You’re getting another Twilight installment today. This is a few pages later in the story from last week. I’ve already posted Charliess run after a tough day at work. This is what Harold, our hero, does the same afternoon.

NOTICE: This material is copyrighted, first draft, certainly contains errors, and possibly not even going to be in the final draft of anything. Do not quote or repost anywhere or in any format. Thanks.

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Harold pulled into his driveway and completed his usual security routine. He changed into his stretched out sweat pants and old T-shirt; he could breathe again. He thumped down the stairs and into the kitchen. He peered into the freezer, pulled out a frozen meal, popped it into the microwave, and set the timer for five and a half minutes.

While the meal was heating, he padded into the living room and flipped on the large screen television, turning the volume up so he could hear it in the kitchen. He flipped through channels until he found a movie just starting. The microwave dinged, and he padded back to the kitchen, snagging a Diet Coke from the fridge as he walked by, he slid it onto the table. Pulling the dinner out of the microwave, he felt the bottom. It was warm to the touch, so he pulled the cellophane off, grabbed a fork and began eating, mulling over what he had to do tonight–after bowling, of course. Sometimes bowling seemed to get in the way, but he knew it made the team stronger. When they didn’t have the bowling season to draw them out, they tended to stay locked in their vaults. They all had other interests, but bowling was the catalyst that drew them together. The challenge of bowling bad enough to be second from the worst kept them having fun. Since they were good bowlers, they had fun coming up with challenges to bowl badly. Of course, their antics annoyed some of the other teams, so they had fun with that, too. So, fine. Bowling was a given. Tonight’s opponent was one of the teams annoyed by The Geeks casual attitude. Tonight would be raucous. His challenge would be to keep that mood going knowing what he had to tell them afterward. That was his challenge, and he had … he looked at microwave the clock, two hours to figure it out. Plenty of time. He grabbed an apple, a bag of chips, another Diet Coke, and climbed the stairs.

He made sure the lights were on in the master bedroom and master bathroom. Then, he stepped down the hall into a closet. He always felt like Maxwell Smart on the sixties series Get Smart! The light, on a motion sensor, turned itself on when he opened the closet door, and he reached through the clothes rack, keyed in the alarm code, then he spun the dial on the X-11 combination lock. The door opened easily, bringing the clothes rack with it, and he slipped inside, pulled the vault door shut behind him and reactivated the alarm. He called the alarm monitoring company and passed the appropriate voice code which verified he was authorized entrance and not under duress. He completed the security checks. They were a pain, but this working environment had worked well for Relative Research to carry out its Black Program operation. He double-checked the email tasking he’d received that morning from the command post.

Pete had received one too, but, being strictly management, he didn’t warrant a home-based vault, so he would get it next time he logged in at the main office, which was on the base in the Agency complex. Pete usually only went out there once or twice a week, but earlier that day, Harold had casually mentioned he should have lunch with Suzan soon. Since Suzan was Pete’s wife, but he never had lunch with her, at least not at Harold’s suggestion, it worked to alert Pete to stop at the office sooner rather than later. And Suzan did work out there, so it worked as viable cover. He had to get back to planning how they were going to handle this new challenge.