“Rick father is equal owner of house. Rick father is equal owner of everything because of equivalent genetics!” Kohei countered. Max wondered if he should add his own “hell, yes” or if that would be throwing fuel on a fire already on the verge of exploding. Max didn’t mind explosions in general, but not with his kids in the room.
“I am owner with locks of passcodes. I control exits!” Einstein countered, and that did seem like a significant concern.
“Let’s talk like sapient, intelligent creatures who all want to find a solution,” Max suggested. Talk of control and locks was making his blood pressure rise. He could protect his family from racism and financial abuse, but he couldn’t do anything about locks.
“Solution. Hidden ones require Great thinker. Great thinker must be infallible. Therefore I cannot be Great thinker.” He waved several tentacle stumps. “Offspring of Great thinker will be Great thinker.”
Max tried for reasonable. “Offspring of Great thinker is Rick, husband of an Unbalanced one, father to three annoying offspring, owner of a spaceship and friend of an Unbalanced one in that spaceship who will...” Max blew out a breath. “Okay, I have no idea what she’ll do, but Rick is not a clone of you.”
“Biologically–”
Max cut him off. “Morally, psychologically, educationally, and practically, he is not your clone. He is obsessed with American television commercials and reruns. He complains about the children wasting resources and then buys more because he loves them more than the money. He’s not you.”
Einstein slid toward Max. “He becomes Great thinker for Hidden ones or he will not have Unbalanced mate. He will not have annoying offspring.”
Rick’s tentacles all curled into tight balls, and Einstein’s remaining tentacles were stiff as a board. Now was not thetime to argue. Emotions were too high and Max was afraid that Einstein might follow through on a threat.
“Rick, kids, maybe we can go upstairs and talk. Alone.”
“With crazy in-law,” Xander said. Maybe he meant to be heard and maybe he thought he was being subtle. Either way, Einstein heard. He raised a tentacle and the overhead lights dimmed and pinpricks of flashing purple stars illuminated the wall. Max had no idea what that meant, but he didn’t plan to wait around and find out.
“Xander, out. Now. James, Kohei, move it.” Maybe Rick tiptoed around telling the children what to do. Maybe Max could even understand that now. However, he was more of a hard-ass than his marshmallow octopus and his children knew it. They all headed toward the hallway with reasonable speed, even James who grumbled incoherent noises and had to be ushered out by Kohei.
“Abomination,” Rick bugled at his father.
“Equal abomination,” Einstein bellowed back.
But then Rick moved to Max’s side and followed their children. “We are screwed,” Max muttered. He hoped Rick would disagree. He wanted some reassurance that those purple lights hadn’t been a threat and that Rick could circumvent the locks and that all would be well.
Instead, Rick said, “Double screwed with cherry on top.”
Chapter Sixteen
Max waited until they were upstairs, back in the room where he had woken before he turned to face his family. Curly fries, curly fries everywhere. Max felt guilty that he had brought half his family to this place. Technically, Rick had driven, but Max hadn’t vetoed bringing him along to chase after their kids. He should have. Einstein wanted Rick, so Max should have kept Rick as far away as possible.
“What are we going to do?” James asked when the door closed. He kept his largest eye focused firmly on Max.
“We all calm down and take this one step at a time,” Max said. “First, can we get out of this house?” Maybe he shouldn’t ask about this where Einstein could have surveillance, but they had to plan. Hopefully Einstein was too arrogant to watch them every minute of the day. If he had more situational awareness and operational security good sense than Rick, they were all screwed.
When Max looked at Rick, Rick sank down on his walking tentacle until even his smallest tentacles brushed the floor. Max walked over and sat on a weird fluffy cushion so he could hold tentacles with his husband.
“I assume that means we can’t get out,” Max said. “That’s okay. We’ve faced worse odds than this.”
Rick’s voice was rough like rocks tumbling downhill. “He is brilliant with the invention of new locks. I do not recognize design or function.” No one did guilt like Max’s husband.
“You can’t know everything,” Max said. “If you have enough time, can you figure out the locks?”
“Unknown.” Rick shrank even more so that his head was now resting on the ground. He even tried to pull his tentacle free from Max’s grip, but Max held on tighter. Rick had taken one too many emotional hits having to face his abusive father. Therefore, Max assumed Rick would be out for the count during this rescue. Even if he had the technical skills to hack Einstein’s locks, he didn’t have his head in the right place. “Okay, so we need to stop and think about what resources we have available.”
“Anger,” Kohei bellowed. “We have much, much anger.” Kohei’s walking tentacle was so stiff that he was almost as tall as Max. James trumpeted his agreement and moved to his older brother’s side. It was possible that Max had raised more than one child with anger management issues. He was starting to think that his parenting skills were not as good as he'd assumed.
“Anger is fine,” Max said, “but remember that we have to play along with Einstein until we can figure out a way out of this mess.”
“Query. Definego along,” Xander asked.
“Go along,” Max said. “We cooperate. We pretend that we don't hate his guts and don’t think that he's a complete moron. That’s what it means to go along. We don't do anything to make him angry and whatever he says, we agree or at least we don’t disagree.”
“Bad plan,” James yelled. “Available resource: me. I excel at weapons design. I will design a weapon. I will create prototype. I will shoot Einstein through many, many eyes.”
