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With this segment of Chapter Sixteen of Repairing the Legacy, we continue the serialization of Repairing the Legacy. This is a rough draft work in progress and may not reflect the final form. Time period: set after the ending of The Martiniere Legacy main trilogy. I’m breaking longer chapters into sections for readability. This is the first part of Chapter Sixteen. There will be six parts to this chapter.

New to the series? Chapter order:

Chapter One, Section One

Return of the Prodigal Son (2 parts)

Conversations and a Dinner (2 parts)

Dancing into Change (2 parts)

Sisterly Compromises (3 parts)

Conspiracies at the Rodeo (3 parts)

Passing the Baton (4 parts)

Research Complications (3 parts)

Chasing After Shadows (3 parts)

Fifth Anniversary Present (3 parts)

Mariah (5 parts)

Shadows, Redux (3 parts)

Accidents Happen (4 parts)

Maternal Memories (4 parts)

A Voice…Weeping for their Children (6 parts)

Winding Down the Years (4 parts)

June, 2073

GABE

Ruby’s eternal watchfulness was getting old. Oh, Gabe understood why she was herding him and Mike as tight as one of his Border Collies from past years would have done to a herd of cattle. She had come pretty damn close to losing both of them at various times during the last couple of years. He had been the same way with her after that godawful accident with Boomer.

And sure, yes, he was seventy-one. Hadn’t been in the best of condition lately. Losing Star was—losing Star. The big stud wasn’t that old, after all—he had been seven when they bought him, twenty at his death, in good health with vision intact and teeth in good shape. Still rideable. Never colicked before. Never foundered. Never—

It just didn’t seem right that Star was gone. Just last week, Ruby had staked him in the front yard to graze near their outdoor working space, where both Gabe and Mike could hobble over to commune with the big dark bay stallion when they took breaks from their work.

No longer. And while Ruby would stake out Legacy or Herrie and their latest foals by Star on the lawn to keep Gabe and Mike company, all Gabe could think about was that he was seeing Star’s last foals. Except that wasn’t true—both Legacy and Heritage were in foal to Star, as were the other five mares in the broodmare band.

All the same, he kept thinking of the palomino and red dun fillies as Star’s last babies. A premonition, or something else?

Yeah, he’d been pretty shaky the day they buried Star. Fatigued both physically and mentally. Had nearly collapsed before going to bed early.

That still didn’t mean that he needed to be cosseted and kept in bubble wrap. Deep inside, he was still the same Gabe Martiniere who had been the cliff diver. Gabe Ramirez, the wildland firefighter, ranch hand, farm worker, frozen peas factory line worker. Gabe Ramirez, the bronc rider. Gabriel Martiniere, who had finally stood up to his psychopathic sperm donor Philip, defied him and won. Who had finally managed to make indentured servitude a thing of the past again.

Perhaps that was the issue.

Had he really won?

The lassitude and occasional forgetfulness that pulled at him was supposed to be aging.

“You can expect to have some loss of memory, Gabriel,” Dr. Sheri had said at his latest checkup, peering at him over her glasses. “After all, we’re all getting old. Loss of memory, loss of muscle mass, slow physical recovery—all that is to be anticipated. And considering the impact on your body from the G9 virus, mind control and the drugs associated with it, the anti-aging serum—all of those insults catch up to you. Eventually.”

God, he could remember when Dr. Sheri was young and starting her practice in Lakeside, back when Ruby was pregnant with Brandon.

Gabe refrained from pointing out that he was only five years older than Dr. Sheri.

And whatever was ailing him didn’t quite feel like aging. It reminded Gabe of the early days post-divorce, when he went through whole days in a blur.

The same was true now. The blurring of activity wasn’t as bad as it had been with Mariah feeding him drugs all those years ago, but there were days when he was barely aware of his surroundings, doing—what? Things he barely remembered. Programming work that he should be able to recall. Especially since some elements of it were problematic and needed to be reworked. It had been years since he made such simple programming mistakes—well over fifty years since he had been writing more complex programs during his high school years at Northview Military Academy.

Losing his mind to dementia, or was it—? No. It couldn’t be the worm or the same kind of mind control.

Then, just before and during the divorce, Gabe had been under a tight mind control programming lock created by Philip. That shouldn’t be the case now. Philip had been dead for thirteen years. Those links had been erased and purged from Gabe years ago, after the first attack of the G9 virus. The only people still alive capable of creating that sort of mind control programming were Ruby and Justine, and neither woman had gone through the level of training in mind control processes required to do it. Justine might be able to figure out how to do that programming—but why would she do it?

Could Philip’s links have been restored somehow?

To get that answer, though, he would need to talk to Justine, Donald, or Brandon.

Or Ruby.

And that ran the risk of him being considered delusional.

Damn it, he was only seventy-one. Philip had lived into his eighties, had been dispensing his venomous thoughts and concocting his devious plans right up until his suicide, in spite of his cardiac and cancer issues. Say what one would about Gabe and Justine’s damn toxic father, Philip Martiniere had been sharp and rational—for some degree of rational—up to the very end of his life.

This didn’t feel right.

This felt like something interfering with both his mind and his body.

Could it have to do with the worm that he occasionally remembered?

Could Philip have implanted some sort of long-term compulsion meant to cripple Gabe in his elder years?

If only someone would listen to his worries, instead of assuming his growing weakness was simply old age.

But Gabe wasn’t so sure he could trust Ruby or Justine with these concerns. Brandon had enough to worry about with Lily.

Perhaps Donald?

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