Okay all calm down, I'm sure you all want a part of this.
(okay wishful thinking) Heres the idea, write a bit and put it in the thread, try and chain it on from the post above and hopefully we can construct a scifiorums e-book.

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[Edit]
Simple rules, keep the book going as long as possible, try not to get the hero position killed, afterall "your" (For all perceptional purposes) are going to be hard to replace.

I would have this romantic idea of leaving the book to forever merge talents for years, but that might not be possible. But I do say it should run for at least a year to see which way it goes. :D
=======================================

So, say start.....


“Welcome to Clandetech, we are the developers of the next evolution in computer design and networking. Before you come any further on our tour, will you please dismiss you attention from the protestors out front or the media coverage claiming we are responsible for a number of deaths due to our clandenstine experiments.”

The Clandetech representatives little speech didn’t fully convince me that the media had been mis-informed. In fact that was the reason why I was here, although posing as a potential investor.

It had happened over night, a guy that had been suffering from what people thought was delusional schizophrenia after spending time in a hospital, was actually the proud own of a bunch of stuff that he’d somehow lost claim to through the entropy of time and for the shear fact that Clandetech had been beaming his brain out with ELF waves to obtain information about his laptop interface for faster than light information.

The guy had become so annoyed at the prospects that their continued insertions of mind control would kill him, he decided to create an Openproject website on the net, not just to unmask Clandetech and their government cronies but to prove what he had been working on in the theoretic’s department of his brain.

He’d not known who Clandetech was, since they were trying to deceive him constantly and promising things that they were not intending to give him.
Through his thoughts he might have look at the tutoring of certain religions to get an idea of how such mind control could of manipulated people in the past, and such people could be associated with what would be known as a devil.

In truth they were human too, just ones that weren’t willing to pay for things, instead they would rip the ideas off from people and then kill them off without people knowing about their intention to plagiarise.

The guy had found that they had been networking people to a powerful supercomputer through the ELF usage. Most of these people had been containerised into hospitals and had lost all rights and privileges to the state.

This explained the number of autistic’s that would sit whiling away the hours with preposterous calculations that no doctor could cure without assigning drugs.

In truth they were just “Meat” to these people, pieces of their processor that could run at room temperature and parallel process without as much programming as a conventional mechanism. Now that pissed the Human rights activists off, a world wide hunt was started for such people and evidence, most notably was the aid of the hackers.

Our helicoptor steadily made its way around the Clandetech skyscraper, a monster of a building dominating the metropolitan skyline, with silvery reflective windows and a single, tall antenna jutting out from a triangular observatory platform at its 120th floor.

I leaned out of my chair to glance outside the window, finding the nearest street to the skyscraper. Sure enough, amongst expensive sports cars and yellow cabs bustling about the streets an enormous crowd of people had gathered with giant white signs, most of them too small to read at this height. I could pick out the skull and crossbones on a few of them, though...

The chopper had ceased its climb and had softly landed on the dark gray roof. Our guide, an attractive brunette in her mid twenties (by the look of it, she could've been fifty with the technology these guys had) motioned for the other five or so investors to vacate the cabin. I soon found myself ducking under the whirling rotor of the helicoptor, trying to keep my hair from flying wildly out of how I had set it this morning before being picked up by their representatives.

Inside the triangular observatory there was a comfy looking lounge, one with a giant tv screen and a table full of refreshments accompanying a neatly set rows of chairs. One of the fatter investors immediately hobbled over to the food, picking out a doughnut and slobbering over it like there was no tomorrow. I took my seat and waited for the rest of my unknown counterparts to do so, recording every little detail in my mind. It could come in handy, in the future.

Clandetech's representative stepped up to a slightly elevated stage and tapped the inside of her collar, enabling a pale red light to outline her neck. She used one of those new viso-microphones.

"We come here today on the eve of a new decade, one of promise, one of technological intrigue, with leaps and bounds through barriers once thought impossible only several years ago. Clandetech emerged at the top of the innovators, with neurological implants and new simulators geared toward either the casual consumer or the hardcore businessman. Although it has been rumored that we can 'control' any of these systems from any location in the world I can assure you that this speculation is completely false."

