"And so I said 'The name's Catherine, you better remember it!', I always wanted to say that!" Catherine smiled as she recalled that moment.

"Oh that's so cool I want to try saying that next!" Silver said.

"And that's everything you need to know!"

"Catherine... I'm not sure how to take this all in."

She wasn't sure Catherine had said everything in the right order. There was something about ghost people that aren't actually ghost in an underground hidden Scottish base, an alien, getting lost for days even though it's only been hours since they were gone, capturing a US soldier, finding an extra secret entrance/exit, and swimming everyone up the Missouri River one at a time.

Their day seemed more hectic than hers, all she did was clean up the place. At least the walls were finished so it will be a little harder for someone to just walk in. The doors weren't cut out yet so everyone had to hop through the windows which were just holes in the wall.

"Well, you should tell the Professor about what you found." Silver was sure that he'd be ecstatic to hear that he was right. "Also put on some clothes."

"The reigning swimming champion of Fort Long Road Bravo doesn't need to wear clothes!" Catherine posed, the others in the room snuck glances at her.

"That's because you're the only one that's fully waterproof! Miley and that US soldier are currently being checked up by Engie right now in the med-bay."

"Haven went off to dry himself off, right?"

"Yeah and I'm going back to my room to watch anime cause I'm sick of working." Silver waved Catherine off as she begin marching back to her room.

"Eh... you didn't even do the doors yet!" Catherine shouted but Silver just pretend she didn't hear it.

Catherine was still wet from the river water, which may or may not be contaminated with toxic garbage, so she might as well take a shower and get new clothes. Though walking around in just underwear is kind of liberating, she would most definitely get shout out by Miley.

After doing that she should visit the med-bay and see how the others were doing. Miley was complaining the whole way back after the got out of the river but the water shouldn't have done too much damage to her. Also, Doogledert needs to know what happened in the Scottish Institute. Catherine wondered if Doogledert would be brave enough to go outside and explore the place considering people are after him. Things have been quiet so far so they've probably left to some other area to search for him or got bored.

After a quick shower and a change of clothes she headed to the med-bay.

"So nothing's wrong? That's too good to be true there must be something wrong, check again!" Miley's voice forced its way through the open door.

"That's a negative way to look at life, you're fine, no water damage whatsoever..." Engie attempted to calm her down. "Now settle down, I have a patient I need to help."

Catherine entered the room to see Engie doing some repairs on the US soldier while Miley was angrily sitting on the bed next to them. Annie was also in the room watching over Miley.

"What's going on?" Catherine shoved the door wide open.

"Miley's upset." Annie replied.

"No I'm not!" She was upset.

"Sweeper suffered major damages to her spine..." Engie explained.

The US soldier was lying face down on the bed, Engie had managed to fix the being stuck in place issue she was having but the larger problem of her spine being a kitchen pipe remained. Her back was wide open and her inner workings were exposed as Engie worked on repairing her.

"Wow it's a mess in there, how did that happen?" Catherine remarked over the damage wiring.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"You guys did it!" Sweeper muffled, her face consumed by the pillow.

"Well you attack us first so you got what you deserved!" Miley was ready to get out of bed to throw down.

"Don't antagonize the patient!" Engie glared at Miley before turning back. "Who replaced your spine with a... a pipe of some kind?"

Engie struggled for a bit but managed to remove the pipe causing Sweeper to wince a bit, even though most of her sensing modules had been turned off around the back region she still felt something when her spine was disconnected.

The pipe was passed to Catherine who had no idea what to do with it so she just held it awkwardly in her arms. It was covered in some type of warm liquid which might have came from the coolant leaking or someone had lubed it up with vegetable oil prior to putting it in, Catherine had no way to know.

"Is the US poor or something, what the fuck is up with that?" Miley pointed at the pipe, Catherine shrugged, still hugging it tightly.

"Maybe they used a pipe so she can drink water faster?" Annie pointed out.

"Annie for the love of..." Miley sighed. "First off, the spine and esophagus are two different things!"

