“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

“Hey Pat, I just had an idea.” Gypsy looked up from the circuit board she has been working on.

“You mean you actually can have them?” Pat had a mischievous smile on his face.

“Ha, ha. Yes, I can have them. I was thinking we should build a unique weapon for these suits.” Gypsy was thinking out loud.

“What do you have in mind?” Pat found the idea feasible.

“How about a Gauss rifle or gun?” Gypsy had watched a few engineering videos on YouTube when she came across one about people who had built such guns.

The ones that she had seen were no more powerful than an air gun, but Gypsy believed that she could improve the designs to make them more powerful.

“That would give these suits a unique weapon.” Pat stood thinking about the possibility.

He wondered if the research grants they had been given from DARPA would cover that.

“I could donate some money and parts from my job to make a prototype.” Gypsy knew her boss wouldn’t mind her getting parts from the electronics she disassembled.

“Alright, when do you think you can have a prototype built?” Pat ask Gypsy as he looks at her?

“Hmm, give me two weeks. I can have a prototype built. I’ll build it on my off time.” Gypsy told him.

“What off time? You’re always working on a project with your car or catching up on movies you missed.” Pat knew Gypsy came from an Amish family.

“Then I’ll have to take time off from tinkering with my car.” Gypsy sticks her tongue out at Pat as she went back to work on the new circuit board she had designed for the power armor.

All that is heard in the workroom is music playing and a few cuss words occasionally. Gypsy was working on the exoskeleton frame that the armor was going to be built into the suit. The prototype framework was based off several different styles she had seen at tech shows.

The original concept had been to build an exoskeleton framework to help people who had been injured in combat and car accidents. Then they had come across the Russians already working to build an Iron Man style combat suit for their soldiers, just like the US military. The problem was, the military designers were building their models on big bulky frames and even their exoskeleton design was to expose and didn’t last long.

So, they submitted a proposal for grants to build a more reliable design. One that could do what they wanted and run for at least sixteen hours or longer on battery power. Both Gypsy and Patrick were well known in the Battle Bot world. They used to be competitors fighting against each other but later found out that they went to the same college. They even had some of the same teachers on different days.

Their professor gave them a project and teamed the two of them up. They found that they worked well together. So, they decided to work on the project for the government.

0100 hrs.
Gypsy rubs her eyes as she shuts her soldering iron down. She had redesigned and fixed all the circuit boards they were going to need for the suit. She’ll be happy when they can reproduce these boards another way.

Her fingertips were a little burn where the iron touched them. She glances over towards Pat and notices he was nodding his head.

“Let’s pack it up for the night, Pat.” Gypsy starts putting her gear away.

Pat gathers the items he has been working on and put them in the safe. They had to have a safe installed by DARPA rules to secure their work. All the data they have is stored on three different thumb drives. Pat had one, Gypsy had one and the main one that backed everything on that was stored in the safe. Nothing could be stored on their hard drives or on the college hard drives.

Once their workshop was secure “see you tomorrow, Pat.”

“Actually, I won’t be coming in. Some friends of mine are throwing a party. You’re welcome to come. I know they would love to meet you.” Patrick has been telling his friends about his beautiful work partner.

Gypsy thinks about it “shoot me the address. I might show up after work.”

“Cool, you won’t regret it.” Pat grabs his backpack and walks Gypsy to her car.

Gypsy just heads home. She had to get up in five hours and be at work. She takes a quick shower and slip her nightshirt on and crawl into bed. She is happy when she gets the money she needs to get her surgery.

Philadelphia Scrap Metal:
Gypsy pulls her car into the closest parking spot to the employee’s entrance. She covers her mouth as she yawns and walks in with her coffee in hand. She spots Terence checking badges.

She pulls her employee Id card out as she walks up. She covers her mouth as another yawn hits her.

“Late night, last night, Gypsy?” Terence knew Gypsy was in college getting her degree’s in mechanical and electrical engineering.

“Yea, I didn’t leave the lab till one in the morning.” She covers up another yawn.

He just smiles at her and wishes his children were as dedicated as Gypsy was. All they were into were the parties they got invited too. Their grades were already slipping because of all the partying they were doing.

“Well, try not to fall asleep at your workstation again.” Terence was doing his rounds, making sure everyone left and found Gypsy asleep at her station.

He didn’t report her, because she worked hard to have a job inside out of the weather. She started out in the yard like most temps do and worked her butt off. When she demonstrated she knew about electronics and what certain items were how much they were worth. Mr. Folds promoted her to the electronics department.

“I promise, no more sleeping at my workstation.” Gypsy heads towards her workstation in the electronics department.

Gypsy saw that she had a bin and a half waiting on her. She knew there would be more throughout the day. She sits down at her station and starts warming her equipment up. She also pulls a list out she made for what she was going to need to build the Gauss rifle. Most of the parts she could get here at work. The rest she was going to have to go by Priest Electronics to either purchase or ordered what she couldn’t get at work.

She gets started on the bin, disassembling the items inside and separating their components. By the time her lunch hour comes around. She was already done with the full bin. She heads outside to the yard and over to the scrap metal bin. She searches through the metal bin for the metal to be used for the rail and frame.

She finds the metal she was looking for. She also finds a few other items as well that she could use.

“They said you like to dig through the bins for items.” Jayson had spot Gypsy digging through the metal bins.

He saw her leaning inside the bin with her butt up in the air. She was only 5-foot-tall and had long ash blonde hair.

“I do, and I always pay for any items I find that I need.” Gypsy knew Jayson liked looking at her ass.

She had modest breast development, since being on the estrogen pills. Since she has been taking the hormone pills her doctor prescribed. She has noticed her hips have gotten a little bigger.

“Why do you need this junk? Can’t you afford to just go and buy what you need?” Jayson could never understand why people would buy junk.

“It’s for a school project I’m working on. So, if you’ll excuse me. I’m going to go and pay for these items.” Gypsy picks up the bin and head
towards the registers to pay for the items.

Jayson just watches as Gypsy walks towards the registers. He liked how her butt moved. He also felt that she must feel superior around him.

Gypsy couldn’t believe she was up early on a Sunday. It was the only day of the week she could sleep in. She had stopped at McDonalds and picked up a sausage biscuit breakfast combo. She takes a sip of her coffee as she pulls into one of the empty parking spaces. No one was at the Gun range office yet, so she eats her breakfast and listen to her music. She brought three of the armor chest plates to test on the range today.

She and Pat had worked hard working out the formula needed to construct the chest plates. They had gone through several different formulas until they found the right ones. As she is sitting and eating her breakfast, a ratty rust color GMC pick-up truck pulls up next to her Mustang. She rolls her window down.

“I thought you said 8:00 a.m.?” Gypsy glances at her radio clock. It was 8:15.

“Had to stop and grab breakfast and gas Gypsy.” An older man with whiteness in his short brown hair gets out of the truck.

She just smiles as she gets out of her own car. She walks back to the back of her Mustang and pops the trunk of her car. Today she decided to wear her denim distress bib coveralls and a black short sleeve t-shirt. She had on a pair of her low heel brown ankle boots. She was going to need a cart from inside to bring the chest plates inside.

Frank looks over towards Gypsy “give me a few minutes to turn the alarm off.”

“Okay.” She looks down at the chest pieces and hopes the new formula they were made from, work.

The idea came from researchers down at North Carolina State using a special metal foam that they developed. The video she saw showed an M2 armor-piercing bullet smashing into the foam and destroying itself on impact. Only an 8-millimeter indentation on the back side of the armor was visible. She and Pat had addressed that issue with a special gel to absorb the kinetic energy.

A black SUV pulls up along with a white cargo van. Gypsy watches as the drivers get out.

“So, what did you bring us to destroy this time Gypsy?” Thomas looks over towards their favorite teenage scientist.

“I brought the new armor chest plates Pat and me constructed for you guys to shoot at today.” Gypsy knew Frank, Thomas and Harry were big time gun collectors and love to destroy things with their guns.

“Good! I brought the minigun, the Barret M107, Heckler & Koch G36C, and a few other “favorites.” Harry had a big ole smile on his face.

“God, what are you trying to do, start World War III?” Gypsy knew her friends were weird, but she didn’t know how gun happy they were.

“Hey, you wanted us to throw everything we have at those chest plates.” Thomas was opening the back of his SUV and bring out some of his weapons.

Frank finally comes back out of the store with several carts. He takes one over to Gypsy.

“Here you go Gypsy.” Frank brings a cart over for her to load the plates on.

“Thanks, Frank.” Gypsy loads all three chest plates onto the cart. They had some weight to them, but not enough that she couldn’t use the piece as a shield.

“Are we shooting inside or outside in the back range?” Gypsy looks towards Frank.

“Back range, we will be using a lot of weapons and some special ammo today.” Frank had everything planned out.

“Okay, I’ll go and get everything set-up.” Gypsy heads towards the back-rifle range and sets each breastplate up on the target support.

“Alright, let’s have some fun.” Frank shoots first using the M16 on full auto at the first chest plate.

The bullets just bounce off the chest plate like they were nothing. He reloads and tries the armor piercing bullets. They shatter against the armor like Gypsy hoped they would.

“Dam, Gypsy. Where did you get the formula to make armor that would shatter AP rounds?” Frank and the guys were impressed.

“A research doctor down at North Carolina State developed a new technique for making metal spongey. The bullet they used to test against
the material had been a 7.62 x 63 mm M2 armor-piercing round. It put a one-inch indentation on the face of the armor, before exploding and an 8mm bubble facing the wear. Now, Pat and I developed a kinetic absorbing gel that can absorb the kinetic energy of any bullet that hit the front plate. Also, the process the doctor developed protects the wear from radiation and neutron radiation as well. The person inside the armor will be protected from heat as well. That’s according to the Doctor that developed the process of the metal form.” Gypsy and Pat both liked the material that the metal form gave.

“Well, that’s a video I would like to see.” Frank was very impressed.

“Let’s see how it stands up against this tungsten and depleted uranium rounds.” Harry loads the minigun with the special rounds.

“Is that really necessary?” Gypsy was a little worried.

“It needs to be done, Gypsy. A few governments, including our own, are using these rounds. They haven’t been outlawed by The Geneva Conventions.” Harry had gotten his collection of the material from a black-market supplier.

“They might not have been outlawed, but you need to clean-up after using them or they will poison the soil.” Thomas had written a paper on the effects of uranium rounds for a weapons magazine company.

“Okay, let see how the armor stands up to the tungsten’s first.” Harry cut loose with the minigun.

The gun riddled the armor chest plate, but nothing got through the material. However, the back part that faces the wear, had bigger than normal welts. They were at 33mm, instead of the 8mm that normally occurred. It was still in the range DARPA gave them. The welts needed to stay below 44mm.

“Ouch! I feel sorry for whoever would be wearing this armor.” When all four of them went to investigate the armor.

“I agree. If you made the armor two-inch-thick, instead an inch thick, the rounds wouldn’t have even bothered them.” Harry could see how the minigun dug into the armor.

“The problem with making the armor two inches or even three inches thick. It cuts down on the movement of the exoskeleton the armor is mounted too.” Gypsy was looking at the armor.

“Maybe, if we increase the kinetic gel padding, it might absorb more of the kinetic energy.” Gypsy saw that the round hadn’t penetrated the material all the way.

“You ready to try the uranium rounds now?” Harry slaps his hands together and rubs them in excited motion.

“Yea let’s see what they will do to the armor.” Gypsy was trying to figure out how to stop or slow down a tungsten round.

Harry loads the minigun with the rounds and fire. The rounds tear into the armor but explode on impact as well. The gun keeps firing till empty.

They walk over to check the armor “be careful of the dust on the ground.”

The armor looked like crap, and a few rounds did dig into the material but hadn’t gone through at all. They checked the back part of the armor
and there were some huge welts. They measured up to 39mm.

“God, that would cause a person’s ribs to crack.” Thomas runs his hand over the welt.

“There’s nothing you can do to stop these rounds any less. They are used against trucks and such.” Harry knew how they used these rounds.

“I think the Kevlar suit we were thinking about might help. I’m going to have to show Pat and get his thoughts on the material.” Gypsy runs her hand over the welts and could imagine feeling them.

The guys help her remove what was left of the chest pieces. They carry them to her Mustang and put them in the trunk.

“So, who is going to be your test subject to wear the armor?” Frank was wondering because Gypsy and Patrick would be needed to adjust any flaws the suit had.

“We hadn’t thought about that. Do you have anyone in mind that wouldn’t mind being our test pilot?” Gypsy and Pat hadn’t gotten to the stage that they had a working prototype yet.

“I know a fellow. You might want to talk to him. He’s into new military development. Here’s his number.” Frank hands Gypsy one of his business cards with the guy's name and number written on the back of it.

“Thanks, Frank.” She slips the card into her pocket and grabs her car keys.

“Let me know how things turn out and when you want to test anything else.” Frank liked Gypsy and hopes that her, and her partner succeeds.

Gypsy heads home to get ready for the party Pat invited her too.

Gypsy pushes the cart with the damaged chest pieces towards their research lab at Penn State. She had so much fun at the party Pat invited her too. She met a lot of nice people there and enjoyed herself.

She sets the ruin chest pieces up so, Pat could examine them. She already knew how to fix some of the problems they found during the weapon testing, but there was no way of increasing the armor without sacrificing movement. After she finishes setting the chest plates up.

Gypsy heads back down to her car and pulls the prototype gauss rifle she constructed. She finished working on it last night after she got home from the party. She sets it up and the ammo she made for it. She melted down the metal and poured the molten metal into a mold that form the ammo into an aerodynamic shape.

After Gypsy has everything set-up. She goes and grabs a coffee. She normally stopped at Starbuck’s and grabs a coffee or make one at home. This morning she did neither. She wanted to get to their research lab and set things up before Pat got in.

She heads towards the coffee machine they had in the break area and buys herself a cup of coffee. As she is standing around watching the other students. She spots another team that was working on a project for the military. She wasn’t sure what they were working on, but they did have a grant from DARPA as well.

She watches as the other group grab some snacks from the snack machine and leave the break area. They had a four-man group and the leader of their group was as smart as her and Patrick. His name was Andy Mario Poffo and was the grandson of a famous wrestler. The rest of his team were nice people. She didn’t know any of them personally. Just what she has observed of them and what she heard about them.

Gypsy heads back to her lab and spot Pat looking at the chest armor. She takes a sip of her coffee.

“The welts on them don’t like too bad and the form metal worked out wonderfully.” She walks over and stands at their workbench.

“What did you throw at them?” Pat looks towards her.

“Tungsten rounds and depleted uranium rounds. Harry managed to get his hands on some to test against the armor with a freaking mini-gun.”
Gypsy still couldn’t believe that he brought a mini-gun to fire against the armor.

“Harry fired a mini-gun at the chest piece?” Pat was shocked as well.

“Yep. By the way, who were we going to ask to wear the armor and test the jetpack?” Gypsy knew Pat and she hadn’t talked about it.

“I don’t know. I figure DARPA would assign someone to test our equipment.” Pat hadn’t really thought about it much.

“Well, Frank gave me a name of a person that we could ask to test our stuff.” Gypsy pulls out the business card that Frank gave her with the name written on the back of it.

“Who is the person?” Pat would like to know who the person is.

Gypsy turns the card over to look at the name Frank gave her. Sergeant Major Nathan Washington.

“According to what Frank wrote, his name is Sergeant Major Nathan Washington. Frank said he likes testing new technology.” Gypsy watches as Pat picks up the test Gauss Rifle.

“We’ll have to see if he’ll be willing to test the armor. If he agrees, we’ll have to get his measurements.” As he looks at the rifle.

“Alright, I’ll call him tomorrow. So, what do you think of the prototype?” Gypsy watched as Pat became familiar with the rifle.

"It's heavy, but I didn't think you would be able to construct it." Pat was holding the Gauss Rifle.

“That’s just the prototype. I custom made the rounds for it.” Gypsy hasn’t tried it out.

“Have you fired it yet?” Patrick would like to test it.

“Nope, not yet. However, if you turn the power down on it. We could test it here in the lab.” Gypsy wanted to test it.

Pat thinks about it “I think we should take it to your friend’s gun range and test it.”

“Okay, so any ideas on how we can protect the wearer of the armor better, without sacrificing mobility?” Gypsy had some ideas.

“I think I might have a few ideas.” He makes some notes.

Gypsy goes to work on the environment units the armors will have to keep the wearers cool and warm in cold environments. She tests the
exoskeleton units that the armor is going to be mounted on. So, far everything was working fine.

“The exoskeleton frame is working.” Gypsy looks over towards Pat.

“Cool, how much do you think you can lift wearing it?” Pat walks over to examine it.

“I’m thinking 10x times what the wearer is capable of.” Gypsy did the math in her head.

“How fast can the wearer run?” Pat was hoping it was fast.

“25 mph. and can carry 150 lbs.” Gypsy hopes her math was right.

“Wow, so altogether. The armor should come in weighing 30lbs. total.” Patrick couldn’t believe how capable the armor was going to be.

“Yep and don’t forget about the jetpack. The one we built weighs only 10 lbs and the one we ordered comes in at 25 lbs total. Also, the running
speed will be reduced with the other jetpack. Mainly, because of the wings.” Gypsy knew the wings of the other jetpack will slowly the wearer down.

“Does that weight include the batteries for the body armor?” Pat was writing everything down.

“Yep, the batteries come in at 2 pounds each. Since were using the equivalent of four batteries.” Gypsy and Pat specially design the batteries for the body armor with help from Tesla.

“How much do you think the rifle will weigh after you construct it?” Pat looks at the prototype Gypsy designed.

“16 lbs. total. That’s with ammo and everything.” Gypsy made the rounds for the Gauss Rifle with weight to damage, but light enough for flight.

“Let’s lock everything up and go get some lunch.” Gypsy had glanced at the clock and notices it around 2:30 pm.

“Sounds good to me. Where do you want to go for lunch?” As Pat locks away the third hard drive and all the items they were working on.

“How about The Golden Dragon? They have a buffet we can have.” Gypsy backs up her and Pat’s research on their hard drives.

They head towards The Golden Dragon restaurant for lunch.

Gypsy slowly wakes-up and realize she wasn’t in her own bed. She felt an arm holding her around her waist. She tries to remember what happened last night. She had gone to a bar Pat liked to go to and had a few drinks. Pat had met up with a cute female Police Officer.

She, on the other hand, was approached by a handsome gentleman in his forties. He asked her to dance and she accepted. One thing led to another and they ended back at his house and in his bed. He didn’t even care that she was transgender. She feels him move behind her.

“Good morning, Gypsy.” As he kisses her cheek.

Gypsy felt his hardness resting between her butt cheeks. She also felt the wetness between her legs. She felt a little pain and soreness from her anal opening.

“Good Morning, Prosecutor Ralph Cox.” Gypsy turns around to look into his eyes.

He had silver eyes, which she has never seen before. He was twice her age and worked for Lycoming County. Plus, she loved older men.
There were a few men around her own age she liked, but she preferred older men.

Gypsy kisses him and moves closer to him. She didn’t want to get out of bed, but she had a meeting with the Sergeant Major at noon at the gun range Frank owned. They decided that would be the perfect place for their meeting. She was also bringing the Gauss rifle to test at the range.

As she laid in bed next to Ralph “so, is this going to be a one-night stand, or will I see you again?”

“I would like to see you again, Gypsy.” As Ralph kisses her on the lips.

He pulls her against his body and kisses her passionately. They end up making love again before she had to get up and get dress. They take a shower together and fool around in the shower. Later, Ralph drops her off at the college to get her car.

