 
The Art of the Houdini Scientist

and the other soulless zombies who were never here...

by TR Nowry

The art of the Houdini Scientist

and the other soulless zombies who were never here, by TR Nowry

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2010 by TR Nowry

All Rights Reserved

Published By TR Nowry

All 'Art' By TR Nowry

The characters in this book are entirely fictional and rightly belong in the fiction section. Any resemblance to real people, places, countries or religions is completely unintentional. As with all copyright books, copies (physical and digital) are restricted to what is legally defined as fair use. No other use is expressed or implied and all other uses are reserved. Think of 'fair use' like Tivo. You can Tivo movies, TV shows, and the NFL (that's making a copy!) You can even convert them so you can watch them on your iPod (at work when the boss isn't looking!). But you can't put them on YouTube, sell them on the corner as DVDs, or put stills on T Shirts. These same principles apply to Ebooks. Even the free copies given out from time to time should NOT be redistributed, much like it's improper to distribute copies of 'The Office' just because it was recorded over the 'free' air. Basically, don't hand it out like candy, print dozens of copies, email it to all your friends, post it on servers or web sites and everything will be fine.

Starve the beast and feed the artist. This book is brought to you 100% free from the tyranny of traditional editors and publishers as an independent novel. Future titles depend entirely on your support. Thank you for keeping prices low by not distributing copies! If you received a copy without paying for it, please, do the right thing and purchase a copy (from Smashwords!) and give it to a friend!

The Art of the Houdini Scientist... is a prequel to The Hummingbird Series which includes, Patent Mine, Hell from a Well, The Heredity of Hummingbirds, and Mourning after Dawn. (And the HHOPP Engine, but it's more of a footnote) They were written/published Mourning first, then Heredity, Hell, Patent, and Art and can be read in any order.

The Twisted Timeline Trilogy is Personal Space, Older than Dirt, and The Bottle tossed across the sky.

And if you've got a few hours to kill, be sure to check out my Free short story, The Wandering Island Factory.

Chapter 1

WARNING

THIS BOOK CONTAINS ADULT CONTENT

AND SHOULD NOT BE READ BY

CHILDREN

It should be noted that this is a prequel to my Hummingbird Series. In this case it means it was literally written years after the series, but takes place before the series begins. As such, it necessarily ends where the next begins, can't be helped.

It's best to think of this series as you would a season you watch on TV. Not every question will be answered for the entire series within just one book, or the first season or episode.

The Art of the Houdini Scientist

and the other soulless zombies who were never here...

by TR Nowry

"Some savants can play concert-level piano at the age of five, without ever taking a lesson. Others can do advanced math in their heads, draw a Picasso with crayons, or recite every word they've ever read or heard. Her piano was a lathe, a plasma cutter, and an automated mill. And the songs she played shook the world."

In the control room of a secret base in the Rockies, a dozen engineers crowded around a wall of monitors as the girl on the screens connected the final pieces of a month long, multimillion-dollar project.

"They can't seriously be thinking about turning that thing on, can they?" the new engineer said.

"Believe it."

"She's what, thirteen?"

Stepping closer to the screen, the lead engineer just shook his head. "I've seen her like this before. Almost a trance the way she—"

"Have you looked at that thing, from the ground I mean?" He pointed to the schematics on the large plasma. An array of ducts, pipes, and tubes fed an enormous ring bolted to the ceiling, dripping with frost. "Staring up, it almost looks like a—"

"A Stargate, right out of the TV sho—"

"And they're prepared to let a teenage girl not only build one, but turn it on? Are you guys crazy?"

The girl on the screen stopped what she was doing, hesitated, waved her hand around as if she was conducting an orchestra that only she could see, then pointed to the camera.

"God help us," the lead engineer said as they turned it on, and more power than in the entire US grid surged through the alien-looking device.

Booooommmmmm!!!

Dozens of cameras failed, all at the same time, and the entire complex plunged into darkness as the percussion of a muffled explosion rumbled through the base. The desks rattled as books fell from the shelves, pencils and cups spilled to the floor. "Richter 3.9!" someone announced, lights flickering on.

"Get those monitors back up," the XO ordered, "I want to see what the hell is going on in there!" He pounded the wall beside the monitor, "Now!"

"Getting it, Sir. Only one of the cameras survived the blast, rebooting it. . . now." The engineer gestured to the main plasma. "We should see something. . . there!" It blinked to life. The ring bolted to the ceiling had melted into clumps dripping stalactites of glowing orange to the floor. Smoke filled the top of the chamber, obscuring everything that wasn't burning within the camera's view.

"Get a fire team down there, and get me a camera that can actually see someth—"

"Sir, switching to infrared."

"Better," the XO said, stepping closer to the screen. "What's that stuff under the gate?"

"I don't know, Sir, it wasn't there before. But it's big. Thermal imaging says it's two thousand degrees— No, make that eight hundred degrees— What the hell? It's room temperature already. I don't know, Sir, it's off the screen. Thermal doesn't see it anymore."

The XO pounded his fist into his hand, "Get me eyes in that chamber, right now! I want to see what kind of rabbit she just pulled from our hat."

Two men ran from the room as others busied themselves getting the computers back online. . .

A much calmer eleven years earlier. . .

The Major showed his badge to the guard at the gate, was quickly cleared, then drove to the back of a base that oddly looked like a high-end, gated strip mall, complete with fake signs and false windows painted on block walls. After parking the Suburban, he checked his hair in the mirror, adjusted his uniform, then walked into the office for his appointment. He hadn't slept since he got the call last night. It was the opportunity of a lifetime.

"You've been transferred to a special assignment, Major," the Colonel said, gesturing toward the seat before his desk.

"Special assignment? That wasn't what I was told over the pho—"

"It's an orphan under the highest security clearance. Nothing about it can be discussed, even over a secure phone. A black, off-budget project that— Someone has to take over this thing and turn it around, and you're about the only—"

The Major thumbed through the folder just handed to him, "This has got to be some sort of joke, right?"

The Colonel shook no. "It's real, Major. Some civilians convinced the brass to take over this abomination, funneled millions into it, then when the administration changed, everything they had just done became illegal overnight and—"

"I'll say, I think the UN even outlawed this kind of thing. Why can't we just shut it down? You know, pull the plug?"

"And do what with all those names in that folder?"

The Major flipped to the back and skimmed hundreds of first names, and first names only. "Orphaned project, huh? You can't experiment on real orphans, so, where'd they get the stock DNA for the stem cells?"

"Prisoners and—"

"Prisoners? Why not from military personnel?"

"Prisoner DNA came complete with a huge database and hundreds of skills and attributes on long rap sheets that were already indexed and cross referenced. All the info— all the hard work had already been done by the criminal justice system. Ready made, turn key operation that way. Car thief and pickpocket translated into high dexterity, for example, even graded them on number of suspected crimes before getting caught."

"I don't know how to fix this, Colonel. How does legal come down on it all?"

"Well, at the time it was legal, of course, so there's some degree of grandfathering. Hell, up until last year they could have shut it down by putting 'em all in a landfill, but not now. Legal says we can classify them as lifetime enlistees, which puts them under the military justice system and keeps the whole thing under the rug, but just barely. Those with fingerprints on this project want it to disappear, desperately."

"I don't know what the hope here is. You're looking at a fifteen or twenty-year investment of capital and effort, and I don't see any way to make any of it back. What were they thinking?"

He shrugged, tapping a pen on the desk. "Don't know. Ultimate deniability, I suspect. People without an identity, without a DNA match to anyone but a soup of common criminals. The blackest of black ops, but that's just a guess. It explains why no military DNA was used and criminals were preferred. Everyone associated with it is long gone. Well, except for that list of names in that folder right there. As for the government, they're looking to sever all liability.

Look at us, a lowly colonel and a major. It's no coincidence that any paper trail will stop at our scapegoat ranks. No generals within miles.

You'll get a modest budget that can't be traced, that doesn't appear on any federal line item anywhere. It isn't huge, but it'll do for housing, employees and such. As I see it, you have just a few choices from here.

First, you can play babysitter and just hide it and hope it all sort of goes away on its own. Minimal effort. That's what most people would do.

Second, you can check it out, look it over, evaluate it like you did for us on other lost causes, and try to steer it into something productive for this country, instead of the horrible embarrassment that it is.

Either way, every employee that you hire has to come through the military; and just like you, they will be officially let go for deniability. We are officially divorcing the government from this. It's a redheaded bastard orphan. And it's all yours."

With a wooden squeak, the Major leaned back in the chair. "Prisoners, huh? Maybe I should run it like a prison." He thumbed through the file again, checking the dates. "They're all infants. Why not put them up for adoption, dump them into the system, say the Coast Guard found them adrift in a sea container or something?"

"Well, that's another option. I think they're skittish about that, though. Medical oddities might pop up and front page this little operation into a worldwide scandal. One child here or there may fly under the radar, but dump a few hundred into the system and questions are bound to eventually unravel everything and leave the government trying to explain this, uh, abortion of an idea. My God, man, think of the headlines, 'Military clones Frankensteined prisoners for CIA assassin squads'. I think they'd rather there was an 'accident' where they all died in a fire than let them be discovered in adoptions. At least, that was my impression." The Colonel shrugged, "I'd evaluate it first, before you make that call."

The Major closed the folder, then tucked it under his arm. He knew he was committed to it, like it or not. But the weight of it kept him pinned in the chair. A weight he doubted he could ever lift. It would be harder than swimming with chains to turn this around. He stared at the Colonel, knowing they had both been volunteered to jump on this live grenade, so some politicians could keep from getting eggs on their faces.

The Colonel signed a sheet on his desk and aimed the form at the Major, "Sign at the bottom."

He sighed, leaning in. "This wasn't at all what I was expecting." Without a choice, he resigned so he could continue to serve.

"Your funds, your calls, your baby. Technically you'll still be under me, but I don't want you clearing anything with me, the chain of command stops with you." He looked over the page, then stared him in the eyes. "You're a civilian now, and the CEO of," he scratched his head for a second and flipped through the papers on his desk, "oh hell, whatever the damn name they came up with was. Make sure your taxes are filled out right, nobody can help you with the IRS; they're more sadistic and lethal than Al-Qaeda. Remember, I don't make any decisions for you, I just help with resources and employees." He filed the papers into the drawer. "As far as the world is concerned, I'm just an old friend you keep in touch with every now and then."

The civilian stood, saluted, and surrendered his military ID as he drove out the gate.

This was not the promotion he had expected.

In the Rockies of Colorado, the military had acquired an entire series of mountains, officially for training, with a small set of buildings located about midway up one's southern side. Middle of nowhere and practically devoid of homes for twenty miles in every direction, it was exactly where he expected to hide just such a clandestine operation.

He wasn't happy about it at all, but he followed orders well.

First thing after relocating, he met with the staff. The meeting lasted a full twenty minutes before he dismissed them.

"Nurse, uh, Benita," he said, "stick around a second. You're the only one who has been here from the beginning, right?"

She nodded as the rest of the staff left to continue with their normal duties.

"What, uh, huh. . ." he scratched his head, "I see where they had over three thousand children when they started, but they're down to just a few hundred now. How were the selections, uh, how were—"

"We," she looked away and shook her head, "they graded them. Defects, looks, eye-hand mostly, some intellectual evaluations, and a lot simply because they were girls. In the usual nine months it took to go from scientific theory to reality, the budget, and the project, radically changed." She looked him in the eyes, almost angry. "Any teen-mom could have told them making babies was the easy part." She looked away again. "We had only so many automated teaching units, you see, and no funds for more, or regular teachers. Even on rotating sleeping schedules, ten could share a single teaching unit only so long. Only the smartest of each group was. . . kept." She looked down, "Budgets. A tough call, really. Glad I didn't have to make it."

She was being kind, but the irony was breathtaking. When read into the program the day before, he had discovered the reductions were planned from the beginning. The same politicians that routinely called the military 'baby killers' thought up this abomination and made those selections. Only people who thought of embryos as lumps of cells could dream of such things, and her visible discomfort spoke well of her. Out of morbid curiosity he wanted to ask the actual mechanics of what happened to 90% of them, but felt it was better if he didn't really know, for legal reasons. Besides, it was a practice he planned to discontinue. That did provide him with another question, however. "So these are the top ten percent then, right from birth. Any truly outstanding?"

She visibly relaxed. "We had one, or thought we did. A girl built to an unbelievable vocabulary of over five thousand words in each of sixteen languages by nine months. Or, at least we thought she had. She's never spoken. It's now our opinion that she was simply lucky with the auto—"

"Wait." He shook his head, "I guess I don't understand this automated teaching thing, then. Explain that to me."

She sat, crossing her legs. "Well, think crib with a computer screen over it and a school teacher giving standard courses. The infants are fitted in suits with reflective chips so the computer can grade their responses. Since a computer is limited in what it can evaluate, it's essentially all multiple choice.

Think a primitive version of sign language." She made a few gestures with her arms. "Most of the videos were commercially sold as a kind of educational video games anyway, we just tweaked the interface for children unable to work a keyboard or mouse.

Anyway, we had lots of other high scorers in it, but most mastered just a handful of languages or a few subjects. The one girl defied probability and seemed to master them all. But, like I said, we've revised that. She must have noticed some sort of pattern, shading, or artifact in the program that let her pick the right answer every time. Like how sometimes you can see a hidden door in a video game by the way it's drawn. We never figured out what she saw that gave it away, though."

He had wondered what taught them, since the staff and his budget was way too small to employ the masses of teachers they would need to give them all individualized instruction. Since all those that weren't compatible with this form of digital learning were eliminated, it simplified things greatly. But it was about as moral as teaching them to run faster by letting wolves thin the class, eating the slowest ones. "The learning systems are still being used then, right?"

"Yeah, with keyboards and mice, now that they have the motor dexterity to work them. Several hours a day, every day, as often as we can work them in. It's very economical, mostly commercial stuff, and we have material all the way to advanced college courses, thanks to E-Diplomas. But again, no essays and nothing other than multiple choice."

"Interesting," he said. "I bet diapers are a nightmare for hundreds."

"Actually, no. They were all toilet trained by one. Most only had problems making it through the night. They're all a little creepy that way. Like little soulless zombies." She stood, hand on the doorknob, looking visibly uncomfortable again, before staring him in the eyes, "You'll see what I mean soon enough. It's like they're," she shrugged, "empty. . . or something. Missing something."

"Toilet trained by one? How far ahead are these kids?"

She paused, "They're about two years old, chronologically, but they test, on average, about where you would expect a five-year-old. Walking, eye-hand coordination, and speech with almost all of them. A few even higher, but even the bottom test around where a three-year-old would be. Their lives are extremely structured, teaching, tasks, training, testing, then bed. Military discipline seems to work well."

He headed for the door. "I'd like to see a typical day, review some of the curricula they're—"

She stood in his way. "Well, what requires a human instructor, they do as a group, but the vast majority of their instruction is done individually. Since the 'teachers' are computerized, they progress at their own pace and quickly diverged from each other. We think that is, at least in part, what is responsible for their rapid advances, since none of them are subjected to peer pressure or held back by their slowest members. At least, not with the automated classes. But I can provide you with their grades and the tests that they took," she pointed at the terminal, "that's all on the base's server."

"Yes, that's perfect. Thank you," he said, getting comfortable behind his new office desk.

She logged him onto the system and pulled up the appropriate files before leaving for her chores. He was so new, his codes didn't work, yet.

Mismatching monitors, towers, keyboards and cables were everywhere in the building, even their servers were cobbled and recycled from discarded leftovers of Pentagon upgrades, but were more than adequate for the tasks at hand. The computer graphed and charted every detail of every student, down to the seconds it took them to answer each question.

The problem he had almost instantly was that of perspective. This was like a science experiment without any control subjects. None of them were allowed to grow normally. None of them were allowed to play. They were kept focused and loaded down with tasks every waking hour, with military efficiency.

Well, that wasn't entirely true about not having control subjects. He had a child that was about two.

His son couldn't type complete words or sentences, like all of these could. His son didn't have a vocabulary of thousands of words, nor could he talk in complete, rational sentences in even one language. All but one of these could.

He investigated the highest-scoring girl in question, oddly also at the top of the list to be deleted for not communicating.

Luck seemed impossible as a factor in math. Math wasn't multiple choice, it required typing actual answers. She was answering ninth grade questions with almost 100% accuracy. He clicked on the last test she took.

A complex word problem popped up, and before he even finished reading the sentence, she had answered it correctly. Six seconds was her average response time. Six seconds was about as fast as he could type, but he took a minute or more and got the trick question wrong.

He investigated further and clicked on her origin tab.

Three embezzlers, a terrorist bomb maker, a famous mob hit man even he recognized by name, two car thieves, and about two dozen others, plus some cells intended for autism research.

Autism.

She had never spoken. 'Avoids eye contact' was all over her file. Autism would make sense with her rapid advances in math. It could also give her a way to 'see' the pattern in multiple-choice answers, without actually learning the languages.

He clicked more links and started to read.

Near the end of the gene-splicing experiment, someone had a "Rain Man" / "Beautiful Mind" thought and added autism into the mix of 'leftovers'. The cynical side of him bet it had to do with qualifying for more research funds. Officially it was an afterthought, simply because they had the extra incubators and abundant embryonic stem cells. She was the only one in that batch that survived the aggressive weeding process.

Even their names were computer generated.

Toilet trained, highly disciplined, and all reading and doing math on advanced levels. All where multilingual.

His son was just making rough sentences.

The Colonel was right. This warranted a thorough investigation before he made any rash decisions or changes of policy. What they were doing seemed to be working. It would probably require a few years of careful evaluation before he could decide on an appropriate course of action. Clearly lots of potential was here, waiting to be found. Perhaps some good could come from it.

For now, he had adopted this orphan.
Chapter 2

"Left hand," the voice said.

A picture of a woman holding up her left hand was projected on the screen.

"Left hand," the voice said again.

BZZZZZZ!!!! A strobe light went off in the infant's face.

"This is a left hand," the woman's voice said again. "Show me your left hand."

The infant covered her eyes with her arm before the light flashed and it buzzed again.

"Left hand," the voice relentlessly repeated until the infant complied.

The next picture appeared on the screen and the instructions continued in a new language.

The infant tried to sit in her crib. The screen covered the top; the sides were opaque and solid. She crawled to the foot and continued to explore. She could touch all four sides, should she stretch just right. It seemed solid, but she knew it was not. She had seen it open before. She pressed against it again.

BZZZZZZ! Flash!

She complied with its instruction.

She pressed her ear against the side and tried to focus on the voices outside her crib. "This is our most promising one," a muffled woman said. "We are having compliance problems with it recently, but it is thirty-two tapes ahead of any other, six languages so far, about two thousand words in each, and shows an aptitude for numbers and—"

BZZZZZ! Flash!

". . . terminate 10% of the low scores," a muffled man said. "Embryos are cheap, those learning pods are killing our budget."

"Kill them?" the woman said with sadness. "They're just—"

"Replaceable, nurse Ben—"

BZZZZZ! Flash!

Shadona woke in the darkened room, heart pounding. She wiped her cheeks and rubbed her fingers across her closed eyes. One of the few survivors, she looked across the room, lit by a single nightlight.

A dozen children, all around her age, were stuffed into this tiny room, with dozens of other rooms just like it down the hall.

Expensive. She remembered the word expensive, and associated it with terminations. Those terminated weren't flawed, simply expendable to the budget. Under performers.

She crawled to the edge of her bed and stared at the distant floor. She was only two, if she understood the nurses correctly, and their numbers had been cut to a tenth of what they once were. Most of the girls like herself were gone, but plenty of boys too. She wanted to leave the room, but she knew the floor was covered in sensors and an alarm would sound before she could get even a few steps from the bed.

Bari was asleep in the bunk above hers. All the infants in this room were fast asleep, except her. She didn't sleep well, most nights.

The combination to the door leading out into the main hall was 6-1-4-9-3-2, though one of the men, who seemed new and in charge, used another number, 9-8-2-3-1-7-0-1-7-2. Each person seemed to have a different number, and each lock, she assumed, would only allow certain numbers to pass through them. She memorized all the numbers she had ever seen, but assumed the man in charge could open all doors, since his code had three extra digits. It didn't matter at the moment, however, because the only keypad on this door was mounted in the hall. She even knew the code to disarm the floor, yet its pad was just as unreachable and located outside the room. Thwarted, she stared at the floor while she listened.

"I've got to get home early tonight," a woman said in the hall outside the room. "Jason is in over his head with our eight month old."

"They can be a handful," the night guard said, muffled by the door.

"Oh, the poor guy. She won't go to sleep without a long lullaby and about twenty minutes of rocking."

"You ought to enroll her here for two week—"

Shadona leaned forward at the sounds of a scuffle— the woman had punched the guard, but he didn't react like it was an attack and seemed to simply shrug it off.

"Hush your mouth," the woman said, "I'm not having my child turn into a soulless zombie like one of them! Not in a million years."

Clearly offended, her heels made a louder-than-usual echo down the hall.

Shadona rested her head on the pillow again.

'One of them'

'Zombie'

'Lullaby'

'Rocking'

'Home'

She knew all the words, but had never been told a lullaby. Had never been rocked in someone's arms. Had never had someone in a hurry to see her.

She, was one of them.

The lights flickered on as the tubes started to hum.

"Everyone up and on the floor," the Drill Sergeant ordered. "On the floor, on the floor!"

She climbed down the ladder before Bari above her and assembled in a straight line with all the other children on her side of the room.

"Straighten. Straighten," the Drill Sergeant said, and the children quietly complied. Nobody would be allowed to eat, drink, or use the bathroom until the line was perfect and everyone was quiet.

The Drill Sergeant marched between the lines, then back to the front of the room.

"Green line, yellow line, blue line. Go," he said, opening the door to the hall.

Her side of the room waited until the other side made it out the door before following them. Green line, yellow line, blue line meant the dexterity testing room.

It also meant bathrooms and food.

An assortment of nuts, bolts, washers, and parts were arrayed on the table in front of each child, with blinders such that no child could see what the other was working on. A whistle blew when a green light lit and a diagram of the finished project was displayed.

Twenty-six children worked as fast as possible to assemble the project. Only the first eighteen of them to complete it would get breakfast.

She assembled most of it as quickly as possible, then stopped with the last four parts, and waited. The first five would get a dessert with their meal, and eight of the boys fought ferociously to get that bonus. She had gotten the prize once, and got hit in the head with a plate later that day by one of the boys she beat out.

She didn't want a dessert that bad. She aimed for the middle and was rather consistent at getting the tenth, eleventh, or twelfth meal.

She waited, pieces in hand, as other children ran with their completed projects to exchange them for food.

She waited her turn.

"What did we designate that one?" the Major asked the nurse while reviewing the daily videos.

"Shadona," she said. "She only scored top five once, finishes near the middle. She's the only girl that hasn't spoken yet." She typed a few keys, "Physical said she's healthy, though. No medical reason that we can find for her silence."

He leaned in and pointed to the screen, "Rewind that, please."

"Sure."

"Bring up the other children, synchronized, same screen if you can."

She clicked the keys.

"Interesting. Bring up the last month of dexterity exercises and run them at 16x."

She clicked away, and they watched for a few minutes.

"Why hasn't anyone brought this to my attention?"

The nurse played the video again, "What, I don't see anything?"

"She almost finishes the project a full six minutes faster than any other kid, and stops. Not just once, but for weeks. This is the kind of thing that we are looking for."

She reviewed it again, as the Major walked away.

Shadona sat in front of the monitor, headphones on, fingers poised at the keys. Bored out of her mind. The woman's voice was distracting, but fortunately the lesson's text and questions were displayed at the bottom half of the screen. Clicking 'Skip' turned the page and cut her monologue short, but she couldn't skip the questions and answers at the end of each chapter. She would prefer to skip entire chapters, but it wasn't allowed.

She stared at the screen, barely able to focus. Fortunately, she didn't need to. The answers seemed obvious, when she could finally reach them.

"Congratulations," the voice said, music in the background, "You have completed this section with a" then the voice shifted to clunky and artificial, "ninety-eight percent." The music shifted to a tension building, quickening tempo, then the voice came back, "Welcome to organic chemistry, advanced level three."

She adjusted her posture as she checked the clock on the bottom right of the screen. She had another forty minutes of this boredom to endure.

"Assemble at the desks, left to right, first come," the instructor said as the line of children marched into the dexterity room. "At the whistle, open your box and assemble your project. Talking will be punished by forfeiting half of your lunch. First eighteen will receive a full ration."

The children stood at attention beside their assigned mini-cubicles, all to the right of the chair.

When they were perfectly quiet and at full attention, the instructor blew the whistle and said, "Have a seat and begin."

She opened her box, glanced inside, then closed the box again.

The Major stared at the monitor as he reviewed the experiment.

"I don't get it," nurse Benita said, "what's she doing?"

He leaned back and snickered. "I instructed that a single washer be removed from her box so she wouldn't have enough pieces to complete it." He checked the time code from when she opened the box until the time she closed it, "Eight seconds. It took her eight seconds to see that it didn't have enough pieces. Faced with complaining, she didn't. She didn't even turn her head to look at the instructor. But she didn't waste time trying to assemble it either. Today was just for a half ration. Tomorrow I've instructed the same experiment, but that time it'll cost her lunch. I want to see what it'll take to get her to talk." He was reluctant to alter the educational curricula of the previous administration when it was showing such spectacular results, across the board.

She went without lunch for a week.

She sat at the desk, opened the box, then closed the box again.

The instructor stomped behind her. "You will participate in this exercise," he yelled, right beside her ear.

But she didn't move.

The instructor dumped the contents of the box onto the desk, "You will assemble the project, right now."

She said nothing, did nothing.

He grabbed her hands and forcefully placed them on the table. But as soon as he let go, she returned them to her lap. "You will comply. You will complete this task or you won't get anything to eat today."

She shrugged, placed her hands on the edge of the desk, pushed her chair back, and headed toward the door. Only to be forcibly returned to the chair and shoved back to the desk.

"Start now!"

She silently refused.

Seated in the dining room, full plate on the table before her, she sat silently, as instructed.

"Everyone," the instructor said as her hunger deepened, "take one forkful from her plate before getting a plate of your own."

She stared at her plate as the food slowly disappeared. Most smiled with glee as they sank their forks into her ever-diminishing meal. She stared, but didn't cry. Instead, she slowly rocked forward and back.

As the last child was fed, the instructor dumped what was left in the trash. "Maybe you'll obey next time."

She sat in a room filled with the clatter of meals being consumed, while her stomach rumbled.

She refused again the following day, and her punishment was repeated.

The Major reviewed the video and was looking over the reports when Benita entered his office. "Can I help you?" he said.

"It's now becoming a nutritional development issue," she said. "Besides, I'm not sure you can break someone from silence by denying her dinner."

"Point noted. Let's supplement with vitamins for now, see if we can get her to—"

"Supplements will just prevent— She won't continue to develop on just supplements. It's been a week now, a week of one meal a day. We'll be talking stunted growth soon."

"Put her on supplements and we'll continue for one more week. She will start communicating, one way or another."

She nodded, then left the room.
Chapter 3

"Have a seat, and. . . begin," the instructor said, blowing the whistle.

She sat, folded her arms on the desk and rested her head, box unopened.

The instructor pulled her chair out from under her, "You will stand at attention if this is going to be your attitude," he said.

She sat on the floor and crawled under the desk.

The instructor grabbed her foot and dragged her— When the door to the room opened, the instructor let go and stood at attention. "Major," he said.

A man she had never met knelt before the desk, "Come with me," he said, offering her a hand.

Reluctantly, she complied.

A plate of food sat on his desk, steam wafting off the chicken and mixed vegetables with broccoli. The mashed potatoes were covered in a golden, thick gravy. The smell in the room was driving her crazy, but she simply sat in the chair as instructed, and waited.

The Major scribbled a complex formula onto a sheet of paper, then slid it across the table to the child. "If you can complete this formula, I'll give you this plate."

She was starving, but didn't know this man. She knew what to expect from all the others. She could predict their reactions fairly easily, but she had never interacted with him before. She lifted the pencil and glanced at the equation. She looked him in the eyes, briefly, then pulled the page closer and scribbled the answer.

He looked it over, then slid her the plate.

She ate as fast as she could.

He typed at the keyboard, then turned to the child, "Why not complete the assembly? You've been getting an 'incomplete' for weeks."

She pulled the plate closer, in case he should renege.

He turned the monitor so she could see the screen, then played the video. She watched, captivated for a few seconds by the child on the screen, then abruptly turned and scanned the ceiling for—

"There are no cameras in this room," he said, then smiled at the child.

She stared him in the eyes, briefly, glanced at the screen, then returned her focus to the plate, pushing a chunk of chicken through the gravy and potatoes before shoveling it into her mouth.

"You're clearly very bright." He clicked his way to another video, "See here, you complete all but the last few pieces a full six minutes before anyone else. And these aren't easy projects they have you working on. Kids three times your age would take twice as long, and even then most would fail to assemble it correctly. You should be proud."

She glanced at the screen, but focused on the food quickly being consumed. She paused, suddenly compelled to separate the mixed vegetables for a full minute before she could continue to eat.

As she approached the end of the plate, he pulled a box from under his desk, then dumped the contents before her. "Show me how far you can assemble this one."

She glanced at the parts, the empty plate, then sat back in her chair and stared at the floor.

"Please," he said, "just do the best you can."

She paused. Please was the word the video instructor often used. It sounded strange coming from a living person. Eventually, she leaned toward the desk, examined the parts, then sat back in her seat again.

He smiled. "What's missing?"

She pulled two bolts and a small washer out to the side, then sat back again.

"Why didn't you do that with the instructor?"

She stared at the floor.

"What can you make with these parts?"

She rocked back and forth.

He shrugged, pulled a KitKat from the desk, then broke off a piece and handed it to her.

She gobbled it, then looked over the parts again.

"Just make anything you want from it, see what you come up with. There's no right or wrong answer."

She ran her fingers across the top of the assorted parts, but did nothing with them.

After a few minutes, he handed her the rest of the bar and told her to rejoin her class.

She noted that his door had the same keypad on the outside as all the others, but was unlike any she had seen. It wasn't locked to those inside the room. He could leave any time he wanted.

He was the one with the extra digits.

"Yes, good morning," he said over the phone. "This is retired Major Brigspan calling for Colonel Westingale. . . Yes, thank you, I'll wait."

He looked over the scribbled equation. It looked right, but he had gotten it off the internet, so his trust level with it wasn't very high. Autism and savants ran hand in hand, sometimes. Math was a marketable skill, lucrative in some niche applications. But it wasn't his area. He needed to hire a professional, and his company couldn't just put an ad in the paper.

He discussed his idea with the Colonel before leaving for the day.

The next morning, six faxes were waiting for him in his office. Each was a complex formula that needed solving. None of them had, to his knowledge, ever been solved. A true test of a savant, if there ever was one. But perhaps an unreasonable test of a two-year-old.

She was pulled from the dexterity class and delivered to his office.

"Can you solve this equation?" he asked, pushing the first one in front of her.

She glanced at it, paused, then sat back in the chair.

"What about this one?" he turned to another.

She glanced, but showed no interest.

"How about this one?" He unwrapped a KitKat while she looked.

She was interested, but just in the candy.

He showed her the rest, but she offered no help. It may well have been beyond her, even with her math scores near college level. He broke off a piece and gave it to her anyway, while he contemplated what her silent problem may be. Thinking of her obstinance in assembling with missing pieces, he pointed to the one on top, "What's wrong with this one?"

She stared at it for a second, then circled six figures in the equation.

"What about the others?" he said, giving over the rest of the candy.

She leafed through the rest, circling what could be entirely random parts for all he knew.

"Thank you," he said, "Go to the cafeteria and get a real lunch."

He faxed the pages back and waited for a response.

She was not a savant. None of the equations were 'flawed', according to their authors.

Disheartened to find his hunch was wrong, he had nonetheless established a dynamic with the child. Others punished, he rewarded. Good cop, bad cop. He looked over the computerized reports. She was the highest flyer in math. The computer even let her skip grades because of her high scores. But math wasn't her only marketable skill. According to the file, she was fluent in every language they had courses for. Most were provided by the CIA to bring spies up to speed on our enemies and went far beyond vocabulary and sentence structure and even delved into slang and regional dialects. He placed another call and requested copies of intercepts that needed analyzing.

They arrived in his inbox as MP3s. Forty hours worth.

She sat at his desk and waited. A plate of food was already there, covered with a dome to keep it warm, the smell saturating the room.

The door opened behind her, and the Major crossed the room to the big chair behind the desk. "I haven't given up on you yet," he said. "They want to reduce your rations as punishment for obstinance, but I don't think that's wise. Worse, I don't think it's a particularly helpful way to get you to communicate more.

In these files is a needle in a haystack. We know that the enemies of your country have hidden a secret message in these files of seemingly casual conversations. They have a clandestine plan to harm us, but I think you can help. I think you can find their plot in all these taps. I want you to give it a try while you eat, ok?"

She stared at the ground, then looked at the terminal turned her way. She moused over the first file, clicked it, then opened a second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth—

The conversations blurred together into an indecipherable noise, "One at a time," he said.

She continued to click until they were all open before starting to eat.

The noise was annoying, but soon it sounded like a crowded room, or cafeteria. Within the hour, she had listened to all of them, deleted all but three, and wrote Philadelphia, bridge, and Tuesday the 25th.

He flagged the three files and emailed back the warning.
Chapter 4

By age three, her insights had thwarted six attacks and led to the decimation of four terrorist cells overseas, and one at home. Yet, limitations were becoming apparent. Though she could focus on dozens of conversations simultaneously, he noticed she could only remain focused for an hour a day, even when restricted to a single conversation at a time. That still meant she could analyze in one hour of one day what a trained professional took almost a week to review. Consensus was it had something to do with the large number of languages she was fluent in, but nobody knew for sure. Since she couldn't possibly transcribe dozens of conversations within an hour, she only wrote down the relevant info and flagged the file. But detailed transcripts from her taps, done by others, yielded nothing out of the ordinary, even to the ears of trained professionals. Yet her tips came with results.

She was a proven asset, and he was deploying her to the advantage of his company, and country.

Over the last year they had added code breaking to the children's curricula, and mixed real wiretaps into their testing, with limited success. Twenty-three other children proved capable of accurately transcribing large amounts of intercepts, but failed at divining the hidden meanings behind them. To them, they sounded like typical conversations. Transcripts, though useful, didn't provide the same clues she was honing into. And her talent didn't seem teachable, nor was she interested in sharing. She was still the only child that had yet to speak.

The staff's best guess was that because languages came so easily to her, she didn't listen to the words themselves, but how they were subconsciously pronounced. Much like a mobster might hesitate slightly while ordering 'flowers' to be 'delivered', she had an ear for words and phrases that were unnatural, out of place, or broke the expected flow, and a mind that quickly found meanings from context. But that was wild conjecture at best. The child was anything but forthcoming and rarely, if ever, communicated beyond simple answers.

When this abomination was passed to him, the Colonel had suggested an evaluation period before choosing a course of action. Just to see if he could find some way to salvage the investment.

Their CIA/NSA translation contracts generated several hundred thousand a year, with a twenty thousand dollar bonus for each cell penetrated by their information. That still fell far short of meeting the financial demands of a facility this big, but it was a step in the right direction. And it was a priceless contribution to national security, something that didn't go unnoticed by the Colonel, nor the hidden funders.

A year ago, when nurse Benita said the children were soulless zombies, he dismissed her comments. But now he had a year of contact with them. They were soulless, in a way. They didn't play, run around, or constantly chat, they didn't smile, and they only seemed to laugh at the misfortunes of others.

Soulless was a strong word, but he was at a loss to find another that fit any better. He had had Shadona in his office every day for months, dark black hair, dark brown, almost black eyes, lightly tan complexion. She was as cute as any child he had ever met. Yet, she didn't feel real. Detached. Had a dog sat in that chair for as long as she had, he would have easily felt something for it. . . but not her. Not any of them.

They felt like things, lab rats or experiments. Not people.

Not children.

He had intentionally sent her to bed without dinner, starved her for weeks, and thought nothing of it. No remorse at all. How was that possible if they weren't soulless?

He felt horrible when he sent his own son to bed without dessert for not finishing his vegetables.

There was something about them that made everyone want to stay detached.

As a practical matter, they lacked the funds to employ enough qualified daycare providers and were structured more like a boot-camp/prison than anything else. Guards and drill sergeants, not parents. Orphanages typically grew detached, soulless children. But orphanages rarely produced children this disciplined, or accomplished.

And no orphanage in the world had produced a three-year-old that could crack terror cells.

So what if she did it while rocking back and forth in a chair, staring at the floor. Results were results.

He checked his email. A scientist reported back on one of the formulas she had corrected. He admitted the error and requested to talk to whoever found it, since the solution still eluded him.

A face-to-face was out of the question, of course. First, these kinds of email were filtered through the Colonel, and second, she was three.

That said, they would find some way to accommodate the DOD scientist. After all, he had already managed to get NSA/CIA contracts without anyone from either organization setting foot on the base. It wasn't impossible. Simply difficult.

The girl was delivered to his office later that week.

"Well, Shadona," he said, looking over her file again. She was at a college level in math, chemistry, physics, and biochemistry, just to name a few. Yet, her grades in each had dropped to barely passing. He minimized the window on his monitor, "You were right on the formula you corrected last year. Do you remember it?"

She rocked back and forth, but had no other reaction.

"I'd like you to take another look at it. They've adjusted it and think they've fixed it." He pushed the piece of paper to her.

She didn't look up.

"Take a look at it."

She continued to rock.

She could be incredibly frustrating for the first few minutes. "Take a look," he said in a stern voice.

She glanced at the desk, straightened the pens in his cup, then returned her gaze to the floor.

He produced an Oreo from his drawer, then placed it on the paper. "Take a look, please."

She looked, while nibbling the cookie.

"Is it correct now?"

She shrugged, then went back to rocking.

"What's wrong with it?"

She slowed when another cookie was placed on the paper, next to a pencil, but didn't look at it.

"It's very important. This formula could save hundreds of lives."

She sat still.

"It's very expensive to feed all the children here. Your assistance will help bring everyone more food, and help your country immensely."

She paused, then circled two new places and underlined a third before pushing the paper away.

"Thank you." He produced a third cookie, then sent her on her way.

He scanned the paper and emailed it back, then reviewed her records again. The sudden drop in grades was disconcerting. It may well be a sign that she was struggling, or that her talent was coming to an end. Though the dozens transcribing taps were the bread and butter of their contract, she was the real star of the project. Transcriptions accounted for, at best, 60% of their revenues, her analysis alone accounted for the other 40%. The number of simultaneous taps she could handle had also dropped by three in the last month.

According to his research, autism had a big genetic component and their window for productivity may well be limited. Some turn inward and completely shut down by five. Some recover from it, in limited ways, and become like a "Rain Man", limited to a niche application and socially dysfunctional. With little or no information on how to steer her clear of any of these outcomes, he was left with blind guesses. If she shut down, it was doubtful that his current budget could afford to keep a special-needs child, and he had no idea how or what he would do then. Records placed all the other deletions as SIDs, but she was a little old for that fiction to fly.

He needed an expert in child raising in general, autism specifically, and there was no chance of finding just such an expert serving in the military, let alone one with the required security clearance.

The child with the highest value could quickly become his biggest problem. He wanted to get ahead of this, if possible.

"Nurse Benita," he said, looking up from his terminal, "Please, have a seat."

She did.

"You're primarily a, um, triage battlefield nurse, right?"

"Well, officially, yes. But I've done surgeries, tonsils, broken bones, stitches, we're really as trained as the doc—"

"What I'm getting at is, I understand your duties when they were infants. Back then, records show there were two nurses on three shifts, six in total. But you're the only one still with us, right?" He didn't let her answer, "I guess what I'm getting at is, you're the only one here with any medical qualifications, right?"

"Yes, that's true."

"Your duties aren't nearly as full now as they were."

"I still see several cuts and bruises every day. And if you're thinking of budget cuts, just keep in mind that getting a qualified doctor or nurse with my clearance—"

"That's not what I'm getting at. We're going to start having problems with, them, at some point or another. Since it would be nearly impossible to find someone who knows how to handle them with the needed security clearances, I thought we could send someone who already has such clearances to acquire the training. Hopefully we can avoid. . ." He tapped his finger on the desk. "You know, drill sergeants are great at fostering unit cohesion, but what we're asking of them may be a bit much."

She visibly relaxed in the chair, "What are you thinking, then?"

"I don't really know. This isn't exactly my area, I'm more of a military accountant, an organizer and manager, than a warden or a parent. Hell, raising one kid with another on the way is a little more than challenging for me. And that's two adults to one child. These inmates outnumber us, badly, and I don't see any way we'll ever get enough funds to properly staff this place.

We've got some proven assets here. Investments we need to protect, if we can. But I don't know enough about the traps and pitfalls that we're plum headed for. And we've got the makings for some powerfully special-needs kids. I've read the original plans for those cases, and I'd like to have a humane alternative.

We need an expert that we'll never find, so I'd like to make one. If you're up to it. And I think your schedule is flexible enough to handle the classes. To be honest, I'm not even sure what classes we're talking about. We have a limited window to send you right now, while money is coming in and you're mostly seeing scrapes and bruises."

She contemplated the offer. "It'll mean moving from the valley, there isn't any such schools for a hundred miles in—"

"I'm thinking more online, through the mail, or some home-based classes for the bulk of it, like what we're force-feeding these kids. I was surprised at how fast some of these kids—"

"Every waking hour of their lives is spent studying, drilling, and practicing. They spend the same number of hours in classes in one year that any other child would spend in three or four. I'm not surprised that they are where they are, and I'm not willing to devote 24/7 to—"

He waved his hands like an 'out' in baseball, "Just when you're on the clock and not busy with medical things. If you want to take it home with you, we'll work out something extra. I'm thinking some sort of bonus structure for each 'on-line' 'mail-order' certificate you get in the field, that way it'll include any effort you put in at home.

Think about it. If you're interested, and I can see you are, we'll work out the pay increase and come to some sort of agreement.

Think of it as a raise or a promotion. I can even give you the authority to alter the curricula and schedules, as needed.

Think about it on your way home, and let me know by the end of the week."

She smiled, then left the room.
Chapter 5

Shadona sat in the dim room, unable to sleep. Numbers and conversations crowded her mind. A farmer complaining about crop failures due to poor irrigation. It seemed a common problem in that region, she even remembered reading an article in the Major's office about millions dying every year. Too many of the taps contained conversations like these, of desperate people trying to survive, often hungry and in abject poverty. She felt sorry for them, while others talked of dating and gossiped about family members and new cars.

Whenever her eyes closed, the conversations and formulas swam into view.

She disliked formulas the most. Those first ten took months for her to forget. Not that she ever truly forgot anything.

She sat up, fluffed her pillow, adjusted her sheet, then tried to settle again.

Gossip. Parents. Relatives. Farming. Hunger may be a worldwide norm, but how she was living was not. It felt very wrong. Families were something very different than the unit cohesion practiced here.

The lives she listened to were very different, too.

Passions, love, friends, relationships, these things were all outside her experience.

When she wiped her eyes, the sea of formulas reappeared.

The lights flickered on. "Assemble!" the Drill Sergeant said as the children silently complied. "Report to dexterity testing."

The children exited the room in single file order.

"Today, we have a change," the nurse said. "Instead of building something someone else designed, for the next few days I want you to draw something, anything you want, on the pieces of paper provided for you. This exercise will last for twenty minutes and you will be graded on originality, not on volume or completion time.

You may begin."

"What are these?" the Major said, looking over crayon drawings in a crudely made notebook.

"We're not sure, exactly. But look at these." The Drill Sergeant flipped through seven, slowly, "This one looks like the core in a reactor, doesn't it? But the fuel rods look like it's eaten up with those ant-farm tunnels, water on the bottom and wood chips on top. And it looks like flammable fumes coming out of the rods, and the ants themselves get used as livestock feed." He flipped to another, "And these look like potatoes separated by shapes, leaves, and stem types. It starts here with each plant yielding multiple offspring that get remixed," he flipped through another sixteen pages, "until here, where she's written in the margin, in Arabic, 140 degree, drought tolerant, and a listing of the vitamins, minerals, and calories in each potato." He flips through another dozen, "and here she does the same with corn, circling the key traits required for a low-water, high-temperature corn. But it's the last six pages that are the most fascinating. This looks like a, well, a way to modify a typical steam-turbine cooling system."

The Major took the notebook from his hands, "For what purpose?"

"Well, it looks like, well, it's a four-year-old kid remember, but this looks like seawater coming in and fresh water going out, with no decrease in power output and no increase in fuel consumption. Matched with the other things in the book and three pages of solid calculations, it looks like millions of gallons for irrigation as a byproduct of generating power. We've got no way to know for sure," he shrugged, "above my pay grade, which is why I brought it to you."

"Where did you find it again?"

"Well, she had hidden it in the mattress above and one behind hers. It was the furthest she could reach without setting off the floor sensors. We assumed it was Chroma's, it was her bed after all, but the videotapes showed it was Shadona's. She's the terrorist cracker that can only do it when she's in your office."

"Yeah, don't remind me. Listening to dozens of chattering sand-niggers for an hour every day is driving me crazy, and she looks just like 'em. Just one of the many things about that girl that just pisses me off.

When will she be back in the room?"

"Already there, Sir. Midday nap."

He rubbed his forehead. "We can assume she knows it's missing then."

The Drill Sergeant shrugged, "Yes Sir, expect so."

The Major punched his fist into his hand, then sat at his desk. "What's done is done. No point in putting it back now. You did the right thing bringing it to me, Sergeant. If you had left it after discovery, there's a good chance she would have moved it someplace else by now.

Thank you." He put the notebook in the desk. "I'll give it a better evaluation later."

After a long phone conversation with the Colonel, he acquired another staff member. A major like himself, but this one had retired from the Marines decades ago and had spent the remaining time moving up in the Department of Agriculture. Nearing mandatory retirement age there too, the man eagerly accepted the Colonel's offer.

That the drawings were in crayon made the man an instant skeptic, but he recognized the varieties by her drawings and was eager to follow the breeding program. Since they didn't wish to spend a decade on it, they accelerated the process by turning two large rooms into indoor greenhouses. With 24/7 lighting for a few months under fans, dehumidifiers, and heaters for an artificial climate, he figured they could condense the aggressive program into just a few years. But in case of the unforeseen, they ran a parallel program under precise conditions that accurately emulated the conditions listed on each page.

Their new addition, though cleared for such disclosures, was nonetheless kept oblivious about the existence of the children. His greenhouses, while on the base, weren't even in the same building that housed the children. In fact, the new major didn't even need to memorize a single access code to get into his unsecured area of the complex.

The other ideas in the notebook needed to be looked at by the DOE, something the Colonel facilitated as well. Surprisingly, one of the engineers assigned to look over the reactor core of ants suggested that it wasn't ants, but termites. The DOE was already investigating microorganisms inside termites for converting corn stalks and wood chips into ethanol. Her design, they estimated, would yield slightly less fuel as methane and hydrogen. But unlike their complicated ethanol scheme, hers required no energy inputs and would, in theory, yield a ton or more of high-protein livestock feed per acre as a byproduct, in addition to rich, organic fertilizer. If it worked, and they had doubts, it was a trifecta of efficiency. Adding desalination to the cooling cycle of steam turbines was a no-brainer that caught a roomful of engineers off guard, especially since they were located in water-starved California where the brightest minds on the planet had overlooked this simple, elegant solution for nearly a century.

At the base, they also added a small, ten-colony termite cluster to the potato-breeding program.

"How are the potatoes going, Jeff?" the Major asked, entering the greenhouse for the first time since creating the program five months ago.

"Fine, actually. I used my contacts at the department of agriculture to inspect a farmer's field and gather some samples, keeping an eye out for those specific leaf and stem characteristics identified in the notebook. That gave us a one-generation jumpstart. These are actually the second generation, and they are already showing the predicted signs." He pointed out some oddly shaped leaves on the sprouts. "The notebook said I would need a pool of six hundred sprouts to have the statistical probability of getting the needed trait variations, and so far that's checking out too." He gestured to a composting pile, "Since the traits exhibited themselves early, I can recycle all those that are way off, long before they start consuming much room.

Indoors gives us complete control with no need for pesticides, weeding, or anything. Actually, one of my concerns is that these potatoes, if we get the predicted end result, will have a weak immunity to bugs and other—"

He slapped the man on the back, "That's what pesticides are for, Jeff. Look, obviously nobody can predict ten generations of mutations and natural variations and such with this level of precision. This is a long shot project that was handed off to me from one of those drooling idiot savants, locked in a rubber room somewhere near DC. It's something that we don't exactly expect to work, but can't afford not to investigate. So, just give it an honest effort.

What about the termites?"

"Well, as you know, breeding termites into clusters of mega-colonies needed to prove that concept will require at least five to ten years, and no amount of artificial lights and dehumidifiers can change that timetable, like simulating Alaska's night-less summers can for plants.

Queens simply required a minimum of five year to mature into literal egg-laying machines, and currently, there are no commercial venders where we can buy already mature queens. In fact, not only are there no termite venders of any kind, there's precious little data anywhere on how to industrially farm termites.

To the contrary, nearly all the info available on termites was geared toward their eradication.

Hell, took a week with a shovel out back to get these ten queens!"

"How's the control-rods thing coming?"

"Well," he pulled the photocopied notebook from his desk and pointed to the diagram, "this is a lot more complex than it needs to be to just prove the concept. Right now, I'm using these plastic bins," he pointed under the shelves of potatoes. "It turns out that termites love to be neglected, they shun the light, hate fresh air, and they just might be the only insect that's practical to industrialize on this scale without pissing off PETA. The more I researched, the more merit the idea seems to have.

Did you know, acre for acre, there's more pounds of termites under the average farm than cattle on top of it? By the calculations on the page, its footprint should be tiny too. From all I've researched, termites seem like they'd be happier living in confining vertical tubes like it suggested than in these plastic bins. Tubes would make storage and harvesting extremely efficient, but plastic bins will do to evaluate the theory.

Give it five, six years before I can start building you an accurate estimate on that, though. If we could borrow a few hundred Australian or African termites, we could probably jumpstart this project as well and jump right to building the control-rod-looking reactor. They seem to be a hundred times more prolific than American breeds, and a hell of a lot easier to find."

"Work with what you got, Jeff, we don't have the kind of budget that includes gallivanting around the world collecting bugs."

"Once we have mature colonies, we may be able to trick them into cloning adult queens the same way we do with bees. If so, we'll expand to industrial capacities much faster than that ten-year figure.

Figure three years on the potatoes, six on the corn, five or six on the termites before we really know, one way or the other." He smiled like a kid at Christmas, "We never got to do this kind of thing in the Ag Department."

"Bet you didn't do much of it in the Marines either," the Major said, giving him another pat on the back before leaving the room.

It would be nice to add another revenue stream to their budget.

Benita played the video on the Major's terminal again.

"I don't see it, what am I looking at?" he asked.

She pulled the papers out of her folder, "Since I started this freestyle drawing exercise, I've gotten a lot of the typical results I was expecting. Some would draw objects that they saw in the room, others would vent feelings, some disturbing images indicating children we need to keep an eye on, things like that. Her first drawing was one of someone drawing a picture of someone seated at a desk drawing, like those mirror of a mirror things you see all the time."

He looked at the picture, then the monitor. "This is almost the camera's perspective of her."

"Yeah, I noticed that too. But that isn't the most interesting thing, look at the next ones. Picture drawn on top of picture. And this one looks like a schematic drawn on top of another schematic. But look at the way she's drawing it." She replayed the video again. "She's hunched over so the camera can't watch her draw it. And watch here, when another kid knocks these books off the desk. Everyone else reacts, but she doesn't flinch. Not even a pause." She digs into the file again, "And this one looks like it's full of formulas. Some written left to right, some written right to left, others diagonal, some circular, but all on top of each other in such a way as to make them nearly indecipherable."

He paused. "Code breaking. They had a course on it last year. I thought it would help them make more sense of the NSA/CIA taps." He looked at the first picture, "She knows she's being watched, and she knows these were going to be analyzed, but doesn't want them to reveal anything. Encrypted?" He looked at the video again, "She's playing with us, isn't she."

"I don't really know. She never drew anything that revealed something about herself, like the exercise was supposed to produce."

He stared at the screen and thought about all the notebook held. Corn and potatoes that thrive in the desert, free desalination of millions of gallons, and termites. None were terribly lucrative, in and of themselves, but they all could have a huge impact on the world. "Maybe there's no personality to be revealed."

"I was wrong about that zombies comment. These are all classic character traits of—"

"I don't believe in zombies, vampires, werewolves, or coincidences." He looked up from the papers, "Thank you, nurse Benita. I assume you are equally on top of those children with the disturbing drawings."

"Of course."

"Very good, then. Continue to keep me informed."

She opened the office door.

"Another second, if you don't mind. I want to run an idea across you.

We, uh, can't afford to give hundreds personal attention, but what about one or two. What if we tried to integrate them, a few at a time—"

"Well, two things come to mind.

Foster care, which is what I think you're hinting at, might leave a child raised here with a bitterness toward here, like most orphanages are perceived as horror factories today. Most abused children just think what they've lived through is normal, until they see what normal actually is. If you do something like that, you'd have to screen them carefully and place them with outsiders that they have never seen before, and true professionals most likely. They may flourish under that, or they may turn into sociopaths, like some of the drawings hint at.

But they may flourish here too, without any animosity against us. Some already are. And here we're best equipped to deal with the sociopaths.

I'm not sure these kids will fit into society in any event.

Educationally, half are on track to PHDs by their early teens, especially at this pace. The slowest kids will be PHD level before twenty. They won't fit in anywhere, in my opinion.

So what happens when foster care can't handle them in a few years and they end up right back here? And what are the financial and security implications of PHD-level mischievous kids inspired by watching MTV and JackAss, living on the outside?" She shrugged.

He dropped the drawings on his desk. "A few years. . . Hundreds of teenagers, with horny boys outnumbering horny girls. You want to run this thing for me in a few years?"

She shook her head, "Hell no!" then paused. "I'd draft them all as soon as the military will take them off your hands. I might not even wait until they were of age, just as long as they looked it, we can fake the paperwork for everything else."

When she left the room, he logged onto the automated instructor server and leaned his star student's curricula toward engineering classes, just in case crayons proved to be the notebook's only visible flaw.

Besides, he wasn't too worried about their social skills. He was a third generation Marine, literally raised by a strict drill instructor. And he turned out fine.
Chapter 6

"These are called first person shooters, and they will simulate actual field combat you will probably face as adults. You will be expected to work as a unit to achieve mission objectives," the Drill Sergeant said. "Only twenty percent of your grades will be based on the number of kills. You will be evaluated on teamwork and your ability to solve problems. Members on your team will be identifiable by an armband that matches yours, communication will be in sign language and only within the simulator, no talking in class. The camera mounted on your monitor will capture your gestures. Familiarize yourself with the controls for a minute, and begin."

She moved her man forward in the simulator, retrieved weapons, ammo, and rations from the desk, then located her team leader in the game. A map of the terrain appeared with penciled locations for their objective and suspected enemy emplacements. Her assigned leader signaled his intentions to ignore the primary target and to instead immediately engage their closest enemy position.

She registered no complaint and simply followed his orders.

Their squad was ambushed almost immediately, and her team was the first counted out.

She stood in line, pulled a tray from the stack, and placed it on the rail. When the boy to her left moved, she slid to his position and received a scoop of mashed potatoes, mixed vegetables, and two chicken strips. She carried the tray to an empty table and sat.

"Mind if I have one of your chicken strips?" a boy said, taking one off her plate. "What's that? Just say something if you mind." He smacked her on the back of her head, "Retard," and continued to his table.

She ate the remaining strip as fast as she could.

"What do you expect from a Flaming Fag," Chroma yelled across the room, then sat beside Shadona. "I ought to file a report with—"

But Shadona shook 'no' while continuing to eat. Reports tended to end in retaliation.

"That retard's been doing that crap for days now. Stand up for yourself, Girl, or they'll all start walking on you."

Seven more girls soon filled out the rest of the table and talked amongst themselves, while Shadona sat silently and just observed.

9-8-2-3-1-7-0-1-7-2, click, and the door opened to the office. He made a fist at the very sight of the girl, rocking silently back and forth in the chair. MP3 files unopened on the computer. "Why the hell can't you just once—" it took every ounce of self-control not to bash the child in the back of her head, but he refrained. He loosened his fist and patted the girl on the back instead, "Sorry. These intercepts are incredibly important. Vital to the lives of hundreds." He walked over and sat in his chair. "Two dozen citizens were recently blown up in a shopping mall," he lied, "because someone missed some valuable intel on a file just like these. So please, can we just get started today?"

Her rocking slowed.

He started opening files, but she reacted by covering her ears and rocking faster until he closed them again. "Ok, ok. When you're ready, alright?" He made a fist under the desk.

Within the next six minutes, her rocking slowed on its own. And after she rearranged several items on his desk, he started to endure his hour of chatter torture.

He watched as the girl sat, blankly staring at the desk, her right hand moving slightly up and down, side to side, much like a conductor of an orchestra, or a teen listening to classical, if there was such a thing. She seemed oblivious to everything around her, yet, should he leave, she would abruptly stop. He had tried leaving often enough to know.

He watched as her left hand scribbled two words, a time, and a file number every now and then, but otherwise remained motionless. Constantly poised over the paper.

If she reached the bottom of the page, she would continue scribbling on the desk unless he turned the page for her and repositioned her hand.

It was almost like a trance— nobody was sure what was actually going on inside her head, if anything was. But whatever she did, worked.

At the end of the hour, her right hand slowed its quivers, like a dancer that suddenly lost the beat. When it stopped altogether, even if there were more on the files like today, she was done with all she could do.

She started rocking almost immediately.

"Shadona," he said, snapping his fingers in front of her.

She blankly stared at the desk.

"Shadona," he said again to no reply. "I see here you have excellent grades in your new engineering courses. Are you enjoying them?"

She barely blinked.

"We may have enough in the budget this year for a small machine shop. Nothing elaborate, but something. Would you be interested in such a thing?"

She blinked normally, then shifted her gaze to the floor.

"They'll be surplus. Used. Nothing new. I also see programming may be another interest to pursue. We have terminals we may be able to let you use."

She looked as if she might have mumbled something, but no words came out.

Frustrated, he pulled her notebook from the desk and flopped it before her. "Would you like to tell me what's on this?"

She clutched it tight to her chest before rocking violently again.

"You're allowed to have notebooks, you don't have to hide them. They need not be kept secret. There were some very sharp ideas in that book. Perhaps you'd like to explain some of them to us?" he said, but she failed to respond. "You should have brought them to one of us. We can help you with such things. Like when you don't have enough parts to assemble your project, you simply have to ask one of us, the ranking officer in the room. Just follow the chain of command."

For the first time in over a year, he thought of his son as she left the room. She was five, five and a half at best, and she was a few credits shy of a PHD in organic chemistry and physics. She would qualify, if they were an accredited school, for dual PHDs before turning six. Her grades in each where a consistent low C average, same as his son. Same age as his son.

Free desalination from power plants, potentially drought tolerant crops if they continued to track with her predictions, a trifecta of termite farming, and the disruption of terror cells worldwide, while his son played with Legos, blew his nose on the drapes, and pasted macaroni 'art' at school that kept finding its way to his refrigerator doors. And he was prouder of his son than that girl.

The thought of his son rebuilding military equipment was absurd, yet he was contemplating getting her a machine shop as early as this fiscal year.

That would require more than just the expensive equipment. It would require adding to the staff. A machine shop would require close supervision by trained professionals if the children were allowed hands-on contact with power tools.

They would need a machine shop if the termite experiment proceeded beyond the testing phase, since none of the equipment in crayons was off-the-shelf. They even had three empty garages on the secure part of the base that would be suitable for such.

He placed another call to the Colonel. If timed correctly, they could inherit some hand-me-down DOD or motor pool equipment. Shadona was not the only one with high dexterity and a mechanical aptitude, dozens actually tested higher. And there was always a need for qualified repair personnel of military equipment. Jet mechanics alone cost a fortune, and he had access to all the digital manuals. . . and soon, all the equipment as well.

The next morning, two more of the corrected formulas found their way into his inbox, complete with requests for meetings. The Colonel also left several links to auctions for just such used equipment, where with a wink, a nod, and a clerical error, the Major was likely to be the only bidder in the room. He needed to wait another six months, though, red tape was red tape, and military wheels were slow to roll.

"Jeff," the Major said entering the greenhouse, "what's the good news?"

"Well, the potatoes are, surprisingly, thriving. The soil has been altered, the air is already adjusted to ten percent less humid and ten percent hotter. The potatoes themselves, now the fourth generation, are a little more bland. The skins are a little thicker, almost reminds me of a leather glove," he cut one open with a sharp knife, "and inside it's darker and has a hint of red and blue, just as predicted in the book." He splashed some oil in a frying pan on a hotplate, "If you have six minutes, I'll fry you up some."

The Major laughed. He was actually on his way home, but he had a few minutes, especially with Jeff's enthusiasm. "Fry away!"

"They're actually not that bad. A little chunky perhaps. Meaty might be a better word. I baked a few from the first batch—"

"You're not eating them all, are you?"

"Well, sure. Why not? But I'm cutting out the eyes and growing them in the dirt out back, just in case. Cloning, if you will. But just the select few varieties in each batch so I can back-track if I need to." He smiled wide, gold fillings showing, "Don't worry, I'm charting them for flavor, nutrition and such, too." They sizzled and started to brown. "Check out the skins, I think they're acting like bacon strips."

He picked a questionably clean fork from a jar Jeff had gestured at, then speared a curling skin. He blew on it, then sampled, "Not bad. It's got the crisp, but not quite the taste."

"You just had a full day's worth of vitamin B in that little slice of skin."

"Really?"

Jeff nodded. "The potatoes themselves are smaller than those french fried behemoths we're all used to. Try the meat."

He speared one with his fork and gobbled. "Not bad. Not great, but not bad. A little dry, rubbery perhaps. First potato I had to really chew."

"I suspect that the potatoes we'll end up with will be closer to wood than the potatoes we're used to. Take these. Fried like this, you notice how dry they are. Almost inedible, really. But take the same potato and boil it, and it plumps like dried chickpeas. Slow cook it over night, and it's," he shrugged, "twenty percent bigger and almost as tender as a normal potato. I doubt you can ever make fries from it, though."

"Got any to take home with me?"

Jeff smiled again, pulling a small lunch bag from near the door. "I was going to work on some recipes at home, but I suppose since this is your baby, you might as well have 'em. Just skin them before you boil them, otherwise it'll taste like eating a glove. Fry the skins separate." Jeff pressed his finger into the Major's chest, "This generation, right now, today, would reduce irrigation costs by twenty percent. That's a huge cost savings and would let you grow them in even the poorest soil in America. And none of these qualify as genetically modified.

That's still not good enough to grow them in the desert yet, but we're close already. It's the damnedest thing I've ever seen." He pointed over his shoulder, "Out back, I've got another forty pounds growing. And thousands of seeds stored from this generation. I don't know how to tell you this, but this, right here, the vitamin boost and its lower requirements, is already a game changer. This would be bigger than GM soybeans in the department of Ag, if they knew about it." He handed the Major the bag of potatoes, "Enjoy, Man, you did it!"

"What about the corn?"

"Well, that's taking longer. It also takes a lot more space, though with each generation the stalks get shorter and shorter. The leaves look like they have a waxy paper film on them. And the cobs are taller and thinner." He showed The Major one, "Almost a foot and a half long, as thick as your thumb, and it hides in the shade of the leaves. The waxy thin paper film on the leaf looks like it soaks up the moisture leaving the leaf and recycles it. Reminds me of pine needles in a way. It's fascinating too, and every prediction is coming true.

Same changes are happening here. The corn is dryer, harder, less sweet. Smaller. But boil it, slow cook it overnight and it plumps up into what everyone's used to. Still not as sweet, though."

The Major opened a second paper bag.

"Sorry, unlike potatoes, the seeds are what you eat. All the seeds have to be kept for future generations." He fished in a filing cabinet, "I have some stored from the close, but rejected pile, if you want to give them a taste, but I only harvested eight hundred of the next generation seeds, and I have to sprout six hundred of them to get the stock for the next generation. Little margin for error. I dared only cook ten for a taste."

"Give me some defects then."

Jeff nodded and filled the bag, while keeping as many seeds as possible for future use.

"Keep up the good work, Jeff. Remember, your contacts in the Department of Ag only go one way. This, even though it's just potatoes, is still highly classified. You have a non-disclosure—"

"I know. I haven't even told my wife, as much as it's killing me to chat her up a storm. She has digested some of it, though, hope that doesn't count."

The Major laughed, "That's fine. I just don't want to find any in your home garden. And that photocopied notebook has to be kept in a lockbox whenever it isn't in your personal possess—"

"No worries, I remember the rules. Seems silly for potatoes, but this is the easiest, most exciting job I've ever had. And I did two combat tours in the Middle East," Jeff smirked, "and 'tours' and 'Middle East' is as specific as that conversation can ever go."

The Major rolled up the tops of the paper bags, then stuffed them under one arm. "You're a little crazy, Jeff. And, I think I like it," he said, closing the door behind him.

At a year's salary and a huge electric bill, tonight his family was having the most expensive meal they'd ever have.

Slightly tough potatoes and a little bland corn.
Chapter 7

"Back off, David," Aaron said when David reached for Shadona's roll.

"This isn't your business, Ass-wipe," David said, grabbing the roll anyway.

Aaron smacked it out of David's hand, flipping the helpless roll across the room. "Do it again and I'll stomp you into the ground, Retard," he said, now standing face to face.

"What do you care? I do what I want, when I want. You don't out rank me."

Aaron swiftly kicked him in the shins, then continued to pummel him while he was down, to the delightful shouts of nearly the entire room. Until both children were separated by adults and yanked from the cafeteria.

"Damn," Chroma said, just sitting down. "What set that off?"

Shadona sat, silently eating like she always did.

"Look who I'm asking." Chroma turned to the others seated at the table, "Anyone?"

The chatter continued while Chroma was filled in.

"What the hell am I looking at now," the Major said.

Nurse Benita pointed at the screen, "Human dynamics, 101. The weak get picked on. Guess how kids interpret a five, five-and-a-half-year-old kid that never talks, doesn't react normally, and just sits and rocks when she gets stressed out?"

He couldn't let this get out of hand, the child was a valuable savant at spotting terrorists. "I reckon we ought to crack down and—"

"Careful not to make her teacher's pet, that'll only make things worse. It looks like it might work itself out anyway, in the way these things usually go. Aaron seems to be willing to do your work for you, for now. My advice is intervene, discretely, and only when Aaron looks like he's losing the argument. If he does.

But if it ever looks like you're protecting her, it'll go from bad to worse." She looked him in the eyes, "She's going to get picked on, that's just a fact of life. Not a lot you can do to prevent it, especially if she's going to act like a lame sheep in a pack of wolves.

Unless you want to isolate her from the rest, in which case I doubt she ever overcomes this sheep phase. I don't see an easy solution." She clicks a few more videos. "As odd as it seems, she isn't without friends. Look." She points to each, "She sits alone at the table, but others come. Mostly girls, but not always. Nobody sits beside her just to pick on her. She might even have made a few friends by now, as impossible as that sounds without talking."

The girl was incredibly annoying, but it wasn't because she acted out. She wasn't troublesome, so much as troubled. He watched the video of the fight again. She looked oblivious, even to the fight just a few feet from her. He backed up the video, she was actually sorting her vegetables during the pummeling. "Thank you, nurse Benita. Any red flags about the boys involved?"

"David was one of those with the disturbing drawings. Blood red, fires and decapitations."

"Thank you. Keep on top of this, best you can. Can we separate David from his friends? Alter his schedule, covertly? Do it as punishment for breaking ranks and poor conduct, but not for taking the roll."

"The punishment would have to include Aaron, and seem proportional, but sure. That should work."

He smiled, "I think there's a covert way to make David's projects more difficult to assemble than usual, don't you?"

Shadona sat at the table, but Aaron never showed. Neither did David. Two weeks had passed since she had seen either of them.

She touched the roll, but didn't eat it. It seemed to be the reason she hadn't seen him. She looked at Chroma's plate while she talked with the others at the table. 'Stand up for yourself' echoed in Shadona's head. Not standing up for herself had pushed Aaron into acting on her behalf, and got him punished for it.

A roll wasn't equal to punishment.

A roll wasn't equal to a fight.

A roll seemed like a roll. A chicken stick was just that as well. How could it ever be more?

Her roll equation was missing something.

Something symbolic perhaps.

When was a roll more than just a roll?

She started to eat again, but left the roll alone.

She sat at the desk, blinders preventing her from seeing her neighbor. Her project had been completed for some time now, leaving her time to ponder.

This was the same desk where she did the psychological tests. A kind of inkblot test, designed to tap directly into her mind. How foolish did they think she was?

She always seemed to get this same desk. A second camera had recently been added to cover her desk from a different angle. This one was attempting to hide as a new hole in the drop ceiling. A tiny dot, really, no bigger than a pencil eraser. It should have eluded anyone's detection. It should have, but didn't.

Not hers.

She noticed changes, even tiny ones. Change was unsettling to her. The tile with the new hole hadn't been reinstalled correctly. Nor had three others that traced a straight line back to the main camera in the room. A smudge of a fingerprint gave the middle tile away.

New camera angle meant she had to hunch over further, paper drawn closer to her chest. More inconvenient, sure, but it changed little. She assumed they would dissect her papers, much as they had torn her notebook apart.

She stared at the completed assembly on her desk.

Others seemed to be able to control themselves better than she could. Sometimes, she couldn't stop rocking. Nobody else ever rocked. She could win the assembly challenge any time she wished, the others fluctuated in the amount of time it took them.

She forced herself to answer questions incorrectly with the automated classes, just so she would fit in better.

But she didn't fit in.

She didn't fit in with anything she did.

She touched the assembly. It was clearly a diesel fuel-injector pump, not just a simple project.

'Forced herself to answer questions wrong. . .'

She couldn't control herself as others did. She had compulsions others never struggled with. Formulas swam in her head, outside of her control. She struggled, painfully at times, to keep from completing such assemblies as fast as she could. It hurt her, physical discomfort, to see a functional work of engineering art torn to shreds, deprived of its beauty and function, in a cardboard box before her. Like just so many pointless parts.

Blank pages screamed at her in the same way.

Beckoning for the ink that would reveal their hidden greatness. Their artful destiny.

Compulsions.

She removed a bolt and held it in her hand. Her hand seemed to be arguing with her mind, like it had a will of its own, demanding she let it restore the project to completion. Against her own will, she completed the pump again.

Her ideas should be her own. If she owned anything in this place, it had to be her thoughts, right?

The theft of her notebook was deeply personal to her. It was the theft of her ideas. Her very thoughts. Had they asked, she probably would have given it freely. But they didn't. They simply took it from her, as if it had never belonged to her.

That would never happen to her again. Yet, her compulsions were difficult to fight. Impossible at times.

She had automated instruction in another hour, where intentionally answering questions wrong was still difficult for her. But getting easier. If she aimed at a solid average score, a target grade, answering enough wrong to perfectly hit that target was easier than leaving them blank.

She may be unable to leave a blank page alone, but perhaps she could control what answers she placed in its very public keep.

Wrong answers could be written, so long as they had a clearly defined purpose. An alternate target for her to aim perfection at.

She had a purpose. She looked up at the ceiling and stared at the tile, just slightly misaligned.

Aaron sat at the table, his punishment over.

Shadona didn't look up when he sat, she hardly reacted at all.

Chroma elbowed him teasingly, "Where you been, Stranger?"

"Solitaire. Solid automated instructor. Hours on discipline and the importance of unit cohesion crap." He stabbed a chunk of ham with his fork, "Two weeks of bread and water. Believe it or not, they make crap that tastes far worse than this!"

Dana sat across from Shadona, right beside Aaron, and gave him a huge hug and a kiss on the cheek, "Damn I missed you," she said.

He hugged her back, "They have a room, just David and me, where the lights never went out. The room was kept around fifty degrees. It was miserable. That punk little Fag just pisses me off like you wouldn't believe."

"Well, he's not here right now." Dana smiled.

He touched Shadona's tray, "I overheard them talking in the halls about remodeling and renovating some garages they have here on base. Maybe we'll get more than automotive parts to assemble, but actual vehicles. I bet they assign the fastest assemblers to any kind of shop."

Shadona paused, then handed him her buttermilk biscuit.

He returned it to her plate, "I kicked his ass because it needed doing. If we let Fags like him get away with punking the defenseless, they'll start thinking none of us are willing to stand up." He looked at the rest of the table, "Could have used a little extra help to make that point loud and clear to his little cli—"

"You didn't look like you needed any help from—" Chroma said.

"I wasn't even here yet," Dana said.

"Well, doesn't matter, I suspect," Aaron said, fork of vegetables this time. "A little overwhelming shock and awe would have sent a better message than a one-on-one sends, that's all."
Chapter 8

A few days later, Aaron was jumped in the bathroom by three other boys. Nurse Benita had to set two broken bones, put four stitches in his forehead, wrap a sprained ankle, and treat for a concussion that kept him out of everything except automated classes.

She sat in his office, rocking back and forth, blood on her pant leg. No files on the terminal for her to review. She was there for another reason.

9-8-2-3-1-7-0-1-7-2, click, and the door opened.

Her rocking slowed as the Major sat at the desk.

"You stabbed a boy in the leg eight times with a fork. That can't be tolerated under any circumstance." He put his hand on the girl's shoulder, "Want to tell me about it? Explain it to me?"

She continued to rock.

"You're the last person I expected to see for fighting. You sure you don't want to tell me what set this off? Mitigating circumstances may reduce your punishment." He waited, but she never looked up from the floor. "Very well. Two weeks of isolation, and half rations."

The room was small, perhaps a utility closet at one time. The drain in the center of the concrete floor was a dead giveaway. Toilet, sink, and a cot. The room was very cold, but unlike the boys, she got a blanket, and a pillow. The lights went out at night. And by the next morning, the room had settled to a comfortable temperature.

Two out of three meals were bland bread and water, but her dinner was consistent with what she had come to expect from the cafeteria. She wasn't allowed to leave the room, locked from the outside, but a learning terminal prevented her from slacking off on her studies.

The floor and walls were painted white, corrected formulas taped to the walls at eye level. A dozen MP3 intercepts played two hours a day. This wasn't at all what she had expected.

The Major watched the video. "There," he said, "that's the same reaction she has with me. Check the time stamps and mark those MP3 files so we can give them special scrutiny. There's something setting her off, and I'd like to know what it was."

"Yes Sir," the Sergeant said, "I'll get right on it."

"Anything written in any of the notebooks yet?"

"No Sir, not yet. But she's only been in isolation for three days."

The lights woke her.

As an experiment, she didn't go to the terminal and begin instruction as ordered. Instead, she sat in bed.

After six minutes of obstinance, the air-conditioning kicked in; after another ten minutes, MP3 taps filled the room with dozens of extremely loud conversations.

Draped in a blanket, she sat at the chair and started the lesson. The air slowly warmed as the chatter faded to silence. As another experiment, an hour later she abruptly stood, walked over to one of the formulas, and stared. . . middle of the lesson.

She stared for two hours, in silence, without so much as a trickle from the AC.

They were watching her. If it was automated, then the computer would directly control punishment for noncompliance. It could have been completely software driven that way. But this suggested that a human was monitoring her. A guard with specific instructions.

This was intriguing.

She poised her pencil near the formula, then relaxed her hand again. She had solved the problem, all of the problems, years ago. They required no further contemplation on her part. But she didn't want to play the automated teacher game. She wanted to explore the rules her guard was following. And the only way to do that was to test her boundaries. It seemed she would be allowed to stand at the formula indefinitely, though indefinitely was definitely too long for her legs to bear.

She hated formulas and was reluctant to give them an excuse to bombard her with more of them. They stayed in her mind, consuming her thoughts for entirely too long. They tapped into her compulsive nature far too easily. Should she solve any of these, they would be just the beginning of a bombardment from which she could see no end.

Formulas were no fun. Taps, at least, offered her a window to the outside world. And the taps clearly saved lives, or at least had the potential to. Yet she didn't want to be consumed by them either. Had she not faked limitations, it was clear that her entire day would be filled with intercepts and the trivial lives of others. She contributed more than anyone else, that should be enough. She knew of two dozen that sat in a room, four hours a day, seven days a week, translating. She didn't want any part of that either.

She parlayed her taps into years of interaction with the man in charge. She felt she knew him, in subtle ways. She picked up lots of unintentional information from the personal items in his office. She had exposure no other child there did.

She poised the pencil again. This was the most important of the ten, and the most complex. It had to do with high-energy physics, but was incomplete. And the portion she was looking at was still incorrect. She circled one part, then drew a line through another. She provided a hint in the right direction, but not the solution they were hoping for.

Bored with standing, she sat at the desk and continued her automated lesson, the lesser of the evils.

Aeronautics was new and fascinating to her. Despite her best attempts at being perfectly average, she couldn't bring herself to answer any of them wrong. So freeing and liberating, the very concept of defying gravity in such a mocking, flagrant way appealed to her. Excelling in subjects had already proven useful, with construction on a machine shop just beginning.

By the end of her punishment period, she had a working knowledge of all civilian jet engines, flight controls, and the complex engineering that formed the foundation behind it. Her grades in all related disciplines shot to perfection again.

"Her grades reflect her interests, not her capabilities," Benita said. "This other stuff was probably boring her. She probably has some mutant PHD/redneck gene."

"Well, multilingual interests are paying the largest portion of our bills. I'm willing to entertain indulging this too. Rebuilding military equipment is hugely expensive, and lucrative. I was thinking automotive after they did so well rebuilding injector pumps and other small parts, but I'm tempted by the shiniest apples higher in the tree. To essentially clear her for the top-secret plans to our cutting edge planes, if her grades keep this high. Officially, we're not Marines, Navy, or even military anymore. But everyone here has top-secret clearance, so getting the plans shouldn't be much more than filling out the paperwork. Rebuilding jet engines would be a bigger revenue stream."

"The kids don't have a top-secret clearance."

"No, but they are a top secret. It's a gray area, to be sure." He shrugged, "I'm looking at a projected two hundred thousand in shortfalls that can't be picked up by rebuilding small parts. I've got two projects that are soaking up funds, and will continue to for another three or four years before I get anything out of them." He leaned forward, "I need to find funds, quickly, before I have to start letting people go and closing down departments before they even have a chance to show results. And the promising results they are showing now aren't quite mature enough to do anything lucrative with. Yet."

She looked puzzled, "What the hell are you rambling about?"

He realized she didn't know about the notebook or Jeff, "Nothing you need be distracted by. I've got more pots on the stove than I've got burners, that's all."

"Two hundred thousand—"

"Don't worry, I've still got good credit at reasonable interest rates. . . for now."

She shook her head, still confused, "As long as you've got my check straight, I don't care much.

Aaron is still in physical therapy and refuses to finger any of the boys involved. We may want to add more cameras, but I think that might end in changing the wheres, not the whens or whats. I expect that this is the beginning of trouble, not the end of it. And Shadona getting a slap on the wrist for forking David isn't going to end well either."

"What are you suggesting? Time outs? Group therapy? Hug circles and sing-a-longs?"

"I don't know off the top of my head. Most of the courses I've taken push that conflict resolution crap. We could give it a try, but it only has a chance if all the participants aren't sociopaths. I'll keep investigating, though."

"Thanks, nurse Ben—"

"Let's not rule out the power of buying Prozac by the bucket."

He laughed, but took it another step, "Make sure we have some on hand, just in case. You need any help getting pharmaceuticals?"

"No, not yet. But then, most of the stuff I've been dispensing is OTC."

He nodded, "Let me make a call, I should be able to get you a—"

"All I need is the same thing any teenager needs. A credit card and an internet connection."

He laughed again. "Alright, but I'll try to get you a legit pipeline. We can't have an FBI or 20/20 investigation for drug trafficking, or doctor shopping. I should be able to get us classified as a drug research facility. You should have a bigger budget for such— Crap!" He slapped his forehead, "We're going to need to get you a dentist and that equipment here, too. Adult teeth are right around the corner, aren't they?" He shrugged, making a note and sticking it to his monitor, "It just never ends, does it?"

"Not for another decade when you can push 'em off onto the Core, where they belong."

He obsessed over the spreadsheet for another hour. They had huge expenditures for this quarter and went way over budget. Next quarter wouldn't be as bad, but it still would be in the red, no matter how he fiddled with the margins. Food, lights, heating, there just wasn't enough wiggle room. The equipment was cheap. What he hadn't counted on was the enormous expense in delivery, installation, service upgrades, and retrofitting the base. It was his most painful fiscal failure to date, and he had to fly to DC to justify the overruns with his secret funders. There was nothing more absurd than flying across the country to sit in an empty room surrounded by speakerphones on conference calls, but that was what it amounted to. But that was like a lot of things that only made sense in DC.

Besides, the money was already spent. He had a credit account for a reason, so he wouldn't have to explain every little expenditure. Or so he had thought.

This amounted to an audit, and he wasn't looking forward to it.

The Colonel stressed that it could NOT be assumed that the funders knew all the details about the children. Therefore, only the projects, and just the unclassified ones could be discussed with complete frankness. Intercepts were out. Potential military fabrication work was out. His hands were tied, but he was prepared to soldier on.

Besides, what was the worst they could do, the money was already spent.
Chapter 9

"Yofi Stosou," the Major said, meeting the man in his office, "Glad you decided to take the Colonel up on the offer. The Sergeant showed you the shop you'll be working in, right?"

"Yeah," he shook the Major's hand, "I took the nickel tour. It's all used, but everything's in top shape. The layout is a little cramped, but I see you didn't have that much room to work with." Yofi walked over to the chair, pressed a pin in his left knee, and eased himself down, "Hope you don't mind, but this thing is killing me today."

"Quite alright, get comfortable. Take a second." He punched a few keys, "The Colonel said you're certified on the stealth fleet, everything from paint to pistons."

Yofi rubbed his upper thigh, "More than that, paint to pistons just covers the Ps.

When an unexploded piece of flack took off my legs and half my arm, that pretty much ended my usefulness for the military. Full disability. But the Colonel said this was more a teaching position, that I wouldn't have to rebuild, fix, or fiddle with anything all day. I can't tell you how anxious I am to get back into being useful again. My body may be shot, but from neck up is ready to serve."

This was the most difficult part of the interview. "You any good with kids?"

"Kids? Am I teaching recruits fresh out of high school?"

"Not quite. . ."

Yofi stood by the equipment. Two fully automated lathes, plasma cutters, welders, mills. . . Almost all of it worked right off of cad software, like they were giant printers. Feed it the part specks, load the blank, close the Plexiglas lid, and press start. It did all the rest. Millions in used, high-end equipment. But they had an assortment of dies and hand tools too. A complete set of just about everything he would ever need. If they didn't have the right tool, they had the tools to make the 'right tool', almost out of thin air.

