"Synthetic nutrients? What flavor they got?" Pilar asked, his face scrunching like he'd just tasted something sour. The thought of expired mil-spec rations clearly haunted him.
"Nutritionally balanced," Osiris replied, tone flat, clinical. "Containing amino acids, vitamins, and minerals. Flavor options: standard energy bar or unflavored nutrient paste."
Pilar's shoulders slumped. "Oh, choom, that sounds rough."
Rebecca rolled her eyes, crossing her arms. "Better than starvin', genius. Deal!" She smacked Pilar's arm hard enough to make him wince. "It's this or get sliced up by the Wraiths. Plus, the tin priest says he can fix that busted shoulder of yours!" Her grin was sharp, but the tremor in her voice betrayed the adrenaline still burning under her skin.
Pilar sighed through his nose, forcing calm. "Alright, sir," he said, voice steady but legs still shaky. "We're in. We'll work for you." He tried to sound confident, but mostly he just sounded tired, and grateful the giant didn't seem like the torturing-for-fun type.
Efficiency he could deal with. Psychos, not so much.
"A wise decision." Osiris retracted the gauntlet with a fluid hiss. "First phase: adaptive modification. To ensure task efficiency, operational reliability, and minimize resource loss."
Two metal tendrils unfolded from beneath his robe, their tips glowing faint blue with calibration light. Rebecca stiffened, eyes wide. Pilar's hand twitched toward his pistol, then thought better of it.
"Relax," Osiris said evenly. "This will exceed your prior street-install experiences by a considerable margin."
The tendrils went to work. Rebecca clenched her jaw, expecting pain, but instead felt only warmth and faint vibration.
Osiris moved with mechanical grace, not a motion wasted. Each adjustment, each weld, was perfect. Surgical.
"Your optical prosthetic is a low-tier Tsunami III," he noted mid-operation, a dozen tiny tools sliding from the tendril's tip. "Lens degradation is severe. Processor, obsolete. That explains your habitual squinting."
Rebecca blinked. "What the, how'd you even know that?"
"Scan data indicates high focal-length adjustment frequency and zero infrared function," Osiris replied. "Installing upgraded sensor suite: environmental highlight overlay, night vision, and target ID. Efficiency increase projected at fifteen-point-two percent."
She felt a pulse of light behind her eye, and suddenly her world sharpened. The shadows peeled back, the room breathing in new detail. She could see the outline of pipes through the wall, heat traces flickering like ghosts.
"Drek! That's insane!" she gasped, spinning to look at Pilar. "Bro, I can see your missing wrench on the shelf from here! And the dent on it!"
Pilar laughed nervously, then hissed as Osiris's tendril hovered near his shoulder. The tip split open into dozens of precision filaments, working with eerie speed.
"Left shoulder neural linkage exhibits major interference," Osiris said, more to himself than to them. "Inferior wiring from a Krenzkoff model installation. Predictable."
"You, you even know that?" Pilar's voice cracked. "That old junk fried out weeks ago!"
"Burn patterns confirm it," Osiris said calmly. "Reinforcing conduit alignment, recalibrating neural feedback. Reaction latency reduction: ten percent."
A soft hum filled the air. Pilar flexed his fingers experimentally, and froze. The familiar stiffness was gone. His movements were smooth, clean, right for the first time in years.
"Holy chrome…" he murmured. "This is better than anything Doc Chromehands ever managed. Sir, how, ?"
"Standard optimization protocol," Osiris interrupted, retracting the tools. He didn't mention the small embedded trackers quietly added, a logical precaution. "You should now perform within expected parameters."
Rebecca blinked rapidly, grinning. "Guess we're officially upgraded, huh?"
Osiris turned, gesturing toward the open garage. "First assignment: clear debris. Recover all usable tech and components. Report any sites within range that may contain high-value scrap, rare alloys, or stable power cores."
He paused, then added: "Performance will determine future resource allocation and upgrade priority."
Rebecca cracked her neck and adjusted her jacket, her new eye gleaming faint red. "You heard the boss, Pilar. Let's prove we're worth the parts he burned on us. I'll handle the scan, you grab the loot."
"Yeah, yeah," Pilar grumbled, rotating his now-fluid arm with obvious pride. "Just pray his 'nutrient paste' doesn't taste like old synth-protein sludge. Still, guess it's a fair trade."
Osiris watched as they began to work, clumsy but eager. His lenses glowed briefly. The servo-skull floated beside him, recording.
Internal log updated:
Two external collaboration units added.
Assigned roles: resource recovery, field scouting, auxiliary maintenance.
Monitoring operational performance.
They were inefficient, noisy, unpredictable, but alive. And perhaps, in their chaos, there might be useful data.
Osiris turned back to his workbench, calibrating the promethium cell for sustained output. The faint hum of machinery filled the air again, blending with Rebecca's muffled curses and Pilar's muttering.
The workshop was alive.