The image of a joker playing card was displayed on screen in lieu of an image of a person.

"Taxman," a male voice answered, "How's the sightseeing?"

"Is the Samurai there?" I asked.

"Yeah, she's here, I can speak for her on this. I'm Vanguard as well. What's up?"

"How important is- what ever this is?" I asked.

"This? Oh the introduction to The Family and how things work? I'd say vastly important, but then I find immense value in the organization while others prefer to go solo."

"It's just there are things happening back at home that might need my presence."

"The sad truth is, there always will be. There are reasons, umm, she can't leave this place. But another member can be sent to get you up to speed. Up to you."

"I mean is it just talking?" I asked.

"Nope. There are things to see here."

"Okay we are still headed up. We expect to be there in twenty hours or so."

"Leaving the train?"

"I think we have to, wasting too much time doing nothing."

"Safe travels. Reach out if you need anything."

They closed the connection.

"Max why was there no name displayed again."

"When asked for a name their AI declined to give one."

I sighed.

"That route we discussed, let's pull that up please."

The map appeared. More a cloud of points in 3D than a map. I moved around zoomed in and out, and even marked a detour that would add twenty minutes to the trip but would fly us over a few lakes. I'd never seen a lake. The idea that there were bodies of fresh water just sitting there was insane to me. Wars were constantly fought over water all over the world.

That river between India and Pakistan provided water for a billion people, and yet it was fed by glaciers. Even in the 2020s global warming made it so no new snow fell in the winter. The only water that river got was melt, and there was less of a glacier every year. There were small skirmishes that left thousands dead, all the time over there now. Like the Rio Grande in the US that river no longer flowed to the sea, instead drying up long before it reached it.

"Max can you contact the Operator Mods and start another post. Priority is still the PE ship, but I'd like ideas on the most efficient means of helping out with water issues around the world."

"There is already an extensive section covering this. Would you like me to summarize?"

"Yes. In just a moment."

"Sara," I said trusting Max to know I wanted to transmit.

She collapsed her virtual space and moments later looked up.

"Plans have changed we will be getting on the next connecting train. Max is going to slow both trains to a stop so we can hop over."

"I'll start packing up," she said.

I sat back down after a moment's hesitation. There was some work to do, but I had not intended for her to do it. My intention was to inform her. Now I was of two minds over helping to pack up.

On one hand it was a tiny amount of work so helping wasn't wasting any time. On the other hand she had told me many times that I was for Samurai stuff. Maybe she'd felt useful as well and helping would take that away to some degree.

In the end I sat and discussed water projects with Max.

When Max informed me the trains would begin to slow I stopped the discussion.

There was a slight indicated in change of speed but I wouldn't have noticed without being informed.

"Are you familiar with the water projects and proposals?" I asked Sara.

"I'm aware of," she began, but then shook her head, "not well enough to say yes."

"It's absolutely amazing what they've done," I said with some awe.

"The Operators?" she asked.

"No. Well," I shrugged, "I mean yes of course, but there is a Past Projects folder with pictures of Samurai and who I assume are Operators that helped design some of the water systems. Millions upon millions of lives, well I guess they haven't been saved, but they've been affected, or rather, not affected by lack of water?"

It came out a question.

"They've helped millions of people have access to water."

"More than that," I said. "Not the numbers, which might be more than that as well but the- most of the water systems are closed loop. Not true Arcologies like some of the mega-buildings were designed to be, or like Luna One, but close. We are talking five percent losses or the like. It's amazing. There was a project in Southeast Asia where the Samurai came in and basically Did Nothing" I used my fingers to make air quotes as the Samurai had said it himself. "He was just there to cut through the bribery, corruption, and red tape so the workers could get the work done."

I talked about other projects Max and I had discussed for a while until there was a lurching as we came to a full stop. Then there was lots of noise.

"The trains are stopped but the automated systems are doing doing the cargo transfers. I suggest you wait inside until they are complete.

