On Distant Shores (Exiles Triology Book 1)

by Mark Harritt

  “Okay, I’m game, what’s next?”

  “Next icon, look for the icon that says, ‘Engage.’”

  “Got it, amber, now green.”

  The tension in the suit seemed to increase. There still wasn’t any sound. The mech armor was strangely quiet.

  “Okay, Mike, don’t do anything else just yet. I have to get a thumbs up before we go to the next part.

  “Roger, Wilco. Standing by.”

  Nothing happened. He lay there for a few minutes, and then he heard the Lieutenant speak again, “Now, Mike, I want you to slowly move your right hand. You’ll find that you don’t have to move much to get a reaction from the armor. You just have to make subtle movements, and think about moving your arm,” she said.

  “Uh, how do you want me to move it?” he asked.

  “Just bend the elbow, not much.”

  He moved the elbow slowly, and felt the mech armor shiver.

  “Damn, I hope I don’t topple over,” he thought.

  “Okay, that was good. Now push back and you want to shift your weight back on your legs and squat. No big movements. Remember, everything is multiplied.”

  Mike gently applied pressure and felt the mech move in the direction he wanted. He was trying to get the weight of the mech armor over the legs. He pushed back, and then he felt the armor shift and topple backwards.

  “Lieutenant, get off the suit, I’m losing it.”

  “Chief, no worries, I’m already off of the suit. Everybody is far away from you. There’s nothing that you can damage, or that can damage you in the vicinity right now.”

  Mike was relieved. He felt the suit fall backwards. Now he was lying on his back, and the mech was rocking. He stretched his feet down, and his arms out, so that the suit was lying on its back as flat as he could get it.

  “Ah, this is disconcerting. I can feel my position, but all these cameras are messing with my concentration. I can see the arms and legs, but I’m having problems getting them to work correctly.”

  A man’s voice spoke up. “Chief, can you hear me.”

  “Yes, I hear you,” Mike replied.

  “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to shoot you a video feed of your suit. What I want for you to do is watch the video feed, and try to move your arms and legs. Once you’re comfortable with that, I want you to roll over the suit into a push up position. Do you think you can do that?”

  “Yep, just give me the feed, and I’ll see what I can do.”

  A window appeared on his head’s up display. It was video feed of his mech armor on the ground, with a lot of people standing around it. The other four suits were still in their linebacker stance.

  “Using me for the guinea pig, eh, Lieutenant.”

  “I don’t like the phrase, ‘guinea pig.’ I prefer, ‘experimental subject,’” she replied.

  Mike watched the video feed. One by one, he experimented with his arms and legs. He started with the hands. He checked to see how much range of motion the armor gauntlets had. They bent forward very well, but the movement was checked as he tried bending them back. It was that way with both hands. Then he watched as he moved his arms around. He bent the elbow, and saw how little pressure was needed to move the arms around. The movement was quick and jerky as he started. The movement smoothed out with practice and the motion was not as rapid. The servos and the lightness of the mech armor were not bulky, and the arms and legs felt unencumbered when he moved them.

  He moved the foot of the armor. There wasn’t as much play in the foot of the armor as there was with the gauntlet. He moved and bent the knee, and then pulled the legs towards the abdomen of the mech armor. The mech armor rocked, and he was able to sit up. With the legs of the suit straight out, he explored the range of motion by turning the shoulders of the mech so he could place the right hand of the suit on his left hip. Slowly, he worked different movements into the suit to get an idea of how the suit responded to him. Once he had an idea of what he could do, he set the suit in motion so that it rolled over onto its belly.

  “Folks, I’m going to try and take this further than just the pushup position. I’m going to try and stand up in it. Are there any reasons why I shouldn’t do this?”

  The male voice spoke up again. Mike had the feeling it was Dr. Ed, “We have a go. If you think you can do it, then try to get it standing.”

