Aquisitioner’s Entry 6: The Bonding
Karl and I walk down the beach a few hundred yards to the neighborhood’s “fancy” hut. A few tables sit askew in the sand below sun bleached umbrellas. Inside the hut is a kitchen fully equipped with a 55 gallon drum stove and a propane chilled refrigerator.
We sit down at one of the umbrella tables and a young girl who must be about 12 years old comes out to take our order. She has a casual smile and more confidence than most twelve-year-olds who grow up in a city. The menu that is permanently tattooed in her brain spews forth so fast I don’t catch much of it. Karl just says, “Morning Bahari. This is V. We’ll each take the usual and I’d like a cold mango tea. V would like pineapple juice and coffee with cream and sugar. Thanks.”
Clearly Karl seems to be back in control of herself and our agenda. I ask her, “So what happened back there?”
Karl responded, “I had gotten up and taken a shower. When I came back in the cabin I saw something move and had a bad feeling about it. The movement was very close to your hammock. Without thinking I picked up my stuffocator which I had taken out of my bag earlier to get a change of clothes for the shower. It was a good thing; I wouldn’t have had time to get it out of my bag otherwise. When I turned back your direction the sand cobra was coiled to strike. With one foot I kicked your hammock. The rest of me was on auto-pilot. My hands slipped into their grips and the stuffocator did the rest…automatically setting the power, the coordinates, building the reverse polar charge and discharging just as the cobra took flight. Based on the timing, I think that it sensed your danger and was trying to protect both you and the cobra. I’m not sure about that but like I said, I’ve never used it to save anyone before.”
Bahari brings us our breakfast and I look at it skeptically thinking I should have ordered for myself. Karl says, “If you don’t absolutely love it you get to pick the next 3 meals.”
I take a tentative bite and realize I just lost the bet. The plantain was expertly cooked with a delicate, crisp cinnamon coating which is drizzled with a sweet pineapple sauce. It seemed to be programmed to disintegrate into an explosion of flavor on contact with your tongue. “Wow!” is all I can manage before I stuff in the next bite. Fresh fruit drapes over the remaining plate and cascades over the edge. A huge hunk of fresh dark bread sits on an another plate and emits a nutty, yeast enhanced aroma. I’m still overwhelmed by the intensity of all the sights, sounds and tastes.
Karl maintains some small talk as we complete breakfast. She is clearly enjoying the insatiable pleasure I’m experiencing in the meal. She calls Bahari over whispers something in her ear and puts something in her hand. Bahari’s face transforms into a sparkling smile and her eyes twinkle as she turns and heads quickly back to the hut. Karl stands up and says, “We’d better get going.”
I’m mystified by this last exchange but decide to ignore it.
“Let’s go get our stuffocators and go to the practice range.” Karl says as she heads back toward our hut.
When we get to the cabin we pack our stuffocators in their respective duffle bags, grab a couple of canteens and Karl leads the way into the jungle. As we make our way through the thick foliage she starts to explain more about the stuffocator.
“Remember when you took your physical and they took you hand prints?” Karl asked.
“Yeah, that was pretty weird. What’s with that?” I ask.
“Well they were getting the information they needed for your stuffocator. Each stuffocator is designed to work for only one person. The grips will recognize your hand print to activate the stuffocator. If someone else was to put their hands in the grips it would just sit there like a useless hunk of garbage.
It senses whether you are alive. It also recognizes the vein pattern in your hands and the average salt content of your cells. There are other things it knows about you too that I haven’t completely figured out.” Karl explained.
We came to a clearing and Karl said, “This is it. Time for your first stuffocator lesson. Today we will focus on fitting you to your stuffocator. Nothing fancy, but this is a very important part of the process.”
The clearing was about 20 yards long and only about 10 feet wide. At the far end was a large rock decorating an otherwise non-descript spot in the jungle. We both set down our duffle bags. Karl says, “Okay, take out your stuffocator.”
I unzip my bag and pull out the three foot long device. Karl looks at me with a very serious look on her face, “Remember that long document you signed? Well, if you should ever do anything that would harm an animal or another person the stuffocator has the authority to self-destruct if it can’t prevent the harm. Self-destruction would kill anyone holding the grips. When you signed that form you agreed to this little detail and agreed to hold the company harmless in such an event.”
“I’m definitely going to read that closely when I get back. What next?” I say.
“Okay, carefully place your left hand on the grip. Then press that small green button between the grips and place your right hand on its grip and hold very still. Great. Now I’m going to do the final activation. You’ll feel a tingling in your fingers and on the palms of your hands. It will last for about 20 seconds. Once it’s done this stuffocator will be activated and tied directly to you. Are you ready?” she asks.
I nod and try to prepare myself for some great mysterious event. Karl pulls one of two hair sticks from the bun in the back of her head and carefully depresses a small indentation in the side of the stuffocator I hadn’t noticed previously. There was a quick vibration that lasted less than a second. Then I experienced the tingling sensation Karl talked about and then it was done.
“That’s it?” I ask a little disappointed.
“Fraid so.” she says. “Step one, toward becoming an acquisitioner. Now the stuffocator has created a secret bond with you. The bond is maintained by free-space quantum key encryption techniques that are unique to the StuffedZoo. It’s real high tech stuff I call ‘magitech’. Finn tried to explain it to me once but my eyes glazed over so hard he thought I would faint. Magitech is my explanation; half magic, half technology. Something I can understand.”
“The next step is to teach you how to use your stuffocator and then we’ll be off after that Slider snake the StuffedZoo wants. I’ve tried to figure out how to describe what it’s like to stuffocate an actual animal but I’ve always come up short.
The closest I can come is trying to imagine the shear joy of a one year old doing a face-plant into a rich, gooey chocolate cake on their 1st birthday. So many senses are stimulated. There’s the tactile sensation of the smooth sticky frosting, the rich chocolate aroma wafting up, and the pillow soft layers of cake with the sugary-sweet taste of that first fist-full of goodness being crammed into an eagerly receptive mouth. It’s whole body quivering with unbridled excitement and enthusiasm. That’s the closest I can come and it’s still not adequate. Ready to give it a try?”
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