Chapter 231: I Want to Go Home

If he flies a silent, stealth, faster than a scam-jet plane, they could trust him to know where I was going after I landed.

We seemed to have gotten up near the edge of space when the plane flying me home decelerated. Shortly after that, my pressurized flight suit depressurized. I expected the pilot to land on a runway somewhere. Instead, he hovered silently over a field at the south-west corner of the base. He pointed to a path that led to Scott Air Force Base. The direction I headed toward wasn’t even on the airbase, exactly.

Right outside the Inn, I found that I didn’t need to stay there at all. My Honda sat parked right near the front doors.

Hmm. Someone added some dents, and the passenger door has a sheet of plastic tapes over it where it used to have a window.

The closer to it that I got, the more I saw didn’t match how it looked the last time I saw it. The headlight only appeared to have water inside, a taillight had cracks in the bullet-proof plastic, a bent antenna, and then I noticed the tires were a different company and were almost bald. Three hubcaps were the originals, but the fourth was after-market and a lousy after-market at that.

I started to get suspicious, so I headed on into the Inn, went into a bathroom, and locked the door. Using the place in my head, I scanned through the things on the car that didn’t belong. It looked almost identical to my Honda, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that it wasn’t mine.

Now that is an issue. I can’t reach the man-in-the-machine over the implant. No static or anything. How can I only have two bars on my cell phone? I get a full signal everywhere, even deep in Area 51. Something is way off here. The man-in-the-machine wouldn’t go dark unless in danger.

Being paranoid, I pulled the battery from my phone and then told myself to see the non-powered electronic devices. My phone and sunglasses I expected. I didn’t like finding all these tiny devices attached to my bag and backpack. I know they weren’t when I boarded the bus to get to where I boarded the plane. I had myself see things normally again before I began pulling all electronic devices from my backpack that I found didn’t belong there. Each went onto the side of the sink. In my bag, I found yet another surprise. I had an Air Force uniform with Airman stripes on it. The name on the front was Smith. In the pants pocket, I found an ID holder with an Air Force ID for Airman Darren Smith. They even have boots my size. Near the bottom, I found a suppressed handgun loaded with the shock bullets I used on the island against the mercenaries. Three more magazines, with shock bullets, were in a specially made carrier inside the camo shirt. The handgun fit perfectly into a holder in my camo pants that appeared as a standard pocket.

I quickly changed into the uniform I saw they tailored it to fit me properly to meet regulations. I only needed to remember the proper military etiquette already download into my head.

Rescanning my bags for transmitters, bugs, or anything that shouldn’t be in there, only yielded something only the man-in-the-machine could have made. Out of curiosity, I zoomed in on one of them. It appeared woven into the fabric of my backpack. Right as I was going to leave the bathroom, I noticed my hair. As much as I didn’t want to do it, I leaned over the toilet, closed my eyes, and used the place in my head to break the bonds in the hairs so I had a military regulation haircut. I pulled each piece of cut hair down into the toilet, using the fragment of a shield still on them. When I flushed, there wasn’t an errant hair, or any of my DNA, in that bathroom any longer.

I do not need to get someone suspicious by having my hair out of regs. I’ll leave those other pubes here for anyone who tries to find any of my DNA in there.

To further hide, I changed my hair to a dark brown. I put all my old clothes in the back before doing a final check to find and vaporize any DNA, and oil left by my fingerprints.

Anna once told me about a trick she used when she needed something to appear different without having what I needed to make it work. I didn’t have any way to hide my backpack, so I put a shield on it that would cause it to change the reflected light color to have it match the colors from the camouflage pattern on my shirt. It was evident that I had on a backpack, but it looked like one of the military camo ones now. I slid the bill of my camo hat in the back waistband of my pants and pulled my shirt over it.

I put the other bag in the trashcan and picked up the bugs, or whatever they were, from the sink. I dropped one in the trashcan outside the bathroom and put a shield over the rest. It turned out while I had been in the bathroom, a busload of Airmen on TDY came in looking for rooms. An oversized lady nearly knocked me over as she pulled her two equally oversized kids into the bathroom behind her. I casually stuck one of the mystery devices on each of them. Once the bathroom door closed, I removed shields around them.

What is the chance that someone here waiting would have the exact color and shape of my backpack before I camouflaged it?

As I walked past the guy, I slipped the rest of the mystery devices into the side pocket of his backpack before politely moving through the crowd. I walked right out the main door before turning toward the enlisted dorms. Sitting on the tailgate of a pickup were two people holding what looked like a cell phone, but it had multiple small antennas sticking out at the sides and top.

