In the previous episode, Conrad is reprimanded and must work under higher scrutiny, but something doesn’t mesh. Krollin is poisoned in his home. The crew must figure out how this happened. Meanwhile, Stefen has lack of sleep trying to figure out why Claude’s system is not calming down despite healing well.
Cyborg Claude Main Page and Table of Contents
Claude crossed his arms and pinned Stefen with his best demanding gaze. It proved too much because Stefen swallowed hard and put his gaze on his scrivpad.
“Something isn’t right, and I think you figured out why.”
Stefen peeked at him over his glasses without lifting his head. “No, I have no idea why, but there are more tests I can run.”
Claude snorted.
Stefen shuffled but straightened to look directly at him.
“Put the scrivpad down and let’s talk.” Claude wanted to give his friend a smile, but he had no assurance to put behind it.
Stefen lowered the scrivpad.
Claude leaned forward, ignoring the wave of dizziness that hit and snagged the scrivpad. He tossed it toward a countertop on the opposite side of the exam room from Stefen. It bounced against the wall and skidded back to the front of the counter, where it hung on the edge.
He gripped the thin padding of the raised bed he sat on. “It’s time for a heart to heart. I’m not keen about all the biotech in my body, especially since our primary goal for the past six years has been diving into what Goeken is doing illegally with it. They’ve seen enough that they can come after me as a counter suit. So, I’m stressed because I don’t know what all you did that is sanctioned and how we prove that in a court of law. How do I defend myself and continue the fight?”
Stefen didn’t drop his gaze, but it took a moment for his eyes to widen with understanding.
“I want to live, but if you did something that will cause my dismantling, I need to know. Until we have this sorted out, I can’t see how to live, let alone take Goeken down. My stress is irritating the system. That is the problem we need to fix.”
Stefen nodded. “I was told not to tell you everything because she didn’t want you freaking out about how you still live.”
Claude rubbed his forehead to ease the ache caused by that truth. Min loved him so much that she had done everything to keep him alive, but never helped him fix the brokenness. Then again, he hadn’t shared how his parents’ tragic deaths had caused a rift he filled with work, which underlaid it all. His ability to laser focus had kept him from facing what he should have. His frown deepened the headache.
“Are you all right?” Stefen stepped closer.
“Yes, and no.” Claude gave his face a vigorous rub. “How much do you know about my parents?”
Stefen propped an elbow in his hand and tapped his lips. “I know they passed just before the agency was formed. I didn’t come on until five years after the start. We never had a discussion about your parents, even when I became the primary doctor for the agency.”
Claude nodded. “No, I didn’t even tell Min much about them.”
“How does this loop into needing to know all your biomechanics?”
“I’ve run from loss so much, I never dove in to live. When I had a second chance, I did not accept that either. I dove into work focus again. I never dealt with the death of my parents, so how do I deal with five years ago? It took waking up after nearly dying again to remember all the details. So, how do I actually live and stay that way?”
“Ah, I supposed something like this could be the cause, but didn’t know how to open you up to figure it out.”
Claude smirked at the choice of words. It turned into a grin when Stefen arched a brow at him.
Stefen shook a finger at him. “At least you still find humor in the oddest places. That is a good thing, but you may use that as part of your defenses the wrong way if deflecting your trauma.”
Claude shrugged. Maybe he used it that way, but he had always had that quirky sense of humor. He sighed because that brought up memories of his parents.
“Why haven’t you shared about your parents and how their deaths affected you?”
Claude gazed off at a corner of the room. How did he answer that when he knew there were holes in his own memory about them? Something had caused a move to Droeken when he was four. His father had worked from home and his mother had spent her time raising him. He was homeschooled, but went to an elite private school around the age of twelve. His parents rarely went out at all until he proved good at sports in high school.
“Claude?”
He shook himself. “Sorry. I’m fine, but the more I think about their loss, the more I think it was not an accident. I think they moved us to Droeken when I was little to avoid something. They hardly went out, and I was home schooled until junior high. By the time they came out because of my sports prowess, it was at least a decade after our move. Now it’s just me and probably a very dusty townhouse.” He dropped his gaze to the floor below his dangling feet.
