I quickly told Sheila to head to the storage at the Sky Port as she slithered into the back of the hovering horseless carriage. She took one bench and Miles and I sat facing backward on the other. Our books floated nicely into a pile in the middle. I described the books and location as much as I could remember as the magitecha carriage took off and headed south following the bank of the river.

  We arrived a little after one PM in the afternoon, which gave us less than an hour before Lauren and his Black Market◆ crew would arrive. I haven't promised him all the books but I thought it might be best to settle this before they get here.

  The hover carriage stuck around, I wasn't sure if it was a taxi or owned by Sheila at this point. Miles made his farewells and took his books toward the sky ferry terminal. Sheila and I walked through the secured fencing at the Neu Ca?on Storage and Holding in the Sky Port. The guard validated me against their renter list and escorted us to our truck. I liked to see security taken seriously.

  Squad Leader walked out to greet us, “Hello.” He was quite the charmer it seemed.

  Sheila flicked a single arm out and looked at my synth, “what have we here?” She whispered to herself. Shaking her entire body again starting at her head, she said louder, “The books?”

  I asked Squad Leader to unlock and open the back of the cargo bay on the Kombi-Max. After my synth and I jumped up, Sheila simply extended her body, transferred her weight and was on the cargo deck with us. “Don't mind that pile” I said, indicating the poorly hidden Mach 1 armor.

  Taking her to the back of the cargo container, I showed her where we had 6 pallets of books. Almost a ton on each pallet which was around 1,000 books each!

  “Sorry I don't know how you are going to see all the books, I didn't think this through.” I said embarrassed.

  “Don't worry dear, I can take it from here, shouldn't take me too long to get a sense of what you have.” With that Shiela closed her eyes and began to circle a pallet with her body and gently squeeze it.

  Figuring a bookstore owner knew what she was doing with books, I headed outside to check on Squad Leader. He was standing guard on the open door.

  “You know Squad Leader, we have never held a spoken conversation before,” I said, making the realization out loud.

  “Yes.” was his locasious response.

  Sighing, I continued, “Usually I can sense you via telemehanics, or send you commands that way or via short range radio term’.”

  “Yes.” he continued.

  “Alright enough of that, Squad Leader.”

  Sitting down on the end of the trailer deck, I continued “I have been wondering, why did you tell the guards as we came into Neu Ca?on you were unarmed? You had a retracted nano-blade in your left arm.”

  Pausing only for a moment he responded, “First, I observed that Dr. VanBright, Miss Schulz, Mr. Ciervo, and you failed to disclose your various handguns, blades and personal weapons. I deduced that there were categories of weapons that were included and excluded in the generic label ‘weapon’ for the purposes of entry screening. Second, I inferred that there might be situations even if I was wrong about the categorization, where we might want to remain silent, or even actively choose to deceive a member of the law enforcement community or authorities.”

  Taking a breath to process what he had said, “I see.” It was my time for a witty rejoinder.

  Right, Alexandria’s last name was Schulz, I had forgotten that. Glad my synths and Big Fe kept track of everything.

  “Wait so you said that you lied?”

  “No, Prime, I did not say that I lied. I said that it could both be the truth and a lie at the same time.” I could tell that my Squad Leader was trying to patiently explain his reasoning to me. It was becoming a bit surreal.

  I asked him, “But still you have the capacity and understanding of what a lie is and why you might use it.”

  “Yes,” was his response. Ahh, here we go again with the unnecessary verbosity.

  Reasoning through this out loud I said, “Ok, so you realized the guard might have meant more serious weapons, heavy weapons, explosives, long rifles, things like that. And even if they didn't you were fine keeping your nano-blade hidden and undisclosed.”

  “Correct.”

  Wow, just wow. I need to have these sorts of conversations more often. Changing gear I asked, “How did it go with you guarding the truck?”

  “Uneventful. I would have notified you if something had happened. A pile of scrap was delivered yesterday evening from ‘Biggies Pawn Shop.’ It is placed behind the truck for safekeeping. A few human adolescents tried to climb the fence at 1:37 AM this morning but the local security forces were quick to dissuade them with nonlethal force. I observed 78 individuals entering Neu Ca?on and 61 leaving over the course of yesterday. I was unable to identify the purpose of their visit or relative threat levels.” Squad Leader finished talking, never taking his eyes off the surroundings to look at me.

  Seems like I would need to work on nonverbal communication skills, just as soon as I figured them out for me as well.

  I decided to stow my backpack in the cab and give myself a moment to think. I hopped down from the cargo deck and walked around the front of the truck. I could now see the scrap had been delivered from the first junk shop I looked through. I saw my much needed axle, broken toilet, light post, pretzel twisted hoverbike, cables and miscellaneous scrap piled haphazardly on 2 pallets. We could stow that after we finished with the trade. I climbed up the cab, and unlocked the passenger door. I threw my backpack on the lower bunk bed and checked the logs. As Squad Leader said, nothing had bothered the rig since we locked it up.

