CHAPTER 4 The Obligatory Lab Scene (No really, that's the title)
"Alright has the current been set?" Professor Carleton asked.
The long brown haired female technician in a lab coat on the professor's left nodded where she held a black box covered with rows of knobs, switches and a gauge with metal handles on each side. Long wires trailed from jacks at the leading edge of the box to what appeared to be a bright green mat on the floor at the wall just 30 ft away. Big yellow alphabets on the mat spelt out 'WELCOME."
Just a few feet to the right of the first mat was another one slightly bigger, orange in color with the word welcome spelt out in dark green whose wires were at the moment unconnected to a control device.
As the Chief walked down the length of the laboratory floor towards the back of Carleton with Max and 99 trailing him, the professor signaled to a male lab assistant who stood at a control panel against the wall. The man pulled down a lever on the panel and a winch in the ceiling lowered a man sized dummy dressed in a typical black suit and tie and fedora of a KAOS agent towards the green welcome mat.
The moment the shoes of the dummy touched the mat, it seemed to come alive and flipped up on all sides, wrapping the dummy's legs up to the shin and immediately a blinding light flashed repeatedly together with an ear splitting sound of an electrical surge. 99 gasped as tendrils of electricity emitted from the mat crackling over the captive dummy till its clothing began to emit smoke.
"It's shocking! It's shockiiiiiing!" Carleton cried out, his eyes wide open reflecting the flashes from the electrical surge, his fists lifted up to his ears in victory.
Just as the dummy's clothing bursted into flames, Carleton signaled the female assistant who promptly switched off the electricity and flicked a switch causing the mat to flop back down flat on the floor as mat's do.
"Good! Good! Get that into production right away!" Carleton instructed the woman who nodded and walked off while other lab assistants extinguished the blazing dummy with fire extinguishers.
"I see the new anti-intruder countermeasure is coming along fine." The Chief noted.
"Yes! Yes! Yes!" Carleton declared turning around, the excitement in his eyes overshadowing his bald head and haggard features. "I've added self-actuating, microfilament driven high tensile, steel bands inside the mat enabling it to wrap around the legs of the intruder so it won't' matter if he's wearing rubber boots or shoes!"
99 found it unnerving that Carleton was so enthusiastic at the prospect of causing a painful death even to an enemy.
"How many volts is that?" Max asked just as enthusiastically.
"The one we just tested," Carleton pointed out, maniacal smile set on his face. "is capable of discharging three THOUSAND volts and the new high capacity batteries I've invented will enable the mat to maintain the charge for at least TEN minutes! Guaranteed to stop the biggest, strongest, most ruthless, brutal and merciless KAOS assassins! The other one, reserved for even MORE dangerous enemies, discharges FIFTY thousand volts for at least HALF an HOUR."
"What's more dangerous than the biggest, strongest, most ruthless, brutal and merciless KAOS assassins?" 99 asked letting out a deep breath.
"IRS agents." Carleton and Max chorused
"Professor, have you made any progress with tracking the KAOS radio transmissions?" the Chief came to the point.
"Some." Carleton replied leading them over to a work bench laid out with a myriad of equipment in various stages of assembly and completion.
"This is what we have so far." The professor said taking hold of a stainless steel briefcase on the table and laying it down on its side. "Oh, before that, Eighty-Six, we've replaced the armor plating and windshields on your car and been looking to pass this over to you—"Carleton looked for a moment among the various equipment on the table and picked up a black box the size of a cigarette pack and opened it up to reveal a slender device with a few buttons on it. "—the remote control we were working on for the Anti-Grenade Mechanism in your car. You'll be able to control the hand remotely with it and even set it to carry out simple automated tasks from picking up hazardous materials to even providing cover fire with a firearm."
"Tell me professor," Max asked looked at the remote control in his hand. "is that robot hand bullet proof?"
"Well," Carleton paused in opening the steel briefcase "it's constructed from a reinforced, heat treated, high-grade titanium tungsten alloy so—yes, it could withstand continuous point-blank impact from ordnance up to fifty caliber."
"Yeah, well, you need da tell that to the hand." Max grimaced passing the remote off to 99.
