“Looks like we got trouble outside.” Halen looked away from a screen that showed the view from a tiny security camera hidden in the hallway and said to the others in the room.

The other two scientists seated beside him had stood to look at the holo-monitor. The entire gathering kept growing throughout the afternoon, and as twilight was now descending on the city of Kallerish outside, there were over a dozen members of Wolton’s so called Union crammed into the science room. It was not quite a laboratory and to have labeled it as such simply because so many of those gathered were scientists of some sort would have been wrong. The scientists were just there feeding information and programming to the robots, who in turn were using tools and 3-D printers. Modern scientist on Titan no longer used beakers in labs and performed experiments, ever since the AI revolution, modern scientists were all mostly robotic specialists. The whole setup was more like an auto workshop.

“Trouble?” Rocco pushed some of the smaller scientists away to look for himself. He was much larger and more muscular than the rest of them, the Union group being comprised of Procyon, Rodentia, two different types of Felid and one Mephitidae. “What kind of trouble?”

Rocco saw for himself what kind of trouble, and his ears went up immediately when he saw the picture on the viewscreen. There were two Canids walking up the hallway towards their hab calling them out. He thought the one slightly larger one looked vaguely familiar and could not quite place him but realized with a sneer that he recognized the other. Atani, the dirty lowdown Foxen that had tried to swindle the brothers outside the city. He went to the corner where he had left his assault rifle, picked it up and slid the action back, pushing the button to extend it into duty-mode.

“Yo! What’s going on?” Rocky was coming into the room from the lav-room.

Rocco was about to walk towards the door without answering, but Wolton stepped forward with something in his hands that caught the big Titan’s attention.

“Don’t use that silly old-fashioned rifle chap. Here, try this instead.”

Rocco took the offered piece of equipment and looked at it skeptically for a moment, before handing his rifle back to the other Procyon. The sleek looking rifle had a display much like the Axions his brothers used. He gasped in surprise; it was an expensive E-rifle!

“We’ve printed a few, it’s a new design based on the older Pathfinder model. Its factory condition and in standby mode, ready to be configured.”

“Cheers.” Rocco held the grip and the stock in his hands, and the soft blue display turned on along the side. It blinked: “New User?”

“New user.” Rocco replied, seeming amused by his new toy. It then scrolled “Please keep hands on both sensor areas while we configure your E-Rifle” on the digital display.

A few moments later and the gun produced a soft ding like an oven timer.

“Hello” Read the screen. Then: “New user? Please enter username.”

“Roc Daddy.” Rocco spoke, drawing a strange look from his brother.

The rifle took a few more moments before the screen flashed three times. “Welcome Roc Daddy. Would you like to link a Titannet Account?”

Rocco began typing into his wrist comm to pair the devices.

“Pairing complete.” The display read, then changed to “Ready.”

“Safety off.” Rocco spoke, and the E-Rifle’s display changed colors from light blue to red.

“Where are you going?” Rocky asked after patiently watching this exchange.

“To kill some dirty, low-down tail-waggin’ Canids.” Rocco returned with a grunt.

Rocky held down the power button on his own Axiom to turn it on as he drew it out from a hip holster. He did a quick check to make sure his holster had charged it sufficiently and skipped away to follow his brother out the front door.

They came out just as both male Canids were coming into view from down the hall. Both Procyons leveled their weapons and the other two saw them then and stopped.

“Wait!” Jardan shouted, throwing his hands up defensively.

“You’re Ricky’s friends! Great Stars we found you at last!” Atani called.

“You dirty mutt!” Rocco now had his finger over the trigger button. “You stole from me and have the nerve to show yourself again? Time to get put down…”

“Wait! We have Ricky!”

Rocky reached up and lowered the barrel of Rocco’s E-Rifle towards the floor, pointing his own barrel towards the ceiling.

“Where is he, you rat-bastards?” Rocky called back.

The other two began nervously approaching, as if they expected to get shot at any moment. With Rocco’s hot temper, they probably were not completely unfounded fears.

“It’s not what you think. We don’t have him as in kidnapped or anything of the sort.” Atani was now close enough that they did not need to shout, showing his hands and continuing a respectably slow approach. “We ran into each other and it’s a long story, but he’s hurt.”

“What do you mean he’s hurt?” Rocky eyed him suspiciously. “If you did anything to him, I’ll take my hand off my brother’s…”

“No, no. We didn’t do anything. We were trying to get back here to you guys. Some gangers jumped us and…” Atani looked back down the corridor he had traveled from. “He’s about the bravest Procyon I’ve ever seen.”

“Gangers?” It was Rocco’s turn to react skeptically. “I’ve seen my brother take on groups of gangers back on Gunrock.”

“This wasn’t a regular ganger.” Atani spoke quickly. “This was a cybernetically enhanced Wolfen.”

“A Wolfen?” Rocky repeated incredulously, followed a moment later by his brother who mouthed the words with a beaming smile filled with pride.

“Where is he?” Rocky began looking down the corridor at that point also, half-expecting some scheme or foe to materialize.

“Coming. She can hear ten times better than even the best Wolfen or Rabbid ears.”

“She?” Both brothers repeated.

