“Honey I was hoping we could have dinner soon, I have steaks ready for a barbecue if that sounds nice, and some potatoes, and I even baked an apple pie for desert.”

Those words made me think mom had a message for me, she never offered desert up front and usually would not even make desert because she was worried about the sugar going to my belly. But I figured she had to make a convincing call to make the dinner happen tonight.

” Ok mom I will be over tonight, what time works for you?”

” Seven O'clock and please dress well”

What? ” Umm sure thing mom” . What the heck?

So I arrived with the ride-share and knocked on the door. Dad opened the door and gestured for me to go in. He followed me with a curious look on his face. Was that whimsy? What was going on... I tried to think about when their birthdays were, when mine was (nowhere near now) or if there was a holiday, I forgot about when I walked into the kitchen and saw mom sitting at the table with another lady. Shit.

“And there he is, come here son and meet April. April moved in next door recently and I thought to greet her to the neighborhood with some good food, but the steaks come in a four pack and with three of us it just did not make sense to not have a fourth here, so I decided to have you come over as well.”

Yep, it was a date ambush. Or an ambush date. Or maybe just an ambush in general. No honor amongst family eh mom? But I knew this was going to be an effort by the resistance and I figure I just got set up with a potential match. And since mom was now acting as a busy body about my life it fit that she would try to make a match, or ten since I planned to probably reject the first bunch of them.

“Uh hi, I am glad to meet you” and then I turned to dad who was now trying to gently prod me forward and said ” I need the restroom, I will be right back” .

Inside the restroom I turned the water on and then ran some over my hands and splashed the water into my face. Why did they even feel like I needed this? I did not like this idea at all because then I would have to worry about the lady until I knew her good and this was all but like an arranged marriage if I even tried to accept one. In other words we would have to fake love and desire because it just would not work. I stayed in there a requisite amount of time to have done something in the restroom and then opened the door.

Unexpectedly dad was right there and he put a hand on my shoulder.” Son I hate to break this to you, and I know you well enough to think this through. You are going to try to reject her and keep rejecting girls your mom will conveniently find for you. The problem there is simple..” and he paused and gave me a look directly into my eyes ” and that problem is she will eventually think you are gay and start trying to introduce men of that persuasion to you. Some will be pushy, some will be passive, but she will do that. She will keep pushing people at you until you give up and select someone. By then the best match might have decided to go elsewhere and then you might be forced into dating at length someone you really do not care for just to keep mom from pushing more at you.”

It was not just an ambush, it was a trap I could not escape...

“So my advice son is that you don't just reject some woman out of hand and you try to see if you can connect with a lady. You won't need to just go with April, find someone you like and can enjoy life with and be ready to do some committing. Your status in life has changed and being a bachelor is probably not the best route and being some sort of playboy with temporary girls is not going to make your mom happy, so deal with it.”

I sighed, then drooped, then mumbled ” Ok dad” . I already had lost not just a battle but the entire war. Anything less and my mom would introduce torture upon me until I yielded to her desired results.

So under his escort I walked into the kitchen. Sure enough there was four places set on the table and April was helping mom by straining out some baby carrots that had been boiling clearly by the way the steam was coming out of the sink. Mom was outside at the grill with tongs grabbing the last of the steaks off and putting it on a large platter.

Dad directed me physically to a seat with a hand on my shoulder, it seemed dad too was completely in on the ambush. I wondered if there was a way I could make him feel as uncomfortable as I was. Thanks a million dad.

Places set and food being put on plates I waited for my doom. At least I could have a decent last meal I guess.

Interestingly enough dad sat down and then started playing with his silverware.” I am starved, hurry up girls!” he said even while he was sending me a five character message 'Safe!'. I assume this meant that April was part of the resistance and that this was a true meet and greet for a possible new or second handler.

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Soon enough the table was ready and mom and April had taken seats. Due to circumstances no one offered a lords prayer, even though it was technically allowed, because it could also be seen as a sign that you might seek to follow God more than the Elite's. Knowing I was going to have to give a bit of replies I added a second sitting of mashed potatoes and gravy as well as extra carrots.

