“Put the phone down,” I was yelled at by a sergeant aiming a weapon at me. They were all aiming weapons at me and spreading out.

  “No.”

  “Put down the phone,” he said louder, as if that made a difference.

  “No,” I said in the same reasonable tone.

  There is no sign of Soph and Carla yet. Soldiers were heading around the back of the cabins, so I pulsed Carla, “Back.” I hadn’t seen Murray anywhere.

  Then Captain Grumpy Pants got out of a vehicle.

  “Put the phone down, Mr Wilkinson. We both know it is not going anywhere,” He said.

  “Ah! Captain Grumpy Pants, How was Wellington? I missed you the other day.

  “It is Captain Griffiths to you!” The sergeant said.

  “Thank you for identifying him on the live stream for me.”

  “We both know it is not live. Put it down. You have broken the quarantine, and we will search you and your vehicles back at the camp.” Griffiths said.

  “Of course, it is live. Oh, you think your cell jammer is stopping this. No wonder you are confused. This elderly couple,” I panned the camera to show them in the window of their house watching, “rented us these lovely cabins, which I would give a five-star review for. They are a lovely couple with lovely cabins. They don’t really deal with cell phones at their age, so their local wifi signal is going out on an old-fashioned copper wire if you believe it. This is Sophia Hardcastle's social media account ah! Here she comes now. Say high to your fans, Soph.”

  Soph gives them a cheery smile and a wave, and Carla follows her out in scales. They act like a couple of idiot teenagers, “Here, get me with the army trucks in the background that will make a good shot for my viewers.”

  “You shouldn’t have said that Soph,” Carla said in a giggly voice. “They have guns and might shoot you!”

  “Put the phone down and put your hands where we can see them against the truck.”

  I handed Soph her phone and stepped to the front. “No.”

  “Sergeant,” Griffiths said.

  Suddenly, I was tackled to the ground, and my arms were grabbed behind my back. Then I brushed them off and stood up, “That was rude.” The two soldiers were unconscious on the ground. I hope they are unconscious. I have not had much practice getting the dosage right.

  Soph was still recording. I think I was supposed to be the example to cower them.

  “What did you do to the soldiers!” Grumpy Pants demanded. Tension was ramping up.

  “It is all in my file, Captain. I have an enhancement, which means my skin is poisonous. I got away from them as soon as I could, so they shouldn’t be dead. It is all in my file. I shouldn’t be touched by non-enhanced. You are remarkably uninformed for being in charge,” I was happy with half-truths as he did seem ignorant, and it was a good story for the public as Soph was still live.

  “Captain,” Soph said, “I suspect you have not been briefed properly on our status and that we are Consultants to the military transporting samples to Dr Amanda Mohan here, as per our agreements. Dr Mohan will verify this.”

  “That is absolutely correct, Captain. You know who I am, don’t you? I am sure Sophia’s audience does, as I have been on her media before.”

  I moved back near Soph, and two other soldiers checked the unconscious.

  Amanda moved forward as well, “I am a doctor. Let me see. You should call an ambulance straight away. The poison is a neurotoxin.”

  “Bethel!” I yelled, “Can you call an ambulance?” Bethel scurried off before Grumpy Pants could say anything. I figured the more witnesses, the better.

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  Grumpy Pants sent the sergeant to the door to take control of the elderly folk, but Bethel would have called already as Howard came to the door to talk to the sergeant. Landlines are great.

  “You will all be coming with me for a full audit,” Captain Grumpy Pants said.

  “No, Captain, we will not,” I said. “You have no authority to detain us, and this is a free country. We are consultants and not under your authority.”

  “Captian,” Soph said in a conciliatory manner, “I suggest you inform yourself, and we will report through the proper channels rather than in the street at night, where this looks like an abduction and robbery. We will get our perishable material to Dr. Mohan's lab, and you have our numbers to arrange for a meeting at a proper hour.”

  I picked up an ambulance siren in the distance. I think I am becoming the Grumpy Pants as I am about to do something stupid and fuck them.

