The buzzer sounded along with a small electrical jolt as Trace failed to properly match the form of the sniper. A flare of anger rushed through him as the electricity ruined his focus even more. He thought he had done everything correctly. So, what had he missed?

A yellow arrow highlighted the dial on the side of the scope. He had forgotten to adjust the scope properly for distance. Or was that one for wind? He couldn’t remember at the moment.

He had hopped into the teaching module almost immediately after getting back, and his mind was fried.

It had taught him a lot. The courses transferring the skills and muscle memory as they taught him, and he put in the equivalent amount of effort. It was an amazing system to be sure, but it wasn’t perfect. It was up to him to put in the actual effort to learn everything or it wouldn’t transfer the knowledge properly.

That was likely what had happened with the scope. He had gotten distracted or thought it hadn’t mattered. Now he realized just how much it did.

Regardless, he needed a break.

If this was going to be his new apartment for the time being, then he might as well start to make it feel like his. That meant cleaning it up and getting rid of all the dust. Then came the matter of unpacking.

He didn’t have much, and most of what he did have would go inside the office. There were a few items that would go to other places. Such as his stolen trophies from the apartment above, well, the non-destroyed ones in any case. Those could be placed in tasteful locations, or more likely, he would simply keep them in the duffel bag at the bottom of the crate until he sold them. Taking them out was just asking for them to be seen and noticed.

Trace made another marble from the titanium slivers. As he did, he noticed that he had already worked his way through a fourth of the pile. The marbles made it much easier to swallow the metal, and he had started to make faster progress after that. Forming them wasn’t the easiest, especially after he moved away from the thinner pieces. The tools he had brought from his old apartment helped there though.

He swallowed the marble down and grabbed the bag with his food and drink. It was past time to put everything in the fridge.

Opening the door to the half-size fridge, he saw the same rows of food-in-a-can that he had before. There were several more lines of lemon-flavored soda, stacked two high. Beneath that were a few burritos and sandwiches that had yet to reach their expiration dates despite having been bought nearly a month earlier.

Trace moved the older items to the front and stuffed his newer items in at the back. Grabbing a soda and food-in-a-can before closing the door.

He needed to start cleaning the guns he had brought back with him. The ammo he had already added to the appropriate drawers of ammunition. Unfortunately, there hadn’t been anything for the revolver, not that he had truly been expecting to find anything.

He cleared away everything from the top of the desk, save for the computer monitor, and brought out his cleaning supplies. Soon enough, there were bits of grime, dried blood, mud, and who knew what else littering the surface. He had been forced to take everything from a small pick to a wire brush to the two guns he had saved as he cleaned them.

It was worth it as they each gradually became something he wouldn’t mind firing. Thanks to the new knowledge he had gained from the teaching module, he even understood which parts needed to be replaced. The mods he had removed from the other guns went through a similar cleaning experience.

The spare semi-automatic handgun and the rifle both cleaned up nicely. However, it was also clear they had been ridden hard and hung up wet. There was only so much he could do. There was pitting all along the surface of their barrels. Thankfully, that turned out to be mostly cosmetic. The barrel interiors were still good. So, while the durability of the barrels might have gone down some, it shouldn’t be by much.

He laid out the mods and spare parts as he slowly put the two guns back together. Miraculously, when he was done, they both connected to his eyes without a problem. The linked aiming reticles would be a game changer, not as much as before, but they would still help. He could already tell that his aim had improved by leaps and bounds, and that was before getting the enhanced teaching module.

Learning the proper basics truly did make a difference.

The scout rifle was set up for quick disassembly, along with a full scope, proper windage meter, and a few other mods that had turned it into a rather decent sniper rifle.

Its power was lacking compared to a real sniper rifle, and its range wouldn’t be as good. However, considering his aim wasn’t perfect, that was probably a good thing.

He placed both guns to the side and swept the garbage into the trash.

The ‘Knives & Not Dying’ teaching module had finished getting absorbed and was now in the process of being recompiled.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

Trace ejected the teaching module and inserted the next one on his list. After that, he checked the status ‘Build More’ order of the ‘Nanites’ and found that it had been completed a while before. Unfortunately, it hadn’t made a difference. The other menu options were still disabled. He still needed more special nanites. He selected the same option again and closed out the menu.

Forming another couple of titanium marbles, he guzzled them down with a food-in-a-can. He ignored the familiar warnings that popped up in the corner of his vision related to the bio-chemical drugs that had been found in the drink.

Falling onto the bed, he remained coherent long enough to pull his boots off, and that was it.

***

‘Open up.’

Trace stared at the message from Ko in confusion for a few seconds before the apartment doorbell rang.

