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((The Mon/Wen/Fri Double -- page 1 of 2))
Albert was eyeing the vending machine up and down, but he didn't ask about it. "I was just coming to report in, boss. The last of our scouts have been routed from Kuros. Seems the Sandies came up with a way to track the movements of our invisible units, unfortunately."

"Surprised it took 'em this long," said Morgunov. "Know how they did it?"

"Our running theory is some kind of specialized listening technology," said Crowe. "It's difficult to tell for sure. It seems they were able to spot them even in crowded areas, where they should have been impossible to hear."

Morgunov stopped and leveled a stare at the other man.

And Albert Crowe did something he rarely did. He hesitated. "Ah... where they should have been difficult to hear, boss. Is what I meant to say."

Morgunov allowed his gaze to linger a moment more. A part of him was simply curious about how uncomfortable he could make him. But then he relented with a smile and went back to assessing his tools.

"There are any number of ways it could've been done," said Morgunov. "Echolocation. Aerolocation. Stupiditylocation. Etcetera."

"...What is 'aerolocation,' sir?"

"The tracking of air currents within a given space for the purpose of determining the precise shape of said space and any objects therein."

"You can do that, sir?"

"Eheheh."

That almost sounded like a challenge. Now there was a thought. The urge to drop everything and build a device that could do exactly that reared up on him.

Eh, but would that even be useful?

Well, sure, of course it would.

But, eh. It wasn't really necessary. The enemy wasn't employing invisibility like they were.

Yet.

Eheh.

Well, the real trick wouldn't be building it. The real trick would be making it compact enough for easy use. Talk about a pain. He'd need rare materials from all over the world to pull that off. And maybe a few from outside the world. Hmm.

Neat thought, though. Dang.