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Refurbished Fun – In Storage

by Gruffy

2016

*

Hehhey folks!

Last post for 2016, and also my 900th story post overall, which is...awesome! I can't believe I've done this many – 96 of these during this year alone. I am very happy to be presenting to you this first chapter of a small series, exploring another interesting scenario, I think. :iconheru: has gladly sponsored the writing of this story, so give him a thanks, too.

I hope to be seeing your feedback – now, and in 2017 as well!

Cheers!

*

_ FORT COSTIGAN - UNITED STATES ARMY MATERIEL REGENERATION AND RECYCLING UNIT _

_ TUCSON, ARIZONA _

*

The desert sun was relentless.

It seemed to have the ability to burn the very earth that shimmered with mirages rising from the heated sand and gravel covering the rocky, sandy wasteland that seemed to spread on all directions around the miles-long gash of tarmac formed by the airstrip, and the sprouting of squat, ugly buildings nearby. Seen from the bird’s eyes vantage point, they reflected light into mysterious patterns from the solar panels covering the roofs, like the shells of some strange bugs that had clustered together to better survive the desert heat. Next to them, the hulks of the decommissioned planes sat in neat rows, and had the appearance of a parking lot mall rather than the final resting place for what must’ve amounted to a trillion dollars worth of military investment in one time.

Now their slumber was only interrupted occasionally by a car or a tractor passing through the roads crisscrossing the area, or the errand guard making the trip to the perimeter fence from the base itself.

One of the cars was a small modern Jeep, its electric engine humming noiselessly while the car brambled along its way past a row of slowly decaying KC-10 Extenders sitting by the road, thoughtful, lumbering grey hulks that reminded Kirby of elephants, for some reason. The man was dressed highly inappropriately for the occasion, in black pants and a black jacket. His sunglasses were up to the task, however, although apparently he had the habit of wearing them indoors as well. The driver of the car was a pale, freckled redhead called Private Stimmons, who was sweating easily as much as the man in civilian attire. His thin, blue short-sleeved shirt was glued to his back and even to his arms while he operated the car with almost alarming casualness.

“How far yet?” Kirby asked.

“Bout five hundred yards,” the soldier replied. “The base is right up there.”

He nodded in the direction of the cordoned-off conglomeration of squat concrete buildings ahead of them. They were decisively ugly to look at, even from a distance.

“I see,” Kirby said.

“First time here, sir?” the soldier asked.

“Yes,” Kirby said.

“We don’t get too many visitors like you, sir,” Private Stimmons said. “Not much call for this sort I reckon.”

“Hmmm,” Kirby hmmmm’d.

“Your employer must be pretty loaded to be able to do this, sir,” Stimmons said. “If you don’t mind me saying, sir.”

He glanced at Kirby, who did not look back to the young soldier. Stimmons seemed to decide against further small talk, and concentrated on the driving. A moment later, they reached a gate checkpoint, where the guard looked them over quickly before they were allowed to pass into the facility itself. It appeared almost as dead as the aircraft boneyard beyond its walls, with little visible activity. There wasn’t even a single guard loitering about.

“Almost there…” mused Stimmons, “we want Building 6…”

Kirby could not tell it apart from any of the other buildings littering the premises. They all looked the same to him, from the distance, anyway. At least the kid didn’t seem to have any trouble navigating his way over to one of them, and park the car in front of a giant sliding door that was helpfully marked with a big painted “6” on it. Stimmons put the car on idle and hopped out so that he could open the door from a panel by its frame. This manipulation caused the entire thing to start trundling up along its tracks. It looked almost painfully slow for Kirby, who felt like he was oozing his internal organs out of his overworked pores.

“Just a moment…don’t have to open all of it…”

Indeed, the gigantic garage door opened only enough that the car and its occupants were able to slink beneath it without having to limbo their way through. The building looked bigger on the inside, mostly, perhaps, because it extended into the ground as well. The lighting was very dim, and Stimmons even turned on the car headlights when they entered. The building was almost empty, with only a few trucks and other modes of abandoned transport seemingly parked there. At least it was cold in there, Kirby noted, with relief, when the chill touched his sweaty skin.

“This is it?” Kirby asked.

