Chapter 145: Exfiltration

Without saying a word, the man in the machine caused the bay doors to open right as some sort of airplane came in making almost no sound at all.

Time to go. Our ride is here.

Amelia tried not to show surprise. She couldn’t pull it off. This wasn’t anything she had seen of this nature before. We loaded our gear aboard, including the mini-gun, boarded and it soon left as silently as it arrived. Up in the cockpit we found it was run by a pair of mean looking pilots, who just happened to be androids. As we flew the man in the machine opened a large pod. Inside was an android with a teenage girl’s body. Instead of being flawless, like the one he was using right now, she had breasts of slightly different sizes, a butt too big for her skinny body, straight boy hips, and a scraggly looking bush going all the way down between her legs. To top off the look she had a few nicks along her legs from shaving and plenty of small pimples on her face. Just touching hands with this teenaged android unit was all it took to transfer his consciousness into her body while leaving the other female android functional with just enough of his control to have it do as he wanted.

We seemed to be landing almost as quickly as we had taken off, but I could feel that we had used an enormous amount of energy to fly wherever we had just ended up.

Turns out we landed in a hangar at Area-51. We were immediately taken down below ground in a huge elevator as the large floor slid to a close over top of us like hidden hangars in spy movies.

There was a huge armored presence waiting with their weapons pointed at us when we started to deplane. The man in the machine’s adult female android coming off carrying the mini-gun caused the expected stir in the crowd. We were ordered to drop our weapons and get on the floor. Well at least until I made the high security badge case open to trigger an immediate stand down order. The flight crew androids were the last off the plane and each was in full armor and holding some sort of automatic rifle. The barrel and magazine looked like it may have been holding ammo bigger than fifty caliber. They secured the plane and then remained on guard.

The general I had met here before, the one that the man in the machine had sent birthday presents to his twins in his name, came rushing out to see what was going on.

“Ah General,” I said holding out my hand to shake his. “Just the man I wanted to see. Sorry for the unexpected visit. I happened to meet up with a colleague during an op and she offered to let me hitch a ride with her. She didn’t think you would mind us borrowing a parking spot since your current project isn’t due back for twelve hours. She won’t be staying long.”

I made the introductions as he insisted we at least walk inside to a more secure location to chat. Molly, the teenage android, and I followed the general. The adult female android took her mini-gun back to the plane to wait for us to see if we were able to make other travel arrangements.

When the niceties were over I pulled the general off to the side to say, “Sir you are going to be knocking off three hours early today to give us a lift to Nellis and then head home. Your older daughters are already heading to a fully paid week at the spa with their best friends. The twins are off enjoying the weekend at a co-ed geek fest with no tech or toys they want to touch being off limits. All the junk food, sodas and energy drinks are readily available with no restrictions either. If they are weird, given their current company, there are healthy foods and beverages too. No drugs or alcohol, except those prescribed to a camper, are permitted. Don’t worry about their going off to play doctor. If they get bored enough to go looking to expand their sexual knowledge, they will get a no-holds-barred education that is likely to give them nightmares that will even keep them from desiring to pleasure themselves.”

“Darren! Geez! He is a general in charge of a place that doesn’t exist. You aren’t talking to a naïve mother who has no clue about the depth of her children’s inner geek,” the man in the machines teenaged looking android said. “General what Darren is pussyfooting around saying is that if your kids decide to go look to see how much they can find out about sex from the other kids their age, they are going to get a real education. The staff at the camps aren’t stupid and have an entire system to handle such curiosity. If they campers start getting frisky the staff stop all activities to have a mandatory sexual education seminar. It isn’t any of the filmstrip and cartoon crap either. They jump right to what is the most important, and effective birth control method known to man. Every single camper gets to view fully naked teens and adults. Unfortunately, the live models used by the camp have active STDs or the most horrendous forms of genital mutilations they did on themselves for whatever fucked up reason they had to do it. Any camper who can get turned on after smelling the gangrenous puss oozing out of penises and vaginas, as they wear a biohazard suits and rubber gloves to get up close and personal, is free to go screw like rabbits. They each get a bag of rubbers and big bottle of lube. So far none have shown to be in the mood after having paid homage to the porcelain gods.”

