I began to see so many skimpy to slutty dresses that I began to check out some of them. Finally, at midnight, the dance floor opened. I was beginning ...o get second thoughts about my invite… When the birthday girl and her entourage arrived clearly in a stretch SUV.“Is that a stretch Excursion? I got questions,” I said, in my mind.Her dress was slightly eroticized, not as much as the others I saw, but it did attract my attention. She wore a pink body dress which showed her figure. It was short. You have to make do with the weapons you have. I did have our construction drones, build you a gun platform out on the island and install an M-40A1 106mm recoilless rifle, with an M-8C spotting rifle. I have supplied you with two hundred rounds of high explosives and one hundred rounds of armor piercing..." Why?" I asked."So you have a chance to survive," Rala said."Then just remove them, and send the pirates back to where they came from," I said."We cannot. They were taken from the past. We. ”“He is supposed to have a marked intelligence,” the man offered. Marlowe was young and easily excitable. A Marine since just after he turned fourteen, he was now closing in on seventeen. He’d not seen combat, however. Combat tended to drain the excitability – leaving the person more stoic or dead. “There are some interesting bits of equipment he designed in Aisle twenty-three.”“Really?” Marlowe said excitedly. “I’ll have to go back and check it out. I mean, he was really flying around down. " Jerry I collect memories, not shit," I said to end that conversation.Jerry just nodded. After that we rode in silence an hour or so before we got into the mountains on the home stretch. It was dark when he pulled onto my street. I grabbed my bag and bed roll through one of the back doors. It was under the plywood bed, so it was tight, but it came out, I slung the bag over my shoulder and I held the blankets in my arm like a child."So you want to do this again," Jerry asked."I don't think so.