“We’ll have to go deeper,” he said. “But we need another ride, sir. The Jeep isn’t allowed down there because of the fuel cell. We need something electric.”

Kirby unclipped his seatbelt.

“Alright.”

The soldier chose a vehicle that looked like an oversized golf cart, although painted in a military grey like the buildings once were before the wind and sand had whittled it away, a fleck by fleck. While the forward section held two seats for occupants, the rear end contained what looked like a miniature forklift, its spikes folded upwards for storage.

“That’s it?” Kirby asked.

“Yes,” Stimmons said. He seemed a bit more eager to ride the flimsy-looking car than his guest. “It’s sufficient.”

“I see.”

They were soon strapped in with simple lap belts, and the private revved up the engine to buzz the little car into reverse and then directed it into a ramp tucked onto one side of the hangar-like building. Kirby could feel the temperature dropping even further when the vehicle dwelled even deeper underground. He wanted to sigh in relief as the coolness touched his skin.

“How deep is this?” Kirby asked.

“Deep enough,” Stimmons said.

The electric cart zoomed down the concrete ramp until the floor finally leveled out. A massive pair of doors adorned with many warning labels separated this antechamber area from the other parts of the underground facility. A row of dark green NBC suits hung on the wall, perhaps another spooky relic of its own kind. Private Stimmons seemed not to be too intimidated by this subterranean cave of wonders

“Is this it?”

“Just behind that door,” Private Stimmons said, “it’s the environmentally controlled storage area. That’s where they’re kept.”

“This looks more like a bunker,” Kirby said. “Some sort of a fallout shelter.”

“That’s classified, sir,” said Stimmons, when he hopped off the cart. “Stay onboard while I open the door.”

“Am I not allowed to step off?” Kirby asked. “Afraid I might wander away?”

“Technically, not,” the soldier replied seriously. “But do not wander away.”

The man in the uncomfortably sweaty clothes had no choice but to remain on the plastic seat that reminded him of a football stadium, and wait while the readhead pimpleface used a control panel to operate the heavy doors in front of them. They opened with a low, growling noise generated by some enormous machine that produced the power to move them. Still, it felt like ages, waiting for those doors to fold inside into the darkness that remained beyond them. Kirby squinted in an attempt to see, but he could not make out anything in the foreboding blackness of the space outside the doors.

“And here we are…” said Stimmons once he had hopped onboard the cart again.

“I presume that you have a list of the units my employer has purchased,” Kirby inquired.

“Yes, sir!” the Private said. “I can locate them once inside, sir, this car’s got a tracking system ‘n all. It’s nifty like that.”

Private Stimmons patted the control console. His touch caused a panel to light up, displaying a kind of a grid upon it. Another tap brought out a keyboard onto the screen, and he input a few words into it. The panel let out a happy chime, and a red dot appeared onto the grid.

“Yes…yes, here it is, sir,” he said. “126th Fire Team, standing by.”

“Go,” Kirby said. “We are on a tight schedule. I’ve got a plane waiting.”

“Yes, sir,” Private Stimmons said.

The small electric engine came into life again, and they crawled into the very cool abyss of the dark doorway in front of them. The cart passing through the threshold of the bunker activated some sort of a motion detector, for it brought a series of light strips on along the ceiling, to illuminate the room.

It was an elongated space, cavernous, with an angled ceiling rising ten yards above them. The room was perhaps three hundred yards long, and at least a hundred wide.

Kirby blinked.

They stood everywhere, still like ghostly mannequins in rows so perfect that they looked lopsided when viewed from their moving vantage point on the car.

“I didn’t realize there are so many,” he whispered as they passed the rows of shapes, each of them carefully wrapped in plastic as an additional layer of protection against the worst enemy of all, the ravages of time. The light caused the plastic to shine a little, obscuring the closer details of what they contained.

They looked too much like shrouds for comfort.

“This is where they are kept, sir,” Stimmons said. “Should find the ones you are looking for in no time.”

“How many?” Kirby asked.

“That’s classified information, sir,” the soldier replied immediately.

“Why am I not surprised?” Kirby huffed.

The Private seemed to have the need to boast a little, at least, because after a beat, he started talking again.

