AZOTUSLAND chapter twenty-two

Jim did chuckle now laying there in bed.

Things seem to have finally quieted down in Ops. He liked Martine a lot and loved Maugham as much as any friend he had ever had. They were a handsome couple.

For Jim it has been awhile since he had any female company, and he was never any good, even in his own place, of picking up on women. Still, somehow, he would occasionally meet someone with mutual interest.

His last "date" had been with a ravishing woman about his age, but she didn;t look it. She was fiery, smart and creative. She was a bit in awe of The Azotus and how it all worked day-in and day out, but she had some interest in Jim.

It was actually she who pursued him and he enjoyed her and thought they might date for awhile until he got an email.

He burst into Manfred's room not unlike Kramer in Seinfeld and demanded an explanation.

"But Sahib! She called youus and I told her about your growing feelings and how very relational you are!"

"And what did she say Manfred?"

"She rang off after that."

Jim looked down at the printout.

"It's obvious you are a lot more serious than I can be at this time. Look Jim, I really just wanted to have sex. That's it. But now it will get all complicated. You're a nice man. Goodluck with your Cafe thingy.
T

Jim turned slowly and shut the door quietly behind him and walked away.

At least it had not been Manfred's fault with Samantha (or at least not that he could discern).

That was three months before the Connelly incident (which by the way, had made the rounds until Jonathan nailed the whole thing in a three-parter where he perfectly dissect the action into 8 minutes segments. Even Jim was in hysterics) and he and Sam had been been an item for a full six months when she suddenly just turned away. Literally. Jim notices that she always had her back to him in bed, unless she was really hard sleping. But when she awoke, she would quickly turn away.

He would lay there looking at the ceiling, then finally get up after an hour and slog down to Silo 1 or Silo 2. Usually he was too tired to read unless his sexual and emotional frustration was at an apex. Then he would write feverishily on an old ibook that was not hooked into any system.

Silo 1 was another story. Upon entering there was a long bank of panels to the left, behind which was an elaborate electron array that ran just about everything to all three silos. It was fully self-contained with it's own separate source of power, which itself has redundanct systems. In a small room there were stack and stacks of neatly order batteries which "cleansed" the incoming power, and provided another level of redundancy.

Jim was a lot more nerdish than many realized.

Beyond the panels (and it was behind panel one that the guts of HAL resided) was a long cement stairway down into the heart of the mountain.
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Sorry folks...rest of the day off...but more on Sunday!! Please leave comments and questions!!