Maine laid it all out, in clear terms.

  A smash and grab on a Militech convoy. A hard and fast strike to distract them, then Pilar would sneak around with Lucy and grab the target vehicle. Then the rest would cover them until they're clear. Simple.

  Except we all knew better. No one at the table thought it was that simple, not even David.

  It was stupid, and dangerous in the extreme.

  "It's a setup, if I've ever seen one." Falco posited, but how he said it was odd, rehearsed.

  Everyone nodded agreement. Mechanically. Practiced.

  "Now you're going to tell us why we have to do it." I chimed in. Already seeing through the act.

  "You're with us?" Dorio seemed surprised.

  "We're doing this?" David asked in shock.

  I chuckled, "None of you are getting your named drink, on my watch." I turned to David, "Of course. It's a bad idea. But most gigs are, at the end of the day. It's about supporting people. making sure bad ideas don't kill them. So they have the time to learn."

  "Ah, damn. I was hoping to finally get rid of my Brother." Rebecca smirked at Pilar.

  "You pissy little Gonklet. See if your guns function right ever again." The wacky techie snapped back.

  She pulled one of those guns on him.

  "Stop." Maine said quietly. "This is serious. Faraday's backup says we owe him for a few reasons. All of which are valid." He points to me, "He says you owe him because of Faraday's condition, but I'm not going to force you." He gave me an almost apologetic look.

  Judging by the general lack of questions and snark, the rest of his crew knew all about this already. This meeting was to bring me up to speed and see whether I'd join in. Their poor acting gave it all away.

  I grinned, "I'm not in the least surprised to hear that someone thinks that's leverage. I'm also not remotely sorry. Faraday's going to regret pulling this stunt, and his little minion too. But I'll be there for you guys, because I have a good feeling about you goofballs."

  All of them reacted with some degree of confusion to "goofballs", but they let it slide. I saw Kiwi shudder at my mention of payback, Faraday's condition was widely known at this point.

  "Alright good, we have some details to arrange, but it's a go in three days. That work for you?" Maine cut straight to the point.

  "That's just dandy!" Deliberately using terms they were unfamiliar with. I gotta get my laughs in somewhere.

  They got the gist, and we relaxed. Except Kiwi, she left. I'd almost think she didn't like me. Couldn't be. I'm awesome, or so I tell myself.

  We spent the rest of the night swapping stories.

  I spent a couple of hours summarizing some of the amazing adventures of John Wick. The killed three men in a bar with a pencil story, never failed to impress. Nor was an eye dry when those bastards killed the puppy, especially when a dog was present to give a low howl at his fallen cousin. There was a collective growl of satisfaction at the conclusion of John's revenge.

  In turn, I got the story of how Sasha almost snuffed it, big time.

  She got a gig to klep some data from Biotechnica. A jammer was provided for the job, so bold as punch Sasha strolled in hacking systems as she went. When she got to the right office, she set up some precautions to keep her from being distrubed.

  She quickly gained access to the mainframe and found the requested data. But she also found data on Securicine the painkiller her mother had been on. The company had known it caused neural degeneration, but it was so profitable that they kept it on the market anyway.

  Sasha decided to send all of that data to a local news station, but the jammer's operation time had run out. Security bots busted in on her.

  She herself hadn't thought of alternative exit strategies, but Maine had.

  Throwing her hold out EMP grenade, she leapt through the window. And pulled the cord on the small base jumping chute.

  A few droids still managed to get to the window and start taking potshots at her. They got her good too, when Maine gathered her up, she was bleeding out fast. Thankfully he got her to a friendly Ripper in time.

  While she was down they brought on Kiwi to handle NET Overwatch duties.

  I spun an altered summation of Raynor's first run in with the Zerg. Playing them off as a lab experiment gone wrong. I still feel something was missing from that story, but I didn't know what it was.

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Then Rebecca told me about how she first fell in love with guns. That was a fun tale of blowing some potential sexual predators' nuts off. Her thinking was as long as you take care of your guns, they'll take care of you.

  By that point David was zoning out to the point that he barely noticed Lucy had squeezed in right next to him and was using his shoulder as a head rest. He merely had a silly grin on his face instead of the expected blushing.

  I turned to Maine and Dorio, who through it all still had her hand down his pants. Thankfully she'd long since stopped moving it. Gave a new meaning to find a girl that will never let you go, I guess.

  "I think that's our queue to head out. Yall have fun planning the gig, and I'll see you in three days."

  Mith and I gathered up David and headed home.

  In the morning, I delivered the pallets of MREs to the Kriegsmen who where on time, unharassed, and had a Vox communicator ready for me.

  Marshall 999 gave me a concise report on the current state of their supplies. Bad. They had their own methods of food production, but they were insufficient for the numbers of troops needed to hold off the Cybred threat. Due to the nature of the building summons they had plenty of weapons and ammo, and were in the process of building certain armored equipment.

  Magos Helifern was beside himself at the loss of the Khalai equipment. And saddened by the loss of so many noble machine spirits. He prayed daily for the Probes that were now dust.

