Justin really needed to get re-equipped before getting into any more fights. He was down to a single drone after Ku had managed to step on the other one (though to be fair, it had just stung him in the ass), and the one he had left would hardly win any prizes even before it had taken a couple of gun shots to the armour.

The team didn't need much from him at the minute, the bounty payments had given them enough cash to get repairs rolling on the Underground, and Division had arranged a long-term lease for the whole building, figuring that the extra rooms above would be useful for things like training, medical, and storage. The former basement tavern had been designated as a rec-room with a more formal team conference room in the back.

He did need to work on a computer and security system for the team, but that could wait until the remodelling and decorating was finished. As for the day to day patrolling and investigating, the team seemed to have things well in hand.

Which left Justin to his own devices for a while. He spun Trundler slowly, surveying his overly-full workshop slash laboratory, he need to focus on getting the improved solar panel prototype up and running, because, simply put, he really needed the money. But first he settled in to design a new recon drone.

He started with the blueprints for the store-bought model, before stripping most of it away, pencilling in upgraded battery, motors, and a hardened communications and sensor suite, finally he designed a graphene composite shell that should let it take a bullet or two while staying sleek and low profile. Happy with the finished look, he sent it to Era to begin fabrication on the parts they could produce, and placed an order for the more sensitive components necessary for the sensors and optics.

Done with his little side project, it was time to focus on paying the bills.

The biggest hurdle he was facing with the solar panel production was turning out to be quality control, the nano-tube clusters had to be perfectly aligned to capture the rays, and the crystalline structure had to be just right in order to pass the energy into the circuits rather than just frying them. Easy enough in theory, much more difficult in practice, where errant draughts and microscopic particles could influence the growth and structure of his clusters and crystals.

For now he didn't mind too much, it let him experiment with his micropulse-scanner, an electron-wave sensor he'd put together to help analyze atomic structures, and inspecting them also helped boost his Analyze skill which had been lagging a little. He did have some ideas for improving quality consistency in the future, but he really needed to get a proof of concept up and running so he could test the finalised panel for actual return, resilience, and longevity.

He'd found an old radio in the basement, and had decided to leave it playing while he worked, more to help with learning English than in the hope it would provide valuable information. He'd noticed his phrasing and comprehension had developed in leaps and bounds since he'd started interacting with the team, and had decided that language was really something of an active skill that needed to be used rather than just learned by rote.

It was quite interesting listening to old songs that he felt he should know, sung in words that seemed wrong.

Stop getting distracted! He scolded himself, getting back to constructing the first panel. He was a little distressed when it cracked, but decided it was more likely a case of imprecise manipulators coupled with fragile materials, than a fault in the structure.

He decided that the next thing he was going to work on was robotics. It would allow him to develop the kind of precision manipulators he needed in the lab, as well as working on an exo-skeleton design for the team, which would ultimately lead to an actual robot shell for him to pilot. He was quite excited about the possibility of getting into the field as an android.

In theory, continuing to develop drones would be the smart play, they were smaller, cheaper, more mobile and adaptable, but all the benefits couldn't quite beat the idea of bionics, of being out there actually beating on bad guys. Besides, he could still work on drones at the same time, you could never have too many minions after all!

Justin got started on his robotics research by taking apart a number of the manipulators he already had, both the pneumatic and actuator-ram type he used in the lab for fine control, and the hydraulic ones used for heavier lifting. He even had IRA drag one of the heavy robotic arms up from the basement to have a look at.

Eventually he would want robotic servos and motors not only capable of speed, power, and precision, but also optimised for efficiency, size, noise, and resilience. It was going to be quite a project, and like the armour he had planned, it would probably call for a composite of materials, but for now he'd have to specialise.

The pneumatics would be fairly cheap and easy to reproduce, but the hydraulics, while powerful were way too slow, really only good for sustained lifting, and maybe shock absorption. Actuators had the most potential as far as scaling and precision was concerned, capable of fine manipulation or mass lifting, relying more on the speed and power of their motor, they not only seemed more elegant, but also more reliable and variable than the other two.

He spent some time thinking about future techniques he could use, just to see if there was a way to jump ahead, but things like electro-active polymers, shape memory alloys, and coil filaments, would all take a serious injection of funds to get off the ground.

He broke off from designing a synthetic hand in his head, mentally humming along to the radio, when unexpected notifications began popping up.

Successful Skill Use +6 xp to Entertainment - Beginner Level 6 [79%].

+3 xp to skill group Culture - Novice Level 1 [00%] Hidden Quest Completed!

Learn the Lingo II

Type: Hidden, Complication (Outsider), Chain

Description: Truths can be found in new surroundings but also in new eyes.

Goal: Become comfortable with the local language,

Culture skill group at Novice rank.

Difficulty: Hard

Rewards: 600 xp

Choice between two talents:

New Home or Outsider's Perspective

New Home Removes the social penalty imposed by the Outsider complication.

Grants a 5% bonus when using a skill in the Behaviour, Culture and World Affairs skill groups. Outsider's Perspective Grants a 5% bonus when using a skill in the Inquiry, Engineering and [???] skill groups.

Giving it only a few seconds thought, Justin selected the Outsider's Perspective, happy to choose anything that would give a boost to Engineering. He did wonder what the other skill group was, but decided it really didn't matter.

Inspired, he spent some time thinking of ways to overcome the Amnesia complication, especially if it would give him some kind of a bonus. Besides, he'd quite like to know what Janus had cooked up to explain his ignominious arrival.

If he was a human, and the memories were simply repressed, he would have said counselling and retracing steps were the way to go. As an AI, there was a greater likelihood that the memory files were just lost, so only the last seemed like it might actually help, and even then it would be more a case of searching for evidence of what happened rather than just hoping to jog a memory.

Does that mean I need to get back into space at some point? Justin wondered, not at all opposed to the idea. Given the number of flying supers out to make a buck, getting satellites and probes into orbit wasn't the problem it used to be. There was even a good chance that North Wind would be able to boost something small into orbit.

Justin lost himself to thoughts of orbital probes and rocket propulsion.