One of the brick shithouse guards turning green and quickly departing the room really broke the tension.

“So...” I said when we finished laughing. “When we arrive at Nellis you will be given orders directly from the president. He is ordering you to not report back to work until Tuesday, and only then if your wife will permit it. My contacts have told me that she has wanted something specific for your anniversary for a very long time, but your duties have gotten in the way. The president got wind of it and decided you needed private time with your wife. Even World War Three isn’t going to have you allowed back to Area-51 until Tuesday afternoon, at the earliest. Just expect your wife to behave like a woman who hasn’t seen her husband in a long, long time, without kids underfoot, which she hasn’t.”

“Right now, she is being entertained by some very spectacular hard bodies who are taking care of her every whim and desire. Seems their uniforms are the smallest tight shorts allowed by indecency laws, sneakers and socks,” Molly told him from across the room. “Dinner arrangements are already underway as are the plans for the early evening. With multiple children I’m quite certain you two will be able to find something to entertain yourself for the rest of evening.”

Speaking quietly, I told him, “Sir I wouldn’t seek to argue with either of my female team members. Like some of the scientists hidden away deep below the base, both have IQs that are unquantifiable. I have learned the even when I win an argument, based on facts, I still lose. My suggestion is that if you happen to need any blue pills you better tell one of my team members. They will have them waiting for you when we land.”

“Son, I may look like a creaky old desk driving general, but my last physical confirmed I’m in peak physical shape. Should you ever have the time to take a tour you will find there are miles of tunnels here perfect for running. I try to run at least ten miles a day with the Marines, during their PT, wearing my full combat armor and weapons. No little green men are going to catch me with my pants down on my watch,” he said low enough that people could barely hear and then whispered. “My wife doesn’t know what her meddling has done. The last time she sought a romantic weekend she was walking bowlegged for a week. She doesn’t have anywhere near the recuperative powers of when she was in her twenties. I know for a fact that she plans to have one more child. I’m making damn sure she isn’t going to be complaining that I wasn’t up for the task.”

He shook my hand, had a set of Marines get all our gear, and headed toward his office to turn things over to the one-star general sitting outside his office looking very worried.

I wonder if he was the one responsible for not knowing our plane was arriving or that it departed the moment we had recovered our gear. Now that would be funny.

“General Roberts,” the general said as he came to attention. “It would seem I have been ordered by the president to take a few days of mandatory leave to attend to urgent matters at home. You are in charge until Major General Simmons relieves you. He needn’t be bothered by being briefed regarding of the arrival of my guests. They weren’t here. Neither was an aircraft of unknown origin or propulsion. We don’t need anyone questioning how such an aircraft came to exist without our knowing about it now do we?”

Well, General Roberts isn’t as dumb as he appears with his BCG glasses and pencil thin attempt at a mustache.

When the general sat to do whatever magic he needed to transfer duties to General Roberts, the man in the machine’s android told him, “Sir. I believe you were briefed that everything was already arranged. General Roberts has already been briefed and the transition process has been completed. If you will kindly collect your belongings we can be on our way. Your private jet is already readied for takeoff.”

He just shook his head as General Roberts looked quite worried. I could only guess that something like this wasn’t even supposed to be possible. Retina scans, rotating passwords, multiple key fobs, and all manners of redundant security measures were required that couldn’t be faked.

“Sir, I must follow protocol to ensure you are not under duress,” he said as a large contingent of soldiers appeared armed to the teeth in advanced combat armor.

“Mr. Smith, if you would be so kind as to explain,” the general asked me.

