The training was hard, The exercises were even harder and keeping up the appearance of an apartment tenant was easy in comparison. The next two weeks since Jacob and Linna's first date was surprisingly peaceful. It gave him much-needed time to relax. Clear the mind of the noise which had taken hold after Irene had her lover stripped away from her. Wilson had found a sense of normalcy since he had gotten here. A sense of belonging. Nene was at work at the A.D police headquarters. Priss was working in the studio today. She was probably getting frustrated at the studio engineers and her producer. Mackie had taken up the task of repairing the Camaro and giving a new paint job the boot. Jacob had chosen red for more personal reasons. He never liked the color blue anyway. For today Jacob would be working at the shop till Sylia took over at three.

In the store Jacob stood behind the counter finishing up with the customer. Scanning the item the price flashed in both US dollars and Japanese yen. "OK that will be 19.50 us or 2,059.27 yen," he read both off.

It was times like these that he really didn't regret taking those Japanese language classes. The customer, an older woman by 15 years nodded. Tapping the card against the device it chimed and the price was paid. Jacob bagged the underwear and handed it to the woman with the receipt.

"Have a nice day and feel free to come back anytime," he said with a warm smile.

The woman simply nodded silently before exiting through the door onto the sidewalk. Within a minute she was completely out of his sight. Grabbing the water bottle he took a sip. Quietly glancing at the clock he saw it was 3:10. An extra hour he'll be working overtime and it meant a slightly fatter pay-check. Either way he was about to lose a fair chunk of cash tonight mainly because he was cooking dinner for Linna. The door to the back room opened and in strode Sylia. She was wearing a dark red jacket and light blue dress shirt tied with a similarly dark red skirt which went down to her knees.

"Sorry I'm late, I had to deal with something" Sylia said softly.

Jacob shrugged. "It's fine," Jacob told her. "I've still got plenty of time" all he had to do was make a train.

Sylia knew this meant alot to him and reluctantly pulled out her car keys. "Here" she said.

Jacob looked and shook his head. "No thanks. I'd rather not end up in crippling debt" he responded before walking to the door.

Sylia nodded. "Good luck with Linna tonight" she called.

Jacob shyly smiled. "See ya in the morning," he replied, before exiting through the door. Not even a minute or two later he was replaced by a customer.

3 hours earlier.

Mason sat at his desk with a glass of rum and coke. Occasionally sipping on it as the file he had asked for a week ago slowly compiled until it pinged ready. Mason cued up the info and began reading it over. Jacob Davis Wilson, age 20. He continued on reading what was managed to dig up. Jacob was born in 2012 in Canada but was adopted by a mother and father in Japan who had both passed during the earthquake. Two years at college and currently working at a shop named Silky doll. Slowly he continued to read the document, including a picture of him which was dead on the money as what the cameras caught.

Mason's face twisted into a scowl. "Got you," he muttered coldly. "You son of a bitch!" his hand clenched around the glass causing it to crack.

Mason set it down and took a breath. Never had he felt such a rage towards another, but this one had intervened with one of his greatest projects. The super boomer project was delayed until he got his position back. But the previous project had been completed shortly before Hikaru turned traitorous. A little back up in case anything went wrong. All he had to do now was find Wilson and pry the info from him. With that info he could be rid of the Knight Sabers. He would have to strike fast and he couldn't afford to wait and let the target slip away. Cameras would track him giving Mason ample amounts of opportunities to strike.

He flicked the intercom switch. "I want power armor and a truck ready with 2 C-55's on the double" he ordered.

"Sir need I remind you what Quincy might do to you if he finds out about this?" The secretary said on the other end.

Mason scowled. "That old rat can blow it outta his ass. He's to blind to ambition and no longer has the drive he once had," Mason ranted. "I want those boomers ready within the hour" he then terminated the call.

Turning back towards the window Mason gazed out on the city. His unexpected target was doubtlessly going about his day, not knowing what was to come. The thought of absolute surprise on his target's face made Mason grin. Quincy could go to hell for all he cared. He'd lost too much already to this rat. And then once he had the SuperBoomer's specs back – the Sabers would pay for everything they'd done to him. Every humiliation, every time Quincy's face fell and he found himself losing his grip on power?

All that would be delivered back in kind. And then some.

Back with Jacob.

Ever since Hikaru's death Sylia always told him to take a communicator wherever he went with him. The little communicator, A small cylindrical device no larger than his thumb, sat within his jacket's inner pocket over the right breast. He was pushing a shopping cart down an aisle. The items he needed for tonight's dinner laid within the large wheeled basket. Was he nervous... yes. Cooking wasn't exactly a skill of his only having done smaller scale things for himself. Tonight he was going to make it special. He was going to follow the cookbook to the letter and prove his own doubts wrong. Grabbing some popcorn off the shelf he smiled. He just had a feeling about it and he just felt things were gonna go right. Maybe ending up in this world wasn't so bad after all.

With Mason.

Through the camera he could see his target carrying two grocery bags loaded to the brim. The boy was walking down the street without a care in the world. As if he was teasing Mason to attempt to strike at him sooner. Mason shook his head. He doesn't know I'm here. He reminded himself. The large van was parked on the side of the road. It was slightly overweight thanks to the two boomers inside, synthskin still pasted on their massive frames. One of the boomers, tall and blonde, leaned in, looking at the boy on the monitor.

"He doesn't seem so tough," The blonde one said.

