"Absolutely not!"

"Oh, come on, Clara."

The owl-like professor spun on Kaleb with a severe look in her enormous eyes. Kaleb slid to a stop in the college hallway as a stream of students passed them. Clara's feathers fluffed up as she stepped closer to Kaleb and glared into his eyes.

"You want me to examine an illegally obtained prototype from a competitor? Forget the legality of such a thing, the moral and ethical ramifications of such a thing are incalculable."

Kaleb cocked his head to the side, doubtful. "Please. You mean to tell me that TekNik doesn't engage in any sort of corporate espionage? Which this isn't, by the way. I literally found this thing in a junk pile. All I need you to do is look at these photos and give me your thoughts."

"If the company engages in such activity, I am unaware of it. My only concerns are research and development."

Flashes of what Kaleb found underneath the TekNik office building flashed through his head. Images of aliens in glass tubes submerged in liquid. Then he thought about blasting the place to hell as he stared into Clara's big brown eyes.

"What kind of research and development?"

"That's classified, professor."

"Nothing concerning biological elements, though. Right?"

Clara released an indignant squawk that echoed through the quickly emptying hallway. "Professor, I believe I impressed upon you the last time we spoke of my displeasure with people who split themselves between two disciplines. My focus of study is strictly cybernetics."

Kaleb blew out a breath as Clara spun on a taloned-foot and started marching away again. That was somewhat of a load off Kaleb's mind. TekNik was a big company. So it made sense that Clara wouldn't know about everything going on there. Besides, Kaleb hadn't seen the other professor outside of the classroom. The school was probably her primary job.

Hurrying to catch up, Kaleb pivoted and juked around the few students in the hall. Clara hadn't increased her speed, but she seemed intent on maintaining their distance. He stepped up his own speed as he saw the tall owl woman turn and walk through an open wooden door. They had walked a good distance from Clara's classroom already. Was this another class?

Kaleb staggered his way to the doorway and peered in. Inside were four round tables and a set of living room furniture. The smell of coffee and food pervaded the room, and Kaleb spotted several other teachers milling about the place. Some were eating lunch, while others were staring at Holo-screens built into the tables. He rolled his eyes at the obvious teacher's lounge before he spotted Clara over by the refrigerator. He pushed into the lounge and hurried over before a booming voice echoed in the room.

"Professor?! What are you doing here today? You don't have any classes."

Kaleb turned to see Clarice, the woman who had hired him, glaring at him from her seat at one of the tables. She had some kind of purple salad in front of her that he tried hard not to stare at. Some of it appeared to be moving. Shaking his head from the scene, Kaleb realized a few teachers were staring at him, too. He gave them all a jaunty wave before answering Clarice's question.

"I just had some things to discuss with Professor Strigian. I won't take up too much of her time."

"Professor Rat, I believe I already gave you my response. If you would like to compare notes on another subject, you are more than welcome to join me. But otherwise, I need to eat before my next class."

Clarice grinned wickedly at him. "Yes, Professor. Some of our teachers teach more than one class in a week."

Kaleb snorted. "Sorry, I have other commitments. Like keeping my district safe."

Clarice's face went as purple as her salad as Kaleb quickly skipped across the room and joined Clara at her table. The owl-like alien cracked the lid of a steaming Tupperware bowl and a waft of steam blew into the air. Kaleb froze as a familiar and enticing scent hit his nostrils. He'd only smelled it once before in Under-Town. But it made sense that different types of meat would be served in various places. This was a world full of aliens, after all.

"Is that… rat meat?" Kaleb asked, savoring the smell.

Clara's feathers fluffed up again. "Yes. Bone-In Rat Nuggets. I understand some species find them disgusting, but I do enjoy them."

"Can't say I've had the pleasure." Kaleb stated, scooting his chair closer. "Most of my rat consumption has been of the burger variety. Although I enjoyed some rat-blood coffee."

"Hehehe." Clara giggled. "Ahhh, I remember college. Jet Fuel was one of the few things that kept me awake during long study sessions."

Clara used a pair of chopsticks to bring a large piece of meat up to her beak and crunched down on it. Kaleb could hear the bones crack as the woman's powerful beak went to work. He shuddered a bit at the scene. The smell was mildly intoxicating, but the noise was distracting. Clara finished devouring the bit of rat meat before she went in for another one. Glancing at him cagily, she stated.

"Don't think I don't know you're about to try again, Professor. But I've already told you, I'm not interested."

Kaleb sighed as he reached into his lab coat pocket. Clara had made it very clear that she would not help with the arm. A part of him respected that. She had her integrity, and she was unwilling to bend on that. It was honorable and a big point in the woman's favor. Quick as a flash, Kaleb pulled his hand from his pocket and tossed a slim data slate in front of Clara, who squawked in surprise. The slates screen was open and displaying images of the K-Tech arm.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

The sound of the slate hitting the table drew attention, but not as much as the outraged Clara. She tossed her chopsticks into her Tupperware and glared at Kaleb. Her brown eyes turned into slits as a predatory gleam came to the woman's eyes. But then her eyes caught something on the slate and they grew round again. Kaleb heard the sounds of footsteps stomping closer before a hand grabbed his coat.

"Professor!? What have you done?!" Clarice roared angrily. "You need to leave Clara alone already. She clearly isn't interested and has been trying to be polite. But she's been through enough already and she doesn't need some jumped-up lizard-"

"Clarice, that is quite enough!" Clara squawked angrily. Meanwhile, Kaleb was pulling his arm away from Clarice's surprisingly tough grip.

"Why do they always go with 'jumped-up lizard'? I'm pretty sure that's species-ist or something, isn't it?" he grumbled, eventually getting away and looking at Clara.