  Mike put the hands down on the floor. He moved the suit slowly, getting used to the positions, the shift of mass, the individual positions of the arms and legs. He was getting used to the capabilities of the armor. The hands were covered with some kind of material that produced friction against the floor. He hoped that the bottoms of the feet were covered with the same material.

  He felt comfortable with the way everything was moving and shifting. He pushed up off of the floor, and moved one of the legs of the suit forward. The foot held in position. He moved the other foot forward. He stayed in that position momentarily, and then he tried to stand the mech armor up. The armor trembled as it moved into an upright position. Then it was up. The armor was standing in an upright position. He stopped, and stood still. He brought the arms of the armor down so that they were directly in contact with the sides.

  He couldn’t really hear it, but he could see the group of engineers and his team clapping as he maneuvered the suit up into the standing position, “Alright, I feel like I may have accomplished something today.”

  “Can you get it back into the linebacker position? We want to get you out of there and then its lunch time.”

  --------------------------------------

  Things went very well for the next two weeks. Mike’s team integrated with the engineering team, and his team got to play in the mech armor. This was becoming a vacation. The team explored the area, and found out that steak, both bison and cattle, were best when eaten in cattle country. Soon they were thinking about taking a trip down to Wyoming to see Jackson Hole, and Yellowstone Park.

  The only clouds in their sky were Jamison and Mitchem. Mike was in Mitchem’s office at least twice a week, getting bitched at for some reason, usually for some perceived lack of respect for the scientists, engineers, and techs. He never heard any of this from the people he worked with in the play room. Mike was getting the feeling that Mitchem did it to prove that he was superior to Mike. Mike occasionally saw Jamison in the hall on the first floor, but the psychotic little prick pretended he didn’t exist. Mike took great pleasure in saying hello to him and wishing him a good morning. It was this back drop in which the next big blow up happened.

  It was lunch time on Wednesday, their second week in Montana. Tom liked to go out to the rental car every day for lunch, get his cell phone, and call Barbara, to find out how she and the kids were. Today, he was leaning against the rental car when he called home. Daniel, their youngest, was sick, and since he was sick, it wouldn’t be long before the rest of the house was going to be sick too. Such were the problems small children encountered in school, where viral airborne diseases spread through the class like wild fire. One was sick, they were all sick. Being the loveable little disease vectors that they were, the families of those children were soon commiserating in snot laden misery. It sounded like Barbara was coming down with whatever Daniel had.

  “Hey, you can’t lean against that car! That belongs to one of my workers here, you’re going to scratch their car. What the hell are you thinking?”

  Tom knew that voice, and knew that he wasn’t going to like what was coming next.

  “Hey baby, I need to deal with something. I’ll give you a call back.”

  Tom hung up the phone and turned towards Director Jamison. The guy was blinking like a mole in the sun.

  “Director, how are you doing?” Tom tried to be polite. A laconic man, He hated dealing with people. To him, they all seemed to be crazy. If it didn’t involve his job or his family, he really didn’t want to have deal with them.

  “What are you doing, leaning against that car? Somebody owns that car
.” Jamison pointed at the car as if it was the Holy Grail, and Tom had defiled it.

  “Ah, Mr. Jamison, . . . “

  “That’s Director Jamison!”

  Tom nodded, “Yes sir, Director Jamison, this is a rental car.”

  Jamison stopped, stunned. “Who gave you a rental car?”

  “It’s in our orders. We’re authorized two rental cars.”

  Jamison didn’t like that at all. “The hell you are! Who the hell authorized you two rental cars?”

  Tom knew that whatever he said, it wasn’t going to placate the director, “Well, anywhere we go, we usually have rental cars on our orders.”

  Jamison got into his face, his finger pointed at Tom’s nose, “By God that money better not be coming out of our account. We didn’t have you sent up here to go sightseeing around the town. I’m going to find out where that money came from, and I’m going to have those orders modified.” Jamison turned around and walked to the building.

  Tom stared, perplexed. “That is one sad, strange little man,” he murmured to himself.