I wasn't getting the information I wanted. My informant had told me that they would get down and dirty with the real deal to these neuro implants and how they could be used to anyone's benefit...or anyone's demise.

I yawned, and glanced out the window, watching a light snowshower develop under a blanket of dreary clouds. My attention returned to the speaker when the giant screen suddenly flicked on, with a picture of one of the small, ovular implants attached to a slab of brain tissue. Small lights inside the implant flickered, and suddenly the pile of skin jumped in the air, slathering a clear liquid all over the spotless white table it was on.

Satisfactory, stryde? If no one else gets involved we could take turns...?

To me, it look as if their technology wasn't much unlike the stuff I was use to. My benefactor's had managed to talk me into having an implant place in the base of my earlobe.

Supposedly it was the best position because it could be remove with less stress than attaching it to the inside of your skull with a cranial drill. They both were using the same technique, it came from a Russian scientist lecture in the early turn of the century.
A whole talk on how to utilise the Temporal lobes to obtain visual information and encoding data back to the client (or victim).

Luckily, I still get a bit jumpy around reactionary segments of flesh accosted by vivisectionists. To think that some poor guy probably didn’t have enough cash for decent burial, had to have some of his parts taken by such companies to pay for the burial.

While my mind was wondering on the subject of burial, the large investor belched with total disregard to etiquette. Perhaps having a couple of million in his bank account, just wiped out any sense of decency. Free food and public belching, And people still say the world is filled with classism.

The tour was meant to make it’s way to what seemed to be Laboratory C3-1 by the sign, but I excused myself as we made it to the door. With the excuse that the jumping skin had sicken me to my bowls, the Rep insisted that I head back to the reception area. So off I went, of course the reception area wasn’t on my agenda. I’d spotted the “Restricted Access” Laboratory C4-1 a bit further up the well lit corridor.

As I made my way towards the door, I spotted somewhere that looked like a cloakroom, somewhere the Scientists kept their lunch, coats and magazines. Benches and cabinets made up the room, a desk in the corner diagonally off from the door I entered in from. Not to forget a coffee machine that looked as if it had been pulled out of some old movie, either it was a classic, or the company was too tight to buy a new one, perhaps it was just made in that style, but I wasn’t here to contemplate art deco.

I hauled up in their for a few moments as I pinched the lower part of my left earlobe, and initiated a communication .

“Okay, so your in. It seems your on the right level. Where’s the tour party now?” The voice that I knew only as the “Operator” asked in haste.
“They’ve gone up to C3-1, I’m heading to C4-1. Any chance of some aid?” This device was clever, because I didn’t need to speak out load, just think. That’s all you need to do, after all when you talk you think of what your saying, with this equipment you think of what your saying but just don’t say anything.

“there is an ident card underneath the coffee machine, pin it to your chest pocket and walk into C4-1, if anyone stops you just tell them that your from Astrotech, you know the Dutch subsidy” The Operator bleated “Move quickly though, or that tour party will be back”.

I rushed to the Coffee machine, I first tried to lift it, but it was too heavy. So I pressed my head to the table and could see through the narrow gap that was under the base, dust and debris, and what seemed to be an Ident card. No wonder the coffee machine wouldn’t lift, it was screwed to the surface and the screws were rusted, Now I know they couldn’t replace the coffee machine that’s why it’s still here.

I had to go to the desk and found a ruler, and used it to edge the ident card out from the dust, while thinking ‘I wonder how this got there’.

“We’ve got a man that does regular maintenance work around Clandtech, but it was getting too risky to send him in for the final information regarding their KL12-345T chiplet.” The operator informed me through my lobes.

“I was just thinking aloud and forgot you were connected. Better get moving I can hear the tour part passing.” I thought to the operator.