The owl-woman had the slate in her hands and was staring at the images on its surface. She was clearly lost in thought as her feathery hand swiped through the various photos Kaleb had taken. Eventually she looked up, beak open to say something. Until she spotted Clarice still standing there and looking worriedly between Clara and Kaleb. The feathers on Clara's neck puffed outward as she blew out a breath through her beak.

"Honestly, Clarice, I'm fine. The Professor just surprised me. Nothing untoward has happened, I assure you."

Clarice looked at Kaleb in annoyance before shooting a questioning look at Clara. The owl woman rolled her eyes and glanced back down at the slate again. Shooing the worried secretary away with her free hand. Kaleb watched the byplay for a few quick seconds before rushing closer to Clara's side and looking down at the slate. She had clearly seen something that interested her. They both heard Clarice stomp away before Clara whispered.

"Where did you say you got this model?"

"A K-Tech junk site."

"Really?" Clara asked rhetorically

Kaleb kept quiet as Clara swiped back and forth between two images. One was of the power core slots embedded in the battery pack. The other was the basic frame of the arm, broken down and without synth muscle. Idly, Clara used her chopsticks to grab another hunk of steaming rat meat. She chewed the meat and bones loudly as she zoomed in on the picture. Kaleb ignored the loud noise as he tried to see what the owl woman was seeing. But nothing jumped out at him.

Once she finished chewing her food, Clara stood up in a hurry and grabbed her Tupperware. "Come along, Professor. We have things to discuss."

"Will they also be maddeningly vague?"

"The walls have ears, Professor. Besides, if you've stumbled upon what I think you have, this a conversation we need to have in private, anyway."

Kaleb shrugged and stood as Clara hurried from the room. His data slate was still clutched in her hand. Avoiding Clarice's glare, Kaleb left the teachers' lounge and joined Clara in a race to her classroom. The halls were much more empty now, so the two of them made good time. Once inside her classroom, Clara locked the door and punched in a code on a keypad by her door. Several more layers of security came down, and Kaleb felt the hum of magic in the air.

"Well, that's just not fair. I'm pretty sure my classroom doesn't have this level of protection."

"Yes, well, you're not a respected member of a large corporation."

"And thank God for that."

Clara snorted and tossed his slate on her desk. The thin bit of metal clattered loudly, but Clara ignored it as she turned on him.

"Where did you get that arm?"

"A K-Tech junk site in Under-Town." Kaleb said, being as honest as possible.

Clara's eyes grew large again for a second, but quickly became a squint of mistrust. "You swear?"

"Clara, what's the deal here? Clearly you see something you recognize in the photos. What is it?"

Clara tapped the slate with a feathered finger. "Remember how you mentioned corporate espionage before?"

"Is this design something TekNik stole from K-Tech?"

"It's the other way around, Professor. This is clearly a prototype of one of my department's newest designs. We hadn't gotten to fabricating it yet, though. We were still trying to find an appropriate power solution."

"Really?" Kaleb said, swinging around the desk and standing next to Clara.

The pair of them stared down at the data slate as Clara flipped through the images again. "Indeed. Although it looks like they've solved that problem."

"Power cores."

"Yes, but look at the socket configuration. Clearly these cores are extremely powerful."

"Absolutely. And with just the two of them to power this beast? I mean, just look at it."

"Yes. And you were hoping I could help you with this?"

Something in Clara's voice made Kaleb's spine straighten. She was clearly digging for something. "Yes, I just wanted to get your opinion on the design and maybe some changes you'd have."

"Changes?! In my company's own design?"

"Yeah, well, I didn't know it was your company's design now, did I? Still, K-Tech has to have changed a few things, right?"

"Sure, the power supply is, of course, different, and the frame is much more bulky." Clara flipped to another photo before pointing at the socket joint. "And the contacts for the CNS threads are missing."

"They stick straight through the arm now." Kaleb pointed out, flipping to a different photo to show what he meant. "They enter the body and attach to the nervous system directly now."

Clara squawked in surprise for a second before looking at Kaleb. Her eyes looked worried before she turned back to the data slate and flipped through the photos. When she was done, she flipped back the other way, a realization dawning on her face. Kaleb looked on in confusion as he watched Clara have her epiphany. Eventually she stopped flipping through the images and turned to him with an aghast expression on her face.

"It's for a cyborg." She stated simply.

"Yes?" Kaleb nodded slowly.

"No. I mean, they changed my original design and now this is modified to go on a humanoid."

"So the original was a robot?"

"Yes!"

"Huh, Daivor and I were both right." Kaleb mumbled as Clara looked down again.

"But this power output, this would fry a normal person from the inside-out. I mean, I don't know what those core slots are rated for. But even on the conservative side, that's too much power. The recipient of this arm would have to be more machine than man."

"So we could pull back the power draw and still be in business?" Kaleb asked, trying to bring the conversation back around.

Clara's head snapped up in confusion before something dawned on her. "That's right! You have this at your lab, don't you?!"

"Yes…"

Clara spun around to her desk chair and grabbed the jacket hanging off the back. "That's brilliant. I simply must see it."

Kaleb panicked. "Whoa! Hey! Whoa! What about moral and ethical standards? I mean, sure, this thing was originally yours. But it is still a K-Tech branded arm."

"Which they stole from my lab. Which is something I'll have to look into at some point. But what's the issue? You wanted my professional opinion, yes?"

Kaleb looked down at the data slate and waved a hand at it. Clara squawked dismissively and waved a feathered arm.

"Bah! Images can only show so much. I simply must get my hands on the arm and have it reveal its secrets."

With that, Clara punched in another code and was out the door before the security shutters were fully raised. Kaleb sighed loudly into the empty room and picked up his data slate.

"Daivor is going to love this," He said sarcastically.

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