A Pocketful of Chiefs - Off Line

[Carmelita]

Carmelita had spent a good two days on working on the document, and she was, it had to be said, quite nervous. Chip had been busying herself in the workshop, muttering something about a stapler, but Al3x had agreed to sit with her in the little office she’d built herself in above the briefing rooms and help her out if she needed anything urgently.

She looked at the numbers in front of her. Each one led to the offices of a different law enforcement group across the Omniverse.

The first led to the EPD central office in Coruscant. Despite the problems rife within the city, SupraPol needed to remain within their rights to operate within the city, so she had planned for all eventualities regarding the office. It would be unlikely that Judge Dredd, the official chief of police, would be the one to join her planned conference call, but she had taken no chances in her preparation.

The second would put her through the the primary guardhouses for Camelot. Here, she was more confident she could wind up with Commander Sam Vimes on the other end of a magic mirror, though she wasn’t certain whether the man would be for or against her suggestions.

The third would put her in contact with the sheriff’s department in The Town With No Name. Having met Sheriff Roland Deschain personally, Carmelita knew that getting him away from his duties would be nothing short of a miracle, though she had higher hopes that he might put the stamp of approval on her suggestion.

The fourth was a line all the way across the Omniverse to the Darkshire Militia Headquarters. The current guess was that she’d get one of Commander Atelos’s officers on the line, and whether or not she’d receive any attention from the man himself was up for debate. Her request seemed most out of sorts with the struggles she’d read about in the Pale Moors, and she was a little concerned he might reject the idea out of hand.

The fifth would lead to the Cinnabar Central Police Headquarters. As far as she could tell, the current head of the guard forces was Chief Officer J Growlithe, but the details regarding the island’s forces were outdated at best. Her hope was that promises towards dealing with the Liberation Front might give her an edge on that front.

The sixth was the number of the Ambrosian Royal Guard Offices. The current head of the guard seemed to be Nyeseth, but Carmelita’s details on the subject were even more sketchy than Cinnabar. Ambrosia seemed to exist as a great blindspot in the data she’d accrued from researching the agencies on the Dataverse, mostly due to its comparatively recent creation.

She took a breath and rang the first number.

[Carmelita]

http://omniverse-rpg.com/showthread.php?...2#pid81942

Carmelita closed the call and sat back in her chair. She wiped her brow and turned to Al3x.

“How’d I do?”

The AI shrugged.

“If I knew, I’d tell you. I’ve already forwarded the document to the department, bouncing it through a couple of data sharing sites.”

The vixen looked at the next number on the list.

“Now for the Camelot Guard. I’m ready.”

[Carmelita]

http://omniverse-rpg.com/showthread.php?...6#pid82106

Carmelita gave Al3x a look as the call finished.

“Well, that was amusing,” the AI said, a grin on his projected avatar.

“Maybe, but less than promising. I have a feeling I’m going to have to canvas law enforcement multiple times to get anywhere with this.”

Carmelita sighed and got up from her chair.

“Anyway, I need lunch. Do you want to get Chip in from the workshop.”

“Sure, I’ll give her a call.”

The vixen descended the stairs and headed out into the midday head that settled over the compound. Al3x followed her, his avatar appearing to walk on the ground as he did so.

Carmelita had entered the mess hall and was in the process of getting her lunch sorted out when Chip rang her eyepiece. The vixen answered quickly, raising an eyebrow.

“Chip?”

++Carm, I’ve got another device I’d like to show you. I was working on it as a side project, but given how useful it might be for you I thought I could finish it up.++

“I’m on my way.”

---

The desert heat beat down on the depot and on the vixen who strode between the buildings with a slight sheen of sweat on her brow.

The woman followed the directions from the AI that managed the base and found herself by one of the workshops. The door was slightly ajar, a rush of cool air escaping from the air-conditioned rooms inside.

Carmelita passed through the metal door and closed it behind her. The metal door closed with a soft click of the latch and a beep of the electronic lock. She passed through the front room, a small space designed as a break room, and entered into the main workshop.

The space was not cavernous, but it was certainly spacious. According to Al3x’s accounts of the history of the place, the workshops had been accustomed to fixing everything from mining equipment to tank guns, on items ranging in size from small tracking chips to huge mechanical arms, before having it shipped over to the armoury or the garage. That they would be put to that use again seemed to sit right with the AI, even if the goal of the people doing it was a little more ethical than strip mining a land for its resources.

Leaving the closed bay doors to her right, Carmelita walked slowly over to where a familiar purple furred girl was sitting, protective goggles over her three eyes and soldering equipment in hand. Waiting for a moment when Chip had stopped her minor adjustments, Carmelita had a closer look at what was being built.