“You’re looking at a billion dollars’ worth of military hardware,” Stimmons said off-hand. “Lots of secrets about ‘em, sir.”

“Is that why they’re kept in a bunker?” Kirby asked. “Afraid someone will steal them?”

“I’m not really entitled to talk about any of it, sir, just doing my job, sir,” the Private said.

“There’s gotta be hundreds of these…” Kirby glanced at the rows of plastic-wrapped figures. “So many…”

“I can’t order you to close your eyes, sir,” Stimmons said. “You see what you see, and promise to forget what you see.”

“I see a lot of old robots,” Kirby said, “ones that nobody wants, I think, if the government is selling them off one by one to private purchasers.”

“I wouldn’t know,” the Private said. “I only drive this thing here, sir.”

Kirby didn’t really want to comment on that. The guy didn’t seem like the smartest cookie. Maybe driving an oversized golf cart was the best way to go for him.

“Okay…five…four…yes…two more rows on…and here….this is our grid.”

The cart came to a stop, and then Private Stimmons reversed it into one of the longitudinal corridors among the rows of robots standing impassive, deactivated and seemingly as forgotten as the planes littering the desert high above them on the surface. Kirby expected a “beep, beep, beep” of a warning tone from the cart, but there was none. They simply continued their movement backwards for about ten yards before they finally came to a full halt.

“The 126th Fire Team…yes…here we are, sir!”

Kirby failed to see the impact of this declaration coming from the Private, but he took his word for it. He couldn’t see anything special about it, but the soldier probably knew better than that.

“Alright…time to check them up…”

Private Stimmons picked up what looked like a barcode scanner, from the dash of the cart, before he hopped out and approached some of the towering man-sized shapes that now surrounded them from all directions.

“They should be here…”

A red beam flashed from the end of the device he was holding in his hand and waved across the plastic-wrapped creatures hiding within their cocoons. The device let out a series of blips that made Stimmons nod in agreement with whatever the small screen on It said.

“Okay…they’re here alright…now I’ll just have to haul them up into the cart.”

Kirby gave the soldier a dubious look.

“Can’t you just…switch them on, or something, have them climb in themselves?” he proposed.

“That’s not possible, sir,” Stimmons said,” They’re fitted with action prohibitors to prevent any accidental activation while in storage. Their batteries are probably empty, too.”

“And I suppose you don’t happen to have a remote or something to get past that?”

“I’m afraid not,” Stimmons said. “Care to help?”

Kirby decided that he’d never had to take his role as a hired muscle quite as literally as at that very moment.

“Alright. If it makes things go faster. I’m on a schedule.”

“I gotta warn you, though, these are pretty heavy,” Stimmons said.

“Figures.”

*

An hour later, Kirby was on the road again, this time riding on a specially fitted station wagon while the familiar Private Stimmons sat behind the wheel. The black-dressed man in sunglasses took his phone out of his pocket and quick dialed.

“Dalton.”

“We’re on our way,” he said, “Got all the cargo onboard.”

“Good. The boss is eager for us to get back,” the voice on the phone replied.

“I know he is,” Kirby said. “Should be there in fifteen, tops.”

“About right, sir,” Stimmons interjected.

“Fifteen it is,” Kirby spoke into the phone.

“We’ll be ready to take off in 20. Is that enough to shift the cargo?”

“Should be,” Kirby said. “Anything else?”

“Just get your ass here, Kirby.”

“Yes, sir,” the man said.

“Over and out.”

“Yeah.”

The call ended. Kirby stuffed his phone back into his pocket.

“Boss trouble?” Stimmons cheeked,

“Just keep driving,” Kirby said. “And we better be there in time.”

Stimmons nodded towards the windscreen.

“Just open road ahead of us,” the Private sounded happy about that fact.

“Then we might just make it,” Kirby said.

*

The private jet stood on the tarmac, shocking white and shiny and without markings but those demanded by the law. Whoever operated it had decided on something less than flashy that wasn’t built up to gather attention. A low rumble from the APU was the dominant noise. The steps on the side of the plane were open, as was a ramp on the back. A single man, a redhead, dressed in all blacks and wearing sunglasses was loitering nearby, puffing on an e-cigarette with his cheeks hollowed in. He became more animated by the time the station wagon approached, finished his puffing, and brushed his hair vainly through his hear.