He was familiar with everything in this room. But what was next couldn't help but take him by surprise.

The door opened, and two dozen six-year-olds flooded in, lined up, and stood at attention. All in orderly silence.

"My name is Yofi Stosou, and you are going to learn everything I know about fixing, fabricating, and rebuilding just about everything out there. I'm a firm believer in the saying 'learn by doing.' We are going to do a lot of doing around here." He ushered the kids closer with his good arm. "Since all of you are rather small, physically, it is hugely important that we learn safe work practices first. And," he indicated the deformed half of his face and arm, "I can not stress this enough, we are in no hurry to complete anything. Always stop and think before you do anything. Stop and ask yourself, 'What are the unintended consequences of the actions I'm about to undertake.'

We are going to learn techniques and ways to do everything other people do using brute muscles and sweat, but we're going to use leverage, planning, lifts, skill, and finesse. We're going to wear out all this equipment, without wearing out ourselves." He gestured at a badly damaged Apache, "I'll have you all for the next six hours, and we are going to start with this helicopter."

Yofi sat at the desk in the machine shop when the door at the far end opened and footsteps echoed across the floor, end of his first day.

"No, don't get up," the Major said, "I'll be there in a second."

Yofi stood anyway, straightening papers before turning the Major's way.

"Listen, if six hours is too demanding—"

"Oh no, it isn't that at all. I'll be up to eight hours in a week or two. I'm still living out of boxes at home, an hour drive from here. It's the drive that's killing me, really."

"Well, listen, a lot of the staff has bought in the valley, twenty minutes or closer. Land goes for pennies, just slap a prefab on a lot and you're done. I'll sign you to a five-year contract, if that'll help you with a sense of financial security, loans and whatnot."

He sighed, "That would, actually. I'm renting for now and—"

"I figured. What do you think, can you make use of them?"

"Pth, absolutely. Smart, quick, not a dull tack in the bunch. Where'd you find them?"

"Well, the less you know. . ." he shrugged, then put his hand on Yofi's good shoulder, "don't think of them as children. Think of them only as recruits. Recruits with a little larceny in their blood. Keep an eye out for equipment, I don't want anything going missing. And if something does go missing, I want to know about it immediately. I won't hold you responsible, they'll always have you outnumbered and it's way too easy for them to distract you, but I will hold you responsible if something goes missing for weeks and you just wait for it to show up.

Any estimates on when we'll have that bird back up in the air, and the price tag?"

He pivoted on his artificial leg with a squeak, "Right here." He handed over the page. "If you take labor out of the equation, well, everyone's but mine, it's really quite reasonable. And they do a quality job."

"Well, these are the highest scoring, most well behaved of the bunch. The honor students, if you will. I expected nothing less. Double-check all their work. This will, officially, have your name on it. And your name only. Your reputation is riding on each one they fix. And each one is funding your stay."

"With them, that's not going to be a problem."

"Let's talk hours and look over your schedule as we walk out, shall we?" The Major walked him out of the complex, since Yofi didn't have an access code yet.

Shadona sat at the terminal, typing.

"Class is over, little girl," Yofi said, tapping her on the shoulder.

She kept typing.

"Come on, let's go so I can get out of here." He looked at the screen, "What are you building there?" he attempted to adjust the screen, but was rebuffed. Yofi reached for the phone— When it suddenly rang. "Hello," he said, looking up at the camera in the ceiling, then over to the girl. "Yes Sir, not a problem. Ok, Sir, but. . . Yes Sir." He hung up, then got a chair and watched. Out of the way.

She pulled the card, walked over to the plasma cutter, inserted the card, loaded the steel slug, and waited as it ran the program that cut the piece behind the Plexiglas. She stood, hovering around the door while the device beeped softly, hazard light blinking that it was in use. Her right hand moved randomly side to side, up and down, like she was listening to music only she could hear.

When done, she loaded the roughed piece into the automated mill, loaded its program, and watched it refine the piece again, metal slivers and oil slung against the glass.

She walked back to the terminal, loaded another design, and proceeded to put nearly every other piece of automated equipment to work fabricating tiny pieces of a grand puzzle only she knew how to assemble.

He stayed in the shop for another thirteen hours while she fabricated and assembled a complex array of tiny parts, springs, washers, gaskets, and tubes, before finally falling asleep at the table.

"What the hell is it?" the Major asked the next day.

"You've got me," Yofi said, "could be a pipe bomb for all I know."

"Kinda looks like one, doesn't it? You don't have any explosives or flammable substances in your shop, do you?"

"Nothing she could get at."

"Go check, just to be sure."

Yofi put his hand on a wheel-looking device that was attached by tubes to the two bigger pipes. "I think this part had a tiny crankshaft in it. It's about the only place she could have put it." He grabbed one of the large pipes to steady the device and gave the wheel a gentle spin. To his surprise, it continued to move. Very slowly, the wheel continued to turn, long past what momentum alone could account for. "It can't be perpetual motion, can it?"

The Major stared at the man, then the spinning wheel. "Is it getting faster, or is it just me?"

Yofi looked stunned. He let go of the pipe, and after a few seconds, the wheel slowed to a stop. "I don't know what we're looking at here, Sir. And I watched her assemble the damn thing." He grabbed the wheel, "I'm guessing this is a flywheel, connected to a tiny crankshaft. The shaft is connected to two tiny hydraulic pistons, 90 degrees out from each other. Each of them is connected, hydraulically, to each of these big pipes that look like bombs. Inside each of them are weird washer-like pistons, and each of those big pipes are connected to each other by four pairs of tiny tubes." He looked over the desk, "Charged with CO2, I think." He stared, puzzled, "I have no idea what she's built here, do you?"

The Major stood, shook his head, then said, "That's what I hire experts for, Yofi. Figure it out. Just try not to break it in the process. Or blow up my shop."

Three days later, Yofi filed a report with the Major.

It was, for lack of a better description, a compact, high efficiency version of an obscure motor called a Stirling, with an almost unbelievable 67% efficiency. Compact was an understatement. Bench tests revealed that the two pipes, neither of which were much bigger than a typical thermos, had the same displacement and power potential of a conventional two-liter engine. That, in itself, was rather staggering. An engine the size of a lawnmower was now as powerful as the engine in a car, yet still as cheap to make as the mower. What was more, it was as quiet as an old refrigerator.

It had limitations, though. If it had RPMs (it didn't really) it couldn't go much faster than a diesel, redlining at about 4,000.

What was truly impressive was, because of its high efficiency and effective displacement, it actually ran off the heat of his hand. Albeit slowly and with the help of a kick-start.

Yofi was clueless as to how it was doing what it was doing. It had dozens of intricate valves, springs, and interesting calibrations with nearly a hundred linking tubes, sensors, and regulators that Yofi couldn't begin to figure out.

He had tried to replicate it, but, even with the original and all the patterns for the parts still residing in the computers, he was unable to get any of his copies to work. At all. The interplay of the tubes, valves, and regulators were simply too complex for him to figure out.

Externally, it was as rugged as a tank, but there was something magical about how she assembled it. Like the hidden insides ran off balancing a dozen spinning plates on the ends of sticks. Even the detailed surveillance failed to reveal her secrets to its assembly.

Weeks of frustration turned into months with no results.

Complicating things was that she showed zero interest in the little engine, except for that one obsession-fueled night. She never even stuck around to see it run. And she never had conversations with anyone. She didn't answer questions. Ever. She just sat in the chair and stared at the floor.

They had refurbished six Apaches, one APC, and three Hummer engines, mostly with the help of that silent little girl and his crew of children. He couldn't complain too much if she wasn't forthcoming on the mystery engine. Neither could the Major; the shop was in surplus, as far as the budget was concerned.

Yet this kind of frustration was something that a military mind rarely put up with, without resorting to an air strike.

She sat in his office, gently rocking in the chair, waiting.

The Major placed the engine on his desk, then slid it to her. "You want to explain this to me?" he said.

She glanced at the device, then stared at the floor.

"Yofi is very impressed with you, you know. He thinks this tiny little machine has incredible potential. A lot like you, in a way. He placed this one between the engine and the radiator of a Jeep and got an extra ten kilowatts off the waste heat from the engine. Said you might have a hundred dollars in materials here. That's quite an achievement.

Said that at higher temperatures, with stainless parts of course, you could expect a few hundred horses out of this one. Small enough to fit in a lunchbox. About the size of two thermoses. That's the kind of thing you might expect from someone with the equivalent of four PHDs, but not from someone who's only six."

She tried hard to hold still.

"This could help a lot of people, all over the world, Shadona. Yofi can't figure out how to make them work, though." He tapped his fingers on the desk. "What is it you want? I can't guess it for you, you have to find some way to tell me."

She put her fingers on the edge of the desk, but hesitated.

"Write it, if you want," he said, pushing her a piece of paper.

She wrote a single word, in Arabic.

"I can't read that," he said, "I only read in English." He slid the paper back to her.

She ran her right fingers across the word, picked up the pencil, with her left hand this time, and wrote 'freedom'.
Chapter 10

The Major argued with Yofi for three hours that night, but didn't budge from his decision that giving in to a six-year-old was out of the question. There was no way that he could put her up for foster care, or even hire retired operatives to give her the facade of freedom she asked for. They even thought of things like ankle trackers for home confinement, to no avail. It was simply too big of a risk to ever be taken.

Especially if she didn't think she was free now.

Eventually, she would resent her life here. And that was something he was certain she wouldn't be silent about, once she tasted true freedom.

The engine was tiny for sure, but the stakes were huge. It was worth millions at least, billions perhaps, and it was sitting on his desk.

The best engine mechanic he could get was equal parts awed and stumped. He had a basic theory, and he even had all the parts, but was unable to get any of the copies to work. He even X-rayed it without revealing the secrets.

He was one hell of a mechanic, but he wasn't an engineer, and the engine it was based on was incredibly obscure.

The Major made another call. He would soon be dipping into the red again.

She was his most lucrative, and most expensive, child.

"Thi-ox-an-then-es," the Major asked, looking at the bill for the drugs filtering into the base.

"Thioxanthenes, it's an antipsychotic drug, like Thorazine. I'm not exactly a doctor, you understand, and no clinical diagnosis is really available, unless you want to talk truly expensive staff upgrades or—" nurse Benita started.

"No no, I— to be honest, I've looked at David's file, and I've double checked your inkblot drawing evaluations. He isn't particularly productive or useful, slow at transcription, might even be too aggressive to be a Marine, perish that thought. If he strokes out on them, I'm cool with it. Just as long as you don't make anything worse, or get him hooked on something really expensive. Give him adult doses, if you think you need to. Hell, double that if you think it'll help. I wouldn't give them to the girl just right now. Maybe start her out on some Prozac or something mellow like that, see if that brings her out of the shell."

"David was on Prozac when Aaron was jumped. I thought he needed something harder, but didn't exactly clear it with you before I—"

"Don't care. It's your department, I'm not interested in micromanaging, but if you need to bounce ideas off someone, I'm here."

"I'm using the heavy stuff sparingly. Prozac isn't exactly candy, but I've had the red-flagged ones on it for months now. Some it helps, some it has no effect at all. Might as well be water with David.

Weird isn't it? A good number of the truly bright are truly fucked in the head. Ever notice?"

"Top ten percent, huh? I wonder if we'd have this much problems with the middle ten percent."

"Probably not. But you wouldn't be rebuilding a helicopter every month, either."

He was taken off guard, "How'd you—"

"It comes in on a flatbed, ties up the parking lot for hours, then the fixed one sits on a flatbed just inside the gate until it gets hauled off, probably only gets towed twenty miles away where they have an airfield for it to fly home. It's hard to miss, unless you're blind, or on drugs."

"Good point. Let me know if I can facilitate anything else."

A dark Suburban pulled into the Hardee's parking lot, quarter past six.

"Major?" a uniformed captain asked, standing beside a classic red Mustang.

"You must be my six thirty." The Major pointed to the Suburban, "Let's talk inside, if you don't mind."

The captain walked around and got in the passenger side. "The Colonel said you had an engineering project that you needed solved, but that was as specific as he could get over the phone. Said it would have to be a face-to-face if I couldn't decide then and—"

The Major handed him the engine.

"What the hell is this, some sort of pipe bomb? I can't defuse anything, I'm not that kind of engi—"

"Just hold that pipe with both hands." The Major started the wheel rolling.

"What the hell?"

"We know what it does, we need an engineer to figure out how it's doing it, and how to mass produce them and find a practical application."

He set it down and inspected it closer. "You start by taking it apart and—"

"That's the trick. We only have the one. We have a machine shop, we even have all the original specs, but we just can't get any of the copies built to those specs to work, and we can't risk damaging this one by taking it apart. As you can see, it's somewhat tamper-proof."

"Why can't you just ask the guy who invented the thing?"

"If it was easy, I wouldn't need an engineer, top of his class at MIT, would I?"

"No, I suppose not. You've got my interest, Major. I think this may be worth resigning for."

"This may be just the tip of the iceberg, Captain Hanly; besides, it isn't really resigning, it's a move sideways. I have a feeling that having an engineer on hand will be very useful, very soon."

"This is the TF-34, the stock GE engine for the WartHog, and they each provide a little over 9,000 pounds of thrust," Yofi said, slapping the side of the bullet-torn hulk sitting on the pallet. "We have an even dozen to rebuild, if we can. Our first task will be a detailed evaluation of the damages and the salvageability of each. To get accurate figures, we will do two evaluations. First, as they sit, with a minimal of dismantling.

Our second evaluation will come from tearing it all the way down and inspecting each part along the way. Tear-downs will be preformed later tonight.

Now, the Major has cleared your schedules because these engines are a high priority. My initial inspection when they arrived last night revealed that two are so badly damaged that they will be best used as parts.

Put on your Kevlar gloves, and begin."

The usual three approached to complain.

"I know, I know," he said, "the gloves reduce the sensation and make it more difficult to work. Well, get used to it," he said. "Adults have to learn to do almost everything fun wearing one kind of glove or another. Since I was able to get gloves specially made in your sizes, cuts and laceration have dropped from one a week to none in the last month.

You will continue to wear gloves at all times—" he raised his voice, "At all times when working on this equipment. Your dexterity will improve with practice, and you will soon find that you'll be able to install the smallest, most delicate parts, wearing these gloves.

These Kevlar weaves are as thin and strong as possible, and they cost a small fortune, but it's worth every penny.

What's more, anyone found touching one of these engines without wearing gloves will be suspended from this program." He pointed at the glove bin. "Anyone who stays gets pizza, soda, hamburgers and fries for breaks. As usual."

The chronic complainers hesitated, but knew that shop was, by far, the best place to serve time on the entire base. They gloved up and went to work.

Hanly shared Yofi's small office in the shop, since it was nearest to the equipment. Hanly had nights to himself, where Yofi had the days. They did, on occasion, overlap.

"Morning," Hanly said, arranging the parts on the workbench. "I don't think I've destroyed it, but I'm no closer to figuring it out either."

Yofi looked over the engine, now covered in a mesh of wires and sensors.

"I've tapped every pipe and port on this thing. I've got the computer charting, recording, and graphing every movement it makes. But pressure and temperature sensors only shed so much light. I've been on it for a solid month now, and I'm no closer to getting one of the copies working than I was when I first took this job."

Yofi looked over the graphs running on the computer, then watched the engine silently slosh along. One pipe in a tub of ice, the other in a tub of hot water. "Remember, this thing uses rubber rings, not metal like in a car. You can't expose it to open flame."

"I know, but it delivers ten horse on hot tap water and a bag of ice.

I have to take it apart, I just have to. But look at how many intricate parts it has." He gestured at the TF-34's on the pallets, "At least those came with manuals, detailed specs, tolerances and such. I'm flying blind here, and I don't think that's sitting well with the Major. I think he thinks I'm just collecting a check, sitting on my ass all day. Hell, I feel like I've been running in circles since I got here."

Yofi dipped his fingers into the melting ice, "Nah, he knows. I told him I'd have to disassemble it, too. That's when he called for you. It was eating too much of my time. It's one hell of a Chinese puzzle for sure."

Hanly perked up, "Chinese?"

"Figure of speech, sorry. You know the crew here during the day, don't you?"

Hanly shook no.

"Ever wonder about those tiny gloves?" he said, but didn't give Hanly a chance to answer. "This ain't the North Pole, those aren't toys, and these gloves ain't for elves. They're kids. A six-year-old built the thing in her spare time." He made his way to the terminal in their office, "Check out these videos before you leave. No prototypes, no adjusting pieces, no extras. No missteps at all. Nothing measured, everything cut just once. She just built it one night, and it worked on the first try. She didn't even stay to see it run."

He watched the monitor, "I have to talk to her."

Yofi smiled, "That'd be a trick. She's never said a word, to anybody. Ever, as far as I know."

"She works in here, then?"

"One of my best students, I never have to check her work."

He stared at the monitor again. "Six?"

"Don't let it throw you. My understanding is she's got more PHDs than you do. I don't think of them as kids anymore. It weirded me out the first week; you look at them and you think, 'break out the crayons, cardboard, and safety scissors, not turboprops. But after a week you forget all that, and you're talking torque settings, pitch degrees, and tolerances. You forget and just start thinking about them like tiny adults."

The phone in the office rang, and Hanly picked it up. "Yes Sir," he said, then handed it over to Yofi.

". . . Yes Sir, but surely he has the same clearances I do. . . Yes Sir, but I think some of it is needed for him to ever figure. . . Yes Sir, it's your call. . . Of course. . . Yes Sir." He handed the phone back. "Well, forget I said anything." He stopped the video on the screen. "Good luck, the Major wants to see you for a minute before you leave."

Hanly looked panicked.

"Don't worry, I don't think I got you into any trouble."

She hastily dropped her tray on the empty table and held a metal fork in an unnatural grip by her side while David walked by, well outside her reach.

Aaron, healed from the broken bones, limped slightly to sit across from her, followed by Dana, with Chroma rounding out the chairs.

The lunch discussion started with classes and meandered through gossip and shop when Shadona timidly reached across to Aaron's tray and lightly tapped the closest corner.

The table got quiet when she whispered her first words, "I can escape from here."
Chapter 11

"Care to explain this to me, Sergeant?" the Major said, pacing the hall in front of the empty room.

"Reviewing the video now, Sir."

The Major stepped into his face, "This is absolutely unacceptable, Sergeant! Where are my wards? This room is empty!"

"They can't have gotten far. We're tracking them down now, Sir!"

"Do you think we can just call the local sheriff? Maybe we can call 60 Minutes to help you find them!"

"I should be looking right now, Sir!"

"Then how can I still see you!" The Sergeant marched off as the Major inspected the empty room. Sensors covering the floor, alarm still active, but the sheets were tied like hammocks between the bunks. The inside doorknob had been removed, pin bent and forced. "Tamper-proof screws my ass."

These locks had been designed to keep people out, not in, as they were being used. The bedrooms were originally storage closets, and there was a world of difference between securely storing equipment, and people.

Video revealed that, once in the halls, they used his security number to simply walk out of the base.

He was screwed if he couldn't find them all, quick and quiet. This was a PR nightmare in the making, made worse because they couldn't call on any of the locals for assistance. They had to conduct a full-scale search without arousing suspicion.

"Frank," the Major called to the man standing in the hall, "check if the Apache is still at the airport. If it is, get me a pilot and we'll see if we can use its FLIR to round them up. Call everyone who's at home and get them here, now. And get me a headcount of everyone left."

"Yes Sir," Frank said, saluting before bolting down the halls.

"Chroma," the Major said, standing between the girl and the door, "They left you behind—"

"I twisted my ankle and volunteered to stay, instead of slowing them down," she said while Benita checked the ankle in question.

"Whose plan was it?"

She watched Benita pull tape out of the drawer.

"Where were they heading? Where's their rally point? What are the transportation objectives?"

Chroma gripped the edge of the table she sat on when Benita started wrapping.

"I don't have time for this," the Major said. "You were found less than a click from the southeast side, limping for the valley. But you had hours to reposition yourself in an attempt to misdirect." He slapped her bandaged ankle to hear her anguished scream. "I don't have time for this. I need their heading, and I need it now." He slapped her ankle again.

"What part of 'I don't know' needs translating for you?" she said, squirming off the table in a futile attempt to flee his reach.

He grabbed her by the arm and flung her back to the table. "You know! You can't possibly not know."

"Whatever I tell you, you'll think it's misdirect. And why wouldn't it be? Why would I tell you the truth, when a lie helps all my friends?"

He slapped her ankle before leaving the room.

Frank ran to his side in the hall, "The Apache is twenty minute out, Sir, but the FLIR isn't working. Yofi will be here in six, and Hanly is already scrounging parts in the shop."

"Tell Hanly to check the FLIR in the Apache that was delivered yesterday, it should still be in the parking lot. If they sabotaged the FLIR on the last one, it's probably safe to assume they damaged the ones they had easy access to in the shop." He turned for his office, "I have to make a call. You got the headcount done?"

"Forty seven missing. Half girls, half boys—"

The Major stopped in the halls, "Why not all of them? It's a smaller group that planned this, the rest are being used as fodder. Assume at least one member in each opened room. I assume the search of the grounds revealed that they split up into small groups and went off in every direction, correct?"

"Yes Sir."

"One eye in the sky isn't going to do it. I need a fleet of choppers— Or an eye much higher in the sky, with something a little more advanced than FLIR."

The CIA/NSA owed him, big time, for the last three years of analysis his team had provided. Time to collect. And time was ticking on acquiring a satellite.

The first seven were easily found trying to follow the roads to civilization, something taught in their survival classes. The rest steered clear of the roads and would be much harder to detect, especially after the light rain they had that night.

With intense cell phone coordination and the help of satellites, bloodhounds, and a second Apache on loan, the children were rounded up within two days, with no civilian interaction. They were so remote, after all, for this very reason. The difficulties of mountainous terrain couldn't be discounted either. If the pursuit had been limited to adults using flashlights and shoe leather, then the steep hills and thick underbrush would have enormously advantaged the smaller stature of the children.

But the chase wasn't limited to boots on the ground. Jeeps, ATVs, and helicopters put them over targets within minutes, and they were fully armed with tranquilizer darts and sleeping-gas grenades that they could drop from the air. FLIR, once they got it working, was an enormous asset, but it didn't compare to dozens of hours of satellite time. The Colonel covered it, some how, as a terrorism exercise, though he assured the Major that it could never be allowed to happen again.

The vast majority were found within the first twenty-seven hours, usually in groups of two or three. The last group managed to elude even the satellite by hiding uphill in a cramped and shallow cave. They even eluded two sets of bloodhounds by backtracking, crossing creeks, and sprinkling packets of pepper on their trail. Though it didn't last forever.

Bloodhounds had a famous reputation for a reason, and a third set eventually found them.

Dana, Aaron, David, and Shadona.

"Care to tell me what happened?" the Major asked the girl quietly rocking back and forth in the chair. "What about you, Dana, care to explain this to me?"

Dana stared at the silent girl, "Ask her. Bitch knows exactly what happened, and whose fault it was."

The Major watched the girl rock faster. Clearly she did know, but wasn't saying. "Aaron and David are dead. Someone is going to have to explain this, and all I have is the two of you." He turned his attention back to Dana and her black eye and bruised knuckles on her hands. "Well, speak up, Dana. Say something. We have two dead boys here. We've largely pieced together the escape. Rest assured, it'll never happen again. Aaron was a valuable transcriber and both were very useful in shop."

Dana looked like she might cry again, but didn't. She glared at Shadona instead.

"I'm waiting for an explanation. One of you hot-wired the car, but since you're Barely Seven, you wrecked it in the trees within eight miles of here. Then we tracked you up into the mountains where we lost the trail nine times and you eluded FLIR by hiding in a cave!" He kicked the side of the desk out of frustration. "You will both be punished severely for this! Your only chance for leniency is a full confession, and I want it now!"
Chapter 12

Shadona scrubbed the bathroom floor with her brush, then looked over to Dana on the far side. They had scrubbed every inch of the base for the last month, yet Dana hardly said a single word to her the entire time. Shadona put down the brush and walked over.

She hesitated, before giving Dana a hug.

Dana immediately shoved her away.

Shadona sat, stared at the floor, then crawled over and hugged her again. Receiving a shove and a punch to the eye this time. Undeterred, Shadona righted herself, then proceeded to hug her again. And again. And again.

And again.

Dana cried, staring at the very beaten Shadona just a few inches away, struggling to sit on the bathroom floor. "I hate you," she said, still angry, fists clenched. ". . . I hate. . . you," she whispered, but her fist relaxed by her side.

Shadona wiped the blood from her nose, but only succeeded in smearing it across her cheek while she crawled back over and offered a hug that wasn't rejected this time. "I loved him too," Shadona whispered, then kissed the girl on the cheek.

Dana pushed her away, without a punch this time. "I loved him, not you," she yelled.

Shadona wiped her nose again. "He was the only one who ever stuck up for me, Dana. I opened the boys' door just to free him." She leaned closer, "David should have been long gone by the time we doubled back and got the car started. And I certainly never expected him to find a stone and hurl it into the windshield, right there in the—"

"You could have helped fight David off after the wreck, instead of—"

"I— I should have, but I—"

"You flaked out, like you always do! Except this time— this time it cost Aaron his life. Couldn't stop rocking long enough to hel—"

Shadona put her hands on her ears and started rocking again.

Dana stood over the girl and slapped her on the head, "Stop it, you queer little bitch!"

But Shadona couldn't stop, and stress only made things worse while Dana kicked her on the floor.

"Lives depend on this, Girl," the Major said. "I don't care what your problems are, you will analyze these intercepts, and you will do it now!"

But Shadona just sat and rocked, yelling only made it worse.

He slapped the girl across the face. Frustrated, he kicked his chair, rolling it into the wall where it dented the olive sheetrock. She had stymied him now for nearly two hours, a record for her. Everything in him wanted to pound the child into a crimson stain on the desk, but he refrained. Even the slap was as restrained as he could manage. He righted his chair, then sat. Glaring at the girl, he pounded his fist on the desk, then retrieved his budget files and started to work, doing his best to ignore her.

Another hour passed before she slowed enough to play the intercepts.

She sat at the terminal, fingers poised on the keys.

Programming was easy for her, like another language with far fewer words and simpler math-heavy sentences. Her terminal was connected to the network, and it was connected to the world. But everything beyond the local network remained closed to her, for now. A firewall was what the barrier was called, and she had yet to learn the magic words to say to let her pass through.

But the firewall wasn't what stopped her fingers from typing.

She stared at the screen as she read a file with her name.

"Project Shadona: (S H Hg O Na)"

It was a worthless formula of no economic value. Hg was mercury, the 80th element. 80. A D. Her name was symbolic of her value to them. She was an afterthought. A curious oddity. Nothing more.

She clicked on her code and watched the As Gs Ts and Ps that defined her existence stream by. She was horrified by the number of errors that leapt off the screen. The splices and chunks were crudely cut and pasted and read like a manuscript that abruptly changed from English to French, then German and Italian. Always changing mid sentence, often in the middle of a word, without even waiting for the end of a paragraph. She was terrified by the abomination that those letters defined.

They had no idea what they were doing, and it showed.

Her brain was damaged, intentionally, on the theory that one of her fellow experiments would be able to do exactly what she did a few times a week in the Major's office. Her deformed mind wasn't able to divine the solutions to all these errors; DNA, once written, was nearly impossible to fix. And the sheer number of errors made any hope of a normal life unlikely for her. But she found it almost impossible to turn away from her defective letters streaming by. Markers for Alzheimers, lung cancer, and MS brought tears to her eyes; she would reach thirty, thirty-five at most, but no more.

Her thoughts drifted to the Major and the budgets he often worked on in front of her. In fact, it seemed to consume most of his time. The repair shop and intercepts represented a huge portion of the base's funding.

Funding seemed like just the leverage she needed, but her impact in the shop was minimal. If she dropped out or sabotaged equipment, another would eagerly take her place. If she refused to analyze intercepts, lives could be lost, and her impact on funding may be minimal there as well. Transcription, now that more children were involved, accounted for 80% of those funds.

Another thought occurred to her. If funding slowed, rationing would surely be their first response. Food first, but soon—

She needed to think. She needed to find a way to manipulate the situation, without making things worse for everyone.

She blinked as her DNA flickered across the screen. A simple hack, change a single strand, fix just a few of the most egregious errors, and she could be someone else entirely. Live past thirty. Keep her mind, but lose the inevitable insanity. With the slightest of changes, she could have immortality.

Changes that could never be made, now that she was.

Aaron was one of the few nice guys there. Because of her, he was dead. Defects in her mind's design had paralyzed her with indecision when the stone busted through the windshield and bloodied Aaron behind the wheel. The crash seconds later only made things worse. When David attempted to steal the car from them, she sat frozen in her seat while Dana fought him off alone.

She stared at her damaged, dysfunctional code as a tear ran down her cheek.

She touched Escape, and the letters faded away.

She might not ever be normal. But she knew what normal looked like, and she could pretend.

Letters would never define her actions again.

She was growing tired of going to the office for analysis. Seeing the Major for intercepts had looked promising in the beginning, but had now become counterproductive. He was easily angered, extremely impatient, and over the years had dropped the pretense of saving her from the very punishment he had inflicted through orders to others.

Besides which programming may provide her another way out and free up more of her precious time for things she actually enjoyed.
Chapter 13

The Major entered his office and stared at his terminal screen, expecting to endure the typical hour of rocking obstinance, followed by another hour of incessant chattering. Instead, he found himself mesmerized by a running program, generating a transcript file of the conversation and highlighting what it thought were deceptive or misused words, almost exactly what she had been doing, yet still lacking her keen observation for minute details and context.

He looked at his watch. She had been there for twenty minutes at best, and the program had already evaluated its first MP3 conversation. It even ranked it on a suspicion level, indexed key words, and completed one transcription.

When he approached the desk, she got up and headed for the door.

"Just a minute, Girl," he said, grabbing her by the shoulder and putting her back in the chair. "You owe me a better explanation than that."

She sat in the chair, but said nothing. The urge to rock screamed almost beyond her control. . . yet, she managed to sit still.

"Damned if you're not the most frust—" he stopped and stared at the screen as it started analyzing the next MP3. It was much slower than she was, probably slower than a typical analyst. Just a guess, but it looked like it took fifteen minutes to analyze a two-minute conversation. But software was software. It never had to sleep, it never got tired, and it was far less annoying. "Is this program running on the—" he paused again. Asking her questions was like pulling teeth. The program was obviously on the server. She had no disks and no other way to bring it into his office. He rested his hand on the child's shoulder as he squatted beside her. "Listen, Shadona, your talents are very appreciated and critical to this country's defense against terrorists. This will be a big help, thank you."

She stared at his hand on her shoulder until he broke the contact. She pulled a folded piece of paper from her pocket and placed it on his desk before leaving for shop.

He opened it.

It was a list of materials, one hundred fifty feet of four-inch steam line, a twenty pound bottle of CO2, a bottle of liquid nitrogen, a spool of number ten bare copper. . . ending in a short list of exotic minerals, including a grain of plutonium.

The Major laughed when he reached the last item, the impudence of requesting pluton— The computer beeped, flashed a red warning message, then flagged an MP3 as warranting critical examination. He picked up the phone and checked the availability of the more exotic parts.

"So, what do you think, Professor," the Major said after the short tour of the servers.

"Well, your equipment is dated, mismatched, and obsolete. But the program definitely resides on your server. I isolated it early this morning, and," he swung his ponytail off his shoulder and tapped a hard drive laying on the desk, "I've got a copy of it right here. Was that all you needed?"

The Major smiled, "Not exactly. Burn me a private copy before you leave, for posterity, then I'd like you to meet with some friends of mine and oversee migrating this software into a modern server for us, ok?"

"Sure thing. But coming here in person is a bit overkill, don't you think? I mean, your system has a private, secure T1 line straight to the mainframe you want to send it to. We can do all this electronically in a few hours if you'd prefer."

"No. Sorry. Has to be done in person." He slid the hard drive containing the copy into a Ziploc bag and put it in his pocket. "You've worked with the NSA before, right?"

The Professor unwrapped a new hard drive and plugged it into the system. "Oh sure, but not in the last four years. Most of my work is freelance, like here with you."

"You any good at teaching kids?"

"College students, and they try my last nerve, most of the time."

"Tell me about it. Let me know when you're done and I'll have someone escort you out, ok?"

"Fine fine," the Professor said, typing on the keyboard as the new drive came to life.

"You think this'll work?" the Major said, reviewing the pamphlet on his desk.

"Well, believe it or not, it's been patented almost specifically for this application. Well, for prisoners actually," nurse Benita said, "but sure. You might want to get Hanly and Yofi to look over the engineering side of it, but it looks solid to me."

"Does the company still exist?"

"Yes Sir, they have a plant in China. It's half surgery, half dental, part invisible fence for pets, part LoJack for cars, part RFID for security-badge tracking, and part prisoner confinement with ankle bracelets. It's designed for home confinement as an alternative to prison," she pointed to an imbedded capsule, "and it comes complete with its own death sentence to prevent tampering." She pointed to the back page, "It requires adult teeth, molars specifically, and it looks like a normal filling. It attaches to the dental nerve and, according to the literature, can cause a level of pain that is nearly indescribable."

"I read something about that little feature that I don't quite follow." He flipped through it again, "Where is it getting its power from?"

"That's the genius part. It gets the power from the radio signal—"

"But now, wait. That's where it loses me. If it's powered by the signal, but only punishes when it doesn't receive the signal, then where is it getting the power to zap them without receiving the signal that powers it?

I mean, we have an invisible fence for our dog at home. And the damn thing goes right up to the fence and sits down where the buzzer buzzes, but not close enough to get shocked, and waits for the battery to die before he crosses the line. Before that, he used to run across it and just take the shock. We'd come home and he'd be locked outside of the yard, unable to cross back into—"

"Well, the difference is the dog collar uses power when it administers the shock, the genius of this dental implant is it only uses power to kill the pain of an exposed nerve. The dentist basically botches a perfectly good tooth into the worst toothache imaginable, then uses the device to kill the pain. When the device runs out of power, the ache is all that remains. The poison capsule prevents tampering. And each tooth has a unique code that has to be signaled to 'deactivate' the poison. With a hundred standard RFID receivers, we can track all their movements within the base. With a small transmitter, we can give them the illusion of complete freedom while locking them down to a few miles in radius. If someone escapes, dial down the transmitter and that mile leash turns into a few hundred feet."

He thought of the girl that just recently sat in his room. "What about hacking?"

She shrugged, "Not my area of expertise, but it was designed for white collar criminals. The transmitter," she flipped to the page for him, "broadcasts random noise 24/7 and buries the code inside that. It's supposedly uncrackable. It can't even be removed by a dentist without the right deactivation codes. Again, I'm not the person to discuss the technical aspects with, but the price is right, and the transmitter can be easily secured, I would think."

He looked at the price. Twenty dollars each, without the poison or 'installation'. Transmitters extra. "Very nice, thank you. How are you at dentistry?"

If it worked out as well as it looked on paper, he could put the transmitter on a satellite by the end of the month, pending Pentagon approval, of course.

"I was surprised to hear from you again," the Major said, meeting the Professor at the gate.

The Professor adjusted his tie, "Well, the program was a little more complicated than it first appeared. Apparently, it was designed to run on your system, and your system specifically. It took me a month to figure out what was going on, but apparently it hacked the video cards and used them as a kind of dual processors in a creative way that prevents it from migrating to other systems. It also uses about six dozen other programs scattered across your network that I didn't previously find. Well, not the entire programs, just modules in them. If I could find the source code, and maybe image your entire system, that would help things along."

"Sure, this is national security if anything is." He waved the professor past the guard as they walked toward the complex.

"I've been analyzing the thing sixteen hours a day," the professor said. "None of it has proper documentation, the nomenclature is non-existent, and it seems intentionally overly complicated. Variables are given names that appear identical like L one zero zero (l100) and one L O O (1lOO)." They stopped at the first door where the Major's palm and badge were scanned. "Originally, I thought that was just sloppy coding, but I'm convinced it's intentionally confusing now."

The Major left him and all his excuses in the server room.

"So, what's the verdict?" the Major asked the professor, end of the day.

"It's locked in there pretty good, sorry to say. Your system may be the only one on the planet that it will ever run—"

"Then get a list of parts and we'll cobble another one together by the end of—"

The Professor stood, tightened his tie, then wiped the sweat from his brow, "That's not possible, I'm afraid. Obsolete, in this case, means a good number of the key parts were custom made for this server. The code references modules in dozens of other programs and they reference dozens more, like a giant spider web, or probably more accurately, tiddlywinks. To properly repackage this might take a team of twenty programmers the next two years. And keep in mind this thing seems to get more complex with every visit."

The Major was stymied again. "How about this, then. Would it be easier to gut this thing, put it on a truck, and replace it with a modern server system, that way you and the NSA nerds can have this one to study and use for as long as you want? And we get a new system." He had already made firm contractual agreements on the software in question, and now had to find a way to deliver on it.

The professor stroked his ponytail like he was straightening a tie, "That might be best, since neither the NSA nor I live anywhere near here."

"Good then. I'll get you some help and we can get started dismantling it today." They had already expunged all the incriminating children data from the system long before the Professor had been called. Top-secret clearance only went so far, for such an obvious hippie.
Chapter 14

"What's she building?" the Major asked while touring the shop.

"Well," Yofi said, "I don't rightly know. It's too big for the machine shop, so we had to put it outside under a tent around back."

Hanly put up his hands, "Don't look at me, Sir, I still haven't figured out how that damned engine works yet."

They proceeded outside in a light drizzle and ducked into the tent.

"You got cameras rolling in here, right?" the Major asked.

"As many as we thought we could get away with. But it's hard to figure out what she's doing, exactly. And she'll go days without touching it," Yofi said.

Hanly pointed to the steam pipe on the ground around the perimeter of the tent. "This thing is filled with water, insulated, and has what looks like nitrogen-cooled coils on it. But it goes to nothing, it's just a giant loop. And it looks like she just intends to boil water in it with no vents or nothing. It's even been put in its own little moat with sandbags piled on top of it. My guess is it'll just boil until it explodes, but what do I know." He pointed to the center where even more equipment and tanks of raw chemicals were concealed behind an array of pipes, tubes, wires, and homemade gizmos. "Lord only knows what's going on over there."

The Major shook his head as he opened his clipboard and looked down the list of requested parts. "Is everything on this page accounted for?"

Yofi and Hanly looked it over. "As far as I know," Yofi said, "it's all here, except the plutonium."

"Any idea what it does?" the Major asked, knowing it had blown a sizable hole in his shrinking budget.

Hanly said, "Explode," while Yofi said, "No idea."

"Is it complete?"

Yofi looked at Hanly, "I think she's just waiting on the plutonium."

The Major pulled his necklace out from under his shirt and pressed a cross to his lips. "God help me," he put a tiny lead box in Hanly's hand and said, "Turn it on."

When they went back to the shop, Hanly put his fingers in his ears while Yofi flipped a breaker. The tent was safely behind a hill of sandbags, but Hanly winced nonetheless. With no explosion, they turned to watch everything on a bank of monitors, safely inside.

When the loop heated to well over 600 degrees, the super-cooled coil came on and drew hundreds of amps from the shop. So much power, in fact, that they had to suspend shop activities while it was on. But other than to spin the meter like a prop on an airplane, it seemed to do. . . nothing.

"Anything change?" Hanly asked Yofi, relieving him at the end of the third day.

"Nope. It just sits there, eating power, doing God-knows-what."

Indicator lights blinked on as the wall of screens lit up with activity. The amp probe plunged to zero as chemical tubs boiled, valves opened on their own, and—

Boooommmmmm!!!

The screens blinked off as the building rumbled with the percussion, breakers tripped in the panels.

Hanly and Yofi struggled in the dim light of a single laptop until the breakers reset and panels flickered back on. All they could see inside the tent was a wall of dense smoke.

Hanly bolted for the door to the tent, but Yofi hooked him with an artificial arm, "May I be the voice of caution here. Whatever is out there for you to see will soon be in here on these screens. Do I even have to remind you that there was a grain of plutonium in the mix?"

Hanly continued to the door, but grabbed a plastic suit and a Geiger counter on his way out.

A fog of smoke loitered around the tent, but even so he could see that the tent remained intact. The explosion felt like a truck bomb going off, but couldn't have done any real damage.

Cautiously, he approached, constantly checking the persistently normal radiation readings.

Inside the tent the smoke was too thick to see anything. The fumes burned his eyes like teargas, but he proceeded to cut open the sides of the tent with his pocketknife until he couldn't take the stench anymore and retreated to a safe distance.

"I called and the XO will be here in an hour," Yofi said, joining Hanly outside, once the tent had aired out. "What are we looking at?"

Hanly looked over the twisted pile of wires and pipes, "Everything overheated. The only thing that wasn't destroyed was that damned buried steam pipe. The very thing I was betting would explode. There's a pile of parts over there, right where we figured all those chemicals would dump it."

"Parts to what?"

"Well," Hanly said, picking one up, "They look like interlocking plating for bulletproof vests or something like that. Did you notify the girl?"

Yofi tapped the plate with his artificial hand. "Only the XO can clear that, sort of why I called him."

They continued to inspect the mess.

When the Major pulled into the parking lot, he walked directly to the tent. "What happened here?" he asked, "Did you win the bet?"

"Well, Sir," Hanly said, a little frustrated, "No. It's the only piece of equipment that didn't melt after making those plates."

The Major picked one up, "Plates to what? For what?" He looked around at the rubble. "Don't tell me I spent a quarter million on plates!"

"Well, no Sir," Hanly said, "I think there's something fascinating going on here with this pipe. The big question is, why didn't it explode. And why did she just cool the coil, not the entire pipe. And why heat the pipe to over 600 degrees.

I think that pipe was being used as some sort of massive capacitor. It ate hundreds of amps for days on end. And I think what destroyed all this equipment was when it discharged in just a few seconds. Just a guess because our amp meters pegged off the chart almost immediately, but I'd say that that 150 feet of steam pipe discharged at about the full output of a nuclear power plant, for a few seconds, maybe even a minute. That sounds a little crazy, I know, but it's the only thing that makes sense here." He pointed to the ends of vaporized cables that used to connect the equipment, "This stuff don't melt for anything less."

Yofi bumped him with his artificial hand, "Six hundred degrees would make it supercritical, right? Like in a typical power plant. It would have the mass of a liquid, yet the friction resistance of a gas. Almost no friction, really, it could be moving as fast as you want. You thinking some sort of fluidic, hydrostatic flywheel? That's fucking impressive as hell."

The Major opened his cell phone, "Bring her here."

Shadona silently picked through the rubble and started carrying the mountain of plates back to the shop where she, and some hand picked girls, assembled the rest of the project over the following week.

The Major stared at the device standing in the corner of the shop, standing as casually as one might lean a broom against a ladder.

Hanly lifted the plating off the backpack to reveal an integrated engine, just like the one that stymied him for months. But it went beyond his rubber-ringed model. This one was even smaller, about the size of a 40-ounce beer, and was rated at around 30hp. Hydraulic lines ran inside the suit and a purely mechanical system of inflated bags amplified the pilot's movements into action, like power steering on steroids.

"It looks like a—" the Major started.

Yofi handed him a copy of one of the comic books he kept in the shop for the kids. A copy of Iron Man. "Is that worth a few hundred thousand?" he said. "Mr. Stark."
Chapter 15

"The machinegun is easily replicated," Hanly reported as they stood in the field behind the base. "It runs off of compressed hydrogen that the suit makes from regular fuel. The gas is mixed with compressed air, also made by the suit, and ignited behind a bullet. From inside you can put as much or as little power behind each round as you need. Want to punch holes in a tank," he open fired on the armor plate hundreds of feet away. The gun ripped through the tranquil silence of the mountain as effortlessly as the bullets rubbled the plate and decimated the trees behind it. "Just squeeze past the second notch."

"It sounds like a pissed-off weed eater!" the Major tried to yell over the gun.

Hanly dialed it down, "But you can also fire bullets as soft as kids throwing rocks to clear a street of civilians." He unloaded on some cardboard cutouts where the rounds toppled, spun, pummeled and dented, but rarely penetrated. "And it lets you flip between the two effortlessly." The gun shredded plywood cutouts of AK-47-toting terrorists while simply dinging the cardboard women and children between them. "It can run at a full speed of about forty miles an hour, can jump to a second floor balcony, and yesterday we used it to push a fully loaded truck uphill." He took off the helmet and climbed out of it. "Yet, it's small enough to be used indoors and only adds two hundred thirty pounds to the user. And it runs on just about anything from oil to kerosene, gasoline to jet fuel."

The Major smiled, "It's a game changer."

"Yes Sir, XO," Hanly answered the Major, "we just have no idea how to build any of it, other than the gun."

The Major looked puzzled. "How hard can it possibly—"

"Well, the motor is still beyond me, and that's key to most of the systems. It's inherently hydraulic, and you can't just replace it with the motor out of a lawnmower. It has to be that small to work with this suit. To replace this conventionally, the engine would be hundreds of pounds by itself and bigger than a lawnmower, conventional hydraulics would double that. This armor is incredibly light. If we used traditional armor, it would lose all its agility and would be heavy enough to break through the floors of a traditional wooden house. But we can replicate some things right away." Hanly took off his shirt.

"What's that?"

"Well, it had us stumped too. Looks a little like a bra for a man, don't it?" Hanly indicated the cord with a plug. "We thought it recorded your vital signs or something. But it doesn't. It has a matrix of electrodes that stimulate. . . well, it feels like ants crawling on your skin. After a while, your brain starts recognizing that it's drawing a picture of what's behind you on your back, what's to your side just under your arms, and what's in front of you on your chest. Like eyes in the back of your head, or very low resolution night vision. And it's really good at picking out moving people, those ants feel warm. Playing a hunch, I had someone fire a live round toward the suit. The ant feels like it takes a bite, right where the bullet is coming from. How Bad-Ass is that, Sir? And that, like the gun, is something we can replicate today. With a lot of effort and none of the elegance, of course."

The Major looked upset. "That isn't good enough. This thing is a system, isn't it? The suit makes the hydrogen and compresses the air. How big does the gun get when you have to do all that, too? Can a soldier carry something that big into battle?"

"Well, Sir, No. Probably not. But I think you're missing the real advantage to a system like this. Fuel and ammunition determine how long a helicopter or a Hummer can loiter in an area. This way you can pack more fuel and more ammo into every firefight. Imagine a Warthog with four times the ammo and the ability to punch hard on tanks and soft on jeeps, and extra fuel to boot. That's the advantage here. Not with field infantry, unless you mount them on Hummers or something, or somehow figure out how to make them this small. This goes beyond caseless ammo. Cracking hydrogen out of fuel is chemistry 101, the rest of this gun is easy. We may not be able to replicate, exactly, the eyes in the shirt thing, but we can apply those principles too. The suit itself, on the other hand, is so interconnected that we would have to duplicate it rather precisely. And without a better grasp of that engine, it's a moot point, sorry to say. You know, this would be a lot easier if we could get some cooperation from—"

"Don't remind me. You have no idea how frustrating that one child can—" he stared Hanly in the eyes, "Believe it or not, it's easier to hire someone to reverse engineer it than it is to get her to cooperate, on anything."

After weeks of fruitless interrogation, they gave up and returned Shadona to her normal schedule. But it pained her too much to join the rest of the shop class in reverse engineering her own designs, so she didn't participate and was, instead, punished with extra instructional time with the automated teachers.

Even without her assistance, within three weeks, the highly skilled children under Yofi and Hanly had two working, though aesthetically displeasing, hydrogen-powered machine guns. They cut several corners by modifying existing Gatling guns and using off-the-shelf reload rounds and bottled hydrogen. But they worked. . . albeit with a few more jams, problems, and complications that the battle-tested counterparts lacked. Both were soon shipped off to the army testing grounds for further evaluation while they worked out the kinks on a portable hydrogen cracker capable of supplying the consumption levels the gun demanded. A task Hanly discovered was much easier said than done. . . safely.

"The tests are in, and the brass was impressed," the Major said when he met with his fledgling engineering team a few weeks later. "They had a few jams, just like you predicted they might. But what impressed them the most was the space and weight savings, just as you predicted, Hanly. The ability to pack more power behind each round was just icing on the cake. Said they could penetrate the same armor with the cheap rounds in your guns that they could using high-dollar, armor-piercing munitions. Said they had future modifications, some simplification, and they had to get over how ass ugly the thing was. . . but it sold." He shook both their hands, "Congratulations!"

Yofi smiled from ear to ear, best his deformity would allow, "Should we keep refining the hydrogen cracker or work on the— uh, what do you want to call it, shirt-with-eyes next?"

"Oh no, put both out of your minds for now. I passed those concepts along, let bigger budgets sweat the details on them. Besides, on the shirt neither of you are that kind of electronics engineers anyway, right?"

They both nodded. "For the record," Yofi said, "I'm not an engineer, just a mechanic."

"If it's all right with you, XO," Hanly said to the Major, "I'd like to take a break from the engine and try to work with that fluidic capacitor that's still under the tent. I think there's a world of applications just waiting for a device like that. Besides, it's about the only thing that survived the meltdown."

The Major looked uncomfortable. "XO. . ." he repeated, "It's going to take me a while to get used to that title."

Hanly patted him on the shoulder. "You've earned it, Sir. Might as well use it."

"You and Yofi ever find out where that grain of plutonium went?" the Major— uh, XO asked.
Chapter 16

Shadona sat at her desk, the automated instructor rambling on the screen. She twisted the ring on her finger as she ignored the lesson. Those in charge were easily distracted by the shiny bobbles, while she kept the actual prize.

A ring.

Her ring.

And oh so much more.

She twisted it around her finger as she stared at the terminal. Software, hardware, and the illusion of all that lay between. She had tasted programming, just as she had tasted engineering. And she wanted more from each. Software was flexible and agile, limited only by the hardware it inhabited; and hardware, by its very nature, was the definition of inflexibly etched into stone.

In a single stroke, she broke the boundaries of both.

Computers controlled electrons with doped silicone. But silicone was as fragile as glass, power hungry, temperature sensitive, and had a long list of other vulnerabilities. Within the crushing squeeze of a magnetic field, what amounted to a fancy industrial laser-printer assembled carbon atoms around a single grain of plutonium with near perfect precision and diamond-like internal clarity. In a fraction of a second she managed to 'print' an optical computer chip, in the shape of a ring, flexible enough to expand as she continued to grow, with radiation providing an endless source of light. Its very carbon construction shielded her from the radiation.

Even Hanly's Geiger counter couldn't find it amidst the rubble.

Optics let it calculate at the speed of light, the spectrum acted like addresses in memory, and individual photons acted like both data and programming as they wound around the maze inside the ring, colliding and changing direction and energy with programmed efficiency.

What she twisted now was mostly empty, awaiting a true operating system; she had a tall task ahead of her indeed. But she was up for the challenge. Its vocabulary would be extremely limited, at first. Adding and subtracting only, but a lot could be done with only those two words. In fact, those two words were the essence of everything silicone did.

With the right equipment, it should take her a few months at most to build such an operating system from scratch.

She moved her hand as if conducting an orchestra while the monitor prattled on in the background. She felt the ring echo back in tiny tingles on her finger, similar to what she had perfected as ShirtEyes.

A side effect of using light was an inherent GPS-like function had to be built in. Since the speed of light was a constant, moving the ring in the direction of the light made the light travel a slight, but measurably longer distance. Which translated into taking a longer time to complete the same circle. Timing had to be synchronized with absolute precision if photons themselves were going to be used as data, and that timing gave her a direct way to interface with it. Compensating for movement translated directly into sensing movement.

She wiggled her finger three times directly over the H key, then spun around in her chair and staggered out into the room. Eyes closed, she waved her hand around, randomly, as its tingles guided her back along the exact path the ring had taken, right back to the same key.

Flawlessly.

Motion in time and space was her keyboard. Tingles were her screen. And its primitive memory had accurately recorded her every move. Her first test was complete, and it passed flawlessly.

In some ways, her ring was inferior to modern silicone, but its potential eclipsed everything in the building. Especially in her hands.

Besides, she was the only eight-year-old girl there that didn't have a ring, bracelet, or necklace. Nearly the same tan color as her skin, with luck, hers would go unnoticed for years.

In shop she stood while working on the Apache, and watched a man she had never met talk to Yofi near the door that led out to the tent.

Dana tapped her on the shoulder, "You done with the avionics yet?"

Shadona frowned and shook no.

"How much longer?"

Shadona shrugged, more interested in the conversation she could see, but not hear.

Dana inspected the work. "You're doing it again," she said, poking Shadona with a finger. "The wiring harness doesn't have to be this uniform. It's ok if the wires twist a little. You're making us fall behind schedule."

Chroma chimed in, "You make us fall behind and everyone on this bird might be in jeopardy of janitor duty or some other moron task." She shoved Shadona until she had her full attention, "And I'm not going back to grunge detail again! We don't have teacher's pet status. We can't goof off, flake out, and daydream all day like you do. Get yourself together, and stop acting like such a girl."

Shadona's eyes shied down as she picked up the tie wraps and got back to work. But she still kept watch on the obscure conversation. '. . . pipe. . . supercritical. . . gigawatt spike. . . MHD. . . capacitor. . . Mach 16. . . '

Electrically perfect, not visually perfect. Difficult, but doable. Once she set her mind to it.

Especially easy after her distractions walked outside.

She sat at the table, fish stick in hand, when Dana sat across from her. Soon to be followed by Chroma and two other girls.

"I heard they just got another hundred feet of steam pipes and are bending and welding it into a giant circle," Chroma said.

Shadona nibbled on the stick.

"My bet is they're trying to build another suit," Dana answered. "You really twisted their chain on that one. They seem almost obsessed—" She gestured at Chroma, "What's that other guy's—"

"Hanly," Chroma said, "Thinks he's an engineer. Has had a dozen boys working in the shop after Yofi leaves for the last two weeks—"

"That's their whole problem!" Dana said, "They're all about half a chromosome short."

Shadona faintly smiled before nibbling a bigger piece.

Chroma snickered, "Defective chromosome crew."

Shadona lay in bed, unable to sleep, waving her hand above her head in total darkness. She was nearly done manually inputting an optical interface that should allow her to use the easily controllable light from the Number Lock LED to input the rest of the massive set of code she needed to bring her ring to full potential.

Programming, she had learned, was more difficult than she thought. It took time to write each individual line. Her intercept analysis software borrowed modules, chunks, and blatantly plagiarized from everything she could find on the servers. The sheer size and complexity of such a program meant that the simple mechanics of entering each line, were it all original, would have taken her a decade just to type. So she borrowed and stole from others. It was clunky, slow, unwieldy, and inefficient. But it was quicker to cobble odd parts than to invent perfection from scrap. Programming her ring was proving no different.

Unlike companies, she didn't have a team of programmers to help her. She was alone and on her own.

She would have to convert, cobble, and import what she could find, and write as little original code as needed. It was risky, Windows was never tested to run on a plutonium-powered ring before.

Even using the blinks of an LED, it would still take weeks to upload.

Assuming she could ever complete the interface.

She waved her hand in darkness for another hour before exhausting herself to sleep.

"Listen, Shadona," Yofi said, preventing her from leaving at the end of shop class, "A friend of mine would like to see you. He'll be here in a few minutes."

She sat on the stool at the workbench and started sorting and aligning the nuts and bolts hastily dumped there by others.

"You know, you're one of my brightest students."

She paused, but didn't look up.

"No, that's a lie. You are by far my brightest student. I just wish I could take some credit for it, but you did it all on your own."

She glanced up at his eyes, briefly, before mixing what she had just sorted back into the random pile.

He awkwardly drug another stool beside her, pressed the pin in his knee, and sat. "Listen, you can talk to me, you know. I mean, I know you don't talk, but you can write more than just material lists." He looked at the suit standing beside the ladder, corner of the room. "Hanly has been studying your fluidic flywheel. It's a little outside of my scope, you'll never find one in a Warthog, but impressive nonetheless. Said it was capable of a gigawatt spike."

She moved two-dozen nuts in the shape of 6.3.

He smiled, best he could. "I wish I had a lot left to teach you, but I don't. I ran out in the first few minutes we met, I suspect. I fooled myself into thinking that I had somehow inspired you with that engine," He looked over at the suit again, "But that's clearly not the case."

She grabbed a leftover slice of pizza, held it for a second, and nibbled.

"You don't belong repairing other people's equipment. I can help you with that, but Hanly can do much more for you. I think you should meet him, get to know him. He can open doors I can't."

She took another bite and looked at the biometric locks on the doors. She suspected Yofi was talking about another kind of door.

"He thinks that that, uh, fluidic flywheel, for lack of a better word, could do a world of good with this country's antiquated electric grid. If it can just be adapted. Bringing 6.3 gigawatts onto the grid, even for just a few seconds, could be huge, he thinks.

Just listen to him, see what you think."

Hanly opened the door and walked straight to the table. "Good to see you, Yofi," he said, shaking hands. "This must be Shadona. You know, it took a lot of pleading just to get this meeting with you."

She sat quietly, munching the thin crust at the edge.

"I don't know why, but I expected thick glasses and unkempt hair," Hanly said after an awkward pause in the one-way conversation. "Listen, I'm not sure how much you know about the century-old grid, but, it's highly inefficient. The cheapest forms of power need an hour or more lead time before they can come on line." He turned to Yofi who seemed to be the only one interested in anything he was saying. "Is she even listening?"

Yofi nodded while Shadona sorted nuts again.

"Well," Hanly continued, "only the most expensive power, two or three times as expensive, comes on quickly. Within minutes, or even seconds some times. The Holy Grail of grid efficiency is a low cost way to store that abundant cheap power, with the ability to discharge it in the blink of an eye like the expensive kind. Something you did behind this building for a few thousand dollars."

She shrugged as she scooped another lump of parts to sort.

"I've been working on this for weeks now, and that steam-pipe system just doesn't scale, economically, to utility sizes."

She put a handful of quarter nuts back in the appropriate bin.

"Keeping it that hot has cost issues too."

She returned to sorting.

Hanly reached into his back pocket, "I was hoping you could help me with this." He unfolded the taped-back-together remains of a notebook she had compulsively written, then ripped up and thrown away years ago. "Here you've drawn something very similar—"

She grabbed the pages, ripped them again, and threw them on the floor.

"They've all been copied. It took me forever to get a look at—"

She flung the assorted hardware from the workbench across the floor and stormed to the door. Only to be stopped by a biometric lock that was just as good at keeping people in as it was at keeping people out. She kicked the door and jerked at the handle.

Hanly walked over. "It looks like your notes were designed for utility levels, just like what I was talking about. You've already solved this problem, haven't you?"

She kicked the door again, then slapped her hand against a palm reader that buzzed a familiar 'denied'.

"Listen, Shadona—"

She walked away, flipping on a deafening shopvac as she walked back to Yofi and the workbench.

Hanly turned off the vac and returned to the bench. "You used this supercritical steam method because it couldn't be easily scaled much bigger." He picked the pages off the floor and fixed them on the desk, "None of it was written in English. Half your measurements are metric, and they're all unmarked. You know it's only a little useful, and I'm missing several key pages." He quickly flipped through them so she could see what wasn't there. "I'm asking for your help."

She folded her arms and rested her head on the table.

Yofi put his hand on her shoulder, "Listen, Shadona, what can Hanly do to get you to change your mind? This really isn't much different than helping me with Apaches or TF-34s. Working with Hanly might not be nearly as boring for you. Might even learn something from him." He watched Hanly pace behind her as he fumbled to tape the pages back together. "He'll definitely learn something from you. Just tell me what it'll take."
Chapter 17

Hanly stared at the tiny device. Fifty feet of garden hose, a few pieces of copper pipe, and a powerful electromagnet in one big loop. Without saying a word, she filled the hose with a solution of water and copper sulfate, ran a current from one pipe to the other, and hit it with a magnetic field. Inside the hose, the solution circulated like a jet pump and accelerated to over a hundred miles per hour almost instantly. Even with all the impurities and irregularities of a garden hose, they got eighty watts out of the hastily assembled device an hour after putting a hundred watts in.

He held the hose in his hand. It was so simple.

He looked over the crayon drawings again. Copper sulfate was incredibly cheap. So was water. The hose scaled to cheap concrete pipe with a super slick polymer liner. It didn't need to be superheated this way. It couldn't reach supersonic speeds and thus would have to be physically huge to compensate, but it was so inexpensive to make insanely big like this that it no longer required the water to move so dangerously fast.

The device in the tent had been designed for a specific purpose. A single massive spike. And if it had failed, the explosion would have been devastating, just as he predicted.

Some of the numbers scribbled on the page, now that he had a better perspective, made sense. Twelve feet in diameter, two miles long, 1.5 gigawatt hours. There was no way the XO was going to let her build a two-mile-long tunnel as an experiment. But a hundred fifty feet of pipe didn't garner a blink.

This new design was incredibly safe, but it had limitations too. In much the way hydroelectric dams didn't make much sense on creeks, the garden hose, though it proved the concept nicely, showed that this style didn't make sense on the small scale. Supercritical water only made sense to use if the fluid was circulating at sonic speeds, and only if the pipe was thick and the diameter small, something confined to a single building. It was good for a short, massive spike, or could run a few homes for a day, but that was its limit. The cold-water design could run a city for an hour, or a town for a few days, and could be built as big as you could afford.

He remembered being incredibly embarrassed when a child showed him up with scraps of pipe and a garden hose. His pride stinging, he asked the only backhanded question he could think of, trying to point out the flaw in an otherwise brilliant crayon design. "Oh yeah, what about all the heat buildup from friction?"

She casually gestured to a high-efficiency heat engine he had yet to figure out, then silently left the room, filled with his shame.

He had said it with anger and spite, and it still echoed in his ears weeks later. His ego needed to get at least one thing right. And he humiliated himself instead.

The plan was ambitious.

But the base was situated in a prime location to capitalize on just such a device.

They sat, relatively speaking, near a main distribution power line. Electrically, they were between a coal plant and three peaking stations. Strike a deal with the coal plant and together they could put the expensive peaking stations out of business overnight. The XO had even lined up some 'smart grid' 'green jobs' DOE money for the project, thanks to recent elections.

The tentative DOE deal meant they could keep all the profit and almost get the construction for free. This had the potential to solve all of the XO's funding needs in the way that rebuilding jet turbines in shop could never dream of doing.

The XO had already cleared the project to the planning stage. Hanly's task had surpassed the insanely complex, now that it all sat firmly on his shoulders. He had to turn crayon drawing he didn't fully understand into a working power plant, and it had taken him nearly five hours of badgering an eight-year-old to get copper sulfate in a garden hose.

It didn't help his ego that he was spending the next month designing what she probably could have drawn, in more detail, in a few hours on the back of a napkin. The details he needed were probably in crayon on the missing pages already, but he had no way of knowing. And the details he already managed to decipher were brilliant, elegant even, but like the suit, totally useless unless he understood everything else. Which he didn't. No one did.

The notes tempted him, like the answers to final exams just sitting on his desk.

They tormented him because he wasn't smart enough to follow them. Like the answers were all there, just out-of-order and only useful to someone smart enough not to need them to begin with.

Power plants were designed by teams of engineers with months or years on their hands. He was just one man with considerably less time, and some notes scribbled by a young girl.

"Jeff," the XO said, "It's been four, almost five years, Man, I thought I'd check in on you and see the pit where all my money is going."

Jeff smiled, spit some tobacco into his mug, then rushed over to shake his hand. "I know what this is really about," he led him into the insanely hot, dry room, "You think that Department of Ag hippy is growing pot plants in your high-dollar greenhouse! Don't worry, I don't think any could survive this heat." He pointed out the potatoes first. "Unbelievably, still exactly as predicted. I'm trying to build you a massive seed bank off of these, the third generation of desert tolerant potatoes. They're so dry, rubbery, and tough that bugs, at least local bugs, can't even penetrate the skins. You have to soak them over two nights, then boil them for at least three hours before you can eat them. But check this out, pluck them from the field, drop them into an industrial coffee grinder, add boiling water, soak for twenty minutes, then microwave for ten and you have instant mashed potatoes. Just like they came out of a box. Two more years on the corn, but already I'd say it'll take the heat just about anywhere in Africa. Don't have any seeds banked for it yet."

"Banked? Where are you banking them? Not in this heat I hope!"

"No Sir, in a freezer in my office."

"Excellent, let's get a lock on that, too."

"Hell, it's got one of them biometric locks on the door to the office already, figured that ought to be good enough. Overkill for seeds, really."

The XO wiped his forehead, "That office have AC?"

Jeff smiled, pinched some more tobacco, then said, "Follow me."

The XO looked at the tiny freezer, expecting a giant deep freeze, perhaps something suitable for a supermarket display. Instead it was the size of a large microwave oven. "You know," he wiped his brow again, "You're probably right. But let's get another freezer and keep half these eggs in that other basket, so to speak. Another building. This may sound stupid, but, how critical is keeping them frozen?"

Jeff opened a Coke and handed it to the XO. "It's not. An envelope on the shelf should last three years. Ten years if you vacuum seal them. Frozen may be taking it a step too far," he opened the freezer door. "These are vacuum sealed and frozen. I figured better safe than sorry."

He sipped before inspecting the contents closer. "What about the corn?"

"Well, most of the corn is still getting planted to evolve them to the next generation. You know, still have a few years left on—"

"Right. I, uh, forgot temporarily. Must have been the heat. You've been turning in the extra potatoes to the cook, right?"

"Oh yes Sir." Jeff got comfortable sitting on the desk. "Actually been, uh, working with him on some recipes, to be perfectly honest. None of the corn, of course, the rejects of them are just vacuum-sealed and stored in the filing cabinet behind you."

The XO headed for the door, but stopped. "There was something else I was going to ask about. . . "

Jeff smiled, "Termites. Been growing them inside too. Feeding them stalks and corn cobs, protecting them from pests. They love them dry, hard potatoes, once you cut away the skin. The queens are just now starting to kick it into high gear. Now, this won't be that impressive, but. . . " He pulled a little metal soup can out, turned a tiny valve, and lit a match. The gas burned with a yellow-blue flame about as big and as impressive as a common disposable lighter. "That there is termite poop. Well, the smell from it, anyway. It can be done. I think scale is everything, though. And this scale is too small to generate any accurate numbers."

"Good enough," he said, "just need to prove the concept. Got a new administration, and they love throwing away good money at bad hippy fuels."

Jeff opened a soda for himself. "It ain't hemp powered, but it sure qualifies as hippy fuel."

"I'm swamped with paperwork. Do you think you could fill in the grant forms for me, if I get them to you?"

"Sure, I'd love an excuse to stay in the AC and out of that hothouse."

"Look, Hanly," the XO said, flipping through the papers on his desk, "I can't get millions of dollars in grants for crayon scribblings and a vague outline. I have no control over the deadline to get the paperwork in. Put something together, fake it if you have to. It's hard, I get that. You've never designed a powerhouse before. Who has? What did you expect when you looked at that engine and hired in? We're all in uncharted territory.

I've got to wear a quartermaster's hat, CEO hat, PR manager, fundraiser, salesman— we're all in over our heads here. You've been here forever and you're no closer to figuring out that first—" He jumped to his feet behind the desk, "You worried about the wrong part blowing up, have no idea where the plutonium—" He pounded the desk but refrained from yelling. "Just do this for me. Just this one thing. It's by far the most important thing you've ever worked on, probably in your entire life.

Technically, we're a research company. And this, my friend, this is research. Ballpark it, hurry up, and get it back to me quick. Don't say you don't know, don't hedge with might, could, or maybe. Be decisive and convincing, even if you know you're probably wrong. We're looking for an impressive, big, expensive concept, and our friends in the DOE are itching to find any excuse to give us the funding," he sat, finger pressed into the report. "It's your job, as our only engineer, to make it look like something worth gambling taxpayer money on. Make it look like we have the talent to pull it off, and I'll have the funds to get you the talent to pull it off. Understand?"

"Yes Sir."

The XO returned the papers to Hanly, "One more time, make it count. Doesn't have to be impressive, it just has to look impressive, and look like an engineer did it, not an accountant. Dazzle them with bullshit if you have to."

"Yes Sir."
Chapter 18

"This hike is to the top of the mountain," the Sergeant said, "You will all be expected to carry your own gear. The tracking devices around your wrists can not be removed without specialized tools and are made of high-grade stainless steel. Any attempt to tamper with them will trigger a signal and the release of a very unpleasant skunk smell that will make you very, very easy to find.

And yes, as this suggests, your every move will be tracked and graded.

Survival training is scheduled for nine days.

Check your gear, form a line, and follow me."

They piled out of the buses and marched up the path.

The mission, if there was one, was to evade capture by a team of boys with paint guns. The punishment for getting captured was confinement in an open-air pen near the base. 'Punishment' seemed almost identical to the radio-tracked virtual confinement in the open-air mountains. But the rewards were a week free from chores for every day they evaded.

They quickly broke up into small groups and headed out on their own.

One day's ration for each.

Dana slapped at Shadona's hand, "What are you doing? That's got to last nine days."

Shadona continued to unwrap the MRE. "I'd rather eat it now than have one of the boys take it from me later."

Dana pondered the valid point. If any boys stumbled across them, they surely would take the opportunity to pilfer. Not hungry at all, Dana opened hers and started to eat. One day's ration wasn't going to last a week anyway. Boys or no boys.

They had all completed a course on living off the land. It was about time they put it to use. They knew what was edible, and what to avoid. And they knew how to make snares for rabbits and small game.

But they didn't rest long. They put the calories to immediate use by hiking as far as it would take them, as fast as they could go.

That night, Shadona watched Dana sleep under the thin moonlight. Dana slept quickly, soundly. . . just one of many things Shadona was jealous of. She stared at Dana's hand, then looked at her own.

David destroyed the windshield of the stolen car by lobbing a stone from a blind corner. Even if he had managed to steal the car from them, it was wrecked and would have served him no good. The stone, therefore, was illogical. The wreck was illogical. The fight that followed was illogical. And the deaths of both boys was entirely pointless.

Yet David was committed, driven by his illogical goals.

People often seemed driven by thoughts that only made sense to them. She wondered how many of the thoughts emanating from her damaged brain would make sense to anyone else.

She stared at her hand again.

Dana wasn't the only one who loved Aaron and lost something special that tragic day.

She remembered the first time Aaron held her hand.

A simple thing. Touch. Contact. Such a simple thing as holding hands should not have completely overwhelmed her. Yet, it had.

She remembered getting dizzy when he held her hand that first time. She even felt a little dizzy right now.

Why should a touch have such an effect on her? The touch of the XO was completely different. Authoritative. Heavy. Oppressive perhaps. Instilling a little fear and apprehension, but Aaron's touch was different. Warm. Compassionate. Caring. Connection.

She remembered crying in that tender moment, and Aaron apologizing as he wiped her tear with his finger, then kissed her damp cheek.

Dana wasn't the only one to love him.

She looked at her hand again.

She missed him like she would miss an arm or a leg. She missed him like she missed the safe surroundings of her bed and the base. He, as much as anyone else, had inspired her to escape. To realize she wasn't free. To realize the lives they were living were anything but normal.

She was the odd girl in his group of friends. The misfit. Yet she never felt that way around him. "I want to take you out of here," he would whisper to her. Yet it was she, that took him.

She scanned the horizon, then watched Dana sleep some more.

She loved Aaron.

They loved Aaron.

Her heart seemed quite illogical in dealing with grief. Guilt had turned her affection for him toward Dana. . . It seemed so absurd, he clearly had loved Dana more, yet now, everything she had felt for him now fell on her. What should have been jealousy quickly turned to sympathy, then affection. It was as illogical as wrecking a car to steal it, or fighting over chicken strips and rolls. Yet it had happened, and it had happened to her, within her defective mind.

She stared at her hand again, and pondered.

When was a roll more than a roll?

When was a touch more than just a touch?

A friend more than a friend?

She waved her fingers in the air and tweaked her cobbled lines of code.

"We snared a rabbit last night?" Dana asked, looking at the strips drying in the tiny fire pit.

Shadona stared at the pile of skin and bones. It wasn't the first rabbit she had killed. Their training included killing animals. In truth, this rabbit had died of its own struggles against the snare. She had merely watched it struggle for twenty minutes or more, with each of its efforts drawing the noose tighter. A wooden club sat beside her the entire time, should she have the courage or the need to put it out of its misery. But, she didn't. Instead, she simply watched, half rooting for it to escape, but knowing it never would.

Dana picked at the meat, "It hasn't dried enou—"

"No smoke during the day." She thought of the rabbit's struggles. It had seen the snare, even sniffed it, but was a victim of its own compulsive nature. Its force of habit was just too strong. The force of her habits let Aaron die when he may well have been saved. She prayed that was the only casualty her uncontrollable habits would claim. But she knew there would be more. "We should move. Distance is our only advantage."

Dana grabbed her half, covered the pit, and collected her gear.

They hid high in the trees as a group of boys rummaged beneath them. The roar of their ATVs gave them away in plenty of time for the two to get up into the foliage, unseen.

"Damn it!" one said, kicking at the ground before spraying a nearby brush with paint pellets. "They couldn't have gotten far. How fresh you think that pit was?"

"No older than a night," another answered.

He pulled out a scope and scanned the horizon again, "Nothing!" He aimed it at his foot, then turned it off. "They've got to be here!"

"Hey, Will, over here! Over here!"

Will stuffed the scope into its case and ran to the bush. "Jackpot!"

Two more boys ran over and crowded the bush, each producing tweezers and something that looked like the honeycomb boards pulled out of hives for harvesting honey. But these trays were plastic, had thumb-sized compartments, and seemed to have a fine wire screen on the back and a rubber cover on the front. The boys madly tweezed something off the shrub, then shoved it through the rubber for the next twenty minutes while the girls watched silently, perhaps thirty yards away.

When the ATVs roared back to life, the boys gunned them down hill, back to the base.

The girls waited another twenty minutes, just to be sure the overly exuberant exit wasn't a ruse, before coming down the trees.

"What the hell were they collecting?" Dana said, looking at the picked-clean shrub.

Shadona shrugged. "Spiders? Spider webs? Insects? I don't know."

Dana looked around, "Why give up our trail for—"

"Unless it was worth more to them, than us." She waved her fingers over the shrub, then closed her hand to a fist and stood. "We should adjust our course. An IR scope complicates things."

Dana looked at the rabbit strips in her pouch, "I'm going to miss cooked food."

The hike continued.
Chapter 19

The rain continued for a third consecutive night as the girls huddled, staring out at the falling wet from under the small sheet of plastic from their gear. Six by six was barely enough to keep them dry, but it did. Yet nothing protected them from the cold.

They were miserable, but somehow had managed to stay warm enough to keep from quitting.

The noise was unbearable; each drop that hit the plastic seemed to team together into a symphony of tiny drums just inches from their ears.

Shadona squeezed Dana's hand again. With a rhythm they had developed during that first evening of rain, she finished sharing her plan for escape. The Iron-Man suit was a ploy of hers, a bargaining chip she hoped to use to entice the XO into releasing them. Carrots and sticks was what the books called it. But the stick seemed elusive, for now, and the XO was sure to think it a harmless twig. . . unless it was used. And hers could be most lethal.

* * *

"Explain this to me," the XO said, staring at the screen.

"Well, Sir," Hanly said, clicking at some other icons on the screen. "Like I was saying, umm," he clicked his way to the page he was looking for, "I don't know exactly how, but I do know when. Look at the publication date. It's been published for over a year now, that means it's in the public domain. Any patents we might have come up with are rendered useless."

The XO's frustration was evident, and infectious. "How the hell did it get on the internet? We've got secure servers, firewalls and all that, right?"

Hanly dropped the mouse and stepped back from the screen. "I thought so too, but obviously not good enough. I know you're probably too far away from it to notice, but take another look. They're not identical. This is, yet isn't, the same engine. By that I mean that the engine she built in the shop has all these little complicated gizmos that made replicating it nearly impossible. This thing that's been published is streamlined. Simple. Almost too simple.

When I first stumbled across it, I thought she had somehow discovered it in some obscure corner of the web, like I just did. Hell, we have no way of knowing for sure that she didn't. . .

Other than to compare the dates, the time stamp on the video from shop class and the date it first appeared on the web. . . I don't know what else to say, Sir."

Years of research were ruined, millions in potential patents destroyed. Broken, as the law would say. "This can't be allowed to happen again."

"A software wall might not be enough, Sir. The only way that I know will work, for sure, is to mechanically limit the connectivity of the systems on base. Limit the web to secure office computers, it might mean two computers on every desk, one for inside Email, one for outside. Or some sort of manual switch. I don't know of any other way to prevent this from happening again."

"I want you to scour the web for that fluidic capacitor thing of yours before we get any deeper involved in it. Add internet searches to your monthly schedule. I don't need to remind you, we've got millions invested in tunneling this mountain and equipment alone; the last thing we need is a patent-busting torpedo to blindside us before we can finish construction and turn the damn thing on.

Lord only knows what kind of damage something like that suit could do if it landed in the wrong hands."

"About that, Sir, with the engine design unlocked, so to speak, we just took a giant step closer—"

"Focus on the power plant, for now. The funding is starting to come in and we'll be tooling up soon."

Hanly shuffled to the door, but paused, "You want me to work on unplugging us from the web? Beefing up the firewall—"

"No no, I've got a 'cyber expert' for that." He flipped through his Rolodex, "At least, that's what he calls himself."

Hanly opened the door and—

"Wait a second," the XO said. "They tossed the entire base while they were out on that field exercise. X-rayed walls and everything. We came up with another notebook." He pulled one out of his desk. "This is, of course, a copy. We put the original back in hopes that its discovery wouldn't be, uh, discovered. This one looks very specific and covers the construction of the suit. If you have time, get into it, but the power plant takes priority. And don't let it out of your custody for a second."

Hanly opened the notebook. The color copies of crayon and pencil lines mocked him on every page, but he nonetheless glanced through it with the attention and respect it deserved. "Thank you, Sir. I'll give it a read ton—"

"It's not allowed off the base. I need not tell you how sensitive this kind of information is."

"Yes Sir," Hanly said, rolling it up and tucking it under his arm as he left.

* * *

"Smear the little dykes!" Will yelled as three boys ripped the plastic off their hiding place, rain still falling by the buckets.

Dana woke and got to her feet first. . . not that it mattered. Both were sprayed, unmercifully, with automatic paint pellet rounds, a full third of which had been 'accidentally' punctured with needles so the paint could harden like a stone inside.

The girls ran, as best they could in the dark of the night, but the boys effortlessly chased wearing night vision.

"For David!" one yelled. Guns empty, the pummeling continued with fists and gun butts.

"Oh my fucking God!" one yelled, his bracelet sounding an ear-piercing alarm as a fine spray engulfed him and Shadona, her hand quickly grabbing the tracking bracelet on her next nearest assailant and 'tampered' with it until a cloud gagged him as well.

Night vision or not, the fumes alone rendered any kind of sight useless as a continuous stream of tears ran down their cheeks.

For the next few seconds the two girls had a level playing field, perhaps even a slight advantage with their eyes already acclimated to the dark. Dana voided the bracelet of her assailant, then kicked him in the shins before clocking him across the head with a lucky swing of her pack, full canteen rupturing on contact.

But their advantage was short lived; the stench, while shocking, was easily overcome. Unlike the sheer number of boys, outnumbered three to one.

"Explain this!" the Drill Sergeant yelled, inches from Will's ear.

"They resisted capture, Sir!"

"Ran and fell at night, Sir!" another answered.

"Wet ground, Sir!" a third shouted out.

"Unacceptable!" the Sergeant yelled, pacing the line of boys, opposite the badly bruised last two girls being checked over by nurse Benita. "A week will be deducted from your reward for bringing them in such a condition."

Dana looked at Shadona, staring at the ground as usual, when the punishment was announced, amounting to little more than a slap on the wrist.

The Sergeant continued to yell, then ordered a full day of pushups and running, while Benita wrapped then plastered Shadona's right arm. Hairline fracture, it was called.

"The boring equipment will be here by the end of the week," the XO said in the shop when he met with Hanly and Yofi. "Now, from here it gets. . . weird. The DOE modified your designs, slightly, scaled it up a bit, and added a layer of DOD to it." He unrolled the plans on the workbench, middle of the shop. "We're starting with this tunnel here, while another crew flattens the top of that mountain—"

"Look, XO," Hanly said, "I don't know anything about—"

"Don't worry," the XO said, "I'm not making you project manager or anything. Because this thing is sufficiently far away from the base, I've been cleared to use general contractors. We'll be outsourcing and subcontracting the hell out of this little venture. But I do want to keep you two in the loop, mostly because I haven't the faintest idea what I'm looking at." He looked them both in the eyes as he leafed through the hundreds of pages of drawings. "And when they're done, we get to turn it on and figure out how to operate it."

"I'm over my head here," Hanly confessed. "I mean, give me a few weeks of looking at this stuff and I might be up to speed. But I wouldn't be able to troubleshoot—"

Yofi put his artificial hand on the drawing, center of the power risers, "You should let her look at these. Probably the only one who really knows what she's looking—"

"Tempting as that sounds," the XO said, "she's not that likely to be helpful, trust me. We can do this on our own, right?" He looked at them, "Right? Look, I'm going to need both of your help on this. I've got the budget for fifteen more engineers, and I'd like you two to help pick them. There'll be a crew of hundreds building the thing all next year, but just over a dozen to run it. I'd like that dozen to at least have exposure to the construction side of this thing. Part of what's got you two spinning is we let her build that suit without your hands anywhere—"

"She stops the second—"

"I know," the XO said. "I've experienced—" he hesitated before disclosing, "She can analyze two dozen intercepts, simultaneously, in multiple languages, but only while I'm in the room. The second I get up to leave, she stops. And everything has to be just right in the room before she can start. Everything has to be exactly in place on the desk. Queerest thing I've ever seen.

I know exactly how she is to work with, Gentlemen. Believe me, I know." He glanced at the suit, standing in the corner. "Keep in mind that dozen will be tasked with cracking that suit next. Show Yofi the plans, when you two have time. These plans are just to get you two acquainted with it, like reading the repair manual for a prototype turbine."

Hanly pondered, hand on his chin. "We'll need someone with experience as grid managers, maintenance, etcetera."

"It'll take at least a year to upgrade the power lines feeding this place, so," the XO said, "we have some time to find the talent. I'll get you a list of their credentials, let you two pick them out. If it can be kept sufficiently compartmentalized, we may be able to expand to outside the military." He flipped to the back half of the plans, spreading it out again, "Here they're building a mock carrier deck on top of the mountain, figuring on adding an underground hangar." He turned to Yofi, "You've worked on a carrier before, right?"