Gypsy watches as he drives off. Once he was gone, she heads to her research lab to grab the prototype Gauss Rifle. As she approaches the lab, the door was unlocked. She knows she and Pat always lock their research lab. She opens the door with her foot slowly and walks in. She grabs the pepper spray from her purse and looks around the lab.

Nothing seemed out of order, but she is curious why the door was unlocked. Gypsy walks over towards the vault they keep the hard drive, the prototype exoskeleton and the body armor in. She pulls the prototype Gauss Rifle out and the spare ammo magazines.

Gypsy closes the safe and spins the knob three times to confuse anyone who tries to guess the combination. She had blocked the combination with her body if there was a camera hidden in the room watching her. She knew she could hide one and no one would find it.

Gypsy takes one more look in the lab to make sure nothing was out of place. As she is walking out of the lab and towards her car. She hears the revving of a car engine. As she starts to walk to her car. She spots a gray car coming towards her.

She brings the Gauss rifle up and flicks the power on. Just as the car gets closer to her, she pulls the trigger. A rapid-fire of rounds leaves the gun. She forgot to take it off full auto.

The engine of the car starts smoking as several rounds hit the engine. One of the rounds from the rifle goes through the windshield and into the driver’s shoulder. The car veers away from Gypsy. She couldn’t see who the driver was, but she knew they must be in pain.

She flips the switch from full auto to single shot. She takes aim and fires at the car as it speeds off. It swivels as the driver gets hit.

“Dam! I missed.” As Gypsy watches as the car drives off.

She walks over towards her Mustang and set the gauss rifle on the trunk of her car. She looks at the charge and noticed it had only gone down a little bit. She pulls her cell phone out and calls them to report a hit and run. She gives a description of the car. Gypsy didn’t spot any license plates on it.

Gypsy searches her car to make sure no one tampered with it. Once she was done checking, she gets in and heads towards the gun range.
She now knows the gun works. As she passes a familiar block. She spots the car that tried to run her down. It had hit a parked car. The driver’s side door was opened.

She calls the police back and informed them where they can find the car. Gypsy wonders why someone would try to run her down. She wasn’t anyone important or rich. She heads towards the gun range.

Nathan was standing at the gun counter talking with his friend Frank and drinking coffee. The people he had promised to meet haven’t arrived yet. Frank told him about the girl named Gypsy. How she and her lab partner Patrick were building powered body armor for soldiers to use in combat and an exoskeleton for soldiers that lost their limbs or have nerve damage.

“You’ll like helping Gypsy and her partner out, Nathan. Those two kids have worked very hard to build their body armor and exoskeleton. They must have gone through ten or more design and formula for the body armor alone. Gypsy brought the latest body armor up here last Sunday for us to test. It did pretty well.” Frank remembers everything they did to it.

“Oh? How, well did it stand up to your testing?” Nathan wanted to know more about it.

“Let’s put it this way, Nathan. If a person had been wearing it when we tested it. They would have had welts all over their body. However, knowing Gypsy as I do. She’ll come up with a way to protect the wearer from and make it so, they don’t get any welts.” Frank knew that Gypsy was the type of person who always looked for a solution to a problem.

Patrick and Gypsy arrive at the gun range at the same time. As Gypsy is getting out of her Mustang, she looks over towards Pat.

“Hey Pat, did you go by the lab this morning?” As she opens the trunk and takes the gauss rifle out.

“No, why?” Pat looks at Gypsy as she pulls the gauss rifle out.

“The door to our lab was unlocked when I went to retrieve the gauss rifle. Also, someone tried to run me down in the parking lot where I parked the Mustang.” She walks around towards Pat.

“Are you alright?” Patrick was worried about Gypsy.

“Yea, I got a chance to test the gauss rifle.” A smile appears on Gypsy’s face.

“I bet you did. How did it do?” Pat walks with Gypsy towards the entrance to the gun range.

“The motor was smoking, and the driver might have gotten hurt. Whoever tried to run me over, found out what happened when you get hit by the gauss rifle.” Gypsy and Pat spot an older well-built man with black hair that was cut military style, wearing blue jean, black t-shirt, and combat boots. He was talking to Frank at the counter.

“Hey, Frank, like my new gun?” Gypsy knew Frank loved exotic weapons.

Nathan turns around when he hears a young female voice and spots a five tall, ash blonde teenage girl. She was wearing black leggings, tennis shoes and a black oversized t-shirt that had I’m Your Huckleberry with two six-shooters cross underneath the words.

She had some sort of high-tech looking rifle in her hand. Walking next to her, was a brown hair young man, that stood a good eight or eleven inches over her. He had some build to him. Nathan figures if he trained up some, he would be a formidable person. He watches as they approached the counter.

Gypsy sets the gauss rifle on the counter “here you go, Frank. One working prototype gauss rifle.”

Both men look at the hi-tech weapon sitting on the counter. It looked like a rectangular rifle. It had an energy charge indicator, shots remaining, selector switch for full and single shot. A magazine release in the butt of the rifle. There was a laser pointer built into it, right above the firing chamber.

“Gypsy, how many rounds does the magazine hold?” Frank looks at Gypsy.

“Sixteen rounds.” Gypsy designed the magazine herself.

“How come your counter says you have ten rounds left?” Frank wonders what Gypsy used the rifle on.

“Well, I had a little bit of trouble on my way over here. Someone tried to run me over in the parking lot where I park my mustang. So, I fired the gauss rifle at them when they came towards me and then again when they left.” Gypsy had a serious look on her face.

“Do you know who it was?” Nathan looks at Gypsy and wonders why someone would want to kill her.

“I have no idea who it is. I called the police and they are handling this matter. Now, Mr. Washington. We need a test pilot to test this suit and the accessories that go with it.” Gypsy pulls out her laptop from her purse and shows Nathan the suit and the proposal they had used to get the grants from DARPA.

After he finishes looking at the proposal. He looks at Gypsy and Patrick “do you have a working prototype yet?”

“Yes, but we would need to custom fit the pieces to your body measurements.” Patrick knew each piece of the enhanced body armor would need to be fitted to the wearer. They were working on a universal fit, but for testing purposes, it needed to be custom fitted.

Nathan looks at the image of the enhanced body armor and back to the gauss rifle. He liked what he saw so far.

“Do you mind if I pick up the rifle?” Nathan wanted to see how heavy the rifle weight.

“Go ahead. This is just the prototype; the full finished model will be a little lighter and slimmer.” Gypsy flicks the safety measures on. She had a security app on her phone that kills the power to the rifle.

Nathan picks the rifle up and felt how heavy it was. It had to be at least twenty pounds and was bulky. He wonders how much the rifle would weigh and function in the power body armor.

“In your demonstration video, you said the body armor will have jetpacks. How high up will the jetpacks allow a person to fly and for how long?” Nathan puts the rifle down on the counter.

Frank looks at Gypsy “may I?”

“Have I ever said no to you before, Frank?” Gypsy thought of Frank as a big brother.

Frank picks the gauss rifle up and examines it as well. He loved the fact that the rifle only needed metal rounds. He ejects the magazine and looks at the rounds themselves. They were made of aluminum & titanium.

“To answer your question Mr. Washington, the jetpacks have a 10,000 feet ceiling height, and one jetpack has a 10-minute fuel supply and the other has a 20-minute fuel supply. We're working on giving you a longer flight time with the jetpacks. Each jetpack has a backup parachute in case you run out of fuel while you are flying. The second jetpack has wings to allow you to glide and a one-time booster to extend your flight range.” Gypsy wanted to give the wear a safety net.

She was considering putting a flexible emergency fuel tank on the pack. That way if the operator needed it, they could land safely. The only other thing she could do was design a suit meant just for flying.

“Has any of the jetpacks been tested yet?” Nathan liked what he was hearing so far.

“Bench test only and the second jetpack with wings is a production model. Our jetpack is based off a 1938 model that I came across the plans of.” Gypsy was glad she found the plans in the old steamer trunk.

They take the gauss rifle to the outdoor gun range. Frank fires it first and couldn’t believe how accurate it was. The rounds for the rifle went straight through the material and buried itself in the mound of dirt behind the target.

Frank looks at Gypsy “I’ll pay you to make me one of these.” He loved it.

"I'll see what I can do for you, Frank." Gypsy didn't mind building one for Frank.

“Let me try and put an armor plate up.” Nathan wanted to see how it fired.

Gypsy hands him a freshly charged battery pack and a fresh magazine. She watches as Pat and Frank brings out an armor plate and set it up. They bring a second one out and places it in front of the first one.

Nathan waits until they get back to where they were standing, before firing the weapon. Once they were safe, he pulls the trigger and fires at the armor plates. He fires a single round first and watches as it embeds itself into the armor plating. He switches to full auto and watched as the rounds go right through two plates of ½ inch armor plating.

“Dam! That was an inch of armor plating.” Frank couldn’t believe the rounds just slice through the armor.” All of them walked up to the armor plating to examine them.

The rounds went right through the armor plating like it was butter. He had a tight pattern and a hole where the rounds opened it.

“Impressive, your prototype rifle is powerful. I didn’t see this rifle in the proposal you submitted.” Nathan liked how the rifle handle.

“It was a last-minute idea that Gypsy came up with.” Patrick was loving the new weapon for their armor design.

Nathan looks towards Gypsy and then at Frank. He turns his attention back to Patrick “how soon can you have a suit ready?”

“You’ll need to come to our lab so we can take a measurement of your body. After that, only a day to build the suit and get you familiar with how it works.” Gypsy knew the department of defense wanted the process to be simple and easy for soldiers to use.

So, they got the process down to a day of fitting the suit to the solider. That’s why they were working on a universal fit suit, where the suit adjusted to the wear. They had drawings and plans for other styles of suit for different purposes.

“Well, give me a day or so to make a few arrangements and I’ll get back in touch with you guys.” Nathan has already decided he wanted to help these two young people out.

The rest of the afternoon, they play with the gauss rifle on the range.

Gypsy felt uncomfortable as she mingled with the people at the dinner party she had been invited to. She had come with Prosecutor Ralph Cox as his date. She never thought she would be mingling with such wheelers and dealers. She had gone out and bought an expensive evening dress for the party.

Why she ever agreed to this, she’ll never know. She didn’t think she would be this nervous. She continues to mingle and finally around ten o’clock they leave and head back to Ralph’s place. As they are driving towards his place, a car with bright headlights come up from behind them and bump the rear bumper.

Gypsy turns around and tries to see what the car was. It taps their bumper again.

“Who the hell are they?” Gypsy wishes she had the gauss rifle right now.

“I don’t know.” Ralph steps on the gas and tries to get away.

The car pulls up alongside of Ralph’s car and slams into it several times. Ralph loses control and crashes into a parked car. The airbags go off inside, smacking Gypsy in the face.

The last thing she hears is the squealing of tires as she passes out. When she comes to, she finds herself in the back of an ambulance.

“What happened?” Gypsy was confused and very sore as she watches the paramedic tend to her.

“You were in a car accident, ma’am. We’re taking you to Saint Burgess to be checked out.” Carolyn looks at the young lady as she was laying on the stretcher.

She had a bandage around her head, where the airbag had smacked her in the face. She is taken into the emergency room and checked over. Her right shoulder was hurting her, from being slammed against the door of the car.

She wasn’t hurt too bad. She got banged up and had a few cuts from the airbag exploding in front of her. She was released after a few hours.
Ralph, on the other hand, was in critical condition. Gypsy was told he had a broken shoulder, three bruised ribs, and a concussion. She checks on him, before catching a cab home.

She walks into her apartment and takes her ruined blood-stained evening dress off. She tosses it into her dirty clothes hamper.

“That’s one dress ruined.” She was disappointed. She spent good money buying that dress.

She slips her nightshirt on with a little difficulty with her right arm. There was a nasty bruised on it where she was slammed against the car door. She wonders who was trying to kill her or Ralph.

She lays down in bed and turns the lights off. She’ll have to see if anyone was coming after Patrick tomorrow. She falls asleep and hopes things will be better tomorrow.

Her alarm clock goes off to wake her for work. She smacks her alarm and goes back to sleep. It goes off again nine minutes later. She shuts the alarm off and gets up out of bed. Her body was hurting as she goes about getting dress.

She heads to work first and works on disassembling three bins of electronics. She sets a few items aside for the project. She's finishing her work and as she is leaving. She wonders where Jayson was. As long as she has been working here, he has never missed a day.

Gypsy heads towards the cashiers to pay for her bin of items. As she is standing there in line checking out. She looks towards Joan “hey Joan, have you seen Jayson today?”

“Nope, he hasn’t been by here all day. Normally, he comes in and checks with us to see if we need anything.” Joan was wondering if Jayson was coming by.

“I wonder if he is okay? I have never known him to miss a day of work.” Gypsy reaches into her purse for the amount.

“That will be $55.50, Gypsy.”

Gypsy pulls three twenties from her purse and hands them to Joan.

Joan accepts them and gives gypsy her change.

“Gypsy, if you don’t mind me asking. What do you do with all the junk you buy from here?” Joan and a few others had wonder what Gypsy
does with all the electronics, metal scraps she buys.

“I’m using it in a school project.” Gypsy figures they wouldn’t understand what she and Patrick use the items for.

“Well, I hope your school project turns out fine.” Joan knew Gypsy worked hard to maintain a high grade point average at school.

“Thanks, Joan.” Gypsy takes her stuff to her car and put it on the passenger seat.

She stops by Wendy’s to grab her and Patrick some food. She doesn’t know if he has eaten anything. When she gets to the college, she parks her mustang in a different parking lot after what happened last time.

Patrick was busy closing the control box that maintains all the functions of the environmental systems in the suit. Everything was working within the perimeters they programmed for the suit. He looks towards the door as Gypsy comes walking. She had a bandage around her head and was moving a little stiffly.

“What happened to you?” Pat was concern about his lab partner.

“I was in a car accident last night. Someone ran Ralph off the road last night after we left the dinner party.” Gypsy puts the bin of items she had
bought on her work table.

“I got you some food. I don’t know if you have eaten anything yet.” She sets the food she bought for him on his workbench.

“Thanks.” Patrick was hungry as he dug into the bags. He notices she got him what he liked.

“You’re welcome. Have you heard from Nathan?” As Gypsy starts work on another control module.

“Not yet. Maybe, we should start looking for another test pilot.” Patrick watches Gypsy as she installs the module she was working on in the suit.

“You know, I would love to be able to wear this.” Gypsy runs her hands over the outside of the suit.

“We would have to construct a special suit for you and me.” Patrick would love to wear one as well. He had plans drawn up of two suits that the two of them could wear.

“I know. Still, I would love to know what it feels like to be inside one of these with the jetpack mounted on the back of it.” She picks up the jetpack they designed.

You could wear it without the armor, but you could only fly so high. She goes back to work.

“Hey, I came up with a solution to some of our kinetic energy problem from the bullets. I figure a full figure suit made of kinetic absorbing
material would add an additional protection layer to the wearer. We can place the sensors we need to monitor the wearer vital in the suit. That way we can tie the sensors in with the suit environmental and oxygen control module.” Patrick had gone over the results from the armor testing and came up with a way to protect the wearer.

They finally finish their work for the day. As Patrick and Gypsy are sitting and relaxing, something catches Gypsy’s eyes. She saw it move earlier. She goes over and just as she gets close to the object, it takes flight and flies away from her towards their door.

Gypsy grabs her rubber ball she keeps on her workbench and tosses it at the object. The ball hits and the object fall to the floor. Gypsy walks over and looks at it.

“Well, we now know what Andy and his crew are up too.” Gypsy holds up the ruined drone. The thing wasn’t very big.

“They are making smart drones.” Gypsy hands it to Patrick to look at.

“We could build a jammer to jam their signals.” He takes it over to his magnifying glass to take a closer look at the remains.

“Whoever designed this on Andy’s team, did a wonderful job.” Pat steps aside so Gypsy could look.

“I agree with you. However, why was this one over here watching what we were doing?” Gypsy turns on a signal jammer they have in the lab.

She looks around and spots three more surveillance drones. She grabs her hammer and starts smashing them. Once they were destroyed,
she goes over to the signal jammer and turns it off.

“I am going to destroy their little project.” Gypsy was mad.

“Come on Gypsy, you can always get even latter.” Patrick knew how vengeful Gypsy could be.

“I know.” Gypsy helps Pat lock up everything.

“I’m going to go and see how Ralph is doing.” Gypsy grabs her stuff.

“Alright, I’ll see you tomorrow.” As he walks Gypsy down to her car.

Gypsy watches Pat as he walks towards his car from the safety of her own car. Once Pat was in his car, she heads towards the hospital.

When Gypsy arrives at the hospital, Ralph was still unconscious. She would love to know who ran them off the road and why Andy’s team were spying on them. She heads home after visiting Ralph.

The next day while she and Pat are doing some routine testing on the armor. Her cell phone starts ringing. Gypsy pulls it out to see who it was

“hello?”

“Hi Gypsy, this is Sergeant Major Nathan Washington, if your offer is still available for testing the armor, I am available. I have also spoken with the base commander and he has agreed to let you use the training grounds here Fort Indiantown Gap.” Nathan knew Gypsy and her partner were going to need a testing grounds for the armor.

Gypsy knew they were going to need a testing ground for the armor. Also, the base Nathan was talking about was about a two-hour drive from the college. Which meant they would need some sort of work van to make repairs and record what they did.

“Okay, but you need to come in, so we can take measurements of your body.” Gypsy and Pat would need to construct and adjust the prototype armor to his body.

“Okay, what day is good for you two?” Nathan was taking a few days of leave to do what he needed for them.

“Tomorrow would be good. If you could come in for a couple of hours. We could get everything done and have the armor adjusted for testing by this weekend.” Gypsy had a mechanic friend of hers she could buy a van from.

She had the equipment they would need at work, she could purchase and fix. She also knew an electronics store she could buy equipment from.

“What time tomorrow?” Nathan didn’t have anything planned, so he was free all day long.

“Could you be here at 8:00 am tomorrow?” She and Pat were coming in early tomorrow to analyze some data.

“I think I can do that. Any particular place I’m supposed to park?” Nathan didn’t know if

“Yes, I’ll send you everything you need and let security know. Can you give me your email?” Gypsy grabs a pen and a piece of paper.

“It’s [email protected]” Nathan didn’t like giving out his true email. He uses this one from his military site.

“Okay Nathan, I’ll send everything you need to this address. See you tomorrow.” Gypsy ends the call.

When she looks over towards Pat, she notices he had stopped what he was doing to listen to her conversation.

“That was Nathan and he has agreed to be our test subject for the armor. Also, he got permission from the base commander where he is
stationed to test the suit of armor there.” Gypsy had scouted out a few places to test the armor, but the military base is a good place to do the
testing.

“How far away is the base?” Patrick was curious about how much travel they might have to do.

“It’s a two-hour drive to the base. So, we're looking at four hours round trip. In addition, we need a test and repair vehicle while we're testing
the armor.” Gypsy was mentally thinking about what they were going to need out in the field.

“Your right about that. Do you know anyone we can get either a cargo or box truck from?” Pat figures either one would be decent enough for them.

“I know a mechanic I ask advice from. He might have what we need in his storage yard. As for stocking it with testing equipment. I can get what we need from work and repair or modify them for purposes.” Gypsy knew she could find what they need from the salvage yard.

Her boss bought a lot of surplus military or civilian equipment. Sometimes, all the equipment needed was a new capacitor or a new board inside. She normally, fix it and use it herself at her station or send it down the line to for resell.

“Do we have the money to buy a vehicle?” Patrick knew Gypsy normally handled their funds for what they needed.

“Don’t worry, if my mechanic friend has what we need, I’ll be able to get it for cheap.” Gypsy had a few car parts she could horse trade for the
vehicle.

