The smell of cooked bacon pulled him out of the best sleep he'd had in years. Stretching in bed, he could hear the low murmur of voices droning steadily from below. Although in need of a shower, the temptation of breakfast was too much to ignore.

"You didn't have any food, so I brought some over." Stiletto sat at the kitchen island; in front of her were two plates. ​​

"Thank you." Dex slid lazily into the seat next to her, glancing around his kitchen. "Who were you talking to?"

Stiletto brought up a hud and gestured toward a program she was running. "I was talking to your defensive ICE. What did you name it?"

"Fatboy…" Dex pulled the nearest plate closer and started eating. Apparently, privacy among the 'bottom feeders' was non-existent. While she was distracted, he took the opportunity to study her more closely.

Stiletto was quite small, probably a bit under five feet tall, which meant she came up to Dex's chest. Her short green hair was worn in a pixie cut, and she wore baggy clothes that hid whatever curves she had beneath. She had a pretty face and mismatched eyes; one was blue and the other brown. Dex was sure her hair color had changed from the day before.

"You're looking at my hair?" She smiled impishly, "it was blue yesterday. Like it?"

"Yes. You don't have to cook for me; I wasn't taking the bet seriously." Since Dex hated cooking, he was enjoying her effort much more than he wanted to admit.

"I ran my mouth; it's a good lesson for me!" She shook her head at the hud as she finished another simulation. "These fatboys are stout. We should partner up; you can be my door breaker."

"Denied!" Darsi's voice carried from the entrance; the jeans and sweatshirt from the day before had changed into a dark blue jumpsuit that clung nicely to her athletic form. "Didn't I say he was my partner? Shoo, little fly!"

Stiletto wrinkled her nose at the older woman and gestured to the second plate. "I made you some too."

"No partner poaching!" Darsi took the seat next to Dex and pulled the offered plate closer. "Love the new hair color… but you forgot to put a contact in."

Stiletto covered her right eye suddenly, her face turning pink with embarrassment. Then, unexpectedly she stood up and rushed toward the door.

Darsi smiled at her retreating form. "Don't come barging in without knocking! Dex needs his privacy."

Stiletto hurried through the door without answering, closing it shut with a loud slam.

"Sorry, Dex… Hackers can be a bit pushy, especially the female ones." Darsi's blond hair was slightly damp, and the barest hint of lavender followed her. "They lack boundaries and social common sense."

Dex gave her a blank look. "Hadn't noticed. Is she okay?"

Darsi nodded. "She detests her dual-colored eyes; she usually wears a brown or blue contact. We won't see her for a few days, guess you're going 5th now."

He replied by scraping up the remaining eggs with his fork. Personally, he found her dual-colored eyes kind of cool. But perhaps there was a story behind this. "Going to search for the AI this morning?"

Darsi shook her head slightly, her warm blue eyes showing amusement. "Even though the Trip-7 drive is old tech, it's still a 100 zettabytes (100 billion terabytes). I'm going to take a few days to upgrade my gear and get in a proper mood."

"I'd like to order some yottabyte crystal matrices, the 10k type." Dex watched her for reaction, but it seemed like the request wasn't over the top. The crystal matrix drives were developed during his house arrest, which meant it was still fairly new. Until its invention, most quality data storage was limited to zettabytes.

"A 10K yottabyte crystal is a lot of memory." Darsi leaned closer, her pretty face showing interest. "You're going to make something?"

Dex nodded. "Been wanting to try out an idea of mine.."

"No worries, Partner. How many?"

"A thousand should do it." Dex paused long enough to see if Darsi would comment, but she only nodded and started gathering up the dishes from breakfast.

"I'll put your grocery order in with Gunner. Any special requests regarding food? Or should I just mirror mine?"

"Same as yours, I guess, maybe double it; I eat a lot." Dex moved to help with clearing the table but was waved off.

"Get cleaned up. I can handle this."

"Thanks." Dex headed toward the stairs, pausing at the first step. "Think we can bring the stealth pod down here?"

Darsi nodded. "Anywhere special?"

Dex pointed up the stairs. "There's a couch up there that I'll never use."

Thirty minutes later, Dex emerged from the steam-filled shower stall; Darsi hadn't lied about the water pressure. Three vacuum-sealed plastic bags were sitting on the bathroom counter, proof that someone had entered during his shower. "Seriously… Bottom feeders need to learn how to knock."

The packages contained three dark blue jumpsuits. He tore the top one open and spent a few minutes unpacking the toiletries he brought from the loft. By the time he exited the bathroom, he felt like a new man.

