recycling product developing division into weapons development.”
“How?”
“I’ll write up a proposal and we will talk to the President.”
“But, why would he see us?”
Nece unzipping the top of her jumpsuit, pulling up her inner shirt, “Because,” taking his hand and having him feel her breast, “He put me up to this.”
Abreon was in his hospital bed yelling at Nece, “You knew all along, that that’s what I wanted!”
Nece ready to cry, “We know who you are. We did a bio-scan on you. We do it with everybody above a 04 clearance. We matched the scan up. Nenthar may be gone, but the bio-scans of their soldiers were stored offline. The network Diggaco held the keys, but they sold them to whoever had the money to buy them. We just bought your profile, not knowing if it was really you, but we got a positive. We think you sabotaged the Xelon nuclear power plant.”
“What makes you say that?”
“The Xelon Dru put 500,000 credits on your head.”
“Why not just ask me, Nece?”
“Because…why would you help us unless you felt obligated?”
Abreon leaning back, “So you found my mental profile as well?”
Now sitting up again, Abreon looking at the fresh flowers near his bed, “What was that before in the park? Is this a ruse?”
Nece, “I did that because I love you!”
Abreon standing in anger, “I don’t even know you!”
“There is a parasitic corporation out there that is feeding off its competitors. They are expanding, their shares are heavily traded and growing in value. There even offering a dividend this year. They have had new technology, new weapons, new types of armor, their attacks are stronger and their company soldiers are braver. They stand for the steel war machine. They destroyed one race already. I know I am one of the last survivors of it. They set their line and you crossed it by salvaging their refuse. Now you must move your corporation in a different direction.”
The president of the Tarnar Corporation listened as he sat rocking on his leather chair behind a wooden desk in a glass-encased office atop the main corporate building. Avanar was a wider man of graying black hair. He wore his suit made of recycled cloth. He sipped a drink from a small glass next to his display. Avanar stopped rocking in his seat. He removed his hands from his chin, which had been clasped below it, “Why?”
Nece in her official doctor’s jumpsuit, as Abreon was standing, “Because they are strong now and in order for them to remain strong they must continue to eat.”
Abreon: “You must change your research and development division and allow me to assist; so that we can develop war machines.”
Avanar again rocking back and forth in his chair, “That would disrupt the innovation we have had with our recycling. We have strived for protection through nature in as much as the body allows and now you are saying we must change that and fight a dirty war, why?”
Abreon leaning forward on Avanar’s desk, “You have valuable ways to recycle, valuable ways to save and generate energy, technology they must have. You have just sprung your own trap. Now you must escape. It’s your choice, you have time.”
“How much time?”
Nece, “Based on surveillance, perhaps in two springs, since this summer is waning.”
“My God.”
Abreon walked the blue lines to his house. There were so many houses; all pained the same, all with their own solar roofs. Some people hurried alone walking their lines, following them as their guides. Some employees were just talking with one another, others peering out their windows. Abreon found his house, door number 12853 that was home for him now. He glanced back at the park and the corporate facilities, the corporate center, the recycling plant, its fields. He felt sick as he entered his home. It had two rooms, one bathroom, but no eating facilities. All must eat at the plant, except those who worked in the field, or in the corporate center. His home was sparse, one bed, chair and table. The table and chair were in one room, as well as a computer console, which was attached to the wall. The second room held his bed and the bathroom. He sat upon his bed, fell over and slept for a while.
Abreon awoke later in the night, the rooms pitch black. He turned over, and began to stare at where he thought the chair was. He though about his life before the war. In the dark Abreon thought of those who were still in the concentration camps. He spoke to the computer and it dimly lit the overhead lights. The chair was real however, his knowledge was not. His own wisdom was wicked. Man’s knowledge was his downfall. What did men want to know, weapons, war, power, money, a blade or maybe it did not matter. Abreon felt sick again, then felt hurt, wounded. He began to become tired again, all too soon finding him. It whisked Abreon away to sleep. He dreamed of his death.
