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  Jill

  Sight comes back to me as I stare at the dojo's ceiling, frustration welling in my chest. It's been almost a week since we started proper CQC training, and yet every time I end up on my back staring at these stupid embedded lights.

  Hilda looms over me as I breathe heavily with that cursed smirk on her face. “Don't you-” I start, knowing how this script goes.

  “I know I'm good looking, but I didn't realize I could steal your breath still.” She says, reaching out a hand to help me up.

  I want to punch that stupid smirk off her face, yet I still haven't been able to land a single hit on her. Not once, not with the dozens of surprise attacks, not then the one time I tried to shoot her with the non-lethals Morrigan gave me.

  What makes it worse is that she sees my attempts to beat her to a pulp as flirting! I may not know my type, but I know for a fact Hilda isn't it. No matter how good her training clothes look on her, all I feel is the desire lay her on her-

  She pulls me up, interrupting my brooding while chuckling. “Stop checking me out, Jill, I'm taken and you're too young for me, anyways. Trainings over for today, go hit the showers. The others should be done soon, so you won't have to wait for long.”

  I glare at Hilda as I move to the locker room, feeling my fleshy parts bruised and sore from the sparring. Thankfully my legs are metal, otherwise walking would be difficult with how much she targets them.

  Showered and refreshed, I stretch in my comfort clothes. Baggy cargo pants, heavy combat boots, and a tank top to show off my arms and abs. I leave my hair down to dry and move to the parking lot.

  I check in to the home stream Morrigan set up for me, seeing Victor out of his healing pool and wrapped up in Cari. I snort, thinking just how lucky he is to have found a girl like her. I didn't blame Cari for anything she did, the girl had a right to fight for herself, and there was no lasting damage to Victor, so whatever.

  I did see Synaptic's eye glance at the camera which weirded me out. Not the knowing she was watching part, that made sense. No, it was the eye itself and how it warped the stream slightly. Made it look like there were more eyes around her trying to tear through the void of space. The worst part was it only showed up on live cameras, not my augs, and they never showed up in recordings. Fucking alien AI doing such unnecessary actions just to fuck with me.

  Entering the parking garage, I see Buddy standing at the back of his hover SUV and I smell something spicy. I walk over quickly and loudly, so as not to spook our chef and have him drop whatever he was making.

  He glances at me and smiles that big, warm smile I have seen for years. “Jill! I see you're finished before Roger and Cody. Good, you get my first bowl.”

  I smile wide and jump in place at that. Buddy's creations have only improved every day, and getting his first plate or bowl on his creations was bragging right among us. He hands me a large bowl of something red and brown over rice, filled with meats and beans and other things I don't care to identify as I dig in.

  It's such a rich, savory flavor that spreads throughout my mouth, with a wave of heat following close behind. Yet, the heat has its own flavor, slightly sweet and aromatic, it works well in combination with the sausage spices and the bean's texture.

  I do a little happy wiggle as Buddy laughs heartily. I never knew that when I was happy like this, I would wiggle, but I have been learning a lot of myself since the chip was removed, including small idiosyncrasies like this. “I'll take that as a success, then.”

  “No! Fucking- Jill!” I hear Cody run out of the building, disappointment very clear in his tone. “Did you cut your shower short just to spite me?”

  I look at him with my crescent like eyes, smugness radiating off me as I nod. He got to try Buddy's pork buns first yesterday, so I made sure to get here first today. I see Roger walk out leisurely, chuckling as he sees mine and Cody's antics.

  Buddy passed out more bowls as he explained how this ‘Jumbalya' was made. He said it took him three hours just to get the spice base right, let alone the cook time. That bothered me greatly because this was my new favorite food and I wanted to have it more often, but I wasn't going to bother Buddy to make it if it took him that long.

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  “No need to worry, Jill. I upload my recipes to Baba Yaga and Morrigan's minions, so if you want it again, just ask one of them.” Buddy must have sensed my displeasure. I have no idea how he reads me, but I don't care. I wiggle a bit more as I finish the bowl, content with the promise of more in the future, and a new bowl now.

  With the impromptu dinner in a parking garage, we talk about our instructors and their various ways of torturing us. Well, except Buddy, Abigail dotes on him. Jeff has a habit throwing Roger curve balls and right hooks mid conversation, forcing him to stay on his toes and guard the entire time, yet being forced to make it look as non-chalant as possible. Icebreaker, still the most pretentious name I have ever heard, has Cody move through massive mazes of code, whatever that means.

  I mention that Hilda still has this annoying habit of ending our sessions by knocking me on my ass. Even though I know that's how she ends, I still can't prevent her from doing it. I have been able to prolong my fall, but never prevent it.

