Haze Gray 106

Barack looked at Nancy and snorted "She isn't wrong, she is a head of state and was on one of her bases, of course they are joint, and international, we are still working out the status of forces agreement. Since she uses our uniform code of military justice and a cut down version of our laws, basically ours with the special interest and idiocy taken out, there isn't much to gripe about. Oh, how are you going to pay that bill, though ninety six thousand dollars is pretty cheap really? That's about what a flight on the whale would have cost. You can all divide it up between your offices." Nancy spluttered.

Barack narrowed his eyes "You know you got run out of LA. San Francisco isn't looking too friendly. Lots of local challengers from these ballot applications for the primary. Some of them persons of color, and recent immigrants. You even got persons of color on the republican side, women too. You might ought to go work on that."

"I can handle my electorate. They will understand its good to have a senior representative. I can get on the committees they are interested in. Co-chair a lot of them." Nancy returned snippily.

Barack nodded "Of course, if you think so. Well, nothing to be done. Try not to irritate the head of the growing United States of Hispaniola, our good friend, too much won't you?" Nancy didn't quite stomp off.

Michelle waited a moment then grinned at him "Passive aggressive much?"

Barack looked surprised "Hey, I was being helpful. So, I've got a meeting and the girls want to go to the beach."

Michelle rolled her eyes and snorted. "That course isn't very highly rated. Sandy they say." Then she strode to the door of the suite they were using leaving Barack gaping and looking at the courses website.

Haze Gray

Elsewhere, Washington DC to be more exact, several members of congress met for a 'working dinner' meaning they all met in the most expensive restaurant that was neutral territory and expensed their dinner and drinks. The speaker of the house looked at the minority whip "Not seeing the problem Tom." He grinned.

The whip sighed "Of course you don't John. The woman has been a thorn in your side for years."

The senate minority leader shrugged "Not just his. Nancy needs to get back in touch with reality. The things Brockton is doing are providing a path to citizen ship to now millions of people, she just rescued over a million trafficked persons, the figures are still climbing, and she just cut off a major source of graft and corruption. She's untouchable, and not in the bad sense. Maybe her being social liberal and fiscally conservative, a blue dog democrat, irritates Nancy. Keeps her taxes low though.

"I hear rumors she already has some kind of operation going getting the noncombatants out of the potential theater of the Russian and Chinese war. Which is only a good thing and will let us sit back and talk down our noses at them rather than having to commit troops."

John nodded "Not only that but Nancy needs to look to her new district. Half of Brockton's combat power are full blood Chinese. Now this new group are Russians. Lots of immigrants from Russia and China in the west. Not like the German, English, French, and Italians in the east. Plus, now Caribbean Islanders, if this report of at least a task group between all the islands shipped women is correct.

"On top of that she has an operation going into Northern Mexico from what I hear. At the Mexican governments request. That will throttle the flow of both illegal immigrants and drugs across the border. As she makes the land there more prosperous and comfortable, which we know she will, it could potentially shut off immigration, illegal and not. She is still hiring everyone who can see lightning, and hear thunder.

"We all know that eleven million number is bullshit but she is proving how wrong it really is. If the flow to the ICE stations in her docks is any indicator, excluding the Haitians and Dominicans who were a special deal they are processing a hundred thousand people a day.

"If the Mexicans let her police or teach the people to police as she does, that is going to put a serious crimp in the drug trade."

The senator from New York snorted "Those ICE stations are a model of efficiency, giving the rest of the government a bad name. There are what, three of them? And you all have left out the environmentalist loving her, maybe worshipping her.

"You've also left out the petitions circulating in American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands to drop their status of territories and become states of the USH. That's a significant number of voters."

John grinned "Like a customs port in a major international airport but with all the positions manned twenty-four hours a day. Plus, the computer systems all now working and talking to each other. Barack motivated his branch pretty well.

"Those folks get fingerprinted and DNA swabbed coming in the gate and by the time they get to the counter through the maze their records have been checked and they get approved or sent to the court to adjudicate for any crimes and Brockton pays their fines or reparations. They go through medical in the lines. More thru-put than Ellis island on its best day from all of them, about fifteen hundred an hour each. Although she has sent a few to Navassa. Some of the others get on those giant flying boats and flown to a Haven class wherever they are.

