Reality Intrudes

14

"Some people stress, some don't. Some just dig in, get used to it and keep on going. There was a bunch of studies. Guys wrote books, On Killing, and others. The Army changed from bullseye to human silhouettes and did a bunch of really simple minded propaganda at the same time they went to the all-volunteer military. Seems to have worked. What part of it? Who knows, to many variables all at the same time? Vehicles were always a different story, ground and air. You are killing the machine not the crew."

"As for PTSD. I heard there was a study trying to identify what it was stress hormone levels or some shit. Plus actual exposure to combat has doubled and tripled every war. Especially with reduced forces. Congressionally mandated manpower limits and like that. Bottom line, if you can hang you can hang. Most of the guys I knew that could hang though, they are the ones that proved retirement is a myth, oh they didn't kill themselves or anything, but none of them lasted five years unless they got back in something stressful. Heart attacks, cancer and shit. War is bad for you in so many ways. It's a little sad really." Everyone looked at Jim. He shrugged "Rogue Healer. No cancer and no heart trouble. OK, next is this merchant in this warehouse here. Standard envelopment. Take down team in on my or Taylors word. Taylor, you got enough minions?"

Taylor sighed "Are there ever enough? I'm good. I can't push much harder or I will be taking over our folks again."

Rachel grinned "Or the cops. That fucking line dance video is still getting a million hits a day." Taylor blushed. The others smiled. It was the cats and dogs in the lines with the cops and PRT troops that made it funny.

Of course the PRT was very not amused. They had a limited sense of humor really. All kinds of screaming about a Master nine, blah, blah, blah. If they only knew she was having to suppress or it just happened. Jim shook his head.

Sherrel sighed "It's just the normal idiots anyway. The merchant capes are captured or converted."

Heidi nodded "Or still stuck in the fence. Why do they keep trying? Especially that catapult thing that throws them into the overhead. What the fuck would even make someone try that? Even if they made it they would have been in a ballistic trajectory for hundreds of feet. Hitting the pavement would kill them."

"Meth" Sherrel supplied.

Jim grinned "Strategery."

Alice rolled her eyes "Quit playing hillbilly Bob, and that's tactics. We don't have a strategy."

"Make enough to retire?" Jim arched a brow.

Alice snorted "Sure, if you quit hiring and buying trucks and trailers."

Heidi chuckled "And get the legal bills under control."

Rachel shook her head "We don't have time for a lawyer rant. Besides you don't hate them. At least not the ones in those pencil skirts." Jim grumbled. Rachel smiled "Plus now you have to make enough to send Alice and Sherrel's kids to college and set them up in a business.

Jim looked at Sherrel who smiled but shook her head, then pouted, and gave the signal.

Lisa grinned "And you quit knocking up anyone who wants." After the others had run off laughing.

Jim sighed "That is so not my fault."

Alice laughed "Say no." Jim grumbled about the unfairness of it all and went looking for Danny.

Reality Intrudes

Jim looked at the reports and sighed "We have to run in convoys now. A high lifter with magnetic clamp on a flatbed, and a truck to transport the ones we catch. We run that with a couple gun trucks behind the convoy. They can stop and pick up the time outed or suspended idiots."

Sherrel sat up on his lap, then got up and changed to reverse cowboy so she could work on the computer. "Yeah. The road trains take too long to get up to speed and burn too much fuel doing it. The super sleepers converted to work space for the gunners and crew are working out though. So is moving fuel in the tanks. I told you two one hundred fifty gallon saddles and ten hours between depots was the way to go. We only burn fifty or sixty gallons per train but they move three hundred gallons. We can even sell some on to other truckers at a profit. And we don't have to run tanker trailers in the trains. Those are prime hijacking targets. I can't believe remote turrets first came into use in the Second World War and then it took until the ninety's for CNC machines to become widespread. It is really a baby step from turrets to machine control."

Jim thought about nodding for a fleeting second but his attention was drawn to the flashes of rounded sides of perfect breast around the well-muscled back and ribcage. He needed to get Panacea something really nice. One of the girls from the picking crew maybe. She liked watching that tall Chinese girl with the wide hips. Kate. Or that Japanese girl Anne.

Reality Intrudes

Doctor Mother shrugged "Buy them. Put them in storage and buy enough time stop and restorer to first unfreeze them for fights with the enemy and then to refreeze them. There are even earths that are useless to humans we can store them on."

The Accountant nodded "It simplifies logistics really. Then we can round them up after Endbringer fights and freeze them again for practice. We even save money on food and housing. We have already time stopped the most useful of the subjects who had no other use. We should try it on Ash Beast."

