It turned out that they were only selling some of them. They would be keeping two of the semis and their trailers, at least. They were also keeping one of the box trucks, which would be kept at the warehouse. The two semis would be moved to other locations as the other teams would be taking them.

  Deckard woke him early the next morning, as one of his cameras had caught sight of the android body.

  “What is your problem?” Trace grumbled, carrying the mostly covered body into the apartment. “Yes, it’s an android body, no it doesn’t work.” He yawned and pulled away the covers once it was on the table. “It’s the same kind as all the ones you found in the RyZyx building.”

  The cameras Deckard used as eyes zoomed in and began to examine the body. “Is this the one you mentioned destroying during one of your earlier missions?”

  “Same one,” He admitted. “I found it at a pawnshop and got it for cheap. The damage I did back then is a bit more than I thought it would be.”

  After looking it over some more, he had really begun to understand just how much of an issue it was going to be to fix it up. That said, it was exactly the sort of project that he had been looking for. A complex item that had the ability to teach him lots.

  “I’ll need your help printing out a few parts for the body. Most of the replacement items can only be bought through RyZyx or a couple of other corporations. That means the parts are expensive and easily tracked. In time, I can probably fix most of the other internal damage I caused, but the specialty parts will either need to be printed or bought.”

  Deckard examined the body for a few moments longer before replying. “This is a good alternative. With this, I truly won’t need to rush going after those pristine bodies that RyZyx is holding in stock. I can take my time planting my code and planning everything. I would still prefer to have a few of those brand-new android bodies as backups, of course. Especially as the head on this one isn’t fitted to hold a braincase. It currently houses a wireless relay setup. A destroyed one at that.”

  “Do you want to control it that way, or do you want to have your braincase inside it?”

  “I don’t know… I’ve never had a remotely piloted android before, but it might suit a few things I want to do in the beginning. Eventually, I will still need one that can actually hold my braincase though.”

  Trace nodded. “Okay, so the RyZyx job is definitely still in play, but this will give us some time. Assuming we can get it back up and working sometime soon.”

  “Correct.”

  “Alright, well, in other news, the internet is getting upgraded later today. Once that happens, I figure we’ll move you down to the basement and get working on a bunker for you. I’ll probably end up moving most of this stuff down there as well. You know, put a little effort into creating some space between where I live and where I work on projects. The workshop should also help to disguise whichever spot you choose to hide in as well.”

  The basic idea they had come up with was that Trace would create a hole in the wall of the basement. It would then be lined with steel, and various connections would be run down into it, all of which would then connect to Deckard’s braincase. Then the hole would be disguised in some way. That was the step Deckard had been having trouble with.

  However, Trace had just solved it for him. With the workshop down there, disguising one single portion of the wall was no longer an issue.

  There were probably other solutions as well that they simply hadn’t thought of, as they had both become too fixated on what they had initially thought of.

  There was another, slightly more practical reason that Trace at least wanted to put a hole in the wall down below. The acidic water had done a number on the concrete during the time that it had been flooded.

  He still needed to scrape the floor smooth, to get rid of any lingering ridges that still existed after the power washing. He hadn’t originally planned on doing that to the walls, but he would need to do it for the portion where his workshop was going to be, at the very least.

  The point was that the concrete had been weakened, and he needed to know by how much. There were plenty of supports down there, but having the walls simply collapse didn’t seem like a good time for the rest of the building. So, he needed to know how thick the concrete walls were now so he could start planning. It was a warehouse, a place meant to store heavy loads and impacts. He was hoping for good news, but life had a way of disappointing him.

  All of that could and would wait until the matter with the internet had been taken care of. He didn’t want to go down there and then find out he had missed them.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  There were a few other modifications that needed to be made to the place to accommodate for such situations. Namely, cameras and sensors at the entrance to alert him to guests or intruders. The internet connection with a restricted connection down below would also allow him to receive messages in the otherwise blocked area. Having the connection be restricted would prevent unauthorized users or devices from accessing it. Which meant that if there were any tracking devices on the Vinna-Kwoi personnel carrier they hadn’t found, they still wouldn’t work.

  While he was waiting for the internet fellow to arrive, Trace began to delicately poke about the android body. Right away, he knew he had underestimated how complex the project was going to be. He had never even thought about messing with the synth skin on his own arm, and yet, this android was covered in the stuff. It truly was a high-end android.

