The sun was cresting over the horizon and the Kabuki roundabout was hustling even this early in the m.

  People were always looking for the best deals, to find that sucker to sell some garbage. The ebb and flow of the early m crowds were like a tide of ers. I began struggling to path my way through the clumps of folks while searg for the best shops to off load my illicit goods.

  I'm no novice when it e to wheeling and dealing, but I didn't get the better end of the exges here. These Kabuki merts were sharks, very hungry ones. I lost a few chucks of flesh in there. Metaphorically, of course. Though there was one guy who looked like he had actual shark teeth in his mouth. Weird choice, but it takes all kinds.

  Clearing out my Galena of all the loot had ed me another 3000 eddies. I had thought I could do better, but was soon disabused of that notion. Cheg around had reveled I ended up losing more than 20% at almost every sale, and thus was a little disillusioned. I had parked my butt on a crete bench, while I moped a bit and just watched as the city was ing alive. I was also eating a sed helping of a fairly good noodle dish I had found. The food cart was super popur with the locals, and long lines gathered for their dishes. That's why I decided to try it out in the first pce. Gd I did. Best meal I'd had since I'd gotten to this city. The bits and bobs mixed into the noodles could have been anything, and I certainly wasn't going to ask. The long bits of carbohydrates tasted like they were made with real flour. They had a great texture too.

  Once my stomach was tamed, I took a t of my funds. Let's see about 15,000 altogether, not quite enough to pay off the Doc. We'd have to go hunting again tonight. Maybe, this time I'd just let the Probes do the hunting. It felt bad to even think about doing it that way, but it was the smarter py. I had already been shown that I didn't have the best natural instincts for bat. I'd have to train. One more thing on my pte. Sigh.

  I o buy some armor, but ter, after I had a ce to refresh my brain. I'd get bamboozled right now. Exhaustion, might be why I got my ass hao me by those crafty merts. For now, it was time to head south and find a hotel. Something nid quiet, somewhere out of the way.

  As I got up to head back to the Galena, the sheer amount of advertisements everywhere around me harshly intruded on my attention. There were ads everywhere; on ss, on holos, on billboards, and posters. Most of them featured sex, in all the most glorious and profane ways of fug humanity. Whi and of itself, didn't bother me too much, after all, most people are ied in hanky panky, of oype or another. I was worried a little about all the kids who had to be seeing this slop all the time.

  Bh, when you cut it to the bone, most of what was twisting me up, was that I felt horribly alone. Isoted. Throwing sex in your face when you felt lonely sucked. It made you feel even more cut off from others. Look at all these hot people, having all that great sex, didn't you wish that was you? Add the backdrop of the dreary crete jungle all around you, and every ad just sapped more of your soul.

  This was all on purpose wasn't it?

  Shit, I really needed a girlfriend, an "output" I think it was called. Or maybe the term was "Mainline" for something more serious. Sure, I'll keep a food erhaps thenI'd be more resistant to this soul draining mess.

  My wandering thoughts kept me focused inwards, until I was once again behind the wheel of my car. Driving on the highway, almost free of crazy motorists at this hour, worked its magie and my tension started to fall away. This was a weloment, that I maybe drug out lohan I had to, but a little peaind was never a waste.

  Down in a se of the city called Heywood, I found a Hotel tucked away deep in some sketchy back roads. The El Gato que Ríe. It looked like it had retly been rebuilt. From what disaster, I didn't dare begin to guess. The building was 20 floors of brid newly painted ats. Nothing about the way it looked would have lead you to believe it was a Hotel. Which is what caught my attention in the first pce. They likely didn't have too many folks staying there, that didn't already know about the pce.

  I left Scuff to watch the car, while Fix apanied me to py bodyguard. I examined all the graffiti in the neighborhood, some of which I'd call Streetart, while walking over to the building. Hispanifluenced culture was everywhere in this part of the city. no sign of the Maelstrom anywhere nearby. Perfect.

