xp_logs | Garrison and Forge, Wednesday morning

Not even back from Hungary for 24 hours, and Forge gets another international trip arranged. This time, courtesy of Special Inspector Kane and the Canadian government.

"Thanks Laurie." Kane said to the girl as she left, idly flipping through the mail she'd run to him from the door. The mansion received a lot of mail, but the students were usually nice enough (or nosy enough) to flip through the stack at the door and drop letters off when conveinant. Even though the mail addressed to the school went to the administration, a job he didn't envy considering the hundreds of letters that came in daily, there was always still a pile at the front. Worse, some of the people living here would still have mail waiting at the door if someone didn't toss it to them.

Kane caught the one in Heather's neat handwriting and tore open the top. Only a few lines into the letter, and he realized why this hadn't been sent by e-mail. The letter, once destroyed, would show no proof of the unofficial invitation that had been extended. Garrison chuckled to himself as he tucked the letter into his pocket and walked into the hall. It was afternoon, so Forge would be... ah.

Kane approached the door and rapped on it smartly.

Forge looked up from his desk, sleeves rolled up and drafting pencil clutched in between two metal fingers. An abridged copy of the mansion's layout was unrolled before him, with engineering equations scribbled all around the blueprint. A look of annoyance crossed his face as he glanced up at the Mountie in his doorway. "Special Inspector Kane, what's broken this time?"

"Nothing more than your concentration and social skills." Kane toed the pile of mail that had been slid under the door over to the foot of Forge's chair. "You have a letter. Believe me. Mysterious powers and all that." He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the wall.

"A huh?" Forge walked around to flip through his mail. "Invoice... invoice... government, government, invoice... the Right Hon... huh?" He withdrew the envelope with the embossed blue seal and turned it over in his fingers. Grabbing a letter opener, Forge unsealed the envelope neatly and unfolded the letter. He read it three times before looking up at Garrison. "This some kind of joke?"

"A little elaborate for a joke, don't you think? I mean, my idea of a joke to play on you involves something more in the wedgie genre, eh." Kane said, entertained at the sudden look. "I wrote to Minister MacDonald about your concerns involving technology you claim to have had a hand in developing. Both he a Dr. Hudson want to hear your thoughts and discuss the issue."

"Huh," Forge repeated. He glanced down at his PDA to check the calendar. "Yeah, I can swing that. You... wait, you actually arranged for me to meet with the Canadian Under Minister of Defense?" He thought about that for a while. "Why?"

"You asked." Kane shrugged. "If you had a hand in the technology, and that's a very big if, you deserve at least a yes or no whether or not you're going to get a straight answer about it. According to Heather, Mac Hudson has been meaning to try and get a chance to meet with you for a bit, but Mac works about nine thousand hours a week. Not a lot of time for e-mail."

"Wait, wait, whoa. James Macdonald Hudson? Guy who won the Edison Award for innovation in industrial electronics for three years in a row back in the 90s? Wow." Forge blinked in astonishment. "I, uh... thanks. I mean..."

He took a deep breath, then walked around his desk to sit back in his chair. Humility didn't come easy to Forge, and apologies even less so. "The chip I designed for Haroun was meant to interpret nerve signals and translate them into an electronic machine language to communicate with an artificial nervous system in his prosthetics. To do that, it used what we called 'fractal memory', something beyond normal computer systems, more like how the body remembers things on instinct. The biochip at the top of your spine works the same way - I did some backtracking, all legit, and found out that the medical tech concern that I licensed the patent to happened to have a division working for the Canadian Ministry of Defense."

Forge shrugged. "I don't like the idea of building weapons, Kane. I want to use this gift I have to save lives, not endanger them. But from what I saw the other weekend, back there in the park... if that chip's adapted from my design, then it's being put to fair use. So that's that."

"If this is the part where we're supposed to hug, I'd just as soon avoid not. No offense, eh." Kane pushed himself away from the wall. "Do you know why they wanted to put the chip in my spine? I mean, I can run fifty, sixty K for hours. I can benchpress an SUV without breaking a sweat, and I can take that very same SUV in the chest head on and have a chance at survival."

"However, the fact is that up against a mutant like Magneto I'm dogfood. And my job description says that I'm supposed to arrest people like that. All that power and strength, and that chip is there to give me at least a slim chance of not ending up a kebab in the first ten seconds." Garrison shrugged a little, downplaying his words. "Cops don't get an option of picking and chosing who they have to arrest when people break the law. The RCMP is hoping that solutions like this chip will make sure fewer of them get killed when some guy with superpowers beats his wife to death, and the X-Men aren't incoming to help with the arrest."

"I'm in agreement there," Forge said, holding up a hand, "but how far from there to 'we don't like your country's policy on X, we're going to put this in five hundred soldiers and drop them into your capital city'? I have no problem assisting for the greater good. Hell, it's why I'm here. But the last thing I want to do is inadvertently outfit something that's going to turn into an Aldous Huxley novel."

"Canada invade someone? Somehow, I strongly doubt that will happen. Besides, the program is geared to the RCMP, not the Canadian military."

Forge cocked his head. "You're speaking Great White North. I thought the RCMP was the military. Uniforms, ribbons, all that crap."

"I weep for your education system. Royal Canadian Mounted Police. We're the federal law enforcement agency. Hell, in most of Canada, we're the only law enforcement agency." Kane shook his head. "Why do you think I'm liaisoning with the FBI, and not, I don't know, the Marines or something?"

"I don't know. They tell me it'd be unethical to read your mail," Forge responded. "Wait, so you're just a cop, not some Captain Caribou super-soldier?"

"Just a cop, who happens to be very well trained. I came up through a program not unlike the training program here, only, well, a lot longer and taught by people with more than five years experience in what they do." He grinned. "But no, I've never been a member of the Canadian Armed Forces. Nothing but a plain, ordinary, extremely pretty Mountie."

Forge cocked his head. "Huh. Well, the next time you talk to your people, let them know I'll be contacting the Right Honorable's office to set up a meeting. And thanks."

"Actually, he wants to see you next week. Monday morning." Kane said. "I'm leaving the same time as the rest for my review. If you want to catch a ride, you just be ready on time."

"Fair enough," Forge said, turning back to his blueprints. "I'll even promise not to make any beaver jokes."

"And I promise not to get you cavity searched at the border." Garrison said before leaving the room.