  I returned to Squad Leader and stood there admiring him. Vanilla BDwerks? Light Infantry cyborg body armor covered my customized drone based frame. The best cybernetics I could scrounge filled out his body and provide the control and functionality for the synth. It was still cracked and damaged from Nemans who had attacked. Inside his upper torso I had additional intelligence and control units, just for the Squad Leaders. The rest of the synths had an augmented but original controller in their chest along the spine. The body modification and designs were simple in comparison to the personality, intelligence, and reasoning that I was developing for them.

  But I couldn't ignore the bodies forever. It wouldn't do well to explain to my sponsors that they needed to steal or buy a corpo drone or worse kill a cyborg goon for every single synth that they wanted to sell. I needed to refine and then streamline the endoskeleton for my synths before I had a final product to present. The cyborg parts that Alexandria had helped me order were a start for the next gen endoskeleton design, I hoped.

  The initial design that I had sketched out was to just install the controller and sensors inside of power armor suits. I figured if we had enough intelligence and control we could pilot the power armor suits as is. That failed for two reasons. First, power armor suits are a lot more complicated to control and take advantage of, for a synthetic, than a normal suit of armor. The augmentation, feedback and enhancements are not a static additive value. They change based on circumstances and environmental feedback. This means the synth needs to constantly observe and adapt. Throw them in body armor, tighten it down, and they could consistently perform in a linear feedback loop. The second, and larger issue was that power armor requires a full powered musculo-skeletal frame to provide motion and support. I was hoping to leverage the inherent exoskeleton built into the armor for movement, but it was not enough. Running was non deterministic and movement was jerky, no matter what tuning I overlaid. I had to go back to the drawing board and use an endoskeleton like the hack with salvaged cybernetics, or the totally cyber-machine endoskeleton body I was designing.

  Sheila slithered to the entrance of the cargo bay, her polite cough brought me out of my synth inspired daydream. “Well dear, that is a nice collection of books you have found. Not all were to my taste or interest, but I found far more than would be needed to trade for your books. Alas, Dr. VanBright already paid, but I would be happy to issue store credit?”

  I couldn’t tell if she was humoring me, or keen to trade, but I was more than happy to arrange for credit.

  “Sheila, that sounds great if you have enough for the trade, I would be quite happy. I usually don't have a need for store credit, but books are an exception. I would love to have you take whatever you need.” Plus dealing with her, I was getting retail costs in credit vs wholesale from Lauren and the Black Market◆.

  She briskly responded, “Well good, indeed. I found 30 texts that I would like to take, that will eliminate your 17 books and leave you with 13 for future credit?”

  I nodded my head, and saw, what I assume was a smile on the Octopus bookkeeper, bookstore keeper? Anyway.

  She continued, oblivious or too polite to mention my inattention. “Gabby, thank you so much for the invitation, I will just take these books and be on my way.” With that the large alien slithered down to the ground and a floating stream of 30 books followed behind her. I wasn't an expert by any stretch on telekinesis, but that was an impressive sight.

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  As Sheila was loading up into her hover vehicle, Sunny rolled up, “Hey they Gabby! What a fine day it is. The brilliant blue sky, and the artistic white clouds. It’s like the hands of a Quad, or a Sun Cleric painted the sky for us.” Sunny was grinning ear to ear, or at least audio implant to audio implant. The only visible human parts left on his entire body was his face, bushy eyebrows and all. Eyebrows that he was currently wagging at me.

  “Jeez, Sunny, you get a few days in town and you are a new man. What happened to the cranky old fart?” I gave him a gentle ribbing, no one should be that chipper, ever.

  “Oh he is still buried underneath this steel and ceramic, but a little fine living never hurt anyone. The hotel was, might-T-nice. And the food, oh my light, it was indescribable. First we,”

  I interrupted him, “we wouldn't want you to have to try to describe it then. Are we ready for the trade? Do you think we should ask for more funds?” I was starting to worry about the exchange.

  Sunny grinned at me but stopped abruptly and thought for a moment, “Humm, well actually, I asked around a bit and I do think we should have asked for more than 10 million for the armor. It is in pristine condition. No one will find a better one than this. They could probably sell it to a collector for a lot more than the list price. I think we should let them check it out and then counter a bit.”

  I was glad to hear Sunny suggesting that. I hated negotiation, and had no idea how to read smooth operators like Mr. Feldclop. Sunny and I caught up on more business, planning the repairs and transfer of purchases to our caravan camp. Promptly at 2 PM Lauren and his crew arrived.

