Creatures of God

All of This Extra Scrutiny

"What have you found out, Gehru?"

In the electronics division at Anderson Science Center, Gehru held up a broken collar piece that Mimi had brought in for analysis. The non-metallic segment looked like a hardwire cord; dark-colored and thin, the length of a quarter meter, with curvature to its being. On one side of the band, there was a single, large, indicator light. Conspicuously unlit, the overall look of the article was lifeless, like that of a doll, or a sinister shark.

"Waaait... " Gehru said in a dragged out sort of way. "Paaatience... "

Tall and rail-thin, Gehru was a funny-looking character with oversized ears and a pudgy nose. He also had coffee creme skin and tight, curly brown hair. Yet, for all his different attributes, one thing really stood out for Gehru: his artificial right eye. While fully functional, the robotic globe did not sit quite correctly in its socket, giving Gehru an off-kilter kind of persona; as if his attention were always directed elsewhere, distracted during a conversation, and gazing at something else.

In present time Gehru was, in fact, studying something else. His robotic eye whirred and rotated. The fine, metal sheets at its iris opened and closed, forming a dilating pupil; focusing, enlarging, adjusting to the angle at which Gehru held the foreign piece. At the same time, a clear yellow lens at its center glowed deep inside, changing its shape to focus laser-light at different depths.

A red laser-beam shot out from the globe and swept over the collar segment in a slow and wide fashion. Scanning, searching.

"Hmmph," Gehru grunted.

He and Mimi were old friends, having spent a lifetime of rehab together with their robotic prosthetics; Mimi with her cyborg left leg and Gehru with his mechanical right eye. Despite the challenging therapy, each was a constant companion to the other, encouraging progress and improvement. For Gehru specifically, delving into a world of transistors and circuits was therapy alone; an escape from a grim reality. He would naturally become an engineering resident at Anderson later on.

Presently, Gehru changed sitting positions in his chair once, and again, as if uncomfortable and dissatisfied. He spun himself around, as if riding a merry-go-round, then paused for a moment. Consequently, he pushed off and rolled to another desk a short distance away. Underneath a conclave of switches and wires, he found a small, nondescript, scanning device and mounted it onto a headband for immediate use. With the fixture in place on his head, he began another evaluation for the broken collar-piece.

All of this extra scrutiny seemed ironic, Mimi thought, given Gehru's artificial eye.

Squawk! Squawk!

Nearby, a large, yellow-breasted bird with blue and red plumage stood on a stand next to Gehru's workspace. The multi-colored fowl stood out in the room, like a bright flag in the midst of a vast, sepia scene. The bird tilted its head and blinked its eyes in a series of quick, short motions, all the while watching all the hustle and happenstance occurring in the room. It stretched its wings in a couple of deliberate, flapping motions.

"Hi Phoenix!" Mimi called out. "Is Gehru treating you well?"

Squawwwwkkk!

"Don't let him flim-flam you, Mimi," Gehru commented. "He's really a bigger turkey."

Squawk-kk! Squawk!

"O-kie," Gehru said aloud. He placed the section of collar on the table and took off his headgear. "The collars, inside of them, contain nano-frequency disrupters. Human-made. Origin-ly used to... uh, scramble-fry communication lines."

Mimi listened closely.

"Professor Tuli and me thinks they were... uh, re-changed?" He paused. "No, modified... to produce bandwidth confusion."