by Clay Moore
"The sniper that you guys had us incarcerated told us before class into one of those Battlesuits. It cost the suit to freeze and fall forward. Didn't it?"
"yes, that was my Battlesuits that was hit. Pretty much all life support in the Battlesuits was suspended until she could get it open. My partner was able to get the Battlesuits completely into the cargo bay shut the doors and pry open my battle suit to get me up it also helps when you have the ability to suspend autonomic functions. That is as a result 10 years practitioner of relaxed breathing."
"That's quite a tale you have there. What do we do now?"
"Well, there is one thing that you wanted to do, or you insinuated you wanted to do." Dolores looked at the man standing before her in all of his glorious nakedness. She told herself that she did not want to have any relations with John today. However, the night before was a little too hard to forget. She wanted to see if it was repeatable. John, however, seemed to be not desirous of continuing the relationship. She finally made her mind and started undressing.
John watched Dolores leave his room. He got up from the bed. It was still smelling of her perfume and the musk of sex. John usually did not need to take a shower afterward, but after that woman, he felt like he needed to be washed clean of her. He took a little longer in the shower than he normally did, but when John came out, he smelled like himself.
He came out of the bathroom and put on his Grav-rod clothing. In some of the modern clothing, they utilized seal technology to close the dress. It did manage to get you in your clothing and sealed up in a quick amount of time. However, the suit was a little different. It used buttons everywhere. There was a button on his fly, buttons on his dress shirt, and three buttons on his suit coat.
John ordered his meal from the in room menu. While he waited for the room service cart to arrive, John looked at his slate. John brought up the slates mapping program. He could see the area in front of the Genetic Concepts building. The map that was on the mapping program was not a geographical map. It would not show him all of the peaks and valleys of the lava field in front of the Genetic Concepts building. He made sure that he had at least three styluses. He did not want to spend a lot of time trying to find a pen on the ground. If he dropped one, he would let it go. Styluses were incredibly cheap. In fact, the hotel had many styluses for free. They had hotels name and Hypercom number.
A knock came at the door. John looked through the spy site. These were the two men who had served him before, so he knew that they were probably safe. He opened the door, and the two men wheeled in the room service cart.
The two waiters handed John a slate with hotel stylus. He wrote down a pretty good tip. He returned the slate without the stylus. One more stylish for the trip. Both men bowed their way out of the room. John sat on the room service cart. He opened the dish and drank in the aroma. It took them the better part of an hour to completely finish the meal. By that time the sun was at its nadir.
He looked through the curtains and could see the beginning of the night shift at the old Genetic Concepts building. He did manage to see people moving about the campus of the building. The problem was that they went into one building. Even if he had the Rose the 30 mm blasters could not be able to go through over four ceilings. It had to be the explosives.
John walked out of his room after closing all of the drapes. He made sure that he had at least five magazines for his blaster. He walked through the lobby of the hotel and out the front door. Ms. Grav-rod was still parked in his spot. He climbed on board, started up the Radamite jet. Then he sent his Grav-rod towards the south on the eponym South Road. It was completely empty at this time of night. After about an hour of driving, he brought the Grav-rod back.
As he passed the hotel, he turned off the road. A fence was used as a mark indicating who owned what. As far as John was concerned these people were, in fact, violating the law. That meant that any law that they would claim against John was null and void.
John turns on the small light system on his helmet. He even let the helmet go into combat mode which provided a little bit of assistance to interpretation.
John encountered what Vivana encountered when she made her vaunted trip into the remains of Genetic Concepts. He honestly believes that these people were, in fact, Genetic Concepts. The science behind the genetic robots was too theoretical to be consumed by living room researchers.
John noticed every depression in the ground and marked it on his map. He was still over 2 km away from the Frankenstein Castle the side of the main building. From this position, he idled his Grav-rod and opened binoculars. He put the lanyard around his neck in case he needed to get out of Dodge. He pointed his binoculars towards the area where they had lights for security. It seemed that each corner of the building there was a lighting fixture. The fixtures were putting out the amber light. Which had to be sodium light, thought John. He continued his drive across the lava field.
* * * He was doing this to see where their point of their defense that they're the most worried about. He also made it obvious what he was doing by stopping outside of the depression. He could easily have done this going into the depressions. Getting off his bike and using the binoculars. John still does not know if there were super soldiers in the inventory over there. If there was a super soldier than they would notice him, and they would trigger a little further out. John had seen that they had assault blasters. While those did not have the range of a blaster rifle, they did have almost 80% of the range of blaster rifles. He stopped at a position one-half through the lava field.
John kicked his Grav-rods parking sling. He still kept it idling. This was more about him unable to hold the bike steady, then it was about the possibility of losing power to that null grav. If that happened, he would have about 750 kg Grav-rod drop on his foot.
