Jetstream was waiting as I walked into the tent.

“Belessar,” he nodded. “Your armor looks pretty beat up.”

I shrugged. “You’ve got actual holes in yours.”

The English inventor laughed. “That’s true. Still, your plan worked. Congratulations.”

“We survived. I suppose that’s a victory.”

“Four hundred aliens dead, two prisoners taken alive, an enemy shuttle recovered, and he ‘supposes’ it’s a victory,” quipped Jetstream. “I would enjoy seeing what would make you certain.”

“It vas impressive,” came a thick Dutch accent, as Adelaar stepped in. “I haf not seen such, ever.”

“Hear the Dutchman,” commented Falcao, following in. “Very impressive planning, Mr. Belessar.”

“We also owe it to Jetstream. His jetpacks made a huge difference.”

“As did your nano-cord, Belessar,” Jetstream acknowledged. “How much do you charge for it?”

“Uh… charge?”

“Yes. I’m assuming you’d be willing to trade some. I’d be willing to pay, say, a hundred quid a metre?”

“A hundred quid - you mean a hundred pounds a metre?”

“Too low? The best I can do is a hundred fifty, I’m afraid.”

“Ve should get a discount,” grumbled Adelaar. “Since ve followed your plan.”

“I, uh… I hadn’t thought about it. The quantity’s limited, though.”

“Well, out with it, mate. How much?”

I thought rapidly. “Fifty dollars.”

“Per metre? That’s - a bargain. Done.”

“It’s a friendship discount,” I said weakly. “Fifty dollars a metre for the three of you. And, um… I might need your help for some stuff.”

“Well, we can certainly do that. Your strength seems to be materials science, right?”

“Uh… sort of.”

“He’s shy,” laughed Falcao. “Well, we were all young once. My specialty is wings, Adelaar here is anti-gravity, and Jetstream is, well, jetpacks.”

“All of us being individually flight-capable,” said Jetstream, “except you. Is flight your weakness?”

“My… weakness?”

“Every inventor has something they’re exceptionally strong in,” Falcao explained, “and one field which is very, very weak for them. Generally, though, inventors keep their weaknesses secret. So you don’t have to tell Jetstream if you don’t want to.”

Jetstream threw up his hands. “I didn’t mean to pry. Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” I replied. “I… don’t really have an issue with flight, I’ve just never looked into it.”

“With that jump, I don’t doubt that,” Falcao pointed out. “Heck, if you can scale that up in range you don’t need flight.”

Adelaar nodded. “Ve mostly start same vith flying. I can gif you tips. No charge.”

“Ah, that’s all right. Do you stay in touch with each other?”

“Yes, between battles we correspond. Would you like to join?” asked Jetstream.

“That would be nice. Although… how do you avoid being traced?”

The three inventors looked at me. Then at each other.

Finally, Falcao chuckled. “Communications. Of course.”

“Ve understand,” said Adelaar sympathetically.

I was puzzled. “Did I miss something?”

“An untraceable cellphone is pretty easy to build, at least in theory,” replied Jetstream. “Given how widespread smartphones are, it’s usually the first thing a budding inventor cracks. Each of us built our own untrackable smartphone within weeks of starting out as an inventor.” He shrugged. “So if you haven’t, then you have a weakness in communications related technology.”

“I didn’t realize that,” I muttered.

“Like Falcao said, we were all young once. I’ll make you a deal - I’ll give you the blueprints to signal concealment technology. You’ll be able to make your own smartphone that can’t be tracked by anyone in the world. In return for, say, three hundred metres of your cable?”

“Don’t be greedy, Jetstream,” said Falcao. “Signal concealment isn’t worth as much as three hundred metres of his cable.”

“Hey, I’m giving him a friendship discount. It’s $15,000 at the rate he’s charging us.”

“How do I know you won’t be able to track me?” I asked.

Jetstream clutched his hands to his heart. “You wound me, my friend. Scout’s honor. Anyway, that’s why I’m giving you the blueprints and not just making you a device - you can verify it’s exactly what it does.”

“Or I can give you a working device instead,” remarked Falcao. “One that you can dismantle to see how it works.”

“I’ll take both,” I replied. “Six hundred metres of cable, right?”

“Sure,” Jetstream nodded. “When can you deliver?”

I smiled, then yanked the cable out of Inventory.

A square metre of nanofibre weave weighed a metre fifty grams. Woven into a cable, the same fifty grams would yield one hundred metres of nanofibre rope a centimetre wide. A one centimetre thick cable was strong enough to support the weight of a tank.

I’d had nearly twenty square metres of nanofibre weave in the Gladiator. In a hurry before the battle, I’d converted nearly half of it into nanofibre cord.

