SECOND DRAFT: Hard Bank Left

40

Graham supervised the installation of turrets. He found it more advantageous to put the turrets on the outside of the domes with the controlling seat welded to the base of each dome, thus solving both of his prior problems. Getting the equipment set up was no problem. Nathan had hooked them up with a series of flak cannons: one for each dome and one at the rear. It was the controls and mounting that got him hung up. The disconnect was becoming a problem, one he had to solve by mounting the cannons on the ribs holding the plates of the dome together. Which was fine, The struts could support the weight with no problem, it was getting them to move along the axis and change positions while still allowing it to be controlled by the turret seat.

It wasn't easy, and the answer left him with bugs that could only be worked out with a direct connection, which would require more time and energy and equipment than they currently had. The controls would be transmitted wirelessly via high frequency transmission. Said transmissions would direct the motor of its assigned turret and direct it along the frames of the domes.

The totality of the project took 26 hours to set up with breaks for meals he would have been content to skip had it not been for Krys shoving the food in his face. He would have felt better if Krys let him take them out for a test run, but as it was what they had would have to do. In truth he still wouldn't have been satisfied, even with a test run. Nothing would be able to prove to him that the system was done until he used it in battle.

"So this is why you had the domes in flat glass segments? And why I had to special order those damned extended enforcement beams?" Krys had finally graced them with her presence. God only knew what she had been up to for the last day. She better not have been sleeping. She stood now on the terrace where he had handed Krys the torque wrench. The tables were turned now, with him above, perched atop her room.

"Yes. This is what the railing was for."

"Don't play stupid, Krys, " Nathan chimed from the ground level below them. "If I knew what it was for you had to have some idea."

Krys emphatically shook her head. "You knew what it was for?"

"Yeah. Why do you think I have the chassis? Thought you were waiting to order them."

"Speaking of," Graham asked, finding it rude to do otherwise. "How much do we owe you?"

Nathan waved off the question instantly. "You guys still have credit on your account. And besides, Krys had already ordered most of the parts, I was just holding them over for her."

"But the guns had to cost you a pretty penny," Graham suggested.

"Oh, nah," Nathan protested. "The credit in your account more than covers it. And besides, you came to me for refuge. I can't charge you for that."

With a look, Graham instructed Krys to pay the man. She nodded and went back to his offices where, presumably, she would leave him with a more than sufficient charge to his account. He may not have remembered this may, but his hospitality spoke for itself. The scales tipped in Nathan's favor and Graham found himself owning yet another person for everything he had been given. Measuring himself against the same scales, yet again, Graham found himself wanting.

He hadn't really taken the time to thoroughly analyze his standing with himself since he had last given up his memories. It seemed that this time he got it right, seeing all iterations of himself as one being with lapses in memory. Where other iterations had seen themselves as separate entities from the whole. It had taken him a while to get there, having only accepted this truth a few days prior. The fact of the matter was that he wasn't a separate person trapped in someone else's body with someone else's history. This version of him made all those past decisions and simply didn't remember making them. If faced with repeat history he probably would make the same choices out of analysis and lack of experience.