Once I was decked out in my armor again, I headed out to the living room where Gary was keeping a watchful eye on the guests.

All three of them had regained consciousness and looked rather upset, in their current situation.

“Good morning sleepy heads, how was your nap?” I asked them using an overly chipper tone.

“So, who wants to tell me what you three were doing digging around in my apartment?” I asked them sweetly.

The three looked at each other nervously but said nothing.

“Okey, lets try this again, this time if no one says something I will have Gary here, randomly zap one of you.” I said pointing at Gary, who playing up to the role cracked his knuckles threateningly.

I could see the three start to sweat a bit and grimace at the thought of being zapped.

The woman spoke first, well, girl, she did not seem to be much older than twenty.

“We sent tah crack a vibe, and see if we salvage Samurai tech laybouts yeh?” She said with what sounded like a lower city accent.

Vegas had many sub-cultures and accents present in its vastness, you had the upper city rich people who spoke all fancy, your mid-tier normal folk who spoke the normal sounding English to my ears, you had the normal lower city who had mostly slang and whatnot, and then the undercity, who I’ve rarely encountered so was not too sure on that one.

These guys were clearly lower city slum, by the way she sounded. Which hinted to me that they were most likely part of the gang I’d thwarted.

“Well, you can crack on back home and tell your leaders that I’m not an easy target, they get exactly one warning. This one, if they come after me, or my friends at Juhnes, I will come upon them like a vengeful thunderstorm and vent my fury on their pathetic heads.” I said, from a normal tone slowly quieting down to a gentle whisper at the end.

They all gulped almost at once. “We wonna come back, promise!” The girl said.

“Just let us set away, yeh? We tell the boss okay.” She continued; the others nodded along with her.

“One last thing before I let you go, what is the name of your gang?” I asked.

“We are the Royal Tigers.” She said sitting up with some inflated pride, looking me dead in the eyes, as if she was trying to impress upon me the folly of my ways for crossing them.

I just rolled my eyes back at her.

“Right, now don’t let me see you again.” I said, releasing them, and not so gently shoving them out of my non-existing door.

They scrambled to get out, and down the elevator.

That went well, do you actually think they will leave you and Juhnes alone?

I agree, perhaps hiring a PMC to root them out? Or if you had a small army of your own to police them?

I sensed my drone swarm coming near my apartment, I could use that to follow these three back to where they came from and keep an eye on them!

Mori, you are a genius!

I quickly tag a small part of the swarm to follow each of them discreetly and have the rest patrol the outside of my building, keeping an eye on my “car” and the building entrances.

Very clever, I will help keep track of them, and if I notice them doing anything will alert you. In the meantime, I suggest food, your calorie intake is too low.

I would never try to make you fat, but your physical upgrades are nearly complete and you will need to replace a lot of calories from today’s activities, and to account for all the additional energy needed to run a stronger bodily system. You will, on average, need to consume somewhere around ten thousand calories a day now.

Well, that’s not entirely true if you were to obtain some class IV catalogs there are indeed ways to create energy from nothing, but that’s neither here nor there.

That is correct, but it hardly hurts to look forward, does it? I have thought up some interesting systems for you in the future!”

Of course, the first thing you will need is the catalog for Nanite manufacturing, adequately called “Class I Nanite Manufacturing technologies” for two hundred points. Then a class I nanite manufacturing swarm, they cost one thousand points. After that you can either attempt to assemble your own designs using or purchase blueprints, but even then, you can only make the most basic items.

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Well, as a Class I you only have access to basic nanites, they have limited capabilities and can’t do anything you would call spectacular. There are however, nanite blueprints for specific different types. For example, your armor has several different types, like armor plating nanites, color changing nanites, power supply nanites, processing nanites, kinetic absorption nanites, recycling nanites, thermal energy absorbing nanites, molecular scrubbing nanites, and a few others.

They are armor, power, processing, and color changing nanites. Those are the most basic and needed to fundamentally create anything. You will need additional nanite blueprints to construct other types, or upgrade to Class II for a token and a thousand points.

Each blueprint will cost two hundred points.

That is correct, however you hardly have the points to do that, so for the time being I would suggest the class I. I can tell you though that if you get the class I now, the cost to upgrade it to class II will be slightly discounted. However, the cost of the blueprints will not, so it would be a waste. But don’t be discouraged, there are plenty of things the class I can make without them.