Everyone stared at Max with some bewilderment even as Carleton opened the briefcase to reveal a device resting inside a cushioned shaped slot. It resembled a handheld camera with a pistol grip but instead of a camera lens, it featured a small radar dish like device at the end of two rods extending from the main body. The dish itself featured 2 miniature folded dipole antennas.
"This is the KX-A1." Carleton announced turning to face his audience with the device. "It's a high powered radio wave receiver, transmitter and sensor. We've calibrated it to detect the frequency spike from the KAOS shortwave that CONTROL Central had been monitoring. There is an audio alert that will beep with increasing frequency as you near the source of the transmission. Once the KX-A1 locks onto the KAOS transmission, the beep switches to a continuous tone and you press the trigger switch—"Carleton clicks said switch with his index finger on the pistol grip. "—and the KX-A1 will transmit a specially calibrated continuous VHF burst that will unscramble the KAOS transmission, allowing us to listen in and track it."
A jubilant smile broke on the Chief's face for the first time in the day.
"That's brilliant professor! So you've done it! We can finally locate and track down the KAOS radio station!"
Carleton's expression remained pensive as he raised a hand, lowering his head slightly.
"I'm afraid not Chief. For that, we really need more time. This module will only be able to detect, lock on and unscramble the KAOS transmission within a one mile radius."
"One mile?!" the Chief exclaimed while Max looked up at the ceiling in dismay and 99 closed her eyes in disappointment. "What…what about jamming it?"
"Not yet." Carleton shook his bald head. "The KAOS shortwave technology is more advance than anything we've seen so far. Now given more time we could eventually detect them from a distance and jam them but at this moment this is the best we can do I'm afraid. I'll keep working on it of course."
The Chief sighed and declared.
"Alright professor. Make this your top priority, all other projects on hold!" as Carleton nodded, the Chief turned to this two agents. "Alright Max, Ninety-Nine. It's up to you two. Head down to the area identified by CONTROL Central and see if you can spot ANYTHING that can help us pinpoint the KAOS radio station."
"Right Chief." Max nodded before turning to Carleton and lifting his left foot up to remove his shoe. "Oh before we go professor, I need a refill on that emergency smoke pellet. I used up mine a week ago."
"Oh, no problem." Carleton said taking the shoe and twisted open the heel compartment while searching among his equipment for the smoke pellets.
"A week ago?" the Chief frowned "Your only assignment during that time was overseeing surveillance on Krycek. I don't remember any report involving use of the smoke pellet?"
"Oh, uh, well…" Max replied with hesitation "...it didn't' happen on a case you see. It happened when I was at a dance club."
"A dance club?!" the Chief exclaimed while 99's eyes widened in disbelief.
"Yes." Max replied smiling from ear to ear. "With Verena.—" 99's eyes narrowed instantly and her soft lips pressed together in annoyance as Max parted his dark blue single breasted suit jacket to hook his thumbs into his vest pockets, chest puffing up with sheer ego and even raising himself up unevenly on his socked and shoed toes momentarily. "—She's a stewardess from Swissair on layover that I met. She could really KICK her heels high and keep them UP!" Max kept smiling, thumbs inside vest pockets as he continued while the Chief shook his head in dismay. "Well, I showed her that as a first class athlete and gold medalist in the CONTROL Spy School's high jump, my heels could go JUST as high as her's could!—They just couldn't defy gravity indefinitely like her's. But she was certainly impressed E-NOUGH believe me! And by the way, the smoke came in PRET-TY handy when she did!"
Max finished his bragging, smiling and nodding all around but stopped immediately when he realized for some unfathomable reason, 99 was staring at him with slit eyes, elegant brows furrowed in a concentration that could melt the reinforced, heat treated, high-grade titanium, tungsten alloy of the anti-hand grenade mechanism.
"What?" Max asked 99 who simply turned her head away from him her features immobile while the Chief just buried his face in one hand, shaking his head.
"Here you go Eighty-Six." Carleton said handing the shoe back to Max but yanked it back for a moment as the secret agent reached for it. "And for heaven's sakes, DON'T stamp your FOOT again when you put it on! It took us THREE hours last time to air out the lab!"
Max snatched back his shoe and put it on, scowling and grumbling at an equally angry Carleton.
"Alright, let's not waste any more time!" the Chief said hands gesturing for emphasis. "Both of you better get going."
"We won't let you down Chief." 99 promised as she picked up the briefcase with the KX-A1.