“About time!” he yelled when the shape of Mister Kirby emerged from the front of the car. He had an aluminum suitcase in one hand, retrieved from the vehicle.

“GOT THE CARGO IN THE BACK!” Kirby shouted back.

“Good!” Dalton replied in his gravely voice. “We better start loading!”

“They’re heavy!” Kirby said.

Dalton glanced over at Private Stimmons, whom too had egressed from the Army vehicle. He was looking curiously at the awaiting jet. It might’ve been the first one of the sort he had ever seen.

“Well there’s him!” Dalton pointed out the soldier.

“Yeah,” said Kirby.

The red-haired man nodded towards the suitcase.

“Is that the gear?” Dalton asked.

Kirby nodded.

“All of them, safe and sound!” he tapped the side of the case with his fingers.

“Good,” said Dalton. “Now let’s get the…things into the plane and we’ll be off. Otherwise he’s going to be chewing our asses. He sounded impatient on the phone.”

“He’s always impatient,” Kirby said.

“Maybe I’ll take those, then,” Dalton reached towards the case.

“As you wish,” Kirby shrugged. “I’d rather not have them, anyway. Whoever has the case has the responsibility.”

Dalton took the case and held it somewhat protectively. Meanwhile, Private Stimmons dared a few steps closer to them.

“Sir? Sir?” he addressed each of them in turn.

“What?” Dalton snapped.

“Do you have crew to help with the unloading?” Private Stimmons asked.

“Yes,” the redhead replied. “You, and him.”

He pointed a thumb at Kirby. Kirby didn’t look happy.

“Back to hauling, I guess,” he said. “You too, Stimmons! You’re responsible for the cargo until we’re off this place and they’re under our care.”

“Yes, sir!” said Stimmons.

“Get to it,” Dalton told Kirby.

“Right.”

*

The plane had taken off and was heading north when Dalton’s phone rang again. This time it was the encrypted voice over internet app, patching into the private jet’s wireless to enable secure communications while they were underway. The caller information did not surprise the man in the least.

“Dalton, “he answered the phone.

“What is your status?”

“Sir,” the man said, “we are underway. We have all the cargo secured onboard. Estimated time of arrival is around 09:15 pm if present conditions hold.”

“Good. The car will be waiting at the airport to take the anthrobots to the workshop. You are to accompany them until they arrive to the Ritchie Brothers. I will be arriving to the workshop at 10 pm, and I expect you to be there.”

“Yes, sir,” said Dalton. “We expect things to be running smoothly.”

“Yes”, said the voice on the phone, with finality, before being abruptly cut.

Dalton pocketed his phone and glanced over to Kirby, whom sat on the opposite seat, facing his superior. There was a small table between them, folded up to hold soda cans they had not bothered to put away yet. The desert heat had parched them, and only the air-conditioned plane interior had helped them recover. Their clothes had been entirely unsuitable for the endeavor, and even now their shirts stuck greasily onto their backs.

“Antsy?” Kirby suggested.

“Like a spoiled brat at Christmas,” Dalton said.

Kirby chortled.

“That’s our boss. With the kind of money he has, it’s Christmas for him every day.”

“Hmmmph,” Dalton harrumphed.

“Hope he’s got some left in his pocket to reward us after all this is done,” Kirby said.

“When has he ever given us a bonus?” Dalton noted. “If he ends up liking those guys on the back, he’ll probably replace us too.”

“Bah,” Kirby opined. A moment later, he did add, “you think?”

“He has them in his factories,” Dalton said. “Why not in service too?”

“But I guess there’s a reason why those on the back have been sold off as junk…” Kirby mused.

Dalton shrugged.

“It’s simple enough,” he said, “the Congress thought they’d be a great idea. The Pentagon agreed. They build a bunch of them…they deploy them…and they get told that they suck. There’s a big scandal around it, heads get chopped off, careers destroyed…they box them away, and I guess now they’re selling them off to the highest bidder.”

Kirby frowned.

“Is that a good idea?”