  “Captian,” Soph said urgently, “We are leaving now. Please move your vehicle out of the way, and the ambulance is here for your men.” Soph pushed me toward the driver's seat in the truck as she got into the SUV with Carla. Amanda got in my passenger seat. Rich jumped on the back, giving the soldiers behind a growl as they got too close. Bloody Soph picked up on my mood, didn’t she? Mutter mutter.

  The army vehicles moved to let the ambulance through, and we drove out of the same gap. Soph was giving her viewers a close-up of the army vehicles—the power of social media and an old-fashioned landline. Then I saw a sudden movement, and Murray jumped through the open window of the vehicle. I wonder where he had been?

  Grumpy Pants is not very competent. All he needed to do was cut the power to the house. One of the vehicles followed us.

  “I think our days of working for the army are over,” I said.

  “Yes, I got that impression and have seen it coming. I have many offers of work overseas, and they do pay more,” she replied.

  “Do you want to work for us? We are going to look for anomalies in the Pacific and experiment while we charge rich people to Enhance. We will probably be in the tropics somewhere, with a base on a tropical island.”

  “That is a possibility. I will be free to research what I want rather than be directed. Any idea where?”

  “No, but mutated fish were caught off Fiji.”

  “If you end up in the Southern Ocean, you can forget about it; otherwise, you have my number.”

  We dropped her off at the hospital. Carla hopped out and grabbed a bunch of grapes from the chilly bin, “Don’t forget your perishable samples,” she said, then she looked at me, “Soph said you were about to do something stupid,”

  “Who me? Never. Don’t believe her lies. Do you think Grumpy Pants is the vindictive type?”

  “Absolutely. If this was a novel, he would be a classic villain,” Carla said.

  “He is probably the hero on a mission. We are the villains thwarting his plan,” I replied.

  “Are we heading to Auckland?”

  I nodded, “Let me check the vehicles first.” I pulled a tracker off the SUV and the listening device from the cab. My truck was still clean. I wandered over to the army truck following us, “Here, I believe these are yours. We wouldn’t want to be accused of taking off with army property.”

  “You need to stay local,” the sergeant said, “to report to the Captian.”

  “Of course,” I said. “He has our numbers.”

  Then we hit the road. I followed the SUV, and the army truck followed me. I hope they had plenty of gas. It is a five-hour trip. Everywhere in New Zealand is local, right?

  We were on the road by 9 pm and hit Auckland’s Southern Motorway at about 2 am. The Army truck was nowhere in sight. We rolled into the Hardcastle Shack before 3 am and got a few hours of sleep.

  I woke up and swam in the pool. Soph’s mum, Sam, joined me for a morning swim. I gave her a head’s up on the shit that was coming our way.

  At breakfast, Soph had an email from the army lawyers, claiming a breach of contract, illegal removal of items from the quarantine and the demand to return all material immediately, including an enhanced rabbit and fantail.

  Soph wrote to her lawyers to reply and said that the rabbit had escaped our containment on the Napier Taupo road, and the fantail flew away before we left Napier. All other items have been disposed of.

  In other words, Carla had finished the grapes on the trip north.

  We had a text from Ata about mid-morning that she was sailing out of Whangarei and would be in Auckland sometime tomorrow.

  Soph, Carla and Soph’s mum spent the morning organising a business plan. I took Rich, and we went to find a beach.

  We got back early afternoon, and Soph and Carla caught me up on details. We also started a sister company in Australia named Bright Blue Australia. This would make it easier to operate in both countries. They tried to show me the business plan, but I wasn’t that interested, and a lot of it depended on where we would find an anomaly. Fiji was our first stop.

  Because the Army was claiming breach of contract, there was not likely to be a severance payout, which meant Carla could not afford her $100k. This was going to be covered by Soph, and they wanted to get married before they left the country. Not every country allowed for same-sex marriages, so they would tie the knot in a small ceremony in a week’s time. They would then honeymoon on a crowded boat to Fiji.

  The other big news was that Soph had a positive pregnancy test.

  Do I really want to be crammed on a boat with two pregnant women? Maybe I can fly to Fiji and meet them there.