The bothered to paint the antennas or use a case the same color as the antennae, then I wouldn’t have seen them.

If that itself weren’t enough of a dead giveaway that something was out of place, one of them pushing their fingers against their ear while speaking would have clued me in. On a whim, I had the spot in my head see the energy coming in and out of the fake cellphone as I walked past them. It was going right into the inn. None was coming from me or my backpack.

When nearing the dorms, a very frantic looking sergeant rushed up to me.

“Your airman Smith, right,” she asked. “You just got here today. To Scott. Here.”

“Sergeant Jones. Please take a few seconds to get your breath back. You look like you were running a marathon or something,” I told her in a soothing voice.

It took more like ten minutes before she was finally able to speak normally, at least what seemed usual for her.

“Thanks for that. I’ve been going crazy trying to find you. They said you were arriving today, and someone needed to meet you, but not where. I don’t normally do this job. Orders came down to get someone from my group over here to do it because the person normally assigned the duty is on leave. You wouldn’t believe the mound of paperwork for people transferring in this week. Everyone else arrived early this morning from the airport. No one could find you anywhere. The first shirt came by to personally ensure everyone arrived. He took a chunk out of my skinny ass for having no idea where you were,” she told me quickly. “You must have some god-level clearance or something. He was freaking out about not knowing where you were. Oh, I forgot, call me Sarah. I hope you aren’t shy. The first shirt ordered me to stick to you like glue until you in process on Monday. First, we get you to your dorm room, and then I’ll call the first shirt to let him know you’re here, and I’m not leaving your side until I hand you off to him on Monday.”

She guided me into an office where she gave me a dorm room key, a shrink-wrapped package with blanket, sheets, pillowcase, and pillow. I had to sign for everything. Making sure to keep me in sight, she went through a door to yell back at someone to say she found me. Could they call the first shirt to let them know? There was a muffled “yes, Sergeant Jones,” and then we were off again.

How funny is that? We have the same real last names. I wonder if we are somehow related. Too bad that the man-in-the-machine went dark.

We went to her room to get her a clean uniform, three changes of clothes, a nightshirt, and her toiletries.

“If I didn’t have a roommate, then you would stay here. We have a bathroom we share between four of us,” she told me as we were leaving.

Once in the correct part of the dorm, she looked surprised when she opened the door to my room. It had the same layout as hers except I had a small couch where hers had another bed. On the bed was a folded, though empty, duffle bag with D. Smith stenciled on it.

Like she had lived here for years, Sarah opened the other wall locker to hang up her things and then put the rest of her clothes in the second dresser.

She smiled at me and blushed when she said, “I think you need to go shopping at the BX. Before the first shirt chewed on my ass, I was up here getting your uniforms out of your duffle before they got too wrinkled. It was a heck of an odd request, but I’m not about to question the major when ordering me to do it ASAFP. I know guys will sometime wear boxers for days at a time, but you only have two pairs and a pair of socks. You don’t even have any civilian clothes. It isn’t basic or tech school. You can wear normal clothes when off duty. It is fortunate for me that you are in uniform, or I wouldn’t have been able to find you. Are you hungry? The mess hall opens in ten minutes. You’ll need to use your ID or pay cash since you’re not set up in the system for meals yet.”

Anyone who has seen old Army movies or TV shows can equate Army mess halls with those shown in prison movies, except the prison mess hall isn’t outside in a tent somewhere. You went down the line, got whatever they slapped on your tray, and liked it. The Air Force mess halls are like a restaurant. They had a grill for burgers, various vegetables, entrees, desserts, and a small salad bar. My tray was full by the time I made it to the cooler with parfaits, yogurt, and fruit.

“You do know that this isn’t a one-time through mess hall like at Basic and Tech School,” Sarah told me with a laugh.

They would ring up what I had, charge it to my unit using my ID, and then we would go put it down so I could get more.

I like that idea.

For a woman that didn’t look like she had enough fat on her body to have even small breasts, she about ate me under the table, which seemed to surprise her.

“I have a crazy high metabolism and eat like this every meal. What is your excuse? As tight as your uniform is on you, I would think you would be cutting the calories before they put you on the fat boy program as soon as in process.”

Seeing as how she was friendly, I said, “As skinny as you are Sarah, if you have breasts that need a bra to keep them from jiggling when you run, then you have more body fat than I do. I work out a lot and practice my martial arts katas repeatedly to work on doing them faster.”