  Sadly, I didn't speak a word of Spanish. Always meant to learn, just never found the time. Still, the nice Lady at the desk didn't seem to mind, as she chattered at me in Spanish, while I paid for my room key card. It seemed to be a hundred for a day. At least I thought it was, she was talking so fast. I had the feeling that even if I did speak the nguage, she'd be hard to follow. I just smiled at her and tried to look attentive.

  Giving her a once over, showed that her arms were e. They were done up with gold pting and her overly unblemished skin was covered in intricate tattoos. I thought she might have said that her name was Rosita. Her dark hair, probably also some kind of augment, bounced a lot. It especially wobbled a lot when she moved her head in a synced rhythm with her speech.

  She appeared to like the sound of my name a rolling the r like she found it highly amusing. To be fair, she could have been saying the most vile shit to me, and I wouldn't have had a clue. But her demeaner was friendly and cheerful. Iing side note she could see Fix, but I had a feeling that was because their stealth wouldn't work during the day.

  When I finally got into my room it was about 7:30 AM. The room was nothing special, by my standards, and looked like dozens of other hotel rooms I had throughout my life, other thaech. Fix immediately started sing everything, that eveely looked like it might be eleic.

  I tried to take a shower but it wouldn't start. You had to pay, I finally noticed the sign on the sidewall after a couple of frustrating minutes. Not having much choice I did my best with the sink, and a wash cloth. The sink also cut off after a few minutes of use. Fug hell. I finished up awkwardly, before walking back towards the bed.

  Feeling minimally better, I id down and was off to dreamnd in seds.

  Getting up was a struggle, hundreds of little aches and pains trying to weight me back down. There was still sunlight peering around the edges of the steel shutters. A small readout he bed, showed the temp 102F / 39C. The date was 3/21/2074 and the time read 4:41PM. That seemed unreasonably hot for March, in California, especially by the coast. Though maybe that's normal for here and now.

  I wao brush my teeth really badly, argh. It was a mess in there. I'd have to remember to grab some toiletries and other ies ter. I tried a quick cast rowth, which while helping with the soreness, didn't do a thing to fight pque. I had to resort to scrubbing at my teeth with a hand towel. It wasn't perfect, but it did cut the fuzzy feeling on my teeth down.

  I checked out, Fix trailing along behind me, and told Rosita that I'd be happy to stay again sometime. I knew she could uand me. Now that I had slept, I remembered that Sinnamin had told me that the impnt could transte nguage iime. She said a bunch, her head bobbing everywhere. I actually felt bad that I didn't uand a word of it. Her smile at least, was a bright point to start the day with.

  Whe to the car, Scuff reported that nothing had happened on his watch. We loaded up and headed out.

  I drove around aimlessly, just taking ies in this part of the city. I avoided going too much farther south. Sinnamin had warned me about pces called Pacifid Dogtown down that way.

  I decide to fill up at a CHOOH2 station, which also had a setup like a venieore. The Burning Grass, a store it seemed. I got the sehat the name was a joke that I didn't get yet. They were open 24/7 and had four active gun turrets hanging from the pump area's awning, they tracked my car when I had pulled in. Soon a bot came out and pumped the fuel. The bot seemed like an evolution of the Boston Dynamics line of humanoid work bots. It should also be hat the bot was armed.

  Scuff and Fix were sing everything they could, while staying attached to the car. None of us wanted a misuanding with the turrets. I got out and walked over to the sales shack. I noticed only one of the turrets track my movements. I got a Cirrus d a XXL burrito, which was disappointingly small. The Bot behind the ter handed me my order and took a few of my bills. Ohe bot pumping gas was finished, it gave me back my ge. I bnched a little at the prices. Whew, I guess I was just going to have to get used to the cost of living here.

  The co was meh, and the burrito was aggressively mediocre. Truly it was a mass of almost tasteless mush. Still had Buck A Slice beat though.

