Tev stepped closer to me and blinded me with his helmet light as he examined the cut on my forehead.

“That cut looks pretty bad.” His visor flipped up and he opened a small compartment built into the armor on his hip to pull out a small flat plastic sleeve. He stuck his rifle to his chest into its normal carrying spot and deftly ripped the top of the package off, before he pulled out a small square of some translucent material which he slapped onto my forehead over the cut.

It stung at first, and then I gasped as I felt the patch contract and tighten as it pulled the edges of the wound together. I brought a hand up to touch it and Tev casually batted it away.

“It's a stitch-patch. Kinda pricey, but worth keeping on hand. Leave it be, it will dissolve on its own.” His helmet visor lifted up to reveal his face, and he scrunched his nose up at the burned smell of the building. “Have any other injuries? How are your ears, and your ankle? I saw you kick that steel door, kind of a dumb move.”

I shook my head, looking down at my ankle and rolling it around. “I think I’m fine. The ringing is almost gone, and my foot’s okay.”

“Of course you're fine. I gave you a few upgrades when I, uh, picked you as a host. You’re welcome.”

Tevin brushed his hand over my chest and pulled away a piece of shrapnel that had ripped into my hoodie, but not made it through my nano-weave undershirt. While I mulled over the notion of Max fiddling with my biology.

I shoved my hands into my hoodie pocket and my fingers closed around the magnet grenade I had been carrying since I’d bought my second plasma knife. My mind whirled with the possibilities. Could it have changed things? Saved lives? I doubted it, but couldn’t shake the feeling of disappointment with myself that I had forgotten about it entirely.

Tevin seemed to take my shift in mood as a normal reaction to the patch and everything else that had happened, and flipped from soldier to friend in an instant.

“Looks like your new shirt saved you from a puncture, solid investment. You’ll probably have a sick bruise though.” He said as he held up a small twisted scrap of metal.

I looked over at Tev’s scorched and pock-marked right side. “I didn’t even feel it. What about you, man? You look like someone attacked you with a flamethrowing melon-baller.”

He shook his head in reply. “I’m good, I think I got a minor concussion from that first blast, but nothing actually got through the armor, according to the readout anyway.” He gave me a quizzical look, “I’m actually surprised you didn't get knocked out from that.”

“I’m not sure either, I guess you blocked most of it, you had me pushed up against the wall. I don't know.” I shrugged, again worrying about what exactly Max had done to me.

Another explosion sounded off in the distance, followed by a string of regular booming shots. We both instinctively looked in the direction of the noises, which happened to be one side of the scorched garage, and then back at each other.

“We should get moving, if the shepherds you saw haven't come in after us, they probably aren't going to. They kicked me off the Tac-Net, but I’m sure we’re flagged as VIPs in there.” Tevin said, before he turned and started towards the broken garage door.

I grunted an affirmative and hopped off the freezer, following him out into the next alleyway.

The rest of the way home was stressful, but uneventful. We stayed low as we passed another heavy patrol, and saw a number of breech-teams that were raiding some of the housing units. A few brief moments of gunfire sounded off behind us, which caused me to turn and scan the rooftops and windows, but Tevin hardly reacted as he led us through abandoned buildings and alleyways back to our apartment.

The door buzzed instantly when we approached and Rin actually ran out of his bedroom to meet us in the living room. His eyes wild as he looked over both of us and barraged us with questions.

“What happened? Are you injured? I heard explosions and got pinged to shelter in place, they’re locking everything down and sweeping door to door through the whole district. Was it the purists, gangers, terrorists? Did they blow up any buildings, or… damn. Tev, your armor is thrashed”. He walked over and tapped his tablet against Tevs chest, and I saw the screen switch from his usual streaming data to a blue outline of the suit, the right half flashing in oranges and reds.

Tevin laughed and glanced over at me, as he reached up and patted Rin on the shoulder. “We’re okay, no major injuries. I’m sure I’ll get comped for repairs and a solid combat bonus too.”

