#17:Meet the New Boss...just like the Old Boss.

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He was a soldier by design so they sent him to Viet Nam . He did his job…got shot…spent some time in a hospital overseas, and came home to be vilified, spat on and shunned.

That didn't hardly seem fair.

Hank didn’t like that so he went underground He thought he was totally divorced from his past. He’d lived discreetly for years after Vietnam, he thought. Apparently not. The FED had found him and sent a recruiter.,

Hank had listened to what the recruiter had to say. It was a sweet deal. Hank accepted. Suddenly he had some money and an organization of like minded people who wanted to try to do something about the present sorry state of the world. If everything went to hell what was going to happen. He was going to die, maybe?

Hank wasn’t completely sure but he was pretty certain that he’d done that already. Died that is, or come really close. It was no big deal anyway. Hank figured that since that day in the rice paddy he was living on borrowed time.

Faith’s Ecclesiastic Defenders, a.k.a the FED, had made him a deal he couldn't refuse, and sealed it, if not with a kiss, then with a whole lot of money and the promise of really interesting work. He got to do what he did best, besides kill people and break things. He got to build things. No real restrictions. Lots of money too, and he didn't have to work at the money part, just the “invent and build stuff” part.

That had been several years ago. During the interval from then to now he, and FED had accomplished a LOT. For one thing he’d purchased an oil platform. It surprised him how relatively inexpensive they were, it shouldn’t have really. There were many thousands of them that were abandoned in the Gulf of Mexico. He’d probably not even needed to spend money on one. He could have perhaps just moved in. He spent the money though. He wanted a clear title. Just not very much money, considering. He was astonished to discover how cheap it was to have a company that normally built cruise ships remodel the oil platform to suit his needs. Not many cruise ships were being built apparently, not since that election. He guessed they needed the work.

The Non Statistical Fusion Reactors he’d had installed hadn’t cost him anything. They were, after all his design. They took a long time to ‘grow’ in high definition molecular beam epitaxy 3D printers. Lucky for him FED had a great many of those printers available.

After the remodeling, he’d researched and built a LOT of stuff. No one else knew what he had on that platform.

That was then and this was now. Now Tex (and himself) were recovering from brain surgery.....so it was incumbent upon Hank (he thought) to “make nice” to Tex.

Hank had often wondered why the cat food companies didn't market a cat food named/flavored ‘CatButt’, as much time as cat’s spent licking their own butts...and as much as cats like really STRONG smelling food.

Oh well...Mom and the kiddies might object. He Doubted the cats would care. Who was he to talk about strong anyway. Heh...he remembered that time young Ed Strangler had just about come unglued when he took a sip of Hank’s coffee. Did he ever howl.

Hank liked strong coffee...with Chicory. Who’d a thunk a guy by the name of “Strangler” was a sissy?

Next Episode
#18:Tex Gave Him an Idea…
Previous Episode
# 16: Hank Was A Radical…
First Episode
# 1: Pain…

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@everittdmickey
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