Did this General Roberts not get the memo that the man in the machines android carried a mini-gun off the aircraft we arrived completely unannounced or detected?

I reached in my pocket to pull the infinite security access badge from the shielded and secured case, after I put a shield around it to prevent it from allowing any signals in or out. I held it up to let him get a good look at it before I dropped the shield. All manners of lights lit up everywhere and the Marines immediately aimed their weapons at the floor before flicking on the safeties.

Smiling, I joked, “The general is under no duress, at least not from me or my team mates. We just kindly saved him the time required to transfer control to you so he wouldn’t be delayed any further from fulfilling the president’s orders. Between us I would love to let you both in on my most recent form of transportation, but I have no details on it. My contacts handle my team’s travel arrangements and we don’t have the need to know regarding the methods used for our transportation. I’m more likely to be given access to knowing exactly what all women on Earth are thinking at any given second than find out anything about that craft.”

“Understood sir,” General Roberts said as we headed toward the hangar.

I wasn’t surprised in the least to find the general’s private jet wasn’t some high speed multi-seat fighter or something on the order of the SR71-Blackbird’s replacement. Instead it was an Air Force medical transport with actual patients being shuttled from here to Nellis.

We did make a detour on the way to change into civilian clothing. Molly, I and the android the main the machine was in right now looked like the teenagers we were, even though the general didn’t have a clue about our ages. The man in the machine’s older female android looked like our older sister or, heaven forbid, babysitter. No one gave any of us a second look as we strapped in for takeoff.

When we arrived, the airplane taxied into a hangar where there were ambulances and busses awaiting the patient’s arrival. We accompanied the general into a side hallway where he was given his orders from the president.

No matter how hard you want to laugh at his face, you can’t. That will teach him not to believe me or someone with me that his orders came directly from the president. Ok. At least were on the president’s stationary and he had signed them as part of a huge stack of other random papers his secretary couldn’t sign or rubber-stamp.

We found some surprises awaiting us when we went to collect out gear.

First the man in the machine’s older female android found his mini-gun was not only crated in a diplomatic envoy case, it had gotten a makeover while we had been with the general. My MP5N was there, but I now had another one weapon with an odd design.

Ok general, I didn’t laugh at your surprise.

“Some of the eggheads had some toys lying around that they had long ago perfected, but weren’t of enough interest to the branches of the U.S. Military,” he told us as he opened the case on the mini-gun. “We took the liberty to replace your outdated and heavy mini-gun with a much better design. While appearing to be identical to the one you brought with you, this one is completely fabricated from composites designed in secret to provide higher durability and lighter weight to scramjet-based aircraft. Unfortunately, the material was unable to withstand speeds exceeding Mach fourteen. Without any ammunition loaded the heaviest part of the mini-gun is now the ultrahigh density battery and motor. It now tops out at only seventeen pounds. The delinker issues weren’t even a problem they felt needed solving. They completely redesigned it with a belt system along with an ammo selector permitting it to chamber Mauser and NATO rounds as well. In the case you will also find a module which replaces the firing mechanism to use forty-five, ten millimeter and four-ten shotgun shells. The four-ten shells were specifically included to permit fléchette loads. They are extremely useful in giving a devastating volley of projectiles that greatly increase statistical probabilities of hitting a larger number of targets, at greater distances, with a noticeably higher impact to the targets morale. There are details included for locations where you can source any ammo you choose for the weapon at better than military pricing.”

Going to the case I had opened he picked up the rifle to show it to me. The drums didn’t seem to weight anything even though he said each contained two hundred and fifty fléchettes. Instead of gunpowder the weapon was a form of a railgun, but many times more efficient and using readily available battery packs should such replacements be needed in a bad situation.

