Walking out and across the street to Noe’s apartment I need to run some stuff through Sanctum.

Hey, so are we in trouble going into a medical thing? You’ve said your hidden from scans but what about straight up opening and having a look around?

[Nanomachines are frequently misunderstood by humans to be a ball of gray liquid for the most part. It is true that the Sanctum physical elements can seem that way when traveling outside a host, the most common appearance for a nanite system is invisible to the human eye.]

[While the nanite structures and free moving machines may be discovered in autopsy it is unlikely that a doctor could find the nanites that compose Sanctum’s physical form while you are alive.]

[Even in the event that they use the requisite magnification and detection tools to search for nanites among your other cells Sanctum will simply move or self-deconstruct the nanites in danger of scrutiny.]

So I can have cyberware installed by a stranger and they’ll not find you waving at them from my opened flesh?

[Sanctum can promise the maximum level of subtlety in this situation. The chances of casual discovery by a doctor during surgery are near zero.]

Nova. That really takes the worry off me. I just felt all my aches and pains that had faded climb up my back again as soon as I got stressed. At least it’s fading now.

I arrived at Noe’s gate and buzzed. The gate was opened quickly and I walked down her corridor. I wondered how many people even lived in Marchand’s street, it was never busy and even the few people hanging around on the balconies only seemed to stick around their homes. There wasn’t even food stalls on the sidewalks and the vending machines were silent, it was like an alien world similar but different than the rest of the district.

Pressing Noe’s doorbell, I almost immediately got a response.

“Just wait there a second please! I’m in the middle of something. Be right there. Unless it’s Adan or Veltratech, in which case stuff off already!” Noe said through the intercom on her keypad.

I could have responded but I figured it would be funnier to just wait.

Not hearing anything for a little while was worrying given Noe’s current profession, maybe something had malfunctioned and she’d been hurt. The soundproofing on most apartments was trash but these apartments in Marchand’s street seemed different, solid walls and acoustic softeners built in.

Suddenly the door opened to a very disheveled looking Noe who was wearing a big gray apron and was covered in a lot of dark gray powder from head to foot from the front.

“Mal! Your alive!” Noe said and tried to run in for a hug. I held her off at arms length to avoid getting messy as well.

“Hey Noe, yeah I’m alive and in one piece even if that piece is a bit ragged at the moment. I brought you some presents and my tab. But don’t hug me covered in what I can only guess is gunpowder.” I said, holding her squirming form still in place in the doorway.

“It’s very good gunpowder actually, but the hand loader broke because I’m too small to use it properly and it went everywhere. I was tidying up when you called. Come in! Come in!.” She said stepping back into the apartment.

Stepping in the place was the same apart from a small line of gunpowder going from the workshop to the front door. It looked like a cartoon thing where someone would light it and watch the sparks follow the trail.

“I’m gonna go wash off, sit anywhere you want but don’t go into the workshop unless you put some shoe covers on your feet, they are over in the box by there.” She said pointing at a box of plastic bag things on a little table in the living room next to the door to the workshop. There was a box next to it of gloves and then a box next to that of hairnets.

“I think I’m alright in here for now, go get that stuff off and we can talk money stuff and I can tell you about the job.” I said as I settled into the couch.

Noe went into the bathroom and I heard some water running.

I pulled up my banking app and checked my finances. Two thousand one hundred and four aura credits. Very nice. Hadn’t had a stack like that in… Well actually never that much, most I’ve ever save is around a thousand two hundred and that was two years ago after a bunch of salvaging wins one after another and a good few unexpectedly well preserved finds among those. I usually lived with a hundred or maybe two in my account and even then that was often knocked down to double digits for long periods of time.

Not knowing the specific cyberware Marchand had me lined up for threw a big error into a lot of my money planning. I didn’t know if the netrunning cyberware would need supporting costs or maybe even full on supporting equipment. External cooler units were a common netrunning machine most people knew about, little cube shaped boxes about the size of a microwave that vented the heat from your implants into the room around you inefficiently but cheaply.

I didn’t really know what I could spend of this stack. I’d have to keep a good half or more of it on hand.

Noe walked out of the bathroom looking refreshed and cleaned up, she was carrying her big gray apron under her arm though, the gunpowder stains looked settled in on that. Maybe she had a way to remove them.

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“Thanks for waiting Mal, So do you want to settle the tab right away, or just chill out for a while? Do you want a drink?” Noe offered as she sat in the small chair across from me, sliding the apron under neath the legs of it.

“Nah I’m good, no drink.” I said, no prunes for me. “Let’s get the business out of the way first. How much was my tab again?”

“I remember it being three hundred, and a loaned NV scope. Don’t tell me you lost the scope.” Noe said her face shifting to deadpan.

“I got it right here.” I said handing it over to her. “Also, those reduced smoke rounds work great. Fired off a lot and didn’t even notice any real cloud afterwards, although the second time was in total darkness so I don’t know about that time.”

“Ah, wonderful. I’m working on a set of silver headed rounds for better impact profiles with similar powder. Very expensive rounds though.” She said distractedly. Shooting someone with precious metals just for a better splat is a bit rich for my blood.

“And here’s my tab.” I said connecting to her cerebral implant and sending three hundred aura. “On top of that I have some battlefield scavenged goodies for you. Didn’t collect ears though.”

“You’re gross Mal, I don’t know if I even want your blood soaked goodies.” She said with a frown.

