Chapter 2

With winter fast approaching, the scrapyard was chilly. The cold reminded Thomas of home, that and the contest he was currently locked in. The metal folding chair had been freezing when he'd sat down, but his body heat had probably warmed it up by now. Honestly, he couldn't really feel it since his whole body was freezing. Thomas only had on a pair of jeans and a thin, long sleeved shirt. He stoically stared at his opponent, frustrated by the old kat's relaxed posture.

On all accounts it didn't make sense. Jake Clawson was a thin, short kat with light brown fur, and his endurance to the cold air was absurd. White mist streamed out of Thomas' mouth, hanging in the air before dissipating, and his skin twitched as he tried to keep his body from shivering. He couldn't feel his face, but he wasn't going to lose! No matter how cold he got, he'd endure the discomfort, he'd even power through frostbite!

Recognizing the stupidity of his thoughts, Thomas McClauser hopped to his feet and vigorously rubbed his arms. "Alright, alright! You win you old coot!"

Jake smirked at the grey colored kat, "Hmm? I'm sorry, I must have misheard you. A macho kat like yourself wouldn't possibly give up so easily." He crossed his right leg over his left.

Thomas rolled his eyes, "Can we just go back inside a crack open a six of milk already?"

"Pretty sure Chance drank the last one," Jake said, folding up his chair, "I think it was your turn to restock."

Thomas furrowed his brow and pondered if he was getting paid enough to deal with this garbage; well, it wasn't the pay that was keeping him here. He'd lost every single contest with Jake, which was incredibly suspicious. However, since Jake was his employer, Thomas wasn't going to toss around accusations. He'd buy his time until Jake slipped up, and Chance was around to see it.

Entering the dingy garage, warm air blasted Thomas' face, bringing a wave of relief over his body. Setting the chair against the wall, he reached for the thermostat.

"Hey, don't touch the thermostat," Jake scolded walking to the fridge, "we have to save money."

Thomas glared at Jake and muttered under his breath, "Can't afford to turn up the thermostat, but we can afford to maintain a secret hanger forty feet underground?"

Jake popped open the fridge and pulled a white can out.

"I thought you said we were out of milk?" Thomas couldn't help but smile, as the anticipation built.

Jake shrugged, "Guess I was wrong." He paused, claw on the can's pop top, when he saw Thomas smiling. He cracked open the top.

Thomas broke out into a mirthful fit of laughter as a guizer of white erupted all over his employer. He knew there was one can left and that Jake would end up getting it, the old coot had a knack for getting what he wanted. So, Thomas had made sure to treat the can to a vigorous shakedown.

Jake's body violently convulsed, accompanied by a faint sizzling sound. His fur stood on end and his facial muscles twitched.

"Are you okay!" Thomas asked, cautiously approaching Jake.

"Yeah," Jake wheezed, stiffly making his way towards the bathroom, "I- I just need to use the bathroom."

Thomas bit his cheek, worried about his boss' health. The older kat didn't seem to be suffering from a heart attack, but what was with that sudden shudder, and why did Thomas smell burnt hair? Grinding gravel roused him from his thoughts and called him to the window. The Enforcers had already sent their scheduled shipment of… whatever those things were, so who was driving in? Maybe another citizen had mistaken the Enforcer scrapyard for the city dump? Most likely it was a regular bringing in their older junker for a tune-up. However, Thomas was perplexed by Chance's truck pulling out front since Jake had said he wasn't coming in today.

Thomas snagged his rough, leather coat on his way out and slipped it on as a kat in a pink sweater hopped out the passenger seat; hurrying to the tow truck's side. Thomas had been wondering if Jessie was going to show up today. So far, the little twig had been rummaging around every day this week. Kid probably had some college project he was working on, since his visits weren't usually so frequent.

"Howdy boss," Thomas scratched the back of his head, "what you doing back here? Thought you took the day off."

Chance nudged Jessie, "Jess here came to see my daughter, and I didn't like the idea of him walking all the way here alone."

"I've walked further," Jessie protested.

Thomas nodded, "Well, what can I help you with today, Jessie?" Thomas didn't know Jessie all that well, but the lanky kat seemed to have a good heart.

"I'm looking to salvage some circuitry and sensors from those radar dishes the Enforcers recently replaced."

Thomas furrowed his brow and glanced at Chance, "Now, hold up. I get Jessie here is a friend of yours, boss, but that sounds like some grade-A Enforcer tech."

"What, you're afraid he'll make a doomsday device out of scrapped parts?" Chance smugly said.

"I don't know, sir," Thomas growled, brow furrowed, "you could make a lot of weird stuff with this junk. Missiles with buzz-saws on top, missiles that shoot supersonic sound, missiles with blowtorches on t-"

"I get it!"

