college careers."

"You seem to know a lot about Nanon and she’s not even in our section."

"No need to get huffy. Who wouldn’t want to know? I mean, you have seen her right?"

Mike turned in the seat, "I can’t believe you! Think with your big brain instead of your little one. I think she would appreciate that more right now!"

To his left, Mike saw James blush, while Jamie rocked back in the seat, sulking.

"There’s nothing wrong with admiring her. She is beautiful and that doesn’t mean that I’m not concerned for her!"

"Then stop acting like a lovesick 15 year-old with his first hard-on!"

James cleared his throat, "Gentlemen, now is not the time for either of you to be snipping and sniping back and forth. We need to work as the team we are. We haven’t worked for the last five years to make the strides that we have to lose our heads at the last moment."

"Well I’ve been working for the last 11," Jamie interjected.

"Well I’ve been working for the last 15," James responded, "but I think we both know that it all changed when Mike came on board."

They were referring to their bionics experiments with mice that showed startling and promising results. James and Jamie had both worked hard but it was Mike who had elevated the program to one of the most progressive in the country. James did not care how they got where they were going, only that they went and he was a part of it. Jamie was resentful. He felt as though the time he had put in laying the groundwork for where they were now had been overlooked and underappreciated.

Each breathed a silent sigh of relief as the hospital came into view. On the other side, connected by an underground tunnel, sat the Science Center. It seemed odd to Mike to be ascending the elevator to the fourth floor. He was rarely in the hospital and even when he was, he made a quick consult and scurried back to the mouse hole.

The elevator doors slid open and John Grenada was waiting for them. He stepped forward with his hand outstretched.

"Mike, James, Jamie, glad you made it so quickly." He shook each of their hands and met their eyes with his intense green ones, "I appreciate it. Its not often one of our own needs our help and not just any help, but the best. Dr. Farben is waiting." He turned and left them to follow in his wake as his long strides ate up the distance across the waiting area. It was a shock to James and Jamie to see their Second-in-Command in jeans and a sweatshirt, his dark curly hair haphazardly finger-combed.

"John, what’s her condition?" Mike asked, reaching his side.

"I’ll let Niels fill you in."

Niels Farben turned from the in-house phone and held up a finger.

"Yes, okay," he hung up and turned, advancing on them, "Dr. Kakis, Dr. Ananas, Dr. Plomme, good to see you again." He engulfed each of their hands in his. Niels Farben was a giant of a man with the touch of an angel. He spoke no guff, took no guff and was professional to the core.

"Well, our girl is pulling but she’s got a lot ahead of her. Let’s go in the back before we scrub so I can show you." The doctors went through a set of wooden doors close to the OR suites. Niels lead them into an office where Nanon’s x-rays were lit up on the wall.

"As you can see," he pointed to one of her hip, " she has an acetabular fracture, somewhat displaced. It’s going to need a few screws, so is the femur," he pointed to the next x-ray, "although its practically non-displaced, I’m concerned about the stability due to the pelvic fracture." He moved further down the line, " And then the arm fracture. Several fractures but none displaced, we can cast it."

"This is my greatest concern," Niels pointed to the next x-ray. A collective wince was heard as Neils continued, "as you can see, we have several problems with the left leg. I’ve only seen this maybe two or three times in my career," he pointed to the x-ray with a pen, "a completely crushed ankle, several fractures in all three bones and two more breaks above it although not too close to the tibial plateau. We’ll definitely need to use an external fixator. What type I’m not sure" Neils moved closer to the x-ray.

" I can’t tell at this point whether we can get by with just a simple one or if we’ll need to use the circular wire. I’m especially concerned about compartment syndrome and we may need to perform a fasciotomy at some point depending on the swelling and pressure. Right now our main goal is to save the leg, although we cannot rule out the possibility of amputation."

He frowned, "It just all depends," he said, as though thinking out loud, "It doesn’t help that I’ve only seen the x-rays as opposed to the patient. She was already in surgery when I got here and I just don’t trust the ER doctors to properly assess pulses and capillary refill as an orthopedist would."

"Well," he paused and looked at the group of men assembled, "my, my what long faces. Cheer up gentlemen, it could be worse."

How?" asked Jamie.

Niels Farben sneered, "She could be dead already. Buck up gentlemen and scrub in."


Bristles against knuckles and fingernails, especially Jamie’s, and rushing water punctuated the silence between the men in the scrub suite. Mike’s eyes met John’s through the glass partition. John’s face was unreadable but Mike knew that beneath his calm exterior was a man in turmoil. He nodded at John and John nodded back, a hopeful signal between the two that all would be well. Mike wondered if it was a blessing or a curse that he would not be present for the surgery.

As a member of the Administration he was specifically forbidden to do so. Legalities. Bullshit administrative orders.

"Ready?" Niels Farben asked.

"As I’ll ever be."


Mike found him looking out the floor to ceiling windows at the late afternoon Autumn.

"Hey." John turned.

"How is she?"

Mike dropped his head, shaking it, blew out a breath and laughed half-heartedly.

"She’s tough as fucking nails."

A smile played across John’s mouth until he turned, looked up at the ceiling, drew in a deep breath through his nose, and exhaled rapidly.

"John, I know its none of my business," Mike began.

"You’re right its not," John faced him, "just leave it alone." What his face, his posture and his eyes had not said before, they said now and Mike acquiesced. He stepped back, his hands on his hips.

