Most of the work to rid Sifu Zhang of his cancer was done in the first session that night. I returned to the studio after spending the day at Hannah’s Home and I handed Sifu one of the milkshakes. He didn’t look pleased.
“Vanilla? The chocolate is better.”
“The chocolate is contra-indicated with the medication, which is already mixed in. Drink up. That may possibly be the most expensive milkshake in the history of the world.”
Sifu drank it down and I took him into the training room. “You may experience some disorientation after taking the medication so it’s recommended that you sit down. At the same time, you’re not supposed to fall asleep. I figured that we could relax and meditate for twenty minutes and let the medication settle in. After that, you’re good to exercise, but you’re supposed to stop if the feeling of disorientation kicks in again. I think that after today, we should do this first thing in the morning, so that you’re fully recovered by the evening.”
Sifu agreed and we sat down to contemplate our energies or something like that. I still didn’t really get the whole mediation thing and I wondered if everyone else was just faking it too. After a minute of pretend relaxation, I shifted Sifu and myself to L1 and set up a trigger field to alert me if anyone came within three feet of the door.
With Sifu in stasis, I got to work removing sections of the cancer by shifting them to L2, where they fell on the plastic tarp that I’d set up earlier in the day. I love it when a plan comes together! With only fifteen minutes to work with today, I took out all the easy to remove cancer and left behind anything close to an artery or anything vital. I made sure to take the inside of the cancer and leave the shell intact. By the time I was done, eighty percent of the cancers were gone. I found that it was much easier to remove the cancer while he was in stasis, as I didn’t have to deal with moving cells. Tomorrow morning I’d start with the more detailed, painstaking work.
Sifu Zhang didn’t notice when I snapped him back to reality. For him, those fifteen minutes didn’t happen and he looked surprised when I told him a few minutes later that the time was up.
“I think that the medication has played with my sense of time. It only felt like a few minutes to me.”
“Well, I did warn you. Although, if that’s as bad as your side effects get, you’re very lucky.”
“What else can I expect?”
“Not much more than you already have. Fatigue and achiness mostly. The medication does stimulate your body to work harder so you might find yourself getting hungrier than you’re used to.”
“That would be a welcome change. Even the small milkshake was hard to finish.”
Sifu stopped following my lead once we left the room. That was only as it should be. He was the Sifu and I quickly learned what Uncle Magnum meant when he said that he’d been coddling us all these years.
Getting up early on Tuesday sucked even more than on Monday, because I was now sorer (Is that a word?) than I’d been the day before. Now it felt like I’d been run over by a truck that then reversed and run me over again. I caught Sifu and Uncle Magnum as they were heading to warmup and I sent Uncle Magnum back upstairs so that Sifu and I could meditate in the training room. I’d thought about having Uncle Magnum join us, but it wouldn’t make sense if both of them had the same time disorientation.
Today I had enough time to remove the kidney cancer almost completely. There were still some cancerous cells along the edges of where the cluster was and I’d get back to them in a few days. All three of the cancer clusters had shriveled up since last night and I was going to make sure that they didn’t make a comeback.
After the meditation, I left the two of them to train. Of course, I came back right away in R1 and followed their workout. My last year of high school was starting in a few weeks and I wouldn’t be able to come here every morning. I was going to take advantage of this unique opportunity.
At Hannah’s Home later that day, Shauna and I discussed the security arrangements that we wanted to put in. Major Convington had reminded us that anyone could just drive in and cause trouble. Many of the people that would be staying with us needed a place that they could feel secure in. It was going to be a challenge to give them that sense of security, without making them feel that they were prisoners. We’d decided to add a security wall along the entire front of the property and cover it in ivy on the inside. The rest of the property would be fenced in and bushes would be planted along it so they would eventually mask the fence. The front gate would be strengthened and controlled remotely.
“I think we’ll need to add more cottages in a few months. Word is slowly filtering out about us and several organizations have reached out to us. I expect our cottages to fill up quickly once those organizations have had a chance to come by and make sure that we’re real. Your friend Mary at the soup kitchen says that she knows several people that she’ll be sending out way when she sees them again.”
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
“Are we ready for to take on more survivors?”, I asked dubiously. Starting up Hannah’s Home required a lot more planning and preparation than I’d expected. Some days it felt like the to-do list was never ending.
