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Fybertech: Forgotten History
By: FyberOptic
Saturday, June 21st, 2008
FyberOptic sat in a darkened corner of his lab, illuminated only by the various computer displays and consoles present in the cramped space, all hidden within the bowels of the Hazard Labship. He was leaned over one of those consoles, with his interest focused solely on one of the small displays embedded there. It flickered and crackled with snowy pixels, to which Fyber gradually adjusted a set of nearby controls, trying to bring it back into clarity. When the image finally restabilized, his interest in the actual content resumed.
A dreary backdrop of a rain-swept harbor filled most of the image, with the entire scene swaying slowly up and down. That was because the image originated from the labship itself, the heavy hull of which leaning lazily with the swells below. But it wasn't the scenery which Fyber was interested in. Of particular interest to him on the tiny screen was the grainy image of Professor Maxwell Hazard, who was currently speaking with a raven-haired woman in a modest black pantsuit.
Fyber kept a hand over a set of the controls, continuously adjusting one of them to keep the signal in check, but it was an ongoing endeavor. He witnessed what appeared to be a handshake between the two outside, but the image distorted into a series of compression artifacts at that very moment. Fyber grumbled, fidgeting at the controls again until it cleared.
The pair were carrying out a discussion on the pier outside of the ship, presently docked at Port Antwerp, Belgium. Docking at an actual port wasn't particularly common, especially since it wasn't free, where as the open ocean was. But the professor had said that it was a "one-stop drop and shop" situation, to take care of business before they began their expedition into Scotland, following evidence of the possible location of a cryptid called Morag. All Fyber knew about such things was that it was another Loch Ness Monster, and that Prof was always hungry for making discoveries. And DNA samples.
Not far behind the professor stood the burly Senior Booyah, with his vibrant luchadore mask standing out amongst all the individuals present in the image. He remained still, with arms crossed, not participating in the conversation, giving Fyber the impression that he was there for the job he had been hired for: security.
The woman also had an escort. Built similarly to Booyah, but seemingly dressed as expensively as his colleague, a stout man in a tailored black suit dutifully held an umbrella over his apparent boss, allowing himself to receive the full brunt of the rain which gushed onto them all from the gloomy sky above.
The usual ambient hum of equipment in Fyber's lab was currently replaced by the quiet hiss of amplified rain and semi-distorted speech. Frequency aberrations happened often, resembling the sound of a radio being tuned. They sometimes gave the faint trace of distinguishable words, but more often than not simply produced unearthly reverberations off of the metal walls.
Along the bottom of the display crawled a captioning of text. Usually words, but not always ones that made sense. The computer-assisted dialog enhancement wasn't intended for doing the task in real time, but Fyber wanted to witness this conversation now instead of waiting for the computer to process it for hours.
".. deal going onto .. company .. this technology .. making toothbrush sample .. business again in the .. bridge .. "
Fyber tried to make sense of it, but it seemed futile. He didn't know how much of the mess was actually being said from how much was the computer making assumptions. He picked up more just by watching the grainy image in front of him, which required yet another sequence of adjustments to continue viewing properly.
It was then that he witnessed Prof remove something from inside his trademark black trenchcoat. He passed it to the woman, who only took a fleeting glance at the object before passing it to her associate. He in turn handed her an object, after tucking the new one into his suit coat. She spoke for a brief moment, then passed the item to Prof.
Prof opened the object on the spot regardless of the heavy rain, it apparently being a container of some kind, and brought it to eye level to examine the contents. After a moment of scrutiny, he nodded in approval, closed the case again, and tucked it into his inner trenchcoat pocket. The pair of them shook hands once more, exchanged a few brief words, and then the woman turned, heading off back in the direction of the transit area of the port. Her escort promptly tagged along behind her brisk strides, keeping the umbrella erected in place above her, until both of them disappeared out of camera view.
Hazard and Booyah remained in position for several more moments, probably waiting until their newfound associates were out of sight. Eventually, Prof turned to Booyah.
".. leave on way .. out this .. again .. damn storm."
Fyber still couldn't comprehend the words, but got the basic impression based on the two of them quickly marching back towards the labship, presumably to get out of this weather. The image was now just the steady swaying of the port outside, with rain quietly crackling at the speakers in the room. He tapped a series of controls, ending his recording of the session, and simultaneously killing the display and noise. The normal ambient hum of the room returned.
He slid away from that workstation, rolling across the small lab on his stool to another terminal, and keyed up the recording. The video began to replay here as he typed, but was now overlaid with a series of computer-generated lines and boxes. They attempted to center on the visible mouths, but jumped around the image randomly, unable to stay fully focused on their targets due to the low quality of the video. Sound stuttered quietly out of the workstation, looping and repeating the same segments of audio while keeping the video in sync with it, each time with the sound being distorted differently and modulated.
Fyber finished entering commands at this station and swiveled to a display beside him. A quick tap brought up a different screen on this one, which displayed the remaining time of the dialog enhancement process he had started. A little more than four hours left. Time well spent, perhaps, if it turned out more informative than the live version he'd just witnessed.
- - -
Fyber made his way to the rec room, which was predictably empty. The crew was on shore leave for the remainder of the day, so he was probably one of the few remaining individuals left aboard. If not for his hunch earlier, he probably would have already joined them. But in about four hours, he'd see if his intuition proved worthwhile.
He stepped to one of the portholes, watching the brewing storm through the rain-battered glass. It was still morning, but one wouldn't know it to look outside. Dark clouds blocked the sun's morning rays, with darker ones looming out towards the horizon. A distant thunder quietly rolled across the ship, warning of the weather to come.
Fyber glanced to his watch, still being in his casual civilian clothes, noticing that it was going on eleven. Still plenty of time for some shore leave. It had been a while since he'd taken any, too. The ship seemed to always be in need of his services, whether that was repairing its hybrid Earthen/Zentaxian technologies, or completely designing something from scratch to suit a particular task. He had been doing the latter for the better part the week, constructing a motion-dampening grappling arm based on some specifications that Prof had given him, in preparation for their trek to Scotland. It was as good as finished, short of a few finishing touches that he figured he could do on the trip.
