Chapter 72

"David, do we have any plans for today?"

"Nah..."

I shook my head, and finally finished making breakfast and began to put it on plates.

"...I thought we'd spend another day at home today, then go out to the Clan, check on things and work there. Maybe change direction a bit, since the training chips still need your attention..."

"Uh-huh. I'll invite an acquaintance?

I shrugged.

"Invite her over. I don't mind, just let me know if you need to cook something, or if this acquaintance is coming for lunch or dinner..."

Judy's eyes lit up again, then faded again, and she walked calmly over to the bar.

"Are we eating here tonight?"

"No..."

I shook my head.

"We'll eat like we almost always do in the cafeteria. I'll just load our breakfast into the food elevator and that's it..."

"All right. I invited Maiko, she'll be here for dinner. So we'd better make something for the extra guest..."

I nodded a couple times.

"Okay, I will."

"You're the best!"

Judy quickly climbed over the bar and kissed me on the lips. But she pulled away from me pretty quickly and jumped over the bar in the opposite direction and walked toward the stairs, her ass wiggling appetizingly.

"Damn..."

"Uh-huh. she's like that.

Lucy was next to me, though, and I hadn't forgotten she was on the first floor, so I wasn't too surprised.

"What are you doing here?"

"Thought I'd give you a little help..."

Lucy began to help me carry the cooked breakfast into the special elevator while I could see that she was somewhat uncomfortable.

"Lucy, what's wrong?"

"Well. it's just that, frankly, I've been thinking recently... how normal is it that in our crazy company, which threatens to become one crazy family, the only man cooking is the only man?"

"Okay..."

I shrugged.

"...cooking is better for the one who is better at it, but of course it's also good that this reasonable person likes it..."

I was provocatively silent.

"Well, we got lucky here."

I glanced at Lucy, who was looking at me with laughing eyes.

"What, did you want a dramatic pause?"

"Well, uh. yeah."

I saw no point in denying the obvious.

"But, as you can see I failed..."

"Well, if I didn't know you better, I'd believe you're pissed off that you're the one who has to cook. But, uh."

She grinned.

"...You know, remembering how spirited you look when you cook, especially if you're grilling kebabs outdoors, I just can't believe you don't like it."

Now I grinned, too.

"That's the right thing to do."

We loaded up all the breakfast and closing the elevator door I pushed the button for it to elevator it all up to the dining room, which is where Lucy and I headed.

"But, you know. I'd like to learn how to cook."

"Well, if you feel like it, we can make dinner together."

"What are you two talking about?"

Becca, who was already sitting at the table where all the other girls were already gathered, looked at me and Lucy, who was coming up after me, with interest and a certain amount of jealousy.

"It's just that I offered David my help with the cooking."

"You don't know how to..."

"Well, I'm not gonna let her cook anything complicated right away, so let's start with something simple... cutting the food. stirring. nothing complicated."

"I see..."

And we were met with a highly suspicious look.

"What's clear to you?"

"You decided to beat me to it, too?"

"Who knows?"

Lucy grinned and walked with me to the hoist, from which she got the food and began to help me set it on the table. And the talking quickly subsides as the girls begin to just exude the desire to pounce on the food as soon as possible...

"Bon appétit, everyone."

"Uh-huh...

It sounded extremely synchronized and the girls immediately pounced on the food. Literally devouring it. And it warmed my ego...

"Look, we're gonna get so fat."

"Nah..."

I shook my head.

"You won't get fat, we're too active and busy. By the way, I found a funny thing that went out of date forty years ago..."

"Hmm?"

"Well, it's just that I'm still looking for the very shooting gallery I promised Becca, but so far, zero luck, but I found something, probably much more interesting."

"And what did you find?"

"Old virtual reality capsules."

"And what's so interesting about it?"

All the girls looked at me with great interest.

"The whole point is that in addition to the function of the actual immersion in virtual reality, they had the function of maintaining muscle tone."

The girls silently digested my words.

"Are you saying."

"Yeah..."

I nodded to Becca.

"Ideally, if you reprogram such a capsule and use it as a shooting gallery instead of the usual virtual game... It could be just as good as that shooting gallery. Just imagine, combining a virtual capsule that can act on muscles and connection through a connector. We could do a shooting gallery like that."

I shook my head.

"We can work off anything we want!"

"You could put my idea in here..."

Judy bit down thoughtfully on the fingernail of her right thumb.

"...If you change the polarities of the connections a bit, tweak the perception and data transfer..."

"Exactly."

I grinned.

"I think I'm gonna order six of these pods in the near future. And once you've cracked the chips we'll get to work on modernizing them, in addition to Judy's project..."

