Mary watched the last of assorted curiosity seekers and officials leave her domain, she had a discussion with Lewis Carroll and introduced him to Moriarty (and Mycroft) and vice versa. She concentrated and conferred with herself before drawing on more energy and manna.

Then the fence around the property was absorbed and replaced with the help of Moriarty. The boat house emerged as a solid stone building with a steel door in the long wall as well as the large shutter blocking the boat entrance.

Mary drew a long breath and looked round. She felt irritated, so much was wrong. Things just didn’t feel right.

She reached deep and merged lightly. Mary and Mary drew on what they knew was right and rebuilt slips, boat ways, upgraded the harbour and generally uncluttered the yard. This allowed her to add a small parking lot.

She watched as Kent got in a taxi and was driven away then she eyed the central office building. ‘Nah, better leave that till later, as much as it needs replacin’ I’ve really done too much already.’

* * *

Oscar was feeling irritated with Mike, admittedly he didn’t have much of a life but it was Saturday. ‘If it wasn’t for my curiosity I would never have agreed to this— He, who am I fooling, we’d all help each other out.’

The boatyard was different. They had replaced the old rusty fence, and there seemed to be a new building down near the water. He drove up to the vehicle gate. The guard was some kind of dog man hybrid type in a neat bluish green uniform.

Oscar was just parking in front of a tired run down looking building when Cindy arrived. He waited for her to park and get out of her car.

“Good morning Oscar, I see Mike’s not here yet.” She looked around and started walking towards the small cluster of people down by the waterfront. Oscar accompanied her.

“The girl does look a bit like Mike but she must be almost a foot taller than him,” Cindy observed.

“Mornin’,” greeted Mary, “you must be Oscar an’ Cindy, sorry ‘bout the first names but papa never told me your surnames. I’m Mary. Think you’ll like the surprise.”

“Well we’re Oscar and Cindy Mary. This place looks different somehow.” Stated Oscar.

Mary smiled, “Well I’ve arranged for some maintenance and some clearing up, that’s probably what you’ve noticed. Papa should be here soon and I’ll show you my little surprise. Hope you think it worth comin’ round on Saturday.”

* * *

Mike was surprised when he saw the guard, his eyes narrowed as he remembered the story of the wolfmen who had cleared the road in front of his ex-wife’s house. ‘Gonna have to have a little talk with Mary,’ he thought.

Mary grinned and waved at her family and with a follow me gesture she headed for the boat house’s new door. She grabbed the handle and turned it anti clockwise and pushed open the door. She noted Oscar eying the small numeric keypad sitting in the wall next to the door and her grin widened.

“It’s fake Oscar. On the second try an alarm will sound an’ it’s incapable of open’ anythin’.”

Then she led the way along the interior quay and down the stairs to the computer room. Once there she stood back and waved the three techies through while winking at her stepmother.

The three programmers looked round the large air conditioned room with interest they wandered over to where Moriarty was working at a console chatting softly as they looked round. The glass walled room with a series of dull green metal boxes caught their interest. But when they looked at the monitor Moriarty was using the talk died out.

Moriarty slid out of his seat, tapped a pad and murmured, “Passwords,” before moving over to stand beside Mary. “Mom, sis, allow me to introduce my good friend Professor James Moriarty.”

“Pleasure, well you were right Mary,” Jenny giggled at the sight of her husband and his friends staring at a monitor frozen with expressions of shock on their faces.

Then they were all sitting at separate monitors with pages torn from the pad frantically typing and looking if possible even more incredulous.

Susie glanced at her giggling mother and asked, “What’s so funny mom? Dad may be acting a bit stranger than usual with a new computer but...”

“Mary told me your father would loose it over a bunch of tin boxes, and just look at him, them gazing like some lost souls at the tin boxes and then back at the screens.”

Susie giggled, “Guess Mary knows dad as well as we do. When do you think they’ll come up for air?”

Mary lifted one shoulder as she watched Cindy, “Oh they’re in for a shock very soon, Cindy’s just found the top secret software cache.”

And sure enough Cindy squealed and started issuing instructions. All three froze only their fingers and eyes moving.

* * *

The women were starting to get bored when finally Mike rose and moved towards his eldest daughter with a dazed look on his face. Oscar and Cindy reluctantly joined him.

