Project Rescue - A Shifter Novel (NaNoWriMo19)
Chapter 56 - Smorgasbord

He ran to the wall in the northeast corner of the huge room and opened up a panel. Something slid out of the wall.

I gaped at him and was pretty sure all the men were too. It looked like body armor, but not like any kind of body armor I had ever seen. My feet were the first to move towards the panel. Matheus handed me one and pointed to a door I had overlooked. More than half the time I didn’t know where to look in Matheus’s big house of weapons. It was like a smorgasbord of all things weaponry, which brought me back to the body armor I had in my hand.

I held it up to me, making sure it would fit. I should have known better than to question Matheus. Habits die hard. I walked to the bathroom Matheus had pointed to. I took off my shit kickers and fatigues, laying them on the counter along side of my weapons. I put on the body armor and twisted around, dropping down in a squat. I bent over and touched my toes. Wow! This armor was the best I had ever seen. I put my fatigues and my boots back on. I was about to step out of the restroom when I paused. How the hell did I forget to grab my weapons. I turned back around and put all the weapons back into the places they were before.

All the men were twisting and bending when I walked out. Matheus had an amused look on his face. I’m sure Madrid questioned him like crazy about the body armor and why he didn’t have any for his troops. I could just hear him. Wait! I could actually hear speaking to someone, complaining about buying the rights off Matheus. So, that was the reason he had an amused look on his face.

I walked over to Matheus and looped my arm around his waist. He looked down on me and smiled, wrapping his arm around my back. I heard Madrid stop talking. He walked back in the room, smiling big. Uh-oh, he got his way on something.

“Listen up, men and lady, we are going to have a lot more help. They will be here in about two hours, which will be right after we take the sentries out,” Madrid announced as he turned and pointed at Matheus. “And they know about the HELO and the body armor. They are ready to talk numbers. It’s how I got the extra men. I told them to bring you to the table they would have to help us out. All they wanted was proof. I sent them the copies Selina gave me. Plus, her testimony about the seller will help too.” He smirked at all of us.

“Woo-hoo!” I yelled and fist pumped the air as I turned red. I forgot myself for a minute. “I meant, yay.”

Everyone of the men snickered at me. Oh, well, I knew they were thinking the same thing I was so I didn’t care. I was glad to have the extra men to help us take out the compound. I wanted to dance around with giddiness but I had to protect my badass reputation so I didn’t. I was still jumping around in my head.

"Seriously? Do you have to wake me up from my nap?” Rawr asked, yawning and putting her tail over her snout as I snorted.

“Time to reveal how the HELO is getting out of here. I’m going to only give you a glimpse before I put Flirt on the lock panel.” Matheus looked over to Madrid. “I take it we’re going to head at in a few and the HELO will follow in about an hour?” Madrid nodded.

I watched Matheus walked over to the panel and added Flirt to the panel. I wanted to laugh at Flirt a Matheus crooked his finger at Flirt. Flirt started walking towards him and stopped next to Matheus. He had Flirt put his eye to the panel as Matheus punched in a code, setting the eye scan so Flirt could open the hatch.

I watched in amazement as the ceiling slid quietly back, leaving a hole. All we could see was a perfectly rounded launch pad. I was sure I wasn’t the only person looking on in amazement. It was a very sophisticated system. The hatch never made a sound as Matheus opened it and when he closed it back.

“And, the big announcement, bigger even than the hatch,” he paused. “The HELO doesn’t need to take off nose down. This one goes straight up in the air. The blades are smaller but there are more of them. This will help when you are flying at the trees.”

“Are you kidding me right now?” Madrid exclaimed. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“A little mystery, General.”

Madrid muttered a few things. I could catch something about this is big, this is big. But, I couldn’t catch the other words. I guess Madrid was even more excited now. I thought we had all had a lot of shocks to our system with Matheus’s inventions. The man never disappointed with anything he had built so far.

"Well, there was the missile taking the bunker out,” Rawr, my jaguar, lazily said. I didn’t answer her.

I followed the men out as they walked out of the room with the HELO back into the weapons room. I emptied my rucksack of everything except a little bit of snacks and medical gear. Claw handed me a few needles and some morphine, telling me to keep up with it and let him know about the dosage afterwards. I nodded at him but stopped when I heard...