  Buddy pats me on my shoulder gently, seeing the bruises. “Jill, we all know you are a scary lady, but Hilda has years on us. You will surpass her eventually. For now, let's head home. It's movie night and Leman has put forward Final Destination: Death's Revenge.”

  I perk up at that, as does Cody. It's such a dumb franchise, but we love it because of how dumb it is. We pile into Buddy's very spacious SUV as he takes off. While Buddy could rely on the auto pilot, he prefers to drive manually on his turn, says that it's a nice way to wind down and see the sunset from the right angles.

  What that means is that he adds a few minutes to our trip to fly through this spot where the sky bridges frame the sunset just right to make it look like it's being held aloft by them, with the colors of the sunset reflecting off the glass and further amplifying the sense of awe and wonder our desert emanates.

  As we moved away from the building and approach the towers a few minutes later, we are suddenly plummeting as the engines turn off.

  “Synaptic!” Buddy yells.

  Someone installed a remote kill switch, frying the internals entirely. There is no way to restart the engines. Activating Feather Fall Foam. Deploying shuttle reinforcements, eta six minutes twenty six seconds.

  Suddenly, the car is filled with white-green foamy gel, blocking my sight to the outside. I know we have seconds before we hit the ground, so I call out. “Once on the ground, bail out and rush east to the nearest building or alleyway.” I shift to combat armor and get ready to pull out my arm gatling.

  Then, I feel the car hit the ground hard, but the foam gel simply jiggles, then liquifies, allowing us to dismount quickly. The doors exploded off their hinges as I roll out, then I hear the crack of gunfire and feel bullets land around me as I spring up. I see that we are surrounded by twenty heavily armored soldiers, blocking our path to retreat. I go to activate our comms, yet all I get back is static. They must be using a very powerful EMC jammer to block Synaptic and Morrigan's equipment. Plan doesn't change, however.

  We all rush to the rear of the vehicle as we return fire into the enemy, moving to the barricaded alleyway one hundred feet away.

  I take the rear as Buddy charges ahead, hardlight shield out and punches through the barricade of steel, firing shots at the enemy who was behind it.

  I feel a few bullets hit me and bounce off my armor as a readout of what hit me flashes on my augs. Twelve millimeter armor piercing rounds designed to burst once it penetrates flesh, depositing an anesthetic payload. Fuckers were trying to capture us alive.

  We rush into the alleyway and take cover behind Buddy’s shield as I begin to open up into those that got close.

  “Contact rear!” Roger shouts as he fires on something.

  I glance back and see mech suit charging down the alley towards us, Roger and Cody’s shots denting and heating its armor, but not stopping it.

  I open my left arm and fire a micro Collapser at its legs, a gift from Morrigan that worked flawlessly and the hip connectors of the mech no longer exist, being ripped away into a sphere of metal. Problem is, inertia is a bitch and the rest of the mech flies and skids at us, pushing us out of the alley and onto the street.

  “Jill! Take em out! Buddy, full cover!” Roger shouts.

  I retract my gun and shift my arm blades out while my legs shift into deadly, four toes claws of death. I sprint at the closest group, seeing that they were preparing to fire a fucking rocket at us. I am on them in moments, tearing into them in a deadly dance. Spinning and bending and reaching and jumping, I tear through their armor as if it wasn't there, blood flowing in shimmering arcs through the air.

  Slash, spin, cut, jump, breath. I dance through their corpses as two more mechs enter the street. They open fire at me, deciding that I may not be capturable, as their guns fire twenty millimeter FMJ at me.

  I activate my camo and jump on a wall to my right, losing their targeting lines as I sprint along the wall and jump on top of one of them.

  As I stab and cut and tear the mech apart, the other one slams its fist into its ally, and then a searing pain rushes through me as electricity arcs across the frame. I fall to the ground as the mech topples over, twitching with numerous alerts and errors popping up on my augs. The other mech takes a step towards me before its side explodes, causing it to fall over.

  I feel a few hands grab ahold of me and start to move me just as my armor reboots. I look up and see two soldiers dragging me towards a transport, so I struggle, and adjust my left arm to fire into it. Just as another soldier starts firing those tranqu rounds into me, attempting to bypass my Class II armor, the transport collapses into itself, becoming a misshapen ball of metal. Two more soldiers start firing into me as I struggle to retaliate, yet before I could I feel pain in my thigh as a wash of numbness floods through me.

  I open my right arm and just fire wildly, pushing some of them back as I fail limply. I see plasma shots fly near me as a net wraps around me from deeper in the alley, dragging me away as the world goes dark.

  patreon! It is 10 chapters ahead of public release and I will do my best to keep it that way.