Steve extended his left arm over the table with the palm of his hand facing up. Then he subvocalized an instruction to his nanosymbiont. After a moment a small trickle of what looked like liquid metal began to ooze through the pores in his palm. No sooner had it formed a small puddle, than something solid began to rise out of it. Within a couple of seconds it had taken the form of an antique key. Steve held it out to Cindy.
“Please accept this nano-key as a token of welcome,” he said. “It will open many doors for you.”
Cindy reached out and gingerly took hold of the key like she expected it to be hot to the touch. In fact, it felt quite cool. It seamed to be made of solid brass.
“I meant that literally of course,” Steve added. “If you try to fit it into almost any keyhole, it will reshape itself to fit the lock. What's more it's quite personalized. It will only work for you. In anybody else's hands it's just an old key”
Cindy was still a little skeptical but she thought that even if it was some kind of sham, Steve's demonstration was a heck of a trick. So she decided to play along a little. She reached into her handbag and produced her diary. She knew the tiny lock on it was mostly for looks but it did lock and more importantly it's keyhole was much too small for even the tip of the key to fit. Cindy pressed the end of the key against the little lock and was surprised to see the end of the key reshape itself into a smaller key that slipped right into the lock. Then she turned it and the lock snapped open.
“Well that wasn't much of a lock,” she said. “But I have to admit it seems to work. I'll have to try it on a better lock later. Lets say for the moment that I believe you about the nanites. What now?”
“Now you finish eating before your food gets too cold,” said Sandra. “Since I seem to have finished my catfish, I can tell you a few things while the three of you shut up and eat.”
“OK I have to admit these ravioli are too good to let go to waste,” Cindy admitted. “I guess I can listen while I chew.”
Neither of the guys said a word as the three of them resumed eating.
“First you should know that I don't have a nanosymbiont,” Sandra began. “But I am still something of a nanite expert. Though mostly I deal with a less advanced kind of nanite. I design special purpose nanites. Things like that key that Steve so flamboyantly created for you. I'd have used specialized tools to construct it from more abundantly available basic nano-material rather than waste Steve's personal prime nano-material on it. Of course I'd have had to spend ten minutes or so, setting up a nanite construction system with the specifications of the nano-key.” She stopped speaking only long enough to down the last of her fruit punch. “Thing is Cindy you have potential. If you can deal with Jake's raging hormones for a little while, things will calm down a bit. Then you might even find our casual lifestyle fun. In any case, if you do decide to stay, I want you to feel free to ask me anything you want to know about nanites.”
“I'd hold her to that offer if I were you Cindy.” interjected Steve. “You may be aware that the job I offered Jake is to get paid to learn from me and my team. My team includes the general mechanical know how provided by Jess, the physical training embodied by Stephanie, as well as the nanotech expertise of Sandra. Who has told me that she can probably whip up a nano-pheromone filter that should help keep Jake from accidentally messing with ‘your’ hormones anymore. Which might be a good thing because something has come up. I need to make a small excursion. I'll be gone for a few months during which time, Jake will be learning so much from my team, that he'll be ready for what I can teach him when I return. I'm afraid that I'll be leaving tonight right after dinner.”
“No fair!” Cindy complained. “Nano-freaky-shit or not, I was planning on jumping your bones later.”
Steve pointedly looked her up and down before replying with a grin.
“Did you know that having a nanosymbiont is a little like having ‘X-ray vision’?” he informatively queried. “Believe me, I ‘like’ your plan. But the purpose of my quest is important to me, so I'm afraid it will have to wait.
Nonetheless if your still here and still feel that way when I return, I'll gladly fuck you silly. I do however, need to leave, ‘now’.” The sound of Mike's whistling could be heard just before he entered the room pushing a cart full of pies. Steve eyed the pies for a couple of seconds.
“Well, maybe right ‘after’ desert,” he amended.
Chapter 7 After Diner
“Well, I guess that's that,” Steve said when they were done with desert. “Would you mind giving Cindy the rest of the 50 cent tour, Sandra?”
“Oh not at all Steve,” She replied. “In fact I'd like that.”
“Good!” Steve said as they all stood up to leave the dining room. “They've seen most of this floor, aside from the Jacuzzi and kitchen areas. You'll probably find Jess reading a book in the great hall. I expect he wouldn't mind tagging along for the rest of the tour.”
When they stepped into the great hall, Steve quickly disappeared into the doorway to their left. Jess was sitting in a chair near the falls. Sandra walked up to him and said something that Cindy couldn't hear. He nodded as he closed the book he'd been reading. Then he stood up and put the book on the nearest table.
“Sure and I'd love to tag along with your little tour don't ya know,” Jess said with a wink. “I'll just fall in right behind Cindy.”
“I think maybe I'll show you the quarters we've assigned to you and Jake next Cindy,” Sandra said. “Then, since guest suite number four is unoccupied this week, I'll show you how the visiting executives live.”
“That's okay by me,” Cindy said.
“The elevator's this way,” Jake chipped in as he led them through the door Steve had left by.