“So you are more of a mystery than what we made you look like for agency reasons?” Stefen chuckled, but sobered quickly. “Sounds rather clandestine in what your father may have been doing. Trying to be normal for you as you walked into those fun teen years may have alerted whoever they ran from.” His brows furrowed. “Might explain the weird hit I got when sorting DNA five years ago? Where did you move from?”
“They never told me. I don’t even know if there are other living relatives out there somewhere.” Claude pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s something we can figure out another time.” He slid off the bed and paced around the exam room.
“The biggest thing for me is that their loss causes me to keep everyone, including Min, as far away as I can. Then I woke up from being dead, knowing you and Min had to be the reason I lived. So, the two people that came the closest to family had saved me in a way I have issues with. The only way I knew how to fix,” he crooked his fingers as if putting quotes around the last word, “it was to stuff it deep somewhere and find things I could fix.”
Claude braced himself against the bed and locked his gaze on Stefen. “So what is in my body that might cause the universal courts to dismantle me if the Goekens find out and try to use it against us?”
A warning beep came from the machine monitoring his vitals via connection with the nanobots in his system. The reminder of their existence caused him to tense.
Stefen pushed a stool around to him. “Sit on this and lean on the bed. This will take a bit, but I know you will not lie down for it.” He winked.
The machine beeped more instantly until Claude took the seat and sighed with how that calmed his body. He crossed his arms on the examination bed.
Stefen settled onto a stool on the other side of the bed from Claude and launched into the long explanation, which Claude only interrupted if he had a question.
Salindra stood with hands on her hips while examining the holographic image produced from the schematics they could not decipher. The boxy machine with an arm appeared useless because of the lack of info for the end of the arm and a section of the interior having pop out details not included. The team had not found them, but they worked with the AI to guess what circuitry could fill those spots.
The door softly whooshed open behind her and Hawkins said, “Staring at it for another hour won’t help.”
She stepped closer to peer at the end of the arm. “It is a precision instrument. At first, we thought it might handle laser surgery, but the feed through the arm doesn’t have the correct power level. A sensor might work with the wiring, but it would mean setting the item on a table that the arm can be adjusted over. It would have to be close to whatever it is analyzing.”
Hawkins leaned against the doorjamb with arms crossed. “It might not be important at all. Anyone digging into more information about the parts we know of?”
“Yes, but so far we’ve come up empty for anything unique, nor have we found anything comparable to what we know of this thing.” She did an about face and cocked her head. “All the more reason we need to dig harder. Any suggestions?”
Hawkins shook his head. “My resources came up empty.”
“So, your real purpose in showing up?”
“Staring at it won’t help. I think the computer analysis might guess at something, but even that is calculating as hours out.”
“Correct,” said the computer.
Hawkins grinned. “See.”
Salindra huffed. They had to find something soon. The agency had been onto something five years ago, but that led to an ambush because of an inside man. Of all the current members, only Min, Claude, and Stefen predated that disaster. Now the agency had to change course again. She and Claude would never make it onto any planet associated with Goeken after their narrow escape. They probably knew everything about her, but not Claude. She plucked at her lip.
Hawkins cleared his throat. His amusement had not diminished. Maybe it had increased with her zoning out to her thoughts.
She threw him a glare as an attempt to entice him to say more about her wasting time. Instead, she received a knowing chuckle.
“Ma’am, I think we found something, but it is going to take a miracle to prove it.” Rajim’s voice came softly over the com as if he hadn’t been ready to confess the revelation.
“What kind of miracle?”
“A trip to Telna close to where the ambush happened five years ago.”
She strained to hear the whispered answer.
“Why there?”
“Intel from then matches some of what we have been analyzing. If there hadn’t been a mole in the agency, we would have succeeded, I think. What we wanted then is possibly only two blocks away in a hospital now.”
“This isn’t some special surgical device, is it?”
“No, ma’am.” Rajim raised his voice closer to normal volume. “It might have something to do with brainwave analysis or more.”
Hawkin’s brows rose. “Memory alteration?”
