Jurassic City - Chapter 3: Scars

CHAPTER THREE: Scars
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The sound of metal plates clashing resonated as Chief Harriot and Cedric made their way down the stairs, Voltaire not far behind. They started down a long, dimly lit corridor lined with conduits and pipes. It took a while for Cedric to realize that they were walking on diamond-plate metal.
"Don't you think that the police could use a higher budget?" Cedric was honestly trying to lighten the mood.
"Yes," Harriot said gloomily.
After that it got slightly awkward.
Eventually, they made it down the hall to a door with a metal plate above it. The plate said in rusted, bold letters:

SCAR DEPOT

Specialized Combat and Assault Robotics

Harriot turned sharply to Cedric. "You may want to leave him here. GEOrgs are always panicked by these guys."

"You do know that I don't really need a killer robot following me everywhere, right?" Cedric dared. "Voltaire here can help in every situation. A bot would just be flotsam and jetsam."

"Cedric," Harriot snapped. "The attacks have been happening from random dinosaurs all across the city. It doesn't matter who they belonged to, they just attack for no reason and had no cause. Do you really want to trust your life in something that might go off any second?"

Cedric glanced down at Voltaire, who was staring at him through giant, innocent eyes. "I never put him in with those nanobots," he said. "Either way, he's nice to have around."

Harriot simply shrugged. "Alright. It's your funeral." At this, he took his crystal necklace and inserted it into a special slot. There was a whir of lasers as the crystal was scanned, and the door slid open. Inside, the room was darker and gloomier than it was behind them. The difference here was that the walls consisted of glass casing covering giant metallic holding tanks, each one making a dark hum. Scattered around them were several mechanics observing the piping and the containers. The one closest to the door stood up with a start and rushed over to meet them.

"Good afternoon sir!" he shouted to Harriot. He was an awkward-looking boy, slightly younger than Cedric.  His hair was much more scraggly, his glasses were broken and slightly off-balance, and he seemed to be walking with a limp. He reached his hand out to the Chief, who promptly shook it.

"Great to see ya, Kai." He turned to Cedric. "Cedric, I'd like you to meet Kai McConaughey, the lead technician of the Federation."

Cedric reached his hand out to shake the young man's when he noticed something odd: Kai's right hand was mechanical.

"It's nice to meet you, Cedric!" Kai said. "I've heard so much about you!"

"Likewise." Cedric shook the metallic arm gawkily. "At least, I think I have. You're not related to Michael McConaughey, the Michael McConaughey, are you?"

"The very same!" he said cheerfully.

Cedric was slightly shocked. "Your great-grandfather was an amazing man. It must be amazing to have known the one who started the Federation."

"Well," he started, "I don't like to think of it as a federation yet. It's just a..."

"Monopoly," Harriot sternly interrupted. "Weren't you going to show us the gallery?"

"AH, right!" The little guy seemed extremely quirky, a little like a bird. On coffee. And a few other things. "This way!"

Kai started marching towards the end of the hallway, Cedric and Harriot in tow. Cedric turned to Harriot, a little concerned about his remark. "You were talking about the federation as if it was a bad thing."

"Right," Harriot replied. "I never really liked its methods. Not that I don't appreciate what they've done, but they're almost a government now. I liked the U.S. that was run by a president. Now, we're almost under world domination."

At the end of the hallway, Kai turned around and took a tablet out of his pants pocket. "Okay," he started. "Let's see what we have here. Here's model RA-275. He's a..." Kai suddenly realized that Voltaire was in the room. "Please tell me that you're not taking HIM on all of your assignments."

Cedric looked down on the creature, who started rubbing against his leg. "Yeah... why?"

"Oh, man. Um..." Kai seemed deep in thought. After a few seconds, he seemed to resolve his internal conflict and got back to Cedric. "Nothing. I'm not that comfortable around GEOrgs, ya know? Bad past experiences."

"Oh... okay."

"Anyways! RA-275 here is your assigned partner. He's your basic recon assistance android. Got all the basics: claws, weapons compatibility, flight, all that. Although..." he started going slower. "It says under here 'partially unstable'."

Cedric's eyes widened. "Great," he said. "Now I'm supposed to save the world with a robot who can kill me at any second."

"Something like that," Kai replied. "If you want, we can do a little reprogramming."

"Let's see it first."

"No, I don't think that's a good idea."

Chief Harriot stepped in. "Kai, just do what he asks."