While Miley was explaining the cons of having a pipe for a spine to Annie, Engie was busy repairing Sweeper's endoskeleton. The first repair done on it was such a rush job that Engie was surprised that she was operational at all. There were bits of the original spine still left and she had to remove it in order to put in the new spine. Whoever managed to make a kitchen pipe work was a genius who invested their intellect on the wrong things.

Catherine asked if Engie needed anything but the android just shook her head and continued to work.

There was a lot that was discovered today but nothing could be done until the hostage situation was resolved in some way. Catherine wondered what they should trade Sweeper for, money would do them no good but a vehicle would make traveling so much easier. All of their vehicles had been destroyed in the first battle or failed prank attempts. As she looked back on the prank that killed their Captain she was reminded of something important.

"Miley did you report to Command yet?" She got close to Miley so that Sweeper couldn't hear.

"What, uhhhhhhhh, no..." She didn't make eye contact with Catherine. "Well we can always report later and I don't think they need to know about anything just yet."

"If you say so..."

She hadn't talk to Doogledert about the situation yet and she wondered if any of the cult members need to know.

"Damn it..." Thinking about the cult made Catherine remember that Haven was with them, she should've said something about keeping it quiet for now. Haven doesn't seem like the type to blabber to everyone but she didn't know him long enough to be sure.

"There! That should do it." Engie sat down in a chair, exhausted.

Sweeper turned over and sat up, she carefully twisted her back from side to side to check if it worked properly. To her relief, everything seemed to be in working order.

"We're out here fighting a war and we just fully repaired an enemy using our equipment." Miley snarked.

"Thank you engineer, at least I now know that the UCNA have competent soldiers that aren't rude!" Sweeper didn't even glance over at Miley.

"Eat shit!"

"Settle down now." Catherine got in-between the two. "Can you hold this?" She handed the pipe to a resting Engie.

"Why should I? They blew two holes into our walls!" Miley pointed out.

"You- you cheated in basketball!" Sweeper strikes back.

"We didn't cheat, we just ignored a stupid order." Miley looked at Catherine. "Cath, we should force her to tell us everything she knows about the US base here."

"That's a good idea..." Catherine said.

"Why would I tell you anything!" The girl looked back and forth.

"Because... because we'll force Engie here to program you to be racist." Catherine raised a finger at Sweeper.

"What?" Sweeper said in disbelief. "What does that achieve?"

"This is the 22nd century, it's extremely hard to find someone that's racist since we're too busy hating the type of dirt the other guy is standing on. But when people do find one... do you know what they do to them?" Miley had a sinister look on her face.

"They arrest them and then force them to play underground basketball until they eventually die?" Sweeper answered.

"The hell? I was going to say they get beat up... what's wrong with the US?"

"We don't even need to do anything, just sending her back is bad enough." Catherine joked.

"Hmph." Sweeper crossed her arms at the group. "How's your economy?"

"It's doing fine!" Miley shouted.

"Is it?" Annie had a confused look on her face.

"Shut up Annie!" Annie was quickly elbowed in the stomach which tickled her.

Engie was tired from all the work she had to do today but she still had other things to work on so she got up from her chair and clapped her hands to get everyone's attention.

"Uh... so i-if you could just, um, not fight." Engie felt the pressure from having a lot of eyes on her, she couldn't properly say what see wanted to say. "I have work... so I'll go now."

She briskly walked out of the room, her eyes glued on the door trying her best to ignore that everyone was staring at her. After the door closed, the atmosphere in the room became less awkward.

"Yeah... so we're just going to tie you up and call your buddies down here to do some negotiations or something." Catherine explained to Sweeper.

Sweeper didn't say anything, she just looked down. If Catherine had to guess, she was probably disappointed that she was being used as a bargaining tool for the enemy side.

"I can't believe I got captured by an exhibitionist..." She whispered but not quiet enough for Catherine not to hear.

Catherine grabbed the nearest thing that she can use to tie people up. "Alright your getting roped."