"So… Chief, you got a plan for how we're going to keep your mom from turning us into Suite Tools?"

Tara was sitting with Karen and Bling, where this whole sad thirst show had started. Where they found the twig that could and didn't snap him.You'd think it would be an excuse for the Dame.

"Yes, I do," Tara said as she got up and stepped toward the same vending machine Boy G.I. Joe had been using earlier. Then she hesitated, and Bling, as if sensing the nawing question restraining Tara's action voiced it for her:

"Karen, you recorded his impression, right?'

After a grunt of confirmation the need for restraint broke and Tara made her selection of a drink, all while Karen turned to Bling with an inquisitive look on her face. Then after a pause, she took a knowing breath, and refocused on Tara.

"You think I can, do what exactly? *Track him?*"

Tara finished gulping the bottle and tossed it onto the train track nearest to them, expertly landing it so that it wobbled and weaved into an unsteady equilibrium of balance.

"No, I will do that, you will just give me the taste. I'm the better *bloodhound* after all."

Bling licked her lips, closed her eyes for a moment.

"You do realize that he kicked all three of us soundly in the box back at round one... Single Handedly I might add."

Tara let out a belch and sat back at her seat.

"First of all, baby G.I.Joe got lucky, because we underestimated him and started off playing *nice*," her words laced with venomous fury.

She cracked her neck and popped her shoulders.

"And Second, The Dame gave us *full freedom* in this matter. She wants him dead, *yesterday*, and The Dame wants us to use him to set an example."

At that Karen grinned.

"Well, if that's the case then, this just went from a challenge to a vacation."

…

"So your home here is a mere summer home," Eli asked conversationally.

Ruth was currently occupied, so Eli was busying himself by having small talk with her family. Ari-Paz; The world famous uncle was here after all, and though the man apparently had avoided Eli earlier so as to not steal attention from Ruth, he had eventually come around to the idea of talking with the newcomer.

Because Eli had connected the dots that he was a part of this family anyay.

"Yeah, dad Itamar was the team leader of the team that was responsible for the secondary lifting mechanism and power source." Ari-Paz said as he made the leftovers go away into the ether. Then, from that same ether, he brought forth some cakes. "He helped make this whole city not only safe here, but if need be, it could detach and go to space in mere moments."

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Eli was attempting to multitask, munching on an orange-coconut cupcake, as he listened. However it wasn't until he finished the last crumbs, that he managed to fully get the implications.

"Seriously?"

"Aaand, they're my parents."

'Well that Makes more sense,' Eli mused, but not nearly as much as he seemed to think it ought to for some reason.

"Ari-Paz, how does that work exactly… I mean, They are your parents, sure but how does that qualify them for this…"

As he became distracted with possibilities, his hand froze almost involuntarily on the next cupcake, as a now smiling Ari-Paz educated him.

"Well you see, at the time I was the only teleporter in the entire world, and the whole Ma'Arechet Amitot paradigm wasn't a thing yet; wasn't even imagined yet."

Next to them, Batia tuned in from her nani- interface. Head tilted in question.

"A what paradigm?" Eli figured that either she never used that particular phrasing or Ari-Paz never used it around her.

"A Concept Suite," Eli quickly supplied.She nodded at the explanation and went back to analyzing a series of prompt procedures from the company she consulted at. Eli refocused on Ari-Paz, shoulders tensing back, exhaling. "So they wanted you to help cut the cost of moving everything."

"Basically, yeah. So since I was still technically a minor my dads had a life-long green card, and still do, as long as they don't spend more than two weeks in the rest of the country at any given time."

Eli closed his eyes for a moment, about to say several things. But no words would come. So he ended up saying none.

Ari-Paz smiled for a moment to himself.

"They are not citizens. Nor have they made the request to be."

Eli heard the flushing sound that meant that Ruth was about to come back.

"OK, then. It's just the thought that, just because someone has understood a concept, They get that kind of concession for them and theirs… it's weird to me."

Ari-Paz raised a shoulder at that.

"You do remember that, my *concept* aside, we still exclusively used Rockets back then, right?"

He then *brought forth* several glasses full of beer.

Eli noded, exhaled. "Yeah and that we also had no proof that souls are real, how they relate to the universe, among many differences. I get it, still weird."

…

The toddler started playing with his fingers, and something was off, there. Eli couldn't look away.

"'Cle Pazi? What that?"

Then Ari-Paz actually *paid attention* to the boy, and as Eli looked on, he felt a concept tickle, Perception loci perhaps?

"Ari? What are you…" Eli took a step back, his mind suddenly blindsided by a massive incoming data transfer, almost falling back in the chair he just got up from. Ari-Paz, the apparent source of the transfer, barely even paused.

"Eli, I think you have friends coming?"

Eli shivered as his interface started translating and feeding information from Ari-Paz back to him in manageable chunks, a lot of it.

"What?-" It was a lot, mostly about something- no 3 somethings, directly above where the younger teleporter had just been pointing, and then it clicked.

"Oh, yeah, we definitely need to call the police."

Ari-Paz turned toward the hallway, then Ruth returned to the room, apparently also having received the key information of Ari-Paz's perception-data transfer.

"No time for that, Ari-Paz, I want to help here, can you get us to my baby?"

Eli took a breath, paused.

"I don't think you can claim you're responsible here-"

That discussion may have gone on for some time, but the ceiling began to leak and it was far more than a tiny trickle.

Batia clicked off her main app, and looked up for a moment.

"There are not any pipes there, all the pipelines are below us or in the walls."

The ceiling began to break down, something was definitely coming through.

And then they were all gone, yet not gone, but here instead. Eli almost puked, and barely stiffled a dry heave.

"What the-"

Ari-Paz began to explain.

"We're currently in my house in Israel, and no longer in the my parent's American summer home."

'Oh an instantaneous change in static momentum and gravity, damn variations in international standard settings,' he mused internally. "And here I thought you're better at the whole living teleportation thing."

Ari-Paz ignored him, he turned to Ruth.

"I brought your baby here, do you want me to leak your location to them after you go away?"

Eli shattered a glass he was holding.

"Sorry, didn't mean to do that, that said, I… I have no…"

Ruth hugged him.

"I know, we met two days ago, and?"

He almost laughed for a moment. Then hugged her back.

"Thank you. I honestly thought those three were just a minor incident."

…

Tara was fuming.

"That pinata dared to run off."

Bling shrugged.

"Isn't this kinda our whole point anyway Chief? Be scary and he runs off like a three legged puppy?"

Karen answered before Tara could.

"If he did that the first time, sure, kinda. This time though? We were supposed to have him and anyone with him trapped, buttered, and broiled alive like lobsters."

Bling rolled her eyes, and went to break down and digest any information in the local system. After all, people in a hurry rarely deep scrubbed everything important.

Behind her, Taras skin had ripples and shades going over it.

She really wanted to kick the little cunt's ass, too bad she still didn't quite step out of line.