Chapter 37

This is neat, I've put my drawers in my room. Also my new gear is here. My room is good for one person only but it's pretty good. It's bright and spacious. There's a good for one bed, a full size mirror, and a bedside table. There's also a small fridge probably just for drinks, meals are to be eaten in the ship's dining area. Aunt told me to rest, we will be leaving tomorrow morning. For now, we rest and wait. I then walked up to my new armor. It looks like it's out of a sci-fi video game. It looks cool and...I clicked the button for the glass door. I can't believe I lived long enough to see such futuristic technology. Now, standing right in front of my armor, I touched it and it felt cold on my finger tips. So cool! Now, I have no idea how to wear this. My old sniper suit was light, it wasn't clad any piece of metal but it helped with keeping me still and gets cool when I sweat. From what I know, this armor has an air conditioning system inside of it. I want to try this baby out, see how heavy it really is. But I have a problem though, how do I wear it??

I stepped out of my room and walk up to Jarren's. After all, he's the one who designed it. I walked up to his room and pushed the doorbell. Then, the screen turned on.

"Yo!" Jarren greeted.

"Hey, Jarren, I need a lil help."

"Yeah, what's up?"

"How do I wear the gear?"

Jarren blinked, "Didn't it came with a manual?"

"It got a manual?"

"It should have a manual."

"Where can I find it? I didn't see anything in my room..."

"Hmm...hold on a sec."

The screen fade into black and the door to his room opened. We then walked back to my room. I opened the door with a strange key which is a ring. I hovered my hand on this scanner and the door opened.

"Who came up with this?" I asked with my palm up showing the ring.

"Ah, that, the rank 10's. They practically designed the entire ship's tech system."

"Are you among them?"

"Nah, I am within 50's tho."

"But didn't you create the armour?"

"I did came up with it but I didn't solely made it alone. There's a handful that helped me create it. The first one there ever was is for the Expanders."

"Hmm, cool."

We walked in my room and Jarren looked around for something, probably the manual.

"Those forgetful dummies, this wasn't the first time they forgot to leave a manual."

"Seriously?" I chuckled.

"Yeah, anyway, this is how you wear it since this is the newest model. It's actually really cool."

Jarren then detached the hands off  of the armour and retrieved a... bracelet? He then wore it on my wrist.

"Now, move your hand as if your punching the floor."

I then did what he just said and...woah...the armor vanished and now I'm wearing it!

"It works like the j-cube actually."

"So fucking cool!"

"The difference, it's actually teleportation rather than deconstruction/reconstruction. And you know what's cooler? You can store weapons in it because it has it's own j-storage."

"What, really? How?"

"The one in your dominant hand, right in your palm is the j-storage. To activate the storing function, you flex your thumb and like what you do to the cube, just place the item right in front of the storage; to activate the retrieving function, flex your index finger but you don't say the item, you use hand gestures. And because it's designed only for weapons, it's already got coding. You can't store anything but weapons. For example, you want to retrieve a gun from inventory and to get it you'll have a specific hand gesture. Let's just say you have a shotgun in your inventory, you have to make a sign language of letter s. Now, if you have multiple shotguns then do an S sign and the numerical order of your shotgun like s-1, s-2, so on and so fort. And that's also why only five different kinds of specific weapon are advisable. Five shotguns, five rifles, five hand-guns, etc."

"Wow, that's a lot to take in."

I wish I can tell him that I started dozing off after he said I have to flex my fingers. I did pick up what he said about sign language stuff though. I guess this is what Nigel have to listen through every time Jarren starts to get all nerdy. Not like I have problem with nerds, I'm just a nerd when it comes to something else.

"Yeah, well so much was implemented to the new armor. But it's all to the wearer's convinience. Notice how light it actually is?"

I moved my limbs, they don't feel heavy indeed. They do feel like I'm wearing a thick coat or cardigan.

"Why did Nigel said that expander armor is heavy?"

"Well that's cause it didn't have the storage yet. Instead they have tons of pockets and straps for weapons. According to OW's it's more convenient than using j-cube because there are times they have to stay sneaky."

That made absolute sense.

After giving me head's up, I thanked Jarren and I walked him to my door. After he leaves, I brought out all of my weapons in my j-cube arsenal and started storing all of my weapons in my right hand storage and the ammos n the left hand storage. I then took off my armor by doing the same motion I did to wear it. And almost instantly, my armor appeared in its stand.

The next day came and we finally left for Taiwan. Our trip from Pagudpud port to Taiwan's was 10hrs at maximum speed. And as we wait to arrive there, I trained with the BBF. The best in confrontational is my aunt, I'm not even surprised. After all she's bested my dad before. I wonder though, would things be different if my dad is in aunt's position instead of her? I will never know...

Nigel trained my endurance; Ate Etil trained my speed; Kuya Larn gave me pep talks because...why not? They all gave me heads up about what to expect and what shouldn't be done on field. All of them said one thing in common and that is never ever no matter what ever disobey orders from Aunt Pheene. I mean...it shouldn't be too hard.

We arrived in the coast of Taiwan's Southernmost Point. Because we arrived during the night, we didn't landed yet. We stayed just by the coast. They said, it'll be tomorrow when we will land in this foreign country.

Morning arrives, I was woken up by a loud alarm. The entire ship wakes up at the exact moment! What about those for the night guard shift who are just about to sleep now?! Geez! But who am I kidding? I'm not a night guard, I just used to have that job so I know how they feel.

I got up from my bed and wore my ring key and bracelet. I then took a bath and brushed my teeth, I have to have my breakfast in the dining area before the assembly at 8am. Wearing my new Expander uniform, dang I look cool. Black skin tight top, black trousers, and black knee high boots. I feel like I look more like a ninja or spy than a soldier. But I guess this uniform is purposefully made like this since this is what one would wear under the armor.

I then left my room and headed to the dining area. It's huge! And so many round tables! I grab myself a tray and stood in line. While waiting to get my portion of breakfast and coffee, I scanned my eyes around looking for the BBF. I found them at the back of the line with trays in hand. I guess I came here before they did.

I got me a cup of coffee with two packets of sugar and one sachet of coffee creamer. And then, I grabbed me a plate of food from the counter which were two slices of nicely toasted bread, a mound of fluffy scrambled egg, and finally two pieces of hotdogs. Personally, I'm not a fan of toast for breakfast, I prefer them as afternoon snack. When Aunt Pheene used to babysit me and my sister way back, whenever she sees bread in our house, she'll make us toast in the afternoon. As a Filipino, rice is a must for all three meals. But eh, who am I to complain when I'm just here to eat.

Went to an empty table and sat down. Later on the entire BBF sat with me. Not all of us fit to the table I picked so Nigel pulled another one. Our group is not exclusively BBF members, more like composed of aunt's friends and family: Aunt Pheene herself, Nigel, Jarren, Kuya Jush, Kuya Danin, Kuya Larn, and Ate Etil. We all ate our breakfast. As we eat they sure are a noisy bunch, despite of being a group of high ranked people, they sure are goofy.

We finished eating by 7:50 and we all head up to the assembly. The assembly was just Aunt Pheene giving reminders. The assembly only took like 5mins and all soldiers geared up. Today we only explore "region" to familiarise ourselves to the map. Engaging in combat is not advisable unless necessary. Firearms are as much as possible have a silencer. After the assembly, Aunt Pheene declared that we will now dock to the port. All geared up, I suddenly feel my stomach churning, this is it. This is the start of my 10yr bloodbath.