“That reminds me, how is Ralph doing?” Pat remembered that Ralph was still in the hospital.

“He’s still unconscious. The police are looking into who caused the accident. They managed to get a description of the car that hit us. A truck
driver saw the car and reported it.” Officer Green had called her and let her know they had a lead.

“What nasty device or idea have you come up with, to get even with Adam and his team?” Pat knew Gypsy could come up with some nasty ideas.

An evil smile appears on her face “I built a mini-emp generator to put a damper on his devices.”

“How are you going to get that device into their lab?” Patrick would love to see their faces.

“I am paying the janitor to let me slip into their lab. That’s the only way they could have gotten into our lab. Once I’m in, I am going to leave this little box that we can remotely turn off and on.” Gypsy shows Pat the emp generator she built last night.

“You know, they might have hidden cameras watching the lab.” Pat had set one up in their lab to watch who might be coming in.

“Got that covered as well. I’ll be back in a little bit.” Gypsy leaves their lab and looks around for Hector.

Hector was a nice guy and for the right price would let you in non-faculty offices or labs. Gypsy knew Adam and his team weren’t working today. She finds Hector cleaning a classroom.

“Hey, Hector. How has your day been so far?” Gypsy approaches Hector carefully.

Hector spots Gypsy walking towards him. He had his headset on and didn’t hear her.

“Hey Gypsy, what can I do for you?” He lowers his headset.

“I need a favor and I’m willing to pay you to do it.” Gypsy notices that Hector lowered his headset, which means he didn’t hear her.

“Let me guess, you want to get even for what Adam and his team did to you?” Hector saw the remains of the drones Adam’s team were working on.

“What do you know about that?” Gypsy wonders if he had something to do with it.

“Look, I saw the smashed drones in your wastebasket. His team shouldn’t have spied on you. You two shouldn’t start a war with one another.”
Hector knew if they did, neither team would win.

Hector knew how Adam and his team were trying to beat Gypsy and Patrick. The two of them were geniuses and anything they came up with, would be hard to beat.

“That doesn’t excuse them for what they did.” Gypsy still hasn’t forgiven them.

“I know, but starting a war with them, is senseless. Let it go, for now, Gypsy.” Hector didn’t want to see Gypsy or her partner get hurt.

“Thanks for the advice.” Gypsy heads back to her lab. She was going to get even with them, one way or another.

Pat looks up when Gypsy walks in “so, did Hector help you?”

“No, he said I shouldn’t try to get revenge for what they did.” Gypsy wanted revenge for what they did.

“So, he must have helped them then.” Pat figures Hector must have let them into their lab. He and Gypsy kept things locked up tight in their lab.

“Maybe we should change the lock on our lab door?” Gypsy looks towards the current lock.

“Can’t we would need to get approval first. You know how much trouble we had to go through to get our safe and some of our equipment.” They had to explain why they needed everything.

“Well, once we get the van or truck. We can lock everything up in it.” Gypsy places the emp generator back in her purse.

“Let’s get everything set-up for Nathan tomorrow.” Pat starts setting up the equipment they were going to need to construct the kinetic suit.

Nathan stands inside the chamber in just his boxers as lasers measure his body. He watches as another device connected to the chamber starts making a black outfit with his measurements. After thirty minutes, the black suit is finished.

“You can come out now, Sergeant.” Pat walks over towards the black suit and peels it off the form it had been constructed around.

Nathan steps out of the chamber he was in “so, this chamber takes your measurements and transfers it to these printers?”

“Yep, this kinetic suit was constructed with your measurements. It also has micro-sensors in it, so we can, and the suit can monitor your body temperature, heart rate, stress level, and oxygen intake and adjust the environment in the suit.” Pat hooks up the tester to make sure the sensors were working right.

“Where’s Gypsy at this morning?” Nathan was surprised she wasn’t at the lab.

“She is visiting her mechanic friend and seeing if she can get us a cargo van or box truck. I’m hoping she can get us a box truck.” Pat unplugs
the tester.

“Alright, slip this suit on.” Pat hands the suit that the printer just created.

Nathan accepts the suit and starts slipping it on. It was skin tight and after a few adjustments, he manages to get the suit on. He was amazed at how thick it was on his body.

“Time to test the suit.” Pat grabs a solid oak baseball bat and swings it at Nathan.

He hits Nathan in the chest with it as hard as he could. The bat connects with the suit. It bounces off like it wasn’t anything.

Nathan was surprised when Pat hit him in the middle of his chest with a baseball bat. He didn’t feel anything when it connected with his chest. The bat just bounced off the suit.

“Surprised?” Pat still had the bat in his hands.

“Yes, I was. How did you come up with this suit?” Nathan would have loved this over in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

“I expanded on the idea of a special material that a company in China was developing. The thickness of your suit is capable of stopping a glass jar from breaking from a twenty-story building.” Pat had come across the idea in a science magazine he subscribed to.

“So, what is next?” Nathan felt weird wearing the suit.

“Come on over here and we can get you suited up.” Pat had the armor all set out for Nathan to wear.

Tony’s Auto Collision Repair:
Gypsy parks her mustang and heads inside to look for Tony. He said he might have something that met her requirement. As she walks in, she spots George sitting behind the counter drinking his coffee.

“Good morning George, where is Tony?” She walks up to the counter.

“He’s out back getting a vehicle to show you.” George knew Gypsy was looking for a mobile unit to conduct a field test in.

“Is it okay for me to go out back?” Gypsy takes a piece of candy, from the candy jar they keep on the counter.

“Go ahead. You might run into him out there.” George presses the buzzer under the counter to let Gypsy out into the storage yard.

Gypsy walks out into the yard and looks around. Tony had so many cars and trucks he either used for spare parts for cars he worked on and repair. She always loved coming out into the yard to grab what parts she needed for her mustangs.

She moves carefully among the aging cars. She had her school clothes on and didn’t want to tear or get them greasy. She spots a black RV like thing heading towards the gate. It was muddy and had some lettering missing off it. It was some sort of mobile command center for a
police department.

Gypsy heads towards it. She spots Tony in the driver seat as she stands and waits till it comes to a stop. The thing was big enough for her and
Pat to work in and sleep in if they had too.

“So, what do you think?” Tony opens the door for Gypsy to come in and look at it.

Gypsy walks inside and looks around. The sides slide out and there was enough work area for at least four people. There was also places on the wall she could mount the jetpacks. The RV was perfect for what they were going to do.

“This is perfect, Tony. How much is it?” Gypsy was concerned about the price.

“Normally, it would go for $45,000 dollars, but for you, I’ll take $20,000 since it has been sitting here for a while.” Tony figured he would give
Gypsy a discount since she was still in school and the fact she was a good customer.

Gypsy thinks about it. They were going to need this unit for their testing. They had the money from their grant to pay for the RV. She has already spoken to her boss about buying the equipment they needed from him.

“Alright, you have yourself a deal. Do you have a title for it?” Gypsy could go to Department of Motor Vehicles and register it in hers and Pat’s name.

“Yep, got it inside and it is clear.” Tony knew Gypsy would want the RV.

“So, give me the tour of the RV.” Gypsy had already spotted where they were going to set-up their server.

It had a network cabinet with everything they needed. All they had to do was set-up a server. There were very few things they had to change, but they had enough room to work and lock the armor up when they weren’t using it. They even had a satellite unit in the RV that they could use to control the armor if they had to.

Penn College:
Gypsy gets the RV register and takes it to the college. She figures Pat and Nathan would still be there. She parks the RV near the loading dock where they normally received their big deliveries.

She gets campus police to watch it as she heads up to hers and Pat’s lab. As she walks in, she notices Nathan half way dress in the enhanced armor.

“How is it fitting?” She puts her purse down and walks over to look at the body armor Nathan had on already.

“Everything is fitting nicely. You guys did a good job building it.” Nathan liked how it fitted so far.

“Well, are you ready for the last piece?” Nathan had the last pieces ready to be mounted.

“Let’s do it.” Nathan watches as Gypsy and Pat put the last pieces on.

“We’re going to power it up now.” Gypsy enters her security code first on the remote in her hand.

She hands the remote to Patrick “enter your security code.”

Nathan couldn’t see Pat or Gypsy. He knew they were behind him. They were plugged into the main computer that controlled the suit.

Patrick takes the remote and enters his security code into the remote. They watch the little display to see if they programmed the main computer right. It goes through it checked list and switches from red to green.

“Alright Sergeant, everything should start lighting up and a Hud display should pop-up. The suit is going to get a baseline of your vitals, so we can chart how well you are doing.” Gypsy shuts the access port to the main computer.

Nathan watches as all the indicators and readouts appear on a hologram screen in front of him a HUD system pops-up. He felt the suit tighten up and a low whine could be heard as the air starts flowing throughout the suit.

“How is it, Sergeant?” As Gypsy and Pat watch Nathan.

Nathan turns his head towards Gypsy’s voice. The onboard computer identifies Gypsy and gives information about her. It also identifies Patrick and gives information about him.

“A little overwhelming. The onboard computer is giving me the dimensions of the room and where everyone is in it.” Nathan watches as the information appears.

“That’s the tactical aspect of the suit. You can’t be surprised from behind. It knows where everything is in the room.” Gypsy moves from where she was standing to another spot.

Nathan watches as the tactical computer gives her new location. As he turns to face her the scans inside the helmet orients itself to where he is facing. It still has everything locked, so he could fire at them.

“Oh, this is so neat.” Nathan was liking the tactical system.

“Okay, take a step towards me.” Gypsy wanted to see if the exoskeleton built in the suit was working right.

Nathan slowly walks forward. He could feel that the suit was helping him. He takes a few more steps as the suit adjust itself to his movements.
He turns around and walks back towards Patrick and Gypsy.

“How do you remove the helmet?” Nathan wanted to see what the difference was between the outside air and the air inside the suit.

“Pull it out and then up.” Patrick walks over to help Nathan.

Nathan does what Patrick tells him. The face of the helmet opens, and he flips it up. He watches as the HUD disappears.

“When you open the helmet like that. It disables the HUD and everything else, except the radio.” Gypsy designed it that way to conserve energy.

“Smart move. What frequencies do I have access too?” Nathan wonders if he could tap or listen into military or police frequencies.

“All of them. We put a descrambler into the helmet, so you can break most coded frequencies. The armor your wearing can tap into most cellular networks as well. We haven’t tested that function yet. You also have GPS location and satellite communications.” Gypsy walks over and checks the battery charge.

“Sergeant lets go ahead and get you out of the armor and get everything loaded up in the new command center.” Gypsy grabs a few items to take down to the RV.

Pat and Nathan's help carry equipment after Nathan gets redress in his normal suit. When they see the RV.

“You bought that?” Patrick couldn’t believe it.

“Yep, it’s an old police department’s command center. Tony said he rebuilt the motor in it and everything works. All we need to do is to install a server and the rest of our equipment. I have everything else we need back at my place.” Gypsy had all the equipment they needed that she bought form her boss.

“Man, this is going to be a nice work vehicle.” Pat explorers the RV.

“You guys are going to need a base pass to get on base. Leave that to me.” Nathan will talk with the commander about them getting a base pass.

They spend the rest of the afternoon loading up the RV. Once everything is loaded, Nathan heads home and Gypsy drives the RV back to her place.

Gypsy watches the reads out on the monitor as Sergeant Nathan testes the running speed of the armor. She couldn’t believe how fast he was running. They had guessed that the suit would go 25 mph, but it was hitting 40 mph.

“How are you doing, Sergeant?” Gypsy was watching the readings and they were within acceptable range.

“I’m doing fine and I’m loving what this suit is capable of.” Nathan jumps a wide ditch in one single leap.

“Are you ready for live fire testing?” Gypsy had asked for several MP’s and sharpshooters to test them and to see how it reacted to live fire with a pilot.

“Bring them on.” Sergeant Nathan was ready to test the suit with live fire.

He adjusts the power setting on the gauss rifle. That way he could return fire without seriously injuring his opponent. Nathan is surprised when the suit switches to combat mode.

Pat and Gypsy watches as the live-action combat took place. The suit was doing remarkably well. There wasn’t any serious damage done to the suit. When Sergeant Nathan fired the gauss rifle at his attackers, he hit each person. One person tried to take care behind a concrete barrier.

He increased the power level and aimed just a few inches to the right of the person. The round went right through the barrier like it was butter.

“Oh, sweet! I love this gun.” Sergeant Nathan loved it because it was quiet.

The simulated battle continues, and the armor performs wonderfully. Minimal damage is sustained to the armor. The energy levels were within projected ranges.

He walks over to the command center and lifts his helmet. He wasn’t even breaking a sweat inside the suit.

“Thirsty?” Gypsy comes walking out with a bottled water.

“Sure.” As he accepts the bottled water.

“I was thinking about conducting a nighttime exercise to see how well the suit performs at night.” Gypsy looks at Pat to see what he thinks about the idea.

“I think that might be a good idea. Let’s see how the suit does and then ask the base commander to conduct a security exercise at night as well.” Pat would like to see how the suit responds under adverse conditions.

“Alright, the next exercise is the flight test. Are you ready to try this?” Gypsy and Pat look at sergeant Nathan.

“I’m ready for that.” Nathan knew the jetpacks had an emergency parachute if things went wrong.

“Alright, we’re going to test the jetpack we built first. We're going to launch you by remote a few times to see how you handle the takeoff. Then
afterward we're going to let you launch yourself.” Gypsy hopes everything goes well during the remote launches.

“How high up are you going to do each launch?” Nathan wanted to know, so he could be prepared.

“The first one is ten feet off the ground. The next at least thirty feet and then we will go higher to at least hundred and higher. The last will be the 10,000 feet mark. That way you can see how the suit works at higher altitude. Also, we will want to test the emergency parachute at that time as well.” Pat had a smile on his face.

“Trust me, Sergeant. We won’t allow anything to happen to you.” Gypsy checks the system and switches out the power pack, so he had a fresh power pack.

The suit didn’t shut down when Gypsy switches power packs. He didn’t know if the suit was supposed to do that.

“Gypsy, Pat is the suit suppose to stay on, while you are changing the power packs?” Nathan was curious.

“Yes, the suit’s system stores enough power to maintain the suit for ten minutes.” Gypsy had designed the internal storage battery to maintain the suit. That way the wearer wouldn’t be vulnerable to the environment or attacks.

Pat walks into the command center and grabs the jetpack Gypsy made. He carries it back outside and over to Nathan.

“I need for you to turn around, Sergeant.” Pat wanted to make sure the pack was secure on the suit.

Nathan turns around to allow Pat to mount the suit. He looks at Gypsy “how do I control the pack?”

“The on and off switch are part of your glove. The HUD display inside your suit gives you fuel, direction, and altitude. It also gives you the GPS coordinates of your location.” Gypsy makes sure all the connections between the suit and the jetpack was working.

“Alright, here’s your take off and landing spot.” Pat lays down a white square with a red X in the middle.

Gypsy walks inside the command center and takes her seat. Pat comes in behind her and sits in his seat.

“I love this command center.” Pat loved the fact that he could sit in comfort.

Gypsy just shakes her head. She looks back at the monitor in front of her.

“Sergeant, are you ready?” Gypsy hopes everything works right.

“I’m ready when you are.” Nathan was feeling a little excited

“Counting down from ten. 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1.” Gypsy presses the ignition button.

The jetpack fires and lifts Nathan up to ten feet. Nathan has never felt like this before. The information Gypsy said would appear, appears
showing him, his altitude, GPS coordinates, fuel level. He manages to learn how to move his body.

“Alright Sergeant. Time to come back to Earth.” Gypsy causes the suit to descend.

Nathan prepares himself as he lands. He loved hovering there in the air.

“How did you like that, Sergeant?”

“I loved it. Let’s go higher.” Nathan wanted to go higher this time around.

“Alright, I’m going to take you up to fifty feet.” Gypsy actives the jetpack and have it hover at fifty feet.

“Gypsy, give me a little control of the suit.” Nathan wanted to try something.

“Okay, releasing remote control, now.” Gypsy disconnects the remote piloting.

Nathan felt the remote switch to manual and he drops some before he regains control. He gives the jetpack more fuel and shoots up to two hundred feet before he stabilizes and hovers.

“Do you think that was wise, Gypsy?” Pat looks at his partner.

A smile appears on her face “he’s a natural, Pat. Look at his readings with the suit.”

Pat looks at the readings and couldn’t believe his eyes. The suit was responding unbelievable to Nathan’s control.

“I’m going higher guys.” Nathan gives the suit more power and he shoots up to 4,000 feet.

Pat and Gypsy just watch him on the monitors. The sensors inside the suit cause it to switch to a self-contained environment. Pat and Gypsy watch as the other systems come online.

“Nathan, you’re at 4,000 feet. Let’s see if you can land the suit, now.” Gypsy wanted to see if he could land safely.

“Alright, returning to launch pad.” Nathan slowly descends as he comes back to the command center.

The suit shows as he slowly descends back down. He keeps going and finally lands. He lifts the visor and breathes in normal air.

Gypsy and Pat come out of the command center. They noticed Nathan had the visor lifted.

“Is everything okay?” They were worried that something went wrong.

“God yes. I can’t believe I actually flew.” Nathan loved the feeling he had.

“Well, actually you only hovered, but close enough.” Gypsy walks behind Nathan to check the jetpack.

“I think once we put on a full display on what this suit can do, the military is going to want it.” Nathan knew if they had this suit over in Pakistan, things would have been different.

“Let’s do the last test and call it a day for now.” Gypsy looks towards Pat to see what he thought.

“I agree. Are you ready Nathan?” Pat looks at him.

“Let’s do it.” Nathan closes the visor.

He presses the ignition button and holds it as he is lifted off the ground and head straight up.

“There he goes.” Gypsy and Pat head inside and sit back down at their stations.

Nathan reaches 10,000 feet and hovers there. He loves the feeling he was experiencing.

“Alright, cutting engines now.” Gypsy cuts the jetpack off.

Nathan starts falling. He watches as the ground starts coming towards him.

“Pulling emergency chute.” Nathan pulls the chute lollipop and jerks up when the chute emerges.

He manages to guide his drop back to where he took off. It reminded him of his training when he first joins the army as he touches down on the white square.

Gypsy and Patrick watch as Nathan puts the body armor through its paces. The information they were receiving back was valuable. They found out during the flight testing that Nathan liked the other jetpack because of the wings. It gave him more maneuverability, over the other jetpack.

Gypsy already had a new design in mind for a new jetpack. It would give Nathan a longer range and had more flight time. Plus, she could mount weapons to it.

Nathan watches the gauges on his HUD display that showed him how much fuel, ammo, and power he had left. He loved the body armor and the gauss rifle. The commander of the base had come to watch the testing they were doing.

The base commander liked what he had seen and was curious if Gypsy and Pat were going to build more. Because if he had a squad equipped with that type of armor, they would be able overcome a lot of obstacles in the field.

The few soldiers that had been involved in the testing. They wanted to give the armor a try, but unfortunately, it was calibrated for him. This body armor was design with him in mind. They haven’t started on making a universal fit body armor yet.

Nathan lands at the command center and opens the face plate on the helmet. He inhales the cold night air and could tell that there was a difference in the temperatures inside the armor, compared to the night air. The armor kept a constant seventy degrees inside the armor.

He could lower it if he wanted too. He waits for Gypsy and Pat to come out of the command center. He didn't know if they were done testing for the night. He wanted a beer. He could attach a container filled with beer if he wanted too.

Pat and Gypsy steps out of the command center. They stop and look at him “so, how do you feel?”

“I’m fine and could go for a beer.” Nathan starts taking the body armor off.

