37 Anything that can go wrong...

I got word from Wakako at an inopportune time, as we were currently huddled behind a large heavy-duty tracked excavator machine as heavy machine gun bursts tinged off of it. The fire was coming from an elevated position, in the second story of an unfinished construction project just ahead of us. The excavator wasn't an armoured vehicle or anything, but it was made out of solid and very thick steel and was definitely stopping the rounds before they made it to our much less armoured bodies.

Ignoring her message for now, I glanced over at Mercy, who was in cover along with the rest of us, and I decided to say something obvious, sarcastically, over our tacnet, "I think this call was a trap."

"Yeah, no shit, Breaker," he said exasperatedly, paused and then continued, "Just keep hiding behind this fucking thing; Alpha and Charlie are both responding and should be here soon, as is a full platoon of SecForces on the ground."

I didn't nod, but I continued glancing to the side. I was a little concerned that with us so effectively suppressed that the enemy would seek to flank us and direct fire enfilade, raking us with automatic weapons from the long axis. It was the textbook response when you had a dangerous enemy, like us, suppressed, and it was what they had taught me in basic training.

I had decided I would immediately activate my stealth system and leap out, trying to eliminate anyone who tried to flank us if that happened. However, it would be dangerous, as the HMG was obviously using armour-piercing rounds on account of the damage it had done to the AV-4, which had to lift off and conduct a forced-landing several kilometres away on the interstate.

There was a brief hiss as I saw a rocket flying above our heads, and less than a second later, a loud explosion was heard in front of us, muffled somewhat by the giant excavator machine; my helmet quickly normalising the sound and flash to something that wasn't harmful. Mercy glanced at us and said, "Stay down; let's let them pacify the entire area from range first."

I snorted but managed to mute my vox in time so nobody heard it. He didn't have to tell me that. I wasn't stupid.

Suddenly, a very familiar sound started up again, the sound of that heavy machine gun firing off long bursts, but this sound was coming from a different direction. An additional gun, in a separate emplacement, then. Still, there was barely a second of it firing before a second explosion silenced that gun emplacement as well. How interesting. This sounded like an attempt at a double trap. Just what had we done to piss someone off? Really, there was no telling. We did kill a lot of people, especially if they were gang members and in the vicinity of any of our calls, much less responsible for client injuries.

We still didn't move, and I could tell that Mercy was talking on the tacnet with the new arrivals. About five minutes later, our ground-based backup arrived in four armoured scout cars. Modern scout cars had shifted a lot over time, and today they were mostly indistinguishable from wheeled armoured personnel carriers but usually featured a small calibre autocannon and micromissile launcher instead of a machine gun, similar to wheeled infantry fighting vehicles.

One of the cars drove right up to us and opened the back ramp, and Mercy nodded at all of us, and we ran into the vehicle with a quickness. The ramp automatically closed back up, and the vehicle started driving away before I had even secured myself into one of the seats.

---xxxxxx---

Back at the base, we finally were conducting an after-action report now that the pilots had returned with their damaged AV. Mechanics had fixed it on the ground there on the interstate in record time, as it didn't do anything good for our PR for people to see one of our AVs with a mechanical in front of god and everyone.

Mercy began, "So, the ground team found two destroyed, remote-controlled, fifty-calibre Dushkas. They were apparently connected to net-controlled servo motors. We have our runners working on it, but this explains why they weren't taking more advantage of the situation."

I raised an eyebrow. That gave me an idea, actually. I still had the Dragoon borg in my storage, halfway disassembled. It was a good source of parts, but I didn't think I could ever get it working again. However, the weapon system was one of the things that were in perfect condition, as far as I could tell. It was equipped with a shortened version of a popular 23mm Soviet rotary cannon that they sold far and wide on the export market.

I wondered at the valuation Alt-Dad had put on the borg because that was an expensive gun just in itself and could easily be removed from the borg by anyone with some tools. It was too big for any person that wasn't borged as fuck to use, and I'd have to ask Wakako to get the ammunition, though, as I didn't have any way to do so that wouldn't paint a huge target on my back in the event we had to use it.

Could Kiwi and I rig a quick and dirty firing platform and have her control it for our exfiltration? We had already planted a number of explosives along our route. The second team was made up of Tyger Claws, which Wakako was providing. Most Tyger Claws weren't what I would call elite combatants, but some definitely were, and she was making up for the rest with numbers. They would be waiting in ambush at an abandoned building that was about four kilometres from Konpeki Plaza.

