AL:ICE-9

by Charles Lamb

  As the night wore on, things wound down until the sun and wine had drained their strength. With sore ribs or not, Jake still had to help the two younger women to bed. Both had more than their fair share of the wine, but they were happy drunks. With both women still in their swimsuits, he simply tucked them into bed as is, and then kissed Sara good night before retiring to his own room. Jake took a couple of pain pills, having overdone it earlier, and crawled into bed himself. Between the pills and the small amount of wine he consumed, he was out. During the night, he was vaguely restless at one point, but soon settled into a comfortably sound sleep.

  ----*----

  The next morning, Jake awoke with the feeling of being pinned and dying of the heat. Lying on his right side, he opened his left eye, only to see a pile of blonde hair on the pillow in front of him. He slowly removed his arm from around her waist, trying not to wake her. Whether it was Becky or Sara he wasn’t quite sure, but whomever it was, she was completely naked.

  As he attempted to roll away from her, he realized someone else had snuggled up behind him, her arm around his waist. It was then that Jake noticed Sara leaning against the doorframe, sipping a cup of coffee and smiling.

  While Jake attempted to slide straight down, under the blankets, and between the two women, while confirming that Sandy was just as naked, Sara made no effort to help. She continued to watch quietly, the occasional giggle slipping out as Jake floundered. Once free of the blonde and brunette, Jake silently slipped out of the room, glancing to the left to see a trail of bikini pieces leading back into the other bedroom. Evidently, the girls had disrobed on the way to his room last night after he had fallen asleep.

  Following Sara into the kitchen area, he grabbed the offered cup of coffee she had prepared earlier with some muffins. With the coffee pot in hand, they both went outside to sit under the awning, where there was a table and chairs waiting. They both grabbed a seat before either spoke.

  “So you had visitors last night I see,” Sara started, suppressing another giggle. Noticeably, she was enjoying the awkwardness of the circumstances.

  “So it seems,” Jake replied, “unfortunately I was too tired and on pain meds to make it anything but a sleeping pajama party.”

  “But you seem to be the only one in pajamas?” Sara quipped, still smirking.

  “Yeah, well if you get lost, just follow the trail of bikini pieces to your room,” Jake offered.

  Sara laughed at that and they ate in silence for a bit, watching the water and the occasional seagull fly passed. Jake enjoyed the peaceful setting, the cool morning breeze and having Sara there to share it. She had a look of contentment on her face, obviously enjoying the moment as well.

  All too soon, there was a stumbling noise from inside the unit and Becky appeared in the doorway, wrapped in a sheet, probably from Jake’s bed, and holding an empty coffee cup.

  “Oh my god, does it have be so bright out,” she mumbled, while dropping in an empty chair and holding her cup out for Sara to fill, while shielding her eyes with the other hand. Jake watched as she almost lost the sheet, recovering at the last moment with the empty hand.

  Right behind her came Sandy, having at least put her suit back on, although Jake was positive the bottoms were on backwards.

  “Coffee for me too please,” she managed in a somewhat brighter tone, while grabbing the muffin Becky was starting toward after setting the coffee cup down.

  The four spent the rest of the morning lounging under the awning, Jake and Sara watching the two younger women attempting to recover from their nights overindulgences. What that meant was Jake and Sara took their sweet time cleaning up, they even took a stroll down the beach.

  Heading back to the housing unit on the beach they called home, Jake pointed out a smaller container near theirs, turned 90 degrees so it jutted out from the rest.

  “What’s with the mini-bungalow?” Jake asked Sara, pointing to the smaller container.

  “Oh, I forgot about that, it’s for you,” She replied while leading him up to the end of the box that was closest to the water. Reaching up, Sara touched the hand pad on the side of the box and then motioned for Jake to watch out as the end dropped to form a ramp leading up into the container. Jake followed as Sara rounded the end and headed up the ramp, where he immediately noticed it was packed full of equipment.

