Ten - Four. Never Nine - Five.

The radio crackled, before the voice came along. Brad winced in his sleep, as he lifted a lazy eyelid to check the time. The digital clock blinked 3.43am.

"Base to Lover. Base to Lover.", Leonard's voice boomed through the night eradicating options of any further sleep. Leonard was the ranking officer in charge that night, and he wouldn't call if the situation didn't really demand it. If he answered the call, he knew he probably wouldn't be goin' to bed anytime soon.

"Yeah. Lover to Base. This better be important, Leonard.", Brad said as he started to get up from bed.

He kept the radio by the sink, as he splashed water onto his face.

"We have a situation, Brad." When was there never a situation, Brad thought to himself. He resigned to the fact that he would be sitting in front of his much hated computer real soon. "Brad, you there?"

"Yeah. What seems to be the problem?", Brad dabbed a bit of the cologne around his temples, as he put on his dark blue cardigan.

"There seems to be a problem with the communication radios. I have lost contact with all my men." Aaah, drats. "Al's waiting outside your front door, the engine's running."

To a quiet neighbor, it would have looked fishy, but the Lincoln Signature series didn't make any noise at all. You wouldn't know whether you were driving or parked. It was that quiet.

"How's it goin', Al?", Brad hopped into the front seat, as he always did. Getting into the back-seat was not his style of getting chauffered around. Al gave his customary nod, as he always did.

Al pulled the Lincoln into the reserved parking lot, as Brad ran into the base station. The catastrophe seemed evident as he walked into the room. Not many lights were blinking on the blue screen.

"They have just disappeared. Poof!", Leonard was right behind him. It's been like that for the last one hour. "Any luck, Matt?"

"Dispatch to One-Forty-Six. 146, Do you copy?", Matt hurled the communication piece towards the trash can.

"I take that as a 'no'", Brad rolled his eyes, moving forward to sit in front of the associated computer.

"AVA must have shut down or something", Brad thought aloud, as he typed in his password to log into the communication server. "I am goin' in, fellas"

You think, the satellites must have moved out of their orbits?", Brad hated it when he heard such illogical comments, but that possibility would have been his last guess. The satellites could have a mind of their own, and move out of their orbits, he smiled in his head. If that happened, they might as well shutdown everything and go back to sleep.

AVA greeted him with her usual, 'Hello Lover!' That was something he had programmed her to greet him with. His thoughts rolled back the day when the guys at the base station asked him to pick up a nickname for himself. He was clued in to pick up something nasty, something when said makes the hair stand. He remembered his colleagues picking up 'Vulture', the cliched 'Killer', 'C6' etc. He still thought he had come up with the scariest name ever, 'Lover'. Think about it, what's not scary about love, he remembered telling the others.

He smiled at AVA's terminal administration services, the GPS server was up and running. So, that's one possibility down. He would positively hate to wake up TinTin if the problem was with main server. Brad didn't touch that one.

"Somebody call the Wireless carriers, see if there is a problem with their links!"

"On it, Sire!", somebody barked in the background, just as more lights began to disappear from the screens.

"We might have a serious situation over here, Sir. We have lost communications with all our ships. We will have to face hell morrow.", Leonard chipped his unwanted panicky 2 cents in.

"Shut the fuck up, Leo", Matt voiced Brad's thoughts.

""Chill fellas, I think, I see what the glitch is.", Brad had logged into the main server, checking the plug points of all the supporting servers. AVA seemed to be misconnected. "AVA should respond suitably now.", He hoped, as he stared at the screen.

Nothing happened.

"Oh bummer!", Brad yelled as he logged back into AVA, the actual GPS Server got auto-disconnected the moment the main server was reconfigured. TinTin had put that feature in. He punched in the satellite password, just as TinTin walked in, still in his boxers and T-shirt.

"Dispatch to Two-Ten.", Matt yelled,"What's your Twenty, Sir?" Matt was asking for 210's GPS co-ordinates. "210 to Dispatch. I copy you, Base."

Matt replied, "10-4", acknowledging 210's position.

"Oh Great. Fuckers!", TinTin exclaimed as the lights started to reappear on the screen and heard 210's crisp reply.

Leonard looked guilty, "I am sorry, I just thought maybe we could need an extra hand. So, I woke up TinTin."

"Denny's anybody for coffee.", TinTin looked around, still rubbing his eyes, "Thanks so fuck, Leo."

Al got ready to drive the guys to Denny's, just as Huckle walked in, "What seems to be the problem, fellas?"

Everybody laughed out aloud, as Huckle flicked his middle finger to Leonard. Leonard just shrugged a 'sorry-need-extra-hand' his way.

"Thanks for everything, guys!", Leonard mumbled sheepishly as everybody got back to their stations, just as somebody chimed in from the corridor, "Leo, The President's here for some reason."

