IX.

"Ah! That's much better." Hacker came out of the storage room dressed in a dark sweater and purple lab coat. He had found the outfit while digging around and had made the kids wait outside for him to change. "I feel like a new borg."

With the change of clothes, he seemed to carry himself with more confidence as well as condescension, despite his unremitting status as their prisoner. Jackie was already started to regret not making him return to the garden right away. Any desire to view Hacker in a new light had since vanished, along with her patience.

"How much time do you have until you'll need a recharge?" she prodded, half as a threat, and half actually curious to know. Hacker didn't reply, though he seemed to take her point.

"Bring the cyberturkey here," he said. "There's a computer I can dust off. In the meantime, I'll look this over."

"Guys?" Jackie looked at her teammates, exhausted and not sure how much more she could handle. They still had no idea whether Hacker would actually be able to fix Digit and time was starting to run thin.

"I'll get Digit," Matt sighed. "You guys stay here." Jackie gave him a nod, relieved he'd stepped up. She and Inez went back inside and watched over Hacker like a pair of hawks. The cyborg was studying what appeared to be design notes done on a yellowing piece of paper. He seemed completely immersed, as if reading some kind of philosophical genius for the first time.

"Haha! Even when I was one of Motherboard's little groupies, I was brilliant. Just goes to show genius can't be tethered."

"Oh, give me a break." His excitement made Jackie more than a little uneasy. She glanced around the room, wondering if there might be some things Dr. Marbles wouldn't want getting into Hacker's hands. There was that possibility. But this was Hacker's room, wasn't it? Or at least it had been. There weren't likely to be any secrets he didn't already know about. Then again, he'd apparently forgotten a lot of what he'd once written. There was probably a lot it would have been best for him not to relearn.

Her outbreak caused him to pause and glance back at her with a raised eyebrow. She had been hovering over his shoulder and he now put his arm over the book to make it harder for her to see what was written. Not that she could have understood most of it anyways, as much as she'd tried. Coop wasn't kidding when he'd said Hacker liked to overcomplicate things. She watched him grab a pencil and start making marks over the pages, crossing out sections and making little notes for himself over others.

"Much too inefficient," he mumbled to himself as he worked. "I can do this much better."

Was he actually trying to make improvements? The idea stupefied her and it took her a moment to come to her senses. Whatever he was doing, it wasn't to make their lives any better. And it certainly wouldn't be for Digit's benefit. She slammed her hand down in front of him, cutting him off from his jotting while she spoke her piece.

"Digit doesn't belong to you anymore. You don't have the right to change things," she murmured. "He's perfect the way he is and he's going to stay that way."

"Are you mad!?" Hacker retorted, getting out of his seat and using his height to intimidate her. "That tin-turkey is barely functional compared to what he could be."

"Too. Bad." Jackie put her arms on her hips, not even budging an inch as Hacker glowered down at her. Eventually, whether it was because he didn't care enough to argue the point or became increasingly aware of his draining charge, he sat back down.

"Fine. If you earth brats want your bubble brained bird so much, you can have him."

X.

As soon as the ginger brat returned with Digit, Hacker snatched the cyboid out of his hands and got to work. He couldn't rationalized what had gotten him so agitated all of a sudden. If Digit functioned poorly, it would only play to his benefit. The tin turkey wasn't his problem anymore. Yet there was a nagging feeling. Something he hated, but that being back at Control Central seemed to provoke. Was it his programming reeling in its nasty head, or some misplaced feeling that the tin turkey's incompetence would reflect badly on him?

Whatever the reason for these pesky thoughts, he had no time for them now. He had been up for hours and could feel his faculties start to lag. The last thing he needed was to run out of power away from the Grim Wrecker.

He hooked Digit up to the computer and started to program a new CPU. The one he had currently had seen some damage which was likely the source of the data leakage. Hardly surprising seeing how many times the boid had crash landed in turbulent weather. When he'd first created Digit, he'd never intended for him to navigate windy mountains, snowstorms and high altitudes, otherwise he would have built his wings with more durability.

