Uplift (6 page)

“I’m not sure we ought to…” she said as he pulled her to him, and kissed her solidly. Her pupils grew very large, and she closed her eyes, and decided she’d just enjoy the moment. He picked her up like she was a feather, and carried her into the bedroom. “I’m…”

“We’ve known each other twenty-five years. It’s high time.” He said. She was lightheaded from the champagne, wine, and pheromones. She was enjoying herself immensely, and after two huge orgasms was eager to consummate their date. A third orgasm left her breathless, and totally relaxed.

****

A bit unfair of you wasn’t it? Corey asked.

I looked over at the beautiful woman next to me, and thought… yep. How selfish can a man be?

So Sigma knows about your weapons now. Why send her?

She’s supposed to pump me for information I suppose. Enjoyed pumping her.

Don’t be crass. You humans…you know it will get harder from here. What are you going to tell her?

Guess I’ll tell her some of the truth. The truth is always the best lie. I’m not sure how much though. We’ll see.

Sandy stretched, and rolled over to face me. She put one hand under her head, and just looked at me for a minute.

“You know I need to ask you some questions. You know my brother sent me don’t you.”

I smiled. “Best messenger I’ve ever had. Go ahead. Complete your mission.”

She frowned for a second, and then said. “Why all of a sudden with these new weapons, and designs? Sigma never knew. Where are you going with this? You aren’t mad at me are you?” she said coquettishly which is quite an accomplishment for an eighty-year old woman.

“I’m so angry I may give you a tongue lashing in a minute, or so,” I said smiling, and saw her take in a long contented breath. “I didn’t think my earlier designs were worth fighting about, and it helped Sigma Max. Now I’m retired, and have to think about the future of my life. Sigma gave me the time to develop my skills, and knowledge. I appreciate that time. I always had ideas – now I have the opportunity to put those ideas to use. Not having a classic background – I have found that I come up with ideas that otherwise would be impossible. Education often limits what we think is possible. Is that enough for you to tell him? Ready for your tongue lashing now?”

“Oh yes. That’s fine, and I’m more than ready.”

The rest of the morning was as memorable as the evening, and Sandy left reluctantly.

****

Anderson doubted Sigma Max would do anything about Patterson because National Security could be at stake. These last three patents he intended to file could be dangerous. He thought Patterson’s inventions were more than they seemed.

****

Richard had just finished his third prototype. Withers came up to him. “These are working out much better than I hoped. We need to make a better way of refueling them. The conversion of hydrocarbons shouldn’t give us as much energy as it does, but seeing is believing …looks like we have a 500KW deuterium fluoride laser boss.”

“Great Hamilton. How’s the handgun coming?”

“Boss. Your designs are incredible. They work the same as you planned, and no designs work first time like yours do – it’s amazing. These are mature designs. No one skips the faltering first steps. What gives?”

“Remember. I’ve been thinking about making these for decades. I went through a lot of simulations on computer first,” I lied.

“Yes, and we can get a pulsed 50,000 volt charge following the ionized paths like you said…Looks like the range will be about 50 meters, or so in atmosphere. A true tetanizing laser stun weapon. When I started building this, I didn’t know what tetanizing was,” Hamilton said.

“We haven’t tested it on anything yet, but in the lab.”

“Why don’t we go outside, and find something to test it on?” I asked. “You think your guys would like to come watch the test?”

“You know they would. I’ll grab them,” Hamilton said.

We all went out back, and there were some woods behind the building – mostly pine trees. “How much do the beams spread at distance?”

“Not much at all for the effective distance – about fifty meters,” said Josh – one of the new guys.

“What’s this switch on the side? I don’t remember that in the specs.” Josh looked at Hamilton who nodded that it was okay.

“I did that Mister Patterson. I made it so you could fire the pulses faster if you held back the trigger. You’d use it while sweeping the area. It isn’t as powerful that way, but you can just hold the trigger back, and sweep it slowly from side to side – guess you’d call it semi, and full automatic,” Josh said. “Hey. Mister Patterson – rabbit over by that tree.”

I leveled the pistol, and sighted at the rabbit. It was late afternoon, and the rabbit wasn’t easy to see. It was about thirty-five meters away. I pulled the trigger, and there was a slight whine from the pistol, but nothing happened with the rabbit except it hopped a few feet. I aimed again, and when I pulled the trigger the rabbit jerked a couple of times, and then fell over. I saw a mangy dog come running up, and it scooped up the rabbit. I brought the handgun up, and fired at the dog. The dog dropped the rabbit, kicked a bit, and fell over. I turned to my guys, and said, “Outstanding guys. Great. I think I’ll start carrying this one. Matter of fact – why don’t you make one for all of us to carry. Hamilton – see about our lawyer getting us all carry permits, or whatever for these. Josh. I think we need to try this on humans.”

Josh stepped back a bit, and stammered.

Before he could say more – I handed him the pistol, and started walking toward the dog, and rabbit.

Corey. Will this damage you – or me?

No Richard though it is not pleasant. Get the others to video the test with their phones.

“Sir. I’m not comfortable with this test sir,” Josh yelled.

“It’s fine Josh. You other guys record this – I doubt I’ll want to repeat this too many times. Start with my hand first, and let’s see how that does. Wait ten seconds, or until I give a thumbs up, and aim center mass. Remember I designed these,” I shouted with a bit of trepidation, as I approached the dog, and rabbit they were still lying there. They were still breathing – good sign.

Good luck sir
, Corey said as I held out my left hand.

Josh fired, and I felt a searing shock in my arm that dropped, numb to my side. Fuck that hurt. I raised my right arm with my thumb up. Fu—the shock only hurt for a moment because I felt nothing after a brief flash. I regained consciousness a bit later.

