Modern Age Online

Finding the correct audio segment wasn't as tedious as Kaleb thought. The ear comm's storage was full and had already been dumped to the command center. All he had to do was get to it before one of Farrah's workers deleted it. Once he got the portion of the audio he needed, Kaleb just had to tweak the levels. He made it easier for the comms to pick up on their voices while lowering outside noise. Now he just needed to reverse that and make the ambient voices louder. Once he had the proper segment of audio, it was a piece of cake.

The audio segment was even pretty easy to find. Farrah hadn't done a lot of talking during her meeting with the police. From what Kaleb heard, the cops seemed affable and warm. Which made sense to him since the cops had been planning to fuck them over. Kaleb was sure Farrah was aware of how nice the cops were being. She had probably had her own suspicions after that meeting. He isolated the audio segment they needed and sent it over to Farrah's command center. Once that was done, he spun in his chair and removed his headphones.

The noise of his workshop came back to him. As well as the cries of several creatures. Over at her station, Marie's tortoise and Terrance's salamander were playing around. Although their two owners apparently didn't appreciate the interruption to their work. The giant rock tortoise was chasing the fiery salamander around Marie's workstation as she and Terrance tried to stay out of the way. The big tortoise wasn't fast, but he covered a lot of space. Watching the two alien creatures play reminded Kaleb of Milly and he turned to where the space marmot was resting.

Milly was lying on a shelf just above his workstation. Below her, Daivor and Roy were working on his arm. They had machined the piece they needed and now were trying to improve on the design. Milly must have felt his attention as she stuck her nose up and licked the air in his direction. He grinned as he walked over and gave the blue beast a few scratches under the chin. She chittered happily, but then glanced down at Kaleb's arm.

"Don't worry, girl. We'll get it fixed up soon. It'll be good as new."

"It'll have to be better, actually." Daivor grumbled.

Roy looked over his shoulder at Kaleb and nodded. "Yeah, the arm held together just fine. But a few components were straining at the seams. The repulsor in the palm is almost warped, the energy fueling system is cracked in places, and the joints were stressed to near breaking."

Kaleb's mind flashed back to Milly, moving his cybernetic arm by herself. Maybe she taxed the system too much while doing so. To be fair, he wasn't paying much attention at the time. When he brought up the idea to Daivor and Roy, the gnome nodded in understanding.

"That would do it. She probably doesn't have the proper knowledge of what the arm can handle."

"It's a good thing she didn't run things for too long then, right? I mean, she could have stretched things too far and really hurt something."

"Hmm." Daivor nodded, either in agreement or thought. "But the bigger issue is the repulsor. It really isn't rated for the amount of energy you forced through it. It's melted into the palm of the hand and barely functional. We'll need to scrape it out of there and find a replacement."

The gnome gave Kaleb a withering look, and he could only shrug. "Hey, it was a combat situation. I needed every available weapon. The repulsor was supposed to be a non-lethal option, anyway."

"You forced enough Weikacol solution through it to power a damn city block! We reinforced the thing for short bursts only."

"Daivor, I was fighting a Demigod in his own dimension. Cut me some slack here."

The short gnome waved Kaleb off as he grumbled and went back to work. He was inspecting the shoulder joint of the arm, and Kaleb moved to get a better look. But Roy got in his way. The boy's face was alight with anticipation and he was clearly excited about something.

"Doc, you seriously fought a demigod?"

"More like an asshole with delusions of grandeur. Also, I wouldn't say fought. It was more like flailing wildly at him until we managed to take him down."

"Still though, that had to be epic."

Kaleb grinned as he pulled over a chair and started regaling his young sidekick with stories of his adventure. He may have embellished things a bit here and there. But Roy didn't seem to mind. As they spoke, the three of them worked on his cybernetic arm one at a time. Well, he and Daivor did. Roy mostly just watched and listened to them work. Kaleb didn't mind, it was good to talk while his fingers worked. Daivor and Roy hadn't been exaggerating about the damage the arm had sustained. It was less noticeable on the surface, but in metal it was there. Cracks had formed and now they needed to seal them up fast.

