Trace felt a curse escape his mouth as the woman’s neck twisted in a way it wasn’t supposed to. “She’s an android too.”

Revlock nodded and pressed the barrel of his gun even tighter against her head. “The question is, what kind of android is she? A puppet, an AI, or a braincase holder?”

“All three have their own quirks. Who can rightly say?” Trace muttered.

People viewed braincases as a sort of immortality, and it was. What they failed to realize is you also spent a lot of time stuck in your head. So much of the human experience was about sensation and tactile feelings. Meanwhile, only a small part of that had been replicated after all this time.

Many of them spent their time on the net, interacting with others in their avatar-like spark forms, which had no such limitations.

Regardless, those who spent too much time on the net or inside their own mind inevitably became a tad… odd.

“I am me,” The woman said at last.

“Great, because that really clears things up,” Revlock muttered with an annoyed sigh. “Listen, I’m sorry for involving you in this Tune, but I needed to draw her out to find out where the leak came from.”

Trace shook his head. “It’s fine. I’d rather not have to worry about looking over my shoulder if I don’t need to. By all means, let’s find out what she knows and how she came across it.”

“Interesting. Your caution is warranted. The one whose puppet you destroyed is not pleased with you in the slightest. It is one of many, but they are expensive. However, the deal you made with his subordinates is holding him back for now. We shall see how long that lasts.” The android woman told Trace with a hint of smirk.

“Who is it you’re talking about? What’s his name?” He demanded.

Her tongue clicked heavily against the roof of her mouth. “Ah, ah, ah, consider that something you must find out on your own. I found out who you were easily enough. I’m sure he’ll be able to as well, though I plugged that particular leak for you myself.”

“Why are you doing this? What do you get out of helping me?”

“Entertainment for one,” Her voice suddenly contained several lifetime's worth of weary tiredness. “But also, you can consider the corporation he works for and his boss an old foe of mine. Anything that disrupts their plans is a good thing, in my opinion.”

Revlock raised a brow at the odd direction this meeting had gone. “How worried does he need to be?”

“They’re a corporation, so very.” The android woman answered dryly. “However, they will be trying to discover who created the job against them first and why. After all of that has been accomplished, I would expect a small team to come after him, led personally by the one whose android he destroyed. If he can survive that, then they may let him be, or they might escalate things again. They have a history of doing both.”

“And you’re not going to tell us who it is that we’re up against, are you?” Trace asked.

“No, I don’t believe I am. That would ruin the fun for me. Besides, if you do manage to learn who they are and survive, then I might have a few jobs for you in the future.” She brushed the barrel of Revlock’s gun away from her head and stood. “I just deposited some credits into the previously agreed-upon account. Consider it a consolation payment for the deception.”

With that, she stood and walked out, with neither of them trying to stop her.

“I think my life is getting more and more complicated lately,” Trace muttered. “I’m not sure I like it. We, or at least I, never even learned what her name was either.”

The job broker laughed and sent him a deposit for a thousand credits. “Here you go. Whoever she was, she was loaded. Her version of a few credits was equal to the same amount of a full job for someone at your tier.”

“At this point, I’ll take it.” He said with a shake of his head. “I just moved into an absolute wreck of a place, and it needs so much work. Speaking of which, do know where I can get those smoke bomb things that kill bugs and rodents?”

“They don’t sell those things. You have to have a company do it for you.”

“Ah, I thought that might be the case. I don’t suppose you know of any good ones?” Trace asked hopefully.

***

By the time Trace returned to the warehouse, the truck was loaded down with all sorts of supplies. He had made a run by the junkyard to see what he could find. Along with his usual tech items, he had also picked up a literal ton of sheet metal. All of which he had been forced to load by hand with the help of the other scavengers in the area.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

His arms hated him at the moment, as he had returned the help in kind.

After doing all of that, he had made a few stops for appliances, food, blankets, and the like. The only item he hadn’t picked up was a bed, as that would need to wait until after the place had been debugged. Thankfully, Revlock had known of a company that did the work and they had been able to fit him in the next day.

It had already been a long day by that point. Before he went to sleep, there was one last thing he needed to do. Which was to unload the fridge and get it plugged in. Drinking warm soda was unpalatable but doable, drinking warm food-in-a-cans on the other hand was just plain nasty.

Sleeping on the desk was as uncomfortable as he feared it would be. His hipbone dug into the solid top every time he turned onto his side. While sleeping on his stomach, as was normal for him, hurt his ribs. Eventually, he settled onto his back and found a position that was somewhat comfortable.

