Kaleb looked around his workshop's floor and scowled. He really wanted to say something to the owl-woman that had been so adamant about cleaning. Now that same alien woman was sitting amidst a nest of cybernetic limbs like some kind of gigantic bird. She was cataloging and inspecting each limb at an impressive rate. But he could see she was also committing certain things to memory. Like she was using this opportunity to weasel out K-Tech's design philosophy. But that also meant her quest to clean the workshop was now put on hold.

Just beyond Clara, Terrance and Marie were back at work, smelting and forging metal. Their assignments from the owlish professor were long forgotten. Daivor and Roy were in the server room feeding copious amounts of data into their makeshift server racks. This time all about cybernetics. Everything Farrah's team could compile in a short amount of time, anyway. They could create new scanners and use them to run diagnostics on any cybernetics they had.

Kaleb sipped his coffee and looked around at the spread out arms before sighing and moving closer to Clara. The bird woman was shifting a new arm into a pile on her right as Kaleb approached and sat down.

"So… Find anything interesting."

Clara's large eyes looked up at him, surprised. "Yes! Of course! These are all clearly K-Tech designs, but if you look closely, you can see hints at their competitor's designs. I mean, we have the sturdy metalworking of Felonious Forges, the wire composition of Nueromation… It's all here. K-Tech clearly has its hand in many pies, so to speak."

"Right, but does any of that help with MY designs of my arm?"

"Of course it does! You have here a veritable soup of design philosophies from the biggest names in robotics! I mean, we have access to most of them anyway, through documentation and patents. But here, we have the real, physical arms. Something to examine and disassemble."

Kaleb sat down and crossed his legs amongst the piles of arms. "Ok, break it down for me. How does all this help? What's the most efficient way to create my new arm?"

As Kaleb spoke, Milly popped out of his arm and settled into his lap. Kaleb rubbed the creature's head as Clara didn't even glance at it. Instead, she looked around for a nearby pile and reached over for something.

"Let's start here. This is obviously an adapted Digiflux design. The holes where their patented steel-fiber lines would come through have been smoothed over. But we can still tell based on the way the internals are pushed against the side of the arm. It's so their flux power system can carry the arms power supply into the base."

"A liquid power system?" Kaleb asked, intrigued.

But Clara waved her arm dismissively. "Not really. Their Flux has the consistency of sludge and it mostly doesn't move. It carries the charge through the arm like the wires do. But more efficiently."

"Noted."

Clara nodded and then tossed the arm back to its pile before picking up another. "This one is Felonious Forges. Obviously."

Kaleb looked at the bulky, all metal beast in Clara's slim hand and nodded slowly. "Clearly."

"Their philosophy is big metal for big problems. As you can tell from the exhaust ports on the forearm, they really like their Faux-engine power supplies. Even if they are loud as hell."

"Not sure what I can take from that."

"Airflow, Professor. The brutes at Felonious love their loud machines and heavy metal…"

"They also make killer motorcycles." Marie broke in, interrupting Clara.

The bird woman snapped her head around. Confusion was written on her face until she spotted Marie and Sebastian working away on some armor. Kaleb noticed she was starting to become more aware of her surroundings, so he brought her attention back to him.

"So they are great at cooling their systems."

"Huh? Wha… oh yes. Well, not really cooling, more masters of airflow in general. Which is what happened to this K-Tech design here. They clearly copied the exhaust design but changed the internals too much. The backblast exploded the top half of the arm clear off."

Kaleb looked at the twisted metal at the spot just above the elbow on the broken limb. In truth, it looked like something had jumped out of the arm. Crumbling the metal as it exploded outward. Milly stuck her nose near the proffered arm and sniffed loudly. Whistling in disgust, the marmot stuck her head back down and nuzzled into Kaleb's hand.

Clara watched the tiny creature for a second before tossing the arm away and looking around again. Finding the pile she was looking for, she bent forward and tried to grab it. Kaleb moved out of the tall woman's way as she reached past him and brought back a slim cybernetic arm with a blueish-silver tint to it. The arm brushed against his real shoulder as Clara pulled it into her lap and turned it around. The underside of the arm was a web of cracks and divots that Kaleb thought were design mistakes.

"And this is from the more esoteric side of SyncBolt Solutions." Clara said the company name with derision and even rolled her eyes. "A company more concerned with artistry than any genuine science. Take note, Professor. This is what happens when you put style over substance."

Kaleb raised an eyebrow and looked closer. But all she showed him were the same divots and cracks that seemed to travel the entire length of the arm. All along its underside and even up to the shoulder joint. But as Kaleb looked closer, he realized what he was looking at.