"Navassa seems to be the USH supermax. We get a lot of intelligence out of there too.

"A hundred thousand plus a day. She does, or will do, our eleven million. By the end of the summer.

"Those voters, ten years from now, are most likely for your party. If they stay or go through the full process for citizenship. They might come to their senses and realize they are better of in the USH. Truthfully, what are we going to do about it though. On the other hand, they have to overturn about seven hundred acts. That is if we decided to fight them over it. We could extend that ten years nearly indefinitely."

The senator from New York snorted "Oh yes, lets become a colonial power again. You know they can unravel all of that with just a little support from your party in congress after a referendum. Some of your maniacs are already casting it as a way to be rid of a drain on resources. Which it isn't really. Nutjobs, what are you going to do?

"Also, do we really want to fight Brockton over it?"

John chuckled "I think she would fight with us. She doesn't want to be the head of state already. She's the opposite of fifty-four forty or fight, or whatever slogan they are going to come up with. Hey, maybe we can get her to look into that when she goes up there to Washington state." John grinned. "Besides, why fight it, they have jobs and pay taxes. We even make more that that stipend we give them for thirty days over the ten years. That's how I'm shouting my idiots down."

"Now you're talking about my maniacs." New York grunted "Stay in your lane John.

"What do we want to do about this move to give her the Minor Outlying Islands?"

John shrugged "We weren't doing anything productive or ratable with them? Some of them were contested until we moved to give them to her to. Johnson was a howling ecological nightmare. It would have cost us hundreds of billions to clean up rather than the twenty five billion she did it for."

Haze Gray

"Colin."

"Yes Tess."

"Look at this."

Colin looked at the data and pulled his bike over to the curb. This data stream was fairly dense and he was driving. "Nearly pure ore bodies. Very nice. What are these… So that can be used for…" His tinker was getting a little excited over some of the ore bodies that weren't pure.

Tess chuckled "Same thing happened to me. It isn't undiscovered elements or metals, its just combined in a way we have never seen, and couldn't do with current technology anyway. Pretty sure some of these were made in an environment with no oxygen. I'm not sure I can even dig some of them out they are so hard and dense."

Colin nodded, then replied "Its molten. It must be at these temperatures and pressures. If you could make the molds and dies with a fine enough finish, put in a portal to fill them, then relieve the pressure and cool the whole thing in a controlled manner, it would fill the mold and once cool you would have a finished part."

Tess sighed "Only if I can build presses with millions of tons of clamping force. And a mold and die that can withstand that at seven thousand or so degrees kelvin."

Colin nodded "An interesting problem. I think we could feed it to your tinker cell if we can phrase it correctly."

Tess checked a monitor and blushed in the thumbnail window "Yes, they need a distraction."

Colin breezed right passed that comment. "This is more iridium than I thought was on earth to start with in just this one ore body."

Tess gaped at a screen showing her tinker tank and then shut it off and shook her head. How do you even do that with bones? Joints don't move like that even. What? Oh yes talk to Colin. "It looks like an iridium body gathered in the accretion process to me. If you look there is a clear path of disturbance as it sank from this bowl-shaped impact feature. It must have happened as the planet was accreting."

She sighed gratefully when Colin moved on with a few theories. Definitely a distraction was required.

Haze Gray

Sherrel sat up on Uber and wiped herself down with a towel then dropped it on him. He sat up into her after toweling off "Shower and then?"

Sherrel shrugged "That thing, or those things." She pointed to a monitor. "Once we get Bakuda disconnected from your boy."

Uber looked at the monitor, swung his legs out of bed making Sherrel giggle, and read the requirements document synopsis while she snuggled into him for a moment. Sherrel sighed and dismounted after a short time and arched a brow as Uber paged through the whole document. "So?"

Uber frowned "Pockets of pure metals? How does that happen? Even the core has other elements than iron in it. I have to get Dragon to send us the raw data after I do some studying."

Sherrel shrugged "Don't know. You and Bakuda can discuss it after we get this press built. It doesn't have to press so much as hold the pressure and heat though. An anti-press? Anyway, Bell likes it, she is using the heat to make it mobile with a sort of sterling engine. Fucking huge to. Thing will crawl around on the bottom of the deepest parts of the ocean. Two portals, one in and one out."

