CRYPT 12

C 1 2 | E P I S O D E 0 2

Bishop stumbled away from the glass wall when surreal molten splashed on the glass, heating it up immediately. His breath kicked up a notch and his heart thumped faster, shocked at how sudden that had happened.

"Sequence change, welcome to sector P91," a computerized female voice announced.

A muffled giggle from behind him made Bishop look over his shoulder. His breath paused for a second upon seeing Dorie. Although her eyes were fixed on the games behind him, Bishop could tell she'd seen him flinch.

"How long have you been watching me?" Bishop said, almost stuttering.

Dorie scoffed. "I heard the cheers and came over to see what was happening," she answered with a giggle hiding in her throat.

"Oh," he said, nodding, trying not to sound awkward.

"What?" She raised an eyebrow at Bishop, only then did he realize he'd been staring for a moment.

"What?" He trailed off. "Oh, um-so uh, briefed up on your team?" He swallowed.

"Yep," Dorie nodded, she folded her arms. Her eyes were still fixed on the games beyond Bishop. "Got Zigma X."

"Not bad."

"Uh-hun," she gestured at the score screen with her eyes. Bishop turned to see ZIgma X trailing at 4th position of the 7 teams that'd participated in the event, only leading the 5th group by a slight mark. Bishop shrugged, short of words. "How about you?"

"Lumber Jacks," Bishop cleared his throat.

Systems: Check. Upgrade: Running Synchronization: Good. Compatibility: Good.

"-but the drilling system has its own flaws too. The gears take a 4 second window transition time which only happens after a new section is reached. A 4 second window is dangerous if this it were to happen, and then there's the issue of body type synchronization, entrée model and of course optimization with linking team members for team work."

"Wow," Dorie turned to face Bishop, her mind tried to arrange and comprehend all what he'd just blurted out. Wow! "Where did you get all that information from? Definitely 'not in the file' this time."

Bishop blinked, his pulse once again had gone up a notch and his vision swam back into focus. "I-I don't know, must've read of it sometime. These are well-well, well known stuff."

"Well know, hmm?" A smirk crossed her lips.

Where did that come from, really? Even he couldn't find a logical explanation to it. Of a sudden, his brain now assimilated questions and spurted out replies on its own, even on abstract things which he knew nothing about.

"Explains how you got Bathfog," Dorie teased him with a smile. "Have a safe trip Einstein." She patted his chest before leaving him there on the platform.

Bishop scoffed, Einstein. Why did she have to relate him with someone who'd died almost 4 centuries ago, there were cool modern day prodigies she could've used. Bishop turned back to the games just in time to see one of the Guardians duck a laser bullet and with a swift move, blow up one of the humanoids with hi force field enabled gloves causing the audience to roar.

The door unlocked and Bishop was welcomed by the soft ping of his apartment come to live. He walked over to the large glass window, swiping his hand over an interface which caused the graphics blinds to disperse, revealing the magnificent view of the city from his 9th line apartment of Tri tech's residential quarters. The sky was filled with small Phaser Stealth ships, medium sized Maerio Explorers and a few large Storm Raptor spaceships used in carrying cargos, the former two being passenger ships. Considering the number of elites occupying this side of the world, it was only natural that the exquisite out-of-the-world Star Weasel ships were seen often whizzing by. They were used by people whose worth was 500% more than Bishop's.

"Your systems record instability," the digital voice said, disrupting Bishop's chain of thought about what to expect for his next trip.

"Of course I'm not stable, not when my next job looks like a death ride since Alexaki said to hug a loved one."

"Well, there's Dorie Peg."

What!!! "I-I'm not into her," Bishop found himself in a conversation about his love life with a machine.

"Your body chemistry says otherwise."

"Oh shut up already," Bishop muttered, trying to avoid the AI reading further into him, No one could be sure where all the data they got were sent off to.

Bishop slipped out of hisoutfit into something more refreshing and then got set for bed after he'd set instructionto the digital home manager to wake him in next 4 hours. 

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