Well, this was going to be interesting. He had no intention of hiding the fact that he was walking around from her. Which meant she would know his ligaments and ankles were better than when she saw them a couple of days earlier.

Something that should have been impossible without expensive stimulant healing products.

He wasn’t sure what to tell her, but hiding how much better he was doing was out of the question.

Trace wiped his suddenly sweaty hands on his shirt, as he stopped at the front door a surge of anxiety shot through him.

Without giving himself too much time to think about it, he ordered the door to slide open and took a step back.

Ko walked into the apartment; her eyes locked on his ankles. On her back was a bag full of supplies. “I swung by your apartment again to see if there was anything else you might need or want. Imagine my surprise to find it cleared out, and the front door hanging from a single busted hinge.”

She managed to pack a lot of feeling into that slightly robotic voice of hers.

Trace winced and waved her inside the apartment. “Yeah, I uh, went back there yesterday and found the place had been broken into. I’m assuming it was done by the scavs I accidentally crossed, but there’s no way to say for sure.”

The door slid shut behind her with a click.

“I figured as much. I wasn’t quite sure of what to make about it having been cleared out, but that part was easy to understand. Scavs go for people and their augments, not random junk in an apartment. Did they take anything?” Her glowing green eyes were still focused on his ankles and were pulsing subtly as they ran through one of their built-in sensor suites.

“Not that I could see. They didn’t even bother taking either of the guns or ammo I had on the table. The first aid kits were left alone as well.”

“Hmm,” Her eyes continued to flash. “Boots and pants off, now.”

“Um, boots I can do, but pants might be a bit of a problem,” He admitted shyly.

Trace had been fine wearing the apartment owner’s pants and shirts, but not his underwear. He was currently going commando at the moment.

It took her a second to understand what he was implying.

“Go put some underclothes on. I need to examine you!”

He was left chuckling as he hurried into the bedroom to change. When he emerged a minute later, it was to her direct scrutiny.

“The bruising is still there,” She promptly poked him, eliciting a hiss of pain. Yup, those hadn’t been healed. “And they don’t seem to have been healed. However, the ligaments around your ankles are all back to normal. No healing stimulant would have done this, they aren’t this localized. There would have been some bleed-over healing into the deep bruising areas.” She was mostly talking to herself as she went about her examination of him.

Trace was doing his best to ignore everything she was doing, otherwise the situation would get awkward fast.

“Can I put my pants back on now?” He asked after she had finally stopped poking at him.

“Hmm? Oh, sure,” She nodded, and he quickly ran away to change.

Ko paid his desire for privacy no mind as she followed him into the bedroom. Working in a mender’s clinic, she had probably seen people’s bodies in every single state he could imagine. There was nothing sexy about any of them, either. Being in that profession would require a certain amount of detachment otherwise, you would have a hard time working on others.

Once he realized that, Trace actually felt a little better about the situation and began to relax.

“Can you tell me how you managed to heal yourself in such a manner?” She asked, opening the cleaning chute that had been blinking for the last while.

Inside the chute, the clothes he had tossed down it earlier had all been cleaned and returned to the apartment. It was such an easy and efficient method that the only real drawback was that you needed a decent pile of clothes to make the service worth it.

The question brought Trace up short in the middle of buttoning his pants. “That is a rather complicated and potentially dangerous question.” He replied after a moment. “I can tell you… Just know that it comes with, I guess you could call them strings attached. Potentially useful strings, but strings nonetheless.”

In the upper left corner of his vision, there was a notification from the nanites.

- User is allowed to inform the trainee-mender about the existence of the G.H.O.S.T. System, on the condition she accepts a portion of the System into herself

- Her help in waking the host would be beneficial

Ko tossed the clothes onto the bed beside the pile of clean clothes that he had been sleeping beside the last few days. He really needed to do something about all of those. There was a perfectly good closet right there, after all.

“I can’t say as though I particularly like that thought.” She leaned against the wall, her green eyes locked on his. “How potentially useful are we talking here?” She asked after a moment.

“Hard to say for sure. It’s something that I only recently came across myself, but so far it looks like it has the potential to change the direction of my life completely. It can also just as easily ensure I end up dead though if the wrong people hear about it.” Trace cracked his neck and opened the closest. There was no time to get started on putting the clothes away like the present.

She wordlessly came over and helped him to put everything away. “Alright,” She said after they had finished. “I’m interested. Hopefully, this isn’t a mistake on my part. But let’s do this. Show me where to tie these strings on.”

Trace nodded and brought her into the office where the braincase was sitting on the desk.

“Put your finger in the nutrient hole,” He told her with a slight grimace, fully aware of how stupid it sounded.

“That is not- No, never mind,” Ko shook her head and without any preamble stuck her middle finger into the hole. She jumped in surprise when something clamped down on her finger and refused to let go.