The idea was that this location was a very good ambush location, but since any theoretic pursuers wouldn't know our precise route leaving Konpeki Plaza that they would only be able to rush to this location after a few kilometres made it clear we would be driving by it.

We would then ambush the ambushers and then proceed to meet Wakako to finalise the deal, with me and her splitting up the loot between ourselves at that point.

It was something to think about.

---xxxxxx---

I was putatively driving back home, but in truth, I was driving on the loop 210 highway that circled downtown for fun. Although Night City was a city that never slept, there were definitely times when traffic was bearable or even non-existent, and we had recently shifted to a 0300-0300 schedule at work, which I hated, but it had the advantage of allowing me to let loose on the highway with the speedo currently inching above two hundred kilometres an hour.

It had taken a surprisingly long amount of time, a couple of weeks, to completely refit my Type-66. In addition to removing all of the previous paints and doing a full respray, they also sold me on a number of physical cosmetic changes, adjusting a faring here and there to make it completely indistinguishable from the previous vehicle. It still looked like a Quadra, of course, but now it was more in line with what a traditional Nomad vehicle looked like, except in purple, which used to be one of my favourite colours once upon a time. This was instead of the obviously Wraith-inspired panelling that it used to have.

Honestly, until the mechanic pointed out the differences using a number of images, I had no idea there were different "styles" of customised vehicles, as they both looked like Nomad cars to my untrained eyes. Still, I took the mechanic at his word. The Nomads did sell their cars sometimes, costly and gas-guzzling varieties like my Type-66, but Wraiths never did.

I hadn't been found out yet, but the mechanic insisted it would only be a matter of time before some Wraith that was in town for some reason noticed me driving, and then the best I could hope for was them following me and stealing or torching the car when I went into a cafe for lunch.

As I downshifted a little bit at a curve before placing my foot firmly on the floor as the loop straightened out, I hummed tunelessly. Listening to Wakako's voice message again, I passed three cars in a flash.

"Taylor, Biotechnica is very interested. I'm in the process of negotiating a final price now, but we should be good to go within ten days. He's already agreed on an exchange in Konpeki Plaza like you wanted, although he grumbled a little bit about it. He is insisting on a technical expert being present on our side, and I have tried to give him the impression I have hired a chemist. I'll make sure we have at least three or four-day notice before the meeting is scheduled," she said and paused, "Let's plan on an early lunch tomorrow to discuss things more in detail."

That last bit amused me. She had made a lot more time for me when it became more and more clear that she was likely to make many hundreds of thousands of dollars off of me. Plus, I had already reviewed the accounting for the enterprise, and she charged every working lunch to the venture, which I couldn't really complain about, but I found amusing. I supposed one didn't get to Wakako's station in life without being thorough with details.

I let off the accelerator as I topped out the speed at over two hundred and sixty kilometres an hour, with the engine closing at seven thousand revolutions per minute at ninth gear. I let the machine coast, slowly losing speed. I was asking to be pulled over going as fast as I was, Corpo or no Corpo.

I certainly wouldn't survive a traffic collision at this speed. My brain had gotten a lot better at doing quick calculations due to offloading them onto my cyberdeck. Two hundred and sixty kilometres an hour was a little over seventy-two meters per second. Deceleration was a simple formula of end velocity minus starting velocity over time, and if I assumed a very, very conservative time of 0.06 seconds to decelerate in a full-on crash, that gave an effective deceleration of over a thousand meters per second squared, which was the equivalent of over one hundred Gs on the body which wasn't survivable even with my augmentations, and that was before all the associated trauma like being crushed.

The weakness, as it usually was, was my brain. A body could be engineered to survive such decelerations, and in fact, my bones might not break even now. But without a very sophisticated shock-absorbing life support pod, of which my skull definitely was not, my brain would still be turned into mush. A borg could survive that, but anybody with their actual brain in their skull couldn't without some sort of high-tech gravity-manipulation-based inertial compensation helmet, the kind that hot-shot Corpo astro-pilots wore in combat spacecraft.

And that was assuming such things weren't just bullshit to begin with, as the only time I had seen them had been on films and entertainment BDs.

