AN: Yeah, so at least this one is coming out quicker than the last one did, right? Unfortunately that comes at a cost, some possibly excessive time spent on just crafting. I know that's kind of the point of CF stories, but it still feels weirdly self-indulgent. That being said, I hope you enjoy it regardless.

I have not yet managed to decide whether or not to switch to V3 of the Forge. For now I'm still using V2. Might be subject to change, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there, right?

In other news, I'm thinking about posting the story to either SB or SV. Probably will go up by the end of the week.

After my meeting with Ari Shuster concluded, I was left with a lot to think about. Mostly about what my next step really should be, after all this business with fake IDs and documentation was done with. I, of course, had my idea of selling some chem recipes to make a fortune, but that could end up causing unforeseen consequences. While I wanted to have some sort of legal existence regardless of how I chose to proceed, what came next was a mystery.

Right now I was working on the lower rungs of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Securing continued food, drink, shelter, and safety. But once I was "safe" it was hard to say if I'd actually move on to the higher needs. Without a solid goal, it was highly likely that I'd just stop trying and settle for safety without accomplishing anything of note with my life.

That would be terrible, since I could already tell with what few gears I had in Mechanus that I'd be able to change the world if I applied myself.

But, of course, right now I was still busy establishing myself. Discovering a goal at this stage, when I was too occupied to work towards it, would be pointless. So, my navel gazing session over with, I moved on to an unrelated topic.

I needed to get to work. Not just because Master Craftsman made all of my concoctions outdated, but because I really didn't feel ready. Despite volunteering myself, I wasn't too sure about doing any jobs for Shuster. The man seemed trustworthy, of course, but that didn't mean I trusted myself. Presumably whatever he'd have for me would fall under "cape work" rather than labor anyone could do.

In my case, it entirely fell on my shoulders to make sure I was prepared. I'd build things myself or I'd be helpless. It was that simple, almost relieving, honestly. Looming deadlines were practically the greatest motivation I could wish for. And at least I wasn't someone damned by impractical powers.

First I'd need to get to my workshop. I had been walking back to the Black Shul while thinking about my priorities, and upon arrival I hurried down to Hoffman's office in the basement. After rapping my fist on the door, I waited.

"It's open!" the rabbi called out.

Alright then. I pushed open the door and walked in. He was closing up his laptop, no doubt so that he could give his full attention to me. "Good afternoon. I hope this isn't a bad time…?"

"It's fine, I was worried about you anyways. Did everything go well?"

"Yeah, that's one of the things I wanted to talk to you about. Went fine, everything should be taken care of by the end of the week," I informed him.

He looked a bit surprised, probably about the ETA for my desired results. "Congratulations. But enough about that, you said that was only part of what you wished to discuss."

"Right… Well, you see, I was wondering if this Shul has any storage area I could work in for a bit. Somewhere no one goes normally," I requested, really hoping that he'd have a place in mind. "I've got some tinkering ideas but nowhere to work. Honestly, I'm becoming a little antsy." That was a small lie, I was perfectly fine being lazy and not working if I could have an excuse, but it would hopefully convince him to acquiesce to my needs.

"Hmmmm, well there is the boiler room. Lots of odds and ends there, since it's also used to store junk, and no one would have any reason to intrude. But you'd better not dismantle our heating. It isn't cheap to replace, boy."

That'd work. Well, anyplace with a door would work. All I cared about was subtlety. The parts were inconsequential, even with Engineering Basics I still lacked the tools and knowledge to really make something worthwhile in a reasonable amount of time. A quiet place where I could leave my space open and also had the option of grabbing a coffee upstairs when needed? Yeah, that was basically meeting all my standards.

"I can't thank you enough, Rabbi. You just keep on helping me, I don't feel like I deserve it," I told the man with complete sincerity. It wasn't even just this, I felt like everything I had gotten was undeserved. It was like that song dayenu, even one or two of the things I received, both from Mechanus and the people around me, would have been adequate. Instead I was assaulted with a veritable smorgasbord of power from my growing collection of gears and assistance from everyone I approached.

