Andrew sighed loudly as he attached several devices to the collar around Sean’s neck, causing Cal to take a few steps backward, not that he was entirely afraid that Andrew would screw up something here; that was usually more his department. It was just that he had exploded enough times in previous loops to ingrain a deep hatred for the repeated experience.
“What’s wrong?” Cal asked, his back finding a wall.
“This technology is odd,” Andrew answered.
“Odd, how exactly?” Cal followed up, not liking the use of the word odd here. It wasn’t very Andrew-like, which meant this was extremely odd.
“So, we know they had these collars before any of them became involved in the time loops based on some of your previous experiences. The problem is this seems far too advanced for anything the Agency should have access to. I don’t understand how they have it without it going through several loops of advancement,” Andrew’s brow furrowed as he answered, clearly annoyed and confused at the situation.
“Please allow me to take a look,” Libby said calmly. Andrew stepped aside, letting them examine the collar closely. The robot tapped several small spots on the collar carefully before speaking again. “Andrew is correct. They should not have access to these.”
“Great, let’s call that problem number two. Problem number one is still whether or not we can remove them,” Cal said. Just what kind of technology was this that these two could so easily tell that the Agency shouldn’t have it?
“Can we? Yes. Should we? No. Assuming I understand exactly what these are doing, and that is at this point a large assumption, these collars are directly tied into their own mana channels, which brings us to the question of how exactly they are doing this and why it’s only been seen in these collars so far. If they have access to this level of tech, we should have seen it used actively against us, not just as a means of control,” Andrew explained.
“Alright, then I guess the next question is how or where did they find these?” Cal asked. Was it repurposed Gryalth tech? Did they have their own off-world contacts? He didn’t particularly like the idea of either question being yes.
Andrew pressed a button on a console behind him. “Can someone please find Twonger and send him to my lab,” he said. A capybara voice came from a speaker near the button, saying they were on it; Cal wasn’t sure which capybara had responded. If Andrew wanted Twonger here, that meant he suspected some kind of alien tech.
“The implications of how these collars work could do a lot to explain this universe’s seeming missing volume of mana spirits,” Libby said while they waited for Twonger.Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.
“What do you mean?” Cal asked, not following how those two things related to each other.
“The collar is fueling itself through the enslaved’s own mana channels and is burning their mana spirit to do so. I highly doubt there is much left of a spirit after only a year of this, which further leads me to believe that ogres get weaker the longer they are in use,” Andrew explained.
“Yes, we do. We are usually disposed of once we are no longer able to access any of our abilities,” Sean replied, confirming Andrew’s suspicions.
“Usually?” Cal asked, wondering what happened to those that weren’t.
“Yes, those are the lucky ones. Some end up being used in experiments,” Sean answered, slightly shuddering as he said the word experiments. It was some of the first emotion Cal had seen out of the man. He guessed that was how Emily came into existence and entirely understood the man’s fear.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m coming, damn,” Twonger’s voice could be heard from outside the lab before the door opened, revealing the Cyclopean alien.
“Ah, good. Can you take a look at the collar on this man’s neck and tell us if you recognize anything about it?” Andrew asked the moment Twonger was inside.
“Sure,” he answered, walking over to the man and, taking a close look at it, and mimicking the sound Andres had first made when he examined it.
“What?” Andrew and Cal asked in unison.
“This came from your government? You sure about that?” Twonger asked without answering their question.
“Yes,” Sean answered before anyone else.
“Well, then they are sourcing their parts from a very distant supplier. I’ve seen some of these components for sale before, usually by Trulnin merchants, not sure where they get them, though. Was never big on the idea of burning out my own mana channels. So, what’s the play here? Because we ain’t getting this off without the ciphers,” Twonger explained.
“Do you think you could get us to someone with the ciphers?” Cal asked, not sure if the idea of another off-world trip was a good distraction or not.
“Yeah, probably pretty safe of a trip too, might even be able to trade for some useful shit of our own while we’re there,” Twonger said, a gleam in his eye as he spoke. The man obviously had some very specific things in mind. Cal realized his brain had already decided this was very much the distraction he needed.
“How long would it take?” he asked, contemplating who he’d drag along with them.
“Couple of months should be back before the year you wanted to take off is over,” Twonger answered, giving me a knowing nod. He knew I wanted to go.
“Let me go talk to Andy, I think he and Bill should join us on this trip, so we need a couple of days for them to recover still and make all the needed preparations. This will put us behind a bit on training the kids, but we have to get these collars off,” Cal said, already planning for the idea of alien merchants.
“You are going to need to take Sean as well. We can’t remove the collars, so unless you bring someone to test the removal codes on, there’s no way to know if you really have what you need until you return. I can brief Andy and Bill enough on what they will need to do, and honestly, with Ethel’s return that should speed up the kid’s education far more than losing you will harm it,” Andrew said. Cal hated that the man wasn’t wrong on that last statement.