As he began to ponder what one could do on a day like this, a pair of footsteps came clacking down the corridor, derailing his train of thought. He knew it was one of the robots just by the sound, but it wasn't until a glossy red torso came into view around the doorway that he realized it was Dex.
"Hey Dex." greeted Fyber. "I thought you were out and about with the other bots today?"
"Corrective statement: The professor asked me to stay behind and assist in the preparations for catching the cryptid designated Morag."
"Yeah? How's that going, then?"
"Positive response: All available information on the specimen has been downloaded into my memory unit for immediate retrieval during the mission. Continuation: A course has been plotted to the destination and entered into the navigational system. Assumption: With your task completed and modifications implemented, the mission should be ready to proceed on schedule."
Fyber arched his brow. "The grappler is almost complete, but what modifications are you talking about?"
"These." responded a husky voice from the doorway.
The voice belonged to Prof, who stood leaning at the doorframe to the rec room, with an electronic pad in his hand. Fyber stepped over curiously to take it from him, looking over the list as Prof gave an overview.
"In a nutshell, the grasping arms should be extended to accommodate a possibly thicker neck. We don't really know how big a thing this beasty could be, and after doing a little research last night, I realized that we could have a problem with the original design. We also need to extend the cable length by at least a hundred feet, in case it can withstand lower depths than assumed."
Fyber frowned. "The cable length you chose has already been tuned into the grappling software, you know. So has the length of the arms. Changing either means you could end up with one squished monster."
"Also on the list is a stronger gauge cable, mind you. But no biggy, just change the software after the hardware changes and we'll be set. That's why I was coming to find you, since I thought you'd want to get started on this stuff now. We wouldn't want to be responsible for one less plesiosaur in the world, after all."
Fyber sighed inwardly, knowing that it wasn't as simple as changing some numbers and recompiling, but refrained from mentioning it. It wouldn't change the fact that it had to be done regardless. He just wished that such changes weren't always last minute.
Fyber finished skimming the list, then nodded in response to the request. "Alright, I'll see what I can do."
Prof was still soaking wet from being outside a few minutes prior, with his blond frills matted to his scalp. An occasional bead of water ran down onto his forehead, which it did again when he nodded with satisfaction to Fyber. He casually swiped it away with the back of his gloved hand. Fyber took this opportunity to carefully question the actions of earlier, without revealing too much.
"Say, how'd you get so wet? Fall in the ocean?"
"Not yet. I was just checking out the view." answered Prof briefly. "Come on Dex, we got a town to see. It's not every day we stop in Belgium. Home of waffles, french fries, and NATO."
The robot perked at the request. "Gracious response: Very well, I shall enjoy observing this distinctive culture. Digressive reaction: Goodbye, FyberOptic."
Prof headed out the doorway, with Dex in pursuit. They were quickly out of sight, but only a moment later, Prof stuck his head back in from around the corner. "You know, you really ought to get out more often. It's shore leave, after all!" And with that, he disappeared around the corner again. The clacking of Dex's feet were eventually out of earshot, indicating that they were truly gone this time.
Fyber sighed outwardly now, staring back out of the window. The request Prof had given left no time for sightseeing, since he'd be lucky to get finished by morning. But that wasn't entirely what troubled him.
"Just checking out the view earlier, eh?" he mumbled, as another distant rumble vibrated against the rainy porthole.
- - -
An hour and a half later, Fyber was halfway underneath the winch motor assembly in the cargo bay, with his jean legs covered in oily smeared handprints. Installing the longer, stronger cable had been more problematic than he assumed it would be. The extra weight was bogging down the motor, and he didn't think it would handle a combination of the new cable, the larger grappler, and the unknown weight of a creature that shouldn't even exist. And maybe it didn't exist, for all Fyber knew. But if it did, he knew it'd be his head on the chopping block if it went splattering back into the drink due to a defective winch.
He hadn't even gotten to doing any of the rest of the list yet. He could have used an extra set of hands, but it seemed that everyone was taking advantage of their full day of shore leave. And considering that he had built the grappler in the first place, he doubted that anyone else would really be able to help much anyway for most of the job, since he'd end up explaining enough stuff to just do it himself. Besides, recalibrating the software was going to be the hardest part, and only he could do that. Another FyberOptic is what he needed. Maybe they could catch one of those sometime, too.
When he finished tightening back down the drive chain, he slid out from under the hefty winch, wiping his greasy hands on his pants yet again. After a tired grunt to get to his feet, he moved over to the control lever, and gave it a tug. The empty winch began to spin up to speed, whirring noisily in the large open space of the cargo bay, while Fyber monitored its RPMs and torque on a small handheld monitor. The numerals started out in red, but after several moments, they all switched to a more pleasant green. Fyber nodded approvingly.
Something dropped onto Fyber's shoulder suddenly, and he jumped, swirling around with startled eyes to see what it was. It was a hand, or had been a hand, which Senior Booyah had now retracted. Booyah's mouth began to move, but Fyber couldn't understand a word of it. He gestured to wait a moment, then turned to crank the lever back in the other direction, killing the winch motor. The thunderous whir began to fade, and Fyber pulled a set of puffy white earplugs from his ears.
"Sorry about that, buddy. Didn't mean to sneak up on ya." apologized Booyah.
Fyber waved it off. "No prob. Wakes a guy up better than any coffee." he quipped. "What'd you need?"
"The door to my cabin is squeaking something fierce." he began, gesturing back behind himself towards the tarmac. "Been happenin' for a while, but it's gotten worse pretty quick. Prof said to ask you about taking a look at it since you were around."
Fyber sighed a bit, glancing around to the winch and realizing the other work still ahead, but nodded. "Alright, I'll check it out in a bit when I get this buttoned up."
Booyah offered a rough pat on Fyber's much more meager bicep, nearly causing him to lose his balance. "Thanks cham. I owe ya one." And with that, he turned and trodded back towards the large open door of the cargo bay. But just before he left, he looked back over his shoulder. "When you're done with that door, you should get outa this place. Prof's gonna do some trivia over dinner at some joint called Bacino. Everybody's gonna be there."