A moment later a blur came down the corridor faster than either could react to stand before them. She was carrying an obviously banged up unconscious Ricky. So intent were they on their big brother’s state of health that it took a moment for either to recognize the Foxen who now held him in her arms.

“Right, the sister.” Rocky said.

Rocky then nodded towards the door and led the group inside. Amiga followed next, still carrying her unconscious cargo. Rocky led them to the back area.

“Are any of you Apothecaries or healers by any chance?” He asked the gathering. It seemed at least a fifty-fifty chance that one of the scientists would have a specialty outside of mechanical engineering.

They exchanged looks between themselves and all seemed to share a pained expression that held no meaning for Rocky, until Wolton stepped forward to explain.

“We had one, by the name of Timmock, but he was captured by the Zenith Corp last Winter. Nobody has heard from him since.”

“Great.” Rocky ejected in a tone that implied it was not great in his eyes. “So now what do we do? How bad is he?”

“I’m no healer.” One of the others, a calico colored Felid Catus spoke while waving Amiga towards a couch on one side of the room. “But I can tell you this Titan has some form of internal bleeding based on the blood in his mouth.”

“Will he get better?” Rocky asked, fearing he knew the answer to his question.

“Not on his own.” The Felid shook his head while examining Ricky, who was placed gently on the couch. “He needs nanos to repair the internal damage.”

“Well we can’t let him die!” Rocco was now involved and seemed to be getting emotional by the sight of his older brother in such a state.

“We’re not going to let him die, mate. What can we do Wolton?”

Put suddenly on the spot, Wolton scratched his head and looked at a loss for a few moments. But then the big wheels began to turn, and he spoke his thoughts.

“How are you boys with reckless and dangerous missions?”

Rocco and Rocky exchanged a shrug.

“We’re fine with reckless and dangerous.” Rocky said, his brother nodded agreement.

“The detention center that Timmock was taken to was within a few kilometers of a medical station. You two could find Timmock and break him out, then swing by the medical station and pick up some nanobots.”

“How can we break into an guarded detention center?” Rocky’s face grew troubled by the thought. “We’ve seen them back on Gunrock. They’re basically fortresses.”

“For breaking out yes, but not for breaking in. Delta nine…” Wolton called over one of the science bots. “Bring up a map of the East Alton detention center.”

The robot brought up a holo-display in the air, and the small Procyon began to study it. He started typing away on his net-comm unit, getting more information about various aspects of the designs he saw.

“That place is ninety to a hundred kilometers from Kallerish.” Rocky remarked while doing his own research. “We don’t even have a vehicle. We’ll never get there in time.”

Halen interjected himself into the conversation with great enthusiasm then. “But our new system will have the first prototypes finished within the hour!”

“Great Stars!” Wolton smiled. “We were going to ask you chaps to test our prototype anyway, we can just test them in a fully operational situation!”

“The rocket thing you told us about?” Rocky asked. Truthfully, he had not been really listening fully the first time and had been scrolling around on his Net-Comm.

“Of course!” Wolton exclaimed before quickly adding “It’s not a rocket though.”

Rocky and Rocco exchanged a knowing look between them. They still did not trust these scientists, but the thought of saving their brother filled them both with urgency. And the promise of adventure was not something easily turned down either.

“Give us a little time to plan this out.” The Felid said to the brothers as he came over. “This will be a good dry run for our ability to plan sorties into enemy territory.” He seemed more concerned with the future of their silly group than the injured Titan lying on the couch.

“Right, so we’re going to be a test?” Rocco whispered to his brother.

“I reckon. That’s the way it looks at least.”

“What happens if they don’t get it right?”

Rocky’s eyes narrowed as he watched the scientists gathering and plotting some grand mission.

“We’ll just have to find a way to make it right.” He answered. “When life gives you a square peg and all the holes around you are circles, you just have to drive that sonofabitch in there until it fits.”

* * * *

“Begin Configuration.” The blinking display announced. Rocco stared blankly at it for a moment.

“Once we finish configuring it to your Net-Comm, you’ll be able to issue commands with your EEG thought-to-speech feature. It will be voice command activated. But there are a few buttons on the side here that will control any heat regulation.” Wolton pointed towards what he was talking about.

Rocco was wearing the prototype on his back, which was wirelessly connected to the special boots and gloves he now wore. It was surprisingly light and did not feel like it would get in the way much. The command prompt for the device was wired into his Net-Comm heads-up-display, and it was this he was staring at instead of listening to the excited scientist.

“I’m still not sure I understand this.” Rocky said next to him. He was suited the same and opening and closing his glove while he inspected it.

“It’s a proton power cell pack that runs on magnetoplasmadynamic ion thrusters, this is essentially a limitless flight suit capable of extraordinary speed and maneuverability.”

“Configuration complete.” Rocco’s backpack sized device displayed on his HUD. Then it simply read “Ready”.

“So, it’s a flying machine.” Rocco said. “Remember that guy back in Gunrock that made that rocket pack and blew himself up?”

Rocky laughed at the memory but stopped abruptly at the implications it could mean for the device he was now strapped into.

“So how do we know these aren’t going to blow us up?” Rocky asked.