I snuck a peak out of the door back to the hall, the party had rounded the corner, the Fat investor trailing behind still licking his fingers from the sugar that was left on them.

Laboratory C4-1 was there, staring me in the face, as the thumps of the slimy, obese man finally began to subside. I inched out of the door and tried to look inconspicuous as I paced down the corridor, noticing that the place was devoid of any workers whatsoever. I began to wonder why as I reached the door.

"It's three days till christmas, the workers here get more vacation and benefits than a man who made his millions through inheritance." My assistant had made a weak analogy, and I ignored it as I walked inside the room.

The place was white, so bright and white that I could hardly see the corners of the walls, much less tell where the door was that I had come from. I blinked my eyes several times in a code, and my vision melded to an infrared, allowing me to discern the size of C4-1.

It was smaller than I had imagined, in fact very small, only large enough to hold a few people comfortably. I glanced around, trying to figure out where I was, when I spotted a control panel that had remained invisible to my normal human eyes. There was a single slit and two buttons, one with an arrow pointing up, and one pointing down. I inserted my card and pressed the 'down' button, the elevator lurching instantaneously.

One of the walls lazily ascended into the ceiling and I switched off the infrared lens, gazing outside a window into the brightly lit lights of the city, the megalithic skyscrapers dominating my view. I managed to sneak a peak to the side of the building and found that the elevator was descending very, very rapidly, so much that the Clandetech skyscraper was flying by in a blur.

The ride slowed, and window closed as the door opposite to it slid open. I moved my eyes in another code and clicked my jaw together several times, allowing a web of mirror-rays to droop and flow around my body, until I found that my body was invisible.

The real C4-1 was what I had been prepared for: immense. Robotic arms with no power were attached to lines of tables stretching into almost a horizon, each one precariously perched above a piece of brain tissue here, a bipedal mechanic arm there. The place was deadly silent and nothing was moving. I didn't want to slip the mirror-rays off of my body just yet, there was undoubtedly a network of cameras hidden throughout the room with the same method. I had to disable them: I wouldn't get anything done if I couldn't see my arms.

As he found the first camera he was shocked to see that it was already deactivated. At about he same time his implant buzzed that there was supersonic niose behind him. He spun around to find himself staring into the muzzle of a gun, held by a suit of powered body armor.


How's that?

Gifted, you messiah! Now only if some other people from that thread in art and culture joined us, not to mention stryder!

Just remember: this is from a first-person perspective.

For whatever reason, I'm just not in the mood to write right now. I'll be back, later, rest assured.

Got it.;)

"You can take off your Mirror-rays now." The figure in the suit said. The armor was black, dulled down to blend into shadow. From the various implements on it he could tell that it was used more for utility than for the protection it gave. The gun was at least fifty caliber, not something he wanted to be shot with, especially at this range.

Looks like it's just us in here.

"I've been expecting you for some time. I thought they were going to send two of you" the suited figure spoke with a corse tone.

I stood looking for some clue as what trick I could pull to disarm him. The Operator aided my thoughts "If your thinking about disarming him, forget it. he's our man on the inside, just a bit cautious is all. Just tell him, 'Why send two when one is enough?' "

I was in no position to argue, I just hoped that the Operator and the guys back at their control room knew what they were doing, as I hadn't managed to climb the ranks to have access to bullet repellant.

So I say to the suited figure in a way as not to express fear from the situation, "Why send two when one is enough?".

"Good, your the man I've been waiting for.", with that the the suited figure lowers their gun barrel. "I apologise for the inconvience, I had to make sure you were the agent sent here. It's known that within the ranks of power at this firm that people have been allowing information out. I didn't want to find myself in the middle of a sting.... Now our introduction is over, will you follow me into the Computer room, you might want to grab one of those Cryo-suits, it will be needed... it's cold where we are going."

With that I I followed my line of sight from where he pointed, and there was this door with a glass window, with black suits hanging from a wall. We walked through the door and I began putting a suit on.

"Good, this will protect you from the cold and if you keep it on, you can pretend to be one of the lab guys".

