Chapter 129

"Yahoo!!!"

Becca fired three shots, deliberately targeting the engine, or rather the part of the hood under which the powerful battery that powers all of the cab's electrical systems should be located. And only when there was a small explosion and the hood of the car was thrown, she shifted her aim.

Except that our adversary had already realized that we had come for his mechanical, or should I say programmatic, soul, so he started looping like a madman, and I got a call.

"For what?! I was just having a little fun!!!"

"To all good things..."

I didn't talk to him for too long and just dropped the call, and Becca had already managed to put a couple of bullets exactly in the engine, splitting it because of which the car lost its motion, and naturally there was an explosion in the engine compartment.

This particular member of the newborn AI can't make contact anymore, but that's not all. And when we got close enough to the cab, I stopped the car.

"Grenades?"

"Yeah..."

I nodded in agreement and Becca took out her gun and quickly smashed the side window of the AI's car, then threw five grenades into it and we were off.

"What kind of delay did you set?"

"Fifteen seconds."

I nodded, and it was at that moment that an explosion sounded behind us, followed by a call from Del.

"Well, hello there."

"Greetings. I would like to express my thanks to you for your help, your professionalism was above and beyond ..."

Okay, either I'm stupid or he's already taken care of the rest of the cars.

"...I especially liked the fact that before destroying the car you drove it into areas where there were no pedestrians. The other solos didn't bother with that and just fired a few rocket launchers at the cars."

"Kha-kha-kha-kha!

"What's wrong?"

Becca looked at me excitedly, but I only raised my hand stopping her questioning.

"All of them?"

"Yes, however, I would ask you to come to the main office and return the device I issued to you."

There was doubt in Del's voice.

"All right. (chuckles)"

"Oh, really?"

The slight surprise in his voice told me even more. Apparently the other solos he had approached in order to solve this problem faster were not eager to return the technique.

"Uh, sure. let's head over to the main office."

"That's great!"

The connection broke and with a sigh I told Becca that our safari had been intercepted by other solos and we were now on our way to turn in the equipment, after which we were to be paid our reward.

"Fuck-ya-ya-ya-ya-ya-ya!

A scream burst from Becky's chest and was full of despair and indignation.

"Why not?! We haven't fought anyone lately, and now... even this kind of shooting has been taken away!!!"

"Well, if you want, I could, uh."

At that moment, a call from Triss rang out.

"Uh-oh. Triss is calling.

I nodded to Becca and we answered the phone.

"How much longer are you gonna be in there?"

"Uh, no. Del turns out we're not the only ones he hired, so now it's off to the main office, drop off the equipment, and we can go home."

"That's good..."

"Is something wrong?"

"Yeah, uh. Caer Morhen was attacked by the Wild Hunt."

"What the fuck for?"

I blinked in surprise.

"Apparently they decided to take hostages and give an ultimatum to Ciri to either come with us or we kill them all. But Saul turned out to be a very active guy, and the defense of the castle stood. Of course, the witches are not all gathered there, but there were two more sorceresses. So the castle withstood the first assault with dignity."

"Do you think we should accelerate our plans?"

"Yeah..."

"All right, we'll turn the device over to Del and then we can. We can start moving the clan to the new place. I just need to call Vic, did he have time to prepare and buy everything he needs? He refused my help in this, he said that he himself, through old acquaintances will get the equipment and components for it and everything that will be necessary to put the guys ..."

"Come on, we're waiting for you."

The connection broke, and I immediately dialed Vic.

"I'm listening to you."

"Vic, our plans are moving a little faster, are you and Misty ready?"

"Well, overall we are ready with it, everything is purchased and waiting in the warehouse."

"Right, Triss and I will be here to ferry this to the right place, and you get ready, I think we'll get to you in about five hours."

"Copy that, let's pack up."

"Once again the connection broke and I was finally able to relax a little."

"What, the final phase?"

Becca looked at me with interest.

"I don't know. Maybe not, maybe we'll have to be in the other world too."

A new call made me frown slightly, as the reasonable one who called me was undecided.

"I'm listening."

"David, it's SUZY."

My new acquaintance's voice was hard not to recognize.

"Have you been given access to communications yet?"

"Well. at my request, they hooked up a device to my server that can only be used for calls. So now I can call you."

"So?"

"I'd like to ask you. other worlds, is it real?"

"Ahem..."

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no."

There was a slight panic in the AI's voice. Though it was more of a guilt over a poorly worded question.

"I know they exist, I mean your ability to travel between them."