The first time he took the suit off, it took him a while to remove it. He needed Gypsy and Pat’s help. Now, he could do it on his own and within
five minutes.

He steps out of the armor and shivers some from the cold air hitting some bare skin. The gel suit he is wearing keeps the rest of his body warm.

“Well, we have a six pack in the Command center for you. Let’s get you out of that gel suit and into your normal clothes.” As Gypsy starts putting the armor on the stand.

Pat helps her, while Nathan heads inside to switch out of the gel suit and into his street clothes. The two of them come in after ten minutes and start shutting things down.

“Hey Nathan, take a look at this new design for the new jetpack.” Gypsy pulls the image up and put it on the big screen.

Nathan watches as the animation of the new jetpack plays. It was different in design than the winged one they already.

“How far can I go and how high?” Nathan was curious about it.

“Same height as before 10,000 feet, but your flight time will be increased to thirty minutes of flight. I’m trying to get you an hours’ worth, but the more weight I add, the more fuel you have to burn.” Gypsy was doing all she could for him and the project.

“Well, I hope you succeed, Gypsy.” Nathan takes a beer out of the mini-fridge.

Gypsy just shakes her head and heads up to the cab and start heading back home. They stop just before they get to the gate and let Nathan pick up his car. The ride back to where Gypsy and Pat live takes about an hour and a half. Gypsy drops Pat off at his place. She heads back towards her place and locks the command center up. She and Pat take turns keeping the command center at their places.

As she walks into her place, she notices someone has ransacked it. She wonders who in the hell would have done this to her. She felt violated as she pulls her cell phone out and calls the police.

Gypsy doesn’t check anything and waits out on the landing till the police show up. She speaks to a police officer as crime scene techs go into her place and look for fingerprints and such.

Detective Whalebone was on her way home when she received the call of a break-in. The location was in the opposite direction of her home. She does a U-turn and heads towards the address.

When she arrived, she notices a young woman wearing blue jeans and a nice blouse. She walks up to the young woman.

“Hi, I’m Detective Whalebone, can you tell me what happened?” She pulls her notebook out and gets ready to write the information down.

“Yes, ma’am. I came home and found my door still locked, but when I opened it and came inside. I found my place had been trashed.”

“Do you know if anything was taken?”

“No, ma’am. I stepped back out onto the landing and called the police. I don't know if anything is missing, until I clean the place up.” Gypsy didn’t want to corrupt the crime scene.

“That was smart. What type of work do you do Mrs.?”

“Lapp, Gypsy Lapp.” Not many people knew Gypsy’s maiden name.

She kept her last name when she had her name changed. She did it to honor her parents. They didn’t understand why she didn’t come back or why she wanted to be a girl either.

“I’m a student at Penn State College of Engineering. I also work at a recycling center, fixing and scraping electronic equipment.” Gypsy couldn’t tell the Detective that her and Pat were developing the power armor for the government.

“So, you don’t know if anything is missing?” Detective Whalebone wonders why this young woman was targeted.

“Not till, I clean-up.” Gypsy didn’t see anything missing so far.

“Alright, if you come across anything your missing, call me.” As Detective Whalebone hands her one of her business cards.

“I will Detective.” Gypsy accepts the card and tucks it into her back pocket.

Detective Whalebone turns and leaves. While she is walking towards her car, she wonders why they broke into Ms. Lapp’s place. She gets in and heads towards her home.

Gypsy spends most of the night getting her place in order. It looked like whoever ransacked her place, was looking for something, but what? As she stands and looks around her place.

There wasn’t anything missing, that she could tell. She’ll have to replace some of her electronic instruments that got damaged. The prototype gauss rifle she built was damage. It looked like someone used it like a baseball bat.

Her laptop and portable drive were with her. She double checks her apartment and double lock the front door. She heads into her bathroom and takes a shower. She turns the remote security cameras on inside the Command center and records everything.

FBI Building, Johnstown, PA.
Special Agent Regina Garcia was just getting to work when she gets called by her boss to come to his office. She heads towards his office to find out what he wanted. So far, her morning hasn’t been going right.

Her husband left the lights on, on her car and she had to get a boost. Her daughter missed her school bus and she had to drive her to school. The line at her favorite coffee shop was long. She barely made it to the office on time.

She knocks on the door to her boss’s office.

“Enter!”

Regina walks into his office.

“Shut the door behind you.” Joe looks up from his desk to see who just walked in.

“Ah, Regina. Just the person I wanted to see. Please, have a seat.” Joe motions towards the chair in front of his desk.

Regina sits down in the chair in front of the desk. She looks towards her boss.

“What did you want to see me about, boss?” Regina was curious why she was called to her boss’s office.

“I have an assignment for you. A DARPA researcher/developer had her place broken into last night. I need for you to go and talk with her to see if any of her research was access or stolen.” There had been a message waiting for him when he came into work.

“What type of research is she doing for DARPA, sir?” Regina wanted to get some background on her.

“She and her partner are doing armor research. That’s all I can tell you.” Joe didn’t know what else they were doing.

“Okay. Is there anything else I should know?” Regina wonders what the researcher was up too.

“Yes, they are doing their research at Penn State College of Engineering. They are students at the college.” Joe couldn’t believe two college students were working on a project for DARPA.

“College students are working on projects for DARPA?” Regina was surprised to hear that.

“I was surprised as well, but yes. Here’s the address for Gypsy Lapp. Her place was the one broken into. Also, here is the name of the
detective that is investigating the break-in.” Joe hands the address of Gypsy Lapp to Regina, along with Detective Whalebone number and case number. Ms. Lapp had left the information when she called.

Regina looks at the address and knew it was going to take at least half-n-hour to get there. She’ll speak with detective Whalebone about what happened first.

Gypsy’s Place:
“Ring, ring, ring.” Gypsy is woken-up from the ringing of her cellphone.

She grabs the annoying thing and looks through blurry eyes who was calling her. She notices it was Patrick’s cell number.

“Hello?” Gypsy was still half to sleep.

“Gypsy, where is the body armor right now?” Patrick had woken up and was watching television when a newscast caught his attention about a diamond heist going on.

The footage that was being shown. Showed their body armor, walking out of the diamond exchange. The police were firing at it, but it wasn’t stopping the person wearing the armor.

Gypsy pulls her tablet out and brings up the security cameras in the command center. Their body armor was right where it should be. It was locked up and charging in its storage locker.

“Patrick, our armor is still in the command center. I just ran a security check and it's still there. Why did you ask about it?” Gypsy was curious why Patrick called her.

“Turn your television on and go to channel seventeen.” Patrick watched as the body armor fired a minigun at the police officers.

Gypsy turns her television on and tuned it to channel seventeen. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. There was an identical suit of their
powered body armor firing at a bunch of police with a minigun.

“That’s impossible.” Gypsy grabs her house robe and runs out of her apartment down to the command center to do a visual of the armor.

She taps in her code on the security panel. The door opens as she runs over towards the storage locker where the armor should be. She types in the security code and opens the door of the locker.

Gypsy notices their armor was still in there and notices it is fully charged. The Gauss rifle was in there as well and was fully charged.

“Patrick, our armor is still in the command center. So, where did that fake one come from?” Gypsy locks the storage locker and locks up the command center and head back to her apartment.

“I don’t know, but it is killing those policemen trying to stop it.” Patrick was still watching the live coverage of the robbery.

The armor starts running away from the scene. The helicopters that had been following it, lost it when it went down a back alleyway. She knew all the armor they tested had been destroyed and recycled.

“Well, it can’t be ours. We never designed our armor to use a minigun or anything.” Gypsy didn’t know much about the minigun, but if it needed the power to work. The armor was only rated for so much to spare.

“But our armor can still use other types of weapons.” Patrick knew they tried to make the armor universal.

“I know Pat. We need to get in touch with the police department where the robbery took place and see if we can help them. I’ll call Sergeant
Nathan and have him come with us since he is the test pilot of our armor.” Gypsy figures Nathan should be able to handle the imposter.

“Alright, I’ll see you in thirty minutes.” Patrick still had to get dress and take a shower.

Gypsy walks into her kitchen and brews some coffee while dialing Nathan’s number. She hopes he is available, so he could help convince the police that their armor wasn’t responsible for what happened.

Nathan was getting ready to go out when his cell phone starts ringing “hello?”

“Nathan, its Gypsy. Can you come to my apartment complex right away?” Gypsy figures it would be best if they met at her place.

“Sure, what’s going on?” Nathan grabs his gear and heads out towards his car.

As Nathan is walking out to his car. A car comes speeding down his street at high speed towards his house. He looks up and spots a gun pointing out of the car.

Just as they fired, he dives to the ground. The bullets miss him as they hit above his head. The bullets hit the front of his house and the back of his car.

Gypsy could hear gunfire coming through her cellphone “NATHAN!” She listens to the sounds coming through her cellphone.

Nathan pulls his handgun and tries firing back at the moving car. He stands up and watches as the car gets away.

“Gypsy, I’m alright. I’m going to have to stay here till the police get here.” Nathan wonders who his attackers were.

“Alright, I’ll pick up Patrick and meet you at your place.” Gypsy grabs her purse and heads out of her apartment.

She dials Patrick number as she walks towards the command center. She was just getting into the command center when Patrick answers.

“Pat, I’m coming to pick you up. Someone just tried to kill Nathan while I was on the phone with him, so protect yourself.” Gypsy starts the command center up and put it into gear.

“Alright, I’ll be on the lookout for you.” Patrick wonders why someone tried to take Nathan out.

He gets ready to go and wonders where that other suit came from. After twenty minutes, he spots the command center pulling up to his apartment complex. He walks down to it and enter his access code to climb inside.

“Any idea why Nathan was attack?” Patrick climbs into the passenger seat.

“None. I have no idea why someone would search my apartment or go after Nathan. Also, do you know where that second suit came from?” Gypsy follows the GPS direction towards Nathan’s house.

“I have no idea, Gypsy. Someone has copied our design. Do you think Andy Mario and his team did it? They did spy on us.” Patrick remembered the drones they found in their lab.

“Even if he did, he would still need our circuit design and our operating system. It took me and you nearly a year to write it and we are still tweaking it. Plus, he doesn’t know how everything is supposed to operate.” Gypsy knew that she and Patrick kept that information on their portable drives and the back-up drive.

Even the batteries they had custom made, were kept with the armor. She continues to follow the directions to Nathan’s place. When they arrive, they see Nathan and several police cars parked in front of his house.

“Dam! What happened here?” Patrick looks at all the police and the damage done to Nathan’s house.

Gypsy pulls the command center up behind several police cars. She notices a police officer walking towards the command center to see who they were.

“I’ll handle this, Gypsy.” Patrick gets out of the command center and heads over to talk with the officer.

Gypsy watches from inside the command center. Things weren’t making sense to her. All the prototype armors were recycled. They only had three copies and only one was fully operational. There was the mock-up they used during the demonstration to get the grant money. There was the original prototype they used for testing and the current one Nathan was using. All three were aboard the command center.

She watches as Patrick continues to talk to the police officer. After a few minutes, Pat turns around and waves for Gypsy to come and join him.
The police officer had walked off. Gypsy gets out of the command center and walk over towards Patrick.

“Nathan is inside the house.” Patrick and Gypsy walk inside Nathan’s house.

They stood speechless as they see all the bullets holes in Nathan’s outside wall. Once, they go inside Nathan’s house. They could see more bullet holes.

“Damn, whoever attacked Nathan, really tried to kill him.” Gypsy has never seen a drive by before.

“You can say that again kid. So, what brings you to my place?” Nathan looks at Patrick and Gypsy.

“We got a big problem. Someone wearing a suit like ours, robbed the diamond exchange this morning and killed several police officers.” Patrick pulls his cellphone out and shows a video of what happened.

Gypsy looks at it along with Nathan. She couldn’t believe that the armor in the video was like theirs, but she did spot a mistake on it. It might look like their armor, but there wasn’t any place on the back for the jet pack to attach.

“There’s a flaw to this suit. Gypsy pauses the video and enlarges it. It doesn’t have the jet pack connection and the power access panel is in
the wrong place.” Gypsy wonders who messed up on the design, because that wasn’t any where close to their original construction.

“Who could had made a mistake like that?” Patrick looks at what Gypsy had pointed out.

“What are you two thinking about doing?” Nathan looks at Gypsy and Patrick.

“First we need to get in touch with the police force in that area and show them you can handle that imposter. If that armor is as strong as I think it is. The only weapon that can penetrate it, is the gauss rifle in the command center. Second, your more familiar with the armor and what it can do. So, you are the perfect person to combat this imposter.” Gypsy watches Nathan to see what he will do.

Nathan looks at the bullet holes in his place. He wonders if that was the reason someone tried to kill him. They knew he would be able to stop them.

“Alright, I’m willing to stop this imposter. Help me secure my house and afterwards, we can talk with the police and see if they will let us help.” Nathan heads towards his garage to grab a hammer.

Gypsy and Patrick follow behind Nathan and help him secure his house.

“Captain, you don’t understand. Whoever that person is wearing a copy of our armor design can take whatever you have and keep going. We design that armor to protect the wearer in heavy combat and nothing you have can stop them.” Gypsy didn’t know how many times she had to explain that the police department didn’t stand a chance in stopping the person.

“If that is the case, how did they get a copy of your armor design?” Captain Gabris looks at the Gypsy, Patrick, and Nathan when he asks that question.

“We don’t know. We think another team that was working at our college might have copied our design and construction technique. It’s no secret where we got the techniques to build the armor itself, but everything else about it is of our own design.” Gypsy couldn’t reveal too much about their armor.

“How do I know you guys aren’t working with them?” Captain Gabris couldn’t believe he had people claiming to be able to stop their mysterious armor person.

“If we were working with them, we wouldn’t be here talking to you.” Gypsy couldn’t understand why the Captain wasn’t taking their offer.

A police officer comes running towards the interrogation room Gypsy and they had been taken too. He burst into the room “sir, the armored person is back and is robbing another diamond store.”

Captain Gabris looks at the three individuals sitting before him “here’s a chance to prove what you are saying. I’m going to take a chance with you.”

“Trust me, sir, you won’t regret it.” Gypsy, Patrick, and Nathan run down to their command center.

Patrick jumps into the driver seat “Gypsy, help Nathan suit up.”

“On it.” Gypsy grabs the sergeant’s kinetic suit and hands it to him.

Nathan strips out of his clothes and put the kinetic suit on. Gypsy grabs the armor out of storage and helps the sergeant put on each piece.
Once the armor is on, she grabs a battery pack and put it in the armor.

“Do you want the jet pack?” Nathan grabs the Gauss rifle and plugs it into the suit.

He grabs four spare magazines and slips them into the combat belt. He powers up the rifle to if he had a full magazine load in it.

“No, but keep one ready should I need it.” Nathan knew Gypsy and Patrick could remote it to him.

“We’re almost there, Sergeant.” Patrick was following the police cars in front of him.

They stop a way back. Gypsy runs to her console and turns all the systems on so they could record and analyze what occurs. When the camera comes online, Gypsy notices the armor looked just like theirs, but it had the minigun again.

“Nathan be careful. They are using the minigun again.” Gypsy was a little worried about the minigun.

“It will be the first thing I take out.” Nathan presses the door controls and walks out of the command center.

He takes aim and locks onto the minigun. Nathan pulls the trigger and three rounds from the gauss rifle hit the minigun. He fires again as another three rounds penetrate the minigun.

The figure in the other armor looks towards Nathan as he walks towards them. It drops the minigun and pulls another weapon off its back. It fires the weapon at the police officers, forcing Nathan to protect them. He fires back at the other armor as it tries to run off.

Nathan had several cars in front of him as he starts chasing after the other armor. He jumps over them as he runs after the other armor.

“Are you getting this, Gypsy?” Nathan was chasing after the other armor.

“I’m getting it, Nathan. That other armor’s running speed is faster than yours. Try to slow him down.” Gypsy was seeing everything Nathan was seeing from the camera system built into the suit.

Nathan targets the back of the other suit and fires two, three round burst at the armor. The targeting system registers the hits. He fires again but ups the power level. The fletches go straight through the other armor.

The other armor stumbles as the fletches go through it. It drops something on the ground and just keeps on running. It heads down a nearby alleyway.

Just as Nathan was getting close to the other armor, the ground in front of him exploded. The blast sends him flying back onto the street. The armor absorbed the explosives force from the explosion.

“Sergeant, are you alright?” Gypsy was still receiving information from the sensors inside the suit.

“Yes, I’m fine. The explosion only knocked me off my feet.” Nathan gets up and starts looking for the other armor.

Gypsy and Patrick look at each other after Nathan responded back to them. The readings from the suit showed it was still operational.

“Did you guys see in what direction the other armor went?” Nathan was looking around for it.

“No, let me reverse the video feed and see if your armor caught it.” Gypsy reverses the video feed to the point where Nathan went down.

She spots the other armor going down another alleyway. She replays the video again “turn right.”

“Gotcha.” Nathan runs down the alleyway but doesn’t spot anything. He does spot a puddle of some sort of liquid.

Gypsy, are you seeing this?” Nathan was kneeling by the puddle.

“Yes, bring back a sample if you can, so we can analyze it.” Gypsy enlarges the image so Patrick could see it as well.

As they are looking at the monitor, there was a pounding sound coming from the door. Gypsy switches the camera view to the commands
security camera and sees Captain Gabris. She gets up and opens the door for him.

“Come in Captain.” Gypsy steps aside to let him in.

He looks around the place and notices it looked more like a mobile repair shop, then a command center. He notices all sorts of electronic
equipment, another strange looking weapon like the one he saw their armor had carried.

“Did you capture it?” Captain Gabris could see that Patrick was watching something on one of the monitors.

“No, sir. It managed to escape from Nathan, but we did wound it.” Gypsy hopes the fluid that Nathan found was from the other armor.

“What was that weapon your guy was using against it?” Captain Gabris was thinking if he could arm his officers with it. They might stand a chance against it.

“It’s a gauss rifle and there are only two in existence. The one behind you mounted on the wall and the one Nathan is carrying.” Gypsy hasn’t
gotten around to making one for Frank yet.

“Where did you get them?” Captain Gabris walks over to look at the one mounted on the wall.

“I and my partner built them.” Gypsy glances towards the monitors, to see where Nathan was.

Patrick was watching Nathan as he runs back to them. All the readings were within normal ranges.

“He’s back.” Patrick opens the door for Nathan.

Nathan steps into the command center and over towards Gypsy and the police Captain. He lifts the faceplate of the armor up to look at the Captain.

“She told you we are the ones better suited in handling this matter.” Nathan was mad that the other armor tricked him.

Gypsy and Patrick look over the armor, to see if there were any cracks and chips. Neither one of them could find anything.

“Whatever caused that explosion didn’t damage the armor.” Patrick helps Nathan out of it.

“How were you able to catch up with it?” Captain was amazed at how high Nathan had jumped over the police cars blocking their path and how fast the suit had moved.

“Because the armor is design to enhance the wearer. I can’t go into detail, because it's under government restrictions.” Gypsy knew there were certain things she couldn’t say about the armor.

“Well will you consider working for us, until this matter is solved?” Captain Gabris figures he would rather have them helping the police, instead of them operating on their own.

“We'll help you, Captain.” Nathan figures that was what the drive-by was about. Someone knew he and his armor could come after them.

They were the only ones capable of stopping the threat. Gypsy wonders what the liquid was that Nathan found.

“Is there a way I can get in touch with you?” Captain Gabris hopes he won’t have to summon them.

“Yes, here’s our numbers. Just call us if that armor shows up again.” Gypsy hands a business card she had made up to the Captain.

