Chapter 13

"Hold the two pieces firmly together, then feed it in, pressing gently again on the peddle."

Shannon did as the instructor told her and pressed down just slightly on the foot peddle. The serger sealed the two loose pieces of cloth with hardly a noticeable seam. It looked beautiful, Shannon thought. That wasn't so hard.

She was taking a sewing class, a new interest for her, and enjoying the activity. Shannon knew she could make some of her own clothing, custom clothing, that would fit her like a glove rather than hang on her like an ill-made tent. Clothes made for the generic female figure were not getting it done for her and something cute to wear was becoming increasingly harder to find, even in casual dress, as Shannon usually covered herself in. Her anatomy had developed in ways that were too perfect and too exaggerated, and Shannon felt she had to do something to find clothes that fit better.

"Be sure and tie it off. Knit cloth and synthetics are especially vulnerable to unraveling and what we want to do is keep those threads tight and hidden," the instructor went on.

There were about seven ladies and one man in the upstairs room of the sewing machine sales and fabric shop. She had been taking lessons for about three weeks, twice a week, now, and enjoying it. She was almost ready to buy some machines, a sewing machine, and serger, but she felt she needed to practice this a bit more, get a little more knowledge under her belt before she decided which machines to buy. Money, of course, was no object, though sewing could be much more intricate if you wanted to do a first rate job. Shannon wanted to make a good decision about which items to purchase.

An hour later, Shannon left the after business hours class and got into her truck. It was almost dark. She felt she had to force herself to use her vehicles for transportation more and more these days, as teleporting was becoming all too easy and convenient for her. No matter where she went, she could get there with much less fuss and concern by just using her thoughts and skills, thinking, this restaurant, that store, that city, country, etc., then with a bit of concentration, she was there. All she needed was a current photograph for places she didn't really know and had never been to. It was spoiling her. She actually had to get a passport, she discovered, when going overseas or just out of the country. The hotels required one, to register, when she decided to stay over.

She desperately wanted to visit Egypt, but the turmoil over there was getting too serious with people killing each other over stupid ideas. Years ago, Germany and Japan were the nut-cases of the world; Then the U.S.S.R.; And then Korea; Now it was any Islamic faction that deemed itself wiser than all the things human history has taught them and the rest of the world.

What was it, that thing the philosopher George Santayana said? Shannon tried remembering; 'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.' No. She'd visit the tombs of the pharaoh's some other time. She'd let the liars and violence loving people kill each other off. Shannon didn't need a stray bullet in the chest just because someone decided another person didn't play marbles the way they wanted them played.

So she settled on Ararat, in Eastern Turkey, for a little adventure. That nearly 17,000 ft mountain so shrouded in myth, fable, and clouds that seemed such a mystery to her and everyone else. She had always been fascinated with tales of it being the resting place of Noah's ark. She had no idea if it even existed, though, but it would be fun to scout around. With her skills, she could visit the place with impunity and very little risk of being caught by the government, dangerous thieves, or even the wild roaming bears in the area, much less the tribes that seemed to hate all the white skinned Europeans, just because they assumed they were devout Christians.

For several consecutive days, Shannon found little evidence of anything ancient except rocks and long piled up glacial deposits, and snow. She'd slept in her own bed at night but returned again and again to the place where the most reputable, level headed sources, said they had seen the ark. But she saw nothing. The snows were too deep and the mountain too big to really discover anything mind blowing.

Finally giving up, Shannon returned home to Scottsbluff Nebraska and rested and, started taking her sewing class. It occupied her mind as she experimented with so many of her powers. Teleporting, of course, and stealing money from various sources, healing old people, that could barely walk or seemed too ancient to get around well, when she saw them here and there, in stores or riding her bicycles. Even the gold from Fort Knox was kinda fun to take, using her blue lightning gifts. She wore a mask and baggy clothes, though, for that one, so she couldn't be linked to any future investigations. But Fort Knox was a let down. It looked nothing like the vaults in the movie of Goldfinger fame, inside. That old James Bond show. The musty old place was filled with little cement rooms and ugly black bars. But it was easy enough to walk through any of the safe guards and doors, making holes in them with the mere ability of her thoughts, big enough to walk through, and then taking one or two bars at a time. They were extremely heavy, even for someone like her, that was in pretty good shape. The ingots of gold were now in some rather large safe deposit boxes, here and there, around her city of Scottsbluff, with no one the wiser. She had only taken 28 of them but kept one at home just to touch the gleaming metal, from time to time, it was so beautiful. It was a high tech hiding place, too. Behind some cooking bowls in the kitchen.

As Shannon cruised the streets in her vehicle, vaguely watching the dark gray of the evening sidewalks on the sides of the roads interrupted, from time to time, by those amber street lamps, she thought of going to Terry's store, upstairs to his living quarters, and hanging out with him for a while, but decided against it. Jason might be visiting, this late in the day, and it would be embarrassing for her to walk in on them. She didn't fully understand why, yet, but all of them could be awfully boring, every so often. She thought it was because she was so well read, but it just seemed like they were dramatically immature at times. They were young, not as young as her, but hers and their interests didn't always coincide.

On a whim, driving down the main drag, Shannon thought she'd go into a bar. She didn't drink and she almost knew what to expect inside there, people with their reasoning centers blocked of good judgment, knowing the first thing one lost when drinking was your ability to make good decisions and reason well. But she didn't know why she wanted to head there, she just did. With an alcoholic mother for an example all her life, she knew she would hate it and these people, probably, but still she decided on visiting.

She made a wild U-turn in the middle of the main drag, just past the bar, spun around in the far lane, smoking the tires of her hot rod pickup with ease, and shot into the bars parking lot with a huge jolt as she went through the dip built into the driveway's curb. She was restless and this was bad decision making, she fully realized, even without the alcohol clouding her mind, but she was determined.

As soon as she walked in, the huge bar keep came over and I.D.'ed her, she looked so young. Shannon gave him a little mental push with her powers that could make people do what she wanted them to do, see what she wanted them to see, and that made him read her age as twenty-four on her driver's license, even though she was only eighteen, now.

Half the bar and then some turned her way, staring vacuously, their eyes roaming up and down her beautiful body, even the women, and after the bar keep took her order, a large Coke, they all seemed to stare all the more. She was the most beautiful creature to ever grace the filth covered, sticky, cement floor and plastic red bar stool, she sat at. Several men moved towards her almost immediately and as she noticed them, made little pushes on their behalf, as well, making them feel as if they had to leave and go home right then and there. She made them forget her. It was fun, sort-of, thwarting their inquires and crude advances, but after a while, she let guys approach her. They spoke to her, but she didn't speak to them. She quickly got rid of them when they started to get rude, and they all did, but shortly felt they had to leave the bar.

Isn't there anyone around here with any sort of intellect? she wondered. If anything was out of whack, she felt the world of people certainly was ... Shannon needed some kind of intellectual stimulus to keep her interested in life, and someone in this dive, if she was going to stay. She had grown awfully bored with people, lately.

"Hey, what's going on here?" asked the bar keep. "You're driving all my customers away."

"I haven't said a word to anyone but you. I'm just sitting here drinking my coke. What are you doing to them? Watering down their drinks?"

"I don't do that kind of thing."

"And I haven't talked to anyone. Why are you asking me?" she stared him down. He looked her up and down then left her alone.