20 Front-leaning rest position

Meetings were often held these days virtually, but what was even more common than that was conference vidcalls. One such call was occurring, despite the fact that it was past eleven P.M. for everyone involved.

A slightly tired-looking man said, "Present for this conference call are International Assistant General Counsel Maxine Meyers, Night City Director of RiP Ryan Davis, Night City Medical Director Samantha Kim, and myself, Tyler James. I currently hold the position of Regional Vice President for Communications at International and am the RVP on call tonight. Ms Kim, you asked for this meeting in accordance with our crisis response protocols; what's up?"

The woman coughed, "Two reasons. First, we responded to a Platinum client at the Biotechnica Hotel. Long story short, a group of Maelstrom assaulted the building and almost killed the client. The client did flatline twice but was resuscitated. Once I saw the client's name, I called you. It's one of the board of directors of Biotechnica, in town for some unknown reason. Without security for some unknown reason."

The tired man perked up, "And we saved him? Preem. We can definitely use that. Okay. You said two reasons."

Kim nodded, "Yes. It's common for potential new hires to shadow our teams in the last phase of the hiring process. In this case, a young woman was shadowing our team. Unfortunately, one of our security specialists was flatlined in the firefight. I'd like to ask everyone to just watch a short three-minute video, and you'll understand why I think this is important."

Everyone groaned, but the man nodded, "Fine, fine, Doctor."

A few minutes later, the man chairing the meeting said, "I'm not a doctor or a techie, but if I saw that in a film or a BD, I'd call bullshit. Is this for real? I couldn't really see what she was doing."

"One hundred per cent. The surgeon in Watson was just as flummoxed as I was. It shouldn't really have worked, but it did. Plus, she showed an incredible level of knowledge of human anatomy and ingenuity on just the attempt; even if it had failed, I would have quietly had a word with you. But, I figured since we had to have this meeting anyway, I would bring it up," the medical director said.

"Can you play back the part where she saves that woman with the fucked up leg? And do you have the footage from where the team arrived and found the VIP? If so, play it side to side," the vice president commanded.

"Just a moment, we have that," said Kim, and then two videos were played back to back.

"Miss No Leg was sitting at the VIP's table alone?" commented the medical director, "And that's an expensive dress."

The vice president nodded, "Indeed. Check to see where she was taken, and get an interhospital transfer to our trauma centre in Watson. We'll cover the costs for the board member's joytoy, and we'll make fifty times as much just off his appreciation alone. This does tell me that he wasn't Maelstrom's target, though, just bad luck. Whoever is responsible for security at that building is gonna have to commit seppuku. For a screw-up this big, the Italians will pretend to be Japanese just long enough to make them do it, too," said the canny vice president.

Then the man hummed and nodded, "Alright. We all know pretty much what we're going to do about the Biotechnica board situation, so let's table that for now. Switching focus to this woman, Ryan, what do we know about her?"

The director of the Resources in People department in Night City coughed into his hand. As a good underling, he had already pulled up all the data he had as soon as this new hire had started to be discussed and had already sent directions to the hiring manager handling her case, "Sir. Her name is Taylor Hebert. Father is one Daniel Hebert, Major in Militech Armed Forces, former NUSA State Department, deceased. Mother is Annette Rose Hebert, née Astor-Armstrong, deceased. She was at the Regional Director level at Militech when she died in an inter-corporate dispute involving an unknown party, possibly Kang Tao or Arasaka. Ms Hebert is sixteen years of age, third generation Militech dependent on her father's side. Top scores at the Night City Health Science Centre, currently employed by a small ground ambulance service as a paramedic."

The legal woman remarked, amused, "Sixteen?! Here comes the Trauma Teen, right, Tyler?" That caused everyone but the VP to laugh, but when the boss wasn't laughing, everyone paused, a little concerned.

"Uh, what was her mother's name?" the Vice President asked.

The HR man said, "Annette Hebert." To which the VP waved a hand.

"No! Her maiden name!" he hissed.

Mr Davis said after a pause, "Oh. Annette Astor-Armstrong. Why?"

"Oh, no real reason. I was just curious. As an aside, just a matter of trivia for you in the future, the Astor-Armstrong is a cadet branch of the Astor family. You know. The trillionaires," the vice president said mildly. Then he glanced at the lawyer present, "Do we have any information on whether or not that is a coincidence?"

