Later that evening, I donned my Boar Class Powered Combat Armor for the first time. Eh, I’d just call it Boar Armor - less of a mouthful.

Where the sleek black of Nanofibre Weave made us look like ninjas skulking through the night, the Boar Armour bulked me up like a wrestler.

The Boar Armor was layered Fullersteel, capable of withstanding strikes from most enemies without being so much as scratched. The squat, rounded helm had two forward-pointing spikes by the side of the cheeks, looking like a boar’s tusks. Inside them, dual voice modulators altered my normal voice to a deep bass growl.

BOAR CLASS POWERED COMBAT ARMOR

ARMOR POINTS: 1000

DAMAGE NEGATION: 30

FIRE RESISTANCE: 25%

SPECIAL ABILITY:

BOAR CHARGE: CHARGE ANY FOE WITHIN 200 FEET IN SECONDS. 100% BOOST TO SPEED. DAMAGE = 5 X (STRENGTH + VITALITY + 10)

The main reason I’d pushed forward with this armor, however, was the Fire Resistance. It would reduce by a quarter the effect of any flame-based attacks or damage, and ignore anything that did less than 40 damage.

HP: 130/130 + 1000/1000

PP: 320/320

MP: 575/575

CP: 264/2640

AP: 256/256

PSYDEF: 51

$ 342,457

XP: 5090/15000

Ethics: +329

A few hours later, I walked into Benny’s Used Cars. In my brand new Boar Armor.

A salesman saw me and screamed. In seconds, customers, employees and bystanders were running for the back doors.

I sighed and activated my speakers. “Hello everyone, this is Belessar. I’m here to buy a car. Please don’t be alarmed.”

Benny came out of his office, trembling. “M-Mr. Belessar?” he quaked.

“Yes, I’m Belessar. This is new armor. Don’t be alarmed.” I tried to reassure him.

Benny gulped. “Y-yes sir. How can we help you?”

“I’m looking for a Jeep Gladiator model, used but in good condition. No electronics, without the GPS if possible - I’ll fit my own. I saw you have a few in stock?”

“S-sure, Mr. Belessar,” stammered Benny. “Er… how would you be paying?”

“Cash. And I’ll need minimal paperwork - don’t exactly have a driving license I can show. Will that be a problem?”

“As a known ultrahuman, Mr. Belessar, it shouldn’t be,” Benny’s nervousness had gone now. “We’ll make it happen. Please, sit down.” He turned back and yelled. “Come out, you morons. Customer waiting.”

Slowly, the rest of the staff trickled out, cautiously taking up positions in the store.

Honestly, I don’t know why they panicked. The armor wasn’t that menacing.

Benny was speaking to me. “We have several models we can show you, Mr. Belessar, other than the Gladiator, if you want….”

“Just the Gladiator, please.”

The used car dealer did what he did best and made a strong sales pitch. Fortunately, Analyze showed me that the vehicle he was offering was, in fact, exactly as advertised. I forked over $7,000 in cash.

At which point I got into the vehicle and remembered one very small problem: Driving was not one of my skills. Oh well, I thought, if a computer can do it, how hard can it be? Maybe I'll pick up the skill just by starting the car. Fun fact number one: the steering wheel of a Gladiator isn't made for Boar Class Gauntlets. Fun fact number two: the pedals are too small for Boar Class Boots. A few minutes later, Benny was pressed into service for another task. "It's an honour to be helping you, Mr. Belessar," the showroom owner commented as he drove down the road, "but you really should look into some driving lessons. Autocars are great, but I've always trusted my own hands more." "It's a problem with the armour," I muttered. "Should've worn a smaller set." "Whatever you say." Benny glanced around at the deserted fields. "Are you sure this is where you want to be dropped off? It's at least ten miles back to town." "I'm certain. Thank you for your time, and my apologies for the trouble." "No problem-o. Always happy to help a customer. By the way, I saw your video for the kittens - very nice. My daughter wants to get one herself." I recalled a slightly singed combat veteran, who - last I recalled - was still being looked after by Valotti. "I might know someone." "That's great. Say, would you mind if we, er, mentioned that you bought your car from us?" "You're not afraid of being targeted by my enemies?" Benny shrugged. "Running a business in this town, you gotta take some risks." My opinion of Benny went up a few notches. "If you can keep quiet about my driving, I'll agree to be in one video. Just one, mind you." "Couldn't ask for anything more." Benny got down and signalled his own autocar, which had politely followed us out of town. "In case you ever want to upgrade, or need a special order - let me know, right? I have connections with all the big auto companies. And the smaller ones, too, if you need a custom job." "Thank you, Benny." Five minutes later, with Benny's vehicle way, way out of sight, the Spinmaker pulled up, with Paul in the driver's seat. He fixed me a gimlet look. "You went to buy a car." "Yeah. Got done with the armour, decided to get it done straightaway." "And it didn't strike you that you have to drive it home from the showroom?" ".... Sort of slipped my mind." "Right." Paul nodded. "Get into the Spinmaker and I'll drive this thing home. Any ideas how to keep us safe from prying eyes?" "It's night, and I already let off a jammer beacon." "Figures. Try to leave less obvious a trail of breadcrumbs in the future, please."

