The weapons testing room had been set up with a different crew this time. All volunteers of course, but these were not the regular volunteers. These were ex-military types who now made their living as mercenaries for corporations, countries, private individuals, anybody willing to hire them for a decent price. I reviewed their names, and noted that some of them were quite famous, space pirates even, all incredibly lethal and all of course skilled at cheating death. Perfect, I mumbled under my breath, hoping no one would hear me.
“Did we pay them?” I asked that guard who was surveying the volunteers. “Yes, ma’am. And too much if you ask me.” He said not turning around. “Do they know what we’re testing and why they’re here?” I walked over to the instrument panels for one final check. I didn’t really care if they knew or not, and it was none of my business how much the government wanted to pay them, but I hated to test weapons on people who didn’t know what was being tested since it made for bad results.
“They know what we do here, so they are curious as to what they can expect to purchase next year.” The guard murmured finally turning around to look at me. I almost want to tell him they only volunteer to find out if they can back-engineer what we’re doing and get it market quicker than we can, but I’m not interested in making that much small talk.
"They say that this is a very special weapon that you’re testing. That there is nothing like it out in the universe.” Joked the guard. “I’ll let you be the judge of that.” I stared at the guard until he turned around and went back to where he had been standing.
I took off my lab coat and checked the cuff I was wearing. I surveyed the clothes my lab assistant had procured for me from Supplies, and wondered if all our soldiers had to wear to this crazy outfit. I was dressed all in black with enough pockets on my pants and jacket to carry all sort of things, although I am not sure how I would move if every pocket was full of something or other. The shoes looked right though. Regulation boots made to endure all sorts of weather conditions.
I felt someone looking at me and found the guard gaping at me with his mouth wide open. I couldn’t tell if he was in shock or about to say something. I decided I had better say something before he did “I am testing the weapon today. Is there a problem with that?” I announced in my most official of voices.
“No, ma’am. But, if I may be allowed to speak isn’t this a little unusual?” I shrugged my shoulders and confided in him “Yes, but we couldn’t find anyone else on such short notice to be handle the weapon. So since I developed it, management decided I should test it as well.”
“But ma’am, you’re not a field person. And you’ll be in there with those, those killers”. Warned the guard. “They will be more afraid of me after the test is done. But don’t worry. I will be standing on the other side of the room. Shall we begin?” I suggested walking towards the door on the other end of the testing room. The guard nodded, but I could tell he wanted to say something more. He said nothing, and I was thankful that the outlandish rank the military gave me prevented him from questioning my orders.
As we slowly walked to the room, I went over in my head all the precautions my team and I had put in place in case this weapon test failed. I was on opposite side of the weapons testing room, and in case of a failure, a forcefield would be activated in the middle of the room separating me from the volunteers. The field would be up for 5 minutes, and if anyone touched the field, they would get the equivalent of a small electric shock. The field could handle one thousand hands touching it before finally giving out, and there were only 10 people in the room so we had some confidence that the field would hold. The 5 minutes would give me enough to time to leave the room and lock the door. But I knew there would be no failure.
The guard opened the door, and I sauntered into the room hoping to look confident and assured. I heard the door close behind me. There was 50 feet of empty space between me and my bloodthirsty volunteers, so I moved to the half way point between the line which demarcated the middle of the room. Thankfully, someone on the team decided that it might be a good idea to give me a microphone so I wouldn’t have to yell, so I flipped it on.
I looked up an the volunteers who were starting to move towards me. “Gentleman. Thank you for volunteering.” I began. They stopped in their tracks at the sound of my voice, so I continued. “This will hopefully be a short test. You don’t have to do anything but stand there, while I test the weapon.” I pressed the first button on the cuff, which measure the frequency of everyone in the room. There was a little screen on the cuff, and when it displayed the average frequency of the volunteers. I pressed the second button, which measured my frequency. Thankfully, when my frequency was displayed there was enough off a differential where I could be test up to four scenarios. The third button was an accelerator which you could press to set the beam to whatever frequency you chose.
“What type of weapon are you testing?” One of the volunteers yelled out. I smiled. “As you may or may not be aware, all bodies have a frequency which we now have instruments to measure. The body frequency is like an electrical current. If one cuts the flow of the current to the body for even just one second, the body goes out, faints, much like what would happen if you turned a light off. No harm would come to the person however, since the body would automatically start regenerating its currents on its own.”
“That type of weapon isn’t new. Those have been out for years.” Another volunteered bellowed out.
“True. The laser weapon isn’t new, but no one has come up with a laser that you could use on a large group of people.” The volunteers looked at each other as if they were trying to ask each other if what I said was true.”
“But you have obviously.” A volunteer marveled.
“Yes, and now we will test it.” I pressed the third button twice, which accelerated the the weapon frequency to two degrees above the average in the room. I pressed the fourth button, which activated the laser and sent out a high toned pitch which you hear. Immediately 2/3 of the volunteers dropped in a dead faint. I smiled at the efficiency of the weapon. Not bad for a first test. The remaining volunteers looked at me and started slowly walking backwards to the other side of the room.
I grinned and pressed the third button twice again, and hit the fourth button. This should knock everyone out in the room, and it did. I looked up at my team who were staring in awe at me through the glass windows that lined the top half of the room, and waved and gave them a thumbs up. The test was a success and the weapon worked. I looked at the volunteers lying on the ground. None of them were moving. I briefly wondered how long they would be out, but that was for the team to figure out.
I felt a weight lift from my shoulders. Five years of hard work and lab testing were over. I was ready to celebrate. I walked back to the door, knocked on it, and waited for it to open, fantasizing about the size of my next bonus. I was definitely going to take a long vacation this year, maybe even to that spa I heard about on Venus. The door opened and I walked out out of the room with a big smile on my face.
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