 only thing that told him it was there was the weight on his back, for the back of the armor was built out a little and probably enclosed the armor's power generation system, and maybe a few other systems, like climate control and life support. It felt like he was wearing a light backpack, actually. He put on the helmet and felt it lock to the neck collar, and he found himself looking through tinted glass. It suddenly became alive, Faey text scrolling across the edges of his vision, which he didn't bother to read. He looked at her, and a little yellow circle appeared around her chest, with a little line pointing at Faey text [Faey-COM] it read. The air he was breathing in the helmet was fresh and cool. He went to take the helmet off, but found it locked. She showed him where the release locks where, buttons he had to press down on both sides of the helmet to make it come off. He did so, shaking his head back and forth. "I'll need a bandana or something for my hair," he noted to himself.

Satisfied, she showed him how to take it off. Once they had all of it off, again standing there facing one another naked, she sat down on the chair behind her and looked up at him. "Alright babe, put it back on, I won't do anything but explain if you get stuck this time."

He did his best, but he got stuck once or twice and she had to explain what he was doing wrong. He got all of it on, then took it all off, then she had him put it on by himself one more time. That time he managed to get it all on without any guidance, then remove it. "I think that's enough," he said.

"Yeah, that's good," she agreed as he bent down to grab his pants and underwear. He looked down at her, and she had an odd expression on her face. "What?"

"I'm wondering if we have enough time," she said, looking him up and down boldly, then she sighed. "Probably not though. A pity. If I had you home, you wouldn't get out of my room for three days. Your body just screams _all night long_, not a quickie in the seat of dropship. Not that that wouldn't be fun, though," she added with a giggle.

"Well, I'll take that as a compliment," he said evenly, stepping into his underwear.

"I'm pretty sure I'll get a chance at you," she winked. "I'll have to invite you up to _my_ home sometime for a weekend holiday. And if it ever gets too hot for you here, you can always come hide out with me. You can be one of my _personal_ servants," she said with a sultry smile.

"Jyslin would kill you."

"Jyslin's not around," she said with a little sigh when his briefs covered up the object of her attention. "Besides, she wouldn't really care all that much. I don't like _love_ you or anything. Besides, all that time out there by yourself? Men aren't suited for it, they need sex every few days or they get bitchy. If you get desperate, just call me. I'll sneak over here and relieve your frustration. Trust me, I'd love to do it," she said, leering at him again.

Given his exposure to Jyslin and Symone, he knew that she was quite serious, but also that she meant it as a compliment. It was one way she was trying to exhibit her willingness to be friends with him. After all, in Faey society, casual friends often engaged in sexual relationships, because Faey didn't equate sex with love or monogamy. He remembered when Symone made him a similar proposition, so at least this wasn't too much of a shock. It was only shocking in that Kumi was offering friendship, and maybe a bit surprising that she was taking that step so quickly. Unless, of course, her _only_ motivation was sex. She was a noble, maybe nobles had different ways of doing things than commoners.

"Well, thanks," he said sincerely. "I appreciate the offer."

"If I find I have some free time before we go back home, it'll be a solid offer," she warned. "After I did all this for you, I fully expect a little action from you if I can find the time. Business is business, but part of this was a _favor_, and I expect a little favor in return."

He gave her a look, and saw she was serious. "Well, I guess it would be extremely rude of me to decline," he said honestly. "And I do think I'd enjoy it," he said, looking her up and down boldly, just as she had done to him.

"You understand Faey better than I thought," she said with a sly smile.

"I lived around Jyslin too long not to," he told her as he pulled his shirt back on. He reached down and picked up her jumpsuit, then handed it to her. She grinned as she took it, then stood up and started putting it on. He put the armor back in the box, pausing to admire the Phoenix etched into the breastplate, then he picked it up and carried it out to the airbikes along with the case of money. He put them in the carrier, glanced at all the other stuff in there-it was almost completely full-then closed the carrier's lid.

Kumi came down the ramp, hopping a bit to get her boot back on, then boldly slapped him on the butt. "Was it good for you, baby?" she asked outrageously.

Jason laughed. "Thanks for the armor, Kumi. I hope I _never_ have to use it."

