The gravel road turned to dirt as the hovertruck exited the narrow mountain pass and entered the forest.  The vehicle resembled what might have been mistaken for a pickup truck on Earth, save that the wheels were replaced with ground-effect vectored thrust fans.  It rattled and clattered a little during the transition from rough gravel to soft dirt, bringing the clamor of technology to the pristine silence of the wilderness.

Nora adjusted her glasses from where they had nearly fallen off of her face, and replaced her hand back at the wheel of the truck.  "Feels like the levi-shocks are out of alignment," she muttered automatically aloud - a nervous habit the blonde scientist had tried to kick, but to no avail.  "I'll have to take a look at it when we get there."

"Lady, we're gonna be lucky to get there in one [i]piece[/i] in this clanker," grumbled the gray wolf in the seat next to her, his prominent black eyebrows quirked as he glanced sidelong at her with a grimace.  He reached up with rear paw to scratch at his neck under the thick collar strapped there, but hesitated and then dropped the paw back.  "You musta done somethin' real bad to get shunted off to this place in the middle of nowhere.  Whadja do, run over the CEO's favorite pet?"

It was still a bizarre thing to see the wolf's lips move in a way that could form human speech, and only the need to keep focused on the road ahead kept Nora from staring out of the corner of her eye.  "First off, this 'clanker' is a vintage Seriel-model with modular fuel cell-injection, one of the most reliable vehicles of its day - a classic that could easily keep working forever," and here she winced as the engine bit off a cough that shuddered the cab, and quickly added, "with the right maintenance, of course.  Second, Georgia Stahlmansche doesn't keep pets, unless you count her pride and joy, the FA-11 Armada robotic assault unit, and I'd be hard-pressed to run one of those over with anything less than a Stenian medium tank.

"And third," she continued as she slumped over the console and beat it with a frustrated fist, "the lab wouldn't have blown up like that if they'd just given me a better power source to begin with!  I warned them of the possibility of an overload, and it wasn't even like anyone got hurt in the explosion!"  Her hands came off the wheel as she gestured broadly in front of herself.  "How do they expect me to make the next generation walking weapons platform if they give me toys to play with?!"

The wolf, with a pained expression, lunged against his seatbelt and managed to hook his front paws over the rim of the wheel, just in time to yank the hovertruck back onto the road from its near-collision with a tree.  "Okay, okay, I believe ya!  Just keep yer eyes on the road, will ya?  I didn't get out of that lab just to die out here!"

Nora regained control of the wheel as the wolf sat back and wiped his forehead with a paw in an exaggerated fashion.  "Oh, what am I gonna do, Boxcar?" she wailed.  "I'm not good with people, or with going outside, or being an administrator - I just want to do [i]science![/i]"

The wolf named Boxcar patted her on the shoulder with a paw, then pointed ahead with his nose as they finally came out of the thick screen of trees and out into a mountain glen.  "Hey, there it is!  That must be the place."

The road ended directly in front of a two-vehicle garage attached to the side of the wooden building that stood at the end of their journey.  It looked like a large log-sided cabin, two stories tall and maple-colored with a gently sloping roof of brick red tiles.  A large bay window stood to the left of the front door, which opened onto a covered porch.  A gray stone chimney pointed to the sunny early-summer sky, and a large satellite dish signaled that the rustic look of the building belied a remaining connection to civilization.

Just across from the dirt road and a stretch of grass from the cabin was a tan sandy beach surrounding a crystal-clear lake, a little bigger than an Olympic-sized swimming pool and - through some twist of geologic fate - sat in a sand-and-stone depression rather than in a muddy-bottomed hole.  Rising above the roof, tall evergreen and deciduous trees made it clear that stepping out the back door would land a person right into the forest again, a forest that seemed to skitter up to the back of the lodge from its hiding place in the mountains that nestled the valley without making it claustrophobic.

"So, here it is, Boxcar...[h1]The Lodge!"[/h1]
"I'd rather be back in my lab, but...this is amazing," admitted Nora with a smile as she adjusted her glasses while leaning forward.

"Hey, anything's better than my cage back at Cybertronics HQ."  Boxcar's ears perked as he turned his head slightly as the front door of the lodge opened.  "Look, I think that's the handyman who's supposed to give us the grand tour."

A brown-haired human wearing a heather gray T-shirt, relaxed blue jeans, gray mechanic's gloves with red fingers, and tennis shoes to match his gloves stepped out onto the porch with a friendly wave.  Nora pulled the truck to a stop just outside the garage, and after helping Boxcar out of his seat belt, she found herself shaking hands with the turquoise-eyed man.

"Justin Hobbes, freelance maintenance," introduced the young man as he looked the two over.  "I've just finished the work that Cybertronics Unlimited asked me to do, so I'm ready to turn the place over to you whenever you're ready."

"N-Nora Minder, R&D for Cybertronics Unlimited," stammered Nora as she looked up at the man who was about nine inches taller than her, by her estimation.

"Boxcar, wolf," Boxcar introduced himself without preamble as he sniffed Justin's hand.  "Huh, machine oil, metal tang, and the distinct lack of ambient mana comin' from you...yer not a native to this planet, are ya?"

Justin yanked his hand back like he'd been bitten as he stared at the wolf, but then gave out a kind-hearted laugh at his open surprise.  "Got it in one!  Came from a null-mana world, so I have terrible reactions to magic.  How could you tell?"

"I smell super powers," answered Boxcar simply.  "That's why the company sent me with the perfesser here."

Nora wasn't sure whether Boxcar had merely mispronounced "professor" with his grumbly drawl, or if his canine muzzle couldn't handle the word.

"If what I hear about this place is true, then you're going to need that talent," offered Justin amiably.  "So!  You two ready for the tour?"

Nora reached up to the edge of one lens of her slimline glasses, and a quick stroke pulled up a Heads-Up Display that brought her a multitude of data wirelessly from the portable computer terminal in her long white lab coat's pocket.  She checked the time, and it had just become ten o'clock in the morning.  "The others should be arriving soon," she said as she turned the display off with a tap.  "We...we could just wait for them to show up in the bus so we could do the tour in one go for everyone?"

Justin cradled his chin with a hand thoughtfully, then gave a lopsided smirk and nodded.  "Fine by me - I'm getting paid by the hour anyway.  If you want, I can park your Seriel in the garage for you."

"Oh, it's not mine, it's a company loaner," explained Nora as she handed over the vehicle key.  Then she gasped.  "You recognized the model?!"

The man shrugged as he got into the cab.  "I'm a mechanic, I worked on one that some Vertolian wanted to get restored - while upsizing it to let his eight-foot-tall frame fit into it.  After all the work that took, I'd recognized those ground effect fins anywhere."

Boxcar sighed as the two humans began jabbering in technobabble and working on the vehicle, and he went to the edge of the road to look out and see who was coming up the road next...