“Just don’t take too long calling us Captain.” Patrick was helping Nathan out of the armor.

“I won’t.” Captain Gabris turns around and leaves the command center.

“How fast can a person run in this suit?” As Nathan helps Patrick put the armor on the armor stand and plug the charging cable into it.

“You’re running speed is 40mph, that other armor running speed had to be at least 50mph. You slowed it down when you shot the back of it when you upped the power level in the rifle. You put a hole all the way through it.” Gypsy reviews the shot from the targeting data and the camera system.

“The thing is, it didn’t slow it down much.” Nathan pulls a beer out of the minifridge in the command center.

Gypsy enlarges the image “here’s the hole.” She points towards it.

“It’s not very big, Gypsy.” Nathan was looking at the enhanced image of it.

“No, it isn’t but you hurt it.” Gypsy looks over the image.

Patrick was watching the movement of the other suit and notices something. He brings up the recording they had of Nathan running in the suit and the other armor running. He compares the two movements.

“I think I know what Andy and his team did. However, before I say, let’s look at the liquid you found. Lets see if we can find Andy and his team as well.” Patrick thinks he might know what was going on.

Gypsy’s cellphone starts ringing. She pulls it out to see who was calling her. She doesn’t recognize the phone number.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Ms. Lapp, I’m Special Agent Regina Garcia with the FBI. I was wondering if I could speak to you in person about the break-in at your apartment.”

“Sure, Special Agent Regina Garcia. If you can meet me at my apartment in twenty minutes, I’ll be there.”

“I’ll meet you there, Ms. Lapp.” Regina wasn’t too far away from Gypsy’s place.

“Okay, Mrs. Garcia. I’ll see you then.” Gypsy ends the phone call.

Nathan looks over towards Gypsy since Pat was driving “what was that about?”

“My place got broken into a couple of nights ago. I had to report it to the FBI because we are under DARPA rules and regulations. I called the local police as well.”

“Sorry to hear about your place being broken into. Can I make a suggestion about the gauss rifle? Could you build a bigger round for it? The ones we are currently using isn’t going to stop whoever is using that other armor.” Nathan figures they needed something bigger to stop or damage the other armor.

“I can try to come up with something else. I need to be careful because the armor is designed to stop bullets and such. The bigger the round,
the more the armor will stop it. That’s why I use the fletches. They cut into the armor like needles.”

“Well, we need something a little bigger and with more stopping power. It’s going to take too many fletches to stop the wearer of the armor.”

“Alright, I might have a better idea in mind. Give me a couple of days to put it together.” Gypsy stands up and prepares to leave the command center.

She spotted Pat pulling into the parking lot where she lived. Just as she is exiting the command center. She stops and looks at Nathan and Pat.

“Let me know if anything comes up.”

“We will. I’m leaving the command center with Nathan just in case an emergency comes up or if that other armor attacks again.” Pat figures if that other suit attacks. Nathan could suit up and fly towards it.

“It sounds like a plan.” As Gypsy exists from the command center.

She heads up to her apartment. Gypsy checks to make sure no one has broken in. She changed the locks and added several security cameras inside and outside her apartment. They were well hidden.

Gypsy walks in and shuts the door behind her. She had the sample they took from the crime scene that she needed to analyze. She walks into her spare bedroom and looks for her microscope. She could at least try to identify what the subject is.

After ten minutes of looking, she finally finds the microscope and starts setting it up. As she is setting the microscope up, there is a knocking sound at her door.

Gypsy grabs her cellphone and presses an app. It showed a woman with dark hair and dressed in a business suit at her door. She unlocks the door and opens it.

Special Agent Regina Garcia found the apartment complex with no problems. It was a nice place and had a covered landing that the occupants could come out and watch the parking lot. She looked around, to see if any other occupant could have seen the intruder.

She noticed that the apartment across from Gypsy Lapp was empty. The neighborhood looked peaceful and well-manicured. She knocked on the door and wait for the door to be opened.

When the door opens, she sees a young teenage girl with short ash blonde hair. She had to be at least five foot tall. She was also slimmed and looked like she spent a lot of time inside. She had fair skin.

“Hi, I’m special agent Regina Garcia, you must be Gypsy Lapp.” Regina smiles at the young lady.

“Yes, I am. Please come in.” Gypsy steps aside to let Regina come into her place.

Regina walks into the apartment and notices how clean and organized it was. She hears Gypsy shut the door behind her.

“Would you care for something to drink?”

“No, I’m fine. Thank you.” Regina was amazed at how clean and organized this college student place was.

“Please have a seat.” Gypsy motions towards the recliner in her apartment, while she sits down on the sofa.

Regina sits down in the recliner. She pulls her notebook out and looks at the notes the detective shared with her.

“According to the report you filed with the police. You had come home and found your place ransacks. You said that nothing was missing at the time. Did you find anything missing when cleaned up afterward?” Regina looks at Gypsy. She looked like she was searching for something.

“Nothing was missing. The only thing that was damaged, was the prototype railgun I built to experiment with.” It was the very first one Gypsy built.

“A railgun?” Regina looks at Gypsy with a puzzled look on her face.

“I was experimenting with building a gauss rifle for the project.”

“Why would your intruder break your prototype?” Regina didn’t know what a gauss rifle was.

“Don’t know. What I was thinking they were looking for, was the design specs to the armor me and my partner are working on. Along with that subject, we might have a problem. Someone designed a suit that looks identical to the one me and my partner built.” Gypsy wonders if that was why they broke into her place.

“You mean someone is using the design you and your partner came up with?” Regina hadn’t heard anything.

“Yes, here let me show you the video.” Gypsy pulls her cellphone out and locates the video that had been recorded.

She hands her cellphone to Regina “here you go.” As she presses play.

Regina watches the video and couldn’t believe what it looked like and what it was doing. It was taking everything the cops were throwing at it and brushing it aside like they were nothing. Special Agent Regina looks at Gypsy “you and your partner think someone stole this design from you?”

“Yes ma’am, we do. That’s our design and I don’t know how they did it, either. We keep everything on our portable drives and on a central
drive. I always keep my drive with me and so does my partner. The central drive is locked in a safe at school in our lab. All the armor plates we tested for the armor were accounted for and recycle. So, we don’t know how they got the design.”

“Do you have any idea who might do something like this? Does anyone else know what you are working on?”

“There is another group at school that is working on a DARPA project, that we caught some of their drones in our lab. Also, the only other person that knows what we are working on is our test pilot, but he came in after everything was built. He also chased after the other suit.” Gypsy finds the video and shows it to her.

Regina watches as a second suit attacks and chases after the first one. She could see how these suits of armor would be perfect. They were fast and well armored.

“Have you spoken to this second team?”

“No, ma’am. We are helping the police department, in trying to stop the first suit. It has robbed two diamond exchanges so far.” Gypsy wonders if they will stop the other suit.

“Do you mind if I take a copy of these videos?” Regina wanted to have these as evidence.

“No problem. They are on YouTube.” Gypsy transfer a copy of each video to Special Agent Regina.

“Who is the officer in charge of the police department?”

“Captain Gabris. He oversees the police precinct in the area the robberies are taking place.” Gypsy felt sorry for the Captain.

“Well, I think that is all for now. If I have any more questions for you or come across anything. I’ll let you know.” Regina stands up and put her notebook away.

“Thank you for coming special agent.”

Gypsy walks special agent Regina to the door and watches as she leaves. Once special agent Regina leaves. She goes back to the sample she brought back from the crime scene to see what it was.

Gypsy couldn’t sleep at all. She tried several things hoping that they would help her sleep, but none of them worked. Ever since she saw the news report about three members from Andy Mario Poffo's team being found dead in their lab. It caused her not to be able to sleep. She knew them and couldn’t believe they were dead. The caused of death had been found to be their necks had been broken.

Gypsy slips on a pair of shorts and head into her workroom. She had gone out to Lowes to buy a few items to build a new gauss rifle for Nathan. He was right that the fletches they were using wouldn't slow down the other armor very much. She did determine from the purple liquid that had been left behind, was a lubricant, hydraulic fluid or both. Which meant the other armor had to be a drone.

Gypsy brings up the specs she made of the current Gauss rifle and starts moving things around in AutoCAD. She needed to increase the barrel size for the new ammo and increase the power output. The problem she had now, it cut the range of the projectile could travel down. Also, the rate of fire as well. She continues to work on the problem and finally finds a solution to give it a semi-auto mode.

She glances at her clock in her workroom and notices it was six in the morning. Gypsy heads towards the bathroom and takes a shower. She is going to be dragging her ass later as she gets ready for work. Before she leaves, she backs up the new Gauss rifle specs and places the prototype in a carrier case to lock up in her Mustang.

She stopped at her favorite coffee shop and grabs the biggest cup of coffee they had and filled it. She was going to need it in order to stay awake. When she arrives at work, she parks her car in her assigned parking space and carries the case inside her work. This way she knows it will be safe.

Throughout the day, she finds herself drifting off several times. She burns her fingers a few times because she wasn’t paying attention to what she was doing. She works through lunch and manages to finish all the work she had. She leaves an hour early. As she is heading home. A suit of armor lands right on top of her hood crashing the front of her car and flipping her up and over. The car lands upside down with Gypsy hanging from her safety belt.

The door is ripped off the car. The armor kneels and looks at Gypsy.

“You have interfered in our business for the last time.”

“Who are you and why are you coming after me?” Gypsy’s hand searches around in her purse for the taser she carries with her.

“You already know who I am and the reason I am coming after you now, is to kill you.”

Just as the armor was reaching in to grab Gypsy, she pulls the taser and slams it into the helmets optics systems. She squeezes the button and sends 55,000 volts into the armor. The armor starts shaking as the electricity from the taser fry the systems.

The armor falls backward and lets go of her. She manages to unbuckle herself. Her right shoulder was hurting as she grabs the case that has the prototype Gauss rifle in it. She crawls out of the Mustang and pops open the case.

The armor starts to slowly stand up. Gypsy flicks the power on and watches as the charge builds. When it gets to 75% the rifle shuts down.

“Oh, come on.” As Gypsy smacks the side of the rifle.

It comes back on and it is at 100% charge. Gypsy takes aim at the damaged helmet “eat hot lead, sucker.”

She pulls the trigger and the rifle slams into her injured shoulder. The new rounds erupts from the rifle and bury themselves into the visor of the damaged helmet on the armor. The head pops off and the armor falls to the ground.

Gypsy’s shoulder was hurting her badly as she rests against her damaged mustang. She looks around inside her mustang and finds her cellphone. She dials Patrick number.

“What do you want, Gypsy. Nathan and I are kind of busy right now.” Patrick ducks behind an SUV as one of the look-alike armor fires at him.

He was trying to get to the command center to release the armor for Nathan.

“What’s going on, Pat?” Gypsy heard gunfire in the background.

“We’re under attack by two armor figures. Nathan can’t get to the command center and I am pinned down.” Patrick stays hidden behind the
SUV.

“Is Nathan close enough to the command center, to slip inside?”

“Yes, he is.” Patrick could see Nathan near the command center.

“I’m sending my security code to the armor and door. Go ahead and send your code as well.” Gypsy types her code in and deactivates the
security system and to activate the armor as well.

Patrick sends his codes to the command center. It opens and powers up the armor for Nathan.

“Nathan, head for the command center,” Patrick yells out to Nathan.

Nathan heard Patrick yelling to him. He fires a few more times at the armor attacking him as he runs towards the command center. He opens the door and jumps in quickly as several bullets pepper the side of the command center.

Nathan was happy that the command center still had its armor when Gypsy bought it. He rushes over to the storage locker and gets in his armor as quickly as he could. Once he was in his armor, he heads back outside with the Gauss rifle in hand and starts firing at the other two armors.

He aims for their helmets optic systems and joints. He takes one armor down and seriously injures the other one. The second armor manages to run off, after disabling Nathan from following it.

“Patrick, can you come and pick me up please?” Gypsy wanted to get the armor she took down, inside the command center.

She could hear sirens coming her way. She could already see that the armor she took down, had a robotic frame inside the suit.

“Can’t, but I can send Nathan to you as soon as I fix the damage he took.” Patrick was looking at the damage caused by an explosive disk, like before.

Some fragments slipped between the joint on the armor. Also, Nathan didn’t have on his kinetic suit, so he absorbed the damage.

“Okay, send him as quickly as possible.” Gypsy ends the call and pulls the other armor over to her Mustang.

She looks inside and could see how they installed a robotic frame and mounted the armor to it. It didn’t have the exoskeleton Nathan’s armor had to increase the wears ability. It had micromotors and hydraulics instead. The police show up before Nathan does.

Officer Hank, his partner Officer Jenkins, and another patrol car shows up and sees a young woman resting against a damage mustang. Laying on the ground in front of her was one of those armors they had been warned about. This one had a purple liquid coming out of it and the helmet was a few feet away from the armor.

Officer Hank walks over to Gypsy “are you alright, ma’am?”

“I’ll live.” The pain in her shoulder was getting worse.

“Can you call the paramedics, please?”

“My partner is already on it, ma’am. Can you tell me what happened?” Officer Hank takes his pad out.

“It came out of nowhere and landed on the front of my car, causing it to flip over. It yanked my door off the hinges and was about to pull me out when I tasered it. I managed to disable it for a few minutes, so I could grab this.” Gypsy had her prototype rifle near her.

“What is that?” Officer Hank had never seen anything like what the woman was holding.

“It's an experimental weapon. I’m a designer and builder under DARPA.”

As Gypsy says that, everyone hears an engine and another identical armor person with wings lands a few away from the wreck. The police raise their weapons and point them at the armor.

“He’s with me. That is my test pilot.” Gypsy tries to stand up.

When Nathan approached Gypsy’s location. He notices Gypsy sitting on the ground against her Mustang with one of the armor people laying
on the ground before her. Standing near her were two police officer.

“Why is he wearing the same type of armor like this one?” Officer Hank kicks the down armor.

“Because I and my lab partner invented it.” Gypsy grits her teeth from the pain in her shoulder.

“If you're done with taking pictures and measurements of it. We are taking the armor, so we can figure out how they got my design.” Gypsy wanted to analyze the armor.

“We can’t let you, ma’am. It needs to be entered into evidence.” Officer Hank couldn’t let the armor be taken.

“We need it to find out how it was constructed, officer. If I have too, I’ll call the Feds and have them take the armor from the police. I would rather not have to do that.”

“Let me talk it over with my sergeant.” Officer Hank walks off.

Nathan had been quiet and listening to Officer Hank and Gypsy. He watches as he walks off.

Gypsy looks at Nathan “how did your fight go?”

“Like yours. I managed to shoot the helmet off the other one. His partner threw an explosive disk, like last time and some fragments blew through the joint of my armor. Also, I felt the force of the explosions, and have three broken ribs.” Nathan was kicking himself for not putting the kinetic suit on.

“Aren’t you wearing your kinetic suit?”

“Didn’t have time to put it on.” Nathan’s ribs were bothering him and the suits medical monitors were recording the pain he was in.

“Turn around.” Gypsy grits her teeth as she moves.

Nathan turns around to allow Gypsy to access the back panel. He wonders what she was doing.

“What are you doing?” Nathan was curious.

“I’m activating the medical subroutine for this armor. It’s going to give you a shot for the pain and help with your ribs.” Gypsy taps in her access codes to activate the medical program.

It was a new program they installed during the upgrade of the software. The medical kit was small and fit perfectly in the space they planned for it. The medical routine worked in conjunction with the wear’s medical sensors.

Nathan feels a prick and the pain he was feeling from his cracked ribs fades some. He didn’t know they planned on installing something like that in the armor.

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. I wish I had it now.” Gypsy knew she was going to the hospital. Something didn’t feel right with her shoulder.

Officer Hank comes walking back over to Gypsy, as the ambulance arrives. He looks at Nathan and Gypsy “my sergeant said to go ahead and let you take the armor since you know more about it then any of our people would. However, he wants a written report of everything you fine.”

“Not a problem. I’ll keep your department informed about what I find.”

Nathan picks the armor and helmet up. Just before he activates the jet pack.

“Here, take this. It’s the newest rifle for you. The range is shorter, but it has enough power to fire the bigger round.” As she hands the rifle over to Nathan.

“Thanks, are you going to be okay?” Nathan was concern about Gypsy.

“I’ll be fine, I’ll either call you or Patrick to let you know how I’m doing.” Gypsy goes over to the paramedics to be taken to the hospital.

Nathan blasts off and heads back to the command center. He loved that this armor had a jet.

Officer Hank just watches as the armor figure that had been talking to Gypsy take off "I need to get me one of those." as he heads over to his partner.

Gypsy winces when she moves. Not only did her right shoulder hurt, but so did her anal opening. She figures Ralph must have stretched her opening and tore some of the linings in her ass. She gets up from the recliner she slept in last night because of her shoulder being immobilized. The doctors found that she fractured her shoulder from the car crash and from the new Gauss rifle slamming into her shoulder when she fired it.

She spots Ralph sleeping on his sofa near her. He was still recovering from injuries he received in the car accident they had been in. She heads into the bathroom and does her morning business. She will be happy when she has the final operation to get her own vagina.

She heads towards the kitchen to cook some breakfast for her and Ralph. She wonders if everything she is experiencing is worth the pain?

She could have accepted the fact that she was a male and gone back to her Amish family. She could have lived her life without so much pain.

Ralph wakes up to the smell of bacon and sausage cooking. He looks over towards the recliner Gypsy slept in last night after he picked her up from the hospital. He couldn’t believe someone had tried to kill her yesterday. He figures that it had to be the same people who tried to kill him and her on their way back from their date.

He walks into the kitchen and spots Gypsy standing at the stove wearing the t-shirt he had given her last night. It came down past her waist and looked a little baggy on her. He walks up behind her and wrap his arm around her stomach and gives her a kiss.

Gypsy was a little startled when she felt an arm encircle her and place a kiss on her cheek.

“Good morning.”

She returns the kiss “good morning to you as well.”

She loved that Ralph was doing better and that he had picked her up from the hospital. They sat down and enjoyed their breakfast. They watched a news report from yesterday about the battle between Nathan and two armor guys. Gypsy couldn’t figure out how they were mass producing the armor plates as fast as they were. It took time to form those plates. That’s not counting the robotic skeleton frame they needed to build.

Ralph noticed that Gypsy was in deep thought as she ate. He wonders what she was thinking about.

“Penny for your thoughts.”

Gypsy looks at him “is that the going rate right now?”

“Nope, its more like a quarter or so. What are you thinking about?” As he takes a bite of the bacon on his plate.

“How Andy Poffo and the remaining members of his team are able to manufacture the armor plates as fast as they are. So, far we have encounter four of those armor figures. I took one out by overloading its electrical system with my taser and using the new gauss rifle I built. Nathan said he took one down and injured a second one. Plus, we injured the first one we encounter.” Gypsy wonders how Andy was building these things.

“Do you know what makes these things tick yet or how they are being controlled?” Ralph knew Gypsy and her lab partner were extremely smart.

“We haven’t dissected the remains yet to see how they are control, but I’m betting it’s by an encrypted signal. They could use the cell towers and repeaters around town to control them.” Gypsy had been putting some thought on how they could control the armor figures.

“What are you going to do about your Mustang? Will you be able to fix it?” Ralph knew how much Gypsy liked her mustang.

“I’ll use the insurance money to buy it back and repair it. I still have my other one to drive, once I get the time to work on it.” Gypsy loved her Mustang.

“If you need a car to get around. My uncle has a 4x4 Ford 350 he is selling. I could ask him if he would let you drive it.” Ralph figures he could talk his uncle into it.

“How much does he want for it?” Gypsy knew she was going to need a new car, till she got her other Mustang up and running.