It didn't take long, forty seconds at the max before Max informed us we could transfer.

There was an empty flatbed across from us. The jump was wide enough you could stand on both at once. But moving? With wind resistance, and where a fall meant likely death or dismemberment. No thanks.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

We pushed the food crates over then Sara tossed me the surprisingly compact sleeping bags. I staggered under the first one. They packed up well but they were still very heavy. Next came the larger heavy duty trash bag that contained the smaller trash bags full of waste from the collapsible toilet.

She didn't meet my eyes when she handed that across and I felt both deeply embarrassed and full of mirth.

"At least you know I'm still a humble human," I said after the mirth won out and I began laughing.

"Maybe," she said. Then she smirked.

I was used to foods so processed they could stay on a shelf for a hundred years. The richness and fresh-semi food had done a number on my gut bugs, which never had to deal with things like the outside of green beans or corn. The last time I used the toilet, Sara had all but gagged and fought to get her helmet on. We had to open the doors a bit just to clear the air.

Both trains started out. The one we had been on, accelerated much more quickly than the train were were on could. This one had a tiny engine.

We still ran parallel to the main tracks for a long while then we curved off.

"Max," I said as it occurred to me, "Are there any Operators in this town?"

"One moment," Max said. I blinked at that. She never needed time for anything before."

"Why does this request take time to process?" I asked.

"The bottle neck is happening on other servers. It did not occurred to me to look ahead to have that type of information prepared. I will in the future."

"Oh."

A few minutes later, still with no response I added, "Can you also pre-load or whatever you do, information about key players. Leaders of gangs, cops, political organizations, all that. Like if we are heading to another town, can you just find out everything about everyone?"

"I am limited by the cyberwarfare implant you have installed. While it allows-"

"I have a cyberwarfare implant?" I said out loud. Sara turned to look at me and I waved her off.

"It was installed while you were brain damaged in the sewers to open sluice gates and wash many of the Antithesis away. Otherwise while you were injured you would have been over run. It is the implant I use to communicate and control turrets, or hover cars. I cannot simply reach out and access things. I need the proper hardware and processing power to make the correct signals to interface with things."

"Oh."

"I am limited by the cyberwarfare implant you have installed. While it allows me access to many networks it does not grant access to all systems or storages of information. More over lots of information is not stored digitally specifically so hackers and Samurai cannot access it. What I can access I will."

Several more minutes went by before the train began to slow down and I could see the long building we would pull into.

"I have accessed much of the Operator's Network. There is a resident of this town that logged into the Operator's forums for several years while in college. His last log in was over two years ago. It appears the major reason he stopping participating was he married and had a daughter. They moved out here where he took an engineering role at a small refinery because of medical complications with his wife and daughter."

"Medical?" I asked, almost excited. I felt horrible instantly. Was that the type of person I was to see leverage and get excited about it?

The train was just slipping into the open doors and into the dimly lit interior of the big building when I convinced myself it was a win-win for everyone involved.

It took thirty minutes to navigate out of the fully automated building and pile our stuff on the ground.

"It's a three mile walk," I said to Sara once I explained the plan and plotted a map.

"Can we not contact him and have him pick us up?" she asked.

I let out a long sigh and nodded.

"Yes. That would be smarter."

"Max can you patch me through."

"Hello?" a man's voice asked.

"Hello. Patrick Reeves?" I asked.

"No," he said with some anger in his voice.

Max said, "He is attempting to cut the connection."

"Fucking hacker piece of shit!" he snapped.

"Patrick!" I said, then I sighed.

"I'm a Samurai," I began, but he started swearing at me.

I willed the connection to close.

"Get me his wife," I said.

It didn't take long to convince her I was what I claimed. I put six credits into a bank account of her choosing, and then Max told her the correct password she used to access some sort of cloud storage.

She called her husband, who Max tracked. His hovercar was a piecemeal thing, but it landed not eight minutes later.

