Metal Boxes (15 page)

Stone walked out of the room over her protests. He passed a couple of
first watch enlisted ratings in the corridor. They ignored him and he was fine with that. He was careful to take wide swings around any blind corners and he watched for anyone who might approach him from the rear. He really hating not trusting anyone around him, but he did not know who to trust.

He trusted Allie, but she was mad at him. This was
navy business, so even if she was not mad at him it would not have been right to share this mess with a marine.

“
Still,” he thought, “it would be nice to have her with me. Not as protection, she could surely do that, but just to have her near.” He resolved to hunt her down and do whatever it took to earn her forgiveness just as soon as he dumped this bad container mess in someone else’s lap.

He knew who that someone had to be. He could
not think of another solution; he had to stay in his chain of command. No matter how ill advised it was for a midshipman to call on an admiral, that is where he had to go, even if he had to sit all day in the admiral’s office until the man made time for him.

He had one place to stop before he went all the way to the top of the
central tower.

Stone got off the elevator
and walked through the tunnel leading to tower one. He caught himself walking slower and slower as he approached the open farm area. He pulled out his p.a. and undid the communications lock out. The unit bleeped at him for not receiving his incoming messages. He ignored them and filed them away for later. He called Commander Wright.

She answered on the first ring without looking up. “Thanks for calling, whoever you are. Bless me, I hate this paperwork.” She glanced at Stone and smiled. “Ah
, Mister Stone, you are right on time for your first math lesson with Skippy.”

Stone smiled back, although the side of his face was starting to feel tight causing him to finish the smile with a little wince. “Commander Wright,
yours is the most pleasant face I have seen in hours. It has been a rough watch in warehouse t3-whiskey with a room full of hairy legged swine.”

Wright laughed, “You forget who you are talking to,
boy! I work with real swine, hairy legs and all. You’re at the tunnel entrance I see. I will vid Skippy and have him come and get you.”

Stone said, “No. Please. I just need to cancel today’s lesson-”

“What did you do to your face?” Wright interrupted. “Stay there. I am in the farmhouse. I will be there in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”

Stone said, “Thank you, Commander, but it isn’t necessary-”

“I am already halfway across the lawn,” Wright replied. “I don’t let midshipmen decide what I think is necessary anyway.”

“But,-”

“But nothing, Mister Stone. I am already here. Put that p.a. down and let me look at the side of your face.” She poked at his cheekbone hard enough to cause him to flinch. “Sorry. Yeeawzah, that is going to bruise up real pretty. I haven’t seen a shiner like that since my sister Brianna decked me for hanging around when her boyfriend came over.” She looked over his shoulder and frowned. But when she looked back at him, her normal smile returned to her face. She pulled him over to the side of the tunnel to let some people pass.

“Honest Commander Wright. I will go to sickbay and get this looked at as soon as I take care of some business from last watch
,” Stone said. “I just wanted to apologize in person for missing my first tutoring session with Skippy. I know that you didn’t have-”

Someone grabbed his shoulder from behind.
He felt a small pinch at the side of his neck and tried to turn. He realized he had stopped talking and was unable to begin again. He knew he must be feeling tired because he felt like he was lying down, but he was not sure. He looked at Wright. She seemed to be yelling, but he could not hear a thing.

He thought
that sleep sounded like just the thing to do…

CHAPTER NINE

Stone
awoke with a jolt. He jerked upright and tossed the covers away. He was naked and he did not recognize any of his surroundings. He swung his feet off the bunk and onto the cold deck. He yanked his feet back. Decks were not designed to be cold. His bunk aboard the Periodontitis had never had cold decks; neither had his bunk back home on the Golden Boulder. It was obvious he was not in either place.

He realized the whole room was cold. He grabbed the covers and pulled them
loosely around his shoulders. Gritting his teeth, he stood on wobbly legs threatening to collapse under him.

“
Well…” he said. He sat back on the bunk with a thump.

The hatch to the small room slid open
with a hiss.

Commander Wright stepped into the doorway and leaned lazily against the frame. “Finally awake, are we?”

Stone jumped to his feet at attention. He shook his head, reached down to grab the covers and tied them around his waist. “I don’t know about awake or even about finally. I still feel pretty fuzzy headed. How long have I been asleep?” A flood of questions escaped. “Why are you here? Where is here? How did we get here? What-”

Wright raised her hands in defeat. “Whoa
, boy. There are only so many questions I can answer at one time.”

Stone nodded
. “Sorry, Commander, may I sit back down?” He wobbled and swayed quite a bit.

Wright rushed to his side and helped him back on the bunk. She sat next to him and put an arm around his shoulders. “Forgive me, Mister Stone. I should have known you were still fighting the drugs. You shouldn’t be on your feet until you are ready.”

