Trace was working on putting his fake mask together while thinking about Ko. The two of them had been shuffling around their relationship pretty much ever since they met. They both had their own issues and getting closer to someone and trusting them in that way was hard. At the same time, it was something that he wanted to do regardless, with her, not anyone else.

  He just didn’t know how.

  Dating was not something he had ever done before, and the modern culture revolved around relationships that were more transactional in nature. Corpos found partners who would help them in their quest to climb the corporate ladder. The people who lived in the megastructures were largely unknown to him, and the regular people on the street simply seemed unhappy most of the time.

  As for the edgers, well, there were different varieties of them. Some were no better than pleasure dolls, in his opinion. They seemed to think that since they would eventually die, they might as well have fun while they could. Just thinking about it made him want to take a few sani-spray showers.

  The more reasonable ones were like Monroe and Sabrina, who dated other edgers but also kept the information to themselves. People like Ko and Sevorah also fell into this category. Sevorah was still working on Stick-Point, but she had finally begun to wear him down recently.

  The last group was those who were a-sexual or simply handled the matter themselves.

  Regardless, after going through the list in that manner, and thinking everything over, Trace was left with only one real option. He needed to ask Monroe. Failing him, GreaseStain might also be an option.

  Feeling a little more at ease for the moment, he continued working on the mask. He couldn’t wait for Monroe to return with the parts from the black market so he could talk to him.

  Trace worked the natural rubber into place that he would be using as part of the seal around his throat. It was one of the modifications that Stick-Point had suggested. The mask now covered part of his throat as well as his face.

  It was too bad that plastic was so expensive. The material was so easy to work with, that it would have been great for parts of this project. Unfortunately, plastic was a byproduct of oil, which the world had mostly moved away from. It was still used, but synthetic and alternative options that lasted longer had been developed over the years.

  Oh well, that was life, it wasn’t like there weren’t other options.

  Trace was in the middle of filing down a couple of pieces that would go on the cheek sections of the mask when Monroe arrived. He had forgotten to compensate for the wires he would be running through that section and had needed to modify all the pieces he had printed for the cheeks.

  “Hey, did you get everything I asked for?” He asked somewhat distractedly, attempting to finish before he put the piece down.

  “Yeah, some of it had to be special ordered though, so it’ll be a few days before it arrives,” Monroe said as he collapsed on Trace’s bed. “There were more of those bounties placed up at the black market. Either the gangs or the people behind them are starting to get annoyed that there hasn’t been more progress.”

  “How did they manage that one?” Trace demanded; his concentration finally broken. “I thought the black market was a neutral zone!”

  “Oh, it is,” The large muscular man assured him. “Give them enough money, and they’ll still post something like this. Besides, all it really means is that you would be captured on the way out unless you were paying for the parking garage to give yourself a head start.”

  “I only destroyed an android. Why is this guy going to such lengths to come after me?”

  “If I had to guess, it’s a little about what you did, and far more about that woman who interfered with everything and killed Jonas.”

  “You think that her act of helping me actually did more harm in this case?”

  Monroe nodded. “With everything that has happened recently, yeah. I think she wanted to use you in some fashion, and she did it, at least in part by raising your visibility in that guy’s eyes.”

  “How long have you been thinking this particular theory over?”

  “I haven’t,” The large brick of chocolate blushed and looked away. “I was saying ‘I’, but it’s actually Sabrina’s theory. She’s the one who came up with it.”

  “Ah,” Trace laughed. “Unfortunately, it does sort of make sense. I only met the android woman that one time, so I can’t exactly defend her. At the same time, she mentioned that he would send a team after me, certainly not this. A team I could have seen for a grudge, but this is completely out of scale.”

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  “Is that the mask you are going to be wearing normally?”

  “Yup, I should have kept a couple of those rebreathers.” Trace pulled up the mockup design on the computer along with the physical copy that he was still in the middle of putting together. “Hey, can I uh, ask you something a little personal?”

  “Sure,” He replied hesitantly.

  “How does one date another person?”

  Monroe stared at him blankly and then began to laugh. “Are you and Ko having problems or something?”

  Trace shook his head, his cheeks red. “No, at least I don’t think we are. It’s more that I have no idea what to do, and I don’t think she does either. We’ve hung out a few times and kissed once or twice, but that’s really it. Isn’t there supposed to be more to dating?” He ran his hands down the sides of his face in exasperation. “I don’t know, it just seems like we’re more close friends than actually dating. Tell me what that actually entails, please.”