Uber watched her walk off then jumped up and followed her to the shower. "I can't believe you named your tinker Bell."

Sherrel snorted "She does this weird tinkling thing in my head when she is really interested in something. Or when you make me come. She's a perv.

In one of the other suites Bakuda dismounted and towed Leet to the shower "Good exercise session." Leet nodded blearily.

Haze Gray

Lisa looked up from the data "So what happens when she gets pregnant?"

Kim shrugged "No idea. She probably doesn't have one either. It isn't the birdcage though? Did you run out of morons?"

"No, I had to have a break. These militia idiots are so stupid. They just babble away, most of it pure conspiracy theory stuff. Its like they don't even realize politicians are just in it to win it for forty years and then get their pensions and speaking fees. They think they actually have brains and do stuff that matters rather than just flap their gums and be parasites on businesses that make real money."

Kim blinked and then laughed "But how do you really feel?"

Lisa sighed "There are too many people with too much time on their hands. And the mass media has way to much influence for good or ill."

Dinah walked over and sat "Not in Hispaniola, we only have science channels. Well, Bugs Bunny and the Road Runner. Maria shut everything else off until the Abuela's approve of it."

Lisa sighed "Well enough of this, lets finish these up and catch a flight. We can sleep on the beach tomorrow. I want to meet the girls from Qatar."

Dinah shrugged "Five hours on the plane too. Nice nap."

Haze Gray

Amy sighed "Awful busy."

Taylor grunted "Have you looked at these reports?"

"But they are reports hun. Already done deals, and everything is going smoothly. Amazingly well even. You should be looking at the Intelligence estimates for the next things we will have to hit someone in the head over. Leave the reports for the staff and historians."

Taylor blinked "But I have to sign these?"

Amy frowned "I'll talk to the geniuses and staff, see if we can streamline it some more. Now come here, then in a few minutes you can read estimates."

"Ok miss smarty no pants, what do we do with a million dogs and cats? After action reports are important too."

Amy grinned and unhooked Taylors bra and laughed at the squawking "And that just being the ones who are boats. Well, they do thirty knots easy, eight times thirty is two hundred and forty nautical miles, break them into teams of two and flotillas of six and give them five hundred miles of river to patrol. Not like there aren't thirty-eight rivers in the US alone that are over five hundred miles long.

"If we have left over reduce that or put a pair in a navigable tributary. Don't think I didn't see those plans for narrow boats. Six feet ten inches wide and fifty-seven feet long, thirty-five tons of cargo at three feet of draft and straight solar. Those things will be up every creek in the country."

"They have a three-horse water cooled horizontal type diesels for charging the battery or direct drive and charging the batteries if they need it. It can run the fuel we make from the trash plastic. It heats the water for the crews showers too. An oil-fired heater for if it is cold. Only two crew. Kind of a couple deal." Taylor shrugged. Amy blinked at her. "Tess's little things had to have something to do after they did the smaller rivers, so now they do the tributary streams. The Corps of engineers had a plan.

"No one will get rich with those boats, five knots max speed probably, locks and stuff probably down to three. Still, that's at least thirty five tons going up to eighty nautical miles a day for basically free. They should make a living pretty easy. If nothing else hauling the fuel made from the junk plastic down to ports on the major rivers for us and merchandise form catalog sales back up. Plus, bulk mail, bulk everything really. They could haul seven thousand gallons, or thirty five tons of nearly anything in the boat, and another couple seven-thousand-gallon bags behind it. They are sort of like giant sausages, and the material they are made of is so tough you could airdrop the damn things. They would just put a hole in the ground. Some of the guys shot them, they just shake like a flan. Now the yards want to make them and put them in our fuel tanks.

"On the way back up those bags can be empty and folded up. They weigh like five hundred pounds. They could be stored on the roofs of the holds." Amy blinked again, lay down on Taylor using her breast for a pillow and got to work on her tablet. Taylor sighed.

Amy asked, "Are we making these out of carbon fiber reinforced resin?"

