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Job Sign-Up: Page 23, Post Number 558

-Motor City, outside Dr. Reid's laboratory, 10:00 A.M.-

Wearing her blue Steel Matron t-shirt with khaki cargo shorts and white tennis shoes with her backpack on her back, Victoria sat on her Centaur just outside Dr. Reid's laboratory. Yesterday afternoon she had received a letter from the doctor stating that her creation had had the new power generator installed inside of it and was ready to go. Victoria had been unable to go to the laboratory yesterday because she had been a bit lazy, but today she was here to claim Dr. Reid's creation and take it home with her.

Victoria turned off the Centaur, climbed off of it, and took off her backpack. She fished out the letter from it and zipped the backpack up again. Victoria then put the backpack on her back and walked over to the intercom grille to speak the password that would gain her admission to the doctor's laboratory. She stopped in front of the intercom grille and read the letter that had the password she needed.

Today's password was Clarke.

Once the brunette had read the password she pressed the button on the intercom grille and got the doctor's attention.

"Password?" Dr. Reid asked.

"Clarke." Victoria gave the password.

"Hello Victoria! I take it you drove here on your Centaur, so I'll open the garage for you!" Dr. Reid said. Victoria put the letter in her right side cargo pocket, jogged back over to her Centaur, cranked it up, and waited for the garage to open. When it opened she cranked up the hovercycle and gently moved the throttle forward, easing into the garage until she was completely inside. Once she was inside the doctor closed the garage door behind her.

-Inside the garage-

Victoria turned off the Centaur and got off of it. She put the Centaur ignition key in her left side pocket and turned to face the doctor, who was looking rather chipper today. The doctor was wearing a pink t-shirt with short black skirt and brown work boots.

"Hey Victoria! Glad to see that you made it!" Dr. Reid greeted the brunette with a smile. Victoria raised her right hand and waved at the doctor.

"You seem awfully chipper today. Did you drink too much coffee?" Victoria risked a joke at the blonde's expense. The doctor just laughed.

"Well, I'm on my sixth cup of the day, so you're only partially right." Dr. Reid admitted that being on a caffeine rush was one reason that she was so happy.

"What's the other reason?" Victoria asked.

"Well, after hitting some rough patches on a few projects of mine, everything's going smoothly again. I'm finally making decent progress on my most important project after a string of logistical problems threatened to make me shut it down because it was becoming a money pit." Dr. Reid explained the other reason why she was so cheerful today. Victoria analyzed the doctor's body language and learned that the doctor was being completely honest about the setbacks she had experienced before finally getting past them. Victoria could tell that the doctor's happiness was genuine.

"Those projects include your new robotic pal. I finished repairing him the day before yesterday." Dr. Reid told Victoria. It was the Sabertooth mage's turn to smile.

"Great!" Victoria remarked. Dr. Reid smiled and turned towards the back of the garage.

"Ready to see him?" The blonde asked Victoria. The brunette gave a thumbs-up with her left hand.

"All right then. Prepare to be amazed!" Dr. Reid told Victoria. The Sabertooth mage followed the doctor past the same barrel-shaped suit that had been sitting there during her last visit and the pair soon reached the large double doors that were kept locked by a passcode. Dr. Reid entered the passcode and the doors opened to show the small robot standing in the middle of the floor.

"The power supply problem should be solved now. He's got a top-of-the-line generator installed and I double-checked all the connections to make sure everything was in the right place. I'll activate him now." Dr. Reid said. She briskly strode over to the small robot and knelt down on her right knee, then flipped a switch on his back. Its single eye blinked green as the robot activated and spoke.

"LR-1014 is online." The robot said. Victoria was puzzled by the letters and numbers it had spoken when. Was LR-1014 its name? Dr. Reid stood up and stepped back from it.

"Meet LR-1014, but I call him Larry!" Dr. Reid introduced the robot as Larry. Victoria was not sure if the name "Larry" fit, but she could not think of anything else to call him. Besides, Dr. Reid had created him, not the brunette, so the doctor could call her creation whatever she wanted.

At least she had chosen a reasonable name for him instead of calling him by a long string of letters and numbers.

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Victoria watched "Larry" look at her with his single eye as he stood motionless. Dr. Reid noticed Victoria looking at him and spoke to her.

"Try greeting him again, Victoria. It'll go a lot better this time. I promise!" Dr. Reid suggested, stating that the greeting would go better this time now that her creation's power supply problem had been solved. Victoria obliged and raised her left hand in greeting.

"Hi Larry." Victoria greeted the small robot. It raised its left hand in greeting.

"Hello. I am LR-1014, but you may call me Larry." The small robot introduced itself to Victoria in a robotic voice. The brunette looked at the doctor and smiled.