  ***

  The next day, after Trace had prepared a new outfit, had it delivered, and also finished his mask, he went to pick up Ko. Earlier that morning, when he had first woken, he had called her up and asked her out on a proper date.

  They were going to a nice restaurant, and his usual cargo pants and long-sleeved shirts would not be appropriate. It wasn’t a proper suit; he hadn’t splurged that much. However, they were black pants with an accompanying sports jacket and a silver button-down long-sleeved shirt. The jacket hid the accompanying shoulder holster for his CD-10 and vibro-blade.

  It was a nice outfit, at least in his opinion, without making it appear like he was corpo scum. It was completed, of course, by his mask.

  When he arrived at the clinic, Anna, who was talking to Ko, automatically paused at the sight of him. His mask cupped his nose, curled underneath his eyes, and went right up to the edges of his ears. A strap going around the back of his head kept it tight. It then curled under his jaw and embraced his neck. Additional straps were then placed around the neck to keep that section in place as well.

  If you didn’t know it was Trace beforehand, then there was no way you would be able to guess his identity with it on. The mask itself was also a little frightening, as it had hints of past battles among its glowing parts. Then there was his voice. Something that he had partially modeled after Monroe’s deep bass, if he had been chewing glass, and then mixed it with the harshest alcohol that constantly burned the throat.

  “Hello Anna, Ko,” He growled out, through the voice-changer.

  Anna jumped back from her receptionist's desk with a frightened squeak.

  Ko, who was wearing a dark purple dress with a slit up its side, slowly nodded. “That will do. How are you going to eat though?”

  “Private room. Hopefully, you can stand looking at my scars,” He joked, the voice changer making it come out almost horrifying.

  At the car, Trace opened the door for her, before walking over to the driver’s side and taking off the mask. “Ouch, those straps are tight. So, what do you think?”

  “If you hadn’t warned me beforehand, I’m honestly not sure I would have recognized you right away.” She took the mask from him and inspected it while he drove. “What brought this date on?”

  Trace’s fingers tapped against the steering wheel as he thought about the best way to answer that question. “I like you, Ko. I don’t think I’ve ever really hidden that fact. However, I have no experience when it comes to relationships. I have just kind of been going along with the flow this entire time. But, I was thinking about it the other day and realized I wanted more. I wanted to have a real relationship with you. If that is what you want, of course.”

  She gave a small nod.

  “I had to have a very embarrassing talk with Monroe last night about how relationships and dating actually work. He suggested that we go on a proper date, instead of just hanging out as we have been. We can still do that, but he stressed that we need to also have actual dates. He said that hanging out and slipping into a completely normal life activity was part of why we were failing to move forward with our relationship.”

  “I hadn’t even realized,” She admitted after a few moments. “My own experience having a boyfriend extends to you, and a boy, for two days when I was seven in grade school.”

  He snorted in amusement, reaching across and gently taking her hand. “I’m fine with moving at our own pace. Just as long as we are actually moving forward, which it didn’t seem like we were before.”

  ***

  Two days after his date with Ko, which had gone flawlessly, the items that Monroe had needed to specially order arrived. Among them was the pre-thinned gel, several small pumps to keep it moving throughout the suit, and pressure tubes, among other items.

  With those now sitting on his desk, Trace could begin putting the last of the revisions to the stealth suit in place. He had already printed out all of the magazine and ammunition holders a couple of days before. However, he had needed to change the angle on them slightly to retain movement in his back. With the magnets now here, he could finish the last piece for that item as well. Then all he would need to do was secure and paint them.

  The warehouse itself had been a constant hive of activity as the others worked to sell off all the equipment they had received.

  He had talked the team into selling some of it to Sevorah, and a couple of other menders that she knew at a discount. Over the last couple of months, he had already sold a lot of equipment to Sevorah, not all of which she had kept for one reason or another. Still, her clinic just wasn’t that large, and the equipment that scavs generally used wasn’t the newest or in the best shape.

  She did have extras of a few items so Ko could work alongside her, but most of those were simply her own hand-me-down equipment. The items she was buying from Trace and Monroe were pieces that were newer than what Ko was using, or that she simply didn’t yet have.

  However, there was only so much business that one clinic could give them. The reason Trace wanted to keep working with Sevorah, outside of Ko, was because of what she did for the community. Sevorah helped those who were hurt, and she did it as cheaply as possible without skimping on the service she provided.

  It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that there were hundreds of people alive right then because Sevorah had treated them out of her own pocket. He didn’t necessarily agree with going that far, simply because of how greedy for credits he was, but he respected what she did.

  The clinics that Sevorah put them in contact with had similar practices as her own.

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