The couch next to his bed had already been replaced with the stealth pod. His precision tools and duffle were leaning against the wall nearby. The bottom feeders had returned both his gloves and goggles. "That was fast… I guess Darsi is the one to ask when you want something done."

*************

Six hours later, Darsi opened the round blue door and peeked outside at the incessant knocking. "What?"

Mongoose stood in the doorway smiling, but unfortunately, his handsome face wasn't enough to grant him entry. "Fucking Da Vinci is building something? Can I see what it is?"

Darsi shook her head, a movement that made her blonde ponytail follow suit. "We're too busy… Got the stuff?"

Mongoose's smile turned into a frown as he pushed the packages into Darsi's waiting hands. "Two large spools of uncoated silver wire. Two Hundred 5-socketed Matrix adapters."

Darsi backed into the room; her boot kept the door from opening more than a foot. "What about the 10k Yottabyte crystals?"

Mongoose shook his head solemnly. "Getting those in bulk will take a few days. What should we do about payment?"

"Bill my account." Darsi closed the door to stop further conversation. She returned to the upstairs where Dex was working on the pod. It had once again been completely gutted. The lid was removed and propped up while he worked on the inside surface of it.

Dex had his goggles and glove on; he created a virtual overlay on the inside of the lid that mapped out the soldering points for the silver wire. Darsi slipped her glasses on and plugged into the cable that dangled from her new partner's goggles. Her lips curved into a smile; she'd never seen someone work in both the real and virtual world at the same time.

"I got the Matrix adapters." Darsi studied his progress; she was beginning to grasp his intent.

Dex's goggled head bobbed up and down. "Put them anywhere."

"I have my tools here; I can start attaching the adapters." Darsi's fingers itched to help him, but she stopped short of inviting herself.

Dex pushed the goggles up and made eye contact. "You know what I'm doing?"

Darsi shrugged slightly. "You're laying the wire for these socketed adapters. Since there are two hundred of them and you asked for a thousand yottabyte crystals, I'm assuming that each socket will house five crystal matrices."

Dex grinned at her and nodded in approval. "We'll end up with two hundred clusters of memory, each of them will have fifty thousand yottabytes."

Darsi matched his smile. "Then what?"

"Then, I'll show you the world."

Two days later, one thousand 10k yottabyte crystal matrices were delivered by the Mongoose, Gadget, Thumper, and Stiletto. They refused to hand them over unless Darsi allowed them entry. She'd been cooped up with Dex for 60 hours, and their curiosity was killing them.

"My guys are here, Dex!"

"No worries. Did they bring the crystals?" Dex was sitting comfortably on the living room couch while using Darsi's virtual interface to ride the wave. An enormous blue orb hung over his head.

Gadget recognized the site immediately. "That's the terrafirma database."

"Yep. Good old mother earth brought to you in living color." Under Dex's manipulation, the globe flattened and extended until it resembled a two-dimensional map. "I need an independent program that can travel through an enclosed virtual space. Ideally, some sort of transport.

"Like a craft?" Thumper jumped in before anyone could volunteer. "I can do that. What sort of control interface?"

"Virtual keyboard for entering coordinates and maybe a joystick because…. They'll always be cool." Dex created a grid of one thousand squares on the 2-D map of the earth. "Grab the first five crystals and hand me one."

Darsi watched as Dex downloaded the data from the highlighted grid to the matrix crystal. Each crystal would contain one-thousandth of the world's data. "Geographic features are updated via satellite every five years or so. However, city features like roads and construction update every 48 hours."

Dex checked the progress on the first crystal; it was less than ten percent. "We lucked out with a fairly recent geographic update. This data represents a snapshot of the world's geography less than three months ago. The urban features of the data are from 12 hours ago.

"I need a coordinate system." Thumper looked up from her virtual interface. "For the craft, I'll make it a platform. With comfortable seats, of course."

Dex swiped his glove, downloading the longitude and latitude grid specifics. "Sending it now."

"Let us help, Dex." Gadget's blue eyes brimmed with excitement. "You're downloading the data into the crystals. If we work in teams of two, we can manage that."

Darsi nodded at Dex. "It's a good idea. Otherwise, it will take us ten or twelve days."

"Okay. I'll do the crystal placements; they have to be arranged in a specific order and by grouping. Any mistake will result in scrambled data."

"Deal." Gadget gestured toward Mongoose. "Me and Mongoose will take the first shift; Darsi and Stiletto will go next. That will free up Dex for placement and Thumper for the navigation program."

Dex glanced at the pile of crystals. "Should only take about a week."