"Nimitz class for four years. They're not thinking of replicating—"

"No, just the flavor of it. The hangar is a huge, acres and acres, open space with one end set up as a shop. But it'll have a cat and arresting cables, elevators, and a few other things you'll recognize. Flight simulators suggest a high number of potential pilots, and our silent backers in the DOD agreed to help aim us that way. Either way, the carrier deck will let us test, land, and fly out repaired craft." He smiled, "When it's complete, we'll use this complex for urban training." He grinned at the thought of it. Housing the children underground would guarantee an end to future escapes. He pointed at Yofi as he flipped to the appropriate pages, "Give special attention to these, if you could. Make sure the layout of the shop works for you, because we'll be relocating all of this equipment uphill, ok?"

Yofi briefly scanned the plans, "Looks very traditional, probably borrowed from a DOD assembly plant. I'll give it a closer look tomorrow, but I've got to get home by seven ton—"

"No problem, Yofi," the XO said, "just wanted to get the two of you together for a few minutes so you both could agree on where to keep these drawings. Right now, they're open for suggestions and these lines are easily redrawn. That won't be the case a year from now." The XO left the shop.

Hanly looked at Yofi, "He didn't say not to show it to her, did he?"

Yofi smiled, best he could, "No, not exactly."

"You know her better than I do. Maybe leave it out one day, see what happens—"

"She's just as likely to rip it up as she is to fix any errors, better be a copy we leave out." He pulled a CD from an envelope, "We've got a big plot printer. I can run off a copy tomorrow morning, before class."

Hanly smiled, "Print it during class."
Chapter 20

With a fractured arm, Shadona was surprised to find she was still scheduled for shop. One handed, she was curious what Yofi thought she could do. But Yofi was one handed himself and managed to handle more than most gave him credit for.

Yofi handed out the morning assignments and got the class started on the latest shipment of damaged equipment.

"Well," he said, pulling the girl aside, "what are we to do with you?"

She glanced up at his eyes, then stared at the floor.

He snapped his fingers, "I've got to make a printout on the plotter, but they need to be manually cut and collated. Boring, and it'll probably take hours. The thing is an old HP," he looked her over, "Older than you anyway. You'll have to watch it closely for paper jams and ink blobs, too."

She continued to stare at the floor while he led her over to the printer in his office. He started the print, then left her alone in the room.

She recognized it immediately.

The scale and details of the drawings took her by surprise; she didn't expect them to attempt it all at once. They planned to hollow out a large portion of the mountain, building the biggest torus first near the base of the mountain and continue to bore up, building progressively smaller toruses as they approached the top. It reminded her of a pyramid of doughnut rings that they had to stack on a peg as one of her infant dexterity tests.

Simultaneously, another crew would flatten the top of the mountain and dig down to build another base resembling a conventional aircraft carrier, only much larger. Crew quarters were to be hundreds of feet underground, with only seven stairwells and four elevators for exits. Once complete, escape may become impossible.

The living quarters, though far more secure underground, were much more spacious that what they had now. Each room was, according to scale, over ten feet by ten feet, and only contained two people! Plus, each was equipped with its own shower, toilet, sink, and desks.

The scale was exactly what she had hoped for. Reluctantly, she needed to correct a few fatal errors to encourage the endeavor. Future 'toruses' seemed contingent on the successful operation of the first, and her calculations predicted she needed at least eighteen for what she had in mind.

Additionally, their MHD designs were 'on the cheap' and needed to be enhanced to handle the stress her plan would subject them to.

She stretched the drawing out on his desk, then selected a mechanical pencil from the assortment in his mug.

This had obviously been their plan and the reason she was assigned such a menial task. But she had to fix the errors now, while it was still modifiable. Otherwise, they would never do what she wanted.

"I don't understand the importance of these changes," Hanly said, looking over the new MHD designs. "Why beef them up so much? I mean, her coils are a hundred times bigger than I figured on. And she's calling for another foot of concrete in the walls. That'll have big cost issues."

Yofi shrugged, "You've got me. Maybe our math on how much stress those walls will be subjected to is off. . . by a lot. If she's right, we'd be looking at containment failure and a total disaster. If she's wrong, we doubled the price of the cheapest component for nothing. Maybe she figures it'll circulate faster than we think it will. I don't really know. But these are the changes she wrote down." He smiled, "Besides, when have you ever heard of a government job coming in on budget?"

Hanly looked over the chemistry of her proposed polymer liner. He had never seen chemistry like it before. It would have to be outsourced too, adding another complication. But putting in the liner would be the last thing they did before turning the unit on. They had months, if not a year to get a company to mix it for them. "I'd like to have a sample of this before we make swimming pools of it. What if it isn't any good?"

"I've never been able to get her to explain anything she does. But I've never known her to do something without a reason. I'd go with her numbers before I'd go with—"

"The XO isn't going to sign off on these kinds of cost overruns without a good excuse. She may have great reasons, but I'll have to sell them. A radical, experimental liner on this scale instead of using the tried and true. . . Sure, I might be able to sell him on the extra concrete under 'safety' and the beefed up coils under future experimental—"

"It's all experimental. Let's look on the web and see if there's some high-energy experiments that need spikes like that MHD redesign is geared for. Sell it that way. Look, the XO isn't an idiot either. There's a reason why we're staring at a glorified crayon drawing with a potential billion-dollar budget attached. If it comes down to it, tell him she penciled it in and we'll just face the consequences for showing it to her."

Hanly shook his head as he dug deeper into the corrections. "A billion-dollar budget, for a nine-year-old."

Yofi rested his hand on Hanly's shoulder, "Close, but I don't think they turn nine for another couple months."

The XO looked over the changes. Expensive, but it was other people's money. Hanly came up with some interesting selling points, but he could tell just by looking at the lines who had drawn them. Anyone else would have used a ruler to make straight lines, compasses or a punch card to do circle. All of which left tells on the paper, one side of the line would always be straighter than the other. Crisper.

Not hers. She freehanded it.

Besides, he was well accustomed to her style by now.

He picked up the phone and made a call. Hanly wasn't the only one who could bullshit his way through a sales pitch. Using Hanly's links to high-energy physics experiments as quick references, he lobbied for the increases.

After visiting Jeff on his way out, he headed for the airport.

The XO got off the plane in Dulles, DC, where he was picked up in a black SUV and driven to his meeting.

His government connections were excited, yet reserved about what he hoped would be an extremely lucrative contract.

"This, Gentlemen, is the work of years. A breed of potato that is naturally resistant to most bugs, so drought tolerant it can actually be grown in the deserts of Africa, and has nearly a full day's servings of vitamins and minerals. Of course, the mineral content is very dependent on the soil it's planted in." He handed out the samples from Jeff's last crop. "What you have there is the potato as it comes out of the ground. Go ahead and cut it in half."

The men around the table struggled with their pocketknives on its tough skin and wooden interior.

"Hold up, Gentlemen, before someone gets hurt. These tubers come out of the ground nearly dry to the bone, and can be stored, as is, for a year without spoiling. No root-cellar required, just keep it dry and away from water." He plugged in a blender and dropped a few in. When he turned it on, it cried bloody murder like he had dropped in a handful of gravel. Within a minute the wooden spuds had been bludgeoned into a powder that he poured into a pot of boiling water. "Now we wait twenty minutes," but instead, he served them each a bowl kept hot in his cooler.

Everyone tentatively took a bite, swished like they were tasting wine, then dug in with a full spoon. "Not bad," one said, "A bit bland," another said, "But nothing Tabasco sauce wouldn't cure," said a third. "You have our attention, what's your angle with this?"

Thanks to Jeff's coaching, he had rehearsed these talking points the most. "Well, they follow many tracks simultaneously.

First, lower production costs because you can grow them in drought areas of the US, or even around the world—"

"I would have a problem with that, Major Brigspan," one said. "What if this breed gets out? Cross pollinates with—"

"What, cactus? It'd be about the only thing alive out there. Listen," the XO continued, "this isn't genetically modified, there's no engineering to it at all. Exclusively done through a rigorous breeding program and hot—"

"I find it difficult to believe that there is no GM in it anywhere. You simply can't evolve a typical potato from what we have today to this within anyone's lifetime."

The XO smiled. Jeff had prepared him well for this specific question, and he handed out a color-photo book over a thousand pages long with nearly a hundred dollars in ink alone, containing each and every generation. "You will see the entire program, in detail, and how to replicate it within a decade for yourself. But let me get back to my presentation—"

"Sorry to interrupt again, but even if these are not GM products, I still have a problem with turning loose a food that is easily grown in Africa. A lot of farm subsidies given to American farmers depend on our charitable exports to places like Africa. If they become food subsistent, we're looking at a huge political backlash. The inability around the world to get reasonable irrigation and quality land to grow their own food is the cornerstone of our agricultural exports."

"Granted," the XO continued, "and I'm not recommending that we export this as a technology or give it away at all. I suggest we keep that political Ace tucked up our sleeve, but there's only so much profit in charity. Which brings me back to the long shelf life of this product. Turn it into powder and it's almost identical to instant potatoes that every Marine is used to eating. Maybe even a little better. Cheap animal feed, cheap land, cheap irrigation. Because of all those factors, these potatoes could produce ethanol for less than our current, heavily subsidized prices and thus—"

"I think you misunderstand subsidies entirely," one said.

"Subsidies," another took over, "have nothing to do with making things cheaper. They're exclusively about politicians buying votes. And I don't see this as a way to buy votes."

The XO was getting frustrated, but Jeff had warned him this was likely to be the mindset with this level of bureaucrat. "Vitamin extraction is also extremely cost effective for this tuber." He handed out the breakdown sheet from an independent lab. "We also have some earlier varieties that more closely resemble traditional potatoes, yet used 40% less water. We're on a final generation of corn that is just as drought tolerant." The men discussed it among themselves as the XO passed out samples from the batch he had made, right before their eyes.

"Look, this is a major accomplishment," one said, "and as a safeguard against unforeseen disasters, droughts, and a reemergence of another dust bowl, I can easily see the need to buy and bank a massive supply of seed of this variety, and corn as soon as it's ready, but politically, there's no way we can justify letting the world have access to something like this. It may even fall under national defense and have to be classified top secret and—"

"It's already classified top secret," the XO said. "Look," he stared down at the table, "I hate to discuss budget items, but this project has cost my company hundreds of thousands—"

The men smiled, "You don't have a clue how the Department of Agriculture works, do you?" one said. "This isn't the first time we've paid millions to have people NOT grow something," another took over. "Hell, that's 90% of what we're all about. . . paying farmers to not plant their fields," the third offered his hand to the XO, "We'd be happy to pay you to not grow this!"
Chapter 21

An air raid siren pierced the evening, middle of shop class.

"Alright everyone," Yofi said. "You know the drill. Thirty seconds to power down the equipment."

Motors whirled down all around him as the children assembled into formation.

"Very good, very good," he said, checking behind them. "Lock down those plates," he said, pointing with his artificial hand.

They stood in the middle of the shop, well clear of all the heavy equipment, when the ground beneath them shook with an explosive rumble and a muffled bang echoed across the roof and down into the valley. The sounds of trees snapping like twigs in the landslide felt like fingernails on a mountain-sized chalkboard. Loose bolts and nuts vibrated off desks and shelves, but little else moved.

Most of the equipment weighed multiple tons, and everything was bolted down. Powering down the equipment was more about protecting it, than protecting them.

"Not yet," Yofi said to an overly anxious boy, "wait for the all clear."

They waited.

And waited.

And after another few minutes, a whistle blew and they silently went back to work.

The entire top of the mountain disappeared in a matter of weeks, shaved flat like a military buzz cut, thanks largely to the 'disposal' of surplus military ordnance. Cutting the road up the side of the mountain for the heavy equipment took slightly longer, but soon the explosions were over and the longer tasks of construction swung into high gear. Hundreds of workers crowded into the trailer-city on the mountaintop, and what little time the children had outside was over for the foreseeable future.

Nine years old.

She sat in her chair, automated lesson ended minutes ago. But still she sat, fingers waving in the air. Her hobbled programming was working flawlessly.

Flawless might not have been the right word, but what flaws it had were manageable, and for the most part, self-correcting. Terabytes of information flowed through its optical chip, intertwining with near ballet perfection in a digital dance at light speed.

When she saw the engine Hanly made, her design, she knew her ruse with the intercept analyzer had worked perfectly. Since she couldn't crack the firewall, she made her code so complex that the server itself would eventually have to be relocated, dissected, and connected to the web where it would upload the book, and a few other things. His sudden understanding of her engine was proof that her plan had worked and that the server had accessed the outside world.

She waved her fingers, paused, then listened as it tickled back.

Their dissection of the base server for her intercept analyzer also gave her a baseline on the intellect of her adversaries in the field. They couldn't dissect it without physically removing it, in total. They couldn't prevent its malicious code from uploading once outside. They couldn't find her book buried in its code before it deployed. And they couldn't write workarounds for her misappropriation of video-card processors.

Even with so much proof of her superiority over her digital adversaries, she knew putting plans on the server wasn't secure. Any program on it was discoverable as long as it was located on their system, their hardware.

Her ring was safe. Secure. She waved her fingers again.

It had taken everything she had to memorize the simple details it took to make the suit and the ring. Without writing any of the ring down, memorizing every piece and interaction had nearly rendered her a zombie for a month.

What she had in mind next would require her to memorize an encyclopedia worth of dry data without getting a single digit wrong. It wasn't humanly possible. She needed the ring, if for nothing more than a place to store notes. But her hope went beyond notes. The ring would do most of the work filling in the fine details of her broader strokes. And so far, it was proving itself up for the task.

With a clenched fist, she finished loading her next test project and would let the ring work out all the details on its own. A test it should have complete by the end of the week.

While still in a cast, she worked on small projects off to the side in the shop, often by herself and unsupervised. Unsupervised. . . she looked up into the ceiling and stared at the camera they tried to conceal. She was never really unsupervised.

She wove the wires into the sock sleeve, then connected them to the miniature IO board from the surplus parts bin. Linear motors were hard to come by, but not entirely difficult to make, especially with the equipment she had at her disposal. The intricate windings had taken a week, off and on, to fabricate from scratch.

Software. Code. Programming would play a huge roll in this new project. Programming alone would take her years to complete by hand. Even storing it securely on the ring, she would need a way to convert it back from photons to electrons.

Fortunately, that little bit of technology had already been built for her. To protect sensitive electronic equipment from surges, most processors insulated themselves with what was commonly called optical isolation. This amounted to an infrared diode built almost on top of an infrared (photon) receiver. With enough precision, she cracked the casing on just such a chip in such a subtle way as to allow it to interface directly with her ring without ever being noticed. To the surveillance camera it looked like she was casually resting her hand on the equipment, while her other hand kept up the distractions at the keyboard.

It took her a full month, but she finished it in time to have her cast removed.

Yofi stared at the device, sitting in the corner of the workbench, casually stuffed between two cardboard boxes of injector parts.

Naked aluminum looked oddly disturbing, especially in that ominous, movie-prop form. He tugged the Kevlar glove off its end, and stared. The intricate articulation looked functional, but hardly seemed possible.

He looked around the shop, empty of kids that had gone for the day. Expecting Hanly within the next few minutes, he still couldn't take his eyes off the tempting device.

He could wait no longer.

He unplugged it from the wall, took off his shirt, and cautiously strapped it on.

A wiring harness tethered the processor to a web of labeled sticky-tabbed sensors that he carefully applied to his good arm. . . but it didn't seem to work.

He closed his eyes and tried again— and felt it move!

He closed his good hand and felt the sensation of fingers touching his underarm, much like the special shirt did for the suit. He picked up a pencil and wrote his name on a sheet of paper, mirrored perfectly with his artificial hand. When a green light blinked, he unplugged the wiring harness and put on the Kevlar glove to protect the sensors in his new hand.

He ran his new fingers across the table and felt the threads of the bolt pressing — not against his fingers – but against the equally sensitive skin in his underarm. It would take some getting used to, but like the shirt in the suit, it was very intuitive and should quickly become second nature.

Thinking of the near comic book abilities of the suit, he gripped a coffee mug and squeezed as hard as he could.

Nothing.

But he couldn't crush a mug in his human hand either. He tested it on steel plates next.

Twenty-seven pounds seemed the limit that it could handle without stalling, but that was more than enough to pour a bottle of milk, read a book, or— he walked over to the nearest keyboard and started to type.

Typing.

Such a silly, pointless, girly thing when he was young. But with only one hand, hunt-and-peck had made typing and using a mouse a laborious chore. Just the sheer ease of using the Shift and Ctrl keys made typing a pleasure again.

A chore no more.

Fingers, articulate and delicate enough to press keys. And not just a key, but any key he was aiming at with the same swiftness and precision as his real hand.

After a few minutes, he was back to his old typing speed again.

Plates, setting the table, eating, getting dressed. The simple things he had lost so long ago were back at his fingertips.

A cold Kevlar finger touched his cheek, purely out of reflex. He stared at the damp spot, beading on the synthetic threads. . . when Hanly walked in.

When the rest of the class started on their repair projects, Yofi rested a hand on Shadona's shoulder, "Can I see you in my office, please."

She stared at her feet as they walked to the door.

A thousand words ran through his thoughts while playing with his new toy the night before, and seeing her that morning felt like that seemingly endless wait at the airport for a reunion with a long lost friend. But there, in the privacy of his office, he couldn't think of a single word. None of those thousands seemed to match the feelings in his heart, so he hugged her instead.

She felt as fragile as a piece of glass about to crumble in his arms, so he let go. . . and apologized. "I'm sorry," he said to the girl staring at her shoes. "I just," he pressed the pin in his knee and awkwardly knelt to be within her gaze, "Thank you, Shadona," he said. "Thank you."

She looked uncomfortable enough at the unprovoked embrace, but managed the faintest hints of a smile when she lightly touched the back of his Kevlar-covered new hand.

He couldn't help but hug her again.
Chapter 22

Yofi closed the door and stood before the XO in the small office. "Thank you for seeing me," he said.

The XO gestured at the seat, "Please, sit down and tell me what's on your— You don't need something changed on the new shop layouts, do you?"

"No Sir," Yofi said sitting, then strummed his new fingers nervously across his knee. "I wanted to talk to you about, uh, I'm starting to have problems with this."

The XO looked up from the pile of papers on his desk, "Look, Yofi, you know you make your own schedule. You don't have to clear any of that with me. Some kid giving you problems, you have complete authority to kick them out. It's your shop, your call. They work around your schedule, not the other way around. Got dozens begging for a slot in shop."

"No, it isn't that, Sir—"

"Then what? Stuff coming up missing? Think they're plotting, suspicious about something?" He plopped his hand on the stack of papers, "I'm up to my neck in this DOE stuff. Just cut to the chase for me."

"I don't know if I can keep doing this." Yofi leaned forward, "When I started, I had convinced myself that I was teaching them something. That it was a class. But it isn't a class anymore. Probably never was. We're treating. . . this is child slave labor, and I'm not sure I can be a part of it anymore."

The XO pounded his fist against the stack, but relaxed after a few seconds. With the construction on the mountain still months behind schedule, the shop was their only activity still turning a profit. And a large one at that. "Are chores slave labor? They're all there on a strictly volunteer basis, I assure you. Just ask them."

"Each of them puts in fifty or sixty hours a week, and does a job that would normally garner top wages, anywhere in the world. There's some real talent there. It's just— I, I'm having problems with all of this, Sir."

The XO leaned back in his chair, "How do you want to remedy it? What are you proposing, giving them a salary? They're nine, nine and a half, that's just as illegal. Listen, Yofi, I like you. You've been incredibly valuable to all of this. I get your moral quagmire here, trust me, I do. But there's no easy solution.

You're 100% right, and if they were employees, I'd give them all raises.

You served, same as me. You've worked with incompetent people that got promoted, while hard working talent got left behind. The world isn't fair.

It just isn't.

I was given the six-cent solution when I got here. To put a round in the back of every head and cover the entire mess in dirt. None of this is ideal, Yofi. We're all making the best of a bad situation.

They're still sleeping dozens to a room, and I don't have the kind of budget that will change that any time soon." He shuffled some papers on the desk, "Our salaries, the funds that keep the lights on, little of it is taxpayer money anymore. Yeah, we get sizable DOE grants, but I have to account for every penny. Separate books. What your shop is doing is keeping them fed and the lights on, and there isn't a lot left over, even if I wanted to hand out raises, pensions, or college funds." He pulled out his wallet and slid across his pay-stub. "Just look at it for a minute. You'll see I make less than you do. My pay is the only one that hasn't risen since I got here, because it's just that tight."

Yofi slid it back.

"I get it, Yofi, I do.

Play music in the shop if you want to. I've budgeted for your pizzas, sodas, and those damned ultra-expensive Kevlar gloves. Bring me a request, a budget item, and I'll do my best to make it happen.

But I have far less guilt over working those children, than I would if I had spent that six cents."

Yofi paused, still in the chair.

"Hang in there for me, Yofi. Give me another year to get that power plant online. Year and a half if they keep falling behind. Get a real budget that isn't dependent on the sweat of children. You've seen the plans, no more dozens to a room."

It wasn't what he was hoping for, but he stood and walked to the door. "Yes, Sir."

He watched her stand at the workbench, her hand waving in the air, oblivious to all those busily working around her. She had spells of it before, but rarely lasting this long.

Yofi put his hand on the girl's shoulder and led her away from the bustle of the shop and into the quiet of his office.

"Shadona," he said without her notice. He stared at her face, eyes almost closed. She looked to be mumbling, perhaps even sleepwalking.

He grabbed her wrist and looked at his watch. Her pulse was normal.

"What goes on inside your head, little girl?"

She waved her hand, fingers moving to music only she could hear.

He looked at his arm, then thought of the suit, "You're building something, inside your head, aren't you.

That's where you keep all your prototypes. Experiments. Isn't it?

Nikola Tesla, one of my heroes when I was growing up, used to invent in his head, too. I read his autobiography, twice, and was always fascinated by how he invented. I tried to imagine what it took to have that kind of mind.

But I've never invented anything in my life.

He imagined in such detail that he even spent time mentally filing each tooth of every gear.

Edison would throw thousands of experiments at the wall and hope for something to stick." He thought of the giant experiment being carved into the nearest mountain. "You're definitely more Tesla, but even Tesla would never conceive of. . . " He stared at her eyes darting back and forth under her lids, "what are we going to do with you?"

Her fingers slowed, then stopped.

"What's on your mind, Shadona?"

She looked him in the eyes, probably the longest she had ever done in the years that he had known her. Dark, deep brown, almost black eyes that didn't shy away so fast this time. Her lips moved, ever so slightly, like she had something to say. . . but she stared at the floor instead.

"Just tell me, little girl, maybe I can help."

She glanced up again, but said nothing.

"I wish I could get you out of here, find you someplace where you belong."

Her hand reached out, as if she had something to say, but said more when she hugged him instead.
Chapter 23

The base shuddered with an explosion as smoke filled the screens.

Hanly looked up, checked the data, then smiled when the results trickled in. He picked up the phone, "Yes Sir, I think we have it. . . Yes Sir, I'm venting the tent right now. . . Should have eyes on it in twenty. . . Yes Sir, I'll know more then, but all the numbers are identical to the original. . . Thank you, Sir." He hung up the phone.

He monitored the screens, then donned his radiation gear and proceeded to the tent.

Everything was burned and twisted, just as before. He checked the Geiger counter, just to be— It was ticking violently. He waved it around and quickly found the tiny grain in a smoldering pile. Covering it with a lead blanket, the levels dropped immediately as he surveyed the rest of the tent. Where the pile of plates were before, globs of goo sat now.

"What the hell went wrong?" he said inside the plastic suit, video taping the scene, before walking back to his corner of the shop.

The XO marched through the door with a smile as Hanly was still trying to figure out what happened.

"Sorry Sir," Hanly said, uploading the camera video, "It's a complete failure. I don't get it. I repeated the experiment precisely." He pulled out the notebook. "I even cross referenced it with what's on the video of the original. I just don't get it."

The XO's smile faded fast. "Do you have any idea how expensive this was?"

"Yes Sir, I do. And I don't know what to tell you, Sir."

"How fucking hard can this be, Hanly? You have her notebook. Hell, you have weeks of video from a dozen angles of every single thing they did! How in the hell is it even possible that you screwed this up!"

"I. . . I don't know, Sir. I just don't know."

"God damn it, Hanly, I can't afford this shit! This place is—" The XO pounded his fist on the table, "I needed this damn thing to work, Hanly. We needed another revenue stream, quick. Our funding is getting cut faster than I can dig up new sources. Even at this thing's price tag, it was worth the gamble because it could've been a huge moneymaker. Even if we outsourced most of it." He pounded the table again, "But we have to have something to outsource, don't we! I can't afford another failure from you, Hanly. I barely have the margins to scrounge enough material for you to take another stab at—"

"Without knowing what went wrong, I wouldn't— I've got hours and hours of video to review, Sir. And a notebook to read and read and read again."

"Are you sure you're smarter than a fifth-grader?"

"Not any more, Sir."

The XO stormed back to his office.

"Professor," the XO said over the phone in his office, "I'm glad I was able to get a hold of you. You're a very busy man, nowadays. . . " He leaned back in his chair while he clicked the mouse and changed the screen. "Congratulations on the patent, by the way," He smiled at the Professor's awkward silence, "It sounded incredibly familiar. Almost identical to what I showed you in our server room." He leaned forward in his chair and pressed his finger to the article on the screen. "Tell me, how did you ever come up with the idea to hack video processors and turn them into. . .

Now Professor, I would never dream of filing a law suit for patent infringement, especially over something that was, essentially unpatentable, since patenting it would be an obvious violation of NATIONAL SECURITY, and could even be defined as treason. . .

Now calm down, Professor, calm down. That's better. What profit would there be in sending you to jail? Besides, I don't have the time or energy to spend delivering hours and hours of sensitive video and testimony to some secret federal court. . . of course we have hours of video in the server room. I even have a hard drive, right here in my desk, with your fingerprints, literally, all over it. . .

Professor, calm down. I have something better than lawyers, a way that we can both profit from this little misunderstanding. I think we can settle this matter out of court, don't you? Everyone wins that way. . .

How would you like to meet the author of that multi-million dollar patent of yours. . . She's an intern here. And that lucrative patent was literally child's play to her." He smiled at the Professor's predictable reaction.

"Hanly," the XO said when the door to his office opened, "Did you figure out what went wrong yet? It's been what, a week?"

Hanly stood before the desk, "No Sir, not yet. Not anything specific. But I've been thinking about the engine on the—"

"You've already got the engine working, Hanly. Hell, anyone with an internet connection can get that engine working!"

"Yes Sir. But the internet version wasn't the one she made. The first one, even when you put it in my hands, was almost impossible to duplicate and make work. She added dozens of confusing subsystems to it that actually prevented it from operating. She booby-trapped it, in other words." He put the notebook on the XO's desk. "She booby-trapped it, Sir." He flipped it open and pointed to something circled. "Leonardo da Vinci wrote hundreds of notebooks. Most were in code, and some had vicious little intentional errors in them. Obvious to him, nearly impossible for anyone else to find, that rendered it into junk if built by anyone else. Booby-trapped. Like hidden little keys. Secret doors in castles. What if she did the same thing on a billion dollar scale?"

A shiver ran down his spine. "She wouldn't. Would she?"

"Thicker walls, a new polymer lining. . . probably not. That doesn't seem like either of those could be destructive. The chemicals used in that suit are rather volatile, in the car-bomb category. If she was designing a dangerous booby-trap, I would think she could easily have done better than smoke and wasted money. We could have had a nuclear disaster area, but instead, the grain simply didn't catalyze and the reaction never happened. Everything stayed inert and the plutonium was easily found, intact. The list of much worse possibilities was huge, but none of them happened. I think that, too, was intentional."

The XO rested his hand on the power plant drawings, rolled up in the corner by the desk, "Three hundred pages is an awful lot of ink to hide a couple errors in, Hanly."

"I understand the principles involved in that a lot better than I understand the suit. Think of the suit like a fancy cake recipe. If you're new to cooking, it's easy to confuse tablespoon and teaspoon or baking soda and baking powder and the cake will taste like dog food. With the suit, I'm clearly no cook.

But that power plant I understand a lot better. It's a hydraulic flywheel blended with a MHD motor/generator and I've been working with it, small scale, for months. power plant scale is new and probably has never been done anywhere on the planet before. But, I'm not lost in the kitchen with it.

Besides that, the DOE and DOD engineers thoroughly looked it over. They have a long history of experimental power plants, and marrying that to her MHD flywheels gives me a lot of confidence. Even so, I'm sure there are errors in it, but they're more likely to be human errors than booby-traps."

"I think I found some funding to offset your recent suit debacle, but it's very limited and a one-time settlement. Is there any way you can scale it down? Take it piece by piece?"

"Yes sir, I think I can. To a point. But I'm not following how she's using the magnetics and plutonium as a catalyst for the reaction, and I doubt anyone does. Physics changes in weird ways under the intense magnetic field she subjects it to. You start dealing with plasmas and stuff, and I'm just guessing that's where her reaction is taking place. It could very easily not be scalable down.

Let me explain. Fusion reactors are a fifty-year-long dream, and that physics is well understood. A hydrogen bomb that fuses a fistful of hydrogen is easy to make, but the explosion is impossible to contain. Crushing a pea-sized pellet of fuel, an explosion that is containable, has proved elusive for decades. It's taken lifetimes, and Teller, the father of the H-bomb, had a firm understanding of fusion physics.

I, on the other hand, am completely guessing when it comes to that suit."

"Pick some easier aspects of it, then. Try breaking it down— Since the engine is unlocked, start working the hydraulics and those weird airbags. Keep an eye open in those resumes for your physics shortcomings. Lets try to get as many birds as we can with each stone's throw."

"About that, I'll Email you the names of six that I found that would just be outstanding to—"

"When the staff starts building up to run and maintain the mountain, we're going to shift to heavily compartmentalized, DOD and DOE rules. Don't slip like Yofi did with blabbing about the kids."

"Yes Sir."

"I've got, maybe, enough funds to try this full scale one more time. Maybe. But if we do it again, it will have to work. 100% the next time. I'll take it piecemeal if I have to, but the funds are dry. Maybe when we get power plant funds we can throw some real money at it, but that won't be for a few years."

"Yes Sir."
Chapter 24

"We've covered weapons training before," the Sergeant said as he walked down the line, "most of you are well qualified. Today will be hand combat. Mat it!"

"Yes, Drill Sergeant!" they yelled in the cafeteria, breaking from formation and quickly stacking tables and chairs to the sides while mats were brought out.

"Brown belts on the brown mats, yellow belts over here, and black belts take center. Pair up!"

Shadona stood on the mat as the other girl eagerly took the opposing side.

"Begin!" the Sergeant said.

Bari bowed in unison with Shadona, then both took a fighting pose.

Bari smiled as she delivered two chops, followed by two kicks and another chop, unopposed.

Shadona was the easiest to defeat.

She did all the poses and exercises perfectly, but she rarely fought back, and even more rarely defended herself. Always the first one out in the competition.

Shadona sat safely on the sidelines and watched the combat continue, ice pressed to the lump forming on her side.

"Will, Steven, George," Yofi said, turning the corner from behind the massive automated mill, "do you like working in the shop?"

The three boys stood at attention, "Yes Sir!"

"There is no," he swatted George on the back of the head, "I repeat, no horseplay in the shop. Not now, not ever, not for any reason." He pressed his finger into Will's shoulder, "Why?"

"Horseplay around powered equipment is dangerous and leads to accidents, Sir."

"And?" Yofi said, pointing to Steven.

"Accidents lead to mistakes—"

"What's riding on this equipment?" Yofi asked the ringleader again.

"Soldiers' lives, our country, our reputation, our pride, and freedom around the world, Sir!" George said.

"Horseplay causes fatal distractions," Yofi said, pointing at each but talking loud enough for everyone to hear, "and if you can't keep horseplay out of my shop, then I'll keep you out of it. This was your first and last warning, got it?"

"Yes Sir," the boys said.

"Good! Now, I know you have no reason, other than horseplay, to be standing around an Apache that is not assigned to you."

"Yes Sir!" they said, quickly walking back to their assigned projects, since running was equally frowned upon.

Yofi picked up the icepack and returned it to the girl, still sitting on the floor. "You want to tell me how this started?" he asked, only loud enough for her to hear.

Shadona pressed the ice to her side while staring at his gloved hand.

"That's all right." He put a hand on her shoulder, then walked to the center of the shop. "Let me be clear," he said over the buzz of all the machines. "You can have fun here, you can talk, we take frequent breaks, listen to music, read comic books. . . you have a lot of freedom here. But make no mistake, this shop is nothing but serious. These repairs are deadly serious. None of this equipment are toys. And there will be no horseplay tolerated in this shop, for any reason, at any time." He said all that came to mind, for whatever good it would do.

She seemed to get picked on a lot, there was little he could do about that. But it wasn't going to happen in front of him again.

After the competition and Will was declared champion, the Drill Sergeant walked the mats. Inspecting. He called out the names of the bottom six students in his class.

Shadona stood at attention when her name was called.

"What do we have here," the Sergeant said as he paced around the bottom six, "A product of laziness?"

"No Sir, Drill Sergeant, Sir!" five of the six yelled back.

"Do you lack a warrior's heart?"

"No Sir, Drill Sergeant, Sir!" five of the six yelled back.

"Then it must be a lack of experience. And experience is something we can give you, in spades.

First, we'll get you beyond the fear of getting hurt, so you can stop holding back," the Sergeant said, gesturing for the class to come closer while he stepped away from the six. "Steel is forged in heat; the hotter, the better. Light the forge," he said, as the rest of the class eagerly pounced on the six in a mob-style free-for-all.

For the next thirty seconds, the kids in the center were 'helped' with their fear of getting hurt, by being assured of getting hurt.

The Sergeant blew his whistle and the mob dispersed. "The second part of a good forge is, after the metal is softened, it must be hammered into shape."

Lines formed in font of each of the weakest six. Every two minutes, the Sergeant blew the whistle and a fresh student from the line rotated in and the fight continued until the forging was complete.

Nurse Benita looked at the badly bruised girl sitting on the examination table. She turned on the light behind the film, "It's fractured," she said, looking at the ankle. "The rest are just contusions and sprains."

Shadona glanced at the picture on the wall as the nurse added water to the plaster and started mixing for a cast.

"I'm getting tired of seeing you in here," she said, working the sock over the injured foot, then wrapping it with strips. "At least you don't squirm."

Shadona paid a very high price for not fighting back that day.

"What are we doing here, Sir?" Yofi asked, entering the XO's office.

The XO shrugged at his desk. "I'm not following," he said, but didn't look up from the papers.

"What happens if she gets a concussion, or worse?" He sat in the chair, "What are we doing here? I've seen that girl in a cast, bruises all over her face, and just this week, a broken leg. That girl doesn't belong here— What's going on here is wrong, and someone should say or do something about it."

The XO looked up, "I've got a son about their age, he's had six stitches in his head because he thought he was a Power Ranger and jumped off the—"

"She got beaten up as a part of class! And she's not the only— Iron Man at age seven, engine at six, a power plant by the end of this year. What kind of brain damage would be acceptable to you— This is like using Einstein as a warm-up for Tyson, Coach. What are you losing with every blow to the head? How much are you willing to lose pounding this square peg into a round hole? What are you thinking?"

"Seems she bought a lot of sympathy for a bionic arm, built at taxpayer expense."

Yofi yanked off the arm and thudded it against the desk. "You're investing good money in damaging the goose that's laying your golden eggs. Wouldn't it make more fiscal sense to build the goose a nice house and a solid fence, instead of trying to teach her to growl so she can fit in with the rest of the wolves?"

"What do you think is going to happen here, Yofi, when children turn into adults? They've been drafted already. Period. Beyond getting the girl to defend herself, they will see combat someday. All of them will see—"

"I enlisted, and I did more for my country in a shop repairing War Birds than most Marines did with boots and rifles. You're misusing your best assets, and nobody knows what you'll end up with if you finally pound that peg in. . . other than a whole lot of broken eggs."

The XO stood, grabbed the arm like a bat, and. . . handed it back. "Yofi, we've had this conversation before. They may look like children, but they're not. You know that. Every day, they prove it. There isn't a child anywhere on this planet rebuilding jet engines, we've got dozens of them right here. Half of which are probably better at it than you ever were. Most have the equivalent of multiple Masters and PHDs. All are multilingual. Most are so fluent they could, and probably will, be used as spies or Special Forces.

Get this through your head. They are not children. They do not have parents. We're not here to make them into good citizens, taxpayers, loving parents, daycare workers, Senators, or barbers. We're here to make them into soldiers. Hell, technically they were born in international waters to prevent them from even having legal citizenship.

I get it, you care. You've become attached to some of them. You've had more personal contact with them than anyone else here. That's to be expected.

What's more, she may look like a goose, act like a goose, and may even lay the occasional golden egg, but make no mistake, she's a wolf. Just like the rest of them. They're all cut from the same cloth.

You've got a choice here, Yofi.

You've got them for eight, ten, sometimes twelve hours a day. You've had a few years to realize that when I say I don't care how you run your shop, so long as you get results, that's exactly what I mean. I've been hands off, haven't I?

What you do with that time is up to you, or who ever replaces you.

That's your choice. You get to choose who the biggest influence in their lives is. You, or the next guy.

I have no intentions of replacing you. Other than a few annoying conversations like this, you're a model employee and you run your department like the well-oiled machine it is." He sat behind his desk, then arranged his papers again. "Think she's a goose? Make the shop more of a nest, if you want.

But I'm giving that same freedom to my drill sergeants, too.

She's not a goose, she's a loaded gun.

They all are."
Chapter 25

"Listen, Shadona," Yofi said in his office near the end of shop class, "I want to help you here, but my authority is limited. I have no control over what happens outside this shop."

She sat in the chair and stared at the floor.

"I would have figured that with a cast still on, they would have exempted you from combat training," He reached out to touch her nearly swollen-shut eye, but stopped, inches from her face. "Probably you did, too."

She looked him in the eyes, a faint frown on her face.

"He let you stay in shop as long as you wanted when you built that engine—"

She looked away.

"No, I'm not suggesting that you have to invent something. Your mind probably doesn't work that way. Probably even Edison's didn't, and that man cranked them out by the hundreds." He pulled up some drawings on the computer, then slid a piece of paper from the desk. "The military has been experimenting with UAVs for decades, but they're big and problematic. What's needed is a smaller unit anyone can use. A squad level UAV.

As inexpensive as a kid's toy to make, that would give them eyes in the air, mixed with a soldier's firepower." He put his crude drawing on her lap. "We rebuild helicopters and plane parts here all the time. They're too complex and big to make tiny, and little model engines are loud as hell and give themselves away too easily.

So, I was thinking about your tiny engine, making it smaller. It's as quiet as a refrigerator when you're standing next to it; put it fifty feet in the air and it's acoustically invisible. The hydraulics in your suit, what Hanly already figured out, would let us build a tiny automatic transmission too, perfect for a UAV.

Put sixty rounds of .223 on it and a few M203 grenades and you have the solution to snipers and ambushes. Give it some surveillance capabilities and keep the price tag down, and it'll save thousands of lives.

The Pentagon is focused on UAVs that can travel thousands of miles, but soldiers just need a silent angel on their shoulder. Twenty pounds at most.

I think we can give them one, without inventing anything new."

She wasn't looking him in the eyes anymore, but her tiny frown continued.

"I'm not asking you to do it for me, just help me with it. In a way, it's better if it comes together slowly, with several prototypes, a few promising missteps at a time. The way the rest of the world invents. Edison had a thousand failures before the lightbulb. I just need something that makes you more valuable to him in here, than out there.

It just has to look like it's coming from you."

Over the next year, Shadona helped miniaturize the motor and adapt conventional camera technology to the task at hand. Undoubtedly she could have done better on her own. Had she adapted the suit's gun and armor technology, she could have greatly improved its range, cut the weight in half, and made it nearly bulletproof. But it would have run the price through the roof.

Instead, they modified an M-16 and used off-the-shelf everything.

While the construction on the power plant's first torus finished sixty million dollars over budget, their first functioning UAV took to the air at under $4,000 in parts. Imperfect, with accuracy problems on successive shots due to recoil and a difficulty hovering for more than a few seconds at a time, it nonetheless worked.

Since bandwidth was a huge concern on the battlefield, it used a kind of line-of-sight optics to beam high-resolution real-time images and limited its use of the crowded radio frequencies to transmit just changes and updates. . . which coincidentally made it easy to highlight just the changes that were mostly moving people and vehicles. . . just the moving targets an eye in the sky needed to find. It worked perfectly in an urban setting, but was easily overwhelmed in fields of swaying grass or trees.

* * *

The XO entered the makeshift control room. "Hanly, your team ready?"

"Yes Sir," Hanly answered, "We've been testing it for the last week, and everything is in the green."

"Crank it up, then," the XO said, hovering over the shoulder of Hanly's operator at the main screen.

"Yes Sir." The mountain rumbled like a boulder rolled down the outside.

"What was that?"

"Perfectly normal, Sir," Hanly said. "We had concerns at first, too. Thought it was a fatal flaw in the design, until we figured out the cause. Think of a helicopter without a tail rotor. The fuselage will try to counter-spin against the main rotor without it. With just one coil, this mountain is feeling the effects of that counter torsion. When we get another unit up, we should be able to balance the two off of each other, spinning them in opposite directions. It's a million-ton flywheel, after all, whether it's a fluid or solid." Hanly hovered near the main board, "Signal the grid manager that we're ready to pull at one hundred megawatts for the next four hours, when he's ready."

"Yes Sir," the operator said, "they're requesting we draw sixty-three megawatts right now for the next hour."

"Sixty-three it is," Hanly said. "What's our flow rate looking like?"

"Only seventeen point six feet per second," the operator said, "but it's climbing steady."

Hanly looked at the XO, "Without another counter-flowing torus to balance the torsion, we have to ramp up and down slowly or risk real tremors. The lining in the next torus won't be ready for another week, and it'll take at least that long to finish the MHD coils and controls. Right now, we're buying surplus power to level out the random drops in demand in town as they come off their midday peak. Tomorrow, we'll sell it back at peak prices and, hopefully, pocket the difference."

The XO put his hand on Hanly's shoulder, "About time."

"While trials continue, we have to manually control how much we pull or feed back to the grid. As we get certified, that should get automated and free up personnel."

The XO smiled, "Certification. That'll be something to celebrate."

Hanly pointed to the display, "It reminds me of that old Super Man movie where they planned to steal a fortune by keeping the pennies rounded off from each bank transaction. Most power plants over-produce electricity to prevent brownouts, and they over-produce by hundreds of megawatts. We can bank those hundreds of over-produced, wasted megawatts and feed them back when needed. Most power plants can only produce 50-, 75-, 100-, and 500-megawatt increments. We can, in theory, react instantaneously and down to the kilowatt. We stand to make a fortune by keeping that rounded-off change."

"Well, Professor," the XO said in the parking lot of the airport, "you've had a few months to look over the code, what do you think?"

"It wasn't written by the same person. The code in the prosthetic is incredibly dense. A single line does a dozen— when I started writing code, we had these things called one-liner contests to see who could, in a single command line, do the most things.

An exercise in efficiency back when RAM was measured in Ks, but nobody writes efficiently anymore.

I remember I wrote a primitive database that filed and sorted items in a dozen categories, simultaneously.

One line.

There's no wasted code here. It's almost a one-liner, but it's so complex it's nearly indecipherable, which is why nobody programs like this anymore. Not a single module in the whole thing. It's not the same author. It would take a team years to plot out and follow what makes that prosthetic function like it does. Fortunately, you shouldn't have to. Just cut and paste it into another arm."

The XO looked pissed, "First you thought you could patent stolen property without getting caught, now you think a little song and dance is going to do it. What do you think was the first thing we did BEFORE calling you, Professor?

Copy the prosthetic, copy the code, and it only works with one person. . . the guy who uses the original. According to him, he put on a bunch of sensors and it learned from his good arm. Once it was initialized, it only works for him, nobody else.

Do you think we're stupid? Or do you just think you're that much smarter than the rest of the world?"

"I don't know what to tell you, then. Any initializing software must have auto-erased itself after customizing its code to work for one user. Without that original code, there's nothing to examine and nothing to—"

"Reverse-engineer it, that's what you claimed you could do. Said it would be child's play."

"What do you want me to say, Major?"

"I want you to come and teach at my base and—"

"Out of the question. I've been over this with you before. I've paid you off and I'm not relocating to backwater—"

"Telecommute then. Two hours, three times a week if you want. I've got a pool of talent the likes of which. . . " He reached into his bag and produced a DVD. "Take this home and look at it. It's a surveillance drone in need of some software upgrades. I've got a team of code writers, and one secretive shining star. I need people that can either reverse-engineer her code, or write it from scratch for themselves.

Now Professor, are you such a man? Can you, with a team, write that prosthetic code? Or this drone code?

If you can, your team will get nothing, no cut, not a single percentage, but you and my company will split the patent windfalls.

Are you ready to deal? Are you starting to see the dollar signs yet?

You get inside her head, figure out how she's writing such devilish code, master it or master her, and that first patent will look like pocket change."

The Professor slid the DVD into his briefcase. "Telecommute, you say?"

The XO smiled as a plane took off in the distance.

The room was filled with typing at every terminal as the instructor digitally handed out the new module assignments. This was the fourth week of classes, and what had started as a few hours every other day had quickly turned into four hours every day, and the assignments kept getting more challenging. But also entirely too familiar.

Shadona faintly smiled when she received the Email from the instructor, gingerly pushed her chair away from the terminal, and quietly left the room. She had better things to do with her time, anyway.

'Your performance is unacceptable. You've been dropped from the class,' was left on the screen.
Chapter 26

The XO opened the bottle of champagne and started filling glasses, "We have a 'go' to complete the first six units, and a five year contract as a part of an even smarter DOE grid."

They raised glasses and clinked to the contract as the music started.

The XO raised his voice over the commotion, "I know that getting these units grid-certified has been one hell of a challenge, but thanks to the long hours you've all put in, we've done it! I know we're all looking forward to, two months from now, when we'll relocate to on top of the mountain, but it feels like I'm on top of the mountain right now!"

They cheered with raised glasses again.

"The Colorado Co-Op will be bringing an additional five hundred megawatt unit online this November, just for us. I think we'll be ready, don't you?"

They cheered and drank again.

The XO got Yofi off to the side, "Listen, your UAV project is taking a lot longer to—"

"You've been spoiled by a suit in a month and an engine in a day," Yofi said, then finished the champagne in his glass. "The real world doesn't work that fast. It takes dozens of prototypes to inch a design forward. Ninety wrong turns for every right. Besides, I haven't let any of it cut into the shop's normal production, and most of the parts we consume are scraps or on hand already."

"Noted. That's why I haven't shut you down. And you are showing results, just slower than I expected.

She's holding back, isn't she?"

Yofi paused while refilling his glass. Pouring with his artificial arm was second nature to him, again. "Could she do more? Sure. She's proven that she could do it all, by herself, if so inclined. But make no mistake, she's contributing. And unlike the suits, everything we're doing can be replicated."

The XO swigged, then walked over to a familiar face he hadn't seen in years. "Colonel, damn glad to see you, Sir. To what do we owe the honor?"

"Just came by to see the achievement of the century with my own eyes. You've done well for a glorified babysitter. Knew we picked the right man."

"Thank you, Sir."

"The DOE tried to explain it all to me, but I didn't see what the fuss was about. Still don't."

The XO smiled. "Best I've heard it explained, uh. . . ever see the old Christopher Reeves Superman movies?"

"Don't bother trying, Major. I really came down for another reason. There's been another round of budget cuts in DC. It's sink or swim time, I'm afraid. Don't know what to tell you, but your funding is almost gone. I fought for it, but the recession, jobs, reelection campaigns. . . normal funds are going everywhere else. Can't even get you funding through the DOE and DOD anymore."

"What about our smart grid green cont—"

"Don't worry, that's safe. . . for now. But it looks like all the other funds I used to be able to get to you are dried up. The department of Ag is walking away from your desert crops. I don't know what to tell you, Major, but this is it. Even your credit lines have been cut.

I'm sorry. I just couldn't tell you over the phone."

The XO looked over the room as the celebration continued, "I'm leveraged out the ass, Colonel. Without those credit lines I'm—"

"I know, Major. I know. I've looked at the books, too. I can keep them from calling your outstanding balances, but tapping more. . . you're on your own.

Know anyone who owns a bank?"

He swallowed the rest from his glass, "Had an Uncle that used to help me out."

"I'll keep fighting for you, Major, but with this new administration, all their budget cuts are coming from the military and intelligence services, first, second, and always. The politicians are trying to balance their spending spree on our backs, as usual. Shore up your relationship with the Colorado Co-Op, it's about to become the most important relationship of your life."

The XO poured another glass, "Thanks."

"Few words of warning. Keep your books straight, the IRS is going to be looking at you hard, don't let them catch you siphoning money from a DOE project and spending it on something else. And don't expect the DOE to— Read that contract carefully for an opt out. After receiving tens of millions in campaign contributions, surprise surprise, the administration has decided to favor the GE smart grid that puts bureaucrats in control of how much hot water people shower with and what temperature they set their thermostats at. Your design saves more energy and preserves peoples' freedom, and that kind of mindset might as well be illegal right now. The bureaucrats are looking hard for any excuse to opt out.

The Co-Op isn't; they're looking at the savings only, and are the closest thing to a bank you may see for the next four years. I hope to God you have a winner here."

"Me too, Colonel." He downed the glass of expensive champagne like it was a shot, "Me too."

* * *

It resembled a ski lift with enclosed cars and bench seats facing each other, forward and back. Only a hundred feet off the ground, it skimmed the treetops along the steep grade up the mountainside. Shadona stared out the window as the car slowly swung up the forty-degree incline.

The view was spectacular, a blue haze softened the jutting edges of the distant mountains and blended its majestic features into the tranquil valley below. It even gave her the sensation of flying as the car swayed back and forth in the wind. But she knew the view wasn't intended for her.

She stared forward and watched the mountain crawl closer, treetop by treetop.

The car decoupled from the cable and slid off to the side as the Drill Sergeant unlocked it from the outside, top of the mountain.

"Into formation, one two, one two!" he barked as the children complied. "As you may have already guessed, this is where the next phase of your training will take place. Training at this altitude, your endurance will improve exponentially. But it will take you months to acclimate to it. Dizziness, shortness of breath, these are the symptoms you may experience, and you will report them immediately.

As you can see," the Drill Sergeant gestured at a skeletal tower topped by radar, set to the side of an angled runway, "this is a practice carrier deck, the foremost symbol of power projection in the world. You are—" he stopped pacing in front of Shadona, poking her in the shoulder with a scolding finger, "Most of you are proficient in hand combat, you will now extend that expertise into the air. And this, your new home, is where you will acquire these new skills. Grab your gear and follow me." He marched them down the stairs and into the maze of underground rooms and chambers. "Construction, as you can see, was stopped prematurely. The next few months will be spent bringing this place up to specs." He opened the doors to a massive underground chamber. "This is the hangar deck. As you can see, it far exceeds the confines of the typical Nimitz-class," he gestured to blue outlines on the floor, "and ends in the full machine shop that most of you are already familiar with. All of the material to finish the rooms is already here." He gestured to the rows and rows of boxes, spools, buckets and crates that would have appeared as large as a mountain, had they not been centered in such a vast, empty place. "Drop your gear and I'll start handing out your assignments."

With very little training, over the next two weeks the children assembled and installed the desks, beds, showers, sinks, toilets and fixtures to the existing pipes, brackets, and wiring. As well as giving the green concrete a few coats of paint.

Shadona sat up, middle of the night. She assumed it was night. None of them had seen daylight since they moved into the mountain, so she couldn't be sure. She gestured with her fingers.

It tickled back 2:43am.

A pale nightlight lit the bathroom, barely bright enough to see shapes in the room.

She looked across the aisle to the only other child.

The beds, when folded down like they were now, were less than four feet apart. She reached out her hand, but didn't touch her sleeping neighbor. Her sleeping friend.

Two people, one room. Their own bath. Their own desks. Their own terminals.

She had never had so much, as this huge ten by ten room.

She smiled in the dim light as she briefly reveled in the fortune of such bounty. She no longer had to shower with a room full of other girls. Gone were the days of sleeping with dozens crowded into the same room. No bunk beds, just bunks. Dozens, down to two.

Her smile faded as she looked at the door. Solid steel and locked from the outside.

* * *

The XO looked at the boy, thrashing against the straps, shouting incoherently. "What's wrong now?" he asked.

"He's on something," nurse Benita said, "some sort of hallucinogen. Narcotic— I won't know for sure until I get the blood test—"

He waved his hand before the boy's eyes. "Where'd you get the shit, boy?"

"The devil will melt the walls of the castle, hair will grow like candy to the clouds." He jerked against the restraints. "I'll make you eat your eyes and choke on your tongue! Can you taste my pepper words? Can you?"

"Where could he have possibly found drugs?" the XO said.

"I don't know, Sir. I don't see how they could have smuggled it in. Perhaps we should lie detector everyone, but they're smart enough to probably make something for themselves."

He sniffed the air around the boy, then his sleeve. "Smells like smoke. A hint of tobacco? No, not tobacco. But it isn't pot either. They had to have brought it with them when we moved into the mountain. It has to be tiny, easily concealed." He snapped his fingers, but the boy's eyes didn't respond. "Keep me inform— Was he on anything from you?"

"Just Prozac. But I've never heard of this reaction. Even with overdoses—"

"What was his dose?"

"Minimal. Jason wasn't one of the ones I was worried about, to be honest."

Jason strained against the straps. "JAAAYYYYY, SSSOOOOOOONNNNNN!!!" he yelled, then collapsed to the bed. "My name unlocks the sky, like heaven's keys! Heaven's keys. . ."

"Keep him under observation for the next two days, nurse," the XO said. "See if you can get him to spill the beans. If it isn't too ironic, drug him if you think it'll get you to the bottom of this. I can't have whacked out kids roaming these halls or working with heavy equipment. Keep on top of this for me, please."

"Yes Sir."

"Last thing I need is for this to turn into an outbreak." He typed into the terminal in the medical office, "I've given you access to their tracking chips. If you can, track the little stoner's movements and find his stash, or connection."

"Yes Sir."

The tent exploded like a muffled car bomb as smoke filled the air.

Hanly and his team crowded around the monitors as the smoke dissipated and their vision cleared.

"Everything is tracking perfectly with the original experiment," someone said. "I think we have it!"

Hanly started to grin, but it faded fast. "Those don't look like the original plates."

Another engineer panned the camera and zoomed. "You're right, Sir."

Hanly pounded the desk, "What went wrong? Anyone? We've been working this problem for months, even did some successful small-scale tests. What the hell happened?"

"Don't know yet, Sir," another engineer said, bringing the Geiger counter. "We have a small radiation problem. Everyone going out needs to suit up."

Hanly shook his head as he headed out the door. The shop looked empty with all the heavy equipment moved to the top of the hill, leaving the sounds of his failure to echo across the vast, open room.

With everyone else moved into the mountain, his small team even felt abandoned.

He surveyed the damage inside the tent. The plutonium was exactly where it was found last time. The plates were viscous blobs, just like his failures before.

Lead tools scooped the pellet and placed it in a lead box. Before removing the bulky suit, he swept the tent with the counter again. Minutes after the all clear, his team crowded into the remains of the tent to argue over what went wrong.
Chapter 27

The XO stood in front of the monitors, reviewing the video of yet another expensive failure. "You're ruining me," he said. "You know that, don't you?"

Hanly stared at the monitor, "Sorry, Sir. We— I thought I had it this time. The tests came back clean. All the tests came back clean. We— I still don't know what went wrong."

The XO sighed, crossing his arms. "Hanly, I was counting on this.

I needed this to work.

It cost a half million dollars every time we try this damned experiment. I've got to have—"

"The MHD flywheel is working, XO. We'll have the sixth torus turned on by the end of this week, another month and it'll be tested out and grid certified. I'm just as frustrated as you are, Sir. Believe me.

I don't know what to tell you.

Chemistry, physics, high intensity magnetic fields, and plutonium. I've got someone in every field, but not one person is an expert in all fields. I don't know how many more tries it'll take to crack this, if we ever will.

We've been on it twelve hours a day for months, and this is as close as we've ever gotten. And it's no closer than my first failed attempt.

I just don't know what to tell you, Sir."

The XO sighed. "What we make from the Co-Op barely pays the interest on our loans."

The XO stood before the heavy metal door, "Open it, Sergeant."

At the end of the hall, the Sergeant threw the levers that unlocked the door.

When it slid open, the XO stepped in. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and laid a notebook on the quiet girl's desk. "I need your help to make this work."

She paid him no mind as she continued to click back answers to her morning classes.

The XO grabbed the mouse from her hand and yanked it from the wall. "This is perhaps the most important thing you'll ever do. We need to make this work. And we need it working right now." He rested his hand on her shoulder, then leaned ever so slightly on the tiny child.

She timidly touched the screen, turned it off, then ran her fingers across the cover of the notebook. . . before sliding it off the desk and into the trash.

The XO yanked her out of the chair and pushed her, arm first, into the trash after it. "Pick it up!"

Dana looked over from the other desk. "Have you ever met before?" she said, turning away from her screen as well. "That's So not going to—"

"Shut up!" the XO yelled, yanking Shadona off the floor and dropping her hard onto the wooden chair. He dumped the trashcan out on her desk, "I don't have time for—"

"She gets beaten up on a daily basis," Dana disobeyed. "You're not getting anywhere."

"You trying for a week in solitary?" the XO said, staring at Dana.

Dana faced the monitor in total silence.

"How about you," the XO asked Shadona, "You want a week of solitary?"

She straightened the pencil and pad of paper at her desk, then obediently stood, ready to go.

Yofi opened the XO's door, then sat before the desk. "Sir, you might try using a carrot before reaching for a bigger stick."

"I'm not in the mood, Yofi," the XO said.

"What's it been, two weeks now? I've talked to Hanly, I know the financial bind you're in. You don't have two more weeks to throw at this, Sir. Do you?"

The XO pounded his fist out of frustration and stared at the monitor of a green girl, sitting in the dark, rocking back and forth uncontrollably. If she was going to break, it might well be as nurse Benita suggested. A complete psychotic breakdown. "Spit it out, Yofi, while you still work here."

"Give her what she wants—"

"Out of the question."

Yofi leaned closer. "She offered to give you the engine, if you turned her free. We had this argument before, remember? What happens if she holds out another few weeks. Or the next month. Or another after that. What happens if you drive her mad. It'll be months before the Co-Op brings that new 500MW unit online, and even then you might not find your funding solution.

You going to put a bullet in their heads then?

You prepared to do that?

What's the alternative when the money runs out, other than to set them all free?

So then, what's the difference between setting one free now, and a few hundred later?"

The XO looked at the monitor. She was on the edge of some kind of break, one way or the other. "I can't stand that hardheaded, obstinate kid. As much as I'd like to pound it out of her, I don't think I could. I don't think I could pull the trigger on her either."

"That doesn't leave many options, does it?" Yofi said, leaning back in the chair. "She's a good kid, Sir. Believe it or not, she's really a good kid. She's quiet, she doesn't act out. I'm not sure she has it in her to be a Marine. At least, not the kind you're picturing.

Not everyone is cut out for that life, Sir.

Square peg, round hole."

"I can't turn her loose on the world, Yofi. What happens if the next suit goes to the highest bidder? What happens if the next power plant goes to Iran? She's seen the plans to the entire fleet of planes in the US arsenal. Probably has them memorized. We're a hundred miles down a national security nightmare."

"Perhaps, Sir. But the engineers that built the stealth fleet aren't surrounded by the Secret Service. The world knows their names, nobody knows she exists. Hell, the History Channel did a special on the science behind building planes invisible to radar. I think you're making it out to be a bigger risk than it is."

"Where then? Foster care? Adoption? To who? I'd want, at a minimum, to do an FBI background check on them. They'd have to have—"

"I talked to my wife last night and—"

The XO leaned back in his chair. "You can't be serious."
Chapter 28

"Elaine," Yofi said, "this is Shadona."

Shadona stared at her feet as she inched through the doorway, bag clutched tight to her chest.

"Say," Elaine said, giving the girl a giant hug, "it's so good to finally put a face with the name."

Shadona clung tight to the bag she had just nearly dropped, wavering slightly when released.

Elaine inched back, then looked at her husband, "You didn't tell me she was so cute. No wonder you spent so much time at work."

He smiled, best he could. "She's bright, too," he said, making room for the other girl. "And this is Dana." He closed the door behind her.

"Dana?" Elaine said, pausing before offering her the same hug.

"Nice to meet you, Ma'am," Dana said, standing at attention out of reflex.

"I wasn't expecting two girls," Elaine said, "we just have the one bed in the guestroom. I'll—"

"I'll get another tomorrow," Yofi said.

Shadona dropped her bag near the bookshelf, ran her fingers across the spines of everything she saw, then cautiously touched the faces in each picture. Her fingers hovered over the piano keys, but didn't touch. She ran her fingers across the wall leading to the kitchen, but stopped at the light switch.

Elaine picked up Shadona's bag, "Would you like to see your room now?"

"Sweet," Dana said, dragging Shadona by the hand as they followed Elaine down the hall.

The room was smaller than what they shared at the base, but the sunflower-yellow paint was warmer and more inviting than the drab gray they were used to. The carpet was soft and colorful instead of painted cold concrete. The furniture cheerful and well used. But Shadona walked past all that comfort to stand by the window and stare into the world outside.

For the first time in her life, they had a room with a view.

And a door that only locked from the inside.

Elaine poured two cups of coffee, then returned to the table, middle of the night.

"How old are they?" she asked, just the two of them up.

"Eleven, almost twelve," he said, stirring in a splash of milk.

"Dana easily looks mid-teens, but Shadona looks much younger. What should we do about school?"

"Well," Yofi said, "maybe. Eventually, yes. I figure in a year or two we'd enroll them and say they were home schooled. The deal I struck was they're ours until eighteen, then they're free to go on their own.

But they've both mastered college-level courses. Traditional education isn't their problem. I wouldn't worry about— What they really need is someone to. . . Think foster kids that haven't had a loving home life. That's what they need most." He grabbed the mug in his mechanical hand and felt the ceramic's warmth mirrored in his underarm as he rested his real hand on hers. "That's what your PHD is in, isn't it?"

She smiled as she leaned across the table to give him a kiss. . . but only had to lean half way.

"They're good kids, El. Take it easy for the first few months. Show them what fun is. Let them acclimate slowly, and I think they'll be fine."

"Who has the PHD in loving home life?"

He smiled, kissing her again.

"Good morning," Yofi said when Shadona came out of the guestroom.

She paused, middle of the hall, and ran her fingers through her hair.

"You hungry for breakfast?" Elaine asked, letting go of her husband's hand and walking to the refrigerator.

Shadona timidly touched the wall beside the bathroom and traced it to the kitchen where Yofi was seated at the bar.

She paused by the stool next to him.

"Please, sit anywhere. Think of this house as your house, too," he said.

She hesitated, but sat.

"Bacon, eggs, and toast sound alright?" Elaine asked.

Shadona silently nodded while she straightened the shakers, aligned the cereal boxes, and fiddled with the cord on the phone. She stared at the clock, then glanced at Yofi, still in sweats and a T-Shirt.

"I'm not going in today," he answered her look, then tapped a very familiar notebook. "Homework. Just have one final piece of business." He slid it away, "But it'll wait till later. When you're ready."

When the bacon started to sizzle, she turned to the kitchen and watched Elaine crack two eggs against the lip of the skillet.

"You two sleep alright?" he asked.

She nodded yes.

"The guestroom can be a little cold in the morning. I thought today we'd drive into town and get you two some new clothes, toothbrushes, stuff like that," he said, catching her attention again. "It's about an hour drive from here. Two hours, round trip. When you're up for it."

Dana emerged from the guestroom and detoured directly to the bathroom.

Shadona watched Elaine put a plate in front of her and one for Dana to her side. She picked up the fork, and paused.

"We've already eaten," Yofi said.

Shadona straightened the bacon and aligned the egg before starting to eat.

She sat at the table, pencil in hand, notebook open before her. Middle of the afternoon.

"Wait," Yofi said, putting his hand on hers. "I have to tell you something first. You know what my deal was with the XO, but you don't know what he hasn't told you. What probably none of you know.

They put a tracking device in your teeth. A tooth. One of your molars most likely. A type of RFID. It has a limited range, but—"

She dropped the pencil and put her finger in her mouth.

"Wait, just wait. I'm not trying to scare you, but you should know everything. If you fix the flaws in the suit, he'll eventually remove the tooth. I believe he's working in good faith. Just not with all his cards on the table.

I've seen its design, Shadona. I'm not sure I understand all of it, but it has a tamper proof feature that prevents it from being removed. A capsule or a cavity that can be filled with poison, attached to a blood vessel.

Now, I'm not sure what was put in that capsule, if anything, but I know it has one. And I think you have a right to know that, until he has proof that the fixes work, he won't consider removing it.

Obviously, he didn't want me to tell you about it. But I think it's only right that you know."

She picked up the pencil again. Hovering its tip over the page, "Do you trust him?" she whispered.

Shocked that she spoke, he paused for a moment. "I trust that they implanted the tooth. I trust that if the changes you make don't work, he'll track you down very quickly, stopping here first. I trust that that capsule is filled with something; whether it kills you or not, I don't know. I trust that it's very tamper proof. And I trust that if he'd ever keep a promise with you, it would be this one. But I doubt he plans on telling you about the tooth until the last minute. Maybe not even until you turn eighteen."

She opened the notebook.

"I believe him."

She penciled in the changes.
Chapter 29

Shadona sat in the mall's food court and simply watched the people pass her by without notice. Without a care in the world to who she was or why she was sitting there. She reveled in being unnoticed in the crowd. She had assumed that everyone who looked at her could see her entire past, that they could tell she could never fit in. That she was a soulless zombie. Yet few even looked, and those who did only saw an average looking girl.

Elaine put the tray down before the quiet girl, "You've never had Chinese before?"

Shadona touched the edge of the tray with the tip of her finger, then looked up and smiled.

"She's had Chinese before," Dana said, handling her own tray, "She's never ordered food before, though." She waited for Elaine to sit before eating. "Never had a choice of what to eat before, but we've had all kinds of food. Remember that month when we ate locust, termites, worms, scorpions, and all sorts of bugs?"

"Ewwww!" Elaine said, making a face. "That's awful!"

"Fried, sautéed, broiled, baked, raw and even alive. Every culture has different foods they find acceptable. We've tried as many of them as we could, just to get us acclimated. Practiced one custom every week for a year. Even had dogs and cats before. Though I couldn't tell the difference, could you?" Dana said.

Shadona shook no while Elaine grimaced at the very idea.

"I'll stop."

"Thank you," Elaine said, nibbling her bean burrito.

"I just don't know how you can eat that," Dana teased. "Don't you know what's in it?"

Yofi plopped down on the bed in the department store, right beside his wife. "I think this is the best one we've seen so far," he said. "But it isn't up to me." He struggled to sit and looked around. "Where'd they go?"

Elaine sat up, "Dana's over there by the PosturePedics. I don't see the other one."

Yofi got to his feet, "Well, she probably hasn't gone far." He walked over to the PosturePedics. "Where's Shadona?" he ask Dana.

She pressed the mattress with her knuckles, "I like this one."

"Did you see where she went?"

Dana turned her back to the bed and fell backwards onto the pillow top, arms spread. "She's free, right? Then what's the diff?"

"You're both free, but El and I are responsible for your safety until you turn eighteen, just like all the other parents in this mall."

Dana propped up on her elbows, "But you're not our par—"

"I'm respons—" he dropped the shop-boss tone he so easily slipped into, "Please, just tell me which way."

She gestured to the electronics end of the store.

It should have been obvious which way she went. He practically tracked her every step as he passed down an aisle where every item was aligned on the middle shelf. At its end, two aisles over, he found another row bizarrely reordered. He paused down the fourth. Her disorder seemed to follow its own weird rules. She had to straighten the items she touched, but she somehow found a way to avoid touching everything, skipping most shelves altogether.

He found her in Electronics, standing before a large wall of TVs, each tuned to a different channel, all with their volume turned up.

She pressed her fingers to the reporter's lips as he babbled something about the latest explosion in the Middle East. When the picture changed, she moved to the next screen with another talking head.

"Shadona," he said, hand on her shoulder.

She moved her fingers across the next screen.

"Shadona," he repeated.

She touched her fingers across Yofi's lips, then stepped back and timidly looked down.

"You find a mattress you like?"

She touched his Kevlar glove, faintly smiled, then followed as they walked back to the bedding section, much to the relief of the store's employee that was stuck with readjusting a wall of TVs.

"We rebuild TF-34s," Dana said in the guestroom, "I think we can assemble a bed, Mr. Stosou." She grabbed the tools out of his hand and tore into the cardboard box, "Now, where did I see those instructions. . ."

Shadona giggled as she opened the plastic bag and the mattress expanded across the floor.

"I don't know why you insisted on this cheap foam one," Yofi said.

"Don't look at me," Dana said, "I'm not the one that's gonna sleep on it."

"So, Mrs. Stosou—" Dana said that morning after Yofi left for the base.

"Elaine, please," she said, turning on the TV as the girls entered the living room.

Dana shrugged, plopping on the couch, "How'd you and Yofi meet? Both serve in the same unit or something?"

"Well, as cliché as it sounds, we were highschool sweethearts."

"Before the accident?" Dana said. The conversation now had Shadona's attention.

"We'd been married for six years before the accident happened. Then it was another two years of rehab before he could even walk again." Elaine turned down the volume on the TV.

"How long in highschool?"

"Since the seventh grade, so, five years. First boy I ever kissed. When he enlisted, we agreed to put off kids until—" Elaine paused to clear her throat, "until his active service was up so I wouldn't be stuck raising children on my own. But, that didn't work out like we planned."

Dana turned her interest to the TV, but Shadona sat beside the woman and rested her hand on Elaine's knee. Briefly.

"Yofi talked a lot about you two and a few others he had in the shop. But I don't know anything about your life outside of fixing planes and—"

"So, you're not a mechanic?" Dana said when the commercial shifted back to the show. "Engineer? What in the world do you two have in common? What could you possibly talk about?"

"There's a lot more to life than work," Elaine said. "Or there should be. When he served on the carrier, he'd be away for months at a time, and that floating city at sea would consume his world. But when he's home, it's like he's solidly in my world. We watch movies. Even go dancing like we did before he lost his leg. Just not in well lit places. He's still self-conscience about the scars." She smiled, remembering. "Losing the leg didn't make him any better, but it didn't make him any worse either. Poor, rhythmically challenged guy. But he tries." She held Shadona's hand, still near her knee, "He tries.

We still eat out twice a month and— We've got to take you girls bowling next time we go. I think you'll have fun."

"Bowling?" Dana asked.

Shadona gestured, fingers up like she was holding a ball, then mimed hurling it down a lane.

"Oh," Dana said. "Where do you go dancing?"

"Well, the best place is Duke's, back in town I'm afraid. Long drive and it's more of a bar, no place for kids." Elaine smiled as she gestured to the coffee table, "That moves out of the way and this room's suddenly big enough. Then we just pop in a CD."

Shadona grabbed the edge of the table and dragged it off to the side as Dana inspected the CDs. Some she had listened to in the shop before, but most were new. . . to the two of them.

Yofi's car pulled into the driveway as the girls sat in the kitchen and continued to talk.

"Well," Yofi said, opening the door, "this was the last thing I was expecting." He looked them over again before kissing Elaine on the cheek. "Lipstick, eye shadow, even broke out the lashes. . . You girls planning on hitting the town tonight?"

Elaine just smiled, "They'd never know what hit 'em if we did."

"Tell 'em, girl friend!" Dana said, finishing her nails.

"Oh Lord, you haven't been watching Maury, have you?" Yofi said, getting a beer from the fridge.

"Hard day at work?" Dana asked as Yofi popped the top.

"Usual," he said, drinking a third in a hurried gulp before kissing Elaine on the cheek again, "But I like to leave work at work and home here." He sat on the stool and untied his steel-toed shoes, then put on some bunny-shaped slippers.

Dana laughed. "Those were yours?"

Yofi just smiled, "Sometimes I forget that I'm not in charge when I'm at home. It's a trick I learned from my Carrier days, keeps me from spouting off orders. . . and even if I do, who's going to take me seriously wearing these?" He stood and stamped his feet so hard that the bunny ears flapped, "Now, go clean your room!"

All three laughed at the spectacle.

"See," he said, returning to the stool, crossing his leg such that the ears continued to flap while he sipped from his beer.

"So," Dana said, "you ever find out what was causing that rumbling pop on the—"

"Put it out of your mind," Yofi said. "It's twenty miles and a lifetime away." He chugged the rest of the beer, "Hairline stress crack in one of the blades."

"You've got pretty lips," Elaine said, finishing Shadona's lipstick. "It's a shame to hide them looking down all the time. Think I'd kill for that complexion of yours." She brushed her thumb against the edge of Shadona's shy little smile. "You three can talk shop if you want."

"I think I'd rather talk about what you guys did all day; that story's got to be a whole lot more interesting than anything I did," Yofi said, putting the empty in the trash.

"Guys?" Dana said, peeking down her shirt. "Does beer make people blind?" she asked Elaine.

"Not since prohibition," Elaine said, still admiring the faint smile on the shyest girl she had ever met.

"Can I have a beer?" Dana asked.

"I'm not letting a preteen have a beer," Elaine said. "Yofi's damn lucky I let him drink one, and only one, when he comes home."

Yofi wiggled his toes inside the slipper as he stared sheepishly at the floor, "Yes Ma'am." He stood, opening the fridge, "Is it my turn to make dinner?"

"Depends," Elaine said, "on what you're planning."

"Well, I see potatoes, onions— Oh, score, a bell pepper's hiding behind the milk, and I'm betting we've still got some hamburger in the freezer. I'm thinking burgers and wedges with some broccoli on the side." When nobody complained, he started thawing things out.

The girls watched _The Bachelor_ that night with a mix of horror and fascination as women competed over a man that, minus the magic of edits, was clearly a shallow jerk.

The door to Yofi's bedroom opened, middle of the night.

Before he could get out of bed, the light flipped on with Dana standing in the doorway, rubbing her eyes. "You have some paper?" she said, half asleep.

Yofi looked at the clock by the bed, "It's four in the morning, what do you need paper for?"

Dana flipped off the light. "I don't, but when Shadona runs out of what's in our room, she's going to start writing on the walls." She headed into the living room and plopped down on the couch.

Yofi turned on the light and grabbed his leg by the nightstand.

"I'll get it," Elaine said, "I have to go to the bathroom anyway." She slipped into her slippers and left the room. Standing in the guestroom doorway, she watched Shadona frantically scribble on the to-do list from the dresser. "You alright?"

She tore off the top sheet and carefully arranged it in the midst of dozens spread across the floor like a massive patchwork quilt, or jigsaw puzzle. She adjusted another, moved a third, touched her finger to six more, paused like she was counting on her fingers, then started writing again.

"What, uh, kind of paper do you want, Honey?"

"Any paper!" Dana yelled from the couch in the other room, "It just doesn't matter."

Elaine shuffled to the living room, "Computer paper?"

Dana fluffed the pillow, then adjusted her blanket, "Computer paper, toilet paper, newspaper, it doesn't matter. It's all gibberish!"

Elaine put her hand to her forehead, exasperated, "Then why—"

"Because if you don't, the crazy bitch'll write on everything."

"What's going— How much pa— How long is she going to—"

"Until she's done or passes out." Dana grabbed another pillow and covered her head.

Elaine pulled all the paper from the printer in the den and handed it to the girl scribbling on the floor. "Here."

But Shadona didn't notice. Only the tiny pad seemed to exist in her bizarre little world.

"Here," she said again, touching the girl with the stack. But Shadona remained oblivious, madly scribbling on the tiny sheets before her. Elaine sat on the bed, picked one from the pile, and studied it under the light. It looked liked circuitry, wiring, or perhaps a building plan, with layer after layer of words and numbers written over it. It didn't look like gibberish, even to her untrained eye. But it was impossible to follow.

Dana had no problem leaving Shadona alone in the room. But it felt wrong to Elaine, even at this hour of the morning. They had missed their chance for children, but even so, this felt like a baby with a fever. And she would have felt like a horribly bad mother if she simply went back to sleep.

Shadona worked her way to the cardboard back of the to-do pad before pausing, slightly confused, then switching to the much larger printer paper.

Elaine watched the troubled girl, unaware of the paper. Unaware of the ink caked to her palm, smudging every page. Unaware that anyone else was in the room. Unaware.

Unaware she was doing anything.

Unaware she was even awake.

And definitely unaware of how this behavior would terrify someone who desperately wanted to be a mother.

"So, what's wrong with her?" Elaine said in the kitchen, middle of the day.

Dana made no attempt to hide her second, almost empty beer. "You haven't figured it out yet? She's T-F-H. Totally fucked in the head, that's what."

Elaine opened the fridge and proceeded to pour the rest of the pack down the sink. "I think it could be serious, Dana—"

"Oh it is. She's seriously fucked—"

"Dana," she refrained from scolding, "please don't use that word. Especially when referring to someone. She obviously likes you a lot. Any light you could shed—"

"You're seeing the reason she gets picked on. She isn't miles, she's several states away from being normal."

Elaine started assembling sandwiches. "She do this a lot?"

"Space out? Yeah. She's by far the queerest—"

"Yofi said she was the brightest person he had ever met."

Dana added the empty bottle to the trash, then leaned against the fridge. "Maybe. . . But it's locked inside the thickest coo-coo-nut you'll ever see."

"I thought you two were friends?"

Dana laughed. "Oh, for serious? I'm sure she thinks so."

"I can see how someone your age would quickly get annoyed by that. But it seems harmless. Annoying, but harmless."

"You haven't had to clean up after her. Dispose of every scrap she scribbles on or she'll become obsessed again the second she sees it.

Bitch'll get stuck folding clothes. Fold, unfold, stare for a while, then fold them again." She pointed at the sink. "Watch her brush her teeth some time. She'll brush, rinse, floss, then brush again.

She'll sit and rock for hours, spaced."

Elaine handed one of the sandwiches to Dana. "My sister talked in her sleep and hummed to herself all the time, like she could never be quiet. To this day, I bet she still believes she doesn't do either.

But I still love her.

She's still my sister.

When I had to share a room with her, I hated her for it. I really did. Or, I thought I did. When she went to college, I spent two sleepless weeks in that silent room, missing her. Everybody has their little quirks, Dana. She's just got more than most. But that doesn't make her queer, weird, or fucked.

It just makes her different."

Dana chomped the last corner of the ham and mustard leaf sandwich. "Ain't nobody more different than her."
Chapter 30

CornUV/(acre)

Acre density=L x W x levels / d2

Increased energy output = increased CO2

CO2 decrease requires increased energy output2

Obvious + (lie – e) = oblivious

Friend = stranger +- ((time2 / frustration) x Blue > (blue – yellow2))Loneliness

Friend = fiend + r

R equals. . .

R equals. . .

There's no R in zombie.

Her hand hurt for some reason.

She opened her eyes and stared at a blurry shirt pressed against her forehead. The shirt was warm and soft, comforting and— a hand was on her shoulder! The shirt took a breath!

"It's ok," Elaine whispered, hugging a softly crying, troubled child. "It's ok," she said, laying on the tiny, cheap little foam bed.

". . . Can I see them," Yofi said that night after the girls had gone to bed.

"Dana said to destroy it, but I can't bring myself to," Elaine said. "Not after she spent the entire day feverishly writing it." She tossed a stuffed grocery bag between them in the bed.

He reached in and pulled a handful out. "They're on Post-Its—"

"Not all of them, just the beginning."

He dug deeper and came out with printer paper crowded with scribbles. "It's, umm, I. . . " He studied it more under better light, "It's difficult to say what this is, exactly. Arabic, some French, some German, but I have no idea for sure. I bet her thoughts look just like this. Crowded and garbled. . .

I can go to jail for saying this, but she's—" He leafed through another handful. "We have a wall of manuals filled with detailed specs for everything we rebuild. She's never looked at the same manual twice, yet she knows to a thousandth of an inch what every spec is. She knows the wiring harnesses for— This could easily be any mix of those specs, or something entirely new." He pulled more papers out of the bag. "There's a device she designed that has stood in the corner of the shop for years.

Worth millions, perhaps billions.

That's the definition of brilliance, isn't it?

A lifetime's achievement.

But it's the second in her lifetime. No, make that the third.

What do you call someone that designed and built something, in front of dozens of cameras, in full view of everyone, in such a way that nobody can repeat it, even after dozens of attempts?"

She sat a little closer. "Shadona Houdini Tesla?"

He laughed at the idea, but she had somehow pegged it perfectly. "She's— Sometimes around her it feels a little like watching the Wright brothers invent a Blackhawk as the world's first airplane.

Einstein died with equations scribbled across his blackboards." He straightened the papers, then put them back and rolled up the bag. "I wouldn't know what I was looking at with them either. To make sense of his notes you had to be an Einstein, or a Hawking.

Remember that night about six years ago when I didn't come home? She built an engine in front of me. Unlike anything I'd ever seen before. Left all the designs on the computers. We could build every part, even had hours of video of how she assembled it, and nobody could make any of the copies work. For six years." He handed her the bag, "I'm sure it's meaningful. It's probably brilliant. And like Einstein's blackboard, there's probably only a handful of people on the planet that could make sense of it. All of them much smarter than me.

Then again, it could all be gibberish.

The XO would throw a fit if I didn't turn this over to him." He stared at the grocery bag. "But whatever it is, it's hers. Not mine. Not his. Dana's probably right in all this, no doubt for selfish reasons. We're probably better off destroying it.

More importantly, she's probably better off that way, too."

Elaine put the bag by the trashcan, then climbed in bed. "Like those kids that can play a piano, but can't tie their shoes."

"Autistic and savant get used in the same sentence a lot." He put his arm around her as they snuggled in for sleep. "It's easy to forget there's a little girl in there, begging for someone to help her with her shoes, in a world that keeps pushing pianos on her."

"Dana drank all your beer," Elaine said, giving him a quick kiss, "So, don't bring any more home."

He looked at his bunny slippers beside the bed and turned out the light, "Yes, dear."

The ball thundered down the lane with an explosive crack as it piled over the helpless pins at its end. "Now that's how you do it," Yofi said, adjusting his score on the board.

Shadona walked up to the line, ball in hand, and hurled it down the lane, clearing six of ten with a muffled crack.

"Way to go," Yofi said, adjusting the girl's score. "See if you can pick up the spare."

She held the ball in hand, adjusted her stance, then hurled it at the pins.

"Oh, so close!" Elaine said when the girl missed.