"Follow her, and do as they ask" The Operator blurted.

"Not to be rude.. I mean your a guy with a gun and everything, but whats your name?" I asked pondering since we didn't exactly undergo a proper salutation.

"My names Kate" apparently she said.

"but...." she cut me short.

"I know, it's the voice box on this suit, helps me to keep the lab guys from hitting on me, also useful for passing voice analysing equipment" With that she beckoned me through the next door as I was now fully suited.

The Computer room was as you for a super-computer, Cold... Extremely cold. Condensation had frozen on the walls, and the machines themselves were blanketed.

"They keep it cold in here, because of the super computer. We managed to set a room up in here without the people knowing, you know how it is when you close the room down as your moving Liquid gases in, pretty dangerous stuff." A course laugh eminated, I was still unsure if she was a she, but that would come later, for now I had to watch her pull an icicle from the ceiling and a wall slid up.

"This place is filled with hidden doors and walls" I said.

"Most of them put in by the company." she replied.

[Not apart of the book]

I mentioned in "It's a sprawl" (http://www.sciforums.com/t5908/s/thread.html)
about www.infinitematrix.net.

It's actually an Online Project for new Sci-fi writers, and has some renound authors advise and help, comment and chats.

Just thought anyone posting/reading this thread might like to check it out.

"She" walked through the door, and it stayed cold. He followed her down a path between computer banks to a trapdoor gaurded by antother figure in a coldsuit. They descended into a subway car.

"They have a lot of stuff that hardly anyone knows about. This track connects to several labs that are under the city. Even the government only knows about a few of them." He watched as they traveled along a track. Lights flashed by at impressive speed. After ten minutes, he realized that they must be half way across the city. When he mentioned this to Kate, she laughed, "All that stuff in the tower, that's legit, so that the feds can say that they searched the place. what you guys want is much deeper than that.

"How did they build it?"

You know all those people who reported sleepwalking? They use people in the city, activating thier implants at night. After a while they started using machines.Half the company doesn't know about this." A chuckle emerged from the helmet, "Gotta love conspiracies."

His respect grew as it took them thirty minutes to reach thier destination. Kate explained that this was a computer hub for their secret labs, and that it was shielded, so that the "vioce in his head," as she called it, couldn't talk to him down here. They found several men working at a dissassembled workstation. Teh cover for the computer was off, and various pieces of electronics were wired in haphazard.

"This is one of my specialties. You guys can infiltrate one of the biggest companies on the planet, but you somehow couldn't hack the computer" She let her disdain show. "And so you needed me."

As Kate said this she took of the visor of the helmet, and the last few words came out in a low tenor. All he could do is stare at The man. His features weren't all that remarkable, but "she" was definitley a man. He must have shown it on his face, because Kate laughed adn pounded his back, knocking him several feet forward. "That was fun. But also, Clandetech still thinks I'm a woman. Not that that isn't useful." He turned to the men at the commputer. "Has it finished the search yet?"

"They knew someone was leaking. This station doesn't have the access we need to get the data, but we know it's in the chair's computer." One of the men said.

He groaned at this. They would have to break into the office of the company chair. It was a heavily gaurded penthouse suite halfway across the state.

"You see us guys down here, We've got this place set up for our operations. I'm sure your Operators didn't tell you, our speciality is hacking into places. What we are doing down here was a mixture of having the right access to patch into Clandetech's mainframe gaining access to their whole network from internal servers." The now very male Kate said.

Looking around I could see some old systems, tape machines with large 14' wheels turning back and forth with the start-stop sounds. Images of old NASA archive footage flashed before me.

"What are you running down here?... A computer Arch?" I jokingly asked, half expecting them to take the joke with the full sarcasm that was intended.

"You hear that lads, He hasn't only just blurted out what we named the place... Of course we named it that because of "Arch-ives", but it doesn't matter" Kate said blatently putting a crimp on an otherwise fine sarcastic twist.