"She’s gonna be okay. It’s not going to be easy but I think she’ll make it. After all, she got to keep both kidneys and both legs. We wouldn’t want her to be unbalanced."

John nodded, "Thanks Mike."

"Don’t thank me. Niels did most of the work."

"Thanks anyway. We’ll talk later."

"Sure." John patted his shoulder as he walked by and left Mike in silent contemplation.


"What are you doing?"

"I’m exercising my right to kiss your neck."

Nanon flexed her shoulders and giggled, "I need to get up."

"Something’s already up."

"Mmmm, I can feel that it is." She turned and pushed him back on the bed, straddling him. He ran his knuckles over the curve of her breast. She captured his hands and wove her fingers into his, then pinned them down next to his head, her nose touching his.

"Got a few more minutes for me baby?"

She answered by snaking her tongue in his mouth and sliding further down his body, her smooth, slick opening teasing his arousal. She kissed and teased, rubbing her engorged nipples against the hair on his chest. He knew she liked that so he indulged her until he was on the edge himself. Pulling his knees up, he surged inside of her, eliciting a muffled moan which vibrated inside his mouth.

Sitting up, she flung her hair behind her and set the rhythm, leaning back slightly against his knees. Nanon loved to display her pleasure and her body to him. He watched as the root of his cock became visible and then disappeared within her sleekness again and again. They found each other’s eyes. He swallowed hard and closed his eyes.

"Baby?"

He could only moan in return.

"Baaaaby, better open your eyes." The motion stopped and he found the strength to look at her. Licking her lips, she gathered her breasts in her hands and rolled her nipples between her fingers as her vaginal muscles contracted, caressing him from the inside.

"Nanon," he whispered. She bowed her back and touched her mouth to his stomach and ran her lips up his chest, to his neck, flicking her tongue in his ear, before cupping his face with one hand and guiding his mouth to her nipple. She leaned over him on all fours, his cock barely inside her as he licked and sucked and caressed her, every inch of flesh he could reach.

Rocking back, she took more of his cock inside her but still allowed him to suckle her. She knew how much it turned him on. The teasing, her pussy working the head of his cock until he lost control.

Swiftly, he grabbed her and tossed her over onto her back and he settled between her legs.

"You ready for your fucking little girl?" It was his turn to tease as he long-stroked her, brushing her clit as she struggled to grind against him. Locked now in a battle of wills as she whimpered and he denied himself the rush of slamming his cock inside her, filling her with himself. He long-stroked again, just barely touching her button, when she locked her legs higher around his body and met his downward push with an upward thrust. It was enough, it was enough, it was enough. Cradling her ass in his hands he brought it home to her.

The heels of her feet dug into his back below his shoulder blades as she met him, one jarring, filling thrust after another. She moaned and sucked at the hollow of his throat and then tilted her face up, their eyes meeting, his head dipping, her’s lifting for that final kiss. Tearing her face away, she gasped and moaned. Her body bowing with pleasure; pulsing and tensing around and with his.

"Oh baby," he whispered into the hollow between her breasts as he filled her, his body quivering and erupting, a roaring in his head.

Consciousness came slowly and he shifted his weight off of her and then rolled to the side, a slight hiss of sensitivity and then she was tucked under his chin, as they caught their breath. He felt the subtle shaking of her body as her head laid buried in his chest. Knowing she was crying, he held her closer to him.

"Oh, Nanon, my beautiful one, its all right." She clung to him, slinging her leg over his hip to draw him even closer. He chuckled.

"You can’t get inside of my skin love."

"Don’t make fun of me," came her muffled reply.

"I’m not," he smiled into her hair, "God, I love you woman!"

Her tear-streaked face popped up, "Then why are you laughing at me?"

"Trust me," he smoothed the tear and sweated soaked hair off of her cheek, "I’m not."

She contemplated him as she sniffed and shook her hair back.

"I love you, even if you do laugh at me when I cry because you fucked me so good." They laughed and she dove into his arms. He brought her against his shoulder.

"You love me huh?"

"Yeah, it was hard at first but its gotten easier over the years."

He traced the fine delicate bones in her hand before raising it to his lips and kissing her palm.

"Then marry me and have my babies." He looked down at her, waiting for her normal reaction. Biting her lip she looked up at him.

"Okay."

He sighed.

Wait.

"What?" He raised up on one arm, dumping her on the pillow, "Did you just say ‘okay’? ‘Okay’ as in ‘yes’?"

Laughing, she threw her arm over her head, "I believe I did."

"Oh my God!" He pumped a fist in the air, "She said ‘Yes’!" He bent down and kissed her hard.

"You just made me the happiest man in the world. Say it again. Tell me you’re going to marry me"

"I’m going to marry you."

"Marry me?"

"Marry you."

He kissed her again and held her face in his hands.

"I love you so much baby."

She reached up and ran a her fingertip down his lips, "and I you. Now, let me up so I can get a shower. That bike doesn’t ride itself you know."

Flopping back in the bed, he listened to the sound of the water start, the door slide open and close...

as the nurse walked in. John Grenada didn’t move as she came closer, his lips buried in Nanon’s palm, tears running down his face. The nurse paused, as though she wanted to say something and then turned and left him with the steady sounds of the machines humming.

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