Waiting for Purple

The sweat on her arm that clasped Brad's athletic back glistened in the moon. He kissed her softly on her temple, before moving to her artistic ear. He nibbled on her ear softly, tracing soft circles on her breasts, as she reciprocated by making invisible scratch marks on his back.

Reaching out to the nearby night lamp, she turned the dim-lights on. Snuggling back into her comfort spot, beneath him, she gave him a very satisfied naughty look. Brad felt her heartbeat, which was racing a while ago, was beginning to return to normal. Their bodies had a magical connection, something that he had never had with any other girl. He hoped the night to go on forever.

She felt very happy that she had decided to be with him that night. As she looked at the moonlight seeping through her window, romantically she wished the night never to end. She leaned ahead from the resting pillow and planted a kiss, square on his lips, "I am so happy tonight." She moved her arms up his back, locking them around his neck, and pulled him closer to her.

Brad combed her hair using his fingers, kissing her forehead softly. He wondered whether her neighbors were disturbed by the wild love-making sounds. She sounded so sexy, he thought. Her moans were still echoing in his head.

She could feel him regaining his strength again, and she smiled, and raised a mischievious eyebrow. An hour back, they were passionately kissing outside her front door. If it hadn't been for him, she would have had him right there on the stairs. She thought about this as she smiled, ruffling his hair. "Smoke? Coffee?", she offered, tracing her tongue over his lips.

Brad mocked a tongue fight with her as he agreed to the coffee, and rolled over. She wrapped her torso in bedsheet covers, and rolled on to his back, lying on him, arousing him by her touch, and before he could grab her, she laughed and got off the bed.

It was in the cab he had made the snap decision to kiss her on the nape, as she was fumbling to fetch something out of her purse. The kissing stopped only when he regained his senses to tell her that they should probably go inside her house. The girl had kicked off her shoes onto the porch, all set to get it going right there.

He smiled, as he slipped on his boxers to join her in the kitchen.

"Am I glad or what I met you?", he nudged into her, hugging her from behind. She could feel him attempting to get the bedsheet covers off her body, but they were firmly tied into a knot. "Sugar?", she inquired, twitching her head as he kissed her between the nape and the shoulder. She decided to undo the knot herself.

As they stood besides each other by the window, trying to catch their breath again, she quipped,"That was good caffeine, I must say." Exhaling a stream of smoke, he smiled as he accepted the compliment. She chuckled as she noticed a slight blush.

The friends were the last to bid adieu to everybody at the wedding. The bride had cried inconsolably, but then she had to leave, the wedding was over. Brad had offered to drop his dance partner home; this was one terrific girl he had to meet up with again.

"So what real plans for tomorrow?", he asked her, putting an arm around her waist.

She had looked at him as he was supporting the bride, she also thought she had seen a glimmer of a silent tear in his eyes, as he hugged the bride good-bye. She had hoped he would ask her out again; she would have definitely not wanted to lose out on her dance partner!

"Well, it depends on what your plans are?", she blew her smoke his way.

The acrid smoke hurt his eyes, as they waited on the sidewalk, hailing a cab. She had lit a cigarette up, without even offering one. He had quit sometime back, but the urge to smoke one now was considerable. "I gather, you don't smoke, right?", she had asked. "Sometimes...", he lied, lighting up his first cigarette in several weeks.

"The last one week was fun, wasn't it?", the bride's best friend had said as they walked to the nearest coffee store to kill time until a cabbie stopped by. There were none in sight. She had to agree with him. It sure was fun. She had gotten introduced to him, hadn't she?

"Well, if you can survive without food, we could stay in this room up until tomorrow evening!", he said as he tightened his hug around her. She could go without food, she thought.

"So what plans for the weekend now that the wedding is over?", he had inquired. He could still feel her body against his as they danced a while ago. The waltz became jive, and then became something that only they defined. It was like making wild, passionate love, without sleeping with each other; celestial dancing, he had mused.

"Probably go out with a friend, go shopping or something", she had replied, stubbing out her cigarette. She didn't want any cabbie to come by now. She wanted to kiss him passionately, but she didn't want to come across as aggressive. She was partly convinced that he would attempt to make a move in the car; atleast she hoped he would.

"If somebody had said, that the week before the wedding was the most busiest of all weeks, they couldn't have been more right.", she thought as she sat in the spacious dressing room, as the bride tried out her gown for some final adjustments. The bride had mentioned that some best friend of hers was in town, and was coming to the dress trial for some reason.

Brad had arrived 15 minutes before he had said he would arrive. The bride had introduced them from inside the trial room.

He slipped off his boxers as he climbed into her bed besides her. She slipped her hand onto his chest, and then climbed atop him, nibbling away at random places; she had extended her hand then, "Hi, I am Purple, nice to meet ya."