The technicians worked hard on their goals, the employee’s of the recycling facilities research and developments division. Some two hundred technicians, with a class C degree of higher worked on hurried projects. Some of those new developments so advanced that Abreon could not comprehend, but progress continued even if he did not understand all of it completely. Abreon walked with Nece both in their white coats along the corridors of the research divisions laboratories. Abreon holding her hand as she pointed to one of the lab doors they passed, “We are putting 40 percent resources toward our military projects, which is considerable to say the least.”
Nece watching some technicians work in the halls, stringing wire, sitting, fiddling with computer components and weapons system, “How close are we to completion?”
Abreon smiled pleased, “We estimate completion within eight months, which is on schedule. With two hundred technicians working on it, progression toward a final build is proceeding at a rapid pace.”
Abreon, stepping over a hunk of metal, to one of the technicians nearby, Elron please remove this metal from the hallway.” Elron stepping over, “Right away.” Abreon continuing with Nece, “We know from scouting reports that the Dru are amassing equipment In the Decaro hills, west of here. No troops have been seen though, except for a few pro-visionaries.”
Nece with a crooked smile, “What has been accomplished, show me, Abreon?”
Abreon took her, “We have three major components, comprising the offensive and defensive capabilities of our new army, which from what I have been told is now training in the fields beyond the windmills every day.”
“I know I see them when I travel through the area.”
Holding his arm out, “Here.” entering a lab with some technicians sitting writing on computer tablets, some wired to instruments themselves. Abreon pointed to a pedestal chest high, “This is an offensive weapon. One of our hand weapons.” The weapon was long and its stock of metal was wide, it had two grips, one at ninety degrees from the other. An explosive cartridge clip was inserted at an angle.”
Nece touched it, “What does it do?”
A few of the technicians were now watching Abreon. He rifled through equipment and parts on a counter, found something and showed her, “It fires these.”
“It fires these.”
It was a thin sliver of metal, “These are spiked projectiles. We call them needles. It loads twenty of them, per charge, and fires them in a shotgun blast. The shotgun holds twenty charges.”
Nece surprised, “Those will go right through them!”
“They’ll hit their targets, enter, exit and damage those in the vicinity. The benefit over plasma is its low charge time and wide angle accuracy.”
Abreon moving her to another counter, “This is Total Body Armor.” Abreon said, picking up a boot and setting it on a table where the rest of the suit was located.
“Like what you told me before about the Xelon Dru’s armor.”
“Correct,” Abreon picking up a leg of the suit a shade of black and deep green, “But with a difference.” Poking at a thigh plate, gripping it from a center bracket, “Each of the armor units is made of hexagonal honeycomb carbon fiber sandwiched between two high t
insel strength polymerized steel plates. When a blast of laser hits the outer steel it deflects some of the power, absorbing the rest within the honeycomb and stops at the inner second plate. The honeycomb melts from the blast, sealing up the impact site and the armor is ready for more.”
Nece holding the unit, “Home may times can you hit this thing with a rifle blast?”
“This unit, probably four or five times before it’s integrity fails, more for a larger unit, like a chest or torso unit, perhaps ten to twelve, if there is no convergence in the blast areas.”
Nece remembering the psychiatric report she had purchased of Abreon, “What did the Nenthar Corporation do to you?”
“More than you want to know Nece.”
They stepped through double doors into a very large room, the ceiling high, at least four meters and its length twenty meters. Nece stepped back in the bright lights, “Wow!”
Abreon held her hand, “I know.”
Inside the room, filling it, a hulking, killing machine. The machine had two arms, a torso, two legs, all controlled by jutting pistons and hydraulic lines. Shocks and steel pistons controlled its three steel-toed booted feet. The unit’s legs were massive, meeting at a rotatable axis and merging into its armor plated torso. Its arms were spindles, wires and hydraulics with fists made of fifty-millimeter chained antifreeze cooled plasma cannons. The unit’s power and liquid gas tanks were housed dorsally suspended as well as