Robotics Skill Level Maxed
Your knowledge and skill with robotics has increased.
Notice
Robotics is at Max Beginner Level
Upgrade to Intermediate Level 1?
[Yes/No]
Robotics Skill Raised to Intermediate
Your ability and knowledge of Robotics has risen considerably
Chance to create a random robotics blueprint while crafting: 5%
Kaleb sat in his car, trying to settle his mind as a wave of information assaulted him. Professor Clara’s class had been a tremendous boon for his robotics skill. So much so that Kaleb had tried to find another class to see what they were teaching. But he had no luck. The school only had two classes on Wednesdays.
His Robotics skill had gone up halfway through the professor’s class. He had held off on checking the notification during the class. But after a quick conversation with Ms. Clara and a promise to team up again next week, Kaleb had rushed to his car. His robotics skill had just soared out of the beginner stages and was now in the Intermediate. He could almost feel his brain pulse with information. New ideas and concepts came into his mind. He brushed his real hand over his robotic arm.
He and Ms. Clara had spent a good deal of time after class talking about his arm. Kaleb hadn’t mentioned his store of stolen K-Tech arms, but he did mention that he had some synth-muscle stored away. Clara didn’t pry into what he had, but she brought up that the muscle would strengthen his arm and make it faster. Now, with his new level of skill, he knew why, and he couldn’t wait to get started.
Once his brain stopped feeling like it was going to pop, Kaleb turned his car on and reached into its cup holder. He grabbed the small ear mic he’d placed in there before entering the school building and tucked it into his ear. The line was clear and Kaleb suspected Farrah had placed him on his own frequency when he went to school. Clearing his throat, he checked in.
“This is the Professor, back on comms.”
There was a brief pause before he heard a small, electric click before Farrah’s voice filled his head.
“Copy, Professor. This is control. Had a good time at school, did you?”
Kaleb smirked. “An opportunity presented itself and I took advantage of it.”
“Oh lord, what did you stumble on now?” Two Gun’s voice echoed over the comm from Farrah’s end.
“Nothing. I just met a nice Robotics professor and managed to rise my skill.”
Abby’s voice came on the line next, clearly from the same room as Farrah and Two Gun. “Seriously? You wasted your game time to raise one skill level? We could’ve been out on patrol already!”
Kaleb rolled his eyes. “It’s up to Intermediate now, Abs. After one class! That’s insane, even for a Mundane.”
“Yeah, yeah. Hurry back, we’ve got issues.” Abby grumbled.
Kaleb pulled his car out of the college parking lot and onto the road. As he did, he questioned the others.
“What’s going on?”
“Well, the police have stopped cock-blocking our contracted area.” Two Gun quipped.
“But that’s because they damn near pulled out of our neighborhood entirely. They are only responding to the worse calls and leaving everything else to us.”
“They are taking the high-profile murders or robberies and leaving the rest for us.”
“So instead of trying to starve us out, they have switched to drowning us?” Kaleb asked.
“Essentially.” Farrah agreed. “But that means we aren’t going to be able to take any corporate contracts right now.”
“So we miss out on the high-paying jobs, but still look good to the neighborhood? I don’t see the downside here.”
“The downside is we look bad when we only seem to respond to the easy calls. Before when the cops were responding to everything, we could say they cops were in our way. Now, the cops are showing up first to the most gruesome crimes and we are nowhere in sight.”
Kaleb chew on his lower lip as he turned his car to leave downtown Austin. “Okay, so what’s the game plan?”
“Full-court press, son. We need all hands on deck and out there responding.” Said Two Gun.
“Yeah, it’s a first come, first to look good world out there right now. If we get to a crime before the cops do, it’s ours. Or vice versa.”
“Then what are Abby and the old man doing at base, Farrah?”
“We’ve got a special call, professor. Someone wants to meet Abby in half an hour…”
“I told her I’d be fine on my own!” Abby interrupted.