"Let me show you how this game is played," Dana said, putting down her nachos & cheese and wiping her fingers on her jeans. Ball in hand, she ran to the line and attacked the pins with a thunderous crack. Nine out of ten. "That's what it's supposed to look like." She sipped from her soda before picking off the spare, attacked with equal enthusiasm.

Elaine put her arm around Shadona. "You're getting better every game. Put her out of your mind. You're doing just fine for a beginner." She took her turn and delivered a strike.

After playing seven straight games since lunch, the lanes were now nearly filled with people, and the sleepy little building was a thunderstorm of activity. Despite their best coaching, Shadona was still finishing dead last. Not that she seemed to mind.

In a way, it seemed to make her happy.

Elaine put her arm around the girl again and patted her on the back. "You're getting a lot better," she said as Shadona leaned into the hug, faintly smiling, a chronic four points behind.

After dinner Dana retired to the living room, where the large collection of movies was located, and rededicated herself to watching everything they had, while the rest stayed in the tiny kitchen around the table and continued the conversation.

"They started missing them at the base yet?" Elaine asked, filling Yofi's coffee cup.

Shadona dropped her spoon in the bowl.

"Oh, sorry Hon, didn't mean it like they were searching for you," Elaine said, topping off her coffee cup next. "Just meant it like how I would miss you two if you weren't here."

"I don't know about the kids," Yofi said, "but I miss them. Never had to check any of Shadona's work.

I put in for my vacation time. Got it moved up to next week. Got two weeks saved up and thought now would be as good a time as any to take it."

Shadona turned the bowl ninety degrees, then started eating again. 'Death by chocolate' was difficult to resist. Even if it was her third helping. She paused to faintly smile when Elaine casually held his hand at the table.

"Don't know what we'll do," Yofi said. "Last vacation I took was in a fancified government resort. . . Hummm, I think they called it rehab. I think we can do better and I'm open to suggestions."

"Hawaii," Elaine teased.

"Oh, sorry. Can't go further than a hundred miles from the base. Part of the agreement until the changes are confirmed." He looked at Shadona. "But I bet I can get a waiver from the XO. We should be able to hit a beach in California."

Shadona smiled. It would be the first beach she had ever seen, outside of pictures.

"The beach," Elaine whispered, "fun in the sun. Last time I had real sand under my feet. . . might have been our honeymoon." She looked at the calendar. "September. . . late in the season, might not do a lot of swimming, but I guess we might as well take advantage of Gore's global warming while we can."

Yofi rubbed his thumb across her fingers, "We spent enough getting it."

Elaine felt the need to explain, "We argued over Gore's movie when it came out. I said it was worth a Nobel, he said it was only worth an Oscar. Ironically, it won both."

Shadona spooned the last chunk of ice cream as she shyly smiled at the empty bowl.

"You have an opinion, don't you," Yofi said, joining in her smile.

But the most she would say was she liked Death by Chocolate, and even that was inferred when she got a fourth serving.

After getting up, Yofi kissed Elaine on the cheek, "I've got to go to work tomorrow, but you two can stay up if you want."

Elaine stayed, "You can tell me, Yofi's wrong about the physics, isn't he?"

Shadona smiled, but shook no before sinking her spoon into her last bowl of the night. She liked Elaine too much to tell her the science was a fraud. And even if CO2 was the problem, Gore's solutions would lead to more CO2, not less.

Elaine noticed the strange, subtle clank of the spoon. "That's an interesting ring. Can I see it?"

Shadona waved her fingers in the air, closed her hand into a loose fist, then handed it to her.

"It's lighter than it looks." She pinched it with her finger. "It isn't plastic, but it isn't metal either, is it? What is it?" She looked the shy girl in the eyes before rolling it over in her fingers, then holding it closer to her glasses. "It's as smooth as glass, no scratches or tool marks anywhere on it, yet shows no signs of ever being buffed or polished. Stiff. . . but expandable?" She looked up, surprised. "It isn't a complete loop, like it looks. Is it? They cross each other on an angle in the back, don't they? It looks so seamless. Can't even feel it. Very smart, so it can keep growing with you, right?" She flexed it gently. "At least two finger sizes. What are these two thin beads going all the way around it, thin as a hair on either side? Looks clear as glass, like diamond racing stripes instead of a typical stone." She twisted it under the dining room light. "It almost flickers like real diamonds. A luster, even. A whole spectrum of colors if I catch the light just right. I've never seen anything like it." She handed it back. "It matches you almost perfectly. Subtle, almost invisible, and utterly unique in every way."

Shadona slid it back on, then carved a chunk of fudge clinging to crumbs of frozen brownie.

"And very pretty, elegant even. You make it?"

Shadona nodded yes.

"So, your talents don't stop with engines, do they?"

She waved her fingers in the air again, then smiled as she enjoyed another spoonful.

"Do you feel very lonely not being surrounded by people your age? Sometimes I think we should enroll you in school as soon as possible, just so you can be around other kids. But Yofi made a good point, you'd probably feel like a college grad having to take kindergarten again. You might not even relate to kids your age.

You think I'm boring?"

She shook no.

"Dana is about what I expected from a preteen," Elaine said, resting her hand on Shadona's as casually as she had with Yofi. "Testing limits, rebellious. But you feel like a very old soul to me. I hope you like being here as much as we enjoy having you."

She stared at Elaine's hand and could feel the emotion behind the words she heard. ". . . I do," she whispered.
Chapter 31

"Double check it," Hanly said, typing at the keys while the monitors rebooted.

"It's reading green," an engineer said. "The smoke is venting, radiation is zero."

"The loop reads dead, power at zero," another said.

"The plates are coming into focus."

They crowded around the screen as the room erupted in celebration.

Hanly stopped them at the door as he put on the cumbersome plastic. "We've been here before, People. Get into your radiation suits in case the detector is faulty again. And bring the hand Geiger."

Their new design had major changes. Some systems were new, others were completely removed, and now the plutonium was no longer consumed in the reaction, though exactly what it did was still a mystery. The color of the armor plates had darkened, and now had hints of blue.

In the tent Hanly verified the readings, then signaled it was clear to remove the suits. "Let's get those plates back to the shop and test them before we notify the XO. I want to be absolutely sure this time."

His team went to work like the professionals they were, but the excitement was difficult to hide.

"What are we looking at, Hanly?" the XO asked over the speakerphone from his new office in the mountain.

"Well Sir," Hanly smiled as he thumped the plate with his finger, back at the old shop. "Our preliminary tests rate these plates as just as strong and light as the originals. We're going to perform a destructive test on the backpack covers, just to make sure. Those results won't be back for a week or more. By then we expect to have a completed suit readied for field tests. . . minus a backpack cover, of course."

"The equipment still self-destructs?"

"Yes Sir, same as before. The parts are expensive, granted, but I think the price is acceptable considering the suit's capabilities. You're still looking at well under a million each.

The modifications leave a lot of the underlying science still shrouded in mystery, and I'm not entirely sure all of the equipment is necessary. But I'm at a loss to suggest what to change. The systems she removed were the ones we had speculated were critical.

I think the bottom line is it looks like we have a working, but not industrialized, solution to the problem. Something to outsource or manufacture locally, but nothing that can be mass-produced. But I'd like to do one more, just to be sure; if we have it in the budget."

"It isn't in the budget yet, but I'll go ahead and schedule an expo for next Friday on what you've got. My normal DOD contacts are tapped dry, but I've been working the phones and think I have a way around that. Even at a million each, they're an obvious military bargain. It's a logistic nightmare to deploy and supply a thousand tanks, but you could airdrop a thousand suits into combat in a matter of hours and tactically get nearly the same advantage, ideal for urban warfare. Just in case, see if you can make that armor in other shapes. Vests, for ex—" the XO said.

"Sir, we've looked at that already and you run into an expense issue with vests. We'd have superior armor, for sure, but at fifty times the going price. It's sure to have some applications in other forms that we just haven't thought of. Aerospace for example. We are looking into all of that, Sir, rest assured."

"What's your numbers on the MHD flywheels?"

"They're still under performing. Pairing them sounded easier in theory than it's proving in practice, but we've knocked the tremors down and are able to get consistent 250-megawatt spikes out of each pair. It's proving trickier to manage than we thought. But we're working out the bugs, one by one."

The XO leaned toward the speaker, then checked his notes. "Let me float an idea past you. Do you think a team of teens can handle the boring equipment? We've bought the damned thing, still have some bits and a ton of drilling we can do.

The numbers you sent me won't generate enough— We either need the twenty-four toruses in the original concept, or we need to get more out of the ones we have."

Hanly tapped at his keyboard. "You're right, Sir. We're split on the safe limits of each torus. Going by the design specs of the MHD coils, they should be able to handle a hundred times more power, easily, but until we get the math behind balancing the torsion worked out, we can't push the six we've got any harder without bringing the mountain down around us." He moused over an XL sheet and paused while it opened. "Higher circulating speeds store more power, but are exponentially harder to balance, and we just don't have the physics worked out yet.

When, uh. . . umm. Remember learning about the sound barrier? They had a hell of a time getting Yeager to break it in the late 40's. The XS-1 nearly tore itself apart every time he came close.

We're experiencing the same kind of wall here, but with a million tons of water. We probably need a fluid-dynamics expert, but I don't think there is such an expert on the entire planet."

Well, there was one.

* * *

"With a light mist," Yofi said, "sand can become as hard as a brick, perfect for driving a car across without sinking." He gestured at the tire tracks left after that morning's light sprinkle. "But add more water and it becomes as soft as soup."

Shadona gripped a handful and squeezed it between her fingers.

"Einstein pondered this very paradox when he was a kid," Yofi continued. "The mysterious strength of water's surface tension." He watched Dana run past them and straight for the surf, recklessly diving in, board in hand. "Bet sand makes you think of other things, though."

Shadona drove the umbrella into the sand between their blankets and the cooler. She would join Dana in the water a little later, when the sun was higher in the sky and it wasn't so cool. For now, she had other things on her mind.

She spent the next hour replicating the pyramids in Egypt, scaled down of course.

"Everyone else does castles, why pyramids?" Elaine asked Yofi that afternoon when both girls were in the surf.

He smiled, best he could. "Isn't it obvious?" He dug a Coke out of the cooler and winced at the cold-fingers feeling in his underarm, mirrored from the can. It still surprised him sometimes. "How many castles do you see surrounded by sand? But most pyramids are surrounded by sand."

They watched a young couple slowly approach down the beach. Their little boy started to point, but the mother grabbed the kid's arm as they hurried their pace.

Yofi waved politely with his mechanical hand.

"I wish people wouldn't do that," Elaine said after the couple was gone.

"If I was a kid, I'd probably point, too," Yofi said, running his finger across the scars crisscrossing his side. "Rather be alive and pointed at, than dead and missed." He looked out at the girls trying desperately to ride the anemic waves. "Hell with it, El, you feel like getting wet?"

She looked him in the eyes and tried to read his expression behind the sunglasses.

"We didn't come all this way to sit in the sand, did we? The water's a little chilly, but the girls have the right idea." He detached his leg, then loosened the straps holding on his arm. "Let's get wet, Hon."

She helped him up and gave him someone to lean on until he got into the surf. He may not have been able to swim like a fish, but he didn't sink like a stone either.

When Dana and Shadona emerged from the surf, Yofi watched as two boys approached along the shore. They were too far away to tell exactly what was being said, but it was easy enough to guess. It was what boys always tell pretty girls on every beach around the world.

Dana glanced his way, grabbed her board, and followed the boys while Shadona mimed volleyball, pointed, then did the same.

It probably wouldn't have mattered, but the net was within view from where Yofi sat. Barely.

Volleyball, of course, was an excellent excuse for boys to watch girls doing a lot of jumping while wearing next to nothing. Even sitting well outside earshot, he could hear what was being said.

'Where are you from?'

'How old are you?'

'What school do you go to?'

'Who are you here with?'

'Like to get something to eat?'

'Want a beer?'

'Want to see my room?'

And maybe, just maybe, they might ask for a name.

He watched the game intently and wasn't about to let anything inappropriate happen. Not to his girls.

He bit his tongue after the game and signaled the girls they had a two hour limit as he watched them walk up the boardwalk to the beachside burger joint, nearly out of sight. They needed some freedom. They needed to know they could go, within reason.

Besides, he had seen enough roughhousing in the shop to know they had an advanced understanding of most fighting styles and forms. They could take care of themselves, if they had to.

Well, at least Dana could. All he knew for sure about Shadona was she healed a little faster than most, and she got picked on a lot.

"You two have fun?" Yofi asked as the girls came in from the beach.

"Hell yeah!" Dana said while Shadona simply smiled.

Yofi got a beer from the fridge. "What'd you end up doing?" he said, sitting on the couch with Elaine.

Dana checked the fridge for another beer, but settled for a Pepsi instead. "We had some hamburgers, a frosty, and some kind of chocolate cheesecake. Got talked into walking the beach for a while, then we ended up playing another set against 'em." She bumped chests with Shadona and shouted, "Kicked their ass! Hooah!"

"You're back early," Elaine said, muting the TV.

"Yeah, wanted to shower and change," Dana said while Shadona left for the bedroom. "Still got sand, salt, and seaweed everywhere." She smiled, "They offered to let us shower at their place." She laughed, then grabbed a pear off the counter. "Like that was ever going to happen. Besides, you're much closer— And what'd they think, we were just going to walk around naked or wear skimpy bathing suits all day?"

"That's exactly what they thought," Yofi said.

Dana rolled her eyes as she bit into the pear, then wiped her chin.

"How old were they?" Elaine asked.

"Frances said he was sixteen, Brad said fifteen," Dana said between bites.

"They're too old for you two," Elaine said.

"Not hardly," Dana said, "they still struggle with algebra. Bet they were trying to impress us by sounding older than they are. Besides," she waved her pear like a wand over her curves, "it's nothing I can't handle."

Yofi held Elaine back with a hand on her knee. "They have a car?" Yofi asked.

"New Toyota, but I bet it's daddy's," Dana said, watching Shadona emerge from the bedroom with a handful of dry clothes, "I called dibs!"

"You can wait, can't you?" Yofi said.

Dana stormed too late to the bathroom and kicked the bottom of the closed door. "What part of dibs don't you understand!"

"Dana!" Yofi said. "Let it go. She'll be done before you can finish your pear." He waved her back to the couch. "It's not like she's going to use up all the hot water. Hotels use boilers, not tanks. You girls had fun, don't spoil it by getting mad over something as meaningless as who showers first."

Dana kicked the door again before returning to the living room. "Didn't know you could swim."

"I'm not going to the Olympics," he said, "but yeah. Life isn't over after you get injured."

Dana sat in the chair across from them. "So, you two take advantage of our absence for a quicky? Or did that get injured too?" She made a limp gesture with a finger.

Elaine was appalled, but Yofi was used to this kind of 'shop talk', just not from one of the girls. "A quicky is like a sloppy, half-ass repair job, the kind of thing you'd expect from a hormone-blinded teen, but not married adults, Dear. I thought I taught you kids better than that. Anything worth doing is worth doing right. And quality always takes time." He held Elaine's hand.

She slouched in the chair, then glanced at the TV behind her. "They invited us out tomorrow, an amusement park about ten minutes from here. Bumper cars, skeeball, rides, stuff like that." She turned back to the couch, "Might need some cash."

After Dana's last comment, Elaine was anxious to bite her head off, but Yofi answered first. "You sure that's the best way to ask if you can go out tomorrow? Lead with quicky talk, end with a demand for cash? You're smarter than that, I know you are. The question is, why are you trying so hard to insure we'll say no."

Dana turned back to the TV and read the closed captioning as it scrolled across the screen.

"They meet us first," he said, "right here. Maybe we'll say yes, maybe no. Skeeball sounds fun anyway, maybe we'll take you, even if they don't."

Dana stood and stared at the bathroom door. "I'm goin' for a swim." She headed outside.

"We're having dinner in an hour," he said, "be back by then." He waited for the door to close behind her before turning to Elaine. "You understand girls better than I do, but I'm— The only thing that makes sense here is the one she likes liked Shadona more, so she's trying to ruin this out of spite. . . it just doesn't make sense to me any other way."

"Sure Shadona's the troubled one? Dana's been pushing buttons since the first day. I wouldn't let either go. They're way too young, even as a group."

"Dana's probably used to being the alpha-female," he said, looking at his fluffy slippers. "At least between the two of them. But we ground them, you know Dana will just sneak out, dragging Shadona with her. . . unless we handcuff them every minute we're not around."

Shadona emerged from the bathroom, head wrapped in a towel. She turned to the bedroom, then stepped into the living room and looked around.

"Dana went for a swim," Yofi said. "Sit with us, we're having dinner in an hour, ten pounds of steamed crabs. Heard you two had a good time today."

She sat in the chair and faintly smiled while taking off the towel.

"Plan on seeing them again tomorrow?"

She couldn't hide her smile as she folded the towel.

"Way Dana tells it, they've got a rather fun day planned. Don't mind if we meet them first, do you?"

She looked at her feet and shook no while unfolding and folding the towel again.

"You don't have to go just because Dana wants to," Yofi said.

Looking up, she continued to smile. "I want to," she said softly.

"They're older than you two by more than just a few years, that seems a little much to us. But, I'm not sure you would relate with kids your own age either. Dana would lie to me, so, there's no point in asking her." He leaned forward, "Are you going just to play games, ride some rides, see the sights with people close to your own age. Or are you thinking of doing more?"

"Games," she whispered.

"We need to know where you are at all times, you only go to public places, you never leave sight of each other, you never miss a curfew, no fooling around, and I don't see the harm in allowing this. Remember, you don't have to do anything you don't want to, and we're always just a phone call away. El and I would be happy to go to the park with you, if you'd rather go with us. Would you rather go with us? It actually sounds fun."

She smiled and shyly shook no while folding the towel again.

"Well, ok then," he said, "but they better measure up."

When they knocked on the door, Yofi turned the knob and pulled. "Frances and Brad, I presume." He snapped a picture of them, the car, then tucked the camera in his pocket.

The off-balance boys looked shocked at his visible scars, but recovered quickly with a respectful, "Yes Sir."

"Come on in," Yofi said. "Have a seat. The girls will be ready in a few minutes." He opened the refrigerator and got out a beer, "Want one?" he offered, opening the top.

Frances reached out his hand, but Brad elbowed him as he announced, "Sorry Sir, but we're under age."

Yofi swigged from the beer to hide his smile. Frances came close to getting them tossed out the door before the girls even entered the room, but they passed his first test.

"What uh," Frances said, unable to help himself, "uh, car accident?"

Yofi stiffened to near military attention. "Piece of flack, Son. That's like a grenade for airplanes. You boys local?"

"Yes Sir," they said.

"Do a lot of surfing?"

"Some," Frances said.

"Mostly volleyball, Sir," Brad said. "We play on the same team in highschool."

Yofi looked at the bedroom and could hear the girls were almost ready. "Who's driving?"

"I am, Sir," Frances said.

Yofi held out his mechanical hand and rubbed its fingers together. "They don't go anywhere until I see a license, and it better not be a conditional, provisional, temporary or any other crap like that."

Frances fumbled in his pockets but produced the plastic card quickly.

Yofi stared at the picture, the lamination, and checked the hologram stamp. "They aren't back by ten and your parents will get a call, and this'll be the address I give the police. We understand each other?" He tapped the camera in his pocket. "Nine fifty nine, I'll already have the digits dialed."

"Yes Sir," they said.

Yofi rested his mechanical hand on Frances' shoulder, "They don't get so much as a goodnight kiss on the cheek, understand?"

The girls came out of the bedroom in unison, and much like he would have expected from any teenage girls, they did their best to hurry the boys out the door.

"Have a good time, kids," Yofi said, then turned to the girls, "If the boys get out of line, you have my permission to break a few arms and legs," he pointed to Shadona, "but show some restraint this time. Ok? I don't want to have to go into witness protection again." His delivery was so serious that the boys actually looked like they were rethinking the whole date.

Date. . .

He watched them leave on their date and jotted down Frances' name, address, and the plates from the car before he forgot, then looked at the worried expression on Elaine's face. "I can't tell you how much I want to shadow them from our car right now. But those Colorado plates stand out like popping a flare. Not that those boys would notice. They can take care of themselves, right El?"

Brad piled into the car beside Shadona, while Frances and Dana sat opposite them. The attendant locked down the safety bar and the ride started seconds later. The cars started to spin, counter spin, then floated up and down in the air as the Spider Ride shifted into high gear and the tossing and turning started in earnest.

When the ride was over minutes later, Dana and Frances ran to the Spider Ride line again. But Shadona headed for the shorter flying swings next, Brad in tow.

The swings seemed like a modified kids ride, but Shadona made it look just as fun by holding her arms out from her sides like wings, eyes closed as she faced into the breeze.

They rode the swings twice more, a small wooden roller coaster next, then took a ride on the modestly-sized Ferris wheel.

"So, you— You're not really in the witness program, are you?" Brad said while they sat, top of the wheel, looking out over the entire park as they waited for passengers to board at the bottom.

She smiled and shook no.

"You're adopted, aren't you."

She watched the line move under her feet.

"I didn't mean. . . It's just been bugging me for a while. You're Indian," he pressed his finger to his forehead where a dot would go, "right? Have an Indian girl in my sister's drama class that's so light skinned that she can play everything from white with a tan to Mexican to black, to Arab and even Chinese when she squints a little. Bollywood Indian. Just don't see either of your parents in you. Blue-eyed blond Dana maybe." He paused while she said nothing. "Don't mean nothing by it. Doesn't matter none. My brother's adopted, love him just the same.

I'm the one they had; he's the one they chose.

Your dad can be a little scary. At least he didn't give the cliché gun-cleaning bit." He rested his hand on her knee. "I've never seen a — what's it called — prosthetic like that. I mean, I've seen the little hook thing that can squeeze a little, and the motionless plastic ones that look real but don't move or nothing, but I've never seen one right out of a Terminator movie."

She pointed to a row of buildings at the edge of the park.

"That's the arcade. Bunch of video games, Skeeball, target shooting, those water clown balloon things and such. You like video games? After the park we can go over to my house. I've got a killer game system on a big screen. Plays the sound through surround on the stereo." He put his arms in the air, "You can even feel the explosions. It's totally sweet!" He rested his arm across her shoulders. "You don't talk much, do you."

She smiled, then looked down at the line moving dozens of feet beneath.

"You've got the cutest smile, you know."

When the ride jostled to life, he snuck a kiss that she didn't resist.

She smiled, still pressed to his lips, and slowly faced forward, making another kiss nearly impossible.

He lightly squeezed her shoulder, then kept his hands to himself while they slowly rotated to the ground and got out.

The arcade was a stark contrast to the peaceful quiet of the Ferris wheel. But that was because it offered a different brand of fun. She smiled as she walked straight for the duck shoot.

"My favorite too," Brad said, walking up to the counter and buying his—

She nudged him with her elbow, then pointed at the counter in front of her.

He dug deeper and paid for two.

Gun in hand, she rained a holy terror on metal ducks, and Brad was stuck with carrying around her prize, an oversized pinkish-blue elephant wearing a bright red hat with a black rim and a yellow tie, longer than its trunk.

They walked into the darker video game end and played doubles on a few of Brad's favorites. But unlike the duck shoot, her particular training didn't translate so easily there, until. . .

"Star Fighter?" Brad said as Shadona sat in the motorized mock cockpit. He looked at the price, "$2.50? No way! You're not that good at video ga—"

She elbowed him gently, then pointed at the slot for the change.

He fished in his pocket, "No way. You're not— No. Just no, we'll find something else."

She elbowed him again.

He pushed the coins into the slot.

She died horribly within the first minute, then elbowed him again.

"No way!" he said. "You've got money, you pay it. You can't even win anything on this thing."

She looked him in the eyes, blinked twice, and pointed at the slot.

He dug deeper into his pocket and watched, for two hours, as she played a near flawless game. He watched missiles, flack, and barricades leap into the air before her, and she would, at top speed, miss them by the slimmest pixel while blasting the competition like ducks on a giant metal pond. Dozens piled up behind her, taking pot shots, warning lights and buzzers never tired, but none seemed able to connect while she managed to pick them off, one by one, completely at her leisure.

Maneuvers she knew all too well.

"There you are," Dana said, leaning into the simulator as the nose pitched up on hydraulics. "We're going to Pizza Hut when you're done."

Brad looked at Frances and said, "She's broken the high—"

BOOOMMMM!!!! Wa Wa Wa. . . "GAME OVER"

Shadona had simply let go of the controls and exited, mid game.

"Where are you going?" Brad yelled in the noisy room. "You have to enter your name in the high score." He watched as she grabbed her stuffed prize and headed for the car with Dana.

Brad rode with Shadona in the back seat in stunned disbelief. "You played it for hours and didn't bother to enter your name in the high score," Brad yelled.

Shadona simply shrugged as she plucked dirt from the elephant's fur.

"I don't get it."

Dana turned around from the front seat, "It's just a game." She pointed at Shadona, "You had fun for a couple hours, right?"

Shadona nodded.

Dana turned to Brad, "What else could she have gotten from it, other than fun? Let it go so we can eat in peace."
Chapter 32

"The army field-tested the hell out of the suit we sent them," the XO said, sitting behind his desk in his new mountain office. "Impressed is an understatement. Not only is it nearly invisible to infrared, the armor is practically bulletproof. Only the 50 caliber with armor-piercing rounds managed to penetrate it. And even then it took a hundred hits before a few lucky ones got through. They're thrilled at its ability to breach block walls instead of entering buildings through the doors, and the high-power gun. . . " He smiled just remembering the sheer joy of seeing it shred an armored Hummer like it was cardboard. "Well, you know how fun that toy is.

We need to make two dozen for more testing and training. How soon can you accommodate that?"

"Figure one unit a month. Maybe two if we reorganized for it now," Hanly said sitting on one of the plush office chairs, "but no faster than that. If the equipment survived the manufacturing process, we could crank 'em out like an assembly line, probably one every other day. The cost of making the plates would fall to raw material, energy, and time. They'd be cheaper than the average new car.

I bet there's an easy, non-self-destructive way to mass-produce these things, but it'll take years or decades to come up with it."

"Our profit margin this way is good enough for now, Hanly." The XO checked the screen, then typed for a few seconds. "Hell, they didn't blink at paying full price to use one as target practice for machine guns. I'll say two years. They know we're not a production facility." He looked up and smiled. "You know, they speculate that it'll take repeated hits from an RPG, perhaps even IEDs. They found out by mistake during a practice run. Inside a mockup town at Quantico, an overzealous recruit plowed through a wall and fell on his face from the third floor. Got up like he fell on a stack of mattresses instead. Something to do with how the airbags, well, double as airbags. They figure because it's so light the explosion will just toss it without actually doing significant damage. Game changer, buddy, game changer. Even at our sky-high prototype prices."

"It's solved technology, XO, but it's still every bit as frustrating to work with, Sir. We're just following instructions without actually knowing what we're doing. I'd love to better understand the underlying physics behind making those plates, but we're still left scratching our heads. It's frustrating, Sir, and it's incredibly expensive to experiment with."

The XO looked over the XL sheet on his screen. "Do your best with it, Hanly," he said, then pointed him toward the door. "Filling the production order takes priority over figuring out the physics."

Hanly saluted as he stood, "Yes Sir." He paused at the door, "Uh, Sir. All the good equipment was relocated to the mountain. What's left at the other base is mostly empty buildings, which is perfect for performing the experiment, but inconvenient for build—"

"Right now, we can't afford two of everything. We were profoundly lucky to get the equipment we did for a song. That's not likely to happen again. We'd have to buy it at full—"

"Understood, Sir. If we're going to build the equipment for dozens up here, move and reassemble them down there, then— It would just make more sense to relocate the entire operation to the mountain, Sir. Especially if we're going into a production phase."

The XO looked up from the screen. "I see what you're getting at. When Yofi gets back from vacation, we'll work something out. Have his kids build the machine in the hangar, send the pieces up the elevator, and put your tent off beside the tower. How's that?"

"That'll help, Sir. My team is spread thin, grid managing is still proving difficult to automate, adding suits to that. . . we just don't have the manpower. Now, if it wasn't self-destructive. . . "

* * *

"I know you want to stay longer," Yofi said to the girls. "Hell, I want to stay longer, but our lease is up tomorrow. Longer is not in the cards."

Dana kicked the edge of the couch and stared at the sand and surf beyond the porch doors. "Totally unfair!"

"Hey," Yofi said, "Unfair to you!? We had to save for ten years, that's almost your entire life, just to be able to afford this! El and I haven't had a vacation in—" He stopped before it was an official rant. He watched his mechanical hand react, instinctively, and mentally forced it to loosen the fist. "Dana, you knew when we left Colorado that we'd be coming back. Now El and I don't mind having the two of you with us, but complaining about it won't change anything. They don't let us stay here for free, and tomorrow morning, whether we want to or not, we're getting evicted and some other family will be staying here."

"It's not fair," Dana said.

"You can spend the day pouting over something you know can't be changed," Elaine said, "or you can get your stuff packed and at the ready, and we can still have fun for the rest of the day. The choice is yours."

The two girls had gone out almost every day they had been there, with Brad and Frances becoming a normal fixture at the door. Now this world was going to end, and they would likely never see the boys again. "It's not fair," Dana repeated, but Shadona went to their bedroom and readied her bag.

"It's called a midnight movie for a reason," Dana complained. "You can't watch a midnight movie and be home by ten. We'll be back in time to ride home, promise. It's not like we can't sleep in the car during the f—" She was obviously pissed, but hadn't resorted to profanity yet. "We can either go tonight and sleep in the car on the ride back, or I can get a good night's sleep here, and complain the entire ride back."

Everything in him screamed to ground her for a month for the veil threat, but easily unnoticed just beyond the belligerent preteen was another girl, the same age, quietly sitting on the edge of the chair, staring at her feet, rocking just a little as she dabbed her finger to her cheek. He would ground Dana back in Colorado; for now, he was prepared to let her win for another child's sake. "Checkout is at ten. That means you need to be here, at this door, by zero eight hundred at the latest to help us pack the car."

"Eight," she said, "got it."

"But I expect you two back here immediately after the movie is over."

When the doorbell rang the two piled out, quickly as they could.

Slime dripped off its chin like syrupy drool as it pounced from the ceiling and plunged its jagged teeth into the neck of a scantily clad woman. The theater screamed in unison as Shadona winced, hand in the popcorn. She covered her eyes with her shirt as the anguished screams continued for another minute or more before she simply got up and left.

"There you are," Brad said, sitting beside her on the bench in the theater lobby. "I thought you had just went to the bathroom."

She shook her head no.

"What's wrong?"

She looked at the floor as he rested his hand on her knee. "It's too bloody for me," she softly said.

"Oh. Well, it was rated R. Sometimes it's actually for a reason, I guess." He put his arm around her. "You want to see something else?" He looked at the board of shows playing, solid horror the rest of the night. "We can go do something else if you want— Oh, damn, Frances has the keys." He looked at his watch. "We've got an hour to kill. You still got your ticket stub?"

She pulled it from her pocket.

"I'll see if we can get our money back, maybe go across the street to that all-night café." He took the stubs to the box office, then they crossed the street.

When she pointed to a sticky bun and an espresso, he ordered for her and added a coke and a chocolate muffin that were equally overpriced. Yet still a bargain compared to food at the theater.

"What'd you think of the first feature?" he asked as they sat in the booth near the window.

"I liked the car chases," she said softly, "but the spy thing bothered me."

"Really?" he said, taking a fork to the top of his muffin.

"None of the bad guys seem to be able to shoot. They missed with a M24, a M40A3 and a Dragunov, yet Jason seems to be able to hit his marks with a Glock that mechanically isn't accurate at even half the range. Six times he fired more bullets than the gun can hold, and twenty-two times they chambered guns that already had a round chambered, yet no shell ejected. Who in their right mind runs down the middle of the road to escape a killer in a car? And all the explosions were consistent with gasoline, not plastic."

He laughed. "That all? That's Hollywood for yah, standard Bourne knockoff flick. No offense to your Pops, but I buy the premise, don't you?" He leaned closer, as if to divulge words rarely spoken in public. "A secret military branch brainwashing orphans into spies and assassins. I mean, it's cliché of course, but it just has that ring of plausibility to it. A government that injected blacks with syphilis, interned Japanese-Americans by the thousands, and staged Pearl Harbor and the Moon-landing could easily do that to orphans, don't you think?"

She sat quietly, dragging little pieces through the thick icing that dripped off the sides, nibbling away at her bun.

"I didn't say something wrong again, did I? I mean, not all the military is like that. I'm sure your Pops isn't."

She sipped from the small cup. "I like that he gets free in the end," she said, looking out the window at the brightly lit streets. "It's just horribly sad how many people had to die to get it."

"Well, that's Hollywood for yah. It ain't a movie without a lot of skin or an obscene body count." He pointed his fork at her bun. "Mind if I have a taste?"

She looked around Brad's room while Dana and Frances jammed on the Play Station in the den. A 27-inch TV on his dresser sat beside a DVD player and a Wave Radio. Dirty clothes were tossed beside his private bathroom in total disregard for the hamper. Bookshelves were full of graphic novels, cliff notes, and a cheater's guide to Warcraft. Buried weights sat by the window, rarely used. "You said you had a laptop," she said.

"Yeah, a new Dell." He pulled it off the shelf. "The graphics card's a joke. The few games that load look blurry and have that ghosty trail thing happening. Only good for Email and homework."

She pushed aside a collection of empty soda cans and pretzel bags and opened it on his desk. While it booted, she straightened a paperclip and jammed it in the CD tray.

"Hey! What are you doing?"

When the tray opened, she removed the CD and jammed the clip deeper inside the tray with the same skill as someone picking a lock. "I'm not allowed to have Internet access at home," she said.

"No wonder!"

"I just need to borrow yours for—"

"Borrow doesn't mean destroy!"

But she was undeterred by the panic in his voice. She opened Word, hit Alt + F11, then typed away.

"What are you doing now? This isn't Email— What the hell is that? That's code. You a hacker? You were arrested for hacking, weren't you!"

But she kept typing, pausing for a few seconds every now and then to wave her fingers in the air, then back to typing again. She jiggled the clip jammed into the tray, and when the CD-ROM came to life, she held her ring finger over the laser pickup.

The screen filled with files, installation notices, and obscure message boxes popping up and closing on their own. "What the hell is that?" he said, hovering over her shoulder. "Where's it getting all this from? There's no CD in the tray."

But she didn't answer.

Connecting. . .

Network detected. . .

Authenticating. . .

HF16A03E102

She typed "DAE12F"

When the screen flickered and the Caps Lock LED went berserk, she covered the blinking light with her ring finger. "What the hell's that?" he said. But it quickly faded, and the screen returned to normal.

She removed the paperclip, turned off the Dell, and walked out of the room.

He caught her before she made it to the den. "Wait a minute," he said.

She looked at his hand on her elbow.

"Not so fast. You don't just pull off a spy scene from the movies and casually walk away."

"I live in another state, Brad. We'll probably never—" She looked at his shocked, open mouth, "Maybe I'm a spy, like in the movie we just watched. Maybe I've involved you in a plot to overthrow the government and take over the world. Maybe you just helped me get my freedom, like the kind girl he met in the café on the silver screen. Or maybe I know just enough VB to put on a dazzling show, for a guy I barely know, so he'll remember me for the rest of his life. Instead of being just that quiet girl he met one year, and never thought of again."
Chapter 33

Yofi looked over the plans in the new shop, end of his first day back. "It isn't what I'm used to doing, but sure, we can fabricate this. It doesn't look that complicated, XO. But it'll cut into our repair schedule."

"You mean you don't have any kids that are good enough that you can just assign them this project?" the XO said.

"That's not the issue, Sir. You can't have kids operating heavy equipment unsupervised. And even if you could, you'd have to supervise them for at least the first few units until they got the hang of it. There's a clear safety issue here."

"Fuck all that, Yofi. We have to make this work, I'm running out of time and patience. Hanly's got his hands full with a setback balancing those toruses. I've got to get the next two suits out of here by the end of the month."

"I can put in the overtime, if you need me to. But I can't, and I won't work twelve-year-olds unsupervised, and our docket for repairs is going to have these machines occupied almost full-time. I don't know what to tell you, Sir. There's only so many hours in a day. And as nice and fancy as those machines are, they can still only fabricate one piece at a time."

The XO pounded his fist into the table. "She's fucked us again and I'm—"

"Now wait a second, Sir. She did exactly what you asked of—"

"We both know she's got a design that isn't self-destructive, where we wouldn't have to go through all this bullshit, and she's just sitting on it!"

"We don't know anything of the sort. It's just an assump—"

"She's got us dancing at the end of her strings, and I'm sick and fucking tired of—"

"Respectfully, Sir, your financial problems aren't her fault. Now, I can go from eights to twelves, maybe even fourteens for a while, roll in on the weekends and maybe burn the candle on both ends long enough to get this done for you. But I can't ask twelve-year-olds to work that hard and that long with me. I'll have to add shifts for—"

"They're not in a damned union, Yofi. They're young, they can handle it."

"How many fatigue-related mistakes can your budget tolerate? It just takes one error on these complicated self-destructive designs to render weeks' worth of work into wasted effort. They have to be perfect or they don't work at all, but they destroy themselves 100% of the time. Zero mistakes, that takes time. It takes attention to detail. It just does, it can't be rushed. Two seven-hour shifts is the best I can offer you, unless you want to bring someone else in. You solve Hanly's balancing problem and you'll free him up to work nights. You'll double the productivity of the shop that way. Or hire another flight mechanic to do the repairs during the day and I'll work on this at night. Two flight mechanics wouldn't be that bad of an idea anyway. You could double the repairs that roll through here. Right now, repairs are still your bread and butter, right?"

"I can't afford to hire anyone else. And our repair docket is as full as I can make it without a full-scale war breaking out somewhere."

"Take one of Hanly's crew and introduce them to the kids, or put Hanly on nights and promote one of his team to solving your balancing problem. I don't see where you have many other choices."

He had another choice.

Elaine watched from the kitchen window as a black SUV pulled into the driveway. "Who the hell is that?" she said.

Shadona looked, then turned pale as an all-too-familiar man got out and walked to the door.

"I'll go see what he wants," Elaine said when the bell rang.

Shadona grabbed her hand. "Don't answer it," she said.

"Don't worry, I recognize him. He was at last year's Christmas dinner."

Shadona ran to her room.

"Hello Mrs. Stosou," the XO said. "Can I have a few moments of your time?"

"Has something happened to Yofi?" she asked, letting him inside.

"Oh no Ma'am, he's fine. Put that out of your mind. I just need a few minutes with the girl."

"Which one?" she asked.

"Shadona, if you would be so kind."

Elaine headed for the bedroom, but found it empty. Window opened just a crack, storm window askew. "Huh, they were right here a minute ago."

The XO pulled out his phone. "Restrict the transmitter to inside the mountain," he said, then closed the phone and handed her his card. "Give me a call when they come back, and whatever you do, don't take them to a dentist. Do you understand me?"

"Why would I take them to a dentist?" she asked, looking at a business card that had no company name, no address, no contact name, nothing but a typed phone number and an extension. "What's this about?"

"They're about to have a seriously bad toothache, but it has nothing to do with teeth, which is why I need you to not take them to a dentist. He'll only make it worse and waste valuable time. It's most likely— Look, our nurse caught something on their last physical and they need to be checked out. I didn't really follow it, sinus cavity, aneurysm, or something to do with blood clots. I don't want to frighten you, but taking them to a doctor or a dentist will only waste valuable time, and if the clot dislodges, it might be fatal."

She looked over the card again. "That doesn't make a lick of—"

"It has something to do with changing elevation or something, I'm not medically trained—"

"Then why send you? Why not send someone who is medically trained on a medical mission?"

With his lie obviously failing, he decided to take another approach. "How much has your husband told you?"

She knew better than to say anything that would get him in trouble. "Yofi served with their parents, and when they died they came to stay here with us until they turn eighteen like any other children. I don't know anything about any medical conditions. They seemed perfectly healthy to me."

"Tell her what I told you about the tooth. Tell her that I can fix it, but that she has to talk to me. Call that number." He got back into the SUV and drove away.

She dialed Yofi's cell. "A man from work dropped by today. . . just now. . . he asked to see the girls, and they ran away. . . yes, but I'm concerned. . . ok. . . ok. . . ok. . . " She opened the window in the girls' bedroom, "ok. . . I'll do no such thing, I'm staying up and I'll see you when you get home."

She waited by the window, but they didn't come home.

Apaches flew overhead the rest of the day, just circling and circling in weird patterns.

Bzzzz. . . Bzzzz. . . The XO's phone vibrated against the desk as he paced in the small room.

Bzzzz. . . Bzzzz. . .

"We had an agreement," he said, slamming the notebook on the desk. "Your changes don't work!"

She flipped through the book, then pushed it back to him, stood, and walked to the door.

"You don't go anywhere until I have a way to affordably mass-produce these." He grabbed her by the shoulder and tossed the seventy-five pound girl back into her chair. "A non-self-destructive method."

She drew a picture of a tooth in the margins.

"You'll get—"

Bzzzz. . . Bzzzz. . .

"For the love of God!" he yelled, picking up the phone, "What the hell do you want. . . No, you can't. . . Because I said so. . . Then quit, I don't give a fuck!" he said, folding the phone and slamming it on the desk.

Bzzzz. . . bzzzz. . .

He opened it again. "I'm tired of having this same conversation with you, Yofi. . . You can take that carrot and stick, turn them sideways, and shove them both up your ass! I've got a budget that has to be balanced, and I don't have time to play semantics with either of you!" he closed it again and slammed it against the desk.

Bzzzz. . . bzzzz. . .

He reached for the phone, but Shadona grabbed it first, opened it, then hid under the desk and whispered into it before the XO yanked it out of her hands and smashed it on the floor.

He ripped her out from under the desk and slammed her back into the chair. "You'd be better served using your words talking to me. You're not leaving until I have those industrialized plans."

Knock knock knock.

The XO opened the door. "Sergeant, I thought I told you nobody was to interrupt me."

"The only bigger mistake than what you're making right now," Yofi said outside, "was the one IBM made with a young Bill Gates."

"Are you somehow unclear on what fired means!" The XO stepped outside and the door closed behind them.

"What the hell did you think you were doing going to my home," Yofi said.

"I want this man barred from the base, Sergeant!"

The sergeant grabbed Yofi by the elbow.

"I know the way out," Yofi said, standing his ground. "That girl trusted you. Maybe she didn't give you what you wanted, but she gave you what you asked for. If you had come to me and let me ask her instead of taking this bullheaded tactic, maybe she would have done it for me. But you just destroyed any chance of that now.

She talks to me. She talks to El. She hadn't said a word to anyone in twelve years, but she's talking to us. And you've just destroyed that, too. The second she started coming out of her shell, you bash her over the head with another heavy stick. That girl in there isn't responsible for balancing your budget. She smiles around us. Have you ever seen her smile? Have you seen any of them smile?

If you had come to me and let me do this, I might have gotten it for you in a few days. But this way I guarantee you'll spend weeks or months and get nothing.

Guarantee it.

What you're doing here is ruining any chance you ever had at a cooperative relationship with that girl.

She's a good kid, XO.

Scratch that, she's a great kid.

It's no accident that there's a car bomb's worth of material being used in that design. Keep leaning on her with a heavy hand and you're likely to have a front row seat to a radioactive crater.

Don't fuck this up if you don't have to. . . "

She couldn't hear most of Yofi's words, but the tone of the argument carried, especially how the XO yelled.

After a few minutes, the door opened and, to her great surprise, Yofi stepped in. Her eyes welled up, but she didn't cry. She just sat in the chair as he knelt beside her. "He's in a hard spot here. Desperate is probably a better word."

When he put his hand on her shoulder, the tears she held back started to flow.

"Don't cry. I was there when he made the agreement, Shadona. You've honored your end of this. More than he has, anyway."

She ran her fingers across the drawing of a tooth in the margin.

"He's going to want proof the changes work, first. But don't worry about that right now. Let's just get you two home, where you belong."

She hugged him and continued to cry.

". . . That's madness," Elaine said when Yofi finished filling her in, sitting in bed that night. "It's against international laws, let alone a dozen in this country alone."

"I know it is, El. I know. But the laws weren't around when it started— I'm not going to defend or excuse it, El. It is what it—"

"You need to get away from there, fast. We should just pack them in the car and disappear. This isn't right any way you look at it."

"What happens to those kids left up there? What happens if they get someone worse than me?"

She got out of bed and paced, then sat on the foot, hands on her knees, "We whistle blow. We take Dana and Shadona and we run, we get into hiding and we go to the press. Blanket the airwaves and we do the—"

"Let me stop you for a second. I want you to think, really think about all the implications that'll trickle down from that. We're talking one hell of a black eye for this country. China will have a blank check for civil rights violations for a hundred years over this. I get it, trust me, I do. But those kids will be labeled Frankensteins, and we both know they're not. You think I get looks on beaches, they'll have that noose hanging around them the rest of their lives.

Yeah, the media would have a feeding frenzy, but what then? What happens when it fades to the back pages? And we can't take them further than a hundred miles from that base without getting outside radio range and putting those girls through a world of pain."

She stood and paced some more. "Radio, right? Why can't you just rig something?"

"It isn't that simple. It isn't just a signal like with a dog collar, it's a code. A rotating, changing, military-level encrypted code. That's way beyond me."

She paced by the bed. "Why not just do some sort of internet radio thing with it? Stream it or something. Put a receiver here, and we'll take a—"

"It's designed to prevent that. When we were on the beach, they bounced the signal off a satellite. To reach here, they just use a transmitter on the tower. But even if streaming worked, they can shut them off with a switch and restrict the signal to inside the base, and that's exactly what they would do if we showed up missing, went into hiding, or hit the press.

Besides all that, there's a deeper issue. The XO didn't invent this idea, he just inherited it, same as me. Same as everyone there. But if this hits the media you can bet the buck will stop with us. We'll be scapegoated and painted as if it was our idea from the beginning. As the squeaky wheel, they'll look to aim as much blame as they can at me.

Good thought though, El. It'd almost be worth going to jail, if I thought it'd free them."

She plopped on the foot of the bed. "I don't want to lose them."

"I'm not going to let that happen."
Chapter 34

She looked at the printer on the desk, emptied of paper. But that wasn't all that was missing. A monitor, keyboard, and mouse were there, but the tower was gone. Shadona sat at the desk in the den and thought about a boy with a Dell a world away. She had gambled that showing off in front of him would be worth the risk. The ring had written some vicious code that was unpacking, replicating, infecting, mutating and spreading as she sat.

It should remain dormant so long as she remained away from the base. A kind of dead-man switch she once thought unnecessary, until that day the XO stood in the door, it was a fantastic long shot. She had regretted using it, since its tactics were unforeseeable, uncontrollable. Unknowable, and virtual. But now, now she had a different view. Should he come for her again, millions of boxes, like that missing from the desk, would slowly escalate the pressure from outside until she was free. Truly free.

The code in Yofi's prosthetic was written by the ring, not her. Yet it had proven itself brilliantly. It mirrored sensations into his underarm, something she hadn't told it to do. But it tempered those reflections. Scalding was merely hot and pulsating. Freezing stopped at quivering cool. Neither of which she had thought of. The self-customizing neural interface was beyond her current skills. Dedicating several years to the task, maybe she could have come up with such nuances, but not in weeks or months.

She didn't know the nuances of what the uploaded code would do, nor what it was ultimately capable of. But as with the general characteristics of the prosthetic, she knew what would stop it cold. As long as she was free, the code was powerless. More than that she didn't need to know.

She ran her fingers across keys that went nowhere.

"I'm sorry, Hon," Elaine said. "They made us give up all our computers to have you here."

She pushed the keys away.

"Yofi's not going to let them take you back there."

She frowned. "They think I know too much. If I stay silent and prove them wrong, they'll say I broke my promise, and I can't stay. If I prove them right, they'll say I'm too big of a risk, and I can't stay." She folded her arms on the desk and rested her head.

"You can stay," Elaine said, arm on the child. "We'll find a way."

* * *

"You've had two weeks, Yofi," the XO said, "and you haven't brought me anything useful."

Yofi stood by his desk in the shop, end of his day. "Take out her tooth. Give her a sign that you can be trusted. Take the first step and she'll work the problem for you. Have a little faith. She's stubborn, not rebellious.

What do you have to lose? Why fight her so hard?

She understands more of your dilemma than you give her credit for."

"It's the only leverage I have." He looked out the Plexiglas windows and into the immense, mostly empty hangar. "We'll make this month's bills with sixty-seven dollars left over. I can give you another three weeks, but I have to have the new designs by—"

"That's not how her mind works. I honestly believe she doesn't know how to industrialize it. But that doesn't mean she can't figure it out, Sir. Maybe not in weeks. Probably not to anyone's timetable. But eventually. Take away the threat hanging over her— Hell, you've seen her under pressure. She doesn't take it well. She rocks back and forth, paralyzed. Mentally, that's the state of mind you've got her in. You demand she think brilliant thoughts while you tighten the screws, I doubt Einstein could give you brilliance under those conditions."

"I'm not sure we can remove the tooth, we've never done it before," the XO said. "But I'll look into it. Meantime, keep her focused on the problem at hand."

"I'm better off trying to get her to just have fun again—"

"We weren't running a daycare when you hired on, and we're not running one now, Yofi."

Yofi walked to the office door, scanned his badge, then touched the pad, "I'm headed home. Tell Hanly to keep going with the old drawings." He pointed to a pile of parts sitting outside the other Plexiglas-enclosed office beside his, 'Hanly' printed on the door. "The mill was free for two hours today, so I had Kyle run off some parts for him. I left a note."

Yofi took the elevator up to the ski lift, then rode the scenic way down to the parkinglot.

When he pulled into the driveway and turned the engine off, he heard the piano playing over the quiet still of the winter air. Every note sounded spot on, not a beat out of place. Filled with passion, the keys were struck with the kind of emotion that bends the human heart to a shared, resonating chord, free to sing out to the world. Was there anything that girl couldn't do?

He opened the door to find it was Elaine playing, Shadona quietly sitting to her side.

When Elaine reached the end of the page, Shadona picked up the keys from there. She wasn't horrible, far from it. But she wasn't grand either. Average. Mediocre. Normal. She played the piano normally.

He smiled as he kissed his wife on the cheek. It was nice to know she could be normal at something.

They kept playing while he went to the kitchen, put on his slippers, and started dinner.

Shadona sat at the desk in the den, pencil in hand, paper before her.

"Listen," Yofi said, "it's up to you. You don't have to do anything you don't want to. I think he'll eventually relent and remove the tooth first. But there's no way to know for sure.

In a way, he's desperate. And the actions of desperate people aren't easy to predict."

She pressed the pencil to paper and started to draw.

Hanly looked at the three pages on his desk.

He recognized the lines all too well.

Three more systems had been plucked from the interlocking web of confusion and convolution. But what remained wasn't any more decipherable. The changes amounted to a savings of several days in fabrication time, as well as tens of thousands in costs. Yet the equipment still wasn't reusable.

The XO wasn't very impressed. But it was a gesture.

It didn't go unnoticed.

It bought time.

And as expected, the changes worked.

Hanly entered the control room and walked over to the main console. "Are we any closer to balancing the loads?"

"No Sir," the engineer said.

Hanly looked over the data as it scrolled across several screens. "The hardware is right, it's the software that's off. It's the math that's killing us." He looked at the board again. "The Co-op has a new 500-megawatt unit they brought online just because of us, in the hopes that we would have this figured out by now. And we don't have it figured out. We're shaking and quaking every time we adjust loads. We can't keep going like this. It's like a bad transmission job, it'll idle fine, but rev it up and it feels like it'll shake the mountain apart.

I'm tired of just idling, Gentlemen. I'd like to hit the gas on this thing, just once. See what's really under the hood. But instead, we're building even more Corvettes and asking them to idle, too."

"Sir," the engineer said, "we all know what the problem is, just nobody has an answer to it."

Hanly looked over the boards again. "I'm sorry I can't spend more time on this, Guys. I feel like I'm letting all of you down, but the suits are taking priority. That doesn't mean this isn't important, too. Burn me a CD of everything to date and I'll look at it at home." An engineer handed him a CD, and Hanly reluctantly left the room.
Chapter 35

Shadona sat in the dental chair for the second time in her life. Yofi stood in the room as the nurse covered her face with the mask.

Ten. . . nine. . . eight. . . seven. . . si. . . six. . . four.

She woke with a sore jaw, a little dizzy, and slightly confused. She looked inside her mouth and counted the same number of teeth. "Can I see it?" she said.

The nurse showed her the bloody dental screw wrapped in gauze. "Stay still, you'll be dizzy for a while."

Shadona slid out of the chair anyway. She stumbled over to where there was more light and looked in her mouth again.

"We removed it," the nurse continued, "then filled the tooth and capped it. It's basically the same as a root canal. You'll be in pain for about a week, but that should go away."

Standing beside Yofi, the XO looked as impatient as always. "We'd like your help balancing the toruses—"

"All ma-b-th," she mumbled with a slight drool. "You need a su-bp-er-com-puter or at least a cluster to solve it." She staggered, but caught herself on the table. "All software. Millions of lines of co-bd-e. Couldn't type it all if I wanted too. Take years."

The XO didn't look convinced.

Yofi put his arm around the girl. "Come on, let's get you home," the handicapped man said as he steadied the girl out the door.

Shadona sat at the piano and played her heart out. She had progressed faster than most, but had plateaued. And though the notes were right and her timing was good, there was something missing from all of her pieces.

But it didn't seem to matter to her. Elaine played by her side, most of the time, and she always seemed to be having fun. Music spoke to her, just not through her.

By the end of the next month, she produced three more corrections that saved them tens of thousands in costs and increased production to three a month. Yet the process was still self-destructive and the XO was as unhappy as ever.

Shadona sat at the kitchen table, hours after Yofi had left for work.

Elaine returned from the utility room with a basket of clothes from the dryer, when she noticed two packed bags by the door. "What's that for?" she asked, setting the basket on the table.

"I need to find out something," Shadona said. "We need to take a trip."

Elaine reached for the phone, "Sure, just let me call—"

Dana pushed a piece of paper to the center of the table, "We left a note."

Elaine paused while she read it. "You think that's true? That's not the Yofi I kn—"

"It said maybe," Dana said, pointing to the qualifying words.

"There's only one way to know for sure," Shadona said. "We have to go, and it has to be a surprise. Nobody can know where."

Elaine pulled some clothes out of the basket, put them in a plastic bag, grabbed her purse, and headed for the car. "If you need this to feel comfortable here, then I'm happy to go," she said.

The train made it as far as Texas before the pain in their jaws exploded exponentially past migraine level.

Shadona had her answer. They had been hustled. The implant had been neither removed nor deactivated. Merely a little creative drilling and capping to change the tooth's appearance.

The only question left was if Yofi was in on it.

Yofi pounded the table. "I can't believe he would do that!" He pounded the table again, hanging his head low, "I can't believe I didn't see this coming." He looked at Shadona, sitting at the piano in the other room, staring at her feet. "God, I'm so. . . You must hate me right now."

She twisted her toe as she pressed it into the carpet, like anyone else would grind out a cigarette.

"To hell with the house, we'll just make a run for—" He shook his head again. "No, that won't work." He looked over at the piano. "There has to be something else I can do. Stall for time someh—"

"What would be the point of that?" Shadona asked.

"I could really go for a beer," Dana said from the couch.

"I could go for some ice cream," Shadona said.

Elaine reached for the phone. "Fuck 'em all," she said, "I'll be damned if I'm going to sit back and let this happen."

But Yofi took the phone from her. "We'll probably end up in jail, El—"

"I'm not going to let this happen," she said with tears in her voice. "I'm not."

"I don't know how we'd go about proving any of it anyway, El," he said, sitting on the stool by the phone. "Calling the press is a lot easier said than done. X-ray the tooth, but you still can't extract it without the code, and I'm not sure that the X-rays wouldn't look like any other dental screw. Extract it using the wrong code and we risk killing them, and the only dentist within range of the transmitter is at the base.

Dump them on an ER? They're no better equipped. If we knew what the poison was, we could give them the antidote and it becomes a simple dental procedure anyone could do. But that poison could be anything. Likely something without an antidote for that very reason.

We can't take them to the media without putting them in excruciating pain. It might take weeks, maybe even a month to get this story before the cameras. And the story itself stretches credibility. We could get on Coast-to-Coast AM, maybe even tonight, but we'd sound like just another alien abduction conspiracy theory. For it to work, we'd need credibility, and I just don't see how that's going to happen." He looked at Shadona by the piano. "A legal case can be made that freeing her is a violation of national security. A ton of bricks would fall on any reporter brave enough to pen such a story. I can't think of a single one that's that brave. Hell, CNN just reports what the president tells them to say nowadays, your Maury does more in-depth reporting than they do.

Oh El, I wish it was as easy as a phone call, I would have done that years ago."

The room grew silent as everyone slowly realized how few options remained.

* * *

Yofi smiled as the XO walked across the shop, toward his office. He stood and met him half way, as he had done a hundred times before.

"Yofi, I'm glad I caught you before you left. I wanted to go over your estimates—"

Yofi delivered his best left, followed by a far less satisfying mechanical right cross, staggering the XO back and landing him on the floor. "You lying, no good son of a bitch!" He pointed with his flesh finger, "I hope you live long enough to realize just how big of a mistake you made."

"I guess you know you're fired!" the XO yelled from the ground.

"I guess you know I quit!" Yofi said as he walked away.

The XO stumbled to his feet and grabbed the nearest object suitable for bludgeoning a man to death. In this case, a two foot length of stainless pipe. Yofi would be easy to run down, the man still limped on half a leg after all.

But the XO flung the pipe, clattering across the concrete floor instead. What would have been the point in beating up a handicapped man. Yofi didn't need this job. He qualified for full disability, working actually went against his pension. Besides, the XO was about to deliver a blow far worse than what any pipe could deliver.

He dialed his phone and had the transmitter shut down, weeks earlier than planned.

"Ok recruits," the man said, coming out of Yofi's old office. "I'm your new instructor, and we're going to start getting you certified to work on my favorite piece of military equipment. It redefines state-of-the-art and is the cutting edge of the spear. A plane that I personally spent years helping design and develop. The F-22 Raptor. For this week only, I'd like to introduce you to two of my fellow engineers on the Raptor project."

The kids followed the three men as they walked out the end of the shop and into the hangar proper.

He held out his hand and gestured to one of three identical planes parked under the high-bay lights. "Can anyone tell me what this is?" he asked rhetorically.

Shadona raised her hand.

"Yes, you over there."

The room grew quiet as Shadona lowered her hand and, for the first time in front of them, spoke. "It's an archaic, obsolete platform," the twelve-year-old said, loud enough for everyone to hear.
Chapter 36

"Professor," the XO said, still suffering with a black eye and a sore chin, "Good to see you in person this time."

"I detest being here," the professor said. "I can't stand backwater redneck Colorado. I'd rather telecommute like we were, but I have to be here in person to configure these desktops into a cluster. We need the extra computational power to solve your fluid dynamics problem, now don't we." The professor typed at the keyboard and verified the network settings. "This is your last favor with me," he said. "Your little blackmail ends here with this."

"Now Professor," he said, "that drone software your team completed that identifies enemy movements, marries line of site with minimal RF controls, and solves the military's massive bandwidth problems all at the same time. . . that's worth a fortune, and I know you've got two more patents pending on it. How many does that make since we met?"

The professor walked over to the next desktop in the room, plugged in his custom-made box, then started uploading software and adjusting settings.

"Be honest, you've never made more in your life than you've made with me in backwater USA." The XO smiled at their awkward relationship. "Land is cheap here. You should find yourself a place nearby. Hell, we've nearly completed our checkout to certify the airstrip. That'd put you minutes away from anywhere in the world. If things go as planned, we'll always have a few planes and helicopters at our disposal."

"Crammed into a military jet or bounced around in the bare-metal back of a Blackhawk? No thank you. Not my style."

He smiled, "I think we can do better than that, if you can fix our code. Besides, when your patents come through, you should be able to buy a stylish bird of your own. It isn't like we don't have a topnotch maintenance facility."

"I'm no pilot—"

"I'll have pilots soon. Can't have a private airport without pilots. If I had your funds, and didn't have a business to run, I'd pick a spot and build a McMansion a few minutes drive from here. Those trendy San Francisco clubs you favor so much are just a hop away by air. I'd think about it, if I were you."

The professor paused to answer some text boxes that popped up on the screen.

"Remember, Professor, the fluid dynamics software falls under DOE as national security. It's outside our patent-sharing agreement."

The professor dismissed the implied allegation with a wave of his hand.

"What kind of timetable are we looking at?"

"If everything goes as planned, weeks. If not, then substantially longer. It should be a matter of using the data you've already accumulated from your months of stumbling around in the dark and extrapolating a model from that. Your data files are huge, but less than ideal. It's a staggering volume of numbers to crunch. But the math itself shouldn't be that difficult—"

"That wasn't what I was told. I was told that it would take teams of programmers years, millions of lines of code, that the math was intense and—"

The Professor stood, flipping his ponytail off his shoulder. "I'm well aware of the problem. But just like with weather prediction models, we don't need to know any of the underlying physics. No model is capable of accurately calculating what effects Mrs. Jones' choice to water her lawn will have on cloud formations, but nor do they have to. We simply study decades of data and compile statistics. Then use those statistical trends to project as if statistics were formulas.

Much like your problem, the physics behind weather forecasting is so complex it will likely never be solved. But raw statistics alone can tell you if it's going to rain this weekend, without knowing any of the physics behind it. Statistics is an easy problem to solve, and it gets easier to solve the more data points you have to throw at it. We'll have to keep this cluster available for frequent updates over the years as we fine tune the database.

But you're right in a useless, unimportant way. It would take teams of experts decades to generate an accurate, unified formula, probably a lifetime achievement and a Nobel Prize or two. It'll take me and this cluster weeks to crunch the numbers, generate a detailed chart, and adapt that chart into a simulation of a formula. The results of both should be the same.

That's the best I can do.

Hell, that's the best anyone can do. But the great thing about the grid is you don't have to be exact. Plus or minus 10% is as accurate as you need to be."

He had his doubts. The professor's opinion of his own brilliance was never in short supply, but his results constantly were. The consequences of failure were huge. If the good professor couldn't deliver, he needed to have a plan B ready to go. Time was critical, and he had nothing left to spare. The savings on the suits were not sufficient, and reimbursements for their expenses were lagging at twice the usual bureaucratic rate, worsening his crunch on cash.

The XO opened the door in the medical wing, then looked over the nurse's report. "Sodium pentothal didn't work?" he said.

"Sorry Sir."

"She out?"

The nurse studied the monitor beside the bed. "Should be."

He looked at the interrogator. "You're experienced in this, right?"

"Yes Sir. Used it successfully on dozens of terrorists. Always had good results."

The XO looked at the report again. "Nothing? You can't have gotten nothing. There has to have been something."

"Well," the interrogator said, producing a tape from his pocket, "it took an hour to get her to say a single word. We maxxed out the dosage and she talked, but not in any language I'm even remotely familiar with. Or maybe she mumbled gibberish, I won't know for sure until it's run past some linguists."

The XO couldn't hide his disappointment when he turned to the nurse. "Try an adult dos—"

"That's when she blacked out," the nurse said, hands on her hips. "I told you that this was a long—"

"Don't lecture me," the XO said, "I had my fill of lectures with Yofi, thank you." He turned to the interrogator, "Make me a digital copy of that tape. We may be able to translate it in house."

"Sure. I'll have it for you in a few hours." He handed the XO the question sheet. "I'm used to questioning terrorists and Mexican smugglers; industrial espionage is new for me, and I'm not exactly sure I even understood the questions I was asking. Fairly deep off the physics end of the pool for me. Felt like I was giving an oral exam for Hawking at Cambridge. But if her answers weren't gibberish, the readouts say she was telling the truth. For what that's worth."

He hoped it was worth something.

Dana looked at the girl in her room, their room, unceremoniously dumped on the bed, band-aid on her arm. There was a time, not too long ago, when she wouldn't have noticed. She wouldn't have cared.

Dana stared at the troubled girl that was once a simple annoyance. Odd. Damaged. Fucked in the head.

She put her hand on Shadona's bare arm with the rolled up sleeve. Her skin was cold, clammy.

Dana stared at the door, locked from the outside.

The illusion of freedom was so powerful and compelling with Yofi. For months they had thought they were free, believed as only children could. Nearly two weeks on the beach. Hanging out with new-found friends. Volleyball. Everything about the way she saw the world had changed. Even the way she viewed life.

It wouldn't have happened without that troubled girl.

She spread a blanket over her friend.

What was happening to them wasn't normal.

It wasn't right.

It wasn't fair.

And even Dana realized it, this time.

Hanly rolled out the power plant plans on the desk and stared. The penciled changes had been implemented. All but one.

Officially the corrections were his, but he knew better. Yet none of his team had seen this version before. He called them over and gathered them around. "Listen," he said, "We've been busting our collective asses on the suits, but now production for the most part is being outsourced," by kids on a night shift, "so I'd like us to shift gears again. We'll have the twenty-fourth torus complete in months, and I'd like any input you may have on what this thing running down the central shaft does."

They crowded in closer. "I don't get it, Sir, don't you know?" one said, "I mean, it is your design, right?"

"It's a little like the suits. I inherited it, flaws and all."

"Then it's a flaw, why worry about it. It doesn't seem relevant."

Hanly highlighted the section with his finger. "Need I remind you that the suit drawings work. Granted, they seem specifically designed to make it as difficult as possible to mass-produce, but I think these power plant designs are different. And now that we're nearly finished constructing the toruses, we need to figure out what this section does before we can get the funds to build it."

"Why build it?" one of the engineers said. "The toruses function without it already. I don't see—"

"That's why we have to figure out what this might have done. It was included for a reason. Now, in the suit designs, its inclusion would likely be to prevent mass-production. That doesn't seem to be the case here, and we need to figure it out before we spend what little budget we have on adding it back in. . ."

They studied it for the next week, with lots of discussions and theories, but no consensus. . . other than it was expensive and seemed designed to directly link all the toruses simultaneously, or independently, throughout the base and out the top of the mountain, and that it could handle unprecedentedly huge surges of electricity. The interconnection seemed eminently practical and it was eventually decided it should be implemented as an efficient means to use one torus to electrically spin up another, allowing for maintenance on the tunnels and equipment without losing all the stored energy. The complex construction proposed out the mountain's top still left them confused, though.
Chapter 37

"Well, Jeff," the XO said inside a special chamber near the bottom of the mountain, "how's our termite experiment coming?"

Jeff just smiled, "Let me give you the tour." They walked through two double doors, down a short corridor, and out into one of the worst smelling chambers imaginable. A vaulted ceiling stretched out sixty feet over a floor covered with a honeycomb of four-inch circles. Jeff attached a hook to one and winched a ten-foot pipe from the floor. "The top half is filled with scrap corn stalks, bark, twigs and such from local farms. It's mulched and packed in like a block of cement. The termites chew their way through it, depositing their waste over here," he pointed out a lower section, "and the bottom few inches sits in water." He moved the tube to a section off to the side, then disconnected the top half. "The queen and her eggs naturally stay low, in this bottom section. Workers and warriors infest the top." He sat the top half vertically on a tank of water, clipped a hose to its top, then flipped a switch. "The vacuum gently pulls air through the hose and down the tunnels, any termites that exit the bottom are drowned in the water." He flipped another switch. "The smoke encourages them to commit suicide faster." The clear bucket of water quickly clouded with white ants, none of which could swim. "I do this every so many weeks until their food is gone," he pointed to a scale, "usually you can tell by weight." He skimmed the termites from the bucket, hosed out the pipe, then packed it with more concrete-looking fibrous pulp. "Now comes the hard part, getting the queen to relocate the nest so we can collect all their waste. We do that by placing an empty chamber above the bottom half, then slowly fill the bottom with water, simulating a flood. And over the next two days, the workers will move all the eggs into their new home. We lower the new home back into the cluster like it was a food— uh, fuel rod, and it's good for another month. The waste left in their old home is flushed out with water and the cycle is started again. They're incredibly efficient, and I've already generated a ton, a literal ton, of dehydrated termites this year alone. Put simply, this lets you easily double the food per acre of any farm. It's the end of hunger around the—"

"Fascinating," the XO said, "but I'm more interested in the fuel aspects—"

"Right to the icing on the cake, then. The waste gets flushed, much like human waste, into a modified septic tank where methane gets pumped off, compressed, and liquefied as natural gas. We make just a little less fuel per acre on agricultural waste than ethanol can with sugarcane. Play with the process chemistry a little and you've got methanol. It's caustic to run in the average car, but a conversion kit should cost under a thousand. Probably under a hundred since you own the same machine shop that built all this. Tanks, hoses, everything that comes in contact with it has to be modified. Hanly is already working on a blend for jet fuel."

The XO patted him on the shoulder, "Excellent!"

Jeff opened a paper bag, held it to his nose, and took a deep whiff before handing it over. "Look at this. It's the richest, most fertile soil I've ever seen. That's the waste coming out of the digester. Just a few months ago, this was twigs and stalks. It comes in at pennies a pound, and leaves at about a dollar a pound. I've got an organic chicken farm two counties over testing our termite meal. They weren't willing to pay anything this year without knowing what effects it'll have on the growth of their birds, but it's looking promising. And giving it away seemed to work well for crack dealers." Jeff paused for one of his famous golden grins. "Count on that being another market next year. We're already selling the fuel and soil. Might even turn a profit next year, not counting what this room set you back."

"A small fortune," the XO said, rolling up the bag and handing it back without a courtesy sniff, "but not as much as you might think. Tell the farm we'd take chickens in trade, too. Line it up with the chef if you want."

"You know, they sell Worm Pee for ten dollars a two-liter bottle. When I crack how to trick termites into making new queens like we do with bees, we could leapfrog into full capacity in a single year." Jeff smiled wide enough to show the chaw of tobacco stuffed in his cheek. "That'd be a twenty-fold increase. And this room is damn near automated. Just got to tweak the charts."

"Great," the XO said, heading for the door. "Is there anything you can do about the smell!"

Jeff joined him outside. "Actually, I was talking with Hanly about that very thing. He had a suggestion that, when the budget permits, we buy a natural gas generator. Said he would figure out the size. That stench is hydrogen and methane, basically trillions of tiny farts and CO2 that, right now, is just being vented outside. He suggested that we generate electricity and heat water instead of all the expense of selling and bottling the natural gas. Seeing how you're a research power company and all, just dump it on the grid and use the hot water domestically. Instead of venting this room, increase the efficiency by getting the 'fresh air' for the generator from here.

Hanly said it'll play hell with calculating the engine size because of the higher concentration of CO2, but it's the easiest way to utilize the free hydrogen and methane. Said they might even custom make the engine in the shop. Had a design off the internet he wanted to try."

"Even better," the XO said before leaving to the more secure parts of the base. Jeff still lacked any real clearance; Hanly was his only authorized contact, besides the chef.

Like most of the children, Shadona had done the bulk of her hours behind a simulator. With a non-functioning catapult and an incomplete arresting system, they fueled a modified T-34C and prepared for a long takeoff utilizing the full length of the mountaintop.

With nothing but a net to prevent the propeller-driven plane from plunging over the end of the runway and tumbling down the mountain to an explosive death, it took a determined fearlessness to fly this two-decades-old second-hand plane. But Shadona didn't blink as she sat tandem beside the instructor and throttled it to a textbook takeoff.

They circled level for several miles until the instructor believed she had a 'feel' for the plane, before she thrashed it into a steep climb, pitched over, then dove for the valley below.

As nearly the smallest child, her seat had been slightly modified and shoved all the way forward to make early training possible. It would have to be removed and exchanged later the next day when the bigger boys would take their turn. But for now, it was hers, and it gave her the feel of flying alone, aloof, and at one with the sky. Closer to the plane than anything she had felt before. As at home as she had felt with an elephant in her arms and a window in her room. But that window only saw a yard, this window opened to the world.

The instructor barked out orders, and like an extension of her will, the T-34C complied, effortlessly.

After an hour in the air and nearly two hundred miles under her belt, she aligned with the runway and put it down without a single hop.

It was her first time in the air, not counting dangling by a wire, suspended over trees. And she was hooked. She craved more.

She would have more.

Much more.

Standard ethos demanded a slow progression from one trainer to another until the aptitude of each pilot presented itself. Not all pilots were suited to the split-second reactions demanded of supersonic flight and fighter jets. Some would show an aptitude for helicopters, while others would be a better fit for slow-moving troop transports and refuelers. The base wanted to place as many of them as universal pilots as possible and would, to that end, put additional hours into training even the marginal candidates; something they wouldn't get in an army with millions of volunteers to place and the normal constraints on trainers and time.

She knew from the beginning that, even if she struggled, eventually she would find herself seated behind all of the most powerful planes in the world.

But she wasn't willing to wait. She wanted on the accelerated course.

She wanted it now, even though her feet barely reached the pedals.

She took off her helmet as she caught her breath, instructor prattling on about checklist this and regulations that.

She ignored him as she stood on the top of the mountain and stared at the mock carrier deck. A small block building sat tucked near the tower, out of the way and to the side, clearly designed for fabricating the suits. The fan-driven vents and the sandbags were a dead giveaway. But what was missing was the other buildings she had penciled in for her power plant design.

They were behind schedule, far behind the estimations she made when she thought she was free. Engineers were disappointingly unreliable, and apparently none too bright, leaving out key equipment like that.

The instructor handed her a piece of paper, pointed her to the elevator back down into the base, and grabbed his next volunteer as the plane was being refueled.

Yofi was a big fan of carrots over sticks. Perhaps she would do better using carrots, too. It bought her the illusion of freedom once. Perhaps a bigger carrot could garner the real thing.

* * *

Yofi walked to the mailbox and stood, leafing through the bills before tucking the morning paper under his arm and walking back inside.

"Hon," he said, "you got a letter from your sister."

Elaine came from the guestroom, stuffed elephant in hand.

"Hon," he frowned at the sad look on her face, "we should turn their room back into a—"

"Why would she have left it behind?" she asked.

"I don't know, El." He put the mail on the table and leaned against the stool. "Maybe it was too difficult to take with her. Maybe she thought the other kids would make fun of her for it." He looked at the slippers he hadn't taken off for days. "Maybe it's her slippers, Hon."

Elaine hugged it gently. "It hardly seems fair. It doesn't feel like it was real." She joined him at the table and opened the letter.

"Try not to think about it, El. We did the best we could. We did what was right. Sometimes that just isn't enough." He poured a cup of coffee and opened the paper. "El. . ."

She was engrossed in her letter.

"El, what did you do?"

Hmmm?

Yofi folded the paper and pointed to a specific article, A 14, middle of the page. Two paragraphs.

She picked it up and read aloud. "An unnamed source in the Pentagon has lent credibility to the rumors of a secret base where lab-grown children are being raised. This reporter was informed, under condition of anonymity, that this black project was conducted in direct violation of UN resolutions banning just such derivations on human cloning. The children, now numbering only a few hundred, are believed to be held at a secret location, possibly exploited as slave labor, but definitely being trained as soldiers.

It is this reporter's belief that though these accusations sound fictional and as yet can not be substantiated with physical proof, that nonetheless, the seriousness of the charges warrant continued investigations. Investigations that this reporter will continue until the truth, or the children, are set free." Elaine looked up from the page. "I didn't say anything to anybody. Did you?"
Chapter 38

Hanly unlocked his office door, stepped insi— A scrap of paper crinkled under his foot.

\--The note--

Why spend months climbing the mountain, then stop before planting the flag?

He stared, transfixed by the obscure note shoved under his door. Handwritten. Almost a taunt.

But it wasn't a taunt.

Faith in a twelve-year-old girl seemed absurd. His team of engineers found no compelling reason to, in her words, plant the flag. Not one of them.

He pulled out the drawings again.

His only conversation with her was engraved in his mind as bright as yesterday. Hours of obstinance ended in a child intimidating him, intellectually, with a garden hose and scraps of pipe. He wanted so badly for her to be wrong about something — anything — just to feel better about himself. But he wasn't about to put that petty need for vindication before the needs of his country. He poured himself into the drawings again, never more sure there was something he was missing.

His life had been consumed by her drawings for the last five years. Yet there was only so much of it he understood. Little of it, actually. Too little of it, for someone of his prestigious education. He had such a minimal understanding of a technology she made look effortless.

Materials pumped in as gasses and liquids were mixed and infused with massive amounts of raw power in a small chamber, and within seconds, literal seconds, as if by magic it turns into armor plates before dozens of cameras and hundreds of sensors, like a room full of physicists watching spellbound as a magician saws a woman in half. And it does the same show a few times a month, month after month, and he and his entire team remained as clueless as they were for the first show, done right under their noses.

This power plant was undoubtedly the same.

But it wasn't the same.

The sixteenth torus was already online, with eight left to go. But even at only 60% complete and still unbalanced, they had nearly put one peaking station out of business, now scheduled for decommissioning two years from today. At 80% they would be a serious threat to the other two peaking stations within a hundred miles.

He thought about the hours he spent asking, only to get a garden hose for an answer. This time, she came to him. How foolish would he be to push her away out of ego?

But he wanted more than just a note. He needed more than that to go to the XO with. He needed details to sell it. He needed to know what it did, and none of his team could tell him.

He copied a portion of the drawings onto the shop chalkboard with the word 'why' and a relevant piece circled.

The next day, the word why had been replaced with an equation, E2. E was universal for energy, squared was shorthand for exponentially more power. He was very dubious of the claim; those two letters, if literal, suggested tapping more power than the world had ever seen in any one place.

That was worth any price, if it could be believed. Worth far more, if it could be achieved.

"Get off the mill," Will said, pushing Shadona to the side. When he hit stop, the machine powered down, heads retracted, bits dropped back into their trays, and the green light lit above the Plexiglas door. He reached in, unbolted her piece, and dumped it to the concrete floor with a clatter.

She stood there while he loaded his blank, then uploaded the instruction set. As soon as the light turned red and the head started shaving metal off the blank, she slapped the stop button and the whole process ground to a halt again.

He shoved her, "Back off, bitch. You ain't teacher's pet no more." He glanced the horizon, then punched the much smaller girl in the stomach.

She doubled over and fell backwards onto the floor.

"Get used to it," he said, turning the mill back on.

She sat on the floor and stared up. Part of her wanted to kick him in the shins. . . but that couldn't end well. He was nearly a foot taller, clearly stronger, and was far from alone in this room. Besides, even should she land a decisive blow, ultimately it wouldn't change anything. She would be in the same place tomorrow. And the next day. And the day after that.

And the rest of her life.

She sat on the floor, looking over at the closed office doors just a few steps away. Hanly on one, Yofi no longer on the other. Hanly worked nights building the suits, something she had no interest in doing. She wanted to be around the planes. She liked having access to hundreds of different planes, each with unique problems to solve. But planes meant dayshift, and dayshift meant Will.

With no real options, she left the piece on the floor and went back to her turbine, mounted to a pallet.

Shop had lost most of its allure.

Gone was the music, the food, the comic books, the fun. But it was still better than the alternatives. She hated garbage collection, painting, cleaning bathrooms and kitchens, laundry and all the other menial tasks that were doled out as punishment to the bottom ten percent in any class.

Shop was still deemed a privilege.

Those few that worked here were automatically exempt from such chores, even if their grades were marginal. Under Yofi, it might well have been impossible for her to get kicked from shop. Under the new guy, those rules didn't apply. Her work was meticulous, but she wasn't fast. And without shop she would be subject to chores because of her low scores in hand combat and the automated classes that she too often ignored.

Chores could easily cost her time behind the stick, and that was a price she didn't wish to pay.

That morning she stared at the monitor in disbelief. How naive did they think she was? Personally crafted problems were being woven into her studies in an attempt to get her to solve specific physics problems that related directly to their version of Her power plant. The other half related, or they thought related, to the suit. To a less observant student, these slanted questions would probably have gone unnoticed. Yet even if the subject hadn't tipped her off, to a linguist of her level the wording was a dead giveaway. Like finding a paragraph of Poe in a work of Shakespeare.

Leaving them blank would continue to destroy her average and ensure she would be saddled with chores. But even though the problems were easily solved and wouldn't get them any closer to understanding either project, she refused out of principle.

She pressed a finger against her molar. "I'm sorry, Dana," she said.

Dana looked up from her monitor, but didn't stop typing. "For what?"

She typed a unique obscenity for each of the inappropriate questions. "I'm," she pushed the keyboard away, "I'm just sorry. I'm sorry we ended up here. Again."

Dana stopped typing and turned in her chair to face her. "I wonder if Frances and Brad have thought about us."

She twisted the ring on her finger, "Never forget us. It was nice to feel sand between my toes. To hear waves crashing against the shore. To learn to play from Elaine. To hear tears in a boy's voice when he tells you goodbye." She looked down at her feet. "I'm sorry you have to room with someone so fucked in the head."

Dana reached to hug her friend from behind, but kept her hands to herself instead, offer unnoticed. Unheard. "Don't say that word," she said.
Chapter 39

"How's the new software doing?" the XO said, standing in the control room.

Hanly typed at the terminal, "It's an improvement. We're about 60% automated right now. The software can handle rapid load swings as much as 250MW in under a minute, completely automated and never generating a rumble over a Richter of two. But anything faster or larger we have to handle manually, and it always feels like riding a tiger."

"Well," the XO said, "there is a reason why we picked a mountain that's nearly solid stone. Crank it up if—"

"We should, in theory, be able to handle swings larger than a nuke at the drop of a pin, and balance it without so much as a ripple. But that's theory. In practice, we keep thumping against a wall."

"Well," the XO said, inspecting the impressive looking displays, "one thing at a time. If you can keep this thing together, we'll turn our first profit next month. Not bad for rounding off the change."

"Yes Sir," Hanly said. "With a better understanding of the statistical needs of the software, we've upgraded our instrumentation and we should get much better data to work with. We've scheduled another update in two months. Hopefully, that'll get some more of the rumble out of the system."

The XO sat on the edge of the table. "Nightshift is cranking out three suits a month, thanks to you. We've had a rocky start, Hanly, I've yelled at you more than I probably should have. But I'm damn glad you stuck it out. We're turning a corner, here."

Hanly clicked the keys, "Thank you, Sir."

"How's our project with Jeff coming?"

"The generator? It's on a back burner, but I've drawn up the parts list. Take a few months, I figure. We'll have the generator built before Jeff figures out how to clone queens and go into full production." He looked up from the keyboard, "Fascinating little project he's got. Makes gallons of methanol every day. Already converted the trainer to run on a methanol mix."

"Excellent," the XO said.

Shadona stood in the kitchen and stared at the massive grease trap. Her clear complexion had been gone for weeks, but she said nothing as she pushed her hand inside and removed another fistful.

It was disgusting, but she had no alternative.