She shrugged, "I just checked. No publically acknowledged member of that family by the name of Annette Rose. Disowned, maybe? If so, maybe we should blackball this girl."

"No, no. In a family at that level, if you're disowned, and they really mean it, you die. Publicly. Assuming it isn't a coincidence if they let her marry this common soldier without so much as even flatlining him and kidnapping her back, then they probably had a real sweet spot for her. I don't see how it could be a coincidence, but I'll check in with International Intel and verify it, but either case let's just pretend we didn't hear any of that," said the VP.

The HR man looked a lot more nervous now but nodded, "Uh... I have already had the hiring manager woken up. He called Ms Hebert already and extended a TJO, pending her acceptance. He did mention that she mentioned having an attorney review the contract, so we weren't going to put anything questionable in it. That tracks with her being third generation Militech, though."

The VP nodded, "Good work. We don't want her being tempted back over to Militech Evac just on the basis of her clinical skills. It's crazy that they didn't already offer her a job. Maybe she soured on them? Both parents died in their service, after all. Well, whatever, we'll close this file for now. It's not like it's that unusual for kids to rebel and get a job at a competitor, especially us, right Maxine?"

The lawyer laughed and flipped him the bird, "I told you that in confidence!" But it was clear she wasn't that upset.

"Hahaha... alright, before I close the meeting, I want a PR team to find that couple. The one she saved after everything went down. Give them both a complimentary twelve-month Gold package, but only if we can use their story in marketing materials; we can use stuff like that. Then see if we can use anything from her saving that security guy for marketing without it looking bad. Maybe not; we'd prefer our guys to seem invincible, but run it by the team." There were nods around, and then he said, "Okay, the meeting is closed. The AI will construct the minutes and forward them to each of you for approval, but I'm increasing the confidentiality classification level of a portion of this meeting to a compartmentalisation code level... which is, uhh... Chartreuse-Pantyhose... what the fuck, computer? Why do you always pick such weird fucking names."

He shook his head, "Anyway, we'll use this code word for subsequent mentions of the Astor family and this new hire together. And she better sign that contract, Davis! Just for those crazy skills alone!"

"Uh, yes, sir!" stammered the man.

---xxxxxx---

The security guys were a little perplexed at both how I was walking back into the Tower wearing armour and how I ended up with more weapons than when I started with.

One of the guards said, "Oh, this is a nice SMG," with the other glancing at it and nodding.

"Yeah, there is talk about buying these in bulk. Kang Tao makes good work. Used to, you'd only have Arasaka to choose from in SmartWeapons, but now Kang Tao is showing them a thing or two," the second man said before placing my newly stolen submachinegun in the locker next to my other weapons.

The first guy waved me through and then asked, "Did Bandbox make it? We heard what happened when the second flight lifted off. I like streaming his BDs sometimes; it would suck if he was flatlined by some stupid 'Strom gonk."

That's why he seemed familiar! Alt-Taylor had seen him on the television show Night after Night with Quincy Strange. They did a special on Trauma Team, and Mr Bandbox was one of the featured people. He became slightly famous on the local net as something of a company spox. He even scrolled BDs, although she had never experienced any. It wasn't a surprise; he was preternaturally handsome, but in a natural-looking way that only a very, very good biosculpt clinic could provide. Or amazing genes, I supposed.

"I'm not sure. He was alive when the second team took him away. I think he should make it if they got him to a trauma centre quickly," I temporised. That was what I was curious about too. They nodded and told me that he had only been working on the Flight Team for two years. Apparently, it was common for Security Specialists to be hired and work for a while doing their job as guards or in the actual Trauma Team military force or even the Debt Recovery Teams before shifting to a flight team status. That last one sounded a bit ominous.

They didn't hold me up after that, and I got on the elevator and back up to the bravo base. The whole crew was there in the living room area, and when I came in, Dr Anno asked, "What happened? Alpha said you built a fucking bypass heart out of the coolant pump on his armour?" He looked flabbergasted.

I blinked at him, "That's what I want to know. Did he make it?"

"Yeah, Alpha got him to the Trauma Team centre in Watson in just two and a half minutes. An entire trauma bay was waiting for him. They're still working on him now, of course, but they got him connected to an actual bypass now while they triage the damage," the man called Mr Teddy Bear said, then he waved at me, "Go get changed! Then we're going to download the helmet cam audio-visual and watch just what the fuck you did! It's gotta be crazy!"