A good way to look at it indeed.

A wise choice! Unlocking now.

Class I Nanite Manufacturing Technology unlocked!

Points reduced to:1,984

Gary has it well in hand, it should only take a few hours to repair everything.

Excellent! I will leave you to it.

I briefly watched Gary re-assemble my door and place it back on its hinges. Nodding in approval I head off to the kitchen to make some dinner.

I quickly rummage through my pantry and fridge, pulling out some chicken, lemon, potato’s, spices, snow peas. I cut them up, toss them in some tin foil and bake it in the oven.

In about thirty minutes I will have a nice little meal.

In the meantime, I sit on my newly repaired couch and turn on the TV, time to catch up on what transpires in the world.

I flip on to the local news first.

“Reports are coming in from Beatty that the town was infested by Model Sevens. Nearly all of the population was taken over by them. Model Sevens specialty is infesting hosts and turning them into puppets for the Antithesis to control. Thankfully an up-and-coming Samurai pair was sent to clear the hive. The newly minted “Witch of the West” a former teacher and tech developer, and “Mordred” a Major from the Desert Fox PMC, rescued the remaining residents and destroyed the hive.”

The screen shifts to an aerial view, showing myself and the Major fighting the Model Twenty-Three, the chameleon, and the hoard of smaller Antithesis. When it showed me using my chain lightning killing them off, it swapped back to the news caster.

“What a shocking display of new tech from our new Samurai. Both of them were selected by the Protectors during this last wave. This wave was particularly bad, being that the portals spawning them managed to manifest below the firing arc of most of the emplaced weapons. Hopefully this does not become a trend or we will need more Samurai in the streets to fend off the incursions.”

Well, considering that there is a massive mega-hive sitting under our feet, something tells me that her worries are well founded. I switch the channel to something less depressing, the Discovery channel. Nothing quite as relaxing as watching about the world we live in and all its wonders.

A soft ding announces the completion of my dinner, I grab it out of the oven using a mitt and place it on the stove. I stare at the mitt; do I need the mitt? I take it off and hesitantly reach out to the pan gently tapping it with a fingertip. It feels warm but does not burn, I place my hand on it firmly, and other than the warmth, it does not hurt or burn my skin. Neat!

It's like watching a child learning things are hot or not.

Of course, that makes sense.

Even though I can’t actually hear him, I can hear the mocking tone in his words, the jerk.

I finish dinner, and some good TV and head for bed. Dropping my armor off at the counter, swapping into PJs, doing my nightly routine and flop onto the bed, snuggling into my blankets.

Even though it’s only soft blankets and pillows, nothing would dare come at me in the safety of my blanket fort, not even murphy.

The next morning, I wake up to the blaring of my AI alarm clock in my head.

Rise and shine little Samurai! It’s time to start your first day in your new position! We have science to do!

Well, I have no one to bother while you're sleeping. Do you have any idea how much time I experience while you sleep? I have computed millions of simulations of every event since we have met to analyze your actions, and to predict your future actions and needs. And that is just in the past twenty minutes.

*Sigh* So rude, my point was; you're welcome for my awesomeness.

Ah, yes but just think of it this way. You are helping protect those same children from the Antithesis by sciencing up new, to you, technologies!

Of course.

I go to the kitchen and whip up a quick breakfast of eggs, bacon, cheese, and triple it on three bagels.

I notice my apartment is sparkling clean, and everything has been repaired, as if no one had ransacked the place just the night before. I also notice Gary is sitting on the couch watching TV.

Most likely because he’s done cleaning and is bored, is that a problem?

I finish my breakfast and watch the TV behind Gary, he has animal planet running, not that earth has a lot of animals left like it did a few hundred years ago. Good job humans destroying the environment, killing off everything. Well, to be fair, I guess the Antithesis did most of that, but we were on the path of doing it ourselves before they showed up.

Finishing my three bagels, I toss the plate into the sink, get my armor from where I left it, the armor slithers around my person, configuring into my casual ware.

“Bye Gary, be good!” I said heading out the door.

I make it out to the parking lot, and am faced with a real conundrum.

Do I take my car, or the Witch Craft?