I had to come to my senses after Jim's stunt on the road. The car was so light and fast that it was always trying to overturn on the corners, and the fact that there were three passengers instead of two did not improve the situation. It was good that Jim and Lily were thin and lightweight; the two of them should have weighed a little more than me in armor. However, for balance, I took off the armor and put my arm around the girl - for the balance of the car and the ability to stand on it, obviously.

  Yes.

  Actually, I very rarely take off my armor. If it were fully functional, there would be no need to take it off at all... well, except in special circumstances, like Moxie. Unfortunately, most of the advanced features like body cleansing and climate control are out of commission, and repairs are slow - Vladov's delivery service is famous for its speed... So my cabin has an armored shower stall, and I've had a chance to compare my current body to my old Earth body.

  Well, what can I say... All in all, a great trade off. Or rather, an upgrade. Because it was definitely my own body, just improved.

  And slightly enlarged.

  ...I mean muscles, no vulgarity.

  Anyway, there were too many distractions, so it's forgivable that I didn't immediately notice... this.

  Take, well, a water strider. It's not exact, but it's enough to understand.

  And then magnify it by... several thousand times? I'm not sure. Well, to a height of about ten meters.

  And such thing walking leisurely on its own up ahead.

  What. This. Thing. Is.

  Fortunately, asking the question out loud, demonstrating my ignorance, wasn't necessary: I have an ECHO, after all.

  …

  ...Pandora, man. This absurd thing on long legs, brazenly ignoring the laws of biology (but I'm not much better at it myself..... Pandora, lawless planet), is actually a marine creature that could even be called analogous to a... whale? I'd say a mixture of whale and mangrove.

  ...Yeah. Sounds weird enough even for Pandora.

  Anyway, it - they - lived on the shoals and fed on plankton and marine life. Then the sea dried up, - ... - but the drifters, once called "floaters" for the way they rested on the surface of the water with their legs tucked up, stayed. And they've managed to adapt to living on land.

  On the plus side, these creatures are relatively peaceful, and don't attack unless you get too close. On the downside, that "too close" isn't so small for their size, and with a kick of their feet they can pierce the armor of even a light tank.

  Zerg, my ass.

  ...Huh. And the Eridians are Protoss. Biomechanical shit with powerful shields. Surely there's no crossover?

  I looked suspiciously at the sky, but AlBa didn't react.

  ...No, that's definitely purely a gaming, decorative piece of shit.

  I'm talking about a slightly corroded ship lying on the dry seabed, a little bigger than a boat. How the hell did it get here? Floating along, and suddenly all the water's gone? Seriously, it's not even funny. And someone was talking about realism...

  ...The ship suddenly rose up, releasing six crab legs on either side of the hull, and scampered away on them. I was sure that no giant crab had just been underneath it.

  - Retcon is a cheat - I muttered.

  - What do you mean? - Jim asked.

  - Never mind, just thinking out loud.

  We did have a conflict with one of the drifters - they can be unexpectedly sudden - but for all their size and strength, they're vulnerable. Their legs are made of some kind of super-strong organic shit like an improved version of chitin, and their bodies are covered in it, but they have a few large, noticeable vulnerabilities - gas sacks with soft skin, through which bullets pierce internal organs. Predators like skags can't reach it at this altitude, but bullets don't care. An easy opponent, relatively.

  Despite the ever-present threat of Pandorian critters, the road was pretty boring - well, until we got into a little adventure with a rakk who stole LR hat, but that was no big deal either, we just happened to stumble upon a cult of some pyromaniacs. One of them showed some weird powers, but I managed to shoot him before Lily noticed, and most of the others ran away, and fuck them. What important - we got hat back.

  However, even this small incident didn't exactly revitalize our journey.

  ...Pandora is definitely affecting me in a bad way, and having realized it, I spent the rest of the trip trying to introspect, comparing my behavior and reactions "before" and "after", and only listening to Lily asking Jim about shamans of savages. What about the changes that had happened to me was a habit, and what was something else...?

  And is it really bothers me? Actually, Pandora is not a place where it makes sense to ask such questions. Valuable resources, including brainpower, should be directed to survival, and other things... well, you can afford them when you are sure that at least in the next couple of hours nobody will try to eat you.

  I think so.

  - Don't worry, be happy - I muttered under my breath.

  - That's right - Jim agreed, to my surprise. - And by the way, we're getting closer. According to the map, it'll be in sight in about ten minutes.

  - Finally - I sighed. - We'll have to use more spacious transportation next time. By the way, what's the plan?

  Jim and Lily looked at each other.

  - I thought you were in charge of this - the driver voiced his thoughts. I sighed again, this time heavily, however-

  "Incoming call. Moxie."

  - Is something wrong? - I asked, turning on the public call.

  - No, I just wanted to ask a favor. A paid one - the lady clarified, which was not unreasonable. - It's a bit personal, but as it happens... The Locked Palace is currently run by someone named Shank.

  - ...О. - Jim said.

  - Exactly - agreed Moxie.

  - And? - our driver asked.

  - Yup - Moxie replied.

  - And now can we have a translation for those who do not speak a Moximal incomprehensible dialect? - I asked.

  - It's just that Moxie's asking me to kill her ex-boyfriend - Jim said.

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  - The poor guy is, uh, off his rocker - Moxie sighed. - He was going through a bad divorce.

  - You were married? - I asked in surprise. The image of our femme fatale nodded.

  - For a while. I thought we had a pretty good breakup, but... as life proved, it was a harder blow for him than it seemed at first. So this will be an act of mercy as well as a release from a nuisance.