"Amen," the other bodyguard, Meya, said with an agreeing nod.

"I need to get back in the air, no doubt my mom thinks I'm up to no good out here," she grunted. "Remember, you can use that panel anywhere, anytime, and they can't track you. So never be afraid to call me up if you need anything, or if you just want to talk or something. I'm sure it's gonna be lonely out here," she told him.

"I've met a couple of squatters that are pretty friendly, so it's not like I'm completely alone out here. If I were, I wouldn't need the armor," he frowned.

"Well, the clothing and that suit will stop just about _any_ kind of weapon the humans have out here," she told him. "So rest easy, babe. You're much safer now."

"That I am, and it's thanks to you," he told her with a nod.

"Any time, babe. As long as you can pay for it, of course," she grinned.

"You're a pirate, Kumi," he chuckled lightly as he mounted the airbike that would tow the other.

"At least I'm a _friendly_ pirate," she winked. "If you need anything else-"

"I'll keep it in mind, but I think we need to make this our first and last business meeting," he told her. "In a little while, it's going to be very dangerous to know me. Right now, they know I'm officially missing, because I missed my semi-annual physical. They'll realize I'm gone by tomorrow, when they look back through the records and see that I went out in my skimmer and never came back. I figure they'll have search parties out along my flight path by Sunday."

"Seems quite a fuss over a single student," the male, Fure, said.

"A student who's a candidate for research," Jason told him evenly.

"Ah. Yes, they _would_ look for you," he agreed.

"Well, I'd say you could certainly pull your weight in research," Meya told him, looking at the railgun slung over his shoulder. "I'd love to borrow that for a while."

"Meya and Myra have an obsession with guns," Kumi told him with a chuckle. "They're twins, sometimes I think they share the same brain. They have a collection of guns from all over the galaxy. I think they even have a couple of those ballistic guns from Terra."

Meya nodded. "We have a hunting rifle and a pistol," she told them.

Jason got the airbike ready to move. "I'll be on my way, Kumi," he told her. "Thanks again for all your help."

"Hey, no sweat, babe," she told him. She stepped over, then leaned up and kissed him. It was _not_ a chaste kiss. "Remember, if you need anything, call me. You've got plenty of money to pay me," she winked.

"You are a pirate," he chuckled.

"I've done the looting and pillaging," she whispered in his ear. "I'm looking forward to the raping part."

"You're an evil girl, Kumi," he accused lightly as he engaged the airbike's engines, being very careful not to hit any of the extra controls.

"I'm not evil, I'm a noble," she replied with a wicked smirk. She then stepped back while he pulled the airbike slowly forward, until the cable became taut. When it did, the towed airbike lifted up a bit more off the ground, as did the carrier, and a message [TOW READY] flashed on the display panel of the airbike he was riding. He waved to her, then pulled forward carefully. The bike and carrier behind him followed along easily, and he immediately got comfortable with the idea. He drove them out of sight of the dropship, along the road that would take him home. He wasn't going to go there until well after he was sure Kumi's dropship was out of sight of this area, though. Not because of Kumi, but because it was only smart, just in case. So, when he reached the junction of 152 and 75, he turned left instead of going straight, starting towards Kenova. He'd go that way for a while, then double back and get home a little later.

One thing was for sure, though. Kumi was a lifesaver.

                                        * * *

The clothes she'd picked out for him were not bad at all.

He'd gone through them already. She'd obviously done her homework, for everything in that box of neatly folded clothing was Terran style, in Terran-looking fabrics. She'd sent him several pairs of jeans, some slacks, tee shirts, button-down shirts, even three denim overshirts which he was so fond of wearing. There was a baseball cap, a billed hat with a cloth drape that fell down over the neck, even a pair of soft fabric slippers. On further inspection, he found that the fabric wasn't really cotton or denim or whatever, but an ultra-thin fabric that just _looked_ like it. There were two layers of it with the armored cloth in the middle. He put on the jeans, and found them to be light, comfortable, and surprisingly soft. They also fit perfectly. He reached into the second box and found a full-length black duster-style coat, nice and baggy. It had an internal holster built right into the coat for a plasma pistol, one on each side, as well as quite a few pockets on the inside and outside of the coat. The coat was surprisingly cool, probably made of some kind of material that breathes or something, even when he took it out in the warm, muggy night and saw how hot it was out of air conditioning. There even socks and some underwear in that box.

