He could not quite tell how he felt. Jo was clearly pleased to see this hideous runt of a man. Fallon could not have been more than five feet two inches, stout and with that high voice, Jake was willing to bet five dollars that The Melon Felon definitely took anabolic steroids growing up. Definitely suffering from SFS – short fuck syndrome, Jake thought eloquently and smugly. Although, James seemed to be very happy to see him too.
He was truly a quirky character, what with the ridiculous moustache – which he figured was new, since the other two commented on it, and then there were the shoes. No one had said anything about the ludicrous shoes. White on the left, purple on the right, both with little black checks. Something propelled him to exert his authority. Being called ‘The Builder’ only spurred the need to show them that he was a force to be reckoned with; that and he really liked the nickname.
“The Melon Felon? I don’t even want to know what he did to earn himself a nickname like that,” Jake said, going for a confident and sure tone.
“You know how Ptolemy thought the world was the centre of the universe? Yeah, well, Fallon over here thought he could disprove the String Theory!” Jo said proudly. “Boy, oh, boy, they were both terribly wrong. He tried to disprove the whole theory using melons as quarks and atoms, when they vibrated; he had a melon-explosion. Dumbass. Thus, The Melon Felon.”
“Oh. Yeah. I totally get everything you just said,” Jake replied, feeling even more stupid than ever. He wanted to go home. Shit, shower, shave and sleep – as James said. Yet another failed attempt at being like them.
“I’m outta here guys. Jo, goodnight,” he said, stealing a glance at her, only to see her beaming at the ugly Fallon felon.
“Oh, yeah, goodnight Jakie-poo. Sure you don’t want to stay for dinner? Beer?” Jo turned to him, still looking high from that awful man’s arrival.
Jake shook his head and silently walked out the door, past Fallon. He did not regret leaving. He needed to; he needed a break, a chance to rewind and the opportunity to gather his thoughts. As he opened the truck door, he realised he had left the glass model on the workshop table, with all the pen markings and corrections he needed. Figuring it would be fine to leave it till tomorrow, he dispelled all thoughts of returning to the Coroner’s office and headed straight home.
Part of him wondered what they were doing in Jo’s place while he was away. The other part of him wanted to forget all about the task at hand. He was tired and sleep came fast.
***
He was dreaming – he was sure he was. The banging sounds he was hearing had to be part of his dream. He braved open an eye and glanced at his radio-alarm clock. Nine-thirty, on the dot. He was not dreaming. Someone was at his door; and whoever it was definitely did not possess patience. It was a virtue, after all.
Forcing himself and bracing his body which felt like it had been battered, he pushed away from the bed and head straight to the door. The banging was now constant. Rude people. He had surrounded himself with rude people.
“So help me God if you keep pounding on my door, I am going to rip your arms off your...” he was stopped mid-ramble by the sight of Fallon.
“Get the fuck up, will ya? We have work to do. And you goin' to rip my arms off? I dare you to try, shit head. I’ll wait while you shower. You got food in this place or am I going to have to starve while you shower?” Fallon pushed.
“There’s stale bread on the kitchen counter, it matches your foul personality,” Jake said as he walked back to his room. He thought he heard Fallon snicker and was momentarily proud of himself.
He took his time in the shower, he figured Fallon could wait. Almost an hour after Fallon’s arrival, Jake emerged from his room only to find Fallon sleeping, mouth open and drooling on his kitchen table.
“Payback’s a bitch,” he thought gleefully. He pulled a drinking mug from a cupboard and slammed it down on the kitchen table causing Fallon to jump up and screech.
“Touche’, grunt. I apologise for waking you rudely,” Fallon said, after he had calmed down. “Let’s go. We’ll talk on the way. We’re not taking your rust-bucket. I drove Jo’s Hummer.”
Jake nodded in response and they left the house. Once in the car, Fallon was kind enough to stop for coffee at The Coffee Grounds and buy four cups of coffee, and Jake was willing to bet Fallon knew exactly how Jo liked her coffee. He wanted to rip Fallon’s cheesy moustache right off his face. That would be funny.
When they arrived at Jo’s, the four of them sat together in Jo’s kitchen while Hootch snoozed in Jake’s workshop. Jo thanked Fallon for the coffee, James muttered something about not enough chocolate in his mocha and then the room was silent. Almost eerie.