  He pulled out the phone and called Barbara back, told her what happened, told her he loved her, and hung up. Then he walked back to find Mike and tell him what had just happened.

  About thirty minutes later, Mike came out of the building to go to the rental car and get his cell phone. He called Major Salk to give him a situation report.

  Friday afternoon, they were coming out of the facility when 1st Lieutenant Jondreau met them outside the gate. Lieutenant Jondreau was the officer in charge of security at the facility. He was military police, and all of the security personnel, to include the SSO was part of his purview.

  “Chief Duggins, I have a message for you from Director Jamison.”

  Mike walked over to the young man. He took the piece of paper from the lieutenant, and thanked him. He walked back to the team, reading as he walked. The lieutenant turned and went back inside the building.

  “Damn it.”

  Everett looked at Mike, wondering what was going on.

  Mike just shook his head, and motioned that they should go to the cars. Mike, Everett, and Rob were in the same car. Mike turned to Everett and told him, “Well, I don’t think we’ll be able to go to Yellowstone this weekend. We have to be here to work tomorrow.”

  Everett looked at him, “Really? I didn’t know the engineers worked weekends.”

  Mike looked out at the countryside, “I guess they want to get as much time with us as possible.”

  --------------------------------------

  They showed up at Area 19 the next morning. They parked their cars, and something was odd. There were very few cars in the parking lot. When they got to security, a Staff Sergeant Patrick Murphy, who was definitely not Irish, approached them. He was as big as D’Inazio, but his skin was dark as mahogany. Other than that, they were bookends, down to the shaved scalp.

  “Hey, Ebony and Ivory, you guys should sing the song,” Rob quipped.

  The Staff Sergeant looked at him with disdain, “Forgive me if I don’t participate.”

  Rob looked back at him, “That’s not too social.”

  “I’m not a social kind of guy.”

  Mike stepped up before things could get out of hand. He would hate for the Staff Sergeant to get hurt.

  “Can I help you Staff Sergeant Murphy?”

  “Yeah, your work detail starts in about ten minutes. We have a truck that’s going to be pulling up. Do any of you know how to use a forklift?”

  Mike was confused. He thought that they were here to work with the engineers, and mentioned this to the Staff Sergeant.

  Murphy looked at him like he was crazy, “Man, those people are officers and civilians. None of them work on the weekend. The only people out here is the security detail. Word was passed down that you would be doing a work detail this weekend, so they scheduled a truck with supplies to come in.”

  Mike turned to Everett. Everett spoke, “It’s not his fault. It has to be Jamison and Mitchem.”

  “That’s Director Jamison and Lieutenant Colonel Mitchem,” Murphy informed them.

  D’Inazio placed his hand on Mike’s shoulder, and said, loud enough for Murphy to hear.

  “Mike, don’t hurt him, he has his entire career, hell, his entire life ahead of him. He’s a young man.”

  D’Inazio looked at the Staff Sergeant, “Staff Sergeant, you may want to move back behind your gate.”

  Murphy looked incredulous. He couldn’t believe they were talking to him. He outweighed Chief Duggins by a good fifty pounds. He didn’t think that skinny guy could do anything to him.

  Everett cleared his throat, “Staff Sergeant, Mike has, what, 34 confirmed kills on this team, three with his bare hands, five with a knife. As you can see by the color red he’s turning, discretion might be the better part of valor.”

  Murphy looked at Mike, and looking at the rest of the team, he decided that his health may be improved on the other side of the security gate.

  Mike stormed out to the rental car, grabbed his phone, and called Major Salk at home. Major Salk called Lieutenant Colonel Bretscif, who called back to Fort Bragg. It went from there to Tampa at SOCOM. A three star Army general called a two star Air Force general who worked at SOCOM. That two star started calling people. Then it rolled down hill, picking up speed, until it landed on Lieutenant Colonel Mitchem’s desk.