  The first thing they came across were two sets of what appeared to be wave runners, the kind of water toy you sat on and rode like a motorcycle. The lower two were in line, front to rear along his left. Both were on balloon-tired carts, obviously meant to roll across the sand to the water’s edge for launching. The upper two were in the same kind of cart, but suspended above the other two for easy storage.

  Continuing to the rear of the container, there were surf/paddle boards, boxes of what looked like inflatables and finally all kinds of diving equipment. There were spear guns, similar to the ones the two used as weapons on the cruiser boarding adventure. Next came masks and fins and finally stabilizer jackets or BCD’s as he knew them. Jake pulled one of the jackets down because he noticed each had a strange backpack attached and the second stage single hose regulator appeared to originate from it.

  “What the heck is this?” Jake asked as he set the jacket face down on one of the boxes. Inspecting the pack attached to the jacket back, he could see it was about 12 inches across and 18 inches top to bottom. It stood out from the jacket no more than four or five inches. While it squared out at the bottom with rounded corners, the top had a complete radius across the 12 inch width. Morbidly, Jake thought it looked a bit like a gravestone.

  There were actually two hoses passing over the right shoulder, one over the other. They started from the upper right of the pack and terminated at what he thought to be the second stage regulator, mouthpiece in place but no exhaust tee. With closer inspection, Jake could see no means of escape for exhaled breath. Looking into the mouthpiece, he could just make out the slightest internal separation, each of the two hoses connecting above and below the divider.

  “Do you have questions Jake,” ALICE asked, causing both to jump.

  “Damn I forgot these things are all wired,” He replied, and then said, “yes I do have a question, what is this thing and where are the SCUBA tanks and regulators?”

  ALICE replied, “That is a molecular convertor and the archaic equipment you knew as SCUBA is no longer in use. This is a commercial model, not intended for military use.”

  “Ok, so would you like to expand on that please,” Jake asked, a little annoyed at the implication he was obsolete.

  “One of the more useful components recovered from the NeHaw exploration ship was the molecular converter. Primarily used in their life support systems, these break down molecules to their elemental form and then restructure those same elements to create necessary molecules. Please remove the cover of the unit you are inspecting.”

  Following ALICEs direction, Jake found the catches holding the cover of the pack in place. Opening it, he set the cover to one side. Inside he could see where the two hoses attached internally to a smaller rounded flat pancake of a box at the top. Below the pancake, towards the lower part of the unit, were some smaller modules, all interconnected, with two small tanks at the very bottom of the housing. The tanks were both about 10 inches long, three inches in diameter and one over the top of the other.

  Looking down at the pancake, Jake could see it had two small flutes, one at three and the other at nine o’clock.

  “What are these two ports on the sides?” Jake asked.

  “That is the source inlet and outlet. Let me explain, the configuration of this unit is to ingest air and/or water. From those sources, it breaks down the molecules and stores Oxygen and Nitrogen in the two tanks at the bottom of the unit. To better understand, let me start by saying this system works a lot like the rebreather systems you may be familiar with.”

  Jake was very familiar with the rebreather systems the military used in both underwater and land Nuclear,
Biological and Chemical or NBC gear. The main concept was it didn’t exhaust your breath like open circuit SCUBA/SCBA did, it captured your exhale and then scrubbed it to remove Carbon Dioxide. A smaller tank in the rebreather held Oxygen to replenish what you metabolized, and you simply reused the Nitrogen. A rebreather could last a lot longer than SCUBA/SCBA. The longevity had an obvious attraction to both military and commercial users.

  In typical dry land usage, a rebreather would go for about eight hours compared to an open circuit systems 90 minutes. The usage was more complicated in underwater applications, because as your body absorbed some of the nitrogen, it messed with your partial pressures, but the military had answers for that as well.

