“So… are we going to talk about it?” Mira swirled a can of XtraEnergy Quantum around. The liquid sloshed around the can noisily. It sounded even louder in the relative silence of the room.

All four of us were gathered around a booth in the back corner of my speakeasy. A soft chandelier lit up the treated surface of the table with a soft glow, and gentle neon reflected form around the walls. If nothing else, Squeaky Clean was improving my mood slightly.

A TV set up on the backside of the speakeasy was pulled up onto a screamstream discussing the drug-induced suicide of a member of high society—Mickey Mays. Yeah, we were on the news. Thankfully, though, it didn’t seem anyone suspected foul play as much as they suspected Mickey looked for an upper and mixed too many drugs that shouldn’t have been mixed.

I didn’t look up. “Do we… have to?”

My plan fell apart. It was obvious what the issues were—I just didn’t prep enough. I was trying that thing Mira always insisted I do, and it backfired. Flying by the seat of my pants just didn’t work. I should’ve spent another two weeks making plans before initiating the hit on Mickey. Not to mention everything else that went wrong throughout.

Even then, though… that was blaming Mira for my own issues, wasn’t it? There were deeper problems that lurked just below the surface from start to finish. I just… I didn’t really want to point them out quite yet.

“I think it’ll have some merit.” Saint tapped the table idly with his finger. “How are we going to improve if we don’t discuss it?”

”I-I’m with Shiro,” Luna said without even looking up from her deck. Her fingers clacked around endlessly on the thing. “Can we put this off till later?”

“Later?” Mira snorted and set her can down. She crossed her arms with a metallic creak from her Shift ExoCore. ”Oh, your bad habits are rubbing off on little Luna.”

“I’m older than you.” Luna finally looked away from her deck with a soft glow to her eyes. She looked like she was this close to ‘pranking’ Mira with a not so friendly quick hack.

”Do it.” The halo atop Mira’s head pulsed with light. “See what happens.”

”Let’s not fight? Please?” Saint sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Okay, if you don’t want to talk about it, then how about we discuss where we’re going from here?”

”I don’t know.” I sighed and leaned back in my chair. They were right though. Avoiding the issue wouldn’t make it go away.“Look, it was my fault entirely. I’ll take the blame for this one.”

”We don’t have to assign blame, Shiro.” Mira patted my shoulder lightly. “This isn’t a game with clear-cut fault. If we really want to go there, its entirely my fault for failing to hold him down. I’m the bruiser, and I had the simplest job of all of us.”

Luna closed her deck wiht a soft snap. I didn’t think she’d ever look away from it. ”A-and it was my fault for not cutting his chrome’s connection. I also didn’t tell you guys what kind of chrome he had. I should’ve gathered more intel as the runner.”

“That’s not fair.” I threw my hands up in the air, and a light bolt of electricity discharged up into the chandelier. It flickered for a moment and then resettled. “Sorry. You all thought he was unconscious, which is ultimately my fault.”

“Or its my fault for not pushing you harder when I asked about the drug the first time around.” Saint casually threw himself into the firing line next. “And for not recognizing that the stuff was Suna when you mixed it in.”

But Saint wasn’t even supposed to be there if my original plan went through. It, again, was ultimately my fault. I didn’t trust them enough to incorporate them into my larger plan to begin with. What was the point of having a team if I wasn’t going to actually use them for anything?

Not to mention I rushed things… that could be considered a bit of their fault, though. Granted, my original plan definitely wouldn’t have worked at the penthouse. It totally slipped my mind that a rich stooge would throw his parties at private penthouse suites instead of clubs. I was just stupid, really.

I flinched and rubbed at the crook of my elbow. After my time at SPS, I had an eerily similar mental conversation with myself. Back then, the question had been what was the point of having the interface if I wasn’t smart enough to use them? The situation was totally different, but still close enough for the question to remain.

Was I being arrogant? I just assumed I could handle it, and if I couldn’t, there was no issue. I could always tug on my Spectral Flock and get away. Or was that just complacency raising its ugly head once more? I turned my thoughts even deeper inward, and thought through every part of the job.

”We can sit here all day assigning blame.” Mira picked up her can and sloshed it around once more. “Or, like Saint said, we can try to make a plan going forward.

“Chek.” I shook my head and tucked a lock of silver behind my ear. “Okay… what do we have to work with? What do we know?”

”Mickey’s dead.” Luna pulled out her deck and flipped it around for us to see the Blue Crusade’s report. They moved quick, and had already swept it under the rug as a tentative suicide, though investigation was still pending. The screamstreams were right for once.

”That’s…” I stared at the red smear that the man had turned into and my stomach rolled slightly. “Just—can we wait a minute? I’ll be right back.”