“BUT! We can’t afford to lose anyone right now. So I tapped Two Gun and you to go with her.”
Two Gun chuckled. “Of course, that was before your little date with your fellow professor. Now we won’t have time for you to suit up.”
“I’m already geared up and ready. I’ll meet you there. What’s the address?”
“You taught a class while fully geared up?”
“Yes. Why does that surprise everyone? I’m a working Super.”
“Whatever, Professor.” Farrah said, and Kaleb could hear the exasperation in her tone. “The meeting is at a bar on Imperial and Catherine. Two Gun and Abby will meet you there.”
Kaleb nodded his head automatically and stepped on the gas a little. Supes didn’t have carte blanche to overrun the law, but he was technically now on duty. So a little speed was warranted. He tore through the streets as they became less crowded. Overhead, flying cars zipped around and broke off to the suburbs of Austin. Traffic grew lighter as he made his way further and further east. Soon, the familiar signs of their contracted area came into view, and Kaleb slowed down. He was sure the cops around here wouldn’t hesitate to pull him over.
It took him another couple of minutes to find the cross-street he was looking for. But once he did, Kaleb pulled his car over and exited. He swept his eyes over the street. The few cars in the road hurried along their way. The only other car on the street was further south down the road, but it wasn’t Two Guns. Kaleb scanned the streets again and found Abby waving at him from the north. She and Two Gun were standing outside a bar. He saw Two Gun raise a hand to his ear and his own comm came to life.
“Channels connected.” Farrah said, just as Abby’s voice came into his ears.
“… parked so far away.”
“I didn’t know the bar was further up the street.” Two Gun argued back.
“Yeah,” Kaleb added. “Knowing where the bar was on the street would’ve helped.”
“Blegh! Y’all both found the place. Hurry, professor, I’m almost late.”
Kaleb jogged as he kept an eye out. Since the Demons had been taken out, other gangs had started to move in. Kaleb hadn’t dealt with any directly, but the others had told him tales. The way Farrah and the others told it, he expected the streets to be on fire with warring gangs. But the quiet street was empty save for a few pedestrians. Most of whom avoided him.
He reached the others quickly enough and Abby gave him a once over with her gaze before she chuckled to herself. Two Gun also shook his head at his attire. Kaleb sighed internally and turned to look at the bar. It was tucked away down a dark set of stairs. To its left was some clothing store and to its right was an open parking lot. The lot was practically empty. Probably due to it being the middle of the day. But evening was fast approaching.
“So you two wait out here and I’ll go see what’s up.” Abby said as she started down the steps.
But Two Gun placed a firm hand on the young woman’s shoulder. “That’s not happening, Abs. We are supposed to be your backup.”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
Kaleb nodded even as Abby rolled her eyes.
“I don’t want to spook them. Whoever they are.”
“I’d prefer them spooked over you getting jumped.”
“I’m not a helpless damsel, Professor.”
“Never said you were. But walking into what could be a trap without backup is stupid and you know it.” Kaleb argued.
Two Gun raised his hands placatingly. “Look, why don’t you two head in? It’ll look more natural than an old man like me escorting a young woman to a bar. I’ll guard out here.”
Abby and Kaleb shared a look before they both nodded. Kaleb pointed out the bar’s parking lot to Two Gun. “There might be a side door over there.”
“There is.” Abby muttered before heading down the steps.
Kaleb rubbed the bridge of his nose as Two Gun patted his shoulder in sympathy. He followed Abby down into the bar as Two Gun walked over to the corner of the building. When they reached the base of the stairs, Abby knocked on the door three times, hard. Kaleb gave her a questioning look, but she ignored him as a viewing hatch on the door was opened. A pair of red eyes glared out at them, taken in Kaleb’s weapons. The eyes shot to Abby, who merely sighed and raised a blue card from out of her pocket. She showed it to the red eyes and then quickly pocketed the card again. A low growl came from the door, before the viewing hatch shut and the large metal door swung open.