Mason shot him a dirty glance. "He gave one of you a good fight in only a construction mech. Don't underestimate that boy under any circumstances."

The second boomer, Red haired and more muscular, nodded. "I'm more interested in how creative he'll get without any back up or armor."

Mason didn't want to envision that possibility. He wanted him alive for his own experiments. Cause him as much pain as humanly possible before tossing him aside to be disposed of.

With a flip of a switch he unlocked the doors. "You two are to capture him alive. You know the rendezvous" Mason reminded them.

The blonde one grimaced. "No promises."

"Then you better make one because if I don't see him alive at the rendezvous you'll both be scrap!"

If not for the programming that kept them from attacking Genom executives he would have been dead already. The boomers agreed with a nod. Once they were out and the door was closed Mason chuckled. Pulling himself out of the seat he moved to the front. Starting the engine emerged with traffic and began towards the rendezvous site. The same site that stored his super boomer project. A project heavily delayed thanks to Wilson.

With Jacob.

Dialing her number was easy. He'd committed it to memory. Within a few moments Linna appeared on the video screen. She smiled upon seeing him and he did when he saw her.

"Just checking in," he said. "So how's work been?"

Linna wasn't too surprised. "Fine, not as hectic today. It's not exactly the stock market. I can't see myself doing that"

"Another day at the office I guess. What was that all about with the stock market?" He asked.

Linna shrugged. "I dunno, just came to me,"

Jacob brushed it off. "I missed ya," he smiled softly. "To be honest I'm nervous about tonight"

Linna appreciated that Jacob was unafraid to display more emotion and tell her how he felt. He was far more softer and gentle than any of her old boyfriends ever had been. For lack of experience in the bed he made up for it with that emotional complexity.

Linna softly smiled. "Don't worry, all you have to do is follow the instructions. Even Priss can do it."

Jacob chuckled. "That I would pay to see,"

Linna giggled wishing she could reach through the screen and kiss him. "All right I've gotta go. See you later babe" she waved.

Jacob, feeling a bit better, waved to. "I love you," he said.

"I know" Linna responded.

After they hung up Jacob turned around grabbing both bags off the ground. His heart pounded within his chest. Even since the first date he had never gotten over the euphoric feeling of being near her. Ever since they started dating he felt himself more and more feeling as if he belonged here. Everything felt like it was going up from here on out. Smiling like an idiot he stepped out of the booth.

The two boomers watched curiously from the opposite side of the street. The blonde casually leaned against the streetlamp while his brother slid both hands into his pocket and examined a sign taped to the pole. On the laminated paper was a cat and the words 'Lost'. The red haired boomer took a note of it and everything on it. Perhaps it might be important at some point.

The blonde continued watching the human through sunglasses. He didn't think much of the human aside from what was programmed into him. Why Mason wanted him alive wasn't clear. They could easily rip out the boy's throat before he could realize what was going on. Bringing in someone alive was a lot harder than bringing in someone dead for something like him. The boy made his way to the corner. The two boomers began to follow.

With Nene.

"So!" Nene said. "Hacking is the greatest art man has yet created. Programming the neural networks that span the planet is one thing, but to single handedly disrupt billions of yen of work, to shape a machine with petabits of processing power on hand to your whims – oh my god you're not even listening."

Cynthia pinched the bridge of her tiny little nose. "I used to see inside the computers all the time and play with them. I don't need to learn anything, Nene."

Nene sighed. "Ugh. Okay. Fine. Plan B. I'll get you a stemjack cable, plug you into my big rig, and we'll see what you can do-"

"I can do wireless. Major Rose said cables are gross even if they're faster, but I'm very fast anyway."

"How fast?"

"I think…" Cynthia counted off on her fingers, one-two-three-four-five… "Five orders of magnitude in terms of raw neural speed? Because my brain isn't all meaty n' wet n' stuff."

Nene nodded. It was, alas, true that most neural networks could out-speed a human, but even so most were incredibly stupid in strange ways. Lacking a full sensory spread, a body to ground a brain, it was easy enough to lead any given Crude AI down a rabbit hole of bad logic and overzealous pattern-seeking while you rifled through the rest of their memory and took what you needed. Was the part of Cynthia that wasn't a human-like conscious brain smart enough to get past those traps? Probably.

"So…"

"I'm already in!" Cynthia chirped. "Where should I go, Nene?"

"Um…" Shit. Where could she go? "Try breaching Genom's transportation coordination network for the main Tower."

"Okay!" She blinked. "I got it!"

Nene blinked in turn. She'd run through faking authentication for that subnet and it always took her at least ten to twenty minutes. So… she'd been outclassed as a hacker. If nothing else, she had her EW jamming work she did in the field. Hopefully Cynthia wouldn't be hooked up to the Saber truck doing her job or something terrible like that…

Cynthia tilted her head to the side. "Uh-oh."

"What's uh-oh?"

"Most recent exit log. Ordered by Brian J. Mason. Innocuous materials, but the weight manifest doesn't add up. Displacement discrepancy suggests two 55C combat Boomers and an additional large object massing in at half a ton. Unsure as to its nature."

Oh. Oh no. "I'll contact Sylia. Where's the truck going?"

"17th Ward. Hang on. I can pull local sensor feeds from public infrastructure and cross-check with Genom aerial surveillance." She blinked. Seemed to go pale for a moment. "Oh no."

"What's-"

"Jacob!" Cynthia squealed. "They're after Jacob!"

End chapter.

(Thanks to STMPD for refining my work and being a better writer than I am)