“That design’s sixty-three years old,” commented Anne when she saw it.

“Offroad vehicles with zero trackable electronics are hard to find,” I replied. “This model, though, seems pretty easy to understand.”

“You have 23 levels in Mechanic. It had better be.”

“Power-enhanced learning isn’t a substitute for actual knowledge,” rumbled Paul from the corner of the garage. “Make sure you go through the user manual.” He handed me a wrench. “This should be useful.”

“It’s a wrench.”

“It’s not just any wrench. That has been handed down to me from Anne’s grandfather. It’s part of the Drake family legacy.”

“How come I don’t get it, then?” pouted Anne.

“It’s a loan. For the next year, Andrew, you will take care of the wrench. You will respect the wrench. You will use the wrench as if it was an extension of your arm.”

I grinned. “Sure.”

LEGACY WRENCH

BELONGING TO PAUL DRAKE’S FATHER, THIS WRENCH HAS BEEN HANDED DOWN FOR TWO GENERATIONS OF THE DRAKE FAMILY. PAUL HAS A SENTIMENTAL ATTACHMENT TO IT. OTHERWISE, A WRENCH.

PENALTY IF LOST OR BROKEN: -1 RELATIONSHIP WITH PAUL DRAKE.

“I shall treasure this,” I replied. “And keep it safe.”

“That’s all I ask. Now, what do you intend to do with this vehicle?”

“I was thinking of fixing it up with some armor and stealth paint.”

Paul frowned. “Are you going to use it to fight?”

“No. There’s no way I can make an effective armored vehicle - yet. It’ll be more useful just to store stuff in the field and get from place to place?”

“How will you avoid detection?”

“I know how to make a device called a Scanner Mask,” I explained. “It came along with Level 10 in Electronic Arts and Level 22 in Mechanic.”

“What does it do?”

“Basically, if a vehicle has stealth paint, it prevents the vehicle from being recorded on cameras or radar,” I explained. “I’ve already made one. The only challenge is that the power pack needs to be recharged or it’d run out of energy in fifteen minutes. I can hook it up to the engine and run it continuously.”

Paul nodded. “You’re fitting it out tonight, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Then from tomorrow morning, we’ll start your driving lessons. Tessie has a manual mode, I’ll walk you through it.”

Learning to drive with Paul was a fun experience. At least, once you discount waking up after four hours of sleep and rushing to get ready.

Paul was a patient teacher, and talked me through the entire manual driving process. Accelerator, brakes, hand signals, right of way, everything.

I only banged into a wall once in the whole day. Best of all, after four hours of practice, I got a new skill:

SKILL UNLOCKED: DRIVING

LEVEL 1: YOU WON’T CRASH THE CAR ON AN EMPTY STREET. AT LEAST NOT IN THE DAYTIME.

“I got the skill,” I told Paul.

“That’s wonderful,” came the bland reply. “Keep your eyes on the road.”

By lunchtime - at which point Paul called a halt - I was a bit more comfortable with the entire driving process. We decided to take a break and spend the afternoon armoring my new Jeep.

As I fixed up the vehicle, I noticed that my Interface had changed slightly.

Now, when I accessed Inventory, there was a tab that read 'Vehicles'. Selecting it brought up a picture of the Gladiator, in a small box to the side.

GLADIATOR JEEP

PAYLOAD 0 / 700 KG

The box could expand further into a separate screen, telling me what was stored in the Gladiator.

I wondered if this meant I could store things in other vehicles, too.

As I was finishing fine-tuning the engine, Anne strolled in. “How’s your very own car look? Oh, cool!”

It did, in fact, look cool. The original red colour of the Jeep Gladiator had given way to a matte black finish, and the vehicle was noticeably thicker than a normal one. I’d replaced the normal glass with one-way glass and fixed armor panels across the whole thing.

“Fullersteel armor strips across the main body,” I explained to Anne, “topped off with nanofibre weave plates. This thing can take quite a bit of damage. It’s practically bulletproof.”

“Bombproof too?”

“No, that requires a lot more armor and the weight would at least double - I’d need a specialized engine for that.”

“So you’ll be going out in this from now on?”

“As much fun as that would be,” pointed out Paul, “bringing this vehicle here - once it’s publicly associated with you - practically leaves a trail of breadcrumbs leading right up to our door.”

“Oh,” Anne frowned. “But then…”

“I’ve spoken to a friend. There’s an abandoned garage in Quartermain Heights - not too far from here - and you can buy it outright for cash. It’s got an underground parking bay and a workshop. A thousand square feet in total.”

“Wow! So Andew’s getting his own secret base?”

“And workshop. And storehouse.”

“Thanks, Paul,” I smiled. “This means a lot to me.”

“Don’t get too grateful, I just want my basement back.”