“~Someone’s keeping secrets~” Kaleb sang as they both entered the bar.
Abby swung an elbow into his armored stomach and hissed angrily. “Shut it.”
The smell of smoke and incense mixed with body order hit Kaleb in the face. He scrunched up his nose at the smell as Abby waved for him to take a position at the bar. He did reluctantly, only to see her walking further into the place. The bar ran the entire length of the right wall, while tables and chairs filled the left side. Toward the back were the restrooms and several booth seats sitting on a raised platform. One table was occupied by a large-looking figure in a black cloak. Abby was making a bee-line for that person as Kaleb took in the bar’s other occupants.
Aside from a few drunken humans and aliens, the bar was mostly empty. Those that were there seemed to be half-asleep. Kaleb could see their eyes flutter and their hands weakly reach out in search of drinks that were long gone. Otherwise, the bar’s bouncer was standing by the door, shooting Kaleb the evil eye. They were a large alien with smoky-looking grey skin that wavered and coiled into clouds of muscle. Their large red eyes stabbed into Kaleb and by the squint of them, Kaleb could tell he wasn’t welcome. His response was to shoot the angry cloud-alien a grin and look away.
There was no bartender behind the bar, but Kaleb could see movement from behind a door built into the right wall. He suspected the bartender was in the back getting more drinks or something. Abby shared a few quiet words with the cloaked figure at the back and then took a seat. The cloaked figure’s frame looked absolutely massive next to Abby’s small size. But Kaleb could tell that the cloaked figure was pushing away from Abby, like they were scared.
That puzzled him, and he wondered at their relationship until something flickered past his vision. He turned to see what it was, but all he saw was a still empty bar. Kaleb squinted his eyes and turned back toward the bar, ready to shout for service, when the sound of a scraping chair came from his right. He spun toward the noise, but all that was there was another empty table. He huffed angrily and placed his back on the bar, keeping an eye on the whole place as best he could. Kaleb scrutinized everything as the non-existent hairs on the back of his neck stood on their ends. Something didn’t smell right in the bar and when he spotted a chair easing itself back away from a table. Kaleb knew it wasn’t just his mind playing tricks.
He surreptitiously leaned away from the moving chair, placing his right arm closer to the bar. As he did, he bent his forearm up and glanced down at the wrist-computer mounted there. He had repurposed an old K-Tech wrist computer into a Thermal Imager. Chances to use it were few and far between. But Kaleb figured either the bar had ghosts, or they were about to get jumped. He scanned the screen of his imager, counting eight heat signatures in the bar besides the ones he could see.
“Abby!” Kaleb called, drawing his Cybar.
The room exploded into motion as Kaleb’s gun cleared its holster. Multiple cloaked figures shimmered into view and the cloudy alien bouncer roared in confusion. A few drunks patrons jumped to their feet in surprise, but were immediately thrown to the floor by the people in cloaks. Kaleb was trying to move closer to Abby when one of the cloaked figures lunged at him. He stepped back and caught the charging person’s cloak with his robotic hand. Using the figure’s momentum, Kaleb flung the unknown assailant across the bar and into a stack of glass bottles. He blind-fired a few shots into the crowd of black cloaks as he rushed toward Abby’s booth. But when he looked up, he found the booth was gone entirely. In its place was a blank wooden wall.
“Shit!” Kaleb swore. “Two Gun, we need you inside. It’s gone to shit.”
The tumult and confusion in the bar made any response hard to hear. Kaleb moved toward the end of the bar and took cover as he kept firing. The cloud bouncer was fighting off several of the cloaked figures at the front of the bar. His grey, lumpy-looking arms extended and wrapped around the figures like smoke. Nearby, a few of the cloaked figures were pacifying the bar’s patrons. Kaleb sent multiple energy blasts into the few that tried to rush his way. The blue balls of energy lit up the cloaked figures and Kaleb could see multiple different species under the cloaks. Some were human, but a few were aliens. Surprisingly, his shots were dispersed along the black cloaks like they were being deflected.