"You know we are the guys that sent shockwaves across the internet with our Blue vaccine. You know that spyware sniffer that started taking out corporate servers in an attempt to free the net from intrusion.... at least corporate intrusion mind you." Kate proudly admitted as if to gain some sort of acknowledgement.

"Never heard about it", What a lier. I had to, there was no way I was going to have this.. guy? being to smug, he would let his guard down, I was sure of it.
Some static arose from my implants, it seemed the Operators were trying to beat the sheilding. I knew if we didn't sort out the task in hand soon, they would probably fry me by accident trying to reach me.

"So what exactly is the plan then?, I mean what am I doing here?" I ask kate and look at the guys standing around the innards of what seemed to be a hybrid or abomination of machines, with parallel cables drooped from box to box and led's flashing from time to time.

"The plan is, we are going to get the security codes for the penthouse. We've got to attack from here, We give them to you, and you have to go there and get what we need." Kate said while picking up screwdriver and walking towards an area that seemed to have static mats and soldering equipment.

"So what exactly will I be looking for?" I asked, afterall theres no point busting into somewhere with heavy security without a little bit of a clue for the reason you are there. For all I knew it could a disk, a word printed on the desktop image, a serial number or bar code on the bottom of the keyboard.

"What you are after is a blue box, it connects to the fibre socket. Its not just any box though, it doesn't just have passwords to access the system we need, but it's like placing a door in a four walled, no door room. Lets just say without the box our systems don't run the right encryption packets to even talk to the network, we just can't inteRFACE" Kate shouted the last of "Interface", it's known that some of the best hackers relied on the adrenaline buzz of a challenge, and the shear forcefulness of that word suggested a tough challenge.

"So I get the box and?.... Come back here? right?".

"No you get the box, and get your operator to send a message, we'll meet from out mobile, because as soon as you have that box your going to be hot." Kate said turning the screwdriver in a computer chassis.

"What sort of resistance am I going to be up against?" I had to ask. I knew that this was turning out to be more of a mission than I had first thought. I thought I was just going to come to Clandetech, collect data and liase. Not single handedly break into a penthouse to access a network. I was still lacking data, but I knew that if I didn't ask I wouldn't know. I knew that the person who was really going to get it, was what ever operator happened to be on when I got topside.

"About 6 guards, when it's empty, plus a body guard when the Chair is there. For F**k's sake don't get caught there with the Chair, otherwise you might just disappear and we'll be hearing about it across the Newsgroups. Take this!" Kate pulled from the centre of the computer chassis what seemed to be an old PDA.

"I've been saving this computer for sometime, collecting the keywords needed for access those security systems at the penthouse. I had intended to pay a little shopping trip there for the blue box myself. Although we need it for this job, it's a piece of kit that we down here want to reverse engineer... see what makes it tick... That PDA covers the layout, the codes, even has some info in it you'll have to use later so don't go losing it. I'll forward some of the info to your operating compardrese where ever they are." Kate pointed to behind that large router system at the back to a small oval door.

"Use the sewer system to get to the road, forget going back through the company as they will know you went missing. Take care my friend" Kate said as I was hastley buffered through the door.

Friend I ask, he was pointing a gun at me no less than an hour ago.

Twenty minutes, two wrong turns, and a breather watching some rats fight over something that didn't smell too good. The Operators managed to pick up my trace.

"I thought we lost you down there, those hackers are crafty. Did they give you what you need?" The operator asked, wondering with all certainty.

I internally spoke, "Yeah they gave me what I need, and told me some stories about you."

"Did they?" The operator said, "Our system says your lying."

"Can never get one past you." I loved fooling them around, I had to, it seemed the only way of staying saine.

"You should take the next right and straight on for 100 yards, you'll find an outlet. Shouldn't be a problem to get out, the gates not locked. One last thing before we give you some piece, your not funny." The operator stated.

Never a sense of humour with a Captive crowd.