It took me five kilometres of coasting to slow down to a reasonable enough speed to take the next exit at a safe speed, and I winced a bit when I glanced at the fuel gauge. I had used quite a lot of fuel, but that wasn't all that surprising.

I pulled into the first filling station I saw with a deep sigh at the cost.

---xxxxxx---

Our working lunch didn't take that much time, and towards the end, I asked her about the high-explosive armour-piercing shells I wanted her to source, which surprised her.

"What in the world do you have that would fire those?" she asked, half-amused but mostly curious.

I said, "It's a six-barreled Soviet rotary autocannon, an export model. I thought I could build a simple control mechanism and turn it into a remote-control turret that Kiwi could operate. We'd leave it in the same building the Claws will be watching out from. One of the biggest what-ifs is if they bring armoured vehicles. I don't think they have any actual military vehicles in town, but they definitely have a bunch of bullet-resistant trucks and cars. This would put paid to that threat."

She blinked at me for a couple of moments before shaking her head, "You know, Taylor. You think too much. Why would you build a remote-controlled turret? There are dozens of such models commercially available that support pretty much any weapons system. Tell you what, I will acquire one, as well as a goodly amount of shells. In exchange, you let me buy this gun after the mission. I can both by tomorrow, and my team will set it up at the primary ambush site."

Ah. Yes, that probably made more sense. The Trauma Team after-action report said that it was likely Maelstrom that had attacked us, and I just assumed that they had built the turrets from scratch as that was something that they tended to do, but I still occasionally forgot what world I was in. Of course, there were dozens of models of remote-controlled or autonomous turrets that you could buy in this world. Why would I have expected there wouldn't have been?

I kept my mouth closed for a moment because I was honestly expecting to leave the turret after the fight if we did need to use it. I intended it to be a one-use, disposable device. But if she could cart it off again, selling it to her would be fine. Ideal, even. Weapons in Night City were like sand on a beach, very easy to find. But large rotary canons that fired explosive shells and would be more at home mounted on a combat aircraft were a little more difficult to get.

Again, I wondered why Alt-Danny considered the hulk of the Dragoon valueless. Irreparable, I agreed with. Perhaps he didn't want to part it out for sentimental reasons. It made me wonder who was piloting the device before, presumably, Alt-Danny killed it.

I got a sly expression on my face, which Wakako instantly mirrored, "Let's talk price, then." I wouldn't walk away without at least a quarter of its MSRP!

---xxxxxx---

It was finally the day, or rather the day before the day. I was gathering all of what I would need, some of which I would take into the hotel with us and the rest, what could be considered dangerous, would have to be in their lower-security parking garage, along with our vehicle. We weren't using Ruslan's van this time, but a stolen one.

I was a little concerned about that, but he reassured me that he knew precisely which vehicles wouldn't be missed for several days. Nobody would be reporting it stolen until we were well and truly done with it, which I would just have to accept on faith. They were the experts on this sort of thing.

However, it was Ruslan's van that pulled up to pick me up. I guessed he had the stolen van stashed somewhere so that it wouldn't be able to be associated with any of the buildings we lived in, just in case the authorities later attempted to backtrack the vehicle through the city's camera and traffic system.

I waved at them; it looked like it was all of them picking me up. I got into the passenger side door. Once I had closed the door, I triggered my techhair to change from what was indistinguishable from my standard to a straight, glossy blonde, lengthening by over twenty centimetres in the process, "'Ello, Rus, Kiwi, Jean. Are you lot ready to get a wiggle on and get this bleedin' thing started, eh?"

They looked at me like I had grown a second head, "Don't yer worry, I jus' bought a British accent skillchip. I figgered it'd be one more bleedin' layer in me attempt to disguise meself. Dead cheap, it was, too."

Kiwi started laughing at me, having to quickly press the auto-drive button because she was closing her eyes in her mirth. This caused the other two to start laughing at me, too. What? What was the problem?

Finally, Kiwi said, "Uh, Taylor... you may want to check the settings. It sounds a little low-class, which is the opposite impression of what you were trying to go for."

I frowned. Certainly, the accent sounded a bit different from my favourite characters on Downton Abbey, like Mary Crawley, but was it really so different? It wasn't like I was an expert in British dialects. I paused for a moment to pull up the settings for the skillchip, my mouth coming to a fine line when I realised it was set on "Cockney Whore." This had better not be the only option.