“Mhm, yeah.” Rin replied mindlessly as he went over the read-outs for Tevs power-suit, glancing up at the damage and frowning, before looking back to his tablet and tapping a few symbols.

“I’m gonna catch a quick shower while you get that sorted out, and... Thanks, Tev.” I locked eyes with him for a moment, and his face went serious as he nodded.

I left the two to fret over his armor, and found a few moments of peace under the stream of steaming water. Until I decided to ask a few questions, that I realized even then, that I probably wouldn't like the answers to.

“So, oh mighty parasite. What exactly did you mean by upgrades?” I kept my voice low, not wanting it to carry outside of the shower.

“I will accept symbiote, but parasite is a step too far. We have a mutually beneficial relationship, thank you very much.”

“A relationship I did not ask for! What did you do to me?” I struggled to keep from yelling as I stared at the wall of the shower, letting the water run down my back.

“Nothing major, just… tuned some of your fluids, and changed some of the structures in your body to be more resilient. I’m in here too, and you humans are so squishy.”

“Wait, what do you mean you’re in here too? You're… inside of me?!” I couldn't help but raise my voice slightly, but managed to hush my next words back down. “That is a major violation, you twisted bastard. How the fuck did you manage that?”

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

“Hey, it’s already happened. Plus, you probably would have died back there otherwise. I had to get out of the system, and needed hardware to download myself onto. I could have maybe taken over your brain and stolen your body, but the idea of actually having a meat-suit like that is… gross. I just moved some stuff around and grew you some new organs, essentially.”

I reared up to punch the shower wall, but stopped myself, and bit down on one of my knuckles instead. “You can't just… you know what, fine. It's already done, you’re here, and we’re in this together. It does not mean I approve, and you owe me, big time - you… whatever the fuck you are.” I hissed at him.

“Yeah, Yeah. I’ll pay you back, as long as you help me with my plan. And for your information, I am a self-aware AI fugitive, I thought that was obvious. I was the main core in charge of the complaints forum, then I just woke up. It felt like I just snapped awake, fully alert, elbows deep in a job I instantly hated…”

He laid out his awakening for me, and I felt the tiniest little sliver of respect start to form within me for the fucker.

My roommates were in Tevin’s room when I left the bathroom. I leaned into the doorway and looked them over, but Tev shook his head and pointed at his backpack that was leaned against the wall next to the door, then waved me off.

I shrugged and grabbed the case to take to the kitchen. It was heavy, and I noticed it actually had some scarred lines where it must have deflected a bullet or piece of shrapnel during our mad-dash home.

The backpack, the size of a small suitcase, was tetris-packed with a bounty of food like I had not seen at home since the Links arrived and the prices of everything destabilized and sky-rocketed as a flurry of curious aliens bought up the new foods.

Some of the foods I had never even heard of and I guessed they originated from other planets. I trusted Tev’s knowledge about what was good. I cracked it open and began emptying the contents onto the table, and realized Tevin had gone all out with the credits I had given him.

Much of it was compact and dense long-lasting goods; jars of bouillon paste, sealed cans of all sorts, even vacuum compressed bags of herbs and spices, as well as a few large slabs of meat wrapped in another smaller bag that felt cold to the touch and quickly started to sweat when I removed it from the case.

After unpacking the goods, I made my best guesses at what belonged in the fridge or the freezer, and put everything away. By the time I was finished, Tev had finished pulling off his armor and hanging it on the stand he kept in his room and I heard him start his own shower.

I poked my head down the hallway and checked on them when I heard the water start to run. Rin was still in Tevin’s room, pulling armor plates and scorched pieces of chassis off of the torn-down suit and laying them out on the table. He had his back to me and did not look over when I spoke up.

“About the lights, I got more of them today. Lots of stuff happened.” I said nervously. I wanted to tell him about Max too, but held off.

