Trace had bought some new lights and cabling for the basement the night before. What he had not gotten was a ladder or a lift of some sort. So, while he now had the items, he didn’t have the means to install them or finish cleaning the ceiling. It was an annoying realization, but he had plenty of other items to keep him busy and occupied with that day. He would have to ask the delivery people if they had a solution when they arrived.

  One item that kept him busy for a short while was taking out one section of the back seat and installing the toolbox in the truck. He had to cut out the box beneath the seat and then bolt it to the floor. All the ammo and first aid kits he had stuffed into that box were then placed in the toolbox. It made the back area far more organized and freed up space for whatever he might need.

  The delivery of lights, cabling, and various items for the filtration system arrived shortly after he had finished organizing the truck.

  He had bought a couple of extra lights to use in the warehouse itself to replace the ones that had failed over the years. Unsurprisingly, the same issue as with the basement appeared there as well, in that he had no way of reaching the ceiling.

  The people who brought everything came equipped with everything they could possibly hope to also sell him. Which thankfully included a transforming ladder, which they charged him a premium for. However, with that purchased, he would be able to reach all the high places he needed to get to.

  Trace waited for them to leave and then placed the pipes, filter bowls that would hold the filter cartridges, and the rest of the filtration system near the water main. After that, he began moving everything else to the lift, save for the lights he was saving for the warehouse itself.

  All of this was mostly busy work, but it was a part of life and making the place more habitable.

  Ko arrived before he could get started down in the basement. “You managed to distract Sevorah last with everything else, but after you left, she started asking about your hand and arm again.” She said in a way of greeting. Her posture was stiff, and she kept tugging on a lock of her hair.

  “I figured that would be the case. The two of you are rather intimately familiar with the arm after everything you both went through to connect it to my body properly.” Trace led her inside the apartment, where they could sit down. “Do you have any ideas about what we should tell her?”

  She snorted and rubbed at her forehead. “As if! Not when it comes to something like this.” Ko spotted the new 3D printer. “How about we use Deckard as an excuse? She already knows that we had someone reprogram it before we passed it off to her. We can just say they also redid the exterior as well.”

  “And she’d believe that?” He asked doubtfully.

  “No,” She mumbled, losing all the excitement that had filled her only moments before. “Some things can be changed and swapped out, sure. That happens fairly regularly, though generally by us and not some unknown person. The nerves still have to be turned off on the arm during the process. She would only need one semi-close look at your hand, assuming she didn’t get one last night to know it was a lie. The structure of your fingers and hand alone has changed too much for a simple exterior mod.”

  “Is there any chance that she’ll just leave the matter alone if we ask her to?” Trace wondered.

  “I suppose anything is possible,” Ko said while tapping the pads of her fingers together. “She would likely want some sort of reason, and I don’t think your or her relationship with Stick-Point is going to cut it this time. She was so curious after you left that she reviewed all of your old scans before even looking at the new items you brought.”

  “Well, that just sounds great,” He massaged the back of his neck, trying to come up with an idea but failing. Asking her to ignore the matter was really the only viable option they had at the moment. They had already agreed to not reveal the system’s existence to anyone else. “Argh, I guess we’ll deal with that problem when we have to. Did you bring the information on those manifests?”

  “Yup.” She perked up at the change in subjects and handed the papers back to him. She also sent him a message that had been prepared earlier with all the details. “If you will take a look at the message, I just sent you. You will see all the details Sevorah came up with on the medical supplies and the drugs. Obviously, she wants the supplies, we already knew that. Now you have a price of what they go for normally, and what she is willing to pay.”

  Ko nibbled on her lower lip. “I think it’s a fair price. She could do better, but the price she is offering is already going to strain the clinic’s funds by a fair bit.”

  Trace wasn’t the only one that Sevorah did work on credit for, or charged far less than she should have.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  He and Monroe had already set the crates to the side for Sevorah earlier and talked about selling them to her for cheap. The mender had done wonders for Trace when he was injured, and her clinic was constantly helping the community. They might not be rich, but they could afford to give back a little at times like this.

  “I tell you what,” Trace began with a grin. “I can’t speak for Monroe’s portion of the sale, but he and I had previously agreed to sell it to her at a discount anyway. If she is willing to let the matter of my arm go along with the rest of what I owe her then, then she can have my portion of the medical supplies for seventy-five percent off.”

  Ko’s brows raised as she began to laugh. “Yeah, that just might do it.”

  Medical supplies were not cheap, by any stretch of the imagination. Monroe would be coming out of this deal like an absolute raider. Trace just hoped it would be enough to get him out of debt.

  “Okay, now tell me about the drugs.”

