With the rest of the time spent in relative silence, Jared couldn't say there was anything truly notable about it. One by one, they all left the cafeteria. His boss had his duties to relay the news to the higher-ups while also beginning on that monstrosity of paperwork needing to be done, while Cass had to clean up an entire street filled with glass shards and ice.

That last one had just been a bit too much for the man. Jared was hardly able to believe what he had been told until he saw the pictures. That damned street was positively in ruins, everything on the outside having been damaged in some form or another. The road was cracked in a few places under the ice, the place clearly not meant to handle colds for longer periods of time, while the stores themselves matched the description of abandoned. Jared himself had driven down that same road not a week before, making it hard to really grasp how it had become so broken in so little time.

Yet he needed to accept that fact and move on. He had his own job to do, his boss wanting him to do his own kind of cleaning. Corpses needed to be taken care of, the flesh-bags likely to have attracted some kind of rot while lying out in the open. Jared was not going to have a great time cleaning that up by hand, yet he knew that it was the only thing he could really do.

And there were also those other places he needed to get to. Grunwald hadn't been too specific on just what it was. Jared half-suspected the older man just didn't know to really call it. One of the places was one of the illegally-built houses, where apparently there were a whole bunch of electronics that needed to be gathered. They were quite valuable if the man’s words were to be believed. Jared didn't care too much about that, only wondering how he was going to transport it all without issues. Electronics were meant to be separated, and the number of things there were would make it hard to fit it all within the car reasonably.

The man supposed he would have to deal with that when the time came for it. There was still the other and final goal he needed to clean up. It was also the reason that he needed to wear a mask while inside the forest apparently. According to his boss, it was some kind of biological weapon shaped like an animal while also having human traits. Quite a peculiar way to describe it, yet Jared just accepted it at face value. What could he really have said? Jared just took the coordinates and did his best to memorize the routes over there.

Jared was the last one to leave the cafeteria, walking out with long steps and a fierce gaze. He had a task and he would complete it. Yet, if he wanted to uphold the restriction put upon, of which he was warning against doing any heavy lifting of any kind, he would need assistance.

Luck was on his side when it came to him. The man had one assistant perfect for the job. And from what had been heard, it should have been more than ready to assist him at the current time, the automation having gotten time to heal as well.

‘Are you ready to head out?’ Jared sent to the construct he called his partner. It was the very same one that had taken multiple bullets to the head only a day before, making the man wonder just how it looked. Automations did not get scars, right? But they still had some capabilities surrounding repairing, so how did that work exactly? Did it just close up perfectly or something?

Jared had never actually thought about it. Maybe that was due to the man not having cared until that very moment. Or, okay, he had cared the day before, during the few minutes of thoughts he had gotten before being put under. Not like those minutes could have counted for anything, the man not having been of the sane kind of mind during that time.

‘I have been ready to leave for thirty-three minutes,’ the automation near-instantly answered. Jared momentarily thought of the answer as passive-aggressive but shook that thought out of his head as fast as possible. Robots were not sarcastic.

Then again, it was a good thing he wouldn't have to go down in the basement and get it off the hooks. Jared remembered his one and only time down there, helping decide where the different pieces of gear needed to be placed. It was fun to think of it all like that.

The automations were a fixture in the force, yet the man had been the one to decide where they needed to sit. Jared was the reason that they were the place they were since he had been the one with the final word on it. Yet even if he outweighed them in rank and seniority, he would be the first to leave and the lowest one on the ladder at that point.

…

Where was it? Where was the anger at that statement? Jared could have sworn he had felt something brewing within his heart, some desire to go over and chokeslam the automation he knew into a wall. Yet… that anger disappeared as quickly as it came, replaced with an indifferent personality. He had no need to be violent against those who would replace him within the next couple of years.

Had he… had Jared accepted that fact? Had the man accepted that he wouldn't be where he was forever? No, that didn't make sense. Jared was the prideful one, unable to accept change, right? He was supposed to remain steadfast in his opinion, to hate without any difference in attitude no matter how much time passed, no matter what was done for him through his time working beside the constructs.