Things did progress to messages, we would provide small talk while sending covert messages, all four of us. Verbally I found out that April was working at a nearby Hilton Business Class Hotel, designed specifically for low level business workers who's rooms were being paid for by their companies. I also found out she was my age, loved the food we were eating, had a little bit of a sense of humor, and all about her family... Admittedly it was harder than it sounded to make small talk to cover for everything. Everyone had to drag out their own meals as much as possible to get the messages being sent.

Ultimately I learned that she was born into the resistance like I was, that she was a mid level messenger who used the counter desk job as a means of passing information via a colored blemish on a room card. With access to one hundred colors and with the card being able to be divided into 12 regions on front and back this meant that just over 11 bits of information could be exchanged if only one color blemish was there. Except that there was more to the routine. Each blemish could have an angle, with 4 directions being possible, each blemish could have a shape with a total of eight shapes possible, and there could be two blemishes which increased the number to just over 20 bits. But every customer also received two cards so in truth it was 40 bits but the person getting the message would have to determine which 20 bits was first and which second. That was small beans however. At 40 bits you could only send 5 ascii characters normally, however it was clear she was using a second language, specifically Italian, in her messages and they have 21 letters in their alphabet. Numbers were not used at all which allowed for larger messages. This meant that 9 characters could be sent but the people getting the messages could not know the contents until they took the card description and their estimated color value (often people might confuse a pink for another pink for example) to a designated decryption person in their cell. This also meant that messages could take a while to understand and that messages might get garbled. Fortunately the high error rate and the fact that it often took eight or nine people getting parts of the messages meant that the chance of interception was very low and more so the ability to crack it was almost impossible.

Mom, who apparently had more knowledge of April, explained part of that and how her messages were considered more of an opportunity message than a critical message. During my training I learned that opportunity messages would be things like the route for an Elite to travel, a flaw in a security plan, unguarded equipment the resistance could use, and so forth. It was probably an opportunity message that had set up the night where the made man was eliminated and the resistance cells that participated, myself excluded, were captured or killed because of.

April was just part of the group involved at the Hotel it seemed but she was the one who designed the code going out and therefore planned the messages. This indicated she had a strong math and artistic mind.

I also learned, from dad, that April had been matched to me from code stolen from E-Harmony the dating site. Apparently the resistance was hoping that a woman who would match what my parents thought of me would help me and her click. I do admit her math skills and the fact she had zero problems in the silverware code system was nice.

April was a brunette, with long hair in a single ponytail, she was only about 5 foot 6 inches but that helped her otherwise be hard to notice if she tucked in the ponytail or made a good bun. I found that she was rather attractive and if I was forced to go on a few dates a smart and attractive woman was not necessarily a bad thing.

In code dad prompted that I needed to take initiative and ask her on a date in case we were being listened to. I really hate being so paranoid that we could not have a dinner without worries about our despotic government listening in with bots and agents.

“Umm, so April, would you like to go to a movie or something this weekend?” I asked lamely. Honestly it was a pitiful request made bad by my almost stutter.

“Yes that sounds nice”

“Err, can I get your number then?” and I pulled my phone out of my pocket.

She calmly reached out, grabbed by phone, and dialed in her number and called herself before hanging up. Her ring tone was Sounds of Horizons, the Samsung official phone sound. That was interesting because her phone was definitely not a Samsung. Maybe that was an effort to blend in if it rang at a bad time?

I looked at movie schedules on my phone and saw a few movies were playing and asked ” Anything specific you want to watch?”

“How about Scoops with Nathan Viscount?”

Scoops was a movie about a father who worked as a ice-cream man at a local store in a small town when some bad guys kidnapped his daughter. Only they did not know he used to be Special Forces. His tag line supposedly ran along different flavors of ice-cream and his big one that all of social-media was running with ” You want another scoop with that?” after he had defeated someone. Supposedly it was a great film. It also would not allow any trade-craft at all that he had been trained in, some family code could work but my family would not show an outsider those methods. Less what I expected from a lady but sometimes women were unfathomable.

“There is one playing at 6:30 at the local Movieplex, how does that sound?”

“I live the house just to the left of this one, will you be able to pick me up?” she said, a smile on her face. Hmm, dimples. Dimples are nice.

“yeah I can arrive at six and that should give us plenty of time to buy tickets and some drinks” and suddenly I had a date.