Chaim Hoffman shook his head and shot back "Don't be foolish, Eliezer. Everyone deserves everything they get, by virtue of receiving it. You aren't being given handouts, your own choices led you to this moment. If you didn't choose to trust me with your problems… Well, I doubt we'd ever have this conversation, right?"

Fair enough, I suppose. It didn't exactly make me feel less indebted, but that sort of philosophy at least helped assuage any concerns about him believing that I owed him a lot. "R-Regardless, I'll find a way to pay you back. Just wait and see."

"If that gives you peace of mind, then do as you like. Moving back to the main topic, though, just go left after leaving my office, then take the door at the end of the hall. There's no carpet and the walls are just insulation so you'll know if you somehow use the wrong door," he hurried me along. "Now get going, I've got Shayles to answer." He opened up his laptop and began to type, probably answering questions over E-Mail or something.

Leaving him to his work, I followed the given directions. As I had hoped, the door had a keyhole. I turned it experimentally, and unsurprisingly it ended up being unlocked. Wandering in, I made my way through the cluttered room, ducking under some low hanging pipes, until I reached the boiler right as Mechanus accumulated another trickle of energy. No new gears, unfortunately. I turned my attention back to the heating.

It didn't take an engineer to tell the system was outdated. Of course, I was an engineer, or at least had the knowledge of a spacefaring one. Just at a glance I could already see where a bit of finetuning would fix things up. I didn't come down here to fix it, but since I had already been talking about paying Hoffman back earlier it struck me that working on this a little would be a nice bit of compensation for letting me use the room in the first place.

I'd just make it a little more efficient and fix some damage. I knew how to do it thanks to the gears installed in my brain, and The Right Tools for the Job meant that I had everything I needed short of new components to implement my changes. A year or two more and they'd need to call in a professional to repair or replace the boiler, but I figured I could maybe double that period.

Despite this just being a diversion, I was finding some value in the experience. As my hands danced around the system, materializing tools as needed to fiddle with things, I got a much better sense of the breadth of knowledge afforded to me by Engineering Basics. What I had previously thought was just a bundle of knowledge actually included a fair bit of muscle memory. I was using tools I had never so much as touched before with nearly the same ease that I handled familiar chemistry equipment.

After approximately half an hour of work I could safely say that the heating bill would be going down for this synagogue. My gut feeling, which thanks to my engineering knowledge was pretty good in this regard, told me that I may have added half a decade to this fossil of a boiler's lifespan just with my casual fixes.

That really didn't make much sense to me, though. Perhaps Master Craftsman also affected things I fixed, to some extent? If it did that would mean even my slipshod repair work would be near the peak of what was possible.

Well, no use dwelling on it. I had work to do!

I meandered back over to the door and inserted my key. Home sweet home, once again. First things first, my regularly scheduled warehouse survey. Luckily the only gear I got that added anything to the dimension since last I checked was the Body Shop, so this shouldn't take too long. While I didn't know quite what it contained just yet, I still knew where to find it.

A trip down the stairs, right past the gooery which I still couldn't find a use for beyond drugs, was a new door. I opened it up. And then I closed it again in a hurry as I took a few moments to process what I had seen.

I had thought the Shipyard was large, but this was on a whole other level. It suddenly struck me what the Body Shop actually was. Body parts from every species in the world. Though I had the notion that this would only include animals, that still left… hell if I know how many! The estimates escaped me for now, but I was positive that it was more than one million. And I had all of them. While most of them would be small bugs, they'd each get their own container. It was like an endless warehouse filled end to end with rows of transparent storage containers of varying sizes.

Whatever, fine, this was fine. I opened the door back up and walked in. The biggest issue here, aside from the sheer size, was the lack of organization. There were a bunch of tiny boxes with preserved insects near the door, and I think I spotted something that may have been a mole a few rows over. Uh, there were some birds also?

Yeah, if this thing had any sort of system for how it was arranged then I wasn't comprehending it. Without some sort of boost to my abilities, I'd be hard pressed to find any specific thing I needed here. However there were two things that caught my eye.