Thomas folded his arms and frowned, "So, ya see where I'm comin from, sir?"

Chance rubbed his temple, "Yeah, but I don't think the mayor's son is going to do anything terrible."

"Well, maybe…" Thomas' head jerked towards Jessie, brow raised and lips pursed. Wait, what!? Did he just… "Jessie, what is your last name?"

Jessie adjusted his glasses, "Briggs."

The little toothpick had been coming around to the scrapyard before Thomas had even started working there. He'd root through the scrap with such focus that Thomas didn't want to break it, so they'd never really had an in-depth conversation. However, he still felt like somebody should have at least mentioned that mayor Briggs' son was rooting around in broken machines.

"Has that never come up?" Jessie asked, ears drooping, "Sorry, dude, I guess I never mentioned it."

"Well, I…" Thomas scratched the side of his snout, "Look, it's fine. What were you looking for again?"

"Scrapped Radars."

"Right…" Thomas glanced toward the garage, "Where did we put those things again?" He pondered.

"Shouldn't be too hard to find, right?" Jessie asked, turning his head to Chance.

"Harder than you might think," Chance said gesturing at the mountains of junk metal, "Stuff gets shifted around a lot."

Thomas bit his lip. The radars might not even be out there. He'd helped Jake carry some scrap into the bunker earlier that day. Was Jake using those radar parts? "Uh, maybe Jake knows where to start looking?"

Chance nodded, "That's what I was thinking."

"Wow, will I actually meet Mr. Clawson?" Jessie asked. Jessie had heard about Jake Clawson, Chance's partner, but he'd never actually seen the elusive kat. The closest he'd ever gotten to Jake was Thomas going to ask him a question. But there was that one time he'd narrowly avoided getting smashed by a loose propeller falling off it's rotor. Somebody had pulled him out of the way and saved him from a trip to the emergency room. When Jessie had steadied himself, nobody was around to thank, and Thomas denied having been his hero.

Chance furrowed his brow, "Maybe," he sighed, "I'm going to head back home, okay Tom?"

"I'd have to have some Dark Kat level cruelty to keep you from your family, sir."

Chance grinned and patted Thomas on the shoulder, "Make sure the mayor's son doesn't get squashed by a falling fridge, kid."

As Chance drove away Thomas firmly gripped Jessie's shoulder, his fingers digging in, "No pressure, right?"

Jessie tried to shake off Thomas, but bulky, grey Kat's grip was like an iron vice tightened to the max, "Come on, I've been here a thousand times. You don't have to worry about me, you know."

"That was before I knew you were Callie Briggs' boy," Thomas said, firmly directing Jessie to the garage.

"Is it really that big a deal?" Jessie grumbled.

"You don't get it," Thomas reluctantly loosened his grip, "Callie is a friend of my bosses, if anything happened to you on my watch, well, not only would I have the wrath of the mayor coming down on me, but also them."

"You know, my mom never mentioned she knew Chance and Mr. Clawson," He cocked his head to the side, "Well, she knows Chance because of Cathy's mom, but how does she know Jake?"

"They… worked with her."

Jessie raised a brow at that, "What does…" He snapped his fingers, "They used to work on my mom's car before I was old enough to do it, right?"

Thomas pursed his lips, "Yeah, I guess. They, uh, never went into detail about that," he lied, "What were you looking for again?"

"Radar parts," Jessie reminded him once more, "the electronics specifically."

"Right," Thomas opened up the garage's front door, glad to have the subject changed.

They made there way into the garage's dingy break room where Thomas motioned Jessie to take a seat on the ratty brown sofa. The scratched table top, in front of the couch, was covered in magazines, take out boxes, and soda cans. "I'll go find Jake, okay? We just got cable a few weeks ago, so there should be something on there to keep you busy." Thomas hoped that Jessie would stay put, he didn't need the curious kat to be rummaging about and sticking his nose where it didn't belong. He headed into the back and stopped at the bathroom. Thomas knocked on the wooden door, "Hey, Jake, I need your help with a customer."

No answer.

"Jake?" Thomas gently turned the knob. To his surprise the door was unlocked and easily swung open into the cramped bathroom. There was the faint smell of burnt fur in the air, but nobody was inside. Thomas looked about, his eyes skimming the mirror above the sink, but only his own tiger stripped face was there. He furrowed his brow, as far as he was aware there wasn't any secret passages in the bathroom. Thomas bit his cheek and glanced down the hall. Was Jake in the hanger? If so, Thomas couldn't just open the secret hatch while there was somebody in the garage.

"For crying out loud, Jake," Thomas quietly grumbled he went to close the door only to see something glinting behind the toilet. He squatted down and pulled out a large metal device. It was light weight and warm to the touch. Whatever it was it looked like a metal skeleton with strips of Velcro along key points of the structure. Similar, thin metal pipes crossed over the chest to form a ribcage. Thomas slung it over his shoulder and left the bathroom.