Fyber just nodded to the request in politeness. "We'll see." he fibbed, knowing full well that at this rate, he wouldn't be joining anyone anywhere anytime soon. Booyah smiled cheerily, gave a half wave, and went on his way.
Fyber sighed again, this time more woefully. He turned back to the winch, but first tossed the earplugs haphazardly towards the trash bin near the workbench across the room, missing it entirely. He shrugged indifferently, and knelt back down in front of the open chassis of the winch, sliding the metal panel back over the opening and slipping in the first of its many bolts.
- - -
As Fyber crossed the tarmac to get to Booyah's quarters, the gloom of the sky above the protective energy barrier left him unsettled. It seemed to be slowly building as the day progressed, with thunder ever looming in the distant dark clouds, barely visible through the relentless blanketing of rain. All of it would surely lead up to quite the storm.
His unease didn't come from the weather itself, however, but from its semblance to the feeling he'd been having. It wasn't to the point of gloom, but suspicions of a man he'd trusted for years now left him unsure of what the future aboard the Hazard Labship held. Fyber wasn't even sure he wanted to know the truth, because despite tensions from workloads and between the crew, this was still his home. Like with the storm, you never want those dark clouds on the horizon to reach you. But if they never do, then the storm can never pass. So he had the unwelcome feeling that things were going to get worse before they got better.
When he approached the door to Booyah's cabin, he gave it a quick visual inspection, and upon finding nothing out of the ordinary, he gave the entry button a quick tap. The door whisked open into its pocket on cue, but with an abnormal and annoyingly shrill screech. He scrunched his nose and humphed, then moved over in line with the doorframe, examining the slot to check for possible obstructions that it could be brushing against. Seeing nothing with the naked eye, he pulled a screwdriver from his toolbelt, and scraped it down along the edges of the gap. It slid across the metal slot without finding any noticable protrusions, somewhat to his dissatisfaction, since that meant the problem was likely elsewhere.
Fyber humphed again, and made his way back out to the tarmac. He tapped the door button again, just in case his prodding could have had any effect, but it screeched shut again, as he suspected. He slid the screwdriver back into his belt, removed a wrench, and began working on the metal panel located beside the door, directly in front of the pocket that the door rested inside of when open.
While mindlessly turning the bolts, he drifted back to his previous train of thought. Workload aside, he didn't exactly dislike his duties aboard the labship. But then again, he had never particularly signed on for them either. Fyber had no real interest in cryptozoology, which was generally the primary mission of the Hazard Labship. As such, it had never been his intention to stay on board after the construction phase of the ship was completed. But when that time came, Prof needed an engineer, and Fyber was the only one capable of maintaining the hybrid of technology which he had integrated into the vessel. He had pretty much designed himself into a job without realizing it. So he agreed to come along for a little while. And that little while had turned into almost five years now.
He didn't care a whole lot about whether they actually caught any sea beasts or fire monsters, particularly since they had a penchant for breaking things when brought on board. But he did like to see a gadget he created do its job properly. And he liked designing and building things for tasks that he probably otherwise would have never had a reason to do. The grappler that he was supposed to be working on right now was a good example of that. If they did find this Morag, and captured it successfully, then that would be rewarding enough for him. What they did with it afterwards just didn't interest him very much, though he knew that that's where the fun began for Professor Hazard and his team. But he had a todo list longer than the Morag to deal with anyway, so it all worked out he supposed.
When the last bolt fell out, the metal panel dropped onto the deck below with a sharp pang. Fyber slid it aside, popped the small LED flashlight from his belt, and lit up the crevice in the wall. It was fairly empty inside, with the exception of some metal framework to hold the door in place, along with a motor and a couple of gears, which connected with teeth along a ridge made into the door.
Fyber reached up from his crouch to tap the door open button again, and almost immediately cringed from the proximity of the dreadful squeal. It was hard to localize something like that in such a space, so he did what any good engineer would do: he squirted WD40 on everything. He applied it along the entire track, the gears, and the motor, until the stubby can was practically empty. After a few more activations of the door, the oil worked its way into the problem area, until eventually it slid in and out completely free of unwanted friction. It actually worked better than his own now, he realized. Maybe he should add that to his todo list.
He heaved the metal panel back up into place and began to tighten the bolts back down. Even the simple task of fixing a squeaky door could be satisfying, because he felt that buzz of a job well done. He liked that feeling. It was just when he thought about how many other things still needed doing aside from a sqeaky door that the unwelcome tension returned.
But he couldn't be everywhere at once, and assuming nothing else came up, he could at least finish the grappler on time to avoid any further tensions with the Prof.
- - -
A couple of hours later, Fyber was fitting the last of the lengthened appendages onto the grappler, which dangled in the center of the cargo bay, since that room generally gave him the most workspace. It hadn't been a particularly hard task, but bordered on monotony. First you had to pay a visit to the machine shop, at the complete opposite end of the ship. You measure out a length of steel, cut it to size, grind off the rough edges, cut out the nooks and holes for it to fit together with the rest of the device, and then smooth everything off. Then you drag the almost finished product back up to the cargo bay, make sure it'd fit, coat it with a corrosion-resistant spray, and finally install the mountings to secure it in place. He had to do this eight times, since each appendage had two sections.
Such monotony on the labship wasn't uncommon to Fyber. And unfortunately, he was no fan of repetition. He seemed to be fixing the same things over and over, or changing something at the last minute which required practically redoing it. There was also the ongoing workload that never seemed to have an end in sight, making the days themselves feel repetitive and bleed together sometimes.
He already knew what he'd be doing the next few days when the grappler was done. For starters, the cockpit lift wouldn't lower all the way lately for some reason. He'd already been told about it by half the crew, especially Haul, who had tripped over it three times already. So that was near the top of his list. Elsewhere, the Omnidex was having trouble maintaining environmental settings, requiring someone to regularly check in on it. The primary engine also hadn't been working at peak performance ever since that incident over the Atlantic. And that was just the more important things. The little stuff, like stuck computer keys or rattling air vents, were scattered throughout his list.