The first point of interest was the frankly enormous cockroach that I could see. Now, for all I knew, it might have just been some sort of subspecies of horseshoe crab or something. Or, equally likely, it was a radroach from Fallout. Could go either way, I didn't have the encyclopedic knowledge of all lifeforms to say for certain. If it was a radroach, though, then that implied the presence of parts from settings that my various gears were drawing from.

The Chemist gear had a lot of recipes that would be way easier with Fallout critters providing their bodies. And if I could find necromorph parts, because I was almost positive Dead Space was where my engineering gear came from, that opened up some interesting avenues as well. Hell, I could make a deathclaw gauntlet! It may not be very practical, but it would be awesome.

But, once again, there was the issue of how fucking large and disorganized this area was. Finding one specific species would take hours at least, unless I was blessed by absurd levels of luck. Besides, I didn't really have enough "wet" skills yet to make that search worthwhile. When I could start playing Frankenstein with the dead it'd be less of a waste of time.

Of course there was also the second thing of interest. Most of these containers were pretty small, since they were storing animals rather than machinery. Not so for one very specific item that could probably be seen no matter where I stood. An absurdly humongous glass cube storing an equally humongous crystalline mass that kept changing around in a way that made me uncomfortable. It reminded me of videos demonstrating what it'd be like for a four dimensional object to move through our plane of three dimensional space. It was suspended around the middle of the room like a disco ball from hell.

Even with my lacking knowledge, I could tell that wasn't a normal organism. Hell, if it wasn't for the fact that it was in the Body Shop I would never even think to describe it as part of a living creature! As yet another trickle of energy flowed into Mechanus without acquiring a new gear, I struggled to come up with some sort of explanation. Even assuming Fallout and Dead Space creatures could show up here, there still was no matching organism in those settings.

No answer was forthcoming, so I decided to shelve it for now. Make no mistake about it, though, I would come back for it once I had more relevant skills and knowledge. My curiosity had been piqued, after all. Not like I'd be able to forget about it anyways, what with being able to see it clearly anytime I walked in and all.

Well, that was a nice detour but I really needed to get started on my crafting session. I walked back to my chemistry workshop and got to work. First things first, I wanted my mentats to be perfect. At this point I had no illusions that I was addicted to some degree, but it was really unavoidable. They were serving as a substitute for my ADHD meds, after all. Without them I'd have a hard time focusing, so even if I used Fixer or Addictol to remove my dependency it would just end in me developing the addiction again.

If I was going to be using a drug regularly, I wanted to be sure it was the best I could make it.

Synthesis went a lot smoother than the first time I tried it. Knowing the proper steps for the reaction from the start, and Wired Watchmaker keeping them perfectly clear in my mind, sped up the workflow. Before I knew it, my labor had produced enough of the active ingredient to replicate with my bucket. I could have stopped there, of course, but, well, I was sick of the foul tasting mentat water.

I saved enough of the solution for future replication and then set about extracting the dissolved active ingredient from a large volume. While that was being vacuum dried I mixed together some of the flavoring that went into the mentat variants. Since I was trying to make them easier to get down, I might as well improve the taste too, right? I omitted the parts that subtly changed the chem's function, though. I just wanted a normal rush of clarity.

By the time I was finished, I had a few dozen tablets. I popped one into my mouth, noting the fact that I had gone a bit too heavy on the orange flavoring, and swallowed. So far so good, much easier than the liquid variant. And, a few minutes later, I also felt the effects. My old batch was subtle, to the point where I didn't really notice when they kicked in and only saw the difference once they wore off.

These new pills, made to be better than masterwork, were more like being hit with a hammer of sobriety. My mind was so clear, as clear as a crisp spring morning. I didn't even know how the hell this was meant to work! Was it something about the purity of the compound enhancing the effect or was Master Craftsman just making it conceptually better without any physical backing? This was proof enough that remaking all my chems and solutions as masterworks would be worth the effort.

Kind of bittersweet to know that, since it meant I couldn't justify being lazy and procrastinating with it. With the enhanced mentats boosting my mind, I decided on the best way to prioritize my upgrades.