"Katie" provided me with my way into the penthouse. The operator had arranged for me to assume the identity of one of the relief gaurds . I waited for him about a block from the building. I watched as his power-armored hand reached out and grabbed the guy by the neck. ten minutes later I was wearing the guy's uniform, and had his implants in a pouch in my pocket.

"The implants are the keys through the outer security. I had one of my underlings mess with the climate controls. They should have had enough carbon monoxide to be unconsious." He took a small air bottle from a compartment somewhere on his suilt and gave it to me. "This will give you about twenty minutes. get the box, and if you think you havfe time, the exec's computer isn't rigged, that hard drive would be a bonus. My people will pick you up on the roof, and then you get to sit around while we do our thing. Break a leg." Six hundred pounds of flesh and machine disappeared into the back of the alley so suddenly and silently I expected him to throw a sour comment at me. I was left with the security gaurd, who was now starting to snore.

I started in. Thinking about it I realized that I didn't have a clue as to what the security setup was for the outer security. So I reached in my pocket for some of the equipment I had brung along, just in case. One of the nice little pieces was a headband with reticule attached and built in passive multi-detector. I put it on and turned the battery pouch on to activate it.

Good thing. It seems my informers hadn't told all they knew. There was a laser net across the passage. Any attempt by me to have traveled the hallway would have tripped the alarms all over the place with me none the wiser. There was probably a cul-de-sac at the end with high security lockdown waiting on the unwary. Some where there had to be a deactiving switch.

I found the key pad back along the wall behind the potted plant. The shag carpet gave the travel path away. I hooked in the plug in from the secuity guards implant to the quick access port being as I didn't know the code for the key pad. It took care of it, if the red to green light meant anything.

I went back to the hall and sure enough the lasers were off. I proceeded down the passageway. As I approached the open room about the size of a good closet, the walls on either side slid upwards into to ceiling.

Off to the right was another hallway, to the left was a solid door. The door got my attention first. As I approached the passive sensors tripped an alarm light in the reticule. There was something important here and worth guarding with some kind of security. Nice of folks to let you know where to look.

I examined the door and frame carefully letting the sensors do their job at the same time with a scan. The reticule drew a receding box around a hair fine wire I would have missed. I used the magnifing function and the wire turned into three seperate wires. Familiar stuff here. Quickly I reached into my other pocket and brought out a small box with a readout on the top. I set it down over the wires, being careful not to touch them. The readout went active. Seeming to take forever, the readout finally steadied, indicating that it was successful.

Being as the reticule had found no other markers it was safe to assume that there would be nothing else.

I opened the door. There was a rug thrown down that the door opened over. I thought I recognised it. A seeming normal throw rug. The sensor didn't react. Pressure pad I thought to myself.
I stepped around the edge of it being careful not to touch the rug itself. It had to activate something. I looked around. Sure enough there were some very fine nozzles in the ceiling carefully painted to match the ceiling pattern. Most likely knockout gas. These people wanted to be sure of taking care of unwanted and unannounced guests, such as myself.

Looking around, I saw the blue chip box. Promentally displayed in a niche in the wall. Also there was a strange servo-powered suit, standing much like an olden suit of armour in the corner. I became wary. The sensors activated!

I clicked my jaws and called for the operator.

"Yes?" Katie's vioce answered me.

"There's a security robot in here." The head rotated toward me. The arm I couldn't see before became a net launcher as it started moving towards me. "And your not hte operator."

"Since when was I not supposed to answer. It was figured I could do more since I would be closer. Get to the roof, I'll take care of this."

Not knowing what else to do, I ran. The robot thing started moving too. There was a boom, and the net hit me. I fell down just in time to not get hit by the blast of incandescant energy that vaporized the head and most of the shoulders of the robot and instantly heated the hall to sauna temperatures. I suddenly found myself untangled from the net.

"Get the exec's computer, I'll get the box." I stumbled into the office. The computer was in a cabinet in the desk. I just grabbed the whole box and tore the cables at the back free. Katie was in the hall waiting for me. In one hand he had the weapon that had destroyed the robot. Under the other arm he had the box, most of th ewire and other modules that were connected to the box, and the remains of the robot. He led me to the roof where we got into a copper, and we left.