Armored underwear. Kumi certainly had a sense of humor. 
He went through the rest of it, and found everything he asked for in the carrier, which he had parked outside the house while he unloaded it. The equipment he wanted was there, a good supply of generic parts, and at the bottom were a bunch of small tiles of carbidium. He picked one up, and was a bit startled. That small tile, only about a square foot and one inch thick, weighed almost a hundred pounds. There were twenty of them in there, which was about a ton of carbidium he could use to build shields for the PPGs he had powering stuff. Kumi was very thorough in picking all kinds of different kinds of components and equipment for him, and she even included some bench tools for fabricating things. That was when he realized that she didn't really know what to buy, she simply bought a package for a workshop. Tools, materials, all of it bundled together for an engineer looking to set up a new workshop. He remembered seeing something like that on CivNet.

He set up some of the tools in the room in the basement that held the water heater, then put away the clothing and stored the bolt of armor cloth that Kumi had included, in case he wanted to make armored clothing of his own. He took the carrier and the airbikes down to the skimmer, then had to fuss with them a bit to get all of them into it. They filled up his entire cargo hold. He had to unhook the carrier from the second airbike, which took him a little bit to figure it out, then store the carrier in the back and the airbikes in the front. They were wider than his recreational airbikes, and just _barely_ managed to get in there side by side with one facing the front and one facing the back. He locked the skimmer back up and walked towards his house, when Temika's Harley started tickling his ears. It was about time, she was only a few hours late.

She'd gotten to his house before he did, and he didn't like what he saw. She was slumped over the handle bars of her bike. He moved towards her and saw her trying to get her leg up and over the saddle, and that was when he saw the blood. Her shirt was soaked in blood on the upper right side, and her jeans had blood soaking her right outside thigh and trailing down, leading from a rip in them that exposed a deep laceration.

Jason ran up to her and grabbed hold of her, then pulled her off the bike. "Temika!" he said quickly. "What happened?"

"Ah wasn't payin' as much attention as Ah should have," she said ruefully through a wince of pain. "Mind the shouldah, sugah. Ah got clipped."

"How bad is it?" he asked as he pulled her arm over his shoulder, looped a hand around her waist, and started helping her to his house.

"Not as bad as it coulda been, that's fo' sure," she answered through gritted teeth. "The bullet went all the way through."

He got her inside and into a bed in an upstairs bedroom. She didn't object when he cut her vest and shirt away with a pair of scissors, removed her shoulder holster and set it aside without having to damage it, then pulled her bra strap down to get a look. The bullet had hit her in the right shoulder, just under her collarbone, and did indeed pass all the way through. There was an exit wound high on the back of her shoulder, above her shoulder blade. From the angle of the bullet, whoever fired it had to be below her when he did so for it to travel like that. The wound wasn't life-threatening, more than a graze but less than a hard hit from the bullet, but he'd bet that it hurt like hell. He was tremendously relieved when he saw that. The only issue that might cause problems was how much blood she'd lost. "Let me go get my first aid kit," he told her.

She nodded. "Ah ain't movin', that's fo' sure, sugah."

He fetched the kit, full of what a Faey considered emergency first aid supplies, half of which he wasn't entirely sure of what they did. He did recognize the liquid bandage, a material he could apply to a cleaned wound and cause it to seal over and stop bleeding. It was as good as stitches. The liquid had a compound in it that urged rapid healing in the damaged tissue, he remembered. "I'm going to have to clean you up some, Temika," he warned. "That means you're going to have to-"

"Ah ain't gonna fuss about modesty with mah doctah, sugah," she told him with a weary smile, reaching up with her left hand and unhooking the two cups of her bra, where they joined.

"Okay, just so you understand," he said. "I think I'll have to cut the straps. I don't want you moving that shoulder."

"Go ahead. Ah've written all these clothes off anyway."

