New Beginning 172

"Ready to swim, Bortis?"

Bortis grinned at the figure swathed in psiscan equipment and finished shouldering the Ops room door open, trying not to drop the box overflowing his arms. He sidled in cautiously, but still clipped the door jam and barely caught the box with his knee.

Bortis tapped the door shut behind him with a heel, grinned. "Hi Harry. Ready for me to save your drowning ass?"

He plopped down his box between the command chairs; it filled the space. "Jeez, my back."

Harry made obvious eye gestures between Bortis and the box. Bort grinned, jerked a thumb at the occupant of the other chair, whose head was still swathed in the the mirrored dome of the diving rig, wires and leads jacked into the psi diver's dual skull ports. "I promised Jeno my next successful synthcat, for," he waggled his brows, "services rendered."

They both laughed. Jeno, still deep in the Web, didn't react physically, but Bortis watched Harry blink at the sudden imagery they both received from Jeno. None accurate, all embarrassing.

"I hope you don't show everyone in Ops that info, Jeno. People would believe it."

Again laughter, this time over the audio, a canned laugh from an old vid show.

Jeno extracted herself from the psi-diving rig and gave the two men a withering stare. “Remember we have to download those reports in time for the briefing.”

“Sure, Jen,” Bortis said as she left the room.

“Okay,” Harry said. “What’s really in the box?”

Bortis lifted off the blanket that was covering two large circuit boards and a vid-pod. “Here,” he said. “Patch this into the memory core while I hook up these boards.”

Harry squinted at the tiny writing on the side of the pod. “Playboy Confidential, 2213? What...?”
Bortis gave Harry a sly wink. “Who says geeks like us can’t get the hot chicks?”

Harry broke into a wide grin. “All right! Me first.”

When Harry was hooked up and ready, Bortis booted up the rig.

Harry seemed to be enjoying himself at first, but then, after a few minutes, he screamed, “No... No... No... Nooooooooo...!”

Bortis hit the emergency power down and helped Harry stagger out of the rig. “What happened?”

“You idiot,” Harry shouted. “You got the polarity wrong! I’ve just been psi-violated by a synth-Hugh Hefner.”


Opening: Writtenwyrdd.....Continuation: Anonymous