At Grid Battleforce headquarters, Eli was in his cell, finishing getting dressed after cleaning up after his workout. He had been brought some clothing to wear, some things from his luggage which Commander Shaw had collected from his motel room. Betty had gotten him some clean clothing from his collection to wear. He was just finishing putting on his kutte, smiling as he was reunited with his second skin, when the door opened and Commander Shaw walked in. She stopped dead seeing him standing before her as he turned around.
"The head honcho. I am honoured." Eli stated.
"I'm guessing someone in holding got you that." She said, gesturing to his kutte. Eli just nodded.
"Yeah, they were really nice about it." He said in response.
"Well, I'd appreciate it if you'd take it off around the base. I'm not too comfortable with people wearing gang colours around my base." She told him flatly. He just crossed his arms defiantly.
"You want to ask me to remove my skin while you're at it?" He asked.
"No, but since we're the ones keeping you here, in relative comfort instead of in Gen Pop at county, I'd have thought you might show a little appreciation." She responded, looking at him just as defiantly. She had been in the presence of war criminals, people whose crimes against humanity were so horrific that they'd likely never see the light of day again now they were in custody. She wasn't in the slightest intimidated by Eli as a result. He just looked around her.
"No escort." He commented. "So, am I free to go?"
"No, it's a courtesy." She replied. "Come with me. I need to ask you some questions."
"I'm good here, thanks." He responded.
"That wasn't a request." She said, pulling out some handcuffs. Eli just chuckled a little.
"Well, why didn't you say so?" He replied, before strolling out of the cell. Commander Shaw put the handcuffs away, before joining him in the hall, leading him towards interrogation.
Ben was wandering the corridors, his face buried in a device that was periodically emitting little mechanical bleeps, which seemed to get progressively more frequent. He had once again been roped into going along with one of his sister's schemes. This time, she wanted to finish work on a tracking device they had been working on.
He loved his twin sister dearly, but throughout their lives she'd always been the dominant personality. She just kind of had this way of being not only very decisive in what she wanted but also single-minded in how she wanted to go about getting it. It was sometimes an admirable trait, and had gotten her some success in her life, but at other times it just seemed to end up getting her in trouble, particularly when she had a bad idea that no matter how much anyone tried, no one could convince her was a bad idea until she experienced the fallout for herself.
Ben had always been a lot meeker. He wasn't so much a doormat, though he understood a lot of people saw him that way, but he did have a much lower threshold for comfort whenever people weren't happy with him. His default setting was to just go along with what other people said and did as a way to avoid conflict. He would, of course, stand up if he thought what someone was asking him to do was seriously wrong or put those he cared about in danger, but especially with his sister, his compliant nature did mean he could be led into doing a lot of things he really didn't want to.
The scanner seemed to indicate he was right on top of her, that he had found her location, but as he looked up, he saw Nate standing by the ice cream machine, trying to get himself a cup by the looks of things. The fact it was still before lunch really didn't make much difference. Nate had a sweet tooth, and Grid Battleforce in general tried to keep him happy, which meant they had a machine in the hall only a short way from his lab. He was slapping the machine, looking into the mechanism.
"You're not Betty!" Ben stated. Nate just looked to him, puzzled and amused, just shaking his head at him. He had no idea what Ben was talking about and he had a feeling that he probably didn't want to. Ben and Betty were pretty good helpers when they put their minds to it, but whenever they had too much time on their hands or whenever Betty had one of her brilliant ideas, it was generally considered a good idea not to ask too many questions. It was usually far more productive and a lot safer for all involved to just stand back, clear of the inevitable results.
"Not the last time I checked." Nate responded.
"I'm testing out a new tracking device Betty and I are working on, one that's designed to cut through interference on a hidden signal." He explained to Nate, who was just staring into the mechanism. "Betty's got the tracker tag, but the scanner says she should be right here!"
