”Selling, no. Such a force would be much to dangerous to leave to other’s hands. Now then, I have little need of a private army, and I have doubts that many of the good nations of this world would like for me to be hosting my own private army on their land. And, contrary to popular belief, Chandra deLeon does not own her own personal island.”

She smiled. “Renting is what I intend my good Doctor. A ‘Security Force’ for hire, and your native country of America would have the first bid of course, but…” She let the words hang in the air and smiled at him, even if she suspected such actions were not entirely to his liking.

She followed him out of the limo, smiling and nodding her head to him as she walked through the doors that Zane held for her. They were admitted quickly and seated even faster. She took her time pondering over her menu, asking… “Two questions Doctor, what would you recommend, and are the plans I have for the stalkers okay by you?”

Chandra hmmed at his recommendation, steak was not exactly her prime pick for food. She, however, chose to heed his recommendation and closed her menu. “I think I will do the same Doctor, the house steak, medium rare, with a side of asparagus and the house soup.”

She glanced towards the waiter, and seeing that he was currently helping another table, chose to answer the first of Zane’s questions. “Yes, I am thinking so, a neutral force to be reckoned with. Sort of like the mercenaries of Dorsai from Gordon Dickson’s novels. We can promise that whichever side hires the force will win.”

She smiled at his next comment and answered his concern. “Malls would not likely be able to afford a security force such as this my good Doctor. Security force is a technical term for an outside, usually civilian, firm hired by a government to supplement or augment their own military force during a conflict. It gives the government plausible deniability for certain… activities that it could not use its own militant body to do. Another term that would fit would be ‘mercenaries’, however that term has certain associations with it that I would like to avoid.”

She glanced up as the waiter approached. “Are you ready to order?”

“I believe so,” Chandra said with a smile and looked across to Zane to start off.

"Medium-rare house steak with a side of asparagus and the house soup please," she passed her menu to the waiter and looked back to Zane as he spoke and asked about her desire to make the 'bots resistant to mutations.

"Many conventional armies are beginning to incorporate mutants into their ranks Doctor," Chandra began, leaning back in her chair. "Volunteers, of course, and constantly under watch and guard, but entering into the field none-the-less. It would be horrible to enter an armed conflict and have a platoon of the Stalkers rendered useless, or worse, destroyed, by a single individual that can manipulate gravity, for example. And of course, there's the lad that is simply defending his home. A person does not need professional military training to be dangerous when he can phase through things, that makes a civilian mutant combatant very dangerous to the standard military, and to the Stalkers. I'd like for these robots to be resistant because mutants are out there. I have not made enemies, though I'm sure that funding the production of mutation resistant materials might raise a few eyebrows, nor do I have any specific group I desire to wipe out. Protection. 250 thousand a machine is a steep cost if it can be crunched into a ball by a second-grader. Don't you agree Doctor?"

Some of her examples were extremes, and she knew it to be so, but she also felt that it would be better to err on the side of caution than not. Prepare for the worst and hope for the best was a strategy that tended to work well for her.

"Would you care share such revelations?" Chandra asked, watching the doctor. She picked her water glass up and took a sip from it. Chilled and readily iced water at any given point, despite the outdoor temperature, was most definitely one of her most loved transistions of technology. She leaned back as the waiter arrived with her soup and Zane's salad, depositing it before each of them respectively.

She nodded to the waiter, with a low murmured "Thanks" before lifting her spoon and settling into eating her soup, a sort of beef-vegetable concoction as she listened to Zane's response.

The soup was not bad, certainly better than most she had had, but then again, she had had the opportunity to experience some of the grandest culinary delights of the world over her seven hundred years of life. She listened patiently to Zane's idea as she sipped at her soup in a most dainty way.

"I am familiar with the stories Doctor, I have not had the pleasure of seeing one in action, however, nor have I had the opportunity to go over their specs," she said, and was fairly certain she could reason out where he was going with this certain train of thought. The Sentinels, at least the stories said, were mildly resistant to mutant powers and were used almost exclusively to capture and or combat mutants. If the Stalker series could make use of the same technology that made the Sentinels 'immune' to some of the mutant's abilities, then that would certainly make them better, at least in her opinion.