"What is that?" Jessie asked as Thomas came back into the room.

"No idea," Thomas tossed it onto the table, knocking over several empty cans.

Jessie reached out and dragged the metal structure towards him. Thomas' own curiosity allowed the thin kat to tinker with the thing.

"Interesting," Jessie mumbled, "heating coils along the arms and chest… how is it powered though?"

"Now, hold on. Did you say heating coils?" Thomas clenched his fists.

"Yeah," Jessie flipped a latch on the side and opened the chest plate, "looks like some circuits got shorted out," he looked up at Thomas, "Where did you get this?"

Taking a deep breath, Thomas sighed, "I'm guessing Jake made it to win a little contest we had going on."

Jessie's ears drooped and he tilted his head, "You mean he cheated?"

Thomas pinched the bridge of his snout and sighed. He smiled and a gentle chuckle escaped him, "Makes sense, how else was that old fart going to beat me at anything?"

Jessie looked around, "Where is he?"

Thomas shrugged, "No idea, but maybe we'll run into him in the yard?"

He helped Jessie to his feet and lead him out into the scrapyard. The two meandered through the paths and valleys that cut through the scrap hills around them.

"It'll probably be on top…" Jessie frowned at the imposing hills around him, "You know, since it's new."

Thomas pressed his boot against a sheet of metal beside them. He leaned forward and felt the metal buckle underneath his weight and the mound of loose metal shift. They weren't getting up from here, it was too unstable. Thomas stroked the end of his muzzle and searched for an alternate route up, "Why do you need this stuff anyway?"

Jessie adjusted his glasses, "It's for a special project."

"Which would be?"

Jessie nervously fiddled with his paws, "Well… I guess you won't tell her."

Ah, was it really surprising that this was all for a she-kat? "Looking to build something for a girl, huh?"

"I want to make her a new paw."

"Oh! Well hey, that would impress any girl, wouldn't it?"

"It's not like that! We're old childhood friends."

"Mmhmm."

"She's like my older sister!"

"Sure."

Jessie pursed his lips and his face flushed. Why did nobody believe that he and Cathy were just friends?

"We store the fine electronics closer to the garage."

The two young kats jumped as a third voice suddenly sounded inches behind them. Jessie turned to see a shorter old kat in a faded blue jumpsuit. How had he snuck up on them like that?

"Oh, hey boss," Thomas said, nodding at the kat.

Jessie looked to Thomas then back to the kat who had snuck up on them. "Boss?" He muttered under his breath. So, this was Jake? Jessie had pictured him being… taller. Despite this being their first meeting, Jessie felt like he'd seen Jake somewhere before.

Jake motioned back to the garage, "I like keeping those things close in case I need to repair the TV."

Jessie followed the older kat, brow furrowed. Those parts couldn't be used to repair the dinosaur of a TV he'd seen in the garage, but maybe he'd meant the TV dish?

Jessie occasionally glanced at Jake in hopes of remembering where he'd seen him before. Jake wasn't that much shorter than Jessie, who was about an inch or two taller than Jake. The older Kat's fur was an orangish brown and tufts of fur drooped behind his jaw, a style common for kats back in the day. However, most Megakat citizens liked to keep things a bit more trimmed. Jessie, however, was a bit scruffier since he never remembered to trim the fur around his muzzle.

"What's your power source?" Jake asked.

"Hm?" Jessie said, roused from his thoughts.

Jake's eyes shifted away as the younger kat looked at him. The older kat cleared his throat, "For this prosthetic paw of yours. I assume it's going to be some kind of biomechanical design."

Thomas was quickly lost in the conversation as the two kats started using words with too many syllables and somehow too few syllables. He'd catch snippets, like, something about a new Pumadyne battery Jessie had gotten his paws on. But, all and all, Thomas was a mediocre mechanic, not an engineer. However, as they conversed, Jake's expression eased and his body language became more relaxed. Must have been nice for the old coot to finally have somebody to talk to about technology.

"Thomas showed me this gadget you made," Jessie said, snapping his fingers, "I couldn't figure out where the power source was though."

Jake's brow quickly furrowed as he glanced at Thomas. "What gadget was that?"

"I didn't have a clue. But Jessie here says it was some sorta… heat suit?" Thomas grumbled at the older kat.

"Oh! That…" Jake nervously chuckled, "that was, um, a little experiment I was working on."

Thomas sighed and shook his head. He firmly grabbed Jake's shoulder and pressed two fingers against the side of the older kat's neck.

"What are you doing!?" Jake cried out, stiffening up.

"I'm guessin that thing shorted out when you spilled milk on yerself, boss. I'm just making sure yer heart beats consistent." Thomas sighed in relief and rolled his shoulders, "Yer fine."