Her grades couldn't be saved. Not without answering their customized questions.

She wiped her hand across the lip of the bucket, then plunged it in for another fistful. She thought of Yofi and Elaine and wondered how they were doing. She tried to picture them in her mind, but all she seemed to remember was how they so casually held hands at the table.

Brad was getting harder to remember, too. Brownish red hair, dark blue eyes, eight inches taller. . . all superficial features. His freckled face eluded her. Odd that she would have trouble remembering them. She remembered everything else in her life in infinite detail.

Perhaps this forgetfulness was for the better.

She was alone in the kitchen, and it would take her hours to clean it by herself, just as it had for the last two months.

Dropped from shop. Her production wasn't high enough.

Hand combat was every bit as brutal as she remembered. As one of the smallest girls, she got pounded mercilessly. Even defending herself, she still received more than her share of bruises. Her arms felt like lead and she winced with every inadvertent touch, but the chores were hers, and hers alone.

She hated the place she found herself. Trapped by a tooth. Trapped by her own brilliance and a suit they coveted too much. Trapped by their greed.

She remembered a show she watched at Yofi's about catching monkeys. It was as simple as placing nuts in a glass jar. The monkey would see the easy meal, reach its hand inside, then discover that as long as it held the nut, its hand was too big to fit out the opening. Every time, they could walk up to the monkey and capture it, simply because it wasn't smart enough to let go of the easy meal it could hold, but never have.

Some monkeys eventually escaped the trap of the jar, but no nuts ever did.

She crawled under the sink and closed the door.

Sitting in the darkness, she allowed herself a guilty moment.

She cried.

Dana opened the door and headed straight for the shower after her long day in shop. But she stopped, middle of the room, at a bed folded down.

She stared at the bare arm with a band-aid, sixth day in a row.

Grease-soaked clothes staining the sheets on her bed. They didn't care where or how they dumped her.

Dana stared at the girl, out cold for hours.

The nightshift, saddled with the repetitive building of an army of suits, hated her. The shop instructor took her slight against Raptors personally. The XO piled on the punishment in an obvious effort to break her.

Dana stared at her bruised, thin arms. Shadona was the last person there that could afford to lose any weight. Yet she was as small now as she was last year.

Her first failed attempt to escape ended in tragedy. Her latest hadn't ended any better. But Dana was at a loss to suggest anything better. She held her friend's greasy hand as the door locked with a mechanical thunk.

The lights would turn out soon.

She let go, stripped, and showered while she still could.

The XO checked his Email. The tape analysis was in. He opened the attachment and gave it a quick skim.

"Nothing," he said, slapping the desk in disgust. He clicked to the end summary. 'Patient exhibits an ever increasing resistance to our full suite of drugs. It's doubtful anything useful will come from continued efforts. Even when the patient does talk, it's rarely in a known language.'

He moused over her name and opened her personnel file, tunneling through to interrogation training.

As a part of training a few years ago, they had all been extensively interrogated with a variety of common battlefield tactics. A week free of chores was their reward for every day they resisted.

Dealt five cards as the 'secret' they needed to keep, the interrogator would offer treats and favors for each card revealed.

Shadona had yet to say a word at the time, and as such had lasted three days longer than anyone else. It was assumed that her 'resistance' was because she physically couldn't talk. But she was more talkative today and just as stubborn.

He thought back to the girl he so easily bribed with candy. It seemed like only months ago. But it was years. She caught him in a lie and was never fooled again. His modified questions were answered with profanity, even at the price of privileges.

Her stubborn resistance only proved she had something to conceal. Nobody would resist this hard over principles. He needed to know what she was holding back, and thanks to the Professor's software upgrade, they now had more time to find it. He was ready to plunge deeper to get what he wanted.

The board righted as cold water trickled down her shirt.

"What does the device atop the mountain do?" the interrogator read off the list.

She coughed under the wet cloth, but each breath she struggled to take sogged her lungs again.

"It's simple," he said, "just tell us what it does. You know what it does, you designed it."

She had been there for hours and had yet to say a word.

The board reclined again as water poured across her face.

She intentionally inhaled—

". . . And I'm telling you you're done," the nurse said.

"That's not what my orders say," the interrogator said.

"This was your third strike," she said. "You're not any closer to getting her to talk, but she's getting much closer to drowning. One of you doesn't know how to play this game, Sergeant. How are you going to explain her dying on you? Huh? The girl's ten, twenty pounds underweight already. Not exactly the picture of health to begin with.

I'm calling an end to this."

"That's not your—"

"The hell it's not. I'm the top medical officer in this building. There's a reason I'm here in this room, you Dumb Ass. . . "

Shadona passed out again.

"Back of the line, pizza face," the boy said, shoving her to the ground, tray spilling across the floor.

Laughter rippled in pockets across the cafeteria as Shadona remained sprawled, too weak to quickly stand. She rubbed her arm and stared at her silverware scattered across the—

Whack!!

Whack! Whack!

The crowd gasped in silence as Dana pounded the back of his head with a stack of empty trays. A growing few cheered her on before adults could separate the two.

Shadona scrubbed the stainless sink, the smell of bleach burning her eyes and dripping her nose. But she scrubbed on. "You shouldn't have," she said.

Dana dipped her hand into the grease trap and slapped a sticky glob down into the bucket. "I should have long ago."
Chapter 40

Hanly bent over and picked up the papers shoved under his office door.

A list of parts, a few diagrams, and a location circled on the building's riser plans.

The parts looked hauntingly familiar, but the scale was huge. He pulled out his chair, turned on the desk lamp, and poured over the pages again. It borrowed heavily from the suit diagrams and was probably equally infused with ruses that kept its true functions from ever being discovered.

After an hour of quiet contemplation, he picked up the phone and made the call.

The XO looked over the hand-drawn pages. "Any idea what it is?"

Hanly shook his head, then pulled the suit diagrams out of his locked desk. "It's similar, but it's streamlined, and huge." He pointed to the circled unused room. "I'm guessing she planned this all along. She added this chamber to the original drawings years ago. It sits in the nexus of the ultra-high-voltage lines that tap all the toruses. My guess is this thing is designed to draw an order of magnitude more power than what makes those suits, and those suits eat the full output of a typical nuke, for a few seconds."

"Yeah, but, any idea what it is?"

"No Sir. Could be anything. There was no way of guessing the suit from," he thumbed through the suit drawings, "this. She makes machines that make something else. After months of building the suits, the machine looks more like a disposable, single-use 3D printer than anything else. My guess is this new design could make anything up to thirty feet in diameter."

"Can you give me a price tag?"

Hanly tapped a few keys on his laptop. "I'd say we're looking at four thousand hours in labor, ten million or so in parts, plus the grain of plutonium, and I have no idea how much power it'll pull, but that could be in the millions, too. It's a big-ticket item."

"Can we make the parts on the cheap?"

"Some, but it'll triple the man hours, and it may not hold up long enough. She's very specific in the parts, and we have to assume she knows exactly what our equipment is capable of, and what it isn't."

"Ten million. That's a hell of a leap of faith on a—"

"What's the current total on the power plant? Have we hit two billion yet?"

The XO shrugged. "Vaulted over it. Well, the timing is good. We received another order for twenty-four more suits. We might have it in the budget, but I'd hate— You just know it'll self-destruct like—"

"Without a doubt, Sir. That much is certain. Whatever it makes, there'll only be one of them. And it'll cost another ten mill for another. You're also going to run into another problem with manpower and time on the equipment. I can't spare anything without cutting into suit production. Dayshift can't spare anything without cutting into repairs. We could go third shift, but who'd run it?"

That put the XO back in his chair. He had assumed that her sudden capitulation had meant he had finally broken her. But there was only one person to run that third shift. And the new drawing, like previous ones, might well have included several devastating flaws. He felt faint. "Check the pages carefully," he said standing up, headed for Hanly's office door. "She probably left you a list of names." He walked across the massive underground hangar, past huge machines, tables, bins of steel parts and into the slots reserved for over a hundred war birds. Today it had just two Apaches, a WartHog, six Hummers getting up-armored, and two training T-34Cs. Within the next month he was scheduled to receive a mix of a dozen retired F-16s, 14s, and other overused planes. Charity for training, but he'd take it.

He paused before their only Raptor and looked over the massive emptiness beyond. "Ten million dollars," he said, his voice echoing, even at a whisper. Ten million would destroy his budget, but it was recoverable. It wouldn't end him.

He stared at six suits standing on a pallet, ready to ship. She may do science like a magician, but it wasn't rabbits she was pulling out of the hat.

He shook his head and stared at the floor. He was actually running the numbers, calculating the odds. He reached into his pocket and unfolded the list of materials.

He was going to make this happen.

She stood outside what had been Yofi's office for years, drawings in hand, surrounded by fifteen other girls. . . and two guards that tried to look inconspicuous while hanging out by the planes.

She handed out assignments, then got to work herself.

Hanly opened his door to find another sheet of paper on the floor.

Another list. A CD player, fifteen CDs, alphabetical by artist names, an order of pizzas, including toppings, brand name sodas, KitKats, and Kevlar gloves, complete with sizes.

Hanly balked, knowing exactly what the XO would say. Laughing, he balled it up and aimed at the— With second thoughts, he smoothed it out across his pant legs. As far as budget items went, this was nothing. Especially considering the multimillion dollar price tag attached. Hell, the XO gave him a credit card for just such expenses.

He'd still have to explain it, but that'd be next month. By his estimates, she might even have it complete by then. Not that it mattered much. What was the worst the XO could do? The credit card was in the company's name.

Hanly stood on the edge of the runway, looking out onto the valley below. His team, years behind schedule and millions over budget, had finished the last torus and even completed her device, sitting in a small block room behind him.

The wind gusted into his face with such force his clothes felt like they could be ripped from his body at any second. He covered his eyes with his arm until it died to a calm breeze again.

Six years ago, he was handed a tiny little engine that changed his world. He walked away from the edge and crossed the several acres to the control tower. Beside it, smoke poured from the vents of a modest blockhouse where another suit had just been made. They managed to average four a month now.

But suits weren't why he was standing on the top of the mountain.

He looked at the device, sitting off to the side, shrouded in a tiny block shed of its own. It directly tied all the toruses together and was insulated like nothing he'd ever seen. He had thought he would understand it better once he could see it in real life, off the page. But it wasn't any clearer. It wasn't any more obvious.

He wasn't a dumb man, he reminded himself. Top of his class in college, credentials and certificates out the ass.

But he felt dumb around her. As his team completed their final checks on the equipment, he would find himself eye to eye with the girl again. Humbled before her. Because it was one thing to build her technology, and quite another to use it.

They were scheduled to turn it on next Thursday.

The suspense was killing him.
Chapter 41

Thursday came and left without Shadona paying it any notice.

Hanly toured the chamber, deep inside the mountain. "This is it, Sir," he said, pointing out the equipment lining the perimeter of the room. "Eleven Million and change."

The XO pointed to a giant ring bolted to the ceiling, a good thirty feet in the air. "What's that?"

Hanly pulled out the drawings, "Well, that's a super conducting ring, a different kind of torus we think. It should produce the same self-sustaining magnetic field the smaller ones do in making the suits. Now, my experience with suit construction is that it self-destructs in a very unique way. You might even think of it like the implosion of a plutonium bomb where it has to be squeezed just right, or all you have is a fizzle and a toxic mess. The implosion in this case produces a plasma, and the plasma in turn perpetuates the field. That field lasts a few seconds with the suits and is one hell of a trick in and of itself. One we haven't yet mastered.

Now, in that pocket between the ring and the hard ceiling is where all the raw materials gets piped in, the bulk of which comes from a small chamber next door. Sixty eight-inch steam pipes connect it, suggesting a heavy flow rate. It's my understanding that that smaller chamber is where the eight tons of dry ice is going.

Just a guess, but I suspect she plans to flash vaporize it. If that's the case, it'll go off like a bomb unless the room is built exactly right. But buried deep in the mountain, like it is, we should be perfectly safe, even if the worst happens."

He stared up at the ring, mouth open. "Is it complete?"

"Should be, Sir. But, I can't say for sure."

"Well, what are we waiting for? Turn it on."

He flipped the giant disconnect mounted to the wall and the equipment started to hum. "This is about as far as we can go." He walked over to what looked like a giant window frame, devoid of glass. "This here, best we can figure, is a kind of optical keyboard." He gestured at all the equipment, green lights clicking on, red lights blinking off. "All of this, I think, is like a big 3D molecular printer, that big-ass ring is like the injector head, and that keyboard is where she puts in the code for whatever she's planning on printing. Just like any printer you buy at the store, it's useless without a picture and the software to drive it. And I don't have a clue how to enter anything," he waved his hands at the frame, "with that."

The XO pushed the chair away from the frame. "She's made herself a part of the machine, then. If it's just a fancy keyboard, why can't we tap it? Spies do that kind of stuff all the time."

"We'll certainly try to, Sir, but I doubt she overlooked that little aspect, do you?

Listen, as neat as whatever pops out of this ends up being, it's a distraction."

The XO stopped staring at the ring on the ceiling long enough to give Hanly his full attention.

"See, it's been built here because this is the best place to tap all twenty-four toruses. Now, I've done the math. The tiny torus we use for the suits is capable of one nuke for a few seconds. At present, the most we can get out of all twenty-four of these toruses is a peak of a little over twice that, maybe three times that. But that's it. The toruses can't give you a bigger spike than that, they just lasts longer.

That's nowhere near enough power for what this room is obviously designed to swallow.

She's going to have to show us something.

She's going to have to fix our balancing problem before she can tap the levels of power this room clearly calls for." Hanly smiled. "Maybe that device on the top of the mountain is key to that. Doubt it, but what do I know. I do know she has to solve our problem first. What all this crap is or does, I could care less. It's a distraction."

The XO stared up at the ring in the ceiling again. "I can't get over the feeling that I've seen that thing somewhere before."

Shadona's team had been finished with the device for weeks, and though she still refused to answer the trick questions, her grades had nonetheless risen to passing, keeping her from being punished with chores.

In fact, her team of girls had yet to be disbanded. They still met in the shop as the third shift. With their main project done, they simply picked one of the waiting damaged planes and started with repairs.

Pizza, music, and the KitKats continued.

"Shadona," Hanly said, coming in early so that he overlapped with the end of her third shift in the shop, "I'd like to see you in my office."

She continued ratcheting down the injector manifold she was working on.

He paused beside her. "Please," he said.

She ratcheted without stop.

"Ok," he said, getting a stool and sitting beside her. "We're ready to turn it on. Everything has been checked out. We're ready."

She paused. "Are you?" she quietly said.

"Ok then, you tell me."

She finished the last bolt, torqued them, then marked them with a paint marker to verify that they had been tightened correctly before taking off her gloves. "What's the weather like outside?"

"We're talking weather now?" He stood, ready to put the stool back. "Ok, fine. I'll play. It was sunny today—"

"Why would I play?" she said, folding the gloves before shoving them into her back pocket.

"Fine. Today's supposed to be sunny, not a cloud in the sky."

"Tomorrow?"

"I don't know," he said.

"Then you're not ready."

The next day, Hanly came in early, paper under his arm. He opened it to the weather section and plopped it down before her.

She glanced at it and said, "Not this week."

In the mysterious device at the top of the mountain, a metal arm pulled a frozen football-shaped lump of pressed ceramic dust out of the vat of liquid nitrogen and loaded it into the tube. Weeks of 'not this week' had landed them in the middle of a thunderstorm that had just pounded the west coast and showed no interest in slowing as it slogged through the mountains.

He watched as a Christmas tree of lights on his board twinkled from red to green and a torus punted the frozen football straight up into the sky.

Displays in the control room were filled with camera angles covering everything they thought might be of interest. But not a single one showed them anything even remotely—

Boooommmmm!!!!!

The phones rang off the hooks as a shock wave shook the mountain and the entire electrical system plunged into darkness. Random bulbs exploded in fixtures like paparazzi covering a half-naked star, stumbling drunk from her car. Everything failed in a flash.

"Get those lights on!" Hanly yelled in pitch black. He opened his cell phone— Dead. He pressed the backlight on his watch— Dead. Flashlight— Dead."What the hell just happened?"

"We've got no power on anything!" a voice cried out.

"Go low-tech. Smokers, let's see some lighters!" Hanly yelled.

The sound of flicking flints filled the room.

"Burn some trash if you have to. Concrete walls, no fire hazard. But lets try not to die from the smoke."

They fumbled in the dark for a few minutes before the backup system came on. Half of which had also failed.

Hanly crowded over the only working desktop in the control room. "We're being fed from the Co-Op right now. All toruses tripped offline," he read the display aloud. "Click on that," he pointed. "That can't be right, can it? Manually double check that flow rate," he said, tapping one of his team on the shoulder and pointing toward the door. "That circulating speed is way over our best estimates. Pull up its temperature and counter-balancing torus."

Those numbers were all wrong.

"See if you can get some other terminals on," Hanly said, pointing each member in another direction, "Alex, get to the server room."

"Yes Sir," Alex said, lighting some rolled-up paper before heading out the door.

The phone rang.

"Control room," someone answered in the dark. ". . . Yes Sir, he's here. . . One minute. Hanly, it's the XO."

Hanly picked up the phone. "Yes Sir. . . I'm not surprised that power is out throughout the mountain. . . Something went wrong, Sir, we'll know more in a few hours. . . Yes Sir, computers are down here too. We're working the problem. . . No Sir, I don't have any ideas right now. . . No Sir, my cell is down, too. . . Yes Sir, some building landlines seem unaffected." Hanly hung up the phone. "Everyone, check your watches please. Anyone have one that works?"

"I do, Sir," someone answered.

"Let's see it, please," Hanly said, making his way through the darkness toward the voice. "Metal case. Everyone else have a cheap plastic case like me?"

"Yes Sir," they said.

"I think we just survived a massive EMP pulse. Random computers should survive. Start checking fuses, breakers, someone get on an outside line and tell the Co-Op we expect to be down for a few days. And please, remind them that we are still classified as experimental. Let's do our best to talk them out of saddling us with heavy fines."

The doors remained locked from the outside since the explosion over two hours ago.

Shadona sat with Dana in their pitch-black room. Even the nightlight was out. Shouts from the other children echoed down the halls, without answer.

"Your teeth hurt," Dana asked.

"Yeah," Shadona answered, waving her fingers in the air. "When he came for us at Yofi's, it only took twenty-two minutes. Perhaps he used a lockdown signal then. Either way, it isn't a constant signal, it must be intermittent. Or it's very error tolerant and takes repeated misses to trigger the reaction." She winced. "A short signal over long gaps would make it a very difficult code to crack, but perhaps that can be an advantage, too. I was hoping a pulse would deactivate the damn things. Should have hurt instantly. Since it didn't, the chips must be hardened. Wouldn't be hard to do with something that small."

They listened to the anguished yells in the halls.

Shadona winced as the throbbing escalated to another level. "Wonder what they'll do now?"
Chapter 42

The nurse entered the room, checked the IVs, checked pulses against her watch, then left to check on the next two. The dorms were full of children, all with IVs in their arms, all in chemical comas.

"We can't keep them in comas forever," nurse Benita said, end of her shift as she walked the halls. "They're losing weight and—"

"Up the calories," the XO said, marching with her toward Hanly's office.

"They're losing muscle mass—"

He stopped in the hall. "There's no other option. The transmitter is fried. Dead. Can't deactivate the chips without it. Can't fix it. Had to order another one. Special order. Only one manufacturer on the whole damned planet! It'll get here when it gets here. Period. Just keep them alive until then, Nurse. That's all I ask." He marched away.

"You've had three weeks, Hanly," the XO said in the shop, "sabotage, or accident?"

Hanly dropped what he was working on at the plasma-cutter bench, "Let's talk in the office."

The XO closed the door behind him. "Shop's shut down, repairs are piled up. And it's costing us a fortune in penalties to keep these toruses down. Sabotage or accident?"

"Accident, I think," Hanly said. "The pulse destroyed a third of all hard drives on the base, leaving quality info sketchy, magnetized all the utensils in the kitchen," he plopped open the paper, "blew out every TV in the valley, and killed one man with a pacemaker. We've tracked it down to one of the coils in the last three toruses we finished. It wasn't grounded correctly. We've bypassed systems, idled the damaged torus, and we'll be ready to put the remaining toruses back onto the grid by Tuesday."

"Good," the XO said. "How'd the grounding get left out?"

"Well," Hanly shuffled the papers, "I know what you're thinking, Sir, but she didn't delete it or change it in any way." He pointed it out on the modified plans. "It was our mistake, if anyone made it."

"But she didn't correct it either, did—"

"I understand the urge to blame someone for this disaster. Maybe she did see it and just said nothing. Don't know. Don't care—"

"I care! This disaster is costing a fortune that we simply don't—"

"Calm down, Sir," Hanly said. "Let me show you something." He turned the monitor so the XO could see. "For twenty-six dollars in frozen ceramics, this base caught a lightning bolt. Those toruses that survived— Sir, I don't think you get the big picture.

The math is wrong. It's all wrong."

"What did she get wrong n—"

"No Sir, not her math. The world's math. The power that's sitting in those toruses is a thousand times greater than ever should have been in a lighting bolt. By anyone's math. Yet, these coils and her design was built around catching a bolt that lasted longer than any bolt in history and was stronger than anything ever recorded, and she sized them almost perfectly.

We're not rounding pennies anymore, Sir.

Now, this system was battered and it'll take weeks to get it back into first-class shape. And we still have hundreds of questions that need answers. For example, some of our toruses have flow rates that shouldn't be possible. We think that the lightning gave it a static charge, if you will, that lets millions of tons of fluid levitate off of her special lining. Almost friction free.

Now, these toruses are far too big and expensive to just experiment with. But eventually we'll figure out how to tap them without disturbing that delicate static field."

"What do you mean?" the XO said.

"In part, that's what damaged the torus. The lining is wrecked right now. Shredded. You could feel pieces bouncing around inside it, a little like sitting on a dryer filled with gravel. It took three days to bring it to a stop. Might take a month to reline it. Here," Hanly opened an XL sheet on the screen, "If our new estimates are right, and we can figure out how to maintain that static levitation trick, the capacity of each torus rises to over one gigawatt hour. Figure over thirty for the entire plant. If we can charge them from a passing storm, that's between one and three million dollars worth of electricity, each storm. Bonus. Total profit, almost no expense." Hanly pulled up a NOA page, "We get an average of two dozen storms in this valley every year."

The XO looked over the numbers on the screen. "You're impossible to stay mad at, Hanly." He adjusted the monitor again. "You have a free man to look at that transmitter again? See if we can get it back up?"

"I looked, Sir, personally. But the encoding chip is gone. Transmitting isn't a problem, the message is. Soon as we get the new board, we should be able to plug it in and turn it on. After entering your activation codes, of course."

"Should be here soon," the XO said, heading for the door. "Bought two this time."

Shadona rolled to her side and heaved over the edge of the bed. "Hullluuuhhh!!" she said, heaving twice more. But nothing came out. She felt sick to her aching, empty stomach, room spinning, head pounding, mouth parched. "Houghllll!" she said again.

She ran her fingers down her face. She felt puffy, but her fingers said she wasn't swollen. Band-aid on her arm, dressed in a paper gown, her leg was wet from when they removed a catheter.

Dizzy, she remembered it all. Weeks of screaming in pain, trapped inside a body that couldn't move. Paralyzed.

She tried to get out of bed, but crashed to the concrete instead.

She lay there several minutes, in pain, before crawling to the bathroom and showering off, bedsores stinging in the hot, soapy spray.

The heavy metal door made a clunk as it unlocked and rolled open. "Shadona, front and center," the Sergeant yelled.

She leaned against the shower wall, reached her hand past the curtain, and made a single-finger gesture.

"Front and center!"

"Back off, Sarge," Dana yelled from her bed, "It's been a rough morning."

"One two, one two. Let's go," he said, barging into the room.

Dana pummeled him with her pillow, but was as weak and ineffective as Shadona's protest was.

The Sergeant grabbed clothes from her desk, a towel from the hook, then turned off the water. "Get dry, get dressed, and get going. Now!" he said, dumping the clothes on the sink. "You have thirty seconds!" He walked out of the tiny room.

She sat in the chair in Hanly's office, middle of the shop.

"Why is your hair wet?" he asked.

She looked incredulous before slouching in the chair, shampoo bubbles soaking into the backrest.

"Never mind," he said. He pointed out the troubled ground, "A coil exploded, destroying the lining of one of the toruses." He stood from behind his desk and moved to sit beside her. "How is it that the lightning didn't rip this mountain apart? The torsion alone should have been like an earthquake."

She faced the ceiling, eyes closed.

He tapped her on the arm. "I'm not the enemy here.

Fine." He turned the monitor and clicked a few icons. "You'll probably be interested in the data we collected, before the surge crashed the computers."

She opened her eyes long enough to watch several screens flicker by. . . but not much longer.

"From my estimates, you need at least eighteen toruses at near full power to run that device you've got bolted to the ceiling. We can't charge them off the grid, and you know it. And I know you know it because there's no other reason for you to have pushed for this lightning catching thing—"

"Harvester," she mumbled.

"Harvester. Fine. I don't care what it's called. If you ever want to turn that thing in the chamber on, I have to be able to charge these toruses. But I can't do that without you. I need your help."

She leaned forward, eyes sleepy, but open. "I'm hungry, tired, wet, and dirty. I have bedsores. I'm dizzy and nauseous, but by all means, your needs come—"

He picked up the phone, "What do you want from the cafeteria? I'll have it sent up." He opened the filing cabinet and tossed her a sleeve of Snickers bars. "Got bedsores, I'll call the nurse next. I'm not your enemy here."

She ripped open the wrapper and devoured one, on the spot.

"Yes, this is Hanly in the shop. . . yes, I know what time it is. I need a pepperoni and hamburger pizza with green peppers, extra cheese, and mushrooms. And when it comes out of the oven, sprinkle on some raw onions and cucumber slices. . . thank you. A ten inch will be fine." He hung up the phone. "You want the nurse next?" He flopped a paper from his desk to her lap. "I've got six days to get this thing ready, or we'll miss the next storm. You obviously planned on—"

"I need a tooth pulled," she said.

"Fine, we've got a dent— You mean the tooth? I can't do that. Don't know how."

She wiped melted chocolate from the corner of her lips, "You have access to its drawings?"

"Sorry, uh, only saw the pamphlet. More like a sales brochure than technical drawings. And I'm not that kind of engineer anyway."

She stared him in the eyes. "Yofi said you had seen them, too."

He looked away, briefly, "Yes, well, that was a long time ago. I don't have them— I'll talk to the XO, but there's only so much I can do with that, kid. He's the only one with the codes for it."

She could tell he was lying. . . but he might also be useful.

"Pizza will be ready in fifteen."
Chapter 43

When the Christmas tree lights flickered green, the frozen football was loaded into the tube and Hanly, reluctantly, pressed the button.

Booommmmm!!!!

He turned to the monitors, cameras focused on the outside this time. The bolt filled the screen and looked nearly a foot wide as it strobed for a full ten seconds. The mountain rumbled, but far less than anything being fried with a bolt should tremble.

Data poured across the screens as the toruses shifted gears, tasting true power for only the second time in their short lives. The bolt faded, embers glowed red, then green, as they smeared to the side with the wind, like chalk being erased from a scratched board. After a few minutes, no trace of the bolt remained, and red lights started turning green on his board again.

He pressed the button and another bold bolt stretched up and bled the cloud dry.

Each time the football went up, he understood it all a little better.

Pressed clumps of frozen dust left a super-conducting comet tail that electrically connected their toruses directly to the clouds. Instead of burning its way to ground, expending most of the bolt's energy in the process, simple frozen threads of dust painted a superhighway that lasted only a few seconds before falling to the earth as harmless dirt. Delivering lightning at an intensity that had never been seen before. Air, as any power line would attest, is a very good insulator, even in the rain. A little frozen dust changed all that.

Lightning would vaporize any ordinary coil, especially at these levels. Yet her brilliance protected theirs. The coils in her system, when grounded correctly, used isolated grid power to generate the intense magnetic fields around the fluid. The lightning blast was channeled through the liquid within that field, where all its energy was converted, instantly, into raw motion, stored as speed and momentum. The massive static charge itself protecting the walls from what should have been an overwhelming force of friction.

Each problem that had stumbled and humbled others was turned to an advantage by her design.

They fired football after football into the clouds without a single incident. Not a single bulb blew. Not a single light flickered. The base barely rumbled at all.

Power levels continued to rise. It seemed endless.

It seemed so simple.

Like an idea that could be accurately captured by a child with crayons.

Tons of dry ice sat in the chamber next to her experiment. . . waiting, while she double checked everything. Hanly watched the monitors from the control room as she walked from item to item, instrument to instrument, cable to cable. She had never double-checked anything in front of him before.

But this wasn't like the suit. The stakes were huge, and the margin for error was zero.

She entered the main chamber, walked under the ring as it dripped fog into the room, and took her place inside the phone-booth-sized Plexiglas cage off to the side. Closing the door behind her, she pointed up to the camera.

She waited while Hanly signaled the Co-Op that they were going offline for scheduled maintenance. When confirmation came back, he transferred the controls to her.

She knew she was being watched and recorded with every means at their disposal. But it would do them no good. She placed both hands inside the empty window frame and pretended to conduct an orchestra for the benefit of all those cameras. She made it as elegant, long, and complicated as possible.

The window was an overly complex looking, yet utterly simple interface for her ring, and her ring had been working on this program for years. It would have to work flawlessly today. It tickled back that its upload was complete.

She casually held one hand inside the window, then pointed to the camera again.

A simple light indicated that she had a go. Since the bulk of the processing would take place inside the ring, all she had to do was keep her hand still while—

Booommmmm!!!!!!!

The room exploded with a violent flash so bright she felt a warmth greater than the summer sun on her skin, even through her clothes. Debris pelted the Plexiglas like angry hail on a metal roof as the ground shook under her feet, but her hand didn't waiver.

Thud!!!

The impact knocked her to the ground, bounced her up off the glass, then unceremoniously deposited her like dirty laundry back on the floor.

Blinded by the light, all she could do was wait for her blurred vision to return. If the thud was what she thought it was, she had kept her ring in the window long enough. But she wouldn't know for sure until the room cleared of smoke.

Her booth should be perfectly safe. Solid steel construction, wire caged, double Plexiglas. But all the same, the smell of smoke had infiltrated her tiny room; she was still blinded and on the floor. None of which she had anticipated. She was, for the first time, worried.

Blinking wildly, she coughed and tucked her nose inside her shirt while struggling to stand. The process should have produced no smoke, yet the room was filled— The self-destructive equipment, on the other hand, was chocked full of insulated wires, transistors, tubes, and plastic pieces and parts, and a byproduct of her process was pure oxygen that obviously enhanced the flames. The air outside the booth was assuredly as toxic as it was foul.

She pressed her hand against the glass. Warm, but in no danger of melting. Remnants of the melted ring dripped from the ceiling like stalactites in a cave. Except these were glowing a dim red, providing the only source of light in the room.

Even so, she could tell it was a success by the basic shape alone. She slapped the vent button and massive fans crammed the chamber with outside air. . . but she had minutes yet before she dared to leave the booth.

The doors flung open as men burst through the smoke, two of which broke open her booth and yanked her outside. . . handing her off to two more that deposited her back into her room.

"What the hell is it?" the XO asked inside the chamber.

"We don't know for sure, Sir," one of Hanly's engineers said, "but it looks like a small airplane."

"I can see that." He stared up at the scorched ceiling where the ring had been bolted. "How the hell did she pull this Houdini act off?" He looked around the room filled with puzzled engineers. "Anyone?"

All paused, but none answered.

"Find out!"

They all went back to their individual investigations.

"Not you," the XO said, grabbing Hanly by the arm and ushering him to the side. "Any ideas?"

"Well Sir, uh, no." He pointed up. "Hundreds of feet of solid rock," He pointed down, "Even more. We've measured the room. We'll have to jackhammer the walls and two hundred feet of halls just to get it out, it'll take us almost a month of demolition to get it outside and up to the hangar. A month working 24/7. I think we can rule out slight of hand or illusion." He touched the wing. "Black, smooth as glass. I'd bet my paycheck that it's as tough as that suit. Tougher maybe. And it looks like it's all one piece. No signs of a way in. No sign of landing gear. Seamless so far. Absolutely seamless," Hanly faced him, "and very distracting. More important than this paperweight is she managed to draw down every torus we have in under a minute. We did the math. For those few seconds, we out produced the continent, and came close to out producing the planet. Now, the Richter was a 3.9, but still, that's damn impressive. And she managed to keep the static charge.

I'm not really a plane guy, so, personally, I don't care if it just sits here forever.

What I do care about is how she tapped those toruses. We've got tons of data that needs to be pored over that's far more important than wasting time jackhammering out a plane, no matter how shiny and slick it is."

The XO stared at the plane. "If she did with airplanes what she did—"

"Need I remind you, that loop of steam pipe turned out to be far more important."

The XO ran his fingers across the leading edge of the plane. "I'll get someone else to dig it out. But for the next few days, I want your team investigating this, because you have the most experience with suit construction."

Hanly watched his team in dust-masks digging through the charred remains in the room. "Yes Sir."

She stared at the door, Dana locked in the same room. "Maybe I made it worse," Shadona whispered from her desk.

"Maybe," Dana said, "But we got pizza and music for months. Almost felt like working for Yofi, for a while."

Shadona finished scribbling on the pad. "It was nice to work on my own project, instead of someone else's all the time."

"Maybe they'll let us keep repairing birds on our own. I don't care much for Elhander. Nobody really does."

Shadona smiled as she pushed the pad to the back of the desk, then arranged her pencils and pens. "I'm glad they got the catapult certified last month. There's nothing more exhilarating than being launched off the side of a mountain. . . unless it's catching the wire."

Dana moved to sit on the edge of Shadona's desk. "Well, you'll have to grow another inch and pack on ten pounds before they'll let you sit in an F-16, and you have to master that before the Raptor."

Shadona just smiled. "I think I can do better than Raptors."
Chapter 44

Elhander walked around the latest addition to the hangar. "It's either a tiny plane," he said, "or a big drone. I don't see any way in or out, no cockpit. No way for a pilot to fly it."

"You're the Raptor expert. You tell me which it is," the XO said.

"It's not a Raptor, I'd have to say big drone. But I'd have to get inside it to tell you— Might be a mockup. Doubt it would even fly. There's no engines, no turbines and nothing to mount them to." He gestured at the openings in the wings, "These cavities aren't big enough for any. . . " He leaned inside the culvert-like opening. "I take that back. It looks like there's an array of injector nozzles and some fixed fins. But nothing that could ever result in flight." He climbed back out. "No tail, no control surfaces. I predict that it'll never recover from the first flat spin it gets in. I'm not even sure which is the front or back, other than this end of the teardrop is sharper. It's incomplete. No landing gear. I'm guessing it's just an empty shell."

"Hanly x-rayed it weeks ago," the XO said. "Couldn't see into it."

"Well, we can drill some discrete hole here and—"

"No, don't do that. Damned thing cost millions. Last thing we need is a bunch of holes drilled into gas tanks, rip fuel lines, or God knows what."

He rapped his knuckles against the fuselage, "It sounds solid." He walked away, tilted his head, and squinted. "A hollow liftbody, perhaps a cross between a box kite and a delta wing. Teardrop shaped. Strap a big enough engine to it and it might fly." He went back to Yofi's old office, "But my money is with Hanly on giant paperweight."

Shadona dipped the plunger into the bucket of water, then jabbed it hard on the underside of the wing. Dana dipped another and passed it under to her friend. Shadona wrestled the plungers like she was trying to unclog two stubborn sinks— When a plate slid forward, jostled to the left, then swung free, exposing the mounts and a pocket for landing gear.

With dozens of plungers and hours of time, she slowly went around unlocking the secret hatches covering the plane.

Over the next two months her team of girls, on a shift of their own, custom manufactured all the standard metal parts every plane required, starting with the landing gear. But still no cockpit.

Shadona paused to inspect the soldered connections on the lithium battery pack, then continued on her way to selecting a fresh slice of the pizza that had just been delivered.

Chroma plopped down on a stool as she grabbed a slice as well. "The boys are pissed because they don't get pizza when they work shop," she said.

Shadona quietly munched a corner.

"Elhander doesn't think it'll fly," Elizrae said, sitting down. "He thinks the seat we've been working on is just a prop." She poked Shadona with her finger. "You better not have had me working on a prop for the last month, or those boys won't be the only ones pissed at you."

"Eat your slice," Dana said, joining them. "You haven't had it so good, even if it is a prop." Turning to Shadona, "It isn't a prop, is it?"

Shadona continued to quietly eat.

"Batteries should take twenty-four to charge," Dana said, cheese dripping from her chin.

Shadona wiped the corner of her mouth on the back of her hand, "Good."

Shadona pressed her fingers to the underside, slightly rear of the back third of the fuselage, and a hole opened with a smooth electric whirl. Muffled sounds of something moving inside stopped seconds after it began, and another electric whirl opened a second hole, aligned perfectly with the first.

She climbed in, then reached her hands out the hole as the seat was finagled in, followed by the needed ratchets, bolts, and wiring harnesses.

After twenty minutes, systems started to come to life.

Flaps broke from their seamless edges and extended themselves like the wings of any other hatchling, emerging from an egg. But these flaps were aligned like the fingers of a hand, and only over the front and back of the covert-like engines. Tiny black crumbs dusted the floor in chunks no bigger than M&Ms while the fingers continued to flick debris from their edges before nestling back into their near seamless line, feathers on a bird. Nozzles inside the engines twisted and flexed on their own, like the ballet hidden under the pond at a Vegas water show, but capable of a far more intricate dance.

Systems settled to absolute quiet as Shadona emerged, feet first, through the tiny hole under the plane. "I think we're ready for fuel."

"Out of the question," Elhander said. "We have test pilots for a reason. Aircraft have to go through extensive ground testing before they're ever allowed to—" he put his hands on his hips, "Out of the question on every level."

The XO stared him down as they stood in the plane's presence, "Then you test it out—"

"I can't, and I won't. That piece of junk has no schematics, no drawing, no diagrams, no hint of function or purpose. You won't let us tear it down, even if we knew how. It's out of the question. You wind tunnel, you computer model, you study and dissect for months or years, but you don't see if something can fly by just chunking it off the side of a mountain! And I'll be—"

"I want that bird in the air. Do whatever you have to do to make yourself feel comfortable with it, do whatever tests you feel are necessary without damaging it," the XO pressed his finger into Elhander's chest, "But it's getting fueled and cleared at the end of twenty days."

"Impossible. We can't even give it a proper wind tunnel test in twenty da—"

"Twenty days. Learn everything you can about it, everything, but it's going in the air. If it runs like a racehorse, I expect you to tell me how. If it crashes like a brick, I want you to tell me why." He pressed his point with his finger, "Twenty days."

A skid with two TF-34s was bolted down off to the side of the flight deck, a mere forty feet from the tiny plane, equally bolted down. Fuel surged into them as they roared to life. Smoke streamed with the jet-wash, licking over the wings to be captured by cameras from dozens of angles as it wandered over every surface while winches struggled to jostle the plane into new positions.

When the engines died down, Elhander emerged from the control tower and walked the acres across the deck.

"Well," the XO said, just a few steps behind, "what's the verdict?"

Elhander looked flustered. "It won't fly. It's totally unstable, about the same as that irritating, uncooperative, slow-witted girl. You know that it's got a keypad in the cockpit that flashes a code at you, then you have a few seconds to type an answer, and if the answer isn't right, none of the systems come on. And it's a different code and a different answer every time. We're locked out. There's only so much we can learn while being locked out of all the flight systems. It's been weeks and I still don't know if it's fly-by-wire or hydraulic. It's got to have a computer, but damned if I know where. And it's got fiber-optic cables everywhere doing God-knows-what."

"Did you manage to hide some cameras in there?"

Elhander shrugged, "Are you not listening, the codes change. Anything we capture is wo—"

The XO stared at the tiny plane, "How do you see out of it?"

"You don't. It's pitch black in that little hole. No windows, no instruments, no radar. Nothing. Just a chair with a stick and some pedals, a keypad and a small box mounted under the seat. Crash and burn, Buddy. I don't see nothing else."

The XO looked it over; dirt blown from the runway had dulled its flat-black finish. He put his hand on Elhander's shoulder and said, "Fuel it."

Fire belched from the left side, then the right was engulfed in flames as it purged impurities in never-used-before lines. Flames puddled to the ground and trickled out the vents in demonic licks of a plane seconds from being dragged to a fiery hell.

A crew grabbed hoses and rushed toward the plane— When the flames suddenly got sucked inside as the engines gasped to life.

From a standstill, in a single fluid motion without a hint of hesitation, the nose vented down as the engines slammed into reverse. The nose hopped twenty feet in the air before the engines flipped forward and the plane blasted like a rocket out of a bottle. Twisting tornadoes of sand and dirt were all that was left in its wake, spinning in the middle of acres of unused runway.

Ba-Ba-BOOOMMMMMM!!!!

It slipped into sonic and winked from view faster than most could even look up.

The XO pressed field glasses to the window of the control tower, unable to pick up a hint. "Radar have the heading?"

"Radar didn't see it at all, Sir."
Chapter 45

The XO watched the video of a child, barely fourteen, flying a ten, perhaps twenty million dollar plane that took off without a runway, slipped effortlessly into sonic, and never once appeared on radar. Over the last few days they pieced together her path from civil noise complaints as she crossed down into Texas, turned over the gulf, violated Brazil's air space with impunity, buzzed within twenty feet of a carrier steaming from Hawaii, then blazed across California to belly-flop from the sky and land with a feather's touch on the elevator pad. Estimates of her approach speed, since radar couldn't see it at all, pegged it at two hundred miles per hour or faster, a mere hundred feet over the deck. It looked like a kamikaze attack.

The most vulnerable time for an airplane was takeoffs and landings, and this let it scream in and out faster than a man can take aim and fire.

He played the video of the takeoff again. Time stamps showed a mere two seconds had passed from standstill to sonic boom. Two seconds. Math dictated that it was a scant thousand feet away when the barrier was shattered, and it could land just as fast. Two seconds of vulnerability was virtual invulnerability in the real world.

The cameras inside hadn't escaped her detection. She sneezed on her finger and smudged each and every lens.

Even so, they gathered an impressive amount of information.

The round-walled interior glowed softly when she entered. After typing the answer code, the walls morphed into a personal IMAX with no projector. From the pilot's perspective, the plane turned invisible, and it was just her and the chair ripping through the sky. Like a video game on steroids, or an amusement park ride.

Though an exact speed couldn't be determined, all estimates, going only by complaints and UFO sightings along her path, put her easily into the supersonic range, likely hypersonic. Hypersonic was an elite domain reserved for those capable of Mach 5 or more. Something Raptors were decades away from, if ever.

He looked at the report that had crossed the Colonel's desk and was casually forwarded to him. A report from a carrier just two days from Hawaii. Under clear skies, broad daylight, perfect visibility, a plane had caused an international incident at 1423 hours. Six satellites were retasked, the Navy was put on high alert, and deck cameras were uploaded to the Pentagon, CIA, and countless other agencies as they scrambled to identify it. All over a plane parked in his hangar, Slot D168.

He couldn't help but smile as he answered the Email, and attached a video of his own.

'It's ours,' was all he wrote to the Colonel.

Shadona sat in his office, but this time she didn't stare at the floor while he berated and lectured her for nearly an hour. "I've solved world hunger and the energy crisis," she said when he finally gave pause, "twice now. What more is my freedom worth? Take out the tooth. Do the right thing. Honor our agreement and set me free. When I know I'm safe, I'll Email you the answers. I'll give you the keys that own the air." She leaned forward in the chair.

"Give me the answers first—"

"We tried that before, remember?"

He pounded the desk as he lurched toward the tiny girl. "This isn't your power plant. It isn't your suit, your engine, or your plane! They're the sole property of this country, and it all falls under national defense. You will relinquish the access codes—"

"Take out the tooth."

"You will relinquish the—"

"Honor your promise. Honor your word."

"It's high treason to withhold national security secrets from—"

She sat back in her chair and quoted something she had seen at Yofi's on The History Channel. "Give me liberty, or give me death."

He smacked her instead. "I am so tired of this shit with you, getting you to cooperate is like—"

"Pulling teeth," she said, rubbing her cheek.

He smacked her again.

She fell out of the chair and crawled out of his reach, "Ask Hanly how many decades it'll take his team to industrialize—"

"I've had it with you." He moved from behind the desk. "This isn't a game!"

"It's my life. My ideas. My plane. Mine! Doubt me, try to fly it on your own. A hundred Hanlys and a thousand Elhanders couldn't—"

It wasn't the back of his hand this time.

Elhander sat inside the plane. A code popped up, and he typed random digits back. After fruitlessly playing with it for hours every day, he suddenly got a response. The egg-shaped walls disappeared, and the world took its place.

He stared at his feet and the ground over a yard beyond the pedals. Every grain of dirt was visible, in razor-sharp detail. The tires were the only parts of the plane he could see. He turned around in the seat and saw everything around him. He pressed his eye as close as he could to the screen, yet even when his nose touched he couldn't see a single pixel. The illusion of 3D was perfection, even that close, as if the plane had turned invisible.

He looked at the small block building beside the control tower— And watched people walking around inside! They were faint silhouettes, much like every object in the room. A spot on the ground faintly glowed blue.

He looked up at the radar tower. Though the disk continued to rotate, there was nothing special about it. But to its side, an insignificant-looking antenna pulsated a light green. He watched a ghostly figure ride up the elevator through dozens of feet of rock, walk behind walls and down halls, then emerge from the door by the tower. The pocket glowed green as Elhander watched Hanly answer the phone.

It was stunning.

He touched the pedals and stats appeared to hang in the air as unobtrusive as closed caption scrolls on a TV. Fuel measured in pounds, power levels of the battery, temperatures and pressures along surfaces scrolled by while altitude and GPS remained fixed on an artificial horizon. He played with the stick, but control surfaces didn't budge. He throttled it without a response, same with all his attempts to ignite the engines.

But it hardly mattered.

The technology on display was inspiring all on its own. The aerodynamic advantage of removing the classic bubbled cockpit was a quantum leap forward, often coming by sacrificing visibility. Yet her graphics clearly gave any pilot a superior situational awareness over everyone else in the air. Putting the pilot near the center of the craft would give them incredible survivability, should something like it ever see combat. He stared at the dimmed sun and watched a bird cross in front of it, something eyes alone could never see. Add speed, stealth, vertical takeoffs and landings, and what everyone assumed was bulletproof skin, and you had, he hated to admit, something that rendered Raptors obsolete. All it was lacking was guns.

Thousands of miles on a single tank of gas was equally profound in its implications. Miles per gallon, even at their most conservative estimates, put it at better than the most efficient compact car, and most scooters.

He couldn't argue the point anymore.

Raptors had taken a team of over a hundred engineers more than a decade to assemble. She did this in a year with a small team of girls. And it was better in every way that mattered.

And he had kicked her out of his shop because she seemed stupid and didn't work fast enough.

He scribbled some notes on his pad, took a few dozen pictures, then exited the plane.

"Elhander," Hanly said, closing his phone, "you planning to fly somewhere?"

"I'm certified, but not on this."

Hanly put the phone in its pouch on his hip. "If you're not, guess nobody is. Listen, I'm going to be testing up here and just wanted to give everyone a heads up."

"Testing what?"

Hanly couldn't avoid the sly smile, "Figured out how that bird flies without engines?"

"Sorry, that's classi—"

"Classified, I know. So's what we're testing. I can tell you it sounds like a cannon going off and is far more dangerous, so I've had flights canceled and I'm clearing the decks." He pulled his phone from the holster. "You want to keep working, and I'll have someone tow that bird to the elevator and you can take it to the hangar."

"That'd be fine."

Hanly made the call while Elhander crawled back in.

Elhander's clearance was limited to the shop, hangar, control tower, and flight deck. But as he rode the elevator down, the vastness of the base was revealed to him. He saw the dorms, cafeteria, kitchen, medical, a small city of hundreds of rooms opened to him. Points on the walls glowed a faint green, drawing his attention while the elevator inched lower. As he strained to focus, he noticed that they were all cameras, trying their best to remain concealed. He watched a box glow bright as someone walked past it in the hall. Something in their jaw glowed back.

He never realized that the base was covered with so many cameras.

He had never seen security on this scale, even prisons drew the line somewhere. He watched a taxi couple to the front wheel and tow him, plane and all, to its assigned slot.

He adjusted the seat and inspected the box mounted underneath— When the screen fell black and the door swished closed.

He opened his phone— No signal. He switched to walkie-talkie— No signal.

He used the backlight on the phone to find his way around, searching frantically for anything to open the hatch.

She ran her fingers across its skin. The same imbedded optics that let the plane see were updating her through tickles in the ring, simultaneously. "Never liked the man anyway," she said. "You get him out."

"I will," the XO said, then waved to Hanly as they brought over the shop's chopsaw.

She smiled. "Go ahead," she said, stepping aside. "Destroy it."

Hanly adjusted his goggles, dropped his face shield, and climbed under the ship, but waited for the XO's signal.

"Last chance," the XO said.

The diamond-dusted disk revved as sparks shot across the floor and an ear-piercing scream made fingernails on a chalkboard sound as soothing as a violin. After six minutes of grinding, Hanly stopped. "Just scratching the surface, Sir. I'm not getting anywhere."

"Try a blowtorch or a plasma cutter," Shadona said, "cook him out."

"A man's life is on the line!" the XO barked, inches from her face.

"Oh, it's far more than that," she whispered.

"How many hours has he been in there," the XO asked.

"At least five, Sir," Hanly said. "The skin might be thinner, but it's harder than suit armor." He looked at the damaged disk, "Harder than diamonds."

"Got a howitzer handy?" Shadona said.

Hanly put the chopsaw down, "Do we even know he's still alive? How much air is in there anyway?"

The XO gestured to one of the guards, "Get a stethoscope from medical." He turned to the girl, "You think this is a game?"

"If it is, Elhander's the only loser."

The XO smacked her.

Hanly stepped closer, "This isn't getting us anywhere, Sir. The interior is obviously tiny. He would be dead in minutes unless it had its own source of air." He looked at Shadona, "It's obviously got a pressurized cabin, right? Pressurized means it's got its own air."

Hand still on her cheek, "If he's dumb enough to lock himself inside, he's dumb enough to turn off the air." She looked the XO in the eyes, "How much is Elhander's life worth, to you?"
Chapter 46

Yofi filled his coffee cup, added a shot of milk, then filled another and added just sugar. Yawning before slathering cream cheese on two bagels, he headed for the living room. "Here you are, Hon," he said, sitting beside her on the couch.

She turned the TV off. "I don't know why I still watch that stuff," she said, snuggling back to his arm. "I wish you hadn't gotten fired."

"I quit the way millions dream of, Hon, no regrets at all." He sunk his teeth into the bagel, then sipped from his favorite mug.

"Quit, fired, I just wish I knew how those girls were doing. I can't imagine either of them serving." She ran her hand across his knee. "Any more than I can imagine you pulling a trigger on someone."

"You can serve without having to kill, El. They're not all Rambo. I don't know if I could ever pull a trigger," he made a mechanical fist, "on anything other than a chin."

"You ever punch someone before?"

"Nope. He was my first." He put his human arm around her as they snuggled closer on the couch. "If you don't count training."

She aimed the remote at the CD player and selected random songs from Sade.

"Did you hear something," she said, muting the stereo.

"No, I didn't hear—" He turned toward the door. "That sounded like a car door."

Someone knocked at the front door.

Yofi got to his feet in time to hear a car pull out of the driveway. He opened the door and hugged the first little girl he saw standing there. "My God," he said, "Oh, my God." She didn't feel like she would crumble this time. "Come in, come in! El is going to want to see you two."

Elaine lifted the girl off her feet as she spun her around. "Oh I missed you," she said. "Both of you."

"How?" Yofi said. "Why? Uh, how?"

But Shadona walked to the kitchen, pulled a card out of her pocket, and dialed the phone. "Tap the underside with your fingertips, just three fingers as the corners of a triangle, then tap the same spot with your palm and the door will open," she said, then hung up the phone. "I don't know how long we can stay," she smiled faintly as she walked back into the living room, "but we can stay until that day comes. If you'll have us."

* * *

Hanly finished his latest check and verified that all personnel were clear from the mountaintop before his team prepped another football for launch. They only had experience during low visibility storms and needed more dry runs to verify that their understanding of its working principles were firm.

Like all her designs, it was simple and elegant at its core, yet scientifically befuddling and elusive to even the most stringent investigation. They needed to watch it work without the distraction of a lightning bolt. They needed to study it further before they could start harvesting storms on a regular basis. They needed to understand its systems better than they did. And to do that, they needed to experiment.

He adjusted the cameras inside the tiny building, affixed new voltage and amp probes, and verified the transmitter was relaying all the data back to their computers.

When they cleared the top, the torus punted the football.

"How's the data," Hanly asked, standing over their shoulders in the control room.

"Radar is tracking it nicely," one said. "We've got good conductivity, and we're reading about a million volts right now on a cloudless sky."

"A million?" Hanly said, checking the time on his watch. "Earlier today it was barely at ten thousand."

"Well, what do you want me to tell you? It's reading a million now."

Hanly studied the screen, then crowded his assistant out of the way as he took over the terminal. "I want to. . . " He clicked back through previous screens and compared the readings. "I want to prep another football."

"Already prepped, Sir."

He jumped to the main board, verified that the Co-Op knew they were down for the day, closed the circuits to the toruses, crossed his fingers, and punted the football.

Booommmm!!!!

Power surged into the equipment as virtual gauges fluctuated on his wall of screens. He marked down the readings, waited five minutes, and fired another into the clear blue, cloudless sky.

Boooommmm!!!!

His knees were trembling as he realized the implications, but he dare not jump the gun again. They needed more data. They needed weeks of additional study. They needed to pour over decades of weather data to rule out atmospheric anomalies. But if the numbers held true, they could do better than harvest a few random storms.

They could capture lightning, at will.

This changed everything.

The XO stood in the lab and looked Hegel in the eyes, "You said your team had something to show me?"

"Yes Sir," Hegel said, "We've been working on that non-lethal ordinance you requested two years—"

"I know what I requested, Captain, I was in the room at the time."

"Yes Sir. You know we had the rubber bullets that expanded into a sticky foam—"

"Please don't waste my time on more crap like that. The best it could do was ruin someone's wardrobe. It couldn't even stick someone to the ground if you were lucky enough to hit them in the feet. Your pepper and ether pellets showed promise, but to put someone down you had to hit them repeatedly in the upper chest or in the face, and ten percent of the rounds broke in your own barrel, making them hazardous to the user!

Listen, I'll say it again, think Tazer with a two hundred foot range. We want something that will immediately immobilize and chambers like a regular round. Preferably something that hurts like hell. I want to be able to cap off three or four rounds into some terrorist's ass, make him wish he was dead, but keep him alive for questioning. I want to follow up with lethal rounds right behind it, in case he has friends. Don't want to switch guns or mags in the middle of a firefight. One gun, one clip, two options."

"Understood, Sir. And I think my team has your answer. Let me show you." He walked the XO to a desk full of ammo. "Right now, it's only available for shotguns. But my boys say you have a top-notch machine shop in the building that can bring them down to .45 or even 9mm."

The XO gave the boys a stern look for divulging such info. "Go on, let's see it."

Hegel chambered a slug, aimed it at a visibly frightened goat tied at the end of the room, and fired.

The goat screamed, fell to the floor, and twitched for over a minute in obvious agony.

"Impressive," the XO said, watching the goat slowly gather its bearings, unable to stand. "How?"

"Well, it's based on a Tazer, like you asked. But the problem with Tazers, as you know, is getting the power, the zap, to the target as fast and neatly as a bullet. The key was to use the gun's own rifling as the power source, with the shotgun of course, we had to add wings to it. The outer jacket of the projectile spins while the core doesn't. The core has the coils, the outer jacket has the magnets. Put some contact glue from our earlier experiments on the tip and you have it. It travels like a bullet, packs the kinetic wallop of a rubber round, and keeps zapping them for a few minutes, if it sticks. The cost is high, maybe two dollars a round in material, figure three or four a round even if it can be automated. And as long as you hit a person, the rounds are recyclable. Bounce it off of a wall. . . " He shrugged, "not so much." The goat wobbled to its feet, then slammed back to the ground.

"As long as it sticks?"

"Nine out of ten stick. And ten out of ten that don't stick, still deliver enough of a jolt to put it down, just doesn't keep it down as long. It's crackling all the way in. Besides, I don't know anyone who doesn't double tap anyway, do you?"

The XO smiled. "I'm going to put you in touch with our engineer. Not exactly a machinist, but Hanly has been known to work some magic for me before." He held a shell in his hand. "Maybe we can make some of it out of plastic. Injectable molds, stuff like that." He turned to the smiling boys in the room. "Good job, Men. I'll make sure you get rewarded for this. Your country thanks you."

They stood at attention and gave a respectful salute.
Chapter 47

Yofi poured two cups of coffee, then carried them to the table as they continued their late night conversation.

Shadona sipped, then leaned away from the table. "Why won't hijacking a satellite work?"

He shrugged, "Not the way I understand it. No." He strummed his mechanical fingers across the table. "As I understand it, the tooth's sensitive to a fraction of a second delay. El thought of the same thing, doing something like streaming music over the internet. When we were at the beach, they had to adjust the broadcast to compensate for the delay. And they had to have advanced notice if you went outside the normal tower radius."

"But the signal from space was strong enough to— Internet? You have your computer back?"

"Sure," he said, looking over to the den.

Shadona ran over, opened Word, hit Alt+F11, and started typing code. When she logged on, an IM chat box popped up.

'F6144DE7' it asked.

'2AFDE21780 034EDD12 4EAD A' she typed back.

The screen went blank as the machine logged off.

"What was all that about?" Yofi asked.

She smiled when she looked up at his handsome, if not disfigured face, "I might have a friend that wants to help as much as you." She turned it off and went back to the kitchen while everyone else slept.

He looked skeptical. "Brad and Frances?"

She smiled instead.

"Hacking and hijacking satellites is easier said than done. Hostile governments employ thousands of hackers to try to do just that, with little success. And the rare times that they are successful, they've never kept the satellite for long. The companies control the uplinks, the physical buildings, and can decouple them, physically, from the grid any time they need to regain control. It's far easier to deny access to a satellite than it is to take one over." Out of reflex, his mechanical hand pressed to his brow, "You know any reporters?"

She looked clueless until he handed her the clippings.

She hadn't anticipated the press.

* * *

"This it?" the Colonel said.

"This is it," the XO said, standing on top of the mountain beside the tiny, black plane.

"No cockpit? I hate all instrumentation," the Colonel said, adjusting his flight suit.

The XO looked at Elhander, "You'll like this version. Listen, the thing is highly experimental—"

"That's why you called the crash-test-dummy version of rent-a-pilot," the Colonel said, inspecting the elegant lines of the wings before sticking his head inside the engines. "Never seen anything like this before." He rapped his knuckles against the skin. "That ain't aluminum." He rapped again. "It ain't composite or titanium either. Almost no give, like the side of a tank. What is it?"

The XO put his hands in his pockets, "Expensive."

"I like to know a little something about the plane that I'm entrusting my life to," the Colonel said, looking underneath and running his hand across the deep scratches left by a chopsaw. "What happened here?"

"Had a little glitch," Elhander said. "The hatch jammed and we almost had to cut it open."

The Colonel climbed in. "It's cramped as hell," he said, belting himself in. "Could you find a smaller seat?"

The XO laughed, "You were the shortest pilot we could find. . . " but he couldn't help himself, "on such short notice."

"I see the eject—"

"Don't touch it!" the XO yelled inside the hole.

"Wasn't going to. Why all the panic?"

"You don't see any parachute, do you? My understanding is that that bubble you're in gets ejected by blowing the plane apart around it." He looked inside, "We can't verify that it works without destroying the plane, so please, only touch it if your life depends on it."

"Hooha," the Colonel said.

Elhander glared at the XO, shocked. When he was trapped for most of a day, he had pulled the handle repeatedly, and nothing happened.

The XO dialed the phone. "Read me the numbers on the pad please," he said, squatting by the hatch.

"B115D"

"B115D," the XO said into the phone. "AE1," he yelled back into the plane.

The Colonel entered the numbers. "Holy shit."

The XO squatted near the hatch. "We have two cameras in there with you, recording everything. Anything you experience that's out of the ordinary, just say something and the mikes will pick it up. Vibrations, colors, smells, anything that you think is off, say so right then. As soon as this hatch closes you'll lose radio communication. It can't transmit, has something to do with the skin. But you will be able to hear us. Don't try anything fancy, just get a feel for it, ok? You've got about a 6,000-mile range and you're totally invisible to radar. So if you go down outside of the flight plan, nobody will find you. Any questions?"

The Colonel looked at the display. "No Sir, I think I've got it. Uh, how fast you want to push it?"

The XO smiled. "Try not to break the sound barrier over the states, but once you clear California, you can use your own discretion. We've been warned not to exceed 6Gs in any maneuver. Far as I know, that's your only limitation." The XO and Elhander jogged across the few acres to the control tower and radioed his all clear.

The engines easily lit in unison as the Colonel taxied down the runway for a clean, conventional takeoff.

They wouldn't see him for another two hours.

* * *

Yofi stared at the phone Shadona so casually put in her pocket. "AE1" he asked as he adjusted Elaine's score on the board. "You want to explain that?"

Ball in hand, Shadona walked to the line and hurled it down the lane where it picked off half of her needed split. "It's my carrot."

Yofi laughed. "If it's none of my business, just say so. But you can't blame me for being a little curious about a twenty-second phone call where your end of the entire conversation is AE1. Internet friend?"

She seemed horrified at the idea.

Dana attacked the pins with her usual vigor, "It's the access code for her plane." She leaned beside Yofi as she waited for her ball to return. "Not a bad hustle, if you ask—"

"Since when do planes have access codes?"

Dana paused to pick up her ball. "Since we built one."

Yofi watched Dana pick up the spare, but that wasn't what had him so dismayed. "Wait a second. You two haven't been back there but for a year and some change."

Dana casually walked back to her nachos, "Yeah, that's right."

Yofi pursued it further, "I think I'm missing—" Elaine thundered her ball down the lane.

"Look," Dana said, catching the cheese before it dripped on the floor, "It shines like this. Want to joyride, have to get the number from her. And it's never the same number twice."

He looked at Shadona, still a little shy. "A plane in under two years?"

Dana jumped to her feet, offended. "Hey, don't think she did it all herself. A dozen of us helped for what, three, four months?"

Yofi laughed, "Well, that changes everything." He adjusted Elaine's score, then grabbed a ball with his mechanical hand and feathered it to a wobbly strike. When his mechanical fingers straightened his hair, he realized just how much he had changed over those same short months. He didn't notice the feelings in his armpit anymore; his mind saw fingertips. His mind felt hair. It was all second nature now. He smiled at that shy little girl. Sometimes he wanted to lock her in a room and talk her ears off until she opened up and confided in him. He had so much to learn when their conversations went both ways. But seeing joy on her face meant so much more.

Seeing her talk meant more.

Elaine put her arm around Shadona and pulled the smiling little girl in for a hug. When he looked at the score, she wasn't last any more.
Chapter 48

The Colonel circled the tower, then lined up for a traditional landing. When it rolled to a stop, the hatch opened in the belly of the plane, and a shorter-than-average pilot walked across the runway to his debriefing in the control tower.

"Well," the XO asked.

"I don't know what I've been doing for the last eighteen years, but it hasn't been flying." He pressed his finger into the table. "That was flying. Never had such a field of view in my life. And talk about responsive." He paused while Elhander joined them at the table. "I never opened it up, but—" he tried to suppress his grin, "I've flown the Blackbird, U-2, everything in the stealth fleet, and a few that don't exist. The Blackbird felt like a Corvette with a pedal that would never end. I had your bird up to Mach 5 at twenty thousand, and it felt like it was still in first gear. It's the first plane that ever intimidated me." He looked at Elhander, the only one he knew was an engineer. "The avionics package is breathtaking, beyond high def. When you approach something, like a plane, a radar tower, a boat, it pings. A different sound for everything, and I'd swear it comes from the screen, right behind the object as it comes into view. Makes IMAX feel like shadow puppets on a paper bag. The autopilot—"

Elhander lifted his hand, "Autopilot?"

"Sorry Sir. Didn't mean to offend. It felt more like a copilot. I've had hay fever since I was a kid. Meds for it cause drowsiness, so, I sneezed. Well, that should have ruffled some feathers on any bird, but I felt the autopilot kick in and smooth it out. Felt hints of it with the takeoff and landing, too. Getting it to feedback into the stick must have taken years to perfect. It's subtle as a thousand dollar call girl." He addressed Elhander directly, "It felt like you could override it with just a little extra effort on the stick. Like the stick has a worn groove, a place it naturally wants to follow, and with just a little effort you can bump it out, like riding in ruts on a dirt road. Takes me back to learning on a tandem T-34C when the instructor nudged the stick for a wobbly trainee. Feels like it could land itself."

"That's what we're paying you for," the XO said. "What kind of responsiveness are we looking at? It didn't wind tunnel well."

The Colonel leaned back, palms slapping the table. "Could have fooled me. Most of the stealth fleet looks unstable in a tunnel. Hell, you would think I'd be used to fly-by-wire by now. Fly-by-computers, I mean. Only thing that bugs me on that bird is not being able to see the wings." He leaned toward Elhander and pointed, "It feels like the kind of power you get out of rockets, not Ram Jets. And I've seen dozens of Ram Jets before, not one of them could cold start on the ground like that. At about 300 knots you can barely feel the engines shift, then again at around Mach 1. Lady's footing it down the runway, it doesn't feel powerful at all. A little sluggish—" He slapped his hand on the table and looked down with a shake. "Sluggish ain't the word I'm looking for. More like a powerful turboprop. Over 300, it feels like a typical jet. Over Mach 1 it feels like an Atlas rocket." He leaned back and shrugged.

"Think that's a problem?" the XO asked.

"Well, I don't know how fast it can transition without stalling, but I now know why you had me take it slow."

The XO hit the remote and the monitor on the wall blinked on. He played a clip of the plane's only other takeoff and landing. "Fast transitions shouldn't be a problem, those clips were in real time. We're looking to write the book on this plane after all the bugs are worked out. We need to know its ticks, assets and shortcomings. A flight manual for training purposes. We don't expect you to even try those maneuvers, at least not in the beginning. We want you to take your time and not exceed 6Gs—"

"That clip's well over six. Hell, it's easily over ten!"

"We know. The pilot in that footage is the one that warned us that no pilot is ready for that plane in excess of 6Gs."

The Colonel looked insulted. "Six is noth—"

"You're getting big checks to take it easy. Go over Mach 5 all you want, but for now, nothing over 6Gs."

The Colonel tossed up his hands, "Your play, Coach. Don't worry. Say it's unstable over six, I'll keep it under." He stared at the screen. "Just seems a shame—"

Elhander stood up. "May seem odd to you, but observations like the copilot and shifting gears at 300 knots is more important to us right now. Any more such observations would be incredibly helpful. Even the littlest details are important at this stage of testing. Especially any notes on the autopilot."

The Colonel indulged him with a barrage of elaborations from the rest of his list.

* * *

Shadona stood outside and stared at the mountain that seemed to always loom over her shoulder. Just easing into dusk with a clear sky full of stars, a bright blue bolt was drawn ten miles into the heavens. It resembled an umbrella pulled inside out by the wind, as the end of a near perfect line fanned into millions of thin filaments, tens of miles above the ground.

She had only guessed what they now unwittingly confirmed. She wondered if they were bright enough to realize the implications, too. If she knew Hanly at all, he probably didn't get it yet, but eventually he would.

She walked back inside.

"You got an Email," Yofi said.

"What?"

"3DA," he said, "Whatever that means. I assume it was for you."

"It means," she looked at his mechanical arm, "it means I have to find my own way."

"Dana just popped a bucket of corn on the stove, thought we'd watch a couple movies we just got in the mail."

She looked up with a smile.

He couldn't help but give the girl a hug. "We'll find a way." He lightly patted her back, "Enjoy the now. Most of the time, that's all there is. When that piece of flack blew, I spent a year depressed, even suicidal about all I had lost. Painful surgeries, one after another, plays hell with your will to live, you know." He looked her in those deep brown eyes. "Don't see me moping around anymore, do you? Sure, I may never have everything I once did. But I'm still alive. I didn't lose El. Even have a brilliant little girl, when I thought we never could. It doesn't rain every day, you know. Always take time to enjoy the sunny days when they come." He led her to the living room, "Besides, these are supposed to be really good. Four stars and up. Got another season of that Stargate series you liked. We'll watch it after everyone else turns in. Just you and me, what do you say? Midnight marathon."

Yofi turned off the TV as they sat on the couch, another in a long series of late nights. "You spoil me, you know," he said. "El humors me by watching Modern Marvels, Junkyard Wars, and the nerd stuff I just can't help making her sit through. I can tell she's. . . Well, she just puts up with a lot from me from time to time." He watched Shadona yawn, Dana and Elaine had turned in hours ago. "Ok, you might be bored too, but at least— I just get excited when they run a program on fusion, or like tonight's marathon on experimental planes." He leaned toward her on the couch, "Just imagine the excitement of the first manned Mach 5 flight. Neil Armstrong and the X-15, how lucky can one man be? Sure, I don't know how they count it as an airplane when it's more like a rocket with superfluous wings and it gets dropped off a bomber. Hell, take out the chair and you'd call that a missile. And it could be argued that at fifty miles up, it's really in space. But still.

Makes working on turbines seem—"

She slouched back into the corner of the couch, knees pulled up, tucked under her chin. "I broke Mach 6."

"No I. . . I mean. . . " He leaned toward the shy little girl, now looking down. "But, uh, how high— at what altitude?"

She suppressed a yawn, looked up, and smiled, "Twenty feet. . . off the deck of a carrier."

He muffled his laughter, but he knew she was serious. "Can't be done. You'd melt the wings off. Aluminum turns to pudding a little over Mach 2, titanium will get you a little past three or four, but that's about it. That's why all the speed records are on the edge of the atmosphere, flirting with space. At least ten miles up."

"The hotter the forge," she whispered, "the stronger the steel."

Looking at the little girl trying to hide behind a simple nightshirt, it was easy to discount everything she said. But he wanted to know, "Not steel."

"Not a forge, but it's as hot as the sun." She hid her eyes behind her knees as she yawned quietly. "Wish I could have shown you."

He wanted to probe deeper, but it was clear she had stayed up for him. Much as Elaine had all those years before her. She was half asleep now. "I'd have loved to have helped you build it. But right now, let's get you to bed so you can get some sleep."

"I'm not sleepy," she said, eyes closed, forehead on knees.

As much as he wanted to carry her into her room, he didn't trust one of his arms with such a precious cargo. He nudged her off the couch and walked with her to her room. "Goodnight," he said, quiet enough to keep from waking Dana.

He had another room and another girl to get to.
Chapter 49

"You've got to stop burning the midnight oil," Elaine said, her fingers tracing one of the scars across his chest.

"I'm not twenty anymore, but I can still hold my own."

She gave him a morning kiss as she reached past and unplugged his recharged arm. "Not everything is about you; she needs sleep, too. You're as bad as a teenage boy, come a courtin' every day and at all hours of the night. She's barely a teen, remember? You keep staying up, she will too. Try a little more Dad and a little less enabler." She smiled as she helped him with the straps and his arm. When it came to life, he ran its finger through her curly red hair. "I thought we might see a petting farm with the girls today. Pick up some groceries on the way back." She handed him a computer printout. "MapQuested it already. Just twenty minutes out of the way. Said they had Alpacas and Emus. Lived here all this time and never knew they were here."

His mind thought about stock-car pit crews or air shows when it came to the girls, but he knew they'd enjoy a farm, too. "I never would have thought of that." He kissed her as he easily sat with mechanical help, then strapped on his leg by himself.

Elaine came in from the mailbox, sorting the letters from the junk. She opened a thick envelope and leafed through the pictures on her way to the dinner table. "Oh, I really like this one," she said, showing it off to Yofi first.

"Yuck," Dana said, cringing at the sight as she added four Tootsie rolls to the pot. "Why would anyone like getting licked on the face by food?" then to Yofi, "Call."

Elaine looked at the picture again, "I think it's cute." She looked at Shadona, wearing the same smile she had when the young alpaca cleaned out the food in her hands and continued licking what it could from the corners of her endless giggles. She pulled another from the pack, "And this Emus' egg just looks enormous in her hands."

Shadona looked at the first picture, then ran her fingers across the same cheek. "Must be fun to farm alpaca. Their fur is so soft, like raising a herd of pillows. Those big eyes, so curious about everything. I bet they're easy to train." She touched the face in the picture. "Remember how cute they looked all sleeping together on that pile of hay, those long necks stretched out across each other—"

"Taste just like chicken," Dana said.

"They don't eat them," Shadona said, not looking at her cards. "They just use the fur for—"

"That's the fluffy storefront," Dana pressed. "They butcher the old ones into sausage and burgers around back with—"

"Not funny, Dana," Elaine said, sitting down at the table, "I'm sure someone sometime eats alpacas, but the ones we saw were all grown for the wool. They sounded like they'd even give them away as pets if the wool market suddenly collapsed." She picked up her cards. "None of those little angles is ever ending up as a happy meal." She looked at the plates of candy in front of everyone. But Dana's efforts had worked. Shadona folded her cards in favor of looking through the pictures instead. Elaine raised with seven caramel chews, mostly out of spite. Unfortunately, even though raising might have improved her odds of winning, it did nothing to improve her Jack high.

The remaining three stayed in the game while Shadona stared at the pictures, "Can you imagine looking after pets for a living?" She ran her finger across the friendly faces again. "Never thought there could be such a thing," she whispered.

Sitting on the couch, Shadona looked through the stack of pictures she had drawn. Technically, they were perfect. The shading was great, the perspective was flawless, she even managed to capture lifelike fur and the curiosity in the alpaca's eye, yet it was missing something. Lacking. And she could tell.

She looked at the piano as the preacher continued his Sunday morning lecture. Souls came up a lot. She could make the right sounds come from the piano, hitting the right notes came as easy as walking, but no matter how hard she tried, it never felt like music.

She was lacking something profound.

She listened to the sermon. Souls.

Soulless.

Zombies.

Could children born in the ultimate act of blasphemy ever have souls?

If the preacher on TV was to be believed, the answer was a resounding no.

She put her hand to her chest. She couldn't feel a soul.

Could a loving God that so easily forgives repenting murderers, thieves, and adulterers have no compassion for creatures like her? Was her creation that different from a child of a violent rape?

She looked at her drawings, each technically perfect, but still lacking something. She watched the sermon intently.

What if she had no soul to save?

Elaine sat beside her on the couch. "I like the guy on five better," Elaine said. "Little less hell and damnation, and a little more hopeful redemption."

Fighting back tears, Shadona looked her in the eyes, "Do I have a soul?"

"Of course you do, what makes you think you don't?"

Shadona showed her the drawings.

"I don't understand? They're—"

"Missing something," she said, "like the difference between a reproduction, and the original that hangs in the museum."

Elaine pulled her in for a hug as she muted the TV. "First, they're better than anything I could draw," she said, briefly distracted when Yofi walked out of the bathroom and into the kitchen to start on breakfast. "And second, but no less important, that has nothing to do with souls. If art was the measure of souls, out of the billions of people alive today, those with souls would number just a few thousand, according to even the most generous New York art critic."

"You two hungry?" Yofi yelled as he foraged items from the fridge.

"Jimmy Dean me," Dana answered, rubbing her eyes as she walked down the hall.

"Why don't you help Yofi this morning," Elaine said, then turned back to Shadona. "You've got a soul, Child. Don't let any preacher tell you otherwise." She turned to channel five. "Could use a little uplifting, right about now."

". . . charity starts at home," the preacher said, wiping the sweat from his brow. "It starts with your children, your family, your neighbors, your communities, and it spreads like the Holy Word around the world. Community by community, neighbor by neighbor, child by child. . ." the crowd offered up endless Amens.

Elaine patted her on the back as the kitchen came alive with sizzling sounds. "And third," she said only loud enough for Shadona to hear, "even if art revealed the presence of a soul, there are too many kinds of art to count. And you, my dear, are the finest work of art I know. All by yourself." She held Shadona's hand, finger tapping her easily overlooked ring, "There's a lot of art in that, too."

* * *

"Shit! Shit! Shit!" the Colonel said, franticly working the stick. "Something broke lose! The stick is out of sync with— Copilot is tugging wrong! Repeat, copilot is tugging wrong!"

He let go of the stick and gripped the ejection handle as he rolled like a BB in a rattle inside a plane tumbling out of cont— The plane recovered with a harsh jerk as the Gs slipped back under six and everything snapped back into place. He grabbed the stick and returned to his scheduled test maneuvers, with more respect for the limitations this time.

". . . I don't know another way to describe what happened," the Colonel said in the debriefing. "You have all my data. Pull the flight recorder if you need more. It was handling flawlessly, then as soon as I took it over six, it skidded out from under me. I tried to correct, but lost it instead. Grabbed the eject and stared at the altimeter. Soon as it dipped below ten thousand, I was going to pull it and—"

"We've heard all that already, go over how it lost control again," Elhander repeated.

"The screen showed one thing, but reality was clearly another—"

"Define that more clearly for me, again. Be precise."

He shrugged, hands up, "It felt like any other plane when it goes sideways, but looked like it was going straight. When I pulled up, it slipped sideways again, but the view was of nothing but ground. Everything in me screamed that it was accelerating, thrashing side to side like a dragster fighting to keep it in the lane, but the display read losing speed. I haven't got any better way of describing it. It's just something you'd have to experience, and even then, it's hard to describe." He paused as he tried to reflect, "One minute it was a cutting edge plane, the next, it was a cross between a video game and an amusement park ride." The Colonel jumped from the chair and walked around the table, "It's the damnedest thing I've ever flown. Fast, agile, responsive. Nothing can touch it, and that includes planes I can't ever talk about. It does at the treetops what others can only dream of at high altitude. You figure out how to put guns on it and you'll own the sky. And you'll own it with just a handful of these planes. But try to maneuver at over 6Gs and you'll plant every pilot I know. That's one hell of a flaw."

Elhander played the video of Shadona again, "It's a flaw with a solution." He gestured to the chair again. "Sit please, your pacing is making me nervous. Calm down and reflect for a few minutes. Gather your thoughts. Then describe it to me again. We'll figure this out."

The Colonel pressed play again. "Why not just ask your other pilot? Get some collaboration going on here." He stood and pointed at the screen, "Anyone capable of doing that should be a bigger household name than Armstrong, and someone I need to meet."

* * *

"That's not our deal," Shadona said over the phone. "I give you the codes to work the plane, that's it. I never promised to teach you anything or help you tear apart my plane. . . If it isn't mine, then you don't need my help or my codes. . . No. That wasn't our deal. . . Turn it off, then. I guarantee you'll never get another access code from me ever again. I've never broken a promise with you, Sir. Can you say the same. . . I warned you about high G maneuvers, the rest is on you. . . There's nothing wrong with my plane. . . fine, don't heed my warnings. The resulting crash is on you. . . of course the plane can handle it, your pilot is the one that can't. . . No traditionally taught pilot can handle it. I'm the only one that can, and I'm done with this conversation," she said, closing the lid on the phone.
Chapter 50

Two generals stood in the tower as the XO and a staff of a dozen sailors pointed off in the distance. Field glasses came up as a staff member scrutinized a state-of-the-art military radar that still saw nothing as a black plane screamed just a hundred feet overhead, disappearing in the blink of an eye, only to return moments later along a normal approach to catch a wire on the deck.

The general touched the edge of wings that weren't even warm as a shorter-than-normal Colonel emerged from the hatch on its belly and offered a respectful salute.

"Fantastic," the General said, looking over its seamless skin. "But it's a bit small, isn't it?"

"Respectfully, Sir," the Colonel said, "you haven't seen the half of it yet." He gestured under the plane and waited as a Three Star General eagerly crawled on his knees, stuck his head inside the hole, and said what everyone says, "Holy Shit."

A few dozen sailors crowded the plane as the Generals walked with the XO down the carrier deck while it steamed a giant circle in the Pacific. "You have my attention," the Three Star said.

"Thank you, Sir," the XO said, "but what I really need is your resources. And funding, of course. They're highly experimental and very expensive to build. We'd like to build another, but it would take me years to scrounge up that kind of funding on my own. I was hoping to crank another out within a year."

The General smiled, "You may have come to the right place."

The XO shook the General's offered hand, "Has only a few flaws that we know of, but nothing that you can't work around." He smiled, "You can tell the President it makes up for its price tag with great gas mileage."

The General snorted. "Really? How good?"

"On average," the XO said, "better than a sub-compact. But if you keep your foot out of it, better than a scooter."

"Be serious. What's the range?"

The XO shrugged, "Tiny tank, no mid-air refueling, but it's gone 6,000 miles before." He gestured to a private part of the deck, "Let's talk numbers."

"I'd like to have one of my men take it for a romp first, if you don't mind."

"Why of course, General, that's why I'm here. I just need to make a call first."

* * *

Elaine pulled a dress off the rack and held it up to Shadona's chest. "I think you'll look spectacular in this." She tugged at the sleeves of Shadona's tight shirt. "You've grow an inch in the last month alone." She watched Dana pout off to search another section of the store. "Besides, nothing fits you since you got boobs." The embarrassed look on Shadona's face was priceless. It seemed like forever since she had seen the painfully shy side of this child. She pulled her in for a hug, and welcomed her to the club.

Shadona reluctantly changed in the booth.

"Oh, she looks adorable," Elaine remarked, "Doesn't she?" she turned to Yofi.

"Hmmm. . . Oh yes, she does." He looked at the visibly uncomfortable girl. "First dress, isn't it?"

Shadona nodded, looking at her feet.

Yofi leaned in and whispered, "She's used to uniforms, simple pants and boots. That's all she's worn all her life. Remember how hard it was to get her into that first bathing suit?"

"Adorable," Elaine said, ignoring him, "We've got to find some matching shoes."

Her phone rang. This time it was a simple text. She clicked out a fast answer and hung up.

Elaine ignored the phone. It rang three or four times a week, rarely on weekends, and never more than a minute. Inconvenient, but a fraction of the distraction a phone was in the hands of any other teen. Recently it had shifted to texts. "We'll get you some regular clothes, too," she said, "But we're definitely getting you that dress."

Dana returned with a pile of clothes, most with price tags over two hundred, not to mention a fistful of necklaces, bracelets, and earrings. "Can we hurry up, Duckling?" she said, "I'd like to get back in time for—"

"We're not buying all of this," Elaine said, picking through Dana's stash. "Yofi and I are on a fixed inc—"

"If she's getting some, I'm getting some!"