To start with, I'd be leaving my Endangerol as is. While I had no doubt that I could make it better, I did have doubts about if I should. I didn't want to kill anyone if I could help it, after all, and a masterwork quality vulnerability serum sounded like an easy way to turn a nonlethal blow into a deadly affair. Maybe with more knowledge, maybe some other chemistry related gear, I could figure out how to selectively enhance only duration. But, as I was now, it'd probably just be an all around bonus to effectiveness.

Next on the list, I decided to remake the Pax syringes. Something like that had the potential to end a fight in a moment, assuming my only objective was to get the hell away from whoever was attacking me, so it only made sense. Unfortunately I couldn't test any of the Syringer payloads out like I did with the mentats, since currently my only available guinea pig was, well, me.

Anything I'd be happy to inject into someone attacking me had no business in my body.

After some thought, I decided to leave aside the Yellow Belly syringes. I really didn't want to see what a masterwork chemically induced panic attack looked like. So I moved on to the Mind Cloud solution. Now this would be great! If the normal variant was enough to erase one's presence from the injected's mind, I could only imagine what the buffed version would do.

While I waited for the time intensive reactions to finish, I started to work on a little upgrade to my delivery method. A syringe was fine and all, but I didn't know how easy it would be to inject someone during a struggle. Even if I got the needle in, I'd still need to press down. So I was going to make some autoinjectors!

First things first, I ran a little test. First I tried to use Right Tools for the Job to bring a regular syringe to hand for the purpose of drawing and transferring a liquid from one container to another.

It worked, as expected.

Next level of difficulty, I tried to create a syringe for the purpose of drawing and injecting myself with one of the myriad regenerative compounds I had made during my stimpak experiment yesterday. Once again, I found that it worked. I also noted that I couldn't actually create it with the compound already inside the syringe. So, even if I did just create syringes as I needed them, I'd still have to take the time to fill them from a pre existing source. Of course I instinctively knew I couldn't do this in the middle of combat anyways.

As a trickle of energy once again pooled within Mechanus without any new gears, I went to the final level of my test. I tried to use Right Tools for the Job to create a syringe with the intent of drawing Endangerol and injecting it into another human being I wished to harm. This time it didn't work. So that was another limit of that particular gear, that I couldn't use the created tool in combat even if I tried to prepare it ahead of time.

What that meant, essentially, was that if I were to create autoinjectors I'd need to make a new one for each injection rather than using Right Tools for the Job to always have it available once made. Of course, either way, I'd have to make at least one of them. While legal to purchase without a prescription in New York, at least in my version of New York, there were still enough caveats that the gear wouldn't use them unless I already owned one. The only reason I could even access regular, non auto injecting, needles was that the chemistry workshop came with them.

So I started to scavenge in the clutter around the boiler room, mainly for springs and some things I could use as pistons. I wasn't too worried about the quality, since my knowledge of how to construct an autoinjector in the first place came from the Chemist gear. A recipe that was meant to be possible even centuries after a nuclear war was one that didn't just allow for but actually counted on having shoddy salvaged parts.

In comparison to what I could work with, the pieces I was finding here may as well be pristine.

Every component I collected was carefully cleaned and placed into an autoclave for further sterilization while I checked back on my synthesizing concoctions. Yeah, it all seemed to be fine. Overall, a very productive few hours!

At this point, stuck waiting for the autoclave to finish cycling and my chems to finish cooking, I decided to spend some time exploring the Body Shop. There were some Fallout critters I wanted to use, if I could only track them down in the disorganized mess of limbs.

Now that I was actually walking around it, I was starting to see some semblance of organization to it. Maybe it was the new mentats boosting my insight, but now I noticed that the samples near the door were mainly bugs and other small creatures. As I went deeper inside, there was a subtle upward trend in size for the animals I saw. And, of course, the biggest specimen of them all, the giant mess of crystals, seemed to be in the center. In other words, the bigger the animal I was looking for the deeper I'd need to go.