“The eggheads were a bit bored by the lack of demands for new war fighting tech now that the previous war on terrorism was reclassified as a law enforcement problem. They asked for a challenge so I gave them one. I requested an ultra-lightweight, high ammo capacity, medium range, silent cycling and silent firing rifle which would fire projectiles using supplies which could be purchased at any sporting goods chain, or discount big box store, should supply chains be interrupted. I expected something on the order of a two-two-three based rifle with some outrageously complex design with a radical ammo feed system. Instead they showed me this jewel. As you can see, each two hundred and fifty fléchette drum is only slightly larger than a pack of cigars and weights about as much as a can of soda. The battery packs are effectively five cell phone batteries sandwiched together to provide extremely fast charging speeds while the design isn’t prone to the recent cell phone battery issues of late. Should it ever be required, there are instructions describing the methods needed to connect cellphone batteries together to provide the power. The loudest sound produced, outside of loading the magazine and battery pack, is the trigger pull,” he explained. “They first tried out the fifty BMG round Darpa played with only to find way too much susceptibility to cross winds and weren’t very accurate. With the change to a railgun design they were better able to create custom alloy fléchettes which have a similar flight pattern to a sniper round with much higher velocity. Of course, their smaller size gives them excellent penetrating power, but not much stopping power. It was found to have an excellent use case my military colleagues failed to consider. Being hit by a flurry of darts from an unknown attacker, up to thirty yards away, is quite demoralizing. One of our senior eggheads, who so happens to be a seventeen year old with a very overactive sex drive, said her inspiration came from Quake’s nail gun. It doesn’t have the exact properties of pinpoint accuracy at any distance with no fade in velocity of the video game’s nail gune, it still does a damn nice job. We were sure if anyone would appreciate it that would be you. It seemed the least I could do given the amazing way you always seem to have given me a surprise which greatly benefits my, sometimes strained, home life.”

He was soon whisked away to car awaiting to take him to his house. We were left to our own devices.

Not surprisingly a minivan beeped from the parking lot right outside of the hangar. We headed over with our gear and stowed it on the already folded down seats. The man in the machine’s younger android took the front passenger seat while Molly and I were relegated to the middle row captain’s chairs.

Where did his older adult female android vanish to all the sudden? I never even noticed her walk away or get the minigun case.

After we were on Interstate 15 heading toward McCarran International Airport the driver told us, “David and Molly. Please hand your passports to the android so it can apply the proper travel stamps to cover the various airports and locations you were expected to have visited along your trip. The associated footage and computer records have already been modified at the appropriate times as if you had been present. Body doubles were used for all unaccompanied air travel you didn’t take. I have arranged for the two of you to spend some time at a nudist camp hidden away in the mountains of North Carolina. Your cover story is that both of you were traveling separately from your respective parents, but they aren’t going to be joining you, as happens when travelling domestically. Each of you are more than old enough to take care of yourselves. The android will be collect your mission specific identification Molly. David, I have collected your driver’s license, high school ID, driving school card and your credit cards from your home. Molly I have a state issued ID-only, debit card, a learner’s permit and a driver’s license only to be used in an emergency. As David is not legally an adult he can’t allow you to do any driving practice. We both know that should you decide to do so you are able to focus on the required mental operations required to operate a motor vehicle without taking a depressant. You will find a rental car waiting for you at the express pickup location at your destination. You need only provide your ID to the attendant to verify your identity. The paperwork and computer records are flagged accordingly so you won’t have any difficulties. Molly your tablet will receive an obscure route, with many stops and changes in direction, to give the indication that you are lost to ensure the two of you aren’t being tailed or tracked. There is no indication that anyone, from any entity, is interested in finding out what will happen should they attempt to intervene with someone possessing the high security badge, even though you won’t be in possession of it. I have allowed you to continue perpetuating multiple incorrect details regarding penalties for interfering with the possession for the badge by those to whom it belongs. To continue the separation of yourself from your covert identity you will need to resume using the light blocking eyewear. It is noted on your driver’s license. All of your personal ID is in the two travel bags in the stowage compartment under your feet along with your backpacks containing your electrical devices.”