Err, shit. I wondered what that would look like. It wasn't like I could delete the video now; it probably already started downloading into Trauma Team servers as soon as I walked into the tower. Oh well, I would just deal with it. It was good to see it, too, as I only partially remembered building the bypass heart.

I nodded and went into the spare bedroom they were lending me and doffed the armour. I wondered if they wanted me to decon it myself, as there was both 'Strom blood and blonde man blood on it. I'd find out later. I set them aside and got dressed back in my street clothes. Luckily, the cooling system really was very good as I wasn't sweating hardly at all. Otherwise, I'd have hit the showers first.

They had the video playing on the large wall screen as I walked out. "We're gonna get written up for that," the man named Mercy said, annoyed when they paused and switched to slow motion to watch the mostly dismembered 'Strom borg aim the giant revolver at Bandbox.

"Why?" I asked curiously.

Mercy sighed, "Didn't death check the 'Stroms as we passed before we turned our back to them. But they just got chewed up by the minigun, so we figured they were all dead."

"Death check? Wouldn't that take too long when you had a patient, plus wouldn't it be hazardous to get close to them anyway?" I asked, perplexed. I was picturing them going and placing their fingers on the downed Maelstrom member's necks.

Mercy turned to look at me, amused, "You check to see if they're dead by shooting them a couple times in the head as you pass. Don't worry, they'll teach you that in basic. Anno and I have already gotten confirmation that they're going to offer you the job." Oh. Well. That sounded less like a check and more like an execution, but I supposed the consequences for when you didn't do it were staring me in the face. I honestly hoped I wouldn't really be expected to randomly apply a coup de grace to injured gang members as a matter of course.

Since he had been told about my job offer, I guessed Mercy was the equivalent of the clinical base lead. The security base lead? I nodded, "I hope you guys don't get in too much trouble... but, yeah. The hiring manager called me when I was in the cab on the ride back. Oh, by the way... I grabbed that giant revolver that shot Mr Bandbox. I figured he might like it as a souvenir. It's a Soviet Burya, Glory to Socialist Science." I said the last with an exaggeratedly fake Russian accent.

"Probably not too much. We'll probably get scolded and get remedial training, but at the same time, we saved the client, and he was a real VIP too. Even a few more seconds might have meant his death. Normally it takes multiple attaboys to outweigh one aw shit, but in this case, they'll likely milk the whole thing. So it'll even out." Then he grinned, "Oh, badass. Those are actually kind of rare and expensive. I don't know if he'll be able to use it; you almost need a full arm replacement to fire those things without breaking something," Mercy said, looking back at the screen.

I frowned a little, "Mr Bandbox might be looking at an arm replacement; here, start the playback, and I'll show you what I mean."

They nodded and continued playback, but they replayed the point where Mr Bandbox got shot several times, in slow motion, whistling. I noticed where Mercy suddenly shifted into a much faster speed when he shot the shooter. It was clear he had a Sandevistan. Mercy suddenly frowned and rewound the video, playing back the time when I turned around several times. Finally, he asked, apparently seeing something similar in the way I had moved, "New girl, you have a Sandy?"

"Ah, no. I do have a Kerenzikov, though. A Kang Tao model," I said simply. I was pretty sure that getting hired here would result in a total examination of all of my cybernetics, anyway, so it wasn't exactly a secret. My custom liver just looked like a custom liver at the moment, which wasn't too shocking. After I got hired, I'd finish connecting the arteries to it.

Mercy looked surprised, but the pilots both turned to look at me and nodded, one of them saying, "Nice. You want to go to flight training?"

Huh? I shook my head at him, "No. Why would you say that?"

"All combat pilots have to have boostware; it's mandatory. Corporate generally prefers one pilot to have a Kerenzikov with the other having a Sandy, which means they prefer to hire Kerenzikov people with a long-time history of use with little psychological changes. Very few people can handle it. Sometimes it's cheaper to find a solo with a long history of use on the Security team and send them through flight school if the pool of former military pilots is shallow. I have a Militech model Kerenzikov that slows the experience of time by about half, doubles reflexes, combined with a custom set of Kiroshi aviator optics that can sample images I see at one thousand hertz. This video looks like a slide show to me. Makes taking dates to movies a pain in the ass," the senior pilot said, amused.