"Come on! Where's my ice-cream?" Nate complained, clearly not listening to Ben in the slightest. They were both startled as the machine swung open, revealing Betty, sitting cross-legged in the machine. She smiled and looked to her brother.
"Good work Bro. You found me!" She said cheerfully. The feeling was short-lived though, as not long afterwards, some ice-cream was dumped straight on her head. As Ben looked for something to clean up the mess, Commander Shaw and Eli started to walk past. Eli saw her, and gave her a wink.
"Sweet." He said to her. As they carried on their way, Commander Shaw just looked to the mess, shook her head, and went with him. She had a feeling she knew how Eli had gotten hold of his kutte now. Nate just shook his head and went back to his lab to complete his work. It looked like ice-cream would have to wait until Ben and Betty cleaned up their mess.
When he got there, Zoey was lying on his fold-out couch, looking miserable. She'd turned up pretty early on, looking like she hadn't slept much, and Nate had offered to let her rest there. He had a feeling that she wasn't in a particularly great mood, but he didn't want to press the matter until she was willing to talk. He put the cups down and went back to his workbench.
"Ben and Betty were screwing around with the machine." He said regretfully. "I'll get that ice-cream later."
"Sounds about par for the course the way my day's going." She sighed. Nate went back to working on his latest weapon, leaving her to rest up and gather her thoughts. Eli hadn't been in the city in a couple of years, but he did have a talent for bringing drama with him whenever he showed up.
"Your brother?" Nate asked. "I think I saw him in the hallway with Commander Shaw."
"Great, that's all I need." She muttered. Nate just looked to her.
"Is he really that bad?" Nate asked her. "I saw he was wearing some kind of gang jacket."
"It's a kutte, and he'll tell you it's a motorcycle CLUB he's in." She replied, sitting up. "It doesn't matter the Bastards have been implicated in serious crimes from one end of the country to the other."
She got up and came over to the workbench as he looked to her.
"The worst part is, he wasn't always like this. At one time I really looked up to him." She told Nate. "He was in the infantry. He signed up so that he could go to college. In a way, he was kind of the reason I ended up looking at that as a way to get my own education."
"He was in the military?" Nate asked her. She just nodded.
"He was pretty good too. He got a whole bunch of commendations, even a medal or two." She replied. "There were whispers he was on-track to become an officer, so we were all expecting him to re-enlist when his service was up. But when he came home, he wasn't the same. He ended up joining the 'club' and left town. After that, every now and then we'll hear from him when he's been picked up for something."
Nate didn't know what to say. His experience of the criminal underworld was down to DVD's and the time one of the kids in the same day care group as him once stole one of his cookies. He really had no idea what to say to comfort Zoey about the fact that her brother, who she had at one time looked up to, was a criminal, and that he had only shown up in her life again when he expected him to bail her out. She looked to the weapon in his hands.
"So, what are you working on?" She asked him. It looked a little like a cell phone, but once he pulled out the bottom, it became clear it was a blaster. He went to the weapon's rack, hanging it up alongside some spares, and also some swords of a different design to the ones they used.
"It's just some new weaponry I've been working on." He told her semi-truthfully. It was indeed weaponry, but it was so much more than that. He had his own idea how to boost the Rangers' firepower and strength, but he wasn't willing to reveal how just yet. Commander Shaw wasn't letting him leave the base right now without someone to babysit him, so there was no way she was going to sign off on his plan. That was why he wanted to present it to her after the fact, once it was too late for her to do anything about it.
"Aw, come on, you can tell me." She said, placing a hand on his. She looked to him with those eyes, with that expression that made his knees start to go weak and his mind once again turned to mush.
"I…uh…it's…not quite finished." He told her. He was starting to pack up some supplies and put them into a backpack. "I'll lock the door with my pass code. No one will bother you if you want to stay."
"Nate, where are you going?" She asked him.
