“Hey tiger! Nice to see you again!” said a drunk female voice behind Arron.
Arron turned around to see the short bubblegum pink-haired Mishka being supported by Megane.
“Mishka, come on we have to leave. You’re too drunk to be staying outside!” said Megane.
“Aww, you’re no fun. Wait… why do you have 4 eyes? You should get that checked out along with replacing your glasses and two of your eyes.”
“Thanks for chatting with us Captain Pointer, but we’ll be leaving first,” said Mishka.
Captain Pointer waved to the two girls as they left.
“You gonna introduce everyone or shall I?” asked Kix.
“Bishop, our heavy weapons specialist: explosives, machine guns, and such,” said Captain Pointer as he pointed to the shortest person present, he was close to 5ft tall with buzz-cut hair.
“He is one of the sturdiest people in our unit. He grew up with brittle bones and later went through a painful surgery to replace them with a parasteel alloy mixture. He can pick up heavier things than you or I can without a problem. But it all comes with a heavy upkeep repair cost every year.”
“We’ve met before,” said Bishop casually in a deep voice, before taking a drink from his glass.
The glass he held was filled with a furiously bubbling black liquid that looked more like something a mad scientist would have created in their secret laboratory.
“His partner is Prissilla (Don’t call her that or she will kill you),” Captain Pointer whispered quickly. “We all just call her Priss. She is a long-range sniper specialist, which melds with Bishop’s short and medium range weapons.”
Priss, who had her chestnut brown hair in a ponytail, glared at Captain Pointer with her two cybernetic implant eyes that were now glowing red. When she looked over to Arron and Toothbrush her glowing eyes turned green and she merely nodded to each of them.
“Ward is our team’s exoskeleton defense shield specialist. With the Mechanized worker bots advancements and the new models getting bigger his job has gotten a lot harder,” said Captain Pointer as pointed to a tall muscular man with a short crew cut.
“The team’s number one meat shield,” said Ward.
“His partner Knox Harup, is also an exoskeleton user, but he specializes in melee fighting,” said Captain Pointer, pointing to another tall muscular man who was bald and had a large bushy mustache.
Knox waved his right hand in a greeting as he picked up a few snacks with his left hand and shoved them into his mouth.
Both Ward and Knox were by far the tallest and largest of the group. They also had the most visible scars. Between the two of them, there were several hundred scars all over their visible skin including their face and necks.
“Lexa is the unit’s head of logistics. She makes sure we get the supplies and information we need in a timely manner, along with helping us take care of the unit’s paperwork. She’s also good with programming things if you need help with stuff like that,” said Captain Pointer.
Lexa was a quiet and proper-looking middle-aged woman. She looked like a middle school teacher with her neat gray jacket and skirt. Her black hair was tied up in a tight bun and had a pair of thick glasses perched at the end of her nose. She looked out of place with the rest of the ruffians that were sitting around the table.
Lexa smiled at the two with a nod and then her face returned to daydreaming.
“Kat, short for Kathreen, is our ever cheerful member that has been helping Lexa with logistics while we were short of members. She is more of a wild card helping with more delicate things such as locks, alarms, and other hacking problems. Now with a new probie joining our logistics office, she can be free more often to help us.”
“I’m the unit’s most nimble and best burglar,” said Kat, with a dimpled Cheshire grin. She had shoulder-length red hair.
“Last of the other members is Kix, he is newish compared to the other members so he hasn’t found a specialty yet. (Don’t talk about family stuff around him, it’s a touchy subject).” Captain Pointer whispered the last part.
“Then there is me, I can fill in wherever needed. That only leaves you two the newest members. Why don’t you introduce yourselves to us,” said Captain Pointer.
“Arron Wynterz, no specialty, Kix’s partner.”
“Tiller Bruher, but people call me Toothbrush, I am the new junior logistics member.”
“Your nickname is toothbrush? What a coincidence! Hey old Tooth! There’s someone you might want to talk to! It sounds like he has the same hobby as you!” shouted the grinning Kat.
An older man with a full head of white hair wearing a worn black work suit that now looked more of a light gray was sitting at the bar blankly staring at his drink. When he heard his name he turned around and looked over towards Kat who was now waving him over.
The older man stood up and walked over to them. Arron could see on the left cheek was a fresh red imprint of a hand.
“What happened to you ol’ tooth?” asked Ward.
The old man stood there staring off into the distance, his eyes gleaming with 1000s of years of life experience.
“Shhh… everyone quiet, he’s going to say something!” Captain Pointer hushed the rest of the members.
“Mumble… and then Bam slapped me in the face!” said old Tooth.
“Why?” asked Knox.
“Was watching her brush her teeth.”
“Knox, Did you even need to ask?” asked Kat.