Kai immediately turned to the glass panel covering the container, tapped it to open a holographic keyboard, and started typing. The glass case began sliding to one side, and the canister behind it lurched forward with a whir of hydraulics. Kai started backing away as the giant metal door in the tank slowly slid open. Mist flooded outward. Inside stood a heavily built, seven-foot-tall humanoid made entirely out of black, glittering metal. It was rather sleek, but in a menacing way. It stood there, silently, hooked up to the machinery around it. After the entire rush of sound to bring this thing out, the quiet was almost eerie.

"Nice," Harriot said sarcastically. "Now can that thing get me a latte?"

Cedric and Kai simply ignored him. Kai motioned towards Cedric and said "These things have an automatic voice recognition software built in. It should be able to respond to you now."

Cedric was, admittedly, intimidated by the giant hulk before him. He took a few steps forward, took a deep breath, and mustered the strongest voice he could.

"SCAR?"

Two bright red lights lit up on the being's head. The wires connected to him mechanically slid out of place, and the beast started taking steps forward. The ground heaved with each footfall. The SCAR grabbed the door with frightening force and stared into Cedric's eyes.

"-Operator Recognized-" he processed in a deep, serious text-to-speech voice. "-What assistance is required of me?-"

Cedric thought about it for a moment. "SCAR, show us your weapons."

From SCAR's arms, two spring-loaded blades leaped out and divided into three. There, they glistened like starlight.

Kai took an apple out of his pocket and threw it to Cedric. "Do you want a demonstration?' he asked.

Cedric looked at the apple for a second, and then realized what he meant. He tossed it to SCAR and commanded "Show us what you're made of!"

The SCAR jumped, threw his arms out, and uppercut-sliced the apple into four even slices, somehow managing to pull a corkscrew flip in the process.

"Okay," Cedric said cautiously. "Now I'm impressed."

Kai looked a little disappointed. "So, you weren't before?"

"Well, I was. But, then I was more intimidated."

"Seems like your raptor was, too," Harriot cut in.

Everyone turned around to see Voltaire, as small as he was, puffing all of his feathers outwards. He was trying to make himself look frightening, but it just looked comical.

"I told you he'd be intimidated," Harriot said. "Anyways, whatdya think?"

"I must admit, it's kind of... fantastic?" Cedric said. "He is going to stay here most of the time, right?"

"Heavens, no!" Kai shouted. "The total uplink time is six hours, and it takes it twice as long to take down. Don't worry, though. He's programmed not to harm any living human. He's probably more safe around you than your dino over there is."

Cedric smirked to himself. "Got those three laws in you?" he remarked sarcastically to the SCAR.

"-Define the three laws. Reference unclear-" the SCAR bluntly said.

"Nevermind," Cedric replied. "Alright, I'll take him."

*          *          *

Cedric rushed back into the Federation's monitoring center. He was heading back to his desk when he realized that there was a lot of yelling coming from somewhere. Why would anybody be yelling?

He followed his ears the the east side of the room, perpendicular to the entrance. It was coming from Bodin's office. Something must be very wrong. He put his ear to the door to listen. Bodin was clearly very upset about something.

"No, you listen to me! You can't get the police force going around everywhere, especially in the federation!"

There was a long pause. He must have been on a phone.

"You bet your salary I can! He's MY..."

"What do you mean today?"

"WHAT!"

"I'll tell you what, Harriot. If he comes back from one of his renegades and there's ONE HAIR missing, and you will wish you had never been born! Now stay the ---- away from here!"

That was a word that Cedric never heard out of Bodin's mouth before. There was a slam of a button and there was a whizzing synth-sound of a telephone hanging up.

This was a bad position to be in. Cedric stood up and started walking back to his desk when Bodin opened up his office door. His face was a pale red and he seemed angrier than he ever looked before.

"Hi, Bodin!" Cedric said in the most innocent voice he could. "Is something wrong?"

Bodin took a deep breath and grabbed his forehead. "No, everything's fine."

Before anything else could be said, Bodin stepped back inside his office. Cedric was a little worried. Chief Harriot was involved? That must have meant that Cedric was involved somehow. Was it today? He really didn't want anything like that to have happened. Slowly, Cedric walked back to his desk, unsure of what everything meant.

Voltaire nudged at Cedric's jacket, asking for a treat.

"Sorry," he apologized. "I've got nothing either."

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Image rendered in Photoshop.