Jake smiled and rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeesh, I'm not a fragile egg."

Thomas sternly glared at his employer, "An electrical pulse can destabilize the heart's natural rhythm, it doesn't matter how old you are."

"You didn't have to bring age into it, you know."

"And you didn't have to cheat," Thomas countered.

"Are you looking to be a nurse?" Jessie interjected, earnestly. It had occurred to Jessie that he'd never asked the bulky kat about himself.

"Maybe, I did choose to learn some medical training while I was in prison."

"Well that's pretty ne-" Jessie paused, fully processing the last part of Thomas' statement. "Ugh, well," he nervously coughed, "about those sensors?"

Jake lead them around the garage to a spaghetti mess of wires and cables. Metal boxes, with numerous dials and displays, sat haphazardly around. A small pile of radar dishes were carefully placed in a clear space. He reached into his overall pocket and pulled out a screwdriver. The sound of clicking latches caused him to turn around. Jessie was elbow deep in the tool cart he'd been lugging around. The light furred kat would occasionally bring out a tool, examine it, then toss it back into the chest.

"I find you don't usually need more than a screwdriver to take these things apart." Jake said, smirking.

Jessie looked up from his rummaging, "I'm clearing some space for a few sensor boxes."

"You're not going to work on them here?" Jake asked.

Jessie looked at Jake, puzzled, "That would be a terrible idea. There are a thousand things here that could wreck the components. I'll take them apart back home and bring the scraps back. That's how I usually do it, anyway."

"I… I guess that makes sense." Jake sounded disappointed, "Let me help you take off the dishes then."

"Thanks," Jessie said, pulling a multi-tool from his pocket."

"Guess I'll just sit over here until ya need somebody to remove a rusty bolt then," Thomas sighed and sat on a bundle of cable as if they were a wiry bean bag chair.

Jake dropped to one knee and picked up a radar dish, "Hmm, looks like I was wrong, we'll need a special screwdriver for these, twelve star-"

Jake's explanation was cut short as Jessie snapped his fingers, "You used to come fix my mom's car!"

Jake's body tensed up, "I… well… Chance and I both did."

"But you would come to our house. When I was eight you started teaching me about engines. Thanks to you I got interested in mechanical engineering!"

Jake sheepishly smiled, "So, who got you interested in biomechanical engineering?"

"Well, technically that was Cathy," Jessie postulated, scooting the detached dish from the sensor box.

Jake was surprised by the sheer speed the younger kat had worked.

"When I heard that Cathy lost her paw, I started researching the subject."

Jake sat up and watched as Jessie quickly unbolted the next dish, cut the wires connecting it to the sensor box, and set it in his tool cart.

"Wait, you've been making an advanced prosthetic with only a year's worth of study?"

Jessie paused and glanced skyward, "Yyyyeah, that's about right."

"… How has that been coming along?" Jake asked as Jessie put the third, and final, sensor box into his tool cart.

"Reaction time is too slow with the equipment I'm using," Jessie grumbled, "I was tempted to ask my mom for more Pumadyne parts, but I figured I'd be pushing my luck. She's already mad I'm not going to college."

"You're not going to college!" Jake exclaimed. The fur on the back of his neck stood up and his tail stiffened.

"Spending that much money on learning stuff I can learn on my own, well, it's just wasteful." Jessie muttered, rehearsing the line he'd told over and over.

Jake furrowed his brow and clenched his fists, "It's about being certified. Without a degree people won't believe you have the skills you say you do."

Jessie returned Jake's disapproving look with a disdainful one. What made Jake feel like he had the right to criticize him like that? Sure, his argument was better than his mom's, but he and Jake didn't have any sort of connection. It wasn't like Jake had been an authority figure in his life, so why was he acting like it?

Jessie stood up and dusted off his paws, "Well, thanks for your help, but I really need to get home." He got enough criticism from strangers, he didn't need anymore. Jessie grunted and tugged the tool cart onto its wheels.

"You want me to drive you?" Thomas asked, struggling to his feet.

"I'm fine," Jessie bluntly growled, "Besides, what if somebody needs a tow? You've only got the one truck here."

Jessie had a point, after all he'd walked home with far more junk before, and later in the day too. Jessie would probably get home well before the sun went down. Thomas nodded and gave the thin cat a little wave goodbye. Thomas glanced at Jake; the older kat was looking wistfully after Jessie. With a tired sigh, Jake wandered back to the garage.

Now, Thomas was not the kind of kat to pry into other people's affairs. So, he wasn't going to ask what that outburst was about, nor why Jake looked so sad to see Jessie go, and Thomas especially wasn't going to ask about the uncanny resemblance between Jake and Jessie. That was a can of worms he didn't want to stick his tail into.