I leaned against the cold aluminum of the frame, relieved to be out of there. A look around showed just two other guys, and they were dressed paramilitary with assault rifles. Katie had one of the legs of the robot open, adn was examining the mechinisms inside. A buzz from my ear told me that the operator was back.

"How was it?"

"Do you really want ot know what I think?"

"You're going to lay low with our gifted friend here. make sure we get our stuff. That little show will attract quite a bit of attention."

Katie's gruff filtered voice interupted. "If your friend's home, tell him that you're gonna be out of touch for a while. We're going to my place, and that means thatyou follow my rules. The Bat Cave is shielded, and so is the ship, so it's kind of pointless to try. You're gonna be bored for a few weeks."

The operator simply said, "Sorry, be we can't help that. His contract's got a lot of leverage. See you later." With that I was alone, at the mercy of the whims of a mercanary whose real name I don't know.

The ship turned out to be a sub, and th eBat Cave turned out to be a super tanker somewhere on the ocean floor, renovated to meet Katie's needs.

The mercanary showed no signs of wanting any friendly chitchat as he busied himself with the operation of the sub.

I flicked on the implant. Telltales of infraglow indicated workings behind the comestic panels that were not for observation by normal eyesight. It was obvious that the sub had been modified by it's present owners into something that the original designers had not included. The question was what.

Under the guise of looking out the porthole at the ocean surround us, I left a microspybot in a likely place to observe the surrounding control room and headed for the galley for some coffee. The implant had connection to it and would relay any info that it picked up to me. In the meantime I would appear to be an uninformed passenger wasting time and piddling around in the galley while waiting for this taxi to take me to my destination.

I traversed the corridor and made the turn, stepping high to avoid the kneeknocker hatch into the galley. I spotted the cups, held securely to its mounting by elastic bands. The coffee pot was simularly secured by a rail around the stove to prevent spillage of its contents onto the unwary from sudden pitch or movement.

By stange coincidence, while I was out of sight and hearing, the mercanary had made contact and was speaking through his throatducer. The mumbling that was the result of speaking through this manner was hard to make sense of. The connection to the microspybot was excellent though and pickup within the close quarters was optimial. With a bit of concentration I could make out the transmitted messages leaving but there was no way to get a handle on the duction-phone to hear the recieved messages. Luckily the guy was repeating his messages to indicate that he had clear understanding.

(transmission)
You're positive this is what you wish to do? You know there is no other path once this is done.
......
I understand. Make sure it looks the accident for later.
......
Very well, it will be completed as you say. I will undertake to do this at 2140. I estimate the body will take 2 minutes to rise to the surface. That should be enough time for the freighter to spot it and start rescue procedures. This will account for the passenger's whereabouts.
.....
The floatsum will be shot out the preloaded tube at 2100 to allow drift rate calculations and connections to be made by the freighter after body retrieval.
....
Is there any info I should fish for before completing the assignment?
....
out.

So it looked as if this was a setup with ducking out of paying the fee. A get it for free. Well, I am going to have to upset the applecart on this one.

I sipped the coffee. It was hot chocolate instead.

"Like it? I get the stuff directly from the Columbian market. It's quite good." Katie was standing in the hatch, holding a small plastic bag with the microspy in it. he had gotten out of the armor, and was wearing a gi, with a set of samurai swords in the belt.

"I suppose I should enjoy it, as it's looking to be the last thing I drink." I took another sip. "You won't find it easy, though."

This was met with a laugh. He tossed the bug onto the counter and getstured for me to follow. My curiousity piqued, I followed.

"I wont' have any trouble on my ship. It was a consensus between me and your employers that you will have to be dead for a while."

The sub was an old Soviet missile sub with all but four of the missile tubes removed. The back part of this space was a hanger adn elevator which housed the chopper we had used. Two of the tubes had been modified to launch various types of missiles from magazines. One had Tomahawks loaded. One of the front ones had a pressure hatch open. Nearby was a gurney with a body under a sheet.