  Her grin vanished. “Those are nasty pieces of work. She doesn’t want any of them. If you can find the right buyer, then they’re worth quite a lot, otherwise they’ll just take up space. Sevorah’s suggestion was to keep the ones she highlighted to use as poisons for when you become a wraith later and dump the rest.”

  “No money from those, then.”

  She shook her head. “Nope, sorry, well, not really. I looked up some of them this morning, and a handful of them are the same drugs that Siren’s Rush used back then. I’ll be glad to see those get dumped, although I’d be happier to see them get used on some corpos.”

  “Well, I’m not there yet. I just barely purchased the first part of my stealth suit last night. I need to do a lot of work on it before it is anywhere near ready, and even then, it won’t be even close to the wraith armors I saw at the pit.”

  “I understand. Wait, have you done any knowledge pack upgrades since that first one?” Ko asked him suddenly.

  “No, I was planning to, but I still have-” He pulled up the menu to see how many hours he had left, only to realize that he could perform an upgrade again. “That… makes no sense. I upgraded my arm in Fort Collins six days ago. I should still have the better part of a day left to go before I can perform another upgrade with the system. Yet, it’s saying that I’m all good to go.” He stared at the menu in confusion for another few seconds before turning his attention back to Ko. “What was it you were originally saying?”

  Her mouth opened and closed twice before she shook her head and continued. “Right, anyway, after your… accident as soon as I could I chose ‘Meditation+’, and I realized that Meredith had updated the knowledge packs. You remember how we were complaining about how out of-date the information was?”

  He nodded.

  “Well, that’s not the case anymore. When I selected that knowledge pack, it also upgraded my ‘Health Studies+’ that I had chosen the first time around. All my information is current now. It still just covers basic items, but now it is actually relevant information that Sevorah has been teaching me. I didn’t mention it earlier since, well, there was a lot going on.” Ko smiled wryly. “Now that you can do it again, which one are you going to choose?”

  “I chose ‘Technical Ability+’ last time, and while it has helped some. Since the information was so out of date, it didn’t become the true advantage. I was hoping it would be. If it is going to get updated though, that changes things. The problem is, I’m wanting to work on my stealth suit, among other things. Which knowledge pack would benefit me the most? ‘Electrical Engineering+’, ‘General Engineering+’ or perhaps ‘Modifications+’.”

  Ko’s brows furrowed in thought. All three were good options. It really just depended on how he went about building the suit. “Which enhanced teaching modules do you have right now?”

  “Um, for this, I’ll be starting intermediate electrical engineering and intermediate mechanical engineering tonight. I don’t have one for general engineering or specifically tailored to modifications.”

  “That explains why you aren’t choosing those two, then.” She muttered. “I think you should choose ‘General Engineering+’ for what it’s worth. As far as I can tell, you are naturally good at modifying things, so using it for that would simply be reinforcing one of your strengths instead of giving you new knowledge. Which is what I assume you want right now.”

  Trace cocked his head as he followed her thought process. “Yeah, you’re right. It would be a waste to use it on anything else.”

  With the matter decided, he selected the upgrade option in the menu. The menu vanished and was replaced with a warning message, slightly different from the last time around.

  - Administrator Trace Delevey has selected the Technology oriented ‘General Engineering+’ knowledge upgrade package. Is this correct?

  - Yes/No

  That part was the same. It was the message that came next, which was different.

  - Previously installed knowledge pack detected with out-of-date information

  - Previous knowledge pack installations will be updated with new information

  - Depending on the number of prior installations, this may cause additional strain on the user’s brain

  - User should be in a sitting or reclined position during the following knowledge installation

  He gulped; suddenly glad they hadn’t had time to do multiple knowledge packs before Meredith had appeared. A moment later, two progress bars appeared in the center of his vision, which slowly began ticking upward at different speeds.

  It took a few moments for Trace to become of an uncomfortable sensation inside his head. It felt as though there was a constant source of fuzzy static discharge being released around his brain. At first, it was simply uncomfortable and then grew to the point where he could taste the pulses of electricity across his tongue.

  He was surprised he hadn’t recognized it the last time. Had it been that long since his last tongue-tingling episode at that point? Either way, the feeling was uncomfortably familiar to what he experienced during one of his more rare episodes.

  His eyes were drawn to the screen for Deckard’s avatar, only to find the man watching him with an odd expression on his face.

  Trace’s body began to jerk, as his muscles began to fire sporadically.

  “WHAT’S GOING ON?” Ko screamed to Deckard. “Nothing like this happened when I went through it.”

  Whatever was said after that, Trace didn’t catch as the nanites in his body began to swarm his brain. Commands were being sent automatically as they fulfilled their various purposes. Keeping him alive.

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