The reason John did cut the parking sling was that he saw something that looked a little funny. He wondered if whoever was behind this is trying to make standard genetic robots look like super soldiers. John had the pleasure of meeting super soldiers up close and personal. John was not paying attention when one of the super soldiers came up and try to hug. John thought that at least we were trying to do was crush his chest in the armor.
John raised his binoculars to look at a group of men wearing black pattern camouflage gear. There was no apparent attempt to make armor, and they carried assault blasters. They were not however very tall. Nor did they have the well-defined musculature of super soldiers. What someone did was try to make standard genetic robots look like super soldiers. And for their effrontery, they were liable to lose all.
John released the parking sling. He jetted more towards the main road. The problem with how they architected their new factory John could not get a straight look at the whole building. He wanted to go more along the left flank of the building. As he did this, he realized that he was moving into a bigger pool of light. The lights that were eliminating the corners of the building were also removing the cliff behind them. The white rock reflected quite a bit of the light. He was still hard to see, but he knew that he could remain there very long.
He pulled up to the alley way on the left flank of the genetic robots factory. He was able to verify that it was four stories tall. There were genetic robot guards on each of the corners of the building. There was no pillboxes or reinforced fortification. What he did see was grav-cars in parking spaces. The real humans of this factory arrived in their grav-car's. He brought up his binoculars and noticed that there was a hanging tag from the rearview mirror. He thought about getting closer and stealing one of those hang tags. If he did that and be noticed and it would be flagged. It would precipitate a royal battle from the onset he decided that he had the access pretty much all of Jeff's office. He had some pretty good software on his slate. He could cobble up a pretty good and convincing hang tag.
All John had to remember was to bring his special forces dagger with him. One of the things that he realized that these people did poorly was that there was no patrol. The guard
s were stationary in their locations and did not move. If that was really the truth of the matter than his job had gotten easier.
John walked his Grav-rod till it was pointed down the main road. Then he gunned the engine which sent him into the darkness one more time. John pulled up to his parking spot at the hotel. He did a quick cursory look at the new grav-car's, but all of them were rental grav-cars. People who might be able to afford grav-car's usually did not have a job at Faraway.
Nothing looked unusual to John's eyes. Had there been a posh expensive sports grav-car that would've got his attention. He grabbed his helmet, his slate, and the binoculars. With all of this in his helmet, he walked into the lobby of the hotel. He stopped by the check-in desk because Jeff was standing behind it.
"Jeff, have you seen the parking tags that the genetic robots factory use?"
“Yes, quite a few of those scientists stayed here while their houses were being built."
"Just how much do you remember the parking tag looking like?"
"I remember them quite well. I don't remember the barcode if there was one, or a serial number, but I do remember the general look of the tag." "How would you like to be a spy for a couple of hours?” "All you have for me is something that has to do with the hotel. You don't want me to go out to the field with you."
“We had this discussion before. This debate was the same for Daniel as it is for you. You have Elaine and a beautiful woman that is. Why would you want to go and put yourself into at risk?”
“When you put things like that I can understand why you have this concern for us." “In any intelligence organization, there are people who support the field agents. They are the people that are not mentioned enough in our reports. I will mention you in my report to my superiors."
"I thank you for that kindness." "I just recently had an encounter with these tags. I was sorely put to not steal one. It's a whole lot easier to bluff someone who has a good enough copy of a card."
"You're going to need to have your tag encased in plastic. We can do that here. Is your slight powerful enough to generate a colorful tag like that."
"Jeff, this is me. I wouldn't march out of a room without a great slate. I can generate a passable facsimile. If you would go ahead and laminate it. I would appreciate. Also, I have to bring in the explosives to build the bombs. I'm using a very stable explosive. The only time it becomes unstable is when there is detonator pushed into the mass. When I start working on this, I'm going to ask you to make sure that none of the regular housekeeping duties be done while I am working on the bombs."
“HDX?”
“Yeah, that's the stuff. You didn't tell me, Jeff, that you had explosive experience." "Not in the construction of a bomb, but in the placement of the bomb. Are you going to use a time detonator?"
“Yes, that's the primary detonator. I'm also going to use a status change detonator.” “You're talking about anyone coming about and trying to remove the bombs. When that happens, it blows up. Are you going to connect all of the detonators so that if one is disturbed all of them go up."
"You have more experience of explosives than I. I would love to bring you with me, but I don't need to take you with me. Do you remember how to make those bonds?"
"I made quite a few of them in my career. I guess I can make a few more if that's what you mean." * * *
"I want to go back into my room and cobble up a car tag. All printed up on your printer and if you could do your laminating magic on it. Then tomorrow after I meet with the CEO of Intergalactic Interests, I'll move the explosives to my room where we can cobble up some time bombs. That's the maximum I can do for you. Don't you tell a laying what I'm going to be doing."