It wasn't even close to efficient, but at least I now had some idea of how to find what I wanted. I went deeper in, until the specimens around me got big enough.

In a moment of insight I climbed on top of a pile of containers filled with large dogs and some fish I couldn't identify to try to get a better view of the area. Even then it still took me some time, but eventually I picked out an abjectly horrifying sight. An absurdly large black scorpion, something I had no trouble recognizing. That was my first major target, the radscorpion. Its venom glands would find some very important use in my laboratory!

I made a beeline over and cracked open the container. Words cannot describe the revulsion I felt. Bugs were never something I was good with, even videos of normal bees could make me anxious, and now here I was ready to start carving away at the scariest goddamn arachnid I'd ever seen.

Well… Guess, I'd take a few minutes to psych myself up.

That was a horrible experience and I never wanted to do anything like it again. In the end, I went and harvested half a dozen giant glands. Thankfully, Right Tools for the Job let me get a bag to hold them with. If I needed to feel them the whole time I carried them back I was liable to eat the damn things and end my misery. I was going to extract every last drop of venom from these things, so that my bucket could produce an endless supply and save me from going back to the source for more.

First, though, I needed to get the other critter on my shopping list. I'd need some nightstalker blood to create Hydra. Regeneration in a bottle was too important to not grab, so this was well worth the time spent. Unfortunately, finding the abominable mix of coyote and rattlesnake took a while. Unlike the radscorpion's large and distinct appearance, I only really remembered these as dogs with a snake-like tail. And, due to the fact that it was sized similarly to other canines, I ended up with many false alarms where I got excited only to realize it was a normal, non-reptilian, animal.

Size was a really awful way to organize every species in multiple universes. It wasn't even by mass, just how much physical space a creature occupied. Moronic! Exactly what I'd expect from a storage for supplies suited for a mad scientist.

Regardless, I did end up finding the Nightstalker parts. Like everything else in the Body Shop, there were some blood filled jars placed with the limbs. Thankfully I wouldn't be needing to manually extract like I did with the radscorpions. I just grabbed the jars and hurried back to the workshop.

I Can Whip Something Up (My Life As A Teenage Robot) (100CP)

Well, that would have been useful for the start of this crafting session. Essentially I was now immune to any of the negative effects of overwork on creation, from creative burnout to simple mistakes from exhaustion. Now I really had no excuse not to fully throw myself into my work, because recreation and leisure wouldn't be needed from now on.

Ha, no. Not even this change to the workings of my brain would remove my laziness. Besides, I had this feeling that literally everything other than my craftsmanship would suffer from exhaustion. In other words, I might be able to work 23 hours a day, seven days a week, but I'd fail as a human being if I tried to do literally anything other than work in that condition.

Still, it really would have been nice if I had that helping me as I wandered the Body Shop. By the time I had finished in there, I was being driven only by the sunk costs fallacy. The prospect of going in there again without some sort of plan or method to actually find what I needed was daunting, but now I could probably withstand the mental tax it took on me.

After storing the venom glands and blood for later use, I checked up on the brewing Pax and Mind Cloud. Looked like they were ready for use, so I quickly bottled them up and disposed of the old, not masterwork, mix so I wouldn't get them confused. Then I retrieved the freshly sterilized odds and ends I was going to use for my autoinjector project.

You're all junk, but I'll make a wonderful use for you yet!

Crafting with the worst parts was practically what Chemist was built around, hence why it was so easy for me to make most of its recipes using modern equipment and resources. Ironically, with random bits of junk in my hand and ready for assembly, it was a lot easier to see how to reach my end result.

After only a few minutes of fiddling around, the work moving so fast because I knew exactly what to do and how to do it, I had my first autoinjector. In theory, it should work. Practically, I wanted to test it out before seriously using it. A quick trip to the Body Shop got me the corpse of some sort of squirrel. I took my new creation, which looked vaguely similar to an epipen, and pushed it into the dead flesh. I heard the click of the spring being released, waited for a few moments, and pulled it out.