  --------------------------------------

  LTC Mitchem was livid. He was unaware that Jamison called the Army team in to work on a detail unloading a truck. The more he thought about the situation, the more he wondered what he ever did to deserve the idiot. When he heard about this project at his previous position in DARPA, he lobbied hard and pulled strings to get the assignment. Now he was wondering if he would have a career when he was finished here.

  That damn warrant officer. Who knew he had connections like that. When Mitchem arrived Monday morning, he received a message from his assistant that he was to call a Major General Watkins as soon as possible, which of course meant immediately. He spent the next thirty minutes being informed that it was a privilege for his facility to be hosting CW3 Duggins and his team, that they should be treated like guests, and that he better get Director Jamison on board, or they would both be out of a job. The team would be pulled from the duty at Area 19 to be sent back to their unit.

  There was a knock at the door of his office. “Come in,” he said in a voice just high enough to carry through the door.

  The door opened and Dr. Randall was framed in the door way. LTC Mitchem’s blood pressure was already high, and he felt his blood quicken as she stepped through the door. She closed the door, and walked over to stand close enough for her lab coat to brush against him. He could smell the perfume that she was wearing. She leaned close enough to press her thigh against his arm, and put a folder on his desk. She leaned forward, the curves of her body pressing against the shirt and skirt that she wore.

  He knew that she was doing that on purpose, to give him a thrill. Jessica would flirt with him using subtle, erotic movements designed to stoke his desire for her. She was a master at pushing his buttons. He didn’t know that everybody in the research facility was aware of their infidelities. Rumors were pretty fierce about the two. One of the Airmen on the security staff saw them entering a hotel together. He was sitting in a restaurant across the street, and he drew the natural conclusion. Gossip flew through the research facility.

  Dr. Randall stood next to him and looked down into his eyes.

  “Do you know what I have here?” she asked.

  “I hope those are the results of the tests we’ve been conducting with the Army team,” he replied.

  She heard the tension in his voice. She placed her hand on his shoulder, “What’s wrong?”

  He inhaled, then exhaled, releasing tension, “Jamison has a hard on for the Spec Ops guys, and shit just went up the hill, and then back down, landing on my back.”

  Randall looked confused.

/>   He waved his hand to forestall the next questions, “Please just tell me that I can get rid of these damn Army guys soon.”

  Dr. Randall’s mouth curved down slightly. She knew Mitchem’s personality. It was so easy to seduce him. His ego led him to the bedroom. She could respect a healthy ego. After all, she was one of the most respected scientists in the United States. With the neuro mechanical interface, plus other projects she was working on, she was going to be able to write her own ticket in the future. She became the lead on this project by twisting men to her agenda. Some she slept with, and others she merely flirted with. She knew power, and how to bend power to her needs. While she enjoyed their exploits in bed, there was no way she was going to let his puffed up ego ruin her chances of riding this to a professorship and tenure at UCLA. This research facility, while on the cutting edge of science, was missing some very crucial social facilities. She would kill for fresh sushi again. And nobody in Great Falls knew how to make a good martini.

  Mitchem and Jamison were a pain, but they would make a very good reference for her future endeavors. She was only happy that Mitchem was here. She would have been very disappointed to have to sleep with Jamison to get what she wanted. That man was a worm.

  “Yes, they’re the test results, and the ‘Army guys’ have helped us make great strides in understanding how the neuro-net and the artificial intelligence are interfacing with a human test subject,” she explained.

  Mitchem saw the look in her eyes and didn’t like what he was seeing.He ventured a simple question, “And?”

  Dr. Randall knew she had him at that moment. When LTC Mitchem saw the slight smile on her mouth, he knew he wasn’t going to like what she was going to tell him.

  “And,” she offered, “We need to keep them with us for a few more weeks to fully integrate the neural net and artificial intelligence to them.”

  He started shaking his head, “No, no, I’m not going to keep those clowns here any longer than necessary.”

  Dr. Randall stopped his protests with a simple look. He had seen that look before, and knew that she was digging her feet in on this one.