A Wall for Spitballs

Ash: Prepped for Takeoff (edit v2.0)

I loved jetpacks ever sense I was a kid. I guess thats why I built one. (Ok, I may have invented it and it may be more of a plasma thruster pack but that's not important.) Never thought I'd be a delivery boy though. Oh well at least I was living my childhood dream, kinda.

The whole story starts with a brilliant spark of inspiration and ends with "investors" in New York that that for telling me how if I could just get out there they could get me a DoD contract but when I got there they stole my money a few of my plans and left me to rot in an alleyway. (And people wonder why I have trust issues.)

Fortunately my prototype was being shipped via UPS because my dad told me the TSA might I think it was a bomb. home to talk to my family they suggested I could become a hi-speed delivery man. "like a bike messenger on roids" my baby sister was yelling, trying so desperately to be heard over the phone.

I figured that was as good a plan as any so I got the necessary permits and started a buisness.

I had a few more packages to deliver before I went home. Most were uneventful save the old rich guy who was more than a little surprised I could deliver a faberge egg to his penthouse balcony. That was kinda funny. After that I went home.

After landing on the roof of the rundown-ish apartment building I called "home" I begain unfastening my flight suit and jet pack harness.

In truth I had made the harness, after I had been mugged. It was never meant to be part of the original design. But I figured an aluminum harness plus some maneuvering jets would allow me to put some of my martial arts training to good use at rocket powered speeds without breaking anything. Plus it would make my fists a little more, shall we say, unforgiving.

After I had finished taking off my suit I unlocked the roof door and carried it down the stairs to my 3rd floor apartment. When I reached my apartment door I knocked 3 times on the left side 2 times on the right and 5 in the upper middle and smiled at the peephole. I had put a camera there and one in the upper right and left corners of the door frame hooked up to a Raspberry Pi that was programmed to recognize my face from three separate angles. And no I'm not paranoid I've just have those aforementioned trust issues.

After Razz determined I was the real me the magnetic seal I had installed in my door frame released with a pop and I walked in.

My apartment wasn't much more than a room 20' long by 10' wide, white-ish walls, a closet taking up the back right corner, and a "kitchen", or so the landlord had called it, taking up a little less than half the left wall. My bunk bed/futon took up most of the right wall. Razz's slitely oversized case was attached above the door it's bottom flush with the frame and speakers to the left and right. His clear case proudly displaying the three Raspberry Pi's and the Arduino Yun that was his core.

He was programmed to call the police if someone tried to brake in, remind me to do my laundry, and really anything else I could think to program him to do.

"Razz, open the fridge."

He paused for a moment processing and then the door to my tiny little fridge swung open banged against the wall and shut again.

"ugggg" I said.

To tired to try again I went over to the fridge opened it and pulled out a dr. P and the sandwich I had made earlier. It had been a long day so I fell down face first on my futon and told Razz to turn on the TV and waited for the "bom doo de" sound it always made when it booted up. It didn't come so with a grunt I got up to turn it on.

You know how in anime whim something disappears suddenly where it used to be is surrounded by those quote mark things an an out line? If only real life was so comical, maybe we'd be less stressed.

So Ya my TV was gone it had been hanging on the left side of my closet door but not any more. I had been robbed. In a desperate rush I threw open the closet door only to find confirmation of my fears. Where once there had been shelves containing all my gaming systems and games, some of which I'd had since I was 4, gone.

I never had many friends and the two I did have lived about 120 miles away. But I did have my N64, SNES, GBA, NGC, and my Xbox. My Chao garden on my Game Cube was my childhood. When it got deleted I nearly died. I played Super Mario Kart so much I can still see it on the back of my eyelids some nights. When Bastila betrayed me, it was like losing a close friend.

So I did what I always did when something I loved went missing, I very calmly hunted it down. 'course the trackers I had installed made that a little easier.

I figured wherever my stuff was I might have to fight a few people to get it back. So I augmented the plasma jets I used for maneuvering so they could double as plasma throwers. Then I ensured the joints on my harness were a bit more limited to ensure I didn't accidentally break a bone joint, or something worse.

Funny thing about using plasma jets they're a little hard to control. If you ever watched Iron Man it was sort of like the scene where Tony first turned on his jet boots and backfliped into his car. Except unlike him I hit the ceiling, and then the floor rose up to greet me. After I woke up I put some mattresses I acquired at a near by junkyard. That proved pointless when I slammed into the wall. After a few more trys, and a hole or two in the wall, I finally got where I could manage a little more control over the blasted maneuvering thrusters in close quarters.

After that I made a couple of small directional antennas to track down my stuff and attached them to the upper back sides of my helmet so they looked like cat ears that were sloped back.

Originally the jacket had been a nice brown color with brass buttons but I decided I was going to paint it all black. I then swapped out the brass buttons for silver ones. The helmet was originally brass colored to but I decided to match my new theme I was going to have to paint it black.

"I see a picture and I want to paint it black"

For the next three days I could not get that song out of my head. Annoying part was it was only that one line playing in my head on infinite repeat.

I then painted a white crescent shape for a smile over the mouthpiece and made it reach all the way up to and inside the "ears" with their tips becoming the points. It gave off this creepy vibe that was just perfect for what I wanted. It also reminded me of Wing Night from Kamen Rider, which was awesome! After I finished my semi maniacal geek out I moved on to the wings.

Originally I had made them out of some white cotton that I had fireproofed and a brass colored aluminum folding frame. I dyed the cotton black and after stripping the brass paint off the frame I coated it in chrome. While I was waiting for the paint to dry I remembered to dye my pants. While I waited for all that to finish I tried to watch some Netflix on my phone but I was still too pissed to enjoy anything.

Surprisingly enough all that had only taken me about a day. Amazing what you can do when you forget about things like sleeping or eating. So, after finishing I cooked one of those big pre packaged family sized lasagnas, which normally lasts me about 3 to 5 days but I pigged out on it and I fell asleep on the couch.

After I woke up the next day and ate some breakfast before putting on my new flight suit. Now it was time to go get my stuff.

(A.N. thank you and please vote if you thought it was good or comment commenting is nice too)