“Because it’s a clean and safe process. It will work as intended. We have run thousands of hours of simulations, that’s what I was doing at Marshall Industries. It’s not just going to blow up or something.” Wolton stopped for a moment and held up a finger. “But don’t under any circumstances damage the device.”

“You’ve run simulations?” Rocky asked in disbelief. “So, this is all theoretical?”

“Until today. You, my friends, get to be a part of history. You will take my designs and turn science theory into science reality.”

“Lucky us.” Rocky turned towards his brother. “I’m glad we aren’t scientists.” Rocco grinned.

“Now these devices come standard with 128 exabytes of storage, which isn’t as much as your cloud servers, but should be more than enough to store any maps or saved routing information, geological and meteorological patterns that you may need. It also has room to store data on encounters and enemies you face, just like the E-rifles and can use the same predictive technologies.”

Rocky began to state to the scientist that level of information would take only gigs, not exas. Exas were more on the level of storing the entire planet’s worth of libraries. He was stopped before he could say anything.

“I’m going.” Came a determined voice from behind them. They all turned to see Amiga striding towards them. “Give me one of those things. I’m going too.”

“There are only three right now.” Wolton replied.

“One. Two. Three.” She pointed at the two males and then to herself. “Ricky’s not gonna need his right now. And unless we accomplish this mission, he’s not going to be needing anything ever again. So, I need to go to make sure it gets done. No offense boys.”

Rocco looked towards her blankly then went back to playing with his new E-Rifle. He was most amused by the powerful magnets that allowed him to store it on the side of his flight pack itself. There was a simple command to release, and it was amazing to the big Titan that the magnets were so powerful he could not budge it with all his strength until he manually detached it.

Wolton looked to the other two Procyons for some type of solidarity. They instead glanced at each other briefly and shrugged in reply.

“Fine by me.” Rocky said. “Just don’t get in the way.”

Amiga laughed. “Don’t get in my way little Gunrockian.”

“Little? I’ll have you know I’m a fair size proportion for my race.”

“Keep telling yourself that.” Rocco laughed and clapped a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Let’s stop talking and get stuck in mates.” He was not one for sitting around and talking about plans all day.

“But I still haven’t explained all the features and…” Wolton began.

“We’ll figure it out as we go.” Rocco smiled. His brother did not look as confident as him, but he nodded. They had escaped an occupied Gunrock and traveled all the way to Gothimir with that same basic fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants attitude. Why change now?

The three geared up Titans walked out into the hall a few minutes later, followed eagerly by a procession of scientists who had been working long hours to achieve this moment in time. They made their way to the elevators and went up another forty floors splitting the group between two lifts. When the doors opened again, the groups met up once more at an outdoor balcony.

The sun was just beginning to break out over the cityscape, lighting the very rim of the horizon in gold and pink. The air was brisk this high in the air, but the view was breathtaking. Rocky thought he could view the entire city from here, and some of the countryside in the distance. Vast hydroponic operations along with traditional farmland set up on the fringes of town that supplied much of the food supply to the enormous city.

“On.” He spoke the voice command to his pack, making sure the toggle switch was engaged. Amiga and Rocco both did the same.

“Don’t be nervous.” Rocco clapped his brother on the shoulder. “You remember the old story they used to tell about us on Gunrock?”

“You mean the one about us not being able to die?” Rocky returned skeptically.

“Yeah, after Ricky survived that fall.”

“I’m pretty sure that was a bloomin’ fairy-tale. Or urban legend. However you want to look at it. You know it’s not real right?”

“Nah it’s real. Standing here looking out into the sky, I can feel it. That old Ocelanian witch’s curse was real.”

Rocky rolled his eyes, not particularly wanting to relive that embarrassing childhood experience.

“It’s got a small boot!” Rocco remarked, finding the button that opened and closed the opening on the side.

“Whenever you guys are ready.” Wolton prodded. The rest of the gathering watched breathlessly.

Rocky stepped up to the edge of the railing and looked down. His breath froze in his chest as he saw just how impossibly high they were. On this level the ground was barely visible, and only a misty layer of thin clouds were below them.

“This is crazy.” He muttered. He could barely even see the tops of the highest buildings that were not AstroBlocs below.

“Yeah but ain’t it fun?” Rocco beamed gazing over the edge. He backed up and took a running start for the ledge.

Every ounce of conventional wisdom inside of Rocky screamed out to stop his brother from this foolishness. He instead watched as he ran headfirst towards the edge of the patio and leaped over the railing. A soft white glow came from the Ion thrusters as he stopped falling and began to move forward through the air. Amiga was next, with no running start. His heart was beating out of his chest as he prepared for what would come next.

“You only live once!” He muttered under his breath.

Rocky stepped onto the ledge and pushed off into open space, his feet no longer finding terrestrial purchase. His heartrate rose even higher and it felt like his head would explode from the sudden adrenaline rush that was so intense, he did not even hear the scientists behind him cheering loudly at the trio.

“Fly!” He shouted the command to engage the thrusters.

He immediately stopped his downward freefall and felt an unnatural force engage from behind him and propel him forwards through the air.