Chapter 21

I didn't wake up in my and Panam's apartment, except Panam was lying on my side and that said it was okay...

Inhale...

The smell of Panam's hair soothed me, and after a couple of moments I did remember that yesterday I had agreed to take a break from my solo life by living in the Panam clan. Judy had also come with us, curious to try what it was like to live in nature.

I wasn't so much interested in that as I just wanted to get a little closer to Panam. This world was sparse on nature, at least in the part of the country we were in, and in most of the rest of the world, outside of the cities, it was desert. And surviving in the desert was a lot of fun.

"I carefully got out of bed and quickly got dressed in my tracksuit and left the tent. I looked around and saw no one outside. I didn't care about that, though, because I didn't come out of the tent to admire my surroundings, but to check out the synthetic muscles that Vic had put on my arms and legs."

Of course, the surgeries are serious, but in general, with the current level of technology, I can already today safely run around the nomad camp and do a couple dozen push-ups. Just to check how my muscles work.

No, of course, I could go the way of the Animals, start eating chemistry, I could even ask Vic to choose the right drugs for me, so that my brains wouldn't react. They wouldn't give the results that the animals have, but in a year of training I'd reach almost the limit of human capabilities. It would be a good solution if I wasn't living life solo.

And the last assignment showed how lucky I've been in the past...

If I'd run into someone with a sandi earlier, I might have died! Because when I started, I was trained, but not to the point where I could produce my recent acceleration figures. My body just wasn't ready for something like that.

Under such thoughts I took not the fastest pace and ran to the exit from the camp.

On the other hand, synthetic muscles are very limited, in the sense that they cannot be developed by training, so the limit they have I can only go over after I replace them with new ones. But their bonuses are quite impressive!

The first one is endurance. It is many times higher than that of ordinary muscles, as well as strength. I became not so much bigger in volume in arms and legs, maybe half a centimeter added, but in strength of arms and legs should be almost four times more! Although not all the strength of these muscles would be available to me now, I would have to take medication for a couple of months to strengthen my skeleton and ligaments so that they could withstand such a load. But even with the doubling of my abilities, I will be much more relaxed, because the work will be partially safer.

Of course I'll have to visit Vic again and replace the muscles he couldn't replace because it would be too much intervention at once. But the next surgery won't be for another two days...in the meantime...

You can speed up a bit for now.

And I increased my running speed, and then I ran seven laps, and returning to the tent, I went to the car standing next to it and took a mat out of it, laid it on the sand and began to exercise further. Gradually people began to appear in the street and looked at me with a strange look. But I didn't care about that, because I care about my physical development... And yes, I remember that I will soon have synthetic muscles that do not require training and do not degenerate, but then I will only switch from normal training to reflexes, and now my concern is to find out the limits of the new muscles.

I've already partially developed the reflexes I need for solos.

"And why?"

Panam peeked out of the tent and looked at me carefully.

"Well, for starters, to test the capabilities of the new muscles, well, also..."

I looked at Panam with a laughing look.

"to make you and Judy jealous."

"А?"

"He's been doing this for two hours..."

Judy looked out of the tent and glared at Panam and me.

"and you should have seen the looks the girls in your clan gave him. the way their eyes devoured him."

"А?"

Panam blinked confusedly.

"So a couple of private conversations about "our girlie stuff" is guaranteed."

Panam swallowed and shook her head.

"David, you didn't do this on purpose, did you?"

"Of course not..."

I finished with another exercise and found myself on my feet and shrugged.

"I'm just testing out what my new arm and leg muscles can do. And I've got to get used to the fact that my abilities have increased a lot since they were installed. So, uh."

"I see..."

Just then, Mitch came up to us and clapped me on the back approvingly.

"Well done, lad! Although I could see that you were feeling a little insecure during some of the exercises. Need some help?"

"Thank you, no. Just testing synthetic leg and arm muscles..."

"Oh..."

I was looked at with a completely different look.

"Is there something you want to say?"

"Why are you so weak then?"

"Because I'm not going to go to boxing, my business is to work with the help of sandi, but only native muscles were not enough for that, and their training even under conditionally safe chemistry would take at least a year. The last job showed that this time may not be."

"Hmm?"

"Urgent assignment from the fixer... to meet the owner of the Sandy. And even though my kung-fu was better, but I almost lost my arm, Vic miraculously managed to fix it... in short, I decided to lose a couple of weeks and install synthetic muscles, which will be superior to mine in all respects, in order to react in time to threats in the future.

"Hmm. why not chrome?"

"Mitch?"

Panam came up to the man and stared at him menacingly.

"Don't teach my boyfriend wrong! I don't need a boy wrestler! I can barely keep him from wanting to change every muscle in his body. But at least it's not chrome! At least not in the sense that other people use the word!"

"Got it, got it, got it!"