Alexandria pinched the bridge of her nose "Fine." She stood up and left. Contessa smiled like the cat who got the Canary. Doctor Mother looked at her "And if he isn't a null?"

Contessa huffed "She won't get relaxed and save me five thousand steps. The path goes on either way."

Doctor Mother shook her head "And if she kills him?"

Contessa sighed "Hebert, and we don't save so many." She shrugged eloquently.

Doctor Mother frowned "We could make sure he is one."

The Accountant frowned "Probably."

Contessa shrugged, "It might not matter, he has skills after all." The discussion waned.

Reality Intrudes

Legend looked at Alexandria and snorted. Eidolon frowned but not at the snort. Rebecca, Alexandria, rolled her eyes "It's not out of the realm of possibility Paul."

Paul, Legend nodded, then laughed "Sorry, sorry. Do you even know how? I mean sure guys look at you all the time, you have all the attributes the media has conditioned modern society to appreciate, and they are very nicely packaged, spectacularly so even, but Paladin doesn't impress me as someone who particularly cares about that. He shot Shatterbird then crushed her head with a hammer to disable her gemma. He took three world class beauties from Heartbreaker and never touched nor, apparently, even talked to them. He burned Bonesaw to death using a thousand gallons of propane."

David, Eidolon, nodded "Maybe he has yellow fever. Bakuda is Japanese. Or likes them butch, Hellhound is a very muscular girl."

Rebecca glared "Squealer?"

Paul nodded "You might be onto something David. She is very muscular too, at least now. Much more proportional."

Rebecca closed her eyes and counted to ten "First I am going to talk to him. Just talk. Both the PRT and Protectorate have contracts and contacts with him. Second, I am going to strangle Contessa. Last, I am sure I know how to handle a man."

David scratched his chin and nodded "But this is Paladin. And his whole organization really. Bakuda is never far from him. Our agents say Hellhound and her girlfriend are never far from her. The girlfriend has been gaining more and more of a reputation. She is some kind of trump or master apparently, maybe both. We need to be careful here. Especially if they pull off breaking that Gray Boy site. Kennedy's niece is in there and he is politics in America."

Paul nodded "Maybe we should get the meeting before he does that?"

Reality Intrudes

Taylor looked at Rachel "No new ones."

Rachel grunted and shrugged "Ran out of idiots. There haven't been any in the fence at the terminal in a couple days either."

Lisa looked over from her spot on the bench in the locker room. "No capes, so Kaiser, Othala, Victor, Kreig and Purity for the Empire and Lung for the ABB are still out there."

Heidi snorted "Purity isn't Empire and the others are rebuilding. They haven't gone away. Would you go up against Paladin Security, New Wave and the BBPD? The Teeth will hit us in Boston. Accord if we are lucky. Idiots are still trying the convoys."

Lisa nodded "They are having trouble moving forces as the idiots keep trying to hit the trucks on the way to here. Then they have to gather up more forces and start again. Plus the independent hunters hit their transport as well. Easy picking of twenty or thirty grand. To tempting a target I guess."

Alice flopped down and put a hand on her barely there baby bump "Idiots. Where is Jim? I need oiled."

Taylor blushed and Rachel chuckled "Sherrel."

Alice rolled her eyes "Gaijin, so horny. Lisa oil me."

Lisa rolled her eyes "Not demanding or anything."

"Pregnant!" Alice barked. Lisa scowled and picked up the tub of coconut oil from the pot of water on the warmer. Then she poked her tongue out at Alice as she smeared a big dollop across her shoulders. Alice waved her off "Hush, I'll do you."

Reality Intrudes

"Iridium?" Danny asked.

Jim looked at Danny and sighed "Do I look like I know? Alice uses it for something. Taylor remembered that it is present in the boundary layer of the KT extinction event and they were off. Alice wants it for something."

Danny sighed "You would think they would be doing teenage things. Not building some contraption to journey to the center of the earth."

Jim shrugged "At least it's automated. They won't be riding in it like some kind of Jules Verne story, and I think this layer is not that deep? Shallow enough I told them to be aware of old septic tanks and pits, buried fuel storage and that too. That set them looking for what might be in those." He waved a letter "Which got us these notices from the archeologist."

Danny nodded "When are we going to Boston?"

Jim chuckled "Monday, thank god."

"Not changing the subject but Kate said something about you and Mei?" Danny blushed and stuttered. Jim grinned.