  A large hover truck of indeterminate origin came up to the gate and Lauren Feldclop and 2 obvious bodyguards got out of the truck.The bodyguards appeared to be Techno-Soliders kitted out in the latest and best hardware and armor one could buy. Sleak UAI power armor, of an unknown type to me, and both RGE plasma and UAI gauss weapons rounded out their arsenal. Glad to see not everyone was taken with the magical mumbo jumbo either.

  A magitecha car hovered over and 3 more people got out. Sunny rolled over to the guard at the gate to meet Lauren and his team, but it looked like Lauren wasn't having trouble with getting into the secure Neu Ca?on Storage and Holding facility. In hindsight that really isn't surprising at all that the head of the Black Market◆ in Neu Ca?on would be allowed in.

  Sunny and Lauren came toward our truck as Squad Leader moved toward the right, facing the approaching people. I send a message to him to be on guard but to not make any sudden moves or actions. Lauren gave a jaunty wave of his hat as he approached.

  “Good afternoon Miss Gama, we are very happy to make an exchange with you. Let me introduce my colleagues, Drs Jax and Guiles will be reviewing your literature and Mr. Casker will look at the machinery.”

  Jax and Guiles could almost have been brothers, they had the bookish look of someone who did not leave the city, ever. Tall and thin, with specti-comps over their eyes, the non-cybernetic version of my head-comp implant. Their glasses could store and analyze a tremendous amount of data. Towering next to them was a Neaman mechanic. Neamans were of unusually similar height, built like bodybuilders and seemed to prefer direct frank interactions, they were mammals and could interbreed with humans.

  >>Not sure why I thought you needed to know that Fe.>>

  He was clearly a mechanic like me, with his overalls, tools, and a repair kit that he swung around like it weighed nothing.

  Sunny spun around in place and looked at the Neaman, “Casker, Casker? Jed, is that you? My goodness you have grown up. Gabby, do you remember little Jed? His parents were some of the first folks who worked on the line, -you know where-, and Jed went to school with you for a while. Jed, it is great to see you! How are you? How are your parents?” Sunny rolled over to shake hands with the giant but bemused mechanic.

  It took me a moment but the name rang a bell, I did recall a small and quiet Neaman child in the class behind me. He was bright but unusually quiet, especially for his kind.

  Shaking Sunny’s hand Jed said, “I am good, my parents are too, still working. Thanks for asking. Mr. Ciervo, Miss Gama, of course I remember you. Gabby, err Miss Gama I always looked up to you, breaking and fixing anything you could get your hands on, inside of class and out.” He seemed to freeze up and stop talking when he realized he was talking in front of his boss’s boss’s boss to prospective clients.

  Sunny clapped him on his back with his larger arm, “Lauren you take care of this one, bright kid you got.”

  Lauren, who was tapping his finger to his lips, smiled politely, “of course. It was never a question. Now, with the pleasantries out of the way may we begin?”

  I waved to his crew and mentally told Squad Leader to lead them into the cargo bay. The two research scholars gingerly climbed into the truck and, after getting directions, headed to the back. Jed easily jumped up and began poking and inspecting the pristine Power Armor suit.

  Lauren turned toward me, “And Miss Gama, what can you tell me about your synthetic soldier progress? Your literature was well received but they also want my observations.”

  Cracking my knuckles I was about to send a telemechanic message and then thought better of it. I needed to exercise the voice commands anyway. “Squad Leader present yourself and describe your current combat capabilities.”

  Running from the back of the truck, Squad Leader then jumped 4 meters from where he was on the lip of the cargo bay. My synth easily landed right in front of me, facing Lauren. If I didn't know better, it almost felt like he wanted to show off.

  “Reporting as instructed. I am currently designated Squad Leader Alpha. I have similar combat capabilities with the rest of my fellow synths. I am capable of 16 sustained attacks a minute both range and melee. We currently have around 80% ranged accuracy under battlefield conditions with weapons sighted in. Our dodge, roll, parry, and strike abilities are comparable with a moderately trained human warrior. “

  “We are skilled in pistol and rifle projectile and energy weapons, as well as knives, swords, axes, blunt, and paired handhelds. We have a variety of skills in excess of the usual Black Market◆ drone skill packages. Our typical skill emphasis is on combat, maintenance, and piloting. For sensing, we can see visible, thermal, infrared, RF and ultraviolet. We can currently track 128 airborne targets up to 4 klicks out and 512 ground targets up to 2 klicks, with line of sight, of course. We can uniquely identify over 20,000 hostiles, monsters, civilians,copos, city states, nations, and native fauna.”

  “We are currently fluent and literate in English, Spanish, Euro-kant, Elvish, and Spanglish. With current skeletal-musculature we can lift 700 kg and carry half that much indefinitely. Our defenses are of course defined primarily by our equipment and armor.”

