Matustos

  The m, the Aldecaldos had already parked by the bridge before I'd gotten up. No one had thought it was a good idea to wake me up. They had figured I he extra sleep. However, that had left the Nomads staring at a whole lot of nothing, since Alina hadn't added them to the exceptions list yet. She'd kept the ons from targeting them but that was her only cession to their guest rights. The ck of any visible infrastructure had cause a bit of a argument amongst the Nomads, as eveer als weren't could be seen currently. I imagihat they thought that Sally and Amanda were telling tall tales.

  I cast a quick se and tried to put myself in order before walking over to greet them. No reason to be a messy bastard when they caught sight of me. On the way over to them, I had Alina add them into the allies list. To say they freaked out was an uatement, most of them were half way in their cars before I mao get their attention. Sally had her monster of a rifle aimed at me, before she began to realized who she was targeting. Awkward.

  "I said I solved the spying problem! See all solved!" I had my hands up, and they stayed up 'til she'd lowered her aim. I was grinning like a maniac the whole time though. Her face went through a thousaions before settling on relief and joy. That smile would live in my mind forever. I'd never seen anything so beautiful. She dropped her rifle ran over and tackle hugged me. Thankfully, my increased strength let me absorb her charge. I returhe hug firmly but carefully, I didn't know my limits yet and I certainly didn't want to hurt her. This close, she smelt of gun oil and synth leather, and I loved it. Oh that hug felt nice. She'd genuinely missed me. Her warmth was bleeding into me filled me with a sense of belonging. Like someone finally gave a damn about me, when they didn't have to.

  A moment ter, and Megan had joined in. She ed her soft arms around us, iually trying to squish us. She smelt of some perfume, smoked amon and clove and something else I couldn't identify. Very simuting. I was melting inside, I'd never been the ter of this kind of attention before. I had no defenses against the feeling bubbling up, not that I would've ever wahem. Megan's face carried a cocky grin that also plucked firmly at my heartstrings. I'd never felt so... loved. Was that what this feeling was? This fierce and protectivehat burned deep inside me. This desire to never part from them again. It seemed awful quick, but what did I know about it. Yet, I couldn't imagi wanting to be right there, right then.

  "We saw the explosion, we were worried they'd killed you. You derezzed gonk. We checked and couldn't find any sign of you, except your tracks. So yeah, we knew you had gotten away. But you didn't call. Then we were worried you were going to cut us out." Megan started talking real fast. Babbling really. Was she furious or happy, probably both. Sally just buried her face deeper into my neck. My brain was so fuzzed out from all the happy thoughts, that it took me a sed to parse what Megan had said.

  "What? Cut you out? Why the fuck would I ever do a damned fool thing like that?" I didn't uand the female mind. I was starting to notice that talking to them rarely seemed to help with that problem. So I went with the male solution, a. I slipped an arm around Megan's softer frame pulling her closer and squeezed her gently.

  "He probably had some dorph brained noble idea of proteg us." Amanda chimed in from the sidelines where she was watg with glittering eyes and a huge knowing smile.

  "Darlin' you ain't joking, this danged fool has been w himself to the borying to get the pce ready for y'all." Raynor had snuck up on the se while I'd been distracted. Well he'd really ambled over, but I was really distracted. "Been awhile since I'd seen anyone so focused on fixin' things."

  "Umm... " I was starting to get a little unfortable with everyog us. Even some of the Probes had stopped their tasks and were sing us. Hell, the elusive Lumi was nearby with a wolfish grin. And Faergin was dang close by while a few Nomads were looking him over in shod wonder. I didn't really like being the ter of attention for too long. Short bursts are great but this was getting weird.

  "Shhh." Sally vocalized just holding me like she'd never let me go, ever again. Okay, in that moment nothing else mattered, and I could let everything else go. They were now my world. Megan hummed some song she liked while we all just stayed like that. I had no clue what else to do now. So I just gave up and followed their lead.

  When the hug ended, I no desire to say anything. her did they. So, I led them over to the warehouse where the Probes had been st the rations every m. I grabbed a pull cart that had been put together by a builder and filled it with dozens of ration pouches. We brought them back to the camp the Aldecaldos had already started setting up and hahem out.