“Nothing they haven’t done before, I guess,” Dalton said. “And as long as they aren’t replacing my ass on the job, I couldn’t care less. Let the guy have his toys.”

“Hmmmm.”

Dalton unclipped his seatbelt.

“I need to take a shit,” he said.

*

The unmarked van was eventually parked in front of a warehouse in a fenced-off industrial park. For a rather tired Kirby, riding in the cabin with Mr. Dalton and the driver, it reminded him vaguely of the military base on the Arizona desert. Up in Washington, there was a distinct lack of sand, however, and some of the buildings actually appeared to be in use, with light coming off windows.

Their ultimate destination was a nondescript grey building, only adorned by the “BROTHERS RITCHIE” sign above the tall, rolling steel door.

“See the boss’ car yet?” Dalton asked.

Kirby peered out into the concrete-covered yard only lit by a few spotlights high above. He could see an old hydrogen-guzzling station wagon parked nearby, but that certainly didn’t qualify as the kind of a ride their employer preferred.

“Nope.”

Dalton glanced at his phone to pick up the time

“It’s almost ten,” he said.

A smaller door on the side of the building open and a figure in a white lab coat emerged. He stomped rapidly the few steps required to reach the car and rapped on the passenger’s window.

“Guess that’s the guy,” Dalton said. “Open the window.”

Kirby touched a button to let the motor scroll the window down into the frame. A pair of eager blue eyes were looking at him. The lab coated man was about his own age, not older than thirty, and smiled broadly.

“You the delivery guys for Mister Reuben?” the man asked as he pushed his hand through the open window for a shake. “Ed Ritchie’s the name!”

“You could say so,” said Kirby as he accepted the hand for a brief squeeze.

“Ain’t I glad to see you!” the man grinned. “We’ve been waiting for months now!”

“It’s your lucky day,” Kirby muttered.

“Are they on the back?” the man asked eagerly.

“Yep,” Dalton said, “and I’ve got the chips.”

“Sweet!” the man grinned rather boyishly.

A mechanical rattle filled their ears when the big door on the front of the building opened. A man was revealed to be standing behind it, operating some kind of a remote control in his hands. He too wore a long coat, though his was a shade of navy. A stethoscope hung from his neck and a pair of goggles was perched over his curly hair.

“Oh, that’s my brother Mike!” the white coat grinned.

“IS IT THE WHOLE DELIVERY?” the man hollered over the noise of the door machinery.

“YEAH!” Ed Ritchie yelled.

“SWEET!” came the answer. “I’LL GET THE LIFT!”

Kirby felt relieved that there would not be any more hauling.

“We’ll be handling this from now on,” Ed Ritchie told the darkly dressed men in the car. “Can I have the chips now, please?”

His eagerness seemed to preclude them actually stepping out of the car before the pass-over was to take place. Dalton didn’t mind it. He was happy enough to get rid of them.

“Just don’t loose these,” Dalton said, picking up the aluminum case that got passed on to Kirby and then over through the open window to the expectant man. He held onto the case against his chest and withdrew from the van.

“I’ll take these right in,” he said and disappeared towards the gaping door into the workshop.

“So are we just waiting here now?” Kirby asked from Dalton. “I want to stretch my legs.”

“You’re free to get out any time you like,” Dalton said. “Like you said, we are just waiting.”

“Suits me,” Kirby unclipped his belt and opened the door.

He got out into the concreted yard, soon followed by Dalton who shuffled himself across the seats and then to the ground before re-adjusting his jacket for comfort. The weather was alright, and more than welcome after the desert.

“Still no sign of the boss,” Kirby noted.

They stomped around for a moment, only to be distracted by the arrival of the other Ritchie, though this time pushing a two-wheeled power lift in front of him. The lapels of his bizarre blue coat ruffled along him with each step.

“Hmmmyes…let’s get these pups out of the cage…” the young man muttered.

“You better not bump them or anything,” Dalton said, “the boss won’t be happy about that.”

“Heh,” laughed Mike Ritchie, “I’m sure he won’t have any complaints. He’s all over the plans Hassan is showing to him.”

Dalton’s brow quirked.

“He’s…what?”

Mike Ritchie swung his head towards the warehouse.

