What Freedom Means (12)
Jack reacted quickly. In the space of five seconds after hearing the day worker, he jumped up and started running to the house. Mike jumped up, shouted some orders to the day workers, and Wendy yelled for us to get the pool side door open on the barn, as we were closest. Tal'ena and I started running for the door and saw Mike and Wendy not too far behind us. We had the doors open by the time they caught up to us, and bolted inside. Two of the day workers were carrying the chairs, with the third carrying the small table that Mike and Wendy had placed their robes upon. Jack had gone inside the house and was proceeding to lock the doors. I noted that the news crew had started to run after us. Tal'ena shouted for me to help her with the doors, and we got the doors closed and locked shortly thereafter. Mike and Wendy were heading to the locker area and the day workers had tossed themselves bodily into the pool, obstently to cool off a bit. Tal'ena had walked over the the A/C controls and was cranking the system up. I heard a noise coming from what looked like the door to a closet, and when I opened the door I saw... Jack. "I'll 'plain later. Lemme thru!". I moved aside and he went straight to the pool and jumped in with a sizable splash.
Tal'ena had gone into the office by the pool, and was looking at the security camera. We watched as the news people tried the doors we entered first, and then went over the the visitor's entrance, and tried the intercom. Wendy and Mike walked in wearing swimming outfits as I watched. Tal'ena noticed the two and gave up the seat to Mike. Wendy had found of the portable phones and was talking to someone on it, while Mike took the intercom. The news reporters wanted to interview the newly freed morphs they have heard about from the restaurant the night before. Wendy tapped Mike's shoulder, and the two whispered something briefly between each other. Mike requested the reporter's name, which the reporter gave and Mike wrote down. Mike then told him that a press release would be issued in a few days, and that he would receive a copy of it. He then went on to state that we would not give an interview until the press release was out. The reporter tried to ask him another question, but Mike cut him off. "At this point, I must ask you to leave the property, or I shall have to call the police and report you for trespassing." Defeated, the reporter turned and started back to his van. Mike manipulated on of the controls on the security rig to follow the reporter as they left, and got somewhat infuriated when they setup on the side of the road and did something for a minute or two. We watched the monitors until after they left, at which point Mike sighed. "Damn vultures. Always want to know everything." He shook his head as he looked at me. "Word of advice, kid: if you are ever approached by a new reporter, just keep your mouth shut. Even if you think it might be harmless, they can interpret it and present it how they want, regardless of what you say or do." He looked at me and his face softened a bit. "But enough of that. Let's enjoy the rest of today".
Mike got up and joined the day workers in the pool. Wendy took my hand and Tal'ena's and led us to a classroom. At Mike's glance, she said that she would prepare us on how to deal with the media. This she did, but things got a bit silly when we got an impromptu class on human anatomy, female flavor. It got even more silly when Mike came in after we had been in there for almost an hour and was wondering what was going on. This resulted in another impromptu class with the male flavor of human anatomy. Jack had disappeared via that door to get the house back open; he said that he would stay over there. After about two hours, the day crew was back outside drying off via the sun, and the four of us had the pool to ourselves. During this time, I discovered that Mike and Wendy had a thing together. Then they went back into the house to dry off and check on a few things. Tal'ena and myself went outside to dry off, and it was in the early evening when Jeff showed up unannounced. He told us that we would be getting our accounts and whatnot setup in the morning due to the fact that the news had caught onto us.