Ghosts of the Present (Rescue Bots AU)

10. The Day of Invisible Disaster

"Uh...I'm sorry Mayor, I must've heard you wrong."

Chief Burns tilted his head to one side, sticking a finger barely into his ear and wiggling it about to emphasize his point. "Because it sounded like you said you're planning on renovating the island. Surely you didn't say that."

Mayor Luskey tapped his fingers together, one of those smiles on his face that told them he knew he had made a mistake and that they were not pleased.

Just a moment ago, the Burnses had been investigating a gas explosion by the clock tower; an explosion that shouldn't have happened, considering the line had been off for three years. Investigating the leak had become solely Graham's task as soon as Chief had seen the Mayor with two strangers, and the words 'hotel' and 'renovations' were mentioned.

Mayor Luskey waved his hand, "N-Now just give me a second to explain, Chief Burns."

"Mayor..." Chief lowered his voice to a whisper and tilted his head towards the four aliens, who had also noticed the newcomers and stiffened into 'robot helper mode,' only helping when prompted by their partners. "...we voted to keep the bots a secret, remember?"

"Their visit was arranged before the bots made their surprise reappearing act, Chief! Their secret wasn't going to be a problem at the time!"

"Aside from the statues surrounding Horace," Kade mumbled without getting the investors' attention.

Chief Burns sighed, watching the bots shift back into stationary mode as the investors approached. "A hotel and resort? We're a quiet town."

"That's part of the charm!" One of the investors informed, pointing out the images on their tablet. "We'll have an old town district down by the docks! Some shops, some fine dinin'..."

"So basically..." Kade took the tablet from the investor, "You're paving over the charm."

The investor took his tablet back, "Some adjustments will have to be made, some properties sold."

Mayor Luskey then began to usher the pair of strangers away, "Why don't we continue this discussion back at City Hall? No need to distract the rescue team from their work any further!"

Chief grumbled as the trio left, and then turned his head a little as he felt the ground shudder under a bot's footsteps.

"What was that about?" Heatwave asked with suspicion.

"...Trouble."

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Cody wasn't having the best day when it started.

A lot of rescue missions had come up, one after another, and he was feeling rather unneeded, especially during the last one. An exploding gas leak when it had been off for years? As if that wasn't suspicious. Cody had offered to assist on the scene, but was redirected all over the place by everyone; nobody seemed to want him there, even if deep down he knew they hadn't meant to dismiss him as they did.

His hoverboard had run out of battery power on the way there as well, and so after being rebuffed even by Priscilla Pynch's robot dog, he'd trudged onward towards Doc's lab for a new battery. Maybe when he got home, he could convince Servo to play with him...

Seeing Priscilla had been a little worrying, however. Even if Priscilla herself wasn't all that big of an issue for him or his family, her mother Madeline was.

After she had mind-controlled not just his family but also the bots into digging up gold under Blossom Vale, and then nearly sunk the whole island trying to get to the rest of it, she wasn't exactly a favorite among the Burnses' Griffin Rock citizens. They hadn't seen or heard from her since then, but the same was said for Priscilla, who'd been apparently sent to boarding school in France for the past three years.