I switched it to "Derry" for a moment and said, "Oi switched it ta da Derry, Oi wonder how dis sounds. Jaysus, dis is awful, jist awful." Everybody cracked up again. I shook my head and started doing quick net searches for each of the options. Apparently, Derry was an Irish accent. Was that even considered British? I thought the Irish people fought a few wars to settle that question in this world. These days, after the resumption of the Irish monarchy, His Royal Navy was as likely to sink refugee boats coming from England as from anywhere else.

I finally found a candidate in what was labelled "Eton public school (RP)." Net searches revealed that contrary to what I would first think, a "public school" was really a very, very exclusive private school. That didn't make any sense to me at all and seemed to be entirely backward.

Still, I coughed briefly before stating, "Alright, I think I've got the correct one set. This is what they call a public school accent, I suppose." I blinked and grinned. Oh, I sounded just like the people from Downton Abbey now!

Kiwi chuckled, "Yes, that sounds a lot better."

Jean still laughed at me, but I pointed a finger straight at him. He had his techhair set in a ridiculous pompadour hairstyle and must have added a huge if neatly trimmed, silly beard that would look more at home in Afghanistan than here. He must have made these changes during the biosculpt treatment, and the combination was insane, but he definitely wouldn't be easily associated with his previous appearance, I supposed, "You're one to laugh! You look absolutely ridiculous!"

Kiwi and Ruslan started chuckling, and Jean ran a hand through his neatly trimmed dark black beard, "I think I look really distinguished."

He looked really... something. But it wasn't distinguished. Still, at least they were all wearing the semi-nice clothes I had demanded they get. If we were going to be spending one day and night in a high-end hotel, then we didn't need to stick out more than we had to. I intended to eat dinner at the restaurant downstairs at the hotel to give a chance for people to hear my posh accent and see my blonde hair. Also, the mask I would wear in the deal would not completely cover my hair, so it would be theoretically possible for investigators to correlate my identity to the guest staying the previous evening.

I did not think that Konpeki Plaza would reveal my identity, as they had a reputation, so this would hopefully send any Biotechnica investigators down a wild goose chase for a blonde-haired British girl that didn't exist. Still, I went ahead and activated my Kiroshi's camera dazzler system right now, in advance. It wasn't a perfect system, and I didn't have any clue how it worked, actually, but it was very effective in all the tests I had put it through.

Hopefully, none of this would be necessary, and everything would go smoothly and simply, but if not, I had a plan, a backup plan and an ace in the hole, just like Alt-Danny recommended. Hopefully, I wouldn't need to use the latter, which I had made tentative plans with Wakako for, as it would seriously impact my life going forward.

After everyone got done laughing at each other, we were more or less quiet for the ride over to where the other vehicle was stashed. We switched over to a similar van quickly, but this time Ruslan drove. It was hard to identify either Ruslan or Jean as anything other than "muscle" or "hired help." Kiwi was playing the role of a hired professional, so it would be weird for her to drive us to the hotel, even if she preferred to be the driver in our ops most of the time.

She could really multitask, watching numerous feeds from cameras and drones while simultaneously either driving herself manually or minding the car's auto-drive system; this generally left the two boys free to fire from the moving vehicle if necessary, and it was sometimes awe-inspiring to watch.

This stolen van had tons of weapons, which would be permitted inside the hotel's parking garage but definitely not inside the building itself. We wouldn't be able to take so much as a popgun inside.

The drive to the hotel was uneventful, if a little long. We weren't commented on, aside from getting a parking slip from a man sitting in a guard shack next to the entrance to the parking building. I had considered having them drop me off next to the entrance for verisimilitude's sake but decided us all entering the hotel at once would be better.

We walked together into an antechamber, nodding slightly at a doorman that said, "Welcome to the Azure Plaza."

The antechamber was slick as hell and looked like a place where you could briefly wait with an associate, but my keen eyes identified it as a security chokepoint despite all the gilding. There were men as big and strong looking as Jean and Ruslan standing next to a non-invasive scanning system of some kind. It was similar to the ones used in the Trauma Team tower, except gilded with real oak panelling.

Ruslan and Jean went in first, and they both tripped the security detection system. Two of the large concierge slash security personnel stopped them. "Sirs, you will have to step this way so that we can make safe your integrated weapons systems."

