((Welcome to Clawson Labs Blog. These posts may not be chronological over time so I hope they're not too confusing. Clawson Labs Blog is mostly unrelated drabble, but it's in the same timeline as A Chance to Live.))
((I do not own SWAT Kats. I am not profiting from this fanfic in any way shape or form, other than my own amusement and the amusement of others. Some OCs who did not appear in the cartoon belong to me.))
Good morning to you all my blog buddies. Today is a red letter day with three awesome announcements. An anniversary! A grand opening and expansion! And an upcoming special (you might even say 'blessed') event!
Before I get into the announcements I'm gonna reminisce a little like a old Kat is bound to do. I think you're all aware that once upon a time my buddy Chance and I were disgraced Enforcers. I probably don't need to go over the circumstances of how that happened, or how we wound up working the military salvage yard paying for Enforcer Headquarters.
When I first came up with the idea to start Clawson Labs, I didn't plan that things would turn out with a large corporation and a blog with 105,000 weekly followers. I was just trying to get ahead on the bills. I was determined to get out of debt and out from under Feral's thumb (sorry Ulysses, no offense).
The whole crazy idea occurred to me one day back at the salvage yard garage when I was under the hood of a Katillac. I was really frustrated because I couldn't figure out what was wrong with the thing and it belonged to a paying customer. Chance and I were scraping by week to week with our scrapyard mini-salary after what was taken out for our 'you destroyed my new building' debts. Our actual income came from the private garage work, so happy paying customers were important.
I don't know why it hit me right then, but it did. I could manufacture and sell ordnance. I stood up so fast I cracked my forehead on the hood. I was sure I had just hatched the most brilliant idea in history.
I already had plans and ideas for new missiles and all kinds of weapons, and I had tons of supplies since we were poaching off all the military salvage. At first I tried making enough for my new side business all by my lonesome. But it took time to put each piece together. This effort didn't last real long because between the two of us we were already hard pressed just to keep the TurboKat loaded.
I decided I needed to start up a proper business, and that meant I was going to need a loan. This plan did not go well. I was laughed out of every bank in Megakat City. Well you can't really blame the bankers, since I was some nobody with huge debt hanging over my head, no degree, no backers, and no collateral.
So, I patented a variation of the cement launcher and the 'cement' mix I used in Razor's name, and strolled into Puma-Dyne in uniform. Puma-Dyne's execs were more than interested. I was able to sell them rights to the patent, and then I patented the spider missiles and sold that too.
I knew then this crazy idea I'd had could really get off the ground, but not if I started up as Jake Clawson. But recent experience showed me I still had some planning before I could open up shop. I had to work on the product line. I also wanted to track down legit sources for the materials. I coulda pieced it all out of the salvage yard, but I was hoping to get away from what was technically stolen scrap. (After we went public we were actually convicted of theft from the salvage yard. Took a while to straighten that one out.) Anyway with all that prep production didn't actually begin for a year.
But once I was sure I was ready I visited the biggest bank in town in uniform, showed them what I had designed and how Puma-Dyne had leapt at it, and secured a loan right away. Got a building out by the docks and started with two guys and soon had fourteen putting together unorthodox ordnance out of new materials instead of scrap. That I called SWAT Mechanical.
There hadn't been a big threat to Megakat City for a while, not since the Metallikats were last deactivated. Hard Drive was still incarcerated at AlKatraz. Mad Kat was in the asylum. Pasty hadn't come around for a few years. Viper and Dark Kat were laying low.
So I had time to ensure the Turbokat was at peak performance, and perfect the weapons both for it and for my little side business. Chance had time to start a little project of his own, namely, pursuing Felina Feral. He was getting pretty discouraged, cause she didn't seem interested in a grease monkey. Chance figured she was more interested in T-Bone than him and it ate at him.
And then Dark Kat suddenly returned, and stole a prototype tank ship from Pumadyne. In trying to take him out, Dark Crud took us out. Neither of us came out of that unscathed but Chance got the worst of it. That was when my buddy Chance got his head injuries. After that our our lives changed abruptly.
Took a while to get back to the garage and things got harder instead of easier. SWAT Mechanical shut down since I wasn't around to pay the employees. Poor guys lost their jobs and didn't even get their last paychecks. While we were recuperating the garage business dried up and our supervisors Burke and Murray trashed the salvage yard.
My buddy became unsafe to leave alone. I mean it was a miracle he was walking and kinda talking, right? But along with speech issues he'd have these... events is a good word, I guess. He'd be fine and then all of a sudden he'd do something weird, and it was unpredictable. One day not long after we got home he took off in the tow truck while I was down in the hangar, ditched it about 3 miles from the scrap yard, and tried to walk into Megakat City.
He also had some problems with logic. If he went looking for parts it got interesting. He could be looking for, I don't know, a caliper off a brake assembly in the stacks and if one was blue he might come back with a box with one blue caliper buried by other pieces of blue junk that had nothing to do with calipers.
And he'd get lost. In the house, in the yard, would wander down the road and show up who knows where. People would call me to come get him. Instead of improving he was moving backwards.
None of this helped Chance feel any better about himself. He wasn't unaware of the problems. He wasn't stupid. But we were both at our wits ends. It was a struggle some days just for him to get his tail out of bed, between head injury fatigue and being plain depressed.
