Phoenix Phire

It took nearly two weeks to have the pod ready for use. Nevertheless, Dex fulfilled his parole obligations by having it delivered to his P.O.'s office. They installed the game card and downloaded the required software. Given the size of the game, it took a full three days for the files to finish.

Gene, Kendal, and three people from the IT department delivered it personally. Dex found it nearly heartwarming until they started sweeping his house for any stray electronics.

Gene shrugged at the disgusted look on Dex's face. "As per your parole, home inspection for contraband electronics will take place every six months. So you can consider this the first inspection. Oh, and here's a new zoned map. Saul's Pawnshop is now off-limits."

Dex feigned nonchalance. "No problem, Gene. I'm clean as a whistle."

Gene smiled at the obvious insincerity. "You bought a lot of household items that I hadn't even heard of. Why does someone your age need all this stuff?"

"You were going to say junk," Dex accused with a smirk. Because of his electronic ban, it had taken weeks of painstaking research to find everything he needed. However, endless hours of browsing magazines and books gave him a newfound respect for the written word.

The stasis pod was set up a few feet away from his Murphy bed that was currently stowed behind two wood panels. Although Saul had cleaned the pod up, it was still dented and scratched in multiple places.

Kendal patted the pod affectionately. "I can't believe you can afford one of these. It's ugly as hell, but there's nothing wrong with the guts."

Dex nodded in agreement. "I'll apply some polish and paint, maybe pull out the bigger dents."

"I'll take your word for it. I'm claustrophobic." Gene chatted with Dex while Kendal and his team did their inspection. Although it took them two hours, it was only mid-morning when they finished.

Kendal was the last one to leave; he gave Dex a cheerful smile. "Chin up, bro. Ride the wave!"

"Ride the wave, man." Dex waited until they turned onto the main road before grabbing the new zone map Gene had left. Sure as shit, Saul's place was now banned. "On a positive note, the Airplane museum is still available."

A half-hour later, Dex walked into the Airplane Museum. Except for a bored-looking receptionist handing out fliers in the lobby, the place was completely empty.

"Feel free to explore as much as you want. However, do not climb on the aircraft or attempt to open the cockpits."

Dex read her nametag before smiling. She was probably only a few years older than him, but he'd never seen her before. "Thanks. Can I access the graveyard through the hangar, Peggy?"

Peggy nodded. "Not many people want to see the graveyard; those older planes are really weathered."

A few moments later, Dex strolled casually through the hangar. The electronics on these aircraft had been gutted decades ago; they were only an empty shell of their former selves. He located the exit without any issues.

"Oh, man..." Dex grinned at the multitude of old planes. They'd been lined up in a perfect formation, although the models and sizes varied too much to make it perfect. "Hello, beautiful!"

In the distance, he spotted her. She looked like a dull shadow of her once-glorious self, but she represented much more to Dex. "The F-22 Raptor! Just like grandpa described."

He broke into a trot; his face started to hurt a little from the wide grin he was wearing. His grandfather had joined the Air Force six years after high school, where he worked as an F-22 Crew Chief. The older man had told him numerous stories about the bird. Additionally, he also had a lot of complaints about performing maintenance on the aircraft. The stealth fighter was coated with a special compound that rendered it invisible to radar. It was messy, sticky, and a pain in the ass to work with. Whenever a panel was removed for something, the coating would have to be painstakingly reapplied and then tested before being returned to service.

Dex ducked under the wing and ran his hand under the fuselage of the plane. After being in the elements for so long, the coating was completely dried up and peeling off. He slipped his backpack off and opened it up.

When Dex exited the museum an hour later, his once empty backpack was filled with the dried-up peelings from the stealth fighter. He smiled at Peggy as he left and headed home.

Dex's house had originally been an Amish-built barn. It was huge and built to withstand the test of time. The spacious loft section had been renovated into a living area during his parole, but the lower level was mostly empty and doubled as a garage for his motorcycle.