“Mister Reuben is back there in the office,” he mused. “Now is this side door open?”

“Shit!” Dalton hissed to Kirby.

“We aren’t really late, are we, I mean, we are here…” Kirby said.

Dalton re-adjusted his collar.

“We better go and say hello,” he said. “Otherwise the boss will be pissed off.”

They ventured into the workshop and left Mike Ritchie to play with his power lift. At the first glance the interior looked like that of a car repair shop, although much of the space leading beyond to the back of the building seemed to be enclosed in a kind of a plastic tent. Looming shapes of tools, equipment, and vaguely humanoid creatures could be seen through the milky plastic, and it all gave a slightly unnerving air to the place. A series of stairs led up, too, into what they presumed was the office block.

“There,” Dalton said.

One rattling climb later they reached a door. They could hear voices speaking excitedly beyond it.

Dalton made the knock, and the voices fell silent, briefly, before a dark-haired, tan-skinned slight man opened it.

“Yes?”

“We are associates of Mister Reuben,” Dalton said.

“Come on in,” the man said.

The office was a great mess. There were desks, overflowing with papers, books, magazines, electronics parts, tools of every imaginable sort – just the kind of a place Dalton had expected it to be, really. A pair of virtual blackboards dominated one side of the room and they were scribbled full of strange mechanical diagrams with a rather haphazard hand that must have belonged to one of the brothers, or perhaps the dark-skinned man whom had let them in.

Amidst all this stood the boss. Mister Reuben looked more like a young Mister Reuben, considering that he was younger than either Kirby or Dalton, and his slight frame and boyish round spectacles only added to the effect. He wore an entirely normal-looking striped shirt and his hair was quite messy, and very dark, flopping over to his brow.

“Oh there you are!” the young man rounded the desk he’d been leaning on and appeared there in his striped shirt and jeans and sneakers.

“Mister Reuben,” Dalton spoke up.

“Sir,” Kirby concerted.

“Are they here?” Reuben asked.

“Yes, Mister Reuben,” Dalton said.

“Cool!” the young man grinned. “That’s so great, that’s so wonderful to hear! Downstairs?”

“Yes, just being – “

“Come on, Hassan!” the boy spoke to the Arab man. “Time to see why you’re working for me!”

“Indeed,” Hassan replied.

The boss trundled down the steps, followed by Hassan, Kirby and Dalton, onto the main floor. There they found the brothers, both extremely excited, moving one of the shrouded figures across the space.

“Is that one?” Reuben hollered.

“Yep, here’s one!” said Ed Ritchie. “Just taking them into the decon space first, we can take a look there if you like.”

“Do I ever!” the dark-haired man was practically bouncing on his feet. “Come on! Can’t my assistants help you or something?”

“They’re quite heavy, sir,” Kirby hurried to say. “Unless there’s another of those forklift things I don’t think – “

“It’ll only take us a minute,” Mike Ritchie said. “These guys may be tough, but we know how to handle them.”

“Oh, alright,” Reuben said, “but don’t take too long!”

“No danger of that,” Ed Ritchie snickered. “Can’t wait to get my hands to these babies!”

Reuben clapped his paws together and smiled beamingly.

“I can’t wait either!”

*

Ten minutes later they stood in a starkly lit section of the tent-like partition, now somewhat crowded by the presence of six people and four of the shrouded, tall figures that had been carted in before the doors were closed. The Ritchie brothers and Reuben looked giddy with happiness. Hassan eyed them with a more measured curiousness, and the two hired muscles, Dalton and Kirby, kept their distance. They had been told to be present, but they had no idea what their role was to be in the proceedings.

“Come on, come on, unwrap them!” Reuben enthused.

“Sure!” said Ed Ritchie.

A pocket knife appeared into his hand, and he began to cut the plastic covering from one of the four upright objects now dominating the room. Reuben looked at this with concern.

“Are you sure you’re not going to be cutting into it accidentally?”

“No, no,” the young man said, “I’m pulling on it here as I go…like this…see?”

He cut from the top to the bottom, and then unraveled the shroud to reveal the very particular sight of a well-built creature, six feet tall, arms to its sides, standing in a broad position, eyes closed, quite steady, clad in an olive green pair of shorts and a T-shirt.