Most of the water I had filled it with for the test was now gone, so presumably it had been properly injected. Well, that was good enough for me! Now that I knew it would work, I could make a bunch filled with chems. Resources permitting, of course

But first I probably should check my phone. I had silenced it much earlier because I really hated getting interrupted by ringing, and only now was realizing that silencing a phone while waiting for an important message was very counterintuitive. When I checked, though, I realized that even if I hadn't silenced it I still would have missed any attempts to contact me.

No service.

In hindsight, maybe expecting a phone from the early 2010s to work inside of a pocket dimension connected to the world by a door in a basement was a bit foolish. For all I knew, I could have missed plenty of calls. That would be embarrassing.

Well, it was probably time for a break anyways. Now that I had a new gear that would help me ignore the effects of overwork, it was even more important that I remembered to pace myself. Much like how losing the sensation of pain would result in unknowingly getting injured, I'd be totally able to keep working up until the point I was physically incapable of continuing.

I exited my workplace, making sure to close the dimension behind me, and headed upstairs. About halfway up the steps, the burner phone, which I had unsilenced when I checked it, started buzzing about the texts it suddenly received all at once. Before reading what I'd missed, I finished my ascent and went to sit on a small bench against one of the walls.

Alright, time to see what was what.

So, a missed call was first in line. Afterwards came the texts. I skimmed through the messages, quickly getting the gist of the situation. Shuster, or at least I assumed he was contacting me personally, came to the conclusion I was probably wrapped up in tinkering when I failed to reply, apparently a common issue with tinkers, and wanted me to call him back.

Fair enough.

I sent back a text asking if now was a good time. After a minute I received a reply that simply read "Get to somewhere private and call me." Pretty clear, no reason not to oblige. I was glad no one was around to see me walk to a bench, sit down for a minute, and then walk right back where I came from. It would look weird, I'm sure.

Despite feeling self conscious, I did go back inside the Black Shul and went into a small room in the wall of the coatroom. Looked like it was where the breaker panel was located, judging by the metal box on the wall.

Oh, wow! More energy into Mechanus, which meant more possibilities for future attempts to grab a new gear! I wondered what could happen! I wasn't thinking about this because I wanted an excuse to delay making a phone call! That would be crazy!

Definitely.

OK, I was going to just start the call so I couldn't back out of it. The anxiety would only be stronger in the future if I kept running away.

The phone started ringing, only sounding twice before it was picked up.

"Um… H-Hello?" I spoke nervously. The possibility instantly entered my mind that I may have entered the wrong number while copying the one that texted me. Oh, please tell me it wasn't a wrong number!

"Eli? Is that you?" Ari Shuster's voice questioned rhetorically. "You sound different over the phone."

"Yeah, my, uh, voice sounds a bit higher doesn't it?" I awkwardly laughed it off. Truth was that I naturally started going towards a more squeaky voice when I made calls. Even when as close to calm as I could get the anxiety still caused me to talk a bit differently.

"...Right. Anyways, yingele, I've got a job for you. Probably something you've been hoping for, if you're like most new capes," he moved along the conversation, seemingly in a bit of a hurry. I suppose that I hadn't been around for when he tried to contact me on his own terms. It was to be expected that it'd not be the best time right now.

"I'll bite. What have you got?"

"A bit of a fight. The Adepts, meshuga pests that they are, tried to make a recruit out of a new trigger we've been looking out for. Didn't work, but something like that can't be forgiven so easily." He didn't sound angry, just disappointed. Like it was something that was an annoying formality rather than a passionate act of retaliation.

"Er, why can't you ignore it? They failed, r-right?" I inquired, already forming some theories but wanting to hear it straight from the horse's mouth.

A long sigh was the initial response, followed by an actual explanation. "It's in our best interest to avoid conflict when possible. We simply don't have the heavy hitters that dominate New York. When someone tries to hurt us, we can't afford to be meykil with them. Even if they failed, a lack of retaliation will give others ideas. The stress will send me to an early grave, chas v'shalom, if the Elite starts thinking our rogues would make good members again."

"OK, I understand why this is a big deal. But then why send me if it's so important? I'm not ashamed to admit I'm a poor choice."