I was finding it nearly impossible to rebuild two businesses while also keeping an eye on Chance. Then much to my surprise, Felina started showing up after her work hours to hang. Chance wasn't gonna let an opportunity like that go by. He turned on all the 'Chance charm'. Since Felina already knew we were the SWAT Kats, we showed her everything. Chance and Felina spent almost two hours in the hangar that first day, just him showing off the Turbokat's engines, and 'talking' shop talk.
Felina started taking Chance up in the Turbokat since he couldn't fly. I'd taken him up but he was only able to focus on the fact he wasn't the pilot. With Felina around, he was enjoying himself more.
It gave me the opportunity to get things going again. She also smoothed it out so we hooked up again with the therapists at MKMC and she'd take Chance, in his T-Bone guise, in for those cognitive rgenerator sessions.
We didn't know it at the time but the cognitive generator sessions were making all the difference and had been why he's improved so much at first. But you need to continue them. Since Chance was the first traumatic brain injured kat they tried it out on, we didn't know any of that. The neurologist chalked his problems up to late effects of his head injury.
But once he got the treatments again Chance was a new kat. He got better by leaps and bounds. By six months or so after the accident he'd almost completely recovered from his physical injuries and had made an amazing recovery head injury wise as well though he still struggled with speech sometimes.
Felina helped his speech a lot, because when they butted their stubborn heads he wanted to say exactly what he thought of her. Then Felina got pregnant, they got engaged and she moved into the garage with us. When Feral found out he held a disciplinary meeting and Felina got demoted for a few months for 'conduct unbecoming an officer' and 'fraternization.'
Embarrassing and unfair as that was, she stuck it out and stuck with her 'disgraced Enforcer' too. With Felina around and Chance handling the garage competently, I had a lot of time to work on the ordnance business. I hired staff again. SWAT Mechanical ordnance was selling, but we only had a few buyers. I was extremely cautious of who I would and would not sell to for ethical reasons, and we were not exactly underground but we weren't advertising, put it that way.
When circumstances forced T-Bone and me public, I took the opportunity to change SWAT Mechanical's name to Clawson Labs and business took off like a rocket. They were beating down the door begging to buy non-lethal ordnance products.
The next year Chance founded Top Kat Flight Training. Demand was huge. Every wannabe flyboy wanted trained by the honest to goodness SWAT Kats and to play with Clawson Labs ordnance.
And that leads us to me sitting here today. Well, enough history I guess. Let's talk about the announcements.
First of all Clawson Labs is a whole 20 years old this week. Technically it's only been 12 since we started calling it 'Clawson Labs'. But the original production started 20 years ago with SWAT Mechanical. (The old SWAT Mechanical building was saved from demolition last year and is being refitted into a housing unit for low income populations under the Bayfront Apartment Renovation Initiative, part of the Clawson Labs commitment to the betterment of katizens of Megakat City.)
This week will also be the GRAND OPENING for Clawson Lab and TopKat Flight Training's new multibillion dollar education, research and development multiplex!
I'm no longer housed at the production facility out by the airport. I'm typing on my brand new computer setup in my brand new penthouse office in the new multiplex. The garbage disposal is in pieces on the kitchen counter, there's no lights above my bathroom sink and the drywall is hung but not taped, but here I am. I just finished unpacking the last box. The view from up here is unbelievable. I'm at the top of the tallest building this side of town.
You know if you're not careful, success like this will go to a kat's head.
But back to the topic at hand. We're talking about new opportunities for education, financial security, and adventure coming to Megakat City! Clawson Labs has already offered jobs and education opportunities to researchers, educators, and business minded Kats of all stripes. But now with new improved R&D facilities, we're 'movin' on up' like the song says.
Top Kat is expanding its enrollment and class sizes in our new building with its state of the art training facilities. Chance and Curly (and the rest of the team of experienced trainers of course) are turning out pilots that excel every year. These excellent pilots have for years now been entering the Enforcers or the private sector with the most coveted flight training in the nation.
It's time to switch it up a little and give them a third career option.
Along with the grand opening of our building, I would like to announce the formation of SWAT Associates: our new paramilitary mercenary branch.
SWAT Associates grads who finish out their four year contract after graduation will accrue no training fees. They'll gain lifetime skills that make them employable in a multitude of industries. Their education will rival those available in top universities.
We invite young Kats to train as pilots, technicians, soldiers, weaponry experts, specialists, (radar, explosives), engineers, science based careers, etc. Our goal is to climb to the top of the line in paramilitary and mercenary supply companies. We are accepting Kats from age 16 through 35, depending on the program. Watch for the detailed brochures coming to your schools, post offices and libraries. Qualified educators also are encouraged to apply.
Oh, and I started on an experimental new jet design based on the tried and true Turbokat. Someday soon I'll share more info but for now gotta keep it under wraps.
Anyhow, as to my next announcement, which may be even more exciting. Chance and Felina are expecting again and will be having a boy in about four months.
What's that you say? Allyson is only six months old? Yeaaaaaaaaaaah. Allyson was unexpected, but a gift of course. Even if she was an 'oops'. Doesn't everybody love an 'oops' kitten? Though a second oops may push Chance over the edge.
Just pulling your tail, partner, you're a great dad. You should have a dozen! Just seven more to go! (Edited: Felina called me the night I posted this. She didn't even say hello before she started in on me. Aaand I quote: "Are you out of your mind. What are you trying to do? Don't give him these ideas!")
As always any questions or comments can be addressed to jclawsonrazor clawsonlabs. mkc. org or you can send your congratulations on becoming a daddy again at the age of 53 to cfurlongtbone clawsonlabs. mkc .org. Or use your Furbook!
Jake Clawson, CEO Clawson Labs