The workshop was it's usual busy mess when Buzz walked into Moda's domain. The usual heavy and loud music was replaced with something that best resembled a cat being dismembered by an industrial harvesting machine that needed oil badly. Buzz looked around and saw Moda and Zathras standing at a metal box, two by three metres, maybe one metre tall that had thick cables entering at various points. Moda was wearing what looked like industrial grade headphones, and Zathras was slowly rocking his buttocks completely out of tune with what may have been music. He even tapped the rhythm out with one boot, out of tune with the music and his own buttocks. Buzz walked over to the duo that and stopped two metres away, not wanting to break their apparent concentration. After a minute or so, Moda extended one finger and pressed a single button on the top of the container, activating something inside. The "music" stopped and Buzz took the chance to shuffle his feet. The slight noise was enough to make Zathras turn, and when he saw Buzz, pull Moda's sleeve and point.
"Brrr, click, we have detected a visitor Moda."
Moda smiled at Buzz and shouted in a very loud voice.
"WE'LL ONLY BE A SECOND. GO GRAB A DARK LADY," and pointed to the fridge.
Buzz turned and walked over to the fridge with the large painting of a happy skunk holding a rifle with a daisy in the muzzle in one paw and a drink in the other, the caption underneath saying "If you can imagine it, we can build it". He opened the fridge and marvelled at the completely full racks of Dark Ladies all cooled to perfection by a constant flow of air the circulated through the precisely placed bottle racks. He grabbed a bottle and turned to look at the duo as they once more bent over the crate. Buzz drank slowly of probably the best ale in the known systems while enduring the horrible sounds that seemed to be enjoyable to Zathras. He had drunk about half of it when Moda exclaimed a "YES!" and turned around holding a small pitcher with maybe two ounces of amber liquid in it. Moda looked up at the speakers, and the electronic sounds died allowing him to take his ear protection off.
"Grab us a set will you buddy?"
Moda walked over to another large machine and inserted the amber liquid into the machine. Buzz walked over with the two ales and passed them on. Moda accepted, opened and drank deep from the bottle. Zathras looked at the bottle for some time before he too took his bottle, opened it and inserted a straw from his pocket. The trio was standing in silence, enjoying the beer until the machine started printing a sheet of paper. Moda took it and compared it to another series of graphs.
"Zath, I think we found it."
"Brrr, click, aye it appears that you and we have indeed done so, fzz click"
"What is it?"
Moda turned to Buzz and smiled.
"Sorry, would spoil the surprise if I told you friend. So, apart from the fantastic beer, the good company and the awesome music we sometimes play, what brings you to the Skunk Works?"
Buzz looked down into the ground and mumbled something.
"This one here cannot hear you. Please to speak up if you can."
Buzz looked at Zathras, who in return stared back intently.
"Sorry Zath. I have a problem with some nanite implants."
"They do not look troubled to this person"
"Aw come on Zath, can't you see he shouldn't have boobs?" Moda pushed Zathras coyly on the shoulder.
"We are not at liberty to judge other persons personal appearances."
Moda shook his head in wonder and looked back at Buzz.
"So, nanite implants? What is wrong apart from the fact that they are very shapely?"
"I want them off."
"Okay, then you'll need some anti-nanites that are tailored to the type of nanites that made them in the first place. Fortunately Zath here is somewhat of an expert on that subject, and he has many connections in BioCom."
Buzz fumed at the mentions of BioCom, but he nodded at Moda.
"Whatever it takes Moda, whatever it takes."
###
Chainslaw Slan was slowly sifting his way through the innards of the outside maintenance bot he had disassembled with a shot from his mega positron blaster. He was looking for the small telltale receiver/recorder he had implanted in the bot, the receiver that had recorded every signal that went in and out of the station and recorded them. He found it and fished it out of the rubble, accidentally cutting himself on the left index finger. He looked at the finger as the blood ran along the it and started dripping into the assorted electronic junk. He took the finger up to his mouth and slowly licked the blood off, relishing in the taste of it. He kept his finger in his mouth while he lifted the receiver/recorder up to his eyes, reading the serial on it's back. Dau-K-10-003C. The one he was looking for. He smiled showing the blood in his teeth and scaring the two guild members that were sitting opposite him. He gave it to psych0cobra and got up from the rubble.
"This got it all?"
"Yeah, it should get us in."
Psych0cobra inserted the receiver/recorder into his pda and started the search programme that Burn had created. It ran for ten seconds before coming up with a seemingly random series of digits, 160 in all. He logged the signal into his pda and sent it via a one time encryption pad to Ahriman and then gave the receiver/recorder back to Chainsaw Slan.
"He has it, so now we wait."
They got as comfortable as they could in the cramped cargo space of the centaur. It wasn't bad, they had all done much worse. After a while, Red Tide even found a deck of cards.