She furrowed her brow at Zane's next comment. Nano-technology? Was that not still on the horizon, rather than being ready for the marketplace? Perhaps she had just not kept up with this portion of the times. "Is it even possible to create a robot reliably that size Doctor?"

((sorry for the delay... cable's been down and been a bit busy lately))

”Amazing, and these… nano-bots would be capable of anything?” Chandra asked as she finished her soup. Her mind was already racing towards the offensive use of such tiny robots. Create a ‘bullet’ of them to inject into an individual, they could very well be the most devastating ‘virus’ of the century. While turning the project into a pseudo biological warfare project was not exactly what she desired, she could not deny the prospects that such a project could offer.

As the waiter left with her empty soup bowl, a new idea came to her. “Doctor, would it be possible to program such a nano-bot to possibly inhibit a mutant’s ability? Given that specific cells could be targeted?”

Chandra nodded while working on her food, listening calmly as Zane spoke. The prospect of using nano-bots to deconstruct a single genome in a mutant, or in anyone for that matter, was intriguing. It sounded almost like a 'cure' for them, which did make her wonder. There were certainly markets for a 'cure', mutants that were a danger to themselves, or others. Though selling such a 'cure' might limit the usage of such an item as a weapon. Certainly both aspects of the possibilities the nano-bots presented were exciting.

"Would this completely remove the mutation Doctor? Make them... no longer a 'mutant'? Or merely inhibit it for a time?" Chandra continued to work her way through her steak and asparagus. "I see a possible product for medical shelves if it is a permenant thing."

Chandra took a moment to ponder his question. Temporary meant she could consistently sell a drug to continue to repress certain effects would mean someone would need to continue to buy the drug meaning a larger sale over time. A single shot cure would mean it could be sold at a slightly higher ticket per dose, but likely less revenue over time. She ate her steak and asparagus in silence for a short time before taking a sip of her drink and responding. "Both. Temporary for a weapons project, it would upset fewer people, and permanent for medical use. While having that reversed would certainly bring in higher revenues... it would also be slightly unethical. And unethical practices tend to find their way into solid walls rather quickly, so if possible, both."

"I understand Doctor, most of what we have spoken about this evening has been theoretical anyways. Pleasant speculation, though the prospects of this speculation are very exciting, and not just for the offensive capabilities," she smiled. She meant more than just the financial gains as well. Being able to turn the stalker series into an effective mutant task force would be a delight, but so would being able to manufacture other more traditional arms and equipment, a sharpshooter's bullet full of these nano-bots for example. She finished her mean and dabbed at the corners of her mouth.

"Dessert Doctor?" she was already thinking about hiring, through the proper channels of course, a mutant test subject.

Chandra looked up at the bus boy and smiled as he claimed their dirty dishes, and then returned her gaze to Zane as he was taking notes. Probably a good ideas as they had covered quite the ground over this lunch. She drew a small breath and wondered if she knew any mutants she might be able to hire into her service for testing. If she did, they were likely closet mutants, those who chose not to openly reveal themselves as mutants. She had likely known several mutants over her seven centuries of life.

She smiled at Zane's comment of dessert being wonderful and flagged their server down. "Could you bring the dessert menu please?"

After a few moments of waiting the waiter returned with a platter of real looking wax imitations of the desserts. Arrayed in a circle were: fried ice-cream, chocolate moose-cake, red velvet cake, angel-food cake with a topping of either cherries or strawberries, cheese cake, plain ice cream in near a dozen flavors, and a tin roof sundae pie. "Pick your poison Doctor."

"Fried icecream please, chocolate," Chandra smiled pleasantly up at the waiter. "And could you bring the check with the desserts?"

The waiter replied affirmatively and left the pair to go put the orders for the desserts in. Chandra returned her attention to the doctor sitting across from her. She was still amazed how the profession had changed over the course of seven hundred years. "Do you happen to know any one with the x-gene who might be willing to become a guinea pig?"