Mitch took a couple steps back with her arms raised, and I turned around and went into the tent, needing to wipe off the sweat. I would have liked to take a shower, but not in this environment, a shower was the limit of dreams, I'd have to think of something... and it wasn't very comfortable to wipe myself with wet towels...

Panam went into the tent, followed by Judy, apparently determined not to continue talking to Mitch. I wasn't embarrassed to be naked in the tent, though Judy looked at me with some interest.

"Close your eyes! Not yours!"

"Pfft!"

Judy just turned away from me, Panam, on the other hand, threw an indignant glance at her, then shook her head.

"Still, you fall under his spell...and you said you were a girl person."

"Well. it's hard not to fall for it. gallant, caring, not a freak, not going to turn into a Borg, and works quietly and mostly carefully, so there's a chance he'll live to be old. In general, good and reliable, and such a beautiful mulatto next to him..."

"And if you think about it a little longer, you might find yourself fighting for his attention, right?"

Judy sighed.

"Yeah..."

"Okay, girls, these topics, please, without me..."

"Oh, really?"

Panam grinned watching as I finished drying myself off and began to dress.

"You're the one who led to all this! So now you have to suffer."

I took two steps forward and put my arm around Panam's waist and kissed her tenderly. The kiss was not passionate and greedy, but tender and loving, and it lasted for about three minutes, after which I pulled away from the girl and looked her carefully in the eyes.

"Don't be jealous..."

"Pfft!"

I let her go and took a step toward Judy, who averted her gaze to the side but still returned it to us time after time.

"And this is for you."

The short, almost childish kiss I gave her lips made Judy freeze a little, and I just stepped out of the tent and breathed in the slightly dusty but much cleaner air than the city air. Still, there's a certain... charm.

Just gotta figure out something about a shower...

I ran my eyes around the camp and noticed Mitch walking around some car.

"Hi again..."

"I thought we'd seen each other recently."

At my greeting, he snickered.

"Need help?"

"Yeah, well. It won't start, I was thinking of doing it today, now I'm wondering where to start..."

"Why don't I scan her first?"

"Hmm?"

But despite his questioning hum, he still nodded his head after a bit of thought and I activated my peepers.

"Why don't you open the hood?"

Mitch complied with my request and I scanned the engine as well, then turned the scanner off and looked at it.

"Well. I see what the problem is."

With these words of mine and began the epic repair of the Scorpion machine, which turned out to be this small, but sharp and well armored machine.

The repair took a couple of hours, first we had to drive the car into a big tent, just and designed for transport repair, then remove some parts, change sensors...

Mitch and I were working four-handed, which is why we did it so quickly...

"So..."

A faintly familiar voice sounded behind us, and I turned around to recognize its owner. Sol...

"Sol..."

"David. what are you doing here?"

"Specifically here?"

I did my best to arch an eyebrow questioningly.

"Specifically, I'm helping Mitch fix his car."

"I meant, what are you doing at Camp Aldecaldo?"

I shrugged.

"I need a little vacation and recovery from the past surgery at the Reaper and the one that is coming up. So Panam suggested it, so I wouldn't be tempted to do any "easy" work. So I agreed to stay with you. But I won't be a freeloader, don't worry. I not only know how to work with guns, but I'm also good with machinery..."

Saul glanced over at me glumly.

"It's just the two of you?"

"There's five of us. Four girls and me. Two of the girls might snap in Knight City since they didn't go on vacation, and their main team might request their help."

"Tz. just stay out of the way. I've got a good deal coming up and I don't want it to be ruined by the presence of people like you..."

Saul turned and walked away, and I looked at Mitch in surprise.

"Good deal? Stay out of the way?"

"Saul's been dreaming about getting involved with biotech lately... wants us to protect their fields. A steady job."

Mitch said the last phrase with a twist on his face that even a dumb person would have realized how he felt about the idea. And I could understand it, because working with a corporation is always a game of Russian roulette. Whether they want to screw you or not...

And the odds of winning here aren't that high.

Simply put, if you take a six-shot revolver and load four cartridges into it, then the game will be comparable to cooperation with a corporation. And everyone knows it very well, but everyone still thinks that he will not make the mistakes of those losers who got burned on such cooperation.

"Biotech? Nomads guarding the fields?"

I looked at Mitch in surprise. I knew from the game's canon that something like this was supposed to be in this world, but to face it in reality...

"You heard me, right? My tone is beaming with pride at the job Saul has found for us. Except I'm not going to go up against him..."

I shrugged.

"I wasn't suggesting that. let's get back to the car. There are a couple of things we can do to make it faster and more maneuverable. I think Scorpio would appreciate that."

"Come on."

Mitch hummed and he and I walked to the car, getting back to work.

A couple more hours of work and we stepped away from the car.

Were we satisfied?

No doubt about it...

"Call Scorpio, have him check the car."

"Uh-huh. I'm calling. Hey, uh, can you help me look at some of the other cars in the clan?

"No problem..."

I shrugged realizing that now I would definitely have something to do this vacation...