“He’s asking $18,000 for the truck, but I could get him down to $14,000.” His uncle liked pretty girls, so he would like Gypsy.

Gypsy knew the $14,000 was out of her price range. Even with the insurance money from the Mustang, she still wouldn’t be able to afford it.

“Thanks. Let me talk with a friend of mine and see what he has for sale.”

Gypsy figures Tony might have something for sale. After, all she bought both her Mustang’s from him. Also, he could do the bodywork to the Mustang.

After breakfast, Ralph gets dress and drops Gypsy off at her place. Gypsy places a call to Tony to see what he had for sale. He informed her that he had a pick-up that was in her price range. It had close to two hundred thousand miles on it, but the motor, transmission and transfer case had been overhauled. He is willing to let her have it for $8,000.00. He would also give her a discount on the bodywork on the Mustang.

While she was waiting for a cab to come and pick her up. Her cellphone starts ringing. She looks at it and notices it was FBI Special Agent Regina Garcia. Gypsy wonders what she wants?

“Hello, Mrs. Garcia. What can I do for you?” Gypsy was wonder why Mrs. Garcia was calling her.

“Gypsy are you home right now?” Garcia had gotten information from an informant that a hit had been put out on Gypsy, Patrick, and Nathan.

The hit had gone out last night after the armor figures failed to kill the trio. Her informant was an undercover agent of theirs.

“Yes, I’m home right now. I was about to head to my friends Tony place to buy a truck he has.” Gypsy wonder why Garcia wanted to know.

“Don’t leave your apartment. I’m on my way to you. A hit has been put out on you, Patrick and Nathan. I’m putting the three of you in protective custody to protect you.”

“Don’t worry about Nathan. He has the armor at his house and Patrick is hold up in our command center.” Patrick sent an email to Gypsy telling her about what they did yesterday after she was taken to the hospital.

“Isn’t that kind of dangerous for the armor to be out in the open like that?” Garcia figures they would have locked it up like they normally do.

“The armor has safeguards that prevent anyone other than Nathan from wearing it. That was one of the security measures Pat and I installed in the armor.” Gypsy knew that was one of DARPA’s requirements.

“Well, I have agents heading towards Patrick’s house and Nathan’s place to take them into protective custody.” Garcia was only a few minutes away from Gypsy’s place.

Gypsy sends a text to both Nathan and Patrick telling them what Garcia just told them. She hears her cellphone beep. The first message was from Nathan and he said he is flying towards the army base. The second message was from Patrick and he said he was joining Nathan at the base.

“Call your people off Garcia. Nathan is flying towards the army base right now and Patrick is going to meet him there.” Gypsy knew the base was the best place for them. The Commander of the base liked them.

“Alright, grab what you want to take with you. I’m only a few minutes away from you.” Garcia ends the call.

Gypsy tucks her cell phone into her back pocket. She grabs a gym bag and fills it with clothes. As she is filling her gym bag. The alarm on her door goes off as it is smashed in.

Two men dressed all in black come charging in. One of the men spot her and start coming towards her. Gypsy ducks into her workroom and slams the door shut. She locks it as she looks around her workroom trying to figure out some sort of weapon.

Gypsy spots the prototype laser she was building for the armor. The thing was a mess with all the wires hanging down from it. She still hasn’t finished getting all the bugs worked out yet. But it was strong enough to blind her attackers or pop balloons.

Gypsy powers it up, just as the door is kicked in. She aims for the guy's face and pulls the trigger. She had it aimed at his eyes.

Charles felt his eyeballs burst as an intense beam of light burned across his face and into his eyes. He screams from the pain as he feels the blood run out of his ruined eyes. He drops to the ground with his hands over his eyes.

The wires hanging down from the laser rifle catches fire and burn Gypsy’s hand. She heard a popping sound as the guy's eyeballs exploded.
As she was looking at the guy she just took down. Another appears behind him out in the hallway. He points his gun at Gypsy and starts firing.

Gypsy ducks down in time as the bullet hit right where she had been standing. She grabs a bottle of alcohol she keeps under her workbench and pours it in her super soaker. She pumps it up and from the safety of cover. She sprays the guy with it, just as he pulls the trigger.

Gypsy feels the bullet hit her in her left arm, but the guy is caught in a fireball from the alcohol being sprayed at him. He starts burning and screaming. The fire alarms in her apartment start going off. Gypsy watches as the guy on fire falls on top of the other one.

Garcia pulls into the parking lot of the apartment complex Gypsy lived it. She jumps out of her car and rushes up to Gypsy’s apartment. When she gets up there, she notices Gypsy’s front door was smashed in. She also smelled smoke in the air and hear the fire alarms in Gypsy apartment going off. The smell of burnt flesh filled the air as she rushes in. The smoke was coming from the right. She spots a person on fire and the wall behind him.

“Gypsy, where are you?” Garcia was looking around for Gypsy.

“I’m in here.” As Gypsy grabs the fire extinguisher she keeps in the closet of her workroom.

She puts the guy that was burning out first and then the rest of the fires around her. The guy that she burned his eyeballs out of, was unconscious from the pain. The laser rifle she had used was ruined and she would have to start from scratch again.

Garcia looks at the bodies and then at Gypsy “did you do this?”

“Yeah, I burned that guy's eyes out with my laser rifle and soaked this crispy fellow with my super soaker filled with cleaning alcohol. When he pulled the trigger on his gun, he ignited himself. However, he did manage to hit me in my good arm.” Gypsy’s left arm was bleeding.

Garcia looks at the wound and saw the bullet had gone completely through it. She spots a first aid kit hanging on the wall of the workroom. She grabs it and starts cleaning the wound. The fire department shows up and couldn’t believe what they were seeing. The paramedics take over for Garcia.

Gypsy is taken to the hospital again and after a few hours, Garcia takes her to Patrick at the army base. The Commander of the base gives them a place to park the command center and a place they can sleep while they are on the base. He assigns a couple of MP’s to watch over them.

“Patrick, do you see this?” Gypsy was examining the robotic frame that was inside the fake armor.

“Yeah, this is Andy Poffo design. I recognize his circuit design.” Gypsy carefully removes the control module.

She looks at how the armor was constructed, and it looked like they were in a hurry when the suit was put together. Patrick spots something that Gypsy didn’t.

“Hey Gypsy, do you recognize this?” Patrick holds up a motor connection.

“Yeah, that’s a remote neutral control unit. These suits are being remote piloted from a distance.” Gypsy grabs her magnifying glass to examine it.

“So, these suits are being virtually piloted from a remote location.” Patrick had to admit, it was a brilliant plan.

Drone powered armor units.The government could cut down on having soldiers in the field. War could become a video game for the governments.

“Yep, and with them disappearing like they are. I’m betting the range is short as well.” Gypsy looks around their command center to see if they had a signal tracker.

They didn’t have one at all. She turns her attention back to the armor. She takes the control module and plug it into her laptop and cracks the security code protecting it.

“Hey Patrick, look at this code.” Gypsy hasn’t seen it before.

Patrick looks at it and goes through it. He frowns as he continues to read it. The commands were in Linux, but there was something else in them.

Patricia continues to look through the code as Gypsy took the armor suit apart. She could repurpose the armor and make two more suits just like Nathan’s for two more test pilots.

“You know, I wonder if a sonic pulse weapon wouldn’t be more effective against these armors?” The idea had popped into her head, as she was working on the armor.

“What gave you that idea?” As Patrick looks over towards his partner in crime.

“Well, we design these armors to withstand kinetic style weapons and allow the wear to go into hostile environments. So, far the only weapon we have design to penetrate these suits is the gauss rifle. I was thinking maybe a non-lethal weapon we could experiment with, would be a sonic based weapon. The air pressure from the sonic pulse could still effect the armor by knocking the wear off their feet.” Gypsy was thinking
about how to stop the armor, beside using the gauss rifle.

“How about that laser you were working on. How is that project coming?” Patrick knew Gypsy was experimenting with lasers.

“I burned it up the other day. When those guys broke into my place.” Gypsy hadn’t told Pat what she did to protect herself.

“You burned it up? It was a one of a kind.”

“I know and I can rebuild it. I used it to protect myself. I burned the eyes out of one attacker. That’s when it burned itself up. The wires I used couldn’t handle the power going through it.” Gypsy figures she was going to need to use better wires or something else.

“Could you build a laser to burn through the armor plating and the foam?” Patrick knew their armor formula was pretty good.

“I could, but let’s see if we can track Andy down. I’ll make some of those EMP devices to temporarily disable his control over the armor.” Gypsy wonders if Nathan was having fun.

Him and some of the MP’s from the base went back to his place to lock it up. He had the armor with him, so he could respond to any threats that came his way. Gypsy stops and think about how long it would take her and Pat to repurpose these two suits of armor. They would have to add the exoframe and reprogram the control module. She would have to replace the optics systems that were damaged in the helmet.

“Patrick, let’s repurposes these suits and see if we can get two more test pilots.”

“So, you want to have three of these suits now?” Pat looks towards Gypsy.

“Yes. This way we can respond faster and track down the signal controlling them.” Gypsy hopes Pat would mind.

“We might want to build some sort of tracker as well. Something to lock onto the signal controlling these suits.” Pat knew they needed to stop the signal.

“I agree, I’ll ask the Commander of the base if he has a communication expert, we could use on this.” Gypsy knew her and Patrick were good engineers and tech, but they weren’t communication experts.

Gypsy and Patrick work throughout the day. She makes a few EMP devices that will knock out any radio or satellite signals temporarily. It will affect their connection to Nathan, but it was worth it if they could capture the signal.

Gypsy and Patrick use their robotic knowledge to build a tracker that could trace the signal. They use one of Gypsy’s old design from a battle bot tournament she used it in. It was called the bat and was loaded with as much surveillance equipment they could pack into it.

It could hover high enough not be detected and blend in with its background. They were using a technique and technology by Ivan Sutherland and his students at Harvard University in 1960. That technology was the basics for the more advance technology that stemmed from that research.

Once the drone is constructed, they head out to the training ground to test the advance technology. Patrick tosses the drone up into the air and the fans that gave it lift automatically turn on. Patrick direct it up into the sky and activate the cloaking technology.

Gypsy watches as the drone disappear from visual sight. She was happy that it worked.

“Nathan, can you detect the drone with the suits sensors?” Gypsy was curious if the cameras systems in the suit could detect it.

Nathan goes through the different setting in the suits camera system and only picked it up on one setting. The other settings didn’t even see the drone hovering over them.

“Only on one setting, Gypsy. It’s in the ultraviolet range that I can see it.” Nathan watches it.

“I’ll have to work on that then. Alright, we are linking it to your suits systems.” Patrick accesses the suits systems remotely and link the drone to Nathan’s suit.

Nathan watches as the drone link up shows on the helmet’s HUD display. A little window opens, and it shows him what it is seeing.

“Cool, now I have eyes in the air.” Nathan liked that.

“Yep, why don’t you play around with it.” Patrick was watching what Nathan was seeing from the drone.

Gypsy goes back into the command center and work on converting the other two suits of armor into suits that could be worn. She wanted to get with the Commander of the base to see if he would recommend some pilots for them.

Gypsy sat back in her chair and worked on the new control modules she had constructed. She and Pat had worked throughout the night for the past few days converting and redesigning the armors they capture. They had to do some rewiring and added new audio, video, and optics to the helmets her and Nathan had damage.

On top of that, she had to construct two new gauss rifles and make rounds for them. The only time she or Pat took a break was to grab something to eat and used the bathroom. Her vision was becoming blurry as she solders the last connection.

The commander of the base had sent them three people to help and wear the other two suits of armor. She puts her soldering iron in its holder and glances over towards Patrick. She noticed he had fallen asleep at his workbench. They made another drone to work with their first one.

Specialist Roberts knocks and enters the command center. He had been assigned by the base commander to work with Gypsy Lapp and her partner Patrick Miller. They needed someone who could track and find the radio frequency the suits of armors had been operating on.

He walks over to Gypsy and notices she had finished the last control module. All that needed to be done, was to install it in the armor and link it to the armor's systems.

“Gypsy, why don’t you go and lay down and get some sleep. I’ll handle installing these control modules.” Roberts had learned from Gypsy how the suits worked.

Sergeant Johnson and Chief Warrant Officer Burns were due to arrive soon. Nathan was on his way with the original suit. He gave them a rundown on how the suit worked. Robert knew a fourth suit was planned for him, but it was going to have things in it to help him with his job.

“I think I will.” Gypsy gets up from her chair and walks over to a camp style bed and crashes on it.

She had to be careful because of her shoulder. She learned that there were only a few ways she could sleep without waking up screaming in pain. Gypsy falls fast asleep. After being up for three days straight working on the suits and upgrading them. Her body was ready to shut down.

Robert walks over and picks up the control module and check Gypsy’s work. He wanted to make sure she hadn’t made any mistakes while working on the circuit board. He knew each of these boards were handmade.

Robert hears the door opens and watches as Nathan, Sergeant Johnson and Chief Warrant Officer Burns come walking in. Sergeant Johnson and Chief Warrant Officer Burns had coffee. Nathan was still wearing his armor.

“Looks like they finally passed out.” He spotted Gypsy on the camp style bed and Patrick slumped over his work station.

“Gypsy finally passed out ten minutes ago. The control module she was working on, is finished and I’m installing it in Johnson’s armor.” Robert finishes installing the control module and runs the start-up program.

“So, we now have three running suits?” Nathan walks over to check the other two suits.

“Yep, now Sharon and Dominic can finally join you for training.” Robert sits down at the monitors.

Nathan looks at the sleeping forms of Gypsy and Patrick. He walks over and checks on the two of them.

“Suit up.” Nathan changes out his battery pack for a fresh one.

He helps Sharon and Dominic with putting on their armor. He looks at Sharon to see if the armor was to tight around her chest.

“How does it feel around your chest area?”

“Fine, the kinetic suit is helping to compress and support my breasts.” Sharon and Gypsy had to work out how tight to make the kinetic suit, to support her breasts.

When she is wearing the armor, you couldn’t tell there was a woman underneath the armor. She wasn’t big in the chest, but they still needed to compress her breasts to make the armor fit properly or construct a new chest piece just for her. Since they only needed a few inches, Sharon could live with her chest compressed some.

“Alright, let's go to the training field and begin training.” Nathan opens the command center door and starts heading out.

“I’ll monitor you guys from here.” Robert sits down in Patrick’s chair and turns the monitoring equipment on.

The bio-monitors built into each suit comes online and so does the communication links. Robert makes a few adjustments to the link, so it is more secure.

“Alright, let the games commence.” Robert listens as Nathan walks Sergeant Johnson and Chief Warrant Officer Burns through their armor and weapon system.

“Come on Sharon, work with the suit, don’t fight it. It’s meant to amplify your natural physical abilities.” Nathan was watching as Sharon was learning how the suit moved.

Sharon finally realizes what the suit wanted to do and once she had that in mind. She was able to do the exercise Nathan had them doing.

“Nathan, why aren’t we carrying conventional weapons?”

“Because those gauss rifles you guys are using, can shoot further and conceal your hiding place better.” Robert had asked Gypsy that same question.

“Also, unless you want to carry extra weight. The gauss rifles are lighter, and you can carry more ammo for it then a normal weapon.” Nathan has come to enjoy his gauss rifle.

Robert was listening to the conversation going on between Nathan, Burns, and Johnson when the police scanner in the command center squeaks alive about an armored car being robbed.

“Guys, our fakers are at it again. Do you want to intercept or sit this one out?” Robert didn’t know if Sharon and Dominic were ready for this.

They have only had five hours of training on their suits. He looks towards the new jet packs they got in for the other two armors.

“We’re going, Robert. Give us the coordinates.” Nathan figures it was time for the rookies to see how these suits work.

“Roger. Opening jet pack bay.” Robert opens the bay and watches as Nathan helps attach the winged jet packs.

“Sending drones and linking them to your armor Nathan.” Robert glances over to the drones and watches as they came alive.

He opens the roof access and watches as the drones hover out and follow the three suits of armor. Nathan switches them to observation mode.

“How are you enjoying the flight, Sharon and Dominic?”

“It’s a little discerning, but I could get used to this.” Dominic liked it.

“I’m with Dominic on this, Nathan.” Sharon felt a little strange, but she was enjoying the fact she was flying.

“Guys keep the armored fighting as long as you can, so I can triangulate where the signal is coming from.” Robert reaches over and turns his radio equipment on.

“Gotcha.”

The security guards from the armor car spot three more suits like the one attacking them. They watch as the three land and surround the other armor person.

“Let it make some sort of move. We need to capture the signal they are using.” Nathan moves just in time as the other armor fires at him.

“That’s no problem.” Sharon tackles the other armor. It wasn’t quick enough to react.

The two of them fall to the ground and then Sharon is tossed to the side of it. Burns aims at the knee of the armor but misses and hits just below it. The flechette goes through the armor and into the asphalt.

Robert was watching and searching for the signal. He finally finds it “guys, let the armor escape. I have the control frequency.”

“Give me the location of their control van.” Nathan had an idea.

Robert sends the information to Nathan.

Nathan receives it and sends the information to the drone. He watches on his screen as the drone spots a black UPS style delivery truck. He fires a tracking dart at the top of it.

The armored figure they came after drop the money and watches as it runs off. Burns and Johnson were about to follow it.

“Leave it. The drone has tagged the van, so we can follow it back to where ever they are hiding.” Nathan wanted to capture them and find out who was behind the attacks.

“I got the frequency as well, so we can jam it.” Robert looks at the frequency and notices it was a Russian encryption protocol they were using.

“Robert, are you getting this?” Nathan was watching the people inside the old metal factory.

They followed the tracking signal they were receiving from the dart. It led them to an old metal foundry that had seen better days. They had generators and all the equipment they needed to make the armor three or four at a time.

There were several men standing around with rifles, watching over the other members of Andy Poffo. It looked like they were working on another armor unit.

“I’m receiving your transmission, Nathan. Do you want me to wake Gypsy and Patrick?” Robert glances at their sleeping forms.

“No, let them sleep. They did their job with getting these suits up and running. We can handle them without their help.” Nathan knew staying up three days straight without rest, was dangerous to a person.

“So, how are we going to do this?” Dominic wanted to know what the game plan was.

“We surround them and apprehend them.” Nathan figures the firepower they were carrying was enough to take them out.

“I’m getting into position.” Sharon heads toward the east side of the building, while Nathan takes the west side and Dominic takes the south end.

“Remember, turn the power down. We don’t want the fletches to go through their bodies.” Nathan adjusts the power level on the rifle. They were going to try to apprehend these guys.

Sharon and Dominic do the same thing. The men with the guns had basic armor protection that the gauss rifle fletches could go through without any problems.

“On the count of three. 1, 2, 3!” The three of them use their advanced optics and fire at the men holding the guns.

After firing their gauss rifles, they smash through the walls and enter. Two guys with assault rifles fire at them. One was firing at Nathan, while the second one fires at Sharon. There was an explosion as Andy fired a 40mm grenade at Dominic.

The force of the explosion knocks Dominic off his feet but it didn’t penetrate the armor. The front of the armor was blackened and had fragments in it. The explosive force had knocked Dominic off his feet.

“Ow!” Dominic stands up.

He felt the explosive force through the armor. If he hadn’t been wearing the kinetic suit, under his armor. He would have died from it. At best, he might have some bruising.

Sharon shoots the 40mm grenade launcher out of Andy’s hand. As for the guys that shot at her and Nathan. They had their rifles destroyed by one burst from the gauss rifles.

“Alright, hands up.” Nathan points his weapon at the men that had the assault rifles.

