Disclaimer: only my fake ID seems to think i'm JK Rowling

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"I spent five years on this!" Foaly raged. Arena ignored him and calmly tapped away at her keyboard.
"And I spent five minutes with it." she replied coolly. She had just reduced his latest version of the unhackable black box to dust with a simple graphing calculator, chewing gum and a paperclip. Hardly a mastermind's tool kit, meaning that once again, he had failed to make an impenetrable machine.

"Why don't you try making something like this huh! See how it feels!" he raged.
"Outsmarting myself seems like a waste of time." she replied. Being the greatest and most dangerous computer hacker in the world according to the FBI, CIA and several other international crime-fighting organizations, she had an impressive resume and little desire to create something smarter than herself. Besides, if you make it foolproof, someone will just go and make a better fool.

Foaly was banging around in the back of the shop, throwing tools around haphazardly to create as much noise as possible and vent his frustrations. The walls in their building were very thin. Actually, there were only four walls and three sheets of drywall sectioning the four walls. The large warehouse of the LEP Ooutreach program was divided simply into barracks, bathroom, closet and a large open work area for everybody. Foaly had monopolized the closet for his private inventing purposes. Every year, five years in a row the operation had almost been cancelled. But convenience won out always, and now the academy was using the Outreach station for surface training their advanced cadets. Alex, a LEP captain, was breaking in three new ones at the moment. They only had one month left until graduation, and he was taking his final opportunities to ride them hard. He currently had them digging six-foot deep holes in the yard for no reason at all.

Another advantage to the Outreach Station was the other, smaller building they had in the back. It was a private chute to the LEP Plaza Headquarters, making it possible for soldiers to get to the surface and be able to bypass all the red tape of red flagging a seat on a public shuttle. Just one more little reason the LEP kept their operation alive.

"Every year out of the academy is one more towards insanity - I mean retirement." Arena had once said to Holly. That was more than three years ago, when they were all still young and actually had social lives.

Holly and Trouble had gotten married last year and were still living in Haven City. Foaly had finally gotten out of the office, spending his 3 weeks vacation at a centaur colony in Northern Ireland and met a lovely young woman, Agnes. Mercifully, he lived off base not. (Mercifully because he snores like you wouldn't believe!). Arena was electively single, preferring to slowly build an identity before she ventured out into the world again. The feds had traced her last alibi, sending her back to the station like a shot. She hadn't gone beyond the gate in almost a year.

"Mail!" Mike yelled out, slamming the front door behind him.
"Fax the bills to Root this time, don't just hand them to me!" Arena replied, taking a sip of her coffee as Mike passed out the mail.
"Here." he dumped a small package about the size of a Kleenex box on her desk. Asian characters and quite a few stamps covered its surface.
"Well I'll be damned..." she muttered, reading the postmarks. She tore open the package and was confronted with a small black jar and a note from an old friend, Kimiko Anura, a prison guard she met while in Tibet.

"Hey Foaly?" she called out, not taking her eyes off the little black jar.
"What?"
"I'm taking the rest of the day off okay?"
"No! It's not okay!" he yelled back angrily, but she was already halfway out the door.

"Where the hell did she go?" he demanded of Mike when he returned to the main workroom. Apparently he was no longer content to throw tools and scream at her through a wall.
"Where do you think goat-boy?" Mike replied. Foaly slapped him up the back of the head.
"Ow!"
"Only select people can call me that and get away with it." he said pointedly.
"No secret who those people are." Mike muttered out the side of his mouth to Damian.

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you asked for a sequel, i complied. it may be a long time between updates tho, cuz i have LOTS of stories on the go. be patient, i haven't forgotten u!

"I spent five years on this!" Foaly raged. Arena ignored him and calmly tapped away at her keyboard. "And I spent five minutes with it." she replied coolly. She had just reduced his latest version of the unhackable black box to dust with a simple graphing calculator, chewing gum and a paperclip. Hardly a mastermind's tool kit, meaning that once again, he had failed to make an impenetrable machine.