"Is that?"

"It was." Clara nodded. "They tried to run the electronics for the arm's internals along the outside of the arm."

"WHY?!"

"For the 'artistic beauty' of it. As you can see, they tried to protect the lines somewhat by burying them slightly into the arm. But still, this was an atrocious attempt. The fact that K-Tech even tried to replicate it is beyond me. This was a gag design that should've never existed."

Clara tossed the arm back over Kaleb's shoulder and sighed heavily. Most, if not all, of the arms had been sorted. But Clara still had the look of a woman on a mission. Kaleb bit back a sigh as he tried to get the errant professor on track again.

"Again, Clara, how does this all help me? I get that I can take some of these designs and cherry pick the best ones. But where do I start?"

"WE start at the beginning." Clara stated, getting to her feet.

She wobbled a bit, so Kaleb hurried up and lent her a shoulder. Milly squeaked angrily before ducking back into his arm. Avoiding the bird-woman's beak, Kaleb made sure she had her legs under her before he stepped away. Clara gave him a quiet thank you before hurrying to his workbench. As she moved, she began shouting orders again.

"Gather those two arms I showed you, professor."

Kaleb rolled his eyes but picked up the Felonious and Digiflux arms, then hurried over. He set both arms down alongside the other one and waited. Clara brought up his workbench's screen and pulled up a design sheet. Swiping a hand up to the screen, she drug it down upon the desk and over the three arms. As she did, three design blueprints were imprinted on the screen and she swept it back into place. Kaleb wondered if he could've always done that, but Clara was deep into her work as she started picking the design elements of the three arms.

She pulled the frame architecture from the Digiflux, the placement of the internals and armor plates from the Felonious design, and then wrapped it all around the K-Tech power core design. Kaleb noted she didn't use any of the designs from the TekNik corporation. But then again, he supposed the K-Tech design was the TekNik one, anyway. Clara finished her design and spun on Kaleb, a smile in her eyes.

Kaleb did his best to keep the grimace off his face. The resulting design was a beast of an arm. Heavily protected, with the power dispersed throughout the arm. But it was far from the sleek design Kaleb himself had envisioned. Coughing awkwardly, he asked.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

"Why did you forgo the synth-muscle?"

Clara shook her head. "I didn't. I just kept it under the armor plates."

"But that increases the power consumption."

"So? With the K-Tech power cores active, you'll have plenty of power."

"I also note with interest that you've stripped the CNS threads from this design."

"Redundant. With this design, your nervous system will easily cope with the power output with little to no latency."

"Uh-huh."

Kaleb waved a hand, asking for Clara to step aside. When she did, he took her place and began tweaking her design. He removed the armor plating, swapped out the K-Tech power core, and combined the internal design of both Digiflux and Felonious. He could hear Clara tutting away by his ear, but he ignored her as he found several spots in the design and drilled holes for his liquid power system. Clara squawked in indignation when he did it, but Kaleb was on a roll. He also craved spaces for his gadgets, increasing the space in his forearm slightly for his Spike Launcher. The gadget would need a retrofit too, but that could wait.

Once he was done, Kaleb stepped back and waved a hand at the screen. Clara was standing with her arms crossed in front of her chest and staring daggers at him.

"I note, with interest, that you've left out your power supply."

"Proprietary."

Clara nodded. "Uh-huh and one that's apparently liquid based if these lines are to be believed. You know, one stray shot and you'll be toast, right?"

Kaleb was nodding along as Marie said excitedly. "Not if we…"

She stopped as Kaleb waved his arms like an idiot as the teenager almost blabbed about their attempt to make a flexible metal. He liked Clara, but some things needed to stay in-house. Unfortunately, the bird-woman caught on quick and her, already severe, look became icy. She started tapping her foot as Kaleb winced.

"You have more secrets?"

"Ahem! Like you don't? I know you've gotten something planned for those CNS threads, Clara. Don't deny it."

The tapping foot stopped and the bird woman seemed to think things over before speaking again. "TekNik has been trying to replicate them for a while now. If I can get one of those and take it back for study, the corporation would shower me in grant money."

"But I also need them, Clara. Only they can transfer the signals fast enough when combined with my power supply."

"A power supply that is up to K-Tech's level? In this workshop? Be real, professor."

The strike of a match stopped Kaleb from replying and he turned to see Daivor standing on Roy's desk, looking up at them. The gnome lit his pipe with the match and snapped his fingers, making the spent match disappear. He jumped the distance between the two desks before sauntering up to Clara with a smug smile on his face. The bird-woman seemed to catch on to what that smile meant quickly, and she glanced up at Kaleb. Unasked question clear on her face. Kaleb tried to remain neutral, but something must have shown on his face.