As they did, the three of them brainstormed ideas about reinforcing things. Terrance and Marie both suggested just making the plates thicker. But Kaleb was hesitant to do that. His new arm was already pretty bulky compared to the rest of him. Anymore, and he might be in danger of tipping over while walking. Even with the runes making his arm slightly lighter.

They installed the new socket joint and found a replacement for the repulsor. The old one had to be forcefully pried out of its housing. Which slightly damaged the circular mount. But they managed to pull that and get it replaced, too. He chose a different model of repulsor for his palm. Hoping that this one was rated for a higher level of energy dispersion. Normally repulsors were designed to shove substantial amounts of force downward in order to achieve lift. What Kaleb was doing was using the device as an energy converter for the Weikacol solution in his arm. The resultant beam was supposed to be powerful, but non-lethal in small doses. But with Milly overloading things, who knew how much damage the thing could do?

"Try not to fry this one." Daivor said, pointing a finger at Milly.

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The marmot went cross-eyed as she stared at the finger. But then she turned away with a snort. Clearly, she wasn't taking any warnings from the gnome seriously. Daivor sighed, but said nothing more as he dove back into the arm to see how the internals were doing. Kaleb had already run a full diagnostic on the bit of equipment. But Daivor liked to verify.

Roy wandered off around the time Kaleb managed to get everything in place. The work went by fast, and soon enough Kaleb was lifting the arm up to his shoulder. There was a loud pop and a hiss as the socket accepted the joint and Kaleb felt his arm come alive again. Milly whistled happily and eagerly jumped into the arm. Daivor shouted a warning again as the animal phased into the arm and disappeared. Kaleb flexed his fingers and watched the power lines along his arm bend and twist with his movements. Everything seemed normal and Kaleb was about to suggest a test run when Farrah burst into his workshop.

The rabbit-woman took one look around the room before her gaze landed on him. Taking in his newly repaired arm and the tools strewn about his desk, Farrah nodded.

"Good. You're done. Come on, we've got a new problem."

Kaleb let his robot arm drop to his side as he shook his head. "Of course we do."

Farrah didn't stick around long enough for him to complain. Instead, she spun back out of the room, forcing him to chase her. She made a beeline for her command center where Kaleb could see the large screen was turned on. A surly looking gray-haired man seated on a plush leather chair was staring down at them from the screen.

Kaleb immediately disliked the guy. Maybe it was his bearing or even his seemingly permanent scowl. It could've even been the fancy blue police uniform the man was wearing. The man's coat was festooned with medals and ribbons. So much so that Kaleb bet that the man had small weights in his coat pocket to offset things.

Farrah spun to a stop at the center of the command center and waved a hand up at the scowling policeman.

"This is police chief Raymond. He is on hold now, but he has some questions about how the audio you provided was obtained. I've tried to explain to him that it's from our comm system, but he doesn't seem to be getting the message."

"Great. So now I have to deal with him?"

Farrah glanced around before leaning in. "Just throw some techno-babble at him. He doesn't seem too willing to fight us on this. It's more like he's going through the motions."

"You mean he's following orders? So the HLO is using the cops to make shit harder for us out here?"

"I still don't think the HLO would be this blatant. But I could be wrong. Either way, the problem right now is getting our bounty. In full. So put on your best bullshitting face and step up."

Kaleb grimaced as Farrah nodded to a nearby Hunter. The guy was seated at a terminal and he pressed a few buttons. The man on the screen came to life, his eyes blinking and his body swaying as he sat back in his chair. He noticed that the video was live again and leaned forward, casting a look over Farrah and Kaleb.

"Chief Raymond, this is our head mechanic. Professor Pack Rat, contracted Super and inventor with several patents in the system already."

"I've been made aware of the members of your team, Miss Kyneklos. Is he the one that fiddled with the ear comms you people use?"

