Modern Age Online

Kaleb’s luncheon with the good Alderman was scheduled for the weekend. He double-checked with Mr. Madden’s secretary that it was alright to bring along Farrah, and he was assured that it was fine. So this coming Saturday, he and Farrah would dine at one of the fanciest restaurants in downtown. Of course, after that was on the books, the rest of the day dragged on. Kaleb went to work in his workshop while the rest of the Super-Group went about their own business.

Tuesday was much the same. Kaleb got up, worked on some random bits of weapons and armor, then went on patrol. It was better to save the extensive projects for after his patrol. That way, he would be mostly uninterrupted. He kept an eye on the Affinity Map as he went to work and found that their combined effort was slowly changing things. But it would take a while. Imperial Valley was still proving to be a challenge. That would require a sit-down and a long conversation with the Police Department stationed there. And Kaleb was not interested in that.

What he was currently interested in was getting the rest of his Armadillo armor shaped and ready. The chest piece was fine, but he wanted shin and arm guards. Also, a piece for his back. He parked his car and hurried to file his reports with Farrah. Abby and Vivienne were sitting at the tables in the Command Center, filling out their own reports. He waved at them as he sat down and grabbed the patrol form.

“Fun day?”

Abby snorted. “Oh, it was glorious. Chased down a dog, settled a yard dispute, and got a Supe Player to stop doing fly-bys over some guy’s house.”

Kaleb could hear the derision and boredom in the young woman’s voice and he could only nod in sympathy. The good-will stuff was great once in a while, but doing them daily was wearing on the team. Thankfully, the PD had stopped blocking them so much after Farrah’s recording hit the public. Officer Trask was offered up as a sacrificial lamb and fired. Now they received one or two calls from the PD to help with actual criminals. It wasn’t much, but it was a start.

“I saved a few lost animals.” Vivienne added, looking slightly happier with their current lot.

Kaleb nodded. “Yeah, I helped fix a few things. Fences, environmental regulation units, even had a house with a personal shield. It was over-drawing from the local power grid. Apparently, the guy didn’t get the permits for the shield. So he was trying to keep it on the down-low.”

“Did you help him?” Farrah asked from her spot near her monitors.

“Yeah, I made the power draw more efficient. But if he has to use it, it won’t last long.”

Kaleb spoke as he filled out the patrol paperwork. It wasn’t too complicated. Just a report on what he did, who he did it for, and the time it took him to do it. So given that his Good-Will Missions were mostly repair jobs, the form was fairly easy to fill out. Feeling someone’s eyes on him, Kaleb glanced up to see Abby smiling weirdly at him. He grinned back, but tilted his head, showing that he was confused. She cackled to herself.

“Are you ready for tomorrow?”

Kaleb’s confusion mounted until he remembered he had been press-ganged into chemistry class. He growled under his breath as Abby chuckled again. He had picked up some books on basic chemistry and even set down a lesson plan. But he was still not looking forward to teaching a class. He assumed he’d see some Skill gains while there, though. So maybe it would all be worth it. He angrily finished writing his report and stood.

“Yes, to answer your question, I am ready. Just not looking forward to it.”

“Come on, Professor. It could be fun. Besides, your name is literally Professor. You were bound to find yourself teaching at some point.” Vivienne smiled.

“Nominative determinism aside. I think you’ll do great and it’ll get you out of these USELESS MISSIONS!”

Abby screamed the last bit at Farrah’s back, but the rabbit-woman ignored her as she turned to look at Kaleb.

“I put your syllabus in your workshop, along with the books you’ll need. Please stop leaving your notes all over the place. That’s why you have a workshop.”

“Hey, what if a situation happened, and I needed to respond immediately? I’d want to be close to the command center.”

“Just keep your junk out, Prof.” Farrah said before turning back to her screens.

Grumbling to himself, Kaleb handed his paperwork off to one of the hunters for them to upload it and started toward his workshop. Abby got up to join him as Vivienne also turned in her paperwork. The tall blonde then excused herself downstairs. He and Abby walked into the workshop, and Kaleb made a beeline for his workbench. He’d bought another one for Roy and his two helpers. So they would stop messing with his stuff.

