Large cities tend to spill outside their borders, and Port Casper, complete with its busy spaceport, was no exception. In thirty kilometers Grace observed the highway widen from two lanes to four, to six. Settlements and businesses began lining the highway as she passed Slater and Chugwater.
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Grace stood outside the armored door of her apartment on Floor 196 of the Frawley Building. “A bad protector? What the hell does that old mechflesh know?!” With her left hand, she hoisted the loafer wreckage from the floor after dragging it all the way from Bod Town.
Grace motioned Zero and his PodPooch through the security checkpoint. She missed the eclectic archway that once greeted visitors to Raj’s neighborhood. Now there pulsed a plasma barrier above two dour compstate officers.
Planar sealed the door. For a few moments, nothing seemed to happen. Anna noticed an alert on her visor. The display showed that her suit had stopped heating operations to conserve power. Then a familiar hiss of atmosphere penetrated their suits and the exit panel glowed green.
Martin brought his right hand to his holster and adjusted it, maneuvering his backup phasewave to a more comfortable position. Martin observed, with satisfaction, that the concierge stared at the weapon, too.
Where once was rolling prairie, now squatted a hodgepodge of plastic sheeting, corrugated metal, and stacked earthen blocks. The structures were imitations of proper buildings, seemingly thrown together with whatever scraps Port Casper discarded.
When Grace inserted the gel, his gel, into ITB’s network, Tim’s first sensation was of the smooth, polished public persona of the Italitech-Bransen company, Tadi Varghese. He stretched deeper into the network and heard echoes of a speech Varghese made last quarter. The accent bothered him. The words sounded like Varghese, but the accent was wrong. Wasn’t it?
Raj shook his head, giving up. Tim always turned his appearance into a game. The more Raj fought, the more ludicrous Tim became. The last time they left during the day, Tim went as a dachshund in a wiener costume.
Grace’s heart raced as she looked at the pulse gun. The metarm dove under the skin of her right forearm, presumably anchored to her bones. Another gleaming piece of metal encircled her wrist and provided a pivot for aiming.
In the cavernous training hall, Captain Kris Vogel stroked the gleaming metarm of her latest invention.