Shauna thought about my question for a few moments before answering. “I think we’re ready. Maybe not ready to ramp up to full capacity in the next few weeks, but we can definitely handle up to 12 people. Having Shelley here as a trial run has let us see what we were missing and we’ve fixed most of the issues we discovered. We’re nowhere near where we plan on being in a year, but we can start with what we have. Just a safe place to stay, regular meals and someone to talk is more than many organizations can offer. We’ve got a hell of a lot more and as we take in more people, we’ll be able to provide even more, such as full-time teachers for different age groups, child care assistance, and job placement.”
“I’m excited to see all the hard work that we’re doing coming together. This place is going to help a lot of people. How are Jenny and Gabriel doing with the first list of accounts that I gave them to look into?”
“From the five accounts that you gave them, they’ve been able to identify three buyers so far. They think that they’ll be able to uncover enough information on five more buyers this week, but the other twelve transfers had multiple layers of protection and Gabriel says that he’d need access to the bank’s systems to follow the trail properly. For the three buyers that they’ve managed to identify, they’re all on the west coast and I passed on the information to the new contact that your CIA friend arranged for us at the FBI. His name is Kevin Mayner and he and his team followed up on the leads that we gave him. One of the leads led to four arrests and freed six children from a farm in rural Oregon. They were being used as manual labor. Over the next two weeks, Kevin expects to be able to make arrests on the other two leads that we gave him. We are officially his favorite people right now.” Shauna was practically glowing at the news and I shared her joy.
“Is there anything we can do to help the children?”
“All of them have been returned to their parents, except one. It turns out that her parents were two of those arrested. She’ll be turning eighteen next year and asked to stay with her aunt until then. All of the families were given information about us and Kevin put in a good word for us. None of them have reached out to us yet, but they may in the coming weeks.”
“We’ll need to have a little party to celebrate our first success. Also, please have Gabriel send me a list of what he information he would need from the banks to find the other buyers. I’ll need the name of the bank and the branch. If Roger is ever in the area, he should be able to access their systems.”
“With anyone else, I would have serious doubts about what you just said. Roger is in a category all his own.”
“Yes, he is.” I felt like I was tooting my own horn, but saying nothing would seem weird. “Oh, that reminds me of something he told me. I can’t believe that I almost forgot. He said that we should contact Captain Stevens in Wilmington and ask him about one of the survivors out there that seemed to have taken charge of the others while they were being held captive. He said that when the police released the victims, she talked to each one and exchanged contact information. We need to tell Stevens that this woman was the one he had to send officers back in for and find in the offices. If Stevens can give this woman our contact information, Roger feels that she’d help us reach out to the other survivors.”
“I also have a few ideas for Hannah’s Home. I’ve spoken to Dean Kronin at Galt and he’s agreed to put us on the list of organizations for which volunteer work will count towards the university’s community service requirement. Since he’s on our board of directors, he wasn’t hard to convince. With school starting up again in a few weeks, we should be getting some calls from interested students. We’ll need to make a list of tasks that they can help us with. I’ll check with Sister Clara to see if she’d like some help as well. Galt has a medical program and having a few of the upcoming doctors and nurses on hand to help out might be useful.”
“I don’t doubt that she’ll be able to fill up their time. Having seen the masses of patients the sisters care for during a regular clinic day, I can imagine that she’ll welcome the help.” Shauna had spoken to me in awe at the dedication of the sisters.
“I’m going to call the dean again this afternoon and see if he’s willing to take the volunteer idea to a higher level. I’d like to see if some of Galt’s schools could use us as a semester project. The professors would oversee the work and grade it and the students would get real world experience. The school of architecture can design our new cottages. The business school could work on a marketing campaign for us or help us source new suppliers. Maybe their school of education can send us teachers for the children.”
“I like the way you think, Abby. I get on that list for the volunteers and I’ll review the list of schools Galt has. One other thing, though. I know that Hannah’s Home was created for the victims of human trafficking, but would you mind if I use it to help another group of people?”
“I’m all for helping people, Shauna, but I’m not keen on splitting our focus.”
“Oh, no, it’s not that kind of helping. I just want to put in place a hiring policy where we give preference to companies owned by military veterans when we have contracts to give out. Many of these contractors are smaller companies and they don’t have the resources to compete with the larger firms in terms of marketing and presentation styles.”
“I wholeheartedly approve of giving back to those who give us so much. Their prices would have to be competitive though.”
Soon after, I returned to my grueling training with Sifu Zhang. I was happy to be learning so much by training twice a day, but at the same time, I was so looking forward to the start of school.