I nodded. I had that problem too. It was why I always played videos using my deck, as I could speed up their playback speed to something that seemed normal.

They continued the playback, this time going through the entire thing up until I got into the cab. Then the clinicians rewound and kept replaying the time I was working on Mr Bandbox.

"Fuck, I can't see what you're doing. Are you installing this shit by feel? You keep looking up for a moment when you get to an interesting part. Also, you're moving at super speed. What the fuck," said Mr Teddy Bear.

They watched a few times more in slow motion, and I was curious too. Did my power help me with that? Glancing away at times when it was doing something weird? If so, thanks!

Anno said, "I see what you mean by Bandbox might need some new arms. You cut all the blood flow to his extremities. I'm guessing it was too much to expect some kind of high-flow type of solution when you're mainly using IV tubing and a coolant pump."

I nodded. Depending on how soon they got a real heart or temporary replacement hooked up to him, his arms and legs might have gone a long time without perfusing. "I think they could repair the damage with nano treatments, but they might offer him replacement limbs too. Will he be on the hook for any of the cost?" I asked, curious.

Dr Anno held a hand out and waffled it slightly, "Nah, even though we fucked up, they won't charge him. But that's only for the basic treatment to get him back to where he used to be. If it necessitates a replacement limb, he'll just be offered a basic model. As you said, they might offer him a number of replacement options. They'll charge him the difference if he takes anything but the basics, minus his company discount, and then put him on a payment plan. No interest, though."

Well, that wasn't as terrible as I thought. I considered staying around for the rest of the shift; there were still about six hours to go. But I had a lot to do and very little time to now accomplish it. "I think I'm going to head out early. Assuming there's nothing wrong with the contract they sent me, they want me to travel to Seattle on Monday. I got a lot to get ready for this weekend. Do you want me to decon the armour before I go?"

Anno shook his head, "Don't worry about it. We have a machine that does most of the work; I'll run it through." How often did they get blood on their armour that they had a dedicated decon machine? Well, I suppose quite often. These weren't 911 calls, after all, and I often got blood on myself even doing those calls.

I nodded, "I assume you all can carry pistols around the building since you work here?" They nodded, "One of you come downstairs, I'll give you that giant revolver, and you can get it to Mr Bandbox while I'm in training."

The giant man hopped up, "Oh. Awesome." He followed me downstairs, and I got all of the guns back and the bracelet on my wrist taken off. I rubbed my left wrist for a moment before handing the giant revolver to Mercy. The thing weighed like five kilos, easy and my fingers weren't even large enough to actuate the trigger comfortably, to say nothing of what it would do to my arm. I didn't think I'd suffer fractures with my bioware, but it wouldn't feel very good.

Mercy handled it like it didn't weigh anything and grinned, "Cool. Not sure if we should put this on a plaque or just hand it to him." He thumped me on the back hard enough that I almost fell forward and said, "You did a good job today."

"Uh, thanks," I told him, and with that, I left. I probably looked a little weird, as I only had one holster, so I was carrying a small arsenal of two additional guns in my arms as I found my car and drove home.

---xxxxxx---

I stopped at a number of places on my way back home and called Gloria, asking her if she could come by my apartment. She'd have to bring little David along, but I okayed that.

As I got back home, I took a quick shower and then started setting up some of the things I bought at the store. Finding a pet store that would sell me automatic bird feeders without demonstrating that I had a pet license took three tries, but eventually, I got one. I leaned precariously outside of my window, using a small electric drill to secure it in place, probably in violation of my rental agreement.

I wasn't sure if I should do this, as it would make my window a prime spot and Mr Pegpig and his wife would have to, in some ways, compete with other pigeons for the food. But I had been testing a number of nanomed treatments on him and his wife. I didn't have a nanovat like a real biosculpt clinic, but I had been lacing their water with nanomachines, hoping to achieve a similar effect as my muscle and bone lace.

I had to make some modifications to myself, just regular maintenance, really, as I was still growing, including new muscle mass, which needed to be included in my existing muscle and bone lace. If I could do it without going to a clinic myself, it would be all for the better. Mr Pegpig didn't mind being my guinea pig, not after the first dozen or so times I grabbed him out of the air, using my superspeed, anyway. Now he just put up with it, like he was a British pigeon with a stiff upper lip.