As he dug through the mess of his own workbench, Kaleb called over his shoulder. “What are you doing, Abby?”

“What? I can’t be curious? I want to see how you're planning on dealing with this brand-new challenge.”

“Please. The kids will not be the challenge. That sneaky Alderman is.”

“What? Do you suspect he’s going to try something?”

“Maybe not. But he clearly has something he wants to say to us. I’m expecting a bribe to leave the city or a warning to not upset the apple cart.”

“So the carrot or the stick. Which do you think he’ll go with?”

“Well, this is a game. So I’m expecting the stick. I think the game’s AI would throw that at me just to see if I get mad enough to act.”

“But you're not going to, right?”

“Naw. Honestly, there is nothing the Alderman can say or do that’ll make me run from the HLO.”

“And you're sure that’s what he’s trying?”

“Of course not. But I don’t know what else he could want from me.”

Kaleb finally found his syllabus and started looking around for his chemistry books. Those were easier to find, as Terrance had organized all the books in the workshop. The boy even went out and bought a bookshelf. Now they had a decent collection of books on metal-working, weapons, and chemistry. Kaleb grabbed what he needed and then turned back to his workbench to find Abby sitting there.

“What are you doing, Abby?” Kaleb asked again.

The small, dark-haired woman grinned. “Well… You remember how I’m currently in college, right?”

“Yes…”

“One of my classes just happens to be Intro to Chemistry.”

“Oh my lord, you’re kidding me.”

“Hey, you’re going to be teaching the class, anyway. Just explain the basics to me and we’ll see how effective you are as a teacher. And as a bonus, I just might learn something.”

Kaleb smiled and shook his head. “You know that’s not how game knowledge works, right? It’s like learning something in a dream. You might retain a bit of it, but not enough to pass a class.”

“I’m not trying to use you to pass a class. I’m just looking for some added teaching. So with my own course-load and then some gaming time spent going over things with you, I might just pass chemistry with flying colors. Besides, hypnopedia through the pods has been proven to work… sometimes.”

“Not often enough to be reliable.”

“Just throw me a bone here, Prof. You were going to go over your syllabus anyway, right? So just go through it out loud with me. It’ll prepare you for class and I’ll get a refresher on my basic chemistry.”

Kaleb sighed and cleared a space on his workbench. He opened his book and laid his course syllabus alongside. He dragged his finger down the paper and turned to Abby.

“Well, first, I wanted to go over the states of matter and the appropriate way to jot down measurements.”

“So, solid, liquid, and gas. Then you’ll hit the base SI units. Meter, kilogram, yada yada?”

“Essentially, yes, but those are the phases of matter. Matter itself is any substance that includes volume and mass. So, along with the phases, students will need to know how we describe and identify the properties of the matter. Extensive or Intensive, and Physical or Chemical.”

“Okay, and how do you discover those properties?” Abby asked.

Kaleb fell into the discussion as Abby continued to ask questions. They discussed the entirety of the first section of his syllabus. Which Kaleb had planned on stretching out for the college course. He imagined the college kids would be less engaged and ask far fewer questions. But Abby seemed to be genuinely listening, and he even caught her taking notes using the game’s note section of their menus. The information came freely to his mind, and the words flowed easily. If Kaleb hadn’t known better, he would’ve thought he was an expert.

The two sat at his workbench, talking about chemistry for a few hours before someone interrupted. Surprisingly, it wasn’t anyone in the workshop itself. In fact, when Kaleb looked up, Roy, Terrance, and Marie were all standing around his workbench, listening intently. The interruption came from the workshop door as Claire stuck her head in. She saw their little scrum around Kaleb’s workbench and grinned.

“I hate to interrupt. But we have a call from the PD. There’s a fire down on the south end of Blue Bluff road. Apparently, a warehouse caught fire somehow.”

Kaleb nodded and closed up his book and syllabus. “Where are Jar and Vivienne?”

“They are rushing out the door now. But your bunny-girl says this would be a good time for the entire team to move out. So those of us logged-in are going. But if you two need some more alone time.”

Claire trailed off as Kaleb snorted and grabbed his weapons. Abby scoffed as well, and Kaleb felt her leaving. He searched the workshop for his armor, but he couldn’t find it. Roy was glancing between Abby and Kaleb as Marie said.

