Chapter 19

Mary and Seven returned in only a few moments. Mary thought, <I have had the full set of treatments and training. Can everybody hear me?>

A chorus of <Sure!>, <Yeah!>, and <Loud and clear!> rang into Mary's radio. She grinned as said, "This is the best that I have felt in years! Once we get Shirley safely adopted, Seven has promised to pull me back to headquarters to reverse my apparent body age to 24. I can hardly wait."

Judy asked, "Mary, have you noticed that you and Seven are the only naked people around here?"

"Yeah, I wish you would all strip, so I can see what I have to work with."

Seven said, "Yes, if you would, please. Leave your clothes here and bring your armor to the GPD laboratory. M'rth has a new set of armor for you to try out."

A few minutes later, they were all in M'rth's laboratory, and he handed out new armor. "This is the latest version of the armor, incorporating the changes you asked for. There are some added features I wanted to tell you about, also. Please don the armor and I'll go through the additions."

Once they all had their armor on, M'rth continued his lecture, "The first thing I want to mention is that all of the armor's attributes are now controlled through your implanted radio. It works this way, say into your radio 'armor, invisible' and the armor will seem to disappear. Say 'armor, visible' and you will return to your previous setting. Say 'armor, totally invisible' and you will seem to disappear. Give it a try."

They played with their various invisibility settings for a minute or two. M'rth asked, "Any questions on that?... No?... OK, the next item is the communicator, itself. From now on, when somebody's voice is heard on the radio, a small name will appear at the top of you HUD. That's the name of the speaker. If everybody talks at once, the names will be jumbled on the display, so some communicator discipline will be required. The purpose is to help you identify the speaker, even if her voice is distorted for some reason. Everybody, give it a try."

Jase asked, "Is there some way to have a private conversation?"

"Yes, just say 'private, ' followed by the person's name. When you get through, say 'public' to go back to normal communication. To protect the group in case of emergency, you can always receive from everybody, 'private' applies only to outgoing messages.

"The next item is the water supply. There is a small pouch integrated into your armor which contains enough water for 24 hours of operation for your fusion power supply. There is a small tube on the left side of your armor, or on the right side if you are left handed, which can be pulled to your mouth and you can suck water from the pouch through that tube. Please give it a try before we go any farther.

"OK, now the last item which we have added: you now have gravity control within your suit! That means that, no matter what the g force you might be subjected to, it will always feel like 1 g unless you consciously want something else. That means that you could jump off a tall building and fall to the ground, but you would always feel the 1 g pull on you, so that you will never feel weightless. Furthermore, when you hit the ground, the armor would harden and you would not be hurt, but you would break anything you landed on. You would not feel the impact; it might really be 10 or 20 gs, but it would still feel like 1 g. If you ever need to feel the real local g forces, just command you armor with 'gravity, ambient' and return with the command, 'gravity, 1 g.' You can adjust your subjective g to anywhere between 0 and 2, but I recommend that you keep it at 1 g under most circumstances. Any questions?... No?... OK, let's go into the next room and let you practice on the centrifuge."

Not much practice was needed, since they were able to move normally in up to 20 gs, which was the limit of the centrifuge. They practiced on the centrifuge, instead of in an artificial gravity room, so that they could get the total body experience of the effect of the changing g forces from the Coriolis effect, etc. It was fun, but M'rth did have other things to do, so this particular phase of the armor demonstration was cut short.

When it was time, Seven laughed and said, "OK, kids, time to take your toys and go home." A moment later, they were back in the kitchen on Earth.

Seven had stayed behind, so Judy said, "Let's get back to normal. I want to swim for a while."

They all went to their respective rooms to put up their armor, and then dashed to the swimming pool. They swam and played grab-ass until it was time for Jeff, Shirley, and Ann to go to school. They put on their armor before getting dressed. The invisible armor was great, now, no matter what happened, they were safe.

Judy and Mary also put on the armor before getting dressed to go to the morgue. Jase, Jo, and Pedro decided to go along and do an anti-crime sweep through a seedy section of town during the day. Seven could reach them through the implanted radio if they were needed.

