A couple days passed while I holed up in my workshop and worked on stuff. Specifically, while I produced several other Foundries. I now had three of the large industrial-sized ones set up around the cave. A fourth lay in pieces inside my Aether bunker in case I ever needed to bail. Working my way back up from the bottom would be way easier if the worst came to pass.

The machinery for Quantum Automation was also coming along rather nicely. I had one of my Foundries dedicated to it, and it’d take somewhere around a week and a half to get everything ready. The other I had set to keep pumping out Roughriders, while the last I reserved for experimentation. Specifically, for experimenting with the power armor components as well as a few other things.

The power armor was mostly done as far as I was concerned. A bit rough, and looked a little too much like a prototype in my opinion. A fresh coat of paint would take care of that, though. I just needed to hand it over to Mira, and then let her choose what color scheme she wanted to rock with.

Outside of that, I kept in loose contact with the other three. Mira and Saint were busy doing menial jobs for her troubleshooter agency. To be fair, most of the jobs that came her way were menial. Troubleshooters were still just too new, so no one went to them with something major instead of tried and tested mercs.

Luna, on the other hand, actually hung around with me quite a bit while we worked on various things. The website was almost ready to be launched. I just needed to set up servers and stuff for it. We spent quite a bit of time working on the companion for her based off of CJ29 after I finished Mira’s armor.

Working gave me too much time to think about Mickey’s death—about what I could do better in the future. About my failures as a leader before, during, and even after the job. Err—maybe not after? The job was still in progress as far as the interface and eidolons were concerned. The request hadn’t cleared.

I ran through dozens of simulations of how I could’ve done things better. The most important thing, though, was trusting them. As much as I hated to admit it, I wasn’t the best at everything. Having people around that could fill in for my weaknesses would be incredibly handy. It was pointless to have them around if I never used them, though.

Filling in weaknesses was what brought us down here, to my workshop. They just weren’t my weaknesses, after all. I carefully inspected the metal chassis one last time and then shut the access panel. The robot was based heavily off of Blue Crusade Inc’s jaegers, of course. I gave it more than a few modifications though.

For one, my model wasn’t a dog. It was a fox. I modeled it after myself, actually. I set up a scanner and then flicked on my silver sprite form to take a perfect model. I’d never admit it, but I could see why Mira thought I looked so cute like that.

The actual fox itself wasn’t that complicated to put together. It had the usual features—a shock maw, a chemical analysis suite, full-spectrum optics, scent arrays, and even more specialized sensors. It was like a highly specialized recon unit. It lacked the wings of my Dragonflies, but it was far more capable of capturing all sorts of data.

Actually, if this worked out, maybe I could send a copy to Uncle Ezra? The military would probably be interested in a disposable, mostly-autonomous recon unit. Especially if I modified the sensors for the dessert to track Fedra forces and the more monstrous creatures out there.

“Do you have it ready?” I asked Luna and tapped the fox lightly on the head. It was shut off at the moment, so it just sat there like a statue. It was covered in a synthetic fur that acted to absorb sound, thermals, and everything in between. Even with that, though, it was noticeably a robot with the dim glows and metallic lines beneath the fur.

“Yeah.” Luna rolled over to me in one of my chairs with her deck on her lap. “You sure this’ll work?”

”It should.” I pulsed the robotic fox with Technical Expertise one more time. Everything looked in order. “It just needs some intelligence.”

Luna hesitated for a moment, and then directly jacked her deck into a small metal orb in her lap. Small indents and lines across the orb pulsed with a faint, icy light. The blue glow was a perfect match for the shade of blue the runner made her crescent moon logo of. “It’s ready.”

I nodded and checked her deck. Lines of code flashed by. “You mind?”

”Just don’t break anything.” She passed over the deck, though watched me like a hawk.

“I won’t.” I accepted her deck and ran Badger’s Code Scan on the flowing wall of scripts and codes. The subroutine core was actually stuff I could make sense of since it related into robotics and automation. Even without the code scan, I could’ve eventually scanned through it. The Perk just made it way easier.

A red interface window flashed and lit up just next to the deck. There were 35,000 errors in the wall of text. Most of them were minor things that came with the territory of running off of spaghetti code. There were just as many issues in adapting a different SAI for our purposes, though.

The basis for this core, CJ29, had been built up across an uncountable number of iterations by the Crusade. Luna had done a great job pruning through the code and strengthening the intelligence of the machine since I first got her the copy. The fact that there were only 35,000 errors was a testament to that.

”It’s not quite ready yet.” I scrolled through her deck and pointed the issues out slowly but surely. The biggest issues were the allegiance codes and viruses that slipped through. The Crusade’s runners had left more than a few nasty surprises for anyone who tried to copy their jaegers.

Luna and I went back and forth over the code for hours. For the most part, issues were pretty easy to fix. Between my knowledge of robotics and hers with everything else, we hammered through the errors quickly. Not to mention Luna could take care of several at a time. Just as the sun started to go down, we got all the way through the list.

Luna lurched back into the chair and spun around while rubbing at her wrist. Being jacked into something for so long caused some serious strain. “Is that all of them?”

”I think so.” I suppressed a yawn and grabbed the deck once more. I sent another scan through—oh. My stomach dropped. “Um… there’s now two hundred thousand.”

”How did we make that many more?!” Luna groaned and flopped a thin arm over her head. “S-should I just make my own from scratch?”