Right. He could slap the thing and then his anger would surely return. Jared just needed to get close. It would likewise help him see if he could even do that much, with how much his chest hurt when he took in a deep breath. Did punching something equal the same thing as lifting something heavy? It was two opposite actions, yet there was a chance it used the same muscles. Jared wasn't sure, never having much interest in biology to begin with. Nearly all his knowledge about the subject had been scrubbed from his mind a long time ago.

Deadset on his truly genius plan, Jared walked outside, ready to meet the automation as fast as he could. The thing would still need to get out from its slumber down in the basement, though, so he could just ready the car while he was at it. Not that he could actually take the same car as the one he had driven the day before. That was positively impossible, Jared able to see the damage to it the moment he stepped out of the building.

How had he not noticed how beat up it had become? Had darkness and adrenaline really altered his view of the world to such a high degree that he could distinguish a beautiful, polished sheen with what could only be called dirt-filled garbage… yeah, it totally had. Jared wiped at his eyes a bit, yet he couldn't see anything different from what he saw a second before.

The car was totalled, and there was nothing else that could be said about it without it being one massive lie. The windows not completely broken had been hit in the cross-fire, cracks running up through them. And even if he had successfully removed the wire that had been previously stock on the front wheels, the damage created by it was still very clear to the eyes. It had torn a straight series of holes into the hull, for hell’s sake. It would take more than a normal mechanic could muster for any part of that vehicle to be repaired.

Would Jared really have to part with it so soon? The man had driven that fabulous thing since his first day on the job, his tutor at the time showing off the city in that car. It had been with him through trial and error, always able to get up one more time. There had been close calls before, moments where Jared had been forced to fight so that it could be repaired in the end, yet the man was beginning to think even the most desperate person would reject the notion of the car ever coming back to its full glory. Repairing it would entail removing so much of it that it would be likened to an entirely new car.

How tragic a tale it was, yet it wasn't one that was shed tears over. Jared had to find another car since that one had been destroyed, and the man was having an absolutely hard time trying to pick one of them. They all looked the same to him, all of them not striking out like the old one. There was no fashion sense, no feeling of power from them. The acceleration was awful. Jared knew that just by looking at the exterior design alone. Nobody would make a car that ugly drive fast.

Two full minutes were spent looking over the vehicles, yet Jared had been unable to really make a decision about anything. It was all so hard to get through his head, the idea of picking a new car so impossible for him to really grasp. The other one had been with him for so long that he hadn't actually tried to pick a car in all his life. The old one had been given to him as a gift, made to be his own one. Now that he thought about it, Jared had actually never picked one before. Maybe that was why it was so damned hard to do it on the spot. He had no prior training for this? Yet again, the academy had failed him, not preparing the man for the hardest challenge of all.

In fact, Jared should have already failed at that point. He was supposed to be ready with the car the moment that the automation had stepped outside, yet… why had it not stepped outside yet. Looking over the entrance, there was no automation to see. But time had already passed so much, even the slowest route possibly taken was already long overdue. How hadn't it gotten over to him yet?

‘Are you sure that you were ready to go?¨ Jared questioned. If the thing was still without proper form and mind, he would need to go down in the basement and assess the situation for himself. Cass had promised it would be ready when he woke up, yet if there was the slightest chance of there still being an error of some kind, the man would gladly stop all current operations to make sure that it-

‘I have been ready for thirty-six minutes now. May I ask why you have not stepped into the vehicle yet?’ the automation sent back to him. The words…. were not expected. What vehicle? Jared stood by all the cars that the station had in total, and none of them was missing. How could it be in a vehicle without him…

Looking down the road, Jared could see the station's larger transport vehicles with the light on. The windows on it were darkened, making it impossible to see inside, yet it was very clear that it wasn't empty in there. And since Cassandra and his boss were still inside the station, getting ready for the tasks ahead, there was only one possible entity inside.

Stomping his feet, he got over there in a hurry. In response to this, the door by the driver's seat opened up, the automation going outside the car to do… something. From the fact that the keys were in his hands, outstretched towards him, Jared guessed it was intended to give it to him. Meanwhile, Jared was going to give it a piece of his mind.

He stepped up closer to it, the automation not moving at all. Jared was less than two meters away when he raised his arms to strike hard and…

Jared hugged the construct as if his life depended on it. If it was a human, the automation would have likely been crushed by the action. Instead, it hesitantly hugged the man back after a few seconds. Jared didn't mind that at all.