Chapter 8

OK, we knew what we needed to know at this stage. We went back to the hotel and I called Lars. "Hello, Abe, what can I do for you?"

"Hi, I've got one of those good news-bad news situations. Please beam us back to headquarters so that we can talk about it."

"OK, hang on." A few seconds later, we were standing at the transporter portal and Lars was hurrying to meet us. "What kind of headache do you have for me, now? I hope you have not recruited some more women for your harem." At this, he had to duck as Ann took a playful poke at him.

"No, nothing like that. You remember that ledger full of names we found in Mexico not long ago? Well, we have the same kind of thing for the southern third of Texas. This time, I left the book, but I have a photo of every page in that fancy little camera you gave me. We thought that the higher echelons might have a dirty trick or two to play if the bad guys didn't know we had the dirt on them. We can always go back and get the book if anybody needs it.

"Now, for the bad news. Is there some way that the medical or R&D people can fix our brains, I mean Ann's and mine, so that we can talk to each other without other people knowing about it. My idea is some sort of personal radio hooked directly to our hearing and speech centers so that we can have the same effect as if we had mental telepathy? There have been a couple of occasions already where we needed to communicate over a distance of maybe 20 miles without using our voices."

"Man, you two are just full of surprises! Give me the camera and I'll have the data processed immediately. I'll put your request through official channels as soon as we get to my office. Come on, and we'll have some lunch while we wait for an answer. With your priority level, we should hear something right back."

We had a nice little lunch while we waited for an answer on the radio thing. Ann had her first taste of French Fries. The camera was returned to me before we even finished eating. It took a little longer to get word back on the radio thing, but the answer was that they could do what I wanted, depending on how big a battery pack I would tolerate.

Since I had no idea what size range the battery packs came in, I asked for more information. I had a vision of a battery of the size that normally was used in a lap top computer, but I might tolerate something a little larger to make it work. Lars swiveled his console around so that I could see the answer on the display screen. It seems that a battery for a 50 mile radius would be about the size of my smallest finger nail. A battery for a 100 mile radius would be on the order of my thumb nail.

Ann and I consulted for a moment and settled on the 50 mile radius battery. That would be fine since it could be inserted under our scalp and over the skull bone. A battery that size could recharge on the body's own electricity, so we would not need a charging connection. The battery's nominal life was 300 years, but they recommended that we have it replaced every 250 years so as to have a safety factor. Our medical records would be flagged so that we would receive an automatic reminder when a new battery was due.

We were happy with that offer, so I asked when the work could be done. The answer was that we needed to wait for two hours, since we had just eaten, and they would like time for the food to clear our stomachs. That would be long enough with our faster metabolism.

Lars said that he had some paperwork that he had to do, so would we mind amusing ourselves for the two hours before our operations. Of course, we agreed, so he sent us to the recreation and exercise area to fool around there. The medical people would have no problem finding us.

I wanted to show Ann the swimming pool, since the concept of swimming as recreation was totally unknown to her. She had no idea what to expect, so she was horrified on several counts when we got there. The first thing she noticed were the men and women walking around totally nude. The only bathing attire allowed in the pool was a cap for those people with long hair. Once she calmed down from that, I pointed out the water in the big hole in the floor. She knew of bathtubs, but that was the largest that she had ever seen.

I gave her a quick outline and we watched a few people swimming. She finally agreed to go into the water with me, but she was still dubious that it could possibly be fun. We found a couple of lockers and removed our clothes. She blushed a couple of times when she saw men get hard from staring at her, but that embarrassment disappeared as soon as we got into the water. Different parts of the monster pool had different temperatures, so we headed for the area of warm water for her to get used to the feeling of being in that much water.

The water was about four feet deep, so she could bend her knees a little and hide her nipples if she wanted to. She did that at first, but stood up straight after she got used to the water. We splashed and played for a few minutes, and Ann relaxed even more. After a while, she looked around and asked what the swimmers were doing. I'm a pretty good swimmer, so I was not embarrassed to show off a little as I swam circles around her. When asked, she said that she was willing to try to learn to swim.

I looked around for a pool attendant and asked if there was any provisions for swimming lessons. He pointed to a booth at one side of the pool, so we went over there. I was expecting a human teacher, but we found a robot, instead. The printed instructions said for the learner to lie face down on a device which supported the torso and head and held the arms and legs to demonstrate the proper form.

Now, I was a little bit dubious, but I told Ann what to do. She followed directions and lay down on the frame. Once she was in position, I pushed the start button for training in the Australian Crawl. A headphone-like device came down and settled over Ann's temples and held her in place while her arms, legs, head, and torso were moved by the machine through the motions of swimming. This went on for about 15 minutes and the machine shut off. A light came on and a sign lit up saying that Ann should now try out what she had just learned.

Now, I really was dubious, but we moved out of the booth because somebody else was waiting to use it. Ann lay face down in the water and started to make swimming motions. After a very few embarrassed splashes, she started to move through the water in a perfect swimming motion. I was so stunned that I just stood there as she swam to the end of the pool about 40 yards away and turned around and swam back to me.

She stood up in the water and gave me a big kiss. "Oh, Abe, Honey, thank you so much for teaching me to swim! This is great fun! I feel like I could swim all day!" OK, I admit it, now I was pissed because Ann could swim better than I could. I left her to swim back and forth while I got in line to use the teaching booth.

I had only about five minutes of swimming time before we were paged by the medicos. I don't know exactly what that teaching machine did, but it first erased my bad swimming habits and then ran me through the program Ann had taken. I wondered what else the Organization could teach me with one of those booths. Later on when I had some time, I would ask Lars if he could get me a list.

This radio thing is very much like mental telepathy, but it has the advantage of being removable if I ever tire of it. Now that she has a captive audience, Ann sometimes chatters on interminably, but I am learning to tune her out. I expect her to back off once the novelty wears off. On the other hand, it is fun listening to some of the things she says during sex. I know she doesn't realize that she is talking, but some of the things she says have really been flattering, especially when she compares me to some of her former customers.