When they stepped into the elevator, Jake pushed the button for the third floor. The elevator opened onto a short hall with a large window with a view of the roof deck on one end and next to it a glass door along the same side wall as the elevator, which in fact opened onto the roof deck. There were a couple of benches running along the length of the wall opposite the elevator. On the other end of the hall there was a locked door with another keypad and a small speaker grill with a palm reader next to it. Sandra punched in a 10 digit code and placed her hand on the palm reader. There was a beep.
“Identity recognition sequence ready,” a mechanical voice emanated from the speaker.
“Cindy, would you mind placing one of your hands on the reader?” Sandra said. “Then say your, name and switch hands.”
“You mean like this,” Cindy said as she put her left hand on the reader. “I'm Cindy.” then she switched hands. There was a beep.
“Partial identification match found,” the mechanical voice said. “Please verify name is ‘Cindy Kincade’. If this is correct, please press one. Otherwise please press two.”
Cindy pressed one on the keypad. There was another beep.
“Access authority established,” the mechanical voice said. “Would you like to enter at this time?”
“No shit!” Cindy said in an irritated voice.
“Response is ambiguous,” the computer replied. “Supposition: Expression was sarcasm. Negative word form implies positive response. Please confirm.”
Instead of answering, Cindy tried pressing one on the keypad.
“Supposition confirmed,” the computer said. “Access granted.”
There was a click and the door swung open.
“Good job!” said Jess. “But how did you know that you could use the one on the keypad to confirm that you wanted to enter?”
“You ever try to call some company about a bill?” Cindy replied. “Actually I didn't think it would work but if I said anything else, I figured I'd need to confirm whether or not I really wanted to have sex with the damn computer.”
“Oh don't let the house computer get to you Cindy,” Sandra spoke up. “It really is trying. But to do better, it does need to learn your ways.”
“Welcome to our private cabin Cindy,”
Jake said as he stepped inside and turned to face them.
“The master bedroom is over here,” he said as he gestured to his right.
They followed him through a doorless entryway into a large bedroom with the far wall being almost entirely devoted to a pair of large windows and the sliding glass doorway between them. Through the glass they could see a narrow roof deck walkway that separated them from the down slope of the main roof below. Beyond that there was a panoramic view of the forest and river below. In the distance it looked like the river emptied into a lake. The rest of the room consisted of a large closet, some built in draws and shelves along with a huge bed. There were also some mirrors on the bedroom ceiling.
“They tell me that in the cabins, room service is only available on request,” Jake said. “That is to say if we want them to make the bed, we will have to ask. Likewise if we want some of Mike's cooking delivered to us. On the other hand, if we should want to do some cooking for ourselves there's a kitchen area on the other side of the, ah, I guess I'll call it a living room.”
Jake led the way back past the front door and into a large room where the log construction of this so called cabin on top of the main building was everywhere. There was a kitchen area with appliances and a table with four chairs on the far side of the big room. Jake pointed at a room at one end of the kitchen.
“That bathroom has the only internal door in the place,” he said.
The big room between the kitchen and the bedroom didn't have a ceiling. Here you could look up and see the wooden underside of the roof which had its high point near the wall between them and the roof deck area. On either side of the big room you could see a loft area. A small storage loft over the kitchen, and a larger sleeping loft over the entry hall and about half the bedroom beyond it. The lofts were connected by a walkway that ran along the high part of the roof where the headroom was the greatest. Just before the walkway reached the sleeping loft it crossed the top of the ladder like stairs.
The stairs ran down into the main room along the wall between the big room and the front entry hall. In the middle of the big room there was a stone lined platform with an unusual wood stove which resembled an antique ‘potbelly’ stove, complete with a flat cast iron cooking surface. It also had a window in the door that would allow a clear view of the fire. The exhaust stove pipe ran under the middle of the loft walkway and through the wall to the outside. Under the stove pipe there was a rack that held nearly half a cord of precut fire wood. The wall on the far side of the kitchen didn't have any windows. Aside from the huge panoramic view in the master bedroom the other walls had only a few of them.
The wall that supported the low end of the roof had only a total of four windows. Two of those were in the big room. Between them there was a large flat viewing screen that made for an impressive home theater. The taller wall that separated them from the roof deck also had only four windows. One of which was in the front entry hall way. Two of the other three were in the big room. The last was the kitchen area's only window. There were two couches in the big room A full sized one that also served as a separator between the big room and the kitchen area. The other was a love seat that was parked under the stairway to the loft.
“As you can see Cindy,” Jake explained. “Along the baseboards of most of the walls there are some recessed vents. They are actually connected to the building's central heating and air conditioning systems. But they only kick in on request. Or if the computer thinks the water pipes are in danger of freezing”
In the middle there was a coffee table on which someone had placed Cindy and Jake's duffel bags from the back of the company jeep. They had also left the cloths they had left in the hamper when they had their shower earlier. They were fresh, clean and neatly folded.
“I thought you said room service didn't come in until we asked them to Jake?” Cindy asked.
“So he did,” Sandra interjected. “But that rule wasn't in effect until both of you had completed the access identification sequence.