  Most androids only had their extremities done. The tips of the fingers, perhaps a little on the back of the arm, their cheeks, toes, and groin, depending on what the android was going to be used for. The more expensive models would naturally include more synthetic skin, and someone who would be personally driving it apparently wanted the best.

  There wasn’t a single uncovered area on the entire android.

  He hesitated for a few moments and then called Ko.

  “I know you’re probably busy at the moment, but can you tell me how to deal with synth skin? Preferably in a way that doesn’t ruin it.” He asked once she picked up.

  “You use a scalpel. Just treat it like regular skin for the most part. The only difference is how it gets applied, and the cut gets sealed. So, while you can use a scalpel, a simple band-aid isn’t going to work to heal it afterward, and if you peel the skin back from the cyberware, then the bottom of it has to be re-coated on our end.” Ko went on, giving him more instructions and details.

  By the time they hung up, he had a better idea of how to proceed and a much better appreciation for Sevorah and Ko. Just this one thing was pretty complicated. He had no idea how they memorized everything they needed to do.

  Regardless, a knife and tape were going to be essential for this next part.

  Knife in hand, he cut down the center of its back, right along the spine. Then he pushed his fingers underneath the synthetic skin and lifted. There was a slightly gummy, glue-like substance that held it in place and transmitted signals to everything. Underneath the skin, he saw that it looked less like actual skin, as all the pores were constructed of tiny uniform hexagons. Each of those hexagons was part of what they used to sense pain, pleasure, heat, cold, everything.

  With how complicated they were, it was no wonder that the technology had been barely functional during Deckard’s time.

  Trace made a couple more cuts and peeled a section of its back away, revealing the metal structure beneath. Now that he could actually see some proper technology, he was feeling a little more confident than before, but not by much.

  Grabbing his tools, he set to work and gradually began removing one rear plate at a time.

  The damaged sections were all set to the side for later inspection. He would see if they could be reformed and repaired in some way, or if they could print or CNC some new ones. They had options. They simply needed to figure out what was viable, and what wasn’t.

  After the back plates were off, came Trace’s next stumbling block. Synth muscle, his courses had lightly touched on the material, but not to the extent where he was comfortable actually playing with the stuff.

  With a growl of annoyed defeat, Trace put his tools to the side for the moment. Working on the body would have to wait until later when he was better prepared. The head though, that he could still -likely- manage.

  After taking a few moments to calm down and go over all the neck and head connections, Trace only needed a minute to disconnect and remove the head. Then another minute to remove the synth skin, an activity which he felt was rather more creepy with the head than it had been on the back.

  He was in the middle of wiping down the gleaming, partially ruined android head when the people with the internet company showed up.

  They only had to swap out a few components on the roof, and then run a hardline down to the apartment at his request. He would extend it himself again later when everything was ready in the basement. At the moment, this was enough to get Deckard started, as long as he was careful.

  Hiding his braincase in the basement was truly just them going an extra step in being careful. It would also help keep people from ever detecting or finding him.

  With the extra bandwidth they now had, Deckard could really begin to disguise his tracks and do everything he hadn’t been able to before. A normal connection just wasn’t built to handle someone’s spark, laying down an obfuscation trail of hops and connections. Each one slowed the overall connection that much more, and sparks already took up a massive amount of bandwidth as it was.

  As a brain in a box, surfing the net in his spark form was the default for Deckard, and it didn’t come with the risks that it did for everyone else.

  With Deckard set up, and beginning to work in earnest, Trace went down to the basement. It was time to scope out where he wanted to place everything. He definitely didn’t want it right by the wall that connected to the sewer. There was also a new door there that he still needed to reinforce at some point in the near future.

  Across from that was the elevator, so that was also out. In between the two was the personnel carrier, and he wouldn’t have wanted to place it there, anyway. A little way away from the elevator were the freezers, and the stairs going up to the apartment.

  Everything else was open space, for the most part. There were a few dozen metal supports keeping the main floor in place. But it was otherwise open and empty.

  That left him a lot of space to work with. He did need it against a wall, of which there were two viable options. The far wall, or the same one that the stairs came out of. Either worked. It was really a matter of optimizing space, and how far did he really want to walk each day to get to the workshop?

  Oh, and how much cable he would need to run for the internet connection?

  Well, that made the decision easy. Same wall as the stairs, almost right underneath the apartment it was.

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