I slid out of the booth before anyone could stop me and headed for the bar. It took me a minute to remember exactly where I put it, but I pulled out one of my holopucks. I thought I’d use them at the bar for some holographic war games or something, but I hadn’t quite gotten around to it yet.

”Use this.” I activated the puck and tossed it onto the table.

“R-right.” Luna popped up the report so we could all see it much more clearly.

“What are we after this guy for, anyway? He piss one of you guys off?” Mira asked.

”He has something I want.” I nodded to Luna. “Where are his assets going?”

”T-to the city council for the next couple days unless they find an heir.” Luna glanced at Mira and then looked at me. I slowly shook my head. “It’s doubtful though. I looked, and couldn’t find one. As far as I can tell, he’s the last of his line.”

“Can we pose as a distant cousin?” Saint asked. “He must’ve had hundreds of millions in assets, right?”

”Chek, but posing as a relative is so much harder than you think.” I looked into it when trying to take over Cold Moon. There was zero chance we’d be able to fool the system in this regard. At least, not without an insane amount of legwork. “We’re better off tracking the assets after the council deals with them.”

“Th-that’ll be a couple days.” Luna pulled away from the hologram, and instead replaced it with the shimmering symbol of a half moon. “They won’t claim them until their investigators make sure their’s no heir.”

“Let me know as soon as something changes.” I slid out of the booth, took the puck back, and slid it into my bag. It wouldn’t hurt to start carrying it around. “In the meantime, let’s try to lay low just in case.”

Mira sighed and slammed down the rest of her energy drink. She looked particularly depressed, and her halo’s light dropped to a dim glow. ”I’ll go back to finding lost cats.”

“Is it really that bad?” Saint asked.

Mira shrugged. “Maybe not for well-known figures. I get the dregs that don’t want to pay full price, though. It’d be nice to have something else hit my desk.”

“I’ve been meaning to write some articles about what it’s like to be a Troubleshooter.” Saint slid out of the booth. “Mind if I tag along?”

“I’d appreciate the company. It’s so boring at the moment.” Mira stood up next to me. “You’ll be fine, Shiro?”

”Chek… I’ve got a mountian of work left, anyway.” I nodded to the back of the speakeasy. “You guys are welcome by anytime.”

”Maybe once you actually get this place up and running.” Saint stood up and looked around. “It’s nice, but no drinks is a bit…”

”I’ll work on that.” No idea where I’d find a chef and bartender yet. The alcohol license was also up in the air, as was where I’d source the stuff. Once I got the building, I’d have to figure out all of that. Maybe I could make a robot bartender? I could totally use the Industry Friends from the purification plant as a baseline.

I left the three of them behind and descended into my workshop. As for work—well, I wasn’t exactly lying. I headed over to my foundry and got to work on Mira’s power armor. It was almost done, and just needed some final touches. While I worked on that, my mind drifted to some other issues I’d noticed recently.

Notably, I lacked a consistent source of heavy fire power. Aside form my pistol, I danced around a dozen different rifles whenever I was needed them. Most of my actual firepower came from Aether Imbuement, and I’d yet to actually make something more powerful. I needed to find a Magi or Adept I could work with to advance in that regard, and I just hadn’t quite yet. Maybe I could get Vulpes or Corvid to help me?

The biggest issue with heavy fire arms, of course, was weight and size. Except—I already had solutions to both, didn’t I? Weight could be taken care of with a microscopic array of Gravitic chambers. Size would be way more complicated, but something I could manage now that I had the industrial foundry up and running.

I finished up the power armor, transmuted a bunch of materials, and dumped them into my Foundry. Then, I set the beast of the machine to start making the parts to quickly assemble a second Foundry. My workshop had a lot of empty space, and it was time I started to fix that. Not to mention more production lines would accelerate my Roughrider output. I’d need to make a Nano CNC machine at some point too. The Foundries could do it, but more intricate parts would need specialized equipment.

With that taken care of, I sat back in my chair with my notebook and got to work on actually designing everything I’d need to get started on the smaller side of Quantum Automation. More specifically, the parts and machinery I’d need to kick my quantum dreams into gear.

Nanites and nano-machines were still just out of my reach at the moment. The Nano CNC machine would be a step in the right direction. The biggest issue was getting equipment that could work at that small of a level. I’d have to stop using mechanical fabrication, and instead focus on using microscopic laser beams to mold and work the parts at that level.

I slowly got to work designing the things I’d need for the future. I went ahead and made a mockup of a more humanoid looking Industry Friends too, just in case. Having a humanoid robot might come in handy even if I didn’t end up using one as a robotic bartender.