  “The way this system operates,” ALICE began, “is in use, it ingests either the surrounding air or water, and then breaks down the molecules to pure Oxygen and Nitrogen, in their stable forms, for storage in the tanks. Any unused portion of that ingest is exhausted out the exit port. The balanced air mixture feeds through the upper hose into the second stage upon inhale, providing a constant 79/21 percent Nitrogen/Oxygen mixture. Your exhale is captured from the mouth piece and fed back into the converter unit in the lower regulator hose, where the Carbon Dioxide is reduced, releasing the Carbon, and capturing the Oxygen and Nitrogen for re-use.”

  ALICE continued, “I should mention a miniaturized and more advanced version of this is what operates inside all the combat suits. That version will also heat or cool the air and filter liquid for drinking.”

  “Ok,” Jake asked, considering all ALICE had just described, “but what about underwater use. There is not nearly enough nitrogen there, is there?”

  ALICE replied, “Actually there is a significant amount of Nitrogen in seawater. About .5 parts per million, more than enough to keep a recreational divers air supply balanced when you include the pre-populated reservoir tank. Because we are using an Oxygen/Nitrogen mixture, you are susceptible to all the known issues of narcosis and decompression restrictions. The value here is there is no toxicity issues related to Oxygen/Nitrogen going out of balance or running out of air during decompression stops.”

  “How long can you stay down with one of these?” Jake asked with his curiosity roused.

  “A fully charged unit can operate continuously for three weeks, although there is a mechanism to replace the battery charge while in use, so theoretically it can operate indefinitely. I should mention that there is one other difference in underwater use. The excess Hydrogen that is released from the water molecules is then bonded with the Carbon released from the Carbon Dioxide forming CH4 as a byproduct.”

  Jake had to stop for a moment to think about what ALICE had just said, “Wait, are you telling me that this thing exhausts Methane as a waste product?”

  “That is correct,” answered ALICE.

  Jake could see the confused look on Sara’s face.

  “It farts,” was all he could say.

  ----*----

  Upon their return, they found both Becky and Sandy in the uniform or the day, consisting of shorts and a t-shirt, proper attire for a day in the jeep touring the island. Sara was a bit anxious as she wanted to show Jake all the improvements she had been supervising since their last visit. She hoped he approved.

  With Jake behind the wheel and Sara navigating, she directed him to the pier they had visited the first time around. Once they stopped, Jake and Sara climbed out of the jeep, leaving the other two to nurse their hangovers in peace. They headed down to the pier, with Sara leading the way.

  Sitting in a boatlift on the pier, was what Jake took to be about a 32 to 34 foot center console boat. Stopping to look around the boat, Sara explained, “We had this sent out from Hawaii. It’s a 34 foot center console, you mentioned before that having a boat here might be nice?”

  “This is sweet.” Jake replied looking it over, from stem to stern.

  As he approached the stern, he noticed three out-drives that looked like outboard engines without the engines on top. It was as if someone had taken the top off an outboard motor, but left the props.

  “Each prop has its own motor in the hub, like the blades on the helicopters,” Sara offered, noticing Jake’s interest, “ALICE tells me these would be about 350 horsepower each. Like everything else around here it can run for weeks on a charge.”

  “With over 1000 horsepower, this thing would fly,” Jake commented, as he started to climb aboard for a closer look.

  Before they could go any further, Sandy yelled from the jeep, “Jake, ALICE has a call for you!”

  With Jake in the lead, they returned to the jeep. Reaching in, Jake hit the communication's system button, “What’s up ALICE?”

  “Jake, I have a call from Prosperity for you,” ALICE answered.

  “Burt, what’s up?” Jake asked as the light went green and Burt’s face appeared in the display on the dash.

  “Sorry to bother you Jake, but we have a real problem here and I know you would want to hear it straight from me. I know you are recuperating from that shootout in Washington and all,” he replied.

  “How did you know about that?” Jake asked, completely confused.

  “Oh, we watch Sandy’s weekly news updates like clockwork around here, nobody dares miss it, but that’s not why I called.”

  “Sounds dire?” Jake replied while tuning to look at Sandy in the back seat.

  “Yeah, well this is the call I had hoped never to have to make. We had someone in the patrol run off with guns and supplies,” Burt stated.

