She wondered what that was about. She'd checked herself in the mirror. She didn't look odd or weird."I got made co-captain of the basketball team," Jo...dy announced."Well, good for you," her dad said."Huh! Girls' basketball," Steve sniffed."What's that supposed to mean?" Jody glared."How could you even make a basketball team, short stuff?" Mark grinned."I'm not short, okay!" She was exactly five feet three, no matter how she tried to exaggerate it."You ain't no giant," Jason laughed."Midget. ‘Old enough to know that profanity is the sign of a weak mind,’ she shot back. She had to scramble to keep up with him, the only act of kindness he’d displayed to her was he helped her locate her four suitcases at the baggage blame area. ‘What do you need four suitcases for?’ he groused as he loaded them onto a skycap’s cart. ‘We’re going to be here for at least two months, right?’ she asked. ‘Well, I’m not going to walk around New York without clothes!’ ^^^ The hotel clerk was extremely. “The AI told me that I was to show up with two concubines.”The man looked at me and the three women with me. “You seem to have three,” he said.“Lenore already visited a pod,” I replied. “But when the call came I was not in my home pod, so she escorted Aine here.”The attendant looked surprised. “You weren’t in your pod? Why not?”“I want to get to know others,” I replied.“Why?” the attendant said as he worked to get three pods open.“I’m serving in the same military,” I replied. “And I might have. **** James looked at Mary with as much disdain as her disavowed daughter. ‘Was that necessary? She just lost her father today, did you really need to strip her of her mother as well?’ Mary’s mouth pursed as if she’d bitten into something rotten. ‘Oh, don’t give me that ‘butter won’t melt in my mouth’ look Mr. Ryan. I know the escapades you got into with my husband, may his soul rot in hell!’ James grinned, his bared teeth looking extremely white and sharp in the reflected light of the back.