"I want to see it."

"Absolutely not." Kaleb answered immediately.

"Let her." Daivor said, still staring up at the bird lady.

Kaleb rounded on his tiny partner now. "What?"

"You heard me. Let her see what we're using. She could be helpful."

"Or she could steal it." Roy said from his spot near the server room.

"How would I do that?" Clara scoffed.

But Kaleb ignored her as he looked at the Master Gnome. Daivor was smiling and nodding happily, clearly expecting something from Clara that Kaleb couldn't see.

"If she even gets an ounce of the stuff…"

"Yeah, but she won't." Daivor said with certainty.

Kaleb sighed and moved toward the door. Reaching up to the coat rack, he pulled down a fresh lab coat and turned back to Clara.

"Come on then. Master Gnome seems to think you're trustworthy."

Clara looked at all the occupants of the workshop in confusion. Then fear shot to her face. Kaleb chuckled and rolled his eyes. Instead, he waved at her to follow as he left the room. The sound of her footsteps was the only hint he had that she was following. Weaving past all the NPCs, Kaleb gave a wave to Claire and Abby as the two were working out near the downstairs entrance. Both women waved back but cast curious glances at the bird woman following him. Kaleb waved them off.

Instead, he hurried down the stairs and into the basement levels. Clara hot on his heels. When underground, Kaleb stuck to the right side of the hallway as NPCs were still moving bits of debris out. They were expanding the second floor again. So Brute Clan lizards and teen Hunters were carrying bits of rock and trash outside. Kaleb thanked them for their work and kept moving. When they got to the second basement floor, he heard Clara's feathers ruffle loudly.

"You know, Professor. I don't really have to see anything if you don't want me to."

The bird woman's nervousness firmed up Kaleb's resolve to show her the three energy generators they had in the basement. When they reached the end of the second level and started down the next set of stairs, Kaleb addressed the woman's fears.

"Our generators are in the sub-basement, Clara. Calm down."

"My people don't do well underground. It's one of the things I like about your workshop. No roof. Just the hangar's ceiling high above."

"ONE of the things, huh? What are some of the others?"

He could hear her rolling her eyes as she said. "Your kids are nice. Not as tempered or learned as the TekNik labs. But they are eager and clearly enjoy working together. The TekNik labs can be so impersonal and cutthroat."

"Really?" Kaleb asked, turning around only to find a feathery finger pointed at his face.

"Hey! No poaching. I like my job. Your lab is cute. But doesn't compare to a fully funded corporate lab."

"You mean the one where your designs are leaking?"

To that Clara had no response, so she closed her mouth and followed him to the last floor. The hum of the generators was constant now, and Kaleb sighed as he saw their soft blue glow. The Weikacol solution was still churning happily as he opened the chain-link fence into the generator room. Clara went quiet as she watched the liquid churning about in the large metal cylinders. Her big brown eyes looked around in confusion until she spotted the level indicator on the side of generator one. It was at full, so were the ones for generators two and three. The two of them sat there and watched as the energy was spun about and turned into electrical power, then sent to the hangar above.

Kaleb enjoyed watching Clara's face go from confused to angry to thoughtful, to surprised, to outright shocked.

"It can't be!"

"Oh, it is."

"But the law of entropy."

"It creates what it uses."

"But that's a K-Tech design!"

"Meet the prototype for that design." Kaleb said, simply waving at the three vats.

Clara sputtered for a short amount of time until she finally rounded on him. "What's it made of?"

"No idea."

"Where's it come from?"

"Not a clue."

Clara huffed angrily before squawking in indignation. "Then what do you know!?"

Kaleb shrugged. "It's a renewable energy supply that seems to be extremely powerful already and K-Tech has already improved the design. We also just invented batteries made from the stuff."

"You haven't started selling them, have you?!"

"No. The world isn't in the throes of an energy crisis or anything. So we can hold off on selling them for now. Besides, the batteries aren't as powerful as we could get them. Clearly."

Clara's large eyes darted between Kaleb and the vats of the Weikacol solution. For a moment, he thought the bird-woman was going to attack him. But eventually she firmed herself up and straightened her shirt. Once she was finished, she looked him in the eyes and said.

"I believe we have some business negotiations to discuss between your… Super Group and the TekNik corporation."

Kaleb cranked an eyebrow. "Really?"

Clara nodded empathically. "Really."

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.