I had been expecting that and warned them both to expect something of the sort. One of the other "concierge personnel" smiled briefly at us and said, "It should be just a moment, ma'am." I gave him a cursory glance and a short nod, barely acknowledging his presence. I was in character, you see.

I noticed that the bracelets they put on Ruslan and Jean were both heavier-duty as well as a little more stylish. Still, they were thin enough that they could be hidden inside the long sleeves of their shirts well enough.

Kiwi walked right on through without any comment, but when it was my turn, I got the red light again. The security guard said, "Ma'am if you would mind stepping over here for a moment to make safe your internal weapons." It was pretty much the exact same thing I had overheard them tell the boys.

I didn't notice what they had done, so I was pleasantly surprised when another man brought out a tray of bracelets sized to fit my more delicate arms. The security man asked, "Please select the one that is most pleasing to your aesthetic, madam."

I glanced down at them and picked one that looked like a silver charm bracelet, but I was sure it was made of something much more indestructible than that, as I was strong enough to break silver myself. I didn't touch it; I merely pointed to it and got a nod. I held my bare arm out and allowed them to affix the device to my wrist, allowing a gentle sigh at the indignity of it all.

"Thank you, ma'am. You can proceed," the security guy said politely, so I joined the rest, and we walked together to the front desk to check-in. The girl behind the desk surprised me. She wasn't quite a full-body replacement, but I judged that she had more cybernetics than me and Ruslan put together.

She bowed rather prettily, giving us all a glimpse of her sizable and cybernetic décolletage while saying, "Yōkoso. Greetings, and be welcomed to the Azure Plaza."

I returned the bow on reflex, although it was more of me inclining my head. Plus, it helped me to look down her blouse to identify which total skin replacement she had installed. It was an Arasaka model judging from my inspection at various zoom levels, which probably shouldn't have surprised me. Also, it wouldn't do to bow the same as the hotel's hired help, after all, if I wanted to pretend I was high class. I was trying to give the impression that I was at least a middle manager somewhere. Still, I was polite, "Thank you. We're checking in, one suite for one night," I told her while sending to her system my identification through peer-to-peer wireless transfer.

Although I had intended to rent two separate rooms, it was actually cheaper to rent a nicer suite that had two bedrooms but a shared living area. Plus, it was more in keeping with the illusion I was trying to portray, which was that they were my security.

The pretty girl rose up again and nodded, "Of course, ma'am. It also looks like you have the Sakura room booked for tomorrow from thirteen hundred to seventeen hundred hours; is that right?"

I nodded, "Correct."

She smiled and said, "Everything looks to be in order, ma'am. Please enjoy your stay at Azure Plaza." With that, she sent a digital file which turned out to be the unlocking key for our suite, which I forwarded to Kiwi and the boys. It looked like we were staying on the fifty-fifth floor. Not too shabby, when you considered the top twenty floors weren't hotel accommodations so much as either apartments on long-term lease or penthouse-style rooms that you needed to be a billionaire to even be allowed to rent.

We walked past a trendy-looking bar and restaurant that I would likely patronise later that evening and boarded the elevator. The elevator would only allow us to go to our own floor, which was interesting.

Our suite was down a hallway at the end, and I triggered the door with the digital key, which opened and allowed us entry. The room was... large, quite larger than I thought, and this was just the living area. The door closed behind us, and I said, in a bored-sounding rich girl's voice, "Please non-destructively disable all of the cameras and listening devices."

Jean already had his mouth opened, probably to comment on the swankiness of the room shut his mouth when he heard I was still talking in character. Kiwi nodded silently and got to work.

Ruslan and Jean silently explored all of the rooms in the suite, looking as though they were searching for threats, but I felt it was more likely they just wanted to see how nice the digs were. A couple of minutes later, Kiwi returned and said, "Got all of them. I'll be able to reconnect them all no problem tomorrow, so we don't have to lose the security deposit."

Wakako and I both appreciated that very much, I thought. I nodded at her and said, "Thanks." Then Ruslan and Jean returned from their explorations, and I said, "Alright, it's eleven hundred. We don't have anything to do until fourteen hundred tomorrow, so we're all on our own until then. Can do whatever you want inside the hotel. You're each given a seven hundred and fifty eddie budget, so you don't have to look poor. Anything above that and its on you and will be deducted from your pay."