  I should mention that the rations weren't "rations". They were stasis locked meals, preserved at the peak moment of their preparation. As these were beled "High Quality" they were pretty damned good meals. However, they weren't beled as to what meal was ihe pouch, so you got what you got. Today I ended up with a gravy coated try fried steak served with scrambled eggs and crispy ba. A cup of rich dark roast coffee was also in the pouch. This was the type dimensional bullshit I could get behind. That meal was a jackpot as far as I was ed. Sally ended up having a prime rib with some fancy wine sauce, steamed vegetables and a couple of rolls sthered in honey butter. Her drink was a gss of red wine. A little too heavy for breakfast but it all looked tasty anyway. Megan's meal was a whole 14' pizza with all the meats and some of the veggies and a side of buffalo wings. She'd gotten a tall gss of soda. That also looked great. I smirked when I saw them trade meals. They took bite of each others and even grabbed a few bites of mine as well. This erhaps the only time in my life that I didn't mind someoealing my food.

  While we where eating, I expined what I'd doh the Pylons. They seemed to actually listen and liked the idea of being able to wht under someone's nose while they had no clue, what was going on.

  "Any pns to make a mobile version?" Sally probably wahat for her truck.

  "Sure, some of the Khai tech already has that feature, I just have to figure out how to adapt it." I nodded and expined how I was trying to get it down to something you could strap on your belt. Then I went into how I had used Megan's idea of tunneling and founded Projederbridge. The rest of the pn to have hidden wells and reservoirs really excited them.

  "If you never achieve anything else, that alone would ge the power dynami the badnds. We'd always be able to get away and be able to hide in the most remote areas." Megan was already plotting how best to take advantage of all the teological advahat I offered.

  After we were finished eating, I walked over to Amanda who was leaning in while talking with Raynor. Hmm. They seemed to be hitting it off. Iing. I asked Amanda if she could formally agree to an Alliaween New Lordaeron and all the Aldecaldos. She said she would o call up a couple of folks aheir opinions but if they agreed we could work something out. I nodded. It would be a quick solution to one of my new quests.

  In the meantime, I'd decided to show Sally and Megan around while telling them my full story.

  I took them to the Moon Well where I'd first appeared. Why was I going to tell them the truth? Because there was no way for us to go forward without them knowing about my past.

  "This is the pce I came into your World." Then I had to spent a few hours trying to expin every detail I could remember about my version of Earth.

  "So you came from a version of our World that was going through the year 2024. There was no Corpo War, no Johnny Silverhand, no nukes going off." Sally stared at me almost bnkly, while trying to her mind around my tale. Some of my descriptions of the firearms of my world made her snort is derision.

  "Cyberware was still in it's infancy, there was no widespread direeural linking to the . paill basically ruhing but it's all behind the ses, instead of out in the open." Megan looked horrified at the thought of running. The methodologies of hag in my world must have seemed quite primitive to her.

  "That about sums it up." I nodded. I hoped they could take it all in without it causing problems between us.

  Then I led them on the same path that I'd taken when I started expl. Was that really only a month ago? No, not even that yet. Damn. when we arrived at his isnd, I introduced them to Meadran.

  "Ah what lovely young flowers you have brought. Every bit as glorious as the Dryads that danced in the Woodnds of my homend. I am Meadran, serving as the Tree of Life for this small unity. I wish you a pleasant stay while you are here." Even while holding back his vice as to not startle the dies, this tree had mame than I did. Sad. The dies chatted with the smooth talking tree for a while, mostly pleasant chit-chat. When they were doook them past the pany store heading toward the Nexus. I briefly expi's funs. Which led to me sharing a few of my thoughts on the pany itself.

  "These interdimensional beings, basically kidnapped yht before you died. Dropped you here with no expnation, and still expect you to fulfill tasks to earn their "money" so you buy what you o "save" the world. Which is the overarg task they seem to want you to aplish?" Sally was a little angry. It was easy tnize how I was being exploited, when it was summed like that.

  "That's an accurate summation, yes." I rying not to grind my teeth in frustration.

  "What are you going to do about it? Anything? You don't owe anyone here. You have no skin in this game." Megan was shaking her head, probably trying to calcute what the real goal of the pany was.

  "Had." I interjected. Surprisingly, that caught them both off-guard.

  "Had?" She squinched her face up. I found her fusion adorable.

  "I had no skin in this game. Now, I have you and Sally. That's all the skin I o try to improve things for this world. What kind of man would I be, if I didn't try to make the lives of those I care about better." I got a pair of lovely smiles for that. Okay, maybe I could be charming too. Every on a great while.

  We tinued on to the Nexus, where they got to meet Alina. The AI expined more about the Khai, and where my awesome teology had e from. It took them both more than a few mio be anywhere near fortable with the idea that I had an unshackled AI w for me. Given the history this world had with Artificial Intelligences, I got it. Hell, some days I wasn't too keen on the idea myself. The Robo-Buddies helped a lot with those fears though.