“Drugs? Commander, I don’t do drugs. I never have.”

“I didn’t mean that kind of drug
,” Wright smiled sadly at him. “What do you remember?”

Stone stared at the ceiling for a while. He was trying to back track though the few
things he did remember, but everything was jumbled up. Commander Wright’s arm draped on his shoulders was not helping him think. He shook his head to try and clear it, but his body was reacting to her warmth against his bare skin.

“Um, I don’t remember much right now
,” he said. He crossed his legs and crossed his arms across his lap, hunching over to cover what was becoming an obvious problem.

Wright looked down at his lap. “Oops. Sorry, Stone. I sometimes forget young men have that problem. How about if I go back to the other room? Your clothes are in the bin under
your bunk. Toilet is through there.” She pointed to a door at the opposite end of the room from the hatch. “There is a shower in there, too. Trust me, you have been asleep long enough that you need both.”

“Thank you, Commander Wright
,” Stone smiled weakly.

When the door hissed closed, he stood up slowly and shuffled across the cold deck to the toilet. Wright had been correct. He did need every facility that was available.
His mouth tasted like a squad of marines had bunked on his tongue for a week. The tooth refresher helped, but it cleared his sinuses; he could sure smell himself.

Stone dialed up a shower and deliberately made it colder than he normally liked. He was
not sure he believed that cold showers helped to ease sexual desire, but he was willing to try. He slid into the water stream. He tried to remember when he had last showered. It was just before he had met with Allie the day she had gotten mad and stormed out.

The cold water did
ease his erection down. Suddenly, he was able to empty his bladder. He jumped out of the shower, relieved himself in the toilet with a sigh and jumped back into the shower.

He worked through all that had happened using the fight with Allie
as a point of reference. The last thing he remembered was talking with Commander Wright in the tunnel just outside of tower one. He had only stopped to talk to her briefly before going up to try and see Admiral Shalako.

Then he woke up here.

He shivered as he dried himself and raced to put his clothes back on. His utility uniforms looked clean enough except they looked like he had slept in them more than once. His underwear was clean, sort of, but they felt stiff and cold. He looked around for a clothing refresher, but there was none in sight.

The room was very
spartan. It had two rows of facing bunks set in three tiers on the side bulkheads. A quick count meant that the room was designed to sleep twenty-four people at a time. But the bunks were just hard bare minimum platforms with a skimpy mattress and a thin cover. There was not enough deck space for twenty-four people to be out of their bunks at the same time. The toilet facilities had been barely big enough for one person at a time.

There were bins under the bottom bunks. His clothes had been in one of the bins. He looked into the bin next to his. It was empty
, as was the one next to that.

The
toilet had a real door and not a hatch. It was designed for visual privacy only. It was flimsy and made of some wood-like laminate. There was a rear hatch, but it looked like it was sealed tight. The only way out of the room was the hatch used by Wright. Stone looked at the hatch as he opened it. It was strong and tight enough to be used as an airlock. It opened smoothly and swung wide effortlessly.

Wright was sitting in
one of the two command chairs on what appeared to be a very small bridge. She was reading a book broadcast on a display from her personal assistant. She looked up but was quiet and watched Stone as he looked around the small room. The hatch he had just stepped through was the only way in or out. All of the bulkheads were sealed and bare. There was a small hatch in the deck labeled ‘engine compartment’.

Stone flopped into the second chair.

“Feel better, Mister Stone?” Wright asked with evident concern.

Stone smiled. “Only physically, Commander Wright. You were right. The shower and the toother were what I needed. I could have used a clothes refresher, but I couldn’t find one. Um…may I ask how I got undressed and into bed?”

“You can ask, but you won’t like the answer,” Wright said. “Well, okay, if you insist. I stripped you, wiped your butt, covered you up, washed your undies in the sink and hung them up to dry while you slept.”

Stone blushed deeply. “You wiped…?”

“Your bottom, yeah. And you owe me for that. Whatever drugs were used on us either didn’t allow for human bodily functions or we were out so long our bodies evacuated.”

“Our?” Stone asked.

“Yep, our,” Wright nodded. “I woke up in the same condition, but Momma wasn’t here to wipe my ever expanding backside, so I took the duty. I was beginning to wonder if you were going to wake up.”

“
About the…” His voice trailed off. “Um…you know…my reaction to you when I woke up? I apologize-”

Wright
interrupted with a laugh. “Don’t worry, I won’t take it personally. You just turned sixteen a month ago, right? I may be an animal doctor, but I know enough about humans to know teenage boys can’t control that reaction even on a good day.”

“How did you know I just had a birthday
?” Stone asked.

“
I know your girlfriend, remember? Girlfriends talk. And since Allie is tough enough to beat me up twice, I decided not to take advantage of you in your delicate condition.”