  I walked bay car keeping one eye ourrets and the other os. I didn't feel secure again until we were a few hundred yards down the road.

  it was time to find a on store. I wao get a holster rigged up for my Omaha, get se practid buy some freaking armor. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be gun stores were literally everywhere. I found one called the Reach Out and Toueone Shop. Stopping there, I got a niew armored vest and yered an armored trench coat over it. Not too heavy, but the clerk said it should stop most rounds that I'd meet oreets. I also purchased a nice gu and holster with a couple of hours e time.

  [Adjusting...]

  [ Militech Trench Coat with Bullet Resistant Triweave

  Armor: 3 ]

  [ Norored Vest with Polycarboing

  Armor: 4 ]

  Oh man, that was fun! I had a grand old time bsting away at a rge variety of targets. I even got to try the moving target trial. I didn't do so hot, but I did gain a little something for my efforts.

  [ Firearms skill has increased to Rank 2 ]

  It was around 8:30PM when I left the Reach Out and Toueone Shop and the balmy night was young. When cheg my funds, I saw I was down to 10,456 after my earlier purchases.

  As I was walking to my car, I saw a man across the street by what I would have said was an abandoned building. Nothing usual except he was wearing a holographic mask. Acc to Sinnamin's lectures he matched the description of a Scav. Like the 'Strom, they were bad folks that like to cut people up and take their bits. Also like the Maelstrom they wouldn't be missed. In fact, she had made clearing out Scavs sound like a public service.

  With the dark the Probes were once again protected by stealth. It made it less troublesome for Fix to track him back to his source. Scuff and I followed at a more leisurely pace with the car. Turned out that the Probes could keep track of each over quite a distance. So we didn't have to stay too close to the target. This was a great time for testing things like this. We were under no major pressures right at that moment and if we lost track of the Scav we weren't set back at all.

  Later, Fix had back tracked to us. He had discovered the location of the base. It was in a very rundown area. I'd bel it, urban blight inate. Unsurprisingly, It was there that I saw my first living rat of this world. The stunted critter had been twisted up, whether through some deliberate a or an act, I couldn't say. I threw a Regrowth on it out of pity, and shogly it died immediately. The sheer relief from its agony, caused it to go into stress induced cardiac arrest. That raised all kinds of bothersome questions. I might have been able to save it, if I had even sidered that healing it fast might not be the best way.

  The stench of this zone ervasive and ing. The few people still outside were homeless and feral looking. Or they were moving at a brisk pace to get out of here. The building Fix indicated was maybe thirty stories tall, though half of it was looked like it had beely bombed. Rubble mixed freely with the ubiquitous trash piles. The people, even the hard-bitten looking ones avoided the pce, which ironically was a good sign for our purposes.

  The pn was simple the Probes go in, and kill the stro or best equipped Scavs first. Taking them out as quickly and quietly as possible and then driving the rest of them towards the entrance, where I would shoot them as they came out.

  I posted up in a recessed hollow in the rubble, hoping I wouldn't be easily spotted. Scuff and Fix quickly vanished into the building. Several mier, I heard the sound of bat ing from above. I had started to sweat, even though I was feeling some chills. People began to run out of the building, but none of them had a mask on so I let them go, I didn't want to "zero" a non-Scav by mistake.

  Then my first er of the night showed up. He never even noticed me as I took careful aim and drilled him right through the temple, at point bnk range. Some of the other folks, who were milling about trying to figure out what the hell was going on, screamed and ran further away.

  Two more Scavs came out. They saw their rade, they said something in a nguage I didn't uand, but thought was Svi in. When they crouched dowheir rade, I thought they were trying to help him. Turned out that they were stealing his on, shards and money. My eyes narrowed in disgust, and I put a bullet in the back of each of their heads. Fug Scum.

  After aen minutes, all of the sounds of fighting in the building had stopped. The Probes beeped loudly from the upper windows, trying to get my attention. They seemed particurly excited. I waved up at them in aowledgement, but I stripped everything off the three corpses down here. I figured if I left the loot out in the open, someone might e along ahemselves. I threw everything into the trunk, without really examining it now. I'd sort it ter.

  Now it was time to see what the Probes had found.