But when he fastened that last joint into place, the thunk of the metal locking together and completing the immediate task left him satisfied again. He stepped back, admiring the gangly claw as it dangled from the pulley attached to the cargo bay's rafters. It definitely had a larger grasp now, and Fyber had a hard time imagining the creature which Prof intended to use it on.
The professor had been excited for the last three days about this mission, ever since he got a tip on the Morag's location from a cryptozoology forum he frequented on the internet. A fisherman had apparently spotted a pair of humps floating across the loch it presumably lived in, and managed to take a predictably grainy snapshot of it. Prof had analyzed the unrevealing photo for hours, and almost as soon as his equipment had convinced him that it wasn't a fake, the mission briefing had begun.
Fyber's role of course was constructing and operating the grappler. Booyah's role was seeing to the creature's accomodations; particularly in regards to it not destroying the ship once aboard. Sasha would be ready to monitor its vitals once onboard to make sure it weathered the trip okay. Spug would be piloting the ship. Doc would be on standby in case of injuries. Haul would be ready for repairing any hull damage the ship took if the creature got miffed. And Deck would clean up the mess. Replay had even offered his services to mock them if everything went wrong, but Prof had graciously turned down the offer via his boxing glove gun. Prof would direct the operation from the cockpit, assisted by Dex.
But this grappler wasn't going to grapple anything until the software was recalibrated. Fyber lowered the contraption closer to the ground, allowing him to better reach its base. He slid open a waterproof panel on the side, exposing a toothy connector, to which he attached a thick black data cable that ran across the length of the cargo bay and into a control box on the wall. The remainder of this task was probably better suited to accomplishing in his lab, so he cleaned up the mess of metal filings and tools, and headed for his hidden sanctum.
- - -
Sitting in his darkened lab, Fyber flexed a hand in front of his face, imagining how long it might take him to cope with fingers that had just been lengthened by almost a third. He could just imagine an oversized hand, banging uselessly at the keyboard, incapable of hitting the right keys due to his brain's assumptions of how long the appendages should actually be.
That was basically the problem that the grappler had now, and why he had to carefully recalibrate it before the mission, since it expected its metallic graspers to be different lengths than they were now. You'd either miss what you were grabbing for, or crush it. The last time he had calibrated it, it had taken several hours of trial and error, along with a few crushed barrels of Fizz Man Soda. While it was basically the same task over again, he had the experience of last time to go on, so he expected it to go along a little faster. The advantage of monotony, perhaps. Magus would surely be pleased at the decrease of grape soda being ruined this time, in any case.
The screen in front of Fyber quickly ran through countless series of floating point digits as it performed basic simulations. Once each set completed, Fyber would convert the data into parameters for the various joints, then upload it to the grappler. He'd put the grappler itself into a test mode, which took a few minutes to run through all of its possible motions, determining movement extents and times, and attempting to work its components coordinatedly. Then it would send back its results. Fyber would also visually evaluate the video feed from the cargo bay to make sure there were no actual hardware problems.
From there, the process usually repeated. Fyber would run the simulations over again using the previous data sets from the grappler, until all the fingers worked with perfect coordination. And equally important, with the computer knowing the exact range and speed that it could work reliably at as a whole. Sometimes fixing one problem lead to another during the process. Hence trial and error, and what took so long. Once that phase was complete, he'd move on to actually picking things up, which put strength into the equation. But Fyber realized that he was still a ways away from that step at the moment, based on the drunken motions of the fingers trying to work together on the screen in front of him.
Thunder vibrated through the hull of the labship, leading Fyber to believe that the storm was getting closer. The rumbles were more sinister now, and came more often, unlike the faint warnings of earlier. It made him wonder what all the labbers were up to right now. Not galavanting around in this weather, he hoped. Dinner time was still a ways away, so they still had time to kill before Prof's trivia session started. But he was sure that by that time, they'd all be crammed safely into some restaurant somewhere before the brunt of the storm showed up, and paying it no mind.
Suddenly a console behind Fyber began to chirp. He swiveled around from his work to check it, realizing it was the dialog enhancement procedure he'd started.. four hours ago already? He checked his watch, and just shrugged at its confirmation of the time passed. He sighed a bit, looking back towards the work which he should be doing, but temptation convinced him otherwise. He rolled over to the other console and worked its controls.
The video of earlier began to play back, albeit a little clearer than before. The sound was also cleaner, particularly missing almost all of the hiss of the pouring rain. As the voices began, they modulated often in tone and clarity, but more of the words were distinguishable now. A much more sensible captioning rolled along the bottom of the screen, as well.
"..ello again ... Hazard. I'm glad to see our last deal .. beneficial to both companies .. share more of your technology. We just didn't expect .. business so soon."
"Beneficial indeed, my dear. .. the last sample, I .. anxious to see what .. specimens you had acquired." responded Prof, extending his hand. The woman took it, shaking it briefly with a corporate politeness.
".. believe we have something .. your liking. .. have something .. us?" she asked.
Hazard nodded. "Right here." he responded, and reached into his coat, pulling out the unknown object. He passed it to her, and again Fyber saw the almost disregard with which she immediately passed it to her colleague, without taking even a moment to examine it. Fyber assumed that she was either ill-equipped to judge its authenticity or value, or it wasn't meant for her. Or maybe both.
Her colleague passed her a small case in return, which she held in front of her for a moment before handing it to Prof. ".. enclosure will keep .. refrigerated .. hours. I hope you .. proper facilities available." She passed a fleeting glance to the labship.
Prof nodded. "..., no worries." He took the case from her, covetously opening it on the spot. Fyber still couldn't see what it was, but he could see a clearer expression on Prof's face than before. He seemed particularly satisfied, and relayed that to the woman with an accepting nod. He closed the case again and tucked it safely into his coat, then offered his gloved hand for another brief handshake.
".. us know if you .. future dealings." said the woman, who then nodded curtly, and turned to head in the opposite direction.
After several moments, when the woman was out of sight, Prof turned to Booyah, who had been standing silently behind him the whole time. "Let's .. to the freezer before ... But most importantly, .. out of this damn storm." They both headed back up the ramp to the labship until the video stopped playback, and the screen went dark.
