Chapter Twenty-Six

The next few hours passed in a blur. Hell, it seemed like we were barely playing for minutes, and yet when I blinked next not only was the sun up, its distant warmth spreading across my lower legs where I lay on the bed, but it was high.

The room was almost sweltering, like the height of summer had come all at once, and yet it was nothing to do with the outside temperature, as I laid there, catching my breath.

“Okay,” Reign whispered in my ear, settling back down next to me and pushing sweaty hair aside, spitting some out of her mouth, then curling a finger down her cheek and tugging that stray lock back, tossing it out of the way. “Wow, damn hair… okay though, yeah.”

“Yeah?” I asked, brain well and truly fuzzed.

“Yeah.”

“Yeah what?”

“Oh sorry, yes, you’re fantastic, the biggest I ever had, yadda yadda,” she replied in a blatantly fake breathless voice, before snorting and laughing. “Sorry, I couldn’t resist. Yeah, I think Luna and Gessh know what we’ve been putting up with now.”

“Really?” I hadn’t been paying attention to the noise.

“Oh yeah.” She grinned, then kissed me. “Good boy. You can stay.”

“It’s my room,” I pointed out, shifting slightly as she snuggled in, the heat that was radiating off her skin making me both amazed, as my own body heat started to rise again, and then… I reached over, running my hand across her arm, up to the shoulder, then slowly down the front of her chest until…

“Ah, ah!” She laughed, taking my hand and lifting it free of her nipple. “Damn, Kabutt, let a girl catch her breath, alright?”

“Sorry.” I grinned at her, not meaning it at all.

“No, you’re not,” she said, and I nodded. “Right, I need something to eat, besides you, that protein isn’t going to fill my stomach… you know what, don’t even go there.” She put her fingers over my mouth as I opened it to make a comment, then she grinned and kissed me.

“You know what I mean,” she said softly, and I nodded, our noses brushing against each other as we shifted, then relaxing again.

We ordered food, somehow it was my job to dress and go out of the room to fetch it, as well as drinks, and from the sounds of groans that rose from below, someone was making good use of the new electronics benches.

I retreated to what I guessed was now ‘our’ room, with the food and drinks, and reached out to the sterilization drone, programming in an hours delay, then a full and deep clean downstairs.

I didn’t want to be leaning on those tables working until they’d been thoroughly fucking cleaned.

We had a quick call, by avatar, with Lion, discussed the new arm, and how close it would get me to my limit with the spinal mod we’d been looking at, and then I told him about the tier four mod we had.

He agreed to scan it and check the blood etc that was on it, make damn sure it wasn’t infected with anything, and sterilize it. Then we could assess if we wanted to use it or not.

Normally I’d have never considered it, but more and more I was suspecting that the mods that were supplied from ‘accidents’ and ‘upgrades’ by other clients were as likely as not from specters.

That only made sense now that I knew Oshbob ran a dozen or more chop-shops, and was buying all the mods he could lay his oversized fucking fingers on.

I had a call with Oshbob, discussed the parts he had for me, the fusion powercell and the sensor pods he’d already gotten, but he was apparently chasing down a shipment that might contain some limbs, but I needed to pay for the stuff he already had first. I transferred him two hundred and fifty thousand credits, and he agreed to continue getting the rest.

Dondo was apparently more of a middleman than I knew, as he’d be delivering the parts later today I was told, as well as a list of secondary units that I’d asked for.

That set me back another hundred thousand, but there were apparently bonuses to working with shadowy crime lords, in that I wasn’t expected to pay over the counter prices.

The five training swords that were coming had set me back five thousand a piece, and while that was expensive, they were the best to train with.

Matting, another cleaning bot, a full size and secure armory package—it was basically a flatpack unit that you built yourself, but comprised of heavy interlocking steel and titanium plates that overlapped as they slid into place—all these parts were ordered, and to my surprise, I got funds transfers.

I’d not really thought about it, I probably should have, but as the team lead, some things I just went ahead with, like the armory purchase, without asking the others. We’d all talked about needing it, and when Reign and I were on the call with Oshbob I just mentioned what we needed, and he told me to provide details to Dondo.