"Your employers decided very soon after you joined them that you would be expendable. Thus they contracted with me and some friends of mine in Iraq to do this." He flipped back the sheet and revealedthe face on the body. "You will be dead, and no one will be able to say otherwise. It even has some of your memories."

I was horrified. They had made a clone of me just to kill me while keeping me alive! I was even more shocked that they could do this.

"You may not like it. Heck, even I'm a little squeamish about it, but I didn't know they had done this until they delivered the body, and by then it was too late." The mercanaries were butting the body in the tube. "Teh people who will find 'you' are not being paid to. No one but your employers adn the people on this sub and in my Bat Cave will know that you're alive."

Not knowing what else to do, I fainted.

In due time we arrived at the bat cave.

It showed as a blip in the sonadar. I got the strange feeling had someone else blundered this way that there would be no image to be picked up.

Katie noticed my where my atttention was. He explained that it contained the lastest ghosting techniques allowing it to remain undetected from causal observation and quite a bit of diligent looking, also. Nice to know I hadn't lost my touch with the precog program.

He continued, "As we approach this fake derelict, the chamber that we keep flooded will open the outer doors to allow us entry. The remote signal is soon to be sent to activate the procedure." "After the sub deposits us in the chamber, it will continue on it's way.",he stated. "At present, I think that is about all you need know."

True enough, the sub slid within the cavernous monster and we could hear the pumps working to remove the water from within. Shortly one of the crew escourted us to the hatch.

He climbed the ladder and opened the overhead hatch and moved through to allow us entry.

As my head popped out of the hatch I was all eyes, there wasn't much to see though. Everything was wet and dark.

"Over here!" I heard from above and behind me. I turned around and there was the most beautiful woman I had seen in ages.

Oh, so this is a romance novel now eh? Just to let you know, Katie is single.

Edit: Whaa-hooo! we're at two pages!:rolleyes:

Not Story also

A good story should always have supporting characters and a love interest angle in some form.

Hmmm.I suppose we could have a tragic love affair between the beautihul dawhter(How do yo uspell that?)of one of the mercanaries and our main caracter. That's your province though, I don't know enough to make it good full time.

From the light coming through the hatch behind me, I beheld a lovely vision, swathed in a halo of red hair. The body that went with it wasn't bad looking either!

She lowered a knotted rope and when I pulled on it, a ladder came down that was attached to the end of it. Evidently, this was our way out of the sub.

As I mounted the ladder, I looked around to see what I could see. Not much, I could hear splashing indicating that the pumps had not emptied the entire contents of the hold where we had entered with the sub.

The walkway was lit by light spilling out of a hatch the girl had just opened. I could hear the sounds of Katie moving close behind me.

"We have to clear the walkway and secure the hatch," said Katie, "We're on a pinched schedule." "There is a strange sub that has been prowling the area. We suspect that it is the owners of the chip looking for where it has went. That it is in this area indicates some very good intellegence gathering."

"While we are relatively safe from discovery, the sub lacks some of the features that are incorperated here. We would like the sub to slip away while the unknown is off chasing a decoy that has been supplied for its benefit. Nothing like a red herring when you need one.", explained Katie.

I eased throught the hatch. Second appraisal made me realize that the first was right on target. The girl was indeed a looker. I gave my biggest smile.

"This is Zena", which was Katies way of introduction.

I reached out my hand to shake. Only Zena gave me the brush off and left that hand just hanging in the air. Boy, did I feel foolish as I withdrew it. Well, it looked pretty effective for putting someone in their place.

Katie told me to dog the hatch so they could get the sub chamber flooded. I could hear a valve turning as I finished the job of securing the hatch.

I turned and went through the entrance chamber into the facility proper. Everything seemed spacious on the other side. Some one had spent a lot of money making it look so. But looks where decieving as there was only so much room within. At the same time it seemed to be wall to wall computers and displays. What were they doing here?