Mike nodded and said, “Unfortunately, she’s right. She did run barefoot through a mine field. In fact, she was running naked. I took a hit from an...AK-47 and Kelly removed the bullet.” He kissed her again and said, “Okay, honey, if Colonel Collins agrees. Tom, what do you think?”Collins just shook his head. He was from the Tennessee hill country and could affect the mountain idiom in his speech when he wanted to. He said, “My mama didn’t raise no fools! When the commanding general wants to do. He looked over at Pip and noticed that he was already looking a lot more substantial. He asked, “How are you feeling?”“I feel a whole lot better,” Pip said. At least one person believed in magic and that was enough to keep him from fading.Sean grabbed the rock from where it was floating in mid-air. He asked, “What else can I do?”“That’s it,” Pip answered.“I can only make this rock float?”Chom looked disgusted. He said, “I swear that humans are getting dumber every generation. Ten thousand years. After almost fourteen months of such secretive activity, he announced to the group that he had something to show them.When the twins all trooped into Thomas' workshop it was to find a huge structure - easily over eight feet high - with wires and micro-chips all over it."It looks great, Thomas, but what is it exactly?" Ben dared to ask.Thomas' chest puffed out with pride as he answered."It's a bigger replicator - I built it up from scratch."There was a stunned silence from the group and Thomas. It costs you most of your savings to break your lease, but you found it to be a sound investment as you could no longer live in the same city as your horrible ex-girlfriend. Plus, you had heard that Transaton had an insane amount of job openings for specifically guys as the city's population was heavily skewed female. That combined with an incentive for moving to the city had your mind already made up.Transaton City, as many who were more situationally aware, could guess from its name that it.