  - I see - I nodded. - And in reality? What is the main reason for this order?

  - His current interests cast a shadow over me - the lady didn't try to be sly. I nodded again.

  - All right, let's do what we can.

  From what I understand from our situation, this guy's into human trafficking, maybe something else equally unpleasant; for all of Moxie's... Pandorian-ness, she's got some principles. So I can understand her.

  Here we go. In more ways than one.

  I never cease to be amazed at the carelessness of most, majority, Pandorian bandits. No outside surveillance, sentries or alarms. Come whoever you want, do whatever you want... Yeah, sure, there should be a bunch of armed thugs inside the building, but that's no excuse. After all, why would you take over a well-defended facility if you don't take full advantage of it? We quietly drove up without attracting attention; they hadn't even bothered to hang the gate in place - the passage was free.

  "Locked Palace, Prison & Bar," read the blue-lamp-lit sign. "& gym," was added a little further back. Right, here we are...

  We had several options. A stealthy infiltration, an attempt to negotiate - to ransom the informant, for example - a distraction... All of that went to the dustbin of unrealized stories when Lily grinned and threw her bear cub with ungirlish strength toward the entrance. On the fly, the "toy" began to grow and landed on its four paws in robot battle form. Robogrizzly rushed forward, and the flimsy bars of the front door flew into the hallway, crushed by a teddy bear.

  Shit, those idiots didn't even put a couple of machine guns in the straight corridor....

  ...I love idiots.

  There had obviously been attempts at resistance, and not to say that the... peculiarly dressed inhabitants were weaklings. Idiots incapable of organizing an effective cohesive defense, yes, but not weak. Already after the first skirmish the robot-bear began to limp, having received a couple of axe blows that pierced his body; give time, and he could be restored, or even digitally rebuilt, but now he had to hurry, using the inertia of the situation, before the bandits organized themselves. The building, by the way, turned out to be spacious, but riddled with confusion; a small maze like... in the game, yes.

  With enemies popping out of all sorts of different, and often quite unexpected, places. What about a bedside table dwarf? Or a regular-sized, just skinny, type from under the bed. With a not-insignificant rocket-propelled grenade launcher tube in his hands. No ECHO or inventory system, just holding it.

  Also because we were inside an albeit large building, but still enclosed space, and not everywhere spacious enough, it was hard to use Lily's infinite grenades. At least her bear was fully work out of its figurative honey, and even when it got stuck in passageways, it was usually a problem for the walls, not for it - though once it was taken advantage of by a thug wearing some sort of leather... mask? on his head who came out of a vent somewhere. The sawaxe left another hole, and the bear began to limp on another paw, but such a lucky bandit... well, turned out not to be lucky at all.

  Despite my advice to practice economy, Lily took great pleasure in raining down a shower of SG bullets, while Jim and I used mostly revolvers - and occasionally shotguns.

  - How many of them are there? - I asked, puzzled, after shooting another bandit.

  - Enough in my experience - Jim said. - Huh, look at this.

  He pointed his finger toward the far corner of a rather spacious room with several tables - a dining room? - where we were.

  Huh, indeed. A memorial?

  A collage of a few photos, with a couple guns lying underneath. I frowned, peering in; it felt like I recognized one of the faces. And what does it say there...?

  "With memory and love. They were first-passers, pioneers."

  ...Bah, it's Moxie's previous hit order! What was he called, "Fater Grabbe."

  I snickered, digitally constructed a felt-tip pen, and crossed out letters "r" and "p".

  - Yeah, the breakup really took its toll on the poor guy, I see - I muttered. - Jim, I'm beginning to worry about you and me.

  - Oh, I… - Slippery began, but the next instant a rather large, shaven-headed man appeared beside him with an effect similar to that of high-speed digitalization, grabbed the mercenary in his arms, and disappeared with him.

  - ...Jim had been kidnapped - I voiced the obvious.

  I looked at the memorial and shuddered.

  One could only hope that even if, uh, our Slippery Buddy's honor and dignity were at risk, he was slippery enough - in a good way - to last long enough... again in a good way.

  - Goodbye, Jim - said LR solemnly and slightly sadly. - You were a good mercenary.

  - Hey, I'm still alive! - Jim's outraged voice came from somewhere in the ceiling speaker. Wow, that's a classic joke live.

  - If you want your pretty boy back, stop... stalling, and come... into my room! - That voice, a man's voice, was unfamiliar to me. The boss of this gym, I believe, is Shanks.

  Huh. Come in my room, you say? Are you trying to boss me around? Don't burst.

  I mean, from the grenades.

  ...I mean from the explosions.

  - We will not forget your sacrifice. - ignoring everything, Lily continued.

  - I'm telling you, I'm still alive!

  - You'll be remembered as the loser who let yourself be kidnapped in the middle of an enemy base.

  - ...I can't argue with that - Jim admitted.

  - "All evil comes from women," - Shanks said philosophically. - Uh, I mean, I'm waiting... oh, and I blocked the exit. I don't like it when a date doesn't show up.

  I glanced at the loudspeaker, at Lily, and sighed. The obligatory boss fight, and with a hostage, too.

  - I've given up plans to get married, I don't have a childhood friend waiting for me at home, I don't plan on retiring - I said. - Oh, and anything can go wrong.

  - What was that? - Lily asked puzzled.

  - Taking down the death flags - I answered. - Think of it as a reality-affecting spell. Now let's move, and hope we all survive.