By the time I left Pete the spectacle on the street was all over and people had gone back to their usual everyday lives. I was in a sour mood though as I made my way home. A complete moron trying to mug me didn't help. Worse though, Pete hadn't had any beer in stock. Sure he had had some other things, mostly stronger spirits of questionable, but local, origin, but I just wasn't one for strong liquor that just might make me go blind.

Damn it all and curse my rotten luck!

At least I was almost home. This time for real. I could already see the old workshop I owned. Well, I had claimed it as my own and no one had dared dispute my claim so far. Never mind what some outdated land register in some city official's office might said.

It was one of the smaller buildings around, despite the four floors of apartments that had been added on top of it. I never bothered with those and the people living there did their best to never bother me either. They probably were happy enough to get to live there rent free or whatever. As long as they didn't expect me to maintain their facilities I didn't mind.

I had the workshop and the basement. That was enough for me. I had decided on that place initially because it had some of the sturdiest, reinforced concrete walls and only very few, narrow windows while at the same time having more than one entrance. It was pretty defensible to begin with and I had improved upon it over the years ever since.

My home was pretty much my castle even if it didn't look like much from the outside. Well, not by the standards of some corporate real estate agent anyway. As far as I was concerned even the abundant graffiti were pretty charming. It certainly was more colorful than the plain concrete, steel and glass aesthetic of the sky scrapers and habitation blocks of the inner city.

Even now some kids were busy painting over one of the older images that had been gathering dust or rather a veritable layer of grime for a while.

I nodded to myself.

If the original artist hadn't bothered keeping it clean and visible it probably was safe to paint something new over it.

I waved casually with my free hand, as one of them spotted me, clutching the bag with the groceries to my chest with the other.

“Don't get shot or anything!”

They barely paused long enough to acknowledge me before focusing on their work again.

I in turn headed towards the small side entrance next to one of the big, rusted in place rolling doors of the former garage. There was no lock. There wasn't a door handle either. There were no hinges accessible from the outside either. At a glance the door appeared to be just a plain piece of steel with several layers of paint all over it.

I simply put my hand against it. To an outsider it might have looked as there was a hidden scanner plate integrated in the door. Nothing could have been further from the truth though. This door was as low tech as a door could be. This door couldn't be hacked simply because there was nothing to hack.

Only someone familiar with magic would have noticed the smell of ozone which, out here in the open, was gone with the wind before it could even properly register.

In truth I had called forth Gruul, or at least a fraction of him, on the other side of the door to undo the mechanical bars, each one a sturdy profiled beam, which held the door closed.

I had to lean against it with all my weight to push it open. And once I slipped inside I had to push with just as much force to close the door again. At least I didn't have to bars back into place. Gruul took care of that.

“Thanks, dear.”

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I gave his tentacle an affectionate pat before it disappeared again.

In a normal building those bars would have been anchored in the walls. Not here though. Inside the walls everyone could see an entire separate framework of massive steel girders spanned the whole of the building's exterior walls. Steel girders that could have held the weight of a hundred floor or more sky scraper. The bars were anchored in that framework.

No one could hack that door and not even a tank at top speed would be able to smash through it. Sure the outer walls would crumble under an assault like that but the steel girders would stand firmly. And then there was the second, interior wall, essentially a building within the building.

The second door wasn't like the first one. Oh sure, it was just as sturdy, but this one had all the high tech the outer door lacked. There was a scanner and there were cameras.

I placed my hand against the scanner and looked up at the camera.

“Hey! I'm home. And I come bearing gifts!”

I raised the bag with the groceries for emphasis.

A moment later the door clicked open and I could slip inside.

I was immediately wrapped up in a tight hug by a much shorter woman.

Mei looked the same as any other clone of the Mei series, like the ones at the coffee shop earlier. At least at a first glance. You wouldn't usually expect them to wear fluffy pajamas. She was a year or two older than most clones ever became before being retired as well.

What made her special to me was what most people couldn't see. Her astral body was much better developed than the ones of just about any other clone I had ever seen. It showed that she has had years to grow, learn and live an actual life by now.

She was not just a Mei anymore. No, she was Zero One now, my little digital guardian angle.

She nuzzled a little closer to me and I patted her head affectionately in return. Finally she took a step back again to greet me properly.

“Welcome home!”

My smile shifted to a playful frown.

“Don't tell me you have been in your pajamas the whole time, while we waded through cultist blood and worse.”

She just shrugged.

“No blood here and nothing worse either. Besides I'm working on a little side project right now.”

“A side project? In your pajamas?”

She just shrugged as she led me into our home and closed the door behind me again.

“Sure. I'm helping a friend pirate some telenovelas. The encryption they use it surprisingly good. An in exchange I get some Spanish lessons.”

I snorted in amusement.

Yep, that sounded entirely like something she would do. Never mind that her compensation should be a lot more than just some language lessons. In the end I was just glad that she did things she enjoyed doing.

Before she could say anything else I handed her the bag of groceries.

“How about you get dinner started while I hit the shower? I got to make sure that I don't drag blood, or anything worse anywhere.”

She raised an eyebrow before looking down at my shoes just in case.

“Put your clothes in the washing machine as well. Just in case.”

With those parting words she heads off in the direction of the kitchen while I head towards our bathroom.

As requested by Mei I throw my things into the washing machine right away. The machine is a heavy duty model to make sure it can deal with some of my subtly and not so subtly armored things, especially my bodysuit. Never mind that it will sound like someone put a metric ton of small change in there.

Then I step directly into the shower and turn on the hot water. That is the part of civilization I have come to appreciate the most. Hot water on demand. That wasn't something that had readily been available out in the zone.

I closed my eyes and leaned against the tiled wall for a moment. Before I could doze off though the small of ozone tickled my nose. I allowed myself a small smile as Gruul started soaping up my back. Some of his tentacles started kneading my tired muscles as well, paying special attention to my bruised shoulder. I sighed in relief as some of the accumulated tension left my body.

That was just one of the many differences between Gruul and many other spirits. He genuinely cared while many others like those pretend angels were just selfish parasites. I had really lucked out with him.

“Thanks Gruul, dear.”