Chapter 1

It was a Friday afternoon in early September, and Josh Kretschmer was sitting at his desk working on a robot for one of his classes. This robot had been giving him problems due to incorrect gearing, and being tired of pissing with it, he was rebuilding it with 3-D printed gears. Josh was a third-year engineering student at Purdue University and a pretty good robotic engineer. He would graduate in the spring because he managed to test out of almost all of his freshmen classes. Josh had his own business off-campus to design and build robots.

Standing 6’3” and weighing 220 pounds, Josh had broad shoulders and a narrow waist with excellent muscle tone across his whole body. He had ocean blue eyes, long curly golden blond hair, a tightly trimmed mustache, beard, and a deep farmer’s tan. His family didn’t live on a farm when he was younger but in a nice subdivision. Then, his parents inherited a farm from his grandparents, and his older sister had begged them not to sell it because she loved working on it.

Josh became a farm kid since he would always help his older sister on the farm, and he enjoyed it since farm work kept him in shape. His parents had made it a condition of “selling” the farm to his sister that half the farm would be his. In short, Josh was everything to make most female hearts do flip-flops, but he wasn’t interested for the most part. Sure, he had been on multiple dates in high school, but they were too immature for his taste. When Josh told his parents after his first date, they laughed and said the girls all would say the same thing about the guys. He did have one very serious girlfriend, but her family relocated, which ended the relationship.

As Josh took the latest gear out of the printer, his roommate burst in. Benjamin White, Ben, was a 6’9”, 300-pound black man with a crew cut and clean-shaven. Ben and Josh had known each other for many years after they met at a regional robotic competition in middle school, and now, they rented a small house just off-campus. This way, neither of them would have to move after each year. Ben was also Josh’s business partner and owned half of the robotic business.

“Damn it, Ben! How many times do I have to tell you to knock first!?!?”

“Excuuuse me, Mr. Poster Boy Nazi, but there is a hot party tonight in Bloomington.”

Ben had called Josh a Nazi ever since they first met because of Josh’s physical appearance and his last name, but it was all in fun, and they both knew that neither had a racist bone in their body and would gladly give the other the shirt off their own back. Ben always knew he crossed the line when Josh broke down and called him a “nigger”.

“Why do I care if there’s a party at Bloomington? I mean, there are always parties down there. It seems that’s about all they’re good for.”

Ben started chuckling, and after a minute, so did Josh. Bloomington is where Indiana University is located, and neither Josh nor Ben were fans of the school or its politics. They were engineers through and through. Not only that, but both were reasonably conservative, while liberals populated Bloomington. The best way to describe Ben and Josh’s political views was “little c” conservatives. Neither had a problem with pot or homosexuals. Josh wasn’t religious, while Ben was. Both of them supported gun rights. Neither of them liked the government sticking their fingers into things, especially business; they had lost a lot of money to stupid government rules. Neither had a problem with the laws that made sense, but some only existed so that some bureaucrat’s friend could line their pocket.

“Yeah, well, my girlfriend is free this weekend.”

“Again, why do I care?” Josh was beginning to see where this was going.

“A few reasons: one, I can’t drive my car until it’s out of the shop; two, you need to get out and live a little; and three, you owe me a favor.”

Josh owed Ben a favor for Ben helping Josh fend off some very annoying sorority girls who were making Josh’s life hell a couple of weeks before, and Ben’s car was in the shop because he thought it might be fun to play chicken with a deer at 60 MPH.

“Fuck! Seriously?” Ben smiled at him. “Fine.” Josh huffed. “When do we need to leave?”

“About ten minutes ago.”

“ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS!!!”

“Yep. So, get a quick shower, and let’s go!”

“Bastard,” Josh said as he levered himself out of his chair. His muscles had stiffened from working all day.