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DEVON LOOKED up from his terminal with a welcoming smile as Tash Higgins walked in the door.
Tash was worth looking at. She was about medium height for a woman, with straight, blue-black hair pulled back in a ponytail, an exquisitely sculpted face and a lush figure that would make any red-blooded man sit up and take notice. Devon fell into that category; he had been in love with her since the first day he met her nearly thirteen years ago.
He was painfully aware she regarded him only as a friend. He knew he didn't have vid-hero looks. His ordinary features and limp brown hair certainly didn't rate a second glance from most women, and since he dressed for comfort rather than style, his loose pants and shirt concealed the hard muscles he had been at pains to develop ever since he realized his scholarly/scientific interests made him a target for school bullies. As an adult, he kept in shape by training with the Blue Moon Militia, the local militia group which kept the town of Laughing Mountain and the area around it safe from infringement of their rights by the state and national governments who ruled most of North America.
"Did the mail pouches come in?" he asked, referring to mail pouches from the illegal colonies who used the town of Laughing Mountain to funnel goods and services to earth and to each other. The colonies and the Portal who serviced them were illegal because neither Earth-Gov nor the Industrial Giants who ruled behind the scenes had given permission for them to exist. For a variety of reasons, chief among them being a dislike of conforming to someone else's rules, the colonies of St. Antoni, Barsoom, Arcadia, Shangri-La and Halcyon had been developed in defiance of the two entities who ruled post-apocalyptic earth. The town of Laughing Mountain, who had built the illegal portal to access them, sponsored the colonies out of economic necessity.
Desperate for operating funds after a series of pandemics and global-wide earthquakes had devastated the planet, Laughing Mountain's economic base as an event town had been in deep financial trouble when Earth-Gov announced it would hold a lottery for places to develop the portals to new worlds. Towns were invited to submit applications. Laughing Mountain wasn't lucky enough to win a spot, but economic necessity forced them to go ahead anyway. A Portal was created in defiance of the draconian laws against operating an unregulated Portal.
"Yes, the pouches came in. That's partly what I wanted to talk to you about," she said.
"Flattery will get you anywhere," he told her with a smile.
"Both Tally and Ivette sent letters and photos of the children and asked me to make sure Scarlet Jones gets a copy. I was hoping I could tag along the next time you went out to the Phoenix Spa."
The Phoenix Spa was an abandoned resort purchased through channels by Napoleon Bonaparte the leader of the free clones. He had arranged for Devon to build a portal generator and blackmailed the clone industry into financing the colony, by agreeing to cease destroying their clone farms.
Devon and Tash had first met Scarlet Jones when they were in college. The group of students they hung with had discovered a clone farm in the hills above the town of San Demos when they followed a group of male students there. Scarlet had been recently sold to the farm when her former owner died. Furious at being forced to serve as a whore, she had broken free and run for the electrified fence enclosing the property. Liam Brendan, Tash's brother-in-law to be, had fired into the transformer box electrifying the fence. The shot had blown out the power to the complex, allowing Scarlet to escape. The group had taken her in and helped her to reach her mate, Dagmar Ironroar, and his group of escaped clones. After she had left to find her friends, Tash and the others had discovered someone had murdered most of the inhabitants of the farm. They went in to search for survivors and found seven abandoned toddlers alone and starving. Ivette Hayes who was from Arcadia and her husband Mathias had adopted them. Tash's sister Tally had been in another room when six of the artificial wombs used to breed clones had decanted six babies. When the group left the complex, they had taken all the children with them.
A second encounter with Scarlet and Dagmar hadn't been as friendly; they had broken into Liam's house to rescue the cloned babies because they feared what the 'Normals' intended to do with them. During the battle, Hogun Silverhorn, Dagmar's second in command, had been wounded by Randal Langeton a student from Barsoom. Barely escaping after losing the fight, Dagmar and the others had traveled to the Phoenix Spa to get medical help for Hogun.
The Phoenix Spa was the location where Napoleon, the Free Clones defacto leader had established his headquarters. Once a destination for the rich and famous, it had gone out of business during the disasters and lain deserted until Napoleon had managed to purchase it through a subsidiary company to disguise his identity. He had recently hired Devon to develop a Portal for the new colony of Halcyon, where he intended to establish a clone colony. In consequence, Devon made regular trips to the Spa to check on the progress of the portal.
"You're always welcome to come with me," Devon said, "you know that."
"Thank you," she said. "Would you like to see what Tally and Ivette sent?"
"Did you open the letters too?"
"Of course not," she said indignantly. "The family got duplicates of the pictures and letters."
She set the pouch she carried on a nearby desk and took out the set of folding framed oil paintings Tally had sent, opening it out to show the six babies.
"These are really good," Devon said. "They look professional. Who did them?"
"Liam's sister Jade is an artist," Tash said. "She did one set for Liam and Tally as a wedding present. Tally liked them so much she asked for copies for us and Scarlet."
Ivette had sent something different; an eight-sided holo cube. Seven of the sections featured each of the toddlers in various activities, and the eighth was a base where it sat.
When Tash touched it, it projected a holo vid of each of the children in turn. "Wow," Devon said, his professional curiosity aroused. "I wonder how this was made."
Tash made a rude sound. "If that isn't just like you—wondering about how it was made, instead of looking at the kids!"
He grinned at the reprimand. "That's me—a born nerd."
"When do you leave for the spa?"
"Day after tomorrow. I'm waiting for a part to come in. Can you be ready by then?"
"Yes," she said. "When will you find them a planet?"
"Oh, we've found one. Mark Connors Dad has been allowing us to run the search program in the early mornings during the week."
She frowned. "I thought he was afraid having the Portal generator under power would attract attention from Portal Authority agents."
"We've been running it about 3 AM," he said. "Commander Malachi agreed to do extra militia patrols during that time. After his people rousted a couple of agents out of the woods, they pretty much backed off." He grinned. "When the Portal Authority complained, Commander Sullivan told Agent Thomas the militia was doing night training and would be active in the area for the next couple of weeks. Plus, Sheriff Gonzalez had his officers threaten to tow any cars he found parked at deserted properties and charge the owners with trespass."
"What's the new planet like?" she asked.
"A little like St. Antoni," he said. "Geologically it's in the Pleistocene era. The Portal will be on the coast in the northern continent. We tested the soil, and it will grow human food, so that means the animals there will be compatible with human digestion. It's got broadleaf forests in the southern half of the Northern continents, plenty of rivers and streams. It also has prairies, valleys, and deserts. The drone map found large herds of herbivories, some of which can probably be tamed for food or riding animals. The oceans are salty, although less so than those on earth, and there seems to be an abundant number of fish and crustaceans. No monster sized predators the way we found on Lemuria—at least the drones didn't find any."
"A new world," she said with a sigh. "I'd love to see all of them, and to visit there..."
"I seem to have been elected as the Outlaw Portal expert, so I'll probably visit all of them sooner or later. I could use an assistant. Interested in a job?"
"I'm not a programmer or a techie. What would I be doing?"
"Personal contact with clients. I'm no good at it, and it takes time away from working on the Portals."
"You've got yourself an assistant. Oh, I guess I should have asked. What does the job pay?"
Devon burst out laughing. "I draw a pretty good chunk of change for what I do, so since you'll be relieving me of customer relations how does this sound?" He named a figure that had her mouth dropping open.
"You can afford to pay that much to an assistant?"
"Yes," he said. "And I do need someone to run interference with the locals while I work on programming and repairs."
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