"He's great!" Victoria said. Dr. Reid smiled back.

"I think so too, but you might want to take that with a grain of salt since I'm the one who created him." Dr. Reid said to Victoria. Victoria looked at Larry and could not help but to marvel at what the doctor had created. She had managed to duplicate her mentor's work and make a smaller version of it, but she had to make some sacrifices to make Larry a reality. Dr. Reid could not afford the high-quality parts that her mentor used in his creation, so she had to use more common parts and tone down Larry's power to keep him from suffering power overloads that might cause him to explode.

"Say, want to see what Larry can do?" Dr. Reid asked Victoria. The blonde did not need to ask her twice.

"Sure!" Victoria replied. Dr. Reid began to walk towards the garage while Larry followed behind her. Victoria brought up the rear of the group and together they walked into the garage.

-One hour later, in the garage-

Victoria had waited beside Larry while Dr. Reid had set up both a large metal crate to serve as a target for Larry's beam cannon and a special protective energy shield that covered the wall behind the crate to make sure that if Larry's weapon punched through the crate the shot would not penetrate the wall and hit the building next door. The shield had been activated and now the wall was shimmering a shiny yellow.

When the preparations were finished the doctor approached Victoria and smiled.

"OK, I've set everything up. I've checked and double-checked the shield's power levels. It should be strong enough to stop Larry's beam cannon shot from causing any more damage than intended." Dr. Reid notified Victoria.

"I hope that the shield holds, Doctor. The full-sized version packed an anti-vehicle beam cannon." Victoria expressed her concern to the doctor.

"Yeah, but I think the shield will hold. I spared no expense in making it as powerful as I could in anticipation of this test." Dr. Reid assured Victoria that she had prepared for the test of her creation's weapon.

"All right then, Doctor. I won't argue with you because you've clearly put a lot of thought into preparing for any problems that might come up. When you're ready to start the test, I'm ready." Victoria replied. She was not going to argue with Dr. Reid. Instead she would trust that the doctor had prepared for everything that could go wrong. Dr. Reid smiled.

"OK then. Let's get started!" Dr. Reid said to Victoria. The blonde then looked at Larry.

"C'mon Larry, let's show Victoria what you can do!" Dr. Reid said to her creation. Larry looked at her and his eye flashed green.

"Affirmative." He said. He followed Dr. Reid to the crate and stopped five meters in front of it. Victoria followed the pair and stopped to the doctor's right.

"Larry, fire your beam cannon at that crate!" Dr. Reid instructed her creation. Larry raised the beam cannon in his right hand and leveled it at the crate.

"Firing now." Larry announced. He fired a single yellow beam that hit the crate and punched a hole clean through the center of the target. Victoria was impressed by the power of the weapon, but she was more impressed by the fact that the shot had not hit the wall behind the crate.

"I'll stand off to the side of the crate to see if the shot punches through and hits the shield or not." Dr. Reid informed Victoria before walking to the left side of the target and stopping three meters away from it.

"OK, Larry. Fire at the crate again." Dr. Reid instructed her creation. Larry aimed for a section of the crate below the first hole and prepared to fire.

"Firing now." Larry announced again. He fired a second shot and it hit the target, punching a hole through the crate. Dr. Reid looked at Victoria and smiled.

"The shot didn't punch through the crate. That's perfect. That's the compromise between power and shot penetration that I was looking for." Dr. Reid announced the results of the second shot. Victoria smiled as well. Larry's beam cannon looked to be perfectly functional, but there remained the matter of testing the robot's defense system before Larry was declared fit for Victoria to take into battle.

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[Total Word Count: 1,672/2,500]

"OK, now there's one last thing to test before I hand Larry over to you. That's his defensive system." Dr. Reid informed Victoria. The Sabertooth mage wondered how they were going to test that without taking him out somewhere and pitting him against dangerous creatures. Were they going to take him somewhere like Fat Monsterland and let him fight the zombies there?

"OK, how are we gonna test it? Are we gonna go somewhere dangerous to try it out?" Victoria asked the doctor. Dr. Reid looked at her like the brunette had just taken the words out of her mouth.

"Yeah. I was thinking Fat Monsterland." Dr. Reid said to her. Victoria did not have to think very long about that offer.

"OK. Works for me." Victoria replied before the doctor could change her mind.

"All right then. I'll get my trailer truck and we'll go to Fat Monsterland to try out Larry in a safe environment... so to speak." Dr. Reid said. Victoria would call Fat Monsterland anything but safe, but Larry should be able to handle the zombies without too much trouble. Victoria was on standby in case there were more zombies than either she or Dr. Reid anticipated showing up. She should have brought Hellsinger, but she had left her new weapon back at the guild hall. Oh well.