"Hmmm..."

The Ranershees looked at each other. I could see that they were all interested in the project, as well as Judy's. And now they were literally torn between dropping everything and running off to hack the training chips.

"Okay, let's not get fanfiction, but walking and eating are still on the table. I don't want you to get all gaunt and zombie-ish.

"I mean, food, I get it. No one in their right mind would turn down the delicious food you make. But the walks?"

"You've got to stay physically fit."

I shrugged.

"Well. I think I've had enough of our exercise together. and I think Kiwi would be happy to do this kind of "training" as often as possible."

"Hey hey! You're not the only ones who want to have sex with David! So there's nothing here to talk about how excited you are about these "workouts" and say you're ready for more of them!"

Panam glared unhappily at Judy.

"Actually, we're here too..."

Becca raised her voice, which was slightly disgruntled at being left out of the conversation about sex with me.

"Of course we're here, but the problem is that you and I still haven't gotten into bed with David, so they're ignoring us for now..."

Lucy proved somewhat more restrained in this respect...

And that was the moment Lucy chose to get up from her seat and come over to me and sit on my lap and kiss me on the lips.

"...so, personally, I intend to change this state of affairs as soon as possible, especially for me, as a runner, "training" to maintain physical fitness is very much needed."

"Tz..."

"So..."

I lifted Lucy off of my lap, setting her down beside me while hugging my arm clearly not intending to let me go far from her.

"...enough with the boob measuring. It's pointless and thankless. You better plan your day. I'll try Regina and Bestia for orders. Of course, they won't be able to do any combat orders now, but in terms of weapons repair and maintenance, they can be a go-between...

"What, are you afraid you're gonna blow all your money in a month?"

"Becca, I'm just adequately evaluating our spending... and so far, despite our best efforts, we've had items such as: "major unplanned expenses." The same training chips came out VERY expensive. I expected to pay as much for all of them as one cost... but as you can see."

I shrugged.

"Yes, we sold the information to our fixers, we were able to recover some of the costs, and we raised our reputation in their eyes, as we did not demand anything, allowing them to determine the value of this information for them... But even so, our coffers are pretty thinly filled... and even clearing out the accounts of one scumbag didn't make us much richer."

"Your coffers. ours is filled to capacity. because some asshole spends his money without asking us if we want to invest in the projects or not. And yes, I'm warning you in advance, I'll buy all the parts for my Brains project myself."

Judy looked quite amused as she tried to appear stern.

"No problem..."

I shrugged.

"...your project, do what you want with it."

"I'm good with guns, too, by the way..."

"You're a good shot with it, but you don't know how to modernize it. You might as well learn how to do it, though, when the girls hack the slivers. There was a sliver of tech in there, too. I think if you have the will, you'll be up to speed in six months to a year. Especially if the capsule idea works out, where we can practice most of our skills."

"Okay..."

My eyes lit up and I decided to dial Regina first.

"I'm not giving out orders right now. I already told you that."

"Yeah, yeah. I don't mean about the orders, I mean about them, but not the ones you might think. I just figured since you're on break, the solos who work for you have a window. And if they have a window, they might want to upgrade their weapons..."

"Go on..."

"In general, I can offer my services as a gunsmith for gun maintenance and upgrades."

"That's, uh. interesting. I'll do a mailing to my solos, I think a lot of them will want to take advantage of this offer. What about the price?"

"Materials plus a ten percent markup in the quality of the work."

"Pretty... cheap."

"So I'm not a corporate guy who wants to take the last pants off the people around me..."

"Also true. Anyway, I'll pass on your offer. I think some of my solos would definitely be interested."

"All right. (chuckles)"

We broke the connection, and then I dialed Bestia and gave her the same message. And she naturally agreed. But she still managed to surprise me.

"I'll send a couple of my thugs over to you, see what they got in the way of weapons?"

"No problem..."

"Will you give your fixer a discount?"

"No, I don't."

"Greedy..."

There was no resentment in her reply, but rather a slight sneer mixed with understanding and approval.

"...however, I'm the same way myself, without payment I won't even scratch."

"That's right..."

I grinned.

"...in general, my proposal I told you, you heard me, and now let me take my leave, we have guests planned today, we need to a little f... to make something delicious."

"Uh-huh. I see what you're doing. All right, communications dot.

"I'll be in touch."

The connection's been severed.

"So, I warned the fixers, so we're waiting for orders, Bestia threatened to send us her thugs to work on their weapons... so there will be work to be done. In the meantime. Judy, how exactly do you want to destroy your friend?"