With his scissors, he cut away the straps of her bra, then removed it. He did have to take a brief look of appreciation at the generous curves of her breasts. Temika was _built_. He then cut down the sides of her jeans and removed them, exposing her legs and the nasty gash in the side, that continued to stain the sheets with blood. "Okay, try to roll up on your side, so I can get at both sides of the gunshot wound," he instructed.

She did so, and laid very still as he washed the blood off her, then cleaned the wound with antibiotic wash and applied the liquid bandage. Luckily the gash in her leg was on the same side, so she remained in that position as he cleaned that wound as well, then applied the liquid bandage. It certainly wasn't that good of a job, but he figured it was good enough. "There, you're done," he said, looking at her back. He saw several scars on her back, old injuries that marked the battered life of a woman who lived in a society of anarchy. "I'm going to have to move you to another bed, this one needs changing," he told her. "What happened?"

"Ah got ambushed by some people Ah ain't nevah seen before, just south of Ironton," she answered. "There was four of 'em. Ah managed to get past 'em, but one shot me with a little holdout pistol as Ah was ridin' 'em down. They just two of 'em now," she said grimly. "When Ah shoot someone with Ol' Betsy, they ain't gettin' up."

"What about this?" he asked, touching her leg above the gash.

"After Ah got hit, Ah almost lost control of mah bike," she said. "Ah caught the tip of a tree limb of a tree that was fallen across the road."

"Ouch," he winced.

"Yeah, ouch," she mirrored. "Give me a hand and help me where we're goin'."

He didn't help her to another bedroom, he carried her. He set her down in the bed in the master bedroom, which he'd cleaned up for his own use before he started sleeping in the basement. He checked to make sure that the liquid bandage had held, then pulled the blanket up. "I'm not much of a doctor, but I think you lost a lot of blood, so you need to drink some juice or something," he said uncertainly.

"Ah've lost more blood than this," she told him. "Yo' right, sugah. I need tah eat and drink, and stay warm."

"Let me go get you some, and try to find you a shirt."

"Forget that, sugah," she chuckled. "You done already saw 'em, ain't no reason hidin' 'em now. Besides, it'd hurt too much right now tah try tah get my arm through the sleeve. Ah would ask if you could find some panties, though. Ah don't think I want to wear this pair for the next week or so. Ah don't have any spare clothes in my saddlepacks right now. Ah had to take 'em out and stash 'em in one of mah hidin' places to make room for some stuff Ah was deliverin'."

"I'll see what I can do."

After feeding her and making sure she drank lots of water, he ranged out in the darkness and tried to scavenge some clothes for her. It wasn't easy. Clothes were a desired item, so there was very little out there to be found. He returned empty-handed, and told her as much when he went to check on her.

"Well, shit," she sighed. "Alright then, plan B, Ah guess. Whatevah you have layin' around that you think might fit me."

"I should have better luck tomorrow," he told her easily. "If worse comes to worst, you can just send me to one of your hiding places for them."

"Ah think you'd have too much trouble findin' them. We're bettah off jus' goin' with what you have that might fit me."

He nodded in understanding. "There's a bathroom right through that door," he told her, pointing. "I'll find a crutch or cane or something to help you walk."

"Mah leg ain't that bad, sugah. Ah can limp around."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, sugah," she agreed. "All I really need is a sling for mah arm."

"I'll make something up," he promised.

A sling was easy enough. He had it made for her in a matter of minutes, and found a solution to her clothing problem. He ripped the sleeve out of a button-up shirt that had been in the house, one of the ones he'd washed, then ripped it most of the way down the side. That way she could simple slide her arm through that hole, which was then closed using a couple of safety pins he'd found in the house. He found that a pair of his old shorts fit her well enough, though her hips were wider than his, but they served their purpose. She fell asleep rather quickly after eating and dressing, and he monitored her thoughts as she drifted off to sleep, just to make sure _she_ didn't think the wounds were that bad. And she didn't. She was more angry with herself for not being more vigilant more than anything else. She considered the wound an annoyance, not a life-threatening ordeal.

He waited until she was asleep, then wandered back downstairs. He had lots to do.