"I just have to…uh…" He started to say, trying to think of what to say. "Um…something…um…secret…"
He bumped into Devon and Ravi as they were coming in. Devon looked to his backpack as he came in.
"Nate?" He asked. "Where are you off to?"
Nate was now being ganged up on. He realised that his friends weren't going to let the matter drop. He just rolled his eyes.
"I was developing some weapon prototypes. I was going to upgrade them with some animal DNA." He explained, trying to keep as much of his plan to himself as he could. "So, I was going to go out to the woods and get some insect DNA to work with."
"Hold up!" Ravi said, grabbing him as he was trying to back out of the room. The Rangers surrounded him, not letting him go anywhere. "Dude, you know the rule. You're not supposed to go off the base without an escort."
"I…I wasn't, I…"
"Nate, you never even asked me." Zoey reminded him, looking and sounding rather disappointed. "It's pretty clear you were sneaking out."
He didn't know how long he could keep his plan secret if the others were with him, but seeing the look in her face, he tried to look away again. It was causing him to feel queasy, he hated the idea he was lying to his friends, but especially to Zoey.
"You're too important." Devon reminded him. Nate felt uncomfortable hearing that. On a practical sense, he understood what people meant when they said that. His mind, his knowledge and his skills were quite literally unique. But to him, he always felt uncomfortable with people treating him as being any more valuable than anyone else. All the stories he'd been brought up with as a kid were all about people risking and sacrificing themselves to help others. To him, a life was a life, no more or less worthy of protecting than anyone else's.
"I need this DNA." He replied. "If anything happens, I can handle myself. You all saw that footage from the bunker."
"Yeah, but…the bad guys don't fight fair. That's what we have these for." Devon reminded him, gesturing to the weapons rack.
"Why not let us come along and keep you company?" Zoey asked him. Nate looked into her eyes as she stared at him. He didn't know that jackrabbits had any kind of hypnotic power, but apparently, they did, because somehow, he couldn't find himself saying no to her.
"Alright." He sighed.
"Yes!" Ravi called out, punching the air. "Dude, that's fine with me. If we have to go on business, it means I get to leave the base too. I love this place and my work, but the same walls all day every day? Even I get stir-crazy."
"Alright, let's go." Devon replied.
In the interview room, Eli was sitting, leaning back in his chair, taking a sip from a bottle of mineral water. Commander Shaw was sitting on the other side of the table, leafing through some files.
"It seems you've been busy Mr Reeves." She commented. "This makes some pretty heavy reading."
"What can I say? I like to expand my mind." Eli told her.
"Yes, it seems so." She agreed, pulling up a particular file. "I see you've got a degree in philosophy, along with numerous other academic achievements awarded during some incarcerations."
"I don't like to waste time." Eli replied in an off-hand way. "I like to read. I like to better myself. Education, yoga, tai chi…it's always good to improve mind body and soul."
"I see here you had a rather promising military career." She said, looking at his file. He just threw up his hands.
"I also used to collect POGs." He replied. "It's just one of many things that I used to do."
"So, you leave the military and you join a gang…club." She corrected herself as she saw him shifting to do so. "Since then you've been incarcerated on several occasions for a variety of offences."
"Your point is?" He asked her. She just shook her head in disbelief.
"Mr Reeves, many of these files we found in your possession are marked as classified." She stated. "And I'm sure if I checked, I'd find they're from locations far more secure than the recycling plant."
"I have a talent for getting into places I'm not meant to be." He replied. "If you check my file, you'll see that's a little something I picked up from Uncle Sam. They made quite a lot of use of that talent too."
"Yes, covert ops. That's very impressive." She said impatiently. "Though I doubt you were intended to use that training to break into Government sites and steal classified documents…"
"If you've read all those files, then you should be able to see a common theme among them." Eli responded, leaning forward onto the table and tenting his fingers. "I have a feeling you're astute enough to see what I found."
"Mr Reeves, it is not your place…"
"Then whose place is it?" Eli snapped. "When I was out there, my best friend was shot. The Kevlar in his vest failed."
