Okay. Help him, Mike. Every microsecond counted, I assumed, so I pressed my hand into his open and red with draining blood abdomen. The nanomachines immediately rushed to work. I could see the interior of Dr. Daniels' abdomen getting fuzzy.
I am helping him now, Steven.
The doctors attempted to pull me off of Dr. Daniels's body, but I kicked at them and used my left hand to push them around. Then the dark-haired lady, 'Becca, burst in with a machine pistol.
"Get away from him you alien fucker!" she screamed at me and pointed the gun at me.
"Listen to me, I'm helping him!" I cried as she shot me three times. Two of the bullets hit the bodystocking but one of them ripped through the side of my neck—and it hurt, bad.
Tatiana burst in a microsecond too late to stop 'Becca from shooting me. But it didn't take long for her to use the nanomachines to knock her out and then the others in the room as well. She did all that and caught me before I hit the ground.
You're all right, baby! I got you.
Hold me up, Tatiana. I have to fix him.
You'll fix yourself first!
No, I won't. Hold me up!
Tatiana held me up to the table and I was close enough to Dr. Daniels for the nanomachines to communicate with Mike. I held my left hand against my neck to slow the bright red stream of blood squirting out there. The squirting blood made a squishing sound between my hand and neck as it ran through my fingers. I placed my right hand back in Dr. Daniels's open abdomen.
Mike, how is he?
He will be better than you in less than thirty seconds.
Not if I have anything to say about it, Tatiana said. Mikhail, you know what to do. Tatiana winked at me and the profusely bleeding hole in my neck began to heal.
A moment or two later the Clemons's came running into the room gasping for air. They took a brief survey of the room and looked concerned when they noticed the myriad of bodies on the floor.
"We heard shots . . ." Tabitha Clemons breathed out and stopped short when she saw the bullet wound in my neck closing slowly.
"Don't worry." Tatiana turned to her and smiled. "They're just knocked out. They were . . . trying to stop Steven. Hey, I had to do something." Tatiana shrugged and looked at the incapacitated people on the floor.
The rib spreader on Dr. Daniels dissolved and vanished and his chest started closing. I told Tatiana to wake everybody up. Dr. Clemons grabbed 'Becca in a nerve grab that, according to Mike, was developed by the Tibetans over a thousand years ago. I was impressed by the old man to say the least. Everyone rose silently—other than 'Becca, who was cursing in pain—but they all watched as Dr. Daniels's chest closed up around my hand and the surface of his abdomen grew fuzzy.
You can remove your hand, Steven.
Oh, sorry, Mike. I pulled my hand from the man's chest and it was covered with blood. Tatiana had Mikhail clean me up almost instantly.
We stood around and watched Daniels quietly, and then his heart monitor went from the flatlining screech to a normal beeping heartbeat. Then he opened his eyes and reflexively breathed as deep as he could.
"Behave yourself, Rebecca." Dr. Clemons let her go and she rushed to Daniels's side, hugging and kissing him all over and crying.
"Oh, Jim, I thought you were going to die on me!" Tears rolled down 'Becca's face.
Jim looked around the room and saw Tatiana and me standing at the foot of his stretcher and he jumped violently. Dr. Clemons and 'Becca grabbed him and held him down.
"Take it easy, Jim. They saved you," Dr. Clemons said.
"They're the ones that put me in this shape!" Jim cursed.
"Dr. Daniels, I apologize deeply and sincerely, but we never meant any harm. It was all a misunderstanding," I assured him.
"Yeah, a misunderstanding and a bit of paranoia on your part," Tatiana added smugly and 'Becca gave her an evil look.
"Dr. Daniels, you'll be fine," I told everyone in the room. Then I thought about the massive damage and Lieutenant Ames being injured. "Tatiana, let's get to the other wounded, now!" We zipped from table to table and from room to room in the hospital. I just happened to be the one who fixed Lieutenant Ames. General and Dr. Clemons stood over my shoulder the entire time—they were both concerned from a parenting point of view, and I could tell they were very curious about the technology.
"Then it is you, Mr. Montana?" Lieutenant Ames asked me as the last few lacerations on her face and stomach vanished away.
"Yes, and it's Steven, Lieutenant," I told her.
"Then it's Annie, or Anne Marie, if we are on a first-name basis." She held her hand out for me to shake it. She was amazed that it was no longer broken.
"Sorry for all this. I didn't mean for any—"
"Forget it. We were just as much to blame, Steven. That damned Rebecca never follows orders. Civilians!" She shook her head and harumphed.
Then we went out into the city and used the sensors from the Phoenix to search for other wounded. After several hours there were no longer any immediate emergencies. If you didn't count the Gray threat, that is.
Look what a mess, Steven. Tatiana pointed out at the lunar town.
I know, gorgeous. We will help them fix it.
CHAPTER 16
It took us a good couple of weeks to get the little town on the Moon back in order. Apparently the kids in town were glad that school was canceled while we rebuilt. Thankfully, it was fall break and the kids had not been in school at the time or the incident could have been far more tragic than it was. A few trips to Earth in the little warp ships were made for various materials until I set up a materials generation and replication area with a downloaded version of Mike controlling it. Basically, any computer-drawn model of an object would enable it to be constructed from the rubble and lunar materials available. The nanomachines in the facility Tatiana and I put together would take the material and convert it into whatever piece of equipment, construction material, or whatever else was needed. If precious or exotic elements were required that weren't available, then we sent the warp ships to Earth. The nanomachines could only manipulate atoms, so if you needed a gold atom in something you had to have a pile of gold atoms to begin with.
On the other hand, we increased the budget capability of the little lunar town tremendously because there is plenty of carbon on the Moon. Diamonds are made of carbon and the lunar base became one of the Earth's small suppliers of diamonds—unbeknownst to the general public of course. General Clemons had the CIA acquire a South African diamond company to fence the lunar diamonds through—of course, the CIA got a big cut for its troubles. We allowed just enough of the lunar diamonds to flow into the market as not to cause suspicion or to flood the market and drive down the revenues. The diamond market was about a thirty-billion-dollar business each year and we planned to take in about a third of a percent of that and thus keep a low profile in the business. We also set up similar markets for the billion-dollar-a-year silicon wafer market, the two-billion-dollar-a-year flat glass (mirrors and such) market, the multibillion-dollar fiber optic market. Remember there are a lot of silicates on the lunar surface. The CIA called this contingent the "diamond factory," which was along the same lines as the old "fly by night industries" business they often used. We continued to branch out into as many business areas as we could but never took more than a fraction of a percent of the business so we didn't attract any unwanted attention.
Another aspect of the business was so highly classified that only a few folks on Earth knew the intricacies of it. We set up a manufacturing facility that could rapidly prototype highly technical instrumentation for classified programs.