Fyber sat staring at the blank screen, pondering the exchange. Prof had obviously met with this woman before based on their conversation, which Fyber had somewhat assumed already. This wasn't the first time they had made unexpected or strange stops, much like this one in Port Antwerp. Prof had gone missing for short periods during those stops too, which is what made him suspicous enough to keep an eye on things this time around.
But a specimen? Something that had to be kept cold? Sounded kind of like something that Prof would be interested in. But what was he trading for it? And why would he not be honest about it earlier when asked in the rec room? Fyber had his suspicions, but he wouldn't believe such things without proof. And currently, he had nothing to go by for assuming the worst, so he tried not to.
Yet he couldn't suppress the feeling that something about this wasn't what it should be. Nor could he leave it be. And before he had thoroughly thought it over, he was already on his way out of his lab.
- - -
Fyber pulled open the glass door of the small refrigerator unit which contained all of the DNA samples they had collected over the last five years. He perused it like he were looking for a particular flavor of ice cream, picking up vials to read their labels, only to replace them to digg deeper through its narrow racks.
Eventually he sighed frustratedly, slouching his shoulders and taking a step back from it, letting the door close with a smack. He stared at the now frosted-over glass as he thought. All of these vials had the standard Hazard Labs labeling. There's no way Prof had time to repackage it from the time he came in to the time Fyber saw him in the rec room. Whatever Prof had gotten from that woman, it wasn't in there.
He slipped his hands into his pockets and turned, propping against the counter to face the other way. From the large humanoid shadow being projected across the room by the brightly lit refrigerator behind him, he realized that he had been so sure of finding what he needed inside its frigid confines that he'd never even bothered to turn on the overhead lights. But it wasn't there, and finding that container had been the only clue he had to figuring out what was going on. He didn't even know what kind of DNA that Prof could possibly have needed to trade for that he couldn't find himself, assuming that's what it was. But then again, he was no cryptozoologist, so what did he know about finding the stuff.
He sighed again and started out of the biology lab in defeat, when he passed one of the machines on the lab counter near the exit. It whirred quietly in the half-lit room, reminding him of the sound of a computer hard drive, which naturally piqued his interest. He doubled back slowly, leaning down to check the origin. Then his eyes perked. It was the DNA analyzer, and it was apparently in the course of processing a sample. This had to be the specimen in question. Prof had probably been so excited to see the results that he put it in as soon as he got back inside earlier.
Problem was, Fyber had no idea how to use this machine. Biology was outside of his expertise, so he rarely had reason to even come into this room, let alone work any of its devices. The machine appeared to have a couple of doors across the front. Or a door and a tray, he couldn't tell without pulling on them. One of them had a translucent plastic area, but it wasn't enough to tell what was going on inside. It just continued to whir, with some lights blinking with activity near the bottom left side, and a narrow LCD readout which only read "Processing..."
Fyber stepped back, ready to admit defeat again, when he happened to notice something sitting on the counter next to the machine. Almost completely hidden in the machine's shadow from the low light of the room sat a small open container. It was solid black, seemingly made of hard plastic with an insulating liner, and hinged on one of its wider ends. Fyber picked it up carefully, and realized... "Jackpot."
- - -
Back in his own hidden lab, Fyber was already running the fingerprints from the case. The first one he'd found came up as a Maxwell Hazard. Not exactly a promising start. The second one he tried was inconclusive; probably had gotten too smudged from all the handling. But the third time was the charm.
The screen in front of him began to fill up with data. As soon as the photograph of a young woman appeared, albeit watermarked across the bottom with "Property of the FBI", he knew he had the right person. She was blond, attractive, seemingly sophisticated, but had a very cold demeanor about her.
"Elizabeth Stover.." commented Fyber aloud, as he began to read over the record.
Full Name: Stover, Elizabeth Victoria
Aliases: none
Date of Birth: 11/24/1976
Eye Color: Green
Race: Caucasian
Gender: Female
Height: 5'8"
Weight: approx 125 lbs
Identifying Marks: none
Current Employer: Rovaworks Inc.
Current Location: unknown
Known Associates: unknown
Administrative Note: Miss Stover was under general observation in regards to the disappearance of Walter Rovner, CEO of Rovaworks Inc, until her own disappearance approximately one week after the incident. No warrant has been officially issued, but locating and questioning her would be of interest to the Bureau.
The record ended there. She apparently wasn't as missing as the FBI assumed, which was interesting. But it didn't provide very much in terms of useful information. Fyber slid over to the terminal next to him, doing a quick search on "Rovaworks Inc." to see what sort of company it was. As it turned out, they weren't much of a company at all anymore. They had recently filed for bankruptcy, liquidating their assets to the highest bidder. They had been a research firm though, specializing in miniaturization technologies, such as carbon nanotubes.
Fyber just found himself more confounded than before he'd started his sleuthing. Why was a former employee of a nanotech company now dealing in biological samples? And on rainy piers in the middle of Europe? Fyber guessed she was probably working for someone else, but if the FBI didn't know her whereabouts, he figured his chances of finding out who she was with were probably slim to none.
At the realization of another dead end, Fyber sighed again. At least he had something this time, even if it presently led to nowhere. Satisfied with that much, he pushed himself back across the room, and got back to work on the task he should have been finishing all along.
- - -
After an hour or so of repetitive claw alignment, the video of which reminding Fyber of a stiff and clumsy ballet student who refused to throw in the towel, Fyber had decided on a quick break for dinner. That meant scrounging through what was left from the meager galley of the labship. It wouldn't be thoroughly resupplied until later when everyone got back, but Fyber managed to put his improvisation skills to use and constructed a ham, chicken, and parsley sandwich on a hot dog bun. He brought it back to his lab, so that he could at least get a bit of mindless staring at monitors done while the grappler went about another calibration routine.
Upon glancing at his watch, he realized it was about the usual dinner time for the labbers as well. They were probably gathering at that Bachino place or whatever Booyah called it, waiting for some renowned Hazard Labs trivia. Fyber was a tad bit disappointed to be missing it, because even though he was generally no good at guessing cryptids and unusual locations, the comradery of it was fun to be a part of.