“Young Kat, you said someone has the same hobby as me?”
“Him, Young tooth meet Old tooth,” Kat pointed at Toothbrush and introduced the two to each other.
“I’ll remember you. We can talk later about our hobby,” said Old tooth. He turned around and walked back to his barstool.
“What hobby?” asked Toothbrush.
“He likes handing out toothbrushes to women and watching them brush their teeth,” said Priss.
“It’s a weird flex, but it’s relatively tame and nowhere as crazy as some of the sick crap that the politicians of Mother and Father participate in,” said Kat.
“What?” asked Arron, surprised at hearing something like this.
“I do not have a hobby like that!” said Toothbrush.
“Sure…” said Priss. Her eyes zoomed in and out as she inspected Toothbrush.
“I can’t say anything more on the subject or I would be getting a visit from the Office of reason,” said Kat pointing to several hovering security bots floating in the air.
“You guys, Arron’s a country bumpkin who recently came to the megacity. Man, do I have my work cut out for me having to explain everything to him. Can you guys help me out!” said Kix.
“Oh? A cute naive bumky?” asked Kat.
“If you need anything just ask us!” said Knox pointing to his chest.
“First you should order something to eat and drink before we start our chat! This place has all the good synth food,” said Ward.
“Right! You need to buy the boiling brew. It will keep you awake, give you strength, and put some hair on your chest!” said Bishop.
“Don’t drink it unless you want to burn a new hole in your stomach,” said Captain Pointer.
“Captain, you’re too weak!” laughed Bishop as he slapped the captain on the back.
“Synth food? That mush?” asked Arron, remembering the pink mush from his time in the military.
“Wow, he really is behind the times. Lexa, inform him of the new synth food!” said Kat.
Lexa sat up straight and pushed her glasses up her nose and stared right into Arron’s eyes.
“Synthetic Food, normally referred to as synth food. Is cheap and plentiful due to the many recent advancements in this field of study that were prompted by the Megacity’s large population density.”
“Synth food is made partly out of real food with… other items added. Before it was just a basic pink mushy slush. But last year several breakthroughs were made, resulting in the Synth-pack which makes it more palatable to eat.”
“The new synth-packs allow you to put the pack in the Synth-cooker 9000. Which claims with one press of a button you can create ‘OVER 9000!’ different things. In recent months they have created the synth vitapouch, a jelly-like drink with a lot of calories and all the vitamins you need for a day of work,” said Lexa finishing her short lecture.
“Right, so many different food variations you can eat… just… the taste is still not the best. That’s why many people still use spices and specially made sauces to mask the flavor which the synth-food company calls the original flavor,” said Knox with a shake of his head.
“I heard that some people have only been buying and living on the cheap Vitapouches,” said Ward.
“…probably you,” mumbled Knox under his breath.
“What? Is their SCS rank D?” asked Bishop.
“Nope, they’re rank C!”
“Wait! Wait, why are you guys so happy about synth-food?” asked Arron.
“Since you come from the country you probably don’t know but the ‘fresh’ real food here in the city is expensive and heavily rationed. All the fresh imported food that comes to the Neo-Tokeyo first goes to the 4th level. They get to pick and choose what they want first, then the 3rd level, and 2nd level. The stores on the 1st level get whatever is leftover. This makes the prices of real food volatile and extremely expensive every month,” said Lexa.
“Yep, Synth food, whether you like it or not, is a major part of everyone’s diet on the first level. It’s cheap and plentiful but not really sure if it is healthy or not,” said Captain Pointer.
“If you listen to anyone from the levels above, especially the 4th level, they will make it sound like putting so many spices or sauces on your food is the worst crime imaginable. I saw someone on the news even go as far to say everyone who does so is uncultured and ruining the taste of food,” said Ward.
“Who cares what they say? I would maybe think about listening to them if they stopped eating their meat steaks and other luxury food and actually ate what we do every day,” said Priss with a huff.
“Arron, you’re in luck since this bar has some of the best sauce for the synth food, and the drinks are not all that bad. Why don’t you take a look at the menu,” said Kix as he tapped the table a few times in front of Arron bringing up a holo-menu.
The menu listed all the different types of synth food as well as hundreds of different drinks he had never heard of before.
Everyone watched him look through the menu waiting to see what he would choose.
Arron decided to play it safe and tapped on the image of fries. He added the recommended sauce and then tapped on a simple clear looking drink. Completing his order.
Ding! A message appeared in front of him.
[Payment accepted! Your order will be out shortly!]
“OH? So you like living dangerously?” asked Kat.
“It’s always the simple quiet things that are the most dangerous,” said Bishop, with the nod of his head.
Arron looked over to Kix confused.
“We call that drink the ‘Molotov cocktail’.”
