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"Come with me," Chance said when Mr. Meecham adjourned the meeting. He took my hand and led me to the lower level of the lodge. "I need some time outdoors."
We found a room full of outdoor gear and suited up, then Chance grabbed a set of keys from a board by the door. Outside the door was a snowmobile. Chance climbed on and I got on behind him, wrapping my arms around his waist.
Something was going on in Chance's head. I hadn't heard anything in the meeting that bothered me. I couldn't imagine what Chance was focused on. I knew he'd tell me at some point, so I just enjoyed having my arms wrapped around him. I rested my head against his back and enjoyed it just being the two of us. He stopped near the lake, helped me off, and pulled me into a hug.
"You OK, Chance?" I asked.
"More stuff to think about," he said.
"What's going on? Did I miss something in the meeting?"
"No. Every thing's OK. I've just got something on my mind. I'm OK. We'd better head back," he said, leading me back to the snowmobile.
XXX
I wasn't sure what Chance had on his mind, but I couldn't do anything about it until he decided to tell me. I was surprised when we walked into the conference room and found only Mr. Meecham, Cassie, and Jared.
"Chance, would you close the door, please," Mr. Meecham asked as we all took our seats around the table. "Jared and Cassie, I know you've heard rumors of more changes coming to BITES. I'm preparing to retire and the powers that be have decided to refocus the organization on biological threats other than the cryptids."
"But what if..." Cassie started to ask, but Mr. Meecham held up a hand to stop her.
"I'm sorry, Cassie. We all know there are threats out there that need to be dealt with by people trained to handle cryptids, but it's not our call. The organization will focus on terrorism using biological threats."
"Are you saying the cryptid operations of BITES are being curtailed?" Jared asked.
"Exactly. I think they've been looking at the options for a while. With my retiring and the recent issues at the lab, it seems an appropriate time for the change."
"But what about...?" I started to ask but Mr. Meecham held up his hand.
"Be patient. There are several loose ends I need your help to tie up. Let me explain."
By the time, we took a break for dinner, I had a page full of questions.
"We'll finish the planning tomorrow morning," Mr. Meecham said. "I see you already have a lot of questions, Ms. Mason." He looked down at my pad. "We'll address those tomorrow. In the afternoon, we have a meeting with Dr. Wainwright and the medical staff. Have a pleasant evening."
On our way back to our room, Jared asked, "Do you guys want to have dinner and talk about this or do you want some time to yourselves?"
"Dinner would be great," Chance said. "See you downstairs in thirty minutes."
"What do you think about all of this?" I asked when we were in our room.
"It makes sense for the organization from what we know. Are you sure you want to be part of this?"
"Absolutely. This is a once in a lifetime hunt, just like the Oryx.”
“How are we going to fit this in? Our schedule was already too full?"
"I'm trying to figure that out. I've got a couple of ideas."
In the meeting, we learned the BITES lab would continue to function and care for the animals that were current residents of the facility. Mr. Meecham proposed a massive cryptid hunt around the lab in an effort to find any cryptids in the area. Bigfoot was the only cryptid that was thought to inhabit the area naturally. He proposed that Chance and I join Jared's BITES team for the hunt. Once BITES' cryptid hunting team was dissolved, if cryptid sightings were deemed a threat, the government might enlist help from Jared or Chance as contractors for a hunt to protect human lives.
"I wonder what Jared and Cassie will do if they don't have jobs with BITES?"
"And they have a baby on the way," Chance said.
"Cassie said they could work on the ranch. Maybe some of their team will be absorbed into other DHS roles."
"I'm thinking it's good timing for us. I'll ask Jared to let me know once they make the announcement to their team, then I'll call John."
I'd been hoping that these meetings would resolve some issues and get them off our list. We had accomplished that with a few things, but now we were adding a whole new project and one that had some urgency.