Inspiration hit as he took another bite of his concoction. He swiveled around the room to a different console, one covered with dials and frequency gauges. He might not be there in person, but he could at least be there in spirit. He could just listen in through one of their communicators. It'd be about like listening to Jeopardy, which he did many evenings, except maybe with a lot more swearing.
Fyber dialed in the communicator frequency on the panel, then rapped at the console next to it, isolating just one of the labbers. He picked Booyah, because if he were a betting man, he'd guess Booyah would be sitting next to Prof when things got started. The speakers around him crackled and hissed as it locked on to the signal, until eventually he started picking up voices. He fine-tuned it with the knobs until it came through sounding like a telephone call, which was probably as good as it was going to get in this weather.
He didn't hear Prof's voice, so he assumed trivia hadn't gotten underway yet. There was a lot of talking in the background, so they were probably at the restaurant at least. And going by the sound of it, they working their way through the line. A more prominent voice then came through, which sounded like Flamelord.
"Why Dex?"
Booyah then responded, his voice drowning out the background noise, as he was closest to the microphone. "Dex is bright enough to pick this stuff up pretty quick since he doesn't forget what he sees. He's a smart cookie."
"I thought Prof already knew about all the technology in the ship by now, since he built it." Flamelord continued. Fyber chuckled at that as he bit off another bite of sandwich, since not even he fully understood all of the Zentaxian technology that he had returned to Earth with. Prof had never understood it, and had never shown a lot of interest in doing so, since he had other stuff to keep him busy in the Omnidex and elsewhere.
There was some rattling heard in the backgound, then Booyah responded again. "Na, see, Prof designed most of it, but Fyber did a lot of the building. Fyber contributed lots of the space junk too, since he didn't need it no more. And Prof wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth if it meant a labship that could circle the globe before having to gas up."
Fyber had a sudden flashback to all those years ago, of building this hulk of a machine in the middle of a garbage dump. It provided good cover, but you never got used to the smell. He didn't miss that at all. Nor did he miss dealing with the half-witted security guard there on an almost daily basis, who never remembered him regardless of how many encounters they had. What was his name again? Crawford? Clarence? He couldn't remember anymore. Fyber just chuckled at the thought of the guy, wondering where he was now, as the conversation continued.
"One of those, please." Flamelord requested. Fyber quickly realized that he must be talking to someone else. After a moment of silence and some background noise, he continued the conversation. "So Dex is learning how to operate the ship? Or just studying the space tech? Or what?"
"Both, the way I understand it. See, Prof don't think Fyber's cuttin' the mustard. Slackin' off, getting lazy, being grumpy, I dunno. Whatever the case, he wants Dex to learn this stuff, so that he's a little less reliant on the guy in case he gives him the boot soon. With Dex watching over his shoulder, he orta learn whatever routines keep us in the air in no time. Probly a good idea, having somebody else around that knows and all."
This conversation wasn't leading towards a night of enjoying trivia anymore for Fyber. He found himself glowering at the unexpected revelation he'd overheard. Dex had been watching him? And at Prof's insistance? He'd have never had any reason to think anything of it had he even noticed, considering Dex was always generally inquisitive to start with. But worse than that, Prof was considering getting rid of him? And for being lazy? The very thought angered him enough to make him want to hit the transmit button and ask Booyah just how Prof got that impression. But then Booyah continued speaking, only making things worse.
"And y'know, probly shouldn't say, but Dex's pokin' around even helped get Prof some genetic junk lately, like that Wendigo sample today. He's been after that'n for a while, and all it took was some schematics to somethin' or other in the 'ol engine. He's pretty excited about making a new Millennimal now. S'posed to be a secret though, so don't tell nobody till it's ready."
At this point, Fyber was just staring at his console, a bite of sandwich sitting motionless in his mouth. Had he been recording it, he would be playing it all back already to confirm all that he'd been hearing. But even so, it made sense, and a part of him had already known, regardless of his resistance of accepting it so far. Why else would they be making suspicious stops, and Prof be dishonest about his dealings? What else could the labship possibly have of value to be worth trading for invaluable cryptid DNA?
Fyber didn't know what exactly he felt. Prof had apparently been using his work, and worse, using technology this planet likely had no concept of, and putting it into the hands of outsiders. Anger was part of it, sure. But all he could think about was the FBI file on the Stover woman. What kind of people had Prof been dealing with? And what all had he given these possible criminals? And for what? A new Millennimal? Fyber hardly considered that a fair trade for possibly introducing a surging instability in the progression of modern technology.
In the background, he heard Booyah approaching a group of rowdy individuals, the voices of which he recognized as the Hazard Lab crew. And with each passing moment, one in particular got louder and more distinct, until finally Fyber heard the raucous laughter of Professor Maxwell Hazard.
"WHO'S READY FOR SOME TRIV-YA?" shouted Prof over the noise, to which everyone cheered excitedly.
And then suddenly Fyber's thoughts fell back to the trivial matters. Five years, for it to come to this? How long had Prof even been considering getting rid of him? And when would he have found out for himself? Would they wait till Dex could handle his job, then just give him the pink slip one day and leave him behind, with a Fizz Man Soda in one hand and Gordon in the other?
Fyber fumed, spinning around in his seat to smack a button on a panel behind him, which killed the entire console that had been busy processing grappler statistics. It was an insignificant act, and one that only made him feel better for a brief moment. Too brief, in fact, because he suddenly found himself marching out of his lab, for the launch bay.
- - -
Thunder rocked the sky around the small spherical fybership, aptly named for its current occupant. Fyber zoomed away from the labship in his small vessel, having noticed the much larger one docked behind him rocking more heavily now in the increased swells of the Scheldt river. The storm was starting to bear down on Antwerp, stealing what remainder of daylight was left to cover the town in its own intimidating darkness. Lightning was now brightly snaking across the sagging clouds, almost immediately followed by fierce cracks of thunder. It was no weather to be flying in, but there was no way Fyber could sit on his hands and wait for hours until everyone got back.