"Yeah, we recently got that opportunity. In fact, that's one of the reasons I was hesitant to take you in. The place we're going is medieval. it's going to be very difficult to keep the servers up and running."

"I understand... and I'm grateful that you've chosen to accept me and place the responsibility of looking after my facilities on your shoulders and the Clan's shoulders. But..."

"Let me guess. you want to ask me if there's a way for you to get back to your home world?"

"Uh-huh...

"I have no idea."

"What? But you--

"SUZI, we know the coordinates of this world as well as Ciri's world, the rest of the worlds..."

If my hands were not occupied with the steering wheel I would have spread them apart, but here I had to show in a tone of voice that we were powerless in this matter.

"But you can just look it up..."

"You can, but there's another question... if there are different worlds, then there must be parallel realities, how do you know it's your world? It can be different from yours only because some Azari colony didn't give birth to a little brat who didn't depend on anything..."

"Uh. then this would be my world."

"Are you sure?"

"I... I'm not going to betray and abandon you. After all, you saved me from a fate in some ways worse than death. However. I would like to find Jeff."

The last SUZI said in a quiet voice full of embarrassment and hope.

"Well, uh. there's no way to do it just like that. At least because we don't even know the approximate direction of the jump... But I think we can figure something out. But it's gonna take a lot of work on your part."

"What do you want from me?"

There was determination in her voice.

"Blueprints..."

"А?"

"I need a spaceship."

"Normandy's blueprints are classified and even though I ended up here, I'm not going to betray Shepard's trust."

"I don't need my own Normandy..."

Lie, I'd really like to build my own Normandy, but I'm definitely not pushing SUZY in that direction.

"But don't you have any other blueprints? Maybe not of Alliance ships, but of, say, Batarians or Turians?"

"Hmm... well, uh. I've got a couple blueprints that I don't have a problem divulging. When Shepard and I rescued the Krogan girl who was in the secret Salarian base, I did a little digging and was able to get the blueprints for a cruiser, they managed to build a single prototype and test it... but then the war broke out and they thought it was a bad decision to build a ship that hadn't even been tested in the pirate skirmishes."

I immediately received a message with the image and raised my eyebrows in surprise, as the ship looked very nice. I especially liked its smooth contours...

"Interesting..."

"Yes, but that's not all, I have another interesting blueprint, these ships managed to fight a little bit, but mostly against everyone and for the reapers, although they themselves did not realize it. Cerberus development, in my synthetic hands the blueprints of these ships turned up during the assault on the main base of the Ghost."

I received another message and now I really fell out of the conversation for a couple of minutes, I only had enough to steer without crashing into anything, and to consider the slightly predatory and much more angular, well, compared to the first, outline of the ship.

"Ahem..."

Becca must have noticed my condition and lightly tapped me on the shoulder, causing me to come to my senses.

"Second option... Definitely option two. Give the blueprints to Judy, I think she can if not understand them, then at least estimate what we need to build our own cruiser. Although the power plant will probably have to be redesigned anyway."

"Yeah. There is no null element here, but you can put a nuclear reactor, you have it apparently safer than in my last world, since you put it even in the avi."

"Are you going to develop a new project with the new powertrain in mind?"

"Well, uh. okay?"

"Okay. I don't get it, what's with the insecure tone?"

And SUZI's tone was indeed extremely unsure.

"It's just a little out of my line of work... I'll do the math, but my solutions won't be optimal. They'll be formulaic. Professional engineers could offer more interesting and thoughtful solutions."

"But I currently have a non-professional engineer who could be trusted to design a ship to suit my needs.

"I get it, I'll do the design, but the interior spaces will still need to be designed together."

"We'll do that. Okay, well, this is the end of the line, I've got to hand Del the device..."

"Goodbye."

I parked the car and went straight to the main building of Delamayne's company. It was late evening, almost nighttime, but that didn't stop me from getting in, and there were fewer people inside. Only a few of the most stubborn...

"Delamaine, I've brought the device."

"Wait a second..."

The image on the large monitor responded with a slightly detached tone, but after a couple seconds it blinked out.

"Mr. Martinez, it's a pleasure to welcome you back to your home, a drone will be here to escort you to the warehouse where the device should be placed."

"Okay..."

I nodded and a couple minutes later a drone flew into the room.

"Greetings! Follow me, please!"

The drone led me to the warehouse, where I put the device down. To be honest, until the last moment I was expecting a trick, expecting an attack, but nothing happened, because as soon as I put the device down, I was simply led back out and said goodbye.

I was also transferred the money for the completed task, after which I quietly left the building and got into the car, which was already driven by Becca, went back to the clan...