“What exactly are you aiming at?” Iqueried.
“In a nutshell, I want to learn how to do allthis stuff and bring it back with me to the rangers. Are you anycloser to figuring out how we can do it ourselves yet?”
“Not yet,” I replied, “and don’t forget thatyou gave me your word that you would keep this a secret.”
“I haven’t told a soul yet, and I’m willingto give you some time, but there are limits. To be honestwith you, I’m getting sick and tired of it being on the backburner. This is too important to be relegated to backyard hijinksand if you can’t figure it out yourself, then we’ll need to take itto the people who can.”
“Like the military?”
“Yes,” he replied bluntly.
“I don’t really want to spend the rest of mylife as a lab rat.”
“You’ve watched too many hokey movies aboutthe government. I can promise that it won’t go down that way.”
“Alright,” I said, not really reassured, “butthat’s a discussion for the future. In the meantime, let’s keepworking on it.”
“Ok, drop that shield and get ready for a newone.” Reaching down into his crate again, he came up with acylinder this time. “M18 smoke grenade,” he explained, “I’ll tossit and you try to contain it.”
He pulled the pin and immediately sent itspinning down the yard. The smoke began pouring out fast and Irushed to get a shield around it. I started with a good sized domefield, and once that was working to my satisfaction I worked onresizing it. I brought the bottom of the dome inward until theedges met and made it a sphere. Once that was done, I shrunk thediameter in half, and raised the whole thing off the ground. Itappeared to be holding well.
“I’ll be damned, that thing is reallyairtight!” Sid proclaimed vehemently. “Imagine if we would have hadthat in Kuwait with all the chemical attacks and oil fires?”
Not knowing what else to do with it, I movedmy smoke ball over to the creek and sunk it under water beforereleasing it. It made a big splash accompanied by a huge ball ofsmoke, but the water helped to cut down the amount left to floataway and be noticed. Like a kid with his Christmas morningpresents, Sid was back in his crate, this time coming out with asmall block labeled C4.
“Whoa there Sid,” I interrupted, “We can’t besetting off explosives here. The closest neighbors might be a waysoff and ignore small things, but an explosion is definitely goingto garner attention.”
I almost cracked up laughing. Now Sid lookedlike a kid who just had his shiny new Christmas toy taken away, buthe slowly agreed.
“We could go down to Fort Bragg,” he saidcasually. “It’s not too far, and I’m sure they would let us usetheir facilities.”
“I already told you that we’re not ready forthat yet. However, we could take a trip into the mountains tomorrowand find a secluded spot where we will be both safe andprivate.”
He thought about it briefly and nodded hisassent. “I’ll put together a plan and pack a bag. No sense inhauling everything out. Some of the gear is heavy.”
“It looks like clouds are moving in. Let’sclean up here and take the rest of the day off. Maybe if we stopand think about it, we can figure out how to pass the ability on toyou guys, too.”
“Maybe if a storm rolls in it’ll help,” Carlinterjected.
“Maybe,” I replied. “But if it looks likeyou’re even thinking of running out in your underwear, Iswear I’ll float you off somewhere and leave you there.”
Laughing, we made short work of the clean-upand got settled down inside before the storm hit.
***
The next morning we all got up bright andearly to prepare for our trip. We had a quick breakfast, and thenloaded our supplies into two knapsacks. One contained Sid’s gear,the second smaller one contained food, water, and a first aid kit.After discussing the logistics of the trip, we decided that Lindaand Sara would take the two packs, while I took the burden offlying with Carl and Sid.
We made our first stop at the pool whichLinda visited often these days. From there, we made our way up tothe top of the mountain at the lowest point that was nearby.Looking into the next valley, we all agreed that it would be closeto perfect. There were no roads leading into it, and it would be adifficult trip on foot, so privacy would be guaranteed.
There was a small lake at the bottom almoststraight ahead, and we made that our goal. We flew onward and down,making good time toward the lake. On the north side, the lake wasmet by several wide, shallow streams over a large rocky area. Thiswas ideal for our purposes, as we didn’t want to risk starting aforest fire.
Linda handed out some bottles of water to uswhile Carl and Sid set things up. While they were doing that, I wasexperimenting with ways to make a shield stronger. I thought thatif a layered shield was effective for small arms fire, thensandwiching several together might work even better for the morepowerful trials.
They finally finished their work and startedmaking their way toward us, running out wire from a spool that Sidwas holding. I could see that they had set up a small block of theplastic explosive on a rock at the shoreline, and I assumed thatthe wire was for the detonator. They ran the wire a fair distance,finishing behind one of the larger rock piles in the area. Ithought that was a good idea since I was unsure if we couldactually shield the explosion, and the rocks would provide someadditional safety.
Sid finished with his wiring and said, “Ok,this is gonna be big, so make sure that you make your shield extrastrong. I was thinking that Linda could build a shield around us asa backup in case you suck. This way, we’ll have your shield, therocks, and Linda’s shield all protecting us. Agreed?”
Everyone nodded assent, but I gave him adirty look at his comment about my shield sucking. “Give us a fewminutes to set things