Judy and Mary made the ID of Mr. Joklin's body at the morgue and then went by the Child Welfare office to check on the progress of the adoption process. With the fact that Shirley had already moved in with Judy, a lot of the routine things had already happened or been rendered superfluous, so an appointment was made to appear in court in two weeks to finalize the adoption. Everybody marveled at how fast everything was moving, but nobody complained. To celebrate, Mary and Judy went clothes shopping!

Jase, Jo, and Pedro were set for total invisibility, so they were having fun running around on roof tops and spying on people through windows high off the ground. Jo said, <Did you guys see what I think I just saw? Did that guy just cop a feel of his secretary's pussy?>

Pedro agreed, <Yeah, that's what I saw.>

Jase laughed and said, <I hate to be a party-pooper, guys, but I just looked them up in the building directory, and they're married.>

Pedro interrupted with, <Jo, Jase, listen. That sounds like a burglar alarm. It's coming from that pawn shop over there. Let's go take a look.>

They scooted down the outside wall of the building to the ground and ran to the pawn shop. They looked in the shop using their X-ray vision and saw a man holding a gun on the clerk at the cash register. There was another man standing to one side, also holding a gun, but pointed toward the door. The clerk was pulling cash out of the register drawer and handing it to the gunman. Their X-ray vision showed that the gunman's bulging pockets were filled with rings and watches. The man watching the door shouted, "HURRY UP, DAMMIT! THE COPS WILL BE HERE IN MINUTES!"

The man with the bulging pockets said, "Calm down, Harry. We've got plenty of time."

The second man said, "I'm leaving. We've been here too long, already!"

The first man laughed and said, "OK, OK. I'm coming. Get out. I'm right behind you."

The second man dashed out the door, and Pedro stuck out his foot, tripping the man so that he fell flat on his face. Jo kicked the man in the knee hard enough to break it. The combination caused the gun to go flying out of his hand, but Jase caught it and laid it on the sidewalk just out of the man's reach.

The first man came outside and appeared to trip over the man already on the ground, though he actually fell as the result of a kick in the shin which broke his leg. Jase grabbed the wrist of the hand holding the gun and applied pressure to a nerve nexus which caused the man's hand to go limp, releasing the gun. Jase put it down also just out of reach. All three of the team then stepped back to keep an eye on the two robbers and to wait for the arrival of the cops.

They left when the cops arrived and had the situation in hand. Jo remarked, <Is this what you guys do when you go out at night? It's too easy, I don't see any fun in this.> Both men blew raspberries at her, and she laughed.

The three climbed to the roof of the next building and continued their informal patrol. Nothing else happened until about midnight. They looked into an alley and saw what looked like a mugging. Three teen aged boys had forced an elderly man into a corner and they were attacking him with wooden clubs. The three vigilantes dropped from the roof of a two story building and landed on the shoulders of the boys, breaking both shoulders of each boy in the process. The boys collapsed in excruciating pain and the three heroes turned to see what they could do for the victim.

The man was unconscious and battered, but did not appear to be in immediate danger of dying. He had no broken bones. This looked like the boys were trying to inflict maximum pain, but not to do permanent injury. Jase said, <Let's go visible. I've got a bad feeling about this, and I want more information.>

All three turned off their invisibility, and Jase turned to the boy who appeared to be able to answer questions. "Pay attention, creep! I want some information, or my friends and I will hurt you even more. If you want to live through the next few minutes, you better answer my questions, and the answers better be the truth. First off, why were you creeps beating on this guy?"

"Because Sharky told us to."

"Who's Sharky?"

"He's the biggest loan shark in the city. We were told to hurt this guy, but not to break anything, since this was his first warning. I guess he had borrowed money from Sharky and had fallen behind on his payments."

"Where can we find this Sharky?"

"Shit, man, if I told you that, I'd be signing my own death warrant."

"If you don't tell me, my friends will drop you in the lake, and you won't swim very far in your present condition."