“Your armor is in the locker by the door. Try to keep your weapons in there too, please. Terrance has been hitching a fit.”

“This place is a mess! I can only clean it so many times.”

“And I thank you for keeping it clean. I’ll try to do my part. But you know a little controlled chaos can be a good thing.” Kaleb told the tall boy as he equipped his armor.

He turned to Roy to see if his side-kick was coming with them. But the young man shook his head.

“I want to test the actuators Daivor and I were building. So I’ll stay here for now.”

“Alright. Still not going to tell me what you're building?”

Roy smirked. “It’s nowhere near done, Doc. But I know you’ll love it.”

Kaleb shrugged and hurried out his workshop door, almost running into Abby as she was waiting. Claire and Two Gun were also right outside and the four of them wordlessly left the hangar. Two Gun jogged to his and Claire’s car, so Kaleb moved to join them. He and Abby got in the backseat as Claire took the passenger side. One quick press of a button and they were on their way. Kaleb reached into his lab coat pocket and grabbed his ear comm.

“What’s the word, Farrah?”

“Comms up?” The rabbit-woman asked in Kaleb’s ear.

“Check.” Two Gun said.

“Up.” Abby said.

“Same.”

Jar-lock and Vivienne also checked in over the comms and then Farrah broke down the situation as they drove. Apparently, a cereal company’s warehouse had caught fire somehow. Reports were still vague on how. The evening shift working in the warehouse had mostly evacuated, but some were still inside the burning building. Police were cordoning things off, and it was Lone Star’s responsibility to conduct search and rescue while the fire department worked the fire.

“How many people?” Jar-lock asked

“Five to fifteen?”

“That’s quite the range.” Two Gun said.

“Yeah, well, the PD is telling me one thing, while I have a foreman that says otherwise.”

“What’s the foreman saying?” Kaleb asked.

“Fifteen.”

“Then we’ll search for fifteen.”

“Why would the cops tell us five?”

“Cause if we let a few people burn up in a fire, the public will crucify us.”

“You really think they’d let people die, just to spite us, Prof?”

“Then you tell me why the counts are off? Meanwhile, I’m going to be hunting for fifteen people… or bodies.”

“Did you bring your scanner?” Abby asked.

“It’s a thermal scanner, Abs. The thing’s useless here. But that’s a good idea. Do we have a way to track the bodies in the building?”

“Each employee ID card has a tracker in it. But some of them may be unreliable. There’s a corporate representative on site that will fill you in about those.”

“Drone coverage?” Claire asked, making Kaleb tilt his head in confusion.

“I’ve got all but four drones covering the site. The others are monitoring the other districts. We can’t rule out that this is a distraction.”

“Are we investigating the source of the fire?” asked Two Gun.

“Priority is the missing workers. But I don’t think anyone will complain if you find the fire-starter.”

Kaleb perked up at that. “You think someone started this fire?”

“I don’t see how a cereal company’s warehouse caught fire otherwise. But what do I know? Maybe they kept explosive chemicals on site.”

“So why don’t we split into teams? Jar-lock and Vivienne can help manage the fire, Abby and Claire can proceed with the rescue, while Two Gun and I try to find the source of the fire.”

“Civilians first, Professor.” Jar-lock said over Farrah. “We can search for the source later. The people come first.”

Kaleb rolled his eyes but agreed. “Fine. But if I burn through my lab coat, you’re paying for a replacement.”

Abby’s eyes got enormous. “Oh yeah, we’re diving into an on-fire building. Will our equipment be okay?”

“Should be. The K-tech armor is some heavy duty stuff. But I’d watch your eyebrows and arm hair.” Kaleb grinned.

Laughs echoed over the comms as they continued toward their destination. Off in the distance, Kaleb could see smoke rising over a darkening sky. The sun was setting, but the glow from a raging fire was clear as day. Kaleb even thought he could smell the smoke from inside their car. Teaching chemistry was fun. But doing some actual heroics was going to be a treat. Kaleb smiled to themselves as Two Gun pointed them right toward danger and stepped on the gas.