Breaking the silence, James spoke. “Jake, you need to move a little faster. The molyb sheets are already here and you’re going to need more workspace, so go down to the basement. You’ll have to move not just because of the space, but because the welding is going to be noisy. Fallon will move into your workshop, but he’s going to need exact measurements and dimensions of the carrier. The software for weapons delivery is easy enough, I’m almost done. We leave for Nevada in three weeks, for testing. The DOD doesn’t like to wait.”
“Uh, okay. Wait, did you just say Nevada? The DOD?” Jake questioned.
“Yes, he did, Jake. DOD? Department of Defense? It’s crunch time. You’ve made your glass version, but we can’t waste the molyb sheets on full size prototypes. You’re going to have to perfect your scaled-models and then Fallon will help with the real thing. I’m sorry, you don’t have enough time to ‘practise’ or to learn how to weld and test heat tolerance. Fallon the hideous, didn’t bring enough of our precious metal for you. We may not even have enough for the real pay-load carrier,” Jo explained, gently.
“What the fuck? How is this my fault? How was I supposed to know that ‘The Builder’ has absolutely no education or experience? Jesus, is everything my fucking fault?” Fallon shouted, slamming his fist on the table.
“Now, now, calm down, melon head. I’ve got a nifty little device that’ll solve all our problems. Stole it from a buddy of mine in Quantico,” Jo chirped as she dashed off into the other room and rummaged around for something. Jake swore he heard something crash, but did not want to think about it.
“See?” she said as she came into the room holding what looked like an industrial torch light, but with a tapered area for the bulb. “Take this sexy little thing, and boys, it really is sexy,” she said seductively, doing a little jig. She went to a cupboard, pulled out a mug and placed it in the middle of the table. “It’s all very complicated, as you may guess. Heh. Actually I like acting smart. Nyuk nyuk.”
She aimed the torch at it, and a red beam of light shone and moved in different directions, scanning the mug. When she was sure it was done, she turned it off.
“Jo, you little whore, you had a PTI and you said nothing?” James said, smiling. Suddenly the three smart ones looked so incredibly happy. Knowing he had to ask for an explanation eventually, he remained silent until the rest of the “demonstration” was done.
Jo, flipped open her lap top, punched in a few keys and squealed with glee. “See? Now we can make adjustments and re-calculate from here! I’m so going to have sex with Sean Uberstein.”
Caught off-guard, “Who the hell is Sean Uberstein?” Jake roared.
“Whoa, slow down there, tiger. Uberstein’s a researcher. Quantico? Virginia? FBI headquarters? Do I need to explain everything? I got the PTI from him?” Jo explained, laughing.
“Shut up, Jo. You’ve obviously upset Jake. Relax, Jake, she’s not going to sleep with Uberstein. The man’s a turd. And he listens to pop. That’s just weird,” James said, attempting to comfort Jake.
“Oh. The Builder’s got it bad for you, Jo Jo. Now, can we get back to work?” Fallon said, adjusting his ridiculous polka-dotted bow-tie.
“Okay, so here we go. Jakie-poo, pay attention. You’ll be using the PTI and its software for now. You just have to...” Jo began explaining absent-mindedly.
“Wait, wait, wait. What the hell is a PTI?” Jake asked, already irritated.
“A PTI is a portable tomographic imager. You know, like a hand-held CAT scan. Only far more advanced. Unlike spherical TIs, which are bulky and of course, not portable, the PTI emits x-rays in polarized, random pulses, while regular CAT scans emit x-rays around a single axis of rotation. The PTI is so advanced, it beats magnetic resonance imagers, because it is able to differentiate multiple densities. You’ll be working with a really, really, really, really fancy piece of equipment, Jakie-poo. The development of this technology is worth billions. So, once you’ve taken your fancy-photos, you just have to wait for a complete three-dimensional picture to be loaded. From there, you can make adjustments and re-calculations. Input your data, and voila! The software does the rest. From there you’ll know exactly how to perfect your little glass models, down to the micrometre. Eucledian geometry never looked so good, don’t you think?” Jo blathered.
“You mean you had a fancy computer that could’ve computed all the schematics too? I’m going to kill you! I did those calculations on my own, dammit! Why are you bringing this torch thingo out now?!” Jake snapped.
“You needed to learn, Jake” James replied gently.
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