The locator beacons of the crew blipped on his radar screen, and that's what he followed, unable to see anything below in the downpour to find their restaurant otherwise. He didn't know what he was going to do when he got there, or what it would result in, but all he was focused on was getting there.
Eventually the blips shone a bright red, and appeared centered in his display. He brought the sphere to a crawl and began to circle downwards slowly, waiting until he could see rooftops to judge for a landing site. While his attention remained elsewhere, a lightning bolt suddenly lashed across his almost stationary ship, flowing through its metallic skin like a faraday cage, then ravaging its way on down to the ground.
The crack of thunder that had traveled along with the bolt had almost deafened him. If he didn't have enough adrenaline pumping through him already, he sure did now. All Fyber heard for the next several moments was a high-pitched ringing, while the ship listed heavily off to the side as the gyroscopes attempted to restabilize, having been momentarily disoriented by the unexpected electromagnetic field.
After recovering his own orientation, he quickly dropped the ship closer to the ground, just letting it rest right on the sidewalk across the street from the restaurant colorfully labeled as Bacino. Nobody was out in this rainstorm apparently to notice the strange craft land, which was good, considering his landing hadn't exactly been graceful in his current state, as the chipped pavement could attest. He sat there for a moment to better recover his senses, but being as impatient as he felt at the moment, he went ahead and forced open the hatch to clamber out. He barely paid it enough mind to close it again before stammering his way across the narrow flooded street.
The rain was ice cold, hitting him like bullets, and almost immediately soaked him to the bone. Meanwhile, the miniature river of water running through the street soaked through his tennis shoes without hesitation. By the time he had crossed and entered the restaurant lobby, water dripped off of him like a leaking faucet. Thunder crackled again loudly outside, startling him for a moment as he dribbled all over the carpet, but he was already scanning the room for the labbers, with only his singular goal of finding them still in mind.
His hearing had mostly returned, but it didn't help him a lot in here in terms of understanding things, as it would turn out. Voices in Dutch and French came from all around, with lots of laughing and general merry goings-on. It was disorienting for a moment, but he finally trained his ears on the only English being spoken in the room, and looked towards a back set of tables, most of which had been slid together to accomodate a large group. And that's where he headed.
"Hey, look who finally showed up. Maybe now I won't be in last place anymore." joked Replay, pointing in the direction of the approaching Fyber. The group turned, most of which smiled and offered a greeting, but Fyber was mostly oblivious to it. As he came to a stop, he was staring at Hazard, who was currently occupied with inserting half of a baked potato into his mouth all at one time.
"Told ya he could do it." remarked Booyah, who already had his hand out to Haul. "Ten dibs. Pay up."
"So who did you sell it to?" blurted out Fyber, staring with arched brows, and now breathing a bit more heavily from having initiated confrontation.
Prof had been chuckling around the large hunk of potato as he chewed, but eventually looked up, realizing he was being addressed. He swallowed the remainder in a single large gulp before responding. "Whoda what now?"
"Who, and what else was there besides today?" Fyber continued, impatient for answers to the point of incomplete sentences.
Prof cocked his brow. "You're not making any sense. I think you need some taters, Fyber. They're good for you. Or so my mammy told me." He stuck a fork in the remaining half of the baked potato and offered it outwards.
"I don't want any potatoes!" Fyber bellowed, not exactly intending such a crass response, but satisfied at getting the point across nonetheless.
"Ooookay, how about a towel?" Prof countered, noticing the water still dripping from Fyber.
"I'll take the tater then!" declared Spug loudly, who promptly plucked it off of Prof's fork and shoved it into his mouth. It barely fit, puffing his pale cheeks outwards like balloons, with much of it still visible just inside his severely parted lips. Many of them at the table laughed, especially when Sasha bopped him on the back of the head, causing to fly back out and roll into Haul's lap.
"What all did you give the woman? I know you traded something for the Wendigo." Fyber clarified, still insistent, but so aggravated that he didn't even know how to go about confronting Prof about it.
Prof suddenly sighed, and turned towards some of his tablemates. "Alright, who spilled it? You know I prefer to keep new Millennimal additions quiet until their big day."
Fyber threw his arms up in exasperation. "What, how many others were in on it? Everyone? Hell, maybe they all want me gone, too, if that's the case!"
Sasha turned in her seat to face back towards the irrational Fyber. "Jeff are you alright? You're not acting like yourself."
"No, I just got doublecrossed and struck by lightning in one day. I'm perfectly fine!" he retorted sarcastically, tossing his hands up again.
"You got struck by lightning? Awesome!" shouted Spug, twisting around in his chair to hear more.
"What're you going on about, Fybes?" inquired Booyah, now taking the conversation a bit more seriously himself. "Who's been crossin' what?
"I'm talking about you guys planning on letting Prof's pet toaster," to which Fyber jabbed in the direction of Dex, who sat farther down the table near Doc and Yutz, all of which now staring at him, "take over my job. And then trading technology, which nobody else on this planet should even have, to God knows who, for some monster guts to make more living stuffed animals out of."
"Alright, now that you're making more sense," began Prof, laying down his fork, ready to pacify the situation, "I admit that I did trade some of the technology and designs you contributed for cryptid DNA. But it's my labship, and my rules. You knew that five years ago. I didn't tell you because I knew you'd overreact." He paused, glancing to Spug. "And now I lost half a potato because of it."
Spug smiled sheepishly, sinking down until his head was below the back of his chair.
"Why would I overreact? I only missed another shore leave to work on another last-minute list, only to find out that you apparently weren't planning on keeping me around much longer anyway. When were you gonna dump me off? Going to wait till I finished the work first? Or after there was nothing of mine left of value to trade?"
Prof sighed. "Now you're overreacting. What do you want me to say? Sorry? Cause I'm not, and I aint gonna lie. Not that you'd be willing to believe that at the moment, of course. But if you didn't want me to take full advantage of what my labship had to offer, then you shouldn't have put the stuff there. Nobody begged you to. Tis as simple as that."
