The atmosphere in the squashed box was actually quite peaceful, all that could be heard was the soft breathing of the two soldiers and the engineer. It took a couple of minutes before the machine made another sound, another clunking, whirring whine from high to low in tone. Then there was a hum and the holo-timer appeared and started to count down.
“Oh no, you kidding me right?” Viper said as he read the read off, 11 hours 59 minutes and 55 seconds.
“It's what they said.” Scorpio added, “wait for the timer.” She readjusted her position in the box to get more comfortable, but with little result.
Viper reached into his bag and with some difficulty pulled out a pair of glasses. He put them on, flicked a switch on the side of it and like he was a robot which had been switched off, his head tilted back and he slid down the side of the box to the floor.
“Why didn't I bring my sleep glasses.” Said Scorpio, annoyed at herself. “You didn't bring any did you?”
Hacker shook his head, and looked down at the waist height figure of Viper.
“So, are you really the Commander's personal assistant.”
She grinned and shook her head, “not really, no. Well, sort of...” she fell silent.
Hacker felt that was somewhat of a secretive service that Scorpio was into, and let it slip.
“What about you?” she suddenly blurted out, “you're an engineer, right?”
Hacker nodded vigorously with a grin on his face, “yeah, computers and machines.”
“And you built this?” She glanced at the roof of the machine, which was only a foot or so above their heads.
“I finished it, but I didn't start it. The control box and the equipment, most of it was already here, they just needed something to power it, but back then they only had nuclear, but that wasn't enough. So they had me fix up a new source of power. We only found it earlier this year.”
“What about this?” she knocked on the sides of the box.
“Yeah, I got some guys to build this.”
“Engineers?”
“No, just builders.”
She frowned, “what's it made of?”
“It's six metal sheets bolted together at the corners, that's it. Just so we know where to focus the energy so we don't get any leaked energy.”
“I can see that the builders were minimalists then.” They both laughed.
Then there was only the holo-timer with its soft beeps as every minute ticked down. They did not talk after that, instead they tried to get some sleep, to wait as the twelve hour cool protection time ticked down.
The holo-timer hit zero, beeped twice and shut itself off.
Two hours later Scorpio woke up, saw that the holo-timer had disappeared and shook Hacker awake, pointed to the missing holo-timer and then ripped the sleep glasses off of Viper.
“Mm... what?” Viper asked, looking up at the other two as they glared down at him, “is it time yet?”
They nodded and Scorpio motioned for Hacker to go first, since he was nearest to the metal side that was used as a door. Slowly, carefully, he pushed one of the sides to the metal sheet, found it would not budge, then tried the other side. It croaked and swung open, hit something and bounced closed again. Hacker pushed it open harder this time found the wall it had hit and pushed that open as well, it turned out to be another door. Instantly the bright sunlight hit him, blinding him and making the world around him a white haze. Slowly his eyes became accustomed as the others stumbled out of the box, their legs cramped up from the stay in the box. Hacker bent over and touched his toes, “Jesus, that feels better.”
He looked back at the box, and found it to be inside a portable toilet, he nodded to himself, made perfect sense.
“It's looks like a construction site.” Scorpio said as she admired the roar of machines all laden with mounds of bricks, sand or smaller pieces of equipment, to either side of them were half-built houses. “What now?”
Hacker had been briefed for this, he swung his backpack from his back and laid it on the ground. Then he reached inside and pulled out a compact laptop, and flipped it open. With a beep it powered up and a logo of his division popped onto the screen spun a horizontal circle and then disappeared. A menu loaded up and Hacker tapped in a command, immediately there was a hiss in his ears as their communication earpieces came back online.
“Have our coms been off this entire time?”
“It's so they know we've arrived, they'll send-”
Hacker's earpiece gave a beep and then a voice spoke up, it was the General. “Any casualties?”
“None General, everyone is here and fine.” Hacker heard a groan behind him and turned to see Viper throw up, “just a bit of time slip sickness, General.”
“Good, now you're co-ordinates are as follows, East 20 degrees, North 67 degrees, latitude 38, longitude 129. Copy.”
“Copy,” Hacker replied as he tapped the co-ordinates into his laptop. It began finding the location, and he looked up to find a middle-aged man in a hard hat approaching them. “Tango, twelve o'clock, fifty metres and closing.”
Scorpio set off in the man's direction, “roger, I'll deal with him.”
“Nothing physical,” Hacker called after her, “or... you know, lethal.”
He looked down at his laptop as a location was shown on the screen. Calgary High, California, America. 3.5 miles North-West. Not bad going at all. “Got that?” he asked Viper, who was leaning over his shoulder.
Viper nodded, “memorised. 3.5 miles North.”
“West. It's North-West.”
“Yeah, 3.5 miles, got it.”
I'll remember the address then, though Hacker as he closed the screen and the location and co-ordinates were wiped from the memory. He loaded the laptop back into his backpack and swung it on to his back. Scorpio rejoined them, “dealt with. Come on let's get going.”
“What did you do?” Hacker asked as they set off towards the exit of the building site.
“Just told him we were treasure hunters or something. He laughed, then told us to get off his land.” She pursed her lips and nodded, “nice guy.”
“Well, it was half true. We are hunters, well the General said we are hunters,” Hacker said.
“Yeah, but hunters of what? I mean, what's at Calgary High, sounds like a high school.”
Neither of them knew.