                                        * * *

_Bajra, 14 Suraa, 4393, Orthodox Calendar_
_Thursday, 29 July 2007, Native Regional Reckoning_
_Huntington, West Virginia (Native designation), Orala Nature Preserve, American Sector_

Temika was his houseguest for nearly two weeks, while she recovered from her injuries. Though he did rather enjoy having someone to talk to, he found that Temika could be rather irritating at times, mainly because she hated being injured and hated feeling like she was being a burden to him. Temika was a doer, not a sitter, and having to sit around was driving her nuts.

Despite that, she was nice to have around, if only because she was a _fabulous_ cook. She could even make boiled water taste good. She'd grown up in the bayou regions of Alabama, and had learned how to cook from her mother and grandmother, from women who took cooking as seriously as most human beings took breathing. Cooking was about the only activity she could do without earning a dark scowl from him, and only when she wasn't trying to cook fifty things at once. He had nothing against her moving around or anything like that, but she kept wanting to use her right arm, and every time she did she slowed down the healing process in her shoulder.

Those two weeks were both quiet and tense. Jason was now officially missing, and he knew that they were out looking for him. They'd probably already searched his flight path, but luckily for him, his flight path continued past his current position, and went by some ninety miles east; he'd descended under sensors _north_ of where he was, then doubled back. So they wouldn't start seriously looking for him until after they got past where he'd vanished. When they didn't find him, then they'd think to start looking in other directions from where he disappeared, because by then they'd know that he didn't crash, and his skimmer was nowhere to be found. That's when they'd start suspecting that he didn't have an accident or fall prey to a squatter, that's when the suspicion would arise that he vanished on purpose. And that was when they'd get serious about finding him. They might even bring in a space-based sensor array to sweep the area.

That was what he was preparing for. He's already worked out how to conceal the PPGs he used for power, by using his molecular sprayer to coat prefabricated pieces of sheet metal with carbidium. It didn't have to be an inch thick to be enough to block sensors from picking up the energy signatures of the PPGs under them. He fashioned little standing boxes of sorts with ventilation grills in all four sides, and just put them over his generators. He had two built within the first three days, one for his electric generator and one for the PPG that powered his hypersonic repeller. He built one more for his water system, then took a day to scavenge the plumbing he'd need for the tank and its connection and to design the tank itself, ensuring to design in the carbidium shell for the PPG that would be on the tank itself.

Once he was done with that, he called Kumi to let him know he was alright, then called Jyslin to do the same, and get an update on Tim. There was no change, just the suspicion that he was going to express. Jason called every day after that, at a time of Jyslin's choosing, so she could keep him updated. During those calls, he also found himself talking to Tim, and to Symone, and also found himself talking to Maya. It was starting to get complicated over there, he was sure. Jyslin knew that Jason had talent, and that Tim might. Symone knew those too, but didn't know Maya knew about Jason. Maya knew Jason did, but didn't know about Tim and Symone. Tim didn't know about Jason, or even about himself. Jyslin probably had to juggle quite a bit over there to keep Symone and Maya from crossing paths.

Jyslin never called him, despite knowing that he had an untraceable panel, but Kumi had no such reservations. She called him several times over the two weeks that Temika was recovering, at odd hours of the day and night, and once when she was roaring drunk to wish him a happy new year. She really had nothing important to say, just seeing how he was coming on learning how the armor and bikes worked, then riding him for not working on that first. She'd never lived without running water, even "roughing it" camping in a habitat module, so she had no idea what it was like. She couldn't fathom why getting the water going in his house was his primary objective, even over learning how the military hardware worked, until he told her to go one day without using any running water, for anything. _Then_ she understood.

It took him just one day to build the tank out of scavenged sheet metal, using an annealer, a shaping tool that softened molecular bonds to allow a rigid material to be bent, and an old-fashioned gas powered circular grinder, for stripping the rust and paint off the metal. The result was a low-built, oblong cylindrical water tank that would hold about 1,000 gallons. He used the sprayer to spray the interior with copper to make it rustproof, then installed the water pump and filter. After that was done, the next day he started the rather grueling task of laying the pipe from the tank down to the river. That took him an entire day, mainly because he absolutely refused to leave it exposed. He dug a long ditch to the edge of his yard, then broke out a concrete sidewalk section and pried it out to run it to a storm drain. Then he ran the pipe into the storm drain and under the street, then realized that the storm drain was big enough for him to crawl through _and_ went all the way down to the river in virtually a straight line. He ran the PVC pipe all the way down to the river, which opened about four feet over the surface of the river (though he knew that the water level would rise and fall with the weather), then simply installed a bend and dropped the pipe down into
 the water. He made sure it went down far enough so low water level wouldn't rob him of water, then sat there with his butt in the trickling water for several moments. He was filthy, he was wet, and he was tired, but he managed to finish that part.