"I am so sorry," he said as soon as he got out, "My augs have been super-spammed lately and I thought someone had broken in-"

I nodded as Sara and I began to carry the crates.

He stopped to help almost pushing me out of the way to get a hold of my end.

He ran around to open the passenger door for me, while Sara got into the seat behind his.

He lifted off smoothly and drove slowly.

"She said," his voice caught, "She said that you could um, heal her."

"I need to scan them both," I said, "but if the medical records are accurate, then yes."

He started crying as silently as he could. Sara reached out to place a hand on his shoulder.

"We should probably scan your wife first, to see if-" Sara began once we landed in front of a cement home. One of hundreds of exact copies that sat in a big grid.

"Of course," he said "I'll keep our daughter in her room."

I'd had time to discuss the scanner with Max. There were various options, but since I wanted to reuse it, I went with a more expensive piece of tech.

80 points later I had something that looked like a radar gun. A big boxy gun shape with a round handle and simple trigger. There was a square display on the back that indicated where to point.

A simple chalk-outline style drawing of a body was on the display after it made it through its start up sequence. It appeared orange.

As I swept the gun around while holding down the trigger most of the orange went away, leaving two sections to focus on. Her chest, more specifically her lungs, and what looked like the femur of her left leg.

Once the scanner was in place for long enough the orange coloring was gone and the scanner had enough data.

Max explained the results to me and then I turned to speak to the couple. Sara had ended up playing in the other room with the child.

"You've got cancer in your femur and-" I saw the blood drain from their faces. They knew about the degenerative disease in her lungs. It was why she was in bed currently with an oxygen hose taped to her face. I was doing this all wrong.

"I can cure you," I added quickly, "Lungs and leg," I added as an after thought.

"Anything to be wary of Max?" I asked

"She says that with the extensive damage to the lungs it will be better if we place you on your hands and knees with some sort of bag or towels below as you are going to cough and hack up a lot of the damage as it is removed and rejected while new lung tissue is made. She says it likely won't be pleasant but that it shouldn't last for more than four minutes. She ahh, also adds that four minutes may feel like a very long time."

I had Max teleport in the nano-regenerative suite, the injection variant instead of the inhaler. We needed to make sure all the nanites ended up inside her.

"No," she said, "that's a good towel."

I smiled at the pure frustration on his face when he looked at me. Then he tossed the towel aside and headed back out of the room to get a bad towel.

She passed out after about twenty seconds of body wracking coughs. Pink bloody foam with bits of black flesh covered the towel even then. As she woke, she coughed more, the vomited and coughed again.

Then she took a deep breath and started laughing. Then she was crying and on her feet and her husband kissed her and made a face and we were all smiling.

I screwed up with the kid. I went with the same injector style instead of an inhaler and they kid was scared of needles, even though this didn't have a needle you just pressed it against the skin until it beeped. But I'd used the word injection and that meant needles in her tiny mind.

I couldn't imagine how many medical appointments the kid had already been to once they found out the mother's condition was genetic.

Eventually, while her dad held her in a big hug, Sara pulled the injector from my hand and pulled the girl's pants down enough to press it to her flesh.

The kid didn't even cough.

Sara handed a few of the meal packets to Patrick as he walked us out.

"I don't know how long we'll need it," I began.

"How ever long you need," he said, his voice cracking again as he reached out to grasp my hand and shake it, "How ever long you need."

They he hugged me, bulky armor suit and all.

"Get a list of other people with the disease," I overheard Sara saying, "and contact me with names and addresses. Don't promise anything, but-" the rest was muffled by her own hug.

We were in the air a moment later, Max at the controls.

120 points spent, and I couldn't bring myself to do the moral math and wonder how many other people could have been helped or saved had I used the points in other ways.

Instead, I closed my eyes and tried to remember their smiles and the squirming kid who just wanted to be set back down so she could play.