Stone snorted. “Yeah,
thanks…I think. Besides, I am not sure Allie is still my girlfriend. She was pretty mad yesterday…or was it…how long was I asleep?”

“According to
my personal assistant, I slept for almost twenty-four hours. You have been asleep for twice as long.”

“Two days
? Commander Wright, are you sure? I didn’t know people could sleep that long,” Stone said.

“You are right, Stone
,” Wright nodded. “Normally people can’t sleep that long, but we had assistance. We were drugged, remember?”

Stone shook his head. “No
, Commander Wright, I don’t remember. The last thing I remember is talking to you in the tunnel between the central tower and tower one.”

“Yes and
I was about to tell you that Allie had been trying to call you all third watch, but she couldn’t get through. She had just called me. I told her you were going to come by for a math session with Skippy. She said she wanted to talk to you and apologize for storming off. She wanted me to have you call her since she had first watch duty and couldn’t come to talk to you in person.”

“Allie wasn’t mad
at me anymore?” Stone grinned.

Wright slapped her forehead with an open palm. “Ain’t that just like a sixteen year old
boy? We were grabbed by four men. I saw two of them slap a drug patch on your neck. You went limp. Then, I went to sleep. We woke up two days later in a cold, sterile, empty metal box, and you are just thinking about your girlfriend. Or rather, are you letting the little guy do your thinking for you?”

Stone blushed. “Sorry, Commander Wright, I know I need to be more focused, but I never had a girlfriend like Allie before.”

“That is because there aren’t very many other women like Allie,” Wright laughed.

“That is something I should tell her, huh? Okay, we were grabbed and drugged. How come I slept longer than you?”

The smile on Wright’s face disappeared. “I ran some analysis on my p.a. I only have veterinarian databases to compare, but I think they, whoever they are, may have heard the stories about how you are such a tough character taking down two marines named Hell and the Hammer. You got a double dose of what I got.”

“I guess it doesn’t matter that those stories aren’t true, does it?”
Stone shook his head.

“No, Mister Stone,
I don’t think they wanted to take any chance that you are some sort of superman. I analyzed the drugs used and they are pretty common sedatives that were distilled down. It is a fairly common practice in some drug cultures. Thank goodness my patients don’t drug themselves or each other.”

“
Commander Wright, just before we were grabbed I was on my way to report to Admiral Shalako. No one knew where I was, so I don’t know how they knew where to grab me.”

Wright shook her head. She picked up a
personal assistant off the console and tossed it to him. “Is that yours?”

“Yes, Commander.” He
tried a couple of commands but nothing worked.

“Don’t
bother trying to get it to work! I synced it up to mine. It has been completely wiped and cleaned. Everything gone, all of the data and even the operating commands have been wiped. Maybe a techie could restore some of the lost bits, but I doubt it.”

He shook his head. “I didn’t know it was possible to completely wipe a
p.a. A techie would have to get past all of my pass codes and the bio-locks just to access the data. The military codes would have required some very high authorizations even to access.” He did not mention that he knew it would take a master tech to even see the bulkheaded-off data copies buried so deep the system would look stripped. “What about your p.a.? It seems to be working.”

She held up her
p.a. “I’ve had the last three months wiped from my unit. All of my personal data is still here, but it is like the last few months didn’t exist.”

“Three months?”
Stone asked.

“Three months
. How long have you been on the Periodontitis, Mister Stone? About three months, right?”

Stone nodded, “Yes, Commander. I know how I got me in trouble, but you weren’t involved, so why did you get grabbed and drugged?”

“I have been thinking about that. My guess is that I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Wright said with a shrug.

“I was stirring up a pretty ugly mess. I had to report it to someone, so I was going to go see the
admiral. I don’t remember telling anyone who I was going to report to, so maybe they thought I was coming to see you.”

“Okay, Mister Stone, I will
agree for now that your premise holds as much validity as mine, but I don’t think it matters what the thinking was. I am here. Now, suppose you tell me about this stinky pot you were stirring.”

Stone told her everything that had happened since coming on board the U
.E.N.S. Periodontitis. He did not leave anything out, admitting his mistakes and about his discoveries. He shook his p.a., knowing he had recorded everything into his personal assistant since day one, and had made copies of everything that had happened.

Finally he said, “And that is when
we got bagged in the tunnel. Although I still don’t know how they knew where to find me. I hadn’t told anyone, and I mean anyone, where I was going.”

“Yeah, most people forget their
p.a. has a built in locator,” Wright said. “I have every animal on the farms in tower one tagged for tracking.”

“Oh, you’re right
. I forgot.” He tossed the p.a. on the console as it was useless for now. “So, where are we now? Are we just locked up in a cell or something in one of the warehouses?”