Kaleb was about to switch to his quad-gun when the wall near the booths exploded outward. The large cloak figure Abby had been talking to flew out of the wall like a rocket. Following him, through the hole in the wall, was Abby and she looked pissed.
“GORT!” she screamed as her shadowy arms pulses and shifted into long blades.
The small woman dashed into the melee as Kaleb kept firing. More cloaked figures tried to tackle Abby, but she bashed them to the side with her shadowy blade-arms. Kaleb winced at the use of the sharp shadow blades. But the cloaks seemed to also protect from cutting attacks. But Abby didn’t care. She rushed into the fight, swinging her arms like scythes. Kaleb growled as he saw two cloaked figures moving to attack Abby from behind. His gun was useless, and he didn’t have time to draw anything else. So instead, he grabbed a bottle from the bar and threw it as he charged them.
The glass bottle caught one figure on the back of the head and shattered. They dropped like a sack and Kaleb tackled the other to the ground. The black cloak flailed around them, but Kaleb felt for something squishy and then drop his metal fist onto it. The body beneath him grunted in pain before going still.
“Bludgeoning!” Kaleb shouted as he flipped his Cybar around to use it as a club.
A cloaked figure rushed him, reaching out a purple arm to grab him. Kaleb let the figure grab him and focused on slamming punches into the cloaked figure’s body. They were tough, as Kaleb hit them in the chest and stomach several times before receiving his own punch in the face. Kaleb felt his body rock backwards, and he almost tripped on one of the fallen assailant’s cloaks. But he caught himself. Using his robotic arm again, Kaleb wrenched his attacker off of their feet and dropped them onto his knee. They let out a loud groan, and Kaleb aimed a kick at their end before unleashing it. His attacker went limp and Kaleb turned to check the rest of the fight.
Abby had traded her two arm blades for one massive cudgel that she was swinging around like a wrecking ball. Just ahead of her, the cloudy bouncer was doing the same. Knocking down cloaked figures like bowling pins. Seeing that they had the fight handled, Kaleb tried to contact Two Gun again.
“Two Gun! You there!?”
Sounds of gunfire came over the ear comm, and Kaleb heard the old man swear.
“Fuck! Yeah, I’m here. Two black sedans pulled up to the other side of the street. Some heavy-looking customers in black sheets wanted to charge the bar. I got in their way. I think that was a mistake.”
Kaleb scanned the bar again. The cloudy alien and Abby were blocking the front door, but he spotted the side door by the bar.
“I’m going to help Two Gun!” Kaleb shouted over the fighting.
Abby’s only response was another angry shout, but he figured she got the message. He tore through the side door, coming to a flight of stairs. He took them to at a time before he reached the exit and shouldered through. Outside, the blazing sun made him blink, and the sounds of laser fire assaulted him. Peppered in amongst the sounds of Two Gun’s pistols were the conventional sounds of guns.
Two Gun was crouched behind a car on the sidewalk as he fired on unseen enemies. Kaleb ran to join him and slid into cover beside the old man. He got a nod from Two Gun, but didn’t get to say much else as bullets and lasers soared over his head.
“Six of them by their sedans. I don’t know what they are wearing, but it’s a pain in the ass. It takes three shots to crack those cloaks of theirs. But once they are down, they stay that way.”
“I’ve noticed. My Cybar’s dispersal pattern makes it take five shots from me. But they don’t hang around long enough for me to take advantage.”
“Same.”
Kaleb looked up and down the sidewalk for a plan before one hit him. “Why don’t you flank and I’ll keep their fire… shit!”
Kaleb hit the deck mid-sentence as his own plan was used against them. While they were talking, a pair of cloaked thugs had crossed the street to their right. Bullets sailed over his head as Two Gun swore. The old cowboy returned fire as Kaleb rose to suppress the cloaked figures on the other side of the street. The two sides exchanged fire for a short amount of time until a crashing sound came from the bar again.