I hadn't tested them, but they did seem stronger; they could leap into the air much farther, even Mr Pegpig with his one artificial leg. If so, they should be able to defend their nest. Probably. It was all I could do while I was gone. At least they wouldn't be exterminated by some idiot City Councilman.

The doorbell rang, and I glanced at the camera real quick before unlocking it, saying over the intercom, "Come in! I'm in the back!"

Gloria walked in carrying David, who she sat on the floor and who immediately started exploring. She glanced at me, "There's nothing that he can get into around here, is there?"

I thought about that and then shook my head, "No, everything that might be dangerous or poisonous is in the outer area where I set up a workbench."

I told her what had happened, and she was both excited and glum. "I'm so happy for you, but I'm going to miss you. I was hoping we'd at least have the last two months to work together."

"Just because we won't work together doesn't mean we can't still get together on our days off. I certainly want to see the gremlin again!" I told her firmly. "But I am going to be gone for probably, three months." They told me indoc was one week long, and basic training was eight, but I figured there were going to be delays or other things I needed to do after that. I asked her, "Do you think you can check on my apartment from time to time?"

Gloria paused and said, "Of course. Actually... if you're going to be gone, I think I may have a better idea."

I had a curious expression on my face as I said, "Oh? Like what?"

"Well, if you don't mind... I could live here while you were gone. There was an issue with the housing authority, and my mom temporarily lost her apartment. She couldn't get another for six weeks, and she was going to stay at my place. But if you're not going to be here for 3 months? I could just stay here. I mean, if you don't mind," she hurried to add that at the end. "It's fine if not; I can come to check on your place at least once a week."

I thought about that. There was some stuff in my apartment I didn't want anyone to see, but I was going to move all of that stuff to the storage unit before I left anyway. I didn't think, given where I was, that there were going to be any real problems with burglars or vandals, but you never did know. It was almost expected in a lot of places in the city that if you were gone for more than a week, expect your place to be burgled.

I finally nodded, "Yes, actually, that sounds pretty good. What about the gremlin? You don't know anybody here."

"On days I'm not working, he'll stay here, and on days I am working, he'll stay with my mom at my place," Gloria said simply, "It's the least she can do for giving her a place to stay for weeks on end."

I nodded at that. "Okay, that sounds great. Plus, you won't have to sleep with your mom just five feet away. You have a pretty small place, Gloria."

She laughed uneasily, rubbing the back of her head, before nodding, "Yeah, that's a real bonus for me."

---xxxxxx---

The law firm hadn't found anything out of the ordinary with the proposed contract. The only item they highlighted was an overly broad non-compete clause which said I wouldn't be able to compete with them for thirty-six months after I left the company without paying a rather high buy-out fee.

That was pretty common, but the way it was worded was too vague. It would be arguable that I wouldn't be able to work for anyone, possibly even myself, in any medical capacity for three years after I left Trauma Team since Trauma Team's was really a comprehensive medical system.

I sent the contract back to the hiring manager with my complaint, and surprisingly a very quick adjustment was made where the non-compete was changed to specify I wasn't permitted to work for any air ambulance service for thirty-six months, specifically naming "Militech Evac" as an example of the type of service in question.

That contract I had signed, so in very little time, I found myself in economy class on an airliner heading up to Seattle. Air travel was a bit interesting in this dystopia. Almost nobody did it, and it was prohibitively expensive for individuals, so it was mostly all business passengers. So, even though I was in the economy class of service, the seats were somewhat roomy, and it wasn't the cattle car treatment I was expecting from airlines in Earth Bet.

After sitting in a jumpseat on that Platinum scramble flight, I wasn't that nervous at all about flying on an airliner, even if it was a somewhat small one-hundred-seat propellor plane. The sides of the fuselage had integrated active noise cancellation, so you couldn't hear the engines or the propellors at all, which was really cool.

Seattle was an interesting city. It wasn't as dangerous as Night City, however, only by a little bit. Washington State was one of the Free States of North America, specifically in the Pacifica Confederation. They didn't take orders from the federal government in Washington, DC is basically what I thought it meant.

Seattle was one of the only things keeping Washington State afloat, from what little I could tell. The Port of Seattle was the hub of trade on the entire pacific northwest of the continent, even with the hazards of shipping things by sea, which included an AI-directed self-replicating minefield that slowly moved around the pacific and actual swashbuckling pirates.

Even with all of that, trade still moved by sea. It just made it more expensive, with marine captains being almost militarised and ships using the convoy system to get through danger zones.