"You didn't outgrow all your clothes in the last two months, Dana," Yofi said, adding a kind of stern determination that he never could have pulled off at home. . . in slippers. "We're not getting checks from the base. This is coming out of our life savings and my disability—"

"You ain't disabled," Dana said, plucking his mechanical hand with her finger.

"Call it anything you want, Dana," he said, "it's still a fixed income. Our house may be paid for, but food and electricity didn't suddenly become free."

"Send the bill to the XO," Dana said.

"Stop it," Elaine said. "We're buying these two dresses and a week's worth of clothes for Shadona. If there's anything leftover, we might get something from this pile of yours that you so _graciously_ brought over. But that's only if you stop arguing right now." She pointed at Dana. "One more word, just one, and it all goes back." She gestured to Yofi, "And don't think he has any say in the matter."

Yofi nodded as Dana started to protest, but quietly stomped the floor instead.

They were keeping the receipts and submitting them to the XO every month. But as yet, they had received no reimbursements. The XO wasn't one to let a good grudge go so easily. He was still bruised, just not on his chin.

With fake IDs the girls could have passed for eighteen. Well, Dana easily could, Shadona was marginal. But since faking IDs were out of the question, they Googled around and found a club that catered to teens, didn't serve alcohol, and was still within the range of the base. It even happened to be close enough to a theater where the adults could bide their time without embarrassing the teens too much.

Dana, of course, took to the dance floor with vigor on their first visit, dancing with anyone who asked and a few who didn't. Shadona remained a wallflower for their next two trips, not that she didn't get her share of invitations to the floor.

Yofi sat in the corner with Elaine that Friday night, their movie over a half hour ago. They came to pick up the girls, but couldn't help sitting and watching.

Both girls were having fun. Shadona wasn't a full figured blond like Dana, but she was cute nonetheless and it was clear that the girls had no problem fitting in. Nor did they have any trouble keeping up with the latest dance moves.

Yofi sipped his soda as they waited for the thumping base to end and the girls to notice them.

Yofi stood at the mailbox and opened the letter addressed to Captain Stosou from a familiar PO box. It had taken nearly forever, but he received a reimbursement check, and a printed message. 'Pilot lost over the Pacific. Have rebuilt the equipment as much as possible. Deliver the girls by the end of the month, or the transmitter will be cut. Thank you for your cooperation in this matter.'

He stared at the house, unsure how to tell them. Unsure how to tell Elaine. As he read the letter between the lines, it seemed likely that, as soon as another plane could be assembled, the girls would be his again. But without such spelled out, he couldn't be sure.

He looked at the postmark. Six days ago. Shadona's last phone call was six days ago. . . yet he was troubled by the letter. Addressing it to Captain implied it was an order. He skimmed it again. It implied that the pilot had just recently been lost, yet it should have taken months to rebuild— No, they would have rebuilt what they could almost immediately. The date on the check didn't look right either. He had never known them to cut a check this fast, but it could have been expedited. Still suspicious, every way he read it.

He listened to the piano play through the quiet mountain air. This was her letter, and there was no way he was going to hide it from her, or drop it on her at the last minute. She should be warned, and plenty in advance.

He shoved it into his pocket. He would wait until tonight, though. After her fun.
Chapter 51

She stood in the chamber, scorch marks lingering on the ceiling above another mounted Stargate-style ring. She pressed the foot-pedal while working the controls, and the basket lifted her into the air. When the ring came into range, she let go of the button and inspected the connections. "These are all wrong," she said. "It has to be redone. Can't be fixed on the ceiling." She lowered the basket to the ground with a hydraulic hiss and a chain's rusty clanking, then stared Hanly in the eyes. "Half of this needs to be rebuilt. It'll take a dozen more than a few weeks to fix this."

Hanly quietly listened as she slapped Post-It notes on nearly everything. "How's Yofi?" he asked when they were alone in the room.

"Like you care," she said.

"Wait a second," he said. "I'm legally barred from having any contact with him outside the base. You should know that. He had heart problems last I heard."

She stared him in the eyes. If he was lying, he was getting better at it. Heart problems was news to her. Yofi had looked fine, all things considered. But bowling was as active as she had ever seen him. And he was only good for one slow dance before sitting out the next three.

"I worked with him for years without knowing. Piece of flack near his heart, I was told." He jotted down notes in his pad, then walked over to the optical interface that looked like an empty window in a phone booth. "Can you check this again? It was about the only thing that survived the explosion, would be nice to reuse it."

She climbed out of the lift, but didn't join him. "Can't be tested without the rest of the equipment in place. What happened to the HB-1?"

"HB-1?"

"My plane."

He tucked his notes under his arm, "Oh. Crashed is all I know." He gestured at the ring, bolted to the ceiling, "This is as much as I get to see. I'm no pilot, I have none of those specialized skills." He looked down the jackhammered halls as the XO approached.

"I fix this, we go back to the way it was?" she said when he entered the chamber.

The XO smiled, "You have my word." This was the first time he had seen her in person since Yofi dropped her off at the gate. She was no longer the runt of her class. Several inches taller and dozens of pounds gained, she looked much less like the little kid he remembered. "What happens at 6Gs?"

She looked at him like he had just asked what color green was. "Pilots die."

He put his hands in his pockets. "You didn't."

"I'm the best pilot you'll ever see. And that plane was built for me, and me alone."

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Shadona said as Belson folded his clothes at Dana's desk.

"Coed now, everyone got reassigned. Has been for months—"

"Over my dead body," she said, but the heavy metal door closed behind her with a metallic clunk.

"Relax," he said, stacking his pants in a neat pile. "Don't mean what you—"

Still filthy from a long day of rebuilding equipment, she grabbed a pencil off her desk as she stared him in the eyes, "You're not in any of the shop shifts or—"

"Had me working with Hegel for the last few years while you spoiled jet jocks—"

"Spoiled? Had us working ten hours a day some—"

"Wah Wah," he said, "My eyes kept me out of the cockpit while you high-flyers and shop shifts got out of all the dirty work around here. Mopping, toilets, KP and worse fell to us. Hegel's project was my last way out, and he's as clueless as they come."

She gestured to her stained clothes, "Dirty work? You completely blind?" She tried the door, but it didn't budge.

"Hey, I had a room to myself before you came here. I ain't exactly ecstatic about—"

"You're not the only one." She pushed past him and selected clothes from her stack. The locking of the door meant she had thirty minutes until lights out, and unless she wanted to sleep in filth, she had to take a shower. With little choice, she closed the curtain, turned on the water, and undressed. Whatever was going to happen would happen, either now or when she tried to sleep. Little point in continuing to argue. She tucked the pencil behind her ear, just in case.

The next morning, the lights blinked on.

"Hey," he said, "Shadona right?"

She shielded her eyes from the light with her arm.

"My room, I'm going to the head first."

"It was my room long before it—"

"Don't care!" he said, walking to the toilet.

"Close the curtain and turn on the fan!"

Curtain closed, the fan came on, and after a few awkward minutes, he emerged, adjusting his briefs. "Listen, we're going to be sharing the—"

"Not for long," she said sitting up, pencil still in hand, but casually concealed from view.

"Fine, find another room, if you can. They're all taken. Ain't like they made more while you were out on assignment."

Assignment? "What do you know about my assignment?"

"You and the lesbo—"

"She's not a lesbo—"

"Whatever," he said, pulling on his pants in front of her. "Something to do with setting up a DOD something or another. Nobody really knows. Girls had some wild rumor about making planes or something, but you know how they lie."

She smacked him on the back of the head.

"See! Told you you knew." He adjusted his shirt, then pointed a scolding finger. "The first one's free. The next one will cost you. I might not be in the top five in hand combat, but I'm not in the bottom five like you."

"I'm not spending another night here," she said, fully dressed from last night.

"Suit yourself. But this ain't a hotel, and there ain't no vacant rooms. I'd bring the hostility down a notch in case you're," he leaned in to whisper the last part, "wrong."

The XO walked into Hegel's shop, "I need a word with Belson, out in the hall."

Belson put down his tools and stepped outside for a few minutes, stepped back inside, gathered his things, and was reassigned.

Belson and three other boys were lowering the ring from the ceiling when Shadona got back down into her chamber after practicing maneuvers in her first F-16.

"What are they doing here?" she asked Chroma.

"They were here during the original fab months ago," Chroma said, disconnecting the associated equipment on the ground. "Somebody has to do the heavy lifting, might as well be some stupid boys."

Another operated one of her suits on the ground like it was a mini-forklift, manhandling her delicate equipment.

Upset, she fumed silently for a minute, but decided it wasn't worth the protest. Her entire old team of girls had been reassembled, and so long as the boys didn't get in the way, things might end up going faster, and she and Dana could leave that much sooner.

She had to pick her fights carefully. The XO needed her if he wanted to replace the crashed plane. But he could be far more difficult to work with than he currently was. She remembered a scene in Schindler's List where a woman prisoner engineer protested the Nazi construction design, was right, had her suggestions implemented, and was shot anyway. Being right could only get her so far.

So long as the boys stayed out of the way, she saw no harm.

She watched as the boy in the suit followed orders from one of the girls working on the equipment.

She walked to her tool cart, put on her gloves, and went to work. She could put up with this for a few weeks.

Belson sat in his chair beside Dana's old desk, untying his boots. "I'm glad they let Hegel's class help you guys out. Keeps me from being eligible for grunge work." He plopped one off and loosened the laces on the other.

"I'm showering first," she said, kicking her boots off under her desk as she grabbed a ready pile of clothes from her chair.

"How you figure? This is my room and—"

"It's my project you're getting out of Hegel's to work on," she said, turning on the water and closing the curtain behind her.

The door locked behind them seconds later.

"What's all that stuff do?" Belson said after his shower and after the lights were out.

She adjusted her blanket, then jostled her pillow. "It keeps you out of Hegel's, unless I don't get any sleep tonight." She would rather have Dana, but she could work with this, too.
Chapter 52

"Love having high scores in using the suit," Belson said. "I'm sure it's a far cry from being a jet jock, but it ain't peeling potatoes either." He sat beside his desk, end of the day, and didn't even try to beat her to the shower this time. "It's a wicked piece of tech, if you ask me."

"Didn't ask," she said, closing the curtain behind her.

"Dude, you been to the mockup town near where the old base was? All sorts of sea boxes set up as buildings and such, rearrange them with a crane and a forklift so we can practice urban warfare. I totally dominate in the suits." He leaned back and leisurely removed a boot as she started the water. He talked louder to compensate. "My marksmanship isn't as good as some, but unlike in the air, they let you wear corrective lenses in the suits. Really compensates for my shortcomings." He looked at her bed, still folded up and out of the way. "Some say I have a sixth sense for those suits. Maybe it's just an extremely sensitive back."

The trickle of water flowing down the drain was her only response.

"Wicked awesome, if you ask me. Still debate whether it's driver or pilot for the things. Drive cars, pilot planes, but what do you do in a suit? Other than look, smashing." He loosened his pants and unbuttoned his shirt as he faced the curtain that separated them. "Almost didn't recognize you when you came off assignment. Not sure I ever heard you talk before. Wasn't really sure you could talk, to be honest." He took the simple step that separated him from her illusion of privacy. Curtain within reach, he smiled as he ran his fingers across it, but left it undisturbed before sitting again. He leafed through the scant items on her desk. None of them even hinted at her personality or individuality. Pencils, pens, aligned pads and notes. Clothes, stacked and organized to military precision, same as his. He ran his fingers across her undies, then sat again, waiting his turn. "We may not have rebuilt jets or assembled suits, but we did manage to invent those Tazer rounds in Hegel's class." He stared at the curtain again. If she showered any slower, he would have to shower in the dark. "I'll start missing group showers if you take much longer!"

"Almost done," she said, rinsing off. The curtain flung open soon after, and she emerged dressed in more comfortable sweats as she walked past him, lowered her bed from the wall over her desk, and climbed in for sleep.

"About time," he said, peeling clothes as he rushed his turn.

Belson and two others in suits carefully positioned the giant ring onto the three lifts as they prepared to winch it back to the ceiling.

Shadona just watched, as did the rest of the girls, while work was suspended within the fall zone in the center of the chamber.

The boys inched it in unison over the next twenty minutes as the girls used the opportunity to take a break and snack on recently delivered burgers.

Bolted in, they busied themselves with reconnecting the equipment and started certifying the key components of the device over the following days.

The wings swept forward as she slowly banked the F-14 and plunged it down into the valley to get a casual look at Yofi's house before tapping the afterburners and thrusting its nose into the sky. Within the few weeks of her return, she had checked out on nearly every craft they had in the hangar. Except one.

The Raptor retained a long waiting list, dominated by those that had stayed on the base and played by the rules. She was like an outsider and could tell the 'assignment' had given the two a sense of undeserved prestige among the rest that kept them from easily fitting back in. Even the girls of her old team seemed reserved and measured around her.

As the wings swept back, she pushed the nose over and dove into a barrel roll, darting below the radar and into the valley of this mostly uninhabited mountain range. As she leveled out, fuel leaning toward fumes, she aimed at the base and called in for a landing. Air rushed from her G-suit and blood throbbed to her legs as she dropped her gear and lined up with the wire on the mock carrier deck.

One side of her wanted to spend the rest of her life as she had just spent the last hour. She couldn't see herself doing anything else. Landing on real carriers was the world to her.

Radar confirmed her aim was true, and within seconds she was slammed into the harness as tons of plane was snatched to a halt around her. She powered it down as she loosened the straps and looked out over the wing. She would miss this.

But she missed a life with Yofi more.

She wasn't free here.

She could fly for hundreds of miles, but couldn't take that ride out the gate.

She couldn't leave her room any time she wanted. Couldn't go and do as she pleased.

That meant more to her now than it ever did.

She opened the canopy and exited the plane.

Yofi's wasn't free either, but the illusion was much better.

She sat at the cafeteria table and waited for Dana to show, first thing that morning. She straightened her tray, aligned the peas, and smoothed the lump of grits as butter melted on top, otherwise untouched.

Belson sat beside her, "You left early, didn't have—"

"Don't you have someone else to bug?"

He leaned back, grabbed his toast, and crunched out a corner. "Hey, I'm just trying to keep out of—"

"Then move on," she said.

He pointed his toast at her, "You can be very difficult for absolutely no reason. I don't know what your problem is, but I'm just trying to be nice. Thought if everyone saw you sitting with me they'd think you weren't some stuck up snob with a huge stick up her ass." He grabbed his tray, "Didn't know that was the image you were trying for."

She touched his tray and he settled down. "I'm not. But I'm not here to make friends, either. I don't intend to stay here much longer, Belson. A matter of weeks. After this project is complete, Dana and I—"

He grinned, looking around, secretively, "Another assignment?"

She nodded.

"Off base again, I bet." He leaned in, "Must be exciting."

She smiled, perhaps even for the first time in front of him.

He inched closer. "Listen, when we solved that little problem for the XO, we all got a bonus. For me, it was a room of my own. In a way, you coming back is like him going back on his word and—"

"Get used to that."

"We only rarely had classes together, you and I. I barely remember you in assembly classes when we were toddlers. Only remember because it was the first time I saw the XO, and he came in just to walk you out, not ream you out." He looked at her as the clanks and wet clops of any typical cafeteria filled the room. "That was the first and last I really saw of you. I was in shop for a few weeks before the crip washed me out. Tried out for pilots, even made it into programming, only to wash out there, too. Every now and then we had hand combat together, marched together, or did firing range at the same time. But nothing that—"

"What was your project in Hegel?"

"Tazer rounds that chamber like regular rounds—"

"Capacitors, batteries, or piezoelectric?"

"Mechanical. Capacitors have to be charged, and that complicates ammo storage. Batteries have a short shelf life. Piezo just gives you a single jolt as it bounces off." He inched closer as he rested his arm across the back of her chair. "We built a coil into its center, aerodynamically stabilized it, then used the rifling to spin a magnetic sleeve around it. Slap some electrodes and a glue tip on it and zap! Make the core out of plastic, even mold it around the heavy magnet as a single piece."

"Interesting."

Dana sat beside her while Chroma rounded out the small table. "Eat it before it gets cold," Dana said, snapping Shadona out of her distraction.

"Easy!" Shadona said, smacking the helmet of the boy in the suit. "You're crushing the frame."

"Sorry," came through the speaker.

She looked around and waved Belson over. "Take over for him," she said.

Belson took his time as he strutted over in his suit. Unlike the others, he was in no hurry to finish. As such, he was calm and deliberate with everything he did. He knew the time and effort invested in each computerized box, each panel, and every other piece of gear. Rushing could spoil such an investment. Besides, excluding the ring, no component weighed more than six hundred pounds and could have been manhandled by as few as six people without the aid of the suits. The suits, however, made the work easy and kept from needlessly exhausting dozens of workers every day. Carelessly damaging the equipment could only result in weeks of backbreaking labor for the few boys allowed in the room.

Shadona opened the curtain wearing sweats and rubbing a towel on her shoulder-length hair. "I was watching," she said. "You are good with the suits."

He stood, tucking his chair under his desk. "Thank you." He grabbed a stack of clothes and went behind the curtain. "Most people get lost in them. Crash through your first brick wall and you get it in your head that all the suit is good for is brute force. But it isn't." He opened the curtain a crack so he didn't have to shout. "It's got brute force in spades, but it's got loads of finesse, too. Jason always had problems breaking pencils when trying to write within a suit. I—"

"How many here have had practice in the suits?" she said, hanging her towel to dry before slipping into bed.

"Everyone gets a try. Hanly's second shift cranks them out four a month sometimes. At first, they shipped them out as fast as they built them. But since you've been out on assignment, they shifted to just shipping them out when we get a pallet of eight, so they sit around for months sometimes. Might as well use them, right?" He turned up the water and started to lather. "Sweet! A tank of gas lasts forever, alcohol for indoors. Even let us live-fire them sometimes. You know, have to be tested before they can be shipped. Even lets you sprint up the side of a mountain faster than you can repel down a rope. Heard Yofi retired when he and Hanly invented the thing."

She tried not to laugh, "That what you heard?"

"Well, some girls said they invented it, but—"

"Why do you think neither Hanly or Elhander are overseeing what we're building? Hanly stops by every now and then, but he's never given anyone any instructions, has he? One or two of his little minions are always hanging around, but mostly just observing. Why do you think that is?"

The shower stopped as water continued to drain. "What are you saying?" He stuck his head out from the curtain, lather dripping on the concrete floor. "No way." The curtain barely hid him anymore. "No F-ing way!"
Chapter 53

Belson emerged from the XO's office, walked down the empty corridors, through the maze of doors and elevators to the inner chamber where Shadona's project was days from being finished.

"You're here early," Shadona said, already at work testing out the modified gear.

"Well, you have to come early to get the best seats." He gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze before getting out his tools, "Can't watch the magician pull the next rabbit out of the hat if you're not sitting in the room."

"It's not a rabbit."

He pocketed his tools, then squatted beside Shadona as she tightened the wiring lugs feeding the gear from under the floor. "Never thought you had to jackhammer the halls to get rabbits out." He looked inside the tight cabinet as she torqued the feeders, marking each with a green paint-pen. "Need a hand here, or should I just pick up—"

"I've got this."

He stood, gave the girl stretched out on the floor a lingering look, then went to work.

Hanly entered the chamber, walked to Belson, then was pointed her way. He squatted by her cabinet, notebook in hand, "You going to be ready by Friday?"

"You going to have the power by then?"

He nodded, "Don't have to wait for the weather anymore. Don't have any of the physics behind it worked out, but—"

"You wasting my time chatting about the weather?"

"Have to special order the dry ice. Takes days to arrive, and doesn't keep forever."

She slid out from under the cabinet, "Order it."

He made a note. "Same amount in all consumables?"

"Six extra pounds of barium and another four hundred in dry ice, in case we miss the Friday window."

He looked around the mostly empty room, footsteps echoing down the halls as the rest of her team was quickly approaching. "This gear is different than what was built before. You've changed the design ag—"

"Four hundred extra pounds will do it," she said, crawling under the next cabinet.

The XO climbed into the extended-range Blackhawk, buckled himself in, then tapped the pilot on the shoulder. The helicopter lifted off and chopped through the windy mountain air, quickly leaving the base miles behind.

He landed several hours away at another military base that didn't officially exist.

"Captain Dysath," he said, shaking hands before climbing in the passenger side of an electric golf cart and scooting away. "You have something to show me?"

"Yes Sir. One of the easiest assignments I've ever had," the captain said, taking a sharp right as they sped around the base and out into an open desert field, coming to a stop before a large fuel tank. "As you requested, we've filled it with about sixty gallons of methanol, using just the stuff you provided. This tank is reinforced, military standards, almost Abrams Tank specs—"

"Keep in mind, it's designed with every trick in the book to keep it from exploding, even if pierced with bullets."

"Yes Sir. Blowouts, self-sealing, flame-retardants, it's got it all. Now, to simulate a crash at Mach 2, we've placed these rockets on the sled and it'll impact that concrete wall at the end of the track a few seconds after they fire." He pressed the pedal and the cart sprinted the distance to the wall. "Now, I've included this hot, metal pad to accurately simulate a hot jet engine. I can't promise it'll even ignite the fuel, but it will accurately represent a crash." He pressed the pedal and they sped to a safe distance.

After a siren blasted, followed by two more, the rockets fired with a whoosh and the crash occurred seconds later. A delayed fireball feebly meandered into the sky as a handful of burning droplets showered in an arc away from the crash. But as far as explosions went, it was very tame and unimpressive. More a quick fire than explosion, it was little bigger than when he burned leaves and brush from his front yard last year. "I'm not sure it's big enough. You got it on video, right? One, two, three, and six miles away?"

"Yes Sir, as requested. When you asked for the videos, I went ahead and made several optional packages for you. Now, these aren't using your methanol, but they should be chemically identical." He flipped another switch, then pressed a plunger and a fireball that would make Hollywood proud ripped the serenity of the distance. "That'll be easily visible at six miles, and it uses the same sixty gallons." He fired off another, but tamer version. "This should be visible at three, with hints at six."

"You trying for extra-credit?" the XO said. "I have to admit, I like the last two, but I need to simulate, accurately, in every detail, a plane crash."

"Well, I have to point out that, if you just tell us what kind of airplane, we can simply order up a glider version of it, tank and everything, flares as the engines, and we can replicate the crash with absolute—"

"Wish it was that easy," the XO said. "It's a prototype. Nothing on the shelf that's even remotely like it."

"Well, these are your options." He handed over a folder stuffed with real-life crash photos as examples. "Hollywood can give you a better visual, but nothing more accurate than the first one you saw. And in all reality, it was probably overkill, too. People think these things explode all the time, but they usually don't."

"Put it on a DVD and I'll watch them at the office, tell you which one I want. How long would it take to stage this in the mountains?"

"Depends on the terrain, and a valley crash is much easier than a peak. Rolling something downhill is easier; we could stage it up high and launch your final product as a rocket-propelled glider. But if you're going for realism, I'd use something like a modified cruise missile."

"Cruise missile?" the XO said. "Never thought of that."

"That'd be the easiest to stage anywhere you can drive a tractor trailer to. Keep it circling the area with a standard stealth engine, map a path avoiding roads and homes, then light a rocket to duplicate your sonic impact and you have it. Could have one modified in a week or two. It's pricey, but accurate," Dysath said. "You know I have top secret clearance. You don't have to cloak and dagger all of this. Already signed the nondisclosure, you can read me in."

"Careful, Captain, or I'll take you up on that. Go ahead and get the cruise missile ready, I'll Email you on what warhead to put on it, but plan on using the first explosion. Lean it a little toward forest fire, if you can. Modify the jet to run on methanol, too. You think we can do this in one take?"

"Absolutely, Sir. Not a problem."

Shadona stood in the Plexiglas booth, her arms tired from conducting a facade for the last hour. She pointed toward the camera, then pressed the button.

Richter, 2.9.
Chapter 54

Belson placed his gloved hands on the edge of the wing as the suit effortlessly leveled the airframe before he and three others carried it down the hall, out the service corridor, and outside the mountain where it was strapped to a sled and winched hundreds of feet up the side of the mountain, like any other cargo delivery.

"Sucks," he said as she showered behind the curtain.

"What?"

"I've got to report to Hegel's tomorrow, that's what. Shit, I was having fun, too. This just sucks. Can't you do something?"

"Like what," she said. "We've got landing gear, seats, and a battery to make. Nothing for suits to do. Don't need any more help. Already have a highly trained group that's—"

"It's totally unfair," he said, sliding the curtain to the side. "I've worked just as—"

She slapped him across the face as she concealed herself with the curtain again, "The hell do you think you're doing!" She tried desperately to rinse the shampoo from her eyes.

"Bitch! I just got caught up in the moment." He rubbed the wet side of his face as he smiled, confident she couldn't see his grin. "Didn't mean nothing by it." He sat on his chair and stared at her faint silhouette animating the thin plastic that separated them. He rested his clean clothes on his lap as he fondly pondered everything he had just seen.

She emerged, dressed in sweats and blinking a lot, hair in a towel. "Next time I'll hurt you," she said, squeezing past him to drop down her bed.

He hovered behind her. "First, I'm out of your weight class, a black belt in judo and karate, and I'd utterly destroy you. Second, I'm sorry, and it won't happen again."

She turned to find him inches from her shoulder.

"And third, I've liked you for years, and I'm embarrassed as hell over this. It's just weird to talk to someone and not see them. Just got caught up in the— I'm sorry. I really am." He moved the edge of the towel away from her red eyes. "Stings. As good as I am in the suit, I'm a fumbling klutz sometimes, too." He hung his head low as he shuffled to the shower. "And fourth, when I said 'bitch' I wasn't referring to you, I was referring to that painful slap. Where the hell'd you get an arm like that?" He rubbed his chin before closing the curtain. "Felt like a brick."

Shadona stood in front of the HB-2 and stared, shaking her wrist by her side.

"What's wrong?" Dana said, standing beside her.

Shadona just stared.

"Hey," Dana said, grabbing the shaking hand. 'What's got you, Girl?' she squeezed.

'Hand feels weird, must have slept on it wrong. Why I'm so tired,' she squeezed back.

"Week or two?"

Shadona shrugged. "About that. This one's a little different. A little heavier. Upgrade."

Dana dipped a plunger, "Still opens the same, right?"

They went to work while the other girls manufactured parts.

Shadona stared at the loose bundle of dandelions and bluebells on her desk. It was a gesture. The three ants she had to crush could be excused as oversights. She moved them aside, picked up her notebook, and leafed through it. The last sixty blank pages looked wrong, but she couldn't tell why. Perhaps from a different ream, but that was something she should have noticed before today. She sniffed the flowery spine, then tossed it back, alone in the room. "Must be slipping," she whispered before taking an early shower.

Hanly looked over another list of material recently shoved under his door. Handwriting he well recognized. He didn't even consult the XO, he just placed the order.

Belson and three others fabricated the extra cabinet and most of the components as Hanly's order started coming in. A key component, however, came out of the cockpit when the girls finally got it open.

A solid state, super-conducting ring about the diameter of a dinner plate, two inches thick.

The XO stared at the device, just a little larger than a filing cabinet, with high-voltage connections suitable for a million-horse motor just waiting to be wired. "What the hell does it do?"

Hanly shrugged. "Listen, XO, I don't design them, don't have a clue. I never have a clue. She ordered the parts, requested the people she wanted on it, I just made it happen."

"You what?"

"Look, Sir, I don't really have time for all of this. The suit construction is running on its own now, thank God. But this extra stuff of hers, I simply don't have the time or energy to double check and scrutinize it. And let's face it, unless you hire Hawking, nobody's capable of following it anyway.

You either go with it or you don't, it's a leap of faith either way. I can't keep working seven twelves indefinitely. Since she came back I've been putting in fourteen-hour days and still falling behind. I just can't take it anymore.

I'll work your power plant, but that's it." Hanly tucked his notebook under his arm. "It'll take me decades to figure out the physics behind it and the reason for half this stuff. You might not get this, but harvesting lightning is groundbreaking and flies in the face of conventional physics. It desperately needs a thorough understanding that I just can't do with all these distractions. Besides which, I'm not any good at building planes and don't really know what I'm looking at.

That Harvester is a lifetime achievement for anyone. Hire someone else to deal with this other crap, Sir. I can't keep doing both. We need to understand the physics behind this power plant before something catastrophic goes wrong over something simple like a loose ground and we kill more than just some geezer with a pacemaker."

"I've already got someone in mind, Hanly. Don't lose it on me just yet," the XO said, patting the baggy-eyed Hanly on the back, "A simple 'I don't know' would have done."

"I don't know isn't even close, Sir. Don't have a clue. Worse, don't care anymore. Put it in a room and turn it on. Breadmakers probably pop out of its ass, for all I know."

"We need to get you a vacation, Hanly."

Hanly checked his watch, on hour fifteen already. "I could use a raise, too."

The Raptor inverted, barrel rolled, then stood on its tail as she balanced it, hovering vertically in the air like a pencil on the end of her finger, at five thousand feet for a full minute. She rolled it over, banked, then chased the valley toward the base and caught the second cable on the mock carrier deck.

Yofi's car was still in the yard, the fixings for a barbeque out back. Yofi's hamburgers were to die for, but grilled they easily qualified as one of the deadly sins.

The canopy opened with a hiss as she climbed down and crossed the deck.

"Is it fueled yet?" she asked Elhander while he paced around the HB-2.

"It's fueled. But you're not cleared—"

"I'm not cleared? Where the—"

The XO walked out from behind it, "No, you're not cleared—"

She held her helmet by the ear as she stared him defiantly in the eyes, wind whipping her hair across her face. "The hell you say. I'm the only one on the planet that's capable of flying it. I'm the only one who knows ever inch and every—"

"That's exactly why you're not going to fly it," the XO said as Elhander walked back to the tower. "We can't afford an accident with the only person on the planet, as you say, that can make the damn thing."

"Then you've got a very serious problem," she said.

"No, actually I don't," the XO said, smiling. "You were going to give me the codes over the phone anyway. You stand six codes away from going back to your life. Our deal was always framed around someone else flying this plane. That includes its maiden flight."

She was pissed. She had so been looking forward to taking it for a spin. No other plane could touch the sheer thrill of the joyride it offered. Nothing else even came close. But the bastard was right. Her deal was predicated on others flying her plane.

"Code please."

She ran her hand slowly across the wing. "You got a pilot in there already?"

"No," he said. "But he's flying in. Be here in twenty. I thought I'd type it in."

"What's the numbers?" she said.

He crawled under and squeezed in. "FF154A"

Hmm. "EFDA1 GH344A FF54E GG51A72"

"You're kidding," he yelled down the hatch. "It's never been that long before."

The plane hummed to life. The plates that shaped the vents, fore and aft of the engines, flexed like someone strumming their fingers across a table.

"This isn't the way it looked before. What happened to all the—"

"Your pilots have a nasty habit of crashing," she said, crawling under and looking up into the hole. "Emulating a Raptor should keep them alive a little longer, no matter how stupid and incompetent they are."

He looked out the sides and saw wingtips; looking forward he saw a nose and an instrument cluster that wasn't really there. He crawled out, "Listen, you'll have to unlock all the features before I'll—"

"Don't worry. It no turn fast, but it go, faster than fast. Even with the training wheels on."

She paced by the window in the control tower and watched someone else taxi her plane down the runway. She helplessly stared at a radar screen that showed absolutely nothing. A Raptor launched immediately after to shadow it as they performed the entire roster of checkout maneuvers done with any other plane.

It was the most painful thing she had yet endured.
Chapter 55

"Turn it on," the XO said, staring at the device Hanly had installed near the termite farm at the base of the mountain.

"Ok," Hanly said, twisting the natural gas valve feeding it before radioing the control room to energize the circuits. The device hummed loudly as the keys in his pocket tugged toward the device. "Kill it!" he yelled into his radio without effect. "OUT!"

Outside the room, Hanly called in on a landline, emptied his pockets of metal, then went back into the tiny room after the humming stopped. "What's that stuff?" the XO asked, pointing at a miniscule puddle on the floor.

Hanly checked the flow gauge, then called into the control room. "It just drew a ton of power, Sir." He sniffed the air. "Does this smell right to you? Extra ozone. I think I'm getting a little buzzed."

They moved outside again. "Pump some outside air into the room, turn it back on, and let it run for a few minutes. See what happens," the XO said before going on about his business.

"Sir, seriously, you need to get someone else to babysit these projects."

The XO stopped, middle of the hall, "Last one, I promise. I'm already vetting someone, just haven't convinced him to go full-time yet."

Hanly set a shot glass down on the XO's desk. "Don't know exactly what it is, but I figure it'll cost about two grand in electricity alone to make a gallon of it."

"Electricity's free, right?" the XO said, picking up the glass and giving it a swirl. "What is it? What's it good for? Do we want gallons of it?"

"Got me, Sir. Why are we doing—" Hanly slapped his hands on the desk in frustration, "What's wrong with just asking her?"

"I'd like to have a general idea what it is before we go into production or—"

"I am so tired of bouncing from one project to another," Hanly said, hands wiping his face.

"Man up and figure it out. Does it burn?"

"Not that I can tell."

"What's it made of?"

"Don't have a clue."

"How's it related to that plane?"

"Don't know that it is. Ask her, Sir." He grabbed the glass, pushed away from the desk, and turned for the door. "I'm so tired of playing this same stupid game. I'll ask her. No big deal, Sir. Worst she'll do is sit there and say nothing. But it beats the hell out of chasing my tail for weeks, ending up asking her anyway."

"What is it?" Hanly asked, hour fourteen of his day, but the first chance he had to see her.

She drizzled the liquid on the table where it mounded like nano-sand. She jarred the table hard and it collapsed like a castle into the surf, leaving a thin film-like puddle. She rubbed her finger against the film, then wiped her hand on her pants. "Fuel."

He stared, dazed by a day that had lasted entirely too long. "It doesn't burn."

"Efficient fuel."

He sighed, pinched his eyes, then rubbed his brow. "How much?"

She jotted something on his pad and returned to the turbine assigned to her.

He looked at the pad.

_40 gallons –_ N60

2 gallons – potassium carbonate

10 gallons – jet-grade methanol

The XO looked at Hanly's emailed report.

Fuel. She called it N60. Without the proper equipment, Hanly could neither confirm nor deny that it was nitrogen. He had no idea how she planned on using it as a fuel, but clearly she did. The device that made N60 was incredibly simple, yet impossible to reproduce without the key component that was fabricated simultaneously with the plane. Included was camera footage of the part in question being removed from the HB-2.

The report ended with a digital signature and a statement that Hanly was devoting himself, full-time, to the harvester, and nothing else.

"It's been tested, five flights so far," Shadona said, standing at the end of the flight deck, helmet in hand, dressed in her flight suit. "My turn."

"Negative," the XO said. "Hasn't been tested with the new fuel."

"Can't be avoided. It can't take off on N60, has to transition to it, at speed, and has to be done manually."

He stared as she stuffed her hair into her helmet. "We'll test it on the ground."

"Can't change the laws of physics to suit you, Sir. Can't be ground tested. Period," she said, walking toward the plane.

A Blackhawk cleared the distant mountains, heading toward the base, as she crawled under the plane and disappeared into the hatch. The Blackhawk was two miles away when the nose of the HB-2 hopped up and the plane shot like a rocket into the sky with its signature train-like double boom.

The XO opened his phone and dialed a number. "In the air," he said to the general's aid. "West bound. . . Got it? No, thank you, Sir."

Over the months of well-planned and choreographed test flights with its predecessor, military satellites had gradually developed a technique for tracking her plane. Still invisible to radar, it wasn't literally invisible. It could be seen with human and digital eyes, if they knew where to look. But trying to observe something moving many times faster than a bullet had its own set of complications, even when it was the size of a small plane. Some satellites couldn't physically reorient fast enough to keep it in frame. Military intelligence compared it to tracking a hummingbird in your neighbor's yard with binoculars; difficult enough if it flies a straight line, but any sharp turn lets it virtually vanish in the blink of an eye. Fortunately, there was more to the spectrum than radio and visible light. The leading edge had some physics-defying way of staying cool, rendering the skin 'invisible' even to thermal, but it heated the air it ripped though all the same. That left a barely detectable trail in its wake, if they knew to look for it. But it required coordinating and retasking multiple satellites at a huge expense, and even then they could only see where it had just recently been, with only general estimations of its elevation.

It also required advance warning. Fortunately, a flight had already been scheduled today.

His phone rang a few minutes later. The plane had climbed to an estimated height of 26 miles, when it disappeared from thermal, completely. Still rapidly accelerating, estimates had it exceeding Mach 6 when it vanished. Not enough air to heat.

The General was very interested and had placed the call, personally.

While still in frame under digital eyes, it pulled maneuvers that sustained a minimum of 15Gs, but could have been as high as 26. Equally impressive.

This was a major upgrade.

The HB-2 screamed in, this time parallel with the deck as if she intended to catch the wire at 600 miles an hour. It abruptly nosed vertical only a dozen feet off the ground; standing on its tail, it blasted a wall of air across the top of the mountain like a Middle East sandstorm. When the dust settled, her plane rested square on the elevator, Shadona walking casually toward the tower through her own cover of dusty fog.

The XO got a call later that night, the General again. A CIA spy satellite unwittingly picked up a fast moving glimmer crossing its field of view. Sun glistening off her glassy wings. Over China. In a flight that lasted less than two hours. Its range was substantially more than 6,000 miles.
Chapter 56

Yofi opened the door and hugged the first girl he saw.

Shadona pressed her ear to his chest and listened as she hugged him back.

"It felt like years," he said.

She looked up, teary eyed, "I was worried about you."

"Me?" he said, "Why for?"

She pressed her hand against his heart. "You never said."

He looked at Elaine, equally confused. "Said what, about what?"

She stepped back. "You have shrapnel near your heart, right?"

"Oh that," he said with a dismissive wave of a mechanical hand. "Been there for years, got more metal in me than in this fancy arm. Can't go bicycling or run a marathon," he rapped his knuckles against his plastic leg, "But it wasn't that tiny piece that keeps me from doing that crap. Always was a rather lazy guy."

"Hanly said it was life threatening," she said.

He ushered them around back where the two had been enjoying the fall weather. "I don't remember ever saying anything about it to Hanly. Suppose the XO must have told him, he looked at my medical when I hired on. But it's nothing that worrying about can fix. Can't take it out or they would have by now." He sat down in his favorite folding chair under the same umbrella they used at the beach. "If it ever dislodges, they say it'll be over quick. Couldn't save me even if I was already on the table when it happened. Might get to say a couple words, but that'd be it." He opened a beer, took off his slippers, and dunked both feet into a tiny toddler pool in front of their chairs, surrounded by a small load of sand. A redneck backyard beach. "Can't be on the donor list because the ticker's still good, just living in a dangerous neighborhood." He sipped from the beer. "Can't imagine why he'd say anything to you about it, though."

She took off her shoes and sat in the sand, feet in the water, too. When her phone rang, she typed back a short message. A few minutes later, it rang again; frustrated, she typed another short message.

Dana came out the back door and handed Yofi a pair of binoculars before pointing at the distant mountain top, just in time for him to catch a glimpse of something no nation would ever see coming.

* * *

Dysath looked at the notebook, a mere sixty photocopied pages. "It looks brilliant," he said, "I'd love to build something like this. It's the kind of R&D that you only dream of."

The XO looked over the modified cruise missile, already mounted and ready to launch from the back of a covered mulch trailer. "How short of a notice can this be deployed?"

"As little as an hour, but I'd prefer twenty-four. Plus travel time, whatever that works out to be. Whisper quiet cruising, until the rockets fire. Even got that sound effect you were looking for. Could launch a few hundred miles away, if needed." Dysath thumbed through the drawings again. "I can't speak for the company, but I'd love to get started on something like this. It's right down my alley. You still in the bidding stage?"

The XO smiled, "In a way, sure. You know anyone here that'd be as enthusiastic about this as you?"

He thumbed through it again, "Two or three, maybe more."

"They'd have to be vetted before I can offer any contracts. Would even have to vet them before disclosing the nature of the project." He leaned in closer. "You be willing to relocate?"

Dysath shrugged. "Can't spell military without mobile."

"What do you think about Colorado?"

"Close to nowhere, far from everywhere. About the same as here, just not as hot in the summers and colder in the winters. Why?"

"Your file said you did a lot of reverse engineering of Chinese and Russian designs. Even did some work on Canadian and Israeli technology," the XO probed deeper.

"Israel is an ally, Sir," he said, adding a casual wink. "Can neither confirm nor deny such an illegal rumor. And Canada doesn't have any technology worth stealing, still use square tires on their cars from what I've seen on TV."

"I've got some high tech that needs reverse engineering."

"I'd say you do." Dysath leafed through the pages again, "Care to tell me who? Some of these systems look German, a dash of British, and a fair amount of flare from the old—" He looked the XO in the eyes as he closed the book, "Better off not knowing its colorful origins, right?"

The XO answered with the same casual wink.

* * *

All through the winter she got two calls a day, usually within minutes of each other. Sometimes as many as six, about one every hour. It seemed the replacement pilot must have been dyslexic or had extremely fat fingers because he almost always flubbed the first try. On occasion, she'd even gotten twenty calls spaced out over ten hours. But more often than not, the second coding was because they insisted on flying dangerously, without the safeguards of a Raptor emulation.

Annoying, but it still offered her a greater freedom than she ever had at the base. They even got a chance to spend the coldest month in Colorado on the warmest beach in Miami, with excellent cell service and what she assumed was a strong satellite signal too. The XO even reimbursed Yofi the entire cost of the trip, plus a generous per diem.

As they were driving to town for bowling night in early March, she received a call. Reading the message, she texted back an answer. A few minutes later, it rang again. "It's like their pilot has no typing skills whatsoever," Shadona said, sitting behind Yofi as Elaine drove the old Buick down the windy valley road. "Oh, I love this song," she said.

Yofi turned it up as the girls sang along.

SssshhhhheeeeeeeeeCaaaaBooooommmmmm!!!

The ground beneath the car rumbled ever so slightly from a distant impact as a small forest fire erupted nearly six miles away. The fire itself couldn't be seen from the road, but the smoke was trapped in the dense valley air and glowed from the flames licking below. Elaine turned down the radio as a smoky fog skimmed across the road ahead, reflecting in the headlights.

Shadona rolled down the window and listened to the distinctive rumbling echoes, reminiscent of a train. . . or a bottled tornado.

Her plane.

Feeling a little guilty, she put her hand on Yofi's shoulder. But she knew she sent the right numbers. She didn't much feel like bowling any more, knowing the implications of what they had just witnessed. But at the same time, there was nothing she could do. No point in ruining the day. No value in moping around. The milk was spilt. That didn't mean you throw away the sandwich. "No reason to spoil your day, too," she said.

They were closer to the alley than home anyway. Elaine picked up speed as the Buick shifted gears and quickly cleared the clinging smoke.

* * *

"All planes wear out," Elhander said. "That's the entire premise behind the maintenance shop. What we have here is a classic serviceability problem."

She stared at the floor as they continued to berate her. Outwardly, she blamed the pilots for their own fates. Her plane was without flaws, mechanical failure simply wasn't an option. It might not even be possible, as she understood the laws of physics. But as confident as she was, she couldn't help feel responsible for their deaths. She knew something about the plane that nobody else did. She knew its secrets. She knew how it handled the high Gs. She openly taunted them with its capabilities, knowing that any test pilot they hired wouldn't be able to resist trying to copy her maneuvers. And she knew why they crashed, believing they had lost control when, in fact, they hadn't. She knew why their instincts failed them at the worst possible moment. She could have warned them, and repeatedly chose not to. Instead, she verbally blamed the obvious poor typing skills exemplified by frequent double calls, and Elhander's equally obvious orders to dismantle, dissect, and discover every function of every part he could get his grubby fingers around.

Running out of ranting steam, the XO rested his hand on her shoulder as he calmed his tone and demeanor, "It's a major achievement. Perhaps we're being too hard on someone who's barely fifteen. The engines have to be serviceable, it's an obvious flaw to have them otherwise. The consequences of combat alone dictate that. Lives were lost, but test pilots know the risks every time they get behind the stick." He pulled out a chair and sat, facing her, then placed two family photos on the table, complete with smiling kids and pets. "They knew, if that's any comfort."

She didn't want to care. But she did. She just refused to show it. "I didn't kill them, stupidity and arrogance did."

"Well," the XO said, "if that helps you sleep at night. It's vital that—"

"Where's the black box?" she said.

"The what?" Elhander said.

"The black box. It would have survived the crash, even at full speed. The first was over the Pacific and would have sunk. This was in the woods—"

"It all burned up," the XO said.

She glared him in the eyes. "Nothing burns that hot. It survived the impact and should have been found in the escape capsule with the body of—"

Elhander stepped in, "You mean the box under the seat?"

"That's right," she said. "Where is it? It was designed to survive reentry. That crash was under a few thousand feet."

Elhander held his fingers like a square, "It's this big. There's no way it contains a black box, and even if it did, there's no way it survived. And even then, it's simply not possible to—"

"National guard cordoned off the area," the XO said, "long before we could get to it. Everything and anything that survived was shipped to a warehouse." He motioned at Elhander, "Leave, please."

"But Sir, I'm the head of—"

"Leave," the XO said, and Elhander reluctantly obeyed. "We needed your plane for high resolution reconnaissance over North Korea, Pakistan, and Iran. Things are heating up and we needed something that could get below the cloud cover, avoid radar, and go undetected. We mounted cameras inside your— It doesn't matter. Every piece that could be found was labeled national security, and neither you nor I have the clearance to ever see them again. It was a CIA pilot, not the military that crashed them."

"All the more reason to check the site for the—"

"We wouldn't be allowed within a mile of it." He put his hand on her shoulder again. "You and I have had a rocky decade, but this is of the highest priority. Those kinds of pictures save far more than the two lives they cost. They were preventing two wars."

"If you really want to prevent a war, take out the tooth."

"Your country needs you," he said, staring her in the eyes. "I've seen the look on your face, climbing out of the seat of any of my birds. I've seen your simulation scores. If you weren't born here, you'd be beating down my door. We just don't have the time to let you figure that out on your own anymore."
Chapter 57

Dysath stood in his lab, surrounded by his small vetted team as they prepped the device for testing. Sixty pages, hundred thousand in material alone, months of effort and time, and it was all coming down to this moment. They wired it up, crossed their fingers, and threw the switch.

bbbbbbiiiiizzzzzZZZAAAPPP!!!!! Fizzzzzzzzz. . . .

Bulbs flashed in the ceiling before the room plunged into darkness and everything was swaddled in an eerie silence.

"What the hell happened?" Dysath said, the smell of burnt electronics and vaporized copper filling the air. All their work over winter, gone.

"Breaker tripped," an assistant said, flashlight in hand.

When the lights flickered on, the situation only looked worse. Those sixty pages that had looked so straightforward, so convincingly simple, had just exploded in his face. In the most humiliating way.

* * *

"You twisted Elhander's panties, but good," Belson said, taking off his boots while he waited his turn. "Raptor engineer my ass! Drooled over your toy like it was melting ice cream every day you were away on assignment. Turbine and Scram Jet design specialist, can't even figure out how it idles! Ha!" He glanced at her showering silhouette; when she lathered her hair, he perused her desk. Finding nothing of interest, he walked over to the curtain and pondered his next words. "Love to know how you did it." He leaned against the wall, tempted to fling it open again, but refrained. "Calls it Houdini science!"

Dripping water was her only answer.

"You've got to be thrilled," he said. "Rumor is they're expecting a shipment of retired birds, even got some Migs, a Mirage, Sabre, Sukhoi, Ajeet, and a Marut coming for you Jet Jocks to practice air combat with. Don't know if it's true, but Jason said they got a whole pallet of gun cameras. It's got to be for something, right?"

She rinsed and continued to wash.

"I don't much see how a big-ass ring on the ceiling equals a plane, but hell if anyone else can figure anything better. Is it true it's a hypersonic VTOL like they say? I mean, everybody's seen it in the hangar, but just a handful have seen it in the air. Dave was working the tower when it took off. Said it looked like a rabbit sitting up, then leapt straight into the clouds. Passed sixty feet from the radar and it still didn't see nothing. Jimmy said the same thing when he was part of the fire crew, but everybody else who's seen it says it takes off and lands real slow, like any other plane, and there's nothing special about it at all, other than invisible to radar."

The water stopped flowing, but the drain trickled on as she toweled dry and got dressed for bed.

"Hey," he said when the curtain opened, "Look, I know you're pissed off about coming back from assignment early and everything, but don't take it out on me. It wasn't my fault."

She sighed as he blocked the way to her bed.

"I liked having you here. I didn't think I would, but I actually missed you while you were gone." He stepped to the side twice more as she tried to squeeze past him, blocked each time. "Sorry. I'll," he looked embarrassed, "I'll stand still." He pressed his back against the wall to leave her the most possible room to pass. "Don't be mad, but I'm just glad to have you back," he said, shedding his clothes as he took his turn behind the curtain.

"Hey," Belson said, poking her with his finger before the lights had a chance to come on. "Hey," he said again, early that morning.

"What?"

"Just thought I'd warn you, some of the Jet Jocks have it in for you. Pissed is a mild way of putting it. You jumped line last time you were here. Got certified on a Raptor faster than any of them ever—"

She covered her face with her arm, "So?"

"So, I'm. . . I, I don't know. Just, when you go stomping around, watch for toes under your feet, that's all. Elhander isn't very popular, can't think of a single person who'd bother to piss on him if he caught fire, but when you have people like him openly red at you, it lowers the bar for everyone else, if you know what I mean."

She didn't. Elhander's opinion mattered little to her. He had no real power where she was concerned.

She stood before Hanly's door, list in hand. But Hanly's office in the shop had tape over his name.

Elhander walked up behind her, "What are you doing here so early?"

"Where's Hanly?"

"I don't have that kind of clear—"

She pushed the list into her pocket. "Who's in his office now?"

Elhander pointed to the name written on the tape and pronounced it slowly, as if she was retarded. "E-man-u-el, one of his—"

"When will he be here?"

Elhander unlocked his door. "Get to the point."

"Hanly is who I worked with on the HB-2—"

"HB-2?" Elhander said, dumping yesterday's filter into the trash before filling the basket with fresh coffee and starting a pot. "Oh, deathtrap number two. I'll be taking over that project since I'm the lead aero—"

She pushed her way into his office, "The hell you—"

"Your plane falls squarely under my department and is of vital—"

"I know you're an expert on crashing them, but unless you think you can build one, you better get Hanly on the phone."

"We're not playing games here, Girl. You're secret little cliques and coded keypads have got to go. Your childish games are responsible for two deaths already, and I'm—"

She crowded him near the filing cabinet where the coffee was brewing. "Then call the XO, because I'm not building a plane with you, for you, or around you. If he wants it at all, I'm going to be dealing with Hanly, just like—"

Elhander poked his finger into her shoulder, "Hanly doesn't care for your attitude any more than I do. You're the reason he moved his office out of the shop. Nobody around here likes you, and this spoiled brat shit has got to stop. We're all business here, we discuss, collaborate, disclose, and share around here, and all row the boat in the same direction at the same time. This is a serious business rebuilding state-of-the-art fighters and—"

"It's all obsolete child's play, just like the precious Raptor you wasted half your life on. Get Hanly on the phone, I don't want to be around you any longer than I have to."

"You've watched too many movies. Nobody's interested in— Hey! Put my phone down." He grabbed it away and slammed it on the desk. "A little respect would go a long way." He gestured to the framed papers decorating his wall, "I have two masters, a PHD in—"

"Who doesn't," she said, pulling the phone off his desk and dialing, "Hanly, please."

Elhander unplugged the phone, "Listen here, Hanly is not an aeronautic engineer. He's barely qualified to ride in planes, much less—"

"How many hypersonic jets have you built? This'll be my third," she said, just as the XO entered the small office.

"What the hell, Elhander?" the XO said.

"Do you want another plane, or not?" Shadona said, directed at the XO.

"Listen you," the XO put his hands in his pockets and did his best to calm down, but his frustration was evident, even behind his forced smile. "Hanly is not available. His current assignments don't allow him enough time to deal with—"

"What's more important to you, another plane, or what he's working on?" she said, sitting behind Elhander's desk while she watched the expressions on their faces.

"Get out of the chair," the XO said. "You don't have an office here—"

"Don't want one. I can work with Hanly, he doesn't get in the way or slow me down." She stood and glared at Elhander. "But I won't work with him."

The coffee belched behind them, "Now just a—" Elhander yelled.

"How long this takes is entirely up to you," the XO said, pouring himself a cup, "How hard or easy this is, is totally up to you." He poured in the powdered creamer, "But Elhander is in charge of this project, he is the head of this department, and you don't get to go on any more," he leaned against the cabinet as he stirred, looking at her, "assignments, until it's done. If that takes a few months or a few years is entirely up to you. I suggest you work it out, but Elhander is in charge."

She shrugged, facing them. "He was on a team of a hundred that built a Raptor in two decades, an HB should take what," She pulled the nearest diploma off his wall, polished a smudge on the glass, then dropped it in the trash on top of the grinds, "a few hundred years." She stopped, half out the door, "Or, you can get Hanly on the phone, let me do it my way, and I can be out of your hair and back on assignment in a couple months." She stared at the XO. "Which war do you want to prevent?"
Chapter 58

"You can't just blow off shop if it's scheduled," Belson said, looking over her shoulder at her calendar.

"What're they going to do?" she said, climbing back into bed.

"I wouldn't." He leaned against her bed while he tucked in his shirt, brushed his shoulders, then checked the cuffs on his pants. "Listen, as much as I'd like to have you stick around longer between assignments, this isn't. . ." He put his hand on her shoulder. "Six people have died since we found out about the tooth, you know. It can't be taken out, simple as that. I remember when you broke out those dorms years ago. I was one of those left behind, but I remember it like it was yesterday.

You're not the only one inspired, you're not as alone as you think.

They can't keep us here forever. They just can't." He tried to give her a comforting pat on the back, "We're trained as pilots, soldiers, snipers, and mechanics. Even trained some as top notch cooks on the side. Multilingual and everything. We'll be deployed, somewhere, sometime. They'll have to, eventually. Too big of an investment to just sit on a shelf, collecting dust. Probably around eighteen, maybe a little sooner. Maybe a little later. Either way, that's just a few years from now.

To be deployed, they'll have to take out the tooth.

A plus B equals C. I'd hate to see you pull that many years of grunge detail over something as silly as skipping, especially when you don't have to. Skip, even on a piece of shit like Elhander, and you will."

She sat up in bed. "I hate this place," she whispered.

"Who doesn't?" He checked the time, then pulled up a chair, but didn't sit. "You're not the only one looking for a way out. You're just. . . just, just get dressed. Go through the motions, just a little longer." He put his hand on hers, "And, if you get a chance, do a fella a favor. Get him out of Hegel and let him play around in a suit for a few more hours. Time passes faster that way."

* * *

Hanly left his Harvester office and headed toward the XO's, folding a note and shoving it into his pocket as he went. He swiped his badge at the elevator, entered his floor into the keypad, then waited as the cables propelled the car, deep inside the mountain. He opened his mouth and panted until his ears finally popped.

When the car stopped a few seconds later, he swiped his badge again and pressed his hand to the panel.

Ding! The doors opened, and he walked down the hall and knocked on the XO's door.

"Hanly," the XO said when he came in. "Everything with the Harvester going well, I assume." He checked the dozens of notes stuck to his monitor, then glanced over the calendar on the wall. "I didn't forget a meeting again, did I?"

"No Sir," he said, sitting, note in hand. "Listen, I'm not going to try to tell you your business or anything, and I really didn't plan to get involved in any way with this nonsense ever—"

The XO surrendered up his hands, "Back up and slow down. I obviously haven't had enough coffee this morning, because I don't have a clue what we're talking about yet."

Hanly slid the note across the desk. "I got this from Emanuel. It's from Shadona. I take it she's back at the base again and you're planning on building another—"

"Absolutely we are." He leaned forward, fingers on the note. "A thousand million apiece, Hanly. One billion each is what they go for. Opening bid. Damn right we'll make as many as we can." He opened the note. "Nothing here she didn't already say in person." He balled it and tossed it.

"Sir, I talked this over with Emanuel and he's willing to put in the overtime for—"

"It's Elhander's baby, Hanly. He's the head of aeronautics and the head of the shop. It's his department if it's any—"

"Your call, Sir." Hanly stared at the trash, crumpled note within. "Note made it very clear that you'll make substantially fewer with Elhander than you will with Emanuel." He stood, heading out the door, "What's a few billion here or there, right?"

The XO caught him before the door. "I never cleared Emanuel for—"

"Cleared or not, Emanuel kept the notes on the last plane, what'd she call it, HP-2 or something. He's been overseeing the suits and is familiar enough with the power systems of the Harvester to safely tie her gear in when the time comes. Like Elhander, he's also the head of the machine shop, second shift. He might even be more qualified than me to deal with her crap, whatever his official clearance and position is. Besides, she doesn't want or need a supervisor, she needs someone to get material for her and stay out of the way. He can do that without a wall full of ego getting in his way." He twisted the handle and pulled, "She might not know his name, but she's worked with him before. According to the note, she's obviously worked with Elhander, too. But it's your billions, Sir, and your call." He wiggled his jaw on the way to the elevator. His ears were sure to pop again before he got back down to his floor.

"Hi," he said, offering his hand, "I'm Emanuel." He produced a notebook from under his arm as he met her at the heavy hangar doors and started walking with her toward the shop. "I've already ordered all the material off the list for the HB-2, adding what you shoved under the door. That much tungsten will take another week. Any additional material, just let me know. Knowing all the re-engineering that went on between the HB-1 and 2, we didn't try to pre-build anything this time. I'll be heading up both second and third shifts, so any spare time on the shop equipment can be dedicated to parts fabrication for your project, if you want. That should speed things up quite a bit, just requires a little extra planning."

She stopped walking, middle of the hangar, and watched Elhander scribble notes at his desk before turning out his office lights and leaving for the day. She looked Emanuel in the eyes. Receding curly black hair, brown eyes. Early-forties. He looked very familiar to her. "Thank you," she said, shaking his hand when she knew Elhander could see. The hangar doors opened behind them, and she watched as a group of girls she knew all too well filed in.

"I went over the files and notes for the last two," he said as they continued to the shop, "and I'll try to be up to speed as soon as possible, but it might take me a few days. Anything I leave out, just let me know." He flipped through some printed pages, "We've got the materials for these three cabinets on hand already, assuming no changes. We can start there, unless you'd prefer—"

"That'll be fine, thank you, Emanuel. A fresh copy of the drawings for the HB-2 would be a good place to start. I can pencil in the changes on it."

"I'll get right on it," he said, opening his office door, guards loitering on the edge of view. "Uh, if you'd prefer, I think we had them all converted to CAD, if that'd be easier to—"

"Pencil will be fine."

Emanuel unlocked the office safe, logged onto the terminal, then unlocked the filing cabinet. "Couldn't get all of your old team from the HB-2," he said, printing out a list. "Elizrae wasn't available, but I should be able to schedule anyone else—"

"Why isn't she available?" Shadona said, looking over the list.

He dropped the notebook on his desk and clicked at the terminal. "Doesn't say."

She pulled a folder from his notebook, Shadona in magic marker across the tab. She opened it on his desk and found several CDs inside, scaled down prints, and photocopies of all her handwritten notes, including Post-Its and pictures of where they were found. She grabbed the list with her music and dietary requests, added a few new artists, and left it on the top of his desk.

"I'll get right on it," he said as she left his office.

They stood in the halls, one of the few blind spots in the system. RFID knew where they were, but being devoid of cameras, it was safe to talk. Even so, their conversation barely rose above hushes.

"What happened to Elizrae?" Shadona said.

Chroma looked at the floor. "Grades."

"I don't understand."

Chroma picked at a flake in the paint along the wall. "We. . . they. . . I. . . Coed is harder on some, than others."

Shadona put her arm around her old friend. "Tell me," she said.

Chroma kicked at the base of the wall, fingers still working on the flake. "Elston and Janet were first. Maybe they were real, maybe they weren't. But Elston had the grades, she didn't. Guys after that, they just assumed if they had the grades, they could. . ." The flake dislodged and fell to the floor. "Girls just got reassigned. Nobody ever asked them. Never asked you, did they? Tells you all you need to know about it, doesn't it?"

"What happened to Elizrae?" she whispered.

With the toe of her boot, she ground the flake into dust on the floor. "Grades fell faster. Stopped talking to everyone. Got three months of grunge duty. Found naked, cigarette burns, bag over her head. . . nobody investigated. Never even asked anyone." She looked Shadona in the eyes. "Only know because," she looked down again, "because the boys were passing around pictures of her." She looked up. "They taped it on the mirror in the girl's bathroom."
Chapter 59

She looked at the flight roster, her name crossed off every list. "Bogus!" she said, adding her name back to each. She may lack the hours behind the stick that the other names possessed, but she was far from lacking the skills.

"Elhander's just going to line you out again," Belson said.

"What's he got to do with—"

Belson pointed to the department letterhead. "Hanly's not the head of that anymore, broke up the department. Flight instructors falls under aeronautics now. Has oversight of the deck maintenance and the tower, too." He patted her on the back, "Got a long reach for a raging fag, huh?" He continued past the lists and over to the suits.

She stood in front of a Sukhoi that was just waiting to be modified with gun cameras. She read the punch list taped to its nose. Half the systems needed an overhaul and had yet to be checked out. She badly wanted to work on such a craft, but instead was stuck building the HB-3 from scratch. "Bogus," she said again, running her fingers over the fuselage, bullet holes riveted and patched. It had character and a story to tell. A story she wanted to hear, but was needed elsewhere. Grounded, her airtime would shift to hand combat, where Elhander probably assumed others would dole out a suitable amount of punishment for her transgressions in his office. She touched the patch and knew she belonged in the air.

Belson climbed into the suit, powered it up, then preceded to the shop where he manhandled the heavy pieces into place and unloaded the material shipments.

"You don't want to go first this time?" Belson said, just making it inside before the door powered closed.

Shadona sat, holding her side. "Go ahead."

"Cool," he said, shedding clothes as he jumped at the opportunity. "Hey, what's wrong?"

". . . nothing." She leaned back in the chair, favoring one side.

He tossed his shirt into the dirty bin, "Let's see it." He squatted beside her. "Come on, let's see how bad it is. It isn't like I haven't seen you naked once."

She lifted her shirt just enough to reveal the dark bruise along her ribs. "It's not that bad."

He looked at the way she leaned in the chair. "Goes around back, doesn't it? Got you a couple times from behind, didn't they? Looks like sticks. Staff combat?"

"Batons."

He grabbed her shirt. When she didn't resist, he lifted it. "Jet jocks I bet. If you want, I'll check to see if you broke anything." When she sat quietly, he carefully pressed the bruises. "Nothing broken. But it's going to hurt like hell for weeks." The door locked with a clunk. "Let's get this off you while we still have lights. I'll shower in the dark. Done it before." He pulled it over her head before she even had a chance to react. He grabbed her pants and—

"I don't need your help," she said, pushing his hands off while still in a sports bra, for now.

He rummaged through her clothes, selecting the loosest fits. "You can't sleep in what you got on, not going to launder mattress fittings until next week, so you've got to get cleaned up tonight."

"I, can sleep in the chair."

"Don't be silly," he said, putting her clean clothes on the sink, turning on the shower, and moving her towel. "Want me to help you, I will."

She watched as he adjusted the temperature for her.

"It'll hurt, I know. Got to be done, though. Better now than in the dark." He reached for her pants.

"I've got it," she said, standing on her own.

It took her twenty minutes longer than it should.

The lights flickered out before she was done.

"Got some tape," he said, "if you want me to—"

"Hurts too bad," she said, catching her breath, hand on the back of her chair keeping her upright.

He returned the roll to his desk. "Your call." He stepped behind her, both hands on her hips, and lifted her to bed as effortlessly as if he was still wearing a suit. Before she could say anything, he had stuffed a pillow in her arms, a sheet over her shoulders, and was already getting wet in the dark.

She woke, side and back throbbing and damp, lights yet to turn on.

In the pale nightlight, Belson wrung out her towel over the sink, then walked back to her bed. Shirt still hiked up to her chest, he delicately applied the cold compress.

She winced, then fell back to sleep.

"Easy," he said, pulling the towel off her side as the lights blinked on. "Day after is always the worst." He tossed the wet towel to the back of her chair.

She sat, straightened her shirt, then promptly fell on the floor trying to climb down.

"I would have helped you, didn't even have to ask," he said, offering a hand. "You're about as light as a feather, anyway. Want a hand, or not?"

Sprawled out as an embarrassed lump on the floor, she nodded.

He grabbed her under the arms and put her on her feet. "I'm not hard to get along with, Shadona." He straightened her shirt while she found her balance. "Just keep me out of Hegel," he ran his fingers through her long hair, fixing the tangles, "that's all I ask."

"Thank you," she whispered.

He smiled in return.

It wasn't Elhander's spite keeping her out of a G-suit anymore.

Emanuel walked into the chamber where the ring was being assembled and squatted next to Shadona while she was leaned inside one of the new cabinets. "I got second shift to fabricate two of those— are you alright?" he said.

She winced while tightening the lugs. "Fine."

He glanced at his notebook. "I had to leave out a section of— You're not alright. Has there been some sort of accident I should be made—"

She slid out and read over his notes, "That's fine, I'll be in the shop when I'm done here." She crawled back inside with another noticeable wince.

When she reached, he glimpsed the bruises. "Come on," he said, "let's get you to medical, have you checked over."

"Nothing broken," she said, torquing another lug.

He looked around the almost empty room. "You need someone off the team, just say the word. It doesn't have to come from you. Can even blame it on Elhander if you want," he quietly said.

"Hand combat class," she whispered when the wrench finally clicked at forty-eight foot-pounds.

He flipped through his notes. "I have priority over them," he said. "Come to shop if you don't want to go to combat." He made a note in the book. "Can't have it interfering with production. It won't be a problem to pull you from there." He flipped to another page. "Thought you had flight instead of hand combat anyway?"

She dropped the wrench and climbed out again. "Elhander scrubbed me from the list."

"Can he do that?" He checked his notes again. "Oh, I see. That was under Hanly's department— I can't pull that for you. Sorry. I'm second and third shifts, it's nothing to get you out of anything during the hours I'm here. I'm in the shop or here the whole time." He pulled out his phone. "Let's get you some ice pads or a topical for it, ok? Get you a shot or something for the pain." He dialed the nurse as he walked her down the hall to be checked out.

* * *

". . . I happen to agree with Hanly on this one, Sir," Emanuel said, looking up from his desk near the end of his double shift. "I think he was right last time, and I don't see why those same principles don't still apply. It's a huge investment of capital and time. The equipment is beyond complex and confusing, and that leaves virtually no room for human error. Can't afford the distractions, Sir. I have to insist that she be exempt from classes where she's subject to being pummeled on a regular basis."

The XO stared out Emanuel's window as Elhander walked across the hangar, start of his shift. He rubbed his stubbly chin, "You're right, of course. Thank you for bringing this to my attention, I'll have a talk with the Sergeant. How bad is she?"

"Dinged up, Sir. Nothing serious. Didn't even want to see the nurse, but I didn't see any reason not to have her checked out anyway." He powered down the terminal, locked his desk, put his paperwork in the safe, then checked his pockets before scribbling a note. "Tough kid. Had a third — or was it fourth cousin that played hockey for three years. Took six high-sticks to the head one game, seemed fine. Just walked it off. Didn't wake up the next morning. Blood clot came loose, stroked out in his sleep. If he had taken a couple aspirin, might still be alive today." He stuck the note to his monitor as he headed out the door. "He was just a hockey player, didn't have a billion dollars riding on his shoulders. One in a million chance takes on a whole different meaning when the stakes are this high, doesn't it?"

". . . uh huh," the XO said, Elhander still over an acre away.

"Reminds me, might want to have a word with Elhander. Flies in the face of my one in a million hockey story, but flying obviously means a lot to her. I'd let her behind the stick every now and then, after she's healed. Think of it like anyone else blowing off some steam by having a beer."

". . . uh huh," he said as they left Emanuel's office.
Chapter 60

"Relax," Belson said, hand on her shoulder. "Believe it or not, I'm pretty good at this. Nothing to be nervous about, it isn't like you've never spent the night in my room before. Just relax."

Sitting backwards in the chair, she rested her chin on a folded towel padding the wooden backrest.

"There you go," he said, pushing his thumbs near her shoulder blades as he firmly dug into the muscle. He worked his way across her back, then slowly up her neck as she closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and finally relaxed. . . before falling asleep.

He licked his fingertip as he stood beside her bed, early that morning. Battered and bruised, she would have been entirely too easy to subdue, should such thoughts dominate his mind.

Face down, partially on a pillow, even in this faint light, she was far cuter than he ever remembered. He closed his eyes and relived a shower still fresh in his mind.

Apprehensive when she was first assigned to his room, he had no doubts about the assignment now. He actually liked this girl. She wasn't the shy little thing of his past. Bold and a little reckless. It was an attractive combination on her.

He rested his hand on her fingers, inches from her lips. She was the only one to break out dozens. One of the very few to go on assignment for months at a time.

And each time she returned, she seemed even sharper. Bolder. More assertive, more lethal behind the stick, and more distant from that shy little girl most still saw her as. More than one rumor attributed a dozen high-value drone kills to her skills alone. But piloting drones wouldn't explain the tan lines he had seen. Besides, most were convinced that the simulations that dozens practiced for hours every day weren't simulations at all. A drone assignment need not take place away from the base, since its very premise was based on piloting remotely at extreme distances.

He lifted her shirt enough to see the bruises again. He owed them.

He kissed the darkest one, fixed her shirt, then continued to the bathroom.

She stood by her desk, her dirty clothes duffle was missing. She had only one day's clothes left and had planned to— "Where's my duffle?" she said as Belson entered their room, end of another long day.

"Oh, I turned it in when I took mine down. Should be done tomorrow morning." He squeezed past her on his way to the bathroom, hand on her shoulder as he passed.

"Why'd you—"

"Still having problems with your right side, right?" he said, taking off his boots. "Planned on carrying it down the halls, bouncing off your bruised back, did you? Figured you wouldn't mind."

"I don't mind," she said, gathering the only clothes remaining. "You're already out of Hegel's class. I can't do more than that, if that's what you're thinking."

"I have to have a reason?" He pushed his boots against the wall, untucked his shirt, then pulled it over his head. "I like you," he said, "I think you're a kind person who acts tougher than she is to keep others from taking advantage of her." He loosened his pants and was soon in his underwear. "And I think it's an act of cowardice to try to win air supremacy with cheap shots on the ground." He opened the curtain for her, then took his seat by his desk. "And I think it's the least I could do, after getting to know you."

"What are these?" the XO said, standing in Emanuel's office, end of his second shift.

"As builts," Emanuel said, folding the pages before placing them in the locked part of his desk. "This is what, week two?" He checked the calendar on the wall, "No, it's week three. Time moves weird when you're working double shifts." He logged off his terminal and closed the safe. "Elhander burned his bridge with her. Same as you and, to a lesser extent, Hanly. You all tried to be her boss from day one. Hanly's advice was to be her employee instead." He pinched his eyes before pouring the last cup of cold, stale coffee into his travel mug. "Assistant was the word he used, I think. Anyway, it hardly involves any acting on my part. It's her device, her show, not like anyone really knows what's going on. But she isn't trying to mislead me, like she did Hanly. Consequently, I have very accurate as builts and will, if things continue like they are, be able to build another device almost immediately after this one is finished." He swigged the cold stuff, opened his eyes wide, and added six spoonfuls of sugar. "I've reviewed the data on the window interface since I got this project, and it looks like it's the key, as much as anything is key in this project.

It's the only piece of equipment that seems reusable each time, and it's connected to the rest of the equipment in a similar way, each time, primarily with optical cables. That makes tapping the signals difficult, but not impossible, as you know. The volume of information that flows across those cables is staggering. I suspect it's far more than. . . " He sipped, then shook his head and added more sugar. "I think I'm following her, Sir. The designs are starting to make sense when you look at their commonality. Spending years on the suits didn't hurt either, but I could really use more time studying her changes. I could also use a distraction that slows down her pace, without it looking like a distraction and something not coming from me." He looked at the empty coffee pot, "I'd love to stay and discuss this with you, but I'm running on fumes, Sir. Got just enough left in the tank to coast home."

The XO just nodded as they stepped out of the shop office, Elhander arriving for his shift. "You're way behind in your—"

"Yes Sir, my paperwork is falling behind, I know. At this point I don't see any way I'll ever catch up. But we're still on schedule with the suits, despite the paperwork. We'll easily meet your shipment deadlines, probably a few days ahead of schedule. Get her a few distractions and I might be able to catch up." He checked his watch, "Sir, I really have to go."

The XO nodded as Emanuel sprinted to the exit. "Elhander, I need to talk to you before you get started. . . "

G-suits were still out of the question, but she was plenty healed for helicopters, and did they ever have an assortment to choose from, now that they were an approved upgrade installer. Live fire was heavily restricted, but they did have an arsenal of paint rounds that Hegel had perfected in red, yellow, and blue. They weren't really paint, not that it mattered.

She swung the Apache into the mockup town at treetop level, strafed six out of six enemy positions, laid waste to the snipers hiding on the roof and the other seven scattered in ambush positions in windows and doors. She effortlessly rocketed three of three plywood tanks and their escorting Jeeps and disappeared over the horizon in the fastest time for the course. All while avoiding taking a single lick of ground fire on her first run of the day.

Though her sorties rarely lasted longer than five minutes, she spent all day competing in combat, and as such, it marked the first much-needed day off that month for Emanuel and a crew of dozens.

Showered early, she lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, still too excited to sleep. Her hand waved in the air as she recounted her historic victory in today's heats. Even after so many months away, her skills hadn't diminished at all. No hint of rust.

She continued her interaction with the ring, verifying and double checking the calculations it had been making on her behalf. This was to be the most significant upgrade to date and would lift the limits off her technology in a way nothing had before. All carrot, no stick.

Life with Yofi had changed her perspective on strategy. Before, it looked like the only way to sway the XO was through sheer stubborn determination. It seemed the only proof of her freedom convictions he would likely accept actually required her death. He had seen two HB planes already, and surprisingly she had tasted her greatest freedom over the same period of time. It was reasonable to expect even greater freedom with a third.

She planned to demonstrate the full potential of a technology that was, like her, just coming of age. This would be the first of her birds, born for war. She waited while the ring tickled back.

"Heard you had a hell of a day," Belson said, just getting inside before the door closed for the night.

"Almost seems unfair," she said, smiling as she remembered it all, "Apaches feel like everything is happening in slow motion. Like you've got all the time in the world." She sat up in bed as he squeezed by, "I know, 140mph doesn't seem slow, but it is when you've been supersonic most of your life. I—"

"Must be nice," he said, taking off his boots.

"Oh, I'm sorry." She hopped down. "I keep forgetting about your eyes. I'm not trying to. . . you know me better than that." She did a little twirl, best she could, in the tight space between the desks. "It just feels like I was dancing the entire day away." She ended her twirl with a smile she hadn't been able to hide since her last sortie several hours ago. She knelt by the chair as he shed his dirty shirt. "I just couldn't—"

As casually as she lined up the next target with her sights, then gently squeezed, he waited as her smile lined up with his lips, and casually kissed.

She paused, then stepped back, door latching behind them. She suddenly looked as shy as everyone remembered her. "I—"

Belson fumbled to his feet. "I uh," his unbuttoned pants fell to his knees, where he quickly caught them, pulled them back up, buttoned them, then remembered he hadn't showered and awkwardly unbuttoned them again. "Oh, hell. I didn't," he looked at her, then the ground, "I, well, uh. . . I didn't — I mean, I, I meant to kiss you." He sat in the chair and removed his pants. "I've meant to kiss you every day that you've. . . " He looked her in the eyes, "But I didn't mean to kiss you." He looked at her feet as she took a tiny step away. He humbly put his hands in his lap, "Probably flyboys are all that's ever been on your radar. I'll, uh, get cleaned up now." He grabbed his towel and opened the curtain.
Chapter 61

He hadn't kissed her in two weeks, perhaps three, and she acted like it had never happened. But it had. And like any other bell, it couldn't be unrung. But the sounds, the feelings echoed on, growing louder the more they were ignored.

"Shadona," he said as the door closed behind them, end of another long day of fabrication.

She sat in her chair, leaned against the concrete wall, every bit as tired as he was. Perhaps more, since all her work was done without the assistance of a suit.

"Shadona," he said again, her eyes still closed. He licked his thumb and touched it to a smudge on her cheek, then knelt beside her chair. "I wish I could have gone with you, that first time you tried. Might have ended differently, if I had." He held her hand. "You don't have any idea how special you are, do you?" he whispered, then kissed her lips again.

She opened her tired eyes.

"There's that smile." He kissed her again, then squatted on the floor beside her feet. He first untied her left, then right shoe, tucking each under her desk. Socks were next as he continued to work his way—

She stood, hand on his shoulder keeping him on the floor. "Not today," she said before showering behind the curtain.

He remained on the floor, a simple step separating him from more. A step he had yet to take. She had Apache combat again tomorrow, as she had every weekend now. It always put her in a better mood, and gave him more time with her, both of which were decidedly in his favor.

Gunship to gunship was what made her heart sing. Automated targets like in the mock town were one thing, Apache to Apache was the thrill she lived for. The battle raged for nearly fifty minutes as she hunted and was hunted all down the valley. A fortunate fleet of twenty was at the base's disposal, all upgraded with modern avionic suites. All being field-tested today. She registered eight kills before being overwhelmed by three, acting together and against all the rules.

"What are you so happy about," she said in their room, later that day.

"Got three weeks free from grunge detail," he said, still smiling as he straightened his desk.

"For what? Nobody worked on the HB-3 today, did they?"

"No but," He hesitated, putting away his notebooks and turning off the monitor. "I bet on you."

"Bet?"

He leaned back. "The debriefing room, the one filled with monitors, can be rigged to get live feeds from the control tower. Even has gun camera views, not just radar. Officially it's for educational purposes, but everyone watching is betting something on the outcomes. Bet favors, among other things. Dozens crowd the room every time." He held her hand, "Be a fool not to bet on you."

"How, uh, how much did you bet?"

"Four days. Everyone assumed you'd get one or two, a few even guessed three, but nobody expected over five." he smiled, kissing her knuckles. "Except me."

"I could have lost," she said as he pulled her closer. "They broke the rules and teamed up on me."

He pulled up her shirt to show a side free of bruises, "I won that bet, too." He looked up into her eyes. "Still hurt?"

She shook no. "Can't take a G-suit yet. Still tender. Won't be cleared for another month maybe. Probably won't be here that long anyway."

He ran his fingers across her side, kissing each spot, best he remembered, before lowering her shirt. "That'd be a painful shame." Hands on her hips, he pulled her to his lap. "Who will I bet on then?" He kissed her, door still unlocked, neither with anyplace else to go, and more than an hour before lights out.

Eventually, she got up and walked to the door. But didn't leave. Hand on the handle, she just stood and leaned.

He walked up behind her. "Well, you've kissed before." A hand on her shoulder, he kissed her on the opposite cheek. "I'm interrupting something you're anxious to get back to, then." He walked back to his desk, lowered his mattress, and went to bed.

She paused for the longest while, but eventually did the same.

They lay in separate beds, quietly staring at each other until the door locked and the lights eventually turned out.

Without another word.

Bolted in place, the large ring was now ready for the intricate web of wiring that joined it to dozens of complicated cabinets lining the floors. The heavy manhandling now complete, the boys were returned to Hegel, and she only saw him at nights, when they were alone.

"Hey," he said in the dark, bed across from hers, "You awake?"

Hmmm. . .

"Heard you clobbered with choppers again today. You're totally destroying the odds, you know. I make more when you're the under—"

"Want me to start losing?" she whispered.

"Yeah, ideally— If that's not too much—"

"Way too much—"

He bolted up in bed, everything in shapes without edges. "I was, I was just. . . " He fluffed the pillow, then inched to the edge of the bed nearest her. "I haven't bet on you since that first night. This is awful, but, I just, I needed a line, you know. Hadn't had an excuse to say anything to you in days. Haven't been rushed to shower before lights out. I miss working with you." He held the pillow in his arms, "I miss just being around you."

She adjusted her pillow, but didn't inch closer.

"What's it like on assignment?"

"The doors don't lock from the outside. The air feels different, less claustrophobic, nothing smells of paint and jet fuel." She positioned her pillow like a buffer between them, but held it like the stuffed elephant she suddenly craved.

"They'll take out the tooth eventually, you know. They have to. It can't be more than a few years away."

She pulled the pillow tight, "I wish I could believe that."

"Why not?"

She frowned, too dark to be seen. "The math is all wrong. The reward for freeing us is small, but the risk seems to grow bigger every year.

You know military planning and strategy as well as I do. Including generous force multipliers, what could a few hundred extra soldiers really do in an army of millions?"

"Special forces, behind enemy lines, we have the numbers to bog down a hundred thousand, like the Russians were in Afghanistan, triple that if that army isn't first world. As pilots, a few hundred top guns could be decisive, even against a numerical or technological advantage." He did his best to focus on her face, but the room simply wasn't bright enough to make out expressions. "The outcome of major battles often pivots on the choices and actions of just a few individuals, or the skillful deployment of a most lethal close air support. . . from a record holder in an angry Apache, let's say. You average a hundred or more kills every sortie. Those kinds of numbers quickly add up. Three thousand a month."

"Against cardboard and paper," she whispered. "We lack meaningful numbers to be truly decisive. That limits our deployment usefulness to acts of desperation or extreme—"

"Or special assignments," he said. "What's it like? Ever put you behind enemy lines or under cover as a spy like some said?"

"Spies with RFID chips in their teeth wouldn't stay undercover for long."

He moved to the edge and leaned out into the gap between beds. "Heard a rumor that with a special code, they can turn off the chip for months at a time without having to take it out. Didn't they do that with you?"

"No," she whispered, "they didn't."

He sat in bed, feet dangling over the edge, "Where'd they have you? What'd you do?"

She pressed her head against the pillow like it was the neck of her first and only toy. "I learned how green the grass was," she whispered, "and learned I liked hugs."

He hopped down and stood on the floor, inches from the end of her bed, arms folded on its edge as he got as close as he could. "You're not the only one," he said, finding her hand, "looking for the exit. You're math might be right, it might be wrong, but either way, they can't keep us here forever," he kissed the back of her hand, "any more than I can keep you in my life forever. Especially if it's against our will." He walked to the bathroom.