A cloaked figure was running full speed out of the bar right into Two Gun’s field of fire. The old man put three shots into the running target before they fell into the street. The figure was followed by Abby, who also immediately took fire from the opposing side. Kaleb saw a bullet ping off the woman’s cheek before she swung around and brought her shadow-flail down upon her attacker. As the shooter went down, Two Gun shouted in alarm.
“They’re retreating!”
The cloaked figures across the street had piled back into their cars and were escaping. The remaining shooter on their side of the street tried to run. But Abby snapped out a shadow tendril and caught them by the waist. A few intimate moments with the sidewalk and the last attacker was out cold. Kaleb and Two Gun stood, panting, as the smell of lasers and gun smoke filled the street.
“What… The fuck was that about?!” Two Gun shouted as he took a big gulp of air.
“The professor was right.” Abby growled. “It was a setup. And from you, of all people, Gort?”
She addressed the last sentence at the figure laying stock-still on the ground. She kicked over the large cloaked figure and they groaned loudly. A deep rumbling voice started to say something from the ground, but Abby hit them hard in the face. The figure stopped speaking and moving, and Kaleb winced sympathetically. He holstered his weapons as he took in the scene. He was sure the bar owner was going to complain. But they had contained things nicely.
“Care to explain, Abby?” Two Gun asked heatedly.
“It’s a long story. Let’s go check on Nimbus and the owner of the bar first.”
Kaleb blinked as he realized ‘Nimbus’ was probably the name of the cloudy bouncer. Shaking his head, he picked up one of the other cloaked figures. Abby used her shadows to drag Gort back down the stairs as Two Gun carried the final bad guy. They arrived back in the bar in time to hear a high-pitched voice apologize to Abby.
“I’m sorry, Abby. They threatened the boss.”
“I get it, Nimbus. It’s fine. Can we question Gort in here?”
“Go right ahead. I’m going to check on Horace.”
Kaleb spotted the big cloud alien rushing off toward a back room and gave Abby a look. But she waved him off as she deposited Gort among a pile of his compatriots. Kaleb and Two Gun did the same as Abby dragged a chair over. She removed the cloak from around Gort’s head and glared at the alien underneath. The scaly looking alien with lumpy flesh glared back at Abby with watery eyes. He was cradling a bloody nose as he looked around.
“You’ve really fucked up now, Abs. They are gonna- HURK!”
Abby slammed a fist back into Gort’s face. “Not the time for threats, Gort. Fucking explain!”
“It was just business, Abs. You have your masters, I have mine. It didn’t mean nothing.”
Abby raised a finger, and a long shadowy tendril rose from the fingertip. It solidified into a sharp-looking blade and Abby waved it at Gort. She plastered a smile on her face as she asked again.
“Explain!”
Gort look increasingly worried and tried to plead with his eyes at Kaleb and Two Gun. But Two Gun was reporting the incident to Farrah and Kaleb merely crossed his arms. Seeing he would not get any help, Gort slumped onto the floor.
“It was the cops, Abs. They are pressuring all the small-timers to make things worse for ya’ll. They got the names and associates of all your contacts, and they offered a hefty reward for anyone who attacked you.”
Kaleb bit his cheek as Abby hissed in annoyance. Gort threw up his hands in defeat as he seemed to slump further into the pile of cloaked figures. Behind them, Two Gun finished his conversation and walked back over. Sensing the tension in the air, he looked at Kaleb and Abby. The question was clear in his eyes.
“The cops are trying to turn our informants against us,” Abby growled.
“Trying? They just fucking did.” Kaleb countered.
“Well… Shit.” Two Gun said. “Farrah just notified the local PD of this little dust up.”
Kaleb rubbed his eyes as he looked at the wrecked bar. He caught eyes with Abby and they both nodded angrily before they turned back to Two Gun.
“You talk to them.” They both said at the same time.