I found her in Test Chamber #5, deep in the untidy warren of cubbys and tunnels which made up her realm. Instead of going on in, I just leaned against the door frame and watched her work for a couple of minutes. I was probably smiling. Maybe even drooling.
At this point we’d been in off-mode for a couple of weeks, and I hadn’t been down to Testing for a few days. I’d missed her—not that I’d have ever let her know that. It appeared that she’d missed me too.
Gloria and I knew each other far too well. I’d known she’d want to handle this new item personally. She’d known I’d be down to check it out personally. She’d dressed for the occasion. I knew it the moment I looked at her.
First let me correct an oversight. When I write a report there’s always a spec-file attached describing the item(s) involved. But this isn’t a report and you don’t have a file. So:
I’m not not exactly a little guy. I stand 6' 3''and weigh somewhere around 230 pounds Earth-normal. (Here on Luna things are measured in metric, but people in feet and pounds. It’s illogical, but so what? If you want to get fussy, go convert everything to angstroms.) Although I was big enough to have played football in college I never did; my taste in women and sports—and my mostly nonexistent love-life—had drawn me to Coed Wrestling.
Gloria went to college on a football scholarship and became the foundation of a winning team. She got trophies and set records. The one she’s most proud of still stands to this day; it’s for the number of ambulance calls caused by a single player.
Gloria is a glorious 6' 11½'' tall, and a solid 270 pounds E-n, none of it flab. She’s Woman written in large sure strokes. The first time I saw her I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.
She’s made my life a living hell ever since.
Her two favorite lab assistants were helping her tear the shipping crate holding the item apart. Manny’s a 7, a chunky, dark-skinned maniac with a bandito mustache and a mescal-drinker’s eyes. Anna’s an 8, a sallow, ironic blond with troublemaker written all over her long thin face.
But it wasn’t them I was looking at. I only had eyes for Gloria, and while I knew I was being manipulated I wasn’t inclined to complain about it.
Her daunting physique was just barely contained by a pair of faded blue bib overalls worn without benefit of a shirt. The pants had been chopped off high on the thigh to show off a mile of muscular leg, and the bib was straining to contain her considerable bosom in a manner that was nearly button-popping and completely eye-popping. Her broad back was covered only by the biballs’ straps, and my eyes were drawn to her smoothly rippling muscles as she pried a plastic slat off the crate with her bare hands.
I wasn’t able to remember what had put us in off mode, other than that it had been a fight—probably over work. There was undeniably electricity between us, which meant that there were also occasionally power surges, shocks, arcs, brownouts, blackouts, bad connections and yes, even dead shorts.
I could have just stood there watching her and thinking all sorts of interesting things except for the big box of trouble she was uncrating.
“Morning folks,” I said, going on into the chamber.
They all turned my way. Gloria was grinning like a kid unwrapping a giant present on Christmas morning. “Morning yourself, Dave.” She cocked her head, putting her hands on her hips and giving me a bit of eyelash batting. “Are you here to see little old me, or to check out our new toy?”
I found my gaze drifting down to where the tender sidecurves of her breasts disappeared behind the faded denim bib. “Can’t I do both?” This was phase one, the verbal mating dance.
In the background Anna snickered, then told Manny, “Under a minute and he’s toast, man, just like I said.” She held out her hand. “You owe me five.” They were always betting on our fights and patch ups so I ignored them.
Gloria shook her head, brushing her tawny, tightly braided queue back over her shoulder. “Not at the same time. Not properly.”
There was a line you could hang your underwear on. “I see,” I said thoughtfully. “Then I suppose it’s business before pleasure. When do you get off?”
The smile she gave me could have easily turned my brain into the second pyrotechnic fondue of the day. “Hopefully not long after you get to my place tonight. After dinner around seven?”
I wasn’t about to let myself get run down and roped up as easily as that. I had my manly pride to think of, after all.
“Better make it six,” I told her. “At my place. I’ll fix dinner. We had a Code C in the main kitchen a little while ago. I wouldn’t plan on having lunch there either, unless you’re fond of Limburger Surprise.”
Her brown eyes narrowed. “That Kentford unit malfed?”
I nodded. “Vangy and her wristlet discombobulated the enties again. Gabe and Jeff are on it. The report should be posted by noon. Nobody was hurt, but it could have turned out a lot worse.”
“It made an exploding cheese, Boss,” Manny put in, looking up from a pad. He snickered. “The Brie went ba-looey.”
“Damn. We keep getting these goofy ISLs, and every time we think we got them plugged Vangy proves us wrong.” ISLs are Improbable Signal Leakages. Then she laughed. “So it made an exploding cheese. You’ve got to admit that’s pretty funny, no matter how you slice it.”
I scowled at her. When it came to where safety belonged in the overall scheme of things we wouldn’t see eye to eye if you glued our faces together. “Maybe you think so. I don’t.” I pointed at the item they were uncrating. “I sure as hell hope you take that damned thing a lot more seriously.”
She opened her mouth, probably to say something that would start a fight big enough to short-circuit on mode before it even began, then shook her head and gave me an exasperated grin.
“Don’t worry, I intend to.” She even sounded like she meant it. Anyone in their right mind would, but this was Gloria. As a tester she wanted things to fail, and she found spectacular failures the most interesting.
Still, it was time for me to back off a bit as well. “I sure hope so, Gloria. Do you think it can really be trusted?”
She turned to gaze at it. Anna and Manny had gone back to work uncrating the thing. “The theory is sound. The idea is brilliant, even beautiful. Mercedes-Motorola has already tested the hell out of it, but since it needs and they want Jameson approval, we get a chance to play with it.”
I bit back the impulse to say something about “playing” with the thing. Instead I made my position clear right from the start. “I hate the damned thing already.”
She faced me again. “I kind of figured you might, Dave. But I think the test setup I have in mind will meet your approval.”
“What is it?”
An impish grin and shake of the head. “Now you know what happens if I try to put a setup together with you looking over my shoulder.”
“We fight,” I admitted.
“The man’s a master of understatement,” Anna put in over her shoulder. Manny elbowed her in the ribs.
Gloria looped an arm around my waist and gave me a big hug. “Why don’t you make yourself scarce for a couple of hours, my love? When you come back we’ll have the testing setup in place. Then you can look it over, and if you have the slightest doubts about it we’ll work on it until you’re satisfied. OK?”
I had to admit that when it came to setting up tests for especially critical items like this her methodology was fairly rigorously worked out. It was her attitude that caused the problems and gave me indigestion more often than not.