Even now, if Digit wasn't currently an agent of his greatest foe, he would have opted for a full propeller replacement, otherwise it would only be a matter of time before another leak occurred. As it was, he'd probably just slip in an extra layer of metal to afford the CPU a bit of extra cushioning. Or maybe some kind of gelatinous liquid?

Hacker stopped himself mid-thought. There it was again. His programing, or his misplaced pride, or whatever it was. He didn't have to do anything but the bare minimum to get the heap of metal running again. Yet he itched to. His wicked mind was abuzz with ideas for upgrades and alternations. It had been years since he'd built a bot from scratch. Even Buzz and Delete he had just slapped together with a 'Build-A-Henchmen' manual.

A examination of what was left on the old CPU told Hacker that Marbles and attempted to make changes to the base code. Successfully too, although he would never admit it aloud. The only thing that granted him some satisfaction was that it clashed with a later part of the script he assumed Marbles had never gotten around to deciphering. Despite what he'd told himself, correcting Marbles's mistakes had always brought him inordinate amounts of joy and he couldn't resist it now.

"My magnificent mind has once again done it. And in record time." He said as he held up the finished CPU. He rewarded himself with a slathering of wig gel through his over-styled locks.

"Did you carry that with you to sleep?"

"Yes. Now, zip it."

He turned away from the dark haired brat and set his hands back on the keyboard. Manipulating the code, he was able to disengage the cyboid's system, enabling him to take complete control of his functions. This done, he unlocked the cover shielding Digit's face and limbs. With access restored, he took off the boid's hat and used a screwdriver to remove the lid over the back of his head.

"All those with weak stomachs should look away," he said, remembering something they'd used to say in university during robotics demonstrations.

Hacker pulled away the lid, exposing two little chips connected by a thick mass of wires. He picked up a pair of probes and gently peeled open the mass of wires, looking for the specific one he was meant to cut. As he picked up the scissors, a pair designed especially for operating systems of Digit's size, whose blades were about half the length of his little finger, his hand started shaking. He brushed off the minor jitter, but the closer he brought his hand to Digit's wires, the more the quivers started to look like tremors.

He drew his hand away before it could accidentally snip the wrong cord. It was the confounded lag delaying precision mechanics! In his current state, he probably couldn't scratch his head without poking out an eye. He turned towards the earth brats still peering over his shoulder. Just thinking about uttering the words he was about to say caused him physical pain, but it seemed like there was no other opinion. He summon all the will he could muster as well as an accusatory tone which served to shift the blame.

"You want to help your feathery friend?" he grimaced, shoving the scissors into the bespectacled one's hands. "Now's your chance."

"T-to do what?"

Hacker held up one of his trembling hands. He had to grab it by the wrist to keep it relatively still. "Unless I get very long recharge, I'm going to turn your tin turkey into minced turkey." He gestured matter-a-factly at Digit and got up, inviting one of them to take his seat. The kids looked among each other, trading silent arguments until one spoke up.

"Who has the steadiest hands?"

"Jackie," the other two said in unison.

"Me?"

"You play the piano."

"Piano isn't brain surgery!" She eyed the scissors and kneeled her balled fists into her forehead, screaming in panic on the inside.

"I guess I could do it. I have the smallest hands. That counts for something right?"

"Are you sure, Inez?"

"It's okay I'll be careful. You're talking to the Queen of Operation from her preschool class," she chuckled, not sounding too self-assured of that particular credential. She slipped her fingers into the scissor's holes and practiced aiming and snipping them. Putting her free hand under her wrist to keep it completely steady.

"You don't even have to understand what you're doing," Hacker scoffed, more to mock than to reassure. He hadn't gone to school for over a decade just for his job to be forcible outsourced to a little girl. "Just do exactly what I tell you. Child's play. Wait, how old are you again?"

"Nine."

"Hmm. The tin turkey's toast."