Free Thirty Four Minutes DEAD by Steve Hammond Kaye Page A

relationships go - although I've had one night 'no questions asked' flings with a few twenty-something fellas back home in Seattle. You're a good fuck Greg - at least in my mind! Don't worry 'once bitten, twice shy' Mr Vain, I'm not going to make that mistake again!”
    Vain was quite taken aback by the frank nature of Levene's reply, and to an extent his guard was down. This showed itself in Vain's riposte.
    "Maybe I've fucked you from afar as well!”
    His words suffered from a slightly hurried execution but their intent was fully registered by Levene's eyes, even though the sentence had been uttered almost subconsciously.
    The pair continued to walk around the garden in a good-natured silence. Neither felt embarrassment in relation to their short verbal exchange, and each felt as if their proverbial cards had been put on the table with regard to the type of attraction the two had for each other. As the couple retraced their steps, Levene once again took the lead with regard to dialogue.
    "Well Greg maybe we'll fuck in closer proximity one day!”
    "A couple of weeks ago I would have said something similar to what I said when I encountered you on the lawn at Designation B, now I'm not so sure. Thanks for showing me paradise - I'll be seeing you Marcia”.
    *           *           *           *           *
     
    The following two weeks seemed to pass relatively quickly for Vain and his team. Four other victims were forthcoming, and each one had stored enough heightened visuals to enable quick arrest procedures to take place. Whilst the MC team were pleased with the results of their work, they had in effect seen two extremes of HV quality in the first two victims that they had examined, and thus whilst they still enjoyed the challenge of locating memory camera footage, their sense of awe couldn't recapture the pique of the excitement generated by the first two demonstrations.   The MC team had undertaken vault - extension research in the time between the arrival of suitable corpses and this had enabled understudy involvement to take place. The three understudies would become an effective fringe team after the Chicago based MC testing, but they were initially given the opportunity to further their areas of specialism in the London Designation.
    In the idle hours between victim explorations and research, relaxation or sleep became the order of the day. The respite time was particularly conducive for social bonding surrounding both MC teams, and this factor pleased Denison immensely. The bonding period gave Vain the chance to assess the two fringe team members who shadowed Ko-Chai and Tavini - Hannah Nichol and Marco Sant respectively. Diana Fearston, Vain's understudy, had proved extremely popular with all three ‘first’ team members. The two comparative newcomers had to earn their colours as far as scientific ability and congeniality were concerned. Both fringe team members fitted in well with Vain's front-line MC team and whilst neither Nichol nor Sant had a personality as warm as Fearston's, they both passed the unofficial character tests prevalent in the minds of the main MC team.
    Ko-Chai and Tavini both came into their own with regard to social bonding -albeit in quite different ways. Tavini challenged Sant, his understudy, to a variety of sporting based activities, which were possible in their underground Designation, and Ko-Chai built a cultural bond with Miss Nichol, sharing a communal interest with regard to architecture. This left Vain with time to further the research that he and Fearston were undertaking concerning the membrane structure that separated the main MC vault from it's extension.
    When Vain had occasion to relax he would visit Levene's garden or one of the many relaxation sections of the complex. He spent little time in his personal quarters beyond the four hours he allowed himself for sleep. He and Levene had rare conversational exchanges but they no longer had the