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I did, and he got back to me saying they’d be delivered in a few hours.

The cost was far less than if I’d bought them over the counter, and I damn well knew they were being stolen to order, but I’d not considered asking the others for contributions towards the cost.

Just like I didn’t for the parts for my suit. That was my expense, just like it was my suit.

That Reign apparently spoke to the rest of the team, and they all chipped in an equal share for the warehouse expenses was more than I ever expected.

As well as the call with Lion and Oshbob—he’d complained that I wasn’t holding up my end of the bargain as well, and while he’d taken my assurances that the first mods and nanite deliveries would start soon, it was also made clear, that if they didn’t? There’d be big fucking problems—I also had a call with Julius.

That one was both a great call and a bad one, on different points.

Apparently that fucking asshole Trees had made a scene, and a hell of a one. When he’d had his money thrown back at him, and the investment contract cancelled, he’d gone off in a huff. That was fine, it was about what we all expected, and because he was one of the teams that was supposed to be on the job, and he refused any call to go from Julius after the meeting, it made it legally him that was in the wrong.

Great, all that was a good thing as far as I was concerned.

The best bit, for me, was that as he’d had his ‘investor’ situation cancelled right before the job began, he’d also lost out on his percentage of the take.

The guild hadn’t just done well out of that job, there had turned out to have been over four thousand specters on site, combined with the ghouls, and their increased bounties, and then the banshee?

Add in that there were a fuck load of weapons recovered, and all the little bonuses? The corpos that had been broadcasting the whole thing had apparently been seriously terrified when the AI came after them, and still hadn’t come out of hiding.

Someone had made a thing of us being ‘heroes’ to the media, and because they were in a lull between corrupt politicians and media stars cheating, they went with it.

That meant that the guild was hit over and over again by the various media companies and a bidding war for the personal recordings had started.

It wasn’t finished yet, but Julius had asked all of those on site to agree to sharing the feeds, and trusting him, most of us had.

Add in those to the job, and yeah.

The guild had gone from barely being able to cover the running costs and nowhere near enough members, to being inundated with mercs that needed to rehabilitate their images, and a bank account that was groaning at the seams.

The downside was that the asshole elf was trying to tie up the whole thing in a court case to stop Julius from paying us all, unless he got his portion of it.

Julius was moving as fast as he could, making damn sure the money was paid out, but that meant dealing with all the boring details and going over the AAR in depth when I really didn’t want to, and Reign, because she wasn’t the team lead, had bowed out of the call at that point.

Julius had basically then started hounding me as to when we were returning to work, because while we were all contractors, and unless the shit hit the fan we weren’t required to work, he was also getting some very pointed requests from people that wanted us personally to deal with their incursions.

I’d agreed that for double the standard rate, we’d be back at work tomorrow, and that yes, we would totally dress, look and act professional, as the guild’s reputation was obviously important.

I’d also quickly finished the call at that point, mainly because Reign had clearly gotten bored, and while I was ostensibly sitting at a desk in a virtual meeting room with Julius…

In reality I was laid naked on my bed, with who I guessed was now very much my girlfriend, and a certain part of my anatomy was being steadily and skillfully worked.

Yup. Whoever told her she was shit at that, really had no clue what the hell they were talking about.

By the time we’d finished playing again, I was red raw, bruised in the best of ways, and exhausted, not to mention suffering from borderline dehydration I suspected.

That night was one of the best I could remember in years, as Todds had made it over to the warehouse again, Dondo joined us and with Reign, Luna and Gessh, we all basically got hammered to fuck, drank way too much, ate really good food, had some great music playing and partied.

By the time we finally staggered to bed and passed out? It was like a ‘refresh’ button had been pressed on my heart. For the first time in months, I didn’t feel like I’d failed my friends, like I’d lost the best parts of me on the battlefield and in the fingers, and that I was just going through the motions.

I felt alive again, and as I laid there, drunk, unable to stop smiling as a beautiful and lethal half-elven woman snored by my side, I couldn’t believe my luck.

Then fucking Dondo started drilling for oil again, and I was forced to cover my ears with a fucking pillow.

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