“Mary. How in hells name did you get your hands on that... that... that beauty? I’ve never seen anything like it... And the software... it... it... it’s...” he trailed of looking bewildered.

“It’s cutting edge military...” whispered Oscar.

“And Mo—Mary’s not even enhanced it yet,” grinned Moriarty.

“Enhance? How the hell can you enhance something like that?” asked Cindy.

“So guys. Will it be good enough for your own company? Do you want it papa?”

Mike managed a very half hearted glare after he cast a glance of pure desire at the computer in question.

“Want it? Good enough? Please stop joking Mary. How did you get hold of this... this marvel?”

“Why papa, I cloned it from the one in Pearl. Mycroft an’ Moriarty tidied it up and moved the programs into that cache. An’ this one has more memory than the original, had to create somewhere to keep that software. Suspect the government wouldn’t be too happy if they knew I had it but it’s not stolen. It’s new an’ I guess it might be patented. If so my bad.”

“Hey guys, dad, that drooling is kinda gross,” observed Susie jerking another helpless giggle from her mother.

* * *

Mary left the three dazed programmers to their new toy and climbed the stairs back to the yard; she was accompanied by her stepmother and sister. The leopard twins bought up the rear. Moriarty watched the three for a while and followed the ladies up the stairs.

Mary just stared when Kent returned driving a nice shiny deuce and a half. As soon as Kent parked the truck in the lot and clambered out of the canvas topped cap Mary strode up to him.

“What’s goin’ on Kent? I asked for a truck yeah? But...” Mary waved a hand indicating the big truck, “this is a big beep army truck.”

“But Mother, you asked for a big truck, this is a big truck. The twins asked for something they could get in and out of without having to open a door, look, canvas top on the cab and the truck bed is open.” Kent Clarkson grinned.

Mary glared at the pale grey truck. At least it wasn’t green. Then she looked back at Kent, “So who helped you? Don’t believe this thing was just waitin’ at a used car lot.”

“But it was Mother, and well...”

“I might have had a hand in it, and maybe Mycroft helped too,” added Moriarty.

“So we’re gonna visit the cape in that?” Mary sighed, “Well at least I’ll fit in the cab.”

Susie giggled behind her and Jenny asked with a grin, “Why is he calling you mother sweetheart?”

Mary drew in a breath as she tried to think of a suitable reply.

“All her people tend to call her Mother as she always seems to try and mother us. She can be very protective of those who give her loyalty.” Offered Moriarty.

“What he said,” agreed Kent. “And it irritates her too which can be fun.” He grinned widely.

= = O = =

Commander Meadows cursed, and then he ordered his team to assemble in the conference room. He connected his laptop to the projector and when everyone was present he started the clip that the coast guard had recorded of the Storm Dolphin idling in the gulf as Mary landed her catch then of it curving and turning into a faint indistinguishable blur.

“I take it you all recognise that.” He glared at the screen that was looping and once again showed a fish being reeled in. “That was taken this morning by a Coast Guard chopper, or more accurately, it was taken in the Gulf of Mexico around dawn not far from Florida.”

Meadows looked at his team and continued, “Captain Gallows wants to know how Mary got to Florida without any of the people watching her seeing her get on a plane. I suspect the heat is coming down from on high. More to the point is how did she get that souped up speedboat to Florida this morning when it was in Maui on Wednesday.”

“Some digging has revealed that she, or rather her holding company has purchased a boat yard on the Florida Panhandle.”

“What holding company sir?” asked Tod.

“Something she, or rather her parents set up for her so as to facilitate her work for us.” Meadows looked at his smartphone. “Mary has a company that handles enchanting, that’s the one that deals with the government. Then she seems to have perfected a biological process that allows her to collect Mercury from the sea. Then there’s this – virtually bankrupt boat yard. And just today she seems to have incorporated Silver Dolphin Security.

“Let’s be honest, her parents are minority share holding board members of the holding company so much of this is probably down to them. Probably the father.”

“Are we supposed to head for Florida?” asked lieutenant Partlow.

“No thank god. She is supposed to be in school on Monday so we are to make ourselves ready to meet her flight. Some other team will have the headache of guarding her in Florida. They might do better as they won’t have Gallows hanging round their necks.”