"Uh, our normal fibers and the normal spinner machines? So, yes? Oh yeah, that may be overkill. Though the torsional stress from fifty-seven foot of length is huge. Not much installed power though, between the locks these creeks are sort of lakes. Huh. Probably can cut down on the Kevlar. Have to make some prototypes. Maybe wood structural members. Weldwood. Mild steel on the bow, keel, and stern. Cut down on cost."

Amy nodded and Taylor giggled, that tickled. Amy asked just to be sure, "So, every lock at least twelve foot of fall and a hydro plant in every one. With a battery bank. Do we even have this much lead? I mean lead acid batteries?" Taylor reached around and poked Amy's tablet for a minute. Then dropped her hand on Amy who wriggled into it. "Wow, what were our parents and their parents thinking. All that from dumps?"

Taylor huffed "Wheel weights, fishing weights, bullets, old car batteries, old whatever batteries, pipes, radiators, solder, paint, it all went in the dumps. Lead solder was in use in the US to nineteen seventy-four. After even as that was just the cut off for selling it. Every dump, lead and tin out the wazoo.

"Plus, apparently dredging the rivers creaks and streams added lots of trash and stuff."

Amy laughed "Wazoo being a technical term."

Taylor nodded "And the canals, or the creeks rather, have to be damn deep to keep from freezing even with circulator pumps driven off solar cells, so they store a crap load of water. Hence the Corps blabbering about finally having real flood control. Then of course the Universities got into it because the solar panels can run the generators, which sell power to the grid, on the turbines as motors and pump water up hill, so yay, no more droughts, ever. Crap load of solar panels, but Tess programmed the things and they build and install the panels. All the locks are covered. Then we sell excess power to the grid. Like a lot.

"Another technical term. Two even. Three." Amy giggled and got tickled. "You know, I could put a clinic on a couple of these things. Lots of clinics, with some pretty serious capability."

Taylor shrugged "The lock houses have wide spots for boats passing each other or mooring up overnight. Some of them are harbors even. Along with a tap room that sells pub food and a miniature Store, mostly an order portal but they do carry like five hundred lines of inventory for the boat crews. Toothpaste to spare parts sort of. Pretty basic. The Harbor ones are just flat out stores with no layer cakes. Hmm, or rather small ones for warehousing and storage. Oh, boat repair drydocks too. Somebody was thinking. You'll have to find crew for your boats though."

Amy huffed "Anyone could run these. Plus, I got a lot of people in training programs that are going to need facilities to work in in a year or so. These are just as easy as the containers the big Gos can pull. Might need four boats to make a full clinic."

"And CH 47s could lift it if we kept the weight down to twenty-six thousand pounds or less. Our Stallions too. Not the regular ones though. Then we could move them to disaster zones. They have these unpowered ones too. Butties. Not very nice calling them that."

Amy grinned "Some butts are very nice. They don't need to go fast, and one powered boat could pull them all. Move over night maybe. They wouldn't be holding patients except in emergencies. So, make that sort of portable. Frames on the walls with chains to hold them up like the military ambulances."

Taylor chuckled and stopped trying to get that one hand back with an eye roll. "Hmm, could make a store boat or pair too. Maybe have them travel together. The Butties could have solar panels and charge batteries for the towing boats. Or just supply power. Ok let me work on this design a bit. Make the connectors hard rather than wire rope, a little automation, and one person could drive the whole train. Put the powered store boat in the middle. Crew can help break the tow up at locks.

"A shorter one for a law enforcement patrol of some kind. Swift boats were like fifty foot. Bigger motor for those, with a water jet for when they need to move out sharply. Sirens and lights so working boats can pull over.

"Hmmm, automate the locks or lifts and have the patrol boats have some kind of control for them."

Amy nodded "My ambulance boats too."

"What ambulance boats? Hey, that's my patrol boat painted white with a red cross on it. You even left the mortar!"

"And a CT7-8A5 engine. Tess told me about them. Some new Canadian chopper uses them. Should be about three thousand horsepower. Bow jets to help with the corners FWWWOOSH!" She did hand motions.

Taylor growled and looked up the engine. "That's a hopped up Huey engine!"

"FWWWOSH!" the hands came back the other way.

Haze Gray

Mozah arched her brow when the pyramid disassembled itself, giggling, into a pile, and all the girls got their tablets. What in the world could have happened now?