"Yes." Kaleb answered before Farrah got a chance.

"Son, how can we be sure that the audio you've provided my precinct is genuine?"

Kaleb tried not to scowl at the condescending tone the police chief was using. His natural animosity toward authority figures could only hurt him here. So instead, he took Farrah's advice and fell back on the science.

"Chief Raymond, the ear comms our team uses are the commercially available X-29J Fonica series. The comms have good sound quality, but they have been known to pick up a lot of background noise. I originally cut that noise down to enable better communication in the field. All I did to the audio we sent you is take out that sound dampening."

The old human rubbed his chin as he stared down at them. "So you admit to altering the audio?"

"No." Kaleb said slowly. "I admit to restoring the audio. The conversation was there. I just made it louder."

"Shaky ground, son."

"No, it isn't. Any sound technician worth their salt would be able to find any alterations in the audio."

"That's exactly what my sound guys are telling me." Raymond said, looking stern.

"Then your people are lying, Chief. In order for us to falsify that audio, we would have to have copies of your officers' voices on file. Then we'd have to feed those voices into a program that we then used to say what we wanted them to say. A process which would have taken longer than we had time for."

Raymond sat up straighter in his chair. "That's a serious accusation, son."

"Not an accusation. It's the truth." Kaleb said, even as Farrah gave him a warning look.

"And how well do you think that would stand up in court?"

"Way better than a digital audit of your police station's record system, I imagine."

Raymond froze. For a moment Kaleb thought Farrah had paused the call. But by the way she was glaring at him and not speaking, he was sure the call was still open. Raymond clasped his hands together on his desk and gave Kaleb the stink eye.

"Is that a threat… son?"

Kaleb crossed his arms across his chest and shrugged. "Not really. But anything that went to court would have a discovery period. What do you think the courts will find if they scrubbed through your audio tech's systems? Aren't the body cams stored in that same system?"

"Your familiarity with the police station's system architecture is concerning. But I take your point. Miss Kyneklos, the payment for the bounty will be paid in full to your team. As for the reprimands… we'll see. Good work people, Chief Raymond out."

With that, the screen went blank and Farrah continued to glare at Kaleb.

"What? Guy pulled out the asshole card, so I gave it right back. I'm not here to take shit from some cop."

Farrah stalked a few feet closer to Kaleb, staring up at him. "Chief Raymond is one of the few members of the police force that takes my calls, Professor. I don't need you ruining that relationship."

"He insinuated that we altered the audio!"

"That's his job! I'd be more surprised if he wasn't suspicious. We just told him that several members of his precinct tried to pull a fast one on us. You don't think he's going to have some questions?"

"If he's the chief, then he knows what his people are doing. Pretending that the old man can't see the forest for the trees would be more insulting."

Farrah huffed loudly and raised her hands like she wanted to strangle him. Eventually she threw her hands done with another, louder, huff. "Fine! You're not wrong and we have the better hand in this case. But stop antagonizing the locals. Especially when they are supposed to be our partners out here."

"As soon as they act like partners, I will be more than happy to work with them. Till then, are we done?"

"Yes. We're done. You're off the patrol roster for tonight. The others thought you and Abby could use a break."

"Both of us? Are we going to be okay being two people down?"

"D34d-I and Mass are out there. They've requested to be entered into the roster now that the SG is getting more stable."

"Neat. Okay then, I'll be in my shop if you need me. But try not to need me."

"When are you going to do something about that wreck in our parking lot, Professor!?" Farrah shouted as he walked away.

Kaleb kept walking as he remembered his car. The thing was little more than a hunk of metal and a frame. But it would make another fun project for his shop. Raising a hand to wave to Farrah, Kaleb said.

"That's the next project, Farrah. It's going to be a big one too."

"Don't blow us up, Professor."

"…"

"Professor? I said, don't blow us up!"

Kaleb coughed loudly as he decidedly did not make promises he was unsure he could keep.