“See you tomorrow, Gypsy?” Patrick looks over towards his partner in crime.

“Yep, I have the day off from work.” Gypsy looks over at her friend Patrick as he headed for his car.

“Good, how about we get together and work on our project?” Patrick wanted to do some more work on their special project.

“Sounds good to me. The parts I order for our project should have come in at work.”

“Okay, see you tomorrow at eight.”

Gypsy walked over to her beat-up, rust covered 1965 Ford Mustang Fastback. The body of the car looked like crap, but the motor & transmission were top of the line. She had rebuilt the engine herself and put a street legal racing transmission in the car. The car had a custom driveshaft and rear end. The suspension was new and so was the braking system. She had put a lot of money into the car. She has another Ford Mustang Fastback that she was working on, but that it wasn’t a 1967. She bought it from her employer after he picked it up at an auction.

Gypsy got into her car and started the engine. The custom-made dash looked like something from a fighter jet. For the other Mustang, she intended to do a full factory restore to it. She drove away from the college student parking lot to the nearest Wendy’s to grab some dinner. She hadn’t eaten much all day long. Before she left for work this morning, she had a cup of coffee and two pieces of toast. Because she was busy at work, she skipped lunch to get to class right away.

She pulled into Wendy’s and ordered herself some dinner. Afterward, she headed back to her studio apartment. She parked her car in her assigned space and activated the kill switch. It disabled her car to keep it from being stolen. Most younger car thieves have forgotten about the low-tech way of making a car unable to be driven.

Gypsy turns on her television and watches one of the Harry Potter movies she had bought. Her birth family was Amish but, she had discovered that she had been born in the wrong body at an early age. She hid it from her family because it would have been a disgrace. Indeed, her actions to bring herself into agreement with her self-image had resulted in abuse by her father. He had the old-fashioned idea that children were supposed to be seen but not heard.

When the time for her Rumspringa came, she jumped at the chance and left the community to live as she wanted. She was smarter than most of the people in her community and had felt restricted by what she was expected or not expected to do. When she left she found a good job at a salvage yard. She took the GED and aced it. Her scores were perfect on every question in every category. She then took the entrance exam for Penn State College of Engineering and passed it with a perfect score as she had with the GED. Currently she was working on two separate degrees. One was in mechanical engineering and the second was in electrical engineering.

Gypsy had a lot of catching up to do. Since the Amish didn’t like technology or anything advanced but loved to live the simple life. She missed out on a lot of things that children outside of the Amish take for granted.

She pulled her laptop out and booted it up. She had found a few flaws in the design that needed to be reworked then hopefully, the rework would work better, otherwise she’ll have to go back to the drawing board. She worked on the design and after the third rework of the design, she had solved the problems with her original concept. She ran the design through AutoCAD to see what it would look like when it was finished. She liked the design and saves the image, so she could show it to her partner tomorrow when they meet up.

Gypsy paused the movie and slipped out of the clothes she wore today and slipped her Garfield nightshirt on. She sits down to enjoy the rest of the movie. By the end of the movie, she falls asleep. Just before she drifted off, she cuts everything off.

“Dam!” Patrick looked up from the monitoring equipment he was using to measure energy consumption on the new assisted body armor.

“What’s wrong Pat?” Gypsy looked over towards Patrick.

“The improvements we put in are draining the new batteries faster.” Patrick told her.

“Mm, maybe we should up the regulator or place a bigger battery then?” Gypsy asked.

“We have the biggest battery already inside the suit.” Patrick responded back.

“How long are we looking at for use?” she asked.

“With this bleed? We’re looking at maybe four hours of use. If we use the jetpack, you're looking at three.” Patrick informs her.

“How did we lose two hours of use?” Gypsy couldn’t believe the improvement was using that much more energy.

“The new micro-motors we installed are drawing too much energy from the regulator.”

“Check the programming of the control module. I don’t think we reprogrammed it for the new regulator.”

“Alright. So, what did you do last night?”

“Curled up on my sofa and watched Harry Potter.”

Pat looks towards Gypsy, “You watched Harry Potter? Don’t you ever go out with your friends and party?”

“I do. However, after we left here last night. I needed some me time. I stay busy working on this project and dismantling electronics the salvage yard receives.”

“Not to mention working on that rust bucket of yours.” Pat knew Gypsy drove a beat-up looking mustang fastback.

He knew she had two of them. There was her normal looking one and then she had another one she was refurbishing. It was just a husk right now with no motor and transmission. She had done a lot of body work done to it.

“Don’t you have a few patents in your name?” he asked.

“I have five in my name. Just like I know you have three in your name.” Gypsy looks over towards her partner.

He just smiled at her. As he goes back to work on the reprogramming of the regulator and control module.

Gypsy went back towards the special design jetpack and fixed a hose that carried oxygen and fuel to the thruster injectors. She tests the line with some pressure to see if there were any more leaks.

“You know, I wish we could put a bigger fuel tank in this jetpack. As it stands we only have ten minutes of flight time.”

“Could we pressurize the tanks and compress the fuel in the tank?” Pat looks over towards Gypsy since she was working on the jetpack.

“We’ll need new tanks. These tanks aren't designed to be pressurized.”

“How old were those plans you found?”

“They date back to 1938. I found them in a trunk I bought from an estate sale. I liked the trunk; the plans were a bonus.”

“That would explain why it didn’t have pressurized tanks. Where are you going to get the tanks?”

“I know someone that can fabricate the tanks for me. I’ll design them and send it to him.” Gypsy sits down and designs the new tanks.

It was one in the morning when they finally called it quits. They had done five days of work in 15 hours of time. They had taken a twenty-minute break for lunch then worked right through dinner.

“What time do you want to get started tomorrow?” Pat knew Gypsy had to work.

“I won’t be available till after three tomorrow. I’m taking a late lunch, so I can leave early.” She informed her partner.

“Alright, I have a job to do before I show up. I might be a few hours behind you.” Patrick let her know his schedule.

“That’s fine. I’m planning on checking the exterior of the armor tomorrow.” Gypsy told him her plan for the next day.

“Are you still planning on taking the prototype breastplate down to the gun range and have it tested?”

“I was going to do that on Sunday. The owner of the gun range closes on Sunday. He and a few of his friends will be there. They have access to weapons the military normally use.” She answered.

“Just be careful this time. You destroyed the last breastplate.” Patrick warned.

“Alright.” Gypsy gets in her car and headed home.

She stopped by her favorite Taco Bell and grabbed some tacos. She couldn’t believe that she was eating fast food again. Once she got her order, she headed towards her apartment.

While Gypsy ate, she went through the flight manual for one their jetpacks. The one they had built was different than the one they had purchased. Theirs didn’t have wings, it also had an extra boost system to give it a larger range and higher speed. However, their jetpack had one major drawback, it was a single use unit.

She gets ready for bed after eating her tacos. She had a long day ahead of her tomorrow. She crawled into bed and falls asleep.

edited by: Missy Mousey