She still had plenty of weapons that she could summon at a moment's notice if she had to. Her .44 Magnum Revolver was more than enough to put down the zombies that called Fat Monsterland home, but she wanted to try out Hellsinger a bit more before she either used it as a main weapon or saved it as a special weapon she used only when going into areas infamous for supernatural activity.

-Fat Monsterland, seven hours later-

The trailer truck containing Larry pulled close to the clearing where Victoria had done battle with zombies several times before, then came to a stop. Victoria hopped out of the passenger's side of the cab and summoned her .44 Magnum Revolver because she wanted to be ready for the "company" that was going to head their way soon. Dr. Reid hopped out of the driver's side and hurried towards the back of the trailer to prepare Larry for his final test.

Victoria stood watch with her weapon at the ready while Dr. Reid booted up Larry. Victoria could hear the small robot walking out of the back of the trailer, but she could also hear moaning in the distance. Larry had better hurry up and get ready before "company" got here or things could get ugly for the doctor and the Sabertooth mage.

Thankfully Larry got into position because Victoria spotted a quartet of the obese zombies slowly walking towards them followed by a pack of eight fast zombies. The zombies were roughly forty meters away, but they would close in deceptively fast. Once Larry was standing by Victoria's right side Dr. Reid spoke to Victoria.

"OK, which zombies should he target first?" Dr. Reid asked.

"The fast ones. Kill them first. Aim for the head." Victoria replied while taking aim at one of the fast zombies bearing down on the trio.

"You heard Victoria. Fire at the fast zombies and aim for the head, Larry!" Dr. Reid instructed her creation.

"Affirmative." He replied before aiming for the nearest zombie and firing a bright yellow beam of light. The beam hit the charging zombie in the head and destroyed the head instantly. There were only seven more of them to go... that number changed to six when Victoria fired her weapon and took down a fast zombie at thirty-five meters with a headshot.

The six continued to close in, but Larry and Victoria dispatched them with ease. None of them reached the twenty-meter mark before they were killed, leaving just the obese butcher zombies. Those tough customers were still twenty-eight meters away, but Victoria could see gleaming objects flying towards them.

"DUCK!" Victoria shouted at Dr. Reid and dropped to one knee to avoid getting a meat cleaver to the face or the chest.

"Duck? I don't see one-" Dr. Reid protested before screaming when a thrown meat cleaver bounced off of the trailer inches from her head and landed at her feet.

"Larry, activate your defensive system!" Dr. Reid quickly instructed Larry.

"Affirmative." Larry replied. Three red discs popped off of his left shoulder and formed themselves into a triangular pattern in front of him, then projected a triangular shield of shimmering blue energy that protected the front of the small robot. Thrown meat cleavers passed through the shield but hit him to no effect. He was made out of metal, after all.

"Um, Doctor... was that supposed to happen?" Victoria asked Dr. Reid. The blonde was at a loss for words but soon recovered long enough to give the brunette an answer.

"Damn it. I forgot to boost power to the shield defense system before I activated Larry!" Dr. Reid replied. Victoria took that statement to mean that the answer was "No." The brunette frowned a little. She saw a glob of acid hit Larry's shield and completely dissipate without doing any harm to the shield or to Larry.

"Hey, at least the shield can stop acid!" Victoria remarked. Dr. Reid saw another glob of acid hit the shield and dissipate before Victoria fired an Armor-Piercing Round at the offending zombie's head and killed it. Larry dropped the shield and retaliated with his own weapon, killing another obese butcher zombie with a shot that disintegrated the head. The two finished off the last pair of obese butcher zombies and Victoria turned to the doctor.

"I take it you need to take Larry back to your lab to adjust the power of the defensive system?" Victoria asked the doctor.

"Yeah, but we'd better leave for the lab now. I think I hear more zombies." Dr. Reid replied. As if to emphasize her point Victoria heard distant moaning.

"Good idea. Let's go!" Victoria replied without argument. She watched the front of the vehicle while the doctor ordered Larry into the back of the trailer. She heard Larry walk to the back of the trailer and make his way up the boarding ramp. When he had entered the back of the trailer Dr. Reid raised the ramp and shouted to Victoria to get in the truck before getting in the driver's side. Victoria hurried to the passenger's side and got in, then the doctor cranked up the truck.

She got the truck turned around and going back towards Motor City before any zombies showed up. Victoria would have to wait a little longer before she could use Larry in combat, but what she had seen was promising. Considering how long she had waited for Larry to become a reality, she could wait a bit longer until he was up and running at his full potential.

[Post Word Count: 1,154]
[Total Word Count: 2,826/2,500]