Needless to say, there’d been a lot left over. Enough for a kilometre of cable to not even phase me.

Falcao whistled. “Impressive. My sensors didn’t detect you move.”

“Matter compression pocket?” inquired Jetstream. “Or alternate phase storage?”

“Impresshif,” Adelaar said.

“I prefer to keep it secret,” I said cautiously.

The other three nodded. “We respect your right to do that,” said Jetstream. “I’ll send you the blueprints in an hour.”

“And to match your speed,” Falcao yanked a phone out of his pocket and handed it to me. “Here. It’s my last year’s model.”

“Uh… can you track it?”

“No, that’s why it’s last year’s. I kept losing the blasted thing at home.”

I waited till I’d returned to the Gladiator before using Reverse Engineering on Falcao’s phone.

BLUEPRINT UNLOCKED: UNPLOTTABLE SMARTPHONE

SMARTPHONES HAVE BEEN A PART OF HUMAN LIFE FOR MORE THAN HALF A CENTURY NOW, AND PEOPLE KEEP LOSING THEM. TO TAKE THESE TRENDS TO THEIR LOGICAL EXTREME, FALCAO DEVELOPED THE UNPLOTTABLE SMARTPHONE. WITH ITS COMMUNICATION ARRAYS AT A SIZE WHERE HEISENBERG’S UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE IS A FACT OF LIFE, THIS SMARTPHONE’S LOCATION CAN NEVER BE TRACED TO CLOSER THAN 100 KILOMETRES. OF COURSE, THIS ALSO MEANS THE DATA CONNECTIVITY IS WORSE THAN 2015 STANDARDS.

COST: 1 NORMAL SMARTPHONE + 250 MP = 1 UNPLOTTABLE SMARTPHONE

So no 8G network? Eh, I could live with that. Besides, 2015 standards for a smartphone couldn’t be too bad.

I beckoned to Anne. “Time to go.”

“We should stay for a bit,” she replied. “They say the King’s coming. To honour the ultras and the soldiers who fought for Liverpool.”

“Unfortunately, you need to get back to class. And we need to tell Paul.”

“Do we have to?”

“Do you think he’d rather find out when the school calls him and says you missed half a day of classes?”

Anne sighed. “All right. Let’s find the Traveler.”

“Are you sure you can’t stay?” General Windsor asked me. “We may have some distinguished visitors soon.”

I shook my head. “I’m afraid not, Your Highness. Perhaps some other time.”

The General grinned. “Call me General. I believe you Americans had some problems with my family a while back about royal titles.”

: what problems?

: he’s referring to 1776, dummy

I chuckled, finally getting the joke. “My apologies, General, but we really do have to go. Perhaps some other time?”

The General’s eyes twinkled. “Bold as brass, you ultrahumans. I’ll hold you to that.”

Driver Nine was waiting for Nanocloud and me as we walked up. So were Doyle and his men - and their three trucks.

“Are your colleagues not coming?” he asked.

I shook my head. “Lady Lumina, Quintana, Soundwave and Viking want to stay for the awards ceremony. Unfortunately, we’re on a tight timeline.”

“And we’ve nothing to do with the ceremony,” added Doyle. “Plus, I prefer not having to fill in British paperwork in addition to U.S. Army paperwork.”

“They’d make you do that?” I asked, curious.

“Don’t get me started. Technically, this is an international deployment, so I already have to fill five sets of forms instead of two. One of those sets goes to the Department of State, who have nothing but warm fuzzy feelings for the Department of Defense.”

I smiled. “Fortunately, ultrahumans have less paperwork.”

“You don’t, actually. You just have lawyers to do your paperwork for you.”

“He’s right,” Nanocloud said. “Hey, that reminds me, don’t I have to meet your lawyers also?”

“Ah…” In the entire process I’d forgotten that Nanocloud was also entitled to file a payment application. “I’ll introduce you.”

“Cool,” said Nanocloud, as the Traveler started to activate the portal, “I can finally buy stuff on my own.”

“Assuming your dad allows it,” I muttered under my breath, as the sky changed.

We’d left Tanisport at eleven in the morning.

We returned at six in the evening.

“It’s really late,” I muttered.

“We are going to be in trouble,” sighed Nanocloud. “Well, nothing for it.” She got into the Gladiator. “Coming?"

I turned to Doyle. “Thanks a ton, Lieutenant. We couldn’t have done this without you.”

“Happy to help, Belessar. See you another time.” Doyle turned to his men. “All right, boys, back to base. Showers, clean clothes, and rack time.”

“And no rain,” muttered PFC Kim.