Chapter 62

The XO stood with Emanuel in the Harvester control room, surrounded by a bank of screens and computers, most fixed on a single girl, in a tiny room, hundreds of feet away. "Fiber optics is incredibly challenging to tap," Emanuel continued, "I should rephrase that. It depends on what the signal is. Our assumption is that each of these hand gestures she's making is another line of code, instruction on what Hanly called a 3D molecular printer. The cameras are recording everything she's doing, but that's simply for redundancy. Nobody expects another person to be able to duplicate her gestures with precision. Since she never checked the booth this time, our optic taps should never have been detected. We assume that the equipment in the booth is acting like a buffer, and it dumps it all in a flash to the rest of the equipment just as the ring is energized.

Now, given the tapes from her previous builds, we estimate the digital size of the burst in the low kilobyte range, about the same as a few chapters in a book. However, our other estimates, based only on the complexity of the craft being built, put the data into the terabyte range, comparable to a library.

A data burst in the kilobyte range would be easily captured, terabyte is probably out of the question. We assume the signal will be digital; but if it isn't, we'll get nothing. We assume that if it is digital, it'll be binary; if it isn't, we get nothing.

She knows the equipment and the technology we have at out disposal. My bet is the signal isn't digital at all, or at the very least it isn't binary. But we don't have much choice in the matter, binary is all we have the ability to accurately record."

The XO paced down the line of monitors, impatient as always. "Tell me you're not just wasting my time, here."

Emanuel clicked on the icons, launching specially designed programs into recording modes all across the system. "Well, yes, you are wasting your time here in this room, Sir. We are sure to catch something huge. But even if we manage to capture the entire data stream, we won't know for months until it's properly analyzed. But," he paused to clear a warning screen and override some security safeguards to give the experiment the power that it needed, "if past is prologue, you'll get another plane in just a few—"

The base rumbled, Richter 3.1.

"And, there it is," Emanuel said, staring at the monitors. Each camera had been hardened at enormous expense. Even so, only three survived the pulse. He sat down in his chair, mouth open. "You see it a dozen times on tape, but seeing it live, it's just something else, Sir." The plane glowed, radiating at thousands of degrees, but within a few seconds had cooled to room temperature. "Simply amazing, Sir."

Elhander looked over their shoulders at something few would ever see as it replayed on the screens. A first for him as well. "Amazing," he whispered.

"Do we have duplicate equipment?" the XO asked.

Emanuel nodded as he clicked away at the terminal, "Yes Sir, already completed, sitting in storage." He paused in his typing, "You know, Sir, if there was another place on the planet that had access to these levels of power, we could have simply sent the copied signal there and would be looking at two planes right now, without any of the difficulty of trying to crack her codes or techniques."

"Well," the XO said, hand on Emanuel's shoulder, "that there is the rub, isn't it? Keep me updated, I've got a mountain of paperwork to do. And remember, we don't need to understand it, necessarily, just duplicating it will be good enough. For now." He walked out of the room.

Belson and three others stood in the elevator, dressed in the best suits money could buy. They looked like robotic sumo wrestlers getting psyched for a meet. He flexed his fingers in his gloves while the elevation ticked off the feet on the display over the door. They had descended over a thousand already, and only now was the elevator starting to slow.

When the doors opened, they made their way down the halls and corridors, stopping periodically for Emanuel, in the lead, as he swiped his badge and pressed his palm to work their way past the security restrictions. Belson wasn't alone in finding humor in the situation. A single punch, two at the most, or a military-approved running shoulder block from any of the suits would fling the doors twenty feet from their hinges. It seemed silly, but they waited as Emanuel cleaned the sensor pad with the tail of his shirt, then pressed his palm again.

Once inside the chamber, they manhandled the tiny plane to its final destination in the hangar, back where their journey had begun.

In the hangar, slot D168, Elhander stared at their latest acquisition, now that it was under better lights. The engines were slightly different, but that wasn't what had him entranced.

Both engines had a slender tube running their full length, just barely outside them, tucked snug in the pocket against the wing, away from the fuselage. A tiny hole, not even as big as his little finger, gave its purpose away. He stared down its length and could see light out the other side. It looked, to the casual eye, like a simple tube. But here, in the rear, it revealed the truth. He pushed in the optical scope and investigated further. It had a port, mechanism, or hatch only two feet in from the rear. But the optical tube only confirmed what it was, not how it could possibly work.

It lacked anything that could hammer the pin on the shell, no way to eject the casing, no visible method for handling the rounds. Yet, it had no other obvious function.

Her third 'prototype' came armed.

He stepped back and stared. Even swaddled in scaffolding, cradled off the floor lacking landing gear, it looked tiny next to the Raptors and the other real planes from around the world. It looked like a toy. A joke. A drone. Anything but what it really was. What it was quickly becoming. Second to none was taking on a new meaning. When most planes were equipped with miniature cannons, this came in small-arms caliber. But he wouldn't make the mistake of underestimating it again.

The hole was tiny, but he knew the implications were huge.

* * *

"We've been here before," the XO said, just as angry as he was the first time. "Nothing's changed. There's still no way that I'm letting you test fly this plane. Especially if it's armed. Test pilots exist for a reason."

She stood on the pad beside her plane, fueled and ready to fly. He wasn't the only one just as angry as before. "I won't give you the codes, then."

"Laws of physics don't prevent someone else from pulling the trigger, Girl. Nothing else changed, our deal has always been others flying the plane. Stays the same, even if the plane's been improved."

She shrugged. "No guns then."

"Maiden flight," he said, "wasn't going to be any gunplay."

Elhander crawled inside and recited the numbers, "FE142."

Shadona stood her ground, wind tumbling the dirt down the runway.

"FFA43" he read as the numbers changed.

She watched the Blackhawk break over the horizon, the XO clearly wasn't going to relent. She still had strings. "EAE113 F32" she said, then walked to the control tower as a Raptor poked its tail up from the elevator. She wouldn't even be allowed to chase it.

Sitting off to the side and all by itself in the huge hangar, like it didn't belong, she ran her fingers across its skin. The ring tickled to her that after the test flight, they ran the tank dry idling on the strip. Probably out of fear, not knowing how the guns worked. A reasonable precaution. The gun built into the suit turned fuel from the tank into propellant for the munitions. The XO's math wasn't any good, though. Even using compressed hydrogen, as the suits did, the length of the barrel would be sixty feet longer than the plane, just for the bullets to match its top cruising speed.

She tapped its belly, climbed up through the hatch, and sat in the chair. Knowing where the cameras were, she placed Post-Its over each, then typed in her code.

Sitting in the hangar, hundreds of feet under ground, she looked around and saw the top of the mountain, and watched what the pilot saw as it taxied down the runway, climbed, cut across California, then went out over the ocean to practice maneuvers.

She saw everything. Listened to every word radioed between the tower and the Raptor that followed her plane. She listened to every message sent and received from the carrier it buzzed. Including encrypted calls it had already cracked back and forth to some general.

The carrier crew seemed a little too familiar with her plane. But then, why wouldn't they be? A 6,000-mile range meant refueling. Refueling meant landing, and a carrier would have been preferred for reconnaissance over hostile countries like Iran.

Still. . . something felt wrong.

She verified the computer's programming, reviewed its logs, then returned it to its primary task, working on a way to remove her tooth. Watching the video wasn't the same as flying. It just made her miss flying her plane even more.

Five flawless test flights without her.

Fueled, it sat off to the side of the strip. Waiting.

From watching SciFi and The History Channel at Yofi's, she learned of the deep mythology behind area 51. If such a place was real, her live-fire sortie seemed destined to take place over it. She was provided with a route, cleared airspace, and a generous list of targets. Each of which would be painted red with the ground around it painted blue to ensure no accidental collateral damage, all located in the desert within a single square mile.

She climbed in, entered her code, then waited to be cleared by the tower, not blurring the cameras this time. Behind her seat was a welded box filled with a pound of plastic. Should she deviate from her mission, a detonation signal would be activated and carried worldwide over satellites.

But her plane, as Elhander discovered when locked inside, blocked all such radio signals, part of what made it invisible to radar. With the hatch closed, the bomb would never go off. They foolishly assumed that because the tower could talk to her that signals penetrated the skin. They didn't. Not even a little. Radio reception was merely a feature of its incredibly sensitive surveillance array, more than capable of conveying the tower and the tooth signal inside, while excluding the rest. She was safe, so long as she remained inside the plane. But at some point she would have to land and eventually open the door, letting the signal in. Paranoid to an extreme, but it made the point.

Besides, she had no plans to deviate from anything, she wanted to see what her plane could do as much as they did. Perhaps more.

She smiled as she read the screen, ten gallons of N60 in the tank. Enough to go anywhere.

Chapter 63

The XO sat in the debriefing room, Elhander and Emanuel by his side, the screens filled with real-time video from a secluded, secret location in Arizona. Blue paint on the ground everywhere, making targets easily seen.

Six old Abrams tanks sat in the middle of two dozen white cardboard cutouts of civilians, simulating a parade. In a blink, the tanks were reduced to twisted tracks and tiny pieces of confetti, civilians flung like paper from view. Craters the size of water heaters everywhere.

A concrete wall eight feet thick disintegrated into gravel, as did armor plating off a scrapped destroyer and everything else on the field. One square mile of targets anticipated to last several minutes were all obliterated over eighty seconds before anyone even heard the sonic boom of the approaching plane. Every monitor they had showed simultaneous devastation.

Upon slow motion replay of the high-speed cameras, the demonstration became even more impressive. The tank in the rear got obliterated first, bullets arcing in from the sides, weaving around the civilians like a thousand guided missiles. Others, far more destructive, pulverized it from the top. In every case, the reactive armor detonated only after the bullets had already sliced through the tank and impacted the dirt beyond. The red painted bull's eye on the destroyer armor was carved away first, leaving a solid doughnut hanging in the air as if it had been chiseled free with a scalpel. Before it even had a chance to fall, the rest of the plating was obliterated in a reckless display of excessive force.

Satellite data, just beginning to come in, suggested the shots were fired from a minimum of twenty miles away.

The general called and a flight to the testing range was scheduled almost immediately. The very existence of thousands of rounds of armor-decimating, mass-produced guided munitions was ordered classified, and the official record modified accordingly.

* * *

Dysath poured the contents of a bucket onto the table. "What we have here, Sir, is. . . well, you can take your guess, but anywhere between two and three hundred thousand in industrial diamond dust. Sandblasting a tank with diamonds might not be cost effective in the long run, but it sure will cut it to pieces."

"Diamond dust?" the XO said, rubbing the gritty powder between his fingers.

"I had these tested, by the way. They're lab grown. And it's not exactly diamonds, molecularly. More like a diamond alloy, if there is such a thing. It's about a hundred times harder than anything we can currently make, and most of its mass comes from tungsten." Dysath swept the dust back into the plastic bucket his daughter had made sand castles with just three years ago. "But then, you already knew all of this, didn't you, Sir?"

The XO just smiled, hands back in his pockets.

"Reminds me a little of a classic episode of Star Trek." He leaned against the table and started counting on his fingers, "A cruise missile to simulate a crashed airplane you can't describe, reverse engineer a high-energy gun from designs with devilish little flaws, and now I'm inspecting a field of pulverized 'invincible' armor surrounded by tungsten diamond dust and a hundred untouched cardboard civilians. You have a working gun already mounted on an airplane. Judging by my drawings, it's designed to fire millions of dollars worth of 20-carat diamonds at the enemy, probably at supersonic speeds. The power requirements alone suggest it's mounted on a 747, but the missile you had me make is the size of a compact car. How am I doing so far?"

The XO leaned against the same table.

"This stuff gets easier to reverse engineer the more information you have, you know. Right now, I'm thinking Russian defector or crashed aliens."

"Your team ready to relocate yet?"

"You have some ammunition to look at that's not in dust form?"

"You searched all of that square mile yet? There's bound to be a few that missed and just hit the dirt. Something more than dust had to survive."

"Sir, anything that missed all that armor hit the dirt full force. To shred a tank, you're talking about tons of force. I throw a .45 at you, might give you a bruise. Put a pinch of gunpowder behind it, you'll lose the arm. A pinch of dynamite, it'll punch holes in T-34s. We're beyond full sticks of dynamite to do this kind of damage. A stick would bury rounds hundreds of feet, easily. Bunker-busting ammo, Sir. Think rock-quarry excavations, not a few guys and a shovel. Be easier to find a whole T-Rex. Besides, we chased a few rabbits down that hole already, harder than it looks. Beginning to think not a single round missed. Like to get a few in pristine condition, before they've been fired."

"You and me both, Dysath, you and me both. All that's ever been made is sitting in that field."

"Well, before this little field trip diversion, my guess had leaned toward tungsten rounds anyway. My analysis, for what it's worth, is that the diamonds act like a Teflon coating that just enhances its penetration. There's even traces of a plasma made from a copper core, as if diamond dust wasn't impressive enough. Probably even designed to fragment."

The XO put his hands on the table, smiled, then walked toward the door.

"The working model is in Colorado, you say? Might be worth relocating, if it is."

She stood in the hangar and stared at the roster, blood still pounding in her veins from decimating the targets over a week ago. Her six requests to fly her own plane were all denied. She walked over to slot D168 and ran her fingers across the skin. Empty of fuel, no ammo, no potassium carbonate, and its port engine had been disassembled and reinstalled incorrectly.

This only confirmed her suspicions of their 'serviceability' complaints over the crashes. Making the engines serviceable, by idiots, could only lead to more crashes, not less. By attempting to guilt her, they hoped to trick her into revealing its secrets. But making them removable was very different than making them understandable, as they were quickly coming to realize.

Emanuel walked up behind her, start of second shift. "It's a masterpiece," he said. "Should be proud." He looked in his notebook. "Tungsten seemed too heavy for structural anything. I should have figured, but didn't. Glad to find out it was mostly ammo. Half a ton lighter now. If you've got time," he flipped through the pages in his book, "I'd appreciate it if you could look over the port engine. Elhander took it apart, couldn't get it to work when he benched it, and just shoved it back. I didn't find out until yesterday. If you'd—"

"He'll kill someone, one day, if he hasn't killed two already. Take it apart every day for a thousand years, and he still won't figure it out."

Emanuel leaned against the wing, book closed and back under his arm. "I know that. You know that. But the XO put all birds under him. Including this one, I'm afraid. Ask me, it's clearly in a class of its own. The XO's going—"

"Three test flights," she said, hand still on the wing.

"I don't have the authority to—"

"Two."

He put his hand on her shoulder, "Just hear me out for a second. I don't have the authority to override Elhander. He's almost impossible to maneuver around." He let go, then leaned against the same wing. "But that's only when he's here. What he doesn't know won't hurt him. I can get it fueled and up the elevator on occasion, we just won't put your name down as the pilot, ok?"

She smiled. "Four."

"Should I schedule your normal team?" When she didn't respond, he just nodded, then went to his office to start his regular shift.

The three men stood around the repaired plane, D168.

"Why'd you have to open your mouth," the XO directed at Emanuel.

"Elhander took apart the port engine. She was standing and staring at the port engine. What did you want me to do?"

Elhander was immediately defensive. "Cocky bitch has killed two pilots already, and I'm—"

"They didn't die of engine failure, they lost con—"

"We'll never really know what they died of. Never got any video or crash—"

"Boys!" the XO said, "I'm not interested—" he stared up at the ceiling and remembered the cameras hidden all over the base, and a little girl who seemed very aware, even at the age of three. He looked at the plane. "What's the chances that plane is bugged, recording everything we're saying?"

Elhander pointed at it. "That day I got locked inside, it could see through walls. It knew when Hanly's phone rang. I don't know if it can record anything, but it can see everything."

Emanuel patted it on the nose, "Why wouldn't she bug it too, we did!"

They walked out of the hangar and continued their conversation when they got back to the XO's office, deep inside the mountain.

"Listen," Emanuel said, "I've been around her technology long enough—"

"HER technology?" Elhander said, offended as always.

"You had the engine apart for days and still couldn't figure it out, right?" Emanuel said. "Do you know anyone who builds a plane out of dry ice? How about one that literally drops out of a ring bolted to the ceiling with a full magazine of smart, self-guided ammunition that cuts through armor like it was paper. Or a power suit with a two-ton working capacity and a—"

"You've made your point," the XO said. "The clock is ticking here, gentlemen, and I want to stall for time. I've got a plan. I want you two to keep with the good-cop bad-cop for the next week and we'll. . . "

* * *

Nobody in the tower, nine at night as she sat in the HB-3, ready for her first flight without C-4 behind her seat. Emanuel filled the tank with methanol and managed to clear her for two hours, if she promised not to break the sound barrier over the states.

Even the cameras they often tried to hide inside had been removed.

She ran her fingers across the screen as it synchronized with her ring. She had special plans tonight, and she wanted everything to go perfectly. A rare case of nerves, she double-checked everything, manually.

The engines fired, barely louder than a whisper on the airstrip. Its loudest sounds came from the tires rubbing against the gritty concrete as it built enough speed to float off the side of the mountain and disappear into the moonlit night.

Nothing would see her this time.

She made a second pass, then a third, but the house looked wrong, each and every time. Her screen should have seen the hum of the refrigerator, the warm static noise of cordless phones, fluorescent lights, or transformers in turned-off TVs. The entire valley was full of them, even the power lines leading to the house tingled with RF noise. His mechanical arm alone should have showed.

Instead, her perfect, flawless screen showed nothing but an abandoned house.

She floated it like a leaf and landed in their backyard, far enough from the house to avoid breaking any windows with her exhaust.

Moonlight lit her path to the back door as she looked inside. All the furniture was gone, just as her screen suggested. She pushed her way in through a window and searched, room by room.

Nothing was left.

They were gone.

Moved.

She checked every room again, then sat on the floor and stared into the backyard at a plane she so badly wanted to show off. Just sitting there, waiting.

Waiting, as it was programmed to do.

Waiting for a passenger that wasn't a pilot.

Waiting to take him on a ride of a lifetime he would never forget.

Waiting to welcome him to a tiny club that even Armstrong didn't belong.

She stared at the wall beside the phone. A hole in the sheetrock, a chunk of wood missing from the stud. A fist only one man could make. An angry phone call was all she knew, her only clue to why they'd moved. She worried and feared over the tiniest of things, too near to too kind a heart, but didn't cry.

She felt abandoned, unwanted, unloved. She knew better, but still she felt what she felt. She stared at the dents the piano left in the carpet after oh so many years of sitting there. They took it, but not her, was all her heart heard.

She sat on the floor and stared out the door.

Chapter 64

"What happened?" she asked, closing the door behind her in the shop office.

"I'm sorry," Emanuel said, confused, "I don't know what you mean. Something wrong with the plane?"

She looked through his Plexiglas windows, his crew busy building suits. "What happened to Yofi?"

"Yofi? Y-O-F - Y or E?"

"I"

Emanuel typed the name into his terminal. "I don't see anyone with—"

"He was here before you, first head of the shop. Mechanical arm. Lost a leg to flack. Hanly knew him. Lives about twenty miles from here, in the valley. His house is empty now. Yofi Stosou."

"Oh," he pushed away from the terminal. "I don't have internet access from here." He scribbled down the name. "I'll Google it at home, if you want. Can't be that many Yofi Stosou's in the world. . . Hanly knew him, right? I'll leave word with him, see if he knows anything. He always checks his Email, first thing. The XO might know something. He'll be here," he checked his watch, "in about nine hours.

You look upset. Engine working right? The flight go ok?"

She sat in his office chair and stared blankly at his desk.

"People move all the time. Doesn't mean anything." He put the note in his shirt pocket. "Real estate is the largest investment most people make. Might have gotten an offer he couldn't—"

"Thank you," she said, heading out his door, "I've got to get to bed."

"Leave us, please," the XO said when the door unlocked that morning.

"Yes Sir," Belson said, grabbing his pants and shoes before squeezing past on his way out to finish dressing in the hall.

The XO stepped inside, door closing behind him. "Yofi died suddenly about three weeks ago."

Shadona sat at her desk, her worst thoughts realized. Yofi seemed fine the last she had seen him, but this answered everything.

"He had a piece of flack in his heart. When it dislodged—"

"Why didn't you tell me when it happened?" she said, tears in her voice, but she already knew. She knew all too well what she was in the middle of, just three weeks ago. "I want to see Elaine."

"His wife? She doesn't have clearance to—"

"I lived in their house. She already knows me, what more can—"

He stepped closer, "Yofi and I had our disagreements, but he was—"

"I need to see her." She dabbed a finger under her eye. "She's—"

"Out of the question. She doesn't have—"

"She's a friend who lost her husband, you jerk. I know her, have lived in her house for years. You can't tell me—"

"It's against federal law to—"

She put her head on her desk, "You unbelievable bastard. She's all alone right now!"

"She's not alone. She's got a sister or something." He stepped closer, "She doesn't have clearance, period. Only Yofi did. Your assignments have been canceled until we can find another suitable—"

"You told Belson we'd all be freed around eighteen. We'd be free to interact with millions of people with no clearances at all." She sat up, wiping her cheeks on her sleeves. "Let me see her now. Today. If there's a shred of humanity in you at all, you'll let me help that decent woman through the next few years. You'll let me—"

"It's out of the question."

"Then getting another code from me is out of the question, too. When your flunky Elhander puts engines in backwards, don't expect me to say a word." She stood by her desk, "You unbelievable bastard. Let me see her. It's no bigger a security risk than it was when he was alive, and I was left with her while he worked here. You know that. You're just being cruel. What's worse, you're not just being mean to me, you're being cruel to a woman who's done nothing to you. Who can't do anything to you. One of the nicest people I know."

The door locked behind him.

Hegel stood, dazed after the video, "That's some ammo, Sir," he said, moving frame by frame through the highly classified footage again. "You'd be looking at decades of R&D is my guess. First, I have no idea how to penetrate armor that easily." He sifted the rubble on the desk, picking up the largest tank fragment. "Plasma weapons leave cuts like this, commonly called an anti-tank round for this very reason. But the video looks like guided bullets. Guidance systems are a science all their own, but miniaturizing it into a bullet is way beyond me. It's difficult making those Tazer rounds rugged enough to survive being fired out of a gun. Just getting a purely mechanical device like them small enough to put into .45s is challenging. But as simple as their technology is, we've encountered hundreds of problems. The boosted acceleration has doubled their failure rate. Same speed out of a shorter barrel means— Getting silicone chips, basically glass, to survive the shock of being fired from a gun. . . I'm not your man on making these hypersonic, guided, tungsten diamond, plasma core bullets. That's way outside my scope, Sir. Hundreds of millions and decades in R&D, maybe. And even then, they'd probably cost a million dollars a bullet to produce. I'm struggling to miniaturize the Tazers as it is. My plate is full, Sir."

The XO swept the rubble into a bag. "Alright, Hegel, alright. My understanding from my other specialist is that the same gun that fired those can fire, or should be able to fire, regular tungsten, or tungsten carbide bullets. You're my metallurgy guy, what would we be looking at to make a few thousand tungsten bullets?"

"Special order? I know a few places that could make them; they made the rounds for the suits a few years back, not exactly standard rounds either. Pricy. Forty dollars a bullet, if you order in bulk. Hundred thousand for a minimal order on something like this. That's cheaper than we can make them here, Sir. I'd assume you're firing them out of something like a modified Vulcan from a WartHog, adding the brass to them should be comparable."

"Hundred thousand without the brass?"

"Yes Sir. Assuming a traditional conical shape. Something more exotic would be extra. Solid hardball with a jacket." He flipped through his Rolodex and pulled out some cards. "They'd need exacting measurements, of course, but they custom make military ammo all the time. If we made them here, we'd have to machine each round, and a single error would ruin your barrel. They're already set up for precision mass-production. Use something other than tungsten and I can get the price down. But hypersonic bullets have a tendency to vaporize from the friction of cutting through the air, making long range impractical for anything other than something like tungsten."

"What about test rounds? Aluminum and lead? Maybe some fancy paint rounds, too. My, uh, understanding is that this gun has far more control over speed than you might think. I need practice rounds until we work out the kinks in the gun itself."

"Huh. . . What footage were you looking at? I didn't see any kinks."

The XO made a final stop before ending his day, standing before the HB-3 in the hangar. "You get it installed?" he asked Elhander.

"Yes Sir," he said. "Fancy little piece of hardware."

Emanuel stood beside them, shaking his head with regret. "It's a bad idea, Sir. Even if your auto-dialer gizmo works, you're asking a pilot to play Russian roulette. Elhander knows with his random dialing that a close number isn't the same as a right number. Finding out on the ground is one thing, finding out in the air would be fatal."

"Well," the XO said, hands in his pocket, "I guess we'll just have to take our chances. The ejection system needs to be tested some day, doesn't it?"

"This is crazy, Sir," Emanuel protested, clipboard under his arm. "It's a complete disregard for human life."

The XO just smiled. "I have pilots. Call me when it hits, day or night." He stared at one of the guards. "Nobody steps near this thing without my say so."

"Yes Sir," the guard said.

"What happens if one of your random hits tells it to self-destruct?" Emanuel said as the three walked toward the hangar doors. "What happens if its autopilot is smarter than you give it credit for? A lot can go wrong when you play with fire as hot as this."

The XO stopped, well within sight of the plane. "Your objection is noted. Let me worry about that. She's put a car-bomb worth of dangerous materials in those suits, yet even your mistakes haven't left us with a crater bigger than we can live with. I'm betting there are more safeguards in place here than you think."

"Two widows might not share that opinion, Sir."

"I have it on good authority that they just about have this code nonsense figured out anyway," the XO said as they exited through the hangar doors. "Short responses make it harder to crack, but easier to get lucky."

"Where you been all day?" Belson said, entering their room just before lights out. "Had to get a guard to unlock the door. You under room restrictions or something?" He looked her in the face. "You been crying? What happened?"

Lying in bed, she pulled the covers over her face.

"Thought you'd be on assignment by now, what with the plane done and checked out and everything." He pulled the covers off her face. "Getting scrubbed from an assignment wouldn't make you cry. Seen you beaten down with broken bones without shedding a single tear. Would have to be something bigger than that."

She looked on the verge of tears when she turned her back to him.

"It can't be all that bad," he said, hand on her shoulder as he listened to her sniffle. "You can tell me," he whispered as the lights blinked their warning. Should he wait much longer, he'd have to shower in the dark. But he wasn't that dirty today. He could skip it, just the once. "You're not alone, you know. You're not the only one who wants out of here. You're not the only one to hear those metal doors lock in their sleep. You're not the only one in this room. You don't have to do this alone, if you don't want to."

She woke in bed, middle of the night, his arm still around her. His shoulder still damp with her tears. She hadn't intended to cry like she had. Like a helpless, frightened child she was anything but. But she had cried the second he hugged her. She cried as he climbed into her bed. She cried softly as he held her that night until she finally fell asleep. She cried like she did when Elaine comforted her, so many nights ago.

She moved his arm and nudged him off her when she sat up in bed. He didn't know Yofi, not like she did. To him, Yofi was the cripple who cut him from shop. Yofi was almost a father to her. Yet, Belson seemed to care. He was genuine and warm and comforting to a fault. She put a hand on his shoulder. He had just held her, nothing else, when it would have been too easy to do far more.

She climbed out of bed and went to the bathroom.

When done, she found herself standing at the foot of the two beds. She didn't have to go back to hers. She could choose his instead. She could sleep alone, if she wanted to.
Chapter 65

He smiled that morning when he woke with her still in his arms. "You and Yofi must have been close," he said, hand on her back.

She sat up and out of his arms, "He quit because of what they were doing to us. Punched the XO in the hangar."

"No shit!" Belson said, rolling to his back so he could see her better, an hour before lights on. "Heard it different. Heard the XO got the shiner in a bar fight, beating up on six queers."

She leaned against the wall, knees tucked under her chin. "Over us," she whispered. "Only stayed so long because shop gave him a way to get a bunch of us out of. . . When Elhander took over, accidents climbed. Stitches, lost fingers. Yofi cared about us, Belson. Not just how fast we worked. He tried to teach, Elhander's only about quotas."

He moved to sit beside her. "I guess I never got a chance to know him. Will's about the only one I remember saying anything bad about the man. Everyone else just ragged on him cause he was a crip." He put his arm around her, "Wasn't he on borrowed time anyway? Remember him saying something about the flack should have killed him years ago."

"Finally did," she whispered, doubting it was as painless as Yofi pretended. She wished she could have comforted Elaine the way he had comforted her that night. Elaine had lost her husband, seemed silly that Shadona was the one needing comforting right now. But it was what it was. Another sign of her defective mind.

Belson simply leaned her head onto his shoulder and ran his hand down her back, as long as she would allow, without saying another word.

"We have a hit," Elhander said, rushing out of his office and over to the plane. He looked over the monitors connected to the robotics inside. "It all looks green. Every system looks active, but it'll need fuel to verify." He dialed the phone. "Sorry to wake you at this hour on a weekend, Sir. . . Yes Sir, we have a green on the HB-3. . . We need to fuel it and get it above ground. . . Yes Sir, I know there's a time limit, about four hours. . . Yes Sir, I know. . . Who? . . . Yes Sir. . . Very well, Sir." He turned to the Sergeant standing guard over the plane. "Get the girl, I'll get it fueled."

"Yes Sir," the Sergeant said, leaving immediately.

They stood atop the mountain, early Sunday morning.

"It'll crash," Dana said, looking inside the plane, "I won't do it. Get someone who's suicidal."

The XO pointed her back to the plane. "You think Shadona 'd let her only friend die? Get in there before you scrub more dishes than China makes in a year."

She took off the helmet, "Rather do dishes than die. Killed two already, not anxious to help you count to three."

"Get in the plane!" he ordered.

She flinched, put her hand on the wing, and paused. "What's in it for me?"

"Now!" he ordered.

"Three weeks, no grunge. None, no matter what."

"Three days, each flight, but you fly the course we map, exactly."

The XO was probably right. It was, by far, the most sophisticated plane in existence. It easily had the most advanced avionics and all the processing power that came with it. To any pilot it was as tempting as chocolate cheesecake, even knowing the risks. And it was likely far less dangerous with her behind the stick, just as he said. Still, she knew leverage when she saw it. "Six days."

"Four."

"Five each flight." She tightened the helmet and climbed through the hole. It was Dana's first time behind its stick, but she knew a few things that should keep her safer than most. Knowing the inventor was at the top of the list. The XO's assertion was probably correct. It likely had extra safeguards built in, just for her.

The course was simple, designed to test if they had cracked the number scheme and had, in fact, unlocked the system. A team of CIA code breakers had worked for over a year on the beefed-up software the auto-dialer used, and promised perfection within another year. Their insights had improved on their previous rapid and random method that unlocked it every few days, to once, sometimes twice a day. Still, using Dana was a gamble. If they ended up killing her, they'd forfeit all leverage with the inventor. The auto-dialer was still guessing, after all. It was just making more educated guesses.

They were also beginning to see other patterns after years of use. The right numbers only unlocked it for a single sortie. Land anywhere and the system reset, asking for new numbers again. What remained puzzling was it somehow knew what one sortie was. Land on a carrier, for example, and most of the time it would allow a refueling without asking for new numbers. Land on the carrier to be inspected by the general's staff and it would require new numbers to take off again. It was a very intelligent system.

It would only sit on the ground for so long before locking down, too. Idling to empty the tank worked just that first time. Soon they had to taxi around in small circles, but it was showing signs of catching on to that trick as well.

The black box Shadona had talked about, located just under the seat, had already been examined in detail, once they knew it could be removed. They discovered it connected the controls on the seat to the rest of the plane. A section of it was electrical while the rest was optical. And like most of her plane, they could learn precious little without destroying it. They needed to learn more, quickly. And Dana was their best chance at that.

Dana casually held Shadona's hand in the halls, knowing they were being listened to. 'Have me flying your bird,' she squeezed.

'It told me,' Shadona squeezed back.

'Third time this week. Live fire, paint rounds, pretty sweet, but break easy. Big mess, horrible noise.'

'Don't worry, it shouldn't let anything happen to you,' she let go of her hand. "How dare you fly my plane!" Shadona yelled, pushing Dana away. "I hope it kills you, you traitorous bitch." She stormed down the hall, mad as she could muster.

"Hegel's having a hell of a time making paint rounds for your fancy plane," Belson said when the lights went out.

"Nobody asked him to," she said in bed.

"The XO sure did. Hey, I understand why you're angry—"

"You really don't," she said, adjusting her pillow.

"It's your toy, and they've got someone else playing with it. From what Will says, she's better at flying it than you already, that'd make me mad too. Got more hours behind the stick at least." He slid out of bed and stood next to hers. "But those paint rounds of Hegel's are making a nasty mess of it. Power wash it for an hour after every sortie."

She pounded her fist into the same lumpy pillow she had since she was six, a far cry from the new one she had at Yofi's.

"I don't understand you sometimes. For someone so smart, you do some dumb things. Could be you behind the stick so easily. I mean, isn't that what you wanted, anyway? Wasn't that the whole point of using a coded keypad? To be the one behind the stick instead of her. You could be writing the book, training instead of sitting, grounded like you are. And what are you getting out of it? They got a box that punches thousands of numbers into the pad as fast as it can change them. Said they'd have your code cracked by the end of the year. Why not just help yourself. Take the easy way instead."

She adjusted her sheet.

"Just have to make it a few more years. Iran or someone equally retarded will do something truly brain dead, just a matter of time, and a few hundred fluent soldiers trained in special ops will suddenly be high in demand. Went through a refresher course in their regional accents just last year. Don't know why you'd want to spend the in-between mopping the same floors a thousand times. Bet you could solve Hegel's problem in a matter of minutes, if you tried. Probably get you out of grunge for a month, and save your plane all that trial and error.

Mostly error."

She quietly pondered.

"How much of Hegel's incompetence can your plane survive?"
Chapter 66

"We want you to start pushing maneuvers over six Gs," the XO said in Dana's debriefing.

"Not a chance," she said, "Young don't equal stupid."

"The code is nearly cracked," Elhander said. "We've got a ton of data that suggests that it's—"

"Then you fly it," Dana said. "You got two broken eggs already, no omelet to show for it. A third ain't going to get you breakfast. Besides, I don't know what more you can learn. I've been practicing maneuvers in it all month. Gun camera footage says I've been dominating. Just Hegel's defective rounds that leave room to argue. That's not my problem; I just fly it, didn't invent it. Didn't pretend to."

"You're our designated test pilot on this," the XO said, reviewing previous satellite video. "Nothing's going to happen to you. You've been pushing five G's all last week. Just asking you to inch it up. Figure out how she managed to do these maneuvers—"

"Don't have a clue how she takes off like she does," Dana said. "Can watch it from the outside for the millionth time and I still won't have a clue. Can't see what she's doing with the stick or the pedals, not sure it'd help if I did. You want me to try the kamikaze landing, you better be ready for a kamikaze crater. All I can do is fly it like any other plane. That's it." She got up from the table and pointed at the video he was obsessing over. "You want that, only one person I know that can do it. Got her mopping floors. You want to take it to a whole 'nother level, you need a whole 'nother pilot. Simple as that." She glared at Elhander until he stopped staring at her boobs, leaned against the wall, then returned her attention to the XO. "Besides, you already know what you wanted to find out."

"And what was that?" the XO said.

"I'm a mediocre pilot at best. We all know that. But in that plane, I can't lose. Haven't lost a single sortie yet. Half are against boys three times as good as me, outnumbered five to one last time. Still won." She put her hands on her hips. "Even subsonic, it's just that much more maneuverable, more responsive. Agile. The screen makes a world of difference too, nobody ever sneaks up on you. See them miles away. Even those stealth planes you had that one day showed up as big as life." She shrugged, "Makes everything that much easier, even without the fancy flying. You want to get to the next level, you know where you need to go." She looked at Elhander and measured her words. "She isn't asking that high a price, considering what you're getting in return."

The hangar covered over eight acres, and this was the third time she had mopped it by hand, but the first time she had mopped it this late into the day.

"Shadona," Emanuel said, start of his shift, letter he found on his office floor tucked discretely inside his notebook, "What's this?"

She stopped, mop in the bucket, "It's what it looks like. You can read it if you—"

"I can't mail a letter for you," he whispered, "It's against all the rules. I'd get fired if I—"

"It's got Yofi's old address as the return, and that's Elaine's sister's in Michigan. I don't see how it can possibly get back to you. While I'm in here, they won't spend the time and effort to keep her under surveillance. Now is the safest time for you; outside, she would be the first place they'd look."

He tucked the book under his arm, then spoke louder. "If you'd just cooperate a little with Hegel's target rounds for the HB-3, I might be able to do something for you. Get you out of all this mopping and behind the stick, where you belong."

When he walked away, she mopped toward the HB-3. The guard wouldn't allow her closer than thirty feet, but it didn't matter. The ring was able to sync over much greater distances than that. With laptops and CD players, the ring almost required direct contact. Even previous models of the HB required her to nearly touch it. But since the HB-3 was designed to receive faint optical signals from bullets at well over twenty miles away, line of sight was all that was required to sync with it.

Its powerful optical computer had devised a devious method for tooth removal. It predicted a 93% success rate with only a 7% chance of fatality. But implementation would be problematic.

As she continued to mop around, the ring tingled more details. It proposed injecting a solid-state super-conducting dust into the upper atmosphere, similar to the dust the harvester used to attract lightning. With just a few dozen tons of dust, and a year or two for it to spread, the magnetosphere and the ionosphere could be pushed into a kind of self-sustaining feedback loop, amplified by solar particles. The results would be massive and random electromagnetic pulses, rendering most modern technology useless for hundreds of years. Visually, it would cover the world in a continuous Aurora Borealis that would pulverize almost everything electronic.

It would be gradual, giving them months to come to the conclusion that they would have to deactivate the teeth, or kill all the kids. The 7% was that they would choose to kill the kids.

Either way, the pulses would slowly grow until, within a decade, they would be powerful enough to destroy even the hardened chips in the teeth.

It had problems, least of which was producing the weird dust on an industrial scale. Putting it into the upper atmosphere would require rockets and another layer of expense. Even given the implementation difficulties, it still had other shortcomings. It forced the removal of the tooth, but that didn't equal her freedom.

She wrung out the mop, dipped it, then went back to mopping.

Impractical, but interesting nonetheless.

It had the added advantage of making finding someone nearly impossible, disrupting communication around the planet, crippling satellites, and preventing the power grid from ever recovering. It would also end the tiresome Global Warming debate, most likely by triggering another Ice Age. Interesting, but impractical, and not really the method she was looking for.

Belson looked at the sheet of paper, center of her desk. A simple diagram showed how to make blanks for the HB-3 with a kind of aluminum-foil wrapper and a plastic outer cover, similar to a shotgun shell's cup, and included exacting outer dimensions. The inside cavity was left empty for the 'paint' with a suggestion it be dense, heat resistant, and as solid as possible when room temperature to keep from clogging the loading mechanism. It was designed to fire 20-carat diamonds, not fragile plastic and paint, after all.

He took it to Hegel the next day.
Chapter 67

After six disastrous missteps over the following week with various fillings for the bullet cavity, their first successful evolution of blanks used a mix of pressed sand and colored synthetic wax. Dana's first live-fire trial using the new blanks took all the arguments out of its obvious dominance. Reports from her numerous victims said the shells, those that didn't disintegrate midway, felt like being pelted by hail, some even left dents and dings in the aluminum skins when they hit. All leaving unmistakable gashes in the paint and splatters of melted wax over major systems like engines and cockpit. Rare were the worthless hits on wings and empty fuselage.

The HB-3 continued to impress every day it played in the air. Even without the guided ammunition, the dual guns were second to none. Each was able, when the rounds didn't prematurely explode, to deviate up to twelve degrees from what the nose of the plane was aimed at. Independently.

Used against air targets, that was the difference between doggedly lining up the shot and simply getting behind someone and shooting. With real bullets, it would prove especially effective at longer ranges. But long distance wasn't its only application. Close ground support was where it really shined with the kind of selective precision normally seen from highly vulnerable, slow moving helicopters, yet delivered at supersonic speeds. It offered the ability to strafe a wide swath of targets, the difference between destroying a neatly organized row of planes and an entire airfield of randomly placed assets.

Every day, teams of engineers inspected, probed, and attempted to understand how such a simple looking device could possibly do the complex as effortlessly as it did.

"You've got them befuddled again," Belson said, door locking them in for the night.

Shadona quietly selected clothes before her shower, no clue what he was talking about this time. "I'm just glad not to be mopping anymore."

He put his hand on her shoulder as he squeezed by and got comfortable in his chair. "Thanks for the tip, by the way. Sorry it took so long to get Hegel to implement. He isn't the brightest guy around, you know." He stopped her with a hand on her wrist. "Emanuel have you scheduled for this weekend?"

She shook no.

"Me neither." He let go. "I mean, obviously I don't qualify for Emanuel's crew, just have the weekend off, too. That's all."

"I'm not qualified for Emanuel's crew either," she said. "I'm the slowest person on his team. If he had a choice, he'd cut me in a heartbeat. As the only girl, I don't fit in at all." She paused between his chair and the shower, clothes in hand. "I don't belong here, Belson. Don't fit in, anywhere."

"Sums up everyone here." He pulled a book of matches and three cigarettes from his shirt pocket, putting two on his desk and one to his lips. "We're all looking for a way to fit in, and a way out of here." He struck a match, took a deep drag, then held his breath before a reluctant exhale. "It's been too long," he said with a sigh.

She sat across from him as she watched a less dangerous dust than her recent consideration fill the air. "Would you damn the world, just to get out of here?"

He took another drag, "Damn them all to hell. I'd damn some of them twice." He inhaled another, leaned back in his chair, and smiled peacefully at the smoky ceiling.

She looked at the filter, a hole pushed through it, paper crumpled and stained like it had been aged for months in the rain. She sniffed the air. "That's not tobacco. Smells like it's gone stale, mixed with fried flies, like the bug zapper in the kitchen."

He offered her the rest of his lit stick. Declined, he pinched off the end to save the rest for later. "Good nose. Will," he leaned in like it was a secret, "he found the special ingredients. You never had widow sticks before?"

She shook no.

"Found some black widows years back on some survival exercise, keeps them hidden in ducts, drawers, dead spaces under furniture. Feeds them maggots, separates their eggs, got it down to a science. Can feed a thousand on table scraps. Anyway, every few months, they harvest them, you know, after they make a bunch of eggs for the next crop. Tortures them for days with one of our Tazer rounds, makes them spew venom until they die. Venom-soaked tobacco, mixed with ground-up widow. . . it's like a euphoria all its own, impossible to describe. Used to make alcohol, but this is, like, a whole other level, without the horrible aftertaste and much easier to hide. Smell takes a little getting used to, can't afford the pure venom ones."

Dubious, she inspected the half-burned stick. "Euphoria?"

He leaned across, teasing her lips with hints of kisses, fingers through her long hair. "Euphoria," he whispered, kissing her earlobe as he followed the underside of her chin to taste her lips again. "Euphoria." His fingers glided a tease across the backs of her wrists, ending seconds later as they softly slid from her fingernails. Leaning back in his chair, he stared at the ceiling, cloud disappearing into the vent.

She looked at the backs of her fingers, never knowing they could tingle like they were right now. Then, like a hypnotist snapping his fingers, the lights blinked their reminder to shower now, or shower in the dark. She went behind the curtain, as he struck another match.

While the water trickled off her body and down into the drain, he turned his chair toward the only thing that could compete with the special smoke he inhaled. He stared at her silhouette and that thin piece of plastic that separated them. "I love your long hair," he said as he watched her subtle curls damp down behind the screen. "Black. So black, sometimes, the light reflects highlights of purple and blue. That seem to disappear like smoke as you move. Like the magic that is you." He inhaled deeply, sucking it down to the filter, then ground the butt on the wall as he stood. "You've got, like, the most perfect complexion, too." He leaned against the wall, plastic lightly pressed against his arm. The warm drops felt like seductive licks on his dry skin. "No freckles. Spend months like moles, hiding from the sun. Yet you have this most perfect, perpetual hint of a tan. Nothing too dark. Just a hint." He ran his hand across the shadowy plastic image, imagining touching what lay inches behind, shampoo rinsing from her hair. Bar of soap, he watched her lather first her arms, then her chest and back as she methodically rubbed her way to clean.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a finger-sized shard of glass. Smoothed on one side, like the handle of a cup, razor sharp along its edge. It almost looked invisible, if he held it just right, just as invisible as it was to the dozens of metal detectors he walked past down these halls. He tucked the sliver between his fingers, and stared at the sharp edge of a decision. A decision he had already made.

He paused in the cloud of doubts the smoke muddled in his mind. "I've loved you for years now," he whispered, not sure she could hear. "See you in my dreams, every night. Constantly amazed, when I wake, that you don't remember everything we've done, our secret life. That what was so real, to me, was nothing to you. That one, fleeting glimpse, lingers forever." He paused, sharp sliver in hand. "You ever dream of me?"

Water drained as soap rinsed from her face and off her shoulders.

"That note you left on your desk, so simple a solution. Obvious, in retrospect. Are you just that much smarter than everyone else?"

She lathered her face a second time, as she always did, back turned to him. She washed everything twice, much as she brushed her teeth. Odd and annoying in everything else, sexy as a silhouette encore.

"I'm not smart enough for you, am I?" He grabbed the plastic, pulling it tight against the curtain rod, sharpened glass poised high. "Only in my dreams, is it ever real. Was there ever a chance, you and I. . ."

The thin plastic fell from the rod with a wet slap against the floor, cut as easily as soap rinsed down her back while she retreated to the corner in obvious fear. Knees trembling, she stiffened, but didn't scream as the blade he so casually held between his fingers glinted in the light. She swallowed hard, "Just. . . just a few more minutes, if you don't mind," she said, as calm as she could.

He stepped closer, water wetting his sleeve and pant leg. "You're so pretty," he whispered without the plastic in his way. She tried not to tense as he slowly raised his hand and ran his fingers into her hair. "I forgot how deep, and dark your eyes were." He ran his thumb across her eyelid and felt an uncontrolled tremble. "That nose, not too small, but not too big. Not turned up, not pointy, not narrow or too broad. Just a nose." He ran his finger down its bridge. "But not just a nose."

"Belson," she said, "I'd be happy to discuss my nose with you, but not while I'm in the middle of showering." She casually put a hand on his shoulder, and just like she would roll someone over in their sleep, she encouraged him to take a backward step.

He stood there, a little confused. Dazed. But just stood there while she did her best to calmly shower in front of him, as if nothing had changed.

She lathered her arms and shoulders again, concealing most of what he was intently staring at. "You were saying something before, but I couldn't hear it over the noise of drops against the plastic." She gestured at the toilet seat.

He took another backward step, and sat down. His eyes finally off her, he stared into his hands and the little blade tucked there. Plastic wad in a growing puddle of water on the floor. "Could you ever love me?"

The lights flickered their five-minute warning. Her towel and clothes were behind him, so she stalled in the shower, cleaning what was already clean, while trying not to be provocative about it. He was waiting for an answer, "That could easily change, depending on the rest of today."

He ran the blade against his jeans, threads fraying with every pass. "Doesn't depend, for me. I'll feel the same, no matter what. How can that be? How can it be different for you?"

She rinsed, then turned off the water. Her stall couldn't go on forever, so she gambled. "Can you toss me my towel, please." When he looked up, she pointed, then held out her arm. "Please."

He ripped her towel from the hook, but tossed it to the ground by his feet as he sat and stared at the cuts he had made in his pant leg. "I don't remember why I did that." He started cutting the other side so they'd match.

"I'm wet, Belson," she whispered, now that she didn't have to compete with the water. "I'm starting to get cold. Can I have my towel, please."

He stared at the wet plastic on the floor, then at the naked, shivering girl. "Can you love someone like me?" He looked at the blade in his hand. "Can you love someone after this?"

She looked over at his desk; his towel was much further away, but perhaps easier to get to — Animal Planet jumped to her mind. Bears always chased what runs away. It would require bravery either way. But as yet, Belson hadn't gone too far. He was, for the moment, sitting beside her towel. He was the dangerous bear in her room. A room she couldn't leave until it unlocked. . . too many hours from now. An eternity from now. Run from the bear, or try to make friends with it. Danger was down both paths. She stepped toward him, then knelt to pick up her towel.

He pressed his foot to its center. "Do you love me? Could you love me?"

"I could love that boy who wet this towel in the sink every hour, to cool and soothe bruised ribs. I could love that boy that held me all night, when I was desperate for a hug. I could love him very easily." She gave the towel a gentle tug, but it didn't give. "I could forgive him this, if this was all he did." She rested her hand on the knee that was preventing her from getting dry. "You haven't crossed into unforgivable yet. Let me have my towel. Let me get dressed. Let's put this moment behind us, before it goes too far."

He relaxed his foot as he ran his hand across her chest, Goosebumps forming under his touch. His fingers stopped over a tiny scar, the size of a pencil eraser, just below and to the side of her bellybutton. "Every girl here has this same scar. Why would they sterilize every girl, if not for—"

"Not for that," she whispered. "Not for that." She dropped the towel as she continued to drip on the floor. "Tonight, this is a big setback for us. But what have you really done? You've scared the hell out of me, destroyed the curtain, and seen me naked. You'd already seen me naked. The curtain needed replacing. And I'm not scared anymore. But I am still very wet and cold." The lights blinked out, leaving everything in silhouette. "I can forgive this, so far. I can. I've seen worse on reality TV. Just take your foot off the towel, and let's get back to our life like none of this happened."

His hand on her abdomen wandered lower in a way she couldn't so easily forgive, or ignore. "You're still a virgin," he said in the dark, though it could be argued that his touch had changed that.

She stepped back. "Stop," she said, "Just stop, now, before it goes too far to forgive." In the dim light, she watched him lick his finger, before standing and stepping her way. Cornered, her choices had reached their limit. The bear she was facing was far more powerful, armed, and very deadly. Playing dead wouldn't help her here. Running was only useful if she had a chance of escape. "Belson. Please, don't. Just turn, walk to your bed, and sleep this off. That's all you have to do. We'll wake up tomorrow like tonight never happened."

His fingers touched her cheek, ran down her neck, chest, abdomen, and beyond, for the second time. When she slapped him, he slapped her back, blade in hand.

She gripped his wrist, twisted it, and jerked down as she head butted him in the shoulder. The blade fell from his fingers as he screamed out in pain, arm popped from the socket.

But she had no hope of hiding from him. She had no way to get help or leave. She was locked inside with. . . He flung her against the wall, punched her in the stomach, then choked her from behind until she collapsed onto the floor. . .

The lights blinked on as he woke in agony, shoulder throbbing with pain. He pushed to his elbows and stared at his hands. He let go of her cold neck as he sat up on the painted, concrete floor. "Oh God," he whispered, remembering it all like a nightmare he couldn't wake from. He pulled up his pants.

Naked underneath him, she lay motionless on the floor. Bruises on her wrists and around her neck, where he had choked her down whenever she showed signs of waking. Blood covered her face where he had slapped open her beautiful, flawless cheek. Gash from near her ear to the corner of her lips. Her beautiful long hair, dried in the wound. Forever tan replaced with pale, blood-loss white. "What have I done," he whispered, several minutes yet before the door would unlock.

He stared at the towel he had refused to give her, discarded on the floor by the toilet. Blood drops were on everything. His sticky hands had left a smeared map of his blind gropings of her body.

He draped the towel across her, in shame. When it moved, ever so slightly, he dropped to his knees and pressed his ear to her chest. She was alive! He jumped to his feet, looking around the room. Ripping the sheets off his bed, he screamed out in pain, clenching his shoulder. "Damn! I don't remember it hurting this bad before." He did his best to warm her after she spent the night pressed to the cold floor. "Come on," he whispered, pulling the wrapped girl onto his lap as he held her in his arms, despite his throbbing pain. "Stay with me," he whispered in her ear. "If you die, I'll never forgive myself."

The second the door unlocked, he picked her up, arm screaming with every step, and ran her straight to the medical floor.
Chapter 68

"Good to see you, nurse Benita," the doctor said, getting off the helicopter as she rushed him and his bags inside the mountain. "It's been too many years."

"I'm glad you could come on such short notice," she said as they rode down the elevator.

"Anything for you," he said as he watched the feet tick off above the door. "Never knew what happened to you after Iraq."

"Went private sector, sort of," she said. "Listen, I can't tell you too much. Suffice to say this is all top-secret, nondisclosure-type stuff with a civilian facade. Have a recruit that is in desperate need of your special skills."

"I'm not that kind of plastic surgeon. I don't do boob jobs for general's mistresses, liposuction, or nose jobs, I'm strictly reconstructive—"

"She's eighteen and got a gash across her face in a training accident." She crowded him in the corner and demonstrated with her finger across her cheek. "No eighteen-year-old girl should have to live with a scar like that over an accident. Just give her back her face, like you did for those bomb victims, and we'll be even."

"Why not do this in the daylight, have her shipped to my office?"

"She's not exactly here, legally, if you know what I mean," she said, knowing Shadona could easily pass for whatever nationality he was thinking. "Can't have any paper trail."

When the elevator stopped, she rushed him to the room.

"No no," the stranger said as she opened her eyes, "Don't try to talk, it's very important to be as still as possible and just listen, ok? You're cheek was severely lacerated. It was a delicate operation, any movement of your jaw for the next three days will rip it open. No coughing, just breathe through your nose." She closed her mouth, then her eyes. "That's it. Just relax. Don't try to smile, or frown. No facial expressions at all. I know it'll be difficult, but try not to touch the inside of your cheek with your tongue. I've injected you with some muscle paralyzers, so you shouldn't be able to make facial expressions anyway. Nurse Benita will keep you on them for the next few days. It'll leave you dizzy, disoriented, and a little nauseous. Just relax. You've been through a meat grinder, from the looks of it. But you're lucky, I think this was some of my best work. You should have a tiny scar, no bigger than a hair, easily covered with just a little makeup." She felt his fingers run through her hair, "Don't worry, you'll be just as pretty as you were before this little accident." He patted her on the shoulder.

Accident, she thought, before the drugs drifted her away again.

She opened her eyes a crack as the argument escalated around her.

"How dare you bring in someone without checking with me first!" the XO yelled.

"I'm the head of medical. We didn't have time for you to flip through—" nurse Benita said.

"For a heart attack or a severed arm, maybe, but this is elective—"

"Elective?"

"A plastic surgeon is the very definition of elective surgery, nurse Ben—"

"Some ass-wipe beats the crap out of her, rapes her, gashes open her face and leaves her to bleed to death on the floor and you're—"

"We have evidence of sex, not rape."

"Are you blind?" she said, hand on her hip, pointing to Shadona.

"And none of that has anything to do with a plastic surgeon!"

The nurse didn't back down a tick. "You obviously never had sisters or daughters. You don't leave a three-inch, life-changing, disfiguring gash on a teenage girl's face, like some sort of tattoo of the worst day of her life. That is an emergency, that's probably the biggest thing that girl will ever go through. You don't just slap a band-aid on it or close it up with staples and stitches, turning her into some disfigured Frankenstein for the rest of her life. There are some things in this world you just don't do. Stitches in a girl's face is one of them. I suggest you pay the man, in cash and on time, and be damn grateful I could get him on such short notice."

They continued the argument out in the hall.

"If she was the only girl that I'd seen this year, I might be inclined to believe you. But this is becoming a pattern. One girl was brutally raped and left dead already. You need to get control of this before it turns into another TailHook and—"

"This'll never hit the papers like TailHook did," he said, stopping in the hall.

"Keep telling yourself that. It's exactly what they thought. If you don't crack down, they'll take it as passive authorization to continue. Avoiding bad press isn't the lesson learned with TailHook."

"What do you want, Nurse? We've spent years teaching them how to lie to lie detectors. Can't test them all now. Can't send DNA samples out on children designed to never be in the system. We can't bring in CSI or the local police to investigate. Besides that, I've never heard a single girl say one word about it, and we've been coed for well over a year. Hell, complaints got cut in half. When she's able to talk, ask her who did it and I'll fall on them like a ton of bricks."

She pointed her finger into his chest, "Dozens of girls had gone through TailHook without saying a word, the absence of complaints doesn't mean a thing. You asked me to sit through those psychology classes, you're going to hear what you paid for. You've got seven boys for every girl. Those girls are under seven times the pressure they'd be anywhere else in the world. They've been ordered around by men to the point that they don't question anything. I doubt it even occurs to any of them that they could say no. If you don't have a problem yet, you will soon. I'd crack down. Make an example of someone, even if it's the wrong one, just to prove you're serious. But discipline's your department, not mine. I told you then that coed was a bad idea."

"They'll have to deal with it eventually, on carriers and battlefields, and they requested it, I just approved it. I never would have hatched a bunch of damn girls anyway, but they didn't ask me when you guys were playing God in the lab," he said, continuing down the hall for his office. "I'll look into it!" Knowing it was never going to get very high on his list.

'If you die, I'll never forgive myself,' she remembered him saying, her eyes slowly opening as the fog of the drugs lifted from her mind. Belson. She remembered only pieces of that night, after the slap. She remembered being violated, and she knew too well who it was. 'I'll never forgive myself' she remembered him muttering as he carried her down the hall to the nurse.

Where she was now.

He raped her, disfigured her, nearly killed her, and when he sobered up, he saved her life.

Mathematical parity suggested she should reward him for saving her life, just before taking his. But as sore and hurt as she was, she didn't lie that night. She could forgive him before he turned violent. She could almost forgive the rest. She dislocated his arm. Mathematically, that should have ended the fight right then and there. He should have been incapable of overpowering her after that. But he wasn't. Determination alone couldn't have overcome physics or the pain. She blamed the fancy cigarettes as much as she blamed him.

She had almost talked him down, two or three times that night. Had she not slapped him, things might never have turned violent.

Had she not slapped him, she might yet have kept everything under control.

She was the one with her wits about her. It should have been easy to outsmart him. To out maneuver his addled mind. Yet, she failed to do so. She was smart enough to know that slapping him would escalate the situation. She might not have been able to talk him out of violating her, but the level of violence was entirely in response to her actions. Had she seemed more willing, she likely could have escaped without a bruise.

She ran her fingers across the uncomfortable wrappings that kept her jaw closed, stopping at the thick pad of gauze on her cheek. Violence never solved anything. She should have known where the slap would lead. Had she used her hand differently, she could have eased the tension considerably.

She forgave him, as odd as that thought was to believe.

She remembered him saying that he would feel the same about her no matter what happened between them that night. She remembered him commenting on how odd that it would be different for her.

But she was finding that she may have been wrong. And his odd statement then, had a ring of truth to it now.

"Don't speak," the nurse said, sitting on Shadona's bed. "I'm giving you fluids through the IV. You'll feel hungry, but you'll be fine. You'll feel thirsty, but for your cheek to heal, you can't eat or drink for another few days." She put her hand on Shadona's shoulder. "Don't say anything, just spell it out on this keyboard. You know who raped you?"

She ran her fingers across the keys, but didn't press any of them. She wasn't angry. She wasn't mad. She didn't want revenge. She remembered the boy who stayed up all night, changing the cold compress so she could sleep. She remembered the all night hug. She believed when she went home to her room, he would be the one to open the door. And she wasn't mad at him, just who he had become that one, and only, night, mere days ago.

"You know who did this, don't you," the nurse pressed. "He will be punished, you have my word. I got that straight from the XO. He's looking to make an example of someone, all he needs is a name."

Shadona pushed the keyboard away.

"You afraid of what he'll do when he finds out you told? You think he can do worse than what he's already done to you? Don't let fear rule you, Child. Pretending it didn't happen will only embolden him, and people like him. Like a terrorist cell downing a Blackhawk, it becomes a recruiting tool if it goes unanswered. Don't let this act of terrorism go unanswered. You don't have to have the courage to pull the trigger yourself, just need actionable intelligence. Like an air strike, someone else will rain the fires of hell upon them. He's looking for an example, just needs a name."

Shadona closed her eyes again.

Nurse Benita patted her on the shoulder and got out of the bed, "I didn't buy that story Belson told for a second. I can't say his name for you. Anytime you want to say — Anytime — I'll be ready to hear it."

Belson stood at attention when she entered the room, his arm in a sling.

The door closed behind her, locking from the outside, end of the day.

He touched his shoulder with his good hand, "Torn rotator cuff, they said. Hurts like hell. Won't be able to use it for weeks."

She put her hand on her taped cheek, "Sliced open and violated by someone I trusted, someone I really liked. Won't be able to smile," she moved her hand to over her heart, "or trust for months, maybe years," she whispered, unable to talk very loud as she cautiously stepped deeper into the room.

He sat at his desk. "Thought I'd never, uh, see you again." He looked down at her feet, dried blood on her shoes. "Wouldn't blame you if you never talked to me again. I, apologizing doesn't seem like enough. Nowhere near. Can't think of anything that could ever be enough. I, I remember doing some truly horrible things to someone I care about. I've been locked in here, all by myself, alone, day after day, doing classes. Thinking about that night and everything I did wrong, over and over and over again in my head. Oh, Shadona, I. . . I—"

She stepped within his reach.

"I think I'll never forgive myself for not just walking away. A hundred times you tried to talk me out of it, so clear in my mind now. You tried to steer me right. A hundred chances to stop doing the wrong thing, but wrong just led to worse, and worse." He pulled down his pants.

She immediately stepped back.

"No, I. . ." he remained seated, pointing to the scars. "I don't even remember doing that. I thought I was just cutting my pants, but I was cutting deeper. I didn't know what I was doing, but that's no excuse for what I did." He pulled up his pants. "You'll never believe me again, but I didn't lie to you. I do love you. I've loved you for years. And in one moment that can never be undone, I ruined your life." He rubbed his palm against his pants, covering the scars, "These can never be deep enough."

She stepped closer again.

"I don't know how to hurt enough, to drown such profound regrets." He punched himself in his bad shoulder and winced. He closed his eyes and swung again. And again. And again. Again. Again.

And again.

His wrist was stopped by a gentle hand, and words he could never have been prepared for.

"I forgive you," she whispered.
Chapter 69

Even his good arm around her felt numb, but he dare not move it so long as she slept. He looked at the scar on her cheek. His scar, carved by his hand. His mistake that she would wear for the rest of her life. Healed to barely a hair, just a faint discoloration in an otherwise flawless face.

He wanted to kiss her, but instead, he pressed his chest against her back as they lay on their sides in her tiny bed and waited for the lights. Hugs were where her heart was. Hugs he could give, as long as she would allow.

He stared at the back of her ear, long hair tickling his face. It seemed bizarre that he would find himself in her bed mere weeks after such a transgression. But there was a side to her he was beginning to understand, the mathematical equations behind her actions. The worst had already happened, sexual regrets had replaced months of sexual tension, and all the other conditions that contributed no longer existed. A repeat was mathematically unlikely.

And if she had actually forgiven him, then why not pretend that day had never happened? Why not continue down the path they were headed?

Why not have the all-night hugs she craved?

He felt awful about the events of that night. But, at the same time, he couldn't get the images of her out of his mind. This beautiful, slender, yet shapely young girl, standing soapy and wet before him. Her trembling knees stopped almost immediately, as a calm poise took over and she became who she needed to be, to talk him out of the actions on his mind.

As attractive as he found her, there were others he found more so. Her thin, silky hair was second to none, but her arms lacked the definition he had always been drawn to. Her breasts, though new and still growing, were smaller than he preferred. Her pretty face offered nothing special. Yet, his attraction was never stronger.

With Elhander, she spoke boldly, pushed her positions and didn't yield an inch in conversation. Her stance altered. Her arms and hands animated every conversation. She stepped into his face, invaded his space, almost threatening in her pose. She even yelled, on occasion.

With Emanuel, she was yet again a different persona. Cooperative, in her own way. Rarely raised her voice or her arms. She kept a comfortable distance when talking. And that persona worked well for interacting with him.

And again, the girl that first entered his room — their room – was bold, argumentative, strong, and a little threatening. But it changed over time. It changed that night, too.

She was a chameleon. Perhaps most people were, changing depending on who they were dealing with, with schizophrenics taking it to an extreme. Perhaps the personas were her attempts to fit in, to keep from being the girl that rocked uncontrollably, his first memories of her. The girl that drew all the unwanted attention. The girl that got picked on at every occasion.

Was the girl that craved hugs the real Shadona? Or just who she figured she needed to be to survive, while living in his room?

He sat and stared at her closed eyes. He knew they were brown. He had seen the brown before, but only in the brightest lights like out in the sun. Yet, every time he had seen her lately, he remembered them as black. Changing to suit the light.

He wanted to know why she came back. How she could be in the same bed so soon. He just couldn't get his mind around it. Friends close, enemies closer. . . That tired saying couldn't be it. She wasn't that easy to understand. Was she?

The XO had called her to the flight deck twice now, and she was still a no-show. He typed his password into the nearest terminal and ran a scan for her last known location, radioing it to the nearest guard to have her delivered.

"What the hell has gotten into you, lately?" he demanded when she was plopped down in the chair.

Dana stared at her untied boots, no incentive to fix them.

"You report when ordered, this attitude is unacceptable of anyone," he continued. "Your flight suit isn't zipped, laces loose, hair unkempt," he poked her in the stomach, "and you've turned to grade-A flab in the last two months. None of which is acceptable. Not here, and not now!"

She shrugged.

"Stand at attention when I'm talking to you."

She stood, slowly, and slouched. "You want me to fly it, or not?"

He poked her belly that hadn't improved with standing. "I'm not sure you can even fit in the damn thing!" He punched up her schedule on the nearest terminal. "Looks like the last few months of lifting weights haven't done you any good. I'm adding another hour of cardio until we get that pork out of you." He made the changes.

Elhander stood, "We don't need her anyway," he said. "Hasn't the autodialer proven itself by now, Sir? Besides, she's a mediocre pilot at best, and we need to start pushing it beyond 6Gs, something she refuses to do."

"Fine," Dana said, slouching into the chair again. "Didn't ask to fly the damn thing anyway."

"Get your lazy, disgraceful fat ass out of here and down to the gym!" the XO yelled, pointing toward the door. Once out of the room, he turned to Elhander. "She used to be one of the hottest girls here, for an early bloomer. Now look at her. Who do you want behind the stick?"

"Well, Sir, I'm not a test pilot, but I think I need some firsthand experience to better understand its key systems."

The XO sat on the edge of the table. "You think that's wise? My reports from our third party vendor show that well over 90% of the dialed numbers that result in engines firing, ends in a complete shutdown within five minutes."

Elhander smiled, "I'll just be sure to taxi it around for at least five. I've been dying to— You've got to know after studying it for years, how it's been killing me to have never flown it. Every hit, and I mean every hit that it's made for the last few months has been a total system unlock—"

"Yeah, well, it still has to fire a thousand wrong numbers into that pad to get one right. That isn't exactly a cracked code, if you ask me. You want to accept the risks, I'll let you fly it. Always have been willing to, Elhander. I just don't think it's a safe assumption you're making. I'd always rather kill one of these expendable kids than a real person, anyway. But it's your call. I can have our normal test pilot here in an hour."

Elhander rubbed his hands together, "No, I think I'll take this one. Nothing fancy, no testing the limits. Just need some experience behind the stick."

The XO patted him on the shoulder and headed out the door. "Just remember what happened last time you touched that stick. Take some PowerBars with you, it's about a hundred times harder than diamonds. Might take a few days to cut you out."

The plane taxied around the deck for a full ten minutes while he acclimated to the deceptively simple controls. Sitting behind the stick, parked in a hangar for the last few months, hadn't prepared him for the marvel of the screen, actually in use. As a tactical tool, it was second to none. And even though it looked almost identical to just standing outside, it still took forever to get used to.

He looked at his watch, lined up with the runway, and eased the engines to life.

Warned about its deceptive nature, it felt almost identical to a powerful prop-plane as he lifted off the deck, except it had no hesitation when he asked for more. He felt it transition into the kind of power normally associated with jets as he inched the throttle forward. He climbed to altitude, following the charted course. Looking forward, he could see the faint reflections of his Raptor chase plane, just over his left shoulder on his seven. But it wasn't a reflection. Simply by changing his eye's focus, he could clearly see everything behind him faintly blue and superimposed over his spectacular forward view.

He eased it faster and watched the numbers tick away as it climbed into the sky. Five thousand, six, seven, nine, thirteen, twenty and level. Effortless was an understatement. Crossing the mountains and into California, he decided to slow it out of sonic—

'Unauthorized pilot' flashed across the screen when they crossed over unpopulated forests.

He wrestled with the controls, but found them completely unresponsive. Mach 1. Mach 2. Three, four, it thrashed from side to side, pounding him against the straps and the seat like riding Satan's bull. Suddenly nosing over, it slammed him in the seat at over twelve Gs as it raced for the trees below.

Terrified, he cut the power to the engines, and it accelerated to Mach 6.

With no time to do anything else, he pulled the eject.

KraaaaaaaacKKKOoooooOOOWWWWW!!!

The plane bucked like it had been hit by a howitzer, but sounded like glass shattering in a sandstorm. Fifteen Gs threw him against the harness, slapping his chin against his che—

He blacked out.

In the darkness, he saw a tunnel of light between his feet above him. He crawled for the light and emerged from a tiny bubble that was covered in scratches, gouges and dings, with a tiny chute flapping in the wind amidst broken trees and severed branches.

Dizzy, he collapsed, facing the tiny hatch in the egg.

Pizzziiiifffff!!!

A puff of smoke trickled out.

"Take it easy, Elhander," the XO said, pushing him down on the bed, "Let the nurse check you out."

Dizzy from the high-G tumbling, he understandably complied, closing his eyes until he could make the room stop spinning. "What happened?"

"Well," the XO said, "you proved the escape pod works. That was the only part of the plane I didn't want tested! The bad news is I'm taking the billion out of your salary!"

"It lost. . . control. Spinning. . . Spinning so fast. . . no, wait." Elhander put his hand on his forehead. "It blinked 'unauthorized pilot' across the screen, then power dove into the ground. It tried to kill me!"

"If it was trying to kill you, why didn't it disable the eject like it did in the hangar?"

Dizzy, he forced himself to sit up, ribs laboring with every breath. "Maybe the eject is only active when it's flying. Like an airbag in a car."

The XO put his hands in his pockets to keep from strangling the— "You destroyed my plane! Do you have any idea what you've done! At this point, I'd rather it didn't eject. I'd rather it slammed into the ground at Mach 10! At least then we'd have something to examine."

"What are you talking about, Sir? There's got to be a ton of parts and pieces all over those woods. Just have to scavenge them up, Sir. Won't be easy, but it's doable. Might even finally learn something about how the damn thing works for once. X-rays and other non-destructive methods don't work."

"That's precisely why I'd rather have had you ride it into the ground. There isn't anything left, other than that pod."

"Can't be, Sir. Guns, engines, gas tanks, skin, all that stuff should have survived in some fashion or another. Even at Mach 10, there'd still be confetti-sized pieces. Hell, the skin was bulletproof, wasn't it? Pieces had to survive."

Emanuel entered the room, "You have to see this, Sir. It's camera footage from the chase plane, just got it uploaded to the network." He typed on the keyboard, then clicked play. "Here it is accelerating, the only reason we didn't lose sight of it was it did a big, fast circle over this spot. Walked away at maybe Mach 2, came back at Mach 6 or better, then nosed down, where it really poured on the speed. The Raptor follows, best it — There!" He hits pause and backed it up. "Don't have slow motion on this terminal, but lets play it again. . . There! Did you see that, Sir?"

The XO crowded over his shoulder at the tiny monitor. "I'm not sure. What are we looking at?"

Emanuel managed to hit pause when the plane turned into a cloud. "It vaporized, Sir. Sublimated. Turned to dust." He gestured like a magic trick with his hands, "Poof, it was gone."

"That's not possible, is it?"

Emanuel played it again, "You tell me, is it possible to turn the carbon in dry ice into a hypersonic plane in under six seconds? If you'd suggested it a decade ago, I'd have laughed my ass off and probably had you tested for drugs. I've seen too much between then and now. I'd say you're looking for sand in those trees. And maybe nothing even that big. It's hard to say with this footage, it all happened so fast and far away. But it's not outside possibility that we're looking at actual sublimation, going directly from a solid to a gas. We're wasting our time searching those woods, Sir. We're not going to find anything, because there's nothing to find."

The XO stared at the tiny screen. "That little bitch!"

"Hold on, Sir," Emanuel said, having an easier time holding Elhander back. "Don't be so obtuse—"

"Don't go Shawshank on me if you can't do the time," the XO said.

"You're obsessing over what you've lost, not what you gained. She's given you the ultimate military weapon. And this proves it." Emanuel pointed at the screen. "How many military secrets have we lost to foreign governments because of crashed planes? Or planes that defectors have simply flown into the arms of our enemy? Good luck figuring anything out from a bucket of sand, Sir. And good luck flying that plane, unauthorized. Now, you're just pissed because she's the only one with the keys. But this thing is just about perfect, beginning to end." He slapped Elhander on the shoulder, "Makes a Raptor obsolete, don't it? One year after China captures their first Raptor they'll have a hundred rolling out the factories. Simple to copy. But this? Not a chance. Hell, we can't copy it, and we made it."

The XO pulled his hands out of his pockets long enough to poke a finger into Emanuel's chest, "We better start making them, and soon."

"Yes Sir."

"Notch down the testosterone," Nurse Benita said, examining Elhander's ribs for breaks, "got a man down already. That takes precedence." She covered his ribs with his shirt, "Nothing broken. You got lucky this time. But you did black out. You might have a bruised brain bouncing around in that thing. I want to keep you under observation for the next ten hours. Nothing stressful. Play solitaire on the computer or something. Just keep awake, mentally engaged, but relaxed and calm." She pointed at the other two and swept them out with her gestures, "Calm means you two out."
Chapter 70

". . . Why should I?" Shadona said, sitting in the office chair. "You've been very clear you won't ever take out the tooth. You won't even let me see Elaine after she lost her husband, a man we both knew. You have nothing to offer that I can see. And even if you promised to let me see her, I'd know it's a lie. I think you've successfully burned every bridge you have, Sir."

"What gives you the impression this is a request!" the XO said, hands on the desk as he leaned across and towered over the girl.

She flinched back in her chair. "The way you ask makes it a rather weak request. The existence of this very conversation makes it a request," she said in her quiet, calm way. "Your veiled attempts to intimidate." She started unbuttoning her shirt. "Perhaps you'd like to rape me, too. Maybe that'd make me more compliant to your wishes." She stopped unbuttoning before it became revealing, moving her hands to her pants, "Maybe if a big man like you beats up the little girl she might want to stay. A penis can solve everything, can't it?" She unzipped, revealing just a hint of underpants, but he had already retreated from her implication, back into his chair. "Or, maybe you'll punish me until I eventually break, and make a bomb big enough to blow you all to hell, and let God sort it out. A sixty-mile blast radius would be easy, and would look identical to the old equipment."

"Put your clothes on." He inched his chair away from the desk, and her. "I didn't have anything to do with what happened to—"

"You have everything to do with everything that happens to me. This never would have happened with Yofi. That man actually cared about—"

"No, he didn't. Never did anything I didn't tell him to do. 'Everything that happens to you,' remember? He was acting, faking everything, just collecting checks and collecting intel on every—"

"I suppose this was what you call a sign of affection?" she said, her fingers tracing the scar. "You think you could write a check big enough to get Yofi to do that?"

"Tell me who did it, and I'll take care of it. It'll never happen again."

She buttoned up. "How? While you go home every night, I still have to live here. How are you going to fix it? How are you going to punish them? Make it strict enough, they'll just kill the next girl instead of leaving her alive to talk. You going to install glass detectors so they get strangled instead? How are you going to fix this? I gave you the solution, the only one that will ever work. Take the tooth out. Set me free. It'll arrive in your Email when I know I'm safe. Everything else is just more lies and wasted words."

He leaned back in his chair with a squeak, hands covering his face, "I'm not going to punish you."

She stood and fastened her pants. "Every minute I'm here is punishment." She twisted the knob and pulled, "Just wish I knew what I'm being punished for."

"Is a sixty-mile blast radius even possible with that ring?" the XO asked Emanuel as they toured the chamber, deep inside the mountain.

"Sixty? Sure. May even be on the conservative side," Emanuel said, inspecting the new gear. "Why?"

"How do you figure?"

"Well, a grain of plutonium, by itself, isn't all that dangerous, if that's what you're thinking. But these coils, the toruses, they tap an unprecedented. . . Think of it like this. Hanly is steadily figuring these bad boys out, inching them up as he's going along. But even now, just as they are today, you can think of each unit as an hour of power from a typical nuke. We have twenty-four of them, here, and this room discharges eighteen of them in a few seconds. Takes them to dead as a doornail. So, ask yourself, how much fuel, how much uranium, would a typical nuke burn in eighteen hours, and you have a pretty good estimate of the raw explosive power that's funneled through here when that plane is made. Tens or hundreds of kilotons, minimum, as a spark explosion, but more likely in the low megaton range. I'd be lying to you if I said this device is safe. But it's as safe as I can make it, without her help." He closed the cabinet door, made a note in his book, then tucked it under his arm. "Listen, Sir, I think you should at least give me the chance to talk to her. As the designated 'good cop', I might be able to—"

"What'd you mean by conservatively?"

"Well, sixty is the equivalent explosion for the energy consumed in the process of making her plane. But don't worry, without the equipment in this room, the worst you're looking at is a typical landslide, just ask Hanly. Now, if you knew nuclear physics and you could make a stable, self-sustaining torus, exactly like those rings she bolts to the ceiling, and you had hydrogen, like what's in the air or a cup of water, or what condensates in the dry ice. . . Well, you have all the ingredients for a fusion bomb. The H in the H-bomb, the biggest bombs ever made, basically uses water as the explosive. The hydrogen in water, specifically. Heavy water, even more specifically. Her torus, with a little tweaking, could probably fuse everyday hydrogen into helium. . . There's a limit to how big you can build a plutonium or uranium bomb. But hydrogen can go as big as a supernova. With several gallons, Iowa could have oceanfront property." Distracted by the conversation, he looked in his notebook again.

"How much tweaking would that take? Would you notice it?"

"Probably, but maybe not. She clearly knows more physics than I do. But she's not building the next one, I am, right?"

"Yeah," the XO looked at the pitted, smoke-stained walls, "it's all you this time. Try not to let me down like Elhander did."

"How's he doing, by the way?"

"He had some swelling of the brain. They had to crack open his skull, put him on steroids. Said if nurse Benita hadn't caught it in time, he would have died. As it is, he's going to have a wicked scar. He's pissed because they had to shave him. You know how guys get when they start going bald, want to keep every strand for as long as possible. Some try to glue back what they dig out of the drain."

"Funny, Sir." He opened the next cabinet. "It'll be good to get him back. We've had to put a hold on this HB-4 equipment because I've been tied up with suits and taking over his maintenance shift. I'm beginning to see why Hanly had his blowout with you." He put some marks in his notebook, "I'm not as young as I once was, and doing this ages you quick." He tucked it under his arm as he closed the cabinet door, "You know, Sir, we do have someone in the building that's qualified to run a maintenance shop, a suit shop, and build one of these HB-4's. . . after all, she built the last three. Now, she'd never build suits, you said building the HB-4 is out, maybe she'd take over the maintenance shift. Give her her old crew, deliver her food, buy gloves and CDs and I could probably get her to do it, costs less than Elhander anyway. Free me up for suits and this. Otherwise we'll never catch up until Elhander's brain stops swelling."

The XO patted him on the shoulder, "Ask her for me, would you." He started walking away, "Elhander's head was swollen when I hired him. We might not have that kind of time."

She plugged in the player, inserted the CD, and turned it on while the girls slowly filtered into the shop. She looked over the roster of repairs, but showed no desire to start on any of them. Instead, she just sat there, clipboard in her arms, leaned back, and listened to the songs.

Soon enough, they all silently gathered around the tiny box. She looked around at all the tired faces of girls she had known for oh so long. They had all aged quicker than any girls should. Probably the same way she had aged in the last few months. They had so much to say, like the war-torn planes they were tasked to repair, it was written on every face. But instead, they did nothing but listen for the rest of the day.

"What the hell does she think she's doing?" the XO said, marching from his office toward the maintenance shop.

Emanuel stopped him in the halls outside the heavy hangar doors. "What's going on?"

"I'll handle it," he said, but Emanuel blocked the door with his foot.

"Take a step back, bad cop, and take a second to bring your partner up to—"

"That bitch has been sitting there the whole day, not doing a damn thing."

"Well," Emanuel pondered without moving his foot, "let me find out, I'm headed in there anyway. May be as simple as they're all on their period together, in which case we just wait a few days and it takes care of itself. You go in there as pissed as you are and all you'll end up with is a pissing contest, where you yell until she does what you want, and she refuses to do what you want until you stop yelling. Nobody wins that way. What you and I want is for her crew to repair planes so I can make suits and the HB-4. She may piss on me, but it won't be a contest, and I won't take it personal."

The XO let go of the door as Emanuel walked in, alone.
Chapter 71

The XO watched the video again. Three days of doing nothing was difficult for him to watch, and not do anything about. But as Emanuel predicted, it took care of itself, and he watched as her crew started cranking out repaired planes, turbines, and retrofits for more helicopters.

They weren't as fast as the boys, and five fewer in number, but they worked a longer day and weekends and weren't falling as far behind as first feared. Even so, while the HB-4 equipment was under construction, he had to turn away repair orders that they simply didn't have the numbers to handle.

"Have you double-checked everything?" the XO said, staring at millions of dollars in equipment that, even if it worked, was certain to be destroyed in the next few minutes.

"Double-checked, triple-checked, and beyond," Emanuel shrugged, notebook gripped tight in his hand. "Sure. Not sure, it's a gamble, Sir, plain as that. If she oversaw it, I'd give it a 99% chance of doing exactly what she wants it to do. On what I've built and checked. . . your guess is as good as anyone's." He looked up at the massive ring mounted in the ceiling. "I'm confident, but not certain. Everything I have says this equipment is an exact copy of what she had. The software," he shrugged, "we're taking it on faith. Don't understand it, can't read it, looks like garbled static." He tossed the notebook on the top of the closest cabinet. "Welcome to the new Vegas, betting the house on the first roll. Listen, we can stop now, let her look at it. Let her enter the code in that fancy window, that's where my biggest doubts are. We've got nothing to lose by letting her look it over.

We'd want to have captured the codes for the HB-1 and 2 for a comparison, but as they were different designs and different hardware, they'd have had different software, too. Ideally, we'd want to capture the codes from two identical planes, made with two identical, uh, printers, for lack of a better word. We don't have that."

The XO rubbed his stubbly chin as he stared up at the ring. "Give me odds. What's your gut say?"

"Gut, 80% you'll get another HB-3. But, my experience with the suits says she's smarter than anyone working on this. She's smarter than anyone gives her credit for. That's just the facts. She tests as 112 IQ, and there's no possible way that's right. I think she let her guard down around me. I've got the best notes ever taken, I've had the best vantage point anyone has ever had. She could have played me, but much more likely, she stopped guarding it because she knows — not thinks — but knows that we can't possibly copy the code. If she's certain that we can't copy the code, like the laws of physics prevent it, and that's where she gets her confidence from, then we're pissing in the wind, and about to flush away more money than either of us will ever make in our lifetime. It's a little more difficult than making an illegal copy of Windows."