They both grinned; even Kiwi smiled a little. Although we were in a resort where prices were inflated, seven hundred and fifty dollars a piece was enough to eat and probably hit the BD parlour or some other amusements. I was going to get a massage myself. When I mentioned that, Jean grinned, "Oh, that sounds like a good idea."

I frowned, immediately realising what he was thinking, "Jean, here, massages are just massages. If you want companionship of some carnal variety, that is a separate service. Don't embarrass us by assuming all of the masseuses are prostitutes."

Although I was pretty sure that was an extra service that you could ask for when you got a massage, I imagine it shifted the masseuse to one that was also a sex worker. Jean had the decency to look a little abashed as he rubbed the back of his neck, "Ah, yeah, a course, mon."

Ruslan just grinned at him and then turned to me, "So, when should we meet back here to do the preliminaries?"

I thought about that. We had to meet the Biotechnica people at two in the afternoon, which meant we should be in the Sakura room by one. In the worst case, and they got drunk or didn't sleep enough tonight, it would take me a little time to detoxify them. I had some stimulants on hand for the latter contingency. I nodded, "No later than eleven thirty. We'll plan to be in position at the Sakura conference room at thirteen hundred."

Everyone nodded. I grabbed the small luggage I had brought with me and had Jean carry, and Kiwi did the same. We each went into our separate bedrooms.

Kiwi, with no shame at all, stripped naked with me gaping at her. She had a number of unusual body art as well as two obvious Midnight Lady accessories. She laughed at me as she saw my expression and then said amusedly, "You know, you're pretty old-fashioned." She fished out a set of silk pyjamas and, with that, jumped into one of the two beds, disappearing under the covers and sheets.

"These got to be Egyptian cotton sheets," she commented, muffled from being under the sheets and the duvet.

I just chuckled and grabbed my pyjamas as well. However, I intended to take a long bubble bath first. I had been on a shower-only lifestyle since I arrived in this world. A long, luxurious hot bubble bath while reading a book sounded divine.

---xxxxxx---

After William awoke at zero five hundred, exactly, he reviewed some of the non-urgent correspondence that he had received in the three hours that he was down for a sleep cycle. While it was technically possible for him to go without sleep for weeks, it was universally agreed that at least a small sleep cycle every night was beneficial for, well, everyone.

Although he had never really had the same issues with cyberpsychosis as the average man did, it wasn't entirely because he was "built different." He also followed all the directions of his very expensive doctors, as well.

The report he was reading was from the team he had built in Night City to look after Annette's daughter. They had reported several weeks ago that Taylor was working with a Yakuza fixer, who had been in contact with so many people that it was difficult to say precisely who was related to Taylor's business.

The old Japanese witch did not speak or send a message that wasn't highly encrypted. Although the family had giant quantum computing supercomputer clusters for signals intelligence reasons, not only was the encryption somewhat quantum-resistant, but he didn't really have the justification for trying to snoop in depth on her. The costs were not inconsequential, considering the many other uses the family had for this limited resource.

Taylor was almost as paranoid, which privately made him feel good about Annette's girl, but he worked along the periphery, using the metadata from both parties' communications, if not the actual content, to build a fairly good idea of what was going on.

He got confirmation not too long after that Biotechnica's Night City office activity increased. Although the family didn't have any contacts inside the Italian Megacorporation as a whole, they did have the usual intelligence assets in lower-level positions. Biotechnica Night City was expecting something that the upper tier of management was very interested in.

From there, his team put Taylor on twenty-four-seven surveillance. The message he was reading now suggested that the exchange was going to happen imminently, as they had trailed her to the local Konpeki Plaza. That was an ideal place to make an exchange with someone you didn't trust, as Arasaka would ensure no violence would happen on their premises.

He put his thinking cap on and sent a message back. The team captain was to send one team member on an overnight stay at the resort, and his team should expect the exchange to happen sometime tomorrow or perhaps the next day. They would know when they saw a Biotechnica convoy head towards Konpeki.

He also took a moment to reconfirm their standard orders per his principal's instruction. They were to observe the exchange as much as possible and only intervene if it seemed like Annette's daughter was in immediate danger of death. If all they were going to do was kidnap her, then they should not intervene.

Privately he disagreed with these orders, but he always had a soft spot for Annette.