  As the topics for discussion expanded, I tried to not bore them with all of my crazy ideas and visions of future projects. I showed them how the Fes worked and the funs of the Cyberics Core. Then I introduced them to some of the Sentries roaming around, they were shocked at how alive the Khai robots seemed. Then I further blew their minds by letting them i with some of the Wisp Infused Probes. Most of whom were happy silly little guys.

  We headed back to the Town Hall while I told them about my impressions from the first time I ended up walking through the Badnds and how I'd met Greg.

  "He got the better of you, but not too bad. You had no way of knowing how much wood was worth." I loved how Sally got slightly upset on my behalf. I expined how I got my Galena. Then the first trip to Nd the experieh the terrible not pizza, and rounding things out with my time at Lizzie's. How they treated me as a Bennie. Everything that happened with Sinnamin. My first meeting with Misty and Vik.

  "Viktor Vektor is one of the best out there. He's still whispered about in quiet ers of the city." Megan seemed to know of him. "He's a legend in his ht. We'd been thinking of finding him to try a some e work done."

  "So, about this Misty." Sally asked in a deceptively cheerful tone, I khat tone.

  "She's great, reminds me of my sister a little." Let's try to head that off, by making making Misty into a substitute for the Sister I'd lost. I got the "I know what you just did, but I'll let you get a way with it" stare for my efforts.

  I moved the story on to my clumsy attempts at hunting Maelstrom. The bloody horrors of the Scavs' den and how badly that messed me up. What my mind struggled with about getting chipped. How odd it had made me feel. The to the first time I met Sally, on my way back to the Valley.

  I skipped over our shared events to where I was running from Arasaka and what happened after that. The sacrifice of Scuff and Fix, Chud Barry. My breath caught a bit at thatpart of the tale. We'd found a pce to sit and rex, over by the farm. "So I walked back to the Su Motel. Headed bato NC to try to setup the other outpost. Then the Mox had put out the word for folks to get me over to Lizzie's. I'd figured it could wait."

  Biting through my sylbles, I told them what happeo Sinnamin, and my frankly bewildering response. I got more hugs. Which I appreciated but didn't help as much as I thought they would. "I still don't uand why it got to me so much. I barely knew her. But it was all so sad, s. A broken life that, maybe, I could have helped. Part of me thinks I should just fttey once I've enough power. Rebuild it afterwards, and try to make somethier out of the rubble." I shook my head.

  "I know it wouldn't help much. The Corpos are the biggest problem with how they twist everything into a odity. The way they'd destroy resources, rather thahe people have them for even an ennie cheaper. Until you have a solution to all of them, you 't ge anything for long." Megan had cut to the heart of the problem.

  "I have an ao that problem, right here. I'll fill the world with water, and wholesome food. Charge folks little to nothing for access. I'll eventually be able to out resource the Corps, but I'll also o be able to out fight them. Because as you pointed out, they'll do anything to keep their trol." I turned my gaze back towards the City. They khe rest of the story about what I'd been w on since I got back here.

  "I hope none of this ges anythiween us." I eory time there. My voice was starting to get a little raspy, and I was just pin talked out. My eyes took in their looks at each other, and my braihat whole versations were passed between them. Not that I could get anything out of those looks myself.

  Then I was being held, both forcefully aly. Soon after but before I could prehend what was going on, I was being kissed. Megan quickly mounted my p, fag me. She held my fad applied soft but firm pressure to my lips with hers. My thoughts froze up for a sed. Theongue slowly worked it's way into my mouth. I was fused for a miil my thoughts had caught up, right this was normal. Very warm and pleasant. I tried to mirror her movements, being more adept and eager with every passing sed. Just as I was about to take the initiative, she broke off the tad Sally pulled my face firmly to the side.

  Sally smashed her mouth into mine, allowing no time for adjustment. Oh. That was amazing. Sally was a fierd demanding kisser. She wanted everything all at ond kept pushing for more of it. I felt like this was a battle and I'd better get with the program. I went oack trappiongue and pushing it around, making my own demands of her. I pulled bad her lips gently. Causio let out a giggle.

  Our make out session tinued and it was as if time had slowed down. Everything had a slow building tension as we took turns expl each others mouths. Our tongues were dang, pying and searg for the iiion. Holy, I'd never known that simple kissing could be so... exg.

  It might even had led to other more iing things, but we slowed down to soft caresses and more measured kisses, and theopped. It was extremely painful to do so as my excitement had reached near critical levels. Regrowth was no help at all, my biology was difficult to deny. Though when I cast it ohe dies they both began to explode iasy. Their cries made my problem worsen, soon the pain was almost blinding.

  It was a long few minutes until I could calm down. Well, I'd gotten my answer. I thought it was a good one.

  Eventually, after a quick se, we made our way over to where dinner was being served. Our faces were still flushed and we desperately wanted more.