The massive elevator came to a stop with a bump. Hail gestured in a general direction and Kara began walking.
“Where are we?” Kara asked.
They were now walking down a long row of helicopters. Each chopper was a different size and a different color.
“We are onboard the Hail Nucleus. Remember, that was the onboard question you asked about on the plane.”
“And the Hail Nucleus is one of your cargo ships that transports nuclear waste to where?” Kara asked.
“Anywhere it needs to go. Much of it comes here to Bilikpapan. I have a refinement plant that takes the waste and bundles it into the fuel cells I was telling you about. I also have a manufacturing plant that makes our nuclear reactors.”
“Makes them?” Kara asked. “I thought that nuclear reactors were built on site using tons and tons of poured concrete.”
Hail shook his head. “That’s the way the old conventional plants are made, but since the Hail wave reactor is not pressurized, we can get away with pre-casting all the sections of the reactor. And then we simply ship them where they need to go and assemble the pieces onsite.”
“Cool,” Kara said.
They were passing the last helicopter in line and Kara asked, “So you can fly all of these?”
“Yes I can. And if you were with us long enough, you could fly them too.”
Kara smiled.
Hail thought she looked much better smiling than freaking out.
The pair stepped through a large metal door opening.
“I will need you to take off all your clothes, if you don’t mind,” Hail told her.
“Excuse me,” Kara replied, both confused and wary.
“You can leave the body sock thing you have on, but the skirt, your vest, your shoes, they all have to come off.”
“You’re just like all the other men I meet, Mr. Hail. You can’t wait to get my clothes off.”
The comment caught Hail by surprise. He still didn’t have a grasp of the woman or her sense of humor.
Hail explained, “Every person that enters or leaves this ship has to pass through a contamination check point. What’s in front of you is a very sophisticated Geiger counter. It will measure any radioactivity that you may have been exposed to since you’ve been on this ship.”
“But I barely even…” Kara started to say, but Hail cut her off.
“It’s just one of those safety things that we do. It will only take a second.”
Kara looked skeptical, but she reluctantly unbuttoned her vest and handed it to Hail. She then unzipped her skirt and handed it to Hail as well. Standing in front of Kara were two alloy rails that were set on their ends. The contraption looked like a metal detector they used at airports. A faint hum was emanating from the columns.
“Shoes, please,” Hail requested.
Without reaching down, Kara kicked off her shoes and Hail bent down and picked them up.
“Purse,” Hail requested, and Kara handed her purse over to him.
“Are you going to go through the Geiger counter too?” she asked.
Hail walked over to the wall and opened some sort of metal drawer. He set Kara’s garments and purse into the drawer and closed it.
“Yes I am,” Hail said.
“Then why aren’t you taking off all of your clothes?”
“Because you have that full body sock on and I’m not even wearing underwear. But I will if you want me to. OK.”
Hail began reached for the button on his pants and Kara said, “That’s OK. No need to make this more awkward than it already is.”
She walked up to the rails and asked, “Is it OK if I walk through now?”
“Yes, you’re good to go,” Hail said.
Kara walked between the metal sticks, hoping that they didn’t make that weird scratchy, static sound that Geiger counters make when they encounter a radioactive CIA agent. Thankfully, nothing happened. No static sound, no sirens, Kara heard no sound at all but that constant hum.
A moment later, Hail stepped between the rails and the Geiger counter didn’t complain about him either.
“OK,” Kara said. “Where’s my stuff.”
Hail told her, “It’s being scanned in the room on the other side of this wall. It takes a while with objects that have metal in them. So we’ll pick them up later.”
Kara didn’t look happy with that answer, but then there really wasn’t much that she needed right now. If she was going to meet people, she would have preferred not looking like the cat woman, all dressed up in a black body suit. But Kara was confident in her appearance and it was preferable to meeting people while totally naked.
They stepped into an elevator that was made out of metal and metal and more metal. Hail pressed a button labeled DECK 4 and the elevator door closed and the metal box began to go down.
“Are you hungry?” Hail asked.
“Sure, I could eat something.”
“What type of food?”
“What do you mean what type?”
“I mean Mexican, Italian, French, American?”
“I wasn’t aware that American was a type of food,” Kara said.
“Sure it is. Hamburgers, fried chicken, hot dogs, apple pie; I don’t know any food more American than that.”
“Alright,” Kara said, wanting to put an end to the debate. “How about Italian?”
“Italian it is,” Hail agreed and the elevator came to a stop.
Hail took out his phone and made a quick call.
With the sound the elevator was making, Kara couldn’t discern what was said.
The door slid open and Hail walked out and turned left, expecting his guest to follow him.
Kara looked around, observing, documenting, cataloging in her mind anything that could help her mission. They were walking down a long white hallway. Kara knew one thing for sure. Hail could afford a lot of white paint. So far, everything she had seen had been painted white; containment vessels, hallways, bulkheads, ceilings, all shiny and bright white.
The pair reached some sort of junction and the hallway began to fork in two directions. One direction made a big arc to the right and the other made an equally big arc to the left.
Hail seemed to take a moment to get his bearings, before choosing the left hallway. Side by side, they began walking down the curving hallway. The first door they passed on their left was stenciled AMERICAN. Fifty feet further down the hallway they passed a door stenciled ASIAN. Another fifty feet and they arrived at a door that read ITALIAN.
Hail stopped and said, “Here we are.”
He unwound the wheel that was the door handle and opened the bulkhead door.
“After you,” Hail said.
Kara stepped into the room and was instantly blown away.
“Oh my God,” she stammered.
“Do you like it?” Hail asked.
“What’s not to like,” Kara said in a dream-like voice.
In front of her was a real Italian restaurant, like the ones she had visited when she had been on vacation in Italy. Aged brick walls and hand-laid brick arches were lit by soft amber light that came from fiery iron lamps that burned in wall sconces. On the ceiling, green and yellow vines clung to the rustic stone surface, giving the appearance of not just years, but hundreds of years. Thick dark wooden beams appeared to support the ceiling, but they also supported many types of flowering hanging plants. Garlic bunches hung from the red brick wall, and on the opposite wall was a pale wooden arch lattice that was stuffed with wine bottles. The restaurant had about twenty tables, twos and fours. Each table was draped with a blue checkered tablecloth and then laid over that was a smaller white tablecloth. A fine white porcelain plate sat in front of each chair and a linen napkin sat neatly folded on each plate. Every table in the cozy room had been set. Each place setting had one knife, two forks, two spoons; one large spoon that could be used to twirl a mass of spaghetti and the other to stir a drink. There was a tall clear bottle of oil, a bottle of vinegar, an ornate shaker of parmesan cheese and checkered bottles of salt and pepper that matched the table cloth.