Farther down the table, Fizz Man gestured for Fyber to sit down. "Come on Fyb, chill out with a relaxing Fizz Man Soda, available in a variety of fizzful flavors. You'll feel better after a big fat dinner topped with some big fat trivia." He suddenly looked down the table to Prof with a stricken look across his artificially flavored face. "We're still doing trivia, right? Cause that's the only reason I flew out here with you lumps."
Fyber shook his head fervently and sighed, ignoring any attempts to placate him. "I want to know who that woman was! Who does she work for?" he demanded.
Prof laughed. "Why would I ask her that? She obviously didn't want me to know or she woulda told me. It's strictly business."
There was an uncomfortable silence for a moment. Fyber was too frustrated by Prof's answers to even know what to say, until the only thing that really mattered came to mind. "So you're just going to keep trading whatever you see fit regardless of my objections?"
Prof shrugged dismissively. "Pretty much. You know where the door is if you don't like it." And with that, he picked his fork back up, preparing to continue his meal, which meant the conversation was over.
Fyber scowled, boiling at the utter disregard of his opinion on the matter. He stared for another moment, unsure even himself of what he was about to do. But then some unconscious part of him decided for him, and he turned, marching back towards the exit of the restaurant. It wasn't until now that he realized that some of the other patrons had been watching the disruption, but they casually turned back to their food at the realization that it was over, probably not having understood any of the crazy American conversation anyway.
"Aw Prof, come on." disapproved Fizz Man, providing the only vocal response to the situation. Everyone else was left to exchange uncomfortable glances.
Prof's voice was the last thing Fyber heard before he left the building. "Guess we'll need another engineer faster than I thought."
- - -
Fyber had flown off into that dreadful evening, heading for anywhere that wasn't there. Eventually he'd left the storm behind, but it was only a short matter of time until what was left of the sun had faded again of its own accord, settling darkness over all of Europe this time. He hadn't actively paid attention to the direction he'd headed in until realizing that his small craft had taken more permanent damage than just a lightning-scarred exterior.
He'd ended up following a random airport VOR signal in order to find civilization, having listened to its incessant morse code chatter for what seemed like ages in the ailing craft until finally setting down in a place called Dugny, residing in the neighboring France as it turned out. With his ship hidden along the outskirts of town, and protected by his trusty robot guard turtle Gordon, Fyber had managed to fumble through conversation with the French locals well enough to get a ride into Paris, which was about 30 minutes south of Dugny.
After that, Fyber had stopped keeping track of the days. They would later prove to be a major turning point for everyone, but for those next few days, Fyber did nothing but ignore any and all obligation. After five years of being aboard the Hazard Labship, it was a peculiar experience. And a welcome one. He had real money, and it had bought him a place to stay and plenty of food to eat, leaving him to wander The City of Light from dusk till dawn if he chose, completely free of burden.
Eventually, when the appeal of gazing at the Eiffel Tower's architectural majesty had worn off, he'd had the fybership crated up and shipped home; home now being the southeast United States again, as it had once been so long ago. But he'd never noticed the emergency beacon flashing on the console inside the ship. Not until after arriving back in the States. And that's when he'd learned the news.
The Hazard Labship was gone.
Fyber hadn't believed it until he stood at the base of the twisted wreck that had once been his home, which laid pitifully at the base of a nondescript mountain, in the middle of nowhere. He hadn't stayed long, for this wasn't the end which Fyber had always imagined for the labship. Especially after hearing the cliffnotes edition of how it happened.
Apparently the plan to catch the Morag had continued on schedule regardless of the events of the night beforehand. And Prof's hunch had proven true, for they ended up finding the Morag after all, lurking in Loch Morar just as the fisherman had said. Even more surprisingly, they had managed to grapple the beast, regardless of the device's incomplete calibration. The brownish plesiosaur turned out to be a good ten feet longer than that from Loch Ness, confirming yet another of Prof's hunches.
But that was about when their luck would run out. Those extra ten feet were apparently full of concentrated meanness, because the beast had no intentions of leaving its home without a fight. Once it started struggling and whipping its mammoth tail against the labship's hull, the incomplete grappler was unable to hold onto it adequately. And before the beast dove back into its murky loch, it made sure to rip its shackle clear off of its much larger foe. The grappler, winch, and a chunk of labship went following it back into the depths, scarring the labship as it fell. That was when they decided to get out of there before it came back for round two.
The crew had tried its best to repair the damage, but the labship was left to limp its way back across the Atlantic, bleeding smoke from its wounds. They eventually reached America, and located a remote spot to set down and attempt further repairs. But that had been it for the Hazard Labship. With its last waning breaths, it had warned them of its inescapable demise with the systems failure alarm, and by the time the once mighty ship had fallen into the mountain, most of the crew had escaped without injury. Or without physical ones, at least.
The way Fyber understood it, emotions afterwards were mixed. Some blamed Fyber for leaving, not buying into the tales of Prof's misdeeds. Some blamed Prof for letting Fyber go, or going ahead with a mission that they weren't prepared for. Others remained indifferent, just trying to keep the team together. Whatever the case, Hazard Labs as it had been was no more. Some parted ways, and what happened to Prof and his remaining crew, Fyber didn't know.
Fyber currently stood at the edge of a broad cavern mouth, leaning against one its stone walls. It was half-way up a tall rocky knoll, with a serpentine path up its front, located somewhere in the southeastern U.S. As he looked out over the mountainous landscape, and towards sun cresting over the distant peaks, he reflected on those events now of his past. He regretted that the labship had met such a tragic end. Despite Prof's intentions, part of him had hoped that it would continue its routine missions to the corners of the globe for a long time to come. And even more importantly than that, he'd never wanted to see the crew end up splintered as it now was.
Could he go back, he might have handled it differently, but he still had no regrets of leaving. These last few weeks had left him reenergized, and with a new passion to build and create. There were no schedules to keep or lists to finish now. He would have to worry about money again one day, but for the time being, he tried not to concern himself with it. And as he looked back over his shoulder, at the cavern leading back into the knoll behind him, he knew what he wanted to do next. And the idea of doing it alone, and by his own rules, left him feeling pretty excited.
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