“Well, we are going to get you some shorts, jeans, t-shirts, tennis shoes, underwear, and socks after we eat. I’ll know soon enough if you aren’t full of shit, Airman Smith,” she told me.

“Darren. You can call me Darren. Airman sounds so cold,” I said. “You don’t have to take me to get some clothes. I’m sure I can get over to the BX next week when they quit having you babysitting me.

“Look, Darren, I don’t need any shit from the first shirt, ok. I pissed someone off when I got here and the first shirt has been on my ass ever since. He almost held my stripes back until my boss, a senior master sergeant, asked him what the fuck was going on. I bust my ass every day at work, have never been late, worked all day and night when needed, and even stay late most days to help train the newbies. You’re stuck with me, and you are getting some off-duty clothes even if I must pay for them. I’m not going around with an airman in uniform all weekend long,” she said, so we headed to the BX.

It was a good thing that I had looked at the sizes of the shirts and jeans I had back home that hung loosely on my body. I didn’t want to go showing off that I now looked like a budding body-builder, with a porn star’s long dick, and could move so quickly I could take someone down before they even realized I had moved.

Since Sarah had already unpacked the clothes in the duffle bag, which means someone already knew shit was going to go down when I got here, she knew the size of underwear to get me. I let her pick it out. I did laugh when I said what she picked up is going to be too light in the crotch.

Give me a bullshit look now. You will see it later if you are sleeping in my room to be close to me.

She found some like I had in my dorm room.

I became her Ken doll for a little while. When she would give me pants or shirts that I knew were going to be too tight, I told her I needed a size or two bigger. She thought she was a smart ass when she gave me a pair of shorts that were the right size with the correct inseam, but they were gym shorts versus something longer like board shorts.

“I only do board shorts,” I told her. “These are too short. I can’t wear them and stay out of jail.”

Her hands went to her hips, and I got the look. Sarah pulled me into the changing room and told me to put on the “damn shorts.”

She’s pissed that I kept shooting down the clothes she brings over. It is time to show her why. There is only so much she can do to make all the women, and I expect a bunch of girl military brats, wanting to get to know me a lot better.

I tried my best to try to put seven inches of limp dick into a space made for four inches, but it just wasn’t happening, so I quit trying. I let my dick hang down against my left leg as I turned around to show her the problem.

“Remember when you told me I better not be shy? Well, I’m not, and you will see why I can’t make these shorts work for me,” I told her. “They aren’t made to hold nine inches of grade-A man meat, no matter how I try to stuff it in them. My dick always finds a way to stretch out. Down the leg of board shorts or pants is the best alternative.”

She reached over to be sure it was one-hundred percent American beef before blushing. Sarah found me three pairs of board shorts that were long enough to take care of the problem without looking like a fashion crime.

Over in the shoe department, I saw they had a pair of Vans make to look like a slice of pizza.

If only they had them in sizes other than for kids, I would buy a pair.

We left the shoe department with a pair of NB for running and leather no-name sneakers to wear around. Some flip-flops, toiletries, and some random things for the room, and we were checking out.

You would think we are married and stocking up the fridge and pantry from the amount of food we walked out with from the commissary.

As we passed back in front of the BX, she realized we didn’t get any towels or washcloths. She watched me from the front of the store as I went to grab what looked to be the thickest and softest they had. I got two seats each, one red and one blue, of bath sheets, hand towels, washcloths, and bathmats. I didn’t know if we needed bathmats but might as well get them anyway.

I’m glad that I bought what she expected instead of the cheap white ones they made recruits buy during basic training.

Back in my room, I saw she soaked her uniform with sweat. I hadn’t even noticed the temperature outside.

She smiled as she took her boots, socks, uniform shirt, and uniform pants off to be standing before standing there looking at me in just her black undershirt and panties.

“Come on, Darren. I’ve already seen yours, so you get to see mine. I need to shower with a guy that isn’t a total dick. You have been cool. Now that I think about it, you’re already better than all the guys I have met since middle school. I seriously reek now and need a shower. You got a room with a super-sized shower three times larger than the one I share with three other girls,” Sarah told me as she waited on me to be standing in my shorts and a black undershirt.

What she didn’t expect to see me do was to pull the suppressed handgun for the holster, built into the right leg pocket on my pants, pop the clip, eject the round in the chamber and then put that round into her hand. I got the three magazines out of my shirt pocket before I hung up both of our uniforms. While she stared between the shock bullet and me, I got us out some towels and wash clothes. I put our shower stuff in the shower while she was still sitting there staring at the shock round. I stripped off the rest of my clothes and then stripped her.