Corey talked to me first.
They are concerned – you were out for about five minutes. The dog will be out another ten minutes. The rabbit may live.

I looked up to see my team surrounding me. Hamilton had left his video on. I pointed to it in his hand, and then indicated that he focuses
back on me.  “I’m fine,” I said. “The hand shot stung like it was stuck in a
n electric socket, and then it went totally numb. No pain now though its tingling a bit. My chest is sore – good shooting Josh. The last shot…well…I felt a flash, and it all went black. You say I was out for a little over five minutes. We’ll set up physiological testing at some local university. I recommend we have everyone who is trained with one of these to have it used on them – after a thorough physical. Whew. Good job,” I said.

It was fifteen more minutes before the dog recovered. It got up a bit disoriented, and wobbly walked away. The rabbit was out for another hour – tried to walk – fell over a few times, and finally hopped away a little unsteadily.

I turned to my guys as we walked back to our lab. “What do you think about distance effects?”

Hamilton, and Josh talked for a few minutes, and then turned to me.

Josh said, “We’ll have to run more tests, but there shouldn’t be an attenuation effect until after fifty meters – it would have somewhat lesser effect after that I’m sure. The main factors would be what material was between you, and the skin. Most armor would not conduct the charge to the skin – so no tetanizing muscles. Time on contact would be a big factor as would full auto pulsing if we were using that mode.”

“Figure out a way to test as rapidly as you can without enraging PETA – maybe with some SF guys at Ft. Bragg instead of animals. Damage there is okay – no one cares if soldiers are damaged, but get bent. It would be a lot more interesting for them, and for once lately – I’d like to see the US military getting state of the art gear before the private pukes. How many can we get, and when?”

“We can have enough to equip a full company with spare parts done by the end of the month. Suggest we have the soldiers write the manuals after initial training – that way it will be understandable instead of techno-babble. We have finished two prototypes of the shoulder-fired lasers – they’re a bit more complex, but we are sealing them to work in any environment if you keep the front carbon nanotube lens clean. They’ll have to clean out the fuel filters occasionally. Easier than with an old M8 I dare say,” Hamilton said.

“A soldier isn’t much of a soldier if they don’t keep their weapons clean. Good, Include a cleaning kit,” I said.

“Already have one in the stock, but these actually are decent kits compared to past crap,” Hamilton said. (pause) “Who else should I hire? I need four good people.”

“I’ll give you their names. Josh – I want you to go see them personally – no emails, no texting, no phone calls,” I said. “I will be too noticeable pretty soon. Let’s try that laser. By the way folks – your salary has just doubled, and you are getting stock options. If we get wealthy – I want you right in there with me without my risk,” I said.

Josh turned to Hamilton as we walked to the test firing point, and said sote voce; “I need to shoot him more often – doubled? Stock options?”

Hamilton laughed.

They walked to the part of the lab they had cleared out for testing.

“They don’t explode, or anything…right?” I asked.

“We fired them hiding behind a nice thick safety barrier. We weren’t sure. We fired it fifty times, and then checked for micro fractures. It’s holding up well. We’ll run it through several thousand firings each, and see what to reinforce…where it builds up residue…try it in different environments, and such,” Hamilton said.

“Right. I hate it when the equivalent of a stun grenade explodes next to my ear. Luckily my hearing is better now. You’re sure it’s safe?”

Hamilton shrugged. “Pretty sure.”

Corey?

Looks good boss. I’m right next to it too if you might remember. In for a penny – in for a pound…

A pound? I thought.

Archaic British term – here’s a data dump on idioms.

Wow. People better not try to beat me out at trivia now, I thought as the terms flowed into my head.

“You okay boss?” Hamilton asked when I had paused just holding the rifle…thinking about idioms.

“Here we go guys. I will try the five different materials. Love the Aimpoint sights – they have just gotten better over the years,” I said, and fired at the ½” hardened steel plate, body armor with ceramic insert, a carbon nanotube armor we were developing on the side, a concrete block, and some polished stainless steel plate. There was a quiet whip – crack every time I fired, but no recoil. There had been a slight latency from the time I pulled the trigger, and the beam emerged though – not much, but a delay.

“Pretty solid guys. How much latency from pulling the trigger ‘til the beam?” I asked.

“About 0.01 second. Did you notice the whine from the multiple pulses? We use multiple pulses because the surface of the target will produce an ablation cloud that begins to partially shield the target. We produce a standing shockwave that forces through the cloud of debris from the surface.”

“What frequency is the HF beam?”

“The one you designed? Right at it anyway – about 2.7 micrometers – right there is the short infrared region.”

“Ah. So we need to try this in fog, rain, and dust. We’d get some water absorption that attenuate the beams won’t we?” I asked – proud about knowing some tech from Corey’s downloads. I did not feel the least bit inferior using Corey’s information. He was like the most comprehensive industrial manual imaginable – but friendlier… “Let’s look at those targets.” I was sure they had seen those targets many times, but not when their boss had been doing the shooting from an off-hand shooting position. I had been good before my ‘enhancement’ – now I am awesome.

“Damn boss,” Josh said “Don’t want to piss you off.”

I looked him straight in the eye, and said, “No Josh. You don’t.” He was taken aback just a bit – my intention.

The targets were pretty much what I expected except for the concrete block. The hardened steel had a nice clean hole through it, as did the stainless steel, and a much larger hole through the concrete block. Why? I thought.

Corey said.
Any moisture in the concrete causes it to explode the surrounding material. The carbon nanotube bleeds out the energy a bit so you could penetrate it with longer pulses, or if we make it pulse a bit longer…add that same type switch like Josh added to the stun laser.