"Laws of physics prevent copying the code?"

"See, it looks like static, garbled static to me. That could be because we're bumping our heads against a law of physics that we don't understand, but that she does. That would explain the static. That would explain why she never said anything about the taps, if she noticed them at all. There's also a chance that everything she does in the booth is a sideshow, like the pretty assistant that distracts the crowd while the magician pulls something out his sleeve. In which case, the code does nothing and that's why it looks like static, and the device will work like my gut says it will."

"Bottom line?"

"Bottom line, the only way to know is to turn it on. Look, I'm in favor of doing whatever we have to do to get her in this room to just look over everything. She may be pissed, but I doubt she's suicidal. If there's a mistake that's extremely dangerous, your sixty-mile radius scenario for example, I'd say she'd definitely notice and there's a good chance she'll point it out before we turn it on. If we've just done something stupid, expensive, but not suicidal, she'd definitely say nothing and let us turn it on."

"But if we've got it perfect, she'd complain like it was suicidal—"

"Maybe, Sir. But my gut says she wouldn't for a very simple reason. Even if we do everything perfect, it still comes with an encrypted lock and a suicidal security system that only responds to her. She gets a plane that only she can unlock, and didn't have to do any work to build it. I don't think she'd complain about that as much as you think."

"Coordinate with Hanly, when he's got your power, you've got a go. If you can get her to look it over, more power to you. I'm leaving it in your hands."

She walked through everything with Emanuel for over an hour that weekend. Looking inside cabinets, running up and down on lifts inspecting the ring and the dry ice room, tugging on cables and checking voltages, everything she had done on previous models.

"Well," Emanuel said as they reached the end of the line.

"You do quality work," she said, inducing a smile. "But it won't work. I wouldn't turn it on."

"Dangerously won't work, or—"

"A little dangerous, yeah. Doubt you'll kill anyone, but you never know."

Opening his ever-present notebook, he decided he had nothing to lose by pressing. "Any specific reason why it won't work?"

"You don't understand the physics behind it enough to know what it does or how it does it." She smiled, pointing up at the ceiling, "It opens a wormhole to another planet and another society a million light-years from here. To trade with them you have to know their language, religions, and most importantly, you need to know what raw materials they're desperate for." She looked him in the eyes. "Ever wonder why it looks a lot like a Stargate? It'll never work because you don't know the gate address to the only planet in the universe that's willing to trade hypersonic fighter jets, for dry ice to chill their beers."

He laughed so hard he dropped his notebook, spilling papers across the floor. "You had— I totally believed you, right up to beers." He knelt to pick up the pages, randomly scooping them into the open spine.

She handed him the ones by her feet. "Don't turn it on. It won't rip a hole in space-time to another galaxy, but it won't be pretty either." She knelt across from him so she could speak in whispers. "You're close. I could easily make this work with just a little modification. The XO knows what he has to do first." She touched the back of his hand as they reached for the same piece of paper. "This won't work, and he'll blame you for the expensive failure. And me because I'm convenient. Tell him you have doubts. Make him order you to turn it on."

He straightened the papers, then stood with her as he looked around the room. "It has to get turned on. It's too expensive to build and never use."

She turned toward the ample concealed cameras and spoke with a loud, clear voice. "Don't turn it on. I could make this copy work, but you know what you have to do before I will. This experiment will fail, spectacularly, perhaps fatally." She turned to Emanuel, put her hand on his shoulder, said, "I'm sorry," and left the room.
Chapter 72

"She said—" Emanuel said in the harvester control room.

"I heard every word," the XO said, looking over the big board of the twenty-four units. "I'm fully aware of the lies that spilled from her mouth. She told you that it was close. Told you she could make it work. She doesn't want you to turn it on, that means she's scared it'll work. You've spent the last week going over it with a fine tooth comb, trying to find any discrepancy that she might have noticed. You didn't find anything, did you."

He put his notebook on Hanly's panel, right beside his coffee. "No Sir. I think we've got an exact copy of the last one, as far as the hardware goes."

"Hanly," the XO said, "are all the coils, or uh, toruses exactly where they were for the last one?"

"As close as we can get them, Sir," Hanly said, checking the grid a final time. "The Co-Op knows we might be down for a month and has scheduled around us like a regular shutdown. We are off the grid. Emergency lights are on standby. And we've got candles and matches everywhere, just in case."

"Sir," Emanuel interrupted just as the XO pointed to Hanly, "her confidence, to me, suggests that she knows the software can't be captured. We're wasting effort if it—"

"Do it," the XO ordered.

BOOOMMMMMM!!!!!!!

Monitors fell over, drawers opened and slid across the floor as the mountain plunged into darkness. Emergency lights failed to come on.

"Richter, 6.4," someone shouted, as the room full of people stumbled to their feet.

The fire alarm blasted. "Got fires in the hangar, Hegel's shop up on three, and the chamber is raging out of control," a voice near the panel said as candles flickered across the room.

Hanly's hardened monitor rebooted, "We've got failures in six of the toruses. Lining damage, but no containment failure. . . just seepage, right now." He frantically typed at the keys. "I'm shutting down the remaining toruses and bringing everything to a standstill until we can manually check them. Might have caused cracks that could catastrophically rupture. We need to x-ray every unit before bringing them back on line."

"Come on, Hanly," the XO said, "is that really necessary?"

"Yeah, it is," Hanly said, not slowing down with the keys. "They ain't toys, Sir. We should have them checked out and back up in a month or—"

"A month!" the XO said, "We can't do without the revenue for—"

"Don't worry, Sir, we should certify four within a few days. Plenty enough to do some banking and tread water with the budget. Not enough to bring the harvester back online, but it's something."

Someone in the back of the room picked up a phone, "Sergeant, get three men with extinguishers down to the chamber on 1340 and. . . elevators are functional. . . That's right, it's a big fire, but they've got a hose on it already, they just need reinforcements to rotate in. . . Yes, bring as many air tanks as you can, the air is toxic. . . Good luck, and thank you."

The emergency lights blinked on. "What's the status on the fires?" the XO said.

"Hegel's shop is a total loss, but the fire is out. The hangar is flooded, but the sprinklers took care of the fire and water damage seems minimal. The chamber is the only fire that's still in question. Got six men on the floor that have it contained, for now, and should have four more on it in two minutes or less."

The XO pointed to Hanly, "I want eyes inside that chamber."

"Sorry, Sir. Busy," Hanly said, typing away.

Emanuel grabbed a keyboard and tunneled into the system, "Can't get it on the plasma, you'll have to watch it here."

The XO crowded over him and stared, "I can't see anything."

"Yes Sir, but that's the only camera that survived the blast. I'm trying to locate the. . . here's what you want to see, the six seconds in the chamber before the blast." He rolled it frame-by-frame. It showed something coming out of the ring, but it clearly wasn't a plane. "Sorry Sir. I guess that answers that, can't capture the data stream."

"What's that?" the XO pointed to the screen.

"Some sort of overload, I suspect. The gear is arcing across each other, that's never happened before." He checked the time. "Two seconds in it overloaded, possibly received a surge. Time's right with the quake. We still don't know how she discharges those toruses without bringing the mountain down around us. We hoped it was in the hardware, but assumed it was in the software, which would explain why we had a higher Richter than before. It might be that we got a piece of the plane or something, but we won't know until the fire's out."

"Fire's out," someone said behind them.

"Confirm that," the XO said, "Then vent the hell out of that chamber."

Beneath the melted ring was a pile of clumpy charcoal and ash, nothing useful, and certainly nothing worth millions of dollars. Not a single clump was harder than chalk, or shaped like anything.

"They are so pissed at you," Belson said that night as the lights went out.

"Why should they be? Not a single repair got turned around," she said, comfortable in bed.

"That's not what—"

"That's the only thing I've done for weeks."

He stood by her bed, folded his arms, and rested his elbows on her mattress. "Not what— I'm talking about that big mess in the chamber. Those dumb sons of bitches tried to make one without you. Damn near blew the base up, for nothing! Took forever to find a thousand pieces of plutonium. Burned Hegel's shop somehow, had us sifting through a pile of ashes for diamonds. Not a single grain. We're going to be doing a lot of painting and scrubbing, best you know."

"Why tell me? Elhander's not back yet, is he?"

"Not that I know about. Still gets all-day headaches, last I hea—"

"Then I don't see why they'd have first shift doing cleanup instead of repairing planes. Doesn't make—"

"The XO's fixing to hand out punishments, way I see it. Emanuel's inherited Elhander's old crew from first shift and they're taking over repairs, then he's staying over into second shift for the suits. That way he can punish you both, way I figure it."

"Sounds like the bastard."

"Well, until Hegel's shop is fixed, we'll be loaned to the cause, I suspect. Paint and scrub, paint and scrub." He found her hand in the dark. "Ripped up the liners in seven units, cracked the concrete in two, take them months to fix it all. Gives me a break from Hegel and the monotony of making those damned paint loads and Tazer rounds. Same thing every day. Day after day." He kissed her fingers, "They're all scratching their heads over what went wrong."

She adjusted her pillow, a line of clothes packed between her back and the cold wall.

"Emanuel might even get fired if they don't figure it out."

She tucked in her sheet.

"Thought you liked Emanuel."

"He's no Yofi."

"He's no Elhander either. You could save his job with a few well-placed hints. Keep him around a little longer, if you did. Probably feels powerful to have someone's job resting in your hands."

Her sigh ended with a yawn, "I'm tired, Belson. I just want sleep."

"Ok," he said, getting to his bed. "I still don't understand why you. . . Why you would, stay?"

"I can't leave," she whispered.

"I mean, this room. With me. Why you never said anything to anyone."

She concealed the pencil in her hand, pad of paper near her pillow.

"I miss being close to you. I miss those all-night hugs. I didn't think I would," he demonstrated with his pillow. "My arms feel empty. It used to start tingling, like it fell asleep hours before me, and hurt a little in the morning. . . but it didn't feel empty.

I didn't expect that, that I would miss someone in my arms so much. Miss feeling you breathe. Something so peaceful and calm about that.

A lumpy pillow is a poor substitute.

I guess what I'm getting at is, I finally understand why you liked to be hugged so much. Seemed a little silly to me back then." He sat up in bed. "There's so much more to you than everyone sees. But it isn't hidden. It's right there, if they only know how to look. Feels like I've been blind for so long." He lay, staring at the ceiling. "Shadona," he whispered, "you're a lot smarter than you let on, and wiser than your years would allow. My biggest regret is all I saw for so long was the shy, pretty girl."
Chapter 73

Emanuel set down a full bucket of paint beside Shadona in the hangar.

"They going to fire you?" she said.

He pulled the screwdriver from his pocket and pried off the lid. "Doubt it. It'd be suicidal to fire me right now. After Elhander gets back, might be another story." He pulled the empty bucket off her lift and replaced it with the full one before hooking up the pump hose for her sprayer. "And it isn't a they. It's a him."

She knelt in the lift basket so she could look him in the eyes. "Them just makes it sound less personal. Not your fault, you know. Too complicated for any one person to figure out, especially not knowing the physics."

He stepped back with a smile. "Their problem was they keep putting engineers on it, when it called for a painter."

She stepped on the pedal and pressed the button as the lift squeaked and hissed its way to the ceiling. When in position, she fastened her respirator, lowered her goggles, and sprayed her third coat this week. She enjoyed giving extra thick coats wherever a camera was trying to hide.

When the hangar doors kicked open, she watched from her perch as the XO charged straight for Emanuel's office.

"The Defense Department has scrapped suit production, so when you finish out this order, go ahead and end production," the XO said, door closing behind him as he poured a cup of coffee from atop the filing cabinet. "Damn you like it strong."

Emanuel logged into the computer, "That's only six more, right?"

"I. . . " he looked around, visibly confused, "I think so, you should have the latest orders here."

"I'm showing six. We already have eight built, waiting on the pallet to be picked up. What do you want to do with the other two? Plus, we've got enough spare parts to make another, and we're 90% on two more, waiting to juice them, all the material is already bought, built, and paid for."

"You normally build units before you get the orders? You have any idea how expensive these bastards are?"

"To the penny, Sir. After a few years of production, you start getting a defects bin. One process, for whatever reason, will produce a defective arm plate, glove plates, something like that. The rest will be fine. But we can't make just arms or gloves. It's set up to make the whole unit, all at once. Just like the pl—"

"I know, don't remind me."

"Well, when we did an inventory of the bin a few weeks ago, we found we had enough spares to make a few, but we didn't halt production of new ones either. So you see, they're extras, really. Surplus. Already paid for and factored in, depending on how you want to look at the accounting. Not exactly free, but not exactly an added expense either. Besides, the damn things come in handy. It takes four of them to walk that plane down the hall. Would be nice to have four of them laying around for heavy lifting." He logged off the computer. "They're not just military weapons, they're damned useful in the shop. Puts a forklift to shame."

"Million dollars a piece, they ought to be. She given you any hints about what went wrong yet?"

"No, but I don't expect her to." He leaned back in his chair, feet on his desk. "Don't know where you got the idea that she suddenly would." He opened his lunch box and got out a turkey and mustard sandwich, then pushed the pickle back between the slices. "Why'd they cut production?"

"Fiscal. Couldn't afford our prices, needed to scale up production. Came at the worst possible time. We're millions in the hole for the HB-4, the harvester is down, we're well under capacity, maintenance orders haven't recovered since she was in charge. Suits were a big part of the budget. Without them," the XO shook his head, "had to sell out the production rights, just to make this quarter's budget."

Emanuel swallowed hard. "So, the demand didn't drop, just the supplier changed."

"Something like that, yeah."

"Well, she still talks to me like I'm the good cop. But I doubt she'll be forthcoming." Feet off the desk, he set his sandwich on the mouse pad. "Listen, I've had time to reflect on all of this. I think my equipment was good. If we get the money, I can build it again. It's at least very close. It's the software and the balancer that taps the mountain's power that failed. Our draws from the toruses were all wrong, and they converged into an overload just a few seconds in. It's what she does in that window, it's that imaginary orchestra she conducts that's key. Probably not reproducible. She's an integral part of that plane, it can't be flown without her, and it can't be made without her. Hell, even if I get the 'printer' right, it won't work without the mountain. This plant is more ideally designed to power that device than it is to run a city.

Maybe we're going about this the wrong way anyway.

Maybe it's better to just have one of the planes for study. Dissect it, reverse engineer it from the outside in like anyone else would do. You'll never get it as light, strong, or fast as hers, but it'll be a big step forward. Forget about making her fancy 3-D molecular printer work, as tempting as it is. Next pair of fresh eyes you put on this, I wouldn't tell them anything about that damn chamber. It's too tempting a distraction to resist.

Of course, if we could figure out how to write the software, you'd be able to make anything. That's an awful tempting technology to have at your disposal. It'd be just as easy to make two tons of Hope diamonds as making that plane. The suits are like virtual molds, all they can make is different shapes of armor. Arranging big polymers and molecules. But this is another level entirely. Should be able to fabricate a wide variety of pre-assembled objects with it, precision down to the atom. Haven't a clue how it does that in the blink of an eye, and we're decades away from figuring out the software." He gobbled another bite. "Tough call, Sir. What to prioritize. What to focus on. Don't have the resources to do it all. Cracking the suit technology would be easier, in theory, definitely cheaper to experiment with. And it may give us insights into its bigger cousin. But I'd expect it to take tens of billions and a few decades to crack suits. In that same amount of time, for about the same price, you might be able to invent an equally effective technology from scratch.

She told me my problem was I didn't know the physics behind it. That was the only hint she gave me, and a pretty obvious one at that. Having me figure it out might be like using a BB gun to take down an elephant.

You first look at it, you look at her, and you think, how hard could it be? She's just a kid for God's sake. But after a few months. . . Look, Einstein came up with E=MC2 using just a pencil and some paper, but it took a quarter of our GDP and a city of scientists to turn that equation into the first bomb. You may be talking Manhattan Project to figure this out, and we don't even know the equations she used.

But it's already figured out, sitting inside her head.

We both know what she wants."

"Last time I tested those waters, she did just enough to get the suits to work. You're no closer to understanding them than you were when we started, are you?"

Emanuel sighed, looking down. "Nope." He looked up. "But I give her the benefit of the doubt. It may well be the case that it'd take her the next seven years to explain the physics behind it all, there's no way to tell. Hell, even if she gave me equations the likes of E=MC2, we wouldn't be any closer." He leaned closer. "She may be naive and far too trusting, but she did in her head what a city of scientists couldn't do. She isn't stupid."

He gulped from the cup, and sighed. "I'm not going down that road again, not with the stakes this high."

"My suggestion, if you insist on doing this the hard way, is you send a copy of my as-builts to the university of your choice, preferably a nuclear science lab linked to the DOD for clearance purposes, send them a hundred million every year, line up some matching funds, cross your fingers, and wait four decades. That's really what they're set up to do. They might just figure out how to program it to make simple objects within our lifetime. But I'm out of my depth, I'm a BB gun, when you need something a lot bigger.

But I wouldn't discount the value of those as-builts, just because it didn't work. It'd be like throwing away a new printer because you couldn't get the drivers to load. I believe her when she says that it's close and easily fixable. That may be a bigger hint than you think."

"I was expecting a more useful hint than that."

He shrugged, sandwich in hand. "I wasn't."

He watched as she moved her hand over the desk, gestured like she picked something up, moved it diagonally, then set it down. She had been doing it for the better part of twenty minutes while listening to the digital instructor prattle on. Finally, he just had to ask. "What are you doing?"

She glanced at the screen. "Quantum physics. But their theory is all wrong. Waste of time."

"Not that, what are you doing with your hand?"

"Notes," she said, looking at her left hand, pencil and pad.

"Right hand too?"

"Oh," she made a loose fist, then propped her chin on it.

He slid his chair back into her desk so he could face her. "I didn't mean for you to stop. Seen you do it a couple times before, usually when you're bored like classes and stuff. Just, well, curious I guess. Thought I'd ask."

"Nothing."

"Not nothing. You do it too often and too consistently to be nothing. You're clearly doing something—"

"Playing chess."

He stared at the empty space. "Chess? In your head? With who? Against yourself? Why all the hand movements?"

She sighed, turning away from the desk. "I move my hand because I can't keep all the positions straight in my head. Muscle memory. That's why I move my hand."

"Don't stop on my account," he said, facing his desk again. "I was just. . . Sometimes I see you moving your hand for no reason. I thought it just helped you think. Like counting on fingers or something. . . " He laughed. "I guess I guessed right for once."

She moved her fingers under the table and signaled the ring she would continue the game, much later.

"Heard that Elhander isn't coming back, medical reasons. Said Emanuel's second shift is over too. He'll get the shop until they can hire another maintenance supervisor, then he's history too, unless he can come up with some solutions. Probably just rumors. Two out of three ain't bad, right?"

"One out of two," she whispered.

"Well, one might be up to you. Got some cards to play, when you're not playing chess." He slid back, put his earpiece in, and listened to the lesson on his screen. Unlike her quantum physics, he needed to pay attention.
Chapter 74

Manual, menial labor was the definition of punishment. In the waning months of winter, the top menial task was gardening and tending their greenhouses. Greenhouse, in her case, meant clear-plastic plant tents, similar to umbrellas, and garden meant terraces carved down the sunny side of the mountain.

It was an interesting setup, to be sure. Unused interior chambers were fitted with lights and turned into indoor greenhouses. By stacking plants on shelves under 24-hour lights and constantly transplanting for maximum density, they grew four acres worth of food in just three rooms. Since power and labor were free, it proved fairly efficient and cut their food costs considerably. But the plants themselves couldn't be tall. Mostly carrots, radishes, onions, lettuce, spinach, and some legumes, a taste of flavor, but not the volume to feed hundreds.

For corn and other plants of stature, they needed the outdoors.

Wind whipped through her thin coat. Fingers freezing, she planted the sprouts in their individual ice-cube-like trays, poured on the rich termite dirt, added water and assembled the greenhouse over it. Covering its skirt with dirt and a few rocks so it wouldn't blow away, she proceeded to the next terrace, just another six steps, and did the exact same thing. The entire mountainside needed to be done like this, and she was the only one tasked with the job. She would, over the course of the next week, climb this mountain dozens and dozens of times, a punishing workout in itself.

The sprouts, and thus the greenhouses, occupied a small corner of each terrace. As they took hold, they would later be transplanted into the back row, and new sprouts started. This next batch would be planted in the middle row, and the batch after that would be up front. A larger tent would keep frost from killing off the plants before spring, but after that, the greenhouses would be put away and the strenuous labor would begin.

To enhance the efficiency of the terrace system, each plant would get transplanted no less than four times. First as densely packed sprouts where they grew less than an inch from each other in a tight patch. Next as a larger patch up front at no more than two inches apart. Transplanted further back and six inches apart, then moved a final time, a foot or more apart, they'd tower up high in the back. After that they'd be harvested, the stalks fed to termites, and the whole process would repeat, yielding a new harvest every week late into fall when they'd finish under plastic greenhouse tents again.

They even made the tents in the shop.

With intense labor, small gardens can be induced into producing large volumes of food. The mathematical equation was rather simple and fairly straightforward. The more energy you put into a garden, the more food you got out. Irrigation was the biggest bang for the smallest investment, enough water could even grow green lawns in Vegas. Artificial lights could triple production by growing 24/7/365, regardless of weather or season. Shelves allowed plants to literally grow on top of each other, doubling densities with every shelf. Manual labor, transplanting and greenhouses, did much the same outside. Gardening was an equation, the more energy you put in, the more food you got out. And the base had energy and labor to spare.

She warmed her hands inside her coat, tucked her head down, and listened to the wind beat against the plastic sheets.

All of this labor could easily be automated. Plans and ideas swam through her head as her cheeks glowed red, lips blistering dry. The equipment would be simple to construct with the pieces and parts already in the shop. The material was abundant, common, and inexpensive. Redesigned, she could probably double or triple its production yet again. But that was the XO's point in punishing her this way.

Instead of mopping.

Instead of painting.

Instead of KP.

Instead of laundry, she was being punished outside, in the cold, with gardening. Their most creative mind punished with weeks of monotony in the one area that could be easily auto— She refused to play his game. She could do it herself, the hard way, or solve the problem and make it easy on herself.

Defiantly, she chose the hardest path.

She was done helping him. Done offering carrots that got her nowhere. Carrots may be better than sticks, but there was another equally compelling saying. You don't feed the alligator in hopes that he'll eat you last. She had fed the alligator too many carrots already.

Besides, nurturing sprouts into plants appealed to her. She enjoyed being alone on the side of the mountain, instead of stuck inside under artificial lights and recycled air. When the wind gusted, whipping and tearing at her clothes, it was easy to imagine she was flying, free as a bird, plastic beating like a flock with hundreds of wings. Part of her wished it would blow hard enough to fling her off its side. She could think of no better way to die, then after a good fly.

She held her arms out like wings as the gust beat against her, imagination already soaring in the air.

But she didn't want to die.

With Elhander out of the picture, Emanuel was in charge of the flight roster. With him, she always had a slot. Several times a week she got to put this mountain miles behind her and unleash thousands of pounds of thrust at will. Flying made her heart sing and was the only time she felt free.

Of everything this mountain had to offer, the closest thing to flying was found right here on these terraces, with dirt between her fingers, back to the sun.

Wind in her face.

Not a soul around.

He looked at her chapped lips and dirty hands as she came in that night. "They still got you gardening? What is that man thinking?"

She paused by the door as it powered closed with a mechanical clunk.

He stood beside her, arm across her shoulders, "Bent over, hands and knees all day. . . Waste of talent, if you ask me. First time I've seen you slouch in months. Doesn't seem right. Skilled mechanic sticking seeds in the ground." He ushered her over to her chair as he pulled his beside it. "Sit, relax for a minute."

"I just want to shower and sleep," she said, her voice low and beaten after her day. She pushed her chair under her desk, grabbed her clothes and towel, and went behind the opaque curtain.

He repositioned their chairs and sat by the curtain, patiently waiting for her to finish. "Bet the hot water feels good." More steam than usual billowed from the shower stall. "It's been a few months that he's been punishing you with this. I would have thought he would have at least let you work the indoor greenhouses from time to time. Especially when it was so cold. But he never did, did he?"

". . . no," she said.

"Got that termite digester in the basement fully automated. Don't see why we couldn't automate this, too. I mean, you do the same thing, day after day, minute after minute. That's a prime candidate for automation. Can't automate repairing a plane, but you could what he's got you doing."

"They've got a team of boys that are all faster at repairs than me. No reason why I should be allowed back in shop, I suppose."

"That fiasco with Emanuel really put them behind on the budget. Everyone who overhears them talking says the budget is always top of their list. Already cut beef from the menu in the cafeteria." He looked at her empty chair as the water drained behind the screen. From the sounds, she was standing still. "Should get you a hot water bottle for your back." He ran his fingers across her seat. "Don't know why he would think treating you like this would help anything."

"Punishment is all he has left."

He stared at the curtain, no movement behind it. "You get out and dry off, I'll soak your towel in hot water, put it in a trash bag, and put it on your back, if you want. Don't have to get pruned up for no reason."

The water turned off.

"I've had an easy week. We've finished automating the paint rounds. Even got the machines making Tazers in 9mm. Almost perfect. Handling fragile paint rounds is far more difficult than you'd think. Even got a way to build those fancy aluminum foil rounds of yours."

She emerged from behind the curtain, "No need to build any of them. Won't ever be another HB." She hung up her towel, straightened its corners, folded her dirty clothes and placed them in the hamper. She put her foot on the seat like she was climbing to bed, when he pulled it away.

"Sit with me for a minute. Till the lights go out."

Fingers through her hair, she sighed, and sat.

He gestured with his fingers. "Other way."

"Why?"

"I've got some making up to do. And I like you, and think what he's doing is wrong. And even if. . . I just, I can't sleep knowing you're suffering in the bed across from mine. I care about you. It's selfish, I know. But I do." He put his hand on her knee. "I still love you, no matter how badly I treated you in the past." He let go, holding up his hands in surrender. "If I had ill intent, I would just wait until you fell asleep." He put his hands down. "I didn't sleep a wink that first week you came back. I was sure, at first, that you only forgave me so I'd drop my guard. So it'd be easier for you to kill me in my sleep."

She frowned as she slouched. "I wouldn't kill you in your sleep."

"I won't go where I'm not invited again." He made a spinning gesture. "Turn around. Let me try to make this up to you. Let me prove I can be that guy with the cold compress. Give me a chance to be that guy with the hot towel, earn that forgiveness."

She turned around as he slowly rubbed her knots away. . . and was asleep in the chair before the lights blinked out.
Chapter 75

He ran his fingers across her back, her skin, soft and warm beneath his touch. A winter and spring of back rubs and hot towels had landed him back in her bed. But always without invitation.

Rarely lasting more than a few minutes with his talented hands, he doubted she even knew how he spent his time after she fell asleep in the chair. Putting her to bed was far easier than carrying her down the hall, but what happened once she was up there had slowly changed over time.

Those first few nights he only tucked her in, still using the warm towel compress. He used those nights to gauge how soundly she slept and just how much it took to wake her. Now he climbed in with her any night he thought he could get away with it.

It actually surprised him how rarely he took advantage of the situation. The first few nights he couldn't help himself and nearly fondled her so much he thought he'd leave fingerprints. Lately, he was far more behaved and hadn't strayed from her back all night.

As roommates went, she was easy to live with. Odd at times, but far less annoying than most. As people went, she was easy to spend time with. As a girl, she filled the bill.

He added fondling to the mounting list of his regrets as he lay in her bed, hand up the back of her shirt. He doubted he would have such regrets with another girl. He was becoming a different person around her.

He regretted manipulating her.

He regretted not being upfront with her.

He regretted every time he was nice, without being sincere.

He wanted to be sincere with her.

He rubbed her back for a few minutes, just to make sure she was still asleep, kissed her on the cheek, and slowly went to a bed of his own. Promising himself he wouldn't take advantage of her again.

"How'd you sleep," he asked before the lights came on.

She stretched in the other bed, then rolled to her back and stared at the ceiling.

He hopped down and stood by her head. "He keeps working you like this, I'm afraid you'll fall apart."

She rolled to her side, facing him. "I'm not that fragile." She rested her hand on his at the edge of her bed. "Helps to have a friend."

He leaned in a kiss. "I could be a better friend, if you—"

"I'm not sleeping with you, Belson. Not–"

"That's not the only way to—"

She sat up. "I'm not doing anything else on any adolescent boy's wish list of—"

He stepped back, "Not asking you to. I just, I have more to offer. I'd like to get you out of this punishment. You wouldn't have to build another plane, just automate the—"

"I'm not giving in an inch. I'm not."

"I just hate to see you like this when it doesn't have to be. It would take you a few minutes to jot something down, and would save you months of needless toil." He stepped closer. "I love being the one — I love feeling all that discomfort melt away under my fingers on your back. I love that. I crave the feel of that, to be useful in your life. And I'd miss those precious minutes with you the most, if your punishment ended. The selfish side of me wants those minutes at any price. But that price is too high, paid entirely by you. It's burning you out, grinding you down. Wearing you out for no reason. Wearing you out because of a simple note on a piece of paper you're too stubborn to write."

She lay down again, hands over her face.

"It just doesn't seem like that much to fight over." He leaned against her bed, fingers through her silky hair. When her hands moved away from her face, he kissed her again.

She looked at the nose of her Mig-21, 'Flying coffin' painted on the side. The others were intimidated by its reputation, but she had no fear. She knew this plane. She inspected it personally before each flight. She had a few hours behind its stick last week and was fully aware of all its idiosyncrasies. Though she need not be. Like the dozen other planes on today's sortie, she was supposed to provide others an easy target, nothing else. Fodder for the elite in the Raptors to hone their skills.

No one expected her to even fire her guns during the exercise.

They were in for a surprise.

She tightened her helmet and climbed up the side.

Speed, a major advantage of the Raptor, had been neutralized this time. Permission to go sonic was denied today. They were under strict orders to keep the noise down. It seemed silly, the moans of thrashing turbines were nearly as loud as a sonic boom, but rules were rules.

Belson and the rest crowded around the monitors as a lowly Mig-21 scored its sixth Raptor in under eight minutes. Her first two humiliated kills refused to leave the airspace. Against orders, they even broke speed in repeated attempts to take her down. . . the odds makers in the room were having a fit while everyone yelled and screamed about how to count the tally.

"She's scored seven Raptors and three F-18s," one girl said.

"Impossible," a boy countered, "There aren't seven Raptors in the air! All we have on base is three, so it's three. No more!"

"Every time they disengage and reengage, it counts as a new—"

"Absurd! I suppose you'd want to count every twentieth shot as a new kill, too!"

"How else could three planes simulate a squadron, Retard!"

Lost amidst the arguing in the room raged an even bigger contradiction on the screens, as the 'flying coffin's' score continued to mount. . . now nearly a shut out.

When she came into the room that night, she couldn't stop smiling. But that was always the case when she went flying.

"Odds makers took a beating today," Belson said. "Not that they didn't deserve it." He jumped out of his chair, swept her off her feet, and spun her into the room. "Should never underestimate you." He released her from the hug. "But did you have to rub it in so deep? Shooting down the top three flyers on base, repeatedly – Then letting the bottom of the class take you out in the end – That isn't the way to make friends."

She grinned as she looked at her shoes. "Who said I needed more friends?"

"Never hurts around here." He ran his fingers through her hair, sat on his chair, and pulled her down on his lap for a hug. "This place practically runs on who you know and what clique you're in. Gets very lonely the other way." He ran his hand across her back.

She walked out of his embrace and to the door. "They were never going to like me anyway." She ran her fingers across a handle that would open nothing until morning. "How would they? I didn't get my skills by kissing Elhander's ass until he let me on the roster. I was last to get tested on Raptors because I was a girl." She tugged on the handle. "Some things I can't change. Wouldn't, if I could." She leaned against the door. "Assholes anyway. Think they're Gods because they—"

"They earned it, too," Belson said, standing behind her. "Had some real pilots in here while you were on assignment. Real aces to train with. They're good. Better than just. Better than ok. Better than good, just without the credentials to back it up. Even Lesley, the guy you gave an easy shot to, ranks better than good in the outside world. There are no slackers here." He put his hand on her shoulder. "Just, you're that much better."

She tugged on the handle, then kicked at the metal by her feet. "I feel trapped in this place, trapped in this room. Trapped in a life that shouldn't be. But I don't feel so trapped in that glass bubble, the sky open to the heavens above."

He hugged her from behind. "Might just be the best in the world," he whispered in her ear. "And nobody knows your name." He ran his hands down her arms. "Nobody says you can't win every now and then, though you'd make more friends if you took a few dives and made your wins look more like luck."

She stepped out of his embrace for the second time that night. "Why not? If I've got–"

"Don't get defensive," he said, leaning against the door she recently left. "Just a good idea no matter who you are. Never let your opponents know what they're going against, 'cause surprise only works in your favor once. Show them you always play with aces, they'll only bet when they draw a royal flush. . . and they'll think you're always cheating. The kind of clobbering you just did will. . . well, I don't know exactly. But if you leave the impression that you can only be beaten by cheating, then, well, they'll cheat to beat you. Been top dogs too long to let go of their titles now."

She held out her arms and twirled toward the shower. "It felt good today to forget the politics and just let go." She ended in what easily could have been a Karate pose, or a ballet stance.

He smiled as he walked between the beds, still folded up against the walls. "Well, if you're looking for a release—"

"Don't go there," she said, smile gone.

He released the latches on his bed, dropping it down to rest on the top of the desk, then did the same for hers. "Made that clear enough already, Girl, just saying the offer is always there." He leaned against his mattress with a smile. "Could always just take an extra long shower."

She punched him in the arm. "Shut it," she said. But her punch was more tease than warning.

"Shadona," he said, hands on her hips, "Second time is never as bad as the first." He let go and turned away. "I, I didn't mean to say that. I, uh, I'm proud of you. You're a fantastic pilot and an even better. . . " He climbed into bed. "I'm going to stop now before I say something else I regret." He looked at her, still standing by the edge of his bed. "I know you said you forgave me, but that doesn't mean you forget. Doesn't mean you move on." The lights blinked their warning. "Never thought that being forgiven wouldn't be enough."

"Your first word was schmetterling, German for butterfly." She stepped between the beds.

"I know what schmetterling means, but I doubt that was my first—"

"It was. Your L's came out like W's. I remember wondering if it was a conscience choice of yours, because butterflies have wings, not lings. You were six cribs over from me, diagonally. Every fourth day our awake hours overlapped. I remember everything, Belson. Good and bad. When I say I forgive, I do. When I want more, you'll be the first to know."
Chapter 76

"Back off," Belson said in the halls as he shoved Will backwards into the wall, "I'm handling it."

"That cunt blows the curve again and we'll all—"

"I know, you don't have to tell me," he said. "Don't sweat it, I'm on it." He plucked Will's forehead with a finger, "Keep in mind, you're in over your head on this one. You can't even see all the cards on this table. Hell, you don't even know all the players. Back off, swallow some pride, and let me do my—"

The XO turned the corner and quickly closed on the boys, grabbed Belson by the arm, and glared at the others. "Leave," he said to the boys as they scattered. "I'm not getting enough results from you—"

"I got you those sixty—"

"Years ago. What have you done for me lately." He poked Belson's chest. "Have half a notion to jerk a knot in your ass for that stupid stunt you pulled back—"

"I'm getting results, Sir. She's moving in the right direction. Doing a better job of it than you have. Back off and give me the space to maneu—"

"Clock's ticking, and I'm not liking what I'm seeing so far. I'm about this close to making an example of you that can be seen from space. . ."

The XO pulled the roster off the wall on his way to Emanuel's office in the hangar. Opening the door, he tossed the clipboard on the desk, right beside the foot-long sub.

Emanuel picked up the sub instead, "Got a call from Livermore Labs last week. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?"

The XO topped off his coffee from the fresh pot on the filing cabinet. "Wouldn't happen to know why her name's still on that list?"

"She's probably the best pilot here, in the top ten at least. Why wouldn't she be on it? If you want the rest to sharpen their skills, she should be in the mix. If you want her to get better, she needs the experience." He leaned forward, pausing to take a bite. "You want her moping around, depressed and generally grumpy, then ground her. You want her cooperative and—"

"She isn't cooperating now! It was one thing to indulge her when she was just practicing maneuvers, solo, but competition is something else ent—"

"You planning on telling me about this Livermore deal, or not?" Emanuel said, leaning back with his sub like a swaddled baby.

"With something like this, I need a professor I can trust in charge of it, that I know will call me at the first breakthrough. Better to pass off a loyal engineer as a professor than try to find the one professor on a California campus with an ounce of patriotism."

"I'm no professor—"

"Nobody knows more about that device, either of those devices, than you. Won't be able to give you millions every year, but I think funding will find you, just the same. You'd be surprised how money for an obvious weapon changes from election to election, but a molecular printer that could make anything from Hope Diamonds to a jet fighter. . . that never goes out of style. You didn't have any other plans for the next four decades, did you?"

"You can call me a professor all you want, but that won't make me any smarter, and it certainly—"

"Yeah, but I can surround you with the kinds of young minds it will take, in places like Livermore, where students do most of the work that professors take credit for, anyway." The XO leaned against the cabinet. "I need you to ground her."

"After she won?" He put down the sub. "Sounds like something a bad cop would do, doesn't it? She still talks to me, small talk, no hints or clues yet, but she isn't pissed at me. I scrub her from the competition, I ground her out of the blue, that'll change." He thumped his fingers across the bread. "Up to you, of course. Your base, your planes. Your rules. But I wouldn't." He tapped at the keys until gun-camera video popped up on the screen. "Take a look at that, will you? A Mig-21 being chased by two Raptors. They line up the shot, clean and perfect lock on her six, textbook says it's all over for her.

Done.

Now watch. She puts the Mig into a flat spin, stabilizes while coasting backwards, and strafes both of them while recovering from a total stall.

Flat spin, stall, and where any other pilot would have been lucky to keep from crashing, she finds the time to hit two targets. You telling me she doesn't belong in competition? Come on. What's the real reason?

Want me to play bad cop until the Livermore deal is finalized? I will."

"I want your second shift to crank out the gear for another HB-5 so we—"

"HB-3 is the one—"

"Whatever. Get 'em on it. Make two of everything this time. We'll keep one here and ship one with you. But I want one on hand, ready to flip the switch if the opportunity presents itself."

"Look, Sir, I realize you've got more qualified psychoanalysts looking at this than just me, but I don't see her giving in any time soon. If I'm the only one who's keeping her in the air, then she has an incentive to 'save' my job by giving me hints. Even I see that. But if I start giving her the Elhander treatment, there's no reason to believe she won't give me the Elhander treatment right back, if you know what I mean." He tossed the sub on the desk. "I'll build them, of course. Take a month or two. Ground her over the same time and she'll never give them a look-over for errors or—"

"Not that that did any—"

"Maybe, maybe not. Don't know the angles you're pl—"

"I want your team on second shift to keep the project under their hat. I don't want it getting around that—"

"Not even remotely possible. These kids are like any other teenager, Sir. They live on gossip and rumors. I can do my—"

"Make an effort. Push secrecy as hard as you can."

"Yes Sir." Emanuel swigged from his iced tea, then polished off the sub.

"Clip her wings," he said, leaving the office.

"Bogus," she said, looking at a roster that was absent one name. Hers. She marched over to Emanuel as second shift filtered out of the shop. "What the hell is this?"

Emanuel looked up from the notes he was busily scribbling in his book, "Huh? Oh, uh, look," he closed the book, "wasn't my call. Sorry. If it was up—"

"It's your pen on the sheet!"

"Yeah, it is. Still have to write what I'm told." He perched on the stool by the workbench, sheets covering the 'secret' gear they were assembling in shapes that should be obvious to her. "You're probably the best pilot here. If it was up to me, you'd be on that list. He wouldn't tell me why he wanted you scrubbed." He leaned back and crossed his legs. "Already interviewing replacements for Elhander. Done the last suit."

"You can't ground me," she said. "You can't."

He held the notebook to his lap. "I'm not, just using my pen." He shrugged, "I'm just in charge of the list by default, inherited from Elhander; it isn't like I'm an expert pilot. I can keep a plane from crashing, but I don't have — I'm not qualified in any way. Really not qualified to oversee repairs either." He looked at the teenage girl, reacting like any other teenager when they lose the keys to the car. "I think I'm actually going to miss you. You've mastered and manipulated sciences that are on the fringe of theoretical for everyone else. Probably the brightest person I'll ever meet, maybe even the best pilot, too."

"It isn't fair. I haven't done anything!"

He tucked the notebook under his arm, "No, it's not fair." He stood, end of a very long day for him. "And, there's nothing I can do about it." He put a hand on her shoulder. "If it helps, you can pretend 'they' cut you because you're so good, merely letting you compete would let you dictate everyone else's rankings, instead of letting merit bring the cream to the top."

She flung the loose nuts and bolts off the workbench across the floor.

"Hey, how in the world did you manage to tap two Raptors while recovering from a flat-spin stall?"

She stared at the clean metal top.

"Emailed that footage to some aces I know. They don't believe it's possible—"

"Subsonic it is," she whispered. "The Mig is built on a tough little frame. Easily underestimated."

He sat on the stool beside her. "You practiced it in the HB-3, didn't you?" he asked, but she just stared at the metal top, like she wanted to cry, but refused. "I'm sorry I can't help you. If it was up to me, I'd let you fly every day. Even got busted for it. In a few months, I probably won't be here at all." He stood, headed for the door, when he remembered the XO's words. "There was one plane they couldn't bar you from, you know."

She toiled on the side of the mountain as yet another plane was catapulted over the edge and thundered into position above the base. The last on the roster, combat would begin within minutes. . . without her.

She sat on the dirty terrace, staring at the sky. The wind whipping at her back just didn't feel as freeing today. Painful to hear the roar of afterburners and not feel the pinch of the seat. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine what she could hear, but couldn't see.

Gardening was painful for the first time in her life.

She wouldn't sit on the ground again, while others played in the sky.

She would find a way.

She would not be denied.

She checked the roster again, this time for names other than her own. She was determined to compete again this year. Determined to find a way.

The XO pressed his palm to a newly installed door on one of the unused chambers deep in the mountain. When it opened, he walked down a narrow hall as jets of air brushed across him and sucked down through the holes in the floor. He paused at its end before yet another door.

Inside he stared at a new team of engineers he just recently managed to recruit, all busy around the damaged escape capsule and a table with a small, burnt box on its center.

"Any ideas, Gentlemen?" he said.

"Well," the lead engineer said, meeting him at the door, "We've managed to piece together what happened and traced back the weird circuitry." He pointed to the box on the desk. "This, what you suggested might be a flight recorder, looked like cracked and burnt glass at first. Hell, we spent a week on it believing you had lost your mind. But it's not. It's a rather sophisticated optical computer. Stuff that's really only theoretical right now. Mostly because the purity of the optics and the processor are beyond today's practical science and is only in the realm of trillion-dollar research grants." He tapped the burnt pieces. "This isn't glass. It's—"

"Lab grown diamonds, probably doped with something. What's on it and why did it burn? A man survived that crash, why didn't it?" the XO said, impatient as usual.

"Well, we have no way of reading it, even if it wasn't destroyed. It'd be like trying to play a CD in the 1800s. And it's toast, just like it looks. Cracked. But, it was designed to self-destruct—"

"The hell it was, it's a flight recorder, and a flight recorder's sole purpose in life is to survive the damn crash!"

The engineer smiled, "Absolutely right, Sir. And this one did survive the crash. The way it's built, it could probably survive being shot out of a howitzer. But it was designed to — It's rather ingenious really — You see, it's booby-trapped with the hatch. Kind of the ultimate spy plane design: if the pilot ejects in a friendly territory, he'll take his time and remove it before leaving the pod, in which case it's perfectly safe. If he ejects over hostile territory, he'll exit fast, leaving it behind, in which case it scuttles. It was destroyed in a specific way to ensure no useful data survived.

But that doesn't mean what we have here isn't useful. What's sitting on that desk, if it was working today, would easily qualify as a super computer, most likely an order of magnitude faster and smarter than anything we've ever worked on before.

Some parts of it might still work, we don't know for sure. We've booked time on an electron microscope for some of the fractured pieces. Hopefully that'll tell us more about how it functions.

We have competing theories, you see. Some of us say it's the only computer on the craft, it's more than powerful enough to handle everything on even the most advanced plane. But it just as easily could be one of many and limited to, as you suggest, the pedestrian tasks of flight recorder. If it was just used as a storage device, you're probably looking at recording everything that comes across those screens in full HD, and every other bit of data it came across. Quads and quads of data. Possibly more.

Think rolls of film instead of flight recorder." The engineer looked the XO in the eyes, "You give us one that works and the lab that made it, we can make Microsoft look like a kid with a Lemonade stand."

"Booby-trapped?"

"Well, it's tied into that keypad on the chair, don't know how yet. Likely you have to punch in a code before pulling it out, safely. If it's off a spy plane, that'd be the best way to keep it from falling into the wrong hands."

The XO pinched his eyes with his fingers, and sighed. "Of course it would. If one becomes available, you'll be top of my list. But don't hold your breath."

"Well, Sir, it's made to be removed. It has a carrying handle, latches, and it's self-centering with redundant optics. It's clearly made to be removed a lot, just like rolls of film in a U-2." He threw up his hands, "But that's just a guess based on design."

"You figure out how to turn on the screen yet?"

"No Sir, don't have a clue. It's optical, micro-fiber-optics, highly sophisticated and high definition down to the microscope scale. It'll take decades to figure out how to make fiber that fine and pure, if we ever can, but that seems to be all it is. We suspect that most of the heavy lifting is done on that destroyed chip, seems to be the only thing it's hooked up to." He gestured and an assistant shined a laser pointer into the nest of optical connections as random pixels glowed on the screen. "If there's a pattern, we haven't seen it. Understanding the rhyme and reason of how it's wired should help us decipher the chip. Or chips, we're still debating that."

The XO was having anything but a good day. "You're really not telling me anything new." He pointed at all the equipment crowding the walls of the clean room. "None of this is free! You've been at this for weeks, I need answers. I need results that can justify this level of expense!"

"Whatever data was on that chip was surely erased in—"

One of the assistants chimed in, "We believe that to retrieve the records, or footage, you'd likely have to hook it up to a display, something like the screen in that pod, and access it through requests to the processor. Film is a bad analogy because film can be read by anything. This is likely password protected through that keypad. It's more like using a desktop to double as the flight recorder, radar, fly-by-wire, and instrument cluster. Even has to be hooked up to a keypad and screen before it's useful again, just like a desktop.

If it's like we speculate and records information down at the photon level, which would be incredibly efficient and only possible at these purity levels, then it's the definition of tamper-proof. The very act of reading the data destroys it. It can't be copied, a beam splitter is useless. We can't even watch what it does as it does it, like we can with transistors on microchips." He picked up a crumb of cracked processor, "Less than a carat like this working on the photon level would be all it takes to run a plane. You have a small brick here. So far, we haven't run across anything that looks like a central processor yet. We're going to have to literally chip away at—"

"I realize it's trashed, but hold off on destroying the thing any more than you have to," the XO said. "They don't exactly grow on trees. Treat it like it's the only one on the planet, and the only one you'll ever get, because it might well be. Figure out what you can. Fire electrons and fancy photons at it all you want—"

The lead grabbed the biggest piece in his hand, "Don't worry, Sir. The results from the electron microscope should shed a lot of light, pardon the pun. We'll figure it out, Sir, just a matter of time. It's just far more advanced than any of us guessed, at first glance."

He had been hearing that too often lately.
Chapter 77

Belson watched her dress behind the screen that morning. "I'm sorry you've been grounded; I know how much you like flying. But, maybe it's for the best. The bets this year are astronomical. Highest ever. And you, Girl, you blow the curve right into the toilet. You'd end up pissing in everyone's cereal."

She emerged from the bathroom, "Best pilot should win the contest, otherwise what's the point of competition?"

"Maybe," he said, pulling her into a hug, "but they take competition seriously around here. Like any other ranking in the military. You go busting generals back to privates, they won't take it peaceful." He kissed her on the scarred cheek. "Be thankful that they just have each other to blame for their rankings this year. I'm glad to see you safely sitting on the sidelines this time."

She stepped out of his embrace, "I'm no child, I can handle it! Could easily have won—"

"That's the point. You think they'd be pissed if more fodder wanted to enter the field?" He followed her, hands on her hips, "Take the safer road, enter next year when you won't be charging the pillbox while taking friendly fire from the rear. Let it go. Know when you're beat and let—"

"They didn't beat me! I'm undefe—"

"Poor choice of words," he said. "We've got just a few more years here. Eighteen is right around the corner. Then they'll have to—"

"Then it'll be nineteen, then twenty, then thirty. There's no tomorrow, only today is real."

"It's a shame Emanuel can't help you more than he is." He hugged her again, this time near the door. "A shame we can't keep him around here longer. He'd do anything for you, even got busted for breaking the rules for you." He ran his fingers through her hair. "Shame you can't help him stay."

She looked at her desk, "I could. . . " She picked up a pencil and poised it over a pad, but put it away instead. "I've got gardening to do," she said, leaving the room.

Brainwashing followed the same rules as dating. Isolate from family and friends, add a little pressure to break them down, then become their sanctuary. Worked every time, just faster with some than others. Shadona was taking much longer than usual, but she was starting to do as he said, instinctively. Just not fast enough for some.

Interrogations worked on a similar principle, make someone feel their situation was hopeless, and they'd confess to anything. He carefully avoided making her situation seem hopeless, since such confessions were worthless. Gaining her confidence and cooperation was everything, and he was so very close.

Belson leafed through her notebook, held her pads up to the light, then checked her usual hiding places before sitting at her desk and staring at her bed. He regretted doing such things to her.

He liked her, actually loved her in the way that love existed in such a place.

But the XO wielded a lot of power in this world. Belson could easily find himself doing grunge work for the rest of his stay. Years trickled by very slowly before making this deal. Time seemed to fly now, by comparison.

Breaking Shadona's will seemed like a simple undertaking back then.

'Make her want to stay,' he was told. A rather simple order, or so it sounded. Like most orders, easier said than done. She didn't want to stay, not yet. But he desperately wanted her to, now for selfish reasons. He ran his hands across her folded shirts. Cutting her off from Dana had helped. Dana's schedule had been altered to keep them as apart as possible, as often as possible. It was working. He was well positioned to fill Dana's void in Shadona's life.

But he didn't want to manipulate her anymore. He felt dirty every time he did. It felt dirty to keep pushing her to save Emanuel's job.

He wanted her for himself. Every nudge was just a reminder that all his efforts were for the XO's benefit.

Belson didn't like to share, least of all with his captor. He wanted all her benefits for himself.

He made a fist of her shirt.

Playing a spy was much harder than he bargained for.

She checked the soil with her fingers. While most of it was slimy, it retained woody, straw-like chunks. Clearly a byproduct of the digester and the automated termite processor, it was nonetheless impressive. The termites didn't eat all their food before being harvested. Only about 80% from the looks of it. To some, that might have seemed inefficient. But the chunks of uneaten food got converted into little cellulose-like sponges in the digester, and rather evenly spread from the looks of it. It also turned a soil that was soupy when wet into something solid enough to support plants in a wind. Almost an adobe brick texture when dry.

Accidental or intentional, the soil was incredibly rich and the terraces bloomed like the most fertile valley in the world.

Their diet had changed over recent years, now heavily poultry, most likely in exchange for termite feed.

The labor was difficult, but it was satisfying to know that what she scribbled in a notebook actually worked. For some reason, this victory felt a little hollow having never seen the colonies, nursed the queens, or built any of the equipment. She found herself staring inside a locked greenhouse every time she had cause to walk past. Gauges on the wall inside pegged it as hot and dry as a desert, yet some weird corn and potatoes seemed to thrive inside.

Identical to those she predicted.

She toiled in silence on the side of a mountain she felt chained to, with the best view in the world that she could no longer enjoy.

Helmet on, she walked across the airstrip and climbed into Chroma's plane, unnoticed by all those on deck.

When the cat flung her off the mountain, she climbed into the sky and took her position in the holding pattern. On signal, they broke formation and she plunged to the valley, disappearing from base radar and scoring on a Mig in the process. Within seconds, she had tagged an F-16 and an F-15 as she throttled up and raced for the sky. Two more were taken by surprise as she darted around the hilly terrain, like Indians stalking their prey.

Within the first sixty seconds, she had already destroyed the curve.

Her F-16 kill had ranked sixth on base. His encounter with her had dropped him to eleventh, and her carnage had just begun.

Radio silence broken, the word spread quickly that Chroma was still on the ground.

To Shadona, the plane was a simulator with better special effects, and she played without reserve.

In a matter of minutes, on the last day of air combat this year, she had beaten the best of the best. . . decisively.

The landing strip broke into a riot when she triumphantly caught the wire. To a few, she was an instant hero for breaking the grip of a powerful clique over the most prestigious trophy the base had to offer. But to the rest she was the reason they lost in the betting pools, and the face of their instant demotions. It was the first time they went into lockdown and Tazer rounds were used.

She paced the center of the room like a caged cat, caught in the middle of a hunt. "Calm down and take a seat," he said, sitting on his chair between the end of the beds and the bathroom curtain. "You're making me dizzy."

She paused by the door, "Did you see when I shot up at his two—"

"Everyone saw it, Darling," he said, rubbing his hands on his jeans. "We'll probably be studying the footage next year. Might even get the maneuver named after you for—"

She yanked on the locked door, then turned to him, "It just came to me when I caught the glimmer of his canopy in the corner of—"

"I was watching on the big screens, just like everyone else. Please, just sit for a minute, if you can. I swear, I can't take another hour of you pacing. I can't take it. You have to sit, just quietly sit. Please. I know you don't owe it to me, but please. Just this one favor. I know you have it in you."

She hesitated, straightened the items on her desk, dragged her chair across the floor, opposite his, but continued to stand. She turned it perpendicular to the wall, and paused. She turned it to face the shower, and paused. She turned it back, so it was facing him, and sat.

"Thank you," he whispered.

Her left knee bounced uncontrollably, but she managed to sit quietly, nonetheless.

He stared at her knee, but said nothing. One battle at a time. "You did good today, Girl." He leaned against the wall, legs stretched out into the narrow aisle between the beds, where so much pacing had gone on. "You got the mad skills for sure. Can't take today away from you now. Can't be luck no more."

She smiled wide, both knees bouncing but somehow managed to stay in her seat.

"You going to be ready for field exercises next month? Going to be a full week of evasion and counter-terrorism practice, nothing but paint pistols and a tiny survival kit. I hate sleeping in the rain, trying to stay warm at night without a blanket, and dealing with bugs. I think I hate the bugs most of all. They eat you alive, too?"

Her knees stopped bouncing. "Bugs are a nightmare. About the time I fall asleep—"

"One crawls in your ear—"

"Or bites you on the ankle," she said, stretching out her legs next to his. "Bugs are the worst. If you smoke your clothes with lots of green vegetation, it acts like a repellent. But the smoke will give your position away in a second, if you're not careful." She brushed her foot against his, "Would be nice to go camping just once, instead of always a survival exercise. Remember when they bussed us to the river and everyone had to try to fish. No catch, no dinner. Had to—"

"Had to make our own hooks and poles, the rotten bastards! I didn't get to eat for three days."

"We found a quiet spot, waded out in the cold water, and waited for them to—"

"By hand? Is that what you girls did? No way!"

"We tried grasshoppers by the shallows, but when you bashed the water with a stick, you wouldn't see another for hours. Dana got good enough they would swim onto her hand. Had a real knack for it."

He leaned closer, "We tried that stupid arrow thing with sticks. . . nothing!"

She smiled, hints of a flirt, "Us too. I think it would work if fish got used to finding chum there. But that would take weeks, don't even know why they teach it as a survival method. Sure, if it's heavily stocked or something like that, you might get results on the first day. Hopeless the way we were doing it." She leaned back and stared at the ceiling.

"Nobody even liked girls back then. You guys were, like, that other species that nobody understood. A weaker version of boys. Can't believe that was just a few years ago."

"Sharpened sticks worked the first day. Even when you missed, and we missed a lot, it didn't disturb the water as much, and you got a second chance within minutes." She looked at her wiggling feet as a wave of sadness passed over her. "Fish don't feel alive, for some reason. Like killing them isn't a sin." She looked up, feet perfectly still, "But rabbits, squirrels, birds, it's like killing really young children. Like they have a presence, a personality, and then it's gone. Fish never felt that way."

Sliding her hamper out of the way, he dragged his chair across the room and squeezed between the toilet and her. "Never noticed, to tell you the truth. Both felt the same, to me."

"Moments of regret, I guess, might be better way to say it. Never regretted fish, or bugs. Just didn't feel like killing, for some reason."

He held her hand as he inched the chair closer, "Think you could kill someone? I mean, they trained us in a thousand ways, but never bothered to check if we would. Like flying, in a way, they won't scrub anyone, they just train harder. Not sure everyone belongs here, you know."

She stared at the ceiling, then looked him in the eyes, "Planes feel like fish, like there's nothing in them at all. But, I think seeing someone die, just a dozen feet away, is something very different. The look on Aaron's face, longing for help. . . haunts me."

He put his arm around her shoulders, stretched his legs out beside hers, "Bet something like that would stay with you for a long time."

She leaned into the embrace, "One minute he was there, the next, he was gone."

He kissed the faint scar on her cheek as the world outside the room seemed to vanish. Dead to him. But unlike Aaron and David, the world would become alive again, soon as the door unlocked next morning. Just hours away. He laughed, "I finally got that. Planes don't bother you, because they're like shooting fish in a barrel."

When he woke that morning, she was still in his arms. He remembered kissing her a little the night before, but nothing that would have landed him here. She had simply needed a hug, and he had been there for her.

He couldn't help but like this girl. It took a brilliant mind to invent what she had, and an extraordinary person to forgive what she did. Best pilot on the base, perhaps even in the world. He pressed his ear to hers.

She wasn't a fish or a bug, her soul was so strong even he could feel it in the quiet hours of the early morning. She had a presence when she entered the room. He could only imagine the wake she would leave, the day the world woke and she was no longer there.

She didn't beat them yesterday out of spite or anger; no vendetta or malice was in her heart. To her it was a dance, like the twirls she couldn't help making inside their room. But that wouldn't matter to those she dethroned. For them, and the riot they inspired, a vendetta was all it could be. To them, she had drawn first blood.

His only chance to defuse the situation was to become part of their plans. Should she discover him getting chummy with the recently dethroned, moments like now would be impossible again.

The next few months would be difficult to navigate, but he had to, for her. She had no idea the hornets' nest she had just shaken from the tree. And his only chance to navigate her safely through it all was to become part of the conspiracy. He would have to spy, for her.

But all that would wait for another day.

He closed his eyes and enjoyed the moment, while it lasted.

* * *

They parachuted in, on schedule in the middle of the night, but were all scattered far off target, most likely according to the XO's plan. Modern drops were done with pinpoint accuracy, but that didn't test their skills. And in the fog of war, the best-made plans often drifted far off course.

She hid her chute under leaves, noting the RFID chip woven into the straps so the base could recover them later. Chutes were a budget item, after all, and very reusable. They couldn't afford to throw hundreds away with every exercise.

She pressed her finger to her cheek.

The chute wasn't the only thing tagged for easy recovery.

She checked her weapon, a paint pistol and two magic markers that simulated knives. Two MREs, a camel pack of water, and a sheet of plastic to keep them from ripping the chute for shelter. She inched into the clear and used the moon to read her map, the stars to calculate her position. She was twenty-three miles off course. That had to be intentional. She wiggled her fingers and verified her location with her ring.

Her calculations were error free. . . though the ring had her precise location down to a hundredth of an inch. Going by the stars, she could never get that accurate.

She pointed a direction and started hiking when the ring agreed. Her ring retained updated maps from everything the HB flew over, this area dated back to the HB-1. Mostly roads, tracks, businesses and homes, it included a fresh spring, no more than a tiny trickle, located eight miles away.

Fresh water was first on her list.

Running at night was fraught with dangers, most of which unseen. But it was vital to put as much distance between her and where her chute went down as possible. Under combat conditions, chutes would have been tracked and reported to local authorities by everything from guards to citizens, so, it should be assumed that, even under a practice exercise like this, some were assigned as civilian spotters.

Her landing zone should be assumed compromised.

She pushed as fast as she could through the woods, crossed out in the open, found a well-worn animal path and sprinted down its length until it ended nearly a mile later.

Guzzling water from her bag, she knew she would be in range of the spring after sunrise. She had no reason to conserve. Food by the spring should be equally abundant, so she showed even less restraint with her MREs. Since the spring wasn't on her map, there was no reason to believe others would rally there.

With the exercise scheduled for seven days, at this pace, she should easily complete it in four, even with the detour.

Someone was behind her, but she didn't know who. Likely they were from another group, so she charged ahead without any effort to conceal her tracks, then circled back and lay in ambush. Gun poised.

She waited nearly an hour until she heard steps in the distance. Twigs broke under foot. Leaves rustled without a breeze. She aimed the gun, calmed her breathing, and waited.

"Shadona?" he shouted.

It was Belson. What was he doing here? She loosened her grip of the gun. He was on her team, by chance, but this wasn't supposed to be a group cohesion exercise. They were practicing guerilla tactics, counter terrorism and such. They were not supposed to pair up.

"Shadona, is that you?" he yelled again. "I know your boots anywhere, your heel is missing a chunk, the left has a split near the toe."

She waited for him to pass before sneaking up behind him, magic marker under his chin. "What are you doing yelling?" she whispered, "I think we're behind the lines already."

"Sorry," he whispered, crouching down with her. "Got turned around." He pulled his map and spread it on the ground. "I can't even find where I—"

She capped the marker and pressed a finger to the page. "We're here, facing this way. The line is back there, and our objective is—"

Thwack! Thwack thwack! She lurched to her feet as the Tazer rounds zapped her in the back. She pulled her gun and unloaded into the nearest one. . . before collapsing into spasms on the dirt.

Twitching in agony, she looked up at Belson as he took the gun from her hand.

"Sorry," he whispered, as the others came into view.
Chapter 78

Her eyes opened to a white room filled with noise as she stared at a plastic bag dripping into her arm.

Beep. . . Beep. . . Beep. . .

"Call him back and tell him to turn around," the XO yelled in the office at the far end of medical. "Last time he was here, he submitted a bill that was twice your yearly salary! I'm not paying that much for something that isn't life threatening."

"The hell you aren't!" Nurse Benita didn't back down an inch. "That girl in there was gang-raped, had cigarettes put out on her chest, was urinated on, had a bag tied over her head, and was tossed like garbage into a ravine, left for dead. You failed miserably to protect her, the least you can do is pay to have those burns—"

"Not going to happen. You've already told me that she can't have any kind of grafts or operations for at least a week until she's healed enough to—"

"I'm not a plastic surgeon. He undoubtedly knows more about fixing this than I do, that's how he makes his living. There may well be a powder, cream, or technique that can — and should — be implemented right away to decrease the severity of—"

"Don't care if there's pixie dust that cost a nickel and can make it smooth as a baby's bottom. Keep her alive, put her back on her feet, but that's it. She wears this one. If it bothers her enough, she might convince me to do something then."

"We do something now, right now, we might not have to put her through a complicated surgery later. Pennies today to save dollars tomorrow."

"What part of no are you not getting? Keep her alive, don't let it get infected, but that's it. That's the end of your interaction with her. Got it?" he said, pointing her back to the patient in question.

"I don't care how much it costs you, Sir, you're a total piece of shit if you force that girl to walk around with her chest looking like an ashtray. And you know it!" She stepped inches from his chin, "Get your head out of your bean-counting ass and do the right thing for once. If she broke her arm, you'd have me set it. If she broke her leg, you'd have me put it in a cast. If she had a heart attack, we'd be talking bypasses and flying in experts—"

"A shirt will cover this just fine, Nurse. She isn't a pole dancer, doesn't have the legs for it." He headed out the door.

"We're not done, Sir!"

"I'm having that plastic surgeon arrested if he sets one foot on my base, Nurse. Make the right choice, for him and you." The doors swung closed behind him.

Shadona watched the nurse pace outside the big, frosted glass doors. In minutes she calmed, straightened her hair, and walked inside. She checked Shadona's IV, monitored the equipment, then pulled back the sheet and inspected the burns, regret all over her face.

"Do you know who did this?" the Nurse asked. "You do, don't you. Just like last time. Give me a name." She waited in Shadona's silence. "It doesn't stop without a name. You know that, don't you? The longer they keep getting away with this, paying no price, the worse it will be on you girls. Someone has to be the first to speak up. Someone has to break the silence." She ran her fingers through Shadona's hair and sighed. "These burns are going to be with you for a while. Painful to say the least. I've talked to a friend of mine, slipped him some pictures last night. It doesn't have to be as bad as it looks." She dabbed an ointment into the open wounds and replaced the bandage. "I can't make you as pretty as you were, but with luck, it won't be as bad as you think." She held Shadona's hand, still bruised on the inside of her forearm, the shape of a boy's knees. "Give me some names this time. There were at least three, weren't there."

Four was what she remembered. One she thought she knew well.

"You've got Tazer burns on your back, hundreds of insect bites, more bruises and scratches than I can count. For someone tossed off the side of a mountain, it's remarkable you didn't break anything. Most of these will heal just fine. You're lucky in a way, if anything that happened to you can be called that. Most of this won't show." She slowly applied the ointment to each scratch. "Bastard piece of shit turned around my specialist. Doesn't want to pay the bill to do what's right by you." She looked Shadona in the eyes. "Sorry, Hon. You'll have to wear these for a while, I'm afraid."

She closed her eyes and listened to the beeps.

"You're going to survive this, believe it or not. Your vitals are strong, especially considering how dehydrated you were when we found you." She ran her fingers through Shadona's hair again, pulled another twig from the tangles, got up, and returned to her chores.

Shadona made a loose fist, waved her fingers in the air as discretely as she could, then made another fist. Could Yofi have been a more skillful version of Belson? Could Elaine have conned her too? She still believed in Yofi's good nature. She still believed there was something good in Belson, too. But the price of trust was too high for her.

She couldn't afford it anymore.

Her chest hurt with each breath.

She remembered the plastic bag Belson tied over her head. She felt it squeeze against her neck, hair always wet. She still felt the sting of dirt and stones as she rolled down the ravine, the whips of every sapling. When she tumbled to a stop, she opened her mouth and bit at the earth, chewing it between her teeth until the bag broke. Rows of holes weren't much. . . but it was enough to keep her alive, face soaked in sweat. Arms tied behind her back, she couldn't even get up.

Taste of dry clay and stone was still in her mouth, the grit of sand trapped along her gums. Desperate to brush her teeth, she lay silently in bed, feeling ever so alone.

She had no one now.

Beep-beep beep-beep beep—

Eyes opened, she stared at the monitor as it chimed away.

It graphed her panic attack, a nightmare boys had turned real, scarred on her brain as permanently as what they left burned into her chest. She stared at the disobedient graph, each line revealing what she wished concealed. The ticking numbers bent back to her will. First heartbeat, then breathing fell into line.

What worked with lie detectors worked in the quiet of medical too.

A small victory, but it was hers. She may never forget the nightmares of her life, but like the symptoms of her damaged mind, she wouldn't let the world see her sufferings. She had become an expert at pushing such dysfunctions to the side. Rocking was hers to control. She looked people in the eyes instead of the feet. She made a fist as she added nightmares to her list, while inside she wanted to curl up and die. That fragile, trusting girl could never survive here, so she invented one that could. One that could get raped and return to the room. One that could forgive the unforgivable. One that didn't struggle after the Tazer rounds wore off. One that stared at familiar eyes the entire time, until his shame could no longer return her look. A persona that even managed to fake it. . . when he took his turns, the final card she had left to play.

A persona that managed, in the middle of it all, to make one of her attackers cry. He tied the bag loose enough that it didn't cut off her blood supply. He convinced the others to toss her off the side instead of watching her die as they had wished. Actions that saved her life, in a way.

Mouth dry, she reached for the glass by her bed.

Out of reach.

Seemed silly to bind the victim to the bed, yet, bound to the bed she was. Cuffs snug on each wrist. No doubt the XO's orders.

She coughed with a hoarse throat and looked about the room.

She was alone.

She didn't struggle, relaxing in bed instead. She had been bound by men before, they seemed quite fond of binding girls. Struggling had gotten her nowhere. Struggling was their key to breaking her. Struggling wore her down faster, like a rabbit caught in a snare.

No amount of struggling could have spared her. Had Belson not distracted her, she might well have eluded capture, but only for that day. They had targeted her. They were all far from their assigned areas, with a single purpose, single intent, and had picked the time and place to best suit their wickedness.

Days passed before anyone even started looking for her.

She touched her fingers to her hip, as low as she could reach.

They obviously planned to kill her. But death would have been easy, a simple knife in the back could have achieved that. Death wasn't enough, for them. They went to great lengths to make sure she was alive and awake as long as possible. They wanted her to suffer.

She wondered how it would have been different, had she been born a boy.

As a boy, they probably would have tormented her just as long, but beaten her to death instead. Perhaps even raped with something far harder than flesh. Humiliation aside, it wasn't as bad as she had feared. She would heal from this, and heal rather fast. Bloodied and bruised, no stitches were required, no casts need be made. May even be released by the end of the week.

Belson had warned her. He had repeatedly asked her to hold back. That she wait another year before trying to dominate the games.

He had tried to warn her away, and failed.

Beep-beep beep-beep beep-beep. . .

Her heart raced out of control again.

It just lasted much briefer this time.

Benita sat on the edge of her bed, unbuckling Shadona's straps as she talked. "Sorry, Hon, but you can be a handful sometimes. You pull out your IV in your sleep, did it three times that first night. Some people do and just have to be restrained for their own safety." She ran her fingers across Shadona's wrist, just a hint of the bruise remained. "You're one of the fastest healers here. I could release you today, if you want." She helped her sit up, "Or you can stay a few weeks, until you're ready. It isn't too late to give me some names, you know. You don't have to go it alone. I can help you, if you'll let me."

She looked the nurse in the eyes. She seemed genuine. Her eyes looked kind and caring. But so had Belson's. She reached for the tray of chicken and mixed vegetables instead, starting with the roll.

"I'm a trained counselor if you'd like to talk to someone," she said while Shadona picked up the fork and straightened the mound of corn, peas, and carrots so it stopped touching the chicken and potatoes. She put her hand on the girl's shoulder, "It'll help to let it out, talk about it. Even just the dry details, like filing a report, can help move it behind you."

Shadona picked up the strip of chicken, dipped it in mustard, and slowly chewed.

"Writing it down can help, even if you end up flushing it down the toilet later. Just the act of putting it in words takes the power away from the moment; the way you phrase it puts you back in control." She let go. "Let me know when you want to leave." She taped a band-aid to Shadona's hand where the IV had been.

Shadona muffled a cough, cleared her throat, and said, "I'd like my clothes, please."

Benita patted her on her bare back, then adjusted the disposable gown, "Sure."

After dinner Shadona got dressed and picked up a piece of paper and a sharp pencil off the nurses' desk. Writing it down might help after all, but she had something to say to Belson first. She jotted down a short letter, folded it, added two words to the outside, and left while the room was empty.

When the door opened, Belson jumped to his feet by his desk. "I'm so sorr—"

She stepped inside and handed him the note.

"Sore throat," he read off the top, unfolding it as she stood by the door, her hands calmly by her sides, pencil hidden behind her wrist. He read in silence as the door closed and locked behind her. He sniffled as he reached the end, falling backward into his chair. "I. . . I. . . I tried to prev— Oh God, I'm so—"

The second he looked up, tears in his eyes, she jabbed the pencil near his neck, down into his left shoulder, and broke the eraser off, flush with his skin.

He grabbed her wrist and shoved her backwards into the door. . . but it was already too late. It had punctured his heart. The blood tricking down his shirt was dwarfed by the volume gushing inside. He fumbled near the hole, stared her in the eyes, gasped, then collapsed to the floor.

The lights blinked the five-minute warning as she stared at the second boy she had killed.

Sitting against the door, she dabbed at her cheek. But her finger was dry. She hated him for what he had done, yet she could not cry. She loved him for the person he struggled, but failed to become. Yet she could not cry. She stared him in the eyes, unable to move from his dead gaze.

"I forgive you," she said, as the room turned dark.
Chapter 79

The door opened, middle of the day, lights humming in the ceiling. The XO covered his mouth as the smell by the door stopped him in his steps. Belson's body was sitting on the floor, leaned against the desk, blood smeared down the wall. Shadona sat in her chair, facing the body, arms around her knees, rocking back and forth.

"What the hell have you done?" he said.

She didn't blink as she rocked.

He knelt by the boy, clearly dead, but checked for a pulse anyway. "What did you do! Speak up! You don't just murder people around here. There are consequences for your actions—" He pulled a bloody note from the boy's hand. Her handwriting.

\--The note--

I forgive you for what you took without asking. I forgive you for the scars you've left behind. I forgive you for the notes you stole, the trust you betrayed. I forgive you for falling in love. I forgive you for failing to show it when it would have counted the most. I forgive you for betraying me to others, for believing the faulty math, of four against one being better odds than two against three.

I forgive you for thinking of yourself first, in a place like this.

I forgive in you, what I can't forgive in myself.

"How long did you know he was working for. . . " He crumpled the note into his pocket. "You unbelievable bitch. You didn't have to murder him."

She rocked faster.

"You just don't seem to get it, do you. This isn't a game, this is serious business. The future of the free world depends on those planes of yours. Millions of lives could be saved. The outcomes of wars could be changed. A single fighter of yours could wipe out squadrons in a matter of minutes, without leaving a trace. That's the definition of national security. I'm not about to apologize for doing whatever is necessary to secure that plane for this country.

Worry about my forgiveness, because it's in damned short supply! You think Al-Qaeda or Hamas would be this reserved? Cuba? Venezuela? Iran? North Korea? You've never seen bad conditions, Girl. You only think you've seen violence. You only think you've had a bad childhood." He pinned her to the back of the chair. "I'll make it my personal mission to break you. We will have another plane at the service of this country. And I don't care how hard I have to lean on you. You think FDR or Truman would have let those scientists at Los Alamos successfully test one bomb, then quit? You think they wouldn't be shot for treason for refusing to build more bombs? You think that FDR and Truman, after interning millions of innocent Japanese and German Americans, would blink at a firing squad for a few reluctant scientists?

This has never been about you and what you want, you selfish little bitch." He leaned harder, but she was still staring at her feet. He let go, paced back to the door, and pointed at Belson's body. "You think I'd forgive this? You think I'll let this pass without repercussions?" He faced her again. "You've got another thing coming. You only think you've been punished. You only think things have been hard for you." She started rocking again. "We've only begun, Girl. I've tried being nice to you. That didn't work. It's time to try something else. But make no mistake, at the end of the day, at the end of this, I don't care what I have to do to you, I will have that plane, you arrogant little—"

Realizing that happy endings only happened in the movies and that the snare around her would never allow her to leave, she stopped rocking, wiped her dry cheeks, and stood, perfectly straight, prepared to damn them all. "I don't get cut from the roster, Dana is my only roommate, I'm its only pilot, and it's the last one I ever build." She glared him in the eyes as she shed the childish dream of ever being the girl that slept with elephants again, "I promise you, it won't vanish over an unpopulated area. Next unauthorized flight will level a city." She stepped toward him, bare feet on the concrete floor, more than a little tempted to make the world's biggest crater, instead of another plane. Flying might be the closest thing to freedom she would ever know. Perhaps that would be enough. . . for now.

Pissed, and with a full head of steam to yell for another hour, he shoved his hands into his pockets. With everything he wanted, he turned for the door.

"Take your garbage with you," she said.

"You killed him, you dispose of him," he said, locking the door behind him.

* * *

"Huh. . . " she said, walking inside from the mailbox, sorting letters.

"What?" he said, "Another letter from your sister?"

"It's been lost in the mail for months, addressed to my sister, but forwarded from our old house in Colorado, near the base."

"Those bastard sons of bitches! Used eminent domain to condemn our house! Probably has something to do with—"

"It isn't addressed to you, Hon, this letter was addressed to me, care of my sister. But it never made it to her, return address was our old place." She checked the postmark. "It's been lost for a year."

"That's the weirdest thing I've ever heard."

She pushed her finger inside the flap, ripped open the end like it was a chocolate bar, and pulled out a handwritten note. "Dear Elaine," she read. "I cried for hours when I learned of Yofi's passing. . . " She looked at her healthy husband, "What have they been telling that poor child?" She sat at the table and unfolded the letter. "I can only imagine the loss you feel," she continued to read aloud. "While others saw Yofi as the class with comic books and candy, I saw the man who stopped the boys from picking on me, a safe place to be, when my world didn't look so good. When I try to remember that kind man of my past, I can't. I only see the man that held your hand at the table, that man who would have made an incredible dad.

I cry for the hugs I can't give you, and all the rest the rules won't allow—"

Yofi grabbed the letter from her hands and inspected a handwriting he knew only too well. "Those unbelievable bastards. Foreclose on our house, virtually kick us out of the state so they can play some twisted head games?" He held her hand as he skimmed the rest of the page. "What are they doing to that poor girl?"
Aftermath. . .

The engineers sat around the table, middle of the control room.

"Raise to twenty," the lieutenant said.

"I'll see you're twenty, and raise you—"

Alarms went off as the men jumped to attention, crowded the displays, and manned the wind tunnel controls. "Program it for a six-minute full throttle," the lieutenant said, typing away at his keyboard.

"Six minutes, full, got it," a captain said, checking the monitor for the camera inside the cockpit. The autodialer positioned on the keypad had disengaged and was now showing a green light. The mechanical actuators attached to the stick and pedals were showing green as well. "Programmed. Hatch closing and we will lose the signal. . . now." The screen showing the interior went blank.

The lieutenant finished typing, then switched his monitor to the camera focused on the engine intake. "Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. . . " The engines roared to life, wings and frame lashed in place inside the building's modest wind tunnel. "Gear up." The landing gear sucked inside the tiny black plane. "Throttled up." The floor rumbled as the air inside the chamber broke the sound barrier. "Mach 1, Mach 2, Mach 3, Mach 4, Mach 5, Mach 6, Mach 5, Mach 4, Mach 1. . . it shut down. Damn it!" He slapped the side of the monitor out of frustration. "While we're waiting for the robot to open the door, let's go over the footage. Did we learn anything this time?"

They reviewed the frame by frame. Even with their newest cameras, the second the engines lit, the injectors and nozzles were obscured by the heat and violently churning air. The churning even extended outside the plane. "Both intake and exhaust have a twist to them, clockwise on one, counterclockwise on the other," noted one of the engineers. "That might account for the faint train sound. Like the vortex of a tornado or something. But none of our cameras have been able to survive the inside of the engine, and nothing exterior can get a good look at how those nozzles do what they clearly do."

"Hatch opening, we have control of the robot again," the captain said. "Autodialing."

"Cards anyone?" the lieutenant said as they walked back to the table to kill time until the autodialer randomly hit again. Since the plane never got into the air, they could study it in depth with no risk of wrecks, but only on the rare cases when they could get it to run. He picked up his cards as he looked at the wall of monitors beside a simple Post-It note, 'HB-1'.

Alarms sounded again. "We have another hit!"

The men ran to the other side of the room this time. The second tunnel. "We're reading green," the lieutenant said. "The interior is clear as glass, floor to ceiling. No Raptor emulation, I think we have a full unlock. N60 reading seven pounds, methanol at twenty. Potassium carbonate tank is green. Run the program."

"Yes Sir," an engineer said, typing the commands that made it happen.

Interior screen went blank. Engines flamed to life, distorting the image immediately. "Mach 1, Mach 2, Mach—"

BOOMMMMMMMMM!!!! FIZZZZZZZap!!

The building went dead, screens went blank, yet the plane strained on. The building rumbled as the tunnel walls moaned under the stress, engines roaring louder. Deafening as sonic booms battered through the building and the paint on the walls blackened in vertical lines nearest the plane. Lights that had tripped off just seconds ago glowed softly before they strobed. Blackened ends crackled in the fixtures as papers floated off the desks and clung to the ceiling, everyone's hair stood on ends. Exploding mortars would have been lost in the thrashing storm bottled inside the next room, as bulbs exploded in waves and sparks danced across the ceiling grid. . . until the engines finally shut down.

The lieutenant inspected the interior of a heavily damaged wind tunnel. The burn marks covering the walls behind the plane were to be expected. The ones that took everyone by surprise were those coming out the front, and those that outlined all the rebar in the walls. The tunnel blades were folded over like they were made of cardboard left out in the rain. The intake vents had been sucked closed, then folded inward like papier-mâché and would take months to repair.

The lieutenant looked at his fellow engineers. "How did it keep running even after it was starved of air? The vents held closed for six seconds, didn't they? Pulled a vacuum equal to outer space. Anyone know how a jet engine can do that? Is it even possible?"

Flying chunks of the crumbling tunnel had pitted the once pristine plane. The tunnel was a total loss, the plane may never fly again. Walls throughout the complex were cracked, same as the reinforced concrete floors. Not a piece of glass had survived. Fixtures had fallen like the aftermath of an earthquake, papers left burning in random piles dusted the floors. The building was almost a total loss, and they had damaged a billion dollar plane entrusted to their care. They had damaged the HB-2 and lost everything electronic from watches to computers at building 51.

It had destroyed a building without firing a shot.

They would have to be more careful, next time.

[The End]

Patent Mine

He woke to the rumble of a train bearing down on him. When he unzipped the tent, a black and white cat bolted out the opening and ran toward the house.

"Come back here, Max!" he shouted, fumbling with his clothes.

The leaves on the trees rustled with anticipation amidst this clear morning sky.

"It's nothing to be afraid of!"

The train sounded louder as it echoed up the valley.

He searched the sky while reaching inside the tent for his—

BOOOMMMMM!!!

Passing at treetop level, the blast of air flung his tent into the woods and stripped him of his shirt. Water from the pond soaked him in a fine spray.

The whines from the chase jets just a few seconds later were nowhere near as impressive.

Yearly combat training was one of the benefits of living in such a desolate place. F-16s and Raptors were commonplace to him. The one in the lead, the one sounding like a train was new. Well, not new to him. He had seen versions of it for years in these mountains. It was tiny and black on the top, sky blue on the bottom. Its teardrop shape had no visible cockpit. No windows at all. . .

_The Art of the Houdini Scientist_ is the prequel to _The Hummingbird Series_. Shadona's adventures continue with _Patent Mine_ , _Hell from a Well_ , _The Heredity of Hummingbirds_ , and _Mourning after Dawn_.