That got a chuckle out of Ari. "Glad to see you've got a realistic view of yourself. The truth is that this is as much for your benefit as ours. Capes will fight, it's practically inevitable. I figure that getting you some experience against the Adepts, who won't kill you if you mess it up, would help you out in the long run."

"But wouldn't it make you guys look vulnerable if I fail?" I questioned, sure that he must have thought about that but unable for the life of me to figure out how he'd answer.

"Aha!" he exclaimed, seemingly once again pleased by my willingness to question it. "Well, I was going to get to that. You're not the one who'll be sending the message. We've got better choices for roughing up their best than a Tinker who's still building up. You'll be entertaining some of their newer recruits."

Now it was making more sense. "So I'll be keeping some of their number busy?"

"Correct. I'll text you the details if you're willing. As I told you earlier, don't feel obligated. We have other people who can do this instead."

Right, the choice was ultimately mine. So… What did I think? "Give me a second to, uh, think it over," I blurted out, since the pause in the conversation was getting a bit uncomfortable.

He made good points. If these Adepts were supposed to have some form of code, or just morals, that would prevent them from going lethal it would be to my benefit to use this opportunity to practice being in a dangerous situation while still having a small safety net. And it wasn't as if I had been planning on avoiding fights in general. If I was, I wouldn't have spent so much time on those syringes. A vulnerability serum is pretty damn pointless if you aren't expecting to hurt anyone, after all.

I always promised myself that I'd break out of my comfort zone. Now it was time to put it into practice.

"I'm in," I gave my answer.

"He's in!" I heard Shuster call out from the phone, presumably speaking to someone with him. "Alright, as I said I'll text you the details. Give me a few minutes to write it all out, OK?"

I grunted in affirmation.

"Good, good. I need to hang up now, so just make sure to check your phone soon." he continued. "Bye bye."

I gave my own farewell before disconnecting. I exited the electrical closet and reviewed the conversation in my head. Looks like I'd be fighting soon, which meant I'd need to go back into the Body Shop. As much as I hated navigating the damn place, Cazador venom was essential if I wanted to make Tremble. It was really hard to say no to a neurotoxin that could be used without killing. Preparation was key in all things.

A few minutes passed before I received a flood of information on my phone. Skimming it over, I got the general idea of how things would go. Some of the Adepts would be meeting at one of their properties and undzer shtick would be sending some men over to communicate their displeasure. I'd be left to occupy the attention of one or two members of the lower tiers on a different floor.

There'd be no maiming, no stealing, and, most importantly, no killing. This was just to show that their transgression had been noticed and that repeats could and would result in actual serious repercussions. I was on board with that, it was certainly more acceptable than smashing skulls in or what have you.

Apparently I wouldn't be provided transportation. Guess it was the subway again for me.

Most Holy Order of the Socket Wrench (Fast and Furious) (400CP)

The Vehicle: (Free)

Or I could upgrade and use the brand new, but currently very shitty, car that my newest gear gave me.

That worked, too.

Perks this Chapter

I Can Whip Something Up (My Life As A Teenage Robot) (100CP)

Working late nights and filling out strange requests is just another Tuesday for a Scientist of your calibre. This perk ensures that you'll never suffer burnout, grow overly bored, lose inspiration, or have your work suffer because of exhaustion. So long as your basic needs are at least barely being met you can keep happily churning out work day after day.

Most Holy Order of the Socket Wrench (Fast and Furious) (400CP)

You are a master mechanic. Repair and upkeep is nice, but you can go beyond the impossible and improve any vehicle. Take a van and make it beat a supercar? Put NOS injectors on a bicycle (and make it work)? How about something challenging? And anything you can build up you can tear down, too. You're a one-man chop shop and wiring a car to explode takes but a few moments and some chicken wire.

The Vehicle: Free!

This object barely deserves the title of car, at least in your opinion. A Volkswagen Beetle, a Pinto, or a Yugo, this car technically meets all the criteria and is very cheap, but it would take a master mechanic and a driving god to let it rival even the worst other racers can bring to the table.

Banked CP: 100