Maxwell finished serving up his dinner and placed everything on the table, then made sure that Zachary had his food as well. The cat waited patiently, after all, it was a lot of hard work to get a good meal ready for him. He needed everything just right. Zachary, that is, not Max. After seeing to Zachary’s needs, Max sat down at the table and began eating. He didn’t have the radio on, nor the television. Eating with him was always quiet and peaceful, one of the few things he felt he needed without distraction.He thought about the past few nights and the seeming whirlwind of events that landed him in Regina. He had applied for a position in the Biology Department that would see him dealing with birds of prey, especially those brought in that needed tending too. Max wouldn’t be teaching classes just yet, although the Dean did say the looked over his references and found his historical knowledge of Native history was impressive. Perhaps in the next semester they would want him to assist in the history department as well. He shrugged internally and kept eating. The move would be a good one. No need to get worked up over it all now.
He finished his meal and washed up his dishes. Zachary meowed and trotted into the livingroom to sit on the window sill and watch the world outside of the apartment. Too bad the sun was going down, no sun spots to lounge in. Max took down a few books and set them at his desk, research for the devices he had began to build. He also had a few papers to to sign and hand in to the University. By the time he was finished it was 9 o’clock in the evening. He rose from his desk and went over to Zachary, scratching him behind the ears. Zachary pushed his head up, meowing at the attention, then hopped off the window sill and followed Max as he walked to the basement.
Boxes filled the basement of the house. A workshop was beginning to take shape, even if the contents of the boxes remained where they were. Mostly books, some extra clothes and a few tools. He sat down at a workbench and organized a few papers as he produced his equipment. The papers had drawings, schematics for an odd device. His hobbies had helped him, interests as a child, and those continued on now into adulthood. He had grown quite used to fixing small components of electronic equipment, and had even managed to modify a few things in his day. But this was being built from scratch.
The device looked like a high tech aspirator. It had three small speaks on it, and what appeared to be USB ports. It fit around the nose and mouth of the wearer comfortably, at least. Or so it would appear. The straps and bindings were a soft leather, a strange contrast from the very modern day tech that had been used to create the device. You couldn’t even tell that it contained the parts of an old iPod. Max’s idea was sound, to take the cries of hawks, falcons and eagles, recorded into mp3 format and loaded onto the storage compartment of the device. A second device, which would wrap around his left wrist, would hold the play list, as it were. A quick tap on the play list would load up the next track and play it. As the sound would come through the speaker system, it would become highly altered, increasing the intensity of the sound to the point where it could damage.
This was the first step that Max would use to investigate the disappearance of his daughter. He was more than convinced that she was still alive, and that the multinational biogenetic company Mandrake Biogenetic was behind her disappearance. But in order to convince others of this, he needed evidence. And he needed to do it in a covert manner. The amplification rig was the only high tech piece he had. The rest of his armour was very much a throw back to his ancestry. Combining solid body armour and old markings from his family’s stories, he managed to create something that looked very similar to what Dakota warriors would wear when on the hunt.
As he finished at his workbench, he smiled. The device would need to be tested, but at least this step was complete.
Hawk’s Scream would rise and take flight very soon.
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