Fur Suit. Chapter 2 of 24
The alien is horrified when a military man tries to bend the suit toward being a weapon of war.
Chapter 2: Violence
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During the eighth cycle of encasing a human form Chase’s understanding of the flat universe disrupted. His intricately engineered web of filaments and pearl-drop events representing the interface abruptly shattered. Two keystone events occurred which broke his present and future model of the bridgehead.
Brigadier Coulter of the Australian Defence Force was tasked with determining how the Diamond Suit, as it had become known, could be used by the military. Could it be used in battle? Would it be useful as a super-suit for soldiers? What advantages does a force gain by having one invincible member in the theatre?
Following the instructions of the scientists Coulter stood naked in a military training room with the crystal orb in one hand. As he’d learned from watching the scientist’s demonstration videos he pressed downward on the orb with his other hand and drew back. Diamond flowed like glittering liquid over his body, encasing him in a shimmering suit. After a moment the suit contracted, bonding more fully with his flesh. The seasoned officer groaned, staggering under the onslaught of sudden irresistible sexual arousal. Embarrassingly for the officer, but expected by the scientists, Coulter’s penis stiffened.
“Can’t you egg-heads do something to prevent that?” he gasped.
“I’m afraid we have absolutely no control over that aspect of the suit,” a senior scientist replied. “As far as we can tell it’s just a side-effect of the suit bonding. It doesn’t have any lasting effects.”
“Can you at least pass me a robe?” he asked.
“We can, but it will be useless.”
Office Coulter attempted to thread his arms through the sleeves of the robe but the towelling disintegrated in a shower of threads. Likewise his army flak jacket became a useless pile of cotton triangles. A resin and carbon-fibre helmet shattered where it touched the officer’s diamond-encased head.
“We haven’t actually found any way to don anything else while wearing the suit. If it’s clothing or a covering and it touches the suit material it gets shredded. We don’t know why,” said the scientist.
“So I have to do all this naked,” growled the officer. Self-consciously he tried surreptitiously to prevent the technicians and scientists from noticing his erection and how it didn’t match the imposing authority he tried to project. Having his insecurity laid bare in front of members of inferior rank was discomfiting for a man used to projecting strength and confidence.
In evaluating the suit, at first the military man wanted to be subjected to increasingly harsh physical attacks. Starting with a needle failing to be jabbed into his arm, followed by a knife, then being hit with a hammer and a sledge-hammer the officer happily noted he appeared to be invulnerable in the suit.
“Let’s take this up a level,” said Coulter. He walked toward the fire-arms training range, intending to test if the suit made him bullet-proof. But the suit began to feel sluggish as though Coulter was walking through molasses. Despite the impediment the Brigadier ordered a medic to stand by while he positioned himself in front of a rifle-target several metres from the firing line of the range. He ordered the firearms instructor to shoot the Brigadier in the foot with a rifle. The instructor cleared everyone else from the range and donned his safety equipment. He unlocked a standard training rifle from secure storage and checked and loaded the firearm. After verifying Officer Coulter was absolutely certain of his order the marksman targeted the Brigadier’s foot.
“Firing in three… two… one…” shouted the instructor. Then he fired the rifle.
To the unprotected Brigadier the sound of the rifle in the training area was loud but not as overwhelming as it should have been. The rifle’s sharp report was attenuated by the alien material in his ears. Where the bullet impacted his foot Coulter felt as though he’d been hit by a small thrown pebble. His foot was unharmed – protected by the glittering substance. With difficulty, as though fighting the resistance of the shimmering material, Coulter raised his leg to show his unharmed foot to the marksman.
Coulter’s words were slurred as he fought to move his face muscles and commanded the marksman, “Target chest, right lung low… Survivable…” His mouth had difficulty forming words as his jaw fought against the growing resistance of the gem suit.
“I can’t do that, sir,” replied the training instructor as he lowered his weapon. “You don’t appear to be unaffected by the suit,” he observed. “It could be affecting your judgement and decisions. So in this case I’m justified in refusing your order.” The marksman unloaded and checked his rifle before stowing the weapon for service.
As soon as the firearm was in a safe condition the Brigadier’s suit became less resistant to his movements. He ordered the firearms instructor to retrieve a training handgun and ammunition from secure storage before ordering all personnel to clear the shooting range. Alone in the target area the Brigadier loaded his sidearm fighting increasing resurgent opposition of the suit. With herculean effort the military veteran attempted to turn his handgun toward himself. But the resistance of the suit increased until Coulter felt his body was encased in concrete. He could point the sidearm away, toward a fixed target. But his finger was unable to move against the trigger. The officer’s arm muscles bulged with the strain of trying to turn the weapon. Tendons in his neck corded with effort. Suddenly, with a cascade of tinkling chimes the diamond material surged away from the man’s flesh. Glitter streamed to reform the faceted globe which fell to the floor of the training area. Brigadier Coulter realized with a start he was naked and completely defenceless with a loaded gun in his hand. With infinite care the officer unloaded and checked the gun before placing it on a bench and backing away.
Chase was shocked and appalled. From the early flows of information through the bridgehead he’d been aware of the warlike nature of humans. But experiencing the motivations and emotion of the officer through the suit had been overwhelming. Through his insistence and effort the human had violated Chase’s body by attempting to force him into violent action. But more horrifying was the way the creature was revelling in the violent act. At first Chase merely hindered the human’s attempt to misuse the suit. But as the creature’s insistence grew so did Chase’s revulsion. In the officer’s mind was the idea that if he couldn’t be harmed in the suit, then he could actively harm other humans without risk to himself. The man had believed the suit would allow him to more effectively kill his fellow humans!
Desperately Chase deactivated his body, shutting it down to block the horror of the mind he’d shared. For four hundred days Chase became a hibernating, calculating machine.
Brigadier Coulter expressed his disappointment to the scientists as he dressed. If the Diamond Suit seized-up in combat and left a soldier naked and exposed on a battlefield it was worse than useless. Unless the science team could find a way around the suit’s recalcitrance it was of no value to the military.
For four hundred days the suit was completely unresponsive to the scientists’ attempts to reactivate. So they shipped the inanimate orb to a high-powered physics laboratory in Geneva to see if the scientists there could chip away at the inscrutable atoms.
The second unexpected keystone event occurred when the scientists at the high-energy accelerator laboratory managed to breach the molecular bonds of some of the exotic material.