May 5- XUB2, drinky drinky

[Eric Osgood]

A new face was seated in the corner- He kept to himself, nursing a drought and keeping an almost unconscious note of the face of everyone who entered the pub.

The hand nursing the beer glass was metal, if anyone gave him a second look.

[Calvin Strong]

Cal walked into the XUB with his usual swagger. This lasted all of five seconds.

The message scrolled across Cal's vision at the same time that it pinged in Eric's datastream.

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Non-allied amalgamated lifeform detected.  Threat assessment active.

Unbidden, Cal's combat protocols and targeting systems opened up, the target HUD falling across his vision as he had to restrain himself from shooting a hand out to pick up a stool to use as a weapon. What the hell?

[Eric Osgood]

The new kid noticed what appeared to be a cyborg stop suddenly while looking at him.

He paused, slowly returning the beer glass to the table while staring. Meanwhile, his brain was sending out a wireless signal, attempting to contact with other devices in the vicinity. Like the cyborg.

[Calvin Strong]

What the... Disengage combat readiness, for fuck's sake.

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Complying.

Cal flexed his fingers, feeling the reassuring lack of an electric tingle in them, and continued to the bar as he authorized the ping to his data port. "Well," he said, taking a seat. "That was new."

[Eric Osgood]

His data port was quickly being filled with several dozen different handshake requests, each for different types of data systems.

[Calvin Strong]

Eric would get a few acceptances, at least one denial, and then the requests would all be cancelled without warning. From his end of the relay.

[Eric Osgood]

Eric blinked at that. That didn't normally happen when he idly reached out to other wireless systems.

Shutting off his wireless connection, he isolated whatever code had come over, and began to systematically dissect and analyze it at high speed,

[Calvin Strong]

The code that came over was, after looking at it, impressive. On its own, it was useless. It was only after it was being looked over that the viral package came out, separated from lines that would keep it dormant.

The speed, however, didn't leave it time to do much. Cal got an initial data burst, then it was shut down.

"Not bad. Want to do this the organic way?" he asked.

[Eric Osgood]

Eric frowned, quickly scouring his system of viral code and forcibly removing it.

"If by organic, you mean get piss drunk, then right-o."

Eric raised his mug, and took a sip.

[Calvin Strong]

"I can get behind that idea," Cal agreed, picking up his drink and taking a long pull. "SynGen research?" he asked, glancing askance at the new guy.

[Eric Osgood]

"Bioproducts division. I thought the code looked familiar.. I guess there's only so many ways to rewire a brain, eh?"

[Calvin Strong]

"Guess not... how come your AI didn't throw you into offense/defense mode when I walked in? I didn't even know that code was there, and I've worked mine over a few times."

[Eric Osgood]

"It was probably in the mess I deleted after a few days, because it kept annoying me. 'Good day, Eric. the probability of you contracting salmonella from the chicken you are about to eat is 0.021934%...' Rubbish, the lot of it."

[Calvin Strong]

Cal blinked. "I guess that's one way of dealing with it. So what'd they screw up with you? They overloaded my electric powers, burned out a good third of my nervous system."

[Eric Osgood]

"Lucky you.. They ran me literally to death. My heart exploded, and took out a chunk of my brain from the ensuing stroke."

[Calvin Strong]

Cal winced. "Ouch, that- ah, okay, super-speed? That'd make those few lines of code I got make sense."

[Eric Osgood]

"Yep. Super speed. They got me pretty juiced up, and when they were putting me back together, why not take advantage of that, they figured? So they turned my brain into a giant data processor. Nothing tricky or complicated, just raw speed."

taking a sip, he glanced back at Calvin.

"So, you got an eye job, at least.. hell, it looks like you got a whole lot of surface work done."

[Calvin Strong]

"Eh... sort of," he said. "My optic centers got burned out, so my eyes were pretty useless, so they had to go even though they didn't get damaged." He held up his cybernetic arm. "This was all after the fact."

[Eric Osgood]

"After the fact? One time wasn't enough for you?"

[Calvin Strong]

"Didn't have much choice. Got my arm crushed by a big-ass vampire thing and the repair nanites fucked everything up. Oh yeah, word to the wise, don't get anything crushed. Because the nanites'll fuck everything up."

[Eric Osgood]

Eric gritted his teeth.

"One more SynGen system to worry about. Perfect. Like replacing my heart with a chunk of synthetic metal and plastic was bad enough."

[Calvin Strong]

"Well, no, this isn't a SynGen system. I went after-market for this one," he said, flexing his hand again. "So what bright sides did you get?" he asked dryly.

[Eric Osgood]

"Well, they're certain that my heart and kneecaps and ankles and shoulders won't disintegrate again. Well, 91% certain, anyway. I should only have minor, minor problems racing jets cross country. Don't even trouble yourself with it, they said."

He made a face.

[Calvin Strong]

Cal made a face. "Sounds like what they told me. 'Oh, your power will only short out your systems if you go above fifty-percent power! Nothing to worry about!' Idiots."

[Eric Osgood]

"Oh, we turned your head into a Ministry level data decoder, while we were at it. I mean, your brain had a huge chunk missing, anyway. Like you were going to use the space."

He irritatingly took a gulp of beer.

[Calvin Strong]

"That part I didn't mind so much," Cal admitted. "After sitting there being a vegetable for a few months, I figured I should at least get a computer inside my head for my trouble."

[Eric Osgood]

"Well, I'd just as soon tear it out and replace it with the real thing, everything being equal."

[Calvin Strong]

"Oh, I'd love to have working eyes and no voices in my head," Cal admitted. "But it's the whole 'keep thinking like that and you're just depressed all the time' thing, y'know?" He shrugged. "'Course, finding the assholes that had this done'll make me feel a lot better, too."

[Eric Osgood]

Eric nodded, in agreement.

"I can't even touch things without my brain spinning up, telling me everything about the temperature, pressure, texture, what it similarly feels like I've touched before.. fuckers."

[Calvin Strong]

Cal frowned. "That's... kind of messed up. You want me to get that smoothed over for you?"

[Eric Osgood]

"nah, I've managed to ignore it when I want to.. I'm mostly just being crabby. We're good."

[Calvin Strong]

"You sure? I can make it sit up and beg for you if you want. 'Ignoring' is never as good as 'not needing to ignore'," he offered.

[Eric Osgood]

"No offense mate, but I don't know you. I'll deal with my brain, thanks."

[Calvin Strong]

Cal just shrugged.

[Eric Osgood]

He took another gulp, relaxing a bit more.

"Sorry, pal. I'm still peeved in general about the situation. Like it isn't obvious."

[Calvin Strong]

Cal shrugged. "How long's it been?"

[Eric Osgood]

"A while. A year or so."

[Calvin Strong]

Cal nodded. "Been about four years for me. It gets easier. After a while when you get used to it you can actually enjoy it most of the time. I mean, it isn't all bad, after all. Be nice to never have had it happen, yeah, but as far as hands to get dealt, it's got its plusses."