"That must have been…"
"No, you don't get it. It didn't just fail, it SHATTERED!" He clarified. He grabbed one of the files, showing her the report. "It shattered and the shrapnel from his own vest shredded his insides! It says right here that it was the damage caused by the vest that caused him to bleed out. If he hadn't been wearing the vest at all, he'd probably have had a better chance! He was given body armour to wear that killed him!"
He sat back in his chair.
"I didn't see anyone else doing anything about it, so I started looking on my own." Eli told her. "You want to lock me up for looking at a few documents that were classified to cover for the fact some asshole was sending out equipment that had no business being on a store shelf, never mind a battlefield, then be my guest. But now you've seen this, if you do nothing with it, you're every bit as responsible as he is."
She got up, scooping up the files and heading for the door. She looked to the security guard outside.
"Cole, take Mr Reeves back to holding." She told him. The man outside the door pulled out a set of handcuffs, but Eli just pointed at him.
"That's not necessary. I'll go." Eli told him. "But you try and put those on, you'll be using them as a suppository. You understand me?"
Cole just nodded, before putting the handcuffs away. Eli just walked out the room, heading back towards holding, with Cole not far behind him.
In another part of the city, Blaze and Roxy were watching as Scrozzle directed the Tronics to build the Cyber Gate. Blaze just shook his head.
"So, this thing is going to let Evox's data pass through to this dimension, where we need to put him into a new host." Blaze commented. Roxy just nodded.
"Yeah, that's about the size of it." She replied in an off-hand way. "Kind of like an inter-dimensional game of leapfrog."
"And he had me break into the Black Site in order to steal the tech he's using to build it?" Blaze said, looking less than amused. "That crafty little…"
"I thought you'd have had enough of your petty grudges for one day given that bombshell you dropped on your dad." Roxy commented as she looked to where one of the Tronics was picking up the Neural Aligner, taking it to the end of the Cyber Gate, holding it up while another started to fix it in place. "This isn't about your petty grudges."
"I don't like being played." Blaze snorted.
"Neither do I, and Scrozzle will get his." Roxy assured him, looking back to the Neural Aligner. "But first, let's help Evox get back to this dimension. Then, we'll all get what we want."
"You two! Get over here!" Scrozzle called over, waving them over. Blaze just tensed up as they got up.
"If he keeps ordering me around…"
"Don't worry, I'm right with you on that one." Roxy agreed as they came to his side, admiring his handiwork. "So, we're almost ready?"
"Yes, there's just one last thing I need." Scrozzle told them. "Once Evox had been transported through the portal, he needs to be uploaded into a new robot body."
"Yeah, so go build one." Blaze said with a shrug.
"Yeah, I thought that was the point of your little shopping trip." Roxy added. "Didn't you make a whole lot of robots for the Machine Empire?"
"Yes, and look what happened to them." Scrozzle conceded. "Now the Rangers have been getting taught in classrooms how to destroy them for the last two decades. I figured it might be time to update the design to something that they didn't learn how to wreck in a classroom, and it'd take far too long for me to figure out how to make a robot strong enough to house all of Evox's data AND circumvent any tactics the Rangers have already learned to destroy such a body."
"So, if you're not going to build it, who is?" Roxy asked him.
"The same person that built the super computer he's currently trapped in." Scrozzle responded, handing them a magazine. It was a science and technology journal that had a picture of Nate on the cover. Now that he was a little older, they had relaxed the rules somewhat on releasing images of him to the public for some of his work. "Boy genius designs revolutionary robots, claims that fully integrated cybernetics are close to fruition."
"Ah, that's Nate!" Roxy said in recognition. "You want us to snatch him and force him to build it for you?"
"Precisely." Scrozzle answered. "Presuming, of course, you're up to the task."
"Oh, we're not just up to the task." Blaze assured him. "It'll be fun."