Richard was watching everything going on and recording it for Gypsy and Patrick to go over later. He spots something on a piece of the equipment when Nathan was looking around.

“Nathan, pan left and give me a close-up view on the server.”

Nathan does as Richard ask and spot an explosive device on the server. He looks around the building and notices the place had been wired to explode.

“Guys, let’s get these people out of here now.” Nathan grabs Andy’s former team members.

Dominic grabs the men that had the assault rifles they took out. He carries them out of the building. Sharon grabs everyone else, including Andy himself and runs out as well. Nathan had the other people and run out, just as the explosions were going off.

The building explodes behind him, just as he sprinted out with the people he had. The people he had started coughing from the dust and debris that had formed from the collapse of the foundry.

“That was a close call, Nathan.” Sharon looked towards Nathan.

“You’re telling me. Let’s get these people back to the base and put them in the brig.” Nathan carries his people over to the van Andy had been using.

One of the guys Sharon was carrying looks at her. His hand was damaged from the gauss rifle fletch hitting him.

“Who are you guys?” Besfamilny Alexei Yanovich thought there was only one operational suit.

Sharon looks down at him “I’m your worse nightmare.” A smile appears on Sharon’s face, behind the helmet she was wearing.

“Who’s driving their van back?” Richard wonders which of the three was going to be the driver.

“I’ll do it. Just make sure you watch these clowns closely.” Sharon removes her helmet after she gives Dominic the people she had.

Richard keeps the monitors going as he follows behind the van back to the base. Dominic had radioed ahead to inform the MP’s that they brought prisoners back.

“Is there anyone else we need to inform about our prisoners?” Sharon looks towards Nathan.

“Yeah, FBI special agent Regina Garcia. She needs to be informed as well.” Nathan saw her card on Gypsy’s workspace in the command center.

When they arrive at the Army base, the MP’s were waiting for them. They take the prisoners and toss them into the brig. As for Gypsy and Patrick, Nathan And Sharon carry them to their quarters at the base and lay them down. All three suits of armor are locked up in the Command center with guards posted to protect it.

Nathan used Patrick’s and Gypsy’s security codes to disarm and disable the suits, till they wake-up. He also calls FBI Special Agent Garcia.

Garcia’s House:
Special Agent Garcia was getting ready to sit down with her family when her cellphone starts ringing. She picks her cellphone up and checks the number, but it was blocked. She answers it anyway “hello?”

“Hello, Special Agent Garcia, this is Sergeant Major Nathan Washington. I work with Gypsy and Patrick. We managed to capture the people responsible for stealing the diamonds and money. They’re here in the brig at the base. You might want to bring a team up here tomorrow.”

“Mr. Washington, is Gypsy and Patrick alright?” Garcia figured that Gypsy would have called her.

“She’s fine, special agent. She and Patrick are the reason we managed to take them down. The two of them are currently in la, la land.” Nathan knew a good night sleep will do the two of them some good.

“Alright, Sergeant Major. I’ll be up at the base at 0900 hrs.” Garcia figures that will give her enough time to drop her daughter off at school.

“Alright, Special Agent Garcia. Have a nice night.”

“You too, Mr. Washington.” Garcia ends the call.

Nathan strips out of his clothes and the kinetic suit and heads into the bathroom to take a shower.

Gypsy and Patrick were pissed when they woke-up. They wanted to be part of the takedown of the people who stole their design. She could understand why Nathan left them sleeping. Still, they didn’t like it.

The two of them reviewed the footage from the take down. They couldn’t believe they had everything they needed to mass produce their design. They had watched the footage repeatedly to make a list of the items they had. They also reviewed how the suits of armor and wearer reacted. They look at the information the suits recorded. The wears bio’s and how the suit responded. All the targeting data and communications between the suits.

Gypsy leans back in her seat and turns to look at Patrick “I can’t believe they didn’t wake us.”

Patrick looks at his partner “I can understand why they didn’t. However, according to all this data, they didn’t need us.”

“I know, Robert had everything in hand. Maybe we should think about designing a suit for him that like a mobile command field unit?” Patrick had been thinking about unique suits suited to the wearer.

“If we do that, we’ll need to change the design some. We already have to fix the design if a woman wears the suit.” Gypsy was happy that
Sharon didn’t mind having her breasts constricted in her suit, but what was the long them effect with doing that.

They needed to know how a woman fare in combat with their breasts constricted while wearing the armor. She didn’t have as big of the chest as Sharon did.

“Any word from Special Agent Garcia?” Patrick stops what he was doing and looking over towards Gypsy.

“Yeah, Special Agent Garcia said that the other two members on Andy’s team were forced to go along with what Andy told them. The people
Andy were working with threatened to kill their family if they didn’t.” Gypsy was surprised Andy would do something like that.

“How did Andy get involve in this mess?” Patrick wanted to know.

“Agent Garcia said she couldn’t tell me. However, you and I have to appear before the grant board because of how our security was infiltrated.” Gypsy couldn’t figure out why.

Andy and his team didn’t get the unique programming language for the body armors. That was something they made sure of. They double checked the system from the robot system to their system and it was different. It was also poorly written as well. They cleaned up the commands and enhanced it.

“Great! We took every precaution we could.” Patrick knew they took the security of the suits and research seriously.

“I know, but we still have to appear and explain what happened to them.” Gypsy received a call from the grant board after she spoke with Special Agent Garcia.

Patrick turned his attention back to the information from the armor. Nathan and the others were out training with a bunch of soldiers in their armor. Until the matter with Andy was settled, they were told that they would be staying on the army base for their safety.

They still didn’t know if there were any more agents out looking for them. Until special agent, Garcia gave the clear signal or found out they would be safe. They were to remain on the base. The base commander didn’t mind them staying as long as they obeyed military protocol.

Patrick brings up the visual and audio on all the armors. They had turned it off at the command center while they were reviewing and working. Gypsy was working on the new Gauss rifle for Robert’s armor. Once she was done with that rifle, she was going to start working on a new and improve laser rifle for the armors.

She was going to boost the power using the suit's power. It may drain the power cells faster than the gauss rifle does, but it would prove to be a better weapon for them. She was using the same rifle design she had for the gauss rifle. Gypsy covers up a yawn as she continues to finish the gauss rifle. She made two first generation gauss rifles for her Patrick to use to protect themselves.

Training Field:
Nathan, Sharon, Dominic and Robert were training with a group of special forces. So, far their armor had with stood everything threw at them. Robert had his birds in the sky feeding him information of their locations and he was monitoring their radio signals and such.

The specialist stopped using their comms when they realize the other side was monitoring. However, they couldn’t hide from the drones in the sky. Trying to hit them with a rifle, was out of the question. They would have to use their optics to see them. The crystal-clear construction made it hard to see them. They blended in with the sky. The tiny motors they use were quiet.

When the soldiers they were training with, took protection behind objects. Nathan and them could increase the power output on their rifles and leave holes where the round went through it.

“You guys are cheating.” Corporal Huggins had been taken out by the rifle.

“How are we cheating?” Robert looks over towards Huggins.

“Those suites and weapons give you guy’s a big advantage. You can see us through whatever we are hiding behind, and your weapons are adjustable, so you can shoot through it. Plus, those drones of yours can spot us.” He looks up and could see the running lights on the drones.

“I wish we had these suits over in Afghanistan, fighting the Taliban and Isis.” Master Sergeant Cook walks up to Dominic’s armor and looks at it.

“I know what you mean Cook. The ide’s and snipers wouldn’t be able to penetrate this body armor. Plus, the gauss rifle targeting along with the suit's sensors could go right through the buildings and walls.”

“So, what are the plans for these armors?” Cook was curious about when they are going to be produced and issued.

“Don’t know yet. We’re still in the testing phase. We have to do more testing before they can even go into production.” Nathan already knew
the suits could withstand any biological event. They had their own self-contained environment. That had been tested with a few test flights. The suits could withstand an EMP attack, but it would knock out their visual and audio recorders. The emp device that Gypsy designed to take the fake suits out were affected, but once she redid the design, the suits weren't any more.

The next major test was having Nathan enter a burning building. If the suits proved effective and protected the wearer, they could use the suits to help the fire department and on navy vessels. They were going to see how deep the suits could go.

“If you need more volunteers to test those suits, I wouldn’t mind.” Private First Class Sumners was looking at Sharon’s suit.

He still couldn’t get over the fact that there was a woman inside the armor. Everyone wearing the armor had their face mask lifted.

“Sharon, do you find the armor to be too uncomfortable?”

“In some places, yes and in other places no.” Sharon knew Gypsy was planning on making another set just for her and for women.

“Alright, let’s get back to practicing.” Nathan closes his faceplate.

“Right behind you.” Robert follows Nathan back out into the training field.

Off in the distance, three military Generals and a Major were watching Nathan, Robert, Dominic, and Sharon as they went back to practicing. They had watched the first half of the training exercise and was impressed with what happened. Major Scott had been impressed with what he saw so far.

“I want those four and the designers of those suits sent to our facilities in Tampa, Florida.” General Barry Lindsay wanted to add them to Special Operations.

“The four soldiers shouldn’t be a problem General. The problem will be the two civilian designers. They are students that are operating under
DRAPA.” Major Andrew Scott looks at General Lindsay, General Barry Wright, and General Lloyd Cartwright.

“If they are working under DRAPA we can request their services for the problem we have. Those suits could go into Africa to retrieve and
support our soldiers. There are no markings on them suggesting or indicating that they came from us.” Right now, a group of soldiers they had down in Africa needed extra help.

They were engaged with a group of African guerillas under the control of Charles Al-Bashir. He was getting support from Sudan and Iran. The problem was, proving it. The soldiers they had down in Africa were outgunned and out manned. If they sent these soldiers down there with those armors. They could turn the tide.

Gypsy and Patrick couldn’t believe they had been given their Ph.D.’s for their work on the power body armor. Then after they had received their degree’s they were requested to come to the base commander’s office, where two Admirals, three General’s and one Major were waiting for them. The General’s and Admiral's were with the Department of Special Operations Command.

They had been the men that had been watching them from a distance. General Barry Lindsay wanted to add them to his staff and use the body armors for a special mission. Gypsy and Patrick informed them that the suits weren’t fully tested yet.

Yes, if they got in a firefight with a bunch of soldiers, the suits could more than likely hold its own. However, there was still plenty of test and research they needed to do with the suits first. She and Patrick didn’t want to jeopardize the lives of the wear’s of the body armor.

When the General said he needed their help to rescue a team of American soldiers in Africa. They got together with the others and asked them if they would want to undertake the mission to rescue those American soldiers. They weren’t going to do the mission unless everyone agreed.

Since the body armors were already black. All they would have to do is give it a camo painting, to help blend in. It took the group a while to decide if they wanted to take up the mission.

Patrick and Gypsy were going to observe from a Command base, while Nathan and his team go out and rescue the soldiers. They also put in the suit a self-destruct switch, just in case they got captured or the suit became damaged beyond repair.

Gypsy and Patrick look at the new apartments that the government had given them in Tampa, Florida. Gypsy’s new apartment was one floor up and over Patrick’s. General Barry Wright had said that the government would pay for their apartment’s in exchange for them working in Special Projects.

As for the research facilities, it was a combination of research lab and indoor testing and was located at MacDill AFB, Florida. The base was located 4 miles south-southeast from Tampa, Florida. They were classified as civilian contractors, doing research for Special Operations.

They were going to send Nathan, Sharon, Robert, and Dominic to Africa to rescue the American soldiers. Gypsy and the gang go over each armor, making sure everything was in tip-top working order. Patrick and Robert were updating the onboard navigation system and satellite link, so they could stay in contact. Nathan and Dominic were laying out safe zones where a helicopter could come in and pick them up. Also, they were going over the secondary jet packs. They were going to go in under darkness and rescue the troops.

Once the suits were prepared and ready. They board a plane and fly to Africa. Gypsy was nervous as she sat with the soldiers that were coming with them for support. Nathan was wide awake, but Patrick was catching some sleep.

“Nervous?” One of the soldiers that had come to protect her and Patrick was looking at Gypsy.

“Yeah, I’m nervous because I’m about to send people I call friends out in these armors.” Gypsy gets up and walks over to the first one she and Patrick built. It happened to be Nathan’s.

“So, you are the creator of these things?” Kingston looks at the suit.

“Me and my partner, Patrick. We constructed these suits for you guys, from a DARPA grant we were given.” Gypsy walks over to the next one, which was Sharon’s.

“Do you doubt that they will work?”

“No, I know they will work. The worry I have is that they haven’t been tested under combat conditions. I don’t want them to let down my friends.” Gypsy just looks at them.

She checks the smaller gauss rifles for her and Patrick. They were based on the same design as the first gauss rifles for the suits.

“What are those?” King had never seen the rifle Gypsy was holding.

“Gauss rifles. I built them for me and my partner.”

“Do you mind if I hold it?” Kingston had never seen anything like it before.

“No, go ahead.” She hands the one she was holding to him.

He looks at it and goes over it. He looks over at the Gypsy “how much of a kick does it have?”

“Very little. The bigger ones have more of a kick to them, then these.”

“I could get uses to carrying this.” Kingston liked the weight of it and wonders what it felt like to fire it.

“I doubt the military will switch over to these any time soon. They still have plenty of slug throwers and ammo to go with them.” Gypsy knows her gauss rifle will be a turn off to the government.

After a while, they land and are transferred to a helicopter and flown out to where they were going to drop the suits. Gypsy and Patrick help each team member suit up and double check everything.

“You guys be careful and remember, let the suit do the work.” Gypsy watches as they jumped out of the helicopter and fly down on their jet packs.

Patrick turns on his tablet and watches as each member landed safely. The next thing they know, Nathan and Dominic come under fire. Sharon And Robert head towards the captured soldiers.

Gypsy could tell that the Islamic extremist that were holding the soldiers and civilians didn’t know what to make of the suits. Some of them tried to take protection behind walls and vehicles. The gauss rifle round, just cut through the material like a hot knife through butter.

The helicopter lands and start taking on the soldiers and civilians they came to rescue. Gypsy helps with any of the wounded they had. Patrick comes over and helps as well. As they were loading the helicopter, several extremists start shooting towards them. Patrick and Gypsy grab their gauss rifles and shoot a three-round burst towards them.

The extremists that were taking cover behind trees and a few vehicles figure they were safe. When they got hit behind their cover in the chest area. They were surprised as they dropped dead. One of the flecthes from the gauss rifle caused a grenade to go off, blowing the person up.

“We got incoming from the front of us.” Patrick was being pinned down from weapon fire from in front of the helicopter.

“Don’t worry kids. I got you covered.” Nathan comes running towards them and leaped at the last second clearing the turning blades. He drops
down in the front of the helicopter and opened fire with his rifle.

“Gypsy, Patrick get inside the chopper and take off. We’ll provide cover and join you, once you’re in the air.” Dominic's voice comes over their radio.

Gypsy and Patrick get inside the helicopter and brace themselves as they start taking off. Once the helicopter reaches a certain height, the body armors activate their jet packs and fly upwards, while still laying down cover fire with the rifles. They hover right into the helicopter. One of the medics that came with them closes the door on the helicopter and as it headed towards an aircraft carrier waiting nearby for them

Gypsy and Patrick go over towards Dominic and the others to check their armor. They look on the outside of the armor for any sign of penetration.

“Did any of their weapons penetrate the body armor?” Gypsy was worried that her friends might have been hurt.

“Nope, nothing penetrated the armor. I think those soldiers were surprised when their weapons proved ineffective against us. I know one of them was surprised when the gauss round went through the vehicle he was hiding behind.” Sharon had a smile on her face from thinking about it.

“What’s everyone’s ammo and power levels like?” Gypsy wonders how many ammo magazines they went through.

“I got two magazines left.” Sharon shows hers.

“I’m almost out.” Nathan looks towards Dominic “how many do you have left?”

“I got half a magazine left.” Dominic hadn’t realized he went through his magazines as fast he did.

“How about you, Robert?” Gypsy looks at him.

“I have two left as well. All our power levels are within normal range. We still have enough for seven more hours of use.” Robert had access to all the armors.

They land on the aircraft carrier and the injured are escorted off the helicopter and to medical, along with them. The body armors are taken to one of the flight hangars to be recharged and prep. All data from the onboard computer is downloaded to Patrick’s tablet and upload to the secure cloud account he and Gypsy had.

They would go over the combat footage later and see if they needed to make any adjustments to the body armor systems. They know the General of special operations would want to see the footage for himself.

Gypsy wipes her forehead, as she works on another new suit of body armor. The Admiral of Special Operations wanted two more suits built. This way they would have a six-man unit that they could deploy. Nathan had said that he wasn’t going to reenlist, but he would hire on as a trainer. He would show his replacement and the others how the suits worked.

Patrick was working on the programming of the custom circuit boards they used. Some suggestions had been made to contract the work out, but Gypsy and Patrick felt that it would be better for them to build them. As for the smiting of the armor material, that was done in house.
Gypsy and Patrick didn’t trust anyone else with the technique.

“Gypsy, you have a video call.”

Gypsy looks towards one of the airmen that had been assigned to help her and Patrick. Her specialty was programming and communications. She worked on the body armor communication gear.

“Who is it?” Gypsy walks over towards her work area.

“FBI Special Agent Garcia.” Spawn had answered the video call for Gypsy.

Gypsy walks over to where her computer was set up. She saw FBI Special Agent Garcia’s face on the screen.

“Hi, special agent, what can I do for you?”

“Well, I have some good news for you and some bad news for you. The good news is, we found where they had been sending the specs to your armor design. Also, they had sent the programming and skeleton design for the armor. The information was sent to some Russian contacts of Andy’s. The other good news is they didn’t get a copy of the operating program for or the battery design. They also didn’t get your gauss rifle design.”

“Well that is good news and bad news rolled all in one. So, what does that mean for me and Patrick?” Gypsy was curious and she knew Patrick was as well.

“It means, you two can carry on with your life. The CIA and NSA are going to handle the Russians.” Garcia had gotten the word from her higher-ups.

“Well, that is good to hear. Thank you for everything you did for us.” Gypsy was grateful for what Special Agent Garcia did.

“It was my pleasure. I’ll check in on you two every once in a while to see how you're doing. You take care and try not to set your new place on fire.” A smile appears on Garcia’s face after that comment.

“I’ll try.” Gypsy ends the call.

“Was that special agent Garcia?” Patrick comes walking over towards Gypsy.

“Yeah, she said that the Russians got our armor manufacturing technique, but not our programming or weapon, and jet pack design.” Gypsy didn’t look to disappointing.

“It’s not like our manufacturing technique is a secret. We got it off the web from a teacher experimenting with the process. Did they get our battery design?” Patrick hopes they didn’t. Because it took him and Gypsy to figure out the right power storage the suit could carry and how much the systems would need in order to operate.

“No, they didn’t get our battery design either. Just our armor design and manufacturing technique.” Gypsy was glad that most of their hard work was still their’s.

“So, who do you think the Admiral will get to wear the other two suits?” Patrick looks at the one he was working on.

“I don’t know, but Nathan has agreed to teach his replacement on how to use his suit.” Lindsey was going to have to make some adjustments to it, for the new pilot.

They might have to build a new one and keep Nathan’s original to try out new systems and weapons on. Since his was the working prototype.

“Have you contacted your folks yet and told them about your new job and location?” Patrick looks towards Gypsy.

“I thought I would spring it on them after I have the operation to straighten my plumbing out.” Gypsy finally got her letters to get her operation. All she has to do now is find a doctor to perform it.

“You do like to spring surprises on them. How do you think they will take it?” Patrick has met members of Gypsy’s family.

