11. Room Service

Four hours later Portia let herself into their hotel suite with the help of the maid and a twenty-dollar coin.

The three pheely-geeks were half lying, half draped on the beds.  Lyle’s back was on the bed but his knees were on the carpet.  It didn’t look very comfortable.

She snapped her fingers in front of their faces, slapped Donny’s face lightly, spoke at length, no response.

After 5 minutes of standing there, not knowing what to do (and fearful that, if she did something to their SPECTACLs or the FullSenz, she might hurt them), they came out of it.

“Whoooooohoooooo!” said Donny, sitting up straight out of what looked like a dead sleep. He uncabled from the FullSenz.

“Again!  Again!  Again!” yelled Lyle.

“No, wait,” said Mickey, wiping his eyes.  “There’s… Hi, Porsh!”

“What were you doing?” asked Portia.  “Surfing in Waikiki?”

“Hardly,” said Lyle.  “We were…”

Donny hit Lyle in the thigh.

“Aaagh!" Lyle collapsed on the bed in a full charley-horse.  "What?!”

“It’s okay,” said Mickey.  “Porsh won’t mind.”

“What?” asked Portia.

“We copped a training Pheel from STC," said Donny.  "It’s a bootleg, but it’s incredible.  We’ve been launching in different shuttles all day.”

“I think we have all the important controls figured out,” said Mickey.  “Your brother understood everything the training program told us.”

“Yeah, Donny explained it to us,” said Lyle, excited.  “Man, I never knew you could learn so much on a Pheel.”

“You are not going to be touching any of the controls in the launch vehicle!” said Portia.  “We’ve got a trained pilot to take you up.”

“Oh, well,” said Donny, a little disappointed.  “That’s okay. At least we’ll know what to expect from the G-forces.”

“You wanna cop a Pheel?”  Lyle offered his Fullsenz connection to Portia, the cable chose that moment to dribble a drop of Pheely-oil.

“No!” said Portia, sharply.  “I don’t ever want to cop a Pheel, thank you.”

“Oh, man,” said Lyle.  “You don’t know what you're miss…”

“Oh yes I do,” interrupted Portia.  “I tried your little device when you were in the hospital.  It was a beach and I was a man and I didn’t like how real it all was.  It would be easy to forget yourself in there.”

“We do it all the time,” said Lyle.

“Not Mickey, though,” said Donny.  “He always remembers.”

“It’s a curse,” smiled Mickey.

“You can stop,” said Portia.  “You needn’t train to fly shuttles, it’s not likely to come up.”

“Yes, but we were training to run the Waste-REL,” said Lyle.  It’s really small.”

“How did you get that?” asked Portia.  “That’s classified”

“This cube,” said Mickey, popping it out of the FullSenz.  “This cube contains every Pheel made in the last five years by NASA and STC. It’s complete training in a block and we accelerated time so we could absorb it faster.”

“Yeah, we were out for about a week there,” said Lyle, a little amazed.  They rarely applied the time function because they never usually needed it.

“Maybe by the time we launch,” said Mickey,  “we won’t be monkeys anymore.”

Portia gulped.  This was not what she had expected.  “It takes more than a week, or three weeks or even a year to become an astronaut, gentlemen.” she said, looking at Mickey, a little frightened.

“We know that,” said Mickey.  “I just want you to know, we want to do a good job for you.  We won’t let you down.”

“Yeah,” said Donny.  “I appreciate the second chance, sis’.  I won’t let you down.”

“Ditto,” said Lyle.

Portia tried to smile.  These were not the Pheely-geeks she knew or expected. 

“Look, I just wanted to give you some money for food and to make sure you were okay.  Stay put, will you?”

“We’re not going anywhere,” said Lyle.

“I thought, with the beach outside and all,” started Portia.  “It’s a beautiful, sunny Florida day. The humidity isn't too bad and the breeze is warm.

“A real beach,” said Lyle.  “No thanks, I can’t swim in real water.”

“Come on, let’s go back in,” said Donny, referring to the FullSenz.

“Don’t you want to eat?” asked Portia.  “Look, just get room service.”

“Room service,” said Donny, astonished.

“Room service,” repeated Lyle.

“Room service,” said Mickey.

At that moment the room was filled with the sound of stomach’s rumbling in unison.

Room Service.  They’d forgotten that such a thing existed.  There was a battle over the desklink and Donny was the first to review the choices on the display and press the correct icon.  A woman’s image appeared.  It was like winning a prize.

“Room Service,” said the image.

“We want food,” said Donny.

“Breakfast food!” said Mickey.

“Bacon and eggs and waffles and pancakes and huevos rancheros and homefries,” said Lyle.

“Make that two,” said Mickey.

“Make that three,” said Donny.

“Will that be all,” asked Room Service.

“And coffee and orange juice,” said Lyle.

“Times three,” said Mickey.

Donny turned to Portia, “Times four?”

“No,” said Portia.  “I’ve got to go.  I’m on a mission.”

Next: Verna Signs On