The floor underneath me groaned and creaked alarmingly as the weight of my armored foot settled onto the dirty floormat just inside the door. I adjusted the grav plates in my feet to push back slightly against the gravity and reduced my weight to a small fraction of what it was. The floor stopped complaining and I fully entered my house, closing the door behind me.
I was surprised to find all of the tools were still there, although someone had removed the covers from the furniture. That had to be Farnell and his deputies while they were searching the place.
The chaotic pile of junk mail I'd left inside the front door was gone as well. I doubted my intruders—whoever they were—had stolen it. Since they also hadn't taken the tools, I began to worry. If they hadn't taken the tools why had they broken in? Just stupid kids wanting to look around?
I hurried down the stairs and into the basement. It was pitch dark and pretty much how I'd left it. The cooler that had once held my beer held a block of ice, a single bottle of water trapped inside. The paint-spattered ghetto blaster was silent.
On the far end of the basement, the hidden door in the wall was hanging open. Kicking broken pieces of drywall out of my way I hurried over and inside. The space past the door was the way I remembered it with one major exception: The walls were bare concrete and the space was empty.
"Shit, there's nothing here," I said.
"None of the gate materials are there?" Metra asked.
"No. Nothing at all. Maybe Farnell took them for some reason?" I mused. "I can fly over and take a look. Is Marty awake? He'll know where to look."
"Marty is still being Inducted," Brick reported.
I ran up the stairs and out the front door. I didn't even bother to close it behind me. With no lock and a house full of tools it hardly mattered. The house would be emptied out soon enough. I couldn't bring myself to care about any of the stuff still inside.
Multiple lights came on all at once. Red and blue lights spinning and a spotlight directly in my face. If I hadn't been in my armor the spotlight might have blinded me, but instead my visor neutralized it—turned it into a black point surrounded by a halo. Behind that I could clearly see the Paradise Plains sheriff's department cruiser and the figure of Sheriff Farnell pointing his revolver at me.
"You've got to be fucking kidding me. Again?"
"This is the sheriff! You there, in the suit. Drop your weapons to the ground in front of you!" Farnell ordered.
I was tempted just to fly off. There was literally nothing Farnell could to do stop me or even annoy me. That revolver was as much threat as a nerf bat in the hands of a two-year-old. I almost did just that when I realized that maybe I could get some answers.
"Sheriff, it's me, Jake. Sorry about your jail door. I couldn't stick around any longer," I said, and my armor projected the words into the air.
"Jake? What have you done with Marty? Disarm and take off whatever that is you are wearing and we can talk about this down at the station."
"So you believe it's me this time, Sheriff? That's great. Marty's fine. He went with me. I'll get him to call you when he can."
"I'm going to believe you on that, Jake. He always was an adventurous sort, so I can see him doing that. Let's put Marty aside for now. I need you to come back to the station with me. I've got lots of questions and I'm sure the Federal government will as well. I haven't told anyone yet, but I saw what you did to my cell door. What was that?"
"Nanotech, Sheriff. I'm not coming in to the station though. Unless you've got the material taken from my house there? I'll need that back."
Farnell's gun sagged a bit, and I could see that he looked confused. "What material? We didn't seize any evidence from your house."
"In the hidden room at the far end of the basement."
"Oh, that. We searched that pretty thoroughly. Nobody builds a hidden room with good intentions. We only found a bunch of metal pieces piled up along the walls, and we left them there. What was in there, Jake?"
"Shit. Nothing illegal, Sheriff. The police tape was broken when I got here. Any ideas who could have gotten in there and taken it?"
"You know how it is around here, Jake. Lots of potential suspects. What else did they take? And how did you get here, anyway? There's no car on the street."
"They didn't take anything else that I noticed," I replied.
"Then I don't have any answers for you, son," he said and lowered his pistol entirely, his right hand loose at his side.
"You know I'm not going to shoot you, but can I convince you to come and chat with me for a while? I've got so many questions. I'm an old man and I'm used to the world changing around me, but this is more than I was expecting to see. You turned into Adonis in two weeks and what did you do to the lock on that door? For Pete's sake. What's going on, son? Can you explain any of it to me?"
Farnell had been nothing but kind to me, and I really was tempted but there was just no way it was going to happen. I'd either have to get out of the armor and expose myself, or hang around for a while in the armor and hope no one called the Feds.
"I'd really like to, Sheriff. I will, but it's going to