He waited until the next day to finish, because he was just too tired to do it the day before. That only took about five hours, to run the pipe, drill a hole in the wall, then cut the existing pipe and hook it in. When he was done, he went out and started the external pump and let it fill, making sure it was working right. There was a wastewater pipe leading off it that went back to that same storm drain, which was the filtered mud and sediment in the river water, and he saw to his satisfaction that the tank was filling with absolutely clean water. It was utterly pure; the filter would get absolutely everything, down the tiniest virus. It took about three hours to fill the tank, and when it was full and the pump shut off, he went in and turned on the inside pump. Temika, her arm in a sling and wearing the same torn shirt and a pair of sweat pants, looked surprised when he came in and turned on the sink, and a sudden spurt of reddish water spewed out erratically. "Well, hot damn, you got it workin', sugah," she laughed.

"Yeah, we have to bleed the pipes now," he told her. "Get three years of crap out of them."

"Yah know what this means, don't yah? A _hot showah,_" she said dreamily.

"After I turn on the hot water heater, yeah, but I want the pipes flushed before I do that, cause we'll have to flush the heater too."

About five hours after he got the water on, he had all the pipes flushed, the heater flushed, and they had hot and cold running water. Finally, he felt like his house was a _home_. He had comfort, he had security, and he had protection.

He was _home_.

After that was done, it was time to learn, time to do _anything_ besides worry about Tim and Temika. He started with the armor. He read everything that Kumi left for him about it, and he practiced using it during the night, when he couldn't be seen. It had a bunch of different systems, and he learned how each of them worked. The armor itself had signature maskers in it, part of its ECM capability, for remaining undetected was _very_ important for just about anyone. He wasn't that good at using the anti-grav system, which would allow him to jump extreme distances, even fly for very short distances and rise to an altitude of about fifty feet. It was _short_ because space constraints demanded that the two spatial engines that supplied that ability were very, very small, only rated to lift a few hundred pounds _combined_. They were little more than the antigrav pods found in many floating platforms. It was very hard to control his flight, because of the limitations of the engines. They would quickly overload if he stayed up too long. But, it was a very useful ability. He got the hang of using the several vision modes of the helmet, as well. It had normal mode, which was unchanged. The visor would darken to deal with bright light, and the helmet could shift into low-light mode or shift into the infrared spectrum to see heat patterns, and could also shift into the ultraviolet spectrum for unparalleled night vision outdoors. The heads-up display on the visor's glass was very useful, highlighting human or humanoid shapes and targets, giving range to target in _shakra_, and it was able to discern an armed target from an unarmed target by item recognition routines in the programming. The armor could identify weapons, and when it did so, it often put up a very brief summary of that weapon's specs and particular dangers on the side of his visor. Testing it on the airbike showed it could also identify other kinds of military hardware, though it did not recognize his airskimmer as a military piece of equipment. It did identify it as a skimmer, but denoted it to be a non-combatant. The helmet had a radio in it as well, capable of all grav-band and short range threaded hyperfrequencies, but he didn't worry about that too much, because he doubted he would use it. It also had directional microphones of a sort, sound-enhancers that let him hear faint sounds coming from a single direction, kind of like a boom microphone, and the helmet's mikes were very sensitive, picking up just about everything, while the speakers just over his ears adjusted volume to ensure that no sound that they broadcast would be so loud that it would hurt him. The result was a setup that let him hear a mouse skittering over a floor in the direction he was looking, The ability to hear most every sound from the flanks and behind him, and an assurance that a nearby explosion wouldn't deafen him. Most of the systems were controlled by a tiny keypad that flipped up on his forearm, just beside the flare where the nested MPAC autocannons were recessed into the armor, and the helmet vision modes were changed using buttons on the side of the helmet, just behind where his e