It wasn’t the worst sleep he had ever gotten, but it was also nowhere near the best either.

When he rolled off the desk the next morning, he felt as though he had barely gotten any sleep. Despite that, the now familiar pops and cracks echoed through the space as his body adjusted to the repairs that had been done to it throughout the night.

- Skeletal System Repair (Percent Completed): 77%

- Muscular System Repair (Percent Completed): 35%

The speed for his skeletal repair had slowed to a crawl the last few days. His muscular system was still progressing at a decent pace, but even it was starting to slow as well.

The problem was, he didn’t know why. Was it because he was missing vitamins or nutrients in his diet or something else? Was this normal behavior for a body undergoing repairs? All he could do was wait and see while continuing to eat as well as he could.

Two of the food-in-a-cans went down his gullet, followed by a couple of sodas to help rehydrate his body.

With that out of the way, he sent off a message to Sevorah asking about Pushman’s condition. Next, he sent off a message to Stick-Point asking about the decision the group had made.

With those out of the way, he went to work unloading everything else from the truck. The sheet metal would be useful for patching the holes in the ceiling.

He would need to find a way to get the metal up there and then also buy a welding unit. Which was something that he had never done before, and while he was interested in learning to do it. He had to wonder if it was simply better to pay someone else to do the work on the roof for him.

There was only so much time in the day, and even with the enhanced teaching modules, it would be hard to learn everything that he wanted.

For the moment at least, he needed to focus on the items that he really wanted to learn. Maybe, in the future, that would change, but for now, he needed to prioritize.

Which, unfortunately, meant spending credits.

He had gotten the metal, but it was highly likely that someone else would be doing the actual work on the roof. If he found someone to do that work, then he would also ask them to fix the walkways that had fallen all over the place.

Again, credits.

The various pieces of tech that he had gotten from the junkyard were easy to remove from the truck. The heavy pieces of metal, much less so. Eventually, he got it done, but the truck bed had a couple of new scratches to show for his efforts.

During his time in the junkyard, he had made a concerted effort to look for specific items. In the past, he had just picked up whatever caught his eye and looked interesting. This time, he had been searching for equipment that he would be able to use once fixed. Pieces that would be useful in the warehouse. As a result, he had even come across three water pumps.

None of them were particularly high-flow models. If he could get them working though, then they would get the process of draining the basement started. These were a little more mechanical than electrical in design, so fixing them took a while longer than he had originally thought it would. Mainly because he had been forced to make several runs out for broken parts that he couldn’t simply fix. If he had grabbed more of them, then he might have been able to swap them out, foregoing that need entirely.

However, by the time the company came around to debug the place, he had managed to get two of the three working.

The impellers inside had been absolutely destroyed in the first two. The third one, on the other hand, suffered from a completely burned-out motor. Which only left him with two real options, throwing it out, or rewinding it himself. Replacing the motor wasn’t financially feasible.

He would keep the pump in a corner for parts, or until he decided he wanted to rewind the motor himself. That wasn’t something his lessons had covered extensively. It was different from the electrical engineering he was pursuing at the moment. It would either be covered in the more advanced lessons that he didn’t have access to. Or it was more in line with mechanical engineering. He could see arguments being made for both.

Either way, he hadn’t learned how to do it yet. So, the pump went into the corner.

He would make another run to the junkyard later to see what he could find. Along with more pumps, he also needed hoses for the water to run through. Without them, he would just be spraying the water pointlessly into the air.

As soon as he was done with the pumps, he started taping up the outside of the structure. He was putting quick-drying caulk and tape at every opening and joint he could find. The idea was to remove any gaps through which annoyances could escape and then later get back in.

It was something that he didn’t need to worry about.

The company set up a sealed tent around the entire apartment office space, tossed a few smoke bombs into it, and were done. They were quick, efficient, and warned Trace not to enter before they removed the tent the next day. Their services also drained his account to near-empty status.

Sitting in the back of his truck bed, Trace had his courier bag sitting beside him. He was in the process of doing some work he had been putting off. The ink-sheet he had recovered from the android was in his hands, and the many data prisms would be inspected next.

A data cable from his NetConnect connected him to the device. It was done in a virtual-sandboxed environment that kept it separate from his own files and hardware. That way, if there was any malware or other suspicious files, it wouldn’t be able to damage his main OS while he looked through it.

The scans hadn’t revealed anything, but it never hurt to be careful. It only took one time, after all, for everything to go wrong.