Mr. Wick was by Vik one second and the next he was right beside me. Even with my cybereyes I didn't see the intervening steps. His hand was already on my shoulder, and even though part of me trusted him I almost had a heart attack.

"Okay?" His tone was slightly less flat, maybe the beginnings of concern were there.

"I'm fine. What, a little hack is gonna keep me down? Nah." I could see the difference in his eyes, he had opted for colorless irises. Probably thinking it made it hard to tell where he was looking.

Raynor slid over to us, "Hoss, good to see you up and about. What happened? Vik told us you were bushwacked by a "netrunner" what ever that is."

"Yeah." I shared my experience with them and gave them my impressions of the event.

Mr. Wick's face tightened up even more than usual, and Raynor was downright fuming.

"So anyone can get hornswoggled by these varmints?"

"Pretty much. As long as you have cyberware." I nodded. "When we get back home, I'll see if Megan can dig up something on the rats that tagged me. We'll pay them a visit." I didn't need to express how that visit was going to proceed.

Mr. Wick grunted, he understood.

"Enough about this, right now. Tell me what you got chipped with." I grinned trying to dispel the angry edge the guys had started to build.

Raynor showed me his palms, "Same grip as you got." He tapped by his eyes, "Got the Kiroshi optics, good for zooming in and seeing through some walls. Plus the ports and neural processor like yours." Patted his chest, "Muscle enhancements and bone lacing." He just waved his hands, "Dermal Plating."

He clenched his fist, "Should pack quite a punch, even outside the armor." He looked at Mr. Wick.

"Eyes and Grip. Sandy. Kerenzikov. Better neural processor and ports. Faster now." He grinned for a microsecond. I saw it.

"Good deal. I'll settle up with Vik, then we need to go take care of the Fuel station. Get that knocked out. We'll go hunting for Scavs or Maelstrom after to test everything out."

They stepped back and let me by, though I got the sense they weren't going to let me out of their sight for a while.

"What do I owe you Vik?"

He glanced up at me from where he was watching the bout on his monitor. "Two million even. Though with how much I made off the chrome you brought in from the Scavs, I'm willing to call it even."

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

"Nope. I'll pay. Told you I wouldn't feel right profiting off of that mess. I meant it." I wired over the eddies. I was certain it was worth every bit of it.

He grumbled, "Good doing biz with you, but don't be too good. Tends to be bad for your health."

He waved us out and went back to watching the match.

We stopped off to check on Misty, and inform her of what happened. She took it hard when I almost flatlined in her chair. It certainly wasn't her fault and I let her know it.

"Ryan Fate seems to have it out for you. Be careful." She blurted that out, like she didn't want to say but had to.

"As careful as I can be, in this messed up place." I gave her a jaunty wave as we stepped into the street.

"Alright, Raynor go collect the boys. I'll pull the truck around. Mr. Wick keep an eye on the folks nearby, see if any express a little too much interest in us." Orders just spilled out of me, as if I'd been giving them my whole life. For a moment, I though about apologizing, but then it clicked.

Things were starting to come together in my head. I had power, I was in charge. We might be friends, but I had to lead. I had to take responsibility for our actions. And if I was the one who was responsible, then I better give the best damn orders I could. I fuck up, they might die. I sure as fuck didn't want anyone else to die on my watch. I didn't want another incident where my friend had to give their lives to keep me going.

Hell, it might already be too late. Maybe my more scattered approach, my softer touch has already sent the wrong message and slapped a big juicy target on all of us.

No, it was time to sack up and lead. It was a hard world and it only respected the powerful, the cunning and the ruthless.

While getting into the truck I took a moment to go over my status. (I'll include it in the notes down below, since a lot of folks even if they are fans of litrpg don't like the filler like nature of the sheets.)

Some of my abilities had grown like Regrowth, Nature's Blessing and Cleanse because I used them all the time. Many hadn't changed at all since I had no use for them in my day to day activities. I did get a few new skills like Administration and Leadership, also Mechanics and Engineering. Nice.

I was sitting on 15,786 XP. That was a lot of levels, that I had let just sit there. Sure, It would be good to be able to bring a new Class up to par with the others, but that not why I hadn't used them. I plain forgot about it. My mind simply glossed it all over trying to avoid the issue.

My Company Points were sitting at 8,000 which seemed off until I remembered my subscriptions had probably already pulled the rest away. 125,627 Tree points. I had to start figuring out how best to utilize those. Another case of plumb forgetting about something until I needed it.

I still had 16 free points. I used six to bring my Reflex stat up to 10. Then 3 points each to Cool, Intelligence and Will to round them out at 10. Last point went to Psi Resonance to, you guessed it, bring it up to 10. I liked symmetry, sue me.

That was a lot of changes really fast and it crashed into me hard. Good thing I hadn't started the truck yet or I might have mowed down a bunch of people before crashing into a wall. I twitched and jerked and spasmed all about the cabin, until it started to calm down. Fuck. This was probably the other reason I had been avoiding leveling, it sucked ass.

Once I had regained control of myself I drove around to pick up the fellas.

The troops looked like they had had a great time. Some of them so much so that they could barely stand. I threw some Regrowths on them until the staggering stopped. I'll ignore their less than dignified reactions to the spell. Heh.

The reek of tons of alcohol had me hitting them with a few rounds of Cleanse as well. Whew, a good time indeed.

I messaged the Probes we had brought with us to meet at our destination.

With all that sorted out we headed toward the Fuel Station, I had a task to finish.