“… do you want to?” It wasn’t impossible, per se… it’d just take a ton of time and effort. We didn’t have the server banks or processing power up and running to make our own, either.

“Not really.” She sighed and lifted her hands in a gimme posture. “I’ll get back to work.”

I closed the deck instead and set it down beside the lifeless husk of the metal fox. “How about we take a break? Most of the issues looked like they stemmed from removing code ensuring allegiance to the Crusade, anyway. Shouldn’t take too long.”

She looked a little unwilling, though relented without much effort on my part. Luna was definitely the type of person to burn herself out on a project and get it done in one go instead of taking breaks. “F-fine.”

The two of us settled back into our chairs, and silence stretched over my workshop… at least, as much silence as there could be considering all the moving machinery and the micro nuclear reactor off to the back side of the place.

”C-can I ask you something?” Luna asked.

”You just did.” I snickered lightly and sat up in my chair. “Shoot.”

”How’d you figure out all of—of this?” She waved a hand widely around the workshop. “I mean, everything I found on you indicated you were just a street rat till a little over a year ago.”

”Luck.” And the eidolons sitting in my corner, ‘course. Or, at least, most of them. I had yet to see any actual opposition toward me from any of them. “A lot of effort, too. This place was built up brick by brick.”

”That didn’t answer my question.” She grumbled and spun around lazily. “Is it good genetics? Your grandfather built up Cold Moon from nothing back in his day, too.”

”Maybe something like that.” I answered noncommittally. “How’d you decide on a crescent moon as your logo?”

”Oh, that?” She glanced toward me and then looked away toward the roof. “My brother and I… we didn’t have the best childhood.”

“I figured.” Not many people did these days. Not to mention most people didn’t become mercs unless they were cocky, desperate, or sucked into it by the people around them. Usually family.

”Yeah, well, worse than whatever you’re thinking of.” She rubbed at the crook of her elbow lightly. “It’s really hot in here. Are you going to hook up an AC?”

“Maybe at some point.” I nodded to her. “The moon?”

”Right.” Her head dropped down, and her white hair covered her face. Just when I thought she wouldn’t say anything more, she continued in a whisper. “D-don’t tell anyone about this, okay?”

“If you don’t want to talk about it, you don’t have to.” Everyone had their secrets. We had a nice thing going between us where neither of us asked anything that touched a bottom line. I didn’t want to break that.

”I… I want to. It’ll give you a bit of perspective on Kaynis and I.” She sighed and brushed a pale hand through her hair. Her lips were pulled into a bitter smile. “My first memories were of white walls.”

”Oh.” White walls weren’t ever a good sign. Hospital was the obvious answer, but context clues said otherwise.

”Y-yeah… we were taken as children to a lab in the middle of the desert.” She shrugged, and her eyes were slightly hazed over like she was talking about some other poor girl. “The first night we left that place, I saw the moon hanging in the sky. I’d never seen something so beautiful before in my life.”

“What, uh, what happened to the lab?” My brain churned with the new information. “Could they be the ones who took Kaynis—“

”No.” Her voice filled with a rare ounce of strength. “The lab was entirely destroyed. I already checked…”

“Sorry…”

“I-it's fine… I just hope he’s still alive.” Her voice cracked, and she shook her head. “Iris and him are the only family I have left.”

“I get it.” Mira and Uncle Ezra were it for me. If anything happened to them—no, something already had, hadn’t it? I’d nearly ripped myself apart trying to find Mira. I couldn’t even imagine how it’d feel if Uncle Ezra had been in a coma the entire time that was happening on top…

What would I do if I had zero traces to go on when hunting for Mira? At least I had ways of finding her. The group that took Kaynis hadn’t left any hint of a trail, and it’d been radio silence since then. He might not even be in the city anymore.

We remained silent for a moment. I walked to a table abandoned off to the side of the place. Unlike the other tables covered in parts, this one held cardboard boxes and abandoned pieces of tech. I pulled out one of my old calling cards and shuffled back to her.

“Check this out.” I tossed the card lightly into her hands and hopped up onto the worktable next to the metal fox. “This thing’s why I asked.”

She clicked the button, and the entire card lit up with holographic flames. Funny, I never noticed how grainy and terrible those holoprojectors had been back then. I was so happy about the calling cards, and now I avoided them like the plague… things were so much simpler back then.

“They’re almost the same.” She turned the card over and watched the holographic flames dance. “Weird.”

”Chek? I noticed it a while ago, but never had a chance to bring it up.” What were the chances we just so happened to have the same logos and stuff? It was like fate had decreed we’d be teammates long ago, or something.

“What made you decide this?” She waved the card at me.

”My family.” I eyed the card and the dancing flames spread across it. Cold Moon—blue fire on a moon. It wasn’t that big of a logical leap. Probably for the best I didn’t use those much. “And it looks cool.”

“Yeah, it does.” She tossed the card back to me. I had to lunge to catch it. As it turned out, Luna wasn’t nearly as good at slinging objects as she was at slinging code. “S-sorry.”

”No problem.” I rubbed at my back and dropped the card onto the table. My legs lightly swung underneath me. “Want to go get something to eat and then get back to it? I know a great burger place.”

“Sure.” She stood up and the chair rolled away. “I could use some fresh air.”

— — —

AN: I’m soo late today. Sorry. The chap for

ended up being 2x as long as I expected it to be, and messed up my timing.