"Of course I'm not going to do that. Do you think I'm going to chance or having a premature baby?" John was caught off guard. He was used to dealing with people in every facet of life, but not the one dealing with procreation. John was right at the reproduction part. He would be bad at the rearing of a child part
"That is excellent, Jeff. You're about to go on the most fun adventure of all. You are going to go on a family adventure. If you can get Elaine to tell you when she's due I might be able to send something from Eridani."
"What are you going to send her from Eridani?"
"I'll have my tailor make copies of my suits for the little tyke."
“What will she say if it's a girl?" "I will get my tailor to work in a pink bed of cloth or thread in the clothing. It's not intended to be anything other than a costume."
* * *
“Are you saying that you are going to create a costume for my son or daughter?"
"Of course, an uncle is allowed to do crazy things. That's the benefit of being an uncle."
"It'll probably be another year before you come back."
"I promise you that I will come back before that if I get more of my freedom back." “Okay, I'm going to hold you to that. That's one thing I know about John Hardesty. When you make a promise, you keep it."
John didn't have anything to say to that. He just gave them a single finger salute against the right side of his brow. He walked out of the lobby and to his door on the second floor.
He opened the door and stuck his head and to make sure nobody was waiting for him. The last couple of hotels that he went to had people waiting for them in the room. Some of them were sweet and gentle and very beautiful. While the others were not so kind and very ugly.
Convinced of the emptiness of his room John walked into his room. On his bed, he put his helmet and took off his jacket. He did leave in the sling holster carrying his 9 mm small frame weapon. John went ahead and closed the curtains for all the windows. It was night, but some things could see in the evening. He decided that he might want a shower later on. He took off his costume that gave him both protection from the light and also made him seem to be something that he was not. That left him naked which was something he was used to doing quite a bit. When he was his own pilot on the Rose, he would walk around naked while they were in hyper. That was why he so used to taking his clothes off.
He sat down at the desk with his slate, and one of his styluses. He brought up a program that did photographic level picture creation. The bottom of the tag was an octagon. It essentially had three interleaved octagon of white-red-white. The inserted text about this being a parking permit. He made up a gibberish about what parking it allowed him. The deal is that it has to look good. At least on his slate, it looked good. He sent the hanging tag to the hotel office were to be printed. There also going to laminated to give it that much more official.
Shortly after he set that photo, the door to his hotel room was being knocked upon. He went to the door and forgetting his state of dress opened the door.
Elaine was standing in front of the door. Her mouth was open in surprise. John realizes what was going on and he went to go get a bath robe.
“No, stay as you are. I love Jeff, but I have wondered what someone like you would've been like.” "Oh Elaine, I would've given you what you wanted in the way of carnal nature. I am not, however, someone who can remain faithful except to a particular kind of woman."
"I've often wondered why she stayed with you. It was evident that she was beautiful and lovely to every man. Now I understand why she would remain with you. Your physical prowess is one of the main reasons I believe that she found you attractive. Then there was the rest of it, a pilot, a soldier, and someone who was not sure of himself around women."
"If I have found myself unsure around women, then how is it that I am standing here as I in front of you. You might want to come in close the door and you. I don't mind showing off, but I would rather not show off now."
"Jeff went ahead and cut this tag down to size. He also did an excellent job of laminating it. This is all that you gave him to do."
“Yes, he wants to come with me, but my plan is not to have a bunch of people with me.
"Oh, if I had not been sent to work on Jeff, I might have won you." “You might have won me, but Vivan
a was being Vivana. I've never seen a woman walk in her lights out gear very seductively. Then turn right around and walk a regular walk. How can you be a male and not be attracted to that?"
* * *
"Do all women want you?"
"Let's say quite the majority. When Vivana was around, I didn't notice the other women." "As I said before I wish for 24 hours to be free of my marriage vows. Once those 24 hours are up, I want to return to what I have."
John merely nodded at Elains invocation. Nancy had told her he was finding himself very attractive to the other sex. If you did not have trouble with the morals of the situation, he would be spending a lot of time in bed.
"If you will pardon me Elaine, but I need to take a shower and get some sleep. Tomorrow is a hectic day."
"you won't mention this to Jeff William?" "Of course not. All that would do is stir up your marriage which is not something I think you need. You are going to be bringing in life on this rock. You don't need to be bringing in strife."
She bit her lower lip and token of indecision. She may be pregnant, but her desire had not been removed. She warred within herself. She gave herself one more look. Then she reached into the room and pulled shut the door.
John set the locks on the front door to his chambers. Then he went into the bathroom and took a long shower. It had been a long time since he had written a Grav-rod. This used muscles screamed their pain. The hot shower worked that pain out. When he came out of the bathroom, he was wearing the robe and not much more.
According to the op plan for this mission, he had to make a Hypercom call back to Eridani. This was in case there was a cease order. The powers that be did not know if this was a real situation or not. With his last communication, they had to know that the situation was as they feared it. He opened his attaché case and withdrew the Hypercom unit. John said Hypercom unit on the desk and sat in the office chair. You turned on the Hypercom unit and waited for it to receive Eridani.
