"Wake up, you sleepyhead!"

Jensen was not used to be waken up by other people, not since his relationship with Megan. The few times lately when he had been woken up by anything else than the buzz of his alarm clock had usually spelled a disaster. He had merely opened his eyes and was taking in his surroundings when the same voice continued;

"Catch!"

With reflexes conditioned in the field Jensen's arms moved before he had time to remember it was supposed to be impossible and he easily caught the roundish plastic object tossed at him. It turned out to be a jar of energy bars.

"I thought you might need those. Glad to see the adjustment worked."

Jensen turned his look from the jar to grinning Pritchard who was leaning on the doorway with a steaming cup in his hand. There was a distinct scent of coffee in the air which made Jensen wonder if the other one had actually slept at all. He started to get up from the bed only to find out his legs were still dead.

"What did you do?" he asked while pulling himself to a more sitting position with only his arms strength.

"I took a better look at that auxiliary energy system you're running on. It seems it has maximum capacity which is just enough to run some of your augments effectively, namely the vital ones like your Sentinel RX and the control units it requires in your head. Under normal circumstances they don't need as much power as in emergencies, and I figured you can have your arms powered up with limits. They'll not have enough power for heavy strength and try to avoid using them if you're otherwise exhausted."

Jensen was quiet for a while as he was taking that in. The talk of enabling and disabling parts of him was disturbing, even if on some level he had already gotten used to it. Since their installation his augmentations had worked well enough to blur the boundary but now he was going through the same doubts he had had before, when first having to have accepted his new form. Back then he had smashed his mirror in self disgust when the picture looking back at him had been too much.

"Am I still a human," he finally asked in a sorrowful tone. The question clearly took Pritchard by surprise judging by the fit of cough he got from drinking his coffee.

"Of course you are." Pritchard managed to answer after clearing out his throat. "It's human to make mistakes and you surely can't avoid them" he continued in halfheartedly sneering tone while going back to his desk to put his coffee down.

"You think you can manage a day here while I'm gone?" he continued while gathering some of his items from the desk.

"You going to work?" Jensen asked and then as the thought struck him added "wait, how were you able to skip yesterday to look after me? I would have thought it's busy as hell after all that happened."

Pritchard chuckled a bit. "And that's precisely why I was able to stay at home. Regardless of the news there has been local riots blaming the company, or augment industry in general of the incident. There is not enough manpower to ensure secure travel for all personnel so those who're not crucial in the office were recommended to work from home."

"Why are you going there today then?"

"I… got to do some upgrades in the head office…" Pritchard said looking as convincing as he sounded. He had started to wrangle his hands which he always did while nervous.

"Come on, you don't expect me to believe you like that. What are you really after?"

Pritchard let out an exasperated sigh. "I can access to whole company network remotely from here, everything except the head office. The codes I need to fix you are likely there. Also..." Pritchard left the comment hanging as he picked one of his contraptions from his desk and showed it to Jensen.

"I made this last night. It's a short range scanner for the locator chips Sarif uses. Too short range to actually find anyone but enough to confirm my suspicions. I too have one of those and I was not told about it. I haven't the faintest idea when it has been installed and I don't like it a bit. I was hoping I'd find some information of it from boss's own computer."

"So you are going to go in, spin your upgrade tale and hack to boss' computer?" Jensen commented in doubting tone. "You know you can't act a shit."

"And what do you suggest I do then since our master spyboy is indisposed?" Pritchard asked in challenging tone. "Should I just go ask them nicely for the truth."

Their debate was cut by a buzz from the door. Pritchard went to see the screen and soon told it was Malik hissing Jensen to stay quiet when he opened the door. She was explaining she'd heard Pritchard was going to go to the office and she was here to give a lift. She didn't get further in his explanation when she, apparently spotting the pile still near the door where Pritchard had left it, let out a surprised yell.

"Wait what, isn't that Jensen's gear, what is it doing here?!"