  “How much did they take?” Jake asked.

  “A lot, it was three fella’s, one in the patrol proper and two more in cahoots with him. They loaded up a transport from the depot here and then high tailed it straight to LA. We woulda noticed it sooner, but they were supposed to run them supplies up the line toward Sacramento. We only got suspicious when the first stop along the line called in askin us where they were,” he finished.

  “Was anyone hurt?” Jake asked cautiously.

  “Na, like I said, everyone thought it was the regular supply run, they even filled out all the proper paperwork. I will say they got a lot of the best stuff Jake, light and heavy weapons, communicators, and even some of those rocket launchers you sent last week. By the way, why did you think we needed rocket launchers?” Burt asked.

  “I didn’t Burt, I think if you check, you’ll find your rogue patrolman ordered them,” Jake said dryly, not wanting to offend Burt, but angry all the same.

  “Oh,” was all the reply Burt could muster in response.

  “Ok, we will take care of this, I suggest you do a little personnel review to be sure we’ve uncovered all the rats. And Burt, don’t worry, we know you had no part in this and did exactly as we requested,” Jake offered to the clearly worried Burt.

  With relief visibly displayed on his face, a heartfelt “Thank you!” was his last words.

  “Now that Burt is off the line, what can you tell me ALICE?” Jake asked as he and Sara climbed in and headed the jeep back to the beach.

  “Once notified, we were able to trace the transport to the LA area. It is in an area once called Pasadena. According to my records, they are in what was once the armory building there. We have disabled the transport, so it is no longer of use, but they have completely off loaded the cargo and are in the process of fortifying the building.”

  At that, an image of the building appeared on the display in the dash, Jake could make out the figures setting up machine gun positions on the roof as well as reinforcing the perimeter fencing. At one time, there may have been buildings adjacent to the location. However, those were demolished and cleared away long ago, providing an open area all around the structure.

  It never ceased to amaze Jake, the amount of effort some people would go to in nefarious endeavors that they never would attempt in honest labor. Plainly, the work done here and the time it took to plan and execute the heist would have earned a town leadership position anywhere in the civilized zone.

  By now,
they had reached the beach, Jake pulling up in front of their living quarters.

  “Ok, ALICE, it’s time to call in the Odd Squad,” Jake declared, “let’s rendezvous at muster point Charlie and have them bring all the toys. Oh, and Sandy, I have not forgotten about Sandy’s Weekly News. We need to talk when I get back,” Jake added as he got out of the jeep.

  Chapter 7

  Sara was completely confused. Once they arrived back at the beach, Jake had told ALICE to do something with an “odd squad” and they were to all go to “location Charlie” with “the toys”? She hated when he got so cryptic. As it was, he ushered her inside with no explanations and instructions to suit up in full combat gear, ready to roll in 30 minutes.

  As she was dressing, she thought about Burt’s call. Rogue patrol members, as Jake called them, were the worst possible threat. They had better weapons than most, because they were from ALICE stores, and were better trained than the simple outlaws or raiding parties. This was, in actuality, the very first incident like this, but Jake had drilled her on the dangers they presented. She still was not sure what they were going to do about it.

  She actually beat Jake out to the jeep, something she attributed to his injury, but not by much. Both carried their helmets, and Sandy and Becky met them there. Sara watched as Jake kissed both on the cheek, telling them to enjoy the time off as it was back to work soon, and then had her get in the jeep with him. With both seated, he headed off the beach and back up to the airstrip.

  Watching him kiss the others, Sara knew she generally didn’t object to Jake’s relationships. However, with her sisters and the others, she was starting to feel an odd sense of jealousy towards the ones she privately called the mommy crowd.

  She could compete with Becky and Sandy for Jake’s attention, sure that she held the upper hand in that situation. However, Bonnie, Linda, and Kathy all had a connection with him that she did not have. Currently, their lack of interest in him was all that kept everything in check for her. At the moment, she was able to hold off a growing discontent with their relationships.