  >>And Elvish was only because Miles helped us, eh Fe? I needed to figure out Neaman and Deren some time.>>

  Lauren’s face didn't change, he was too good for that, but his voice had a slight quiver, “It can talk.”

  My synth responded before I could, “Yes, I can talk.”

  Nodding my head excitedly I jumped in, “Yes, of course. This synth will be a Squad Leader able to strategize and plan out missions, engagements, and lead the others into battle. My idea is to have a tiered system. The leaders would work with the owners to carry out their instructions. Not every synth needs to have the brains of Squad Leader here, but I can imagine an entire hierarchy with customizations that a customer could select based on what they need, and can afford, of course. This is just the beginning. I am working on his intelligence so he can get the most out of the other synths we have built. We can have calvary, air forces, deployment vehicles, maritime, garrisons, scouts, and more.”

  Lauren seemed to recover his composure, “Fluent and literate, I must say Gabby, if they can fight as well as they can talk, I think you might be onto something. I am sure the boys will want a demonstration at a future date, but for now, I will pass on my thoughts. Good luck with your research.” With that Lauren nimbly climbed into the truck to inspect the goods, and check in with his staff.

  Sunny and I made eye contact. “So how do you think it's going Sunny?”

  He gave a mechanical shrug with four shoulders and crossed his lower arms. “I dunno, but I know what we have and it's good, Gabby, we will be rich. This day is perfect!” He broke out into a grin. “Now I wanted to talk about the loan repayments. We can split the profit three ways, you, me, and a third to pay off the debt. That seems very reasonable to me.”

  Shaking my head angrily I said, “No Sunny, no. This is my debt not yours, you are generously splitting the mining and salvage proceeds as it is, don't make me feel worse about it.”

  “But Gabby, it makes more sense to pay off the loan faster with a fair share of the take?”

  Shaking my head more emphatically I said, “No Sunny, for a final time. I will pay the loan off, out of my side of the take. Plus they will be paying me for the synth engineering. Some day, that will take care of the loan.” I continued under my breath, “I hope.”

  Sensing it was a lost cause, Sunny shook his head but dropped the issue.

  It took almost an hour for the Neaman mechanis, Jed, to look over the Mach 1 power armor, and the scholars were at it for almost two hours before Lauren declared he had enough information.

  He came back out of the truck wiping his brow with a fancy white handkerchief, I mean who has those? But I will admit it does get hot in the cargo bay in the daytime.

  “Mr. Ciervo and Miss Gama, you have a nice find indeed. I am told the books are in good condition, and in a variety of areas. Based on the nearly 5,000 you have in stock I think we can do the full one million for them. And the armor is as advertised, immaculate. Mr. Casker was drooling over a find in this condition. I believe we agreed on 10 million for that as well, including the companion drone of course?”

  Sunny uncrossed his arms and put his lower arms behind his back. “Now Mr. Feldclop, since this appears to be a historical find, untouched for perhaps 100 or more years, you could find a collector who might want it for far more than its combat value, no?”

  Lauren gave another smile, without reaching his eyes, “I cannot find fault in what you say, I suppose we could do 12 million but that is as high as I could go in cash.”

  Sunny looked at me and I shrugged, I had no idea how to haggle and anything over 10 was good in my book.

  Sunny tried again, “Come now Lauren, I think we both know you could get 50 or 60 for that, I think 20 would be quite reasonable,”

  Tsking Lauren replied, “Ah but you need to find the buyer, protect the goods, transport them, and that all costs money you know.”

  Sunny laughed out loud, and I looked at him quizzically, “Gosh Lauren, if only there was a market that found buyers and sellers, and had smugglers all over North America, that would be really handy to have about now.”

  Rolling his eyes, Lauren acquiesced, “Alright how about eight million in cash and another seven million in credit.”

  Sunny looked at me again and he continued, “Make it eight and eight and we have a deal.”

  Smiling, this time with his full face, Lauren said, “Pleasure doing business with you both. I will have the credit and cash deposited into your accounts immediately, how shall I split this?”

  Before Sunny could say anything I said, “50/50 please.”

  Nodding to us both Lauren said, “I am going to get out of here and let the crew transfer the purchase. Good day to you both.” I received a brief wireless confirmation signal on my headcomp and we were all set.

  With that, Lauren and his two bodyguards returned to the car and drove back into town. Jed deftly drove the hovertruck through the gate and backed up to the edge of the Kombi-Max’s cargo bay. I offered to help but the scholars had shrink wrapped all the pallets of books and Jed was able to carefully carry them into their hover truck using the Mach 1 Power Armor. I think he just wanted a chance in the suit. In no time at all, they had moved and secured the entire contents of our latest haul.

  Jed hopped down and gave us a friendly wave goodbye. The two scholars nodded and all three of them crammed into the cab of the truck and drove off.