“It’s a cut down shotgun and a custom pistol of some sort. Ganger stuff but definitely worth a look, they had thrown out a broken rifle so they clearly were working on their guns a little.” I said, pulling them out to show.

“Well if you insist so much then.” She said as her eyes turned hungry when she saw the guns, taking them off my hands and looking them over. She unloaded the shotgun and the pistol and then started checking the rounds and actions right there like a pro. “I can’t believe you carried an unknown, loaded gun worked on by sketchy gangers on your body for so long. Stuff like that can fire off on it’s own sometimes you know, or just fail entirely and breach if you knock it wrong.”

That was a very good point, one I would take to heart next time. So I didn’t take a scavenged ganger bullet to the heart instead because I climbed a ledge wrong or something.

“I’ll be more careful next time Noe. If I give you these do you think you could clean and service my signet? I’m, not too sure how it’s done properly and you said the less smoke rounds gunk up more.” I asked apologetically. I pulled out my signet to show her.

“I’ll instead teach you how to clean your guns yourself so you can handle it in the field a little and better at home. As for servicing that pistol it’s going to need a good bit of work, what even hit it to dent like that? Does it still action cleanly?” She asked as she took it off my hands and looked down the barrel from a few angles.

“It pulls back and ejects fine, I haven’t actually fired it since then though. It was a scratch using borg down in the pipe ways. No light down there so he got close.” I said. Noe looked at me like I was insane for a moment.

“What are you doing fighting a borged and scratched ganger in total darkness in the pipe ways? In close combat!? You’re like four feet tall.” She said looking angry at me.

Damn. Right in the heart. I’ll never recover from this injustice.

“I’m four foot three inches actually. And that was just what ended up happening, I thought I was clear of the danger zone and the ganger got lucky with choosing the right path was all. Just a freak occurrence, or maybe he had some tracking cyberware on him that I didn’t see.” I said defensively. “I handled it pretty well though, I put a clip into him before he even got close in total darkness and then managed to hold my own in a fist fight with a borg and pull my knife in time to put him down all blind. It was preem, felt like it lasted forever but it was probably only a few seconds.”

“You’re such a gonk!” Noe said standing up and grabbing me so she could punch me a bunch in the shoulder.

“Argh, what the hell, I’m still recovering you know?” I said balling up to defend myself.

“You shouldn’t be fighting like that Mal! You could have died dozens of times in those few seconds if you were fighting a borg! I didn’t give you a gun so you could hit them with it!” She said fortunately stopping the punching.

“I didn’t exactly have a choice, not like I squared up to him.” I said from my defensive ball posture.

“You need to plan better, like you used to.” Noe said. “You used to talk about trip wires and sensors and cameras when we took jobs with the gang, you used to move stuff around behind us so we couldn’t be trailed or chased easily. The others would laugh at you but it saved us sometimes! Where is that Mal gone? The one that would still be alive in the end.”

She seemed sad. I didn’t know how to respond though. I hadn’t worked with a team in a long time and I guess my paranoia had worn away with time? I thought up till now I was always careful but was I? I do remember taking more time to keep safe when I was younger, usually because I could defend myself less and I wanted to account for others mistakes as much as I could.

I guess I’d gotten lazy at some point. Maybe I could have brought along some traps and set them up as I’d escaped, slowed down the pursuit a bit. Could have even drawn a few of the earlier gonks into a trap with a bit off noise and cleared them up with firing off and drawing them on me.

Thats just traps as well, what about other tools and stuff. What about distractions? What about a cheap scout drone? I could have taken a day off running around setting up and still had time to get the job done. I could have prepared properly. Prepared more.

“I’m sorry Noe, I think I’ve gotten really sloppy since we were last running around together. Too long on my own, doing stuff without too many big problems to work around. Simple jobs has made my mind a bit simpler. Now I’m stepping in Marchand’s big gigs with that simple mind and putting myself at risk.” I said truthfully.

“You are. Old Mal would never have even met that borg ganger. Old Mal would have spent hours getting the exit covered and drawing the gangers away from each other before getting the job done and escaping through the prepared exit route with the gangers wandering around alone not even knowing anything happened.” Noe said with a bit of pride in her voice. She must have missed running with me and our little gang, me, Ears and some others who changed a lot frequently.

“Alright, I’ll take a look at my preparation work properly in the future. I’ll do a better job of it and get my jobs done without a shot fired from you’re amazing guns.” I said, patting her arm that still had my left arm in it’s grip.

“No, you can still fire my guns all you like. But you have to do it from a position that you’ve chosen, not been pushed into. And definitely not blind firing into the dark hoping to put down a charging borg.” She said, letting go of my arm and sitting down again.

“Outside of that fight and a little bit of a botched set up getting to the objective the job was mostly running around and not letting myself get lost. Handled it well enough that Marchand was happy with it.” I said, leaning back.

“That’s great Mal. So you’re in recovery right now so you’re not back on the road for Marchand?” She asked, looking at my arm that I was favoring in the chair.

“I’ll be getting chipped in today, some netrunning stuff from Marchand so I can take a back line approach a bit more on jobs in the future. Apparently I’m among her favorites of the youngsters for now I guess. That or she’s rapidly running out of kid operators and wants to keep the last few around. She’d never give me the whole story on her goings on obviously.” I said, I was a little parched but I didn’t want to drink the prune juice.