Verna Cobb (Continued part 3)

By J. L. Young

Verna woke when a beam of light leaked from between the roof and the wall, striking her closed eyes. She shifted and attempted to continue to sleep. It proved useless. She realized the machinery in the shop had fallen silent.

She climbed from the cot to find the bathroom. Her host neglected to disclose its location. In her search, Verna came across another workbench. This one had something large atop it, covered in a dingy tarp. She peeled back the strange material to reveal something just as strange.

“You seem rather inquisitive,” Shi said.

Verna quickly wrapped the tarp over the object and she turned, shocked. A flash struck her. “I was looking for the bathroom. What was that?”

“I took a pic of you. That face you made when I caught you red-handed is priceless,” Shi chuckled. “The bathroom’s outside. Watch out for the three-leaf plant out there. You’ll be itching for days.”

“You mean poison Ivy?” Verna replied.

“I never knew it had a name.”

“So, what are you building here, some kind of hotrod?”

“No.” The young woman picked up the case beside her foot and carried it to the front workbench. “I could use a nuclear reactor, though. Seven sixty-five kilowatts would do nicely. Na, too much radiation. I’ll stick with the graphene batteries.”

Verna stood there, blinking. “What are you talking about? Where did you go?”

“Procurement. I thought you said you had to go to the bathroom.”

Upon her return, Verna saw the young woman lifting a large cylinder from the case. “What’s that?”

“They don’t have supercaps in the 20,000 Farad range where you come from?”

“I have no idea.”

“Well, these are going to give my gauss rifle one hell of a punch.” The cylinder made Shi giddy as she threw the tarp back and fitted the cylinder into place beside several other similar-shaped items, lowered a slab of thick bronze-colored metal, and bolted it into place. “Finally.”

She stepped back to another door at the back. “You probably never seen one of these,” she said while pushing the door open revealing a large man-shaped machine. “I call him the Behemoth. 118 tons of badassery.”