He used the burn pit behind the barn to light a small fire and then moved the contents of his backpack into a five-gallon steel bucket. "Grandpa said it was originally a yellowish-brown."

It took several minutes for the peelings to soften under the direct flame; nearly an hour later, it was ready to start mixing. Dex stirred it for a few seconds with a metal rod; since the color seemed off, he left it on the fire to sit for a while longer.

Every 10 or 15 minutes, he would stir the coating. It had been heating for three hours before Dex deemed it 'yellowish-brown.' By this time, it had the consistency of wall puddy, which also matched up with his grandpa's stories.

Unsure how long the proper consistency would last, he rushed upstairs to his closed stasis pod and started to apply the coating to the outside surface.

"Shit... I thought there would be a bit left over." by the time he completed the project, he was scraping the bottom of the bucket. Although when he touched the surface where he first started the task, it was still a bit sticky. "I'll let you sit overnight; if it works, I'll have to paint over everything."

By the time Dex finished breakfast and a quick shower the next morning, the coating on the stasis pod had completely hardened. It lifted open easily. He sat there for a moment with the top up and slid into the compartment. The space inside the pod was surprisingly large; an S-shaped chair could be adjusted to either sit full-upright or in the more traditional reclined position.

"Now you see me..." He reached up for the handle and closed the pod door. Immediately the green light on his ankle tracker turned off as it had been shut down. "And now you don't!"

He quickly reopened the door and slid out. "That's what I call... fucking sweet!"

The ankle tracker was continually monitored by a satellite. Countless signals were sent back and forth every second. While in the pod, the ankle tracker still sent out a signal, but it couldn't receive any data. Therefore, the system assumes that the satellite is infallible and that any problem with the signal must be the fault of the ankle bracelet. When this happens, the bracelet sends out a self-diagnostic to the local monitoring program. If the monitor receives an error-free diagnostic, no alarm is triggered.

Dex wandered into his kitchen, speaking out loud to no one in particular. "The hard part is neutralizing the satellite since I can't touch it. Messing with the ankle bracelet before that was just asking for trouble. Law enforcement only monitors the tracker since the satellite actually belongs to the DoD. (Department of Defense). If I had attempted to block both signals, the alarm would have been triggered since the bracelet wouldn't have sent out its error-free self-diagnostic."

Dex grabbed a bottle of water from his fridge and twisted off the cap. "Dextron has returned. Feel free to applaud."

A few cans of black spray paint returned the pod to a somewhat pleasing appearance. Then, after taking a quick detour to retrieve his precision toolkit that was stashed in the loose floorboard of his garage, he returned. He placed his kit on the kitchen counter and started gathering up the collection of appliances that he had no intention of ever using.

"One Radion Pro Hairdryer, one electric eyebrow trimmer, my seven-speed blender, an industrial mixer, and of course, the circuit board from my brand new clothes dryer. I've got a clothesline right outside; I don't need a fucking dryer."

Dex sat at his kitchen counter and started removing the parts he required. His purchase of the clothes dryer had one purpose, the maintenance diagnostic on its secondary circuit board. Because of the close proximity of the other components within the dryer, a handheld virtual keypad was impossible to squeeze into the confined space. For this reason, the circuit board had its own virtual interface.

"Of course... Accessing the internet with any of this crap would be impossible if I didn't have a device that could receive the internet signal." He paused his monolog to wear a shit-eating grin for several seconds.

Rolling up his pants leg, he touched his ankle tracker. "Too bad you left me such a high-end access receiver. One little chip whose sole purpose is to download the latest firmware for the ankle bracelet."

Dex found an inconspicuous location on one of the lower pod panels and drilled a hole through it. After feeding a small wire through, he moved back to the kitchen counter, where he started soldering components.

"If Kenji were a bit smarter, he'd know the issue. The component within the ankle bracelet that receives the satellite signal is not the same one that routes the internet. So I can hardwire the router from inside the pod while still blocking the satellite signal."