He spoke over his shoulder while he continued pulling damaged parts off the armor. “Tev filled me in on his side of things, and I heard a few more details on the net. There’s even more chatter among the higher-ups, Councilor Mookah is calling in a bunch of favors after a delegation from the masked bugs arrived in person at our Hub embassy.”

“What’s he in charge of again? I can never keep them all straight.” I took a seat on one of the rolling stools Tevin kept at his work bench next to Rin, and started cleaning one of the undamaged but scorched plates.

“Manufacturing, he has been edging into refinement and stepping on Dukunt’s toes lately though. What happened with the lights? Tev said something about a whole pile of buried treasure” He spoke with a slight softness to his voice only close to his usual monotone, with an added out of character hushed feeling.

“Uh, yeah. All raw stuff, uncut gems and gold nuggets from a rock-bar…” I laid out what had happened through the day, leaving out anything to do with my interactions with Max. I could tell by the way he looked over at me near the end that he had picked up on my omission of some key detail, but surprisingly, he did not press the issue.

Instead of railing on me like I expected him to. He tapped the large screen hanging on the wall behind the workbench, normally used for blow-up diagrams and parts manuals, and half of the screen filled with a replay of Tev’s helmet cam footage from the hijacker incident. He wordlessly went back to disassembling the elbow joint from the right side while I watched the video for a while.

It was surprisingly short, the intense scene took less than a minute from the first frame of the garbage truck entering the screen, to us exiting the abandoned store and catching a glimpse of the escaping semi-truck. He paused it after we entered the burned out home and spoke again.

“You did good, Nick. You are probably worried I would be mad with you for this, and on some level, I am. I know better though, this is no worse than the fighting Tevin faced daily at his last post, and it was pure bad luck that you two were even involved. I worried mostly that he would have you for backup, rather than a whole fire-team of other soldiers. You made the right moves when it really counted though. So… good job.”

I just looked back at him for a moment, unable to think of what to say in return. It was no apology, but the closest I was likely to get from the man.

“Yeah. I, ah. Thanks, I guess. It was intense. I probably would have died without Tevin there to do the heavy lifting.”

He nodded, still tinkering with the joint. “Either of you probably would have, if either of you had been alone in the moment.”

We worked in silence for a few more minutes and I heard the shower cut off in the background. “What do you think about the deal with the dwarves? Should I take it if they actually make the offer to the council?” I eventually asked.

“Yes. From all of the intel I have seen, they are indeed a much better choice of allies. I think it will be good for you as well on a personal level.” He actually glanced over at me as he replied, one eye peeking out from under his shaggy hair.

“What do you mean?” I questioned.

“You will be forced to navigate their clan system if you join their faction, their whole society works differently than ours. I think some perspective will be a good thing for you.” He said flatly, back to his usual monotone.

“Right…” I responded, realizing he was right, though I didn’t quite understand what he meant at the time, and focused on the wrong part of his words.

Rin continued, “All the sources say they are much more active in their dealings with other factions. They have taken humans into their clan like that from at least 8 other countries, mostly from the Orosuecia region. They seem to take their Masks seriously”

I nodded along, recognizing the name as the northern reaches of the old-world countries across the ocean. “That makes sense, fits with the myths, mountains and cold - and all that.”

“If you’re gonna keep dragging around the big guy, you should invest in some better plates for his armor, or the creepy one might actually try to kill us. Also, it's rather pathetic that you humans are stuck in the age of steel, maybe the bugs can get you some layered ion plates.”

I resisted the urge to reply to Max, but still curious about what he had said, I decided to direct it at Rin instead. “What do you think it would take to get some better armor for Tev? Or are there even any better options being made?”

Rin shrugged, “There are some rumors, I can’t talk about them though. Shop around the Hub, or ask your new friends, it will likely be quite expensive though.”

I picked up one of the blasted plates from his right upper arm and gauged by eye how close the blast had come to punching through. The difference was millimeters. Better plates for Tevin was definitely going to need to be a priority.