“Possibly, sir. That was part of the hunch for the prior mission and wraps into some of what we were doing on Goeken.”
“I was never told the reason.” Salindra nodded, though Rajim could not see her. “I was boots on the ground to parse information to send only the best pieces out and I didn’t need to know the reason. Better off that way if caught.” A sobering thought and maybe to help keep things in the dark as much as possible, just like Claude.
Hawkins stepped closer. “Do we have a team that could pull off such a miracle?”
“It would take someone who at least looks Goeken and can speak Telna fairly fluently to get hired and have access to the facility. We don’t have anyone tall enough to pull off being a native of the planet.”
Hawkins grunted.
Salindra pursed her lips. “And how would having a person hired work?”
“They’d at least have building access and we’d have to infiltrate.”
She could picture him holding his breath after voicing that flimsy idea. “I need more.”
“Well, we have this freighter that is part of a neutral business that could easily get a job taking it to Telna and escorting the shipment to the surface.”
Salindra looked at Hawkins with an arched brow. Could they even wing that?
Hawkins paced. “Are you saying that hospital might acquire secure items from anywhere outside a Galactic Council planetary system?”
“Absolutely. There are several things.” Rajim’s voice rose and the speed of his answer proved they had hit a possibility.
“Name something.”
“Right, sir.” Rajim paused. “Several items come from a company called Nagja Trillium. It’s the biggest supplier of specialized equipment and materials, which includes ingredients required for radiology.”
Salindra grabbed her scrivpad off a table along the wall of the holodeck. “I know the company. Nagja is a neutral system, but one of the best sources of a variety of minerals and heavy metals. I think the company controls a majority of those resources.” Her fingers flew over the keypad. “Yes, it has its fingers in many things, but it has become the primary source of radiopharmaceuticals. Those are never shipped without an escort from Nagja to the destination.”
Hawkins leaned over her shoulder. “Do they hire security delivery services like our new cover company for this?”
“All the time.” Salindra smiled. “This might not take a miracle after all. But do we really need an inside man then? We’re pretty savvy at getting places people don’t want us once at the door.”
“Ma’am, I was thinking more of a janitor who has a pass to go deeper into the hospital. We extract them with the delivery crew once we have our information.”
Hawkins stopped pacing. “We need a solid plan if we are to convince Min and Claude to sanction it. It will take another week before this freighter has its retrofit completed. We already have jobs lined up around two weeks out to help our legitimacy as a security and transport business.” He stroked his chin. “Acquiring a job from Nagja Trillium going to Telna is going to take some work and has to fit existing plans.”
“This will take a few months, then.” Salindra pursed her lips. “If okayed, we need a full background setup for the inside man and he has to get the job. We need to time for a delivery during his shift. Let alone take several weeks to Nagja and around to Telna carrying possible radioactive materials. Is our business cleared to do such?”
“In all the work to retrofit the freighter with our agency setup, I think little thought went into what the company can fully do beyond the jobs we already have.” Hawkins shook his head. “I might miss some of the fun if it doesn’t happen before my time is up here.” His grin returned.
Salindra gave him a smug smile in return. “I take that as a challenge.”
Rajim said, “So do I.”
Hawkins rubbed his hands together. “Well, here’s to finding what we are missing in this puzzling machine.”
Salindra turned her attention back to the hologram. Would they find this machine at the hospital? It could be in an area designated for a small core of people. Possibly even guarded in ways they might never find out. A heist of this level required too many moving parts. She knew the team could figure it out.
There was one problem they couldn’t fix. She wouldn’t be part of the ground team on this one. She could make sure that the team had the best information for their logistics.
“I’ll be right up, Rajim, so we can pull this plan together.” She gave the hologram a wave and walked out of the holodeck with Hawkins right behind her.
If I can survive nearly four years on Goeken before things went sour, I can lead a team in developing a heist like none other.
< Episode 19 | Main Page | Episode 21 >
This episode is fresh creative writing. I need a new filler for how things ramp up, since I can’t use the original and do what I wish for future stories. I also have to build on something with Claude’s background, so some of it comes out in this episode.
Share your thoughts about the episode in the comments. Thank you for reading.