It was covered in deep, striped fur, and had the perfect appearance of a tiger, anthropomorphized into a cat-man, now seemingly asleep on his feet.

“Ooooooh!” Reuben clapped his hands together. “Look at that!”

“Lockheed ADU Mark 2, slash 5, beta series,” said Mike Ritchie from the sidelines while his brother kept on tearing at the plastic covering.

“It’s splendid!” Reuben murmured. “Oh it’s…it’s magnificent!”

He stepped closer and pressed his palm against the tiger’s chest. It did not react to the touch in any way, though that was not expected. The tiger was not powered, and was missing part of its internal workings, too, removed for safety reasons during storage.

“It’s got a name too,” said Hassan.

The dark-haired boy looked at the man with curiosity.

“Oh yes?”

“Private Charlie, of the 126th Fire Team,” Hassan smiled. “And if I’m not wrong, Mike is just unwrapping Private Oscar there…”

Reuben’s attention was quickly drawn to the sight of a sturdily muscled Doberman anthro being removed from his shroud. The dog managed to appear stern even with its eyes closed and its face impassive, frozen in time.

“He’s a bad puppy…” Mike Ritchie was grinning broadly.

“Wow…” Reuben breathed out.

“They’re fantastic, aren’t they?” Hassan opined.

“That doesn’t even begin to cover it, at least for me…” the dark-haired man said.

“The finish is certainly of very high quality,” Hassan said. “I can’t wait to see what’s inside.”

“Not to mention what’s in here…” Mike Ritchie pointed the Doberman’s head. “I so wish I’d be able to see everything, but I guess that’s not possible…unless I’d get really naughty…”

“Part of the contract requires any purchaser to sign an agreement not to tamper with the central core,” Ed Ritchie noted, “the Army doesn’t want us to see everything these guys are made of.”

“As long as it won’t interfere with what we want to do,” Reuben said. “Wow...”

“It won’t,” Hassan said, “we only need access to the primary input port. With the tactical data module removed, we’ll simply patch in a new sequential processor, and then we can start programming them as we please.”

“I couldn’t have said it better myself!” Reuben grinned. “I just want you to get to work as soon as possible, heheh.”

“Do you have any idea what they’re talking about?” Kirby whispered to Dalton.

“Nope,” the thug muttered to his colleague.

Their boss made even more happy noises once they uncovered the rest of the four robots – a lion and a German Shepherd, whom Ed Richie named Alfie and Mike, respectively. Soon all of them stood in a line amidst their wrappings tossed to the floor, like a strange exhibit of sorts. It was obvious that their new owner did not intend to simply have them as decorative pieces.

“Fantastic work,” Reuben said, “I can’t believe it took this long, but here they really are…”

“They’ll be even better soon, after we give them the once-over,” Ed Ritchie said.

Mike Ritchie chuckled.

“They might not rust, but they can still use a good checkup,” he said.

“Gonna look under the hood and change the oil?” Dalton asked.

“Oh we will,” said Mike Ritchie, “give ‘em a real good ol’ spit and polish.”

“It’s a bit more high tech than that,” Ed Ritchie chuckled.

“I want no expenses spared,” Rubens said, “anything you need, I will pay for it.”

“The requisitions will be delivered to you in due time,” Hassan told his employer. “We ought to have no trouble acquiring any parts we might need, and the custom software packages are just waiting for the fine-tuning.”

“That only leaves one question then!” the bespectacled youth yelped. “How long until they are ready?”

“A month,” Ed Ritchie said. “One week for each. We don’t want to rush this now.”

The boy rubbed his neck.

“It’s an awfully long time…” Rubens said, “But to spoil things by making it all too quickly would be really stupid, yeah…”

“We will keep you thoroughly updated,” Hassan placated the younger man, “they are yours, after all.”

“Some damn right!” Reuben grinned. “If only I could take them with me tight now…”

“A month and they’ll walk home with you,” Ed Ritchie said.

“I can’t wait!” Reubens half-wailed, half-laughed.

“Told you, like a kid at Christmas,” Dalton whispered to Kirby.

*

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