After landing, I got my luggage and looked around. I was supposed to be met here. Oh, there was a guy in a relatively nice outfit holding up a sign that said "Trauma Team New Hires."

I walked over and said, "Hello there. I'm starting class on Monday."

"Ahh... preem. We should have five. Uh, are you Taylor? I think there was just one female on the list," he said, sounding almost younger than even me, despite clearly being a little older. Sheltered, perhaps?

I blinked at him and nodded, "You work for Corporate?"

"Not really, as that implies I'm being paid; I'm a student at City Centre College here in Seattle, business administration. Internships, mostly unpaid, are pretty common in your third and fourth year in the program. My parents work for Orbital Air, though. Trauma Team is one of the few places nobody minds if you intern at, so the internships are pretty competitive, actually," he said ruefully.

I nodded. It had been an Orbital Air airliner that I had just gotten off from and then I told him, for the purpose of networking and small talk, "My mom and dad were at Militech. Say..." I started to ask him.

"No, I haven't been to the Crystal Palace or space at all yet," he said with an amused grin.

I caught myself blinking, "Does everyone really ask you that?"

He nodded, "Yeah. About as often as, I suspect, people ask you if you're carrying a gun."

Well, the only reason I wasn't was they wouldn't let me on the airliner with one. I had another one of those uncomfortable bracelets, too, that I only recently had taken off after I left the security area of the airport. I did have one in my luggage, though.

I decided to just wait until the rest of the people got here.

---xxxxxx---

The week-long new hire class wasn't very interesting. It was all paperwork, company policies, and the like. It included a full physical, and I got a little raised eyebrows about all of the cybernetics I had, but they hadn't even mentioned the liver. I did decline a couple of offered company implants, one of which would automatically exercise your muscles whenever you were experiencing a BD.

It was a good idea, but it was like a low-tier doll chip, and there was no way I would be putting one of those into my body if I hadn't built it myself.

The "boot camp" was, so far, a lot more interesting. I needed to cut my hair to be within regulations, but thankfully not too short. All of the males were shorn like sheep, almost. It was kind of silly because Trauma Team didn't have any personal grooming standards beyond looking professional, so those men would be free to immediately grow out their hair.

I was doing fairly well, although a lot about it annoyed me, but I was in very good shape and had augmented strength on top of that, which most of my twenty-five-member "platoon" did not. The main issue I was having was I was used to the equivalent of nine hours of sleep a night, and they only let you get about six or seven if they were feeling generous.

The drill sergeants also seemed to like to make you do push-ups, run, or other more annoying exercises just because they had black hearts. During a group 10k run, I had been asked to run and bring the drill sergeant back a pebble. This meant I'd have to sprint out a distance, grab a pebble and sprint back. It was supposed to tire you out, and it was often done to those who were pretty good runners. Now, I'd already seen this trick before. When I brought back the pebble, he was going to say that I brought back the wrong one, that he really meant the one next to this one.

I didn't really like people in authority in the first place, and I wondered why I was even bothering going through this stupid course. It almost seemed like bullying, although I couldn't actually detect any malice in any of the Drill Sergeants. Still, I didn't mind running, and even shooting the guns was fun.

I presented the pebble to the heartless man, who yelled, "Wrong pebble! I meant the one next to it! Try again!"

I was going to regret this, I already knew it, but I opened my other hand to reveal about five other pebbles, "This recruit has anticipated your orders, Drill Sergeant! These are the pebbles on either side of that pebble, so I respectfully posit that the correct pebble must be among them, Drill Sergeant!"

He stared at me, slackjawed, "Get back into position, Hebert! And drop those fucking pebbles!"

I dropped the rocks and found myself back into position with the running platoon, which he immediately halted, "Now, it seems like we got a smart ass here! I know how to fix that... HALF RIGHT, FACE!"

Fuck.

---xxxxxx---

"You look too happy. You know what? HALF RIGHT!"

---xxxxxx---

"You did too well on that group exercise; if you're not careful, I will get promoted out of my easy job. But I can fix that, HALF RIGHT!"

---xxxxxx---

"Okay, that was just stupid. HALF RIGHT!"

---xxxxxx---

"AM I YOUR FRIEND?! HALF RIGHT!"

---xxxxxx---

"Was that a FART?! Which one of you... no, nevermind, I got this... HALF RIGHT!"