  Losses were high, but moral was vastly improved now that I had returned.

  I promised more supplies and aid as I could provide them, but otherwise told him to keep it up. I had every confidence in him.

  Apparently that was the right thing to say, as I felt a small trickle of faith roll in.

  I also started experiments on my first subjects. While I discovered nothing of note, yet, I helped all of them with their health and cyberware issues.

  Data collection on Repair Machine and Comprehend Mechanical structure was already proving helpful. And I made small advancements with both abilities.

  I made a note with Lacie to have Susie send over the other Mox for check ups at some point. It would be useful to grind my abilities as David called it.

  He was making excellent progress this morning as well. He could now fully form and solidify his Manaball in under 10 seconds now. Just wait until he could set it on fire.

  I taught him the basics of Manashield, Jaina had shared them with me, but I hadn't been practicing it as I should.

  That evening we opened up the Food Truck over by MB 10. I brought Misty and Vik some food while I was there, I left David and Mith with the truck. The kid had already caught on to how to put everything together, so I was alright with leaving him there to run things for an hour or two.

  Misty latched on to me, already recognizing me despite the changes. She was crying, which didn't please her boyfriend.

  She introduced him as Jackie. He gave me that look. The one that says, "I don't trust you with my girl". Heh, it was odd to be it that position.

  "Sorry about meeting you this way Jackie, but my absence wasn't voluntary."

  "Well, do better next time, Perro." I didn't know Spanish, but I knew that word.

  Misty gave him a backhand to his chest. Nothing serious, just something to let him know that wasn't cool.

  "I know that's often considered an insult, but I've known too many great dogs for it to bother me. Look, I get it. I really do. At some point you and me we'll go for beers and hash it out, but right now I'm just happy to see good friends after being lost." I gave him an apologetic smile.

  My attitude seem to throw him for a loop, he rubbed the back of his neck. "Maybe that was too much."

  Misty gave him a hug, and he got a besotted smile on his face. Oh, he was in deep. Made sense, Misty was great.

  I gave him a shrug. "Like I said, calling me a dog could never upset me. Anywho, is Vik busy?"

  Misty shook her head, "He's watching a match."

  "Oh, I almost forgot!" I handed Misty the bag with her food and a Soda. Thankfully, I'd packed a couple of extra burritos in there just in case.

  I walked out into the alley.

  "Is that a burrito, it looks like the ones my Mama makes. What's with that guy?" Yeah, I'm not what Jackie was expecting.

  "He likes taking care of his friends. Whatever he has to do to help, he'll do it. You should give him a chance." Misty saw right through me.

  I chuckled and shook my head. Why am I not surprised?

  Vik was engrossed in the screen where two behemoths were pounding each other into dust.

  I entered and set his food next to him. He grunted, "Thanks, Misty."

  "Nope."

  His head whipped around, he stared at me confused. Then it clicked. "Ryan?"

  "What's left of me." Holding my hands out for inspection.

  "There's lot more of you." He eyed me, probably trying to figure out the cost of the mods he thought I'd gotten.

  "Aw come on, Doc. You know how it is, you find a few new recipes and you just gotta try them." Patting my slim gut.

  "Speaking of." He opened his bag and pulled out one of his wrapped sandwiches. I figured simple was best with Vik, and set him up with a Ham and Turkey Melt. He pulled out his Soda staring at it then me.

  He gave it all a try. Then he inhaled it. I always love that reaction. It never gets old. Unlike Vik. Heh.

  "I haven't had anything like that since I was a kid. Not bad, not bad at all." He smiled.

  "Anytime I'm in town, you call and I'll whip you something up." What good was having access to great food if I couldn't share?

  "Now tell me about those mods." He was genuinely interested.

  "Wish I could, Doc. All involuntary."

  He frowned. "Maybe we'd better have a look."

  I knew what he'd find, for the most part. But I wasn't going to say no.

  He had me plop into the operating chair. He adjusted a few things and ran the scanner. The result were pretty much expected.

  "They changed you right down to the DNA. I've never seen this level of gene editing. There's no sign of the tampering." He sounded excited and confused. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you've never been human. Sure the baseline performance of this form is miles better than human standard, but I don't understand the cosmetic changes. If they can do this much, they could have given you all the advantages, and left you looking like you did." He shook his head.

  "I can think of lots of reasons. Most of them bad."

  "I'm sorry Ryan, I don't think there's anything I can do to reverse this." He really did sound contrite.

  "Nah, Doc. It's fine. I didn't expect you to fix it. I just wanted to be sure it was as complete as I thought." I was hoping maybe just a bit that the old me was in there somewhere. I guess it was too na?ve.

  "I don't even know if I could chip you properly, without a lot more study." His arms were folded and he was cupping his chin, deep in thought.

  "Don't worry about it. I gotta get use to this new meat before I think about changing it."

  "Sounds like a plan." He nodded agreement.

  Lots of planning going on lately.