Before that I was still able to request this for you. In the future clean laundry will, by default, be left on the bench just outside the front door. And incidentally, if you'd like, I'll have them set a laundry collection hamper just outside your door as well.”
“Yeah that would be OK,” Cindy said. “But right now I'd feel more comfortable in my own cloths”
As she said this Cindy started to pull off her house duds but Jake quickly intervened.
“Please do that in the other room Cindy,” he requested. “Not that I think anyone would really mind watching you strip. But Steve isn't here and I don't want to lose control of my nano-pheromones just now if you don't mind.”
“OK Jake if you say so,” Cindy said. “But I'm gonna give Jess here a ‘raincheck’ on the free show he's missing.”
Then she took her black tee and jeans into the bedroom. About a minute later she was back in the main room. Jake, still wearing his blue house duds, led the way to the back door in the far corner of the kitchen. It opened into a screened and roofed section of the roof deck.
Across the way there was another log cabin like structure that looked to be a mirror image of the one they had just left.
“That's Steve's quarters over there,” Jake said. “The only real difference between our ‘cabin’ and his is that where we have the elevator, he has the main staircase.”
Then he pointed to the left, where in the middle of the screen wall there was a door opening onto a ramp. The ramp led from the edge of the deck to a point, just a few feet away from the nearby crest of the hill.
“The path at the other end of the ramp there leads to a secure gate in the fence at the top of the hill,” Jake explained. “On the other side of the gate, there's a path leading to a small upper parking lot. Located at the end of a dirt access road that winds it's way down the other side of the hill and into the next valley. It also intersects with a hiking trail that leads towards Dave's camp.”
“I think this would be a good time to check out one of the visitor suites on the 2nd floor,” Sandra said.
She then lead the way though the outer door to the hallway with the elevator. When they reached the second floor Jess led them to the balcony overlooking the great hall. They stood there for a moment enjoying the view of the falls. Then Sandra led the way to ‘suite 4’ which opened to her palm print.
Inside they found a luxury accommodation consisting of two large rooms and a bath. It was plusher than the roof top cabin. The decor was more modern. The bed was a bit bigger and the tub was a whirlpool bath, built for two. On the far wall of the plushly furnished living room there was a small counter with a sink, a microwave and a coffee maker. Under which there was a mini fridge. In comparison to the roof cabin it lacked a fully equipped kitchen area, the wood stove and of course the lofts.
“In all there are six of these guest suites here at Hillside,” Sandra said. ”Actually though, there's not much to see. I think the roof cabins are more interesting... If your ready to move on, I think I'd like to show you a delightful private area we call the side yard.”
Jess brightened visibly at the prospect.
“This way!” he said as he quickly led the way to the back of the building where the top of the back staircase was located. “This staircase is actually cut from the stone ledge behind the building,” he added as he started down the stone steps. “These steps go all the way to the basement level. But about half way to the first floor, there's a short tunnel leading to the side yard.”
They followed him to a small landing in the middle of the flight of stairs. Where there was a door which Jess opened and led them into a dim tunnel carved out of solid rock. On the wall he turned an antique rotary switch and a few light bulbs brightened the tunnel somewhat. A few feet down the tunnel there was an opening on one side.
“Steve told me that's an old storage area carved out of the rock by the old hermit who used to own this hillside,” Jake spoke up.
“Yes Jake, that's what I've
heard as well,” Sandra agreed.
They continued down the tunnel for another twenty feet where it turned to the left. The tunnel ended in a rocky cleft in the side of the hill. There was a small trickle of water coming out of a small crack in the rock wall. It splashed down to the ground where it formed a very small brook with a well worn path running alongside it. They followed the path and soon it led to a large meadow on the side of the hill. Apart from the meadow this part of the hill was otherwise very steep. It would be very difficult to climb up or down without ropes. The meadow itself was a delightful spot however and right smack in the middle of it there was a blanket spread out on a large mostly flat rock.
On the blanket they saw that Stephanie was sunbathing. Cindy couldn't keep her eyes off the evidence that Stephanie shaved more than her legs. In the absence of Steve's stabilizing influence, Cindy felt her attraction to Stephanie stronger than ever. The blond dancer sat up and smiled.
“The sunlight feels delightful on my bare skin,” Stephanie explained. Then looking into Cindy's eyes she seductively caressed her own breasts. “Why don't you all join me in a little frolic?” Then still looking deeply into Cindy's eyes Stephanie lifted her left breast and seductively licked the nipple.
Cindy found the sight so erotic that she pulled off her tee shirt. Then she unfastened her jeans and let them fall to her ankles and stepped out of them. Then she proceeded to kneel on Stephanie's blanket.
“You've neglected the other one,” Cindy said before she proceeded to kiss Stephanie's right nipple.
This erotic sight was too much for Jake's self control. In a matter of seconds he was producing such a stream of nano-pheromones as to make an orgy inevitable. Eventually however, they began collecting their scattered cloths. Though nobody bothered to put anything back on.
“I think it might be a good idea if we drop these things in a hamper by the swimming pool,” Sandra said. “Then maybe after a refreshing swim, perhaps we'll continue the tour with the staff quarters above the garage.”
NanoSymbionts Page 8