“They don’t approve of it, just as they don’t approve of me being a woman. However, other members of the community I was brought up in,
don’t care or won’t say anything out of respect to me.” Gypsy was surprised that even the leaders of her Amish community didn’t say either way.

“Have you thought about going back to live in your community?” Patrick already knew Gypsy’s answer, but liked the expression she gets.

“Are you kidding me? I would rather have a root canal, then go back to live in that community. They are still catching up with everyone else.” Gypsy couldn’t believe how much catching up she had to do. When she decided not to go back to her community.

Patrick just smiles as he tests his handy work. He was planning on going out after work today. He knew Gypsy was still decorating her apartment. She already had her workroom already set-up.

Their next projects were to design a suit for Firefighters. The Admiral wanted them to design a suit for the Navy Seals. The problem with that is that they needed to make the suit light enough for the wearer to swim in and float. Gypsy sits down at her computer and brings up her CAD program and the finished suit of their current armor and start modifying it for underwater use.

She does some research and finds a few interesting theories and items that might be useful to them. She’ll have to write the person doing the research about the items. Gypsy continues working till, about 1800 hrs. Her and Patrick close up shop and leave for the day.

Gypsy had her sketchpad out and a clipboard with a legal pad sitting next to her on the floor of her apartment. She had come across an article of a South Korean inventor that had come up with a way to extract oxygen from seawater. The device was similar to the gimmick they used in a James Bond movie.

She had a miniature 3D model of the armor her and Patrick had built standing before her on the coffee table. She looks at the model and reaches for her sketchpad and sketch out a new suit. The old one could still work, but she and Pat will have to test the seals on the suit, while it is submerged in seawater.

It was already designed to protect the wearer from hazardous environments. So, they knew the suit could protect the wearer in a harsh environment like an ocean, but for how long? She glances back towards the article she was reading.

The principle of the design was easy to duplicate, but how far down could a wearer use it to extract oxygen? Gypsy starts sketching a new slimmer suit. The suit would have to be able to withstand shark attacks and be flexible. She couldn’t use the foam metal technique for the suit because it would add too much weight. This new suit of armor would have to be lighter.

Gypsy looks at some of the ceramics they used in the construction of the armor. She had a few other samples on her laptop somewhere. She opens her Autocad program and starts constructing a prototype suit in the program. She makes some adjustments to the design. While she was working on that design, an idea strikes her of just making a quick unit that the divers could use in an emergency.

The other suit she figures could stop up to a .50 caliber BMG round and survive a hand grenade going off near it. It would also have some of the same enhancing physical capabilities that the heavier armor would have. That includes surviving a biology attack. It wouldn’t have the same radiation protection that the heavier armor would have, but they could survive up to an hour of exposure.

Gypsy slowly drift off to sleep while working on the new design. She dreams of being on a deserted island trying to find a way off the island and get back to Florida to help the soldiers. She had limited supplies to build anything capable of taking her home. She spots a vessel off in the distance and tries to send smoke signals hoping to grab its attention, but every time a smoke cloud went up, it was blown away by the wind.

She watches as the boat gets further and further away as she keeps trying to send a sample signal hoping they would see it. After a while, the boat disappears and she is all alone on the island.

“ Good morning starshine
The earth says hello
You twinkle above us
We twinkle below
Good morning starshine
You lead us along
My love and me as we sing”

Gypsy wakes up when she hears Good Morning Starshine coming from her cellphone. She smacks it and wonders why she was laying on the living room floor. It takes her a few minutes to realize she didn’t go to bed last night and fell asleep working on the new suit.

Gypsy couldn’t believe she fell asleep on her floor. She hasn’t done that, since last year when she was studying for an exam. She heads towards the kitchen to make herself some coffee. She gets the coffee machine going and while it is brewing. She opens the box of Hostess cupcakes and takes two out.

She looks out her kitchen window and notices how nice and sunny it was. Gypsy figures since she didn’t have to be at the office, she’ll go to the beach and get some sunshine. As she gathers her items to take with her. She looks at her laptop and wonders if she wants to do some work while she’s there.

She shakes her head and heads down to her Mustang. She stops by Patrick’s apartment to see if he wants to come, but she spots his girlfriend from Pennsylvania in his apartment. She wonders when she arrived in town.

Gypsy figures the two of them probably have plans. She goes ahead and heads towards the beach by herself. She had the gauss rifle she built for protection on the backseat of her mustang covered by a blanket. After the first few times, she was attacked, she decided to carry one of her weapons with her.

She finds a nice nearby parking spot and parks. When she gets out of her Mustang, she inhales the sea air and holds it. She couldn’t believe how it smelled. The beach wasn’t crowded as she gathers her things and heads down towards the water. She was looking for a spot close to the water, but further enough she wouldn’t be bothered by the tide or waves.

Once she has her stuff set up and arranged as she likes it. Gypsy walks towards the ocean and lets the waves break against her feet. A shiver runs up her body as she steps into the cold water. She made sure to tuck securely, so no one figures out she wasn’t a genetic girl. The water felt nice as she goes further and further out into it. She only goes out till the water was up too her breasts.

She dunks her head underwater and comes back up. While Gypsy is standing there feeling the waves move her body. She scoops some water and holds it in her hand. She holds her breath and goes underwater and notices how hard it is to see out into the water. She breaks the surface and exhales. She looks up at the sky and then back underwater. It finally hits her that she needs to add some sort of sonar system to the armor. That way the wearer could tell what was around them.

While she is thinking about how to add it. She lays on her back and tries to float. She’s never been a good swimmer and has never swam in the ocean before. After several tries, she manages to float on her back.

After spending an hour swimming and goofing off in the ocean, Gypsy heads back up to her stuff and towel off. She pulls her notepad out while grabbing a cold flavored water bottle from the small cooler she brought with her. She digs through her beach bag looking for a pencil.

She takes a sip of her water and writes down some ideas that popped into her head while she was out in the water. Things she hadn’t thought about when she spent all night redesigning the old armor and creating a new lighter suit. She finishes making notes and adjusts her sunglasses. She puts her headset on and listen to some music as she gets some sun.

Gypsy and Patrick looked at the notes they made to present to the base commander and the head of special operations. She hopes the Admiral will like the solution her and Patrick had come up with for the seals and other swimmers.

Patrick was checking their prototype designs of the three different models for people to wear underwater. He liked the idea of what they came up with and hopes the admiral would too.

“Gypsy, they are coming in.” Patrick spotted the doors open to the conference room.

Gypsy and Patrick stood by their models as they watched everyone come walking into the room. Gypsy was nervous and hopes the three different designs her and Patrick compromised on will work for them. Once all the seats were filled and the doors closed and secured.

The base commander gives Patrick and Gypsy the go-ahead to start their presentation. He opens the booklet that was in front of everyone.

Patrick steps forwards and stands before everyone. He was feeling nervous and hopes the designs will go over well.

“Good morning ladies and gentlemen My name is Patrick Miller and this young lady here is my partner Gypsy Lapps. We would like to show you some new concepts we have come up with. These new concepts will allow our Navy swimmers and special forces to operate underwater.” Patrick steps aside to let Gypsy take over.

Gypsy steps forward to take the spot Patrick had been standing. She faces everyone “at first we hadn’t thought about making armor or equipment that could be used underwater until Admiral Borgnine suggested we look into designing special armor for the Seals and for our underwater explorers and salvage crew. So, me and Mr. Miller put our heads together and believe me, it hurt too.”

The high brass and their assistants laugh at her joke. Gypsy and Patrick could tell they were amused by the joke.

“We came up with three different designs. This first redesigns is a face mask that any scuba driver can wear. You no longer need to wear an air tank any more. It filters oxygen from the water and will allow you to remain underwater for at least eight hours before the scrubbers inside it have to be replaced.” Gypsy hands the mask to the Admiral and lets him pass it around.

Once it had been passed around the table. Patrick accepts it, so Gypsy could continue.

“Now the second suit we came up with is a new kind of wetsuit that any driver can wear. It will keep the wearer warm in the coldest of water or even upon land. It also can stop a shark from eating you and protect you from a .50 caliber BMG round. It comes with a special backpack that the swimmer can wear and travel underwater with. It has an eight-hour power supply and the battery pack can be changed out while underwater. It uses the standard battery pack design we design for the body armor.

The suit also has a defense mechanism as well. It can generate an electrical discharge like an electric eel. Which you can use for self-defense. We call this new suit the Eel.” Gypsy could see that the Admiral and General loved the idea of the suit.

“Now ladies and gentlemen, I know all of you have been wondering about this suit. It is based on our body armor design and can survive in the deepest of pressure, except the Mariana Trench. It can’t withstand those pressures. It has built-in water thrusters and is a self-contained environment. Like our body armor design, it can also survive in hazardous environments. The wearer can survive in this suit for up to twenty-four hours before the scrubbers and battery pack needs to be replaced. It has automatic systems and manual controls. It comes equipped with a green frequency laser for working underwater and can lift up to three tons. It can also be remotely controlled from any submarine. There is also a recall feature installed in the suit, to keep it from falling into the wrong hands.

In addition to being able to work underwater, it can also operate on land. As you can see by its feet. The drawback to it is it works better underwater. It is powered by the same batteries we used in the body armors. The lights on it are powerful enough to operate in the darkness of the ocean.”

“How fast is it in the water?” Admiral Borgnine was curious.

“Forty-five knots, sir. It’s faster underwater than our normal body armor. It’s also faster than the packs we design for divers to wear. Their speeds are at twenty-five knots top.”

“Can the battery packs on the…”

“Ocean Knight, sir. It’s called the Ocean Knight.”

“Thank you, Ms. Lapps. Can the battery packs be changed out, while underwater?” Admiral Borgnine liked the Ocean Knight.

“Yes, sir. The wearer can also disembark from the Ocean Knight while underwear and reenter it as well. Unlike our body armors, the front of the Ocean Knight lifts up to allow the wearer to escape from it.” Gypsy demonstrates opening the Ocean Knight.

“Another feature that is different between our body armor and the Ocean Knight, the front of the armor is transparent. You can see who is piloting the Ocean Knight, where the body armor you can’t. It also comes equipped with every sensor you need to operate underwater.” Patrick showed the diagram of the Ocean Knight on the projection on the screen.

“When could we see a working model of all these projects.” Admiral Borgnine wanted to test them out.

“The mask, Eel suit and the backpack by next week. The Ocean Knight, two weeks from now. We have a prototype built, but it still has some minor bugs to it.”

“What type of minor bugs?” General Lindsay was curious.

“The GPS system and the underwater video hologram system. It allows the wearer to show what it is seeing to an operator back aboard a sub or ship. Also, the communication system. We are trying to increase the range of underwater communication. Because of how fast the Ocean Knight moves and can travel. Keeping in touch with it is so, so, at best.” Gypsy and Patrick were working with their communication specialist on the problem.

“I would like to see a demonstration of everything you have presented to us. So, let’s arrange for the demonstration, two weeks from today. Do you think you’ll have the bugs worked out by then?” Admiral Borgnine looks towards Patrick and Gypsy.

Gypsy looks towards Patrick and nods his head yes. She turns back and looks at the Admiral “yes sir. We will have them worked out by then.”

Everyone gets up and walk up to examine what Gypsy and Patrick had on display for them.

“Wake-up sleepy head.” Patrick waves a cup of fresh coffee near Gypsy’s face.

He had come in and found her sound asleep at her workspace. She had let her hair grow a little longer and it was covering the side of her face. She was resting her head on her folded arms.

Gypsy sits up and looks at Patrick through blurry eyes. She was half asleep as she tries to get her body moving and mind functioning. She reaches out for the coffee Patrick bought for her.

She takes a sip of her coffee and moans as it slides down her throat. It tasted and felt so nice.

“I see, you got the communication problem fixed.” Patrick walks over to the tank that held the Ocean Knight in it.

“Yes, I had to adjust the frequency we were using and tied it into the sonar system. It works ten times better now.” It took her all night to figure the problem out.

It was the last problem they needed to solve. All the other problems were worked out.

“So, we’re good to go for the demonstration tomorrow.” Gypsy stretches as the effects of the coffee kick in.

“All the volunteers we have from Seal Team 4 will be demonstrating our equipment tomorrow. The leader of Seal team 4 will be handling the Ocean Knight.” Gypsy had requested that an actual Seal Team demonstrated their equipment.

“Why don’t you go home and freshen up some. I’ll get everything ready for tomorrow.” Patrick knew Gypsy didn’t function well with very little sleep.

“Thanks, partner.” Gypsy places a kiss on his cheek.

She was happy that Patrick had agreed to be her partner when they decide to start designing body armor and such. They worked great together and knew each other’s strengths and weaknesses. She heads down to her mustang and drives back to her apartment.

Once Gypsy is in her apartment. She strips out of her clothes and heads towards the shower. As she stands under the shower head, letting the water cascade down her body. Her hands come to her birth defect and wonders if she’ll ever have the money, she needs to have the surgery.
Sure, she was getting paid good money for working with the military designing the next generation of weapons, but she really wanted to have her birth defect removed. Gypsy continues with her shower and afterward slip her nightshirt on and crawl underneath the sheet on her bed. It takes a while for her to fall back asleep, but she manages.

1600 Hrs Later:
Gypsy wakes up and heads towards the toilet to relieve her bladder. She hears her cellphone ringing in her bedroom. She finishes up in the bathroom and heads back to her bedroom to see who was calling her.

As she picks the phone up, she notices it was Patrick calling her. She presses the accept button “what’s up, Patrick.”

“Just calling to see if you are awake and if you are ready for tomorrow?” Patrick had everything ready to go.

“I just woke-up and yes I am ready for tomorrow. Is Seal Team 4 ready for tomorrow?” Gypsy was concerned about that.

“They are ready for tomorrow’s demonstration. They were practicing with the equipment all day today, including the pilot for the Ocean Knight.” Patrick watched the Seals and any question they asked him, he could answer.

“Good, how about if we get in early tomorrow and run one more check on the equipment.” Gypsy wanted the test to go well tomorrow.

“Alright, I’ll be here at five in the morning.”

“Sounds good, I’ll bring the coffee and pastries.”

“You know what I like, Gypsy.”

“Bye.” Gypsy press the end button.

0500 Hrs.:
Gypsy walks aboard the training ship they were going to take out and demonstrate how all their equipment worked, including the Ocean Knight. She had a tray of coffee and several pastries in a bag. Patrick appears a few minutes later with his and her tablet in hand.

“Morning.” Patrick grabs a coffee with his name on it from the carrier tray.

“Morning.” Gypsy smiles as Patrick takes his coffee. “Here’s the pastries I got for you.”

“Thanks.” Patrick accepts the bag of pastries Gypsy handed to him.

“You’re welcome. So, is everything ready?” Gypsy takes a sip of her coffee.

“Yep, everything is set and ready.” Patrick was ready.

0700 Hrs.:
The Admiral, the base commander and several other top brass that had been at the first briefing shows up. Once everyone was abroad the ship they were taken out into the Gulf. They were going to see the SEALs and Ocean Knight in action.

“Well ladies and Gentlemen, I hope you are ready to see these wonderful devices in action. The reason we are out here on the USS Wainwright is to demonstrate how effective these devices are. I have requested a squad of Marines to try and stop the Seals armed with our new combat units.”

Admiral Borgnine and his aides walk over to a console Patrick had set up so they could see the information they were receiving from the SEALs as they perform maneuvers to surround and take down the ship they were on. Several SEALs give the packs they were wearing extra power to shoot them out of the ocean or to hover near the ship on a jet of water.

Some of the SEALs land on the boat and take out several Marines with just the weapons they were given. Every weapon they used against the Marines register as a kill. The SEALs that were hovering had landed on the ship and took control. Just as they did that, several alarms go off as a loud ticking sound could be heard.

“What is causing that?” Admiral Borgnine was wondering where the tick-tock sound was coming from.

“That would be the mine attached to the side of the ship.” Gypsy had a smile on her face.

The Ocean Knight shoots up out of the water and over everyone on the deck. It had launched smoke missiles at them. The deck fills up with smoke.

The Ocean Knight goes back into the ocean. As the console on deck locks onto it.

“Hope you guys are enjoying the smoke.” The leader of Seal Team 4 was enjoying the Ocean Knight.

“You are having to much fun.” Gypsy leans forward to speak into the mic.

“Well, this suit is worth the research and time it took you two to build and fixed it.”

Gypsy looks at the Admiral “we fixed the underwater communication problem.”

“I can see that.” There was a big smile on his face.

The rest of the demonstration goes without a hitch. The Seals show the Admiral and others how the suits and water jet packs work.

Gypsy walks around in her apartment slowly. She finally had enough money to correct her plumbing and have some plastic surgery done to her body. She looks at the laser rifle she was working on in her workroom at home.

The design of the rifle was slightly different then the design she used for the Gauss rifle. Patrick and their assistants had constructed another set of armor for Seal Team Six. The performance Seal Team four had done impressed the admirals and the Secretary of Defense enough to authorize the second set.

“Ow!” Gypsy yanks her hand back quickly, after burning the tips.

The laser was almost ready for testing, but she wasn’t rushing to finish it. She was on medical leave, till she was fully healed from her operation. While she was in the hospital, she had a bodyguard, watching her hospital room. Patrick and she found out that they had guards assigned to them.

She finishes the last connection inside the rifle. She runs a system check on the rifle to make sure everything was in operational order. While she was waiting for the intense check to finish, her doorbell rings.

She checks her cellphone and notices that Patrick was at her front door. She remotely unlocks the door “it’s opened, Pat.”

Pat heard the locks on Gypsy’s door click open. He hears her voice come from the Ring camera system. He opens the door and could see that she has been living in her living room, instead of her bedroom.

“Hey Gypsy, where are you?”

“I’m in here, Pat.” Gypsy waves a flag out the door of her workroom.

Pat spots the green flag waving in the hallway. He walks down to Gypsy’s workroom and peeks inside. He spots her sitting on a stool and the laser rifle she has been working on.

“You’re supposed to be recovering.”

“I am, but I was getting bored. So, I went ahead and rebuilt that laser I burned up at my last place.” She had to use the prototype to defend herself with and accidentally set her workroom on fire.

“Is this going to be an optional weapon for the body armors?” Pat picks it up carefully. He saw that it was plugged into Gypsy’s laptop.

“I don’t know yet. I constructed that with my own money.” Gypsy wasn’t sure what she was going to do yet.

“Well, you know we can’t sell any weapons or body armor designs, without the government approval.” Patrick had seen those clauses in their contracts as independent contractors.

“I know. The thing is, the gauss rifle is already a powerful weapon and this laser rifle has the possibility to become one as well. You can switch the laser frequency on the rifle so, it can shoot underwater.” Gypsy did some research and experiments on which frequency works best underwater.

“Well, when you're up to testing this. Bring it down to the lab and we’ll test it on our range.” Patrick loved how much it weighed and he saw it had three settings.

There was also several ports in the back of it “what are theses for?”

“You can hook a communication unit to it and have laser communications. The drawback is, it uses a lot of power to send a signal” Gypsy had
done some calculations of how strong the signal would have to be to cover the distance the rifle needed to broadcast.

“Cool. So, is there anything special we need to concentrate on?” Pat puts the rifle down.

“The only thing we need to do is build a smaller suit for firefighters.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Pat knew Gypsy cared about firefighters.

He stays for a while and talks with Gypsy. He misses having her by his side while they work. She knew what he wanted or how to figure something out that stumped him and vice-versa. Pat leaves around eight in the evening, after going out and getting dinner for Gypsy and himself.

Gypsy steps out onto the balcony of her apartment complex and was happy she never went back home. She was proud of everything she and Pat have accomplished.