The device appeared to be a small circle of metal, a flat side with three pads serving to anchor it to the workbench while the upper side curved slightly, allowing space for the insides to fold up. Chip was soldering a few wires under a little flap she had dislodged from the very centre, and after finishing the job she very gently screwed the flap back in place.

“Done?” Carmelita asked.

Chip gave a startled cry which she quickly turned into a greeting before spinning around, offering the device to Carmelita to hold.

“Here. I present to you the Steel-Titanium Anti-Personnel Lockdown Electric Restraint.”

Carmelita blinked.

“How long did it take you to come up with an acronym that spelt ‘stapler’?” she asked, half serious.

Chip gave a nod to a computer screen nearby that displayed Al3x’s avatar giving a cheerful wave.

“Half a minute, with Al3x’s help.”

The three of them shared a chuckle before Chip returned to her demonstration.

“The device is supposed to be deployable without disrupting your cloak, but I may have to make some adjustments after we test it. The STAPLER acts similar to an anti-personnel mine, in that after deployment if the device is depressed from above it will activate, although unlike a mine the STAPLER is significantly less lethal. Don’t use it on the really fragile or those with medical aversion to electricity and I can safely say it is non-lethal.”

Carmelita looked at the disk appreciatively. Chip lifted her goggles from her eyes and continued to talk.

“The STAPLER restrains its target with bands of Steel-Titanium alloy, obviously, and a circular current is applied at regular intervals that will ground itself through the target to the base, hopefully shocking them into submission. I haven’t been able to store a charge that will keep the devices going for twenty seconds, but that should be plenty of time for your needs.”

Carmelita smiled and enveloped the STAPLER in omnilium, letting the substance course through the materials and copy it for future duplication. At the visible sign of approval, Al3x began visibly moving files around on the desktop, selecting a nearby automated construction rig and setting it to construct a couple of similar designs, one labelled ‘SupraPol use’ and the other labelled ‘Defence use’. Chip, meanwhile, leant back in her chair in satisfaction.

Carmelita handed the device back and replicated three more, slotting them into place in one of her belt pouches.

“Okay,” she said as she looked at them. “What happens if they go off accidentally, and what are their limitations?”

Chip turned the original over and pointed at a safety locked toggle on the bottom.

“This is the manual override. As for limitations beyond the time problem, I didn’t design the portable versions to work on anything larger than larger than an eight feet tall, six feet wide cylinder. The bands themselves are strong enough to handle some primes, but the base is vulnerable if they can get at it.”

Carmelita smiled and gestured for Chip to get up and follow her.

“You’ve made my day, Chip. Lunch?”

Chip smiled and put the device away.

“Sounds good.”

[Carmelita]

Carmelita sighed as Chip left the mess hall, pinching her muzzle between her fingers.

“Okay, back to the grind. Four more to talk to, then I can get out into the field while they mull it over. Just the rest of the day politicking.”

She sighed and straightened her back, heading back to her office and mentally preparing for the next call.

[Carmelita]

http://omniverse-rpg.com/showthread.php?...2#pid83022

Carmelita gave a sigh of relief as she realised she was done for the day.

“Thanks for the help Al3x.”

“No problem. Judging from your mood today, I guess you’re not a fan of the bureaucracy side of things?”

Carmelita nodded, fetching some keys from her pocket and twirling them round her fingers.

“You’d guess right. I’ve always been much more comfortable in the field, tracking down criminals and sneaking into hideouts. Speaking of which, I need to burn off some steam. Is there anything I could be doing?”

Al3x paused, his avatar stroking its chin.

“There’s a request for help in the Pale Moors. It doesn’t say who it’s from, but it is addressed to you specifically.”

“Pass it over.”

The woman perused the email that she had been sent. It was sparse on details, but it gave a time, a location and a request to hurry. She put away her eyepieces and pulled out the keys for her patrol car.

“I guess I need to see what the matter is. Hold the fort for a while.”

“Chip and I will keep you informed,” Al3x said. “Make sure to check your account regularly, since the responses to the recruitment page are beginning to trickle in.”

Carmelita nodded and gave a cheerful wave as she strode out of her office, heading for her patrol car.

---

The desert night was cool and empty, and Carmelita drove through it listening to some solid classical music. She parked up as the sun came up, put on the air conditioning and caught an hour’s sleep before waking up surprisingly refreshed.

Soon the sand gave way to xeric scrub, and ahead of her the portal to the Nexus came into view. Carmelita pulled up and extracted the Omnilium within the vehicle’s structure before stepping through into the Nexus.

The portal felt cool to her fur as she left the Endless Dunes.